God's Problem Vineyard

Turn to Isaiah three through five. Let me set up

the reading just a little bit. We're going to take

Isaiah three through five in five sections. The middle section

is the central metaphor for everything that surrounds it. It's

called the Song of the Vineyard, and in it you'll

see God's characterization of how He's going to handle his people.

It's the It often is in Hebrew literature that the

center of a passage is the key to the whole thing,

and that's how we're going to be doing it today.

Is so concentrate on that middle passage as sort of

a key. You can be looking for, for instance, how

God is going to remove things from his vineyard, that

he is promising that a branch from the vineyard will remain,

that he rebukes the bitter fruit of that vineyard, and

that he's calling he's actually calling for a fire and

a trampling of this vineyard. So look for those things.

And the one other thing I would also ask you

to do for our reading is to stand for the

reading of God's Word. I know it's three chapters, but

it's going to be about eight minutes long, So if

you can, would you please stand it's eight minutes. It's

about the length of two short songs.

We can do this.

I think it will help our focus. Sister, Why don't

you come and read our passage for us.

For behold, the Lord, God of Hosts, is taking away

from Jerusalem and from Judah support and supply all supportive

bread and all supportive water. The mighty man, and the soldier,

the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder,

the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor,

and the skillful magician and the expert in charms. And

I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule

over them. And the people will oppress one another, every

one his fellow, and everyone his neighbor. The youth will

be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable.

For a man will take hold of his brother in

the house of his father, saying you have a cloak.

You shall be our leader, and this heap of ruins

shall be under your rule. In that day he will

speak out, saying, I will not be a healer in

my house. There is neither bread nor cloak. You shall

not make me leader of the people. For Jerusalem has stumbled,

and Judah has fallen because their speech and their deeds

are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence. For the

look on their faces bears witness against them. They proclaim

their sin like sodom. They do not hide it. Woe

to them, for they have brought evil on themselves. Tell

the righteous that it shall be well with them, for

they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. Woe to

the wicked. It shall be ill with him, for what

his hands have dealt out shall be done to him.

My people, infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O,

my people, your guides mislead you, and they have swallowed

up the course of your paths. The Lord has taken

his place to contend. He stands to judge the peoples.

The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders and

princes of his people. It is you who have devoured

the vineyard. The spoil of the poor is in your houses.

What do you mean by crushing my people by grinding

the face of the poor, declares the Lord, God of hosts.

The Lord said, because the daughters of Zion are haughty

and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes,

mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet. Therefore

the Lord will strike with a scab the heads of

the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will lay bare

their secret parts. In that day, the Lord will take

away the finery of the anklets, the headbands and the crescents,

the pendants, the bracelets and the scarves, the head dresses,

the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes and the amulets,

the signet rings and nose rings, the festal robes, the mantles,

the cloaks and the handbags, the mirrors, the linen garments,

the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfume, their will

be rotten us. And instead of a belt a rope,

and instead of well set hair baldness, and instead of

a rich robe, a skirt of sacloth and branding instead

of beauty. Your men shall fall by the sword, and

your mighty men in battle, and her gates shall lament

and mourn empty. She shall sit on the ground, and

seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying,

we will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes. Only,

let us be called by your name, take away our reproach.

In that day, the branch of the Lord shall be

beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall

be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel.

And he who is left in Zion and remains in

Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded

for life in Jerusalem. When the Lord shall have washed

away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed

the blood stains of Jerusalem from its midst by a

spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning, then

the Lord will create over the whole side of Mount Zion,

and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke

and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For

over all the glory there will be a canopy. There

will be a booth for shade by day from the heat,

and for a refuge, and a shelter from the storm

and rain. Let me sing for my beloved, my love

song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on

a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it

of stones, and planted it with choice vines. He built

a watch tower in the midst of it, and hewed

out a wine vat in it, and he looked for

it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now,

o inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between

me and my vineyard. What more was there to do

for my vineyard that I have not done in it?

