All right, if you'll take your
Bibles and turn with me to Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 5. We'll be looking
at the first couple of verses this evening and using some of
the other passages of Scripture in this wonderful chapter. Isaiah chapter 5, the Scripture says, And now,
now will I sing to my well-beloved. a song of my well-beloved touching
his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard
in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered
out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and
built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress
therein. And he looked that it should
bring forth grapes. And it brought forth wild grapes. The first thing that we can see
from this passage of Scripture is I want us to see that this
is a song of the Father to the Son. This is a song of God the
Father to God the Son. It says, Now I will sing to my
well-beloved. Now, friends, there is no greater
love. There is no greater love. There
can be no greater love than the love of God for Himself. Now, for us, we love ourselves. I know we do. None of us love
to suffer. We love to keep ourselves from
suffering. We love ourselves so much that
we would do anything at times to keep ourselves from hurting
or suffering. But friends, there's nothing
lovable about us. There is nothing in us lovable. We are all sinners. We are all
by nature worthless. We are all by nature guilty before
God. Yet the triune God has every
reason to love himself. This is because God in the Trinity
of His persons is love. He is the root of all love. His being is love. All love stems from God, because
He is love. And because there is no one or
nothing else worthy of such love but Himself. None of His creation
is worthy of love. God loves His creation because
He would. If we believe on Christ, He loves
us because we are in the Beloved. Because we are in Christ. Because
we have union with Christ would be the reason that God would
love us is because He had put us in Christ. It's the only way
He could. There's nothing worthy of God's
love but Himself. God is worthy of self-love. Behold
the perfections of God that none of His creations can add to Him
and none of His created beings can take away from His holy perfections. Think of the holy perfections
of God. The holiness of God. Because God is holiness. Holiness is not just another
one of God's attributes. As a matter of fact, the holiness
is the glory or the beauty of all God's attributes. God, the Scripture says, that
He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. No shadow of turning. No darkness.
When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world and He obeyed
the law of God in every jot and every tittle as a man, He obeyed
the law in every thought, in every word and every deed. And
yet we must understand this, that He added nothing to the
holiness of God. Rather, He magnified it. He made it visible. He showed
the holiness of God. He didn't add to God's holiness.
You can't. His holiness is holy, holy, holy. The thrice holy God means He's
separated from all of His other creatures in that He is the being
of all beings. He created all beings. He is
the source of all beings. Nothing exists without Him. Nothing
is sustained without him. The holiness of God is the beauty
of God. The holiness of God is the beauty
of God, and it surrounds, it envelops all other characteristics. All other attributes are bathed
in his holiness. I read this from John Gill. It says this, The holiness of
God is himself. And it has been thought to be
not so much as a particular or distinct attribute of itself
as the luster, glory and harmony of all the rest. All the rest
of his attributes. And is called in Psalms 27 verse
4. The beauty of the Lord. The holiness of God is the beauty
of the Lord. As it is the beauty of good angels
and regenerated men, and indeed, what is wisdom or knowledge without
holiness but craft and cunning? What is power without holiness
but tyranny, oppression, and cruelty? But God is glorious in holiness. And this is the luster of all
of his other perfections and is the glory of them. And therefore,
none of them are or can be exercised in a wrong manner or for any
bad purpose. This is why God should love himself,
because he does nothing wrong. I'll tell you what, it is hard
to love us. Because we are constantly doing
wrong. I mean, just among ourselves. Just among the people that we
know. How many times have we been put out with someone, or
someone been put out with us, because we had not done right. We had done wrong. We had wronged
them in some way. But God never wrongs anyone. Is He not worthy of self-love?
