Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Verse 1. Now will I sing to my Well-Beloved a song of my Beloved touching His vineyard. My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill The Song of the Vineyard it by no means a joyful soul. It is, indeed, quite the reverse. It is pitched in the minor key and has a painful theme. This suffices to prove that all our hymns need not consist, as some affirm, of direct praise to God. Such a notion is not according to Scripture, for many of the Psalms are not of that character. There are songs that can be sung to the edification of one another and that is, in part, the design of sacred song. We speak to ourselves as well as to God in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. "My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill." The members of the Church of God are placed in a position where they have very choice opportunities of glorifying God—they are like a vineyard on a very fruitful hill—most favorably placed for fruitfulness.

2. And He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, andplanted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.The vineyard was well chosen as to situation. The vine was carefully selected. Everything was done by walling it, to protect it from intruders. Every preparation was made for the gathering in of the fruits. The winepress was there, yet when the time came for grapes sweet and luscious, it brought forth wild grapes! You know what that means. Has it been so with us? Have we rewarded the Well-Beloved thus ungratefully for all His pains? Have we given Him hardness of heart instead of repentance? Unbelief instead of faith? Indifference instead of love? Idleness instead of holy industry? Impurity instead of holiness? Is that my case? Is it your case, dear Friends? Has even our religion been a false thing? Has it been like wild grapes or poisonous berries? Have we been at times right only by accident, and have we never carefully and sedulously sought to serve our Lord, or to bring forth fruit to His praise? O Lord, You know! Let us judge ourselves in this matter that we be not judged.

3, 4. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between Me and My vineyard. What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? O you that profess to be His people, what more could Christ have done for you? What more could the Holy Spirit have done? What richer promises, what wiser precepts, what kinder Providences, what more gracious patience? "Why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" From where came this? The stock was good, the vine-grower was wise. From where came these wild grapes?

5, 6. Andnow I will tellyou what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, andit shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor dug; but there shall come up brier and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it "I will tell you what I will do." He does not wait till the men of Judah have given their verdict. There was no need of any. The case was all too sadly clear. "I will take away the hedge thereof...and break down the wall thereof." Those Providences which guard men from sin shall be removed. You shall be allowed to sin if you like—and as you like. Your will shall have its freedom to the fullest. "And it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste." There is no destruction like that which comes when God destroys the fruitless vineyard! When a human enemy or the wild boar out of the woods lays it waste, it may be restored again, but if in righteous wrath, the Divine Owner of the vineyard, Himself, lays it waste, what hope remains for it? What fearful words—"It shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste." "It shall not be pruned, nor dug; but there shall come up briars and thorns." Nothing happens worse to a church or to a man than to be altogether without affliction—no pruning, no digging, no restraints, no pricks of conscience, no smiting with the rod. "I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it." That is the worst of all!

7. For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant: and He looked for judgment, but beheld oppression; for righteousness, but beheld a cry. Oh, when those who profess to be God's people live ungodly, dishonest, unchaste, ungracious lives, God is greatly grieved! His anger burns against such a Church and against such a people. And well it may. "He looked for judgment," for they professed to be taught of God. "But beheld oppression." He looked "for righteousness," for they said they were righteous. "But beheld a cry." The passage has a special reference to God's ancient people and one cannot read it without noting how literally this terrible threat has been fulfilled.

8-10. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there is no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! In My ears, said the LORD ofHosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitants. Yes, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah. When men are covetous after the things of this world, God has a way of making them to be filled with disappointment and with bitterness! Woe unto any man who has any god but the living God, or who lives for any objective but to glorify the Creator. Upon such a man innumerable woes shall come!

11-12. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflames them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the Word of the LORD, neither consider the operation of His hands. The covetous man was intoxicated with greed. Here is a man intoxicated with strong drink. It is never too early, it is never too late for men to drink who once are carried away with this passion. They rise up early. They continue until night and then, when they are inflamed with lust, all sorts of evil pleasures are sought after and Satan leads them captive at his will. Woe unto such! Now, it was because there were covetous men who were idolaters, because there were luxuriously living men who were drunkards, who had crept into Jerusalem and lived there, and spread evils among the people—it was for this that God declared that He would lay His vineyard waste. Are there none such in the Church of God today? Ah, me! I fear there are professors who do not let it be known openly, but who in secret follow after these things!

