The Vineyard of the Lord
Isaiah 5:1-2
Introduction.
Have you ever been in a situation where you have done all the right things, but nothing worked out?
It could be in relationships, or your job, or even in parenting.
You have dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s.
You’ve made sure everything was just so because you wanted a particular outcome.
But it just didn’t pan out that way.
You begin questioning yourself: Did I do this or that? What did I miss?
You might even drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out what went wrong.
Well, that’s how God felt about how the people of Judah were acting by comparing them with a vineyard.
There are many passages in the Scriptures that compare God’s people with a vineyard.
It would seem it all starts back here in Isaiah 5.
As I was studying for Mark 12 and the parable presented there, Isaiah 5 came up in every single commentary (we’ll talk about that parable this evening).
Even as I was reading ahead for Hebrews, there is a comparison in the middle of Hebrews 6 that is made with Isaiah 5.
There are a lot of recurring themes and motifs in Scripture comparing people with various things such as sheep and goats, trees and vines, and here we see wild grapes vs. good grapes.
And if you have ever done a lot of gardening or farming, you know what to expect when you take care of your crops.
But what if that doesn’t happen? That’s what God is facing here.
Preview.
Expectations Not Met (5:1-7).
Several Woes (5:8-12, 18-23).
Body.
Expectations Not Met (5:1-7).
What do I mean by “expectations not met”?
Isn’t God omniscient? Shouldn’t He have known what the outcome would be?
Of course, but that’s not quite what I mean here.
When our expectations aren’t met it’s because we thought things would go differently—we simply didn’t know.
What God is showing the people of Judah is, well, they had no excuse.
God protected them and took care of them, and yet they still refuse to follow Him.
Isaiah does this through a song regarding the Beloved and His vineyard.
The Beloved here is the Lord, and the vineyard is His people.
The vineyard was planted on a very fruitful hill—that first step is location!
Find a good spot to put your vineyard with nice, rich soil and great sunlight.
Did the Lord find a great spot for His people? It was, after all, described as a land flowing with milk and honey, was it not?
It provided for everything they could ever want or need—God took care of them!
Even more than that, the Beloved dug up this fruitful hill and cleared out its stones, cultivating it.
Impacted soil and stones would make it very difficult for the roots to take hold and get the nutrients it would need.
This is not unlike the people driving out the wicked inhabitants of Canaan before them. They certainly did this with the Lord’s help.
Of course, they didn’t do this completely, but that was because of their lack of faith in His ability to clear out all the wicked Canaanites.
Though by the time of Solomon the whole area was finally subdued.
The Beloved built a tower, something used to defend the vineyard from vandals and thieves.
Surely the Lord had protected these people from outside attack time and again, defended them when the odds were not good.
The Beloved built a winepress with the expectation of producing wonderful grapes from this vineyard.
The Lord has certain expectations of us and of His people.
If He takes care of them, He expects them to love and obey Him.
But instead of good grapes, He gets wild grapes.
Good grapes vs. wild grapes.
Wild grapes are analogous to the idolatry and wickedness the people were engaged in.
One of the biggest differences between good (or domesticated) grapes and wild grapes is size and taste, according to Ruth de Jauregui.
Wild grapes are smaller and are not as sweet—they are not good.
As you prune the vine and take care of it, you are basically encouraging more nutrients to get to the grapes, making them bigger and sweeter.
You want them bigger and sweeter to make plenty of good juice from the grape.
So Isaiah is comparing the idolatrous Jews with small, bitter grapes, not at all useful for pressing.
A natural reaction.
When expectations do not meet reality, you might feel like you have gotten your hopes up for nothing.
Are you upset when something like that happens to you?
In fact, that’s often the source of our sadness and disappointment.
You might even get angry as the Lord does here (5:5-6).
He would essentially take away all protection and providence, allowing them to fend for themselves.
After all, isn’t that how they had been living anyway? How else does one get wild grapes, but by doing things his own way?
He had expected more from Judah, things like justice and righteousness.
But instead, all He saw was oppression and a cry for help, no doubt by those who experienced such injustice.
Now, Isaiah goes on to discuss six woes or six things that they were going to be punished for.
Recall in Ch. 3, he had already talked of their “eastern ways,” but here we see just how egregious their actions were.
Several Woes (5:8-12, 18-23).
Greed (5:8-10).
Greed is not a sin we talk much about, but the prophets talk about it a lot.
It was definitely a big problem in Judah at this time, as many people are taking up all the land they could get their hands on.
Back then, it was taking away from their heritage what was given to them by the Lord.
In the OT Law, they could only lease land to others, not truly sell it or give it away—in the Year of Jubilee, every 50 years, the land would revert back to its ancestral owner.
This shows what disregard they had for the OT Law, that they would ignore this law, taking advantage of the poor.
Greed certainly exists today in various forms, and we need to be on guard for it.
The “keeping up with the Joneses” attitude (covetousness), or the hoarding of goods that could be used by others. Not giving to those in need when you are able. These are examples of greed that each of us could be guilty of.
Covetousness, the twin sister of greed, is called idolatry by the Apostle Paul (Col. 3:5).
Revelry (partying) (5:11-12).
