Restoration Through Christ: From Useless to Fruitful

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Pink and white blossoms growing on a grafted tree in an orchard

“The Lord did this to purge Israel’s wickedness, to take away all her sin. As a result, all the pagan altars will be crushed to dust. No Asherah pole or pagan shrine will be left standing. The fortified towns will be silent and empty, the houses abandoned, the streets overgrown with weeds. Calves will graze there, chewing on twigs and branches. The people are like the dead branches of a tree, broken off and used for kindling beneath the cooking pots. Israel is a foolish and stupid nation, for its people have turned away from God. Therefore, the one who made them will show them no pity or mercy.”
Isaiah 27:9-11 NLT

The picture Isaiah painted from his thoughts was one of future desolation, an apocryphal scene of towns intact but with all inhabitants gone. Signs of neglect would be everywhere. There would be no people, only a few calves left wandering. They would have no proper food, so they would fare the best they could on what they could find, mainly twigs and branches. Their future would be uncertain. The Asherah poles and pagan shrines would all be demolished, a fitting end to the idolatry that brought Israel down. As he mused on the picture before him, Isaiah compared the people to branches found on a forest floor, branches that had died and, after falling off the tree, were left mouldering until they eventually disappeared, absorbed into the vegetable detritus below the trees. And all because they had “turned away from God“. God would have no pity or mercy for them because He would honour the choices they had made. He had to, because that was how He created them. In Deuteronomy 30:19-20, we read, “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”. That same principle applies to all human beings who have the capacity to make the choices to which God referred.

As we read yesterday, Jesus is the true Vine, and He said, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me” (John 15:4). He then said, “Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” It’s obvious, really. Any branch that loses the life-giving sap that runs through a tree will inevitably die and fall off, no longer useful for bearing fruit. It might be useful for heating cooking pots or fertilising the ground for future growth, but nothing else. In the same way, any Christian who ceases to be connected to Jesus by following His ways will end up in the same place as a useless branch, “gathered into a pile to be burned”.

Jesus’ analogy of His disciples as branches growing from a grapevine was one they would immediately relate to. Any gardener today will understand this analogy as well, because there are many bushes that consist of a decorative variety grafted onto a wild root and trunk. My wife and I had a cherry tree planted in our front garden, with the wild part so vigorous that it started to take over, and the impressive display of grafted blossom became smaller and smaller each year. Isaiah’s picture of desolated towns, empty of the people he described as dead branches, fits well with what Paul wrote in Romans 11:17: “But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree“. As with my cherry tree, we pilgrims are new branches grafted into the original rootstock, Jesus Himself. 

The question for us pilgrims is about the fruit we are producing, if any. Jesus said, “[His Father] cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more” (John 15:2). The danger for disciples everywhere, even us pilgrims, is that we stop producing fruit. But what fruit are we supposed to be producing? We find a list in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” How can we test ourselves objectively to assess our fruit-bearing? As the Psalmist David wrote, we need to bear our souls before God and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24). What is God saying to us today about the condition of our hearts? 

But back to the question about the fruit we are producing. Here are some signs of slowly growing spiritual fruit in our lives: are we noticing that we react more calmly than we used to when facing times of stress and anxiety? Do we care deeply about the well-being of others, even when it requires sacrifice or the forgiveness of wrongs? Do we refuse to respond to harsh words, instead letting the Holy Spirit help us to hold our tongues? Are we consistently faithful to God rather than just visiting Him from time to time? Many more examples show the Holy Spirit producing the kinds of fruit God desires in our lives, and we don’t have to strive to produce them. Living a life pliable in God’s hand is all that is required.

Many questions remain for us pilgrims today, but no matter how difficult the answers may be, we need to reflect on them. Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). We need to trust Jesus in all that we do, not just in times of difficulty. We need to listen constantly to the voice of the Holy Spirit within us, allowing Him to guide us into all truth and help us produce the fruit that God desires. Paul wrote, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10). God never intended us to become useless branches. Thankfully, God is in the recycling business. He takes the useless and transforms them into the useful through the blood of Jesus. A miracle, if there ever was one.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for Your grace and love, and for Jesus, who came at just the right time so that we might be restored and justified, no longer useless. We declare our faith and trust in You, and we invest our lives deeply in Your life-giving Spirit, so that we can produce the fruit You require. We ask this in Your precious name. Amen. 

