Charles Spurgeon Commentary Isaiah 58

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

See, friends, how stolid people are by nature. God's messengers must not only speak; they must speak very forcibly, they must speak as with the sound of a trumpet, before people will hear them. Among the most stolid of all are those who think themselves God's people but who are not really and spiritually so. It is hard to reach the common sinner; but it is harder still to reach the baptized sinner, the one who professes to be a Christian but who has only the name to live while he is spiritually dead.

Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways,

They are careful to offer morning prayers; they would not go into their business without bending the knee to God; and they are eager and attentive hearers in the house of the Lord.

As a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

Is it not strange that men will often continue to take delight in the externals of religion, while they give their heart to their sins?

Outwardly, they keep up with great regularity all the observances of religion; yet in heart they are far from God.

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily,

There are many nominally religious people who are full of sin.

They have an external religion which allows them to live in rebellion against God. And such people are not easily convinced of sin. Hence the prophet is commanded to lift up his voice like a trumpet; yet, even if he does so, they will not hear him. There are none so deaf as those that will not hear; and these men are not willing to hear what God has to say to them: Yet they seek me daily,

And delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

They are always in a place of worship if possible; they cannot have too many services and sermons, yet they have no heart towards God.

O my dear friends, let us always be afraid of merely external religiousness! Genuine conversion, real devotion to God, true communion with God, these are sure things; but mere outward religiousness is nothing but varnish and tinsel; it is indeed only the ghastly coffin of a soul that never was quickened to spiritual life.

This is the way these sham religionists talked about their religion –

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

And what a strange thing this is, that there are some people who take delight in the ordinances of God, and yet they are living in the most shameful sin. I must confess this remains a mystery to me. But I hear of some who will attend prayer-meetings and seem to enjoy them—who are to be found in the House of God whenever the doors are opened, and yet their characters will not bear the light.

One would think that they would not wish to be told of their sins or to come under a faithful ministry. Yet they do. And the more faithful that ministry is, the more they seem to like it, even while they continue in their sins.

Oh! What strange blindness is this, which loves the light and yet will not see by it: men who take to themselves water and much soap and yet will not wash; who heap up bread around them as if they built a house with bread, and yet do not eat of it!

Oh! Infatuation most strange—to love the gospel apparently, and yet not to receive it into the heart so as to be changed by it!

See how God talks to these religious people.