A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench; He will bring forth justice in truth. He will not fail or become weak or be crushed and discouraged till He has established justice in the earth . . . The Lord will go forth like a mighty man, He will rouse up His zealous indignation and vengeance like a warrior; He will cry, yes, He will shout aloud, He will do mightily against His enemies.
Isaiah 42:3-4,13 AMP
Warnings of God’s justice being established in our sinful world used to trigger shivers in my innards (and truth be told, it still does at times). Especially with worldwide turmoil and chaos ramping up quicker than a daredevil goes over Niagara Falls. Whenever I heard the word ‘justice’, pictures of God mashing and bashing all who oppose Him flew to the forefront of my mind. Plenty of scriptures validate that line of thinking. Let’s face it, men love darkness because their deeds are evil. [i] And evil, if left unattended, thrives. Granted, our holy God has been extraordinarily lenient with mankind’s bullheaded ways. But the clock is ticking. Just look around. Without His intervention—and soon—we will indisputably self-destruct.
Needless to say, it stressed me. Enough so, that the first time I heard a woman pray this passage in Isaiah 42, I fought the temptation to slip out of the prayer meeting to get a cup of coffee in the foyer. Sometimes it’s easier to cope with scary world events and God’s dealings with such . . . from a distance. Overwhelmingly vast issues shrink to a more manageable size when there’s a cup of strong java with powdered, non-dairy creamer and artificial sweetener involved. Add to that, a fellow believer standing beside me mixing a cup of the same, and my little world feels strangely safer.
But after the woman prayed, the Lord challenged the misconceptions in my thinking. To understand justice, I needed to better understand the One administering it.
Simply put—and I do mean simply because how does one do justice in a short blog, to explaining God’s justice? —there is only one Lawgiver and Judge. [ii] God Himself is Judge. [iii]Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.[iv] He is the one—the only—absolute, supreme source of all things, including laws of how those things should be run. That Law is etched in stone, so anyone having a problem with it needs to take it up with the Judge. [v]
As supreme Lawgiver and Judge, God also has the right to enforce His Law and punish those who break it. After all, He is holy and His Law is holy. Perpetrators must be held accountable.
Because His nature also is to practice loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, He compensated for our sure failings by fulfilling His own Law through His Son’s life, death, and resurrection. Now, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. [vi] When we rend our hearts and not our garments and return to the Lord, He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness; and He revokes His sentence of evil [when His conditions are met]. [vii]
Which brings me back to the subject of mashing and bashing. Isaiah 42:13 says in essence that God will bring about justice like a mighty man, a zealous warrior. He will shout aloud. He will roar. Those are fighting words if you ask me.
If God is dead-set on establishing justice in the earth, who exactly is He targeting with all this pent-up fury? Who should be quaking in their boots about now because His judgments are headed their way? It would be tempting at this point to put faces to God’s enemies, but since we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, I will refrain. [viii]
The answer? Anything and everything that hinders us from knowing Him and living in the full freedom Christ died to give us. “God’s eternal disposition is zealous love! He has great zeal to glorify His name, to establish His people and purposes, and to remove everything that hinders love.” [ix]
God’s justice is restoring things to their rightful places. It delivers us from the power of darkness and translates us into the kingdom of His dear Son. His justice makes crooked places straight and redeems lives from sin’s oppression and violence. Justice opens prison doors to those who are bound, sets captives free to love Him and in full freedom serve Him. His justice heals broken hearts, heals broken bodies, comforts all who mourn, and gives beauty for ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. [x]
So beware, you enemies of God! He’s coming after you, sin and darkness! Rebellion, your days are numbered! Demonic strongholds, you’d best give it up now! Worldly systems, you’re going down! And let’s not forget the little foxes (those little things we let slide). Doubt, unbelief, unforgiveness, fear—they spoil the vine. They too must go. [xi] Our God doesn’t back down. There’s a clear, distinct shout of “Charge!” on His lips. The alarm is sounded. The trumpet blown. He’s bringing forth justice in truth.
[i] John 3:18–20 [ii] James 4:12 [iii] Psalm 50:6 [iv] 1 Chronicles 29:11 [v] Exodus 20 [vi] Jeremiah 9:24; 1 John 1:9 [vii] Joel 2:13 AMP [viii] Ephesians 6:12 [ix] Mike Bickle, Director of International House of Prayer [x] Colossians 1:13; Isaiah 45:2; Psalm 72:14; Isaiah 61:1–3 [xi] Song of Solomon 2:15