“What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” Isaiah 5:4 ESV
Reflection: why does God expect good fruit from His people?
Isaiah saw how God had acquired the best vineyard and soil, had meticulously prepared and worked the grounds, planted good vines, built a watchtower and hedge of protection around the vineyard. He even built a wine press in the middle waiting for the first crop. He had done everything that one could do to produce the best fruit, the most choice wine. But to His deepest disappointment, the vineyard only produced bitter, foul fruit. The word used was “stinkberries” which is a real fruit with a foul smell and taste.
Now, we understand the metaphor here, as Isaiah was talking about the house of Israel, and in this case specifically the people of Judah. We read an echo of this metaphor, with the same frustration from Jesus hundreds of years later as He tells the familiar parable. ““Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?””Matthew 21:33-40 ESV
So what is God to do with this vineyard? Isaiah saw and spoke of what would happen. “And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!” Isaiah 5:5-7 ESV
So is there anything we can learn from this today? Perhaps the first point is how we see some nations even today cause bloodshed and outcry as opposed to justice and righteousness. God will not let that stand, and will remove His “fence” of protection, His “watchtower” even in those nations who He has meticulously prepared for His purposes. But this also gets very personal. Because we need to carefully look at ourselves, each one of us. John the Baptist said to those who came to be baptized “So produce fruit that is consistent with repentance [demonstrating new behavior that proves a change of heart, and a conscious decision to turn away from sin];” Matthew 3:8 AMP. A changed heart, born again by God, desires the things of God; not of the world.
Paul summarized this way, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:16, 19-23 ESV
Are we producing stinkberries of the flesh, or choice grapes for wine, the fruit of the Spirit?