"THE TRUTH IS..." True Religion and National Corruption
GOD'S DESCRIPTION OF TRUE RELIGION. iSAIAH 58
1. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and tell my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. 2. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. 3. 'We have fasted', they say, 'did you not see us? We have afflicted our soul, did you take no knowledge?' Behold, (saith the Lord) in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exploit all your laborers. 4. Behold, you fast for strife and debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness: you shall not fast as you do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. 5. Is this the fast that I have chosen? A day when a man should afflict his soul? Is it a day for him to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? 6. Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? 7. Is it not to share your bread with those that are hungry, and that you bring the poor that are wandering to your own house? That you cover the naked ones that you see, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh? 8. Then shall your own light break forth like the morning, and your own healing shall spring forth speedily: and your righteousness shall go before you when the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. 9. Then you shall call, and the Lord shall answer; you shall cry and the Lord shall say, 'Here I am.' If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness; 10. And if you extend your soul to the hungry (with compassion), and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom shall be as the noonday. 11. And the Lord shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in dry places, and strengthen your bones; And you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12. And they that shall be of you shall build the old waste places: you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called, the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. Observing The Sabbath 13. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words; 14. Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; and I will cause you to ride upon the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And then the Lord went on to describe.... NATIONAL CORRUPTION AND THE CONSEQUENT SUFFERING ISAIAH 59
1. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. 2. Nevertheless, your iniquities have come between you and your God and separated you, and your sins have hidden His face from you, that He will not hear. 3. For your hands are defiled with bloodshed, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness. 4. None called for justice, nor did any plead for truth: they trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 5. They hatch vipers' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eats of their eggs die, and that which is crushed hatches a viper. 6. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. 7. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. 8. They do not know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their tracks; they have made crooked paths for themselves; and those that follow in their paths shall not know peace. 9. Therefore justice is far from us, neither does righteousness overtake us: we wait for light, but behold the darkness; we wait for brightness, but we walk in the gloom of blackness. 10. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as we stumble in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. 11. We all growl like bears, and moan sadly like the doves: we look for justice, but there is none: we look for salvation, but it is far off from us. 12. For our transgressions are multiplied before the Lord, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; 13. In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. 14. And justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness cannot enter in. 15. Yea, truth fails; and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it and it displeased Him (it was evil in His eyes) that there was no justice. 16. And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore, his arm brought salvation unto him; and His righteousness, it sustained him. 17. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. 18. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the coastlands he will totally repay recompense. (America is a coastland) 19.So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a banner against him. 20. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, AND UNTO THOSE that turn from their transgressions in Jacob, saith the Lord. 21. ‘As for me, this is my covenant with them’, saith the Lord, 'My spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed's seed,' saith the Lord, 'from henceforth and forever.' - Almighty God Paraphrased and transcribed by: Joan Krempel
|