There is such a wealth of wisdom and gospel
truth in every single word uttered by our Lord, because He is wisdom. Everything He says is wise because
in Him are hidden all the treasures. of wisdom that is concealed in
his person, in his person. And here in John chapter 15 is
a gold mine to be digged, a gold nugget, a huge nugget in every
single word and verse. And now this is really what our
Lord is saying here is in the form of a simile or a parable. Our Lord is speaking to his disciples,
and he's giving a form of a parable, so this will take care of Wednesday
night's message, too, a parable. And there's three principal subjects
here in this passage of Scripture. You have the husbandman, which
is God, the husbandman, or you could call this name, you could
call him a farmer. or the vine dresser or land owner,
the husbandman, it's an old term for simply meaning a farmer. Then there's the vine or the
crop, the plant, the chief plant that the vine dresser plants,
who is Christ. And then there's the branches,
and these branches will be represented, or the branch represents true
and false believers, true and false. So let's look into this
passage of Scripture, John 15, beginning with verse 1. Christ
says in speaking to his disciples, I am the true vine, I am the
true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Now, it couldn't
be a plainer, a plainer and clearer concept of salvation, of God's
providence, of God ruling, and creation and life itself in this
illustration of the landowner and the vine or the vine dresser
and the vine or the farmer and his crop. Couldn't be a clearer
picture here that our Lord gives us. I want to look at these characters,
principal characters here in this passage. First, I want to
look at the husbandman. He says, I'm the true vine, Christ
speaking, and my father is the husbandman, the husbandman. God Almighty is the great creator,
or the great landowner. He owns all things. He created
it, and He owns all things. He's a provider of all things.
And here's some things that I've written down about a husbandman,
or that is a landowner, a husbandman. First of all, a husbandman is
somebody who has ground that he owns. He owns property, a
farmer. A farmer owns some land. A great
farmer that he is. He doesn't lease his property.
He owns it. He owns it. And he has to till it. And he
has seed to sow. He's got to sow it. He has trees
to plant. He has many things to do on his
property. He has servants to command. He's the one that gives
the order. And God Almighty is the great landowner. Oh, he owns
all the earth, all the universe, and everything in it. He has
seed to sow. That's his word. The Scripture
says it. He has trees to plant, which is principally Christ's.
is the tree of life. He has servants to command all
the spirits, angels, cherubim, seraphims, everything is at God's
disposal to command for this purpose of saving his people,
of operating this world. And Christ chiefly is his servant
that does the will of God. Secondly, about a husbandman
or a landowner, a farmer, a husbandman is one who is skillful and wise
and knows how to manage his estate. A good husbandman, that is. A
good landowner, a good farmer. Knows what he's doing. He knows
something about farming. He won't stay in business very long. A
farmer. God is all wise. He knows what
he's doing. God is all wise and he knows
all mysteries, purposes, and decrees because he himself has
purposed all things. He's ordered all things and they're
sure. All things. And it's not as some men think
that God owns all things and he leases it out to others to
take care of it for him. No, no, no. Not a great landowner,
not a great husbandman. A good businessman, and in this
case a good farmer, a good husbandman, oversees everything and has his
hands-on policy with a good husbandman. And God has all things in His
hands. In Him we live and move and have
our very being. Christ, God has us in His hands.
He knows exactly what to do, how to do it, when to do it.
Like a good farmer, he knows when to plant his seed according
to the seasons, according to his good time, his good pleasure,
his good will, according to his season. God knows when to plant
the seed of his worth. He knows all things. And he knows
exactly what to do, when to do, how to do it, and to accomplish
his good pleasure. And it will always bring forth
fruit. God is always successful. is
what he does, always successful. And a husbandman, thirdly, not
only does a husbandman own property and he's skillful at the management
of it, but thirdly, a husbandman has great stock, a good, a great
farmer. You go out here in the land,
this is a large farming community, you go out here in the surrounding
land, you see some large farms and men have a lot of resources,
have huge tractors and trucks and whatever, barns, and has
lots of resources, great stock, great wealth, vast resources. Well, everything is at God's
disposal. He owns all because He made all,
and He is all, and in all. And in Him, everyone, everything
dwells, and He receives, and everything receives its bounty
from our great Husbandman. Fourthly, here's another thing
about Husbandman. Husbandmen, good husbandmen, are hard workers. They're hard workers. A good
farmer, a man that's going to stay in business, especially
in today's market, today's economy, how things are going downhill.
