Look back at these "divers manners" in which in time past God spoke to His world. Here is a picture of Eden —the first failure of mankind. Man is walking with God in the garden in the cool of the evening and suddenly, with rebellious heart, he sins and revolts, and you see a family cringing from the sight of God. You see Cain burying his brother Abel in a shallow grave. Murder! Disobedience! This is the answer to God's goodness, and a tryst is broken with God. This is the first failure of mankind to respond to the love of God. Will God now vindicate Himself?
The office of sacrifices is instituted, and God gives to humanity this symbolism of a contrite heart by which man may come back to God.
Then came Abraham and Israel. Here is a nation that dwells in tents, but they are the recipients of God's goodness; manna and quail in sufficience are their lot. He leads them by a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. No father ever coddled a child with more patience and love than God coddled Israel. And what was this nation's answer? A golden calf, licentiousness, and grumbling. For sacrifices they brought the ringstraked cattle, the oxen that could not plow, and the meal that soured, the bread that mildewed, and the smallest grain.
God must be angry now, but He will try still another way.
He will send unto them the prophets. Jeremiah will weep with them. Isaiah will plead with them. Malachi will whip them. Haggai will tell how the faithless may come back to God. Ezekiel will paint pictures for them. But man will kill the prophets, stone them; they will be hunted, haunted, and hounded in the caves of the earth. The altars will be torn down. For still another time God, in divers manners, has tried to win the world, and His love once more has been foiled.
Stop here: "What shall therefore the Lord do?" Shall He strike us now with a hand of iron and crush us like a potter's vessel? Will God wither these little human fists thrust in His face? Is the universe Insane? Has God no flash point, no anger? Let us see.
There is a conference in heaven, as recorded in Hebrews 10: Christ is saying to God, "Father, the blood of bulls and goats thou dost not desire. A body thou hast prepared me. Lo, I go to do thy will." I see the portals of heaven open. The armies that have guarded the Son of God step back, the portals close behind Him and the hosts are silent. The Prince of Heaven has gone, the right hand at the throne is empty and God's heart is aching. Out of the iv ory palaces into a world of woe! Only a great eternal love could make my Saviour go!
The star is in the sky at Bethlehem, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." ... He sent Him also last unto them, saying, "They will reverence my son." But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. He came to Bethlehem, but there was no room for Him in the inn. They scoffed at Him in His boyhood town of Nazareth; they gnashed upon Him with their teeth; some followed Him, to be sure, but He became the object of the most unjust trial in history. They scourged the King's Son, they whipped Him, they squeezed His arteries dry on a cross and laid Him in a borrowed tomb.
Dear God, what wilt Thou do with us now? "What therefore shall the Lord of the vineyard do?"
