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 them. It will be well-watered with His love and grace, and He will watch over it, day and night. In the 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 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.

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.

The Choice Between Two Masters: God or the Devil

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“O Lord our God, others have ruled us, but you alone are the one we worship. Those we served before are dead and gone. Their departed spirits will never return! You attacked them and destroyed them, and they are long forgotten. O Lord, you have made our nation great; yes, you have made us great. You have extended our borders, and we give you the glory!”
Isaiah 26:13-15 NLT

We cannot go far in this life without, sooner or later, finding that we have to answer to someone. As soon as a child is old enough to understand, they have to answer to their parents. At school, they answer to a teacher. Then, as a teenager, they might find that a policeman isn’t too impressed by their behaviour. In a workplace, an employer will tell them what to do. When they’re sick, a nurse or doctor will provide advice, quite strongly if necessary. Someone receiving benefits has to answer to the government agency to keep receiving them. The list goes on. But in a spiritual sense, there are two masters: one we pilgrims know well, God Himself, and it is a joy to be able to serve Him. The other is the devil, whom most inhabitants in the UK follow, although they would probably deny it. As Bob Dylan wrote, “But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed / You’re gonna have to serve somebody / Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord / But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”. 

Isaiah wrote, “O Lord our God, others have ruled us, but you alone are the one we worship”. The Israelites had many different rulers, as we can read in the Book of Judges. In this Bible book, we find that time and again, the Israelites “did evil in the Lord’s sight” and found that judgement soon followed, with foreign nations overpowering their nation. In Judges 4, we find the story of a Canaanite king, Sisera, who “ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years”. Then two chapters on, we find, “The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years” (Judges 6:1). Then on another occasion, “Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They served the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia. They abandoned the Lord and no longer served him at all. So the Lord burned with anger against Israel, and he turned them over to the Philistines and the Ammonites, who began to oppress them that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites east of the Jordan River in the land of the Amorites (that is, in Gilead)” (Judges 10:6-8). As we read further, we find the story of Samson and the Philistines, with the same pattern continuing.

So when Isaiah wrote, “others have ruled us”, he wasn’t wrong, and in his days, the threat was from Babylon and the cruel and unstoppable Assyrian army. But Isaiah could see a day coming when “those we served before are dead and gone”, and he celebrated the time when the Lord would make the nation of the Jews great again. Any student of history could see that even though the Israelites sinned and were subject to a foreign ruler for a time, the Lord saved them. This happened frequently, and even in Jesus’ time, the Romans were the occupying force, with the Jews subject to their rule. Today, the nation of Israel is self-ruling once again, although the land they live in is a fraction of what God promised them through Abraham. Will we one day see their border expanded as Isaiah prophesied? 

We pilgrims were once ruled by a power that Jesus destroyed on the Cross at Calvary. Hebrews 2:14-15, “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying”. Colossians 2:15, “In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross”. We were once ruled by the enemy of God, the devil, and we served him without realising it. Think of the lives we lived and the sins we committed. Think of the ways we offended God through our actions, our speech and our thoughts. But Jesus came to set us free from all that and through God’s grace, we are free indeed. 

But we pilgrims are soldiers on the front line of the battle between God and the devil. We are harassed and attacked on many fronts, but mostly in our minds. Paul wrote, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). A spiritual battle continues to rage, but we know that we are on the winning side. So we equip ourselves for the battles ahead with all of God’s armour, assured of the Lord’s support in the difficult times. Yes, we will occasionally fall, but God is quick to forgive, and He picks us up and dusts us off before sending us back to the conflict. And all the while we are being sanctified, made holy for the day when we will find ourselves in Heaven in God’s presence. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever”. 

