Isaiah 56:1 says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Keep justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.” This verse comes from the 56th chapter of the book of Isaiah, one of the latter prophets in the Old Testament. Isaiah, whose name means “the Lord saves,” is sometimes called the “prince of prophets,” according to the website Bible Study Tools.

It’s unclear if Isaiah wrote all of the Book of Isaiah. The events in it are believed to have happened centuries before Christ’s birth. Pastor Chris Fraley told Fox News Digital in the verse, “God is speaking a promise to his people in a time of great discouragement.” Fraley is the senior pastor of Wildwood Calvary Chapel, located in Yucaipa, California. When God’s people looked at what was happening at the time of the Book of Isaiah, Fraley said, “They don’t see any reason to live righteously and to keep justice.”

He said, “God steps in and encourages them through His prophet to live with the anticipation that He is working and that salvation is coming. He reminds them that His righteousness will be revealed.” This is a lesson to “don’t give up because of what you see,” but rather to “keep going because of what is to come.”

This verse is relevant today, “where two worldviews are clashing,” said Fraley. According to the pastor, “One is a secular worldview where the line of morality is always adjusting to the culture.” The other “is a biblical worldview where the authority for right and wrong is God’s Word.” Fraley added, “For the child of God, everything must be looked at within our world through the lens of God’s Word.”

This way of life can prove difficult, as not everyone lives through this lens. Fraley said, “We can lose hope. We might ask ourselves, ‘Why is the world falling apart? Where is God in all this? Why is he allowing such horrific sin to continue?’” He explained this is “what the people were struggling with in Isaiah’s day.”

He said, “The Lord reminds his people, ‘Don’t give up because of what you see in the world around you, the injustice, the depravity. Know that I am working, I am watching, and one day soon salvation will come.’” And while salvation may not be arriving soon, a child of God trusts that “it will come in our distant future,” said Fraley, “when he calls us home, to our eternal home.”

The message to remain steadfast in the hope of salvation is echoed in the New Testament, said Fraley, when Luke wrote that Jesus told His followers to “look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near.”