Isaiah 5:1-7

Human Life In Parable

Isa 5:1-7

This is a parable which by so much brings with it its own literal interpretation. With that literal interpretation we, of course, have next to nothing to do; we must look for the interpretation which involves ourselves, our opportunities, and our destinies.

"Now will I sing" ( Isa 5:1 ). That is often a suggestive expression in Holy Scripture, unless it is found in a purely poetical book, where there is, indeed, nothing but song. The song is a parable. When did Jesus Christ speak a parable that was not full of reproach, rebuke, profound and terrible judgment? Yet who expects this in a song, in a parable, in a picture which is, or ought to be according to our expectations, a thing of beauty? When music is made an instrument of judgment, the lesson is most pathetic and solemn. When the prophet says he will sing, we gather around him with expectant delight, for we love music: we say, In music there is no argument, and there can be no judgment: so let us come near the singing prophet, and hear the music which will elevate our imagination and do us good, without inflicting upon us the sharpness and accusation of personal criticism. The singing of Scripture is critical; the parables of Scripture are phases of judgment Is the parable of the Good Samaritan a very charming picture? To this inquiry there can be but one reply: for what can be more true to life, true to, nature in its deepest moods and finest aspirations? Yet that parable is a judgment upon the Samaritan-despising Jew: only the Son of God could have uttered it, for he had no friends when; he spoke it; he hurled this parable like a thunderbolt into the very camp of the enemy. Is the parable of the Prodigal Son a parable marked by supreme loveliness? Is it the very tenderest and largest interpretation of human nature? We may fairly answer the inquiry in a grateful affirmative. But even the parable of the Prodigal Son is a judgment; it is a judgment upon the elder brother, that pharisaic, self-complacent, self-righteous element in life, which thinks it has only to pray in order to patronise God, and to hold up the shield of its virtue and come back every night from life's battlefield more than conqueror. Is the parable of the Lost Sheep a parable in which there is no judgment? Verily not: it is a judgment upon all who have hard notions about the lost; it is very pitiful in one of its aspects, but it is a severe and uncompromising judgment upon those who have no room in their hearts for the penitent, the contrite, and those who truly deplore their sin. So with the songs of Scripture. The song of Deborah we have seen to be like a gathering of sabres, spears, battle instruments of every kind; verily she was a mother who judged Israel, and whose song was punctuated with instruments of war. The prophet, then, will not sing a song without words. Oftentimes the pith of the song is in the sentiment. What is mere sound but an appeal to the ear? We must hear the words, and if the words come into our hearts the more readily because of the sweetness of the song, rely upon it they are not expected to pass through the heart without leaving an impression behind; they are meant gracefully to summon the life to self-inquest and self-judgment. Jesus Christ spoke about the vineyard. He has two vineyard parables. The second of them is like the song of the prophet. It was so sung to those who listened that at the last they said: He means that we have wrested the vineyard from the heir; he is intending to judge us and they gnashed their teeth in impotent rage: blessed is that parabolist who can so sing his song that the people will take up the application without any formal appeal from him: blessed is that Nathan who can so unfold his parable in the hearing of his listener that the man shall convict himself, and save Nathan the trouble of a personal appeal: blessed is that prophet who, by argument, by song, by appeal, by rhetoric, by eloquence, by moral feeling, can so work upon the people that at the last they will know to whom the message was delivered, and will silently accept it for further application in the silence of solitude, in the absence of tumult.

Let us see how this parable applies to us. Its whole application can be secured and understood if we look upon it as representing human life as we ourselves know it and embody it. We take away, therefore, "the house of Israel, and the men of Judah," and we put down human life in the seventh verse as the interpreting word. Now let us know how this singer can sing, and how far his notes tell upon every human nerve with judicial yet gracious effect.

Here is human life placed in a good situation, "In a very fruitful hill" ( Isa 5:1 ). Can any man justly complain that he has been placed where the sun never reaches him, and where the baptism of life is denied? Is it possible to live in a civilised country, even in the obscurest position, without feeling the whole atmosphere of civilisation operating upon the life? The metropolis itself in its great busy streets is a day-school, an academy, a university; the very windows of the great town seem to be doors that open upon temples of knowledge and wisdom; foreign lands are focalised in the great cities of any civilised country, and an intangible and immeasurable something testifies that the whole air is pregnant with educational influences, and we have but to open ourselves to their reception and yield ourselves to their operations to become educated, not in some technical, pedantic, or literary sense, but, still, led out, enlarged, stimulated, and qualified every day to use a broader and keener faculty than yesterday was at our service. Charles Kingsley says a walk along the streets of London is an intellectual tonic. The city-born has an advantage which the pure rustic cannot have, and the pure rustic has his advantages which the city-born cannot enjoy within the limits of the metropolis. All nature sings: the whole heaven is an infinite picture-gallery: all the fields have gospels according to themselves; blessed is the hearing ear, for every bird shall be an evangel, and all nature shall be lighted up so as to illuminate and gladden the soul. We might dwell on the other side of the picture; but would that be wholly just? Have we not had advantages? Some have had grievous disadvantages and burdens too heavy to carry. What men they might have been had their chance been equal with the chance which others have enjoyed! By nature how endowed, how quick of eye, how responsive of heart, how ready of faculty! and yet they have been mewed up, or crushed down, or trodden upon, so that they have had no opportunity equal to their native endowment. But consult them, and they have a grateful answer to the inquiry, Have you not been placed in a favourable situation? They could see where the situation might have been enlarged and improved, where some aspect might have been sunnier, and where some opportunity might have been larger; but they say, Thank God, we have not been left without opportunity and blessing and inspiration, and if we have failed we dare not, in simple justice, blame our Creator and God. Have we been faithful to our advantages?

