Isaiah 58:6-8

In like a lion, out like a lamb. Severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings settled on the Ohio Valley today. The climate this year and for several years has been chaotic and unseasonal… a sign of the times.

The way of peace seems so elusive in todays culture. Sadly, even those countries who say they are God’s, find ways daily to prove otherwise and the way of peace they do not know. Social injustice runs rampant and we make a mockery of the teachings of Jesus Christ and His commands to love God above all and others as much as ourselves. Because faith without the good works that prove them is a dead and ineffective message to the world.

Yoke is a metaphor for social oppression.The poor who are cast out refers to those whose lands and houses were expropriated in payment of debts. NKJ study Bible

The light dawned with the advent of Christ.

How sad that we still turn our eyes away from:

• The sex trade making slaves of women and men.
• Banks and cash advance taking advantage of the poor and     middle class with outrageous interest rates on loans and credit cards.
• The Dakota Indians in their struggle to retain their sacred burial grounds.
• The innocent lives of millions of Syrians and other struggling nations denied access to safety.
• The poor of our nation go without food and shelter while billionaires take advantage of minimum wages and no health care.

We have much to be ashamed of according to Scripture.

Isaiah 58:6–8 (NKJV)

⁶ “Is this not the fast that I have chosen:

To loose the bonds of wickedness,

To undo the heavy burdens,

To let the oppressed go free,

And that you break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;

When you see the naked, that you cover him,

And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the morning,

Your healing shall spring forth speedily,

And your righteousness shall go before you;

The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 

Luke 4:18

¹⁰ I also, with my brethren and my servants, am lending them money and grain. Please, let us stop this usury! ¹¹ Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them.” 

Nehemiah 5:10–11

³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 

Matthew 25:35

¹⁴ What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? ¹⁵ if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? ¹⁷ Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

James 2:14–17