This enabled this evening which
to direct your very prayerful attention to the chapter that
was read in your hearing namely the 11th chapter of the book
of the Proverbs and by way of text verse 30. Proverbs Chapter 11, and verse 30, "...the
fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth
souls is wise." "...the fruit of the righteous
is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. One of the most difficult things
in preaching is to bring before the people that which condemns
yourself. But you know at times we have
to. Perhaps it's those things that go against our natural disposition
but they're here in the scripture and thus they must be dealt with
they must be handled this text has been upon my mind here and
there for some time it's only recently I felt able to give
it this sometimes some deep meditation upon these things. Now, before we consider our text,
let's again look at the context in which they're found. King Solomon was a truly remarkable
man. King Solomon being the author
of the Proverbs. The Proverbs are really quite
unique in the sense that we have these short pithy statements. Sometimes they are revisited. The themes are repeated, perhaps in a slightly
different way and in a slightly different light, but they're
all relevant. But here we see the wisest man,
apart of course from the Lord Jesus Christ, the wisest man that lived. There's
nobody been able to touch him. in respect of personal, political,
and civil wisdom. And I would advise you, it's
been my personal practice that when we feel things are going
well for us, from time to time, and we think we're doing the
right thing, read a few chapters of the book of the Proverbs.
And we soon see massive gaping holes. This is a very humbling
book. And I'm being serious. I'm being
serious. If we're thinking too much of
ourselves, read a little of the book of the Proverbs. It's enlightening. Almost shines a light upon us. But you know, What's also of heart, what's
also comforting to us is this. King Solomon may have been a
remarkable man, but he had very obvious flaws. It's often the
case actually, with exceptional men, exceptional ministers actually. They may be greatly used. They
may have outstanding gifts, but they're very obvious flaws. In
fact, we had a conversation in the vestry. We won't go into
it, but upon that very topic. Very interesting. But you see,
the difference is this. With the Word of the Lord, you
get the truth, and you get the full truth. You see, the Scripture gives
you a man's good points but it also highlights his failings
as well look at Solomon's dealings with women absolute disaster
here we can see the scripture giving you the truth outstanding
things set before us but very obvious failings but does it
not just prove to us that the best of men are simply but men
at best and that being said, we come here to our text. The fruit of the righteous is
a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise. Our text very naturally divides
itself into two. The first clause and a second
clause. So, considering first that first
clause, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. Now, as soon as we see the word
fruit, often preachers get all enthusiastic
and hand-wringing and there is much set before the people about
what they must do. Now, there are, of course, in
the Scriptures fruit, those things that are set forth outwardly, but we have to remember Where's the source of all things? Where's the source of all things?
This is nothing to do anyway with works. This is to do with
what a person has. What he has possession of. You see, it's put in a slightly
different way, isn't it? The fruit of the righteous is
a tree of life. This is the fruit that grows
upon Christ himself. There's two very obvious scriptures
that I would direct you to, which really set this meaning forth. They're both found in the book
of the Revelation. Firstly, chapter 2 and verse
7. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh,
I will give him to eat of the tree of life, feeding on Christ,
you see, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. But moving
further, and this really comes to the heart of the matter, the
very last chapter in the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, verses
1 and 2, and he showed me a pure river. This is John speaking
in symbolical terms. A pure river of water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb. I love that phrase. You know
that phrase from the authorised version has made it obviously
into mainstream language. Clear as crystal. We say something
that is as clear as crystal we can't be mistaken about it. In
the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river
was there a tree of life. That's Christ himself. And note
this here, Christ speaks about this church there was a tree
of life which bear 12 manner of fruits 12 is the number of
the church and yielded her fruit every month
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations
you know without question without question the greatest effect upon this
world is Christian people. Salt and light in this present
world. But why? But why? What is it that is unique about
a Christian? Well, I will unashamedly here
quote the late Mr. Henry Mahan, when he put it this
way. He says, a Christian is one who
has Christ, and a non-Christian is one who doesn't have Christ.
It is the possession within the soul of a person. Not a church, not a denomination,
not a doctrine as good as all those
things are and as right as all those things are in their place
this here is speaking of unity in the soul with a person and
thus here we see this you see the blessings of grace
pardon peace and righteousness can only derive from Christ and
none other. And thus the church must feed
upon him. Must feed upon him. You see, the branches on the
tree, they're in full flow at this time of year, aren't they?
You can't mistake them. But, and you see them there.
They have a purpose. You gaze upon them, they look
very nice. They're evidently living. But you see there's no fruit.
