Isaiah 58:6, commentary and pictures

The fast God chooses is not outward humiliation for a day but practical, active service that looses wickedness, lifts heavy burdens, frees the oppressed and breaks every yoke through justice, mercy and unselfish labor. It exposes all mere abstaining from food, meetings and prayers while persisting in self-pleasing, strife, exploitation and oppression, which leaves prayers unheard until wrongs are put right by self-examination, repentance, confession and inward surrender. Keeping it means following Christ's own work of healing, freeing the will from Satan's control and bringing liberty through obedience to God's law, and refusing anything between the soul and God, including deceptive teaching, vicious habit, intemperance and selfishness that binds like slavery. It belongs to every follower in cities, villages and homes, expressed in feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, caring for orphans, widows and the sick, using means unselfishly, treating workers fairly, and lifting sinners with tender pity rather than censure. Done in faith working by love, it breaks human yokes of dominating control, coercive bonds and man-made rules, joins gospel ministry with medical missionary work and Sabbath reform, and brings the promise that light breaks forth, health springs forth, prayer is answered and guidance never fails.

False Fast Exposed

The fast God has chosen is not outward humiliation for a day, bowing the head like a bulrush and spreading sackcloth and ashes, abstaining from food, holding religious meetings and offering many prayers, while continuing in self-pleasing, exacting labor, strife, debate, violence, exploitation and oppression. Mere afflicting of the soul is rejected as an acceptable day to Him when the heart remains selfish and unjust toward others. The defect lies with the worshipers themselves when they complain that He does not notice their fasting. What He requires instead is active doing of good by every soul who claims to follow Him: loosing the bands of wickedness, undoing heavy burdens, letting the oppressed go free, and breaking every yoke, expressed in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, putting away oppression, treating others justly, cooperating with God and representing His character. Fasting and prayer accomplish nothing while persisting in wrongdoing with a heart estranged from God, until there is self-examination, repentance, confession, forsaking of sin, and practical work for God and humanity so the world may have light.

The chapter lays bare professed seekers who delight in God's ways while forsaking and forgetting Him, choosing other gods and following corrupt ways. Their quarrels, pride, disputes, selfish indulgence, unbelief, injustice in the church and its institutions, and neglect of mercy separate them from Christ, dishonor the truth, and drive outsiders away. Prayers go unheard because the fault lies in the one praying, not in others, as when a minister exploits the needy and deals unjustly with them. Confessions alone are not enough without thorough change through turning from breaking God's law, setting matters right, heartfelt repentance and confession, forsaking sin, inward surrender, and a broken and contrite spirit, so that obedience becomes the basis of the covenant of peace and genuine service is governed by the glory of God and the good of others.

In the time of the Civil War this meant the nation must end slavery and oppression rather than proclaim a day to afflict the soul and pray for a speedy and favorable end to the war while holding people in bondage. It forbade making the yoke more galling, returning escaped slaves to cruel masters, treating their confidence with contempt and abusing them for daring to seek freedom, seeing them almost naked and starving and sending them back to hopeless bondage, thrusting them into unwholesome dungeons, and depriving them of liberty, free air, food and clothing. Instead it required receiving poor slaves who left their masters at risk of life from love of liberty, protecting them when they applied to the government as their last hope, giving them liberty and free air, food and clothing, dealing bread to the hungry, bringing the homeless poor into the house, covering the naked, wiping out the cause of the rebellion by proclaiming freedom to the slaves and exterminating slavery rather than merely preserving the Union while leaving slavery alive to ruin the nation and stir another rebellion. Until the nation kept this fast by breaking the yoke of slavery, its national fasts were an insult to Jehovah which He did not accept and would not hear, turning from its prayers about the war, while those who would undo burdens and break the yoke were doing His will even when censured, removed, and plotted against by those who fasted for strife and debate.

The chapter is God's message for this time to show His people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins, waking them to departure from His ordinances, worldly principles, unrighteousness, disregard for His law and despising of the Sabbath. It marks out a right course and a wrong course with assurance of specified blessings for following the right, calling for the immediate duties around to be taken up, faults condemned in ancient Israel avoided, and calm unwavering trust in Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is direct warning and encouragement to be given over and over again with an earnestness that stirs hearts and with no departure from the instruction of the Word, as the work required of God's people in the last days and to be fulfilled by those living in the present period of earth's history. Ministers, physicians, nurses, parents and workers in every line are to share in it with constantly enlarging understanding of truth, studying it in the home, teaching it to children, memorizing it to resist temptation, and applying it personally as light, life, goodness and truth.

