Many years ago, a friend of ours won an award at work. His prize was a meal for two, up to £100. “Can I give this prize to a friend?” he asked. He could. “Does it matter if that friend would never be an employee or customer of the company?” That was fine, too. So Liz and I got to enjoy a lovely meal out, paid for by his company. And in those days, £100 got you a pretty decent meal as well. Extraordinarily kind. And one of many ways that friends have been kind over the years.
What’s the kindest thing that anyone has ever done for you? How do you respond to such kindness?
God is the kindest person there is. I want to show you this morning that, no matter what kindness you’ve experienced from a fellow human-being, God has shown you far greater kindness. The question is: How do you respond to such kindness?
We’re in the 5th chapter of Isaiah, a prophet from Israel in the 8th century before Christ. The opening chapters contain no dates, no historical references. They introduce his whole book. In many ways, these chapters give a timeless message. I want us to look at chapter 5 under 3 headings:
Lavish Grace
First, lavish grace. Lavish grace.
Verse 1: I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: my loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 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.
It’s a parable of God’s kindness to Israel over the years. God had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, brought her into a good land, given her kings to lead them, and lived among them in a temple built by king Solomon.
This parable shows just how lavish God’s kindness is. Every detail was lovingly taken care of. The soil was carefully prepared, cleared off stones. The vines that were planted were not the cheapest variety – they were choice ones, the most expensive in the nursery with the best chance of success. A watch tower was built. The vineyard would be guarded night and day. Maybe the owner would live there – relocating the family home to keep an eye on things. Then the winepress went in. That’s both a way to process the crop in-house, and also to store the vintage. There’s a final touch in verse 5 – the owner built both a hedge and a wall. It was double-fenced, to make sure no intruders got in to steal or damage.
Beautifully tended. Now, it’s not a simile. We mustn’t start looking at Israel’s history to find the tower, the press, the fence and so on. It’s a picture, a stunning one, of a vineyard for which nothing was spared.
Few of us can afford such luxury in everyday life. But imagine you buy a car, and it’s no expense spared. Every little detail is the best the manufacturer could find. Down to the dust caps on the tyre valves, which are metal not plastic. Or you stay in a hotel overnight. The complimentary chocolates are the best from Belgium. The notepad they’ve left is top quality parchment. With a free Swiss fountain pen to write with. Every detail taken care of.
That’s the picture here. There is nothing the owner hasn’t done for his vineyard. God’s done everything for his people. Verse 4: “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” The answer: Nothing.
But unfortunately, things did not go well. Verse 2 ends: “Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.” Literally, it stank.
I’m hopeless at DIY. No matter how much care I take, the shelves are wonky, the cupboard is wobbly. If I stand back and ask, “What more could I have done?”, someone who knows what they’re doing would reply: “Where do I start?” That hole drilled too wide. No spirit-level when that was marked up. The list is endless. And I learn each time, only to make different mistakes.
As God steps back to survey his people, he sees things have not turned out well. And when he asks “what more could I have done?”, the answer is “nothing at all”. God had done everything. He’d lavished his love and care on his people throughout their history. Whatever’s gone wrong, it’s no failing on God’s part.
Lavish grace.
Grace Rejected
Which brings me to my second heading: Grace rejected. Grace rejected.
It’s time to look at those stinky grapes. The failure was not on God’s part, but on the part of his people. They did not live the life that God had rescued them for.
We get a summary in verse 7: He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Starting in verse 8, Isaiah unpacks the sour grapes. There are 6 sections, each starting with the word “woe”. As I said earlier, these opening chapters of Isaiah have a certain timelessness to them. Much of what he writes here could be written about our own day.
So ,then, grace rejected. Sour grapes. Bad fruit. 6 woes:
Number one, greed. Verse 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.” Property speculation had arrived in ancient Israel. Never mind making sure that everyone has somewhere to live and something to eat. Instead, people were treating life like a game of monopoly. Stuff the bank account as full as you can, own as much land as you can, around the biggest house you can afford. Where you end up is very rich, very comfortable, and very lonely. And that’s if you’re one of the ones who’s made it.
Do you recognise this portrait?
Number two, self-indulgence. Verse 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. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, pipes and tambourines and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands.” People knew how to have a good time. Drink, pleasure, fun and laughter are what get them out of bed in the morning. Life is about having as much fun as you can. Work is to furnish your leisure. God doesn’t get a second thought.
Number three, defiance. Verse 18: “Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, to those who say, ‘Let God hurry; let him hasten his work so that we may see it. The plan of the Holy One of Israel – let it approach, let it come into view, so that we may know it.’” The picture is of a person trapped in their sin. It’s like they pull it along behind them, tied to it by strong ropes. But they can’t even see their predicament. They think they’re free. They like their life. So much so that they challenge God to intervene and stop them.
Number four, moving the goalposts. Verse 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.” God defines good and evil, right and wrong. But picture the person who likes doing something God says is bad. Eventually, they start to change the definitions. Something that God says is bad, dark, bitter, they call good, light, sweet. It’s OK to hoard, to flirt, to cheat. Time to justify themselves, by moving the moral goalposts.
Number five: Conceit. Verse 21: “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.” Who knows best? Why, I do, of course! I doubt God has anything to teach me, let alone anybody else. It’s the natural end point for the person who’s so tied to their sin that they start to rewrite the rules.
And lastly, corruption. Verse 22: “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.” Lost in their own little world, with its social life. Occasionally they get the chance to make a real impact on the world. So they choose whatever helps them keep their enjoyable routines. “What will pay best?” – never mind whether it’s the right thing to do. Bribery and corruption.
