Wednesday, January 29, 2025 PM

consideration about what hope there is for a rotten vineyard. Rotten vineyard being the house of Israel and the rotten vine being the men of Judah.

We're going to read beginning in verse 8 of Isaiah 5. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father we thank you for the night.

We thank you for a fellowship meal. Thank you for opportunity to study your word together. Thank you for the singing of your psalm.

Lord we pray that you would bless our time together as we read your word and pray and intercede for each other's needs.

I pray that you would favorably receive us tonight because of your son Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray.

Amen. Isaiah 5 beginning in verse 8. Woe to those who join house to house.

They add field to field till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land.

In my hearing the Lord of hosts said truly many houses shall be desolate great and beautiful ones without inhabitant.

For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath and a homer of seed shall yield one ephah.

Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may follow intoxicating drink who continue until night till wine inflames them.

The harp and the strings the tambourine and flute and wine are in their feasts but they do not regard the work of the

Lord nor consider the operation of his hands. Therefore my people have gone into captivity because they have no knowledge.

Their honorable men are famished and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure.

Their glory and their multitude and their pomp and he who is jubilant shall descend into it. People shall be brought down.

Each man shall be humbled and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment and God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness.

Then the lambs shall feed in their pasture and in the waste places of the fat ones strangers shall eat.

Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as if with a cart rope that say let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it and let the counsel of the

Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil who put darkness for light and light for darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. Woe to men mighty at drinking wine.

Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away justice from the righteous man.

So in Isaiah chapter 5 the first seven verses we have the the look at the rotten vineyard the parable that is sung and then explained and interpreted and then we have these the sevenfold woe in verses 8 through 23 we talked about the meaning of woe last time the significance of God declaring this doom and now we're going to make our way through the seven woes.

Now these are covenant transgressions so when God declares woe he's declaring a kind of covenant doom that has long been promised so he's highlighting different ways that the men of Judah have transgressed against the covenant remember the context of God's covenant blessings upon the people of Israel is modeled in this parable of the vineyard look how well he took care of them did everything just right well that's what he did for Israel in history he well he blessed them and arranged things to be maximally good for them like he did for Adam and Eve in the garden now they are transgressing the covenant and so he declares seven woes

I want to try to locate each breach of a covenant so we can understand what God's ultimate creation concern is being modeled there so we can see the

Creator's righteousness fulfilled in Christ so first of all there's woe to the property stealers woe to the property stealers in verses 8 through 10 again it says woe to those who join house to house they add field to field till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land in my hearing the

Lord of hosts said truly many houses shall be desolate great and beautiful ones without inhabitant for ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath and a homer of seed shall yield one ephah now as this is the first woe it kind of starts everything off and deserves a little bit of extra attention and it in a sense colors all the rest of the woes with its meaning and in fact we'll end up kind of revisiting this idea at the very end of the list so God declares doom upon real estate tycoons it appears to be building houses owning lots and lots of real estate and they are just awful people aren't they and we teach our kids monopoly what are we doing folks now now what is the problem with owning vast amounts of property what's the issue here is it so bad to live on a great estate without neighbors to so join house to house and property to property that you can be kind of by yourself in the midst of the land isn't that the

American dream to have the five acres with your house located in the middle with the wind breaks and nobody can see you and everyone can just mind their own business is is that what this is talking about well

God is against what is happening here we're gonna talk about what that means in a moment but notice how he declares he's against this and he says yeah you're gonna have splendid homes you're going to combine houses there's there's the idea of I have this house and I'm gonna buy that property

I'm gonna move I'm going to take all of the stones of this house and bring them over here and I'm gonna make my addition here it's a really funny story in I think it's first Kings maybe

I can't remember exactly where but the northern kingdom built a fortified city on the border between Israel and Judah and then they got distracted by some war up north and they ran north to go fight while they were gone this the king of the southern kingdom

Judah said let's go get grab their stones they went up there and they grabbed all the stones of the fortified city went south and built their own fortified city clever in this case it's hey

I'm gonna go take this house I'm gonna add it to my own there's a real idea of just absorbing other people's property and then making yours more grand adding field to field house to house until you're all alone in the midst of the land and so God says yeah you're gonna have these splendid houses and they're going to be empty oh we didn't build so grand a house just to have it empty and isn't it isn't a grand amazing looking empty house rather sad if not creepy and nobody's taking care of it nobody can keep up with it it's all falling into disrepair also look at all these vineyards and fields but look at what happens they don't produce anything even close to a harvest in the way that it's put you get back a tenth of the seed you put in you didn't get tenfold harvest you got a tenth back of the seed you actually put in it now that is a horrible way to farm this your houses will be empty and you'll be bankrupt that's what

God is saying so really really bad deal obviously they were trying to make money obviously they're trying to to increase their estates but they're going to end up with nothing so what's going on what's going on is that they're breaking

