The Parable of the Vineyard
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: The more time I spend reading and studying the book of Isaiah, the more I become aware of the complexities of the book and the less inclined I am to try to preach it systematically, chapter by chapter. The book is by no means chronological, and the great prophetic themes that we will be getting into shortly will have to be gathered from scattered passages. At the same time, I am becoming more and more impressed with the depth of this prophet’s insight and his literary ability.
The prophets of God were known to use many different methods of communicating their messages. Sometimes they preached, sometimes they denounced, sometimes they acted out their message, sometimes they used poetry, and sometimes they employed stories. Isaiah is no exception. In the passage before us today we have what is surely one of the finest exhibitions of rhetorical skill and power which the book contains, as Isaiah presents a parable in poetic form.
More important, of course, than the form is his content. Isaiah tells of a nation that has squandered enormous spiritual benefits and produced little of eternal value. The question I would like to ask this morning is this: could this parable apply to us as well? I know that it was written for our edificationbecause 1 Cor. 10:11 says it was. But in addition, could it also be that we are in the process of acting out the same story? The question will become more pertinent, I trust, as we work our way through the passage. Let’s read Isaiah 5:1-6:
Let me sing now for my beloved
A song of my beloved about His vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
2 He dug it all around, cleared it of stones,
And planted it with]the choicest vine.
And He built a tower in the middle of it,
And also carved out a wine vat in it;
Then He expected it to produce good grapes,
But it produced only worthless ones.
“And now, you inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah,
Judge between Me and My vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?
5 So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard:
I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed;
I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground.
6 I will lay it waste;
It will not be pruned nor hoed,
But briars and thorns will come up.
I will also command the clouds not to rain on it.”
The prophet describes a vineyard. (1-2)
The parable comes in the form of a short ballad which the prophet has composed for his Beloved. From the context we perceive that the Beloved is God, and the vineyard is His people, Israel. The first thing we see is the preparation that God has put into this vineyard to make it productive.
Preparation of the soil. First, a hill was chosen as the location. The Hebrew indicates a very fertile hill, undoubtedly the choicest of properties, with good drainage and plenty of sunlight. Next the land was cultivated and the stones were removed. Two weeks ago we spent a few days with my parents, who live near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. They have a small garden, upon which my mother has poured many hours of labor trying to remove the rocks. It’s a hopeless task, because rock is about all there is in that part of the country. She told me that on one occasion she had removed all the rocks over an inch in diameter, but she came back later to find new boulders in the garden. They seem to push themselves up through the soil as though one had planted them to grow.
That’s the way the soil of Palestine is. The Arabs have a proverb to the effect that when God created the world an angel flew over it carrying a bag of stones under each arm. As he flew over Palestine, one bag broke so that half of all the stones in the world are there. Half of the other bag must have landed in northwest Arkansas. At any rate, the work God did to prepare the soil in this vineyard was laborious and difficult.
Third, He planted the choicest vine. He didn’t go bargain-hunting like I did recently. I stopped in at K-Mart and found a slew of dead-looking fruit trees on sale for 50 cents each. I bought three. Since I didn’t invest much in them, I didn’t take much care in planting them. I just dug three holes, right in the clay that constitutes our back yard, stuck in the trees, and put the clay right back in the holes. Believe it or not, all three of those trees have put on leaves in the past three weeks.
Then the owner built a tower in the middle of the vineyard with the stones removed from the soil. The tower was for security, to prevent man or beast from marauding through the vineyard. And, in addition, according to verse 5, the owner built a dual protective wall around the vineyard, consisting of a hedge and then a stone wall.
Having seen the careful preparation given by the owner to His vineyard, let us note secondly what He expected from the vineyard.
Expectation of a crop. In the middle of verse 2 we are told that a wine vat was hewed out in the vineyard. Generally, a wine vat was carved out of solid rock to collect the juice as the grapes were crushed. It was a laborious task and so costly that not every vineyard had one. Many small operators were forced to carry their grapes to someone else’s press, and thus they were susceptible to being cheated or to having their wine contaminated. But this Owner had sufficient expectation of a good crop that He went ahead and carved out a wine vat.