There are Isaiah’s 6 woes for Israel of his day, the bad fruit that God did not want to see when he looks at his vineyard. Greed. Self-Indulgence. Defiance. Moving the Moral Goalposts. Conceit. Corruption.
In short, Israel looks exactly like the world around her. God’s lavish grace should have led to God’s good, perfect, just, loving, liberating character working itself out Instead, God showers kindness on them, and it’s made no difference at all.
I’m no better at gardening than I am at DIY. So I’m always amazed to visit a professionally run garden. There are lots you can visit round here. They’re a thing of beauty – immaculately kept lawns, imaginative beds, all kinds of plants tended, a feast for the eyes and the nose alike.
Imagine two fields in the Kent countryside. Side by side. Identical. One is left wild. The other is bought by the most skilful gardener in the country, manager at a prestigious National Trust venue, twice winner at Chelsea. For twenty years they do nothing else but pour love and attention on their field, the budget unlimited. They work nowhere else. And after 20 years, their field looked indistinguishable from the wild one next door. The same mixture of meadow grass, dandelion, nettle and ragwort.
That’s the position God’s in. The blessings he’s poured out are unsurpassable. And society looks just like the world around.
Grace rejected.
Rejection Judged
Which brings us to the final step: Rejection judged. Rejection judged.
Let’s go back to the parable. Verse 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. 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.”
God will remove the hedge and the wall. In the language of the parable, the vineyard will be overcome by external threats. It will be trampled. Then there’s internal wasting – overrun by thorns and weeds. And lastly, there’s divine rejection – it won’t rain, and only God controls the weather.
The chapter ends with a piece of poetry that describes this process. Verses 26 to 30 portray a foreign army marching on Israel to devastate it. This is a flawless army; they haven’t got so much as a shoelace undone. Their weaponry is in perfect condition. Look at verse 28. In that day, horse shoes hadn’t been invented, so horses would stumble on rough ground. But their horses are unstoppable – they’ve got flint hooves. The chariots appear to float above the ground, almost flying.
And this army comes to bring God’s judgement. Verse 26: They come because God has whistled for them. They’re doing his beck and call. And the form of the poetry matches the message. These are a rapid succession of short staccato lines. Here they come. “Swiftly and speedily. Their arrows sharp. Their bows strung. Horses’ hooves like flint.” You can almost hear the galloping sound as you read it.
Rejection judged.
This is the blackest chapter of Isaiah chapters 1 to 5. The other chapters have all had a chink of light. There’s a chance that Israel might repent, and at least a remnant be spared. But not here. Instead the question is asked: What more could God have done. The answer is “nothing”. In which case it’s time to throw them on the bonfire. Judgement is certain. Relentless. The chapter ends with darkness closing in.
I love reading the novels of John Le Carré. They’re very cleverly written, putting their finger on some of the great injustices that are done around the world. There’s an increasing passion to his writing as he gets older. But so often, the powers that be seem overwhelming. And about three quarters of the way through the book you get this building feeling that the lead character is not going to come out on top. They’re up against a machinery far too powerful. And you begin to see: There’s no way this is going to end well.
That’s what it feels like if you’ve been reading Isaiah chapters 1 to 5. A bit of hope in the beginning. But by this point, it’s black. God’s people are incorrigible. God’s blessed them in every way possible, and it’s not made a blind bit of difference. There’s no way this is going to end well.
Christ
Let’s bring this to our own day and age. We’re not living in Isaiah’s Jerusalem. We’re not facing imminent invasion from the armies of Assyria or Babylon. Instead, we live in an age of grace. Jesus has come.
But, stop! We’re in danger of rushing to think that lets us off the hook. “The blackness of Isaiah chapter 5 doesn’t apply to us.”
Remember that the people of Isaiah’s day lived in an age of grace. And so do we. What more could God have done for his people back then? Well actually, there’s a lot more he could have done for them. The things, in fact, that he’s done for us!
He sent his Son to be born a human being, to live a perfect life, to bring God’s kingdom on earth. He then died the death that we deserved to die, before rising to life and conquering death itself. He’s ascended into heaven where he now rules the world, and sent his Spirit so that he can be with his people forever. Everyone who trusts him is forgiven their sins, adopted into his family, and made his chosen people.
Truly, we are those who can say: What more could have been done for us, his vineyard? The answer really is “nothing at all!”
Yet for all of that, the 6 woes of this chapter still describe the world we live in. We still live in a world marked by greed, self-indulgence, defiance, moving moral goalposts, conceit and corruption. And if we’re honest, sometimes, our lives are marked by those things, too.
This chapter shows us that there’s a terrifying place you don’t want to be. You don’t want to be someone who has received God’s grace without limit, only to have rejected it. God’s love in Christ is truly amazing. God’s kindness in Christ is unlike any other kindness that anyone has ever shown you. And if we reject God’s love in Christ, there really is nothing God can do.
Let me read a few verses of the New Testament that make exactly this point. There’s no need to turn to them.
John chapter 15, verse 1: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
Hebrews chapter 10, verses 28 and 29: “Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
And Hebrews chapter 6, verses 4 to 8: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.” Just like Isaiah’s vineyard.
Conclusion
God is wonderfully good, impossibly kind, incomparably gracious, unimaginably loving.
That was true in Isaiah’s day. It’s so much more true in our own day.
God wants us to receive his love. To respond to him. To be transformed by him into the people he wants us to be. Let’s respond.
The alternative is to reject his kindness, his love and his grace. To look no different from the world around us in spite of all that God has given to us and done for us.
To do that is a big mistake. God literally could not have done more for us than he has done. He could not have shown us greater love than he showed when Jesus died for us. To reject such love is to go to that place where there is no hope, only closing darkness.