The New Covenant: God’s Promise and Our Response

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Has the Lord struck Israel as he struck her enemies? Has he punished her as he punished them? No, but he exiled Israel to call her to account. She was exiled from her land as though blown away in a storm from the east. The Lord did this to purge Israel’s wickedness, to take away all her sin. As a result, all the pagan altars will be crushed to dust. No Asherah pole or pagan shrine will be left standing.”
Isaiah 27:7-9 NLT

In these verses from Isaiah, it is interesting that he wrote about the exile in the past tense. Isaiah lived between 740 and 681 BC, and the exile from Israel took place in 722 BC, so he must have been referring to the exile of Israel’s inhabitants. Israel was the Northern kingdom in Isaiah’s lifetime. The inhabitants of Judah, where Isaiah lived, were exiled between 605 and 586 BC, after he had died. But Isaiah asked the question, “Has the Lord struck Israel as he struck her enemies?” The answer is, of course, in the negative, because Israel’s enemies were defeated and destroyed. Where is the Assyrian empire today? Or any of the other nations and empires that treated Israel so badly, such as the Moabites or the Philistines? But the Jews today are still a distinct national group, with their own country restored to them, at least in part. They may be scattered throughout the world, and about 280,000 live in the UK, half of them in London, but they are distinct in their identity as God’s people. That has never changed.

In the 8th Century BC, the peoples of Israel and Judah were guilty of idolatry, having fallen into sin, committing idolatry with the foreign gods of the surrounding nations. Why would they have ever wanted to abandon the God who brought them out of Egypt, the God who fed them with manna for forty years, the God who drove out the nations from the lands He had given them? The terms of the covenant God made with them were clear, yet they abandoned Him to follow foreign gods. 

When they entered the land of Canaan, the Israelites found a culture that integrated idolatry with everyday life, and they possibly felt safer being a part of that. Pagan religions used physical idols like statues and images, but God was invisible and intangible, something that perhaps challenged their imaginations. To continue to worship God, and Him alone, required a disciplined life and one that required obedience to His laws and ways. The Canaanite idols like Baal and Asherah promised control over rain, crops, and livestock, and the Israelites, transitioning to an agricultural lifestyle, found these direct promises appealing. Worship of these foreign gods provided sensory rituals, feasts, and festivals that offered immediate emotional or physical experiences. So, in all, we see a people whose morals lapsed into a state God couldn’t ignore forever. He gave them time to repent, and He sent prophets like Isaiah to warn the people of the consequences of their wickedness and sin, but to no avail.

But the Lord couldn’t destroy His people, as He did when He dealt with the people’s wickedness in the time of Noah. Although the Israelites failed to keep their side of the covenant that God had made with them, God never did, because He was, and is, faithful. We read in Deuteronomy 7:9, “Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands“. Has the “thousand generations” numerically been achieved? If a generation is forty years, then there is a long way to go, but this cannot be taken as an exact figure, because the meaning in this verse is that God’s patience is extensive, but not unlimited. There will come a day when, as in the days of Isaiah, His patience will run out, and judgment will follow. The following verses in Deuteronomy 7 were a clear warning to the Israelites, “But he does not hesitate to punish and destroy those who reject him. Therefore, you must obey all these commands, decrees, and regulations I am giving you today“. And that warning still hangs over the peoples of this world today.

The Israelites were punished for their sins by being exiled to a foreign land. The process involved the death of many, and with the remaining people, including those with particular skills or social standing, being taken to places like Babylon and the surrounding areas where they were involved in farming, or as craftsmen and merchants. God’s people have always been workers, and God has always granted them success, often much to the dismay of the societies in which they live; hence one reason for the antisemitism that is so rife. But in 538 BC the Israelites started to return from exile, but not all of them, because many had become absorbed into the societies where they settled, abandoning God forever. And so God purged His people of the sins that they had committed, leaving a nation, much reduced in numbers, but one that had chosen to follow the Lord.

We pilgrims are a people of the New Covenant. Jeremiah prophesised about this time coming in Jeremiah 31:31-33, ““The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord. “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people””. Jesus fulfilled this Covenant, as we read in Luke 22:20, “After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you”“. More clarity comes in Hebrews 9:15: “That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant“.

Dear Father God. I don’t know how we pilgrims would have survived had we only had the Old Covenant available to us. We are so grateful for Jesus, who came to set us free from sin by taking onto Himself the punishment we deserved. Please forgive us for the times when we have followed the Israelites of old into modern-day idolatry, replacing You with our gadgets and things that we value so highly. You are the only God and it is You we praise today. Amen.

Remaining in Jesus, the True Vine

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“My anger will be gone. If I find briers and thorns growing, I will attack them; I will burn them up— unless they turn to me for help. Let them make peace with me; yes, let them make peace with me.” The time is coming when Jacob’s descendants will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole earth with fruit!”
Isaiah 27:4-6 NLT

The analogy of a fruitful vineyard continues, representing, as it does, the nation of Israel “In that day”, meaning the last days of this world. There will come such a time because God has decreed it, with numerous Biblical prophecies saying so. In the Book of Isaiah alone there are 57 such references, and we find more details about what is to come in Matthew 24 and Revelation. But in the vineyard, the Lord sings over His people, carefully nurturing them as He expressed His love for his people. Although Israel has experienced His wrath, the Lord still passionately loves His people. He is eager to defend them. He expresses this by describing how He would—and will—respond to the enemies that grow within the “vineyard” itself. These are not invaders, however. The Lord has already brought justice and peace to the earth at this future time. Israel’s enemies are all defeated and they live in peace with the Lord as their king.

