There are a lot of pictures of God’s relationship with his people

• Redeemed from the slave market (Ephesians 1.7)
• Adoption as children (Ephesians 1.5)
• The bride of Christ (Ephesians 5.25 – 30)

In Isaiah 5, we’re a vineyard, and the problem is wild fruit.

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. (Isaiah 5.1 – 3, ESV)

What were the “wild grapes” – the wild fruit?

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry! (Isaiah 5.7, ESV)

Our problem is not bad teaching and poor “worship” practices. Our problem is how we live. Where is the justice and righteousness?

Micah, Isaiah’s contemporary (compare Isaiah 1.1 and Micah 1.1), wrote:

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.6 – 8, ESV, emphasis mine)

As we walk through Isaiah and all the prophets, let me be clear that I’m not equating Israel (specifically, Judah in Isaiah) with the United States. Some do as if America is the chosen nation. What we can do, however, is see what kinds of things make God angry…and stop doing those things!

Wild grapes? Even in Isaiah’s day, alcohol was a problem:

Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the LORD, or see the work of his hands. (Isaiah 5.11, 12, ESV)

Many give themselves to alcohol and entertainment, “but they do not regard the deeds of the LORD…”

Here’s a story that falls into the category of “you can’t make this stuff up.” Disneyland, the “family” vacation spot has a problem with alcohol consumption at Epcot. An article in the Wall Street Journal opens:

Rusty Featherstone and Willy Donnellon began their most recent trip to Epcot with palomas in Mexico. They chased the cocktails with two Norwegian beers, then moved on to China for some hard hibiscus iced teas.

At that point, the duo was still in the early innings of the “Drinking Around the World” challenge—a worrisome fact for a theme park built around families and fairy tales.

More than eight drinks later, with the challenge complete, both Featherstone and Donnellon were hammered: “I could walk out of there on my own two feet, but I was like, ‘I need to go lay down,’” Donnellon, a 25-year-old content creator, said…

Drinking Around the World, a fan-made challenge that entails ordering a drink from each of the 11 countries in Epcot’s World Showcase, has existed for decades. But a recent surge of social-media attention has pushed the tradition into the spotlight. It has also highlighted the thin line between magical and messy at the Disney park. – Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2025

Isaiah doesn’t want us to miss it so he repeats:

Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink… (Isaiah 5.22, ESV)

The text could have been written today about the US.

Here’s the condemnation:

They do not regard the deeds of the LORD, or see the work of his hands…for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 5.12, 24, ESV)

Wild grapes.

It’s useful to remind ourselves early in our reading of Isaiah that we (at least I) won’t understand everything we read. We might not even be able to find an application. Here’s an example and some suggestions.

We’ve just read chapter 2’s warning against idols, and chapter 3 is more judgment in keeping with the general themes that we mentioned Sunday:

• Messages of Judgment (chapters 1–39)
• Messages of Comfort (chapters 40–55)
• Messages of Hope (chapters 56–66)

Here’s the end of chapter 3:

Your men shall fall by the sword and your mighty men in battle. And her gates shall lament and mourn; empty, she shall sit on the ground. And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.” (Isaiah 3.18 – 4.1, ESV)

Bad news.

Then, short chapter 4, a chapter of Comfort and Hope in the middle of the Judgment section. It opens:

In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. (Isaiah 4.2, ESV)

It’s the first mention of the “branch.” Later we’ll read:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit…In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11.1, 10, ESV)

The “Branch” is Jesus.

I have no idea what the meaning or application of the rest of chapter 4 is:

…when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. (Isaiah 4.4 – 6, ESV)

First, fire for judgment. Then fire for protection and guidance as we read in Exodus(?). Then a booth, a canopy, that provides both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain.

So what to do when we read something we don’t understand?

