Morning Light – August 1st, 2017 – Ezekiel 15: When the Vine Produces No Fruit

Morning Light – Ezekiel 15
Today: [Ezekiel 15] When the Vine Produces No Fruit. In this brief chapter, the Father declares through Ezekiel that the city of Jerusalem is a fruitless vine, only good for being cast into the fire for fuel. Isaiah spoke in these terms and Jesus called Himself the true vine. What determines whether we are anchored in the vine or being seduced by men and the doctrines of men is determined by our sense of identity as believers. In this chapter, we see reflected a call to abide in Christ as the true vine lest we fall prey to the agenda of sectarian Christian culture and fail to produce the fruits that God is looking for as the vinedresser of our lives.
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[Eze 15:1-8 KJV] 1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, What is the vine tree more than any tree, [or than] a branch which is among the trees of the forest? 3 Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will [men] take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? 4 Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet for [any] work? 5 Behold, when it was whole, it was meet for no work: how much less shall it be meet yet for [any] work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned? 6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 7 And I will set my face against them; they shall go out from [one] fire, and [another] fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD, when I set my face against them. 8 And I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord GOD.
In this very short chapter of Ezekiel the Father compares the city of Jerusalem as a vine whose wood is only good for fuel. The suggestion is that they cannot be used for building or some other constructed purpose therefore they will be cast into the fire and devoured. We know of course that a vine is very valuable for the grapes it produces but there is no reference to grapes or wine or any other of these uses because from a spiritual standpoint they are completely lacking among the people of God during this time period. Ezekiel receives this prophecy during the final years of the reign of Zedekiah leading up to the 3 year siege ending with the destruction of the city and the leveling of the temple. Ezekiel is writing from captivity among the captivity by the river Chebar. During this same overlapping time Jeremiah is also prophesying while being moved in shackles between different dungeons and places of imprisonment within the city.
The language cannot be more intense in terms of judgment, desolation and destruction. It gives us pause to consider that in John 15 Jesus identifies Himself as “the true vine”. The vineyard metaphors relating to the city of Jerusalem are found in several places in scripture. Is Isaiah we see an echo of Ezekiel 15, where Israel is described as a vineyard planted by God and subsequently destroyed because the expected fruits were not forth coming:
[Isa 5:1-6 KJV] 1 Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: 2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted 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. 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. 4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; [and] break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: 6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
We can see from Ezekiel 15 and Isaiah 5 that God sees us as a plant that He has seeded into the earth in order that we might bring forth fruit. Agrarian terms are used throughout scripture to describe how God deals with us and what is expected of us as believers. In Matthew 3:8 and Luke 3:8 John the Baptist used this language in his preaching:
[Mat 3:8 KJV] 8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
[Luk 3:8 KJV] 8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
None of this language would have been lost on the hearers listening to John preach at the banks of the Jordan. They understood the message as a reference to prophesying of Ezekiel and Isaiah during one of the darkest times of Israel’s history. God’s intent is to impress upon us the urgent matter of seeing that we are fruit producing vines in the vineyard of the kingdom, lest we be disregarded and set aside for nothing more than fuel for burning. When Jesus taught that He was the vine, He commends to us that we should “abide in the vine” to avoid a negative outcome in our lives:
[Jhn 15:6-8 KJV] 6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast [them] into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. 8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Notice that the judgment against the unfruitful vine is to be gathered by men. This is more than an apocalyptic judgment. Those that ignored Ezekiel’s prophesying were literally gathered by Chaldean soldiers, rounded up and marched into captivity in Babylon. Jesus is saying that the prospects for us in terms of abiding in the vine or not abiding in the vine could not be clearer. We are either going to abide in Him or live in captivity. We are either going to find our sense of self anchored in our identify in Christ or we are going to fodder for the manipulations of men and disposed of according to the agenda of false leaders. We will either join ourselves to Christ of be joined to men and used for their own end, who care nothing for us as individuals.
Have you been gathered by men? Today even in the marketplace, Fortune 500 companies make every effort to create brand loyalty to their products in order to create a false cultural connection between their products and the consumer. Starbucks, Harley Davidson, Coca-Cola, to name a few are examples of companies who have leveraged the power of brand loyalty as a form of religion, with adherents adopting the themes of their branding and merchandising as a basis of identifying who they are and what they live for, all the while being assured by slick promotional messages about how independent and unique they are in doing so. This is being gathered by men and cast into the fires of men’s burning for their own commercial purposes. We can decry this but we need to bear in mind that Christian culture developed this methodology long before the secular world. In Isaiah we see a prophecy that relates to this:
[Isa 4:1 KJV] 1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
When you read about seven women you are reading about the people God and the church. Isaiah is saying that there would come a time that believers and the church as a whole would become more identified in men than they would be anchored in the vine who is Christ Jesus. How is it that we in the redeemed community are gathered by men and leveraged for the uses defined by their own agenda? Today whole movements and denominations are built and founded upon men, their personalities and doctrines more than they are anchored in Christ. Christians describe themselves as Lutheran, or Wesleyan, or Calvinist, etc., in order to meet a need within themselves to define boundaries for who they are. This has also become true in the modern day where people see themselves and style their dress, speech and conduct after the teachings and character of men like Billy Graham, Hagin, Copeland, Bickle, Bill Johnson, etc. They draw boundaries for themselves within the perceived influences of these personalities and anchor their fidelity there rather than in the simplicity of Christ that draws no such boundaries or parameters. These conventions are not new. Paul the apostle chastised the Corinthians in this regard:
[1Co 1:12-14 KJV] 12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
For Paul making these distinctions among ourselves is the very definition of division. We define division as strife or contention arising between these groups, but Paul declares that the mere existence of this type of delineations within Christian culture are the very definition in themselves of unacceptable division among us:
[1Co 3:3-4, 6, 8-9 KJV] 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal? … 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. … 8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. 9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, [ye are] God’s building.
Do we see ourselves as laborers together, or do we make sectarian divisions? Many teachers and leaders refuse to think in these terms but suggest that denominational and populist distinctions are merely the expression of the broad tapestry of God’s ultimate plan among His people on the earth. Paul on the other hand, in seeing such things develop in the early church branded them as envy, strife and division. We could wonder how the situation could ever be ameliorated due to the systemic depth of sectarian division in the church. Indeed, such idolatry was so deeply embedded in the nation of Judah in Ezekiel’s day that the only recourse was the destruction of the nation, the plowing under of the existing culture in hopes of rebuilding it 70 years later under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra. For us we can only look within ourselves and take a measurement of our own sense of identity, whether we are anchored in Christ or have we been seduced by sectarianism, or the cult of celebrity that is so widespread in the church today.