Isaiah 53:1-7 describes the gospel account of the suffering servant which we have preached for decades and many have known since childhood:

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? or He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

From this platform, we have prayed and interceded for governmental and church leaders with some results. But the overall culture has consistently declined. Rising hostility from government is guaranteed in the days ahead because of the political commitments to the homosexual agenda.

None of this has taken God by surprise but it is demanding that the church step into the next level of the Gospel outlined in Isaiah 53: 8-12:

And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they[a] made His grave with the wicked. But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul,[b]and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus guaranteed the Abrahamic covenant in it’s entirety which includes salvation and judgment. Jesus experienced injustice so we could access divine justice. Jesus promises a judicial anointing to spoil the enemy for those who are strong. The demand is on us to grow up and prepare for persecution by learning how to access the judicial side of the cross. As we grow into the strength promised, demonstrations of God’s glory are waiting for a mature church! “Arise, shine; For your light has come…” means the church has to stand up and act on their covenant! Faith means adding corresponding action to God’s word. Justice is a result of the word and the spirit uniting in living vessels as they experience a rapidly degrading culture. As agents of justice, our assignment is to walk in the spirit and declare the word of the Lord!