When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did

it yield wild grapes. And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove

its hedge, and it shall be devoured. I will break

down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I

will make it a waste. It shall not be pruned

or hoed, and briars and thorns shall grow up. I

will also command the clouds that they rain no rain

upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts

is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah

are his pleasant plainting. And he looked for justice. But

behold bloodshed for righteousness. But behold and outcry woe to

those who join house to house, who add field to field,

until there is no more room, and you are made

to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The

Lord of Hosts has sworn in my hearing. Surely many

houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses without inhabitant.

For ten acres of vineyards shall yield but one bath,

and a homer of seed shall yield but an epha.

Woe to those who rise early in the morning that

they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into

the evening, as wine inflames them. They have lyre and harp,

tambourine and flute, and wine at their feasts, but they

do not regard the deeds of the Lord or see

the work of his hands. Therefore, my people go into

exile for lack of knowledge. Their honored men go hungry,

and their multitude is parched with thirst. Therefore Shield has

enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure. And

the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down

her revelers, and he who exults in her man is humbled,

and each one is brought low, and the eyes of

the haughty are brought low. But the Lord of Hosts

is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself

holy in righteousness. Then shall the lambs graze as in

their pasture and nomads shall eat among the ruins of

the rich. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords

of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes, who say,

let him be quick, let him speed his work, that

we may see it. Let the counsel of the Holy

One of Israel, draw near, and let it come that

we may know it. Woe to those who call evil

good and good evil, who put darkness for light and

light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet

for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their

own eyes and shrewd on their own sight. Woe to

those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men

in mixing strong drink, who acquit the guilty for a

bribe and deprive the innocent of his right. Therefore, as

the tongue of the fire devours the stubble, and as

dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their root

will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust.

For they have rejected the law of the Lord of Hosts,

and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,

and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them,

and the mountains quaked, and their corpses were as refused,

refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this,

his anger has not turned away, and his hand is

stretched out still he will raise a signal for nations

far away, and whistle for them from the ends of

the earth. And behold, quickly, speedily they come. None is weary,

none stumbles, none slumbers or sleeps. Not a waste span

is loose, not a sandal strap is broken. Their arrows

are sharp, all their bows bent. Their horses hoofs seem

like flint, and their wheels like the whirlwind. Their roaring

is like a lion, Like young lions, they roar, they growl,

and seize their prey. They carry it off, and none

can rescue. They will growl over it on that day,

like the growling of the sea. And if one looks

to the land, behold darkness and distress, and the light

is darkened by its clouds. This is the word of

the Lord.

Aymen may be seated. Thank you for your focus.

As we tackle three chapters of dense Hebrew poetry, and

as we've been saying during our time in Isaiah, Isaiah

was spoken to, preached to, and then later written to

the people who called themselves the people of God but

who were nonetheless in spiritual decline. And these sermons and

writings serve as a diagnostic right, how did we get here?

And a prescription what should we do to the people

who call themselves the people of God?

And this morning.

You're gonna get a pretty good handle on Isaiah three

through five, maybe more than you bargained for. And you're

gonna have your Bible, and we're gonna get all over

in that. We're gonna have a pretty good understanding of

the message to them then. And it would be a

big mistake to leave it at that, because the instruction

of Isaiah is particularly pertinent to the contemporary church. The

people who call themselves the people of God.

Us now out.

Our situations, our decline is similar, but not the same.

Though this is written for us.

So Paul makes clear in Romans fifteen, these things were

written for our instruction, They're not nonetheless not written to us.

We should discern.

Then as we go, how Isaiah instructs us about what

God will always do, about what God often does, and

what God can choose to do. Should the people who

call themselves the people.

Of God call for it? Should the vineyard call for it?

So God's problem vineyard, God's vineyard problem.

That's both true. Let's start there.

Let's start in the center this central metaphor. Turn to

Chapter five, verses one through seven. We're going to sequence

our time in these three chapters a little differently than

the way they lay out in writing, because I think

it's going to be better for us as we look

at it in oration to put that central metaphor up

at the top. Because the question that we got to

the answer with these three chapters is what's the plan

for God's problem vineyard? You saw that vineyard in verses

one through seven, and in seven short verses, God lays

out the whole history, the whole problem, the whole plan.

