Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine—Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine,Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;Turn again, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine,
3 sermons cite this verse
… looking at these things called blind spots based off of Psalm 19 where the psalmist said, from hidden faults, O Lord, equip me. And so these blind spots are what we call like acceptable sins. They're invisible vices. They're the kind of sins that we don't really think that we need to be aware of. We don't think that we need to repent of because they're just kind of always there. We talked about gossip and anger and entitlement. We talked about complaint. This week, we have St. Paul coming along, and he says, have no anxiety about anything. Now, we have to understand this before we go any further. When St. Paul says, have no anxiety about anything, a couple things. We realize that if someone has clinical anxiety, mental illness is not a sin. It's just like cancer is not a sin. A broken leg is not a sin. So mental illness is not a sin. So we don't put it, it's not in that category. Another thing to realize, emotions, to feel simply the emotion of worry, the emotion of anxiety, that's also not sinful. …
"Return, we beseech You, O God ofHosts: look down from Heaven, and behold, and visit this vine." Psalm 80:14. I FEEL somewhat straitened on this occasion because of the specialty of my subject. I have been persuaded by the Society to preach on behalf of the Jews, but my mind does not quite run in the direction which is prescribed for it. I have been so in the habit of preaching the Gospel to everybody, knowing neither Jew nor Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free, that the very recognition of anything like nationality and specialty is somewhat difficult for me. I do not think that the recognition of the distinction is wrong—no, I think it right—but it is so unusual that I scarcely feel at home. I would sooner, by a thousand times, take a text and preach the Gospel to sinners or to saints than discourse upon a special race. Yet is it necessary and, therefore, let it be done. And I trust the Holy Spirit may make our meditation profitable. Assuredly, if there is any distinction which might be maintained, and I think there is none, for that distinction of Jew and Gentile seems to me to be wiped out and obliterated—if there is any distinction, we may, at least, remember that which lingeringly subsists between the seed of Israel and the nations, for God's election of old fell upon them—and when the old world lay in darkness, gleams of light gladdened their eyes! To them belonged the oracles. They were long the sole preservers of the precious Truth of God which they have handed down to us. And if through their unbelief we have taken their place, we cannot but recollect who occupied it for so many centuries—and we cannot but look with extraordinary tenderness and affection and earnest desire to that elder family whom the Lord loved so long and towards whom, I think, His love still burns, as shall be seen when the day comes in which He shall gather Israel again unto Himself! …
or to David, or ultimately to the Messiah who appears later in history under the title of the Son of Man. And so the plea in this prayer is for God to return to the vineyard, to save the vineyard that He had planted. We see a similar song and celebration or lament in the fifth chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, and let's look at that for a moment. Isaiah chapter 5 begins with verse 1 which says, Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up, cleared out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and made a winepress in it. And so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then did I expect it to bring forth good grapes? Did it bring forth wild grapes? And now let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and the hedge protects the vineyard. It shall be burned. …