It’s interesting to me that in two places in this chapter, Isaiah calls out drunkenness.
You think that might have been a problem for them? Is it for us?
In this passage, he talks about how people get up early in the morning so they could drink, something Solomon condemns in Proverbs as well (Prov. 23:35).
These people are so consumed by alcohol that they cannot help but to let it take them over.
They carry on and have a good time. Is there anything wrong with having a good time? No, well… that depends on how one defines “good.”
Is it wrong to have a party, invite your friends, eat food, and hang out? No, of course not. But if that party devolves into drunken debauchery, then yeah, there’s a problem.
How do we keep it from getting to that? The easy answer is: no social drinking!
People often have no idea how much is too much until it’s too late.
And even then, you want more and more.
People usually resort to this kind of behavior as a way of escape, to escape their wretched lives for a little while and enjoy the moment.
But this escapism only lasts for awhile, and ends up causing more problems than it solves.
It can also distract us from our responsibilities to our families and our jobs.
While it may increase our “good times,” it decreases the quality time we could have with our spouse, our children.
And if you’re single, it increases the chance of finding someone else who has no interest in your soul, your most valuable possession.
Hubris (5:18-19).
The people were sinning so brazenly, they don’t care who sees.
They are so confident the Lord won’t judge them, that they basically cry out, “Hit me with Your best shot.”
“You think you can do something to me? Ha! I’d like to see you try!”
I have heard people make this boast before, but usually they are drunk … or an atheist debater.
I don’t know what God has planned for such people in this life, but if they continue in their blasphemy, I know what will happen to them in the next.
In fact, we will talk about that in our next point.
Immorality (5:20)
Moral relativism, flipping morality on its head—that’s not a problem today is it?
“A woman’s right to choose is a good thing.”
The way it’s framed, yeah, choice is generally a good thing. But the problem is they are talking about a choice that kills a baby—that is bad.
“I don’t see what’s so wrong with homosexuality. It’s two people who love each other. What could be better than that?”
The problem isn’t loving one another—in fact, we’re commanded to love one another. The problem is the perversion of that love and the unnatural acts that go along with it (Rom. 1:26-27).
“It’s good to keep the riff-raff out of our country.”
Maybe, but as we just said, we are commanded to love one another.
“It’s wrong to be so intolerant of people who live or believe differently than you.”
Well, I’d say we aren’t intolerant of them—if we were, we would want to harm them in some way, arrest them or silence them—but we don’t accept their actions and beliefs as correct. Why? Because our standard of what’s right didn’t originate with us, but comes from God.
It’s so easy for many to justify their evil deeds as right and to claim the righteous are evil—we never want to believe we are wrong.
What other things have you heard from people in our society that deem right what is wrong and wrong what is right?
There are so many things, I cannot possibly mention them all here, many of which are on this list, like greed (Gordon Gekko), partying, and drunkenness.
Pride (5:21).
When you do not believe in any higher power or anything above you, it is easy to believe you are wise.
In fact, did we not even name ourselves “wise human”? That’s what Homo sapiens means, after all.
Solomon urges in the Proverbs not to be wise in our own eyes about 250 years before Isaiah wrote this. He contrasts this with fearing the Lord and departing from evil (Prov. 3:7).
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil.
If we do consider ourselves wise, we will have no regard with what that Higher Power says—after all, He is only omniscient, so why should we “wise humans” listen to Him?
After all, how can we draw near to God? By humbling ourselves before Him (James 4:7-10).
Drunkenness and injustice (5:22-23).
These seems like an odd combination, drunkenness apparently leading to bribery and injustice.
But it is a thought found throughout the Scriptures.
One such place is by King Lemuel (Prov. 31:4-5).
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice of all the afflicted.
Drinking wine and intoxicating drink can lead rulers to “forget the law, and pervert the justice of all the afflicted.”
As we discussed last week, there was a vacuum of good and righteous leadership among the people of Judah at this time.
Such drunkenness can cause one not to care about others, but to take such illicit money to support one’s habit.
Such people then care more about their escape than about their responsibilities.
I realize it can be an addiction, a huge problem that seems insurmountable without help—I’m not ignorant of that nor do I lack compassion for such people.
But I say such things to encourage you not to get started down that road, or perhaps not to get lost down that road again.
Conclusion.
This section of Isaiah ends on a rather gloomy note.
But we see many similarities between Judah and our nation today.
These ancient prophets have a message that modern man must here: repent.
I don’t know what God’s plans are for this country, but I do know that whatever happens, we better be on the right side of things.
We need to be on the side of Christ.
Even if the wicked appear to prosper, God will judge us all perfectly on the Last Day.
That’s where Isaiah’s message comes in: repent.
Turn away from our greed, our revelries, our hubris, our immorality, our drunkenness and injustice.
We may not have fallen prey to some of these things, but we do live in a society that celebrates many of these things.
It’s easy to get caught up in it.
We, as His church, are His vineyard—we need to act like it.
Let us not take refuge in so many things in this world, but in Christ.
Let us make ourselves good grapes, ready for His winepress, so that He will make us what He wants us to be.
We can do this by obeying His gospel—repentance definitely included.