Yet even in that peace, some will rebel against God, consequently facing His wrath. It is tragic that there will still be these rebellious people, impregnated by their sin and chasing after other “gods”. But God will know who they are and they will feel the full force of His attack. Jesus said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned” (John 15:5-6). God said through Ezekiel, “Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign Lord. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live” (Ezekiel 18:23). The sad thing is that those “wicked people” have a window of opportunity to turn to God before there comes the Day of Judgment, but even in the End Times there will still be a remnant of sinners. They will have seen Israel’s enemies eliminated and they will have enjoyed an unprecedented time of peace, but they have turned their backs on God nevertheless.

Moving on to the next of today’s verses, we find a reference to Jacob. We will know from our studies in Genesis that Jacob was renamed Israel. Genesis 32:28, ““Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won“”. And from the fruit produced by the nation of Jacob, or Israel, the whole world will benefit. In the language of the song, this will become possible because the Lord will protect Israel from her enemies and create the perfect conditions for the “vine” to grow and thrive. 

In terms of the future, the greatest fruit of Israel will be the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Lord Himself. Isaiah 11:1, “Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root“. Through faith in the Messiah, believers from the entire world will come into relationship with the God of Israel. They will receive His protection and provision. As He promised Abraham, “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3b).

Since Jesus came to this earth two thousand years ago, the nations of the world have been blessed, and are continuing in that blessing. But the king of this world, the devil, is not giving up without a fight, and Christians, followers of Jesus, are being persecuted for their faith everywhere, even in the “Christian West”. However, we see the “fruit of Israel” permeating our society through the good works undertaken by Christians, God’s children, who work for charities or do simple acts of kindness to a neighbour. We pilgrims help many people, who otherwise have rejected God.

We pilgrims are on mission in our neighbourhoods and family groups, bring salt and light into unpalatable and dark places. We are part of “Israel’s fruit” in our generation. We look forward to the day when the new Heaven and Earth age is with us, an age when “[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4). But in the meantime, we are not a people who sit, huddled in a pew, keeping our heads down, waiting for the Day of the Lord to arrive. We boldly proclaim the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus, at every opportunity.

Dear Father God. We pilgrims have much fruit to grow, as we remain in Jesus, the true Vine. We pass on that Holy Spirit sustenance to our families and friends, and any others we meet, because that is what You have asked us to do. Help us to look with Your eyes at those in our communities with love and compassion, helping and serving them whenever we can, so that, by our good works, You will be praised. Lead us, we pray, in Your ways, day by day, as we live our lives of gratitude in the One who has done so much for us. Amen.

God’s Promises: A Fruitful Vineyard in Our Lives

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Wine bottles and a filled glass overlooking terraced vineyards at sunset

“In that day, sing about the fruitful vineyard. I, the Lord, will watch over it, watering it carefully. Day and night I will watch so no one can harm it. My anger will be gone. If I find briers and thorns growing, I will attack them; I will burn them up—”
Isaiah 27:2-4 NLT

There is that reference again to “In that day”, indicating that this is another End Times prophecy about what is to come at some time yet to happen in the future. It is a frustration to some people that they are neither able to control the present nor the future. Yes, they can put into place some personal steps to minimise their risks, but global events are well beyond them. Regarding their own lives and the reality that one day they will die, they don’t know when or how it will happen, and they choose to suppress any thoughts in that direction. But we pilgrims don’t have that concern, because we know that God has us in His hands and that one day we will be with Him forever. Prophecies such as Isaiah’s “In that day” provide a glimpse of what life will be like when the Lord returns. When the Lord reigns on earth, a restored Israel will be like a pleasant or fruitful vineyard, with some manuscripts describing it as a “vineyard of wine.” In Isaiah 5:2, Isaiah wrote of a vineyard prepared by the Lord. “He ploughed the land, cleared its stones, and planted it with the best vines. In the middle he built a watchtower and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks”. So far, so good. Everything was prepared and ready to produce a crop of the very best grapes. We read on in this verse, “Then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes, but the grapes that grew were bitter”. The vineyard represented Israel, and the “sweet grapes” that were supposed to grow there were the fruit of righteous lives, lived by God’s own people, the Jews. But sour and bitter grapes resulted from a lack of righteousness in a people who had abandoned God and His ways. They were growing the wrong fruit.

I suppose, as we pause here, we pilgrims can ask ourselves the question, “What fruit am I producing?” Grapes of righteousness, sweet and useful, productive in God’s hands, or something else? In Isaiah 5, as we read on, we find that the Lord removed the protective hedge and wall around the vineyard. This allowed wild animals to come and destroy it. He also sent a drought over the vineyard and allowed thorns and briers to grow and take over. But in the End Times, Israel will have been restored and will be a pleasant “vineyard of wine”. The Lord will be dwelling with His people, and He declared how He would look after it. It will be well-watered with His love and grace, and He will watch over it, day and night. I wonderful picture of the Revelation 21 prophecy of God living with His people. He will no longer be angry with His wayward children, and in His presence, finally, they will produce the fruit He had always designed for them to produce. 

