There is a judgment day!

Music remains one of the most moving ways in which to express love. Isaiah 5:1-7 plays on the genre of a love song, using the marriage theme to describe the relationship between God and God’s people. Yet the irony is clear and sharp!  In this passage, the prophet recomposes the love song into a lament over the nation’s betrayal of God’s principles.

The prophet uses the metaphor of the constant care of the vinedresser for the vineyard as the primary image in this passage. Despite even the Divine Vinedresser’s best efforts, the vineyard yielded grapes that are not only unusable, but release a sour odor.

God asks his people to judge for themselves what they think should be done with the stench of such an offensive, unproductive vineyard: “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (verse 4).

There is a judgment day! Instead of keeping his vineyard, God will remove its protective hedge, allowing it to be ravaged. Instead of planting choice vines, God will allow briars and thorns to overtake the vineyard. God will neither till the soil nor prune the vines or give life giving rain, because his vineyard, his people, did not respond in faithful love to his tender care and his offer to be their God.

We are privileged.  God invested his Word, his Son and his cross and resurrection and the outpouring of his Spirit in us. Are we using our privilege to produce the sweet wine of the works of God’s Kingdom?  Or will our disobedience ultimately repulse God? Are our actions representing the Church’s and God’s work in such a way that it is creating more harm than good?

Through humble repentance we can still return to seeking God’s purpose – as long as the time of grace and mercy remains! 

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).