With his people calling them a vineyard.

He says, as far as history is concerned, Verse one,

verse two, he planted a choice vine. He cleared this

fertile hill, he cleared it of stones, He got it

all set. He set up a watch tower. He planted

fertile vine's choice vines. He was ready for this people

to bear glorious fruit of holiness and purity. The kinds

of things that reflected his character and his name. In fact,

the people of God are often compared to a vine

or a vineyard throughout scripture, like in a Psalm eighty

says you brought a vine out of Egypt. In Ezekiel

nineteen says that the people were planted like a vine

planted by water. There's several places throughout scripture, but this

vine that God plants.

He did everything right, but he's got a problem. What's

the problem? To shout it out?

Two words wild grapes in other words, bitter fruit. I

had a fertile hill, I cleared it of stones. I

did everything right. I planted choice vines. But yet the

people who call themselves mine are bearing bitter fruit. So

he's like, well, what should I do about it? What

else is there to do? And he lays out a plan.

Here is my plan for my problem. Vineyard number one.

I'm gonna rebuke the bitter fruit. It says in verse seven,

I looked for justice, but behold bloodshed. In the original language,

those words are very close to each other. It'd be

kind of like I looked for fairness, but I found fighting.

I looked for godliness, but I found nothing good.

I'm gonna rebuke the bitter fruit.

Number two, I'm gonna remove its hedge of protection and

I'm gonna stop cultivating it. Number three, I'm gonna let

it be trampled and devoured.

See that in verse five and number four. Number four,

I am going to preserve a branch of it that

is holy.

And that part of the plan is present in the

verses just prior to the song. So what's God's plan

for his problem vineyard? Four part plan? We'll go through

each section, four part plan. Here's the first part of

the plan for the problem vineyard, that is, the people

who call themselvesselves his number one. God rebukes bitter fruit.

God rebukes bitter fruit. Follow along with me in verse

eight of chapter five for through twenty three. Right, So

we saw the song of the vineyard. You saw how

that song works, and in verses eight through twenty three,

God is rebuking and identifying the bitter fruit that he

finds in his vineyard. He lays out six woes.

Here.

They are number one, exploitation. Exploitation. He is woe to

those who join house to house. Oh oh, whoa yeah,

what is woe? Woe is like judgment, it's like a condemnation,

a curse, whoa woe to those who join house to

house or field to field. In other words, what they've

been doing, if they've been handling ownership and investments in

an exploitative way, they've been monopolizing land ownership and house

ownership in such a way as to oppress other people.

Even though the Torah, the Old Testament law, had provisions

to keep that from happening, and to keep things even

out and wealth more evenly distributed, so no one would

be oppressing the other. They've blown right past those rules,

and more importantly, they've blown past the spirit of those rules.

They have no desire to handle each other fairly. They're

just greedy, and God says, okay, your exploitation is actually

going to stop generating wealth. The houses are going to

be desolate. Verse ten. Just ten acres of your vineyard

is going to just yield six gallons of grapes. It's

all going to get worn out on you. You will

be hungry, it says, you will be thirsty. What's more,

for your incessant greed, you're never ending open mouth. I'm

going to introduce you to something whose mouth is never satisfied,

the grave will open up its mouth and it will

have you. That's the first woe exploitation. Number two indulgence,

verses eleven through seventeen. The word says, they have liar,

and they have harp, and they have flute, and they

have wine at their feasts, but they do not regard

the deeds of the Lord. See that they're in other words,

what he's saying is they've become expert at discerning wine

and food and music, but they are dull to spiritual things.

Ouch Number three presumption says woe in verses eighteen and nineteen.

They're loaded up with sin. Right, they have to use

cart ropes. They have to They need a wheelbarrow for

their sin. They need something to help them. They're so

loaded down with sin, but they're The way they handle

that is to just say, if God's gonna judge me,

let him do it. Let him come speedily that we

would see him, let them, let him come near that

we would know him.

