Good morning Class
Question of the day: Well school has once again started. Can you share a first day of school memory with us, or an memory of being in school?
We are on chapter 5. It is a long chapter.
READ: Isaiah 5
The Song of the Vineyard
5 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”
7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Woes and Judgments
8 Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.
9 The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing:
“Surely the great houses will become desolate,
the fine mansions left without occupants.
10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath[a] of wine;
a homer[b] of seed will yield only an ephah[c] of grain.”
11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning
to run after their drinks,
who stay up late at night
till they are inflamed with wine.
12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets,
pipes and timbrels and wine,
but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,
no respect for the work of his hands.
13 Therefore my people will go into exile
for lack of understanding;
those of high rank will die of hunger
and the common people will be parched with thirst.
14 Therefore Death expands its jaws,
opening wide its mouth;
into it will descend their nobles and masses
with all their brawlers and revelers.
15 So people will be brought low
and everyone humbled,
the eyes of the arrogant humbled.
16 But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice,
and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.
17 Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture;
lambs will feed[d] among the ruins of the rich.
18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
and wickedness as with cart ropes,
19 to those who say, “Let God hurry;
let him hasten his work
so we may see it.
The plan of the Holy One of Israel—
let it approach, let it come into view,
so we may know it.”
20 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.
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,
23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.
24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty
and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people;
his hand is raised and he strikes them down.
The mountains shake,
and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
26 He lifts up a banner for the distant nations,
he whistles for those at the ends of the earth.
Here they come,
swiftly and speedily!
27 Not one of them grows tired or stumbles,
not one slumbers or sleeps;
not a belt is loosened at the waist,
not a sandal strap is broken.
28 Their arrows are sharp,
all their bows are strung;
their horses’ hooves seem like flint,
their chariot wheels like a whirlwind.
29 Their roar is like that of the lion,
they roar like young lions;
they growl as they seize their prey
and carry it off with no one to rescue.
30 In that day they will roar over it
like the roaring of the sea.
And if one looks at the land,
there is only darkness and distress;
even the sun will be darkened by clouds.
Here in chapter 5 we have a song.
Verses 1-8
Israel is compared to a vineyard. A carefully cared for and cultivated vineyard that bears nothing but bad fruit.
In this song, what does the vine keeper do?
1. Location: He chose the perfect location.
2. Dug it up
3. Cleared it of rocks
4. Planted the best vines
5. Built a watchtower
6. Cut out a wine press
7. Put a wall and a hedge
8. He pruned it.
9. Had it rain.
The last three I added because they are things he says he will takeaway so we can assume they were there.
All of this and nothing but bad fruit.
I know this is about Israel. That is clear. But for a moment I want you to think about God. I want you to stop and think about it from God's perspective.
What did he do for the Israelites?
Over and over again he didn't just subtly provide and care for them. He parted the sea, He gave them a wall of fire, He provided gave them food everyday, and made water flow out of a rock. I mean seriously! He took down armies for them. He did so much for them, and yet still nothing but bad fruit.
I can't tell you how important I think this passage is for us as parents! We somehow have the miss conception that if we are perfect parents we will yield perfect kids. Don't miss understand, this is not an excuse to be bad parents, or to not apologize for how we have messed up. We just don't need to walk around with a ton of guilt on our shoulders when our children make bad choices. On the same token, we don't need to blame our parents for all that we struggle with.
PLEASE DON'T miss understand. I am not in anyway trying to take away responsibility for the ick we inflict on each other. This just helps us to acknowledge that we all still have a choice, and even with the perfect conditions for growth and for producing fruit, we have the choice to do otherwise.
The most important question for us is this:
What kind of fruit are you?
Christ has done all the same for you!
He has and will continue to cultivate you, will you produce good or bad fruit?
I want you to take a moment and think about all the things that God has done for you. All the ways that he has cultivated you? How did he first start cultivating a relationship with you?
The next section we find 6 sins:
1. This first Woe is all about the wealthy few becoming more and more wealthy by crushing the little guy and gaining more wealth as a result. (Sound familiar?) Because this was an agricultural society land was everything. It was your livelihood and taking away peoples land was putting them deeper and deeper into poverty.
2. Drunkenness. Before you check this off the list... maybe we can include, Netflix binge watching, over eating, porn, being a workaholic. What else?
3. Having pride in your sin. Making fun of the fact that you sin. OUCH! There is no question I have done this! Making fun or joking around about the things I know I should not do.
4. Call evil good and good evil
5. Conceit
6. Acquit the guilty for a bribe and deny justice for the innocent
This is not an easy list. It isn't hard to understand this list of sins. They are all too familiar! So much of this list seems to be exactly what our society (we) struggle with. This is not just a list for the Israelites! This is a list for the USA, for Charlotte, NC, for UCSDA, for Beth Grissom.
I don't want to be in the list of Woes! I don't want to be part of the vineyard that produces bad fruit! What would the opposite of these woes be?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What would the good fruit look like?
Oh Lord, please come into our hearts and do some serious pruning! Cut back the dead wood. Weed out the thistles! We want to produce a fruit that is delicious and nutritious! A fruit that shares life with many!
Comments
Post a Comment