May 05, 2002

THE VINE OF THE EARTH

Rev. Bertrand L. Comparet

The Bible is a true reflection of life: both life as it should be, (and would be if God's commands were obeyed) and life as it actually is under the present Satanic world order. Therefore must, and it does, contrast the true with the false. For each element of God's plan, Satan has made his deceptive counterfeit. The Bible warns us of this, and tells us of what to beware, and of whom to beware. And, to comfort His people, God also tells us how it will ultimately work out. Much of this is in parables, both in the Old Testament and in the New. One of these is the PARABLE OF THE VINES: God's own vine, and the vine of the earth.

God has called His people Israel His sheep, in some parables; but He also calls them His vine, in this parable. In Psalm 80:8‑11, He begins it: "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. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs of it were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." Notice that this was purely God's own planting: it was His own vine, and it should have brought forth the right kind of fruit. If nothing but His vine had been there, we can presume that it would have done so.

But trouble developed: for it finally began bringing forth the wrong kind of fruit. God consistently developed this Parable of the Vines, and we find the next stage of it in Isaiah 5:1‑7, Now I will sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and 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, And now, 0 inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What 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? " What is this vineyard which has so disappointed our God? We find the explanation of the parable in Isaiah 5:7, "For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant."

Therefore, the people of Israel constitute God's Vine. We will find many places where this parable is continued. But God's people Israel have disappointed Him, by failing to bring forth the fruit which He could rightfully expect from the people of His own selection. How did this come about? For the explanation, we turn to the prophet Jeremiah. You see, the Bible is always true to its own law of the two witnesses: everything must be proved by the testimony of at least two witnesses. Therefore, you will never find the entirety of any matter in the writings of just one prophet. Self‑styled scholars write learned and ponderous volumes of commentaries on the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Jeremiah, etc.‑‑‑and never have they been able to give a true explanation of it, because you cannot find the entirety of any one message in the book of just one prophet: you must find the rest of it in the writings of some other prophet, who wrote perhaps centuries earlier or later. So we continue with our Parable of the Vines in Jeremiah 2:21: "Yet I planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how, then, are thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?" The word translated "strange" is the Hebrew word "Zoor", meaning "alien of another race." Therefore, the trouble is that those of another race have infiltrated what should have been God's own vineyard containing only His people Israel: and of course this other race produces fruit of its own kind, even when it is among God's people Israel.

That his has been the source of the corruption is emphasized in Jeremiah 2:25, "Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst. But thou saidst 'There is no hope: no: for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go." And again the word "strangers" is the Hebrew word "Zoor" , meaning "Persons of another race." Surely this has been our history from ancient times even to this very day. We have opened our gates to those who hated everything we have held as an ideal and above all they have hated our Redeemer Jesus Christ. They came not to adopt our principles and pursue our ideals: they came in their greed to take of our prosperity; and they soon discovered how to corrupt US in ways that rapidly increased their wealth and power. In ancient times their ancestors led us into worship of stone idols; today they have led us into worship of the most immoral among the movie stars and the most corrupt among the politicians. We have not raised them to our level, for this was never possible; but they have dragged us down to theirs. What fruits are now brought forth in God's vineyard? Pornographic books and movies; the utter degradation of art and literature and music; rioting In the streets; the ever increasing tyranny of power drunk Politicians, whose corruption and even treason have become so common place that they no longer excite indignation.

What will be the outcome of this? If we do not cleanse ourselves of this alien influence and turn back to our God, terrible judgment Must be the result. There is no future, no hope except in restoring our loyalty, our worship of Jesus Christ. As He said, in John 15:1-8. " I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now are ye clean, through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me, and I in you, As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine: no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. 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 Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire. and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples."

Yet we find powerful figures in our government using all their power to disown our Savior Jesus Christ, even to remove from all governmental departments any mention of the name of God, under the pretense that our Constitution forbids it! As they well know, our nation was founded by Christians as a Christian nation: for that purpose only did they leave their comfortable homes in a civilized land and come to a wilderness peopled by hostile savages; all of our original thirteen colonies required belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible and the Christian religion as a condition of election or appointment to public office; and for more than a century and a half, beginning with the very men who wrote that Constitution, we have lived under that same Constitution in what the Supreme Court itself has recognized as a Christian nation. The words of the Constitution have not changed in this respect since it was written: how, then, can its meaning have suddenly been reversed? It cannot and it has not; but men who desire to abolish the principles which made us great and free are now seeking to abolish the foundation on which alone we could build that greatness and freedom ‑‑‑our Christian heritage. They seek to substitute for God's Vine the Vine of the Earth.

