The Song of the vineyard.

“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 of vines. 

He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 

Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more 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? 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; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 

I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it. 

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress” (Isaiah 5:1-7). 

Judgement and hope.

In Luke 18:1-8 Jesus is telling a parable about a woman who persistently seeks justice from a judge. She says to him, “grant me justice against my adversary” (Luke 18:3). Jesus says that this judge neither feared God nor cared what people thought (Luke 18:2) but because the woman kept bothering him he says, “I will see that she gets justice” (Luke 18:5). Then Jesus says, “Listen to what the unjust judge says, will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly” (Luke 18:7-8). 

God’s judgement for the rebellious and God’s hope for his chosen. 

In Isaiah 66 God is saying what his law requires: judgement for the rebellious and justice for his people. He says that he is able to bring about judgement for all people. Destruction for the rebellious and salvation for his people, because he is God who has made everything and everyone by his hand “they came into being” (Isaiah 66:2).

God says that people who humble themselves and acknowledge him, will receive favor on his day of judgement (Isaiah 66:2), but people who choose to follow what displeases him their judgment will be chosen for them (Isaiah 66:4). God says, “I will choose harsh treatment for them and will bring on them what they dread” (Isaiah 66:4). 

When God’s day of judgement comes for the people who reject God everyone will know that the sound of anguish that they hear will no longer be the coming from the oppressed but will be, “the sound of the Lord repaying his enemies all they deserve” (Isaiah 66:6). 

But for his chosen people, people who humble themselves and believe in God’s authority, God says he will deliver them from his wrath, and the sound coming from God’s people will be the sound of rejoicing because on the day of God’s wrath he will be the comfort for his people and satisfy them with overflowing abundance and peace (Isaiah 66:7-12). 

God says that his coming wrath for his foes will be like a whirlwind of fire that takes them completely from their place of security and destroys them in the flames, and “many will be those slain by the Lord” (Isaiah 66:16). 

God says that his judgement will be executed by him alone that he himself through Jesus has come, “to gather people of all nations and languages” to come and see his glory (Isaiah 66:18). That is to see the greatness of his deliverance and power to provide for and to save his chosen. 

God promises that the justice that he brings for his people will be an example to all nations, Jesus is this sign and example, the justice God has chosen that through him the glory of God will be proclaimed among all nations and everyone who comes to God for deliverance and salvation through Jesus will not be cast away for unrighteousness, but accepted as righteous and blameless before him (Isaiah 66:18-21). 

God says that the justice that he has brought to earth through Jesus has created, “a new heaven and a new earth that will endure” (Isaiah 66:22). God will always accept anyone who comes to him for deliverance and salvation through his chosen form of justice, Jesus. 

But for everyone who rejects God, his judgement will be shame, death and unquenchable fire that consumes them. Separation from God is place where no life is possible and full of destruction, a place of shame (Isaiah 66:24). 

God’s kingdom, through Jesus is a place full of the abundance of life, peace, hope and rejoicing where the creator of heaven and earth favors and blesses people who humble themselves and acknowledge him. 

A message to people who ridicule God. 

This is the message God spoke to King Hezekiah concerning the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, who told him and all the people of God that their God was not able to bring justice or deliverance from him and his armies. 

“Virgin Daughter Zion despises and mocks you. Daughter Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

By your messengers you have ridiculed the Lord. And you have said, “with my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its junipers. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up the streams of Egypt.

Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone. Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up. 

But I know where you are and when you come and go and how you rage against me. Because you rage against me and because your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came.

This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Once more a remnant from the Kingdom of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. 

Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came he will return he will not enter this city, declares the Lord. I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!

Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

One day, while he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king” (Isaiah 37:21-38). 

To the rebellious nation.

God says that the kingdom of God is where his people belong, and God is who his people belong to, but “my people, do not understand” they do not know it (Isaiah 1:3). What they claim association with is corruption, unbelievers are their associates and who they claim as family (Isaiah 1:4). 

God says his people have completely turned their backs on him (Isaiah 1:4). Even though they suffer from disease, and none of their wisdom brings justice, even though their cities are full of terror God says my people persist in their rebellion and rejection of me (Isaiah 1:5-7). 

Even the people who claim to know God, God says their hands are full of blood, they do not take up the cause of the fatherless or plead the case of the widow, they do not defend the oppressed. Their deeds are evil and they only do what is wrong (Isaiah 1:15-17). God says these people have the audacity to send prayers to him and offer sacrifices of worship but their hearts are far from him and their ways, evil. So God says, “Even when you offer many prayers I am not listening” (Isaiah 1:15). 

But because of their guilt, the guilt of God’s people, he says that he will make a way of salvation even for the guilty. God’s justice corrects and he says to his people, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). 

This is the inheritance and justice of God for everyone who is “willing and obedient” (Isaiah 1:19) “but if you resist and rebel” God says in his judgement “you will be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1:20). 

God says that it is not within the power of the powerful to remove their own guilt. It is also not within their power to bring the justice that he is able to bring because even the “rulers are rebels and partners with thieves, they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them” (Isaiah 1:23). 

Even the rulers oppress and cannot do what is right. Therefore God says he will be the one to make right all the crooked places among his people, he will do the purging and cleansing, he will restore righteousness in leadership, he will make his unfaithful people faithful; and he will deliver his people through his justice, Jesus (Isaiah 1:24-27).

Jesus is who God has chosen as leader over his people to rule and bring justice, to take up the cause of the oppressed and to save and to bless his people. He is the strong tower that God’s people can turn to to find refuge. God says that anyone who looks to the strength of rulers, “their sacred oaks” will be put to shame and disgraced by them. God says he will use their might to spark the flame for their destruction and ruin. The mighty and their power and all that they create “will burn together with no one to quench the fire” (Isaiah 1:31). 

Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God.

In John 3 Jesus teaches that the only way to the justice that God has chosen to fulfill through him is to disown your old way of being and accept the gift of a spiritual way of being, to be born again.

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’ 

Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ 

‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’ 

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’

‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked. 

‘You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, ‘and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’

‘No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes, may have eternal life in him.’

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 

This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has be done in the sight of God” (John 3:1-21). 

Praise the Lord!

Hear what the Lord says to you, people of Israel. This is what the Lord says: 

Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them. For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.

No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. Who should not fear you, King of nations? This is your due. Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.

They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols. Hammered silver is brought form Tarshish and gold from Uphaz. What the craftsman and goldsmith have made is then dressed in blue and purple—all made by skilled workers. 

But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath. Tell them this: “These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”

But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. 

Everyone is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith in shamed by his idols. The images he makes are a fraud; they have no breath in them. They are worthless, the objects of mockery; when their judgement comes, they will perish. 

He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the people of his inheritance—the Lord Almighty is his name” (Jeremiah 10:1-16).