The Fruit that Glorifies God

All right, let's turn now to
John 15. Brother Barnard used to say,
get ready to get glad, mad, or sad, because that's what happens when we preach the truth of God's
Word. Somebody gets glad, somebody
gets mad, and somebody gets confused. But I'm going to deal with some
things tonight that I think are needful and necessary, and I believe will be productive
and edifying if the Spirit of God is in it. If he's not, we're
in trouble anyway. In John 15, beginning with verse
1, the Master says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the
husbandman. Now, here's a lesson in humility. Here's a lesson in sovereignty.
My father's the husbandman. In Matthew 15, verse 13, the
disciples came to the Master and they said, the Pharisees
were offended by your message. Our Lord had just taught them
that it wasn't that which goeth into the mouth that defile it,
but that which comes from the heart. And of course their religion
was in outward demonstration and outward exercise and outward
morality and outward righteousness, so naturally they were offended.
And the Master said this, he said, Every plant which my father
did not plant shall be rooted up. Every plant which my father
did not plant shall be rooted up. Now if I am a living Brank,
If I am in the true vine, it's not because I put myself there,
but because the Father, in his sovereign mercy, in his free
sovereign grace, grafted me in on purpose. That's so. And should
any person here tonight suppose that there's any reason in you
why you should have been chosen to live and not pass by in God's
wrath and judgment, You're in the dark concerning the first
principles of salvation and the gospel and grace and you haven't
even learned the gospel. Mephibosheth summed it up when
he said to David, who am I? Who am I? That you should show
such mercy to such a dead dog. Now we confess, every true believer,
every true branch that's in the living vine confesses that he
is there by the grace of God. Paul said that, I am what I am
by the grace of God. Who maketh thee to differ? What
hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if you received
it, why do you glory as if you didn't receive it? We're unworthy,
still we're undeserving, still we're ill-deserving, We're hell-deserving,
we're less than the least of all God's people, and it's only
his distinguishing grace that makes the difference. And I would
say to every great Christian here tonight, and there are some
great Christians, perhaps we don't see one another's greatness
because we're too close to one another. But great Christian,
I would say this to you, if it had not been for his grace, you'd
be just as great a sinner as you are a Christian. contender
for the faith, and there are those here tonight who do contend
for the faith. But you would have been a contender
for evil if it hadn't been for God's grace. And you who have
a seat in heaven would have a chain in hell if God had not chosen
you, ordained you to life, and brought you to Christ. And you,
Mike, who sing the grace of God, would be singing the songs of
vanity if it wasn't for His grace. Preacher of the gospel, you would
have been a promoter of tradition. You might have been a preacher,
but you wouldn't have been a preacher of the gospel. You'd have been
a promoter of tradition, like all the rest of them. And you
who are justified and sanctified and redeemed would have been
damned were it not for his sovereign, distinguishing grace. I am the
vine, but my father is the husband. Every plant which my father hath
not planted shall be rooted up. God plants the good vine, Satan
plants the tares. Satan's a planter, but he always
plants tares. He cannot plant wheat. And we
must not be proud. All of our garments are from
above. Rags are our only heritage and our only possession. Be not
proud. We have an eternal inheritance,
the Scripture says, undefiled, reserved in heaven that fadeth
not away But without his grace, about all we would have is sin
and misery and condemnation and looking forward to the judgment.
Somebody said, if you are planted in the garden of God's grace
to bear fruit for God's glory, he puts you there. He puts you
there. To God be the glory, great things
he hath done. I am the vine, my Father is the
husband. All right, look at verse 2 now.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. I told you last Sunday, if you
want to interpret the Scriptures, take a verse and put it up yonder
and then throw other Scriptures at it. If you knock it off, then
you got the wrong interpretation. So this branch in me that beareth
not fruit cannot be a true branch, because he taketh it away. He
burns it. He destroys it. It's without
life. It withers. So what this has
got to mean is this. These branches are reckoned to
be in him. They appear to be in him. They
seem to be in him. They claim to be in him. This
has to be the false professor of Christ. This has to be the
man who makes a profession or the woman, joins the church,
submits to the outward ordinances, learns doctrine, adopts the tradition,
seems to be in Christ, but who bears no fruit. Now the reason
that this branch bears no fruit is it has no root. That's the
first reason, it has no root. Turn over to Job 19. Job the
19th chapter. Now here's something Job said.
