Destitution and Despair

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Instead of fragrance, there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding. Your men will fall by the sword, your warriors in battle. The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground. In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, ‘We will eat our own food and provide our own clothes; only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!’”
Isaiah 3:24-4:1 NIVUK

Jerusalem and women in despair. The men of Judah killed in battle. Destitution everywhere. Isaiah’s vision was a dire account of what could be the end of Judah, an end that had not yet arrived but was imminent unless the people changed their ways. The people who had so much were going to lose it all. There would be few men left to do the manual work. And the sad situation would arise in which there were so many widows in the land that they had to take drastic steps to assure their future.

The future of a society can never be taken for granted. Yes, all my life I have been fortunate to live in a country without wars or other instability affecting my or my family’s life, and I pray that this will continue for my children and grandchildren and beyond. But it is something neither I nor anyone else can take for granted. With the spectre of another Cold War with Russia emerging on the horizon, perhaps already with us, and the war in Ukraine in its fifth year, with political instability everywhere, the very foundations of our societies in Europe are perhaps under threat. We here in the UK take much for granted, but instead of looking to God, people look to their politicians. And inevitably disappointment will follow.

There was a vast Assyrian army threatening Jerusalem in 701 BC but the king, Hezekiah, declared to the people, “‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.’ And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said” (2 Chronicles 32:7-8). Soon after, we see what happened to the Assyrians, and things didn’t end well for Sennacherib, the Assyrian king. “And the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the commanders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons, his own flesh and blood, cut him down with the sword” (2 Chronicles 32:21). Because they turned to God, the Judahites lived, and God resolved the situation. 

The people of Judah and Jerusalem were facing judgement from God because of their sin, rebellion, and idolatry, but they still refused to return to God. Nineveh was faced with the same challenge when Jonah was sent to them with a prophetic message of destruction. Jonah prophesied “ … Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4b). The people responded with a fast, and God relented and did not destroy them. But the people in Judah were stubborn, and those who survived were exiled.

We pilgrims have the benefit of the Bible, showing us, as it does, a limited view of the future. But with the Psalmist David, we declare, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7). In the First Century AD, there were reportedly many false prophets, and with the spirit of the antichrist present, the Apostle John wrote, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognise the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood” (1 John 4:4-6). Even today, God will help us because His Spirit gives us the strength and direction we need, whatever we are facing.

Dear Heavenly Father. We know that in You are all the resources we need for life in this world. So, please help us to turn from our sins and look to You, as we pray for our nation and our leaders. Soften our hearts, we pray. Amen

The Perils of Turning Away from God: Insights from Isaiah

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will take away from Jerusalem and Judah everything they depend on: every bit of bread and every drop of water, all their heroes and soldiers, judges and prophets, fortune-tellers and elders, army officers and high officials, advisers, skilled sorcerers, and astrologers.”
Isaiah 3:1-3 NLT

Isaiah starts chapter 3 with a stark outline of what is going to happen when the Judaites would be exiled. The basics of life would go first, bread and water, and then followed by all the people they consider to be important. But notice that this list includes two categories of people that were expressly forbidden to be amongst the Jews – “skilled sorcerers and astrologers”. Deuteronomy 18: 10b-11, 14): “… And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. … The nations you are about to displace consult sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the Lord your God forbids you to do such things”. Astrology is a form of divination and can be found today in horoscopes and among those who suggest that the alignment of stars and planets has some spiritual meaning. Astrologers were commonplace in Old Testament writings, and frequently mentioned such as in Daniel 2:1-2, “One night during the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had such disturbing dreams that he couldn’t sleep. He called in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers, and he demanded that they tell him what he had dreamed …” Of course, they couldn’t help the king, but Daniel could through his relationship with God, as we read the following verses. It was a sad state of affairs that the Judaites had come to depend on the quacks and frauds, rather than turn to the One who was their Source.

What can we pilgrims learn from these verses today? I suppose the first thing is that human structures are not infallible or inviolable. Security and well-being that are sought after outside of God and His ways are temporary and precarious. It’s all about the dangers of coming outside His protection, because as we do things God’s way, His favour will be assured. 

Another thing is that God removed all the structures that supported the Judaean society. The good disappeared along with the bad. Not all the “judges and prophets” were corrupt, and the good people could not survive in a corrupt society on their own when it collapsed. This highlights that when a nation turns from God, its economic, political, and cultural supports crumble simultaneously.