True Fast Defined

The fast chosen is not outward ceremony but practical, active service that loosens wicked restraints, lifts heavy burdens, releases those weighed down by oppression and hardship, and breaks every yoke through justice, mercy, compassion and unselfish labor for suffering humanity. It is shown in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless poor, clothing the naked, making room and providing help for orphans, widows and the destitute, and refusing to hide from needy kin or to pass by need. Religious meetings and many prayers do not please in place of right action, and Sabbath-keepers who claim godliness must become less self-caring and more generous. True religion is practical reform beginning with oneself, ending closeness, injustice, selfish advantage and oppression of the destitute and of hired workers, and practicing instead a kind, noble and generous spirit toward them. This fasting is a life of action in cooperation with God, practiced in self-denial after Christ's way of labor, and doing these things brings the blessings promised for obedience.

That service is faith in Jesus as personal Saviour who pardons transgression, keeps from sin and leads in His footsteps, a faith that works by love and purifies the soul from selfishness, in which faith and works are combined. To free from wickedness and oppression, lift burdens and break every enslaving yoke means following Christ who goes before as righteousness, working with love and compassion for the needy and destitute and bringing many out of the darkness of error into present truth. Those who claim to share in the divine nature must see and respond to this work, removing selfishness and actively addressing oppression and wrongs after Christ's example of caring for the unfortunate. It means accepting the invitation to work in co-partnership with Jesus Christ by a life of obedience and service, giving self and abilities to Him, walking in His footsteps with consistent tenderness and love, becoming more inspired with His Spirit and life, and revealing His tenderness, sympathy and character to the world. This expresses a high conception of life rather than worldly pleasure and amusement that can never satisfy the hungry soul, and taking His easy yoke and light burden is not ease and selfish indulgence but self-sacrifice and self-denial at every step.

Keeping this fast lays up treasure before the throne of God, gives divine credentials to the world, lets light shine in clear bright rays through living faith and godly example, overcomes the selfishness that has bound up souls, strengthens spiritual life, brings peace worth more than gold, and is written in the books of heaven with more than earthly reward. It is not moving like mourners with bowed head, sackcloth and ashes, nor praying and going without food alone, which avails nothing without resolute merciful work and a life yielded to God, loyal to His law and purified by truth and love. No one can hold God with one hand while using the other for selfish pleasure, and neglecting those in need while helping others selectively, or concealing inward wickedness under outward religious exactness, fails to meet the purpose. Carrying out these pointed-out lines of work increases moral resources so the church no longer remains almost stationary, and blessing and power attend its labor with piety and growth proportionate to the zeal and missionary intelligence carried into it and out of it. It is sacred duty to receive grace in order to give it to others, demanding initiative to search for the needy rather than waiting to be asked, to sympathize with them and reach them with loving help while holding God's saving power by faith.

The higher work is required of every soul who claims to follow Him, laying responsibility wherever placed, in crowded cities, in villages and among country byways, each place being a mission field by divine commission. It belongs to fathers and mothers and children as missionaries in the cities, to the different churches and to each member directly in self-denial and self-sacrifice, taking hold of the suffering and afflicted to relieve them and revealing God in life, actions and all works. It is not to be done by proxy and not to be shifted from the churches to institutions, including taking unprovided orphan children into Christian homes, and following its directions about using entrusted talents for others and for saving souls is duty appointed, not merely personal preference or another's example. Churches should be doing missionary work rather than placing demands on workers already laboring or keeping ministers hovering over believers, and done with a heart in harmony with the Word this work builds up the waste places, reveals righteousness and puts the doer in harmony with God.

Freedom Found in Christ

Loosing wickedness and freeing the oppressed means holding up the perfection found in God's law and in obedience to Christ, which breaks the shackles of the enemy. The enemy is Satan, who rebelled against God's law in heaven and fell through disloyalty, and to work in his lines is to fasten fellow beings in shackles of oppression, while obedience to Christ is freedom, liberty, and salvation because He came to make men free. To let the oppressed go free is to show that obedience to the requirements of Jesus Christ is freedom, liberty, salvation, and Christ's perfection revealed in character, and His blood-stained banner testifies that those on His side are made free in Him because He is the propitiation for sins, not for some only but for all who believe on His name. This cannot come from intellect, education, money, or eloquence, for it is Christ's work and not man's, done by human agents cooperating with God as laborers together with God, imbued with His Spirit received from above, letting light shine and occupying till He comes. The same work rescues truth from surrounding error and human tradition so its loveliness is seen, preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the brokenhearted, proclaiming deliverance to captives, recovering sight to the blind, and setting the bruised at liberty, for error is not made truth by age and traditions of men are not to be taught for truth, and this requires speaking truth as it is in Christ without mingling self and selfish opinions so truth makes its own impression.

