{"id":7577,"date":"2016-05-12T00:05:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T07:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7577"},"modified":"2016-05-11T11:41:50","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T18:41:50","slug":"we-need-to-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2016\/05\/12\/we-need-to-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need to Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I, the LORD, invite you
\nto come and talk it over.
\nYour sins are scarlet red,
\nbut they will be whiter
\nthan snow or wool.
\nIf you willingly obey me,
\nthe best crops in the land
\nwill be yours.
\nBut if you turn against me,
\nyour enemies will kill you.
\nI, the LORD, have spoken.
\nJerusalem, you are like
\nan unfaithful wife.
\nOnce your judges were honest
\nand your people lived right;
\nnow you are a city
\nfull of murderers.
\nYour silver is fake,
\nand your wine
\nis watered down.
\nYour leaders have rejected me
\nto become friends of crooks;
\nyour rulers are looking
\nfor gifts and bribes.
\nWidows and orphans
\nnever get a fair trial.
\nI am the LORD All-Powerful,
\nthe mighty ruler of Israel,
\nand I make you a promise:
\nYou are now my enemy,
\nand I will show my anger
\nby taking revenge on you. (Isaiah 1:18-24)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God offers hope, even as the sword of his judgment hangs by a thread. Isaiah was called to be a prophet by God not long before the Northern Kingdom of Israel would be destroyed by the Assyrians, and a couple generations before the Southern Kingdom of Judah would be invaded by Babylon. <\/p>\n

Things did not have to go bad. God wanted to bless his people. He wanted their lives to be good and happy. But through Isaiah, he warned them that they were forcing his hand. Just as Israel was bound by the contract with God, so God was just as bound by it. He had agreed to its terms and he would not violate them. But it was not just about the legalities of the situation. God\u2019s judgment was about correcting the wrongs, bringing justice to the oppressed. People were suffering because of the sins of the leadership classes. God couldn\u2019t let that suffering continue forever. A day of reckoning had to come. Those who were wronged deserved to have the wrong righted. The leadership could either right the wrongs themselves, or God would do it for them. But they could always repent. God wanted to save the wrongdoers just as much as he wanted to save the wronged.<\/p>\n

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I, the LORD, invite you to come and talk it over. Your sins are scarlet red, but they will be whiter than snow or wool. If you willingly obey me, the best crops in the land will be yours. But … 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\/7577"}],"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=7577"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7579,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7577\/revisions\/7579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}