• We can keep reading until we find something we do understand.
• We can pray and ask for insight (see Proverbs 2.1 – 5)
• We can “feel” the passage. This one feels hopeful: shade by day and a shelter from the storm and rain.
• While we’re in the Prophets, we can keep one finger in the gospels, maybe reading a short section to see what Jesus is doing.
• Per our challenge from yesterday’s “New Day’s Resolutions,” we’ll come back tomorrow and try again.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29.29, ESV)

Sometimes, one of my friends posts something I can’t improve on. Mike Metzger, whom I quoted as writing “Believing is seeing” in my December 30, 2025, blog, wrote a brilliant piece on “New Year’s Resolutions” on December 31. He advocates for “New Day’s Resolutions.” (The link goes to the essay on his blog page where you can sign up to receive his blogs for yourself.) He writes:

This is the time of year when people make New Year’s Resolutions. But for most folks, those resolutions have gone poof in a month or so. They were either too hard or too ambitious.

I suggest we instead make New Day’s Resolutions. That’s what the Apostle Paul recommended for the Church in Corinth which was a hot mess. There was disunity, sexual immorality, and doctrinal disputes, internal chaos, factions, disputes over spiritual gifts, and so on.

But Paul hadn’t lost hope in them. In his second letter, he writes something that I find very encouraging: “now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). In other words, now – today – is the best time to respond to God’s graces.

Today is a great day to begin again.

I’m following Paul’s advice this year. I’m making some New Day’s Resolutions.

Each day I’m giving the first portion of my day to being with Jesus. Praying. Reading. Listening. Pondering. Loving God. I have a routine, but my point is I’m taking it one day at a time. If I fail to do it one day, I begin again the next day. Today – this day – is the best day to begin.

I’ve got a few more routines beyond trying to love God with my whole heart, soul, body, and mind. I seek to love my wife Kathy. Some days I do OK. Other days I pretty much fail. If I fail to love Kathy on a given day, I begin again the next day. Today – this day – is the best day to begin.

I tore my rotator cuff tendon this year. Had it surgically reattached a few months back. Began rehab two months ago. My prognosis is I’ll have full range of motion by May. Maybe.

To get full range of motion by May, I must do physical therapy three times a day. I’m taking it one day at a time. If I fail to rehab one day, I begin again the next day. Today is the best day to begin.

I’ve got a few more goals or resolutions for 2026. But they’re not New Year’s Resolutions. Too many of those resolutions have gone poof in the past. Nope, tomorrow is New Year’s Day, so I have several New Day’s Resolutions for January 1, 2026. If I fail, I begin again on January 2.

You might consider taking this one-day-at-a-time approach to 2026. Remember, in God’s everlasting love and mercy, now – this day – “is the time of God’s favor, the day of salvation.”

Today is the best day to begin. – Mike Metzger, December 31, 2025

It’s January 6, Epiphany, the visit of the Wise Men to the child Jesus. I wrote about it last year, reprising an earlier blog. Feel free to meditate on that visit.

In the meantime, let’s continue our foray into Isaiah – Isaiah 2 in our reading plan.

Without getting technical and trying to figure out all the details, it’s instructive when we read the prophets to find out the kinds of things that displease God. For example:

For you have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, because

• they are full of things from the east and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines, and
• they strike hands with the children of foreigners.
• Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures;
• their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots.
• Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made. (Isaiah 2.6 – 8, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

Do you see any parallels to modern-day America?

• Eastern religion and psychics?
• Worshiping wealth?
• No end to our cars!
• Idols? We love and bow down to our technology, and AI is fast becoming an idol, as I have observed before.

And for that kind of behavior and lifestyle – a lifestyle of pride and rejection of God, there will be judgment:

And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away. (Isaiah 2.17, 18, ESV)

The end of St John’s first epistle (not his gospel) is terse:

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5.21, ESV)

I open with a brief mention that today completes 7 years of daily blogging: January 6, 2019, through today, January 5, 2026. 2,567 blogs in 2,557 days.

And, as promised, we launch our year’s journey through the prophets.

As I wrote yesterday, Isaiah’s historical setting is pre-exile.

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. (Isaiah 1.1, ESV)

He starts with a bang:

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. (Isaiah 1.2 – 4, ESV)

Now, here’s the kicker. Rebels, sinful, laden with iniquity, corrupt, forsaking the LORD and despising him. These people…are still practicing their religion! He says they are like Sodom and Gomorrah and calls them that:

If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! (Isaiah 1.9, 10, ESV)

And here’s their religious piety:

• “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings;
• incense is an abomination to me.
• New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
• Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.(Isaiah 1.11 – 14, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

Application to us?