A man better be smart, better be about his wits, and he better
be working. He better be out there at sunup and not come in
till sundown, or he's going to lose his property, right? A good
husbandman is a hard worker. Christ said, My Father worketh,
and I work too. I work to hear the two I work
nothing. No, nothing is hard work to God Almighty, but to
be sure he works. If he ever stops working, Charles,
this thing falls apart, right? He always he's always busy in
a sense in which God rested from his work. That's to show us Christ,
our rest that we rest in him. We cease from our work, but God
never ceases working. He works in everything, everybody
and everything in all. He works. He never stops working. Fifthly, something else about
a husbandman. Husbandmen, or farmers, are vital. We couldn't exist without farmers,
could we? And I believe we take them for
granted. We couldn't exist without them. They grow our food. We've
got to have farmers. They grow our food. It's vital.
Farmers are indispensable. We can't do without them. Scripture
says, It is he that hath made us, not we ourselves. It's God
who keeps and God who saves, God who gives us everything we
have. By his grace, we are and have what we are. And principally,
as farmers plant the food that we so desperately need, God is
the one who planted Christ, this vine we're going to talk about.
He's the one that sent his son into the world, that vine, that
fruitful vine, without whom there is no life. If God wasn't going
to send Christ, this whole thing is going to perish. But in Christ,
there's going to be fruit. There's going to be life in Christ.
Sixthly, something else about a husband. They do things mostly
for their own benefit. There's not a farmer out here,
no matter what he says, he's not in business to feed people. Although we reap the benefits,
we reap the reward, we eat the food that they prepare. But farmers
aren't, it's too hard a work, Charles, for a man to just say,
I'm doing this so everybody can have something to eat. No, no,
no, no, come on. They're doing it for, that's what everybody
works for, to earn a living, right? But they do it for their
own profit, for their own profit. God does all things for his own
glory, for his own, and we reap the benefits. We reap the profit
from it. God has created all things. The
scripture says all things were created by him and for him. For his pleasure they are and
were created for his glory, his praise. And God Almighty is the
husbandman. And it was God the Father that,
like I said, planted this seed. When the angels appeared to Mary
and Joseph, You remember what they said to them? It was said
to Joseph, I believe. The angel said, Don't fear Joseph,
be not afraid to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for thy wife.
Because that holy thing in her, that seed, that rare seed that's
in her, is of the Holy Spirit. And it was God that planted that
thing, this vine, this crop, this fruitful plant, this one-of-a-kind
species, both God and man, in the womb of that virgin. It was
God that did that. And as a root out of dry ground,
Christ came forth divine. I want you to look at this over
in Psalm 80 with me. Psalm 80. Do you remember how
that after the child was born, all the children were threatened
Herod threatened the children's lives. He wanted to kill them,
looking for the Christ. Do you remember when Joseph and
Mary fled to Egypt? They fled to Egypt. There's a
verse of Scripture that says they did that because God said,
I'll call my son out of Egypt. There's a verse of Scripture,
a prophecy given for every move that was made by Christ throughout
his life, proving who he is. Well, it said that God would
call his son out of Egypt. Well, look at this. This is beautiful.
