Isaiah 5:8-22

Sin and Judgment

Isa 5:8-22

We find similar maledictions pronounced by Jesus Christ in the sixth chapter of Luke. In the earlier prophecies there is no precedent or parallel to these pronouncements of woe. Where heaven is so angry there must be some reason for the anger; it is our business to endeavour to discover that reason, and inquire into our own relation towards it.

"Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" ( Isa 5:8 ).

In order to understand this we must remember the conditions of life in Northern Palestine at the time when these woes were pronounced. It was village life: men had little freeholds of their own: it was a life marked by small proprietorships; almost every man had some little patch of vineyard. The disposition, however, was to do away with small proprietories, and for the greater men to grasp all the land, so that Palestine might have its great landlords; and so urgently did this spirit assert itself that even the little freeholders of Palestine were in many cases forced into a position of slavery, and made to toil as slaves on the lands which they once honestly owned and hopefully cultivated. This was seen by some one blessed be God! whoever he was, he was just and he cried: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" the men who swallowed up all who were smaller than themselves, and who grasped at everything with an insatiable and inappeasable voracity. All things went down before that spirit of covetousness. That is, as some one has well termed it, the dry drunkenness; the appetite that drinks everything, and whose thirst is never quenched. The Lord had always been careful about the boundaries of little property. We have studied Deuteronomy 19:14 : "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it." But at the time to which the prophecy of Isaiah refers landmarks went for nothing; the Titanic landlord was coming down to add field to field, perish who might in the gratification of his covetousness. There was a law of debt amongst the ancient people a very beautiful and gracious law. When Nehemiah went to inquire into the condition of the people at the time referred to in his Book, he found them in sad plight "Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth" we have practically parted with the very last patch of land we had that we might simply keep the wolf from the door. "There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards:" the taxes were so high that we could not pay them out of our earnings, and therefore we have had to borrow to pay the tax-gatherer. "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards." Now read the judgment in the light of these explanations. Consider the state of the land at the time; then hear this voice, and say whether it come from hell or heaven: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" Whose voice is that? We need not ask questions regarding the inspiration of a book whose tone is thus so broadly moral, so loftily just, so minutely careful of the rights of little men little, hard-working, industrious, frugal freeholders. How strong is the Bible in its moral majesty! Why do not men begin at that point when they inquire into the merits of the Book? Why will they fix upon antiquities, chronologies, the distribution of the books in their relation to one another? Why do they not fasten upon the judgment spirit that is in the Book, and acquaint themselves with the moral purpose of the revelation, and then work their way to all outermost and incidental things?

Is God content with pronouncing these judgments? He says:

"In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah" (Isaiah 5:9 , Isaiah 5:10 .)

There is where the Lord has his hold upon these mighty people: they can get the land, but they cannot ensure the crops. After all, there is a mysterious Power that holds things in its great grip. The great landlords have added field to field, and house to house, and driven off the small proprietors, and now they are going to have everything their own way; and they sow their acres, and their acres will not bring forth fruit. The bath is about seven gallons and a half; the acre was ground that could be ploughed in a day by a yoke of oxen; a homer was about thirty-two pecks, and an ephah was about a tenth of that quantity. So, when men looked for a good amount of produce, behold, they had one-tenth of it! It is curious to observe the operation of a law. Success won as these men won it is like a bird with one wing it can only flap and flutter, but never fly. The Lord looked down from heaven, and saw the avaricious men taking the little vineyard from Naboth, removing the landmark, despoiling the small proprietors; he saw these "successful" men fattening themselves in their prosperity, and heard their infamous chuckle as they supposed themselves to have accomplished their malign purpose. What hold has God upon the land? He has all the hold at the end which we call the crop or the harvest; he will command the clouds that they rain not upon the illgotten land; he will make the land a burden to those who have too much of it, and who have got it unjustly. A man cannot have too much of anything if he gathers it justly as the fruit of industry, and well-expended mind, and care, and thought; but when all his gettings are but so many successes of injustice, the land that he boasts of shall become a burden to him, and he will cry one day, Who will take it off my hands? When the harvests are bad for ten years running men begin to think about causes, and though it may be possible for superstition to push the inquiry too far, and into obviously unjustifiable exaggerations, yet he is no foolish man who bethinks himself whether after all there may not lie behind the most material facts a moral mystery. Again we say, How great is the moral majesty of the Bible! When has judgment forsaken the earth? At what time has there been no sign of the divine Presence, or the divine care? All history testifies to God's presence.

After all this grasping what happens?

"Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!" ( Isa 5:11 ).