Here's something Job declares in Job chapter 19. Now man may
have the outward signs of religion, but not the spirit of religion. A man may have orthodoxy and
not have faith. A man may have doctrine and not
have life. A man may have morality and not
have heart. A man may have regret and not
have repentance. A man may have talk and not have
feeling. When you were a child, did you...
I remember doing this. I did this so much when I was
a little bitty fella. Out in the yard, when your mother
or father was out in the yard cutting grass or fruiting with
the flowers or working in the yard, did you ever go over and
pull some flowers? You'd pull them off of the bush
where they were growing or dandelions or something and you'd go dig
you up a little garden and you'd take those flowers and plant
them. You'd stick them in the ground and put dirt around them.
There they were sticking up there. Bloom on top, leaves green, stalks
straight. And then you went in, ate supper,
and went to bed, and the next morning you got up and went out
to look at your garden, and all your flowers had wilted. They
were all withered. They were all faded. And you
stand there and look at it, and it doesn't look like it looked
yesterday when you had them sticking in the ground, and they look
so fresh and beautiful, but they have no root. They can sustain
themselves for a little while, but having no nourishment and
no life and no root, they soon fall over. Now here's what Job
said. Now these people were looking
at his condition. He said in verse 9, God has stripped
me of my glory, taken the crown from my head. He hath destroyed
me on every side and I'm gone. Verse 13, he put my brethren
far from me. Verse 14, my kinfolks have failed,
my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in my house
and my maids count me a stranger. I called my servant and he gave
me no answer. Verse 18, young children despise
me, they speak against me. Verse 19, my inward friends abhorred
me. Now verse 20, my bone cleaveth
to my skin, to my flesh, I'm escaped with the skin of my teeth.
Have pity on me, my friends. The hand of God's touched me.
Why do you persecute me as God? You're not satisfied with my
flesh. Now watch this, verse 23. Oh, that my words were now
written. Oh, that they were printed in
a book. that they were graven with an iron pin and laid in
the rock forever. I know that my Redeemer liveth.
He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth And though
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold
and not another, though my reins be consumed within me. You ought
to say, why persecute we him? Seeing the root of the matter
is found in me." There's the key. You can't judge a branch
by its outward appearance. Some of these religious people
today appear to have all of the life, prosperity, glory of the
blessings of God, but they have no roots. Job appeared to have
nothing. His friends thought that he was
under the judgment of God. He had nothing. He was like a
plant in a dry, barren, parched field. But he said, I've got
the root. That's the difference. And what is that root? Back here
at verse 25, I know my Redeemer living. There's the root. There's
the root. That's the root of the matter.
That's the life of it. It's not outward signs that reveal
life. It's whether or not there's a
root, whether or not there's a union with Christ, whether
or not there is a joining to Him, where the life and the nourishment
all comes from Him. That's the key. That's the key. Another reason why these branches
bear no fruit, one, they have no root, they have no connection
with Christ. But turn to Matthew 21. Now,
this was helpful to me, I promised one of our men that I'd look
into this matter of fruit this week, and this is the outgrowth
of that study. These people bear no fruit, not
only because they have no root, they have no union with Christ,
and you can't judge by outward appearance. You cannot judge
by outward appearance, but the root has to be there, the root. Now, another reason why they
bear no fruit, they are satisfied and content to bear leaves. They're
really not interested in fruit. Like Christ said of the Pharisees,
they do their deeds, why? To be seen of men. They make
these long prayers to be seen of men. They give their alms
to be seen of men. They are satisfied to bear fruit,
to bear leaves rather, and no fruit to be seen of men. Now
look at Matthew. This will be interesting. Matthew 21, verse
18. Now in the morning, as he returned
into the city, he hungered. This is Christ. And when he saw
a fig tree, Mark says, afar off or in the way, he came to it
and found nothing thereon but leaves only. And he said to it
in judgment, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig tree withered
away. And when the disciples saw it,
they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away?