Christ's own work was to undo heavy burdens, free the oppressed, break every yoke, heal the wounds sin had made, break Satan's power, free the will from Satan's control, and bring victory and salvation, and His people's work must follow the same pattern. The fast God chooses is therefore active work for God and fellow men, freeing from wickedness and oppression, lifting heavy burdens, and breaking every enslaving yoke, entered by working in co-partnership with Jesus in a life of obedience and service that gives divine credentials and expresses a high conception of life rather than worldly pleasure that can never satisfy the hungry soul. This belongs with taking His easy yoke and light burden, which is not ease and selfish indulgence but self-sacrifice and self-denial at every step, walking in His footsteps with consistent tenderness and love and becoming more inspired with His Spirit and life. In His service He brings thoughts and aims into harmony with His will, so that a refined and sanctified will finds its greatest delight in obeying Him.

Breaking every yoke means letting no one and nothing come between the soul and God, refusing to hang salvation on ministers, but each searching the Scriptures and obeying what God teaches. Minds belong to God and are to be under the Holy Spirit's control, not under another person's jurisdiction, for taking God's place to control minds endangers souls bought with Christ's blood and can cost eternal life. It means standing free from philosophical speculation, spiritualistic theories, erroneous teaching, misleading sentiments placed by deceptive influence, and every influence that weakens faith step by step away from Christ, lifting a standard against the enemy with the Lord's help, because while men slept tares were sown among the good seed. It includes leaders breaking the false path bound upon associates so the awakened who want to be free can go free, exchanging Satan's yoke for Christ's through humbled and dying self, experimental and pure undefiled religion, true conviction doing its work, clearing hay, wood, and stubble from the foundation, and fixed determination to do good and be good.

The verse calls those who seek eternal life to break every yoke now by refusing Satan's suggestions, turning from sin, and making decisive changes that remove unbelief and strife, with understanding enlightened to discern God's perfect rule of righteousness from evil. Breaking the yoke includes freeing people from bondage to sin, vicious habits, sinful and unhealthful practices, and appetite and intemperance, and God gives every believer responsibility to help rescue the helpless and oppressed through persevering, self-denying efforts to save souls. The yoke includes dependence on tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol, from whose craving people can be set free, and God gives strength, courage, and help to those who seek to break free, so that putting away harmful habits restores health of body and soul and frees the ignorant from wrong customs. This requires faith and courage to admit wrong and an enlightened understanding to discern good from evil.

Taking Christ's yoke brings freedom and rest and lets truth shape character by His words, while selfishness binds like bands of slavery and must be broken so that those who break its hold can see light beyond darkness. Observing this fast leads into the practice of Christ's work, and the righteousness that goes before is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, with the works done in Christ's lines and not one's own. No human yoke that would bind, hamper, or hinder movement now or in the future is to be accepted, for accepting such a yoke proves a snare, and Christ's servants are to stand free, yoked with Him who is meek and lowly in heart and who copied no human model.

