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        …UNTIL INIQUITY COMES TO THE FULL                                                                                                                
                                                               By Mae Shurow 

Jesus said that one of the signs of His coming and the end of the world would be that iniquity would abound (Matthew 24:11:12). One morning the Lord brought my heart to a place of great sorrow concerning all the evil surrounding us in this present evil world.  I cried out to my God, “Lord, evil grows more wicked, and abominations abound even inside the very walls of our churches!  How long, O Lord, how long?  How long will You allow the abominations to continue?  How long until Jerusalem, Mount Zion, Your Holy City, is built, and the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea?” 

And God said… “Until iniquity comes to the full, my child.”

• Isaiah 18:5 For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruninghooks, and take away and cut down the branches.

• Rev. 14:18-19…Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

• Joel 3:13 Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.

The reason God allows rebellion and iniquity to become fully ripe is to give every opportunity for the wicked to come to repentance and seek forgiveness. 

• Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

• 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
   

God Punishes To Bring To Repentance

It is not a popular idea today that God would send judgment.  But out of His great mercy, the Lord does strike the rebellious.  He sends woes, plagues, and troubles upon the rebellious to bring them to a place where they will acknowledge that He is God and seek repentance. 

• Isaiah 5:18,20-21 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope: 20Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
• Jeremiah 5:3 O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
• Psalm 107:10-12 Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron; 11Because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High: 12Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and there was none to help.
• Psalm 107:17 Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.

When trouble comes as a result of iniquity, still many, many refuse to repent.

• Rev. 9:20-21 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 21Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

• Isaiah 1:5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

God gives every opportunity to repent, but there are many who will stubbornly continue in iniquity and bring it to the full.  God will not be mocked; what a man sows, he shall reap (Galatians 6:7).  When the harvest of the unrepentant wicked is brought in, it will be a harvest of the wrath of God; a harvest of judgment and death.   

Isaiah 5:1-7 is a parable in which Israel, God’s people,  are pictured as a vineyard.  Keep in mind that the Old Testament physical Israel was a foreshadow, a picture, of spiritual Israel – the New Testament Church.  This parable reveals how it grieves the heart of Almighty God when He has done everything for His people, and yet – and yet! – and YET! – they will do nothing but bring forth a harvest of bad fruit!  There is nothing else that can be done; those who persisted in wickedness have left the Lord no alternative but to destroy the vineyard.

• Isaiah 5:1-7 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: 2And 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. 3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. 4What 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? 5And 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 [“burned, set afire”^[1]]; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: 6And 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. 7For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment [or a discerning of good and evil], but behold oppression [“transgression” LN ]; for righteousness, but behold a cry [“wailing, sounds which indicate sorrow, despair, and pain; In the end times a portion of the punishment of the wicked will be crying from a painful heart (Isa 65:14)^[2].]

Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall

understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.

Psalm 107:43 

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*All emphasis  mine.
Written August, 2005

Copyright ©2005 by Mae Shurow 
Permission is granted for non-commercial (free) distribution 
provided proper citation of authorship is included.