Not only did He do everything possible to produce good grapes, He also made preparations for the usage of those grapes. His expectations are clearly stated in verse 2: “He expected it to produce good grapes.” But the results were something else. Notice it at the end of the verse.
Result. “ But it produced only worthless ones.” In these words we have the climax of the brief parable, as the prophet tells us of the sad and calamitous result of the Owner’s labors. The grapes produced were not usable; they were bad and offensive, the Hebrew word meaning, literally, “stinking grapes.”
The parable, per se, is over. But the lesson has yet to be pressed home.
The owner of the vineyard demands some answers. (3-6)
The answers are requested of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah. They are asked to be a sort of jury to judge the case between the Owner and His vineyard. The first question comes in the form of a challenge:
The challenge. Verse 4 reads, “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?” Was anything omitted that is normally done by the owner of a vineyard? Was anything omitted that is not normally done but that might have had a salutary effect?
Hearing no response the Owner asks still another question. “Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones?” Can they think of any reason at all which might account for the dashing of the owner’s hopes?
The form of these questions brings to our minds a similar confrontation between the prophet Nathan and King David. That prophet, too, came with a short little parable about a rich man with many herds who took a poor man’s only lamb to feed some guests. And Nathan, too, challenged David to produce some answers. His question, though not found in the text of 2 Samuel 12, must have been something like this, “David, what do you think should be done with such a greedy person?” And the King’s response was, “As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. And he must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.” And the prophet looked David squarely in the eye and exclaimed, “You are the man!” He who was so zealous for justice to be done in the parable had not considered justice when he murdered Uriah and took his wife Bathsheba for himself.
The only difference between Nathan’s story and Isaiah’s parable is that when these inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah are challenged, they say not a word.
The silence. Silence may not be an admission of guilt in the legal world, but it often is in the moral realm. It certainly is here. And since no answer is forthcoming, the Owner himself responds with a threat.
The threat. In verse 5, the Owner says, “So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard.” First, the hedge is to be removed. That which served as a windbreak and as a discouragement to the larger animals will no longer protect the vineyard. Next goes the stone wall, which kept out the smaller animals and served to deter thieves, with the result that the vineyard will now be trampled on. Next comes neglect, along with its attendant damage. The owner says He’s not going to work the vineyard anymore. It’s amazing how quickly a beautiful garden or lawn can become a jungle when there is no one there to prune, to hoe, to fertilize, to trim. If you abandon a cultivated field for a year, what will you find? Rich blue grass? Neat rows of flowers? Of course not. You find weeds! That’s what this vineyard produces when left to itself. Briars and thorns!
But to top off the benign neglect God takes some more direct and stringent action: He orders the clouds to rain no more on that little hill. We’ve had pretty good moisture here in Wichita this year (1984), but we all remember from experience that it only takes two weeks of hot weather in June or July for big cracks to open in the ground. Without water the future of this vineyard is hopeless.
The parable has been presented, the owner of the vineyard has demanded answers, and having received no acceptable explanations, He has promised trouble for the vineyard. Now it is time for the prophet to interpret his own parable.
The prophet interprets his own parable. (7-23)
The elements identified. Though we were already aware of it, he now explicitly states that the vineyard is the house of Israel and the men of Judah. In other words, the story is about the relationship of God to the Jewish people. As you know, at this time in history the Jewish nation was divided into two parts—the ten tribes of the north had formed the nation known as Israel, while the two tribes of the south constituted the nation of Judah. Both were still God’s chosen people, and both are the subject of this parable.
Now as we think back through the parable, the point of it becomes obvious. God had, of His own sovereign will, chosen a certain people as His own special nation. He had built protective hedges around them, evidenced so clearly in the books of Exodus and Judges. He had heaped innumerable blessings upon this people: He had given them divine revelation; He had granted them great leaders; He had enabled them to carve out a prosperous nation from the pagan and nomadic territories around them; He had disciplined them when they needed it; He had performed miracles in their behalf when necessary; in fact, one could not think of anything the Lord could have done which He had not done to make of this people a spiritually productive nation.
God had done everything except use force, for men must choose the Lord without compulsion. Force can never convert the soul or cause it to bow humbly before God. It is interesting that the Scriptures often use the imagery of a man wooing a young woman to be his bride to describe the way God seeks to bring people unto Himself. Women are not generally impressed by the caveman approach—man with club whips other suitors and drags his prize by the hair to his den. She may submit but she will not love such a man. Women are impressed by gentle persuasion and kind acts of love. But even such acts by the Lord failed to bring Israel to the altar.
