Meditations on Isaiah 5

God’s vineyard, which He had planted in the most fertile ground, held his choicest vines: a superior variety from which God expected bountiful clusters of luscious, sweet and succulent grapes.  (Is. 5:1-2)  Such is Judah and Jerusalem; such is the church today. These are his peculiar people, his treasure, and his inheritance; from which God expects fruitfulness. He looks to find hanging from her limbs the fruit of justice, goodness, righteousness, and peace. (Eph. 5:9-10) 

Yet what he finds is the fruit of injustice, evilness, unrighteousness, and war.  He finds his people consumed by the love of pleasure: alcoholics in need of drinks; addicts in need of drugs; and whoremongers in need of sexual perversion. He finds his people without regard for the Lord neither His works nor His deeds and blind to the fact that their actions will call for his judgment. 

The people feast upon evil while Hell enlarges herself and opens her mouth without measure to feast upon those who sin against God. They have become so depraved that sin seems normal, acceptable, even preferred. Among the people, those who are good are considered evil. 

The people refuse light and choose darkness. They give honor to drunkenness, drug abuse, gluttony, and all manner of sexual perversion. Indulgence is exalted as their god. The people give dishonor to God. The heroes of the people are those or that which gives the most powerful stimulation: that buzz; that high; that trip; that ultimate feeling of satisfaction; and that climax. They continue to press the limits, even unto death. 

Wealth is exalted as god. The people are lovers of money. They oppress the struggling middle-class and turn deaf ears to their cries. They are blind to poor. They create war to line their own pockets and create the fatherless and orphans among the people and make no provision for those wounded in war. Workers are not paid fair wages for their labor. Every man is found trying to reach the top by any means necessary. Ethics and fairness are lost concepts. The wealthy buy justice and make law. They hold government and the church hostage. They kindle the fire of God’s wrath.

Unto Judah and Jerusalem, God sent a terrible earthquake. So many people died in a single day that bodies of the dead lined the streets and laid there unburied. And yet the people did not repent. Even today, God has sent storms, tornadoes, earthquakes, and fires, and still the people will not repent, but rather grow more perverse, more evil, and more unjust.

So God prepared an enemy for war. They were fit, alert, well-prepared, and ready to march: such a contrast to the easy-going, unprepared, careless, and fun-loving attitude of the people of God. Judah and Jerusalem were prepared for captivity. They became captives of the Babylonians. They became captives of the Media-Persians. They became captives of the Greeks. And they became captives of the Romans.

Think not that God has not prepared an enemy to war against the church. He has prepared the Anti-Christ. He has prepared the Beast. He has prepared the False Prophet. The church is made ready for martyrdom.