Yes, one day we will see the greatness and glory of God shine out in a world where the devil is no more. Isaiah could see it. Can we? A few days ago, we delved into Psalm 73 and found how the Psalmist found his way back into God’s presence. Too often, we pilgrims fail to lift our gazes in a Heavenly direction. But we have read the end of the Book, and we know what will happen. We don’t know when, but what we do know is that God will keep His promises. But we are not a people who are “too Heavenly minded to be of any earthly good”. We pilgrims are a people who bring the message of our hope in God into the lives of our friends and families, those who are otherwise heading to the wrong place. We are the means by which Heaven will touch earth. In the Lord’s prayer, we pray for God’s Kingdom to come and for His will to be done. Do we think we can just sit back and wait for God to do something through some divine process? I suspect this process involves willing and able servants like us, serving as His hands and feet. So what has God asked us to do today? Come to that, have we asked Him? Hmmm..

Dear Father God. We reach out to You this morning in prayer, asking for the next assignment You have for us. We pray for willing ears to hear what You have to say, and for grace and compassion to equip us as we obediently do Your will in the lives of those around us. And above all, we thank You for Jesus and all that He has done for us, bringing Your Kingdom into our lives. We pray in Your name. Amen.

God’s Sovereignty: Understanding Tyre’s Judgment in History

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“This message came to me concerning Tyre: Wail, you trading ships of Tarshish, for the harbour and houses of Tyre are gone! The rumours you heard in Cyprus are all true. … The Lord held out his hand over the sea and shook the kingdoms of the earth. He has spoken out against Phoenicia, ordering that her fortresses be destroyed. He says, “Never again will you rejoice, O daughter of Sidon, for you have been crushed. Even if you flee to Cyprus, you will find no rest.” Look at the land of Babylonia— the people of that land are gone! The Assyrians have handed Babylon over to the wild animals of the desert. They have built siege ramps against its walls, torn down its palaces, and turned it to a heap of rubble. Wail, you ships of Tarshish, for your harbour is destroyed!
Isaiah 23:1, 11-14 NLT

In this oracle written against Tyre, the ancient Phoenician trading port located just South of Beirut, God’s presence was clear. In the natural, and without any sort of divine intervention, they would probably have continued to trade for many years, sinfully plying their maritime businesses from a city that was nearly impregnable, located as it was partially on an offshore island. But their pride was their downfall, and eventually God had to act in judgment, as we read in Isaiah 23:8-9, “Who has brought this disaster on Tyre, that great creator of kingdoms? Her traders were all princes, her merchants were nobles. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has done it to destroy your pride and bring low all earth’s nobility”. But did God’s intervention apply in all the wars and skirmishes that took place in Old Testament times? The Israelites entered the Promised Land of Canaan, driving out the people who lived there, but they found no peace, as one nation after another fought them for land or plain hatred. But God couldn’t allow Tyre to continue because it was starting to use its economic strength to plunder the nations around it, and particularly God’s people. 

Ancient Tyre experienced something like the Wall Street crash of 1929, when the market collapsed almost overnight, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1929, the stock market collapsed due to poor financial decisions and over-inflated share prices. Tyre experienced something similar with the collapse of its commerce. It relied on its immense economic power, its status as a maritime superpower, and its mighty sea fortresses to act with pride and arrogance, treating its renowned merchants like princes and forgetting God’s ultimate sovereignty.

We pilgrims live in a world driven and underpinned by capitalism. Nations trade with one another. Businesses buy and sell. But the message from Tyre is that capitalism on its own is a poor foundation for mankind’s future. The stock market can crash, and businesses can crash with it. Currencies can collapse, destroying buying power and bringing hardship over which ordinary people have no influence or control. Closer to home, we occasionally see houses lose value, putting the owners into what we call negative equity, where they are unable to realise sufficient value from their investments to repay the loans taken out to purchase the property in the first place. And then to compound the problems, health can be impacted, bringing uncertainty and misery in more extreme cases. But in all of this, we have a God who is unchangeable and who is immune to human systems and market crashes. Paul gave Timothy some great advice: “Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life” (1 Timothy 6:17-19). Regarding the future, the only sure and solid foundation is Jesus Himself. He never changes and is “… the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). 