Yes! It's reasonable that God love
His Son. It's reasonable. And therefore,
the Father sings the song here of the covenant of His grace
to His Son. His well-beloved Son. Because His well-beloved Son
is worthy of this love, isn't He? He's worthy of this love
because He had sworn He had sworn with an oath that He would be
our surety. He had sworn with an oath that
He would accomplish the salvation of every elect sinner. And in Him, the Father was well
pleased from eternity. And when He came, what was the
proclamation of God concerning His Son? This is my beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased." Well pleased. He is the beloved Son
who made us all His holy church, even as He is holy. Think of that. All those perfections. Now, those are Those perfections, our perfections
are not, we weren't born perfect, but God always was perfect. Yet,
this by imputation, God has imputed this righteousness, charged this
righteousness to us in His Son from eternity. It had always
been ours. It had always been ours who loved
Him. And to think of that now, that you, believer in Christ,
Have the righteousness of God dwelling in you. That the new
creation is made after the very image of Christ. We are created
after God in true holiness. True perfection. How then is it, if God loves
Himself, can He ever cease to love us? No, because we are in
union with Him. This song to the well-beloved
is something that should comfort our souls, because when He sings
to the well-beloved, guess what? He sings to us. He sings to us
the covenant of grace, of His mercy. And we can see that this
is the church that He's speaking of. He says this song that He's
singing to His well-beloved is touching His vineyard. It's talking
about His church. That's what it's talking about.
The song that God, the Father, loves to sing to His Son is the
song of His vineyard. The song of His church. Let's see if I can find this.
It just came to me. I want to read it. In Zephaniah chapter 3, it's
one of my favorite verses of Scripture here. I'm trying to
remember what verse it was. Just a second. Here it is in verse 14. It says,
Sing, O daughter of Zion, and shout, O Israel. Be glad and
rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken
away thy judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy,
the king of Israel. Even the Lord is in the midst
of thee, and thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it
shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not, and to Zion let not
thine hands be slack, for the Lord thy God In the midst of
thee is mighty. He will save thee. He will rejoice
over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He
will joy over thee with what? Singing. Your God sings for you. Is that not something? Our God sings the song of grace. for His church, His vineyard.
And you can see this in verse 7. Look at that. God tells you
who the vineyard is right here. He says in verse 7 of our text,
For the vineyard of the Lord, of the host, is the house of
Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant. That is His
vineyard. The church. The true Israel of
God. the true Israel of God. And first
of all, about this vineyard. We can see that this vineyard
was planted in a very fruitful hill. If you're going to plant
something, you want to plant it in a fruitful place. You don't
want to plant it in a desert. You would plant it somewhere
fruitful. Well, I remember when we went
to And we saw those mountains and
how one side of the mountain was flush. It was beautiful. It was almost like a jungle.
And they had swamps actually down in there on one side. And
if you were to go down the other side of the hill, it was nothing
but barren desert. I mean, it was just a wasted
side because the rain always hit on that one side. It barely
ever came in the other direction. And so that was fruitful. God
says, I have planted my vineyard in a very fruitful hill. Where
is this fruitful hill? It is none other than the Lord
Jesus Christ is where He has planted His vineyard. From eternity,
God has placed us in a fruitful hill, in Christ. He has placed
us in Christ. The Scripture says that we are
blessed with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places. In Christ. In Christ. Scripture says that
we are made accepted in the well-beloved. In the beloved, we are accepted
of God. But this is where we always were
from eternity. God had chosen us by His grace
and put us in Christ, in that fruitful hill, His Son. We were chosen in Him before
the world began, and we were in union with Christ, accepted
in Him, holy and loved of the Father. And this vineyard was
given to Him from eternity. Now, this is the joy of every
believer. This should be the joy of every believer, that our
salvation was not by chance, was not by accident, nor by anything
we have done. Because if we've done it, we
can undo it. If we've earned something, we can always get
it taken away. But this was never earned. This
was never merited. It was given by grace from eternity. We were put in Christ safe, secure,
fruitful. Can you say your life has been
truly fruitful? Oh, I'll tell you what, I don't. I imagine if the Lord allowed
me to see any fruit, I'm sure that pride would excel in me,
but I know this, that we don't see. We don't see anything. But I know this, I'm fruitful
in Christ. As long as I abide in the vine, I know this, He
shall produce fruit in me. Scripture says that He works
in us both to will and do of His good pleasure. And He said
we will produce fruit because of a fruitful hill. This is our
joy. We are His sheep, and we were given to Him by the
Father. And we have this promise, that
He will never lose one of us, never lose one of His sheep. John 6, 35. Those people asking for that
bread, he said, I am the bread of life. And all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down not from heaven
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
this is the Father's will. Just in case you are ignorant
of the Father's will, here it is. Christ Himself said, this
is the Father's will. that of all which He hath given
me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day. And this is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on Him
may have everlasting life, and I'll raise Him up at the last
day." Two sides of the same coin. Did you believe in Christ in
time? You bet you did. The Spirit of
God came and quickened your soul, and you believed, you trusted,
and from that moment you knew God revealed Himself to you.
