John chapter 15. The night that
our Lord Jesus Christ was delivering Himself into the hands of the
wicked men that would nail Him to a cross, He loved His own,
His apostles, and He loved them till the end. In the last six
chapters of the book of John, we find the Lord Jesus Christ
comforting His apostles. Everything He said was a word
of comfort to His apostles. And He gave them, through these
words of comfort, confidence and assurance and encouraged
them to continue trusting Him alone. And one of those most
comforting words And one of the most comforting words for every
believer, a blessed word of assurance for a child of God, is found
in John chapter 15 verse 1. I am the true vine, and my Father
is the husbandman. Yesterday we went with some of
the families and again had another fun day of apple picking. And
we walked around that orchard there, and as I walked around,
this is the verse I kept thinking about. I am the true vine, and
my Father is the husbandman. The Lord is assuring His eleven
apostles. That's who He's talking to. He's
giving them great words of comfort, great words of promise. And he
says, I am the vine, ye are the branches. He says, I'm the vine, my father's
the husbandman. Then in verse 5 he says, I'm
the vine, ye are the branches. I can't think of anything that's
more assuring than that. You think of that. God the Father
is the husbandman. God the Son is the vine. And
you're the branches. The believer is the branches.
Well, I want to look at those three points this morning. First
of all, Christ Jesus is the true vine. I am the true vine. The vine of truth. The life of
the believer. He is life. He communicates life. It's nutrients. It's sap. It's life. Just like a tree communicates
the life to the branches, he does that. He brings forth the
fruit on the branches, the vine does, and he's the vine. Now,
he says here, I'm the true vine. Let me give you an idea here
of what he's speaking about. You remember how we saw in Isaiah,
especially Isaiah chapter 5, where it speaks of how that,
I'll sing a song to my beloved of his vineyard. And it talks
about how Israel and Judah is God's vineyard, God's vine that
he grew. Then it says that he opened up
the hedge and let it be devoured, let it be broken down. Let me
give you the picture here. Abraham is called the father
of the faithful. Abraham. And he had a son called
the son of promise because God promised him. And he had a son
called the son of promise and that son's name was Isaac. And
from Isaac came Israel. It became Jacob, but Jacob was
Israel. So you see, you've got the Father,
and you've got the Son, and from the Son you've got Israel. But that Israel polluted themselves. That Israel, he said, I hedged
it about. He said, I took the stones out
of it. He said, I put a tie tower in the midst thereof. I put a
wine press in the midst thereof. I looked for grapes, and all
I found were wild grapes. He said, I looked for judgment,
but all I found was oppression. I looked for righteousness, but
all I heard was a cry. We looked at that word righteousness
this morning, mercy. I looked for mercy, for merciful
people, for people that would pour out themselves to the needy. But all I found was a cry, a
cry from the needy, a cry from the helpless, a cry from the
desperate. And so he broke down the hedge. But God, the Father,
and Christ, the Son, brings forth spiritual Israel. And so he says
here, that vine wasn't the true vine. I'm the true vine. He's saying, I'm the Son of God.
I'm the promised seed. I'm the choice seed that God
chose that grew up a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground, that
is the righteous branch. That's what He's declaring. We
read in Jeremiah 23, 5, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will raise unto David a righteous branch. and a king
shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and justice
in the earth." Remember what one of the first words Isaiah
said to Judah was? Zion is going to be founded in
righteousness and in judgment by the true vine. By the true
vine. This is the one who is the righteous
branch. All spiritual blessings, everything
that God the Father has for His elect people is found in Christ
the true vine. God elected His people unto salvation
in His Son. God predestinated His people
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. God
the Father made us accepted in the Beloved, in His Son. We're
holy and without blame before Him. We're justified in Him.
We're sanctified by Him. We're complete in Him. All blessings
are in Christ. And in time, we're made to enter
into the experience, enter into the fact that we have life from
this vine, that we've been vitally connected to this vine by the
Spirit of God's grace. And from this vine, we have life. He's the true vine. He's the
life. This is the record that God has
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that
hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life. You know, when we walked around
yesterday, Notice we got there. We went up to a lady that had
baskets and we asked this talk to this lady about where we could
find the different varieties of apples and As she discussed
where we could find the the different types of apples You know what
I didn't hear her say I? Didn't hear her say now the branches
up there on that tops top furthest heel Are the branches down here
on this heel? She said, the tree up there,
and the tree down here, and the tree over there. And you know
what she was talking about, including when she talked about the tree?