One repeated emphasis throughout Isaiah is God’s rule over history. To their merchants, Tyre looked untouchable, but God simply announced its fall. And we know from history, and the ruins that we can see today, that what He said happened. The time we live in today is politically uncertain, with a war going on between the US, Israel, and Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. Ever since it was established in 1948, Israel has been under attack from one source or another. Anti-Semitism is an ongoing problem in many nations. And then we have the war going on in the Eastern borders of Europe, and now in its fifth year. But these are just the headline conflicts. There are many other skirmishes going on as nations rise and fall, and leaders come and go. We could be tempted to think that God doesn’t care, but the story of Tyre says otherwise. God is always active in world events, and He will act when necessary because he is sovereign. For us pilgrims, we trust in Him, and we agree with Paul about what he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:18, “Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen”. The Psalmist wrote, “The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever” (Psalm 121:7-8). And of immense comfort to believers everywhere is Psalm 46:8-10, “Come, see the glorious works of the Lord: See how he brings destruction upon the world. He causes wars to end throughout the earth. He breaks the bow and snaps the spear; he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honoured by every nation. I will be honoured throughout the world””. There will come a time when all wars will end, and many believers, looking at today’s world events, feel that this won’t be far off. 

We pilgrims rest in God’s loving arms, secure and trusting that He will bring us safely home. Isaiah 26:4-5, “Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock. He humbles the proud and brings down the arrogant city. He brings it down to the dust”. There may be much dust in the world around us, but we stand firm on the solid Rock, God Himself. No dust there.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your presence in our lives. In these uncertain times, we look to You as the Source of all that we need, confident in our salvation, and sure that one day You will welcome us home. Thank You. Amen.

Isaiah’s Warning: Tyre’s Pride and Its Consequences

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Jeweled crown on stone pedestal with wooden scepter in ruined stone building

“This message came to me concerning Tyre: Wail, you trading ships of Tarshish, for the harbour and houses of Tyre are gone! The rumours you heard in Cyprus are all true. Who has brought this disaster on Tyre, that great creator of kingdoms? Her traders were all princes, her merchants were nobles. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has done it to destroy your pride and bring low all earth’s nobility. Come, people of Tarshish, sweep over the land like the flooding Nile, for Tyre is defenceless.”
Isaiah 23:1, 8-10 NLT

Isaiah 23 is an oracle against Tyre, the great Phoenician trading city. Tyre was the wealthiest commercial city of the ancient world and was built partly on an offshore island, making it almost impregnable. It was famous for shipping, trade, cedar wood, purple dye, and international commerce, and was closely linked with Israel during the reigns of David and Solomon (1 Kings 5). It later became proud, wealthy and spiritually corrupt. It is believed that Isaiah wrote this prophecy about 700 BC, and it was fulfilled during several sieges, the first when Shalmaneser V and Sargon II pressured Tyre in the 8th century BC. Then Nebuchadnezzar came along and besieged Tyre for thirteen years (586–573 BC), as we can read in Ezekiel 26, but it was Alexander the Great who finally conquered the island city in 332 BC by building a causeway to it. But why did such a magnificent city, the focus of Isaiah’s oracle, fall? Today, the ancient city of Tyre lies in ruins in Sour, Lebanon, about 83 kilometres south of Beirut. It is still accessible by the causeway built by Alexander.

The downfall of Tyre was due to God’s judgment for its pride, a theme common to these early chapters of Isaiah. There is something about the sin of pride that God detests, and we can see His judgment in Isaiah 23:9, “The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has done it to destroy your pride and bring low all earth’s nobility”. In its pride, Tyre believed that wealth guaranteed security, influence guaranteed permanence, and success guaranteed significance, but the Lord declared otherwise. In Proverbs 16:5, we read, “The Lord detests the proud; they will surely be punished”. Further down the page, we read the proverb, “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud” (Proverbs 16:18-19). James quotes another proverb in James 4:6, “And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’”. 

In Luke 18, we read the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus addressed this parable to “some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else” (Luke 18:9). Who were these people? The description fits the Pharisees very well and the parable commences, “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector” (Luke 18:10). We can read the arrogance in the Pharisee’s prayer, as he thanked God that he was not like other people, especially the tax collector who was praying “at a distance” and not even daring to lift his eyes to Heaven. But Jesus concluded His parable with, “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:14). 