We first find mention of this quite early in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 32:31‑33, which says: "For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges: For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter; Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps." The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were inhabited by another race, to whom the Israelites were not related; the grapes of this Vine of Sodom are the individual members of that race, whom Jesus Christ Himself identified as the children of the devil, in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John.

In Ezekiel 16:1‑3, God says to the people of Jerusalem, "Son of man, cause JERUSALEM to know her abominations, and say, Thus saith the Lord God unto JERUSALEM: 'Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan: thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite."' Now God could not truthfully have said that to any Israelite; but He didn't say it to Israelites: He said it to THE PEOPLE OF JERUSALEM, the capital city. There is a great difference. Today you could truthfully say to the people of Washington, D.C., our capital city, ninety per cent of your population are Negroes; and most of the rest are Anti‑Christians." But you could not truthfully say this to the United States as a whole, over half are White Christians, and only about 20 per cent of our population are Negroes. Today our capital city is not a fair sample of the nation as a whole: exactly as it was in the time when Ezekiel wrote. In Jerusalem, people of another race, Amorites, Hittites, and other Canaanites? I had infiltrated, wormed their way into positions of power, became the "advisors surrounding the king, the ruling class in Jerusalem. These were not Israelites: in fact, they were driving out the true Israelites, the real members of the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

This is confirmed again in Ezekiel 11:14‑15, where we read, "Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 'Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the House of Israel wholly, are they unto whom THE INHABITANTS OF JERUSALEM have said, "Get you far from the Lord: unto US is this land given in possession." The inhabitants of Jerusalem were driving out all of the House of Israel ‑‑‑showing that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were not members of any of the Tribes of Israel. Again we find this confirmed in Isaiah 3:8‑9, which says: "For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory. The show of their countenance doth witness against them: and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves." That is, those people in Jerusalem who were responsible for all this evil could be recognized by their faces: "The show of their countenance doth witness against them." But this could not be true if they were Israelites, for they would then have faces like all the other Israelites. If you wanted to condemn the ruling class in China, you couldn't say that "they could be recognized by their faces"‑‑‑because they have the same kind of Mongolian faces as the rest of the Chinese; if you wanted to condemn the ruling class of Sweden, you couldn't say that "the show of their countenance doth witness against them"‑‑‑for their faced look like those of the rest of the Swedes. But the people who were in power in Jerusalem, who were responsible for the evil customs which they induced the nation to follow, and who told the entire House of Israel to go far away, as the land was given to these people in Jerusalem‑‑these didn't look like Israelites, and could be recognized by their faces.

The true Israelites, of both the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah, as we know, were the ancestors of the Anglo‑Saxon, Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples of today; and they looked like them. Not only is this a logical deduction, but we have further proof in the ancient monuments which portray Israelites, and which always show them as straight nosed, typical Anglo‑Saxons. But these same monuments, when they show Hittites or other Canaanite peoples, always show a hook‑nosed face. Naturally, such Canaanite faces would stand out In contrast to Anglo‑Saxon Israelite faces in Jerusalem, just as they do today in Washington, D.C., or London, in New York, in Los Angeles, and other governmental or commercial cities. These were the people who could be recognized by the mere sight of their faces; these were the people who told the entire House of Israel to get out, as these other people were taking the land for themselves.

These infiltrating Canaanites were not part of God's own vine, for they never were any part of true Israel; but they had secured positions of wealth and power in Israel and Judah, and they were corrupting the nation so that it was no longer bearing the sort of fruit which God expected from His vine.

These Canaanite infiltrators are also the same people against whom God spoke in Isaiah 57:3‑4, where (in the Hebrew), He calls them, children of in born transgression, a false seed " That is how, also, in Jeremiah 2:21, God says, to the Kingdom of Judah, "Yet I planted thee a precious vine, a wholly right seed: how, then, didst thou change thyself towards Me into the degenerate planting of the strange vine" (and again that word "strange" is the Hebrew word "Zoor", meaning persons of another race.").