God's law they're acting contrary to the covenant that God made with Israel so in Leviticus 25 verses 23 through 24 and in fact the entire chapter of Leviticus 25 describes property law and how to understand poverty how to understand slaves when they are part of the

Jewish nation and so on and so there's a great deal of description about how the economics were supposed to work in the life of Israel under the old covenant now in verses 23 and 24 very helpful for us to have insight into this woe

God says the land shall not be sold permanently now when we when we sell land we expect to if we bought it free and clear we shouldn't expect to have to give it back in a few years right but under the old covenant the land was not supposed to be sold permanently why

God explains the reason for the land is mine so in this covenant arrangement

God says you get to live on my land the land is mine so I get to decide how this is supposed to go he says you are strangers and sojourners with me the land always belonged to God and he said you're just strangers and sojourners and so if you have a land and possess land and use the land you're just stewards you're not actually full -out owners of the land in verse 24 he says and in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land so when

God says I'm gonna give you Canaan for your own possession and then he had Joshua cast the lots and a portion out all of the tribal allotments of the land there in that second half of Joshua that's really hard to read and I said the border goes from this unpronounceable place to this unpronounceable place and down this ravine to this unpronounceable place all of that was saying this is where the tribal allotments are given

God is giving this inheritance to the tribes and he says now when you sell the land just remember you're not going to own it or you buy the land you're going to own it permanently the land was belonging to God and therefore he had a lot to say about how they handled the land now the people in the land were so closely associated that how they handled the land meant how the people themselves would be blessed so they had to observe

Sabbaths not every seven all not just every seventh day yes but also every seventh year and then there were

Sabbath weeks and Sabbaths during feast days and then when you had seven full cycles of Sabbath years you had and on the top of that the year of Jubilee which is every 50 years and on the year of Jubilee all those real estate deals cleared off the books went back to zero and you start again in fact you had to evaluate the land that you were buying and selling against the year of Jubilee to see how much value there was left in that land that was the way that God arranged for the economics to work in Israel so how they handled the land and Sabbaths how they handled the land with the way they treated their own slaves when they were fellow

Jews the way they gave tithes off the produce from their lands the feast seasons that they would observe with their produce and according to what they would work or not work on their lands all of it had covenant implications if they didn't treat their land right

God said the land's gonna spew you out and eventually it did so Leviticus 25 is a great resource to read if you want to learn more about how the economics worked in the old covenant also numbers 27 and numbers 36 so Leviticus 25 numbers 27 and numbers 36 now by Isaiah's day these covenant parameters and obligations were being ignored for a what you call more standard approach in which they were people were buying land and keeping it not not giving it back during the land during the year of Jubilee they were acquiring slaves not setting them free every seven years there was all kinds of covenant breaking going on because that stuff's just getting in the way of wealth to be made and therefore according to the covenant standards it was wrong for them to over time create these massive estates these large estates where they accumulated themselves these big plots of land where there's nobody else around them and they would live by themselves in their in their luxury that took a long time to build up and it would never reset would never reset and they would just hold on to what they had

Micah if you remember from our introduction to Isaiah Micah was Isaiah's contemporary and Micah got all his best stuff from Isaiah but I think

Isaiah gave him permission so it was fine but in Micah chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 we hear a similar a similar type of woe

Micah chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 Micah says woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil on their beds now what are they what are they calculating on their beds well we'll see at morning light they practice it because it is in the power of their hand so all night long they've been plotting and thinking about what they're going to do maybe they'll maybe they'll take care of it down at the city gate with the elders maybe they'll manipulate somebody in the marketplace but they've got a plan verse 2 they covet fields and take them by violence remember

Ahab and Jezebel how they took the vineyard of Naboth by it wasn't

Naboth it was was Naboth took the vineyard of Naboth by force by violence remember that and also houses and seasons of the fields and houses which is the same thing we're reading about in Isaiah and season so they oppress a man in his house a man in his inheritance therefore thus says the

Lord behold against this family I'm devising disaster from which you cannot remove your necks nor shall you walk haughtily for this is an evil time and later on verse 9 he puts into perspective the women of my people you cast out from their pleasant houses from their children you have taken away my glory forever so in defiance of the covenant some in Judah were buying up a whole lot of estates making them into one they were living like a squire living alone lording over all their serfs and they wouldn't let it reset this was a complaint not only in Isaiah but also during Jeremiah's day and you can read about it throughout the

Old Testament as often God through his prophet condemns the injustice being done in the land the injustice was they weren't abiding by the stipulations of the

Old Covenant concerning property law so God says

I'm gonna bring my doom upon you those big old houses you have are gonna be empty now what does that what does that mean it's the curse of barrenness right no descendants that was part of the

Old Covenant curses and then those fields and vineyards you're gonna have a harvest also part of the

Covenant curses famine lack of productivity weakness and this is the danger that Moses warned about way back when

Moses was finishing up his writing of the law probably probably in a little tent in the