In Matthew 23:12, Jesus said, “But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted”, and this principle is clearly demonstrated by the life of Belshazzar, which we can read about in Daniel 5. We all know the story, I’m sure, of when King Belshazzar was giving a great feast for 1000 of his nobles, and to accommodate the wine, he used the gold and silver goblets that had been taken from the Temple in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. But then we read, “Suddenly, they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king’s palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote,” (Daniel 5:5). With his knees knocking together in fear, the king called for his motley crew of astrologers to interpret what the writing said. They failed, and eventually, at his mother’s prompting, the king called for Daniel, who began by reminding Belshazzar of what happened to his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 5:20, “But when his heart and mind were puffed up with arrogance, he was brought down from his royal throne and stripped of his glory”. Then Daniel delivered the coup de grace, with “You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself. For you have proudly defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honoured the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny!” (Daniel 5:22-23). It didn’t end well for Belshazzar, as the story ends in Daniel 5:30, “That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was killed”. 

We should note that God is not opposed to success, but He is opposed to pride and self-sufficiency. Pride slowly engulfs us with attitudes such as “I built this”, or “I earned this”, things that can develop into the person thinking that they don’t need God at all. The inhabitants of Tyre eventually considered their city a monument to human achievement, which made it the focus of divine humbling. People throughout history, and even today, have found that God often removes the things they trust in, often bringing them down to earth with quite a bump. 

Pride is quite a common attribute among people in our societies today. In a culture focused on achievement, God has been forgotten, and people have generally become puffed up with pride and arrogance. Perhaps a person happened to meet a film star or another prominent person and bragged about it, full of pride. Perhaps a person achieved a degree at University and put their success down to their hard work. But God’s gift of intelligence never figures in their boasting. Even we pilgrims can fall into the trap of bragging about our prowess in our gardens or kitchens, our jobs or qualifications, our abilities in fishing or on the golf course, or even our ability to write blogs and books. We constantly need to humble ourselves before God, pointing to Him as the Author and Finisher of our faith, and the One who has given us so many good gifts. So perhaps a little self-examination is appropriate today, as we thank God for His grace and favour, giving Him all the praise and all the glory.

Dear Father God. Our success in life is all down to You and Your grace working out in our lives. There is nothing we can claim to be able to do or achieve without You being there behind it. Thank You. Amen.

Times of Trouble and Finding Security in God

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“This message came to me the year King Ahaz died: Do not rejoice, you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken— that the king who attacked you is dead. For from that snake a more poisonous snake will be born, a fiery serpent to destroy you! I will feed the poor in my pasture; the needy will lie down in peace. But as for you, I will wipe you out with famine and destroy the few who remain. Wail at the gates! Weep in the cities! Melt with fear, you Philistines! A powerful army comes like smoke from the north. Each soldier rushes forward eager to fight. What should we tell the Philistine messengers? Tell them, “The Lord has built Jerusalem; its walls will give refuge to his oppressed people.””
Isaiah 14:28-32 NLT

The first question today is “Who was King Ahaz”? Well, he reigned in Judah from 735 to 715 BC and was the 12th King of Judah. He is remembered for his disastrous alliance with the Assyrian Empire and deep involvement in idolatry, which brought heavy tributes and foreign religious practices into Jerusalem. The account of what happened during his reign can be found in 2 Chronicles 28. But it is worth noting that he abandoned true worship of God and added to it worship based on Baal, following the example of Israel’s kings. Somehow, the worship of God became integrated with the worship of Baal, and, faced with agricultural realities in Canaan, the Jews adopted Baal, the local storm and fertility god, as a rain-giver. They viewed Yahweh as the national covenant God, and Baal as a functional deity, often worshipping them side-by-side at local “high places”, a process referred to as syncretism. A really sad situation, but then we remember that we pilgrims live in a country where the national religion, Christianity, is being sidelined more and more by secularism and the introduction of other religions, such as Islam, through immigration. The worship of God in Judah and Israel was integrated with idol worship, and the merger resulted in death, destruction and exile for the Jews. Today, even the Bible-based worship of God is being diluted in some denominations by the introduction of secular and societal customs (idols and ideologies) that directly contradict the Word of God, and, as in the days of King Ahaz, it will not end well. We even find the abomination of occasional “multi-faith” worship services that include religious leaders from other religions sharing the platform with Christians. Christians today tend to believe that the Old Testament judgments on Jewish societies will not recur in modern times under the New Covenant, but such complacency may be ill-founded. We cannot ignore the prophecies in Revelation, because the plagues John described may occur sooner than we think. Jesus said that He was coming “soon”, but we don’t know how soon “soon” will be.