History records a different set of circumstances for the Israelites. Time and time again, their sinful lives led to consequences when God removed His hedge of protection around them. This took the form of oppression by the surrounding nations, which crescendoed with the conquest by the Assyrian army and exile for many of the remaining people. When they finally returned from Babylon, did their sinning stop? Unfortunately not, and in Jesus’ day the Romans had occupied Palestine, and there was a pseudo-religious council keeping a lid on the population. This was never the type of society that God had designed for His people. But throughout the ages, God’s people retained their Jewish identity, and received a glimmer of hope with the return of the Jewish state in 1948. Has their sinning stopped? A question that God Himself will answer one day.

Sin can be defined as rebellion against God and His ways, and this encompasses many behavioural traits that poison a person’s life and future. But there is a remedy, and that came in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation” (Romans 5:8-9). This must be wonderful news for all sinners, past, present, and future, and we will one day enjoy the fruits of God’s vineyard, living with Him forever. Paul continued in Romans 5, “For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God”. Are we pilgrims feeling a bit jaded and perhaps depressed this morning? After all, world events are not the most uplifting. But as we cast our eyes Heavenward, we will see God’s “vineyard”, the place where we want to be. And today, this very moment, we can feel the warm glow of God’s love and grace flowing over us, bringing peace to our souls. 

Whatever we are facing into today, whatever challenge, whatever problem, God has an answer. God has a solution. We pilgrims pray, and keep on praying, bringing our lives and families under His fatherly and gracious spotlight. The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 34:17, “The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles“. 1 John 5:14-15, “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for“. Of course, we must pray prayers that align with God’s will, but He cares for us and always has an answer. In Philippians 4:6-7, we read again, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus“.

Father God. We bring to You our worries and cares, in the knowledge that You are concerned for us and desire to bring us firmly back into Your will. We are truly sorry for the times we have given up praying or failed to pray at all, and we thank You for the times You answered our prayers, spoken or unspoken, anyway. Today, we bring You our praises and petitions, trusting that You will hear our prayers and lead and guide us accordingly. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

Leviathan, the Swiftly Moving Serpent

Posted on by Adrian Clark
A horned sea dragon roaring above stormy ocean waves

“Look! The Lord is coming from heaven to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will no longer hide those who have been killed. They will be brought out for all to see. In that day the Lord will take his terrible, swift sword and punish Leviathan, the swiftly moving serpent, the coiling, writhing serpent. He will kill the dragon of the sea.”
Isaiah 26:21 – 27:1 NLT

“Leviathan, the swiftly moving serpent”. A reference to this “whatever it is” occurs five times in the Old Testament and on another occasion in Psalm 74:14, “You crushed the heads of Leviathan and let the desert animals eat him”. The Book of Job also refers to Leviathan but in a different context. But whatever it is, it has several heads and lives in the sea, which is where God despatches it with His “terrible swift sword”. It is, of course, quite conceivable that such a monster could have existed, and we have, potentially, such a beast dwelling in Loch Ness here in Scotland. There may also have been an influence from local folklore. Isaiah also referred to it as a “dragon”.

The obvious connection between Leviathan, the serpent and dragon of old, is with the devil, the fallen angel Lucifer or Satan. In Genesis 3:1 we find that “The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made..”. Paul referred to the serpent in 2 Corinthians 11:3, where we read, “But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent”. But the clearest connection between the devil and a serpent comes in Revelation 12:7-9, “Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven. This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels”. And then in Revelation 20:1-2, we read, “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand. He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years”. The final destination of the devil is described in Revelation 20:10, “Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulphur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”. As an aside, I wonder sometimes about the attitude of people who would rather contemplate spending eternity in the company of the devil than with Jesus.

So there we have it. Leviathan will be destroyed by God’s sharp sword. However, we pilgrims have our own weapon of destruction, effective against the devil. We read in Ephesians 6:17, “ … take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”. The “sword” we have is God’s Word, the Bible. This Word of God is the same Word that Jesus used to defeat the armies of the kings of the world at a place called Armageddon (Revelation 16:16). Then in Revelation 19:19 we read, “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the world and their armies gathered together to fight against the one sitting on the horse and his army”. But it didn’t end well for them, because two verses later we read, “Their entire army was killed by the sharp sword that came from the mouth of the one riding the white horse. And the vultures all gorged themselves on the dead bodies”. Who was the One riding the white horse? We find the answer earlier in Revelation 19: “Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself. He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his title was the Word of God”. 

