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January 22, 1992..,The Portland Observer,..Page 5
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Portland Observer ■■™" ■ ■ ■ ■ " ■ ■ ■ ■ " ■
Scripture o f the
RELIGION
Psalm 31
Isaiah’s Song Of The Vineyard: Are Those Wild Grapes I See?
BY MICHAEL LINDSEY
Dean of North Portland Bible College
d ow n-violence, greed, injustice and
dishonesty were just facts of daily life,
does any of this sound familiar to you?
The Lord gave Isaiah a message to
communicate to the people of Israel
and Judah, a message they didn’t want
to hear. So the Spirit of God (see 2 Pet
1:20-21) led Isaiah to tell them a story,
a parable in the form of a song, so they
might receive the message with both
their minds and their hearts. Like most
parables, this one used an aspect of life
everyone then was familiar w ith -th e
cultivation of a vineyard. Before we try
to apply this to ourselves, le t’s try to re­
live the parable as Isaiah would have
first told it. [By the way, the Lord Jesus
also taught several parables based on
vineyard keeping and fruit b e a rin g -
skim through Matthew 20 and 21 for
several parallels to Isaiah 5.]
The song begins, "M y well-be­
loved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful
hill.” W ho is Isaiah’s good Friend? He
doesn’t tell us, yet. Isaiah directs our
attention to the vineyard. The people of
Israel lived in hilly country, and many
vineyards grace the hillsides. But vine­
yards were not for everyone. They took
a lot o f work to establish, and years of
waiting before the vines grew large
enough to produce a full crop. The
vineyards symbolized the fruitfulness
The text for the Sunday School
lesson (International Series) for next
Sunday is Isaiah 5:1-7. W e again want
to encourage the faithful Sunday School
teachers in our churches, by making
available to you advance copies o f these
weekly colum ns for your use in prepar­
ing lessons. You may request this serv­
ice by phoning NPBC at 288-2919;
leave a message if necessary.
A story about raising grapes may
seem to be a long ways removed from
our churches and our nation, but I’m
convinced that this "so n g of the vine­
yard” was written to illustrate some
vital principles that are as true today as
they were in Isaiah’s day, some 700
years before C h rist
Isaiah lived in a culture that had a
heritage o f fa ith - faith in the same God
Christians worship today. Their grand­
parents, by and large, had been men
and women who testified to the great
mercies o f the Lord, and had raised
their children to obey his W ord, includ­
ing the Ten Commandments. The lead­
ers, both in government and religion,
had becom e very corrupt, but they still
kept up a fa ade of religious piety to
keep their influence with the people.
But the society as a whole was breaking
o f Isreal itself, and they were passed on
from generation to generation. So som e­
one like Isaiah's Friend had to have a
long-term com m itm ent to make that
vineyard succeed.
The land o f Palestine is so filled
with rocks that the farmer has to remove
them from the soil so it will support the
grape vines. The Arabs say that when
G od created the world, he sent an angel
out carrying two bags o f rocks for the
whole world. As the angel passed over
Palestine, one bag broke, so that half of
all the stones in the world are in Pales­
tine. Farmers and their fam ilies con­
tinually work to remove more stones so
the ground will be more productive.
They use these stones to build fences,
boundary markers, watchtowers, and a
winepress with a vat to save the juice.
Isaiah’s Friend did everything he
could to insure a good vineyard-he
used the best vine starts, provided the
best protection against anim als who
would steal the grapes and ruin the
vines, and constructed a full-scale win­
ery (by their standards) right there in the
field. The central point is that the vine­
yard had the very best character it could
have, and the fruit (grapes) should have
been the very best, too. Instead, when
the vineyard started producing, its grapes
were “ w ild,” that is, small, inedible,
worthless fruit which the Palestinians
still call “ wolf grapes."