United Message and Sabbath

The fast God has chosen joins caring for the poor and sick with bringing His truth to the world, so that medical missionary work and the gospel ministry belong together in one inseparable work and neither is to be neglected or given an inferior place. To loose wickedness, undo heavy burdens, free the oppressed and break every yoke is to minister to suffering humanity and at the same time set the light of truth before a perishing world, carrying forward the third angel's message in right lines. That union gives wisdom and blessing and light for doing the will of God, keeping the ministry from an inferior place and keeping the poor and sick from neglect. It lays upon Sabbathkeepers the responsibility of mercy and benevolence, with medical missionary work bound up with the message and sealed with the seal of God. The plan calls for enlightening the world by proclaiming truth together with relieving distressed families, especially helping those who suffer because they courageously accept the truth and giving attention to those who are cast out.
It reaches even those who cannot yet understand a presentation of truth by feeding, washing and clothing them while showing Christ's love and keeping the needs of the soul prominent, and this practical benevolence must not be allowed to displace the third angel's message. It is genuine medical missionary work bound inseparably with keeping God's commandments, especially the seventh-day Sabbath as the memorial of creation. It is the appointed work of beneficence for this time, to be done by true missionaries who believe the third angel's message and turn their feet from the Sabbath, with growing urgency as the end approaches. Rightly performed it restores the moral image of God in man, repairs the breach made in God's law, restores paths to dwell in, and brings rich blessings to the church. It is not a strange work but the very work every church believing present truth should long since have been doing, mingling supreme love to God with mercy, benevolence, tenderest pity for suffering humanity, and love to neighbor as self.
Done in faith that works by love to God and fellow men and purifies the soul, it exerts a hallowed benevolent influence, causes believers to shine as lights, leads many more to believe on Christ, and gives significance and power to the truth. Joined to dealing bread to the hungry, bringing the poor into the house, covering the naked, taking away the yoke and vain speech, and satisfying the afflicted soul, it brings the promise that light breaks forth as the morning, health springs forth, righteousness goes before, the glory of the Lord is the rearward, prayer is answered, light rises in obscurity, the Lord guides continually and satisfies in drought, and God's people build the old waste places as repairers of the breach and restorers of paths to dwell in. That restoring includes turning from Sabbath-breaking to delight in the Sabbath after the breach made in God's law by the papacy. The chapter calls for making up the breach that the man of sin has made in the law of God by exalting a spurious Sabbath.
Efforts to bless others bring rich blessings reacting back upon the giver, while the last part of the chapter about repairing the breach, raising up the foundations of many generations, and keeping the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was presented with distinctness to a packed schoolhouse with two-thirds unbelievers who gave good attention. Turning from self-pleasing on the Sabbath to delighting in God's holy day belongs to this repair. With Sunday laws soon compelling observance of the first day instead of the seventh, those who answer will meet difficulty without stirring contention among commandment-keepers. The fast God has chosen means unselfish medical missionary labor that leaves no part of the vineyard neglected, to be carried on in every place.
The most wide-awake missionaries are to be sent to the most neglected portion to release the wicked, the burdened and the oppressed from every yoke, feeding the hungry and satisfying the afflicted soul, and thereby a people are prepared to build the old waste places and stand in the breach with promised light, guidance and restoration. The work is not to be centered in one place but done in all places. It includes providing means and facilities so workers can take the truth to new places and prepare people for the day of the Lord. It includes using means to relieve suffering, such as supporting a sanitarium rather than spending all effort merely in commercial lines, for giving freely and lending without interest out of gratitude for healing received lays up treasure beside the throne of God.
It means self-denying liberality that gives to the needy cause of God instead of spending on self-pleasing fancies, binding about supposed wants, refusing needless outlay on pictures of self and family and on bicycles that can be done without, exercising physical powers in a less expensive way, and weighing spending against the price of souls for whom Christ died. That liberality supplies means to open new fields in regions beyond, to help destitute missions, and to erect humble houses of worship for poor new believers whose souls are just as precious. This self-denying work is a sure remedy for poor health and brings the blessing of God. Temporal ministry prepares the way to minister to the needs of the soul and lift up Christ.
Its principles are to be lived out in practical Christlike work and preserved as a sacred influence in sanitariums and medical institutions, where patients are to see them practiced and physicians must keep truth and religious integrity paramount. Meeting bodily necessities with sympathy through medical missionary work prepares hearts, for Christ is present with those who seek the lost, help the needy and tell them of His love, impressing poor, miserable and wretched hearts with their need. Caring for the sick is to be carried out by connecting small sanitariums with schools where students are taught to use nature's simple remedies in treating disease and to act under the direction of Jesus Christ. Hospitals are to be established to present the bread of heaven.
Rescuing men and women from degradation, including those fallen through appetite and intemperance and those who once possessed fine minds and rich qualifications, calls first for meeting physical necessities and then presenting truth as it is in Jesus and present truth without startling with strange doctrine, while the Holy Spirit cooperates to arouse the moral powers and awaken the mental powers so many are saved. Those who stop merely studying the Word in order to work for souls in the darkness of error, teaching others what they already know while depending on Christ's grace and searching Scripture diligently, gain by practice a greatly enlarged understanding of the Word. The verse is a prescription for faint-hearted, doubting, trembling, sorrowful and spiritually diseased believers to arise and help someone who needs help, giving something definite and solid to grasp and do after the pattern of Christ's own earthly work. The Sabbath truth is to be proclaimed clearly and with a loud voice as part of the third angel's message, given with the power of the Holy Spirit, with effect proportionate to the earnestness of its proclamation.
The order is evangelistic labor in all cities to bring converts, to close saloons and end the liquor traffic that deals out poisoned drink producing madness and bloodshed, a temperance work to be handled wisely at camp meetings with well-planned methods to gain access to the people and especially to reach the higher classes, while the whole world is reached with the message of the law of God on the Sabbath question. Sabbathkeepers are to follow methods revealing the Father's tender compassion as shown by Christ, cleansing marketplaces, merchandise stores, courts of justice, lawyers' offices, the medical profession and medical missionary work from dishonest practices, robbery, extortion and unjust gain, because God will not be a party to any dishonest transaction. The soul who keeps the Sabbath is stamped with the sign of God's government and must not dishonor that sign, but must practice honest, compassionate dealing that relieves suffering and sets the oppressed free. Breaking every yoke must come before carrying present truth in all its fullness to other countries, through coming into true education, walking in the wisdom of God and not in the wisdom of the world.
That education produces true reformers, training people for useful labor so they can strengthen the weak, help others honor God, do justice and lift up the oppressed and despised. It calls for educating, educating, to prepare a people who will understand the message and then give the message to the world. It is the higher education after the divine similitude taught by Christ enshrouded in the pillar of cloud when He educated His church in the wilderness, the knowledge of the laws of God's kingdom and how to live as a citizen of heaven for present and eternal good, strengthening the mental powers and training the whole being mentally, physically and morally as God's expressed will and covenant setting forth the terms of salvation. Home missionary work shares in this, preparing children to glorify God by putting their arms around the needy, the oppressed and the suffering, breaking every yoke, lifting up the bowed down, and seeking in every possible way to restore the moral image of God in man.
While Satan is the destroyer, human beings under the Holy Spirit reshape character to express the image of God until people at last see Him in His beauty, and this home work perpetuates the memory and name of Christ so the glory of God is advanced by human praise and thankfulness and prepares an army to go forth to foreign fields.