I've never really noticed this before. Psalm 80, verse 8. It says, now remember, they fled
to Egypt. This little child, this little
root, went into Egypt with his mama and daddy. Verse 8, Thou
hast bought a vine out of Egypt, a vine out of Egypt, and hast
cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparest room before
it." John said, prepare you the way of the Lord. Thou preparest
room for it, and it caused it to take deep root, deep root,
and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the
shadow of it, under the shadow of his wings, of that vine. The
boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars, the cedars of
God, says my Marge. And that vine sent out her boughs
under the sea and her branches under the river. If you go on
to read that passage later on, you'll see how that vine was
broken down and killed, which is a type of Christ being broken
for us. But Christ said, I'm the true
vine, back in John 15. I'm the true vine, the only vine,
the only begotten of God. Let's look at this vine. That's
God the Father who is the husband. He's the great landowner. And
Christ said, I'm the vine. I'm the vine. Now, a vine. Here's some things to note about
a vine. A vine, and many of you own property,
and on that property you have growing different plants. Some may have vines. I don't
know if anybody in here has any grapevines or has any dealings
with vines, but a vine is a plant that's not as stately or as beautiful,
or as strong-looking, or as beautiful as, say, an oak tree, or a dogwood,
or a redwood tree. It's just a gnarled-looking,
twisted vine, right? The Scripture says, "...he shall
grow up before Him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form, no comeliness."
And when we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire.
A vine, a plain, ordinary, ugly vine. A man, like I said, a plain
brown wrapper, a Jewish man. He probably had a long nose and
curly hair if you looked at him. He's just a... I hope no Jews
hear this. There's no reflection on Jews
or any beautiful Jewish people like anybody else. But he was
just a plain, ordinary man. The Scripture plainly says evidently
he was an ugly man. or not much to look at, and not
much form or a comeliness in him that we should desire. Well,
if you'll notice an old, ugly, gnarled, and twisted grapevine.
Anybody have grapes on their property? Well, if you do, they're
ugly and twisted and gnarled, aren't they? And next to that
beautiful, or next to that ugly vine, there may be a beautiful
dogwood just blooming and bringing forth beautiful flowers and so
forth. But you'll know them by their fruits. There might be
a crab apple next to that grapevine, that muscadine grapevine. You'll
know them by their fruits, what they bring forth. And Christ
is known by what he brought forth, not by what you see, not by what
you see with these eyes, not what you see with these eyes,
but with the Spirit. Another thing about a vine, a vine is
not stately and strong and beautiful as, say, some other plants, but
a vine It's very, very fruitful, a grapevine. There's probably
more fruit per square inch on a grapevine than any other plant,
right? More fruit, full of sap. And Christ, the Scripture says
we read in Colossians 2, is full. He's full. Christ is the fullness
of the Godhead in a body. All the fullness of God was contained
in this man, in this God. Full of grace and truth, the
Scripture says. Full. Full. And every time he opened
his mouth, the Scripture says, grace poured from his lip. There's
some grapes that I like particularly well, scuppernong. And boy, they're the juiciest
and the biggest. Oh, they're great. And buddy,
you just touch them and they just burst forth with flavor
and juice. It says grace poured from his
lip. Every time he opened his mouth, everywhere he went, everything
he did, grace, grace, full of grace, everything he did. full
of grace and truth. Everything he said was truth,
his wisdom, profound, awesome truth, the Word of God in a man. And another thing about vines.
A vine is the hardiest of all. It may not look like much. Do
you all have any honeysuckle? Try to get rid of them. Can't do it. And they're hardy.
Oh, they're hardy plants. You cut one back and what does
happen? It multiplies. It multiplied. Christ was cut
down. Cut down. And Satan and the devils and
the people thought they got rid of Him. He multiplied. Because
He was cut down, He spread forth throughout all the world. Throughout
all the world. Shot forth innumerable plants
that grew up through that dead plant, that dead vine. And a
vine usually spreads. There's something about a vine.