Now then, what does this teach? Well, you remember Sunday when
I said, if you're going to interpret the Scriptures, read what's before
and after. And when I spent some time reading
the chapter, what Christ had to say in the entire 21st chapter,
this judgment of the fig tree, this curse placed upon the fig
tree, this judicial act of Christ, was demonstrating what he was
going to do to Israel. This chapter is written to the
Pharisees, to the religious leaders, to the people of Israel. Let
me show you the key to that, down here at verse 43. He gives
several illustrations, and then he says, Therefore say unto you,
The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation,
the Gentiles bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever
shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whosoever it
shall fall it shall grind him to powder. And when the chief
priests and scribes heard this parable, they perceived he spake
of them." That's what he's talking about. Now here's the picture
here. The Jewish nation was covered
with what? It had no fruit, it had no fruit
of righteousness, and fruit of holiness, and fruit of truth,
and fruit of faith, and fruit of love, but it had a lot of
leaves of religious profession. The temple of the Lord, the temple
of the Lord, that's what they cried. They had the temple, they
had the sacrifices, they had the priest, they had the strict
observances of the law. They had the outward signs, but
no fruit. Nothing but leaves. When Christ
came to the Jewish nation, there was nothing but leaves. The people
neither knew God, loved God, or worshipped God. Just a mass
of profession unsupported by spirituality. And that's what
he's saying here. Look back here a few moments.
Down here at verse 28 of Matthew 21, a certain man had two sons.
He came to the first and said, go work in my vineyard. He answered
and said, I will not. But afterwards he repented and
went. came to the second and said, Likewise. And he answered
and said, I go, sir, and went. Now which of the two did the
will of the Father? They said, well, the first. Jesus said,
Verily I say unto you, the publicans and the hireless go into the
kingdom of God before you Jews. You claim to do the will of God
and won't do it. They say we won't do the will
of God. Afterwards, repent, and they do. Then he goes on down
to verse 33 and gives the parable of the man who planted the vineyard.
He sent his men down there to check on it, and they killed
him, sent another to kill him, and finally he sent his son down
there to kill him. And he said, this kingdom of
God will be taken from you and given to the nation, bringing
forth the fruits thereof. So here we've got this picture.
Christ is showing the Pharisees and showing the disciples what's
going to happen to the Jewish nation. He came to his own, his
own received him not. He came to the tree hungry, and
found nothing on it but leaves, and so he placed it under a curse,
and he said it shall be given to a nation that will bring forth
not leaves of profession, but fruit of godliness." But now
the scripture is bifocal. We have a primary meaning here,
but we have a lesson for us. You can't just say, well, that's
for the Jews, so it has no meaning for me. It does have a meaning
for us. It is written that the judgment is a demonstration of
God's judgment on the Jewish nation, which is now under judicial
blindness until the time of the Gentiles. But now here's a lesson
to you and me. I'm from fig country. I know
a little bit about fig trees. No fig trees grow here. I've
never seen one. They may do if I've never seen
one in this area. They grow all over Alabama. I was over in Ireland
in 1960 or 71 or 2 and found a fig tree in David Ellis' backyard. He didn't know what it was. He
took me out there and said, what on earth is this, that strange
looking tree there? I said, it's a fig tree. It had
ripe figs on it. He's afraid to eat them. I pulled
one off and ate it. Got sick, but I ate it. But anyway, the
fig tree, now this is interesting here. Carefully very carefully
stay with me very very carefully right here. This is the heart
of the message right here the fig tree Always puts forth its
fruit before its leaves always Early in the year you come to
a fig tree no leaves on it, but you'll see little green knobs
They'll be at the end and the points of the branches, those
little green knobs. Those are figs. Before there's
ever a leaf on that tree, there's a fig. And these little green
knobs begin to swell and to grow, and they turn out to be figs.