Go ahead, God.

Number four subversion, verse twenty says woe to those who

would put evil for good and good for evil, light

for darkness, darkness for light, sweet for bitter, bitter for sweet,

to say what you have said, God is good and right.

We'll set that aside, criticize it, because we have our

own ideas of what is good and right, and we're

gonna elevate that. Number five Pride, verse twenty one says

woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,

woe to those who are shrewd in their own sight.

And number six Injustice verses twenty two and twenty three,

whoe to those.

Who are heroes at partying. You're such a big guy,

you are.

You can really, you can really take on you can

hold your liquor. But they take a bribe and they

deprive the innocent. Where heroics are really cooled for and

standing up for other people, there's no heroism at all.

But man, they're a real man at partying. Kind of

get a pretty clear picture of the bitter fruit.

That God is rebuking in them. Then what about us now?

I mean exploitation and indulgence and presumption and subversion and

pride and injustice. These are things that God rebukes always.

From the church.

The contemporary church is pretty covered up in bitter fruit

to rebuke. We can talk about subversion. I mean, there

are pulpits all over this land, where God's good design

of sexuality and marriage is sneered at as oppressive and

subverted for sexual immorality in its place, which is celebrated

as some sort of freedom among the people who call

themselves gods. Light is put for darkness, and darkness is

put for light, and sweet is put for bitter, and

bitter for sweet. We could talk about indulgence. Contemporary church,

I think has drifted away with enjoyments that have snapped

the tether of just simple enjoyment and Godly gratitude for

His blessings and creation, and we've been swept out into

the deep of indulgence. Have we become footies that have

no palate to discern God's heart and God's desire for

God's people, even those who might be around your own

dinner table.

Have we become connoisseurs.

Who can't pick up the most basic tasting notes of

God's truth. Have we gotten to the point where we

can hear the most subtle movements and accents of endless

hours of music, but we are tone deaf to what

God is blaring at your heart.

We could talk about pride.

Unfortunately, if any of these things, any of these shoes

fit on the contemporary church. I'm pretty sure pride fits

like the favorite slipper. Just the word says woe to

those who are wise in their own eyes, and yet

in this day it seems to have been rewritten on

the heart of most Christians. Blessed are those who are

wise in their own eyes, who need no counsel, who

need no shepherding, don't need to know what scripture actually means,

because we can be satisfied with knowing what it means

to me.

Who don't need to know who God is? When we

can be satisfied.

With knowing how we like to think of God. Remember,

these people were worshipers. These people loved to think of

God and his ways just the way they wanted to

think of God and his ways. God takes all of

that and all the fruit like it, and he pronounces

woe over it. He rebukes it, he calls it bitter.

But he doesn't just say something about it. He doesn't

just wag his finger, pronounce his woe and then move

on like he doesn't have a plan.

He does have a plan, and.

That plan is for him to remove the blessings that

he has provided. Chapter three tells us about it. That's

the next part of the plan. Chapter three, God removes

the twisted blessings. So you can jump back to chapter

three where God is talking about the hedge and the

cultivation that he's actually removing from this vineyard. He's removing

twisted blessings like provision verse one. I'm removing support and supply,

supportive bread and support and supportive water. Bread and water

aren't bad things, they're blessings, but they've been twisted. The

provision that they've provided, have been provided, have been twisted

into indulgence. And so he says, the result is I'm

gonna take it away. I'm gonna take away leadership. That's

verses two through fifteen. I'm gonna take away the leadership

that I have provided to this people that you have

taken and twisted. Now, leadership is a good thing. You

can look in Second Samuel where David says, when when

leaders lead in the fear of God, well, that's like

rain that falls down on people and the grass grows

up green. But the leadership that God blessed these people with,

they've twisted into things like people trusting, people trusting, as

if the leaders are actually the ones that provide what

only God can provide. And you see before chapter three

he's a stop regarding man and not only people trusting,

but also unbiblical leadership. They've twisted the leadership that God provided,

and they've twisted into unbiblical leadership. You see things like

expert and charms and skillful magicians. They've got people doing

things that God would never have.

