The people of Isaiah’s day enquired of the LORD about fasting and the LORD answered through his prophet what the LORD requires of a fast. The people in Zechariah’s day enquired of the Lord about a fast they had done for seventy years and the LORD almost repeated what he’s said in Isaiah’s day word for word. Today let me take 3000 words to explore what these two prophets said about a correct fast.

Zechariah 7:9-10
9 “Thus says the LORD of hosts:

Against his brother.’

In the time of Zechariah after seventy years of captivity in Babylon the people asked Zechariah should they continue to fast and weep in the fifth month as they had been doing for seventy years in captivity? Zechariah brought them a little rebuke and then outlined in the above verses what a fast should be all about.
Execute true justice,

When we live in the West we assume that true justice is done in our courts but you only have to be poor and not educated as to your rights in law to find yourself a victim of justice.

I found that out as a male in Australia in a custody case for my son Brandyn. I wanted equal custody of my child, I didn’t want full custody and I didn’t want a fight, I just wanted to share the custody of my child. There was a thing called an interim agreement of custody. This interim agreement was the type of custody arrangement that we would had in between the original case presentation in legal documents and the actual court case. At the time I was not told that it was going to take more then a year before the custody case would come to court. So wanting to be co-operative I settled for an interim agreement of only seeing my son for one weekend every two weeks. What I didn’t know was the longer this was in force the more the judge when my case comes to court will not want to change what is already working so well.

So when my case came to court I was told that it would be best to keep the arrangement like the Interim agreement.

This is not a sob story, but the fact of the matter was because of my lack of knowledge of these things I lost what I wanted through all the time I put into the case and all the worry.

If we are to please the Lord we are to have justice that gives the poor and uneducated a hand up.

Show mercy and compassion Everyone to his brother. .

We all like to be shown compassion. When we are in trouble with our teacher and are sent to the headmaster we all appreciate a headmaster that shows mercy and compassion. Because of his authority and position his compassion is not taken lightly and as a student I did not forget the words of caution my headmaster gave me.

When we have more money then another person who is poor and begging we have ample opportunity to show mercy and compassion by giving of our money. There are many ways to show mercy and compassion. When someone sins against us we can instead of be upset and angry with them we can show them grace, and mercy by forgiving them and loving them the same. We are always in a position to show mercy and compassion and we should walk with the Spirit each day always ready to act in this way.

10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,

The alien or the poor.

In my country Australia we have social security that looks after the widow and the fatherless. They don’t get a lot of money from the government and it’s hard to live, but they can live. In ancient Israel the widow needed the community to look after them as did the children without a father. This is why James exhorts the church in his letter.

James 1:27
27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

The students in our country from other countries are waiters, kitchen hands washing dishes, and guys working in service stations at all hours at night. They are doing lower paid jobs, doing the jobs other people don’t want to do. In this way we oppress the alien in our country.

Of course a student does not mind doing a job to work through university yet we still give the worst jobs the people with little experience and not a good work history in our country.

Another way we oppress the alien, un invited refugees, in our country Australia, is that we put them in detention centres, run like jails in until they are processed which often takes years. This is not nice and I am sure there would be better ways to deal with this.

Let none of you plan evil in his heart

Against his brother.’

It’s a fact that every sin starts in the heart. First comes the thought, and then when it is acted upon this becomes the sin. James speaks about this too.

James 1:13-15

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

We need to conquer a sin as soon as it enters our mind and refute it with what the Word of God says.

Isaiah 58:6-7

6 “ Is this not the fast that I have chosen:

And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

In Isaiah’s day the people asked God why wasn’t he taking notice of their fasts? Isaiah answered as a prophet of the Lord and said the above verses 6 and 7.

“ Is this not the fast that I have chosen:

To loose the bonds of wickedness,

Not every person has the power to loose bonds of wickedness, yet wherever you see it happening and it is in your power God wants you to act. This may be seeing someone doing a crime that is hurting people in your area and going to the police as a witness, or this may be coming alongside a lady who is getting hurt by her husband and helping her leave him until he gets help. Wickedness continues to prosper while good people do nothing.

To undo the heavy burdens,

People in this world travel this lonely planet with heavy burdens. When someone has an addiction in your area, buying them food to eat, or cooking them a meal once in a while is a great way to lift a burden and get close to a person in order to encourage them one day to leave their addiction behind.
The blood of Jesus is miraculous how it takes all the guilt away when you sin and confess your sin. Jesus took every persons burden.

We all need to reach out to others. Sometimes five hundred dollars might be a big burden to a person and yet for you it might be two weeks overtime payments and you could easily lift that burden from their shoulders. Of course you might not be able to afford five hundred dollars to give to every person but as the Holy Spirit leads you, you can easily lift burdens off people with your money. Giving people money is compassionate and merciful; even if they have an addiction you can use your money to buy them something worthwhile.

