|
About Jesus Steve Sweetman Isaiah 5 The
Song Of The Vineyard (ch. 5:1 - 7) In
my introduction I stated that Isaiah was the Shakespeare of Bible
writers. He used all aspects
of writing styles. Here, in
verse 1, we see Isaiah wrote a
song. I suggest that since
this is a song, Isaiah might well have been a singer and actually sang
this as a song. Many Bible
teachers believe this to be true. Isaiah
says, "I will sing this for the one I love".
Clearly, this is a love song.
The pronoun "I" refers to God in this verse.
It is God singing this love song through the lips of Isaiah. In
verse 2 we see that the song is about someone who purchased afield for a
vineyard. He went all out.
He bought the best of plants, tilled the soil, built a wine
press, but ended up with a bad crop.
We
note that in verse 3 that God is now addressing those in In
verses 5 and 6 God states what He will do with His vineyard.
He'll take away the hedge of protection.
He'll let the wild animals at the plants.
He'll stop the rain from falling on it.
He'll simply let the land go desolate.
This is exactly what happened to the Verse
7 clearly states who the vineyard symbolized.
It is the house of Woes
And Judgment (ch. 5:8 - 30) Verse
8 seems to be God's condemnation of man building cities for the sole
purpose of commerce and making money.
The expensive, sprawling huge homes that satisfies our lust
virtually destroys the beauty of God's creation, and for that, this
deserves a "woe". The
word "woe" tells us so soon coming judgment.
Woe to those who will experience this judgment. In
verses 9 and 10 the woe are expressed in terms of economic collapse.
Houses will be desolate, and vineyards will produce next to
nothing. Six bushels of seed
will produce a half bushel of crop. In
the economic collapse of 2008 we see that the nice houses became
desolate. For sale signs
were seen all over the place in the The
next "woe" is seen inverses 11 and 12.
People whose lives are all about drinking and partying.
This sure fits much of the modern entertainment culture of today.
The excessive lifestyle of the rock star is clearly portrayed
here. For this reason, Verse
states that one real reason why Verse
14 speaks of death, both the death of a nation and the death of
individual. The apostle Paul
said that the wages of sin was death, and here we see that to be true.
In this death, both mankind and the mankind will be humbled, as
seen in verse 15. It's clear
that the men spoken of here refers to the men of Judah. When Isaiah uses the word
"mankind", he might well be using it in a general sense, as in
all of mankind. The
arrogant will be humbled, as Isaiah says, and it does not matter who the
arrogant are. It could you
be or I today. What
becomes apparent, as seen in verse 16, is that when God brings a nation
down, He is left standing. He
is in fact exalted. This is
yet another result of God's judgment.
This will surely be the case when Jesus returns to this planet.
Verse
17 states what comes after judgment, and, what comes after God is
exalted. The sheep will
graze. This is speaking of
prosperity, and yes, prosperity after judgment and a repented nation
always comes next. This is
the future for In
my thinking, the woes of verses 18 and 19 are directed to the arrogant
sinner, who, in the face of God openly sin.
Along with their sin, they dare God to judge them, thinking we
won't. What these sinners
are really saying is that there is no God who will judge them.
The
"woe" of verse 20 is against those that change the definition
of things from God's definition to their own sinful definition.
They obviously did that in Isaiah's day and we're doing it today.
We're calling things we once considered to be sin as no sin, and,
what was no sin, we're calling sin.
Homosexuality was once called sin in our culture, but not any
more. Christian thinking was
once called true and right but is now seen as sin, something that is
wrong and outdated. The
same applies to the "woe" of verse 21, and again, we see this
in western culture today. We
are wise in our own eyes but our wisdom is foolishness to God.
There is a "woe" waiting for us. Verse
22 states, "woe to them who are heroes of drinking".
Judgment will come on those whose lives are seen as one big
party, much like our entertainment culture of today.
The prophet goes on to include those who do not practice justice
in society. Their whole
culture will collapse, right down to the root.
This is what happened to Judah, and not only Judah, but to every
society and nation in human history who continues to reject the Lord God
Almighty. It can happen to
us today, and I believe it will. Note
in verse 25 that for all that happens to these people by God judging
them, they do not repent. The
same is seen by those at the end of this age as seen in Revelation
16:11. From
verse 26 to the end of this chapter seems to be speaking of the end of
this age. It can be noted
that often times in Old Testament prophecies, the prophecies skip from
the present situation to the end of the age.
I believe this is the case here.
The wording tells me this. The words "distant nations",
and, God "whistles for those at the ends of the earth".
This sounds like that Battle of Armageddon to me.
The darkness, the disaster seen in the closing verses here
suggests to me that this is an end time event, not just the fall of
|