Open your Bibles with me to the
book of Isaiah chapter 5. The title of this message is
a parable of the vineyard. God's vineyard. You know many
times in the scripture there are symbols and pictures and
types that are found in agriculture. We know that the church, for
example, is said to be the planting of the Lord, trees of righteousness
whom the Lord planted. That speaks, that's a symbol
of our position as the bride of Christ, as we stand before
God justified, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness.
And there are many more we could go to, many parables in the New
Testament. that speak of a husbandman, or a farmer, a vineyard. And
these things would be so familiar to the people of this day in
their agricultural economy. And they would understand something
of what he's talking about. Of course, we know that the gospel
message, the revelation of Christ, is not savingly understood by
the natural man until God reveals it to him. It has to be by the
power of God. You must be born again or you
cannot see, understand, grasp the kingdom of heaven. So many
times when the Lord, when he spoke a parable, they had no
idea of what he was talking about. Of course, even the disciples
had to be taught the meanings of those symbols. But when they
were taught them, they were taught them with hearing ears and seeing
eyes. You remember that in Matthew
13. Well, here's a parable in the Old Testament. given by God
through the prophet Isaiah. And you understand, you know,
if you look at the book of Isaiah, Isaiah's prophecy, Isaiah prophesied
about 700, maybe some say 750 years before Christ. Somewhere
about there, you take Isaiah and Jeremiah, there's about 120,
sometimes some scholars say 140 years between Isaiah's prophecy
and the end of Jeremiah's prophecy. But the first 39 chapters of
Isaiah's prophecy has to do with two things. God's judgment upon
Judah, the southern kingdom, and Jerusalem because of their
sin, their unbelief, their idolatry, their empty religion. They went
through the motions. of the ceremonies and the sacrifices,
but they did not know and understand, and it wasn't being preached,
the meaning of those ceremonies and sacrifices under the old
covenant. You know, all of that was a picture
of sinners saved by the grace of God in and by the Lord Jesus
Christ. And one thing that we have to
always understand about the old covenant law that its main purpose,
given by God to that nation, was to expose their sinfulness,
their condemnation, their lack of righteousness. There's none
righteous, no not one. That was the main purpose of
that law. And then in the ceremonies, the sacrifices, the altar, the
priesthood, the tabernacle, those were all pictures of Christ and
the salvation that he would come in the future, the Messiah, and
accomplish on the cross by making an end of sin, establishing righteousness,
so that they would not look to themselves and not look to their
works, not look to the ceremonies, not look to any place like Jerusalem,
not look to their heritage, but that they would look by God-given
faith to Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. The only
way of forgiveness of sins by His blood. The only way of righteousness
by His righteousness imputed. That was the whole purpose of
it. But when prophets like Isaiah came along and preached Christ,
and that's what Isaiah did. You see, his prophecy in the
first 39 chapters is about God's judgment against their sin, but
it's also about the one way of salvation. that God would freely
provide for His chosen people through the Messiah who was to
come, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. God's judgment would
come later. In Isaiah's time, like I said,
the actual judgment that Isaiah spoke of didn't come until the
end of Jeremiah's prophecy. So it didn't come immediately.
But here's the thing. We need to tell people, we need
to realize ourselves that, look, though God may be long-suffering
now, His judgment is coming. It's a sure thing. And anything
that we see as delay is not to cause us to doubt that God's
judgment is coming. You know, Peter dealt with that
in 2 Peter 3. God is not slack concerning His
promise to us. God's going to save His people.
God's going to save His chosen ones out of this fallen, sinful
world. But He's going to do it in His way, in His time. Paul
said, when it pleased the Lord to reveal His Son in me. But
He will. And God's judgment that Isaiah
speaks of upon Judah would come later by the Babylonian assault.
Remember Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian hordes that came down
on Judah and Jerusalem at the end of Jeremiah's prophecy. But it would come. It's a sure
thing. Now, this whole chapter, Isaiah
5, is a picture of this judgment in a parable. It starts off with
a parable, and the parable is like a song. It's a song of death.
It's like a funeral dirge, is really what it is. Look at it. Verse 1, Now will I sing to my
well-beloved a song of my beloved, touching his vineyard, God's
vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard
in a very fruitful hill. In other words, Israel, for example,
when they came into the promised land, it was a very fruitful
land. You remember they talked about
carrying grapes off the vine on a stick between two men. Fertile,
land of milk and honey. Verse 2, he fenced it. God fenced
it. God put a protection around them. And it says, he gathered out
the stones thereof, he cleared the land, planted it with the
choicest vine, built a tower in the midst of it where they
could be watchful for their enemies and look out for things. Also
made a wine press therein. You can make the wine." And he
looked at it, it should bring forth grapes, and it brought
forth wild grapes. These wild grapes were not the
grapes that they were to grow. In other words, here's what he's
saying, I put them in the best situation that human beings can
be in. What came out of it? Wild grapes. Sour grapes. That's what he's
saying. Look at verse 3. And now, O inhabitants
of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you betwixt me
and my vineyard. Now let's figure this out. That's
what he said. Let me tell you what this is all about. He says,
what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not
done in it? What more could I have done?