• We practice the Lord’s Supper / Communion / Eucharist “the right way.” Is God impressed?
• We love our church services. Does God?
• We celebrate all the Christian holidays: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Are we worshiping God…or wearying God?
• What does God think of my 7 years of daily blogging?

Serious questions. Isaiah is clear. God wants more than religious piety and religious activity:

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

• Wash yourselves;
• make yourselves clean;
• remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
• cease to do evil,
• learn to do good;
• seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. (Isaiah 1.15 – 17, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

It goes on and on, and that’s just chapter 1! 65 chapters to go!! (Here’s Isaiah 1 in its entirety.)

I close with God’s offer through Isaiah:

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 1.19, 20, ESV)

I don’t write this stuff – I just report it. Join me for a year in the Prophets. It might just change our lives.

Tomorrow we start our year-long journey through the Prophets: Isaiah – Malachi. Five books called “Major Prophets:” Isaiah, Jeremiah, (the) Lamentations (of Jeremiah), Ezekiel, and Daniel. Then 12 books called Minor Prophets, called “minor” because they are shorter.

For each it’s helpful to remember Israel’s history. The Kingdom split into the Northern tribes, “Israel,” and the Southern tribes, “Judah,” as recorded in 1 Kings 12. Then, Israel was scattered by the Assyrians, recorded in 2 Kings 17. The Southern Kingdom, Judah, was taken into captivity by the Babylonians, recorded in 2 Kings 24 and 25. The prophets were men who preached, mostly to Judah either before the exile (Isaiah and others), during the exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others), or after the exile (e.g., Haggai and Zechariah).

Isaiah is pre-exile, trying to turn the ship before it’s too late. He fails as predicted:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the LORD removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. (Isaiah 6.8 – 12, ESV)

And preach he does. Remember, the job of the prophet is not so much to predict the future but to change people’s lives today. Here is part of what Eugene Peterson writes in his introduction to Isaiah:

For Isaiah, words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth and beauty and goodness. Or, as the case may be, hammers and swords and scalpels to unmake sin and guilt and rebellion. Isaiah does not merely convey information. He creates visions, delivers revelation, arouses belief. He is a poet in the most fundamental sense—a maker, making God present and that presence urgent. Isaiah is the supreme poet-prophet to come out of the Hebrew people.

…

The book of Isaiah is expansive, dealing with virtually everything that is involved in being a people of God on this planet Earth. The impressive art of Isaiah involves taking the stuff of our ordinary and often disappointing human experience and showing us how it is the very stuff that God uses to create and save and give hope. As this vast panorama opens up before us, it turns out that nothing is unusable by God. He uses everything and everybody as material for his work, which is the remaking of the mess we have made of our lives.

“Symphony” is the term many find useful to capture the fusion of simplicity and complexity presented in the book of Isaiah. The major thrust is clearly God’s work of salvation: “The Salvation Symphony” (the name Isaiah means “God Saves”). The prominent themes repeated and developed throughout this vast symphonic work are judgment, comfort, and hope. All three elements are present on nearly every page, but each also gives distinction to the three “movements” of the book that so powerfully enact salvation:

• Messages of Judgment (chapters 1–39)
• Messages of Comfort (chapters 40–55)
• Messages of Hope (chapters 56–66). – Eugene Peterson, bulleted for clarity

So off we go. Meet me here tomorrow for the start of our adventure. Isaiah pulls no punches:

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. (Isaiah 1.4, ESV)

It’s January 3…we’re easing into the New Year. Tomorrow I’ll write a formal introduction to Isaiah as we begin our Reading Plan in the Prophets, which we’ll start on Monday.