Clearly, this which God found by the mere sight of their faces, this strange" or alien vine, could not share the final great destiny of God's own vine the people of Israel. Therefore, in the 15th chapter of Ezekiel, we read: "And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 'Son of man, What is the vine tree more than any other tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? Or will men make a pin of it, to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel: the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it Is burnt. Is it fit for any work? Behold, when it was whole, it was fit for no work: how much less shall it be fit yet for any work when the fire hath devoured it and it is burned? Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will set My face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I set My face against them.

And I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord God."

Note that this is directed against those same inhabitants of Jerusalem, those who can be recognized by their faces, those who have ordered the true Israel to get out and let them take over the land. And did you notice that God told Ezekiel that these inhabitants of Jerusalem had "committed a trespass"? When you go onto somebody else's land, without any right to do so, then you are committing a trespass. God says that these inhabitants of Jerusalem had "committed a trespass"‑‑‑they had no right to be where they were. This further identifies them as being no part of the real Judah or any other Tribe of Israel.

Both the Bible and ancient history tell us that God kept His word about driving this Canaanite people out of Jerusalem, where they had no right to be. They endured two terrible sieges when the Babylonian armies came and surrounded Jerusalem; scores of thousands of them were killed; others scores of thousands died of starvation and pestilence before the city was finally captured by the Babylonian army; and we can feel reasonably sure that the Babylonians, angered by the long fighting and the losses they also had suffered, were none too gentle with most of those they captured. As God said, "they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them.

Of those who were not taken into captivity at that time, some fled into Egypt, where God prophesied another disaster would come upon them ‑‑‑which did happen; those who remained in the land at the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70 endured starvation which reduced them to cannibalism, and over a million of them died in that siege and capture of Jerusalem.

But there remains to be completed God's final destruction of this counterfeit Vine of the Earth. It will be completed in connection with the Chinese invasion which is so clearly prophesied in the 38th and 39th chapters of Ezekiel. By this attack upon us, China injures God's own vine, and God's judgment and vengeance is set in motion. In Joel chapters I and 3, we read, "For a nation is come up upon My land, strong and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. He hath laid My vine waste, * * thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, 0 Lord. Let the heathen be awakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat ("God's Judgment")‑‑‑for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great."

This is developed more fully in the 14th. chapter of Revelation, where we read, "And I looked; and behold, a white cloud, and upon the cloud sat One like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying in a loud voice to Him that sat upon the cloud, 'Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.' And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which Is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, 'Thrust in thy sickle, and father the clusters of the Vine of the Earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. And 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. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs: (which is 200 miles).

This gathering out of those Canaanites who make up Satan's counterfeit vine, is the same thing which Jesus Christ spoke of in His Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, in the 13th chapter of Matthew, where He said that the tares, poisonous weeds, growing among the wheat, were the children of the devil living among the Children of God; but these tares would be gathered out by the angels at the time of the harvest of the earth. Don't think that this will be a peaceful process: it is the bloodiest kind of war. Again, we read in the 19th chapter of Revelation about this same treading of the winepress of the wrath of God: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, 'King of Kings and Lord of Lords."'

Isaiah was given a vision of it in his 64th. chapter: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? 'I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine‑vat? 'I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me: for I will tread them in Mine anger, and trample them In My fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed is come."

Thousands of years have consistently demonstrated that it is impossible for the mixture of good and evil, partly God's own vine and partly. Satan's Vine of the Earth, to grow together without even God's vine becoming corrupted by the presence of the evil seed among them. The great realities have not changed at all: the principle is the same, whether these evil people cheat you out of shekels or out of dollars. We will never be able to develop the way God planned for us until God's own vine can grow alone, with no intermixture of the Vine of the Earth. No matter how drastic the methods must be, the removal of the corrupt infiltrators is the greatest of mercy.

In the Apocrypha II Esdras 9:20‑22 boils it all down to a very few words. God has been talking with Esdras, who was asking Him about the things which were to end the age; God explains to Esdras, "So I considered the world; and behold, there was peril because of the devices that were come into it. And I saw, and spared it greatly; and have kept Me a grape of the cluster, and a plant of a great people. Let the multitude perish, then, which was born in vain; and let My grape be kept, and My plant: for with great labor have I made it perfect. In the Kingdom of God, for which we wait hopefully, there is no room for the Satanic counterfeit Vine of the Earth. The removal of this evil will allow God's children to live happy, productive lives in the paths of righteousness which God has marked out for us.

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Last modified: Wednesday, 17 October 2007