Unrequited love is one of the hardest things for a person to deal with. Whether the subject be a lover, a child, or just a friend, when we have poured love and concern and compassion on someone, only to have them reject us or, worse yet, give their love to someone else far less worthy of it, it breaks our hearts and can even cause one to lose the desire to live. That explains something of the feelings God had when His chosen people turned away from Him to seek after idols.
No wonder judgment (better, discipline) was in order. Discipline, you know, is not designed to punish, but rather to correct and to restore. It was as though God said to Himself, “I want to continue to shower my grace upon this people, but first I must get their attention.” Some of you, no doubt, remember the old story about the farmer who sold a mule, claiming to the new owner that all he needed to do was to speak quietly, and the mule would do anything he asked. The new owner tried for several days to get the mule to move, but to no avail, and he finally went back to the farmer and complained.
So, the farmer went with the new owner to where the mule was, picked up a 2 x 4 and clobbered the mule across the head. Then he spoke to the mule and immediately it began to move. The new owner protested that he had purchased the mule with the understanding that it was a compliant animal. “It is,” said the farmer, “but first you have to get its attention.” God’s people are sometimes like that.
The prophet now sees the need of explaining or justifying the Owner’s decision to abandon his vineyard.
The conclusion justified (8-23). At the end of verse 7 he gives a general justification, but in verses 8-23 he is more specific. Verse 7 says, “He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.” There is a clever play on words in the Hebrew: “He looked for ‘mish-pat’ but instead found ‘mish-pach.’ He looked for ‘tsedaqah’ but instead found ‘tseaqah.’” To appreciate this, we might translate in English, “He looked for right but instead found rot.” The words may be similar in sound but they are a world apart in meaning. That’s the way it was with God’s people—they may have looked like a religious lot, but there was gross hypocrisy beneath the surface.
But what kinds of stinking grapes were found in the vineyard? Six varieties are listed, beginning with greediness in verse 8.
1. Greediness (8-10). “Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field, until there is no more room, so that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!” Land grabbing is in view here, but any kind of greediness might be substituted. These covetous individuals crowd out poorer and weaker homeowners till they have control of entire blocks of the city, “one house next to the other.” Out in the country they follow the same procedure until they own huge parcels of land. They do not need all this land or these houses. They cannot successfully work it all. They live alone in the middle of it, a subtle indication, perhaps, of the loneliness of the wealthy tycoon. Often the only friends he has are people who think they might get something from him. The greedy glory in mere possession and in the power it gives them. God’s ideal for Israel was that as many persons as possible should each have their own land and house—many small property owners. But some violated this by trying to monopolize ownership.
Land grabbing is still with us today, of course, but there are some new and creative ways that the greedy in our society have devised to seize great wealth unearned. Some of you have heard of “greenmail,” which has become a favorite indoor sport in the stock market. It can result in enormous profits through legal, but unethical manipulation of stockholder’s rights. Yes, methods change, but the basic greedy nature of man does not seem to change. Neither does God, we must remember, and He who has always had a special interest in the rights of the poor promises here in verses 9 & 10 that the wealth is going to turn to dust in the hands of the greedy. God has ways to bring the mightiest empire to ashes when the wealth is ill-gained.
A second kind of putrid grape is, appropriately, drunkenness.
2. Drunkenness (11-14, 22). Verse 11 reads, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink; who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them! And their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine; but they do not pay attention to the deeds of the Lord, nor do they consider the work of His hands.” The 22nd verse we looked at last week. It speaks of those who are mighty men of valor, not on the battlefield but at the bar.
Do you know how many times drunkenness is condemned in the Scripture? At least 50 times! In view of that, it is tragic how many young people are beginning to drink in their early teens and how many adults make drinking a regular part of their social lives. Drunkenness is the second of the reasons why God decided to discipline the nation of Israel.
