Privilege and penalty.
We have a striking picture of—
I. THE FULNESS OF THE DIVINE PROVISION. (Isaiah 5:1 4.) The second verse describes in detail the processes by which the vineyard is prepared for fruitfulness, and in the fourth verse the question is asked, "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" The idea is that of the fullness of the Divine provision for the Jewish nation. God had provided:
1. Illustrious men—Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, etc.
2. A perfect Law; perfect inasmuch as it
3. A helpful ritual, a series of ceremonies adapted to the age and to their nature.
4. Providential discipline; all the attractive and inviting influences of prosperity together with the solemnizing and cleansing influences of adversity.
We have now a corresponding fullness of provision for mankind in the gospel of Christ. We have:
1. The knowledge of God and of his will revealed in Christian truth.
2. The way to himself and to his pardoning love opened by the mediation and atonement of his Son, our Savior.
3. The influences of the Holy Spirit, which are the purchase of his work and the promise of his Word.
4. The leadership of him who lived a perfect life, and offers himself as the Exemplar as well as the Friend of man.
5. The hope of eternal glory. The Author of the salvation in Jesus Christ may well address us and say, "What more could have been done?" We may almost say that the ingenuity of Divine love is spent and exhausted on the provision which is made in the gospel for the return, for the acceptance, for the renewal, for the elevation, of the children of men.
II. THE SORENESS OF THE DIVINE DISSATISFACTION. (Verses 4, 7.) Centuries of bondage in idolatrous Egypt might well account for, if they could not excuse, a large measure of moral feebleness, of religious error, of spiritual declension. But centuries of Divine teaching and Divine discipline should have wrought much of restoration. The sovereign Ruler of Israel had a right to expect rich fruit in his well-cultivated vineyard. But he was utterly disappointed. Instead of the good grapes he looked for, it brought forth" wild grapes;" instead of judgment was oppression; instead of righteousness, the cry of him that was wronged. In us, from us, who have been the recipients of his manifold mercies and of multiplied privileges in Christ Jesus, God looks for great things; he looks for penitence, faith, purity, spiritual worth, holy usefulness. Only too often he finds the miserable and guilty opposites of these-impenitence, unbelief, continuance in sin, moral unsightliness, injuriousness of life. And the heart of the Holy One is grieved. He who would have looked with delight on his "pleasant plant" looks with pain and sorrow on the fruitless tree, on the bush that bears poisonous berries. He who would have regarded with pleasure those "in whose heart are paths" observes with indignation and regret those whose hearts are as a tangled wilderness, uncultivated and useless. For these he has only the language of severe reproach and of stem and solemn warning.
III. THE WEIGHT OF THE DIVINE PENALTY. (Verses 5, 6.) The doom is destruction. The vineyard should, as a vineyard, entirely disappear. The defenses should be removed; the useful plant should give place to the useless thorn; the elements should work for its withering, and leave nothing that was desirable or valuable. God's message to the guilty nation, Church, family, individual soul, is this solemn one—the abuse of privilege will be visited by terrible tokens of Divine displeasure; all that was promising will be removed; the signs and the sources of life will be taken away; from him that hath not (that does not use what is in his power) will be taken his present privilege (Matthew 25:29). He who (that which) is exalted to heaven in opportunity will be cast down to hell in condemnation and in ruin (Matthew 11:23).—C.