Charles Spurgeon Commentary Isaiah 58:2

"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 righteous judgments; they delight to draw near unto God." — Isaiah 58:2 (ASV)

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.

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 –