Faithful and fruitful, or ready for destruction...

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.  He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.  He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.  Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.    

Isaiah 5:1b-2

In this passage, Isaiah is telling a story to the people of Israel and Judah.  He later explains that the people of Israel and Judah are the vineyard.  The Lord planted the vineyard, but the vineyard didn’t produce any good fruit.  Hear this as, “The people of Israel and Judah didn’t produce any good fruit.” 

At the end of this story, he told what he was going to do.  He (the Lord) was going to send people in to trample on and destroy the vineyard, to make it an utter wasteland.  Starting in verse 8 there are a series of woes to the people of Israel and Judah, six of them in all.  Then begin prophesies of Assyria descending on Israel and Judah.  We know that happened.  Israel and Judah were invaded, many of the people taken back in exile.  All this because the Lord found them unfaithful and unfruitful.

In the midst of these verses, we see Isaiah 6:13a, "And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste."

Here’s my concern:  In Romans 11:17-20b, we see..

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches.  If you do, consider this:  You do not support the root, but the root supports you.  You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”  Granted.  But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. 

As I read this, has the Church of Christ become the vineyard of Isaiah 5?  If so, are we doing any better in the 21^st century American Church then Israel and Judah did?  I read that only about 15% of American’s attend church, and I know that in my community, that’s about right.  But though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste.  How do we stand?  How secure is the church we love?

In the end, it depends on each of us.  The church is as strong as it’s members.  The whole is equal to the sum of its parts.  When God looks at us, will he find us faithful and fruitful, or ready to be trampled on and destroyed?