Wait for the Lord

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the justice of all who are oppressed. Speak up and judge righteously; defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8-9)“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of my judgment and withhold my justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." (Isaiah 10:1-2)“Come now, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and your silver have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!  Behold! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.” (James 5:1-6)“For I know your transgressions are many, and your sins are great, you who distress the righteous and accept bribes and turn aside the poor in the gate.” (Amos 5:12)“By justice, a king gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down.” (Proverbs 29:4)“So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king.”  (Samuel 8:10)“You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” “Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”  (Samuel 8:18–20)A voice is calling,  “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. “Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain,  And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Call out.”  Then he answered, “What shall I call out?” All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades,  But the word of our God stands forever.  (Isaiah 40:3–8)“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, Scarcely have they been sown, Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, But He merely blows on them, and they wither, And the storm carries them away like stubble. “To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name;  Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth  Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power.  Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly,  Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. (Isaiah 40:21–31)Richard and I discuss Luke 5:4-6. (Episode 507)

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