After injustice comes luxury. Bad men, though they cannot calculate upon the next harvest with any certainty, will eat and drink as though they could. It is matter of history that oftentimes the morning revel was continued until the evening debauch. The whole land was given up to evil banqueting to eating and drinking damnation. "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink" the drink made out of honey and dates, the poisonous Egyptian beer, that inflamed men's blood, and killed any spark of divinity that might be in them. Beginning the day with intoxication! That was an ancient habit; is there ought of the kind to-day? Have we not sometimes seen young men leaving the tavern so early as ten o'clock in the morning? Have we not seen women, who ought to be the saviours of the world, drying their lips on the tavern step ere well the sun be risen? The fascination of evil, how subtle, how mighty, how tremendous! The appetite that is within us, how often uncontrollable! how it takes no heed of decency! how it sinks into Sodomic shamelessness! An officer was commended to King Alphonso as a man who could drink much, and retain what he drank. Said the king, "That is an excellent quality in a sponge, but not in a man." May we not learn from those who are philosophical observers of history, if we care not to consult the fanatical moralists and pietists who may be under the influence of superstition? Mahomet said, "In every grape there dwells a devil." This is no hallucination of the modern mind, with its fine-spun ethics, and its new philanthropy, and its moral veneer and conventional appearance. If the devil has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning, so has strong drink; it has no good history; its whole record is a bad one. Mark the pampering of the animal life. The whole nature went down. Only one appetite was served and satisfied if that can be satisfied which grows by what it feeds on. Can a man cultivate his animal life and his spiritual life at the same time? All history says that such a course of conduct is simply impossible. It comes in the issue to one of two things: either the body must conquer, or the soul must conquer. Grieve not the Spirit: quench not the Spirit. It is possible to slay God within the soul.

The destruction of religion follows all this extinction of the finest aspirations of the human heart and mind. You cannot attack moral nobility at any point without involving the whole altar of worship and sacrifice and redemption. What is the consequence religiously? That is pointed out in the twelfth verse:

"And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands." ( Isa 5:12 )

We cannot be both animal and spiritual, gross and refined, satisfying the appetites of the body and gratifying the aspirations of the soul. It is recorded of some that they were so afraid of the lightning and the thunder that they not only closed their eyes to hide themselves from the vision of the playful fire, but they brought out all their musical instruments, as drums and trumpets and tabrets, to quell the infinite reverberating of the thunder. But who can silence the artillery of the clouds? Yet men are every day trying to shut out the voice of judgment from the ear by making grievous noises of their own. The people did not regard the work of the Lord, they took no heed of it: the heavens were not fields of starry beauty or solar parable to them, for their bloodshot eyes never looked at the empyrean, at the infinite circle of glory; and the whole earth, with all its carpeting of flowers, was nothing to them but a place to be thrust into at the last when flesh and blood could no longer stand erect. What was the consequence? "Therefore my people are gone into captivity" ( Isa 5:13 ). Not immediately, but morally, and in reality. Find sin in one verse, and you find captivity in the next. Still the Bible maintains its grand moral position, its unrivalled supremacy. Who ever sins goes into bondage. Not only they are in bondage who are shut up within thick walls, and who are condemned to spend the remainder of their days in iron cages; they are in captivity who have voices within them asking for evil things to which they cannot say no. They may drive to their banqueting in chariots of gold drawn by steeds of finest mettle, but they are galloping only to their prison. If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed; if you have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man you cannot be in prison, you cannot tell the meaning of abridged liberty; you have a glorious freedom. He who is good may walk the earth a free man, though he have but little to eat and nowhere to lay his head. Character is freedom; pureness is liberty; to have few wants is to be rich; to be master of yourself is to be conqueror of the world. These great laws never alter: why do not men fix their attention upon these, and gather around the Bible to say, This is none other than the living word of the living God, keeping the ages pure, and guaranteeing for moral greatness ultimate establishment and coronation? Men go into captivity when they go into sin.

Mark the ruin, note the havoc:

"Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it" ( Isa 5:14 ).

What other picture can compare with this for lurid vividness? Let us change the word "hell," and substitute what is probably the literal meaning of the prophet Therefore the under-world, the Hadean sphere, the world of shadows, hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure. Even if we get rid of what to many minds is the objectionable word "hell" in its common meaning, yet the place that does enlarge itself is the under-space; it is the sphere of the pit; it is the realm of nightly shadows. How graphic the suggestion that sin is so multiplying on the surface of the earth that all the under-world must enlarge itself to accommodate the thronging and multiplying populations that eat the bread of dishonesty and drink distilled damnation! Think of the process in its whole operation; imagine some spectral voice saying, The evil under-world rulers expect a thousand more men in by the end of the month. Or, Ere the year closes you will need to redouble your accommodation, for the world gets madder: evil is on the steps of the throne, evil is in the house of beggary, the aristocracy are corrupted through and through, and all the original space leading to Hadean places will be crowded, and men will be hurrying down in thousands, as if urged on by the whip of a cruel destiny; be ready! That is the image of the text. All glory and pomp shall be swallowed up. There is a spirit of doom in the universe. Bless God! Tell the devil-ridden aristocrat that he can do what he likes, that he will die with his own dog, and may be buried in the same ditch, and you do but heat his already fevered blood, and take out of his voice the last token of fair manliness. Tell the whole world that the spirit of judgment rules, and that at the end all illgotten property, glory, pomp, is eternal darkness, and you may touch a wholesome fear. It may be the meanest of all appeals that addresses itself to terror, yet so constituted is the human mind that the ministry of fear will always occupy an important position in the education of the world.