The branches. Well, why didn't she divide it?
Why didn't she say, well, now where that branch and those,
where that tree and those branches are, you'll find, because they're
vitally connected. They're one. and you refer to
it as the tree. It's the tree. The branches are
a part of it. You can't see where the tree
stops and the branches start. It's just one. And even so, the
Lord's people are that one in Christ, and Christ in us. He that is joined unto the Lord
is one spirit. Can you explain that? I can't explain
it. I know the life in the believer
is Christ in you and you in Christ. It's this living union with Christ. And you add to this blessed assurance,
the sovereign God of heaven and earth, the sovereign God who
controls all things is the husbandman God the Father is the husbandman. Look at verse 1. He says, I'm
the true vine and my Father is the husbandman. The husbandman is the one who
decides where the seeds are going to be. Decides how the vineyard
is going to be laid out. He purposes everything. He plans
everything. He chooses the seed. God the
Father chose His Son. He chooses where the seed will
be planted. He made a body for Him and sent
Him into the earth. He nurtured and protected and
poured out His Spirit upon the Son without measure. He's raised
the Son to His own right hand where He's seated in glory. He's
the husbandman. He's the one who who does all
the work in this vineyard to see to it that the branches bring
forth fruit from the vine. He says here in verse 2, Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every
branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring
forth more fruit. Every regenerated, believing
child of God is united to Christ in this inseparable union by
the husbandman, by God. He said, the Scripture says that
no flesh should glory in His presence of God, of the husbandman. Are you in Christ Jesus? And
the vine is made unto you everything. by the husbandman. Wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, redemption, so that you don't glory. The husbandman
glories. You and I can't boast. The husbandman
receives all the glory. If you want to boast, boast in
the husbandman. When Paul went to Corinth, they
were saying, well, I'm of Paul, and I'm of Apollos, and I'm of
Cephas. I like Peter's preaching. Well,
Paul preaches better than any of them. I like him. And they
had all this division going on so that some of them just went
home and said, I don't need any of them. I got Christ. I don't
have to have anybody preach to me. And Paul came and he said,
Who's Apollos? Who's Paul? He said, I watered. I planted. Another watered. But
God gave the increase. He's the husbandman. We're his
planting. Every believer brings forth fruit. Not some of them, not some don't,
all of them do. Every believer brings forth fruit
by the grace of God through the vine, by the work of the husband. Fruit of the Spirit is this,
love, joy, peace, Long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, those are the fruits we're talking about.
Because the Lord says down in verse 8, look there, He says,
Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit. And
therefore the husbandman is going to be praised as the vine gives
life to these branches so that they can bring forth much fruit.
Because the Father's glorified when you bring forth much fruit.
Therefore, He's going to say to it, you bring forth much fruit.
Look over Philippians 1.11. I've quoted this a lot to you,
but read this. Philippians 1.11. He's talking about them being
filled with knowledge and all judgment, that they may approve
the things that are excellent, that they may be sincere and
without offense to the day of Christ. And here's how he says
it's going to happen. Being filled with the fruits
of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, divine, unto the
glory and praise of the husband of God. the Father. So He's going
to bring forth these fruits that we should be to the praise of
His glory who first trusted in Christ. This is the husbandman. Now one way the Father is going
to protect the branches and one way that He's going to make them
fruitful is by taking away branches that are not truly fruit-bearing
branches. Verse 2 says, Every branch in
me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. Now this is not
a word that's meant to frighten you. This is not a word that's
meant to be used as some have used it to try to tell you that
this is a condition, that God's given you a condition here that
if you'll do something, He'll do something. That's not the
case at all. It's not that some can abide
in Christ and then cease abiding in Christ. It's not that some
can abide in Christ and not bear fruit in Christ. These are men
who were never in Christ from the beginning. We were out there
yesterday and we saw those apple trees and they were well cared
for. They were taken care of. Sometimes branches have to be
pruned from the vine. Now, if you look at them, they
look like true branches. And only the husband can discern
which one are true branches and which one aren't true branches.
