Isaiah the Lawyer

Isaiah 1:7-9

“Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.  And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.  Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!” (Isaiah 1:7-10, ESV)

This is best described; Judah on trial and sitting in the judge’s place is God, and in the jury box are the heavens and the earth, and the lawyer speaking for God against the people of Judah is Isaiah.  What is their sin, living independent from God?  If you have any doubt of this, go to Isaiah 5:1-7, for there you will find the analogy of the vineyard being destroyed.   The people of Judah were chosen Children of God, as we who follow Christ are, and they much like many of us seem to lose sight of whose children we are, and yet we are reminded that the ox knows it’s master, and even the donkey knows where its food comes from.

So returning to Isaiah 5:1-7 compare it to Psalm 23, where David looked to the Lord to be his Shepherd, and received blessing, not curses.  God ask the inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah to judge between Him and His vineyard.  God reminds them of how he established His vineyard on fertile soil he removed the stone and cleared it, and planted it with choice vines.  He put a watchtower in the mist of it and hewed out a wine vat in it, and God expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 

You might compare the people of Judah to the church of today, making choices that paid disrespect to our Lord, not worship.  They were like many Christians who outwardly acknowledge God on Sunday, and leave the service with plans of their own making those are the wild grapes the Lord is judging.  It is not dependence as we see from David in Psalm 23, but the independence of the people of Judah and the Church of today.

So now the Judge speaks; “And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. Note: remember we are His vineyard) I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.  I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.  For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!” (Isaiah 5:5-7 emphases added)

“For the time `is come' for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if `it begin' first at us, what `shall be' the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice