Thoughts from Isaiah 5

Isa 5:1-7

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.

...

7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty

is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah

are the garden of his delight.

And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;

for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. NIV

 

NOTE:  Jesus used this same imagery in a number of parables.  One in particular is an exact reference, except it adds an owner and a son.  In the parable, the people, the vineyard workers, kill the son, to which the listeners respond in shock.  Then Jesus quotes the verse "the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone."  God knew that his people would reject the message of the Messiah.  Someday, they will recognize their fault and turn to the Messiah in repentance and faith.  Today they are still blinded.

 

More importantly, in the Isaiah passage, the people's rejection of God is based on abundance and wealth.  They have fallen in love with the world.  They have no time for God or for any of his plans.  They are consumed by life, not by God. 

 

We are guilty of the same sin in the USA.  We have fallen in love with wealth, the world, and wickedness, and have forgotten that we don't own the vineyard, it is and always has been God's.