To let the oppressed go free,

We have all seen a child being picked on a school and if you were anybody like me you always liked to take the side of the person being picked on. But the picking on people goes on till all ages. People that are not loved suffer a kind of oppression. In our country the original settlers of our nation get a lot of flack and are downtrodden. I like to be nice to our Aboriginals when I meet them. It’s a shame that our Aboriginals are partial to alcohol and many of them can be quite scary but in my time in Kings Cross the infamous red light district of Sydney I came to know a few of them and was able to share the love of Christ with them.

If you are an employer a simple two dollars extra per hour for an hourly worker can be a form of letting the poorly paid go free. This is a way of saying to this person, that they are valuable to you and you are happy with them.

And that you break every yoke?

When two cattle are put together to plough a field a piece of wood was put over each of their shoulders to keep them together and is able to let them pull the weight equally.

Breaking the yoke is breaking that piece of wood over a person’s head. Capitalism can be very cruel. Hard for the poor and good for the rich. Rich people have good houses, good education and good connections for where they are going to go in their future. Poor people don’t know rich people well and get less opportunity.

Breaking the yoke is bringing the information to the poor. Breaking the yoke is bringing the connections to the poor and the education to the poor. We can break the yoke by giving Bibles to China or to the countries of Africa. Ask the Lord he’ll show you how to break the yoke over people’s lives.
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

I heard of a pastor in India that was travelling by train when a beggar ran to him on a station and asked him for money. The pastor had no money on him only his bags and some packed lunch for the journey. The pastor gave the man his sandwiches and his apple. He watched the beggar go back to his other beggar friend and open the sandwich and share it with his friend. I think that picture on a crowded hot and dusty Indian railway station in essence the very best expression of this verse.

Every single day there are hungry spouses and children of gamblers, drinkers, and drug addicts in your community. Church feeds some of these hungry souls but with a bit of research you could find your own family. I’ll bet there is a single mother in your church that could do with a nice meal at a restaurant if you could afford to take her and her children. Fifty dollars might be a lot for you, but I promise you many tears will be cried by that single mother in times of desperation when she remembers that night out with your family.

Seeing a homeless person asking them what they want to eat and going and getting it for them will make you a very happy person and will make the homeless person happy too.

There are hundreds of people you can help in a town simply by sending money to Aid agencies to buy staple foods. I guess being so nice with your money is being unspotted from the world, different to the world. When you are prepared to spend 30% of your income on the Lord you have your priorities right.

And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;

Last year a homeless man asked me if I had room at my house for him to stay, I said that I did and now he has been with me ten months. Not all people have room in their house for people to stay, but they can bring the poor home for a meal and a shower and give them some clothes.

Jesus taught on this. He said that when you have a party you should invite the poor and the maimed and people that could not afford to pay you back. There is nothing like a home cooked meal over a table with a family and your family can be the family. There are plenty of poor. My house mate says that America’s cities are full of homeless people, go and get a couple and take them home for a home cooked meal. Bring a couple of big men you know around for security reasons if you must, but bring to your house the poor who are cast out.

When you see the naked, that you cover him,

There are not many naked in your city, so this means something else. This means guessing the shirt size of a man on your streets and going to your local shop and buying him some new shirts. That’s going and getting him some new shoes when he has no shoes in the middle of winter. It’s pretty simple. And if you walk down the street and pretend that you don’t see that homeless man then you are hiding yourself from your own flesh

The parable of the Good Samaritan was written for the modern Christian

Luke 10:25-37

25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”
30 Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ 36 So which of these three do you think was neighbour to him who fell among the thieves?”
37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.

Many Christians do this when they see the homeless and downtrodden and beggars on the street. Few have the mercy and compassion of the Good Samaritan. These are hard words from a modern writer called Matthew Robert Payne. A man that has been given a prophetic mantle in this generation.

First Isaiah says to have mercy, then Zechariah says to have mercy, now Jesus expands on the poor man on the street and says, have mercy on your neighbour.

It’s not hard to do all of this folks, you simply have to have a new heart and come away from man’s lies and false doctrines and commandments of men that make the instructions of the prophets be ignored.

Jesus put the Good Samaritan story into context to show us who our neighbour is. If we are to love our neighbour we need to be the Good Samaritan. Most people are ignoring the poor and that is not what the Lord Jesus would have you do.

Let me write a prayer for you that you might want to pray.

Dear Father

I have heard your word today and it has pieced my heart and made me think. God give me the grace to understand this message and to apply it in my life. Help me with your Holy Spirit, prompt me to listen to your Holy Spirit and lead me to do this sort of fasting. Give me the courage to give and to reach out to the lost and hurting, give me friends to help me and lead me your ways so I might do your will.

In Jesus name I ask.

Matthew is one of two people that operate a site at http://www.escapeministries.net Escape ministries is a place where people can be ministered to over the internet, by reading articles, watching videos and receiving personal prophetic words. James and Matthew invite you to visit today to look at some of the articles they have collected and watch some of the video teachings they are setting about to produce for you. You are encouraged to sign up for our monthly newsletter or simply email James or Matthew with any of your comments. We hope that you might bookmark it and come back to visit often as we pursue our mission statement that is found on our home page.

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