He saved you. And that was the Father's will. But I'll tell you this, it was
way before He revealed it to you that He saved you. It was
way before then He redeemed you. It was from eternity in that
fruitful hill. By nature, men are so depraved that they can see the power of
God all around them and still not believe. These people saw God, the Son,
make bread. for five thousand men, not including
the women and children. And they ate so much bread that
they couldn't eat any more. They were full. And they picked
up twelve baskets. And he did that out of five loaves. Imagine that. The miracle, the
power of that. And yet they would not believe
him. They cannot believe Him unless
God the Father draw them. Has He drawn you by the power
of His Spirit to affection, to heart, to a heart of love for
Him and faith in Christ? Has He given you a new creation? Those Jews asked Christ, tell
us plainly if you're the Christ. He said, I told you and you didn't
believe. Why didn't they believe? He said, you believe not because
you are not of my sheep. You are not of my sheep. He says, my sheep hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life. And they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Now then, let
me ask you this. Is there anyone given to the
sun that will see the fires of hell? Absolutely not. Jesus said they will never perish. Never. Neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hands. Praise God that not even me. And all my sin would pluck me
out of the hands of my Savior. Why? Because I was planted in
a fruitful hill before I was born. Before there was anything,
I was always in a fruitful hill. I was always planted in a fruitful
hill in Christ. Second of all, let's see the
provisions of God for His vineyard. Look at this in verse 2. It says,
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted
it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of
it, and also a winepress therein. And he looked that it should
bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." First of
all, see this, that the husbandman is God, the owner of the vineyard. God has in every made every providential
provision for his church. First of all, he fenced it. He
fenced his church. What is this? This affords the
protection of the grapes from beasts and things eating it.
Even so, did God in providence fence every one of us, hedge
about every one of us so that we did not die before the time. That we did not die before He
came and revealed Himself to us. We did not die before we
believed the gospel. Is that not true of every believer
in Christ? You bet it is. Every one of us
should have died long ago. We deserve to die from our birth. But yet, God being gracious,
having planted us in Christ, he made provision for us so that
nothing would stop us from meeting God's man at the appointed time
to preach the gospel. Think of that Ethiopian eunuch.
How he was writing from Jerusalem that day, reading the scriptures
and confused, had no idea what he was reading. Do you imagine
the surprise of grace when He came and there was a man there
who says, hey, what are you reading? And he said, well, I'm reading.
I don't understand it. He said, how can I unless some
man explain it to me? And God saved that man on a desert
road headed back to a heathen nation. You see, God let that
heathen live long enough to meet a man that He had preached the
gospel to him. And he saved him. He saved him. All of his life was meant for
that one point. All of his life was fenced in
to that point. And so then it was not possible
for any man or demon of hell or even all the hatred of Satan
can do one thing to God's people without his direct permission
and decree. Not one thing. We know this from Job's example.
Job, Satan says, surely, you know, it's because you made him
rich. You take away what he's got and
he'll curse you. You see, he couldn't do that
unless God gave him permission. He said, OK, go ahead. Take it.
And then he could take it. And then when he asked for his
health, he took it. He said, you could take it. But
what did he say? Spare his life. You can't take his life. You
see, God provisions. God had provisions for His people. Think about that thief on the
cross. Why is it that he got caught at that particular time?
