Text: “Thou hast brought a VINE out of Egypt: Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparest room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.”
Psalm 80:8-9.
John 15:1-5.
Good morning, Spiritually discerning Christian! The power of discernment in human terms is a wonderful gift to have in this day of social conflict, international business; and interactions with all other people. We do not get far in natural, daily life, without such wise discernment. But the power of Spiritual discernment, comes only from God the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity of the Living Lord God Jehovah - Who not only ‘quickens’ God’s elect people, makes us alive Spiritually, but also grants us deep discernment concerning our understanding of Spiritual matters, and the teachings from God, from His Holy Word.
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth; but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual. But the natural man (unsaved, unquickened by God) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know then, because they are Spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14)
Spiritually discerning Christians are given many profound insights from the written Word of God contained in our KJV Bibles (I say in our KJV Bibles, because in my 47 years of experience as a born-again Christian believer, I have been repeatedly led back to the King James Version Bible, for there I find a purity of Scriptural doctrine that I can find in no other Bible version.)
For example, this morning’s Bible Reading and Text, speaks of a vine being brought out of Egypt. When Spiritually discerning Bible scholars read this verse from Psalm 80, we more immediately make the Spiritual connection with the Jewish Nation being brought out of bondage under the Egyptian Pharaohs, where they had been for over 400 years. Therefore, we can better understand what has been called ‘the whole thread of Holy Scriptures’ – the entire 66 Canonical books of our Old and New Testament Bibles.
Israel is, of course, a TYPE of the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, an illustration down through Bible history of a promised deliverance
from sin; a promised Saviour, ‘the seed of the woman’, (Genesis 3:15) Who,
right from Genesis chapter 3, is set forth as the Lord God’s Blood-redeemer of
‘His people’s souls. Bible history is in
fact ‘His Story’. Hallelujah!
Isaiah speaks clearly of this same Vine, as both Israel, and the coming Christ Jesus: “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 (Read Mark 12:1-11)”
“For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgement, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.” (Isaiah 5:1;7)
Matthew: Again, we learn that the Lord Jesus was taken, as a child, into Egypt to hide Him from the wicked Herod who was killing all the children his age, in order to have no other contender for his earthly throne. He was, later, brought out of Egypt to live in Nazareth. (Matthew 2:12-23) “Thou hast brought a VINE out of Egypt:” (Psalm 80:8)
“I am the Vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth (continually prunes) it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the Word which I (Jesus Christ) have spoken unto you…I am the Vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without (apart from) Me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5)
Hosea, the prophet, wrote: “His branches shall spread, and His beauty shall be as the olive tree, and His smell as Lebanon. They that shall dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive (regenerate, be born again?) as the corn and grow as the Vine (Christ Jesus, the true Vine): the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon…Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? Prudent, and he shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.” (Hosea 14:6-9)
Verse 12. Asaph, in Divine inspiration, pens a vital question here in Psalm 80: “WHY hast Thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?”
Can we not see and understand this as a rhetorical question: a question designed more to make the hearer think things through personally, rather than seeking an answer? I believe we can.
Sin caused Israel and the Jewish Nation to be rebuked by the Lord all the way down through HIS STORY (history). Continually, her ‘hedges were broken down’, and she has been ‘plucked’ clean of all compassion by cruel oppressors ever since that day when they cried out with a loud voice: “…Let Him be Crucified…His blood be upon us, and on our children!” (Matthew 27:17-26) To this national cry, the Lord God said, ‘Amen’, so be it.
One day soon, a remnant of the Jewish nation shall cry out to the Living Lord God: “Return, we beseech Thee, O God of hosts: look down from Heaven, and behold, and visit this vine; and the vineyard which Thy right hand (Christ Jesus) hath planted, and the Branch that Thou madest strong for Thyself…Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.” (Psalm 80:14-19) And that elect remnant shall be saved.
Thought: Oh, the blessings of Spiritual awareness from the
Lord God! Hallelujah!
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