But what else can we find in our verses today? Isaiah wrote, “The Lord has built Jerusalem; its walls will give refuge to his oppressed people”. When trouble comes, our natural instinct is to look for a safe place. We may seek security in our finances, our health, our family, our abilities, or the people around us. Nations seek security in political alliances, military strength, and powerful leaders. Yet Isaiah reminds us that none of these things can provide lasting security.

The Philistines were rejoicing because the king who had oppressed them was dead. This king was Uzziah, whom Isaiah wrote about in chapter 6. King Uzziah had previously struck down the Philistines and broken down the walls of major cities such as Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod (see 2 Chronicles 26). The Philistines thought the danger had passed. But Isaiah warned them not to celebrate too quickly. One threat would be replaced by another. It was likely that this would be the Assyrians or perhaps King Hezekiah of Judah. Their confidence was misplaced because they were looking at changing circumstances rather than at the sovereign purposes of God.

How often do we do the same? We think that if one particular problem disappears, everything will be well. If our circumstances improve, our health improves, our finances become more secure, or a difficult situation is resolved, then we will finally have peace. But circumstances change. One problem may disappear only for another to take its place. Human strength fails. Political powers rise and fall. Financial security can disappear. Health can change. Even the people we depend upon cannot always be there for us. Isaiah points us towards something far more secure: “The Lord has built Jerusalem; its walls will give refuge to his oppressed people”. The security of God’s people did not ultimately depend upon kings, armies, alliances, or favourable circumstances. Their security rested in the Lord. And the same is true for us pilgrims today. Our greatest security is not found in the absence of trouble but in the presence of God.

Jesus never promised His followers a trouble-free life. In fact, He said: “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Our confidence is not that nothing difficult will ever happen to us. Our confidence is that whatever happens, we belong to the Lord, because He is our refuge. When circumstances are uncertain, He remains faithful. When people disappoint us, He remains trustworthy. When our strength fails, His strength remains sufficient. When the future is unclear, His purposes remain secure.

The Philistines placed their hope in changing political circumstances. God’s people were called to place their hope in the unchanging character of the Lord. Perhaps today we pilgrims are facing uncertainty. We may be wondering what the future holds or how a particular situation will work out. Isaiah’s message is simple but powerful: Do not build your security on circumstances that can change. Build your life upon the God who never changes. 

The Psalmist wrote, “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!” (Psalm 46:1-3). The safest place in an uncertain world is not a life without problems. It is a life hidden in God.

Dear Heavenly Father. Please forgive us for the times when we place our security in people, possessions, circumstances, or our own strength. Help us to remember that You alone are our true refuge. When life is uncertain and the future is unclear, teach us to trust in Your faithfulness and rest in Your sovereign care. Thank You, that whatever we face, we belong to You, and we are safe in Your hands. Amen.

Podcast Episode: Isaiah 5 Judgement And Woes

Posted on by Adrian Clark

Pip: There is something quietly relentless about the book of Isaiah — it keeps finding us wherever we are, even in the twenty-first century, still doing roughly the same things the people of Judah were doing in 700 BC.

Mara: Adrian Clark has been working through Isaiah 5 this week, and the posts cover territory that stays uncomfortably relevant: divine justice and what it demands of us, and the specific catalogue of sins Isaiah names as woes against his own society.

Pip: Let's start with the justice side of things — what righteousness actually means, and what happens when it runs out.

Judgement and divine justice in Isaiah 5

Mara: The central question here is what God's justice looks like when it finally arrives — and what it requires of people in the meantime.