Conditions and Promised Blessings

Fasting and prayer accomplish nothing while a person persists in a wrong course and remains estranged from God in heart, and they must be joined with close self-examination, humbling the heart before God, sincere unselfish repentance, confession, and forsaking of sin found out. The required work is a heart filled with love from which good works spring, expressing love to God and to neighbor, with firm reliance on the merits of Christ's blood alone and standing in right relation to Him. Good works cannot be depended upon for salvation, yet there is no salvation without them, for the fast God accepts is purposeful work done from a living connection with a living God, with Christ abiding in the heart by living faith to change life and character. One who does this lives after Christ's life, speaking His words and revealing His character, meeting trials, oppression, unkindness and burdens without letting self arise in passion, rebellion or revenge, putting trials in their right place by coming weary and heavy-laden to learn meekness and lowliness, hidden with Christ in God and doing just as Jesus would have done.

Doing this work brings the promise that light breaks forth as the morning and rises in obscurity until darkness becomes as noonday, health springs forth speedily, righteousness goes before, and the glory of the Lord is the rearward. Then prayer is answered with Here I am when called upon, with continual guidance, satisfaction in drought, strength of bones, and life like a watered garden and an unfailing spring of water. This follows loosing wicked restraints, lifting heavy burdens, setting the oppressed free and breaking every yoke, joined with dealing bread to the hungry, bringing the homeless poor that are cast out into the house, covering the naked, and not hiding from one's own flesh and needy kin. All praying and abstinence from food avail nothing unless this work is resolutely laid hold of, including taking fatherless and motherless children thrown on the church into the home and bringing them up instead of turning away unless there is profit or thrusting orphans into the world, and those who refuse will hear that in not doing it to the least they did it not to Christ. The whole chapter is of the highest importance as the work for today, and when faultfinding, the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, vain speech and self-pleasing are put away and the soul is drawn out to the hungry, darkness is removed into noonday light and Sabbath delight and honor lead to building the old waste places as repairer of the breach and restorer of paths.

The chapter is the prescribed remedy for lifeless prayer and feeble, wavering faith and dark, uncertain experience, given to call believers to greater faith and more fervent prayer by arising to help someone who needs help. It is a healing prescription for the faint-hearted, doubting, trembling, sorrowful and spiritually diseased soul, giving something definite and solid to grasp and do in the very work Christ did on earth, leading to cheerfulness and the Saviour's companionship. Keeping this fast relieves chronic maladies of the spiritual life and also of the physical and mental powers more usefully than drugs, and self-denying liberality that binds about supposed wants and refuses needless outlay on self-pleasing fancies is a sure remedy for poor health bringing God's blessing. When what God requires here is done, He will shortly verify His promise without fail.