Now what does that mean? What more can God do? Now hold
on to that thought. He says, wherefore, for this
reason, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought
it forth wild grapes. And now go to, I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard, I will take away the hedge thereof,
that protection. And it shall be eaten up and
break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.
I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned nor digged. It's not going to be tended to,
cared for. But there shall come up briars
and thorns. I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord
of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah. He tells
you exactly who he's talking about. There's no doubt here
now. His pleasant plant. If you look in your concordance,
it means the plant of His pleasures. This is God's pleasure. This
is God's will. That's what He's saying. This
is not things out of control now. This is not God being taken
by surprise. This is the way God has set it
up. And He says, and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression,
for righteousness, but behold a cry. In other words, here's
what he's saying. God put that nation in the best
possible environment that a human being can exist in on this fallen,
sinful, cursed world. And what came out of it? Sour
grapes. What are the sour grapes? That's
unbelief. That's idolatry. In fact, on
the rest of this chapter, except for two verses, He begins to
pronounce woe. You know what woe is? That's
sorrow. That's a cry of impending doom. Woe unto me. Woe, woe,
woe. We read about that in Revelation.
The three woes. W-O-E. And what is he teaching? One of the lessons that he's
teaching is exactly what Brother Randy read in Psalm 39. Look
back there. Look back at Psalm 39. And here's the lesson. Man, even
in the best of times, in the best environment, in the best
that this world can give, sinful, fallen, depraved man cannot save
himself. Cannot wash away his sins. He cannot make himself righteous
before God. He can't do it. People say, you
know, there's a big argument. Is it heredity or is it environment? Well, in reality, it's both,
isn't it? We're born dead in trespasses
and sins. We inherited that from Adam.
Spiritual death. What is spiritual death? It's
the absence of spiritual life. That's what it is. Just like
to be physically dead means to be absent of physical life. The scripture says of the saved
sinner, and you hath he what? Quickened. Who were what? Dead in trespasses and sins.
And that means dead in every way you can say dead. in a spiritual
sense. It means man has no spiritual
breath, no spiritual life, he has no spiritual desires. Now
understand now, when we say that man has no spiritual desires,
that doesn't mean that man by nature cannot have religious
desires. The very people that Isaiah is
talking to, remember who were described back in chapter one?
You pray, you bring sacrifices, you have meetings, But it's all
empty religion. It's religion without Christ.
That's number one. You see, you can read this Bible
from Genesis to Revelation, you can memorize it, but if you don't
see Christ in the glory of His person as God in human flesh
without sin, if you don't see Christ in the glory and power
of His redemptive work as the Lord our righteousness, the one
who stood in the place of God's chosen people, having our sins
imputed, charged to Him, dying as a surety and a substitute
to put away those sins, to satisfy the justice of God, to bring
forth everlasting righteousness, if you don't see Him in the glory
of redemption by which we're justified before God, if you
don't see Him as the One who is the life-giving Spirit, then
you've missed it. And you can go to church. You
can give your money. You can be baptized so many times
as the old farmer said that the frogs know you by your first
name. You can go through all the motions. But religion without
Christ is empty vein religion. Isn't that right? It was religion
without grace. What is grace? That's the free
gift of God that comes to a center in salvation based on one thing,
the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing
else. It's not your faith or your will
or your goodness or your works that saves you. Now it's not,
I don't care what these preachers are telling people. The Bible
doesn't teach that. It's totally by the sovereign
mercy and grace of God based on the blood, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Religion without that is nothing
but sham religion of works. It's religion without truth.
The truth as it is in God. People today, listen. People
tell me all the time they go to church services and they hardly
ever open their Bibles. They hardly ever read the Word
and study the Word. The Word's not even preached. One old fella in Texas told me
one time, he said, he said, I've heard a lot of, a lot of longhorn
sermons. And I said, what's a longhorn
sermon? He said, you get a point here and a point there and a
lot of bull in between. Most of the time what they do
is they read one scripture and they launch out and the two never
meet again. We have health and wealth gospels,
we have moral pep talks, we have associational meetings, we have
so-called revivals, fundraising, psychology, feel good. It's empty
vein religion. What are we here to do? We're
here to worship God. And that's the problem. Religion
without Christ, religion without grace, religion without truth,
the word of God. This is, right now, is the, is
the, usually the preaching is the thing that most people want
to hurry up and get through. And yet it is the centerpiece
of public worship. That's what we're here to do.
