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(Ex.22:20-26;\xa0\xa0 Ps.18:2-4,47,51;\xa0\xa0 1Thes.1:5-10;\xa0\xa0 Mt.22:34-40) \xa0 \u201cIf ever you wrong them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.\u201d \xa0 In this simple statement by the Lord is revealed the essential nature of our God in His relation with His people.\xa0 It demonstrates certainly what He says of Himself, \u201cI am compassionate,\u201d for what is He telling us but that He has an ardent care for the poorest among us and the injustice they suffer?\xa0 But it also demonstrates the justice of God itself, for what does He mean when He says He will \u201chear their cry\u201d but that He will punish the wicked for their heartless crimes?\xa0 He states clearly, if any should \u201cwrong any widow or orphan\u2026 [His] wrath will flare up, and [He] will kill [him] with the sword.\u201d Now in the Church today we find an arbitrary and utterly deceptive and false separation of members into \u201cliberal\u201d or \u201cconservative\u201d camps, as if the Lord and His Church could be limited by either assignation.\xa0 The liberal hears \u201clove God and neighbor\u201d and ignorantly excuses himself from keeping the law; and the conservative grasps the law so tightly he squeezes the very life, the very love, out of it.\xa0 The Lord is neither liberal nor conservative, but may be said to be both \u2013 and that to the extreme in both cases.\xa0 First of all, He has come to liberate us from our sin, to free us from the sentence of death all justly deserved as much as the adulteress or the thief on the cross He forgave.\xa0 No one could be more liberal in His free giving of Himself and His love.\xa0 What compares to the shedding of His blood, and the free gifts we gain thereby?\xa0 Yet it must not be forgotten that the Lord Jesus is absolutely conservative in His teachings and in His ways; at all costs He preserves the truth.\xa0 For though He says that \u201cthe whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments\u201d of love of God and neighbor, He does not thereby do away with the whole law.\xa0 Indeed, He strengthens it.\xa0 Does He not say not a single letter, nor even part of a letter, will pass away until all the law is fulfilled?\xa0 Does He not tell us now that even to look at a woman lustfully is adultery and to be angry with another is as murder (see Mt.5:17-30)?\xa0 And will He not come at the end of the age and judge all hearts, separating the evil from the good and casting them into eternal darkness and eternal flames?\xa0 Though He \u201cdelivers us from the coming wrath\u201d if we love Him, failing that, we cannot but be thrown into hell. The Lord has two hands and either taken alone is ineffective, is, in fact, wicked, for either alone falls short of love and truth.\xa0 The Lord is absolutely kind and absolutely just: these two meet and kiss in Him.\xa0 And so they must in each of us.\xa0 We must be \u201cmodel[s] for all the believers.\u201d\xa0 Let it be said that from us \u201cthe word of the Lord has sounded forth,\u201d that \u201cin every place [our] faith in God has gone forth \u2013 that we have carried both His love and His truth to every heart we touch.\xa0 Then we shall rightly call the Lord our \u201crock\u201d and our \u201cdeliverer\u201d; then we shall exclaim, \u201cPraised be the Lord\u201d and be \u201csafe from [our] enemies.\u201d\xa0 Then He will hear our cry and save us, and all who truly love Him, for then we will be His disciples. \xa0 Written, read &chanted, and produced by James Kurt. \xa0 Music: "The Child and the Beast" from Remove the Mask of Lies, second album of Songs for Children of Light, by James Kurt. \xa0 ******* O LORD, help us to love you with all our heart, and to love others as you love them.\xa0 YHWH, we must turn from idols to worship you alone, for you are the living and true God and deserve all the love of our heart, mind, and soul.\xa0 And we must love others as you love all, ever sharing your unending compassion with our neighbor.\xa0 For you hear the cry of the poor, and to that call we must attend or we are not loving you at all. Whose compassion is beyond is beyond your own, LORD?\xa0 Whose love can approach your perfection?\xa0 For your love is founded on perfect justice, a justice we cannot fathom apart from your favor toward us.\xa0 Your justice cannot but punish evil, for if not, how could it protect the good?\xa0 How could the widow or orphan find your compassion if you did not destroy those who oppress them? But even as you destroy the wicked, you do so out of love, out of mercy even toward those you destroy.\xa0 For how shall they turn from their sin and be saved if you do not chastise them for their wrongs, for the lack of compassion which separates them from you?\xa0 Your kindness be upon all this day, O LORD, that we might live in your love.