THE VINEYARD

THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD
ISAIAH 5:1 Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

One of the most beautiful songs ever sung is found is the fifth chapter of Isaiah. Those who are well versed in the Hebrew say that its beauty and debt is incomparable to any other poetic song ever sung.
In these few verses are revealed a love so beautiful that few can comprehend the enormity of this love.
Emotions fill the heart of those who can grasp its beauty.
The English translation does little justice to the meaning of the song, but we will read it again in English and try to describe to you in a word-picture of how deep this river of love is between God and His people.

Outline:
I – The Vineyard Picked Provision – Protection
II – The Vineyard Planted By God – For Good
III - The Vineyard Produced Sweet or Sour juice

THE WORD PICTURE:
A Good man sat down one day and looked over his once beautiful vineyard and he wrote a love song that came from the debts of his heart.
This good man was very wealthy and very handsome. He was filled with grace and character and was both a scholar and a gentleman.
-He fell in love with a common woman, a plain woman who had nothing. She had no heritage, no wealth, no substance, no education and no love.
-She knew not where she came from and had no knowledge in life to where she was going.
The man had such an unbelievable large and lovable heart that he planned to take this common woman and lift her from rags to riches.
He met with her and revealed to her his heart, his life, his beauty, his wealth and his promises of the future.
The woman fell in love with him and they were engaged or as the Bible says, “betrothed.”
And Oh, how he loved her so. Words cannot explain the debts of this man’s love.
-If the ocean were ink and the sky was a scroll and this man had all the quills from every bird in the world, he could not do justice in writing about the great love he had for this woman.
--He built a beautiful home for his wife-to-be. Matter-of-fact he didn’t just build her a home, he bought for her and gave her a country.
-The country had beautiful cites already built.
-It had rivers and forest, beaches and mountains.
-It had farms and towns, orchards and vineyards.
--It was the most protected country in the world. It not only was protected by mountains and seas, but the man had an invisible host of angelic beings that protected his love.
He removed all the stones from the land that might cause injury to the one he loved and gave perfect direction so she would never stumble and she would never fall.

The man wanted his fiancé to have the greatest joy in the entire world so he planted a vineyard for her. He did not just plant ordinary grapes, he planted the very best grapes that would produce the very best wine that money could buy.
And he planted those vines in the best soil on the earth.
He provided the winepress and the perfect directions for his beloved.

He and His beloved walked together through the countryside. They walked side by side and talked and laughed and enjoyed the sunsets and the precious time they had together.
The Good man had made the little common girl a princess. She had become a queen and the envy of all nations.

Within that country the master had provided every thing his beloved would need to enjoy life. Before they were married, he took a journey into a far country where he would build a more beautiful land for the one he loved. He said, I will return soon, enjoy all I have given you and remember our love. Keep it fresh and beautiful every day and when I come again we shall be married.

When the man returned to marry his bride he noticed that she was distant. The gleam was no longer in her eyes. The smile no longer creased her beautiful lips. He knew something had happened. He knew her love had been compromised.
He had not changed. He was the same gentleman. His love in his heart was bursting forth to share his life with his betrothed.
But, her love was little. She had forgotten all he had done for her.
Her love was no longer focused on him but on things. Her love had become selfish. She had become unfaithful. His heart was broken.
But, he forgave her and tried again and again to persuade her to return to him and to refresh their love, but there was a wild streak in her heart. There was stubbornness and she would not return to him.
In his love he continued to allow her to live in his country. He sent messengers with messages of his love to her again and again. But, she refused to heed. He sent words of promise of the beauty of the future. Still she stiffened her neck.
As years passed one by one and as he sent messengers, she began to treat them harshly. She even came to the place where she had her servants beat the messengers and kill them. Her heart had become unforgiving. Her heart had become filled with wild grapes.

The loving master says, “What more can I do?” You be the judge. Look at what I’ve done. I given her every thing physically one could want. But, more than that I have given her my love, my best and she has spurned, snubbed and scorned my love?
What more can I do? (Pause) Then he answers.
I will take away my protection (angels). I will remove by provisions (rain). I will take away her position (head of nations). I will take away her prosperity. (land was conquered, bankrupted, devastated).
And I will wait. I will call. I will always love her.
The seven verses of Isaiah 5 tell the story I just told to you. It is the story of God’s great love for Israel.

I – THE WORD OF GOD v 1-2
(explained/ examined/ encouraged)
God in his love picked Abraham out a heathen religion that would have taken him and his descendants to an eternal hell.
He planted truth in their hearts. He called the nation Israel after Abraham’s grandson.
Then God picked her up out of Egyptian slavery and led her to a land that flows with milk and honey.
Then God planted them in a land that flows with milk and honey. The vineyard that God gave Israel was TRUTH. “Ye shall know the truth…. Free”
God gave them His precious promises and truths so they could produce the most loving, joyful, peaceful, patience and God-like people in all the world as a witness for the Lord.
He put his angels about them to protect them. His angels delivered messages, fought wars and watched over them.
The people of the world were a selfish, angry and bitter people.
Thus, God planted a nation of people that was to be Peculiar, Holy and a Royal witness to the world. They were picked, planted to produce sweet wine.
Application: You and I that are saved have been picked by God and planted in His Church to produce sweet wine for all the world to taste.
-As long as we abide – we will produce sweet wine.
-Understand you are part of His vineyard.
-Few things demand more constant care and toil than a vineyard.
-The soil has to be right. The vines must be pruned and free from disease. The weeds must be dug out. No birds (false ideas) whatsoever can lodge in it’s branches. The Vines must stand alone!
You and I are to produce a loving, joyful, kind witness to a lost world. And we will if our spiritual pH is balanced.
The pH in soil ranges between 0 and 14 with 7 as the neutral point.
If there is not balanced minerals your soil will have to much acid or be to alkaline. Either way, you can not produce proper fruit. Weeds and moss will grow and rather than sweet grapes, wild grapes will come forth.
Key - John 15: 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
Spiritually when we don’t spend time in and digest God’s Word – our grape juice, yea our spiritual juice, which is to be love and forgiveness; joy and blessedness; peace and contentment; patience and kindness; faith and faithfulness, becomes wild grapes.
Wild grapes produce a selfishness, a critical tongue, a bitter heart, an unloving and unforgiving life.
When Charles Spurgeon study this passage he said, “I have been lamenting with great shamefacedness that I am not bringing forth such fruit to him as my position demands. Considering our privileges, advantages, and opportunities, I fear that many of us have need to perform a great searching of the heart.”