Blessings come only on condition of obedience and compliance with all requirements and performance of neglected positive duties, for without fruit to God's glory He cannot answer according to His glory, and to answer while intercessors remain uncorrected would prove their ruin. Prayer must be in the Spirit and not formal, expressing love for God with heart, soul, mind and strength and love for neighbor as self, and practicing the instruction makes prayer bear evidence of divine inditing so it is heard and answered. Faithful duty brings conversion of sinners with full purpose of heart, enlarged understanding of the Word through practice, and a hallowed benevolent influence by which believers shine as lights, for the work is not strange but the very work appointed for every church believing present truth, mingling supreme love to God with mercy, benevolence and tenderest pity and giving significance and power to truth.

Practical Works of Compassion

The chosen fast is carried out by sharing bread with the hungry, bringing the homeless poor into shelter, clothing the naked, and refusing to turn away from needy kin. It means seeking out the shelterless in love rather than waiting to be asked, reaching toward them to relieve their needs while faith reaches toward God for salvation, and refusing to join devotion to God with using the other hand for selfish pleasure. To loose wicked bonds, lift heavy burdens, free the oppressed, and break every yoke is to feel compassion and interest for others, to find out in love and tenderness what the poor and suffering need and share the good things provided so they gain courage and hope and confidence, and to keep working until every yoke is broken. It requires studying as a Christian duty the best ways of helping people, making earnest efforts so those anxious to hear the word of life have opportunity, doing all that is possible so none is sent away faint, weary, and discouraged, and removing everything that makes the way to Christ wearisome and objectionable or obstructs the path. Jesus feeding the hungry multitude shows this compassion in action as evidence of His redeeming power and as a lesson of beneficence for disciples, and the same duty applies to relieving the oppression of Black people in the South, especially in Nashville, by united, sustained action rather than idleness, selfishness, or evasion.

The fast means taking fatherless and motherless children thrown upon the church into Christian homes and bringing them up, finding homes where needy children left unprovided for can be cared for, and refusing to thrust orphans into the world or turn away unless there is profit. It calls Sabbath-keepers who claim godliness to be less self-caring and more generous, making room and providing help for the homeless, orphans, and widows oppressed by poverty, since religious meetings and many prayers do not please God in place of right action. Church members are to care personally for children, youth, widows, fatherless people, aged believers, burdened mothers, and fellow believers among them, giving thoughtful help, guidance, and employment so burdens are loosened and perilous paths escaped, rather than delegating the care or shifting it from the churches to institutions. This work belongs to the different churches and to each member directly in self-denial and self-sacrifice, not to be done by proxy, and those who possess true godliness bear this sign by loving God supremely and neighbor as self and giving evidence that they are Christlike. All praying and abstinence from food avail nothing unless this work is resolutely laid hold of, and those who refuse these opportunities to save others will hear that in not doing it to the least they did it not to Christ.

Keeping the fast requires unselfish use of entrusted money instead of hoarding it or burying it in the earth, putting talents to work to advance God's cause and to bless the needy and relieve the destitute so that many hearts are made grateful and doubled talents can be presented when account is required. It means binding about supposed wants, denying self and luxuries and needless ornaments to make suffering needy ones comfortable, resisting inclinations to gratify taste for frivolous things, pictures, bicycles, useless ornaments, and spending merely in commercial lines, and setting money flowing to glorify God by relieving suffering. Ministers are to educate families and set God-given faculties to work, each church is responsible to care for its own needy with other churches helping one that is overtaxed, and means are also to support the Lord's work of relieving suffering such as a sanitarium, with giving freely and lending without interest laying up treasure beside the throne of God. This practical work heals chronic maladies and chronic disease in the spiritual life.

Help is to go especially to poor families who accept the truth, keep the commandments, and lose work, income, or homes because of their faith, so they need not choose between breaking the Sabbath and going hungry, and to those cast out and suffering for the truth. The plan joins proclaiming truth with relieving distressed families and enlightening the world, giving attention to those who are cast out. Resources are not to be diverted to lines bringing few genuine conversions while these are neglected, and funds are not to be spent on work among the slum population when that work brings few genuine conversions or strengthens few workers for God. Wise provision should help the worthy poor support themselves, requiring giving up luxuries and ornaments so they can be made comfortable, and then help may extend to suitable needy outside the household of faith including poor, orphans, and aged members of the church.