Do you suppose that was by chance or accident that the thief on
the cross was on that cross at that particular time when the
Lord Jesus Christ was being crucified? Why wasn't he crucified days
earlier? Why wasn't he crucified days
later? Because he would have met the man of God right there. on that cross that day. And all of His life, even though
He spent it and meant it for evil, God was bringing Him to
one place. Isn't that the same thing He's
done to us? Did He not hedge us about and bring us into one
place? Where else could we go? When
God started convicting us of sin, where else could we go?
We had one place. He hedged us in to one place.
And then there He sent a man and preach the gospel and we
believed. What an amazing God. Matter of fact, the scripture
says of that thief that he would be one of the malfactors. He
said that he would make his death among the wicked, didn't he?
And his grave among the rich. Second of all, not only did he
make provisions to keep us fenced in, he also cast out the stones. The life of every sinner, every
elect sinner is full of stumbling stones and offenses. Is that
not your experience? This life is full of stumbling
blocks. When we were lost and blind in
our sins and groping in the dark, did we not stumble over and over
at this message, at this gospel? We stumbled at this gospel. We
had no idea. We had no understanding of this
gospel. And yet, in our lives, we know
this, that God has removed every obstacle that would keep us from
salvation. Every obstacle. What is the biggest
obstacle? Sin. Sin! He has removed our sin. He has taken it out of the way.
When you prepare a garden and you want it to grow, you can't
have stones in it. You've got to remove the stones
so the seed can blossom, so the seed can grow out and root down. And God removed everything that
was in the way. His justice that was set against
us, He removed out of the way. He blotted out our transgressions
as a thick cloud. What would keep God from saving
us then? If all of our sins were put away in Christ, what would
keep Him from revealing that to us? Nothing. See, God made
provisions for us. God made provisions that He removed
all of our sin and satisfied His own justice. And next, we
see this, He planted it with the choicest vine. This is our
Lord. speaks of the humanity of Christ
He planted. Is He not said to be the seed?
Yes. Scripture says that He is the
root and offspring of David. In Jeremiah 33, verse 15, it
says, In those days and at that time will I cause the branch
of righteousness to grow up unto David. And he shall execute judgment
and righteousness in the land. And in those days shall Judah
be saved, and Jerusalem dwell safely. And this is the name
wherewith she shall be called." That's you. His church. The Lord. Our righteousness. We'll be called by His name.
But His name is the branch. He is divine. I like this. In Zechariah chapter
6, speaking of Christ, it says this, he said, speaking to Zechariah,
he said, Then take silver and gold and make crowns, and set
them on the head of Joshua the son of Josedec the high priest.
And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying,
Behold the man whose name is the branch. Was he talking about Joshua the
high priest? No. He was talking about Jesus
Christ who was both king and priest. You see the picture? He put a crown on top of a priest's
head and he said, behold the branch. He's speaking of his
Son. His Son is both prophet, priest
and king. Jesus is the prophet of God. The high priest of God, who by
His one offering has perfected forever them that are sanctified."
You're perfected. You are already perfect. Now, that's astounding to me
because I don't see it. But that doesn't matter what
I see. It only matters how God sees me, doesn't it? It doesn't
matter how everybody else sees me. It matters how God sees me. What God says about me that's
true. This is true. And He is the risen King and
He rules over all eternity and time. Providence. He rules and
overrules all things for our good. When I talk to Rick, I reminded him again concerning
this, that God did this. God did this. And He did it for your good. And I don't understand. But we
know it so. And it will work together for
your good. It will work together for your
good. And this is because we are in
the branch. Because we are in the branch.
And we grow from the branch. From the vine. Jesus said, I
am the vine and you are my branches. And He said, any man that abideth
in Me shall bring forth much fruit. Why? Because of the branch? No. The
greatest, the choicest vine. That's why. God planted the choices
by His Son, and anyone that abides in Him is going to be fruitful.
