There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it. Matthew 21:33. (Read Matthew 21:33-41.)
A description of this vineyard is given in Isaiah: “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: 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.”
This figure represents the advantages and opportunities given to Israel…. Through Moses they received divine precepts and commandments…. God gave them riches and prosperity. They had every temporal and every spiritual advantage. They were hedged about by the law of ten commandments. This was what distinguished Israel from every other nation on the face of the earth.
The church is God’s peculiar treasure, precious in His sight, and dear to His heart of infinite love…. The householder made every provision that the vineyard should receive the best of attention. Nothing was left undone that could be done to make the vineyard an honor to the one who owned it….
With fire and tempest and death the great I AM redeemed His people, to make them glorious as His special representatives. He took them out of the land of bondage. He bore them as upon eagles’ wings and brought them unto Himself, that they might dwell under the shadow of the Most High. Christ was the invisible leader of the children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings…. They witnessed a most wonderful manifestation of God’s power when they passed through the Red Sea. And day by day they journeyed under the pillar of cloud, the symbol of the divine presence….
With such a Leader, with such manifestations of His greatness and power, the children of Israel should have been inspired with faith and courage to go forward…. Only two of those who crossed the Red Sea lived to go over into the promised land….
We need to beware lest we suffer the same fate as did ancient Israel. The history of their disobedience and downfall has been recorded for our instruction, that we may avoid doing as they did.—The Review and Herald, July 10, 1900.
