Isaiah 58 (NIV)
58 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. [Does this not sound like the righteous indignation of a people of a certain nation today? They think, act, and speak as if they were the spokespersons for God, when every kind of debauchery that exists in this world has been exported from this country.]
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness[a] will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Lord as we postulate our holiness and our righteous indignation at the sins of others, we are in ourselves point our fingers back at our pride, and self-righteousness. If is so important father for us to understand that we are all human. That there is one God and only one. There is NO perfect human being on the face on this earth and that you govern the affairs of your church, but NOT the affairs of man in general. Lord we are all reaping what we have sown. No one nation is better than any other on the face of the earth and pretending that we have been, “God’s people” keeping his will simply because of a few words that are printed here and there is deceptive and foolish. Father forgive us of our pomp, pride, self-righteousness and do whatever it takes to break us down to the minute particle that you need us to be so you can use us. Open our eyes to our sins…the sins we have committed for hundreds of years in the name of progress colonization etc., and learn to live peaceably with each other.
Teach us your called out ones to remember who the Lord of this World is, and to separate ourselves from him and his minions. He has enough people creating strife and discord we do not need to add to it. Forgive Lord God for not being Jesus to the WORLD! In your Son’s Holy and mighty name amen!
You Are Not the Only One 