Bible Studies

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The Scriptures
Isaiah 5:1-7 – Sweetness Gone Sour
Key Verses: (NLT)

• 1-2a: “Now I will sing a song for the one I love about His vineyard: My beloved has a vineyard on a rich and fertile hill. ²He plowed the land, cleared its stones, and planted it with choice vines.” – Isaiah shares a story with images that are clear and concise for the people of Israel to understand.
  
  
• 2b: “In the middle He built a watchtower and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks. Then He waited for a harvest of sweet grapes, but the grapes that grew were wild and sour.” – Everything God created for His people was perfect, and yet, the outcome went sour.
  
  
• 4: “What more could I have done to cultivate a rich harvest? Why did my vineyard give me wild grapes when I expected sweet ones?” – The people of Israel with a rich farming culture would easily understand and share in the frustration of a crop gone bad.
  
  
• 5: “Now this is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will tear down its fences and let it be destroyed. I will break down its walls and let the animals trample it.” – There is no other option.
  
  
• 7: “This is the story of the LORD's people. They are the vineyard of the LORD Almighty. Israel and Judah are His pleasant garden. He expected them to yield a crop of justice, but instead He found bloodshed. He expected to find righteousness, but instead He heard cries of oppression.” – The analogy comes home to roost.
  

Points to Contemplate:

• Are you God’s vineyard? Has your life been richly blessed by Him? Has He plowed the field, cleared the stones, and planted the best seeds in your life in order that you could be fruitful? Has He patiently waited as you grew and ripened in the warmth of His love? What kind of fruit are you bearing? Has His work in and through you produced a bountiful harvest? Or has it been a waste of time? Are you bearing sweet and beautiful fruit in your life or is it mostly sour grapes?
  
  
• Is your church fruitful? Have the years of God’s patient love and enduring spirit created a church filled with the reflection of His bounty? Are the blessings that have flowed from Him, flowing back out into the world resulting in sweet and glorious nectar for all to share? Or have the walls of your church grown stiff and hard? Have the juices that grew from God’s love cease to flow? Is the world no longer being fed with the sweetness of God’s love but is being met, instead, with the sour bitterness of self righteousness and the bloodshed of bickering?
  
  
• What should God do? If your life or the life of your church has grown stale, bitter, and sour, what should God do? Should He continue to rain blessings onto a rocky and thorny soil? Should He patiently wait as harvest after harvest produces the sour bitterness of selfishness? Or should He turn and search for other, more fertile soils in which to plant? If you are not bearing fruit for God’s kingdom, why should He continue to pour out a world full of blessings for you?
  

Promises of the Gospel:

We are blessed to be a blessing. Our churches have been created to be a light into a world filled with pain and suffering. We have been called to share the sweet love of Jesus Christ to everyone God sends our way. If these things are not happening then these verses in Isaiah suggest that God will turn away. If the harvest we produce as the people and church of Christ is not the sweet fruit of the spirit that Paul describes in Galatians, (Gal. 5:13-25) then God will seek out more fertile soils in which to plant. If our churches are dieing, perhaps the reason can be found within the church walls and has nothing to do with the trends of society we generally tend to blame. Isaiah’s call to the people of Israel is as pertinent today as it was nearly 3000 years ago. Are we producing a bounty of sweet fruit or has everything gone sour with the self-righteous oppression of others and the selfish focus on what we feel we want or need?

FUMC Devotionals

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