The fast is kept in the last days by wholehearted lay work for souls rather than sitting in church Sabbath after Sabbath listening to preaching or having ministers hover about the churches repeating the same truths to believers week after week. It means working intelligently together with God to lift up Christ before the world, visiting friends, neighbors, and families, creating an interest in present truth, planting the Word in hearts, dealing out the bread of life to hungering souls, and preaching Christ and Him crucified so souls are converted. Every believer is to be a missionary in his own neighborhood even when unable to leave family for a mission field, letting light shine where he is, laboring in simplicity with love of God outweighing silver and gold, and holding living faith that frees ministers for greater need elsewhere. It belongs to every individual not to live merely for self but to relieve human need wherever suffering or oppression is seen, to be ever ready to speak a timely word to the weary, and to represent Christ as the great Medical Missionary who came to seek and save the lost.

Breaking every yoke means restoring, not destroying, and lifting up, not casting down, with tender pity toward people suffering in sin and repentance rather than jealousy or censure, and with sympathy in saving the lost. It commands descending to one striving to climb, linking arms, guiding trembling feet upward with soothing encouragement until hope and courage return, speaking lovingly and hopefully to the sad, discouraged, and tempted so they can recover from disappointment and failure, extending fellowship and doing all possible to help the pale and worn worker, and remembering and helping those who are bound as though sharing their bonds. It requires righting wrongs done to a brother, vindicating the cause of the oppressed, acting as guardians of the blind, the afflicted, widows, and the fatherless with enlarged heart, noble sympathy, largeness of soul, and disinterested benevolence rather than narrow, selfish, and penurious spirit. Causing the blind to stumble means far more than placing a physical obstacle before the feet, meaning any course that injures influence, works against interest, or hinders prosperity, and anyone in the church who does so should be brought to justice. Christians must not act harshly, speak raspingly, treat brethren as unworthy of notice, reproach a struggler from secure ground, or seek selfish gain at the expense of the sick, sorrowful, and needy and thereby destroy faith, hope, and confidence in human brotherhood.

The verse forbids oppressing hired workers and the destitute, requiring an end to closeness, injustice, and selfish advantage and the practice of a kind, noble, generous spirit toward them, beginning with practical reform in oneself. Its principles of justice, mercy, and truth are to govern business and medical missionary work, including fair charges proportionate to service, acting fairly in decisions without hasty judgment, cleansing work from dishonest gain, refusing to rob God by withholding tithes and offerings, and caring for the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger with honor to the Sabbath and God's ordinances. A minister must put his own heart in order and repent of exploiting the needy and dealing unjustly with them, since prayers may go unanswered because the fault lies in the one praying. Poverty and distress are to be relieved with whatever means God supplies, refusing to look on suffering people and pass by on the other side, freeing people from debt without replacing the yoke, and such practical relief of needy brethren is service done to Christ Himself.

Those who relieve suffering imitate Christ's tenderness, sympathy, compassion, and love toward fellow men, melting hard hearts and blessing others with the riches of grace and light received. Such unselfish lives that help others overcome selfishness and covetousness, reflect Christ's character, and bring glory to God through the praise and thanks of those helped. Tender care is to be given to those who are wounded, discouraged, tempted, and most in need of help, putting Christ's love into practice by seeking, uplifting, and caring for those in need rather than passing them by, since merely professing faith is not enough. Every oppression and disregard for want, suffering, and woe is ingratitude toward God, misrepresents His character, dishonors His name, proves the oppressor unworthy of mercy and compassion, forfeits the freedom God designs to give, and turns light away until the wrong is searched out. Each person is connected to others with a place in the whole, sharing responsibility to uplift others, release them from burdens, and break every yoke.

Freedom From Human Yokes

To break every yoke is to refuse to lay dominating burdens on others or to rule them through fear, and to stop using church responsibility or office to control minds and judgments, to make one person answerable to another, to shape people to finite ideas, or to exercise arbitrary dictatorial power. Leaders are instead to serve with meekness, humility, counsel and unity, to humble their own hearts rather than trying to humble another, to pray for every yoke to be broken including the desire to rule, and so to become restorers who help people serve the Lord and glorify His name. The same breaking of yokes requires ending fixed routine and centralized human control where every mind is controlled by a few, and ending human judgment over fellow workers, discouragement and hindrance, rules, surveillance, and demands for human permission. Each person is to awaken to individual responsibility, take orders from God in whom truth and righteousness dwell, seek spiritual eyesight through thorough repentance and conversion pressed to the throne of grace, and labor in dependence on Him without waiting for permission, allowing people to follow the Spirit rather than limited human ideas of duty.