When we think about wild grapes: “We must realize that we are dealing with something worse than unfruitfulness. The wolfsbane, or wild vine (2 Kings 4:39), does bear beautiful berries from a distance, but up close you discover that they are bitter and foul-smelling and poisonous in nature. This is a precise description of the self-willed and false fruit of one who is unbalanced.”

Dr. Adam Clarke on wild grapes said: “These are poisonous berries . . . not merely useless, unprofitable grapes, such as wild grapes; but grapes offensive to the smell. They are noxious and harmful.”

Dr. Shepley on wild grapes says, “A Christian that cannot love and forgive; that has little joy and peace; that is impatience and angry is a wild grape. Either there soil is unbalanced, yea they have not been abiding or they are wild all together as Israel had become.

II THE WISDOM OF GOD
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, (love, joy, peace) brought it forth wild grapes?(anger, hate, trouble, discord)
What more could God have done for Israel? Who is to blame?
Ezekiel describes Israel as stiffneck and rebellious. They would do things their way and would not submit to God’s authority or authorities.
In Matthew 21 and beginning at verse 23 Jesus told the story of the “Vineyard.” He said, that Israel had stoned God’s servants and killed His prophets. When God sent His son, they killed Him to.

God says, Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. What more could I have done? The question is simple. Who is to blame for the someone who produces wild grapes? Is it God’s fault or is it our fault.
- God gave Israel the patriarchs, priest, prophets, promises and prophecies and they rejected God.
- Wow! We say as a church. If God did that for us, we would always have a loving and sweet spirit.
- Friend, the church has more than Israel had. We hold in our hand the very words of the patriarchs, priest and prophets.
- We hold God’s promises and prophecies.
- And we have 27 more books fulfilling all of God’s Word.
- We also have seen his Son and have had our sins washed away.
- Every day we have offered to us, God’s abundance of grace and his mercies are new every morning.
- We have His Holy Spirit within us and our accountability to God will be far greater than Israel’s was.

If there is a people that should be sunshine on a cloudy day, it should be every Christian in the world.
What more could God do for you and me so we might produce spiritual fruit, sweet fruit, loving fruit, gentle fruit? Nothing!
At your finger tips you hold everything you need to produce joy unspeakable and full of glory.
In your heart if you are saved there lives the Spirit of the living God whose very nature is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
There is no excuse for God’s children to be anything but Christlike in our actions and attitudes. And if we lack His character traits, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

If we abide in worldly thoughts, sinful thoughts, selfish thoughts, we will produce wild grapes.
If we abide in Christ, His Word, His Spirit our spirit, our juice, our grapes will be Christlike.

Dr. Spurgeon said, “O you that profess to be his people, what more could Christ have done for you? What more could the Holy Spirit have done? What richer promises, what wiser precepts, what kinder providences, what more gracious patience?”

So, what will the Lord do with those who refuse His grace and continue in producing wild grapes?
Matthew 21: 41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
When God took down his protection around Israel, they were destroyed by other nations. Why did God remove his protection? They were producing wild grapes.

He then took away from them the greatest calling and privilege in the world and gave it to another.
Matthew 21: 43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
When you study the church you see that the very descriptive calling God gave Israel, He now gives to the church. Israel was called a royal priesthood and a peculiar nation and a holy people in Exodus 19:5-6. In I Peter 2:9 the church is called a royal priesthood, a peculiar nation and a holy people.
Paul said in Hebrews, God took away the first and established the second.

God wants repentance, not stubbornness.
He wants faith, not doubt.
He wants faithfulness, not slothfulness.
He wants love, not lukewarmness.
He wants holiness, not impurity.
He wants us to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.

III – THE WILL OF GOD
5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

-When God sent the prophets, they rejected them.
-When God tried to prune Israel, they rebelled.
-When the prophets said, repent, the glared with hatred at them.
-God told Ezekiel don’t look at their faces, but preach my word.
-And thus, there was no pruning, no digging, no watering.
-An un-pruned vine produces very little or nothing at all.
-The digging around the vines was to kill the weeds, which pictured sin.
-Water, no water, they had none of God’s Word that quenches ones thirst and fills one with refreshment.
-God will always prune, dig and water those who are His.
-He will take from you, remove things from around you and will always water you with His word, unless in rebellion you refuse to change, yea refuse to become like Him.
-God looked for justice (obedience) but he only saw oppression (disobedience).
-He looked for righteousness, but only weeping (self-pity).

What comes out of your life when you are squeezed: Sweet juice of the vine or wild juice of the world? Your mate knows. Your children know.

Christians – balance your pH, prune your vines, dig the weeds out and let’s produce God’s sweet fruit in this world we live in.
We are to be royal priest, holy people and a peculiar nation.