We are rancid stinking grapes

The LORD spoke through the prophet Isaiah in 5:1-2 (ESV):

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

Ortlund explains this perfectly, ""In the prophet’s imaginative scenario, a man is cultivating a vineyard with every appropriate provision. He has a right to expect a good crop. But what comes of his efforts? “Wild grapes,” Isaiah says. Actually, the Hebrew word suggests stinking grapes. They are not merely wild, they are rancid."

Have you ever tasted rancid stinking food? Imagine God will even spit us out of his mouth when we are found lukewarm (Rev 3:15-16), what more that we are rancid and stinking.

From now on, whenever I think I am so great, so above it all, I will come back to these verses and remind myself without my King and Saviour Jesus's love, grace, justification, redemption and sanctification work on me, I am in reality all these: abhorrent, abominable, appalling, awful, disgusting, distasteful, dreadful, evil, foul, gross, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, loathsome, nasty, nauseating, obnoxious, obscene, odious, offensive, repellent, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, scandalous, shocking, sickening, ugly.

In contrast, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23).

pearlie
Source: 'Isaiah: God Saves Sinners' by Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., R.Kent Hughes, General Editor