No conference president and no one in trust is to stand between God and His servants by permitting or forbidding where and how messengers shall labor, by limiting collection and use of means for city work, by threatening to discontinue support, or by delaying results through interposed human judgment. Such prohibitions are to be withdrawn, restrictions that keep servants from acting in harmony with the light God gives are to be removed, and workers impressed by the Spirit are to be left to do their appointed work in trust that God will support them. No one has right to control the actions of fellow workers, to require prior consent, to direct them according to his own direction, to lay down limiting rules, to hinder advancement, or to lord over God's blood-bought heritage, and where arbitrary authority has retarded the work thorough conversion, cleansing and purifying are to be sought. When these yokes are broken the work goes forward under the Lord's direction with His servants working at His dictation and doing what He bids, bringing surprising advancement, while refusing Him the right of way to use His followers as He sees fit brings reproof and lets controlling power be used to cut off light from souls.

God does not require wearing a yoke of bondage, and binding contracts, confederacies, signed agreements and centralized control over work and property that hinder present or future movement are such a yoke and are to be severed. This forbids bringing every sanitarium and branch work under one human control, taking power God has not given, putting people where they look to men instead of God, framing yokes by holding all book-making to one publishing house and denying small local offices, and imposing restrictive conditions that prevent charitable help. Each field is to keep its own home-published books and retain God-given independence while remaining humble and ready to help establish needed work elsewhere, with God alone guiding His property as He has directed His work in the past and will do in the future. The truth as it is in Jesus is strong enough to guide and unite without coercive bonds, and His words are to make their impress upon character through taking only Christ's yoke.

The command also releases God's people from human-imposed bands, cords of compulsion, and man-made laws and agreements that divert minds from God's Word, add to or take away from His commandments, or replace them with human words. God has given every person his work and made each responsible to Himself, has appointed no one to rule over fellow workers, and has set Christ alone over them as Priest over His own house, Advocate and propitiation by His blood, and King receiving all power in heaven and earth from His Father, under a divine theocracy extending to all affairs of life. Freedom is joined with wearing His yoke rather than yokes imposed by people, answering to God alone as His blood-bought people, keeping all His commandments, standing free praising the Lord with the peace of Christ, and ceasing dishonoring talk and reliance on feelings, imagination and much talking. Forming associations or unions to oppress and bind fellow people runs contrary to the Lord's will and contradicts this mission to end oppression and release the burdened.

In medical missionary leadership the same breaking means leaders breaking the false path bound upon associate physicians so the awakened who want to be free can go free, exchanging Satan's yoke for Christ's through humbled self, dying to self, experimental and pure undefiled religion, true conviction doing its work, clearing hay, wood and stubble from the foundation, and fixed determination to do good and be good. Physicians who witnessed wrong transactions and principles but stayed silent for fear of rejection are to reprove them, break free from submitted influences, and stand free in Christ. Breaking every yoke requires the Spirit to work decidedly to refine, cleanse and sanctify so every human obstruction is removed and human judgment is brought into perfect accord with Thus saith the Lord. In that light guidance is not to be sought by tossing up a piece of silver and trusting the chance result, since divine power is at command and such chance can be controlled to carry out hostile purposes, and misleading control that spoils the life record and leads feet into forbidden paths is to be rejected.

No one is to take on a yoke Christ has not given by continually accusing others, dwelling on their faults, or acting as if bearing their sins, since no human can carry another's guilt and Christ alone bears sin. Proper work for others is to help their salvation through transformed character marked by faith, sympathy, patience, love, gentleness and self-control, not by judging them. Applied to debt and daily duties, God had worked to free His people from the binding burden of debt and that yoke is not to be replaced upon them, restaurant work must not be so enlarged that those who should give the gospel to souls starving for the bread of life are occupied in serving tables, and prayer becomes practical by putting away self-exaltation and living Christ's self-denial, self-sacrifice, mercy, justice and judgment. Those who seek eternal life are called to break every yoke now by refusing deceptive suggestions, turning from sin, afflicting the soul before God and recognizing harm done, letting understanding be enlightened to discern God's perfect rule, and making decided changes that remove unbelief, strife and every vestige of man-ruling power so the Sun of righteousness shines and truth is magnified. To remove barriers from one long struggling under oppression is Christ working through human helpers and is to be thankfully received as from God who moved the helper's heart, as seen in the acceptable service of Elder Rice and his wife in keeping with the chapter through verse 14.