Pip: The post on Isaiah 5 opens with a passage that sets the stakes plainly. The verse reads: "Humanity will be destroyed, and people brought down; even the arrogant will lower their eyes in humiliation. But the Lord of Heaven's Armies will be exalted by his justice. The holiness of God will be displayed by his righteousness."

Mara: What that means in practice is that the wealth and revelry of Judah's ruling class had a shelf life. Historical record confirms it — foreign invaders entered, the land was emptied, and the partying stopped. Pride gave way to humility, not as a spiritual exercise but as a consequence.

Pip: And the post is careful to define what righteousness actually is, not just what it punishes. It draws in Micah 6:8 — "to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God" — and Proverbs 21:3, which puts righteous action above religious ritual.

Mara: The follow-up post, "The Judgment to Come," extends the same argument into the present tense. It quotes Isaiah 5:24-25, with its images of fire consuming straw and mountains shaking, and connects that to Jesus's words in Matthew 24 — that no one knows the day or hour, but the call to keep watch stands.

Pip: The remnant thread is what gives it shape. Jeremiah, offered safe passage to Babylon, chose to stay with those left behind. That choice frames the question put to readers directly: are we warning our generation, or are we huddled quietly in the pews?

Mara: The post puts it this way — pilgrims today are effectively that remnant, the faithful lineage through which restoration moves forward. The responsibility that comes with that is not passive.

Pip: Which brings us neatly to what, exactly, the people of Judah were actually doing that warranted all this.

The six woes: a catalogue of sinful living

Mara: Isaiah 5 doesn't just pronounce judgment in the abstract — it names specific behaviours, and the post on the six woes works through each one.

Pip: The anchor passage covers several of them at once: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

Mara: That inversion of moral categories is the one the post treats as most urgent for today — the point where a society stops being confused and starts actively recategorising what God condemns as acceptable, and what God approves as ridiculous.

Pip: The post on hedonism in Isaiah 5 fills in the social backdrop — wealthy people in Jerusalem who had turned drinking and pleasure into a full-time occupation, from early morning to late at night, to the point where they simply stopped noticing God at all.

Mara: And the six woes post ties the alcohol culture directly to injustice: those who are "champions at mixing drinks" end up acquitting the guilty for a bribe and denying justice to the innocent. Excess and corruption travel together.

Pip: Paul's line from Romans 12:2 gets the last word — don't let the world squeeze you into its mould. The J.B. Phillips version is the one quoted: "let God re-mould your minds from within."

Mara: Righteousness as a daily practice, judgment as a present reality, and a faithful remnant called to be visible — that's the thread running through all of it.

Pip: Isaiah was writing to people who couldn't see what was coming. The question for next time is whether we're any better at looking up.

Understanding Righteousness in Isaiah 5

Posted on by Adrian Clark
A large tree glowing with warm golden lights in a meadow at twilight with a crescent moon and starry sky

“Humanity will be destroyed, and people brought down; even the arrogant will lower their eyes in humiliation. But the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will be exalted by his justice. The holiness of God will be displayed by his righteousness. In that day lambs will find good pastures, and fattened sheep and young goats will feed among the ruins.”
Isaiah 5:15-17 NLT

Isaiah wrote about a time coming when “humanity will be destroyed”. Such an event must have seemed a long way off for the rich and partying people in Judah. People who were rich landowners were made richer by the misfortune of their poorer neighbours, who were forced to sell up in their poverty. People who had no concern for God and His ways, having abandoned their part of the Covenant God had made with them. So what was going to happen to them? We know from historical evidence that foreign invaders entered their land, and those who were not killed were taken away into exile. Their pride and arrogance were replaced by humility. What happened to their wealth and partying then, as they discovered that God was real and was seeking justice? Earlier in Isaiah 5 we read, “But I have heard the Lord of Heaven’s Armies swear a solemn oath: “Many houses will stand deserted; even beautiful mansions will be empty” (Isaiah 5:9). In those days, the sins of rebellion against God, idolatry, injustice, oppression of the poor, and so on were the signs of a ticking clock, counting down the time to when God would finally act, bringing justice, holiness and righteousness back to the land he had given His people. 

