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Isaiah chapter 5 opens with a song. It is a love song. A farmer plants a vineyard on a fertile hill and it digs the soil, clears the stones, and plants the choicest vines. Now he builds a watchtower and even cuts out a wine press. Now this care is a picture of how God loves his own people. To wait for good fruit was the natural hope of this love. Verses one and two. 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 wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Now the vineyard image is not new in Isaiah. Already in chapter three, the prophet accused the elders and officials of the people as those who devoured the vineyard. Isaiah chapter three, verse fourteen. Now in chapter five, the Lord himself brings a charge against the vineyard itself, because it yields wild grapes and not good ones. Throughout the prophets, Israel and Judah are compared again and again to a vine, and the vine is the object of the Lord's care, but when it bears no good fruit, it becomes the object of judgment. And the good fruit the Lord looked for in this vineyard was nothing other than justice and righteousness. Justice and righteousness. But the song suddenly turns painful. He looked for good grapes, yet wild grapes appeared. It was not for lack of vines, it was not for lack of water. Now the owner of the vineyard had done everything he could. So now God sets the people of Jerusalem in the judge's seat, and then he asks them to judge between him and his vineyard. Verses three and four. Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? So God asks, What more could have been done? And before this question we grow quiet. To us also God has given everything. He gave us the atoning work of Christ, He gave us the indwelling of the Spirit, He gave us the guidance of His Word. He cares for us with love each day. So it is entirely right for Him to expect good fruit from us. Verses five and six. 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, and I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briars and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it. Judgment Now judgment does not always come as a great disaster. It comes as God withdrawing his hand. He takes away the hedge, he opens the wall, and he stops the rain. When he lifts the protecting hand of grace, the people simply reap the results of the disobedience that they chose. The terror of sin is clearest when God hands us over to ourselves. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed, for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. So verse seven carries a painful word play in the original language. God looked for justice. In Hebrew it would be Mishpat, but saw bloodshed, mispach. He looked for righteousness, sedak or sedaka, but heard an outcry sedaka. So the words sound alike, yet their meanings are opposite. On the surface there seemed to be faith and worship, but underneath were the cries of the oppressed. God is not looking for the appearance of fruit, he is looking for the real thing. Now the song moves into the first two of six woes. The first woe is aimed at greed. These are people who add house to house and field to field. To buy a house or a field is not itself a sin, of course. The trouble is that they never know when they have enough. They pile up until no space is left and they live alone in the land. Verses eight through ten says, Woe to you who have who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing, surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants, a ten acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine. A homer of seed will yield only an effa of grain. Tim Keller often explained idolatry in this way. An idol is usually not a bad thing, but a good thing turned into an ultimate thing. Houses and fields are good gifts from God, yet when they take the throne of the heart, they become greed, and Scripture calls greed idolatry. So by making these greedy houses desolate, God teaches us that an idol can never fill us. 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 timbrels and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands. The second woe is aimed at pleasure and spiritual indifference. Music and feasting are not sins. The trouble is that this pleasure pushed God out. They stay drunk from morning to night, yet they have no interest in what God is doing. They do not see the work of his hands. Pleasure that crowds out God will in the end blind our eyes. Therefore, my people will go into exile for lack of understanding. Those of high rank will die of hunger, and the common people will will be parched with thirst. Therefore, death expands its jaws, opening wide its mouth, into it will descend their nobles and masses with their all their brawlers and revelers. So spiritual ignorance brings a costly result. The people go into exile and high and low fall together, yet in the middle of this dark picture, verses fifteen and sixteen shine. The proud are brought low, but the Lord Almighty exalted by the very justice. Even judgment becomes a stage on which God's holiness is displayed. So people will will be brought low and everyone humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled, but the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts. So in the middle of a song, a song of judgment, verse sixteen proclaims the holiness of God, and the reformed tradition never separates God's holiness from his justice. God is proved holy not by overlooking sin, but by judging it in righteousness. Our comfort rests here. The one who rules over us is holy and righteous, and his justice never fails. Verse 17, then sheep will graze as in their own pasture, lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich. So the passage ends with an unexpected picture. The rich man's splendid fields become ruins, yet in those ruins lambs graze in peace. Where pride has fallen, a pasture for the gentle is raised up. At the end of a song of judgment, God leaves us a picture of care for the lowly, and God's last word is never ruin but tender care. The good fruit that Israel failed to bear, Jesus, the true vine, bore for us. So our obedience is not a struggle to escape judgment. It is fruit that flows from grace that is already received. Grace of God comes first, and obedience is its fruit. Jesus knew the song of the vineyard. He retold it in the parable of the wicked tenants, Matthew 21. And he declared, I am the true vine, John 15. We cannot squeeze good fruit out of ourselves. We bear fruit only when we remain in Christ. So let's not forget today our place is not so much in striving with our own efforts, but abiding. Abiding in God's grace. Let's pray. Loving Lord, you have done everything for us. You gave us Christ, you gave us the Spirit, you gave us your word. So help us to see honestly the part of us that never feels satisfied and the pleasures that push you aside. Let us remain in Jesus, the true vine, so that good fruit grows not by force, but by the graces that you provide. Amen.