Everything else revolves around it and leads up to it and stems
from it. Preaching the Word of God. Are
you hungry for the Word of God? Are you thirsty for the water
of life? That's the key, isn't it? Well, look here in Psalm 39.
You know this whole Psalm is interesting. I won't go through
the whole thing. I don't have time. But look at verse 1. He said,
I said I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I'm not going to say anything
sinful. I'm determining that. And the
implication is, I'm not going to sin. I'm going to wake up
Monday morning, I'm going to determine today I'm not going
to sin. Listen to what he says. I will keep my mouth with a bridle
while the wicked is before me. And then he said I had to shut
up altogether. I was done with silence. In other
words, if I'm going to even make an attempt at that, it's going
to have to be silence. I can't even open my mouth. And
he says, even from good, I'm going to hold my peace even from
good, because you know why that is? Because we're sinners. And even the good things we say
cannot save us. Did you know that? My preaching cannot save me. Christ is my Savior. The one
whom I preach is my Savior. You see that? That's an important
point. Somebody said, well, your prayers
weren't answered. Well, you didn't pray hard enough, or you didn't
pray with enough faith. If that's the case, our prayers
would never be answered, or the answer would always be no. But
he said, I was done with silence. I held my peace. And my sorrow
was stirred. My sorrow was stirred. I was
troubled. That's the problem, isn't it?
And he says, my heart was hot within me while I was musing,
and the fire burned, then I spake with my tongue. Lord, make me
to know mine end. How all this thing's going to
end up? You know what he's talking about there, don't you? He's
talking about death. Well, why do we die? You say, well, cancer, heart
disease. Well, those are means by which
we die, but really, what's the source of death? You know what
it is. Three-letter word, S-I-N. That's why we die. And I can
live my life and never get sick, never have heart disease, never
have cancer, but you know what? Still gonna die, aren't I? Methuselah. 969 years old, and here's the commentary
on Methuselah. Three words. What is it? And
he died. You know what? Man cannot conquer
death. He's trying now. Every time I get on the internet,
I'll see something about this. You can live to be 150. Well, sometimes the way I feel
during the day, I don't want to live to be 150. You can live, you know, the lifespan
should be this, you know. Well, Methuselah outdid them
all, 969, and he died. Man cannot conquer death because
man cannot conquer sin. And look down at verse 6. This
is why the psalmist, David, comes to this. He says, Surely every
man walketh in a vain show. In other words, you may appear
to be the picture of hell. You may appear to be blessed
of God. And he says, surely they are
disquieted in vain. He heapeth up riches. He knoweth
not who gathered them. But now look at verse five. This
is the point. He says, behold, thou hast made my days as an
handbreadth. There's a handbreadth right there.
From my thumb to my pinkie finger. That's not very long, is it?
And my age is as nothing before me. Time has flown, hasn't it? I mean, it's flown by. When we
first moved to Albany, I think I was 32 years old. Nathan, he
turns 34. And I've got grandkids. You all
know what I'm talking about. My age is nothing before me.
It seems like it's been nothing. I'm not talking about nothing
in quality. I'm talking about the time factor. Verily every
man at his best state is altogether vanity. That's the lesson of
Isaiah 5. That's the venue right there. Now, God can do everything
physically for a person. But that still won't save you.
He can give you riches. In fact, if you read through
all these woes, and I won't read through them here in Isaiah 5,
he talks about woe unto them that join house to house. He's talking about materialism
there. And understand, he's not just talking about people who
are blessed physically and financially and materially. He's talking
about people who are so tied to this world that they equate
material blessings with salvation. I must be doing something right,
because look at what I got. Remember the rich man in, what
is it, Luke 12? He accumulated so much, and he
said, what am I going to do? Build bigger barns. This night,
thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. There's
nothing wrong, the book of Ecclesiastes teaches there's nothing wrong
with us enjoying the labors of our hands here on earth, but
not without praising, glorifying, honoring God. Job learned that, didn't he?
He had it all, then it was taken away. Then he began justifying himself
and he come to the end of his rope and he said, I've heard
of you, but now I see. I've experienced. You know, it's
kind of like this. What Job was saying there when
he said, I've heard of thee with the hearing of thee, but now
mine eye seeth thee. That's not talking about Job's conversion.