The leaves come always after the fruit. And by the time the
tree is covered with leaves, when you go to a fig tree that's
covered with leaves, it's got figs on it ready to eat. When a fig tree is in full foliage
and full leaf, unless it's a freak of nature, it's got healthy fruit
on it. And if it has not got healthy
fruit on it, if it's covered with leaves and does not have
fruit on it, it's a freak. Now then, sometimes these freaks
occur in a vineyard or in a forest, and they occur in the church
too. Our Lord was afar off, and he
saw this fig tree covered with leaves, being hungry, he went
up to it. It's supposed to have fruit on it, because the fruit
comes before the leaves. But it had nothing but leaves.
That's what it says here, nothing but leaves. Now, sometimes we have this experience
in the Church. I've seen this happen. They spring
up fast, these trees do, and they produce all the outward
signs of a healthy tree. In fact, sometimes they astonish
people with their zeal. Sometimes their enthusiasm is
amazing. They seem to have more enthusiasm
than the folks that have been growing in that vineyard for
15, 20 years. Suddenly, they're better than
the best. They're ready to teach before they're ever taught. They
run before they're ever sent. They have the answers to every
problem. It's amazing. It's amazing. They've skipped the fruit and
come to the leaf. I remember, I see this so often.
I remember one time that a young lady was converted in another
city. She had an amazing conversion. It was amazing. It just seemed
to be so bright, so sudden, so unusual. And about three months
after she was converted, she was an example to everyone, full
of zeal, enthusiasm, putting the old professors of Christ
to shame, embarrassing them. A group of Christians would meet,
she'd sit in the center of the room and tell them what was wrong
with them, what was wrong with the church, what was wrong with
this, what was wrong with that. Just had all of the outward signs,
you know, of a full-grown, fruit-bearing, productive tree. But it wasn't
a very short time until that tree was withered. Remember this. Mr. Spurgeon had this to say.
There must be figs before leaves. So in a Christian, there ought
to be some fruit before a profession. He says Paul declared, we give
ourselves first to the Lord and then to the church. And Spurgeon went on to say,
some people think it unnecessary to attend to heart work. They
attend a revival meeting, an invitation is given, they come
forward and declare that they're saved. They come forward in a great
show of emotion. Really, they have nothing but
a promise, nothing but a decision, nothing but a resolve. But quick
as a thought, they set themselves up as teachers. Quick as a thought,
they set themselves up as examples for others. Without test, without
trial, they declare themselves to be full-grown. They declare themselves to be
fruit trees worthy of the attention of all, and they invite everyone
to come and eat. Now, he says, I don't object
to the rapidity of conversion. On the contrary, I believe in
it. But I cannot judge the truth of your conversion until I see
the fruit of your conversion and the evidence of your conversion.
I care not how quickly the change may occur, but I want to see
the fruit of life and not the leaves of profession. You cannot
skip the fruit and come to the leaves. Foundations are never
seen, but they're as important as the building. He said, I can
run up a house with four walls, windows, and doors quickly, but
how long will it stand without a foundation? And that's what
James is saying. Show me your faith. Without your
works, I'll show you my faith by my works. Faith without works
is dead. So here's what Mr. Spurgeon went
on to say. Let's have some evidence of a
heart work before a public declaration of such. Let's have an evidence
of true faith before a declaration of faith. Let's have a union
with Christ before a union with the Church. Let's be taught before
we become teachers. Let's have some signs of fruit
before we boast of how many leaves we've got. Let's have some inward
intercession before we have so many outward prayers. Let's have
a new birth before we claim to be sons. You see what he's saying? But the reverse is practiced
today. Let somebody walk down an aisle
and shake the preacher's hand, and everybody goes wild. Everybody
gets excited. He's saved! He's saved! Everything's
all right now. Let's put him over to the junior
department. Let's give him a class to teach. Let's do this. Let's
do that. And then when when he falls along
the wayside, we say, well what happened? It takes a while for a tree to
grow and produce fruit. You know something else I noticed
here? Our Lord came to this tree, and it was a freak of nature.
There it stood with all of its leaves, and it caught the eye. Here it was. It caught the eye
of the Lord. It caught the eye of the disciples.
