How Does God Want Biblical Fasting to Impact Our Lives?

How do you reach a godless culture, moving away from God? With Christlike Compassion. Our study from God's Word today may be one of the most relevant to the culture we currently live in, than any other topic we could study. As we open our Bibles to Isaiah 1, let me ask each of you a series of five questions, that explains how God describes the moral and spiritual collapse that precedes:

THE DEATH OF A NATION
1. What happens when a nation with a long and deep Biblical Heritage turns its back on God? How about a group of formerly devout followers of the Lord who mostly have abandoned genuine worship, and godly behavior?
2. What does God's Word prescribe when a nation that formerly honored Him, slips into Eastern mysticism and new age errors, accepts and dabbles in witchcraft and occultic errors, plunges into materialism and greed and allows idolatry and false worship to thrive?
3. What does God's Word prescribe when a formerly God-honoring nation chooses the pathway of greedy over development of its land, allows and enables a culture of alcohol and drug-fueled addictions, with a bent towards unrestrained spring-breakish partying among its people?
4. What does God's Word prescribe when a nation that was built upon the moral law of God descends into a place where injustice towards the poor and helpless reigns, and where the land becomes a place of growing lawlessness?
5. What does God's Word prescribe when a nation that formerly revered God's Word becomes a place where truth is replaced with lies, and absolutes with relativism, where cultural and educational elitism begins to rule as pride and arrogance are promoted at the highest levels, and national heroes are actually people who are sexually immoral and often addicted to substances that control their minds and actions?

EERIE SIMILARITIES
Doesn’t that sound like the land that watches the Baltimore Riots of 2015, and the current moral condition of the United States of America?
The similarity is eerie, but actually, every one of those five questions is behind what God Almighty Himself is asking to His Chosen People of Promise, the nation of Israel. The primary targets of these questions were the people that God Himself confronts in Isaiah 1-5.
As you sit with Isaiah open before you, may I ask a quick question? Why would we: in the New Testament Era, the Church Age, the time of Grace, turn back to the Old Testament, and start there as we study an important Biblical topic? Is there authority for our lives in the Old Testament?

THE MAGNITUDE OF ISAIAH IN GOD'S WORD
As you reflect on just the book of Isaiah, I think you will be able to answer that question yourself!
Isaiah is the fifth-longest book in the Bible, with 66 chapters, 1,292 verses, and 37,044 words.
Isaiah is quoted from or alluded to 472 times by 23 New Testament books.
ISAIAH contains more references to salvation that any other Old Testament book (The word salvation appears 33 times in the writing of the prophets, and of these, 26 instances occur in Isaiah.)
Isaiah contains the only Old Testament prophecy concerning the virgin birth of Christ (cf. Isaiah. 7:14 with Matthew. 1:21-23).
Isaiah contains the two furthest reaching events in all of history: The most ancient event is the fall of Satan (14:12-17) and the most future event, the creation of the new heavens and earth (66:22).
Isaiah has more to say about the greatness of God (40,43), the horrors of the Tribulation (24), the wonders of the Millennium (35), and the ministry of Christ (53) than any other book in the Bible.
Isaiah also contains one of the Old Testament’s clearest statements on the Trinity (48:16).
Isaiah 53 is probably the most important chapter in the Old Testament, as it is quoted from or alluded to 85 times in the New Testament. Jesus said that Isaiah saw His glory and spoke of Him (John 12:41).
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