The judgment by exile that was coming was a direct consequence of the people’s rebellion, oppression of the poor, and arrogance. It served as a stark reminder that collective unfaithfulness degrades the very systems that allow a culture to thrive. By actively stripping Judah of its societal pillars, God demonstrated His control over nations and history. The ultimate lesson was a call for humility, urging people to depend on God rather than fallible human systems.

So, it is all the more important that we pilgrims are salt and light in our society. By being so, we hold back God’s judgement in this season of His grace. And we pray. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, we read, “I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Saviour, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1-4). I know that, at times, we despair of our leaders rather than feel inclined to pray for them, but pray we must, because prayer changes things. There is much to pray for, as our leaders embark on Godless legislation, but we must persevere.

Father God. We pray today for our leaders, all who are in our governments and councils. Please help them legislate righteously so that we will continue to live in Your favour. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Bad Company

Posted on by Adrian Clark

Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.” Think carefully about what is right, and stop sinning. For to your shame I say that some of you don’t know God at all.”
1 Corinthians 15:33-34 NLT

Sooner or later, all Christians will encounter the thorny problem of “bad company”. We might like to be protected from the sin and evil that is so prevalent around us, but we have little choice because we rely on the world and its resources for our livelihood. We have to work somewhere to earn the money to live, we have to buy food in a supermarket, and in the process, we are in contact with people who do not share our faith. Worse, we have a government that has currently abandoned the Christian roots that founded this country. So we believers are forced to live in a world we don’t really want to be in. Everywhere we go, we are in contact with sin and evil shown by the people we encounter, and the results of years of rebellion against God can be found in the society and infrastructure around us. And then we have the problem of having friends who are not believers. In many ways, we are intricately involved in a world with no escape. Jesus said to His disciples, “I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do” (John 17:14-16). We don’t belong here any more, but Jesus was clear; we are in the world whether or not we want to be, and He asked our Heavenly Father to keep us safe from the evil one.

“Some of you don’t know God at all“

Paul warned the Corinthians that some in their midst had earned the label “bad company”. These were the ones who were saying that there will be no resurrection of the dead. It also appears that the church in Corinth had been infiltrated by people who claimed to be Christians but weren’t. Paul wrote, “For to your shame I say that some of you don’t know God at all”. These were people conspicuous by their attitude to sin. In my early Christian days, I increasingly found out about what sin was, but in my spiritual immaturity, I puzzled over the behaviour of some of the believers in the church I was saved in, believers who seemed to have a strange attitude to living a sin-free life. So their use of expletives in conversation I found offensive. Their behaviour in social contexts was more worldly than I would have expected. They watched TV programmes that I definitely felt were not suitable for Christians to watch. Were they the sort of people that Paul labelled “bad company” and those that “don’t know God at all”?

“So you must live as
God’s obedient children“

In years spent working in an office, it was easy to find those who carried the label “bad company”. But these were people who knew no better, because they were fully paid-up, passport-carrying, citizens of the kingdom of the world. And so they lived lives compatible with that kingdom. But when we pilgrims discovered the narrow gate into the Kingdom of God and decided to stay there, believing in Jesus and all He did for us, we inherited a dilemma. We became a people who do not belong to the kingdom of the world. The problem is that we still have to live our physical lives there, with our spirits living in a different Kingdom. Peter wrote, “So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then” (1 Peter 1:14). In some wonderful way, God has resourced us to be able to live in the world. Yet, we need not be tainted by the sin and evil we find there. The spiritual resources that are so bountiful in God’s Kingdom are ours for the asking, and they, coupled with our wills, enable us to avoid being corrupted by the “bad company” around us. 

Jesus said,
“I am the Light of the world”.
‭‭

The Apostle John wrote, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7). Walking in the light means living a life that follows Jesus, abandoning sin and all worldly behaviour incompatible with God’s Word. Walking in the darkness means living a life of sin in an evil, secular society. There is no middle ground. Sadly, we are human and lapse into dark ways from time to time. However, in 1 John 1:9, we read, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness“. Jesus is the Light of the world, and we follow Him because He knows the way to eternal life.

Dear Lord Jesus. You came to this world to show mankind the way to Heaven. Please help us to show Your light to the world around us and please help,us to avoid “bad company”. In Your precious name. Amen.

