Rarely, if ever… is it a good sign…when God ‘removes the hedge’.

A couple of weeks ago, I drove up to the wine country which is about two hours north of us. I heard that they were harvesting the grapes up there and I wanted to go take some pictures. I’ve been up there a few times before since we moved out here, but I’m not sure I ever noticed on previous visits how so many of the vineyards have stone or brick walls built around them; or some other type of fence. It’s not that I was surprised by that, but for some reason they simply escaped my notice. So I found myself getting out and taking pictures of them.

The concept of a hedge being erected around a vineyard is nothing new to me, as I’ve written about this before in previous messages. And stone hedges have been around for a long time, probably ever since people began growing grapes to make wine, and they discovered that hedges served as protective barriers for their valuable crops, keeping out predators, wild animals, or even thieves. I remember seeing miles of hedges around vineyards when we visited Sicily a number of years ago. 

Jesus told a parable in Mark 12 how a man ‘planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it’. No one questioned why since it was common knowledge as to what the purpose of a hedge served to almost everyone.

So when God confronted His people through his prophet, Isaiah, informing them that He was about to remove the hedge from around His vineyard, it was not for good reasons. He had come looking for ‘good fruit’ but found only bad grapes. We were reading about this in yesterday’s message from Isaiah 5. And because God was disappointed in the dismal results from His vineyard, He made it known that having ‘done all He knew to do’ to ensure a good productive yield of good fruit…He was left with no other choice than to ‘remove the hedge’ and to ‘lay the field waste’ (4-6).

And in case there was any confusion as to what He was referring to with this ‘song about a vineyard’ (1), God tells them plainly what this vineyard represented: ‘the house of Israel’ (7). It was also a prophetic word of warning to a future ‘church’ which most believe Israel was a ‘type’ or ‘foreshadowing’ of depicted through much of the OT.

What follows that clarification is a series of ‘woes’, lamenting how the people fail to ‘regard the work of the Lord nor consider the operation of His hands’ (8-12). You might want to circle the next verse (13) where God states “Therefore My people have gone into captivity…” claiming they seem devoid of ‘knowledge’. Do you recall why God’s people tend to end up being ‘destroyed’, according to Hosea 4:6?

But this idea of God’s people being ‘taken captive’ is one that I just can’t seem to address often enough, despite what you may think as I tend to circle back and mention it frequently here. How and why…do you think God’s people end up being taken ‘captive’ as often as they do? Take a moment and go read Jeremiah 13:15-17, and see why the prophet was weeping. Then, a quick turn to Lamentations 1 (book right after Jeremiah) will echo this tragic scene, describing how ‘Judah had gone into captivity’….(3) because “her adversaries (enemy) have become the master…and her enemies prosper; for the Lord has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions (sins). Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.” (5)

Now some might be asking how this has any relevancy to us ‘Christians’ today; and I will only remind you that the very reason Jesus came was to ‘set the captives free’ (Luke 4:18). And whom do you think God’s people are taken ‘captive’ by? The same ‘enemy’ who is always behind taking God’s people captive; take a look at Acts 26:18 and 2 Timothy 2:24-26). And would you care to guess ‘how’…the enemy is able to come and take God’s children captive? It is when they transgress, or forget His ‘law’. You should know by now that is what ‘sin’ is- breaking the commandments of God (1 John 3:4).

God has been warning His children since the beginning of time that ‘sin’ has consequences (Gen. 2:17), and ‘gives place to the devil’ to come in and to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’ (Eph. 4:27; John 10:10). And we see throughout history how God will draw a line in the sand, and despite His unfathomable mercy…there is a time when He says: “Enough is enough!” You should have the last part of Hosea 4:6 underlined as well, where God told the people: “Because you have forgotten My law…I will forget your children.”

So as we read through all that will follow the removing of the ‘hedge’ in Isaiah 5, we see some very disturbing passages, like how “hell has enlarged itself” (14) as ‘those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for darkness’ (20. And then here comes the ‘fire’ as we read in vs. 24: “The fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend like dust…”. And here comes the reason why…the ‘hedge was removed : “Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”

He goes on: “Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them…” (25).

Friends…we haven’t even got to the ‘main part’ that I’ve been trying to get to, regarding how God carries out His judgments on a nation, let alone the world. He has…and ‘uses’…His ‘instruments of His indignation’, as we read about in Isa. 13:5; Jer. 50:25; Ps. 78:49. Would you now take a moment and finish reading vs. 26-30, and ask yourself…’who exactly is He ‘whistling for from the ends of the earth’ (26), and why does He liken them to ‘lions’ (28)?

Who does Peter liken our ‘enemy the devil’ to, in 1 Peter 5:8? As I said at the beginning here, when God ‘removes the hedge’…bad things usually follow. And we are given some great insight to this truth…in the first two chapters of the Book of Job, which we will look at once again, tomorrow, Lord willing.