9 Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. 10 In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come. 11 Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist. 12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, 13 for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city. 14 For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; 15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. ~ Isaiah 32:9-15
The LORD warned the women of Judah that their complacency would bring disaster upon the people. In fact, the grape harvest would fail, and they would no longer be able to gather in the harvest. To us today, that doesn’t mean much. What does it mean for the grape harvest to fail and the gathers unable to harvest their crop? Why would that be the punishment for complacency? I don’t believe that LORD is speaking physically. The grape harvest still came in Israel and Judah. The gathers still harvested their crop in Israel and Judah. God was warning them that if they remained complacent in their sin and at ease about it, then the grapes would be no more.
The grapes are what we make wine from. Jesus compared wine to the Old and New Covenant. On the Day of Pentecost, some who heard them speaking in tongues mocked them, saying they were drunk on the New Wine. I believe that the LORD was saying that He would remove the Spirit of God from them, and they would no longer see or hear a Word from the LORD. I believe God, through Isaiah, was prophesying and warning about the 400 years of silence that was to come to Israel. For He ends it with, “until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,”
What day was the Spirit poured out on all of mankind? The Day of Pentecost. After the Day of Pentecost, there arose prophets, healings, signs and wonders, like never before. And even more so, it gave the chance of salvation for all of mankind. Never had there been a time in history when the Greek believer was equal to the Jewish believer. For in Christ, there is neither Greek nor Jew. God shows no partiality.
So what does this mean for us? If we are like the women Isaiah prophesied to and remain complacent in our sin and at ease unrepentant, then the LORD will remove the grapes from us. He will cause those grapes that we once had flourishing in the fields to fail each time. For God cannot dwell in a temple that willingly houses other gods. When we willingly live in sin, we are willingly bowing down to sin and making it our god. If we remain complacent, history will repeat itself in us, and not only will the Word of God be shut up from us, but the new wine that represents the new covenant and the blood of Christ that washes us clean and covers us will be removed from us as well. Complacency will bring domination upon us, for to be complacent is to be a friend of the world. And to be a friend of the world is to be at enmity with God.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Live At Ease.
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