In the meantime, how about one more look at the Nativity story? Traditionally, Jesus’ birth is considered to be covered in Matthew 1 and 2 and Luke 1 and 2. We also have the warfare version in Revelation 12. Mark’s Gospel doesn’t do the Nativity – it cuts right to the chase:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” (Mark 1.1 – 3, ESV)

But what about John’s Gospel? It certainly gives a clear picture of the incarnation:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1.1 – 3, 14, ESV)

How did the Word become flesh? That question is clearly answered in Matthew and Luke:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1.18, ESV)

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. (Luke 1.35, ESV)

Is the question also answered in John? Brian Simmons, author of The Passion Translation, believes that it is, in John 1.13:

He was not born by the joining of human parents or from natural means, or by a man’s desire, but he was born of God. (John 1.13, TPT)

He clarifies in a footnote:

13 Or “born out from God.” This verse could be considered John’s version of the virgin birth of Christ.

He goes on to explain:

However, the vast majority of translations and expositors see here not Christ’s virgin birth, but the new birth of those who became “children of God” in v. 12.

For example,

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1.12, 13, ESV)

Brian Simmons’ note affirms:

Both [concepts – the new birth and the virgin birth ] are clearly presented in the Scriptures.

But since the subject of all of John 1.1 – 14 is Jesus, it’s not unreasonable to link verse 13 to verse 14, instead of verse 12. If we changed “who were” in verse 13 to “he was,” even in a standard translation like ESV, we’d have:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

He was born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And so the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1.12 – 14, ESV, the bold is changing “who were” to “he was” and adding “so” to verse 14)

Something to think about…

It seems that I recognize birthdays in the Ewellogy only when my birthday falls on Friday 13th. But I can’t pass this one up: June is 80 today! (I turn 80 in December. We were born at opposite ends of 1946.)

This picture was made on December 14, three weeks ago. I don’t think she looks 80!

June, Bob, Mark’s daughter, Kesley, and our oldest son, Mark, at the Pikes Peak Center

Mark is giving a party tomorrow, and we are blessed that all four of our offspring will be there, including David and family from Atlanta, and Melody, who lives and works on Grand Cayman Island.

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31.10 – 12, ESV)

I like this image… We don’t know where “2026 Highway” will take us. It looks like a bright light ahead, but no doubt your life and mine will NOT be all sunshine and roses in 2026. But we’ll live it, day by day, step by step, with God at our side.

The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand. (Psalm 37.23, 24, NLT)

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)

It’s New Year’s Eve! Time to think about how we’re going to read the Bible in 2026.

As a Navigator missionary, I send out a year-end letter in early December. For years now, I have included a Bible reading plan, one of which was The Navigators 5x5x5 New Testament Reading Plan. You read one chapter/day, Monday through Friday, and cover the 260 chapters in the New Testament in 52 weeks.

Back in 2022, June and I had the idea that it might be fun to do the whole Bible that way. 5 days/week, one chapter/day, for five years.

• In 2022 we were reading from the New Testament plan.
• So in 2023, we released the Pentateuch: Genesis through Deuteronomy.
• 2024 took us through the History Books: Joshua – Esther.
• And this year, 2025, we read the Poetry books: Job – Song of Solomon.

We were right: it was fun! Going through the text only one chapter at a time, I saw things I had skipped over before. So now we come to Year 5, The Prophets: Isaiah – Malachi, and we’ll be done!

One lesson is that it’s amazing what you can do in small steps if you just stay with it. Sure, it’s not as cool as “reading the Bible through in a year,” but we’re getting it done. (By the way, The Navigators have a plan for “in a year” that’s the most conducive to success that I’ve seen. The first page explains how it works.)

Back to our reading the Prophets this year. The question is when to start since it’s a Monday – Friday plan, and New Year’s Day is on a Thursday. Do we start Monday, December 29, or Monday, January 5? I have elected the 5th. If we start then, we’ll finish on Friday, January 1, 2027.

Join me! The blog won’t be entirely based on the readings, but some of it will, and I always give you a chance to read a chapter for yourself before I publish my thoughts. I’ll meet you here Monday, January 5, with a few thoughts on Isaiah 1.

Blessed is the one who listens to me (Wisdom), watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 8.34, 35, ESV)

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near. (Revelation 1.3, NKJV)