Acacia Grove under the shadow of Mount Peor right before they cross over the Jordan River he's sitting there writing out all of the first five books of the

Old Testament and preaching to that second generations Deuteronomy the second law the second giving of the law he warned the people of Israel about what was going to happen when they go into the land and they inherit this promised land that was flowing with milk and honey he says you're gonna say in your heart he says this is in Deuteronomy 8 verse 17 he says you're gonna say in your heart my power and the might of my hand has gave me this wealth well if that's the case then

I get to do with it whatever I want but what if it was God's land what if it was

God's power that got you this wealth what if it was all due to him then he gets to say that doesn't he so they should not be thinking like that that my power and the might of my hand has gave me this wealth they should remember

God the problem of course by Isaiah 1 is that they have forgotten God the need is that they should remember

God so verse 18 of Deuteronomy 8 says rather than forget God verse 18 says you shall remember the

Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day so we hear that remembering the

Lord he is the one who gives you the ability to to get wealth so that you may live according to the covenant right but they've they've forgotten that they've set that aside they're not following that now when we think about when we think about how the covenants are operating it's like why well why don't we why don't we take up old

Old Testament property law okay and why don't we use that for our society today why don't we do that you know well because the covenants are addressing the ruin of creation and thus they possess its shape and are speaking to its concerns but ultimately the covenants are fulfilled in Christ and so the principles are there that we need to think about but the practices are no longer we don't keep on sacrificing animals we don't take the first tenth of our wheat harvest to a brick -and -mortar temple do we maybe you do that I don't know we don't do that do we things are different the covenants and addressing the ruin of creation do possess its shape

God created Israel right God created Israel he put

Israel into the garden land right the flowing with milk and honey it was beautiful and productive and so on and he called for proper relationships he said you're gonna love me supremely love each other rightly steward the creation faithfully exactly what he said to Adam and Eve in the creation mandate he created everything in Genesis 1 with ten words then

God said then God said then God said ten tenfold he created everything and then God when he made the covenant with Israel ten words right the ten commandments ten words then

God said then God said here's the ten words and now he's going to so he's he's get the same shape as creation

I mean he's doing something intentionally here and one of the things that they have to recognize especially in these commandments to have to deal with not being idolatrous and the

Sabbath day we're gonna rest your household and not keep them not cracking the whip and making them work 24 7 not stealing not coveting all those different laws are emphasizing the fact that God is the one who made it all did he do that in creation he made it all

Adam couldn't claim credit for for planet Earth couldn't claim credit for the Sun Moon and stars couldn't claim credit for the creatures couldn't claim credit for Eden or the garden within Eden couldn't claim credit for any of it

God gave it to him and said here's how you're gonna run it right that's why in the covenant that God made with Israel he says here's the land

I gave it to you here's how you're gonna run it so it's all based on the fact that God owns it and then entrusts and then gives it to those made in his image that they should steward it in the way that he desires should

Adam and Eve do everything extremely well it still doesn't make them possessor and owner in that sense of creation neither

Israel of the land well thinking of how the how the land promises and the land particulars are fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ and Hebrews 4 is an excellent chapter for that we find first of all our rest in him but also

Hebrews 1 says he's the heir of all things he owns it all it's all his and since he has won the position of the right hand of God name of all names and everything belongs to him well then everything we own is what ultimately belonging to Christ it's his so when we maximize our stewardship when the master gives us one talent let's go make him another one when he gives us two let's go make two more when he makes it gives us five let's go make five more why what are we doing we're maximizing our stewardship for Christ some of them it's a it's an interesting story when you begin to study some of the

Christians who have been excellent top -shelf entrepreneurs have done really really well so that they can maximize the advance of the kingdom in the name of Christ they would not have been able to do that if they had not recognized first of all here are the principles of sound economics according to the wisdom of the scriptures and all that belongs to Christ and I'm gonna do the best

I can for him and watch how many things can happen that are good remember in the New Testament tells us to to work diligently so that we may have something to share right so there is an idea here of okay it all belongs to Christ we recognize that and so we should maximize our stewardship for him the goal the goal is not that we accumulate and accumulate and accumulate so that we may live alone right the whole idea of I want to maximize all my financials so that I can be so that I can please me myself and I that's not the goal that's not the goal the land the the inheritance the the land the creation doesn't belong to us it's

God's it belongs to him and in fact he's granted it all to Christ he's the and we live on his turf so when we read about the the property stealers in verses 8 through 10 of Isaiah 5 it's not so much that God is against real estate agents or real estate tycoons he's not condemning that in fact

God is not condemning wealth okay he's not a condemning the acquiring of wealth he is condemning the misuse unto selfishness of wealth something that was of great concern from creation onward even under the reign of Christ we'll leave it there it was the important section to start with and then moving forward there are woes against the pleasure seekers and presumptuous the perverts the proud and all of these characteristics seem to coalesce into the persona of the prince somebody somebody who you encounter more than once in the