But fascinating as the story in Revelation is, the only offensive weapon mentioned in Paul’s account of the armour of God is the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God”. Jesus effectively used God’s Word during His temptation in the wilderness, countering the devil’s temptations three times with verses quoted directly from Scripture. In that encounter between Jesus and the devil, we note one other thing – the devil knows the Bible as well. We pilgrims must be prepared for the battles we have with the devil and his forces of evil by knowing and, if necessary, memorising the Scriptures. We can do that only by reading the Word of God. As Paul said to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and … [He] uses it to prepare and equip His people…” (2 Timothy 3:17-17). What soldier ever picks up a rifle and runs into battle without first finding out how it works and how to shoot straight? 

Do you, dear fellow pilgrims, need a Word from God today? Well, there is a book full of them, and many helps to find the verses that apply to your situation or request. But nothing replaces studying the Bible. Jeremiah wrote, “When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies” (Jeremiah 15:16). The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you”. And then we have another “3:16”, this time from Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God”. We must be equipped to face our Leviathan at any time he chooses to attack us. With the Word of God, “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12), in our hands and in our hearts, we don’t have to wait until the End Times for God to do the job. We have the means here and now, today.

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for Your Word because without it we are nothing. Thank You for the faithful men who wrote down what Your Spirit revealed to them, so that future generations could be informed and equipped for their lives. As we read, please reveal the Scripture to us so that we can respond to the pressures and temptations of the world around us with Your righteousness and truth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Podcast Episode: Resurrection Hope In Isaiah

Posted on by Adrian Clark

Pip: There's a particular kind of hope that doesn't flinch at a grave — and Being a Pilgrim is the place where Adrian Clark goes looking for it, straight through Isaiah and into Revelation.

Mara: This episode sits entirely in that territory: resurrection promises in Isaiah 26, and what happens when those promises collide with the end-times imagery of Revelation 20 and 21.

Pip: Let's start with what Isaiah actually says about death, suffering, and the hope that outlasts both.

Isaiah 26: Resurrection, Judgement, and the Hope That Outlasts Death

Mara: The opening question here is a hard one — what do you do when your best efforts produce nothing? Isaiah 26 names that failure honestly, and then turns it into a theological pivot.

Pip: The passage does something striking with that pivot. Isaiah sets up the despair first, then lands the counter-claim — and the contrast is the whole argument.

Mara: The verse that anchors this is Isaiah 26:17-19, and the setup is the suffering: "We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world. But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!"

Pip: So the upshot is that human effort hits a hard ceiling, and resurrection is what breaks through it — not as a reward for trying harder, but as something given from outside entirely.

Mara: Exactly that. The post is direct: "our ultimate hope does not rest in what we can accomplish, but in what God accomplishes for us." That's the load-bearing claim everything else hangs on.

Pip: And to illustrate how far people will go to avoid that conclusion, there's a genuinely arresting detour into cryopreservation — bodies frozen to minus 196 degrees Celsius in liquid nitrogen, waiting for a future revival that still cannot guarantee salvation.

Mara: It's used to make a precise point: no expenditure of money or ingenuity purchases life after death. The post quotes Paul — "God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God" — and sets that against every human workaround.

Pip: The resurrection itself is then grounded in Jesus as the first instance. The post quotes Matthew 28:6 — "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said" — and frames the empty tomb as the prototype for what Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

Mara: And the segment closes on a genuinely joyful image: the dead awakening and singing. "Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy" — resurrection leading not to relief but to worship.

Pip: The second post in this theme, End Times: Isaiah 26 and Revelation Insights, picks up exactly where that joy leaves it — with the verses that immediately follow in Isaiah 26, which are considerably less comfortable.

Mara: Verses 20 and 21 instruct God's people to lock their doors and hide while the Lord comes to punish the earth for its sins. The post connects this directly to Revelation 20's Great White Throne — the dead judged according to their deeds, and anyone not found in the Book of Life cast into the lake of fire.

Pip: That is a significant tonal shift from a resurrection chorus, and the post holds both without softening either.

Mara: It does. There's a careful note that the judgment described in Isaiah may have addressed Israel's immediate situation, but the post argues that through Jesus, believers escape the coming judgment regardless — citing John 3:17-18: those who believe are not judged; those who do not are already walking in judgment, effectively out on bail awaiting their trial date.

Pip: That phrase — out on bail — does a lot of work. It makes the urgency concrete without being theatrical about it.

Mara: The post ends with Paul's words from Romans 15:13: "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."

Pip: So the arc runs from writhing in agony, through an empty tomb, to a song — and the judgement passages sit in the middle not as a threat to believers but as the reason the message matters to everyone else.

Mara: What holds these two passages together is that the hope isn't wishful — it's grounded in something that already happened, and it points forward to something still coming.

Pip: A grave borrowed for a weekend, and a song waiting on the other side of it. There's more of Isaiah ahead — we'll see you there.