Here is human life as the subject of detailed care:

"And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein" ( Isa 5:2 ).

Then he stood back and waited like a husbandman. The vineyard was upon a hill, and therefore could not be ploughed. How blessed are those vineyards that are cultivated by the hand! There is a magnetism in the hand of love that you cannot have in an iron plough. He gathered out the stones thereof one by one... he fenced... he built... he made a winepress. It is handmade. Your mechanics and your manufactures have their value, but the aged will tell you that there is a singular charm about the house-goods that were handmade; they take them up so lovingly, and say, These were hand-sewn; these were made at home.

There is a peculiar delight in rightly accepting the handling of God. We are not cultivated by the great ploughs of the constellations and the laws of nature; we are handled by the Living One, our names are engraven on the palms of his hands: "The right hand of the Lord doeth gloriously." Human life, then, is the subject of detailed care; everything, how minute soever, is done as if it were the only thing to be done; every man feels that there is a care directed to him which might belong to an only son. We speak of One who is God's only begotten and wellbeloved Son, and he must ever retain that primacy and distinctiveness; yet there is another sense in which every man may say he is treated as if he were God's only child, and on him is lavished an infinitude of divine grace, and care, and love. So with every flower that blooms: the tiniest of the floral tribe could say, It needed all the solar system to grow me: I am not some little thing flung in without signature or trace of care; it required all that the greatest oak in Bashan needed to bring me to my grade of perfection. What has been left undone of the nature of care that we can point out, and concerning which we can with justice question God? What have we? Reason, feeling, imagination, nurture for the body, care for the soul, alphabets like doors opening upon all languages, and a Book that combines within its limits all libraries, and then promises entrance into the high school, the academy of heaven. Let us reckon up our advantages, make an inventory of them; be careful about each line, omitting nothing, and setting down everything in a clear and visible hand; and add the running figures into a sum-total, and stand amazed before the last astounding result of grace and care. Look at any one joint in your body, and see all God's power in that easy movement. Point to one thing on which God's signature is not written as attesting the greatness of his creatorship and the minuteness of his care and love.

Human life is next regarded as the object of a just expectation:

He looked that it should bring forth grapes" ( Isa 5:2 ).

Why not? Had he not a right to do so? Is there not a sequence of events? When men sow certain seed, have they not a right to look for a certain crop? When they pass through certain processes in education, or in commerce, or in statesmanship, have they not a right to expect that the end should correspond with the beginning? Who likes to lose all his care? Whose heart does not break when he thinks that all he has done has ended in nothing? He worked hard, he sacrificed his own indulgence, he pinched himself at many a point to give his child a good schooling; he secretly said, I have no money to leave the boy, but he shall have all the education I can give him, and then, perhaps, he may make a man of himself under the blessing of God; and when if at the last it comes to failure, shame, ruin, whose heart does not break under the awful consequence? There are just expectations in life. Has a minister no such expectations? Having spent his days in study and his nights in prayer, and having planned his life in order to teach, encourage, and comfort his people, if at the last they are broken staves in his hand, which pierce him when in his old age he leans upon them, the bitterness of death is doubled by such painful disappointment and such shameful ingratitude. The principle runs throughout society. From certain beginnings certain endings may be calculated, and the calculation is rational and just.