13-14. Therefore My people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst Therefore Hell has enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoices, shall descend into it What a perfect description that is of the Church of God when it goes wrong—when there is evil in it. Then evil multiplies itself greatly in the earth and Hell has to be made bigger, as it were. As one old preacher said, "They go to Hell in droves." There is none to stop them. When the Church, itself, goes wrong, then the world is like that herd of swine that ran violently down a steep place to perish in the waters. Down, down they go! Oh, dreadful sight! Oh, terrible doom that falls upon the ungodly! Would God the Church were well awake to see the danger of mankind and that she so lived that God could bless her to the salvation of men!

15-16. And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: but the LORD of Host shall be exalted in judgment, and God, who is holy, shall be sanctified in righteousness. For whoever may stain himself with sin, God will not. We may think lightly of sin, but He never does. We may be so foolish as to tolerate iniquity in ourselves and wink at it in others, but God will not do so. Even when sin was laid on Christ, He smote Him to the death! Though He was not guilty of any sin, yet when our sin lay there, God turned away His face from His Son and He died! And if He spared not sin in His Son, do you think He will spare it in us? Ah, no! He is a just God and He will clear His hands of any complicity with iniquity. The 16th verse is the song of Hannah, that greatest of ancient poetesses. It is the Song of Mary, who copied it from Hannah, "He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty."

17. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat It is always so. There is always room for the tender, the gentle and the weak when God smites the haughty and the strong.

18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin, as it were, with a cart rope!"Woe unto them." When we get a woe in this Book of Blessings, it is sent as a warning, that we may escape from woe! God's woes are better than the devil's welcomes! God always means man's good and only sets ill before him that he may turn from the dangers of a mistaken way, and so may escape the ill which lies at the end of it. "Woe, woe, woe," though it should sound with a dreadful din in our ears, may be the means of leading us to seek and find our Savior—and then throughout eternity no woe shall ever come near to us! "That draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin, as it were, with a cart rope." This is a very singular passage. It is not very easy to understand it at first sight. Here are some who are said to draw sin "with cords of vanity," which are slender enough. And yet they also draw it "as with a cart rope," which is thick enough. They are harnessed to sin and the traces appear to be fragile, insignificant and soon broken. You can hardly touch them, for they are a mere sham, a fiction—vanity! What can be thinner and weaker than cobweb-cords of vanity? Yet when you attempt to break or remove them, they turn out to be cart ropes or wagon traces, fitted to bear the pull of horse or bulls! Motives which have no logical force and would not bind a reasonable man for a moment, are, nevertheless, quite sufficient to hold the most of men in bondage. Such a slave is man to iniquity, that unworthy motives and indefensible reasons which appear no stronger than little cords nevertheless hold him as with bonds of steel—and he is fastened to the loaded wagon of his iniquity as a horse is fastened by a cart rope!

19. That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it! Blaspheming God and rushing on the bosses of His buckler! Defying Him to smite them. And all this came from dallying with sin, from drawing iniquity with cords of vanity! Beware of the eggs of the cockatrice! Remember how drops wear stones and little strokes fell great oaks. Do not play with a cobra, even if it is but a foot long. Keep from the edge of the precipice. Fly from the lion ere he springs upon you! Do not forge for yourself a net of iron, nor become the builder of your own prison. May the Holy Spirit deliver you. May you touch the Cross and find in it the power which will loosen you and let you go!

Psalm 121:1. I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help. It is wise to look to the strong for strength. Dwellers in valleys are subject to many disorders for which there is no cure but a sojourn in the uplands. And it is well when they shake off their lethargy and resolve upon a climb. The holy man who here sings a choice sonnet looked away from the slanderers by whom he was tormented to the Lord who saw all from His high places and was ready to pour down succor for His injured servant. Help comes to saints only from above! They look elsewhere in vain. Let us lift up our eyes with hope, expectancy, desire and confidence! Satan will endeavor to keep our eyes upon our sorrows that we may be disquieted and discouraged. Be it ours to firmly resolve that we will look out and look up, for there is good cheer for the eyes—and they that lift up their eyes to the eternal hills shall soon have their hearts lifted up also! The purposes of God—the Divine attributes, the Immutable promises, the Covenant ordered in all things and sure—the Providence, predestination and proved faithfulness of the Lord—these are the things to which we must lift up our eyes, for from these our help must come!

2. My help comes from the LORD, which made Heaven and earth. What we need is help—help powerful, efficient, constant. We need a very present help in trouble. What a mercy that we have it in our God! Our hope is in Jehovah, for our help comes from Him. Help is on the road and will not fail to reach us in due time, for He who sends it to us was never known to be too late. Jehovah who created all things is equal to every emergency! Heaven and earth are at the disposal of Him who made them, therefore let us be very joyful in our Infinite Helper! He will sooner destroy Heaven and earth than permit His people to be destroyed—the perpetual hills, themselves, shall bow rather than He shall fail whose ways are everlasting! We are bound to look beyond Heaven and earth to Him who made them both—it is vain to trust the creatures—it is wise to trust the Creator.

