always • before the Master with glad hearts, ready for any service, no matter how hard or disagreeable? It is not always dn easy thing to declare the whole counsels of God. To Isaiah was committed an extremely dif- ficult duty. He was to tell the people the truth about themselves. Oh for a new vision, a clearer sight of the One who loves us and then for broken hearts and yielded wills that always we will be saying to Him, "Here am I, send me. Glorify Thyself through ine." battles in its valley and coast plains. 2. That He would lay it waste; barren, wild and rainless. All of these judgments came gradually, intermittingly, and finally, on it, and it has not recovered to this day. 3. All resulted in removing their chief protec- tion, the religious observances of temple and priesthood. IV. JEHOVAH'S EXPECTATION. 1. We have a play on words here not in- frequent in the prophets. "He looked for mlshpat but behold mispac(h); and He looked for tsedaqua, but behold tseaqua" (v. •7). "Mlshpat" means right, rectitude, jus- tice; what is Just and lawful. We read: (Deut. 32:4) "All His ways are mishpat." He expected them to walk In His ways. But they: "Took away the mishpat (right, due) of the poor" (Isa. 2:10). He expected these rights to be respected. And they did riot use a - "mishpat weight" (Pro. 16:11). He expected honest weights and measures. He demands that measures and contents shall correspond to labels, and knows no trade terms but true terms. 2. "He looked for tsedaqua," which means again right, Just, straight. He expected them to do ' the work of tsedaqua," which is "peace" (Isa. 32:17); to stand "tsedaqua (upright) to the plummet (Isa. 28:17). 3. "He looked that It should bring forth grapes, v. 2. Such clus- ters as "Love, joy, peace . . . temper- ance" (Eph. 5:22, 23); and "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are hon- est. whatsoever things are lovely," etc. (Phil. 4:8); and "1c do justly, love, mercy, and walk humbly with their God" (Mic. 6:8). These were the grapes He expected. How good! V. JEHOVAH'S DISAPPOINTMENT. 1. "But, behold, mispacOh:" "Bloodshed." "Mispach" is "what is poured out," and then poured out blood. 2. "Behold tseaqua," i. e., "a cry." Like Esau, the oppressed sent up "a tseaqua great and bitter" (Gen. 27:34). But we read "He forgetteth not the tseaqua of the humble" (Psa. 9:12). The oppressor will have his turn. . See how the "tseaqua" of Sodom (Gen. 19:13) "waxed great before the Lord." 4. And we are the Lord 's vineyard, and H6 looks, for - grapes. Shall they be wild grapes, or "nothing but leaves (Matt. 2:18. 19). Shall we disap- point the Good Lord? "Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round^ Parents first season us; then schoolmasters- Deliver «us to laws; they send us bond To rules cf reason. Holv messengers; Pulpits and Sundays: sorrows dogging sin; Afflictions ported: anguish of pll sizes; Fine nets and strategems to catch us in!
pleases Him. We will have new thoughts concerning the lost people and long for them that they may know the King and His beauty. "Who will go for Me?" From house to house, from village to village,—who will go for me to the regions beyond? Who will darry my message to the lost? Who will tell the sweet story, over and over? Who Will lift me up until men shall see me and become like me? Who among us can say, "Here am I, send Me?"' Who can stand THE PARABLE OF JEHOVAH'S VINE- YARD. Lesson vlll.—Isaiah V. I. HISTORICAL APPLICATION. i. The Song of the Vineyard. (1) It re- ferred to the covenapt nation, Judah-israel (v. 7), -which, though historically divided, were still ideally and in God's purpose on« "Israel." Our Lord used the same figure (Matt. 21:33), and the Psalmist said, "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt" (Psa. •80:8). (2) The prophet's "Well Beloved" Is the Triune Jehovah, "to" whom he sings; "of" (i. e., through or by) whom he sings; about Whom (His vineyard) he sings; a. the Father, b. the Inspiring Spirit, c. the Son, the Angel of Jehovah (Ex. 33:2; 2 Cor. 10:4). (3) The "fruitful hill," we may presume, Is Palestine, conspicuously the strategic center of the Old World, fenced in by the sea, the Lebanons, the Jordan, and the desert geographically; and by the Law and the ritual religiously; and by the angelic host invisibly (1 Kgs. 6:17; Psa. 34:7). 3. The "stones" gathered out are the heathen and their idols ("thou hast cast out the heathen," Psa. 80:8). 4. "The choicest vine" Is thé tribes of Israel, "Abraham's seed;" 5. the "tower," Jerusalem the Holy City; 6; the "wine-press," the temple and its al- tars, whither should flow the gifts and wor- ship of the fruitful vineyard. 7. The good fruit is "Judgment" and righteousness," with all consequent graces; and the "wild grape," "oppression" and "a cry," with all occasion- ing ungodliness and wickedness- (vv. 2, 7); the same evil products that the uncultivat- ed ("wild"), non-elect, non-graced nations round about them produced. II. JEHOVAH'S CHALLENGE. 1. "Judge betwixt Me and my vineyard." In so clear a case there could be but one Judgment; and sinners must confess their own condemnation, "Out of thine own mouth will I Judge thee thou wicked servant" (Luke 19:22; Matt. 21:40, 41). Men's own con- sciences admit their guilt, and so justify God. 2. "What could have been done more?" Recall this people's history from the Ex- odus on; their deliverances, their perversity, their chastisements, their forgivennesses, their renewed mercies, their repeated back- slidings; their instructions, exhortations; tender appeals, with attendant miracles, and faithful prophets (Isa. 1:5; Psa. 78:12-72). III. JEHOVAH'S DETERMINATION. He declared that He would: 1. "Break down the hedges." The geographical bar- riers that had isolated the Holy Land led to its exposure to the contending world powers who- were forced to pass to and fro through its narrow length, and to fight their
Lesson for May 21.
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter