Isaiah5

… “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land”…

In the bible, two principles are stressed more than any other; righteousness and justice. In fact, these are the central principles of every aspect of God’s Law and they amount to the commands “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might” (righteousness) and “Love your neighbor as your self” (justice).

Righteousness is doing things right as it is right according to God’s judgment. To be unrighteous is to choose another standard for right and wrong other than God’s standard.

What most of us do not understand is that setting a standard of right and wrong is exactly the purpose for culture. We have a situation that our cultural background; weather secular or religious, give potentially seductive and contradictory yardsticks of what should be right or wrong; effectively blindfolding us to the “light of the gospel”. The contradiction between the cultural standards and those of the gospel is what Paul referred to as the offence of the gospel; they are what count most. It is even worse when our culture seams to buttress biblical standard, that way it enfolds the letter of the gospel but sidetracks the guiding Spirit behind the gospel. In my experience of spiritual warfare, culture is the greatest and surest means for the transfer of antichrist doctrine and attitude from generation to generation. It results in the “spiritualization” of the heart of darkness so that it looks O. K. on the surface but is all death and distribution inside. This effectively counteracts the injunction to not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds in the word of truth.

In any standard, there are three aspects involved which correspond to the functional aspects of the trinity; the word, the spirit, and the heart, in other words: the law, the wisdom and the attitude that inspired the wisdom.

Culture, especially most African cultures, effectively mirrors the law of God, but fall short sharply when compared on the wisdom and attitude levels. This effectively corresponds with all forms of antichrist worship and false religion.

Culture, including religion (“spiritual” culture), in the bible is described or represented as having the same effect as intoxicating wine. 

Isaiah28:1;

“Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards, to that fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley – to that city; the pride of those laid low by wine!”

Isaiah28:7-10;

“And these also stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine, they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. All the tables are covered with vomit and there in not a spot without filth

“‘Who is it He is trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To children weaned from their milk, to those Just taken from the breast?

“‘For It is Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there.’ ”

Jeremiah51:7;

“Babylon was a gold cup in the LORD’s hand; she made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore they have now gone mad.

Elsewhere the bible speaks of “strong drink that takes away the reasoning of the people”

The result of unrighteousness, according to Is.5 is spiritual desolation (vs. 11- end):

1.   The people go onto exile, i.e., spiritual promises do not materialize. “Because you serve strange gods in your own land, therefore you will serve strangers (demons) in a land not your own”

2.   Spiritual famine; lack and shortage

3.   The Shekinah glory withdraws to be replaced by the cover of darkness (death enlarging its appetite).

Injustice is simply denying an individual his “rights” under God, or doing a “neighbor” “wrong” as far as God is concerned.

God in His wisdom has set as an aspect of His righteousness that nothing ever has “rights” without having “responsibilities” as well as “limits” to the expression of those rights. The rights correspond to the “authority that an individual has under God. In truth, the responsibilities and the limits are in many ways actually unity as they simply express ‘must do’s and ‘must not do’s in the expressing our authority under God. Thus, they are laws govern the expression of our authority.

In addition to these laws – to make the spectrum of authority complete – is the aspect of the privileges attached to the authority.

When injustices is being done, it is usually the privileges or choices of an individual that is being taken away to increase the privileges or the ability to choose of others. It can also be that the responsibilities, obligations, and or limits laid on an individual are disproportionate to the privileges allocated to him. It is this imbalance that is injustice. Ultimately, the standard of Justice is an aspect of the righteousness of the “god” you worship.

The symptom of God convicting a person or group of injustice s expressed in Is. 5:8-10 is a reduction in quality and quantity in terms of the number of people in the group, the effectiveness of the activities of the person or group, and by inference, reduction in the glory and anointing in the group.

Is God not wonderful and just! The judgment accompanying each offence is appropriate in each case; be unrighteous (offending against God) and loose God-power; be unjust (offending against man) and loose man-power!

It is important to note that these are official heavenly policy. It is not a result of human or demonic planning, but – just as God promised to increase us if we keep to His rules – He; not man and not the devil, promises to reduce us if we don’t do the right things.

“I will not share my glory with Idols nor my honor with men”