Why? Because he knows what he's doing. He goes out there and
when he sees one that's not a fruit-bearing branch, he prunes it away from
the tree so that it doesn't interfere with the true branches, taking
the sap from the vine so that they can grow. It's called pruning. And you have to prune it so that
the other branches, they bring forth more fruit when you're
pruning. Those branches were well-groomed, but that's the
same thing in the church. There's folks who come in who
have all the outward appearance of being true branches. They
can associate themselves with brethren. They can do religious
service with brethren, but that's not the fruit that's being spoken
of here. That's not the fruit. Those things can be done without
the vine. Those things can be done without
the sap. Those things can be done without the husbandman producing it. But what can't
be produced is love for Christ, a delight to hear of only Him,
joy in Him, peace wrought between God and the believer. That can't
be had with anybody else. A lady one time, being at a place,
and every time I would get through preaching at this place, she
would talk to me about how the gospel, every time she hears
it, she said, I know what you mean when you talk about it being
offensive. It just makes me so angry. She
said, I just get red in the face. I feel my face getting heated
when I hear the gospel priest. She said, it makes me want to
rebel. She goes, I understand what you're
talking about, about the offense. That's not what I'm talking about.
The believer's not offended. The believer joys and rejoices. That poor soul was sitting there
just making herself associate with the true branches, making
herself to do everything so she looked like a true branch, and
all the while just offended and angry. There was no fruit of
the Spirit there because it wasn't a true branch. And the Lord He
took her away. He pruned the tree, pruned the
vine. I don't know where she is this
day and time, but that's his business. I can't tell who the
true branches are and who they aren't. He does. He's the husbandman. He's the husbandman. Well, it
says here that he will do that so that every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now,
the Lord says, you are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you. Now, he purges the branch that
it may bring forth more fruit. We're purged and we're cleansed
through the Word, through the Gospel that Christ speaks as
the Gospel is preached. Christ speaks into the heart
of His people and we're purged, we're cleansed. The Holy Spirit
sprinkles our conscience with the blood of Christ and He turns
us from dead works to serve the living God. makes us to behold
that we're justified, makes us to behold that our sins have
been put away by the one offering, by His one offering. And when
He does this, He gives us faith. Our hearts are purified by faith
that's in Him. We trust Him alone. That's what
this purification is. That's what this sanctification
is, is not looking over here or over here, not looking to
me or to you, not looking to something we've done. Purification
is looking to Him alone. trusting Him alone, being cleansed
from the defilement of our way, being cleansed from the defilement
of trying to come to God in some other way, but being able to,
by His grace, behold Him and to see that we're whole and complete
and perfect in Christ, in the Beloved. And by faith, we abide
there. Well, sometimes insects will
get on the branches. We didn't see any insects on
those branches yesterday, did we? I didn't notice any. Sometimes
birds will build nests in the branches. I didn't see a single
bird nest in those branches that's out there. I've seen fruit trees
before, peach trees back home, where they'll get insects, spiders
and things that get in them, and they'll just have big spiderwebs,
big, thick spiderwebs built in those trees to catch all those
fruit flies. But we didn't see any of those yesterday, did we?
Because the husbandman went out there, the vine dresser went
out there to those places, and when the insects got on those
vines, he cleansed them with something and kept those vines
off of them. If a bird builds a nest in them,
he'd go out there and take the nest out. He don't want them
in there. Next thing you know, they'd be eating the fruit, taking
the fruit away. Well, sometimes the believer
gets the old insects of this old dead flesh and the cares
of the world begin to be nesting in the branches. in us. And so
He purges us. He cleanses us. He continues
to cleanse us through trial, through affliction, through His
Word. He continues to cleanse us. We're
cleansed in the beginning through His Word. It says, Christ loved
the church, gave Himself forth that He might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the Word. We're washed in His blood, washed
by the Holy Spirit. Our hearts are purified by faith.