Righteousness is a character trait that reflects what God desires from His people. Righteousness is defined as being morally right, and synonyms include goodness, uprightness, morality, integrity and honesty. That is who God is, and He demands that everything we think or do is founded on righteousness. In Micah 6:8 we read, “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”. Proverbs 21:3 reads, “The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just than when we offer him sacrifices”. And of course we mustn’t ignore the role the Bible has when we look for help about righteousness: 2 Timothy 3:16, “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”. 

Righteousness is something that we have to work at and apply in every part of our lives. When we do what is right, we are aligning ourselves to God’s way. 1 John 2:29, “Since we know that Christ is righteous, we also know that all who do what is right are God’s children”. Early on in the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).Other translations use the word “justice” instead of “righteousness”, and the two meanings can be synonymous. And those who find a life filled and directed by the pursuit of righteousness will find a reward. Matthew 13:43, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear”. 

Are we pilgrims “shining like the sun” in our families and communities? I’m sure we are, as we stand in our sinful world, displaying and upholding God’s righteousness and justice. Isaiah 5:17, the last of our three verses today, reads, “Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich”. After God’s justice was applied to Judah, the land quietened. No sounds of music and drunken partying. No revelry and debauchery. Just peace and tranquillity, as once again the land returned to God’s ways. I’m sure there were a few righteous people left in the land to tend the sheep and set the scene for a future, aligned to God and His ways.

Dear Heavenly Father. You require Your people to seek righteousness and justice. We commit ourselves to that today and look to You as the Source of all we are. Amen.

Judgment Day: Lessons from Isaiah’s Warning to Israel

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Israel is full of silver and gold; there is no end to its treasures. Their land is full of warhorses; there is no end to its chariots. Their land is full of idols; the people worship things they have made with their own hands. So now they will be humbled, and all will be brought low— do not forgive them. Crawl into caves in the rocks. Hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty. Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the Lord will be exalted on that day of judgment.”
Isaiah 2:7-11 NLT

Isaiah’s prophecy continues with a statement about the materialistic nation that Israel had become. Silver and gold, and treasure reveal that prosperity abounds, and they lack nothing. Warhorses and chariots define a nation that relies more on its own abilities than on God. Such a military buildup was forbidden by God, as we read in Deuteronomy 17:16, “The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You must never return to Egypt’”. The plethora of idols, handmade figures that skewed and violated their desire to worship, sealed the fate of the people. Of course, such idolatry is still alive and well today, with people worshipping their own achievements, ingenuity, and cultural creations instead of the Creator, and that includes even Christians. 

But there is a time of payback coming, Isaiah warned. The “people” include all levels of the Israelite society, and none will escape the judgement that is to come. Pride and arrogance displayed by the people through their materialism and military might will disappear and will be replaced by humility, fear and terror, as the Lord and His glory appear on “that day of judgement”. 

Isaiah’s prophecy preceded the demise of Judah in 586 BC, and the people were exiled to a foreign land, Babylonia. The exile took place in three waves, the first in 605 BC, when royal hostages, including Daniel, were exiled. The second wave took place in 597 BC, when thousands of skilled craftsmen were removed from Judah. Finally, in 586 BC, the remaining people were exiled, and the temple was destroyed by the invading army. They could never say that they had received no warning! What happened to their silver, gold and treasure? Or their warhorses and chariots? Or even their idols? None of them mattered in a foreign land, where they mourned the loss of their native land. Psalm 137:1-2, 4, “Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem. We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees. … But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?” A bit late to mourn what they had lost?

Under the Mosaic covenant, God’s judgement took place within a generation or two, but in the New Covenant judgement will be before a Great White Throne at a time we call “the Day of the Lord”. But the warning in Isaiah’s prophecy still stands today. Pride, arrogance and idolatry will one day be judged, and God will deal with such sins in accordance with His Word. The Israelites were humbled by their experience of exile, and they tried to hide in the dust and amongst the rocks, hoping to avoid what was about to happen to them, as the fear and terror of the Lord overwhelmed them. In Revelation 6:15-17 we read, “Then everyone—the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to survive?’” A time of terror where none escaped “from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty”. 