Their leaders do. So he's removing them.

He's removing the mining man, he's removing the elder, he's

removing the prophet, he's removing the soldier. He says in

verse six, probably my favorite verse in this whole passage,

he's removing the leadership of this people so dramatically that

he says, you will say to your brother, you've got

a oh, you'll be our leader. He's removing adornment. That's

verses sixteen through twenty four. Adornment not a bad thing,

a good thing. You can see in Ezekiel sixteen. You

can just jot that down and look at it later.

You can see in Ezekiel sixteen how God calls adornment

and jewelry a good thing, a blessing. He says, I

came to my people and I put a necklace on

them and a band around their arm. I gave them,

I put a ring in their nose. God's giving out

nose rings as a blessing. And yet they've twisted it

into immodesty, haughtiness, conspicuous consumption.

They've become just like the world. You see the whole

list of things.

They've weighed themselves down with in adornment, like the rest

of the world. And he says, I'm removing it. I'm

taking it away. Where there was perfume, There'll be rottenness

where there was a belt, there'll be a rope.

Where there was a haird there'll.

Be baldness, which is worse for some than others. He's

even taking away the dignity of life, certainly a good thing,

but they have twisted the dignity of life into.

The pride of life.

And now God is taking away both dignity and life.

Men will fall, the gates will be empty, There'll be

seven women to one man.

This is.

God's removal of the hedge and the cultivation.

He can He can do it.

God can do it, and he often does remove the

blessings that we twist. What about us, now, what about

those who call themselves the people of God in the

contemporary church. I think that there are comparable things already

happening in the contemporary church, and I think that they

will get worse if our course.

Does not change.

I mean, you've already heard so many stories of the

twisting of the stewardship of provision in bezzling in churches

and ministries. You know of the faith healing grifters. You

know of the TV ministry that get piped into gullible

living rooms so that people will send checks so that

private jets can be bought. And local churches, some faithful,

some not, are struggling, And anybody wonder why you know

about the conspicuous consumption our approach to adornment, is it

any different than the rest of our society. I guess

in some cases it is. We've kind of gotten to

a weird place with this, where either there's a group

of people who call themselves Christians who call all jewelry

evil evidently they didn't read Ezekiel sixteen.

Or.

Others who see no difference between how the Christian is

to adorn themselves different than the world, as if TV

commercials and YouTube influencers are actually our model when Peter says, no,

don't lean into that. Let your adornment be of the

heart of a quiet and.

A gentle spirit.

That's where your real beauty is leaning to that. You

should be different, not sparse, but different. I think it's leadership, actually,

of all of these comparable blessings that.

God is putting his hand on in the contemporary church.

As the most notable to me, certainly, it's a blessing

we've seen twisted.

You have.

Churches, I'm gonna call them churches, giant gatherings of people

who are just completely regarding one man as if what

God has to provide can actually come from.

That man, when God has had stopped regarding man.

And plenty of unbiblical leadership, plenty of false teaching and

just error, and it's a blessing. Leadership in the contemporary

church is a blessing that we are seeing removed. You

know that churches are closing fast, Pastors are quitting faster.

If you know anybody who works as a like in

a search firm to help hire pastors, they'll tell you

they have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of positions to fill.

Seminaries are shutting down. I'm telling you in the next

five to ten years, any of you who pay attention

to how many seminaries are open, you're going to be shocked.

And churches already are and in many cases will be

more so. Just grabbing people. You've got a suit jacket.

You'll be our pastor.

So we've got to keep teaching faithful men who will

be faithful to teach others also, and we've got to

keep planting churches. But more to the point of this passage,

the people who call themselves the people of God need

to bear good fruit and stop twisting his blessings lest

he continue to remove them. Because here's something to notice.

The plan for the problem vineyard, it gets more severe.

He goes from rebuking bitter fruit to removing twisted blessings.

To bringing.

A purifying fire. That's our next section. God brings the

purifying fire. You see a description of it in chapter five,

verses twenty four through thirty.