The other four reasons I have listed were also considered last Sunday, and I will not take time to elaborate on them now. They are:
3. Unbelief and defiance (18-19)
4. Perversion of truth (20), calling evil good and good evil
5. Humanism (21), the reliance on human wisdom rather than divine wisdom
6. Injustice (22-23)
Every one of these sins is as common in our day as it was in Isaiah’s. What makes us think that we can escape God’s judgment when they did not?
Finally, in the last seven verses the judgment of the Lord is levied.
The judgment is levied (24-30)
First, the calamity that is about to befall the people is stated in general.
The general calamity (24-25) Verse 24 reads, “Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble, and dry grass collapses into the flame, so their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust.” In verse 25 the prophet states that God is also going to use the natural elements as part of His discipline, as earthquakes are going to leave many victims.
Next, the root problem is identified.
The root sin (24b). Here the prophet does not mention greediness or drunkenness or injustice, for in a sense all these elements are just symptoms of the root disease. In the middle of verse 24 he identifies that root problem: “For they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” When people begin to take lightly the Word of God, to ignore it, to refuse to read and study it, to be satisfied with sermons that come from other sources, then they are flirting with moral danger and with inevitable discipline from the Lord.
The specific tragedy. What is about to befall the nation is destruction by a foreign power. I invite you on your own to read the terrifying account of the armies described in verses 26-30. When God does something, He does not do it half-heartedly, and that goes for His discipline as well as His blessings.
Application: Well, what does this Parable of the Vineyard have to do with us here this morning. Some teach today that all the promises and threats made to Israel in the Scriptures are being fulfilled in the church today. I happen to believe that when God spoke to Israel, He generally meant Israel, and it is not difficult to see the fulfillment of this prediction in the fall of Israel to the Assyrian armies in 722 B.C. But it is also true that these things were written for our edification upon whom the end of the ages has come. There must be spiritual relevance for us. And indeed there is.
After all, what people in all of history have been blessed more and been given more advantages than we? We not only have divine revelation; we have all of God’s written revelation, which not even Israel had. We not only have godly leaders to tell us what God’s will is for us, but we have the written Word to judge what our leaders are telling us. We have resources, we have spiritual gifts, we have opportunities. What more was there for God to do for us that He has not done? Can you think of any advantage God might have given the church today so that it could better fulfill its great commission that He hasn’t given? I honestly can’t. The only thing that crosses my mind that might help us which we don’t have is persecution, and I’m a bit hesitant to ask God for that. But that may be what it takes for us to get more serious about the responsibility we have for holy living and for effective service.
The issue I would like to impress upon our hearts and minds this morning is this: Has God received appropriate value for the investment He has made in my life? Is the fruit that I am currently producing such that would be acceptable to Him? Think of your jobs and ask yourself whether your boss would retain you if the return on his material investment in you were the same as the return God is receiving on His spiritual investment in you.
Jesus once used the parable of the vineyard, adapted it, and applied it to the lives of the people of His day. I think it would be meaningful for us to read what He had to say. Listen as I read from the 21st chapter of Matthew:
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and he leased it to vine-growers and went on a journey. 34 And when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his fruit. 35 And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they did the same things to them. 37 But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let’s kill him and take possession of his inheritance!’ 39 And 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 vine-growers?” 41 They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and lease the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the fruit in the proper seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,
‘A stone which the builders rejected,
This has become the chief cornerstone;
This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them.
There are still chief priests and pharisees in abundance today, religious to the core, but sadly lacking a personal relationship with God through His son, Jesus Christ. God’s tolerance of such religiosity must not be presumed upon. It is imperative that those who have heard the truth of the Gospel decide to acknowledge the Owner of the vineyard and to trust Him for salvation. The Owner sent His only Son to die in our behalf. We can have eternal life only by accepting the forgiveness of sin that His death purchased for us.
For those who already have a personal relationship with God, the action I would suggest today is to take an inventory. List all the things God has done to make your personal vineyard productive. Then next to it list the varieties of grapes that are being produced in your life. If the production doesn’t parallel the investment God has made, right now covenant before the Lord that you will submit to His pruning of the bad fruit. You know what it is in your own life. It may be one of the sins mentioned in this passage or it may be something entirely different. Do business with God in whatever area is necessary. Then begin today to dig into His word and allow its seed to take root in your life so that the fruit of righteousness might grow.
DATE: July 8, 1984
Tags:
Greediness
Drunkenness
Judgment