Lift Up Your
Voice Like A Trumpet!
Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up
your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house
of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my
ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake
the ordinances of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight
to draw near to God. “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves,
but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and
oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to
strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your
voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose: to
loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed
go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the
hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you seek the naked,
to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light
shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your
vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he
will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the
hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in
the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The
LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and
make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring
of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you
shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live
in.
Isaiah 58:1-12
It was 1963 during a peaceful march on
In the 8th century BC, amid
personal and national injustice, the prophet Isaiah was used by God to awaken
the conscience of His people. Their convenient spirituality had led them to
violence and insensitivity toward their fellow humans. God’s people were
oppressing the poor and substituting religious practices for genuine righteous
living. God indicted them and prescribed spiritual living that would be
expressed through turning to God in genuine repentance and setting people free.
Like Isaiah, we have been sent to let freedom ring. By the power of the Holy
Spirit, we must proclaim that the captives can be released,
that the downtrodden can be freed from their oppressors and that the time of
the Lord’s favor has come.
No
righteousness, no freedom!
Our Daily
Bread –