There it was. Maybe the other trees around
it just had these little old green knobs on them. Because
really, you know what it says over here in Mark? Over here
in Mark, I forget which chapter it is, but it says, "...the time
of the figs was not yet." Wasn't time for the figs. It wasn't
time for the fifth. And the other trees, they were
sitting around here, some had little knobs on them, maybe a
slight inclination that some leaves were going to come out
someday. But this tree, there it was, full of leaves. And it
caught the eye of the Lord, it caught the eye of the disciples,
it looked good, it looked inviting, and so they came up to it, only
to be disappointed. One old writer said this, persons
whose religion is all outward, are usually prominent because
they don't have enough grace to be humble. They usually stick
out in a crowd because they don't have enough grace to be modest. They're usually seen immediately
or heard immediately because they don't have enough grace. to be of a chondrite spirit.
They seek the highest seat, they seek leadership, they seek recognition,
but when you get close to them and look diligently into their
lives for the fruit of love and joy and humility and kindness
and faith and gentleness, it's not there. They walk publicly in a show
of religion but not privately with the living God. And you know, here is a tragedy. Sometimes these trees with all
the leaves with no fruit, sometimes they attract the company of good
men. You can't blame a person for
drawing near to a tree that looks so healthy and looks so promising
and looks so flourishing. There that tree was afar off.
The Scripture said they saw it afar off, and they rushed up
to it being hungry and inspected it. There's no fruit on this
tree, Lord. Here was the Master himself,
and here were the disciples. They didn't stand off and say,
well, that's no good, that's worthless. No, they had to get
up to it and look. And they found out when they
got there, after they'd inspected it, that it was no good. And
you know, sometimes I hate to see this, but sometimes I see
young converts that are swayed away by loudmouthed religionists.
I see young converts that are swayed away by novices. I see
young converts that are impressed because a person can pray loud,
or talk piously, or sanctimoniously, or appears to have something.
I see them led away by these people, and you stand over here
and say, well, what can I say? I can't tell him it's worthless.
He's got to find it out. I can't tell him he's going to
be hurt. He's got to go on and get hurt. I can't tell him he's
gone on a wild goose's chase, hunting fruit on that tree. It's
too early to bear fruit. It hasn't even got its roots
down yet. It hasn't got anything but leaves. But you have to let
him go and let him get hurt. It's like Jehu came by and said,
Oh, the zeal of the Lord, get on my chariot. I'm driving furiously. And they climbed on. They wound
up wrecked with him. And when these people come driving
by in J. Hughes' chariot, driving with
zeal and furiously, and leaving everybody in a cloud of dust,
you just stand back and say, I'll catch you on the next time
around. I'm going to wait and see how you make that first trip.
I'm going to wait till you go through a few rainy days. I'm
going to wait till you go through a few cloudy mornings. I'm going
to wait till you go through a few sleepless nights. I'm going to
wait till you go through a few valley of tears. I'm going to
wait and find out how many years you walk with God. I'll get you
on the way back." Most of them won't even be back. They wind
up over yonder junkyard somewhere. They are nothing but leaves,
leaves, leaves, that's all. But they attract the unsuspecting. A novice will attract a novice,
especially if they can make a lot of noise. And when our Lord saw
this tree way off there, it didn't have anything but leaves on it,
but he and his disciples walked all the way over there, hungry.
And when they got there and looked at it, our Lord cursed it. Cursed it. Now turn back to the
text. Let me give you a couple more
things here. In John 15. Fruit comes before leaves, or
the evidence of the fruit, the beginning of the fruit. It comes
before leaves. And we've got that thing backwards.
We want to get everybody all religious outwardly and get them
to talk religiously and orthodox and fundamental and maybe later
on they'll produce a little fruit. Well, that's not the way the
Scripture describes it. It says, Every branch in me that
beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Not judging by the leaves,
the outwards show, but the fruit. and every branch that beareth
fruit." Now, what is this fruit? This fruit is given to us in
Galatians 5. Will you turn over there? This
is the fruit. Galatians chapter 5, this is
the fruit, that you bear much fruit. He says, without me you
can't bear any fruit. Without me you can't bear any
fruit. Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit." It's
not converts. That be so Noah bore no fruit.
