| “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” (Isaiah 5:4). |
| When I was growing up, there was an older brother who used to tell us that this verse was the “key verse” to the whole of the Old Testament. What did he mean? He meant that this verse summarized all of God’s dealings with man in the Old Testament. Let me explain. |
| In all of the Old Testament, God was testing man, to see if there was any good in him, in his natural sinful condition. He tested man in various ways, and no matter what the Lord did, man always failed. It was no use; he was a sinful creature, and nothing good could come out of him. Of course the Lord knew ahead of time that sinful man could not do anything good toward Him, but God did this testing to prove to man that he was thoroughly sinful. |
| In the Old Testament the nation of Israel was always looked at as God’s vineyard. Perhaps you have seen a vineyard with grapes growing in rows. As I have told you before, I grew up on a fruit farm, and we grew grapes. The vines had been properly grafted, and we cultivated them, put manure on them, and pruned them. They always produced good bunches of grapes. |
| However, in the fence rows between the fields on that farm there were wild grapes. You could eat them, but they were very small and rather sour. No one would ever buy them at a market, and we left them for the wild animals to eat. |
| You can imagine how upset we would have been if we had cultivated, fertilized, and pruned our good grapevines in our vineyard, and then found that they produced only wild grapes! We would wonder whatever happened, yet that is what God said about all His testing of man. The Lord did everything possible to give sinful man a chance to produce something good for Him, but nothing worked. Man produced only wild grapes. |
| There is only one way we can produce something good for God, and that is to have a new life in Christ. In order to give us this new life, the Lord Jesus had to come and die on the cross. Now He wants to give new life to whoever will come to Him. |