But then it says, He purges it that it might bring forth more
fruit. He cleanses us continually. One
scripture says He comes unto us as the rain, as the latter
and the former rain unto the earth. You know what happens
when the rain falls out there on those apple trees? It cleans
them. It cleans them off. He can send
rain right when the rain needs to come. He can control this
one who winds come sometimes, harsh winds come sometimes. And if there's anything that's
harming that tree, those winds will knock it off of those branches.
But this One who controls all the elements, all the earthly
elements, is the One who does the purging. He's the One who
sends the trial. He's the One who sends the affliction.
And He knows just what needs to be done, just how it needs
to be applied to each believer. He shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons
of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer
unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Look over at 1 Peter 1. In verse
5, it says we're kept by the power of God. Now that's what the branches
are. They're kept by the power of God. He's the husband. That's
what our Lord's teaching in John 15. I'm the true vine. My Father's
the husband. And we're kept as branches. We're
kept by the power of God. Through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice. You rejoice in Christ. Though
now for a season, if need be, If there's some insects in the
branches or something that defiles in the branches, it's got to
be removed. If need be, you're in heaviness through manifold
temptations. Here's why we rejoice in Him. Because the trial of your faith,
He sent a trial. He said He sits as a refiner
to try to prove it, that it's precious, that it's real, that
it's like gold, it's precious. You've got to take away the fool's
gold. You've got to take away that which is not gold, so the
only thing left is gold. And it says here, through the
trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that
perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
And through these light afflictions that He gives us, He causes us
our eyes, or lifts our eyes heavenward, lifts them to Christ. Because
we look not at things which are seen, but at things which are
not seen, for the things which are temporal That's when we need
to be purged, when we start looking at the temporal. Those things
are not lasting. Those things aren't really substance.
The things that are substance are the things that are eternal.
And he turns our eyes so that we can see Christ. He's the husbandman. We're the
vine. And he purges, he takes away those suckers, those parasites
out of the branches, removes those. And he purges, he cleanses
He cleanses the branches that they might bring forth more fruit.
He's the true vine. The Father's the husbandman.
And you're the branches. Now, let's talk about the branches.
Verse 4. He says, 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." Now, the whole first half of what the Lord said,
He assured us, He assured us that our eternal security, the
believer's eternal security is because of the Father who's the
husbandman and Christ who is the true vine. That's our eternal
security. And now He tells us, He exhorts
us to do what He's promised to keep us doing. Abide in Me and I in you. Now, I can see the husbandman
doing things. I saw, I saw Fellas out there
yesterday who were fine dressers. I'm sure who who were Carton
folks up the hill and what-have-you now those folks I see them doing
something And the vine I See the vine. I know that that vine
is is the one that's Causing that branch to grow and I know
that vine is the one that's causing that fruit to come forth but
the most passive of the whole three is the branch. Can you imagine telling the branch
that gets all its life from the tree, that is grown from the
tree, that exists because of the tree, that's kept by the
husbandman. Can you imagine telling that
branch, now you stay there. Don't leave. Don't leave that
vine. Stay in that vine. It's the most
passive. Why on earth would it want to
leave the vine? That's where it has life. It wouldn't have
anything if it leaves the vine. So we read the verse here, abiding
me and I in you is not a condition, not a threat, but read it like
this. You remember when the Lord made
the everlasting covenant? He said, I will make an everlasting
covenant with them. that I will not turn away from
them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts and
they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good and I will plant them in this land assuredly with
my whole heart and with my whole soul." When he speaks his I will
by saying to you right now, abide in me and I in you. The result
is But you shall. You shall. That's what our Lord's
telling them. You shall not depart from Me.
You shall abide in Me. Why? Because My Father is the
Husband and I'm the Vine. Abide in Me and I in you. When
He says live, why did Lazarus come forth from the tomb and
live? Because He gave him life. When He says repent, why do you
repent? Because He gave you repentance.
When He says, Believe, why did you believe? Because He gave
you faith to believe. When He says, Be ye holy, He
cleanses us and separates us from defilement and we come out
and we're separate. And when He says, Abide in Me
and I in you, and when He says it into the heart, you abide
in Him and He abides in you. We're warned a lot in Scripture
to take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil
heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort
one another daily. What's that exhortation? Abide
in Christ. Don't look anywhere else. Stay
in Christ. And he says, we are made partakers
of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast until
the end. Is it our holding fast that made
us partakers of Christ? It's the husband making us partakers
with the vine that makes us to hold fast. The result of us being
joined to the vine is we'll keep on holding fast. We'll keep on
holding fast. It's the fruit. It's the effect.