There's no life there, if the tree is dead. Or if there is
no tree. Thus, the tree is the source
of all life. And thus, there is no life outside
of Christ. None at all. The fruit of the
righteous is a tree of life. Nothing but Christ Himself. nothing but Christ himself. And
notice this, the source of the life is always something outside
of themselves. That's absolutely true. The problem
with us is we have a tendency to look inward. Now, I'm not
saying that introspection doesn't have its place. Of course it
does. Because if we don't look inwardly, we don't have an honest
picture of what we are. But the problem is when men look
inwardly, for hope. When they look inwardly for liberty. When they look inwardly for marks
of grace. I'll promise you this, you won't
find any. You won't find any. And if you
think you've got any, you're deceived. Because we don't have any. This
is why it's so useless when men go to the priest. I have neighbours actually in
Leeds where we live now. And they all, well the neighbours
we're familiar with all have this tradition, they all have
this background. You go to the priest and he absolves you. Well, no man, no other man can
absolve us of anything. We can't absolve ourselves, we
can't absolve anyone else. But you see, there's one here
who does cancel sin. The fruit of the righteous is
a tree of life to the righteous. You see, this
is a contrast to the world who are still living under the knowledge
of the tree of good and evil. In this sense, that which promises
so much. What did Satan say? Ye shall
be as gods. He promised so much but he delivered
a nothing. He delivered a nothing. You see, the tree which feeds
on that proves that in the day that ye eat thereof ye shall
surely die. But you see, we eat and we feed
from one of these trees. It's true this evening. We either
feed upon the Tree of Life or we feed upon the Tree of Adam. Thus here, we see a huge contrast. You know, we would remark as
we come to this second clause, we make no apology for this.
It's quite unique in the sense that even within one verse, King
Solomon does cover sometimes more than one subject. We ought
not to apologize for that. It's what the Scripture has given
us. But in this second clause we
read this, "...and he that winneth souls is wise. He that winneth souls is wise. And once again, we find ourselves
considering a much misunderstood and misrepresented clause here. And it's remarkable actually
just how many scriptures, how well-known scriptures are misunderstood. you see the general approach
would be for me now to exhort you to go button-holing the public
of Portsmouth with great fervor perhaps even
dangling the carrot that you would receive a greater reward
in heaven for doing so if you don't believe me you'll find
these hymns Will there be any stars in my crown? And so on
and so forth. Some of you know them. That's
the thought process that you receive a reward for service. But that is neither wise nor
a faithful rendering of the text here. You see, He that winneth
souls is wise is much deeper than that. He that winneth souls is wise."
Now, to win, to win, is to convince, firstly. It's to convince. Now, that is rarely undertaken
by the effect of button-holing. In fact, if you happen to have
a one-off conversation with somebody about a matter, It's very seldom
you will really convince them much of anything. There are exceptions
to that. You may visit your GP, or you
may visit your dentist, who are experts in their field, and you
may receive some good advice, and you may trust that advice,
and that would be wise. But on many other matters, you
wouldn't trust a person. You would have to know them.
You would have to have confidence that they knew what they were
saying. And, very often, this takes time. And consider this within the
context of the Gospel. It's very rare that a person
who has lived their whole life in cynicism and hostility to
the Gospel is going to be convinced by one conversation, particularly
when many, and we can't altogether blame them, see the hypocrisy
of religion at large. They see it simply as money-making
or a business venture. And thus, something else here
is necessary. It's needful for men to consider
their very own principles, the principles of which they live
life, the things that matter most to them. And thus here, he that winneth souls is wise
is a convincing work. But secondly, but note this,
in respect of soul winning, there's no convincing without authenticity. Authenticity. We have to really
believe what we are saying. To really believe it. And you
know, much is made, not altogether wrongly, of what men call experiential
religion. Much is said about what that
means, But where is this authenticity really born out? What's the test
of it all? Well, the test of it all is when
it costs us something. That's the test. That's when
it proves it's authentic. One example here. I apologise
for anybody here who has heard it before. But one of the starkest
examples of this was when we were living on the south coast
and before we moved to Portsmouth, we were living in Rustington,
I'd go over quite regularly to the Gospel Standard Library and
spend many a happy hour in there. And occasionally there'd be a
man who would come in who sold books, I think himself, privately. And he had been a missionary
to China And he was discussing this with
me. He'd been to China many times over many years. And he'd actually
been going so long, he'd gone before the Iron Curtain came
down. And he said that what was remarkable was when the Iron
Curtain came down, half the professing church overnight joined the Communist
Party. It's always been that way. It's
always been that way. There's a cost, isn't there?
He that endureth unto the end, the same shall be said. And the cost will come sooner
or later. You know, I'm not one of these people who goes about
constantly looking for trouble. Constantly looking for problems.
It's unwise for us to be like that, you know. Always wanting
to make opposition over the way. We know the way the world is
going isn't good. But quite often, we're faced
with things that are just inevitable. We have to face them, we have
to deal with them. And it's whether we stand or
not. And thus, there's a counting
of the cost. But thirdly here, there's no
convincing, there's no winning of souls without a grounding
in the truth. Knowing firmly, and note this,
what we believe and why we believe it. Now some men would write
that off as just, they'd just say it's letter truth. No. No. No. Not at all. The truth is only letter if it
means nothing to us. It's only latter if it has no
bearing upon us. Thus, after all, what are we
convincing men of? What are we convincing men of?
