The Vineyard Song Part 1

 

Isa 5:1 Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well-beloved has a vineyard On a very fruitful hill. 2 He dug it up and cleared out its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, And also made a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, But it brought forth wild grapes.

 

Every time I read this portion of Isaiah, I am transported to just about any Christian coffeehouse. There’s a musician strumming on a guitar and he or she will say something like, “Here’s a song I wrote about………..yada, yada, yada.

 

Well here, the musician is God and it’s a little song He prophetically wrote about His Well-beloved Son, (Mt 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

In this song, His Son was given a vineyard, (the church, Old Testament and New. He had such high expectations for her as HE gave her everything she needed to be blessed.

 

The soil was fertile, the prophets digging up the ground and clearing it of stones with the preaching of the Law and the call to repentance. It is just like John the Baptist “preparing the way of the Lord!” with his preaching of repentance.

A tower is erected, which is a picture of the cross on Calvary towering over all the vineyard. Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

He even built a winepress, expecting the vineyard to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  Ga 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

But all He got was sour grapes. Have you ever eaten wild grapes? They are the epitome of something very sour.  Believe me, you will know the difference between a wild grape and one that is properly grown and cultivated.

 

This song could be written for us in the church today. What have we NOT been blessed with in the spiritual realm. Forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us through the Word of God, the means of grace, etc.

 

With all this given to us, we must ask ourselves what kind of wine are we producing for the Vinedresser?  Is there joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control evidenced in our lives?

 

Or are we turning out the sour grapes of the works of our flesh? Ga 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

It’s a battle I know, but we must ask ourselves, will we be led by our flesh or by the Spirit of God?