Isaiah 5:1-7 – Don’t take God’s grace for granted

Isaiah 5 tells the story of God’s generous grace showered on His people and sadly how His people chose to spurn it. In the story, a generous man was seen cultivating a vineyard. He took great care to make sure that the vineyard was well constructed and made everything possible for it to flourish. Then in this vineyard, he planted the choicest vine. Since he had put in so much effort, he expected it to bear choice fruit to produce fine wine. So he confidently built a vat near the vineyard to house the wine. But to his chagrin, the vineyard produced wild, rotten, and rancid fruit, impossible to produce fine wine.

Of course, the one who had planted the vineyard was God. The vineyard here was the nation of Israel. God had brought about the nation of Israel and taken care to shower much grace on them. He expected to see the fruits of righteousness and justice but instead saw violent bloodshed and people crying out in great distress. With the amount of grace and patience God showered on it, Israel should have flourished but it did not. Why? What went wrong? In the rhetorical question in verse 4, God invited the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem to evaluate the matter and tell Him what had gone wrong. This seems to suggest that they were putting the blame on God. So He asked them, what more could He have done to see Israel producing the fruits that He expected to see?

 

There is a human tendency to find something to pin the blame on when we fail to live up to expectations. We blame our circumstances, our spouses, our bosses, our children, our subordinates, our education and etc, but not ourselves. It is time for us to be proactive people who would take responsibility for our actions in life regardless of the outcome. Let us stop blaming and start owning up to our decisions and actions. To place blame for our flaws is to insinuate that God has not given us sufficient grace to deal with it. One way to be forward-looking is to start exploring ways to get to the next level with God, not to gripe, lament, and blame our failure on our seeming lack.   

 

Verses 5-6 is a grim reminder that while God is gracious, we cannot afford to take His grace for granted. The problem with Israel was her persistent obstinacy. So God had to deal with the people harshly. Soon all the protective hedge and generous supply of God would stop flowing their way. All their privileges would be removed. Privilege always comes with responsibility. We are free to enjoy our God-given privileges, but we are expected to live up to all the responsibilities that come with them. This is a lesson we must never forget.

 

A passage like this pushes us to take a hard look at our lives. Have we taken the grace of God for granted? Are we hiding behind our label as Christians but not doing our part to cultivate a God-pleasing life?  We must heed the instruction of God in 1 Timothy 4:7 to “…discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” Why? Paul tells us that it is profitable for all things and it holds promise for the present life, and also for the life to come. Never take the grace and patience of God for granted!