The Lord Will Come

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine. You will enlarge the nation of Israel, and its people will rejoice. They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest and like warriors dividing the plunder. For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian. The boots of the warrior and the uniforms, bloodstained by war, will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire.”
Isaiah 9:2-5 NLT

Isaiah’s prophecy brought light into a dark nation, hope to a people who were hopeless in their outlook, and victory when only defeat and slavery could be anticipated. In a time when only sadness and depression were possible emotions, something would happen to bring joy and hope, celebration rather than mourning. As the Assyrians overran Israel and Judah, did the Jews remember what Isaiah had said, or did they succumb to their fate, going to their graves or into exile, thinking that God didn’t care for them, if they even thought of Him at all? A long period of darkness was about to envelop the sons of Jacob, their tribes and nation, but God had a plan that would turn around their distress, and “Galilee of the Gentiles … will be filled with glory. 

How long would it be before the “great light” would be seen? Isaiah neither knew nor said, but God knew. And we, with the benefit of hindsight, can see that it was seven hundred years or more before Jesus came. For the Jews, before that eventful day, there were four hundred years with no prophetic voice, a silence as God brought into being His plan for the salvation of mankind. In those four hundred years, between the Old and New Testaments, God did not speak, and no books or prophetic words were recorded. The Old Testament closed with two verses from Malachi, “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6). This was written about 430 BC, and what followed was a time of instability as one nation, after another, overpowered the Jews and occupied their land. But the Jewish people never forgot the prophecy that Elijah was coming to prepare the way of the Lord. 

John the Baptist emerged from the shadows “to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony” (John 1:7). John was asked by the Jewish leaders, ““Well then, who are you?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?” “No,” he replied. “Are you the Prophet we are expecting?” “No”” (John 1:21). A contradictory response, I’m sure we agree, because John fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy, but the Jews were expecting a literal Elijah, risen from the dead, whereas John “.. will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom of the godly” (John 1:17). About John, Jesus said, “The prophets wrote about Elijah. They said he would come again, to prepare for the Messiah. They were writing about John, and you should believe their message” (Matthew 11:14). 

But Jesus came as the “great light”, bringing a new world, a New Covenant, and one that has brought rejoicing to the people. No longer would God’s people be burdened and enslaved. No more “yokes of slavery”. No more “heavy burdens”. The “nation of Israel” was enlarged with the salvation of the Gentiles, and today it is estimated that a third of the global population is Christian. But in Isaiah’s prophecy, there is fulfilment of more to come, because Jesus will come a second time “to strike down the nations” who have risen up against Him (Revelation 19). 

We pilgrims, Gentiles saved by grace, have read to the end of the book, and we know what is coming. One day, there will be a new Heaven and Earth, and God will come to live with His people. Are we ready?

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your loving kindness, patience and grace. Jesus came to this world and transformed humanity forever, bringing light into a dark place. Thank You. Amen.

How to Overcome Spiritual Darkness with God’s Truth

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Golden sunbeam streaming through a ceiling opening onto old stone floor in a dim room

“Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark. They will go from one place to another, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rage and curse their king and their God. They will look up to heaven and down at the earth, but wherever they look, there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. They will be thrown out into the darkness.”
Isaiah 8:20-22 NLT

If a person walks into a room at night, there is no light there. So, they look for the light switch and turn it on. Simple, really, in our modern days. Not so long ago, the equivalent would have been a candle or an oil lamp, but any action to introduce light into a dark place involves two things. An understanding that there is darkness, but with a remedy, and then the application of an action to introduce light. But it seems that in Isaiah’s day, people were “in the dark” about what was happening to their nation and about God’s role and remedy. Instead of asking Him, however, they headed for the mediums and necromancers to obtain an answer. To return to our earlier analogy, the person entering the dark room would understand that they were in a dark place, but instead of turning on the light, they had forgotten what they needed to do to illuminate the room. And they would then have started asking other people, equally “in the dark,” for a solution, even to the point of seeking out dark and demonic spirits to see if they knew anything. Perhaps the person looking for a remedy to the darkness only had a very dim memory of a light switch, or had even completely forgotten what it was, and instead of asking the owner of the house how to illuminate the room, they started to ask other sources, such as the internet, Google, or even ChatGPT, for a solution. A very simple analogy, I know, but it illustrates that the people, God’s people at that, had forgotten that God was there for them, with an answer to their darkness. 

