Sermon Tone Analysis

What more is there to do for my vineyard?

Isaiah was given a difficult ministry.

Israel, as a nation had lost its way through idolatry.

God had blessed Israel with his law and land.

He entered into a covenant wit Israel and promised divine blessing if Isreal would remain faithful to Him.

Unfortunately, Israel was wooed by idolatry, and when trials and tribulations arose, instead of lifting their eyes up to the hills to see that their help comes from the sovereignty of Yahweh, the instead trusted in weak foreign powers.

Their heart eventually hardened to the point where they forsook the Lord entirely.

And you see their hardness of heart in their apathy toward injustice and callousness for the poor.

By the time you reach Isaiah 5, Isaiah sings a sad song on behalf of God’s lament of Israel.

Listen to what he says:

The first seven verses of Isaiah five are commonly called, “The Song of the Vineyard.”

Israel is God’s vineyard (v7).

God prepared the vineyard and ensured it was protected from wild beasts and strangers.

Psalm 80:8-11, describe how God made Israel his vineyard.

God cultivated his vineyard and expected good fruit.

But as you read in verse 4, it yielded wild grapes.

Wild grapes were not good for eating or making wine.

They are symbolic of wickedness or God’s judgement.

Jeremiah alludes to this when he says,

At the end of the song God tells Judah and Israel their bad fruit.

I looked for justice and found bloodshed.

I looked for righteousness, but found an outcry.

The problem with Israel is they were God’s choice vine, a vineyard for the world to taste and see that the one true God, Yahweh, is good and can be trusted, and yet, Israel did not remain in God’s law.

They did not keep his covenant.

Their heart grew hard toward him and they set their affections on false gods .

You feel their hardness when God tells Isaiah in his calling,

And you know they did not remain in Yahweh because they did not obey him, and therefore were bearing rotten fruit.

A tree is known by its fruit.

A good tree bears good fruit (Matthew 7:17-19).

He looked for the good fruit of His justice in the land, and behold he found the rotten fruit of bloodshed; for the good fruit of righteousness, but behold he found the rotten fruit of outcry.

You might ask, “How does this happen?”

Moses gives some insight to Israel’s issue.

Before they enter the Promised Land, he tells them to guard their heart from complacency.

Israel moved in and immediately became comfortable in God’s blessing.

Comfortable is the perfect soil for complacency.

Complacency cultivates forgetfulness.

The fruit of forgetfulness is idolatry.

Idolatry is bad fruit.

What strikes me in my heart is the question Isaiah poses in verse 4.

Isaiah 5:4 (ESV)

What more was there to do for my vineyard...

Isaiah’s question feels heartbreaking to some degree.

Isaiah new what was on the horizon for Israel.

All of Israel was going into exile.

The Babylonians and Assyrians were going to execute the curses God promised for disobedience.

Since Israel did not remain in him, he was not going to remain in them.

Isaiah explains what God does with worthless vineyards:

the Psalmist further describes what happens to a worthless vineyard:

The vineyard is abandon, unprotected, and subject to beasts who ravage it.

It is consumed by the world and is no longer bearing fruit for the kingdom of God.

What was wrong with Israel?

Why couldn’t they keep God’s law and fulfill his covenant obligations?

Ezekiel gives us insight into the heart of the matter.

Israel had profaned his great name by playing the harlot with her idolatry.

God solution to Israel’s hardness of heart is a heart transformation.

Israel proved she could not remain in God’s covenant by obeying his commands.

Why? Israel had a heart of stone.

There was no life in her.

As a nation, she was dead in her trespasses and sins.

God needed to give her a heart of flesh, a heart that beats for His love and life and glory.

Israel needed to be born again.

Ezekiel is what Jesus had in mind when he spoke to Nicodemus in John 3. Remember, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night wanting to know how to enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus says to him,

You need life-spiritual life.

You cannot love God, nevertheless obey God, if you are not born again.

You need life to enter and remain in God’s kingdom.

Spiritual life or eternal life is a major theme throughout the book of John.

The word life is mentioned 47 times in the book of John.

John opens his gospel telling his readers

John 1:4 (ESV)

In him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men.

The reason why John wrote his gospel is so that you and I would have life

Jesus describes for us what life is like in him in seven statements.

He says,

I AM the Bread of Life (John 6)

He alone nourishes our starving souls.

I AM the Light of the world (John 8)

The true source of light that brings life to our darkened heart and to this world.

I AM the Gate of the Sheepfold (John 10)

Jesus is the door of life for those outside the kingdom.

I AM the Good Shepherd (John 11)

Jesus knows and cares for his orphaned sheep.

I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14)

Jesus is the only way to the Father who offers eternal life to those who are lost and deceived.

I AM the True Vine (John 15)

Jesus is the true source of fruit-bearing life.

Jesus is the promised vine of

and the one promised who will bear a fruitful vineyard:

When Jesus says he is the True Vine, he is saying he fulfilled these prophecies.

The Vine has come and is bearing a fruitful vineyard: the church.

Jesus is making a couple of outstanding claims in verse 1.

He is saying there is no life apart from me.

All other religions are false and provide no life and no eternal fruit.

Secondly, only Jesus will be able to fulfill God’s expectations of a fruitful vineyard.

Jesus is the life giver and he is the life sustainer.

Jesus makes it clear in John 15, you cannot work apart from Him.

He boldly says,

When I talk about life in the Vineyard, I am talking about the true church.

I am talking about the men and women and children who are finding their only source for life in the world and the world to come in Jesus Christ.

I am talking about those true believers who long to bear fruit, and are actually bearing fruit.