End Times: Isaiah 26 and Revelation Insights

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead! Go home, my people, and lock your doors! Hide yourselves for a little while until the Lord’s anger has passed. Look! The Lord is coming from heaven to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will no longer hide those who have been killed. They will be brought out for all to see.”
Isaiah 26:19-21 NLT

We come to the final verses of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, the prophet. He wrote that a time is coming when Israel will be restored. In the end times, after the Lord has secured His victory, He will raise His people, those who have already died, back to life. They will rejoice in their Lord because death is not the end of the story for the people of God. But verses 20 and 21 instruct the people of God to lock themselves away and hide while the Lord comes to “punish the people of the earth for their sins”, and this is going to happen in public. God’s people were not to be the intended focus of God’s punishment; that was being reserved in all its terrible force for sinners, the unrepentant people throughout history who have denied God and His ways.  

The obvious connection of our verses today is with Revelation 20, where we read about the “Great White Throne”. John wrote, “I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:12-15). The previous chapter in Revelation details the final battle between the world armies, their corrupt system, and their opposition to God. But Revelation 21 paints a different picture, of God making all things new, with God dwelling on the New Earth with His people.

I have assumed that “God’s people” include all those who have believed in God through Jesus, those we call Christians. Pilgrims such as ourselves. However, a school of thought holds that this was a prophecy concerning the Israelites and their local situation in the Middle East at that time. This may well be the case, but through Jesus we know we will escape the judgment to come, whether or not we were included in Isaiah’s writings. Jesus said, “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son” (John 3:17-18). Those around us, the sinners that Isaiah wrote about, are already walking around in judgment. They are effectively out on bail, awaiting their trial date, when they will be called to account for their sins. We don’t know when this will be, but the day will come.  

It will be a terrible time when God brings punishment for the world’s sinners, but we pilgrims pray for these people. We also pray for ourselves that we will stand firm and resolute in our journey to Glory, never looking back. We pray for our governments, our communities, and our friends and families, that they will transition from those to be judged to joining God’s people through His saving grace. We pilgrims have every confidence in our God that He will judge the world with righteousness, and our verses seem to indicate that He will indeed pass us by as the final End Time scenario unfolds. Paul wrote, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). No matter what is to come, we know that God will fulfil the promises He made through Jesus.

Dear Father God. A sobering end to Isaiah 26, but one that bolsters the hope that we have in You. You have graciously saved us from the destruction to come, and we are so deeply grateful. Every day we offer up to You our thankful prayers of worship, but also our petitions for our families and our governments. We understand that You are delaying the final terrible day so that every last person in Your plan for mankind will be saved. Please lead us to those who need a touch from You, bringing peace and joy back into a life of misery. Only You have the words of eternal life. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

The Promise of Resurrection in Isaiah’s Teachings

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Just as a pregnant woman writhes and cries out in pain as she gives birth, so were we in your presence, Lord. We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world. But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!”
Isaiah 26:17-19 NLT

Isaiah describes the efforts the people made so that something would happen. They writhed apparently in agony, “but nothing comes of [their] suffering”. In times of extreme stress and distress, people sometimes do extraordinary things, as much out of desperation as anything else. The bottom line, though, was that Israel’s own efforts could not bring about the salvation they desperately needed. That points us towards a fundamental biblical truth: our ultimate hope does not rest in what we can accomplish, but in what God accomplishes for us. Isaiah wrote that salvation could not come through human efforts, no matter how hard we try. Some people do extraordinary things to maintain their appearance or prolong their lives through this potion or that snake oil, but inevitably their efforts reach an endpoint that keeps them from reaching their ultimate hope. But even that doesn’t stop some people. They arrange for their bodies after death to be frozen, a process called cryopreservation, where their body fluids are replaced with a medical form of antifreeze before their remains are frozen in liquid nitrogen to a temperature of -196 degrees Celsius. But their salvation still cannot be guaranteed, even if, on some future date, they can be unfrozen and brought back to life. Sooner or later, eternal death will result. As we pilgrims know, there is only one way to be saved, and that is through Jesus. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Paul wrote, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God” (Ephesians 2:8). The reality is that no matter how much money you spend, it is impossible to purchase a life after death through anything we can do. Our bodies will die and be returned to the elements from which they have been constructed, but our souls and spirits will live eternally in the place of our choosing. We can reach out in faith to our Heavenly Father, accepting His free gift of eternal life spent with Him, or we can reject Him and find out what hell will ultimately be like. 

There is another Godly “but” in the next verse from our reading today. “But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again!” The previous verses speak of pain, failure and helplessness. Then God says that death itself is not the final word for God’s people. David wrote, “For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever” (Psalm 16:10-11). The first “Holy One” was, of course, Jesus, and we know that the tomb in which He was laid was soon empty. Jesus only borrowed it for the weekend. After the death of Lazarus, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” (John 11:25-26). Early on in His ministry, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. Such a straightforward and simple statement, but the truth and reality of Jesus’ mission has divided mankind for centuries, with most people choosing to reject what He said. Worse, partly because of Jesus’ heritage and ancestry, there has been an uprising of animosity against the Jews, something we term anti-semitism. But this animosity has been extended to include Christians, and Open Doors has calculated that 388 million believers in Jesus are being persecuted for their faith today. This amounts to 1 in 7 believers across the globe. 

