I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? (Isaiah 5:1–4, NIV 1984).
My Musings – Two excellent questions.
Why did it yield only bad? – Because we ate the forbidden fruit. They only thing that was forbidden. The garden was “fertile.” It had everything that was needed. And it was good. “He looked for a crop of good…but it yielded only bad.” Because “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5:9, NIV 1984).
What more could have been done? – Nothing more was required to be done. “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31, NIV 1984). There was no reason for things to turn out “only bad.” That they did was not His doing. It was mankind’s. So, “what more” could be expected? Nothing required. Nothing expected. “But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness.” (Isaiah 5:16, NIV 1984). So, He did do something more.
My Advice – Some will say, “how can a holy and righteous God send people to hell?” God sends no one to hell. They are already headed there. What God did was “something more” to rescue people from hell. There was only one thing prohibited in the garden to keep from losing paradise. There was only one thing more that could be done to restore it.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16–18, NIV 1984).
There is only one thing we can do. Believe in Him.
The Brew Is A Musing 