Bible Talks - Sunday Night Church
Series: On Eagles Wings - Isaiah 1-39 · Talk No. 2
This ain’t no love song
Sunday, 11 July 2004
Isaiah 5 ESV or NIV
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Bad news is hard to give and hard to take. Some people seem to have the job of passing on bad news. Sports coaches who have to leave out good players as they select their sides have an unenviable task. It’s very‑ hard for someone who has trained hard for years to miss out at the last minute. It’s hard, also for police visiting the homes of accident victims, and of course it’s hard to receive the news. It’s hard for a doctor to pass on the test results to a patient who has some terminal illness. There’s all sorts of situations in which someone has to pass on the bad news. Tonight’s sermon on Isaiah 5 is a bad news message, not one full of jokes and stories. It’s a hard message to give and a hard one to take. So let's pray.
The chapter begins with a song. It starts off sounding a bit like a love song, but a few verses in something has gone seriously wrong. The vineyard of is a metaphor for Israel and verses 1 and 2 express God's generosity, blessing and protection; but Israel's response to in the next few verses shows the Israelite’s short memories, their selfishness and godlessness; and verses 5‑6 give God's response of judgment. This parable of the vineyard is explained in v7:
The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
This basic picture of bad fruit and subsequent destruction is spelled out in the rest of chapter 5.
Bad fruit (8‑25)
a On the surface
Isaiah describes the bad fruit in six woes. The idea of woe includes warning and threat, together with deep pathos. There is a serious problem among God's people and this is what their bad fruit looks like: materialism v8‑9 as people acquired more and more land and hedonism v12 as people lived it up with wine and music. On the surface it can look like prosperity and blessing, but if we look more closely as in v11, 22‑23 we see that it is not simply their wealth, but their greed and corruption that are the real problems. They are preoccupied with their own security and pleasures. The real problem is not simply what you see on the surface, but underneath.
b On the inside
So looking underneath we see in v12b a brazen disregard; even contempt for God which comes out further in v18 & 19. And in v20-23 we see that the people are amoral, warped and twisted calling evil good and good evil; thinking they are so wise, at least in their own eyes The heart of the problem is given in verse 24, they have turned their backs oil God.
It all sounds like Romans ch 1 doesn’t it? “although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools”
This is a picture of sin. On the outside it looks successful, glamorous, even wise. Yet it is preoccupied with self. Inside there is coldness toward God, independence, defiance, redefining the rules, doing my thing in my way and leaving God out of the picture. This is the most serous problem our world has ever, and will ever, face. It was the problem at the beginning and it has affected every person, including you and me. People often point to the problems of economic inequality, environmental concerns, or warfare and famine, but these things are only the symptoms of our rejection of God. The real problem lies within ourselves.
This description of the problems of society in 7 or 800 years before Jesus was equally valid at the time of the Apostle Paul about 50 or 60 years after Jesus as it is now some 2000 years later. The problem with society is that it is made up of people and people, no matter how wise they are in their own eyes, are sinful and fallible.
So the question is, how will our holy just God respond to the sinfulness of his people. Especially seeing they are a people who have a special place in his heart.
God is described ill two key ways ill this chapter, and throughout the book of Isaiah: the Lord Almighty and the Holy One of Israel.
The description of God in Isaiah is the powerful God, ruling over all, who is uncompromising in his standards, and still cares about his people and his world. Isaiah 5 tells us what this Almighty and Holy God will do in response to sin.
b More than poetic justice
We have a saying, 'poetic justice'. E.g. when the school bully gets picked on. There is certainly some of that here: Those who chase after bigger and better mansions (8) will be homeless (9‑10); Those who are preoccupied with feasting (12) will find themselves starving (13). It is similar to Romans 1 again where God gives people who deny him over to what they are asking for.
But, the big issue is that the Holy God is angry ‑ not flying off the handle, doing his lolly type angry but deep down fundamental anger that those whom he poured out his love upon have rejected him. We see that the scope of God's judgment (13 ‑15) is not just on a select few within society but against the whole of the society who have rejected him. And the shape of his judgment involves destruction upon his people Israel through the surrounding nations, such as Assyria and Babylon.
This, raises the issue of what we think God is like. We like to think of God as generous, loving, patient and slow to anger. But these opening chapters of Isaiah show us that yes god is those things but additionally he will not leave the guilty unpunished. As we read through the prophecies of Isaiah and the historical records in Kings and Chronicles that parallel them we must take seriously God's holiness, righteousness and justice. God's full character must impact our thinking, speech, actions ‑and our prayers.
It’s all a bit like those classical good news/ bad news jokes.
Borrow the car – the air-bags work.
When we look at any part of Scripture there are two questions we should ask ourselves:
What does the rest of the Bible make of this?
And what should we do in response?
Let’s take a look at what the rest of scripture makes of this section of Isaiah by looking at how Jesus uses the idea of Israel being God's vineyard in this parable from Matthew 21.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 34When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
35“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
Isaiah is the bedrock of the New Testament and the ideas of chapter 5 find expression on the lips of Jesus. We see it in this parable of and in the 'woes' to the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. Throughout her history Israel continued to reject the word of the prophets, even killing them and this of course reaches its climax in the rejection and murder of Jesus, the Son of God. In the end this is, in fact, where all sin leads. The rejection of the true God.
And yet it is out of this bad news that God brings good news. Through the death of Jesus comes salvation from the judgment of God. The Almighty Holy God can work through extreme bad to bring good. In the death of Christ God's justice and mercy converge. When Jesus told that parable and pronounced those woes, the scribes and Pharisees sought how to kill Jesus . But after his death and resurrection, after the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter and the apostles declared, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” And we’re told “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” and “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
You see here’s the good news and the bad news. The bad news first. If you continue to reject God, to consider yourself wise in your own eyes and continue in your sinful ways then sooner or later you’re going to come face to face with God's judgment. It may be sooner in that God gives you over to the natural consequences of the life you live rejecting him and I’ll leave you to read Romans 1:18-32 for yourself to see how bad that can get or on the final day of judgment when Christ returns, or when you die, whichever comes first you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of God's wrath.
The good news is of course that if you turn to him in repentance and faith he will forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
The message of prophets like Isaiah and his contemporaries was always conditional. Keep going the way you are and you are headed for a confrontation with the God of righteousness and justice and guess who’ll win. Alternatively turn to him in repentance and faith and experience all his love and mercy.
Again that message is as valid today as it was in Jesus’ time, as it was in Isaiah’s time. If you haven't already, then turn to Jesus and be saved from God's judgment. God doesn't ignore your sin ‑ he has dealt with it in Jesus.
Materialism and greed, as we all know, remain issues for God's people today in the 21st century like they were in the 7&8th BC. Our preoccupation with self means we fail to see the needs of others and fail to keep our trust in God. There are still those who claim to belong to God but keep on striving after bigger and better mansions, or who just want to party on. Materialism poses a serious threat to our relationship with God. The good news of Jesus moves us to dependence upon God and generosity toward others in response to God's generosity and love towards us.
Let us pray.