It's going to be fruitful. And everything that happens to
us is fruitful, is good. I was telling J.D. I was having
struggles this week, just mental struggles, mind struggles. When
there's quiet and there's nothing, you figure that you'd be at peace
if there's no noise. No! I'm not at peace because
there's constantly a battle, a struggle going on. And if I'm
not busy, guess what? That pushes to the forefront.
And I feel it. I know it. But I also know this. God will bring good from it.
God will teach me to lean on Christ. He'll teach me to trust
him more. He's built a tower in the midst
of it and a wine press. What is this? The tower of justice
and goodness presides over his church. You put a tower as a
watchtower. Who watches over us but God? Jesus said, don't fear men who
can only put the body to death. Fear Him that can put the body
and soul in hell. We trust the ever-living God
who knows all things and He watches over us in every matter of our
life. And the wine press speaks to
us of what Christ has trodden the winepress of the wrath of
God all by Himself. He has endured all the wrath
of God for us. Now, even though all these glorious
provisions and wonderful truths of God, His loving song of grace, even though all these things
are true, yet it did not prevent our natural birth. as sons of Adam. Even though
God made every provision for our salvation, yet according
to His own purpose, we know this, that we were all born, not perfect,
we were born sons of Adam, dead. And that's why He says here,
even though God had done all things for provisions He said,
instead of grapes came forth wild grapes. For what would seem to bring
forth good has brought forth wild and worthless sour grapes. Even though the wonderful gospel
of God's grace and love is still preached among men, men still
will not hear it. Men by nature will not have Christ
to rule over them. They're wild grapes. They're
worthless. They will not believe in the
holy and just God of the Scriptures, and they will not bow to the
sovereign God that rules over them. And therefore, God demands
of sinners this in verse 3, and it shall come, wait, verse 3,
it says, And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, you men of Judah,
I pray you, Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. God says this of sinners. Judge,
look at my gospel and see if I've not made every provision
for you. And yet you still would come
forth as wild grapes. You still will not believe. What
more could God have done? What more could God say? Then
to you he has said. If all these provisions are made, and God has accomplished all
these things in His Son, what more could you need than what
God has done in Christ? And yet, men still try to bring
their works into it. They still try to bring their
sour works, their worthless works, into the work of Christ. This
is because of the depravity and deadness of nature that man can
do nothing to please God. Just as there is no sweet wine
made out of sour grapes, even so it is that man, being full
of sin, cannot please God, cannot provide righteousness. Man would
much rather be able to create a world than to create a new
nature in his own heart. It would be easier for a man
to create a world than it would for him to create righteousness
in himself. He can't do it. Look at verse
20 of this chapter. Verse 20 says, Woe unto them
that call evil good and good evil. Isn't that what natural
men do? Of course it is. Why? Because
they don't know anything good. They don't know any good. How
depraved is this for any child of Adam to claim goodness? That's utter depravity. It's
insanity. You remember that? that one that
came to the ruler, that came to Jesus, and he said, good master.
And Jesus said, why callest thou me good? There's not one but
good, but God. God is the only one good. You
see, He was God. Christ was God, but this man
didn't address Him that way. He didn't know Him as God. He
saw Him as another son of Adam. Why would you call me good? If
I'm what you call a son of Adam, why would you call me good? There's
no good son of Adam. It's a horrible thing for us
to call each other good, isn't it? When we know better. We know better. There's only one good, and that's
God. Woe unto them that call good
evil and evil good. Woe unto them that call the election
of God evil. Woe unto them, God says. who
call the atonement of Christ insufficient without their works
or will. Woe unto them! Woe unto them
of the false gospel of darkness that they call light. And woe unto them that call the
true gospel of light darkness. Woe unto them! That is, we all did this by nature
until God laid us low to see our sin and unrighteousness.