Justice

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge people with equity? No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth.
Then people will say, ‘Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth.’”
Psalms‬ ‭58:1-2, 11‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

“Do you judge people with equity?” Surely a good question. A question just as relevant today as it was in David’s time, but with a difference. In 21st Century UK society I would like to think that the laws set out by our parliamentarians are judged upon by our various courts with total and complete honesty. Justice is administered with almost total transparency, and avenues are available for appealing decisions that might be perhaps a bit dubious. However, in David’s day judges had a reputation of being corrupt, accepting bribes, with no right of redress. It didn’t stop there – hundreds of years later Jesus spoke a parable about the “Unjust Judge” – you will find it in Luke 18:1-8. And throughout history, justice has been a rather hit and miss affair.

So to me the issue of justice is not about corruption within the UK legal systems, but about the way secular and godless principles are creeping into law through unjust parliamentarians. Historically, UK law has been established on Godly principles over many years and these have established a society that is strong and stable, a society that is, for the main, implicitly comfortable with the fairness of its laws. But sadly, in recent years, UK governments seem to have lost their moral compass, and have weakly given in to godless minority groups and passed laws at odds with God’s principles. And the consequences of such legislation has had an unsettling effect on society, with unintended consequences coming to the fore. Verse 2 of our Psalm today talks about “violence on the earth”, surely another description for a society without peace, at war with itself.

David ends his Psalm with the comforting thought that God is still on His throne and will judge righteously, rewarding His people, those who abide by His principles. Though we would like God to judge now, He patiently allows everyone the opportunity to respond to Him, and we too need to be patient, trusting Him to bring about righteousness in all the earth. So we pray. And keep praying. For our governments, for our parliamentarians, for our judges, for our communities, for our families. For those who seem set on anarchy with their lobbying and disruption. And with faith, wait for God to bring about His will and purposes. Will we have to wait long? It may be a lifetime. We may never see justice served in the way we would like or expect. But we can be assured of this one thing – God is still on His throne and will one day judge those who devise injustice in their hearts.

Red Lines

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked.” Psalms‬ ‭43:1‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

What is my cause? What am I so deeply committed to that I am prepared to defend it no matter the cost? Some principle that has a red line, across which I cannot cross and which I believe the society around me shouldn’t cross either? Or a stand I am taking in the work place against dubious practices?  In the business realm, dodgy practices abound with the hope that a quick buck can be made, or that the taxman won’t find out. In the world of relationships marriage has been redefined. Even the God-created male and female genders have been replaced by many more. In our Western societies there is an “anything goes” mentality. “If it feels good then just do it” is applied across all demographics and age groups. But such is the language of a society that has lost its moral compass. And our political rulers, smitten by their liberal and secular ideals, nibble at the boundaries of our Christian legal and moral legacy by introducing legislation that erodes the principles God’s people adhere to.  Surely the “unfaithful nation“ in which the Psalmist lived is as true today, if not worse, than it was in his lifetime.

So what do we do? Ignore the “deceitful and wicked” practices that are occurring around us, as so many do? Or do we take a stand against them, asking God to vindicate us in the process. Realising that such a stand will potentially have a cost – remembering that John the Baptist was imprisoned and eventually beheaded because he took a stand against his local ruler’s immoral behaviour.

So I ask myself today – what is my cause? What principle or principles do I have that I consider sacrosanct? Holy Scriptures provide me with many “red lines” that I wouldn’t dream of crossing, and would hope that my society wouldn’t either. So I pray for God to protect His laws and precepts and show me how He wants me to be His voice upholding His principles. Remembering that my God-given mission is to be “salt and light” in my community.

Our Security

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“When I was prosperous, I said, “Nothing can stop me now!” Your favour, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain. Then You turned away from me, and I was shattered.” Psalms‬ ‭30:6-7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Where does our security lie? That question underpins these verses. And the answer is probably one of the main reasons why, in our Western society, it can be difficult to reach people with the Gospel. As in the Psalmist David’s day, personal wealth leads to pride and an overriding sense of self reliance. The pursuit of wealth drives people into a hamster-wheel materialistic life that has no room for God and His kingdom. So from that context, a relationship with God does not seem to them to be relevant. Who are the wealthy in our culture? The reality is that most people are, to a greater or lesser extent, and they find security in their comfortable lives.

But this house of cards can come tumbling down if a catastrophe occurs. A job is lost, an unexpected expense appears, investments go wrong and evaporate. And, as the Psalmist says, they are shattered. A house built on a foundation of sand will crumble during the onslaught of the storms of life.

So we thank God for our prosperity. We thank Him for His favour. But we don’t hold onto what we have so tightly that we are destroyed if it is taken away. The story of Job in the Old Testament is fascinating, and perhaps like Job we must have the attitude, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!”” (‭‭Job‬ ‭1:21‬ ‭NLT‬‬).