A Love Song Gone Sour

Lyrics

How is it, everyone? John Landt, here. Thank you for joining me today. Welcome to VoiceCry, Episode 3. I like to share what God shares with me, with you. Here we go.

I want to look into Isaiah 5, and I’ll be reading from the New English Translation, the NET Bible, and I’m going to be referring to Verses 1, 2 – and it goes like this:

1 I will sing to my love—
a song to my lover about his vineyard.
My love had a vineyard
on a fertile hill.
2 He built a hedge around it, removed its stones,
and planted a vine.
He built a tower in the middle of it,
and constructed a winepress.
He waited for it to produce edible grapes,
but it produced sour ones instead.

Now, this is our reference in the Bible, in the Gospels, to the Parable of the Tenants. And I also want to read to you Matthew 21:33-46, and it goes like this:

The Parable of the Tenants

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went on a journey. 34 When the harvest time was near, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his portion of the crop. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same way.

37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will utterly destroy those evil men! Then he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his portion at the harvest.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

43 For this reason I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds, because the crowds regarded him as a prophet.

What I find interesting here is Verse 43, “For this reason I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to the people who will produce its fruit.” And the interesting part is that you have the same story, The Parable of the Tenants, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and it’s a little bit different in John. And in Matthew, Mark, and Luke – Verse 43 in Matthew says, “For this reason, I will tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to the people who will produce its fruit.”

And Mark 12:9, has something similar, and it says, “He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” And I really like Luke 20:16, and it says this: “‘He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.’ When the people heard this, they said, ‘May this never happen!’” So, they’re all kinda close, similar. They tell and record the story of The Parable of the Tenants a little bit differently, but may it never happen – may this vineyard never be taken away from the people and give it to another people.

Then you have John 15, The Vine. John 15:1, “I am the vine and my father is the gardener,” and it says it all right there, The Vine, The Parable of the Tenants, speaking about the vineyard, this is the Love Song Gone Sour, but this love song has gone sweet. In John 15:1, “I am the true vine,” Speaking about Jesus, and 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit.” But what kind of fruit is this? What kind of vine is this?

“Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love.” That was Verse 9, and Verse 10, “If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things.” Verse 12, “My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life for his friends.” And Verse 17, John 15, “This I command you – to love one another.”

So, it’s really Jesus’ the Vine of Love, and speaking about The Parable of the Tenants, that take this vine from other people that do not have this love, and this love comes from Jesus, that those who abide in Jesus and in the Father abide in this vine, this love. And the greatest love is this: that one lays down his life for his friends. To love one another.

So in the beginning, we have A Love Song Gone Sour, and Jesus is the vine, the Vine of Love. This is now a new song, a love song gone sweet. So again, it’s really you and I, be in love, in Jesus, in his vine, in the Father. And to note that in John 14 and John 16, in these two chapters, it also speaks about the Holy Spirit. So on all three, that pertains to us to be in God, in His love, and that is of the vine.

Well, thank you so much for joining me, today. If you’d like to tell us your story of how God saved you, I’d love to hear about it. It’s really simple, it’s easy. All you have to do is go to www.GodTalk.me, and send me a message. I’ll see you later.