{"id":5110,"date":"2014-03-09T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5110"},"modified":"2014-03-08T15:17:35","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T23:17:35","slug":"oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/03\/09\/oppression\/","title":{"rendered":"Oppression"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI, even I, am He who comforts you.
\nWho are you that you are afraid of man who dies
\nAnd of the son of man who is made like grass,
\nThat you have forgotten the LORD your Maker,
\nWho stretched out the heavens
\nAnd laid the foundations of the earth,
\nThat you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor,
\nAs he makes ready to destroy?
\nBut where is the fury of the oppressor?
\n\u201cThe exile will soon be set free, and will not die in the dungeon, nor will his bread be lacking.
\n\u201cFor I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar (the LORD of hosts is His name).
\n\u201cI have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, \u2018You are My people.\u2019 \u201d (Isaiah 51:12-16)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I\u2019m free at last! God pointed out a contrast for the Israelites, a contrast between their perception of things and the reality of those things. Where they cringed in fear before their oppressors, God wondered why. Had they forgotten that their oppressors were merely human? Humans who were weak and mortal? But, the Israelites would likely have pointed out, that description of the oppressors fit them as well.<\/p>\n

But God went on and reminded them that it wasn\u2019t just them, mere humans who might oppose their oppressors. God was part of the mix, and that\u2019s always a game changer. God reminded his people that he would, indeed, release them from their captivity in Mesopotamia. Those who oppressed them would not keep them from eating. They would not die in dungeons. Everything really would be okay because the same God who had created the universe was the God who was standing with them.<\/p>\n

It is so easy, in the midst of hard times, to lose sight of reality: we are God\u2019s children, created in Christ Jesus, who will spend an eternity with him in paradise. From the perspective of eternity, any troubles in our temporary, temporal existence are microscopic.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies And of the son of man who is made like grass, That you have forgotten the LORD your Maker, Who stretched … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5110"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5112,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110\/revisions\/5112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}