The whole thing here is talking about fruit. It's talking about
the effect. Listen to it. In verse 4, as
the branch can't bear fruit of itself, you can't bear any fruit. Do you agree with the Lord's
Word? You cannot accept your body and
me, He said. He says here, without me you
can do nothing. Do you agree with that? We can't
do anything without Him, can we? We have to have the vine.
We have to have Him or we can't do anything. Well, He tells us
here that, hold fast, abide in Me and I in you. Let me give
you a proof of one that's never joined to the vine, one that's
never been joined to the vine. The Lord said to those Jews which
believed on Him, He said, if you continue in My Word, then
are you My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. And immediately, they said, we're
Abraham's children. We weren't ever in bondage to
anybody. We're talking about make us free.
They proved that they never were in the vine. They proved that
they didn't abide in him and he in them. Because why? They didn't abide in him. They
didn't hold fast in him. Let me give you an example of
someone that did. The Lord Jesus Christ said to His apostles,
when He saw many going away, He said, are you going to go
away? Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You're the vine. We're the branches. Except we
abide in You, we have no life in us. Except we abide in You,
we can't bring forth any fruit. Except we abide in You, we just
wither to nothing because there's no life in us. Why is there no
life in us? I thought Art had a good illustration.
We were walking around out there yesterday, and Art said, Clay,
look at all these trees out here in this garden. And that's what
it was, just a big old 100-acre, 200-acre garden out there, full
of trees with fruit on them. And we were walking in the midst
of just row after row after row of these apple trees, and Art
said, And you can have any one of these trees, you can eat off
of any of these trees right here you want to eat off of. And he
pointed that one right beside us. He said, but don't eat off
of that one. And the day you do, you'll die. I said, it just
automatically makes you want to eat off that one, don't it?
Well, I wonder what's so good about that one. Well, I can't
have that one. But the Lord showed us in that
And we died. That's why we can't bring forth
any fruit in us. And he showed us in that, we
got to be partakers of the tree of life. We've got to be united
to the vine. Because we got no life in us.
We got no life in us. None of those branches that we
saw out there yesterday had any life in themselves. And if you
went out there and you severed one of those branches off of
that tree and just laid it there, immediately, when it's severed
from that vine, immediately it starts to die. It begins to die. The leaves will wither on it.
It'll just drop to nothing. And those fellas, the vine dresser,
the husband will come along and pick up those branches. because
they're not true branches. They're no good for anything.
And He'll gather them up, heap them together, take them down
and throw them in a fire and burn them. That's what a man is outside
of Christ. That's what a man is if he's
not united to the vine. He has no life. He has no fruit. He has good for nothing but to
be bound up and burned. That's what He says in verse
6, If a man abide not in Me, If he's not dwelling in me, if
he's not been put in me, he's cast forth as a branch and is
withered and men gathered them and cast them into the fire and
they're burned. But he says here now, if you abide in me and my
words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall
be done unto you. Now, verse 7, when He says there,
if you abide in Me, He tells us what it is to abide in Him.
What is it to abide in Christ? It's to have His words abiding
in you. If you abide in Me, and My words
abide in you. To abide in Christ is to have
the everlasting covenant written on our hearts, to hear Him say,
I will. Then we know. Then we have confidence. Then we have assurance. Look
at 1 John 3. 1 John 3. Verse 23. And this
is His commandment. This is His Word. Remember, He said, you're clean
through My Word. Now He says, abide in Me, and
I in you. Abide in the doctrine of Christ.
Abide in His Word. Look now, watch. This is His
commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus
Christ. What's He teaching us by His
Word? Believe on Him. Trust Him. You know what He's
been saying? Abide in Him. Trust Him. If my
Word abides in you, He said, you'll abide in Me. If His Word
abides in us and it's written on our heart and His Word and
His commandment to us written on our heart is to believe Him,
we'll believe Him. And He said, believe in Me, you'll
abide in Me. And He says, and love one another
as He gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in him, and he in him. You'll have the love of the brethren
in your heart because he dwells in you, his word dwells in you.