3. He will not allow your foot to be moved: He that keeps you will not slumber Though the paths of life are dangerous and difficult, yet we shall stand fast, for Jehovah will not permit our feet to slide. And if He will not allow it, we shall not suffer it. If our feet will be thus kept, we may be sure that our head and heart will also be preserved. In the original, the words express a wish or prayer—"May He not allow your foot to be moved." Promised preservation should be the subject of perpetual prayer. And we may pray believingly, for those who have God for their Keeper shall be safe from all the perils of the way. Among the hills and ravines of Palestine, the literal keeping of the feet is a great mercy, but in the slippery ways of a tried and afflicted life, the blessing of upholding is of priceless value, for a single false step might cause us a fall fraught with awful danger. We would not stand a moment if our Keeper were to sleep. We need Him by day and by night—not a single step can be safely taken except under His guardian eye. God is the convoy and bodyguard of His saints. No fatigue or exhaustion can cast our God into sleep—His watchful eyes are never closed.

4. Behold, He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The consoling Truth must be repeated—it is too rich to be dismissed in a single line. It were well if we always imitated the sweet singer and would dwell a little upon a choice Doctrine, sucking the honey from it. What a glorious title is in the Hebrew—"The Keeper of Israel," and how delightful to think that no form of unconsciousness ever steals over Him, neither the deep slumber nor the lighter sleep. This is a subject of wonder, a theme for attentive consideration, therefore the word, "Behold," is set up as a way mark. Israel fell asleep, but his God was awake. Jacob had neither walls, nor curtains, nor bodyguard around him, but the Lord was in that place though Jacob knew it not and, therefore, the defenseless man was safe as in a castle! He keeps us as a rich man keeps his treasure, as a captain keeps a city with a garrison, as a royal guard protects his monarch's head. If the former verse is in strict accuracy a prayer, this is the answer to it—it affirms the matter thus, "Lo He shall not slumber nor sleep—the Keeper of Israel." Happy are the pilgrims to whom this Psalm is a safe conduct! They may journey all the way to the Celestial City without fear!

5. The LORD is your Keeper: the LORD is your shade upon your right hand. Here the Preserving One who had been spoken of by pronouns in the two previous verses, is distinctly named—Jehovah is your Keeper. What a mint of meaning lies here! The sentence is a mass of bullion and when coined and stamped with the King's name, it will bear all our expenses between our birthplace on earth and our rest in Heaven! Here is a glorious Person—"Jehovah," assuming a gracious office and fulfilling it in Person—Jehovah is your "Keeper," in behalf of a favored individual—you, and a firm assurance of Revelation that it is even so at this hour—Jehovah is your Keeper. A shade gives protection from burning heat and glaring light. We cannot bear too much blessing. Even Divine goodness, which is a right-hand dispensation must be toned down and shaded to suit our infirmity, and this the Lord will do for us. When a blazing sun pours down its burning beams upon our heads, the Lord Jehovah, Himself, will interpose to shade us and that in the most honorable manner, acting as our right-hand attendant and placing us in comfort and safety.

6. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night None but the Lord could shelter us from these tremendous forces. There are dangers of the light and of the dark, but in both and from both we shall be preserved— literally from excessive heat and from baneful chills—mystically from any injurious effects which might follow from Doctrine, bright or dim—spiritually from the evils of prosperity and adversity—eternally from the strain of overpowering Glory and from the pressure of terrible events, such as judgment and the burning of the world. Day and night make up all time—thus the ever-present protection never ceases.

7. The LORD shall preserve you from all evil: He shall preserve your soul It is a great pity that our admirable translation did not keep to the word, "keep," all through the Psalm, for all along it is one. God not only keeps His own in all evil times but from all evil influences and operations, yes, from evils, themselves! This is a far-reaching word of covering—it includes everything and excludes nothing—the wings of Jehovah amply guard His own from evils great and small, temporary and eternal. Soul-keeping is the soul of keeping. If the soul is kept, all is kept. The preservation of the greater includes that of the lesser so far as it is essential to the main design. The kernel shall be preserved and in order thereto, the shell shall be also preserved. Our soul is kept from the dominion of sin, the infection of error, the crush of despondency, the puffing up of pride—kept from the world, the flesh, and the devil—kept for holier and greater things! Kept in the love of God, kept unto the eternal Kingdom and Glory! What can harm a soul that is kept of the Lord?