One day we pilgrims will be resurrected. Jesus was the first: the angel said to the women who had come to prepare His body for a proper burial, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay” (Matthew 28:6). No matter how hopelessly final Jesus’ crucifixion, death and burial seemed to have been, we worship a God who specialises in bringing life out of situations that appear to be hopeless. What happens next is beyond even our wildest dreams. Paul wrote, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). In 1 Corinthian 15:53, Paul wrote, “For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies”. The hope that we pilgrims hold is therefore much more than wishing tomorrow will be better. Our hope reaches beyond the grave. Even death cannot separate a believer from God’s purposes and promises.

Our verses today end with a song. Isaiah wrote, “Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!”. How marvellous is that! Our future hope is in a life of joy where there will be no more sickness, crying and death. The dead are described as awakening and singing, and we are promised that the grave is not the end; our resurrection will lead to worship. Can we get our minds around the fact that we will wake up in God’s presence with a song of praise on our lips? In our current lives, we may be passing through the valley of death, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. One day we will be singing our spiritual hearts out in God’s presence. It is only God who can deliver the salvation our hearts yearn for, and once again I am reminded that I have been commissioned to tell this fact to those around me. A simple message: “Hell is hot, Heaven is real, and Jesus saves!” 

Dear Heavenly Father. A song is already forming on my lips, a song of worship to You, who loved me so much that You sent Your Son, Jesus, to die for my fellow pilgrims and me. There are no words available to express our gratitude, but grateful we are with every fibre of our beings. We worship You today, and will continue to worship You across the Great Divide into Heavenly places. Amen.

Understanding Delayed Answers to Prayer in Faith

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Folded hands resting over an open Bible beside eyeglasses and beads

“Just as a pregnant woman writhes and cries out in pain as she gives birth, so were we in your presence, Lord. We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world. But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!”
Isaiah 26:17-19 NLT

Do we hear a hint of frustration in Isaiah’s prophetic voice this morning? God’s hand of discipline weighed heavily upon them and, no matter what they did, “nothing [came] of [their] suffering. Like a woman in labour, they cried out in pain, but their efforts seemed to produce nothing. They had hoped to bring deliverance, but instead experienced weakness and disappointment. And, rightly, Isaiah continues with an acknowledgement of his, and the people’s, limitations. Perhaps there was a breakthrough when Isaiah realised that God’s greatness was infinitely more than any human being’s, because, as we move to verse 19 today, we find that he had received a revelation of hope. Hope for the future. Hope for all those who “die in the Lord”. 

Sometimes we pilgrims seem to work away, but nothing seems to come of our labours. A missionary might work in a foreign land and see no converts, despite many years of toil. Pastors might preach many messages from the pulpit, all focused on the congregation’s spiritual growth, but the same issues of sin remain. We pilgrims might pray for a long time for the healing of a loved one, but sickness remains. Perhaps we are praying for revival, for God to visit us again through His Spirit, but nothing changes. We pray over issues, but God never seems to hear our prayers, let alone answer them. Do we waste our time and effort? But then, like Isaiah, we realise God’s ability and our inability, and we shift our focus from the issues to the future. In this life, we pilgrims were never promised that the fruits of our labours would be seen straight away. The problem is that we live in an “instant” generation, expecting immediate answers.

The psalmist Asaph had similar problems. He looked on at the people around him, and found that the proud seemed to survive the catastrophes that he was facing. He had a good rant in Psalm 73, even confessing, “But as for me, I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone” (verse 2). In verse 11, the people even wondered, ““What does God know?” they ask. “Does the Most High even know what’s happening?”” Asaph’s depression deepened and he wrote, “Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason? I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain”. And then revelation finally came in verse 17, and he wrote, “Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked”. 

There was a time when Daniel had been praying and, after a time, had a visitation from the Angel Gabriel on the banks of the River Tigris. The figure of the Angel was terrifying, but he said to Daniel, “ … Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer” (Daniel 10:12). The next verse explained the reason for the delay, “But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia”. Sometimes we don’t know why God seems to have ears deaf to our prayers. Or why the answers take so long to come. 

Peter wrote, “The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers…” (1 Peter 3:12). Proverbs 15:29, “The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous”. We pilgrims are righteous in God’s sight because of Jesus, who died so our sins could be forgiven and we could receive His righteousness. So God hears our prayers, and in faith we believe that this is the case. So why does He seem to delay in answering them? There can be several reasons. Perhaps we have unconfessed sin that is blocking our prayer requests. Or perhaps God’s timing is different to our expectations, because He might have a better answer waiting for just the right time. Perhaps our motives are selfish. But whatever, I firmly believe that God answers “the fervent prayers of a righteous man”. His answers can be “Yes”, “No” or “Wait”. But answer he will. 