The problem was not that God is hiding the truth by keeping them “in the dark”. It was that His people would not receive it. In other words, Isaiah said that those who will not hear the revealed word of God live in darkness. They rejected the light, and the light did not come. The day of their understanding of the truth never dawned. Paul picked up this theme in Romans 1:18-20. He wrote, “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. Ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God”. We pilgrims all know the tendency that people have to reject God and His ways, despite all the evidence. Paul pointed out that there is much evidence for God in the natural world, and so there is. Even atheistic scientists admit that the Earth is located, in stellar terms, in what they have called the “Goldilocks Zone”. The conditions for human life are precisely established: the right temperature for water to be a liquid, the right amount of gravity, the right amount of oxygen, the right amount of light, and so on. That all that happened by accident beggars belief, and yet “sinful, wicked people [have suppressed] the truth by their wickedness”. The same problem exists today just as it did in Isaiah’s day. To believe God and His “instructions and teachings” and, consequently, the truth about their existence, means that people will have to abandon their sin and live their lives God’s way.

The modern equivalent of the consultation of mediums and necromancers is a plethora of self-devised theories and explanations, such as evolution, big-bang theories and so on, all designed to replace God and His creation with a pack of lies. Sadly, just as in Isaiah’s day, the lies are propagated into lifestyles that deny God, and all sorts of social and religious error have crept in and corrupted our nation. 

Isaiah prophesied that people would become hungry. Not for food but for the truth. Starvation would come later. We see a parallel in today’s society: it has permitted Godless laws and practices, and people have started to rage at each other because of their different beliefs and ideologies, and because they are all wandering around “in the dark”. Social cohesion has become a forgotten light switch in a Godless nation. People have been starved of the truth about God and even effectively rage against Him in their ignorance. And our churches and denominations, who should be the arbiters of God’s truth, have largely failed in their mission. But there is hope, just as there was in Isaiah’s day. Isaiah proclaimed God’s message, even though the people didn’t want to hear it. They could never claim before God that they were totally ignorant of the truth. 

Fortunately, we pilgrims know where the spiritual light switches are located, and we diligently and counterculturally push back the forces of ignorance with our message of the truth. The people around us may not want to hear the Good News about Jesus and His selfless act of salvation, but without it, they will find themselves in a lost eternity. Jesus made a truthful statement that we can read in John 8:12, “Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life””. An unequivocal statement, I think we can agree, and the people around Him, who heard that message and ignored it, would have continued to walk in darkness, as so many people do today. 

So, wherever we are, we pilgrims must proclaim the light of God to the people stumbling around in darkness, believing lies and ignoring the truth. 

Father God. We pray once again for the boldness we need to proclaim the Good News about Jesus and how He will forever illuminate people’s lives. Amen.

An Explanation

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.”
John 10:6-9 NLT

The people listening to Jesus as He talked about sheep, shepherds and sheepfolds, would have understood what He was saying. They were familiar with the whole necessities of animal husbandry, and a shepherd calling out his sheep and leading them through the countryside was a familiar sight. They also knew all about the danger of wild animals and had the example of the shepherd boy David from the Scriptures in how to deal with them. We read in 1 Kings 17:34-35, “But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death”. But the people failed to understand the bit about Jesus saying He was the door, or gate in some translations, so needed an explanation.

When Jesus said He was the door, it initially wasn’t clear to them how a person could be a door. They knew that occasionally the keeper of the sheep fold would sleep across the entrance, bringing security to the flock inside. But was he the door that Jesus was describing? So Jesus explained the spiritual meaning of the parable. There was only one way into the walled space, the sheepfold, and that was through the gate. In the same way there is only one way into the Kingdom of God and that is through Jesus. And Jesus described the spiritual benefits that mirror the natural world known by the people. The sheep’s natural lives were safe in the sheepfold. In the same way, and equating spiritual lives to sheep, souls are safe in God’s Kingdom from attack by wild animals, the aggression of the devil and his followers. Once in God’s presence, with the spiritual sheepfold, there was eternal safety to be found. And only one proviso applied – the person had to enter through Jesus. There is only one way to Heaven, in spite of what other religions may claim. 

Of course we pilgrims know all of that. But why is it that we so often try and find safety for our souls some other way? Through financial security in investing for savings and a pension perhaps. Or conning ourselves that we’re doing alright and that God would never leave us outside in a cold and dark world. In Revelation 3:20-21 John recorded Jesus’ words to the church in Laodicea, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne”. These verses are often used erroneously in an evangelistic context, but we should note that Jesus was speaking to the Christians in Laodicea, with the implication that they will apply to Christians everywhere. We pilgrims know Jesus is the Door to eternal life and our salvation, but do we have the Door firmly closed to Him? Jesus will never give up on us, but can we hear Him knocking because we have excluded Him and His input into something causing a spiritual blockage in our lives? We may read this parable of the Good Shepherd and gloss over it because we think it doesn’t apply to believers such as us. Perhaps we might want to read it again. Hmmm… 

Jesus, we pray that all the blockages that occasionally blight our lives will dissolve in the Light that shines from You. Amen.