Jehovah is a farmer: he has a vineyard (Is. 5:1). He planted it as an excellent vine, himself, a perfectly faithful seed (Jer. 2:21). But Jehovah either is not a very good farmer, or he is unlucky. Isaiah says that he surrounded it and moved the stones, and built a tower in the middle of it, and also hewed out a wine vat in it; and he expected it to produce grapes, but it produced worthless fruit. Then he complains, saying: “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (Is. 5:4). “I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of Jehovah of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant” (Is. 5:4-7).

Israel is compared to different trees: “How goodly are your tents, Jacob, and your tents, Israel! As valleys they are spread forth, as gardens by the riverside, as aloes which Jehovah has planted, as cedar trees beside the waters” (Num. 24:5-6). But the trees that Jehovah was proud to plant were the cedars of Lebanon (CEDRUS LIBANI). They formed great forests on the slopes of Lebanon, and were the principal material in the construction of temples and castles. They were twenty or thirty meters high, with a circumference of up to twelve meters. It was the only tree that produced beams for large constructions and the masts of ships. And it was an aromatic wood (Ezek. 27:5). The Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians used the cedars of Lebanon for a thousand years before Christ. What is left of them nowadays are some four hundred trees, two thousand meters high up the mountains, for the ones below were all cut down.

The cedars of Lebanon are part of the figurative language of Jehovah. They are the symbol of strength, height, and majesty of some kingdoms; metaphorically, the royal house of Judah is compared to a cedar of Lebanon (Ezek. 17:2-3).

And Jehovah declares one more time: “Jehovah’s trees are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon, which he has planted” (Ps. 104:16). Now there are other kingdoms. Jehovah spoke to Ezekiel, the prophet, saying: “Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude: Whom are you like in your greatness?” (Ezek. 31:2). And the same Jehovah answers: “Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, and of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs. The waters nourished it, the deep made it to grow: its rivers ran all around its plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied, and its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it shot [them] forth” (Ezek. 31:3-5).

All the language in this text is metaphorical: The cedar of Lebanon is the symbol of pride, arrogance, greatness, and power, for the cedar is a majestic tree. The waters that made it to grow were the conquered peoples (Rev. 17:15). The abyss that exalted it is the satanic power of hell (Is. 14:13-15). The streams it sent to all the trees of the field were its armies, for Isaiah said: “Behold, the Lord brings upon them the mighty flood waters of the River: the king of Assyria and all his glory” (Is. 8:7-8). Its planted fields were the cities of Assyria; and the streams that flowed from it were its military units that protected the cities. This is why this cedar was the highest.

Assyria overpowered Babylon for 700 years. The Assyrians’ religion came from Babylon, except for Ashur, the protective god of the city of Ashur, the main deity of all Assyria. There were eleven more deities. Marduk was a god imported from Babylon. Below these there were innumerous gods of lesser importance.

The Assyrians were a barbarous people, and they were cruel with those they overcame in battle, which they beheaded and quartered. The conquered king remained in the tent of the sovereign, tied to a chain connected to a ring attached to his lower lip. A guard armed with a javelin pulled the chain; the cries of pain revealed that the Assyrian sovereign was invincible. Beside the throne there was a huge basket filled with heads of generals. Outside the tent a multitude waited in terror for their turn to die.

This is the cedar of Lebanon, of great stature and leafy boughs, which Jehovah planted. The other cedar of Lebanon, similar to this one and not less cruel and barbarous, was Egypt, for Ezekiel says: “Whom are you like in your greatness?” (Ezek. 31:2). Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon (Ezek. 31:3). These two cedars of high stature were in the garden of the true Eden, described by Ezekiel (Ezek. 31:1-9,18). The other cedars of Lebanon, planted by Jehovah, were the seven nations that occupied the Palestine when Israel came in, led by Joshua (Deut. 7:1), for these nations were exactly in the Garden of Eden, which is Palestine, including Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, all these corrupt trees, cruel and diabolic, which worshipped demoniac gods, were planted by Jehovah, and not by the Father of Jesus (Ps. 104:16).

The only tree that God; the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, planted was Jesus himself. He said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer” (John 15:1). And said more: “Every plant which my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted” (Matt. 15:13).

The apostle John makes the following declaration in his gospel: “No one has seen God at any time. The one and only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him” (John 1:18). I mentioned this verse to some Argentinean theologians who visited me in my house ten years ago, and I told them that, in the Old Testament, God was not known, and that only Jesus had brought him to the knowledge of men. They said that God had revealed himself, but because they had been blind, Jesus, then, had made Him known. But one thing is certain: They called John a liar, as he said that God had never been seen by men, and it is written that the god of the Old Testament was seen (Ex. 24:9-10). These theologians called Jehovah a liar, too, for Jehovah affirms that he made himself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 6:2-3). And Jehovah said more: “I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me” (Ps. 87:4).

But why has not the natural man ever seen God, or known Him? That is because the natural man, this man stained with sin, who is under the powers of darkness, has things that are incompatible with the nature of God (Eph. 2:2-3; Col. 1:12-13). Let us look at the barriers that separate men from the true God:

1. Man is an animal, for Solomon said: “I said in my heart, ‘As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals. For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals: for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth?” (Eccl. 3:18-21). And God, on the contrary, is a spirit, and he is of a purely spiritual nature.
2. Man is darkness, and God is light. Jesus declared: “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness” (John 12:46). “He who says He is in the light and hates his brother, is in the darkness even until now” (1 John 2:9). Man needs to leave darkness in order to be able to see and know God. Paul was sent by Jesus: “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). The one who is in darkness is under the will and the government of Satan and, therefore, blind to the things of God  (2 Cor. 4:4). God is light (1 John 1:5).
3. Man is unclean, and God is pure and immaculate. Concerning the uncleanness of man, we read in the book of Job: “What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?” (Job 15:14). “How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean? Behold, even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight; How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!” (Job 25:4-6). “They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good, no, not one” (Ps. 14:3).
4. Man is a sinner, and God is holy. Since Adam and Eve, all men are under sin. Paul gives a picture of all humanity since Adam, saying: “Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12). And the same Paul tells us: “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
5. Man is a liar, and God is truth. Paul wrote: “Let God be found true, but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4; Ps. 62:9). John, in his gospel, said: “For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

How can man come close to God in this state of moral poverty?  How can God come close to man, as man are generated by sin, by lust, by selfishness, by pride, by anger, by arrogance, by interest, by vanity, etc., etc. According to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, in order for man to come to God he has to be born again (John 3:3-6). To see God, man has to be created anew by Jesus Christ, therefore Paul says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Man is begotten from an unclean seed. To come to God, he has to be generated again by another seed. Peter says: “Therefore having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever” (1 Pet. 1:23).

To say that God revealed himself to men in the Old Testament before Jesus Christ is to cancel the work of Christ in man, and for man. Only the blind do not see this aberration.

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira