seeking for other shepherds that will feed the sincere one with the truth and prepare them for heaven. But what about the people that they have won their loyalty and that trusted them now even more than the Word of God, they can no longer leave their company by their long stay there or because of the miracle they have received in the path not knowing that they are not on the right path. For their followers boasted to the Lord Jesus Christ that, “We be Abraham’s seed and were never in bondage to any man” (John 8:33) but not knowing that “Whosoever is committing sin is the servant of sin” (John8:34). They will not tell them the truth but rather preach to them that God’s great love has covered their sin, past, present and the future, we are in the era of bizarre grace that sin with impunity and still make it to heaven. They are feeding them with trash, what the Scripture calls wood, stubble and hay of the Word that cannot stand the test of time. The Lord is looking for the faithful one that He will hand over His vineyard to while they are still there, those that will bring forth the fruit of the vine to God. If only they can change and shift their focus to the way of the Lord and will bring forth fruit unto Him, He will not collect His vineyard from them, but they are not willing because of the temporal enjoyment they are deriving from the vine. He wants to collect His sheep from them and give it to the other husbandmen because of their wickedness and worldliness. Mind you, they killed those servants in their bid to retain their ownership of the vine and feed their worldly desire. They are like Pharisees that revered the gold of the temple but despise the temple itself. The temple is the symbol of the throne of God which He value above any earthly things and it is the temple that sanctifies everything on the temple. We are now the temple that the LORD is building with gold, silver and the precious stone of His Word but the ministers are building it with stubble, hay and wood that is vulnerable to fire.
It is not that the Lord has pleasure in taking away the vineyard from them but He desires the fruit of the vine. If the husbandmen can repent and feed the flocks with the solid Word of God that will make the vine to bring forth the best fruit unto God, the fruit of holiness and righteousness and godliness and eradicate the former fruit of greediness and wickedness and all sort of sin, they will remain as the desired husbandmen.
The Lord says of Abraham,
And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? FOR I KNOW HIM, THAT HE WILL COMMAND HIS CHILDREN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD AFTER HIM, AND THEY SHALL KEEP THE WAY OF THE LORD, TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him (Genesis 18:17-19)
The LORD vouched for Abraham that he will teach his children in the way of the LORD to produce good fruit acceptable to the LORD so that He would perform the promise He had made to Abraham to be fulfilled upon His children after him. The blessing of the LORD is not what majority of us think it is today, it is the everlasting blessing. The Lord Jesus called it everlasting life. All the earthly blessing ends here on earth but the God’s giving blessing is for everlasting to everlasting, it never end here on earth but continues in heaven.
The carnal men will always prefer what is visible more than what is not visible because it appeases to the sight but temporal but the invisible things are eternal that cannot fade.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Three
The Empty Vine
Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images (Hosea 10:1)
The empty vine the LORD is referring to here doesn’t mean that there is nobody in their congregation or church, only that its fruit is not worthy and acceptable to the LORD. They are in the churches, but they are all tainted with sin due to the negligent of the ministers. The Lord will not accept anything less than perfect fruit without blemish.
And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and BRING NO FRUIT TO PERFECTION (Luke 8:14).
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: FOR I HAVE NOT FOUND THY WORKS PERFECT BEFORE GOD (Revelation 3:2).
A pastor or church that wants to bring forth fruit worthy of the LORD must follow the way and the Word of God diligently, preach sound doctrine to the people, rebuke sin and show man the way of righteousness no matter the cost. The end goals of God is for us to bring forth fruit worthy of Him, acceptable fruit that fit His kingdom at anytime; not the one that is tainted with the cares of this world or the deceitfulness of riches or the pleasures of other things. No man will enter into heaven, because of one sin or the other. They are just an empty vine bringing forth fruit unto themselves. The seed that fell on among thorn are the people that heard the Word but the care of this World, the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life choked the Word that it brings forth no fruit unto perfection. Have you heard that nobody is perfect? That was the reason why they were rejected because they didn’t bring forth fruit unto perfection? They are not perfect; they are tainted with sin and iniquity. The husbandmen refuse to wash them with the sound water of the Word and the Blood of Jesus. They are only concern with their gold and silver.
Many churches and ministries can be referred to as Israel here that is bringing forth fruit only for herself and not to God. All the desire of the ministers is to get the good things of this life: wealth, fleet of cars, jets, magnificent edifices, and fame by too much emphasis on payment of tithes, offering, special sacrifices, and special offering and as a result of that, they make to themselves many altars, not to build the precious Word of God in the hearts of the people, but to increase the amount of revenue they are making from increasing numbers of people of their branches. She is actually bringing forth fruit unto herself without considering the great sacrifice the Great Redeemer paid for it. All their eyes and mind is on the gold, silver and precious things of the people.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; THEY HAVE TAKEN THE TREASURE AND PRECIOUS THINGS; THEY HAVE MADE HER MANY WIDOWS IN THE MIDST THEREOF. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken (Ezekiel 22:25-28).
They keep back the gold of the Word that can bring genuine salvation of soul and preach trash because the hard saying will drive out the people from the church. They rationalize the Word of God and many turn it upside down in a bid to please the god of this world who image his mammon. They bend the truth to get the treasure. That was what devil asked the Lord Jesus to do, to bend the truth and get the treasure and the glory of this World. They don’t place high value on the souls of their members but on their substance. Sound message is always inimical to their souls and at times, it may make some people leave the church or refuse to donate, because you have touched their wound and desire to heal it with the Word of God. But you can still bringing forth fruit unto God if only you can deny yourself of all those benefits you are getting from them that cause you to close your mouth to the truth and declare the whole counsel of God to them. Those that hear and obey, the heaven will rejoice at them because they bring forth the fruit of righteousness unto God.
The largeness of the crowd
in the church doesn’t mean that they are good fruit from evangelism going on their way to heaven. Majority of them may not even really understand the way or not prepare for it because of its requirement. If you can go and embark on outreaches and gather large crowd and even bring them to church, if the message you are feeding them is not solid, pointing them to the real thing, it may not bring forth the fruit of genuine repentance, righteousness, holiness and the fear of God in them. There are messages that even make saints sinners because it stirs up the spirit of greediness and covetousness in them in their bid to claim and live by the gospel of get-quick wealth and becoming a billionaire in a jiffy. When you present the gospel to a person with the mind of getting earthly gain in a large quantity, if care is not taking, you will end up creating another purpose of coming to the kingdom of God into the heart of the person. As the preachers have turned the gospel of the kingdom of God to the gospel of the kingdom of mammon today, many people are coming to church not to receive Christ through His Word but to receive mammon into their life. The gospel of our Lord Jesus must be held in high esteem and