Surely, it must be man's total depravity. and the truth of his
need in an absolute saviour. But we've seen the consequence.
I've seen it amongst my generation and the generation below. The
consequences have not been grounded in the truth. What happens is
some slick individual comes along purporting to have all the answers And thus, men and women get carried
away and carried about, I should say, with every wind of doctrine. We have to be grounded in the
truth to be able to give unto every man a reason for the hope
that is within us. But you know there's something
else here as well, isn't there? There's the, to winning souls,
there's a displaying actually of compassion. There's a displaying
of compassion. What I'm saying is this. There
is absolutely no profit whatsoever in acting the Pharisee. Look at the New Testament. Speaks
to us so many times. One of the things that really
offended, we're considering that matter from John 8, for those
of you who were not here this morning, of the case where the
Jews are coming before Christ and they doubt who He is. They see Him simply as Well,
they accused him of being a devil, of being a Samaritan. They were offended by the fact
that the Lord Jesus preached to Samaritans. We've been about
such people. Why? Because actually, what the
Jews had got to say was of no comfort to them. And you know
it's true. It is true that if we really believe that the
Lord can save the vilest sinner, then it has to be a gospel that
speaks to the vilest sinner. It has to be. It has to be. But what was so often the spirit? Come not near to me, for I am
holier than thou. Pious conduct is deplorable. It's deplorable. And nobody's,
for a moment, don't get me wrong. Don't say Andy Robinson's been
an antinomian. I'm not excusing sin. I'm not
excusing. Sin is sin. Sin is sin. But think about this. I can't
condemn you. No preacher can condemn you. You've got to stand before the
Lord. You've got to stand before the Lord. But what do we read? This man receives. This man receiveth
sinners. He receives publicans and sinners. And oh, that was so offensive
to the religious world. Here we have it, you see. He
that winneth souls is wise. An aloof and condescending spirit
and a superior attitude was the way of the scribes and the Pharisees.
But This really brings the gospel under reproach, doesn't it? Really. That's the answer to it. Because,
really, this is man's approach. What does the Lord Jesus say?
What does he say? He says, my burden is easy. My yoke is easy. My burden is
light. The whole context of that, there,
was the fact that the Jews had added some 300 plus additions,
heavy weights upon people, in addition to the law. And it weighed
them down. And they would not relieve them
at all. Not for one moment. You see, it's altogether different.
Because, with Christ, With Christ, this is the difference, not with
man. But you see, with Christ there is here real forgiveness. Real forgiveness. And you see,
it's not a hard gospel. I used to hear this phrase sometimes. Some of you no doubt have heard
this phrase and preachers would be proud of it. They'd say, oh
it's a hard gospel, friends. It's a hard gospel, friends.
The gospel isn't hard. Our hearts are hard. The way
is hard, but the gospel isn't hard. That's the difference here. That's the difference here. And
yes, do we not see this? He that winneth souls is wise. It's interesting, there's an
alternative rendering here. In my margin here it says, he
that is wise winneth souls. He that is wise winneth souls. And that actually comes here
to the crescendo, to the conclusion of this. There's only ever really and
truly been one absolute wise man. Wisdom is the principal
thing we read. What does that mean? It means
Christ is the principal thing. We're coming back to our Gadsby
ain't distinctive here of Jesus Christ in all the Scriptures. Christ is the principal thing.
And thus, he that is wise winneth souls. There's only one true
soul winner. Only one. And that's Christ himself. Remember, all those Acts that he went about. As a man, he was indwelt with
the Holy Ghost. Filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit. Everything
that he went about and did throughout this Earth was Spirit-filled. And thus here, Though the convincing
work and the converting work is that of the Holy Ghost, again
the purpose here is to reveal and is to exalt and illuminate
the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, He has made us willing in
the day of His power. no question about that you see
if we're one we are convinced aren't we? we're convinced we
are convinced mind and soul and we won't be moved we won't be
moved you see here this is really the crux of Christian life, isn't it?
There's a lot of talk about what then called practical godliness,
but isn't it all boiled down to this? It all boils down to
God be merciful to me, a sinner, continuously. Looking unto Him
continuously. Continuing in the narrow way
which leadeth unto life continually. As we considered this morning,
He that seeth, watcheth upon me,
my words shall not taste death. It's a continual looking unto
Him. We never ever get past it. We can never get past it. because
he's the source of life he's the source of liberty he's all
that we have and thus here there's no winner there's no
sole winner other than Christ himself and thus in him we have
life and we have it more abundantly the fruit of the righteous is
a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise. Amen.