It spreads. And now the Scripture says, "...of His kingdom and
reign is no end." It never quits, never stops. To the ends of the
earth, east to west, all the world is filled with this vine,
the vine of Christ. Another thing about a vine, fifthly,
a vine may bend, but you can't hardly break it, can you? Oh, you can take a vine and twist
it and turn it and bend it. I've just cleared property. I
know what I'm talking about. I ran into all kinds of them.
And I'm telling you, they give you fifths. Satan tried to break him, didn't
he? Everybody tried to. He bore the weight of a world
of sin. But Terry, he didn't break. He
bent. He bowed. He bowed low. He died. He bent. Have you ever
been out cutting wood or something and something falls on a little
sapling or a vine or something and you remove it? What does
it do? Springs skyward. Christ bent
under the weight of our sin. But once that sin was removed
and put away, he shot skyward, rose to heaven itself. That vine,
the vine. Another thing about a vine. A
vine is the main trunk or lifeline to all the branches. Now, man,
this gets back to our text here. Look at verse 2. He says, Every
branch in me, every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he
taketh away." Now, in the visible church today, just like right
here, there's some people in here, and I hate to say this,
but it's just so. There's some people in here,
I don't know who, God knows, but it's always the case. In
the visible church, or what appears to be the church, there's sheep
and goats. Yeah, there is. There's true
disciples and there's false disciples. There's people that just believe
in the head, and there's people that know Christ in their heart.
And this is what he's talking about here. There's some branches
that appear to be in Christ, but they appear to be in the
body, but they're just hangers-on. There's some truly attached branches
grafted in by faith into Christ, but to some, just hanging on.
Go right out here on our property, and there's a little tree, a
little cherry tree. Ellen gave me the money to plant
it. A flowering cherry. And it looks
good. The whole tree looks pretty good.
It's pretty healthy. There's one branch on that thing.
It's dead. I mean, it's attached. It seems
to be a part of the tree right now, but it's dead. No leaves
on it. No fruit on it. It didn't bloom
this spring. And no leaves on it now. And
there's some people in every congregation that had no leaves,
no fruit, dead, waiting for the time when the great landowner,
it says, gets Solomon. But it's so. And every branch
that appears to be in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh
it away, taketh it away. But every branch that bears fruit,
he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Now, this
is a true believer, a true follower of Christ, a true believer. God
prunes his true followers, a true believer. He cuts, he molds,
he makes, he's molding us, he's conforming us to the image of
Christ. There's a special type of horticulture that's called I
don't know exactly how to pronounce it. Topiary or something like
that, where they train vines and so forth to climb and to
make figures and so forth. Well, that's what he does with
his people, and it bends us and prunes us, cuts off things that
aren't needed and necessary, and bends us, molds us, and makes
us just like Christ, his people, his true branches. Like a father
chasing whom he loves. prunes these branches in order
to make them more like the vine. The vine. He wants them to bear
fruit just like the vine. Now look at verse 3. He says,
Now you are clean, you are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you. Now in context of what he just said, purging
it, every branch that bears fruit he purges or makes clean that
it may bring forth more fruit. And he says, Now you are clean,
you are purged through the word which I have spoken unto you.
He said, you remember back when he was talking to all of them
back in chapter 13, he said, now you're clean. Remember when
he was washing feet? He said, you're clean. But not all of
you. Not all of you. But you're clean,
he says, through the Word. You're purged. That is, God's
Word purges our conscience from dead works. It purges us. It cleans us. It fills up all. Let me just give you a scripture.