I was telling someone the other day, Judson stayed in Burma for
seven years without a convert. The missionary board wrote to
him and said, you better come home, nobody's being saved. He
said, I can't save people. God saves people. I'm over here
preaching, and I'm going to keep preaching until God saves somebody.
We could go through the Bible and we could find many people
there who never had any converts to boast of, but they bore fruit
for the glory of God. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is not in my hand. We ought to be, and we will be,
not ought to be, we will be witnesses for Christ in our lives, in our
conduct, in our conversation, in our attitude, we'll be witnesses
for Christ. If you really know the Savior,
you want others to know him. But this fruit is talking about
something else, and it's found in Galatians 5, verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit,
the fruit of the spiritual life, the fruit of the indwelling Spirit
is, number one, love. Now, I'm not asking can we talk
of love, can we boast of love, but do we actually feel it? Not
is it on your tongue, but is it in your heart, is it in my
heart? Genuine love. And it comes as their degrees
of love, just like those figs don't suddenly, when the husband
plants a fig tree, boom, they're full-grown figs. No, they grow.
They grow. Joy, second joy, is your religion,
somebody said, is your religion a chain that you drag about like
a convict, or is your religion like a refreshing spring that
boils up within your heart, from which you drink? quenched your
thirst and gives you joy. As Paul said, rejoice in the
Lord, the joy of Christ. And then peace,
the voice of Christ to calm the troubled waters of a man's heart.
This isn't peace, two fingers stuck up in the air. That's not
peace. Peace is a confidence in God's
love, a confidence in God's word, a confidence in God's purpose.
Though he slay me, I'll trust him. A confidence that he doeth
all things well. That's peace. Peace. Long-suffering. Patience. Oh,
how we need this. Patience. Patience in our hearts. Patience in our homes. Patience
in our jobs. Patience in our dealings with
others. Patience toward God to work His will and our good, patience
toward other people, especially patience toward those that are
nearest to us and dearest to us, from whom we expect so much
and to whom too often we give too little. Gentleness. What is gentleness? It's kindness.
Kindness. Now this world is rough and it's
cruel and it's mean, and the people of this world are cruel
and they're mean and they're rough, but a Christian is a person
of kindness. He hates to wound, he hates to
hurt, either in word or deed. His manners are kind. His conduct
is kind. His manners are courteous. He's
a kind person. You don't demonstrate the Spirit
of Christ or the fruit of the Spirit when you hurt others.
Kindness, kindness, goodness. This is benevolence, generosity. It's not just kindness in words,
but it's kindness in deed. I read a story about an old Scotch
woman. They were having some kind of meeting down at the church.
Some of the folks didn't have any place to go, and she said
to a whole bunch of them, said, well, come to my house. Says,
I've got room for five of you in my home. Got room for 5,000
of you in my heart. in my heart. Faith. What is this faith here? Well,
faith in God's grace, faith in God's mercy. But it's more than
that, it's a faithfulness. Faithfulness. That's what he's
talking about. We grow in faith, and as we grow
in faith, we grow in faithfulness. Meekness, humility. and then
temperance. This is the fruit of the Spirit.
This is what he's talking about here. Herein is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples. This
is the fruit we're talking about, not orthodoxy. And then he goes on to say this
in closing, in every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it
or pruneth it. Now then, let me make these statements.
The fruit-bearing branches are not perfect. If they were perfect,
God wouldn't have to prune them, would he? If they were to full
capacity, there wouldn't be any use of pruning them. If they
were bearing all that they could bear, there wouldn't be any use
of pruning it. But you and I know this. We are branches. We are true branches. We have
the root of the matter in us. We are in Christ. We have detected
a growth in fruit. We have detected a presence of
fruit. We know that there's a lot of our fruit that's not good
fruit, and we know that our fruit is not as good a fruit as it
could be, and we know we don't produce as much fruit as we could.
So God prunes us. Now pruning, get this, pruning
is not penalty. And you ought to listen carefully
to this now. God does not punish those for whom Christ has been
punished. I get so weary, weary, weary,
weary of meeting with Job's friends. We've got them all around us
in this generation. Job lost his family, Job lost
his wealth, Job lost everything, was sitting there on the ash
heap and here came his friends. What did you do? God's punishing
you, what do you do? They stayed seven days, one child
sat there and looked at it. Seven days. What do you do? Our Lord ran into the same outfit.