Look at verse 13 of this chapter. It says, Therefore, my people
are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge, and their
honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with
thirst. Therefore, hell hath enlarged
herself, and opened her mouth without measure. And their glory,
and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth shall
descend into it. And the mean, or the common man,
shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled,
and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. But the Lord of hosts
shall be exalted in judgment. You see, in order for God to
bring forth the fruit of righteousness, He must first show us who we
are by nature. Before He reveals anything of
His garden, His precious, fruitful hill, He must bring us low. This is why we are constantly
reminded of our sin. This is why we are constantly
being reminded of our depraved nature, so that we might be drawn
closer to our Savior. That He might be more all to
us today than He was yesterday. He must bring us low. He must
make us to know of our unrighteousness so that we would hunger and thirst
after His righteousness. When God brought you to know
your sin, wasn't hell enlarged? I'll tell you what, I heard about
hell all my life, but I'll tell you what, it was never so enlarged
as when I heard of my sin. It was never so big as though
it would swallow me whole. I remember reading about the
the Great Awakening, that when he preached the message, from
what I understand, he preached this message just reading his
notes. The sinner's in the hands of
an angry God. When Jonathan Edwards couldn't
see, he preached the message looking down at his notes, and
he could not see the reaction of the crowd. He wasn't paying
attention. But they said that the reaction of the of the people
in the pews, that they held on to the pews so tightly that they
thought they were falling off into hell at any moment. That
they left their finger indentions inside the pews. Hell is never
so enlarged as when we know our sin before a holy God. And He brings us low. And He
has to bring us all to the same place. It doesn't matter if you're
a head of state or you're a bum on the street. It doesn't matter.
We all meet at the foot of the cross and we see sin for what
it really is. Exceeding sinful. Exceeding sinful. And in this humiliation, in this
time, the Lord is exalted, isn't He? I remember at times Feeling
the guilt of my sin, knowing this, the sovereignty of God,
that if He were to cast me into hell at any moment, He would
be right. If He never saved me, He would
be right. I knew that. But that's where we're all brought,
isn't it? We're all brought to that place. Every one of us who are among
His sheep. We've all been brought to that
place. And it's then that the Spirit of love, the love of God
by the Holy Spirit is shed abroad in our hearts. And He shows us
what provisions He's made for us. Isn't that wonderful that
He made provisions for such sinners as we are? Grace. It's so large. We can't grasp
it. Friends, if we take a thimble
out of the ocean, would that drain the ocean in any way? And
yet, here we do. Tonight, we're taking a thimble.
Being able to drink only so much of the ocean of God's goodness. I tell you what, I don't feel
like God should be good to me. And I don't think I deserve any
goodness. But He still gives me every bit
of His goodness. He withholds nothing good from
me. That's the lie of the enemy,
isn't it? Hasn't that always been the lie? That God's withholding
something good from you? That's what he said to our parent,
to Eve. He said, God does know that in the day you eat this,
that you'll be as God's. Oh, he's just holding something
back. Look at all those people having such a good time. I passed
by so many people on the way to this place tonight, and they
all looked like they were having fun. That's not good. This is good. It's good to be here. It's good
to be with you. It's good to be in the presence
of God. That's good. And whatever else
happens to us as soon as we walk out that door, it's good. It's
still good. And his scripture says here that
his sheep, it says in verse 17, then shall
the lambs feed after their manner. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it. Sheep are prone to wonder, aren't
they? Yeah. But you know what? The shepherd
is always faithful to the sheep. He said, which of you having
a hundred sheep, if one is lost, would he not go and find the
one, leave the ninety and nine and go find the one that's lost?
You know what a shepherd does when he finds a wandering sheep
that continually wanders? He breaks his leg. He binds it. He puts the sheep on his shoulder
and he carries it until the leg is mended. That's exactly what
Christ does to us if we wander. He breaks us, binds us, and holds
us. What a glorious Savior who has
made all our provisions, even unto glory. Even unto glory. Are you worried? Are you concerned
about future things? God has already made provisions. And when He breaks our plans
and schemes, know it's for our good. and not for our evil. I pray that God would bless this
to your hearts. This stand will be dismissed in prayer.