The last part of chapter five God you remember from the.

Metaphor, he knocks down the walls and he says, I'm

just gonna let this place get trampled. When verses twenty

four and twenty five he says, here comes the fire.

As the grass sinks into the fire. The anger of

the Lord is he stretched out his hand. His anger

is not turned away like in other words, get it.

What's coming is from God's hand. It's from God's hand.

Don't fail to understand that God is patient, and he

is kind, and he abounds in steadfast love and mercy.

But he is not tame about having a holy people.

And Hebrews says, we should note the severity of God.

This fire, this trampling is from his hand, but he says,

but it's going to be by a human agency. There's

a fearsome instrument in his hand, and he says it.

Verse twenty six through thirty. He describes the Assyrians that

are coming. I signal for the nations. I whistle from them,

and they speedily they come, none stumble, Their arrows are sharp,

their bows are bent. There are dark clouds on the horizon.

A storm is coming. What about us, now? Would God

purify the people who call themselves Christians in such a

fearsome way? Let's think of what Christ says to some

of the churches in Revelation. He says to the church

in Ephesus, I have this against you. You've abandoned your

first love. I will remove your lamp stand. Unless you repent,

I'll take you out. You won't even be a church.

To the church and Sartis. I know your works. You

have the reputation of being alive, but you're dead. Keep

what you've heard and repent. If you won't wake up,

you don't even know the hour that I'm going to

come against you to the church in Laodicea. Because you

are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit

you out of my mouth.

So be zealous and repent.

Right, So, when it comes to warning the people who

call themselves gods warning about pretty fearsome stuff, it's not

just Isaiah in the age of the Assyrians, it's also

Jesus Christ in the age of the Church. It's very

serious news. God is not playing around about holiness. But

even though it's serious news, today we.

Have better news. Here's why.

Why is our news better Because the message that Isaiah

brought was expected to fall on deaf ears. The message

you have today is expected to be heard. The spirit

of Christ is moving on hearts and on consciences. He

is opening eyes, He's opening ears, he is opening hearts

and the message of Isaiah quickly shifted to from repent

to it's too late. But the message you have today

is it's not too late. It's not too late to

turn from subversion and from indulgence and from pride and

trust in him. And those who trust in Him will

be in him, will be in the true vine.

And you will bear fruit. You will bear good fruit. Hey,

I mean.

The Gospel of John Christ often says things like this,

I am the true Temple. In other words, all of

this worship, all of this atonement that you observe here,

all of this is fulfilled in me. I am the

place of worship. I am the place of atonement. I

am the true bread. All the provision that you hope

for is found in me.

And he says, I am the true vine.

This people, this people is fulfilled in me. Anyone who

abides by faith in Me can be a part of

God's vineyard, and not just in the vineyard, but actually

fruitful living, the sort of branches that God means to have,

pure and holy, not bitter and degraded. The serious news

is that God will have a purified people. The good

news is that you will be purified by the mercy

of Christ as you come to him in repentance and faith.

And that's the last part of the plan. Preserves a

holy branch. Let's look at it. Last part. God preserves

the holy branch. This is in Chapter four, verses two

through six. What do you see in that day? The

branch of the Lord shall be called beautiful and glorious.

This branch is preserved.

The fruit is a matter of pride and honor in

the good sense. These are those who are abiding, who

are remaining. They're purified Verses three and four. They're holy,

they're recorded for life, they're washed of filth. They're in

the presence of God. That's what's meant by a cloud

by day and fire by night. That's a symbol of

God's presence among them. And they're protected verse six, as

they're shaded from heat, they're sheltered from storm, and under.

A booth like a wedding booth.

If you're familiar with the Jewish custom, this is the

picture of His people as they were meant to be.

This is the place He is calling you to.

To live, preserved, purified, protected in His presence as his people.

The question is.

Are you walking in repentance and faith so as to

be a part of that part of the plan. Because

God always rebukes the bitter fruit, and he often removes

the blessings that we twist, and he one day will

bring the purifying fire.

But will you be in the whole branch that is abiding.

That's what we pray for. H