What are we pilgrims praying about this morning? Have faith that God has heard your prayer and, like Daniel, the answer will come in due time. In the meantime, however, we need to lift our eyes to Heaven and enter God’s sanctuary. Once in God’s presence, Asaph wrote, “Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever” (Psalm 73:25-26). And he finishes the Psalm, “But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do”. 

Dear Father God. Sometimes we pray for years, for a loved one to be saved, or someone we know to be healed from a long illness. But we know that You hear our prayers, and we wait patiently for Your answer. We repent of any barriers we erect in response to our impatience, and instead we, in faith, leave the issues to You and Your perfect ways. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

How God’s Discipline Shapes Our Journey

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Potter shaping a clay vessel on a spinning wheel

“Lord, in distress we searched for you. We prayed beneath the burden of your discipline. Just as a pregnant woman writhes and cries out in pain as she gives birth, so were we in your presence, Lord. We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world. But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!”
Isaiah 26:16-19 NLT

Discipline. Not a popular word; one that conjures up memories of detention at school, or, for those of more mature years, the thought of the tawse, a leather strap with split ends used in Scottish schools by a teacher to keep classroom order. For a child, some form of discipline is necessary to keep them on the “straight and narrow” path so that they know the difference between right and wrong and choose the former more often than the latter. “Why can’t I?” is a familiar wail from a child when refused permission to do something. But no one likes being told what to do. There is something within a human being that rebels against the very thought that what they want to do is unacceptable. Solomon’s proverbs contain many references to the right way, God’s way, of living, and he wrote them for a particular reason: “Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise. Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair” (Proverbs 1:2-3). It is fascinating that most of the proverbs he wrote still apply today. 

The Israelites were guilty of going their own way, ignoring the instructions God gave them for a long and fruitful life, as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy. Instead of worshipping God, they chose idols as a better bet. Instead of following His laws, they invented their own. And in Isaiah’s day, they were reaping the consequences of the evil seeds that they had sown. Whenever that happened, God allowed circumstances to build until the people turned back to Him. In Hebrews 12:5-6 we read, “And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child””. The Lord always intends to train His children to repent and turn back to Him when they have chosen to go their own way. He wants them to return to the path of life and blessing that He has provided for them. The Lord’s discipline is a loving action, not a punishment to make His loved ones “pay” for their sin. 

Isaiah then compares the pain of discipline to a woman’s pains as she prepares to give birth to her child. She cries out as each new contraction comes. Each breath brings more intense pain as the birth gets closer. Isaiah tells the Lord that the pain He has caused them is similar, growing greater with each new season of God’s discipline. Many believers are surprised by the thought that God disciplines His followers, His children. But God increases the painfulness of the discipline over time if His children don’t respond by repenting and turning back to Him. Israel’s distress grew with each passing day as they continued in their unfaithfulness to the Lord. Someone once said that if a believer doesn’t experience God’s discipline at some time in their lives, then they should go back to their roots in Him, back to the Cross, and start afresh with repentance for their sins. How many people sit in the pews each Sunday, going through the liturgical motions, singing the hymns, but not knowing the God they worship? Jesus said, “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter” (Matthew 7:21). It’s a scary thought that people who profess to be Christians will be turned away at the gates of Heaven. 

God’s discipline is there to ensure that His followers, pilgrims like you and me, do His will in every part of their lives. But God doesn’t demand we do His will just because He feels like it. Paul wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We have God’s Word, the Bible, to help us on our journeys through life, and we must read it to find the treasures contained therein. But not just read it. We must follow the precepts that God has put in there for a purpose. A Christian’s life starts at the Cross, but so many people seem to camp there, unable to move on in the journey to the Glory that awaits them one day. Salvation is often understood as a believer’s three-stage journey. Justification is the first, instantaneous stage where God declares a believer righteous and frees them from the penalty of sin. Sanctification (the ongoing process of holiness) and glorification (the final eternal state) follow. God’s discipline is there to keep us on the narrow way to life. Jesus said, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow, and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). 

But we have a loving Heavenly Father who cares for us. He doesn’t want us to divert onto the wrong road and miss out on the eternal life He has promised us. So He disciplines us when necessary. What form does His discipline take? Well, there are many. For example, we can experience a deep loss of inner peace, a heavy conscience, or a restless spirit. Difficulties at work, instability at home, or strained relationships may force a person to re-evaluate their choices. Sometimes God will allow people to experience the natural, painful fallout of their own poor decisions or sinful actions. In extreme situations, His discipline might come through rebukes, advice, or confrontation from fellow believers or our pastors. But through it all, there is one place we need to go when things are not as they should be, and that is into God’s presence. On our knees we pray for direction and help in dealing with our problems. A good prayer to start with we find in Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. God will never refuse such a prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father. You discipline us when we need discipline. You encourage us when we need encouragement. But in everything You do, it is because You love us. On our knees before You today, we pray David’s prayer that You search our hearts for anything that shouldn’t be there. We want to be pure and holy as You require, and continue on our Heavenly journey, day by day. Amen.