That covenant's written in your heart. And you love the brethren,
you love him. And hereby we know that he abideth
in us by the Spirit which he's given us. the life that we've
got from the vine. The very reason He tells us to
abide in the vine. Now, when the Spirit of God abides
in us, the believer's will is God's will. Isn't that right?
He says here, if you abide in Me and My words abide in you,
you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. Well, let's just start asking
for it. new cars, houses, and I wouldn't
mind having a boat. I'd like to see us have a new
building. Let's just start asking for all that stuff. Is that what you want? Do you
want to abide in the vine? Do you want to be filled with
the fruits of righteousness? Do you want to be able to see
Christ with the eye of faith more and more? Or do you want
to be spared from what those things would bring you? You want
for His will to be done, whether it's something that's going to
bring you comfort or not. You want His will to be done.
You want for Him to be magnified and honored in your heart and
by those who see you and know you. to whom you have any influence. Whatever is for the glory of
God, whatever is for our own spiritual profit and edification,
whatever is agreeable to the words and doctrines of Christ,
everything of this kind is what the believer wants. Because that's
what, you know why? Because when His Spirit abides
in you, Scripture says that the Spirit helpeth our infirmities,
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the
Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered. You know what the Spirit makes
intercession for? Whatever is for the glory of
God and whatever is for our own spiritual benefit. Whatever's
agreeable to the words and doctrines of Christ. That's what Spirit
makes intercession for. And when we, our will's been
made His will, and we pray in that regard, I guarantee you,
you'll get everything you ask. He'll give you everything you
ask. What did James say? If you ask and don't receive,
you ask and miss. Because you're asking it to consume
it on your lust. But if you ask in faith and ask
those things that are according to His will, spiritual benefits,
spiritual blessings, not temporal things, not carnal things, spiritual
benefit. That which is, it may be through
some temporal means that He's going to be glorified. Doesn't
mean you're not asking for Him to be glorified through some
temporal means or through something that He'll give you. His honor,
His glory, His will, His edification of your own heart. Sometimes
that don't come in an easy way. Sometimes that don't come in
a comfortable way. Most times that don't come in
a comfortable way. It comes through great trial
and suffering. But we want what He wants, don't
we? Because even when we go into suffering, He'll provide for
us as much as we don't like it. He will. He will. So then, in
all this talking about fruit, in all this talking about do
we get our confidence, is He telling us, is He telling the
apostles here that you're going to get your confidence and your
assurance by looking at how much fruit you bring forth? Is that
what he's saying? That's not it at all. If it was, Peter wouldn't have
any confidence at all in just a very little while, because
he wouldn't be bringing forth any fruit. What he's saying is,
I'm the life, I'm the vine. My Father is the husbandman.
Your salvation is going to be by God in Christ. Stay in Him. Don't move a hair to the right
or to the left, up or down. Look for anything else. Stay
right in Him. That's all our hope, all our
salvation, all our protection. It's not looking to me. It's
not looking to you. It's not looking to what we think
fruit is. We're bad fruit inspectors. Bad
fruit inspectors. Most of what we think's good
fruit is probably just worm-infested fruit. He feels the fruit. You know, somebody had this point.
I thought this was a good point. If fruit was something me and
you looked at and we tried to get our confidence from looking
at that fruit, when we're real active and in our prime and doing
a bunch of service in the church, that would cause us to really
have some confidence. But what about then when we get
so old we can't do those things? When we get so old that we can't
be active, when we're bedridden and we're not doing anything,
where are we going to get our confidence then if it's by looking
at our fruit? We wouldn't have any, would we? But if our fruit,
if our confidence is Christ, divine, from beginning to end,
when we're laying still as a stone, we still got as much confidence
as when we was up and moving producing what we thought was
fruit. So, our hope, our anchor of the
soul is sure and steadfast, and it's Christ Jesus who's entered
in through the veil, our high priest forever, our Melchizedek.
That's our hope. That's our hope. What a comfort. I'm the true vine, my Father
is the husbandman, and you're the branches. You're the branches. All right, Amen.