They came to a blind man, and they said, now who's seeing,
this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Christ said,
neither, but that the purpose of God might be done. I guarantee
you this, God will never punish me for sin if Christ was punished
for my sin. Never. If you're a child of God,
you will never. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ. and you have no right, you show
your lack of knowledge of Christ, you show your lack of knowledge
of his love, you show your lack of knowledge of his justice,
you show your lack of knowledge of his grace, you show your lack
of knowledge of his person, when you stand back and look at someone
who's afflicted and accuse them of doing wrong and getting punished
for it. Who was holier than Job in his
day? Who suffered the most? Job. Who
was more righteous than Abraham? Who was the one that was tried
the most? Abraham. Who was more godly than Paul?
Who was shipwrecked, three times stoned, twice shipwrecked, three
times scourged with 39 stripes save one, stayed in prison more
than anybody else? The reason that God chastens
us and prunes us is given right here. Look at it. Every branch
that beareth fruit, he'll prune it. Why? That it might bring
forth more fruit. That's the reason the farmer
goes out to the tree whenever he does it. I'm not a farmer,
but you go out and at a certain time of year you cut those branches. And if some novice is standing
by and says, hold it, you're going to kill it. Don't cut it
so far. I know what I'm doing. You ever
see a grape, a grapevine prune? They cut everything but the knob. That's about all they leave.
All those beautiful shoots that just grow everywhere, and the
grape, the man in charge goes out there and starts whacking
them all, all the way back to a knob. And you stand back and
say, boy, he sure killed that one. But I guarantee you next
year it'll bear more grapes than it ever bore before. And that's
the reason God does that. God prunes us and purges us and
tries us and cuts us back that we might, that our fruit might
grow. Now listen, who's going to love him the most? The one
to whom he forgave the most. That's what he said. He said
that himself. So what God's got to reveal to you and me is what?
How much he loved us. How much he loved us. Who's going
to rejoice more than the man whom God has set free from his
slavery? And the more he realizes it,
the more he's going to rejoice. Who can enjoy peace more than
the man that's been through many storms? Who can be more patient
than the man who's had cause to exercise it the most? Tribulation,
work is patient. Who can be more gentle than somebody
who's had his heart broken, huh? Who can be more benevolent than
a fellow sufferer? Who can be more faithful than
a dependent person? Who can be more humble than a
man that knows he is a beggar? every branch in me that beareth
fruit. I'll purge, I'll prune, I'll
cut it back, I'll deal severely with it. Why? Not to hurt it,
not to punish it, not to show my authority over it. I do it
so to bring forth more fruit. And I'll tell you, David said
this, he said, in turn to Psalm 119, Psalm 119, I think this, I think rather
than complaining about our trials and our afflictions, I think
we ought to give thanks for them, because it's a good indication
that God's doing something for us. David said in Psalm 119,
verse 71, it's good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.
Good for me. Good for me. Our Father, we thank Thee for
the Word. We pray that Thou would over come our stumblings and
failures in trying to present the message, and by thy Holy
Spirit's power teach thy people from thy word. Just give to each
of us a hunger and thirst to know what this book declares,
what our Master said, what the Holy Spirit's teaching us. O
Lord, deliver us from our own thoughts which are vanity, and
that all the terrible confining traditions of this world, of
this world's religion, that so binds us and keeps us from knowing
the liberty and the freedom and the joy which we have in Christ
Jesus our Lord, teach us, and O Lord, chasten us, afflict us,
that we might bring forth more fruit. We want these fruits of
the Spirit to be manifested in our hearts and in our outward
lives, and whatever it takes to produce these, we pray that
we might be given the grace to pray for it and to even seek
it, that we might be useful for thy glory and for the good of
this Church and these thy people. We ask this in the name of Christ
our Lord, the name which is above every name, the name before which
we bow and confess that he is Lord to thy glory. Amen.

The Fruit that Glorifies God

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The Fruit that Glorifies God

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