It'll explain it. All scriptures. are profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that the man
of God may be throughly furnished, perfect, perfect, throughly furnished
unto all good works. Every scripture God uses profitably
for his people. Look at verse 4, for their purging,
for their cleansing. Verse 4, he says, Abide in me,
every branch in me, in me, abiding in me. Now, a wise vine dresser,
if old Earl Cochran were here, he'd tell us something about
this, but I did some reading on it, and a vine dresser, or
a wine master, a successful grape grower, a wine, a man that owns
a winery, once he comes up with a perfect strain of grapes, once
he comes up with that grape of all grapes, that strain, that
beautiful, that perfect, that great cash crop, the thing that's
going to bring him success. Then everything is geared toward
that from there on out. He grafts into that vine. Everything, he wants to be like
that vine. And Christ, Christ is God's chosen
vessel. His cash crop. God gets all the
glory. Christ came to do the will of
the Father, and God was well pleased with this vine, with
the fruit of his Son, well pleased with it. And so, like Bernard
said, he wants to have a whole bunch of boys just like him,
just like his one begotten Son, Christ. And so he grafts into
this vine. Finally, he puts you in Christ
and molds you and conforms you and makes you, wants you to be
just like him. Not like Violet, like him, like a wildflower,
Violet, but like divine, bearing fruit like Christ, his well-beloved. And God grafts us into Christ,
all those that he chose to save, to bring forth fruit unto salvation. Of God, are you in Christ? Are you in Him? He grafts into
Christ every believer, every child of God, and only the husbandman
decides who gets grafted in. He just doesn't go out there
one day and all of a sudden, hey, well you branches hung on
to the vine. I don't know, he grafts them
in. He grafts them in. Well, once successfully attached
to the vine, once, if a man does it right, if he knows what he's
doing, This grafting process, I don't know if you ever read
anything about it, but once you graft and do it properly, do
all the proper watering and the covering and the dressing the
wound, we can just go into every part of it. Dressing the wound
and watering, proper watering and fertilizing and so forth,
grafting this vine, this little tender shoot, little tender plant
into this vine of his, once it takes hold, it's attached to
me. And that vine, once it takes
hold, that vine, Start shooting the sap into that branch. Start shooting the blood, or
the sap, the chlorophyll, into that vine. And that vine, or
that branch, is going to live as long as that vine lives. As
long as that vine lives. And everything that the vine
has, it imparts to the branches. You see, the vine imbibes, or
drinks in a copious Humor, doesn't it, Rick? Rick knows what I'm
talking about. And after it communicates it
to the branches. In other words, look at John
1 with me. John chapter 1, verse 16. Brother Rick and I got a kick
out of that. We were reading one of the old writers, Benjamin
Teach. And he said, the vine imbibes
our drinks in a copious humor, which it after communicates to
the branch. You know what he's saying? Everything that Christ
has, he gives to his people. in plain language. John 1, verse
16 says, "...of his fulness have all we received, grace for grace."
In other words, as Christ is full of grace and truth and one
with the Father and life in himself, of the fulness of Christ, we
receive. We receive all the fulness of
Christ. Now, back to the text. Look at
verse 4. He says, "...abide in me, and
I in you." cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in
the vine. No more can you except you abide
in me. Some of you have apple trees.
One of my favorites is probably the golden delicious. I like
those big yellow apples. But if you go up and look at
one of these beautiful trees in peak season when it's really
got laden down with apples, You look at those beautiful apples
and say, oh, aren't those beautiful? The fruit of that tree is so
beautiful. But the apple doesn't deserve credit. What does? That old, gnarled-looking, twisted,
old oak tree that's bearing up those apples. Right? You cut
down that, you cut an oak, thank you, Vala, old apple tree that's
bearing up those, you ever seen an oak bear apples? I haven't
either. But bearing the tree deserves all the credit, right?
Not the fruit. And if you bear fruit, if you're
a believer, like Christ said, if you're in Him, you don't get
the credit. You can't do anything except
you abide in Him. All of our life is in Him. In
Him. In Him. All credit goes to the
tree, to the vine, to Christ. And verse 5, and Christ said,
I'm the vine. You're just branches. You're
just branches. Oh, it's a blessing to be a branch.