See, in the next place, human life as the occasion of a bitter disappointment. "It brought forth wild grapes" ( Isa 5:2 ). Then, what have circumstances to do with the development of life? The circumstances in this case were perfect, the environment was divine in its scope and its adaptation. Let us read again the words which describe the vineyard: "My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein." And having done all that hands could do he waited. This is God's attitude. Having set up the Cross of his Son in the midst of the ages, and having preached the gospel to every creature, all that even the Almighty could do is to wait. In this instance he waited, and in due season he went for the grapes, and he saw that his vineyard brought forth wild grapes. Have we had no experience of the same kind? Without going into the lives of others, let us hold severest inquest upon our own lives. What has been the issue of all our education and opportunity, all our gracious fellowships, and all the inspiration which has blessed our lives? Are we to-day further on in all goodness and strength than we were, say, ten years ago? Are we as impatient, as fretful, as resentful, as sensitive to all slight, neglect, and injury as we used to be? or are we loftier in mind, larger in thought, fuller in charity, more hopeful regarding the worst, more Christlike? It is for each man to answer these judgment questions for himself and to himself. We may lose great advantage if we make public confession about these things. Sometimes it is well to sit down at our own judgment-seat, receive the sentence, and quietly ponder it in a silence so deep as to be almost religious.

Does God encounter all this with anger? Not until he has uttered himself in surprise and grief:

"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" ( Isa 5:4 ).

God asks, as it were, whether he can blame himself; whether anything has escaped Omniscience; whether he has failed in blessing that might have resulted in abundance of luscious fruit: then mentally he goes over the whole situation; he remembers the selection of the hill, the fencing, the gathering-out of the stones, the planting of the choicest vine, the building of the tower in the midst of it, and the erection of the winepress; and as he reads the history of his own doings he seems to challenge the vineyard and the universe to suggest one omission. Let me judge myself! Could anything more have been done for me than has been done? I am constrained to answer, There has been nothing lacking on the part of God. It is not for me to compare myself with other men, and to say their advantages have been greater than mine; possibly that may be so; yet I have had advantages enough to have brought forth an abundance of grateful fruit How much have I produced? Are mine lifeless branches? Are my grapes wild grapes? These are the questions that tear the life, these the songs the music of which we forget in the terribleness of their judgment. But this is healthy investigation; this is the kind of heart-searching which, if properly received, ends in edification. We cannot repent sooner than to-day; behold, now is the accepted time for repentance; now is the chosen hour for the real improvement of our innermost life.

Who can read the fifth and sixth verses in the right tone? Is there any teacher of elocution who can tell us how to read these verses? The first suggestion is that they should be read with a rending, strident, judging voice, made keen with reproach; then the second suggestion is whether they may not be so read as to indicate the welling-up of hot tears, the feeling of sobbing grief.

"And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it" ( Isa 5:5-6 ).

Are these merely objurgatory sentences, and have they to be read as with the stormy wind of indignant judgment? Is not every word a tear? There is a judgment that is gracious; there are sentences full of awful suggestion which owe their graciousness to their awfulness. God will not allow the nominal advantage to stand without the spiritual advantage following. The church must be pulled down if the people are not praying in it Do not let stand a lie in stone and plaster. If the church is within itself a falsehood, take down the honest stones, and do not make them parties to high treason! This is just to ill-used nature. Where "Ichabod" is on the door take the portals down; unroof the deconsecrated sanctuary, and by so much restore the honour of the altar as to cast it down, and throw back the stones into the quarry whence they were brought. Life is given for culture. It is not the best at the first; it has to be fenced, and the stones are to be taken out, and the choice vine is to be planted, and the tower is to be set in the midst of it, and the winepress is to be built therein. The child is but the beginning; the man should be the cultivated result. Culture is bestowed for fruit Culture is not given for mere decoration, ornamentation, or for the purpose of exciting attention, and invoking and securing applause; the meaning of culture, ploughing, digging, sowing is fruit, good fruit, usable fruit, fruit for the healing of the nations. The fruit for which culture is bestowed is moral. God looked for judgment and God looked for righteousness. We have not been trained to be intellectual athletes, to be great mental gladiators, vexing one another with emulous skill and energy, each equal to the other, so that the fight keeps in an even balance, and none can tell the end of the rivalry; the meaning of all reading, experience, suffering, prayer, singing, Christian fellowship is fruit, of judgment and of righteousness. The moral appeal of the Scripture proves the inspiration of the Bible. Even a parable is not a creation of fancy ending in a rainbow-like beauty; it is more beautiful than any rainbow, yet it indicates promise, covenant, righteousness, and issue of goodness.

Mark how discriminating is the judgment of God "He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." They were grapes, but not the right sort; there was no denying that they were the fruit of the vine, but the grapes were wild, they were not the right quality, they were bitter with disappointment, they were small, sapless, savourless, useless; they were unequal to the occasion; they did not correspond with their environment, their conditions, their opportunities: they were an irony which God could not tolerate what if he crushed them in his hand, and threw them from him with anger, disappointment, and bitterest grief? It is not enough that we bear grapes or fruit; we must keep in mind that quality is the end of conduct; that character will be judged not simply as character, but as involving elements of righteousness, truth, justice, love, purity the fruits of the Spirit love, joy, meekness, charity all these. Oh, blessed Husbandman, Vine-dresser of thy creatures, when thou comest may we be in a position to give thee much fruit, for herein is our Father glorified!