“In righteousness you shall be established; You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; And from terror, for it shall not come near you…” (Isa. 54:14)
In this verse in Isaiah it is a prophetic declaration of the safety of God’s people while in the present tense they are full of oppression, fear, and terror. There can be no freedom in a person or nations life until they are not only physically free but also spiritually free from the tormenting powers of fear. Fear puts invisible chains upon people’s lives, binding them to a horrible future even while they haven’t entered yet physically. Like faith brings the invisible realities of God’s goodness into manifestation in our lives, so fear will work in the negative- drawing evil’s power around our lives. God has declared in this verse that those chains will be broken, and a forcefield of God will repel any attraction of fear to our lives. Can you start to see how important and foundational an understanding of our Righteousness in Christ is to progression in the the Call of God for us? Not only that, but this speaks of stability, security and endurance for us no matter what we face.
And God DECLARED that this righteousness SHALL be established in us.
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment, you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is from me.” (Isa. 54:17) The main issues of life that cause fear are issues of condemnation vs justification. Judgment in the spirit realm brings the power of either blessings, or cursings into our life. If you are wrong, then punishment is right, but if you are in the right, then no punishment is justified or to be accepted. This verse declares that there are weapons specifically formed against us, knowing us intimately, our seeming weaknesses, and our failures. However, this verse that even those formed weapons will not work, and every verbal attack against you will be turned around into defeat for the accuser. This verbal part is important, because death and life are in the power of the tongue, and there is judicial power in the spirit through words. And these accusing words can be cut off at the source (from satan) –by yourself doing the condemning of him and his works! This says that this is the rightful heritage of those that serve God- and again the basis of this is because of the righteousness that God gives us. If God has justified us, who can condemn us?
We must have a revelation of how righteous God sees us because of Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 6:14 it declares that we are to “…put on the breastplate of righteousness” This is a powerful scripture because of what a breastplate covers. If you lose your arm, even though it is tragic, you can still survive. If you lose your heart, liver, lungs, etc. that would be fatal. The enemies goal with his fiery darts of accusation is to get it into our vital organs, and poison and kill us from the inside out. We lose our heart (passion, love, boldness, courage) and then lose strength and then our life as we succumb to the rest of his attacks.
The breastplate keeps our inner life strong- our relationship with God strong, our position with Christ in the heavenlies strong, so we can pump life out of our heart into other places in our bodies that needs it. If our heart is poisoned, (and out of the heart come the issues of life) then it will poison the rest of our life (relationships, finances, mental attitude). If we are wondering about why we can never solve the peripheral problems of life, it could be because we have not dealt with it at the source. Get the poison (sin-consciousness, condemnation, accusation) out of the heart, get it healed, and then we must keep the breastplate on. Even while we are wounded, in the process of being healed, we must still put the breastplate on in order to keep the powers of the air from infecting it through deception. You may still have your emotions or memories damaged- you must still press forward in the steadfast confidence in your righteousness in Christ- until you have nothing internally that can try to rise up to attack that truth. THE DEVILS STRATEGY TO DEFEAT US IS TO GET THAT BREASTPLATE OFF US. If we forget about /neglect our breastplate we are vulnerable to even the slightest attacks of the enemy (both wounding and further infection). Our chest is one of the biggest areas to hit in the body, so it is hard to miss.
The breastplate also keeps us facing forward in life, not turning our back on anything, or any situation in life. When we are not strong in God’s righteousness on/in us, we can easily be affected by mans condemnation at us. This is why some people are afraid of confrontation. But even if we are the ones who make a mistake, we still know that God will not condemn us (-in the core of our lives we are accepted and righteous!), so we can admit our wrong in the flesh, get it corrected, and not be afraid of what man thinks about us. God will not take back His righteousness from us. And even if we have done right and are accused by man, when we know we are righteous in God’s sight (this time in action as well as spiritually), we don’t have to justify ourselves before man, God will justify us. (1 Peter 2:21-23) We don’t have to go about trying to establish our own righteousness, God Himself will establish it in our lives. No matter the case- we do not back down from any confrontation. And we don’t have to be defensive all the time, trying to prove that we are right.
When we don’t have the breastplate on, we get offended very easily- because we get hit in our heart and it hurts. When we do have the breastplate on, the offense bounces off- God guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus- we know that we are RIGHT with HIM- Who matters the most! How you feel when accusation or correction comes reveals how tight your breastplate is on! Thank God for those times of revelation… We know that even if we are corrected (either from a spirit of accusation, or genuine concern)- it doesn’t affect our positional priviledges, relationship, or potential dreams that God has for us! In fact we know that God will use everything for our good, and if anyone misuses us, God will deal with that for us. Because of God’s secure protection around our heart that no human can touch, we don’t have to be afraid of dealing with a wide range of human relationships at any depth of involvement. We can be like Jesus, and even bless our enemies- overcoming evil with good.
This message was recently preached and is now available on mp3- order and download below-
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Nov 17, 2021 - 3:35 pm
Excellent, Excellent, and Excellent.