But just remember, you're just a branch. Just a branch. You're not the vine. You don't
have life in yourself. Your life is drawn from Christ. You receive everything that you
have from Christ. From Christ. I'm the vine. You
remember that, he said. I'm the vine. You are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. Without me, you can
do nothing. Nothing. Unless that tree is
strongly rooted, firmly established, it's not going anywhere. Unless
that tree is going down, unless that tree's roots go way deep
down into where there's water and nutrients, everything needful. That little branch up there about
to be just swayed with the wind, and it's just under all sorts
of trials and tribulations. What's the hope of that branch?
That tree's rooted. Rooted. As long as that tree
stands now, that branch is going to stand, right? And rooted and
grounded in Christ, as long as He stands, our firm foundation,
we stand. As long as He's rooted with the
Father, as long as He's seated with the Father, And accepted
by the Father, we're accepted in Him. Why? We're part of the
tree. Part of the tree. But He's the vine. Remember that.
Without Me, you can do nothing. He is our lifeline. Because He
lived on this earth and established righteousness as a man, because
He did that, you're righteous. You can't do anything to establish
it. God doesn't approve of what you did. Doesn't do it. Nobody,
nobody in here can live like God demands of us. Can't do it. We're altogether un-God, unprofitable,
unrighteous, sinful, the scripture said, but not Christ. Christ,
the only man God ever approved of. And only in Christ will God
approve of us. That's the foundation of the
truth. Foundation. Because he lived and establishes
righteousness as a man, then we can live with God, be righteous
in God's presence. Because he died, except a corner
of wheat fall into the ground and die, it won't bring forth
fruit. Because God killed his son and
satisfied his justice, that is, punished my sin in his son. Because of that, I'm justified.
I'm clear. I'm free. My record's clear. And because he arose, it's all
necessary. Because he arose and ever liveth
now. Because he lived, John. Because
he died. Because he lives again. If he hadn't risen from the grave,
that means the sacrifice wasn't accepted. That he's just another
man that died. It didn't do me any good. But
because he lives. That's what he says here. Without
me, you can do nothing. I cut some roses down out of
our yard the other day and brought them in and put them in a glass
of water. They looked beautiful for a while. Beautiful. But they're dying. And we've
already thrown away a couple of them. And we'll soon forget
them. And folks, and this is what the
message was about this morning. except you abide in Christ by
faith. He that abideth in me, except
we abide in Christ by faith, we're just fit for the burning
branches to be taken away. And we might look good for a
while. We might look like we prove to
be in the vine, but in the end, we'll quickly be forgotten, quickly
be forgotten. Well, verse 6, he said, if a
man abide not in me, though he's cast forth as a branch, that's
what he's saying here. If he abide not in Christ truly
by heart, faith, and he just has a head knowledge or just
made a profession of faith and he feels like he's all fixed
up or he's just a religious sort of fellow or just had an outward
reformation where he really doesn't know and love and believe and
trust in and look to, depend upon, following after the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's just a dead branch, withered.
Soon will wither when strong winds, when trials, when the
sun scorching heat, all these things come along. That little
branch, that dead branch, that branch out there is going to
drop off someday. I'm not going to even have to
cut it off. It'll drop off. And that's what happens in apostasy.
People just leave. They drop out. That it might
be made manifest if they're not of us. And some people appear
to be branches, yet in the end turned out to be dead branches.
How can you tell? How can you tell a true branch
from a dead one? A true branch from a dead one. Look at verse
7. If you abide in me and my words
abide in you, you shall ask what you will and
it shall be done to you. Christ's word. He said, if you
abide in me and my words abide in you, principally, chiefly,
The Word of Christ dwells in you richly in God's people. The Word of God, Christ, abides
in them. They feed upon... This is the
reason I make much of this thing a public worship. God's people,
they feed upon, they live upon Christ. And every time He's preached,
they want to be here and hear about Him. I venture to say that
many of you, most of you, I'll take somebody, for example, Rick
and Jenny. If we were going to have, every
Tuesday night, we were going to have an honor of Sarah Williams
night. Anybody want to hear about Sarah,
we're going to laud her, talk about her, brag about Sarah.