That's a sinner saved, but God had already converted him. Back
in Job 1, Job was a just man. Upright. That's a sinner saved
by grace. But you know what Job was saying
there? It's kind of like us. How many times we go through
our lives, we say, well, God's on the throne. We know it's true,
but sometimes we'll go through some real bad experiences and
you have to say like Job, I've heard of you with it, now I see
it. Now I've experienced it. Now I've gone through some things.
I'm realizing it now. It's not just words. It's not
just doctrine in that sense. Now I really see it. Man in his
best state. He goes through these woes. Look
at verse 13 of Isaiah 5. This is God's judgment. He says,
Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they
have no knowledge. Ignorance in this matter is no
excuse. He says, Their honorable men
are famished, their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore
hell hath enlarged itself, that hell there is the grave. and
open her mouth without measure, and their glory, and their multitude,
their pomp, and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it, and the
mean man shall be brought down, the average man, the mighty man
shall be humbled, even the above average, and the eyes of the
lofty shall be humbled. Now look what Isaiah says in
the midst of all this judgment and woe. Listen to what he says
here in verse 16 and 17. He says, but the Lord of hosts
That means the invincible God who cannot be defeated. He says,
shall be exalted in judgment. And God that is holy shall be
sanctified, set apart, distinguished in righteousness. In other words,
Isaiah is saying God's not being mean here. God's not throwing
a temper tantrum. God's not being unjust or unreasonable
or unfair. God's doing what's right. That's
what He does. He never makes a mistake. He
never deals unjustly or unfairly. He doeth as he will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. He's God. People
today don't know anything about that God, do they? Their God
is a genie in a bottle who feels sorry for them. But you see,
here's the prime, the prime attribute, judgment, justice, righteousness. And look at verse 17. Then shall
the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat
ones shall strangers eat. The lambs. Who do you think he's
talking about there? They're going to feed. That's
his sheep. Peter, do you love me? Feed my
lambs. That's God's elect. That's the
chosen one. That's the remnant that Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah
chapter 1. Who are these lambs? What did
Christ say? The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
Christ died for his sheep. He satisfied justice. He brought
in everlasting righteousness. He paid their sin dead and full.
They're going to feed. You feed because you get hungry.
You get hungry because you have life. They're going to be born
again by the Spirit. They're going to have spiritual
life. They're going to be resurrected from the dead and they're going
to feed. And why does he mention the strangers there? That's the
Gentiles. God's chosen ones among the Gentiles. God's God of people. Judgment's
coming upon this earth. Flee from the wrath to come.
Where do you flee? Flee to Christ. You flee to Him
whose blood washes away my sins. You flee to him whose righteousness
covers me, justifies me before a holy God, so that I can say
in confidence by God-given faith, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. But in saving these lambs, And
in giving life to these lambs, God does not pervert judgment.
Judgment of God will always be the measure. Well, if they're
not going to be damned, condemned, how does God's judgment come
upon them? In their substitute. In their surety. Who was made
sin for us. Christ who knew no sin. that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, God always,
even in salvation, even in mercy, even in love, even in grace,
God deals also with judgment. He's a just God and a Savior. And you see, every bit of this
judgment that's coming down on Judah has to do with the fact
that they rejected Christ as their righteousness. Look over
at verse 24. You read this whole chapter, but look at verse 24.
He says, Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, the flame
consumeth the chaff. See, that's how quick God's judgment
is going to be upon them. So their roots shall be as rottenness,
their blossoms shall go up as dust. Why? Look at it, because
they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts and despised
the word of the Holy One of Israel. That's Christ. Remember why the
law was given? To show them their sinfulness,
their depravity, the impossibility of salvation or any part of it
based upon their works. To show the impossibility of
man making himself righteous by anything he does or anything
that comes from him, even if he's in the best environment
that God can put a sinful man. Environment won't save you. Physical
heritage won't save you. And then that law was a schoolmaster,
Paul wrote in Romans chapter 4, to lead them to Christ. Galatians 3, rather. To lead
them to Christ. Where is my hope? The psalmist
over in Psalm 39, you remember he said, man at his best states
altogether vanity. Later on he says, my hope is
in thee. Look to God. There is salvation
from the Lord of grace. We talk about our nation. We
say it's ripe for judgment. What are we to do when the nation
is ripe for judgment? You know what I mean by ripe
for judgment? Just like these sour grapes here. We don't know when
Christ is coming again, but we know he is coming. We know that
when he comes, he's gonna judge this world in righteousness by
that man whom he has ordained and that he has given assurance
unto all men and that he has raised him from the dead. Well,
what are we to do? Well, first of all, realize that
God is on the throne. He's working all things after
the counsel of his own will. And then secondly, turn to the
Lord. Turn to the only hope that we
as sinners have, or can ever have. And that hope is by the
grace of God in Christ, who is the Lord our righteousness. All
right.