 Isaiah concluded our verses today with, “Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the Lord will be exalted on that day of judgment”. This verse hangs over time as a stark warning that humanity will come to nothing in the face of the Lord’s judgement. Every great man and woman on earth may try to present their wonderful and creative exploits before God, but they will be of no consequence, because one day “…  at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). 

The Apostle James wrote, “… As the Scriptures say, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. … Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honour” (James 4:6-7, 10). We pilgrims must always evaluate ourselves, asking God to shine His light into our very souls. And then we must deal with any pride and arrogance that we find there. There is no other way.

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for Your grace and patience. We have a tendency to rely on our own abilities instead of on You. Please forgive us, we pray, and teach us Your ways, day by day. Amen.

Walking in the Light: Lessons from Isaiah 2

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord! For the Lord has rejected his people, the descendants of Jacob, because they have filled their land with practices from the East and with sorcerers, as the Philistines do. They have made alliances with pagans.”
Isaiah 2:5-6 NLT

Following an invitation for the “descendants of Jacob” to “walk in the light of the Lord”, we find about their parlous state because the Lord has rejected them. Why is that? Because they have “filled their land with practices from the East and with sorcerers”. And the reason for the Lord’s rejection of them? Because “They have made alliances with pagans”. The Jews were supposed to be a nation set apart and holy for the Lord. God had provided them with instructions for how they must live under the Mosaic Law, and He made a covenant with them to ensure their prosperity as a nation. God promised them a land that extended all the way from the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates river, as the Lord promised Joshua, “I promise you what I promised Moses: ‘Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you— from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, including all the land of the Hittites’” (Joshua 1:3-4). The exact boundaries encompass all or parts of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, so Israel today only possesses about 10% of the land that God promised them. And they lost it all at various times in history due to their continual rebellion against the Lord.

Isaiah was one of several (many?) prophets who emerged in history to warn the Jews about the consequences of their idolatry and sin, and here he presented another prophetic vision, warning the people that, because of their behaviour, the Lord had rejected them. Was God’s rejection of His people permanent? No, as we see time and again how He continued to fulfil His part of the covenant that he had made with them. Over successive generations, it seemed as though one would return to God only for the next to lapse into sin and rebellion against the Lord.

What can we pilgrims learn from all this today, if anything? We live in the days of the New Covenant, which is the promise that God will forgive sin and restore fellowship with those whose hearts are turned toward Him. Jesus Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, and His death on the cross is the basis of the promise. Jeremiah prophesied about the New Covenant 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”. But regardless of living in the new, there is still a place for sin, rebellion and idolatry. The same choice facing the Jews is facing us today. The difference is that God has delayed judgement until a future time rather than bringing about immediate calamities, such as punishments from the peoples and nations around them. 

Of course, there are people today who claim that certain human ailments or national disasters are the result of rebellion or disobedience to God’s precepts, such as the AIDS or Covid epidemics, or floods and earthquakes, but I’m not so sure. His grace prevails, as Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent”. So there is an opportunity for all to repent of their sins even with their dying breaths. But one day there will be a time of judgement and people will face the eternal consequences of their sins. 

But the main takeaway from Isaiah 2 must be that God will reject those who fail to follow His ways. Does that include those who once had a relationship with Him, but who have subsequently turned their backs on Him and returned to their lives of sin and rebellion? Some would say, “once saved always saved” but in Hebrews 6:4-6 we read, “For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame”. This is perhaps a sober reminder that we pilgrims must stay the course and complete our journey with Jesus. Yes, we will have times of doubts and difficulties. Yes, we may even lapse into times of sin. But God is patient and kind, and He sees the end from the beginning. We grow under God’s grace and produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives day by day, always in the light of God who helps us every step of the way.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your grace and mercy. Please forgive us for our waywardness and tendency to drift into places where we shouldn’t be. We declare again, “I have decided to follow Jesus”. Amen.