We'll show films, we'll show pictures of Sarah. Who do you
reckon would be here early? Front row, Rick and Jenny, every
time. rain or sleet, snow or hail. Go ahead. You can tell the same
thing. You show the same picture over and over again. Oh, thank
you, Keith. Same picture. Same thing with the disciple
of Christ. I'm just telling the same old story that's been told
here for now 15 years now. Same old story. Old, old story. So tell it to me. Tell me the
old, old story. I forget so soon. I want to hear
it again. And God's people, they live on Christ. They feed off
of Him, Him and His gospel. As newborn babes, they desire
the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby. They
love to hear about Christ. I tell you, this is the reason
it's so perplexing to me. I say this from the bottom of
my heart. I couldn't do without this. If
I wasn't preaching, I'd sure be here. Hearing it, I've got
to have it. I've got to have the gospel.
I've got to hear Christ preach. I don't have to preach. I sure
got to hear somebody preaching that. Yeah, I do, and I feed
off. I need man, I need bread every
day. And if your appetite decreases, something's wrong. This is what
I say over and over again. And eventually, Jeanette, eventually
it proves to be fatal, doesn't it? It proves that there really
is a bad sickness within if the appetite decreases. And this
is the reason I exhort and admonish and encourage and just over and
over again. Like I said, I say this over
and over, eat your green beans, now you need them. And for a
long, you know, I didn't used to like green beans when I was
a kid. My dad, I remember one time, my dad was sitting at the
table, and every dad makes his daughter eat, or his son, his
child eat green beans. I don't know what it is about
green beans. But I was sitting there, and I remember this distinctly. I was probably four or five years
old, Hannah's age, and I hope she doesn't hear this. She'll
think she doesn't have to eat her green bean. But he said, eat your green
bean. I was just picking it in a plate,
you know. Eat them. Daddy don't like them. I said, eat your green bean.
Now my dad, you do what he says. I ate them. Took one big bite, chewed them
up. and threw him up. I threw him up on my plate. He
said, honey, don't ever make him eat green beans again. As
a rule, said he. But you know what? Now, I love
green beans. I love them. Eat your green beans. You
come, you sit, you hear, you listen. Might not be particularly
enjoyable to you or whatever right now, but eat them. Oh,
this is good, isn't it? This is good food. Green beans,
love them. But if your child doesn't say
they don't like them, don't make them eat them. Throw them up. Throw them up. Well, look at
the branches. Let's look at the branches. How can you tell a
branch? Here's some things about a branch, and I'll hurry. A branch,
how can you tell a true branch? A branch is, first of all, supported
by the vine. It's supported by the vine. And
everybody in Christ, they lean upon Him. They look unto Him. Not to their own understanding.
Not upon their own strength. They're leaning on Him. Oh, they
may venture out a little ways, but they'll find out that it's
rough going. And you stay close to the tree. You stay in there close. Don't
run out there. You'll feel the breeze. You'll feel the strong
wind and the hot sun. Stay close to the tree. You trust
Christ and Him alone. Look to Him. Follow Him. A Christian,
like I said this morning, a believer is principally a disciple, a
follower. A follower of a person. A follower. You take that and eat it. A follower. A follower. A disciple. A follower. Everybody in Christ's
day that was a true disciple was following Him, following
Him, with Him, in Him. Here's another thing about branches.
They're supported by the vine. Secondly, branches grow from
the vine. And this is what I was just trying
to say. Branches grow from this vine. They come forth from the
vine. Some are slow, slow growers, but they do grow. They do grow. Some of you may not see much
progress in yourselves, but other people can see it. They grow
up into Him. in all things. Another thing
about branches, branches look a great deal like the vine, don't
they? You know, on a grape vine, you're
not going to have some branches look like an apple tree. They
look like grapes. And everything God creates, in
the image of something, He creates it after its kind, after His
kind. And when He creates and puts
somebody in Christ, He creates them, He makes them a new creature
in Christ. He makes them look like Christ.