Suddenly, the song changes key,
and the Friend him self speaks (vv. 3-6
in our text). He asks the audience, the
people o f Jerusalem, to give him ad­
vice. W hat has he failed to do, to pro­
duce a good vineyard? No one ans w e rs-
it's certainly not his fault the way the
grapes have turned out. So the Friend of
Isaiah is fully justified to destroy the
vineyard; if the vines could talk, what
excuse could they give? The Vinekeepcr
tells how he will remove all protection
from the vineyard, and allow its ene­
mies to totally devastate it, and then let
it grow wild, like its fruit
As a final blow, Isaiah’s Friend
“ will also command the clouds that
they rain no rain upon it” (v.6). Now
this is no ordinary vineyard owner, for
he can com m and the elements o f na­
ture. At this point (v.7) Isaiah explained
his parable, and probably surprised many
of his audience. The nation Israel is the
vineyard and its vines; the Lord of hosts
(Yahweh Sabaoth) is Isaiah’s beloved
Friend. And the fruit of the nation Israel
is wild grapes, ripe for judgment.
W hat were these grapes? Isaiah
explains that the grapes are phony sub­
stitutes for godliness. He uses a play on
words (a pun) in his Hebrew language,
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then in turn the Persians, the Greeks, and
the Romans tread through the land and
ruled it (recall v.5 in our text).
The same principles do apply to our
nation today. The United States is cer­
tainly not G od’s "chosen people,” but
it has a heritage o f Biblical values and an
awareness o f the L ord’s blessing both
materially and spiritually. If our nation
continues to subvert its justice system,
devalue human life, encourage violence
in both the media and real life, idolize
the rich who gel richer by exploiting the
poor and devastating the environment,
and deny the value o f honest work, then
G od’s judgm ent will surely fall on this
nation, for we have produced "w ild
grapes” despite his attention and care
for us.
•
And the same principle applies to
the Christian people of America as well,
all the more because we are G od’s cho­
sen people of (1 Pet 2:9-10), blessed
with every spiritual blessing from him
(Eph 1:3;). If we don’t take a stand
against social evils like those mentioned
above, we have only ourselves to blame
as the society declines and falls. I per­
sonally don’t think w e’ve reached that
point yet; if the Lord can look at our
lives and see fruit of justice and right­
eousness, he may yet bring a revival e f
faith that will save our land.
January 30th Thru February 1st, 1992
A Group Of Ministers Here In Portland Are
Getting Together To Put On a Revival. •
Volunteers Needed
1. Community Service
to show how phony their lives were. The
Lord was looking for mishpat, "Ju d g ­
m ent” [or belter, “ Justice” (NIV)], the
fruit o f a culture that respects human
rights and divine law. But he found
mispach, "bloodshed” (NIV), a total
disregard for humanity. W ild grapes
indeed!
Then the Lord looked into the hearts
of his people. He wanted to see the fruit
o f tsedaqah, * ‘righteousness,” hearts set
on doing right by one’s fellow human
being, no matter what the consequences.
Instead, he found tse'aqah, " a cry of
distress” (NIV), as the poor and pow er­
less called on the Lord to save them
from the oppressors. These grapes are
enough to make you sick!
Outwardly, Israel was the chosen
people o f God. Inwardly, they had re­
jected that provilege, and the responsi­
bility o f being a blessing to other na­
tions. They had chosen to worship other
gods, to parctice immoral behavior, and
to exploit the weak and poor among
them. In our text, the Lord em phasizes
the last of these sins. It was impossible
for Israel as a society to continue to live
lives o f greed, pleasure and indifference
to others’ needs, without falling under
the judgm ent of Almighty GOD. And
this judgm ent did come, as the Babylo­
nian armies devastated the land, and
Theme: Jesus: “Righteousness For All”
Sing And Preaching Revival Featuring A Dynamic, Aannointed Man Of
God, Elder Jack Carter Of Chicago, Illinois Along With Some Of
Portland’s Finest Ministers And Choirs.
Please call Rose Marie Davis @ 281 -8976 any time.
6:30-9:30 Nightly Starting With Prayer At 6:30.
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(206) 260-1503 or Sister Normal J. Williams at 287-0624.
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