Then comes the time of restoration and vindication:

"But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat" ( Isa 5:16-17 ).

A beautiful pastoral image! We have seen how the great owners proceeded in their acquisition of land more and more until they excluded the small proprietors; but now the time has come when the lambs shall feed after their manner. All the park walls shall be torn down, and all the land that was enclosed for the purpose of hunting game shall be thrown open, and all the little lambs shall feed as they used to do when every little flockmaster had his patch of grass for his little pastoral family: the gilt-headed palings shall be torn up and cast into the furnace; and all the walls that shut out the poor so that they could not see a little green grass or a few flowers shall be shaken from beneath not their topstones thrown down, but their foundations heaved up, and the earth shall cast them off as a nuisance, an incubus intolerable; and the landlords shall get back again all their pastoral lands: Palestine shall yet be the land of the people. God is the great Landlord; the earth is the Lord's, and we hold rightly what we hold as his gift; what he has given us we may accept and cultivate, and make it right beautiful for him, and when the harvest smiles in its golden abundance let us give the first sheaf to him, saying, The firstfruits be thine, thou Giver of the bread of man; then shall the earth yield her increase, then shall the spade hardly leave the soil it has tilled until the answering ground blushes with flowers or enriches itself with an abundance of wheat.

The evildoers shall not be changed; they will go on, drawing iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope. The idea is that men harness themselves to sin, and drag the black chariot after them with madness. May we know nothing of this but as a historical picture!

Then the prophet denounces those who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength mingle strong drink. There are bad heroisms. We talk of men being heroic: what in? Read:

"Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink" ( Isa 5:22 ).

They are strong men, they have an abundance of faculty, they are the devil's heroes, they do not things with half-heart or with reluctant hands; when they drink they drink like strong men, and when they fall they fall with a thud upon the resounding earth giants have fallen; mighty men have lost their standing. Oh, pitiful thought, that we may be great in sin, great in wickedness, prime ministers of perdition, leaders and captains in hosts of darkness; better be the least in the kingdom of heaven. That is honour; that is a blessed immortality.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. We hear the voice of thy Son saying unto us, Be ye holy, as your Father in heaven is holy: without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Who can work in us this miracle of purity but thyself, thou mighty One, whose left hand is as his right, and whose hands are filled with omnipotence? Thou canst make us pure, for thou hast the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, and whatsoever we need for our sanctification thou hast, at thy disposal. Holy Spirit, baptize us as with fire; Holy Ghost, descend upon us as in the pentecostal hour. See how far we lag behind, how much we need that we might have had: we have neglected our opportunities; we have sinned away even to the closing moment, the day of mercy; yet whilst light lingers in the western sky there is surely time to repent and return, and cry unto the Lord for his mercy, and put our trust in the Cross. Hear us when we pray; hear us when we ask for pity; hear us and answer us when our cry is for pardon. There is pardon at the Cross; its great name is written in blood; it stands above all other superscriptions, traced by the finger of God. Help us to forsake our way and our thought, wicked and unrighteous, and to return unto the Lord with open face, and eyes beaming with expectation though stained with tears; then shall we receive an abundance of pardon, like wave upon wave rolling in upon the shore. Wherein we have been pardoned, and have entered into the mystery of the better and upper life, may we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in all saintliness and strength of character, that we may be like the Saviour in our degree. May we remember what the fruits of the Spirit are, and renouncing all vanity, self-conceit, pride, and personal assurance, as if we could do anything by our own might, may we strive to bring forth those blessed fruits, and thus make the Lord of the vineyard glad. But the east wind is so blighting, the cold nights are so long, and the destroyer is so wakeful and so pitiless, that oftentimes the blossom is broken off, and our best aspirations never come to fruitfulness. But thou knowest all the tale of human strife and human evolution and human progress, and if thou dost hear our sigh for a better life, a wider and nobler existence, that sigh thou wilt regard as victory; thou wilt hear us and answer us, and some night even, or at the crowing of the cock, thou wilt come, and on us there will rest the unconsuming flame of Christ's own glory. In this hope we live; in this hope no man can ever die. Amen.