They become like him. A believer is a new creation
that bears his image. Fourthly, and I'm speaking fast
here, I want to get through this. Branches bear fruit. This seems to be the principle
thing that Christ is saying here. That a branch, to truly appear
to be a branch, or truly be a branch, it bears fruit. It bears fruit. No fruit, no root. No fruit, then there's no root
in us, like that branch out there. The fruit of the Spirit is what?
Love. Love. Principally, love to God, love
to Christ, love to His gospel, love to His people. It always
manifests itself for these things, a child of God. Loves God, loves
His gospel. I mean, John loves God as God,
too. There's a key there. Loves God
as the sovereign God. Like old Elijah said, if God
be God, how long you halt between two opinions? Now, either you
know God and love God and worship God as God, or you just worship
Baal, some other God, or man, or whatever. But love, joy, they
rejoice in the gospel. God's people all rejoice in the
gospel. They have a joy, joy, and they
feel this joy, have a joy in Christ. Peace, that is, they
have peace with God through Christ. And they have some, there's got
to be some peace of conscience in this thing, or you're not
rightly trusting Christ. Long suffering, long suffering,
waiting on the Lord, gentleness, gentleness, goodness, faith,
faith, meekness, temperance, fruit, all these things. are
in principle in every branch, every branch, every branch. It's all there in its fullest
in the vine, all in the fullest in the vine, but it's in principle
in the branches, all of them. They say, if you abide in me
and my words abide in you, you ask what you will, it shall be
done by you, or it shall be done unto you, unto you. And just
like a little child with his father. John read that back in
the study. 1 John 5, I'll just turn real
fast and read it to you. He said, this is the confidence
that we have in Him, in Christ, that if we ask anything according
to His will, what is God's will? Christ, the glorified Son, the
glory of Himself. If we ask anything in the name
of Christ, according to the will of the Father, that is, for His
glory, for our eternal good, He hears us. And we know that
he hears us, and whatever we ask, we know we have the petitions
that we desire. Like a kind father. Daddy, I
need something. He knows what you have need of.
If you ask for the things you need, you'll get them. You'll
get need, need. Verse 8. And this is how my Father
is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so shall you be my
disciples. It's all for the glory of God.
It's all for the glory. You know, a vine dresser, a wine
master, he does everything principally to show forth his wares. When
he finally harvests those grapes and brings forth that vintage
wine and goes and shows it forth, He does it for His own glory,
and so that all will acknowledge His skill as a winemaster, as
a winemaker, as a vinedresser. And everything is for the glory
of God, and the glory and the admiration of the wine, of the
vinedresser, God Almighty, the husband. And it's the glory of
God to take an old, dead-looking, dry branch, such as we are by
nature, and graft it into that living vine. Watch that thing.
When we bought these little saplings, you know, they didn't look like
much, didn't look like they were going to make it. Planted it, watered
them, took care of them and so forth. And someday, hopefully,
they're going to blossom into beautiful trees. And we're going
to sit out there and enjoy the shade of them and the fruit of
them. And it's all for the glory of
God, the husbandman. Stand with me and I'll dismiss
this in prayer. Our Father, we thank You for
this beautiful, beautiful parable and the words of our Lord. Your
words that You spoke as a man upon this earth. And we've fed
a little bit. We've fed upon Christ. We see
Him as that vine. We see our Father as the great
landowner and vine dresser. We thank You. We thank You for
Your Word. It's what we feast upon. And
we thank You above all, though, that Christ was poured out His
soul unto death, that He was crushed and bruised as those
grapes and brought forth the wine of His blood, thereby redeeming our souls and
cleansing our evil person. Because of Him, we live. Because
He lives, we live also. We thank you for Christ divine.
Now go with us. May we feed upon these words
for a little while longer until we meet again. In Christ's name
we met together and pray these things. Amen. you