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First Peter chapter 5 and verse one.
The elders which are among you I adore, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. He or shepherd the flock of God which is among you, taking or exercising you oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but have a ready mind. Just that little expression in verse 2.
Feed or shepherd the flock of God.
To begin the conference that in the first stanza with him, Speaking of our Lord Jesus with him is all our business now.
And that him had a very personal.
Reflection. Really.
In the relationship of our individual souls with the Lord Jesus and our business with Him. The first scripture that was read was in Colossians 2 in the prayer meeting as well. And the thought in the scripture was our head and the nourishment that we received from himself.
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We just sang about the Lord is our shepherd and the one that feeds us, as well as the Scripture and first Peter.
With that.
But the Lord has brought before us. Brethren, I suggest that we take up John's Gospel, chapter 15, where we have the Lord both shepherding us and nourishing us with instructions in view of the time, like now when He's not physically present with us as He was preparing his disciples for such a time.
I think that would be very nice. Done.
John, Chapter 15.
I am the true vine.
And my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 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 you can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered.
And men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye may bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
This is my commandment, but you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what is Lord doeth. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
He has not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, we know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord.
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they have kept my saying they will keep yours also.
But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin.
He that hateth me, hateth my father also.
If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin.
But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated Me without a cause. But when the comforters come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
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The Lord Jesus spoke these words to his disciples.
At the end of his life, before he went to the cross.
And these disciples have been with the Lord Jesus.
Most of them perhaps for 3 1/2 years or so.
And they had been brought into a relationship with the Lord, that with him was all their business. Their daily lives were completely connected with His life. Their lives were connected with His name.
And now the Lord Jesus knows that he is going to leave them to go to the cross, and from there to return to the Father's house. And so He's making these provisions for them for the time when they will be absent physically from each other.
But what particularly brought this scripture to my mind is that He is still divine, and there it's a necessity for them that they have the daily nourishment from Himself.
And that they be able to have that fellowship with himself. He had shepherded them, He had fed them, and now he makes a way in which they will continue to be shepherded.
And to be fed and we fall into that place, we need the Lord. And here in this chapter we have a provision that was being made for them and being made for us this morning that we may have that necessary.
Nourishment from the Lord Jesus with whom is to be all our business. Think how much it their business was with the Lord when you think that.
A couple of days after these words were spoken, they're in a in a room and their doors are shut. The Lord Jesus has been crucified, and they're afraid.
What made them afraid? They were identified with the Lord Jesus in that world and in that city where they were and is so identified with the Lord Jesus. He had been put to death. What was going to happen to them? Were they going to lose their lives as well? Well, whether we're conscious always of that truth or not, it's the same with us. We bear the name of the Lord Jesus and whatever his place in the world, as he teaches us in this chapter and throughout the the New Testament.
So is our place in the world as well. And so we have something that the Lord can use to feed our souls this morning.
And it's particularly, I suggest, in connection with testimony to the world that this chapter really begins.
In the previous two chapters, which are also part of what we have often called the Upper Room ministry, the Lord is perhaps more concerned with their relations with Himself and with one another. But then there's a break at the end of the 14th chapter, isn't there? And the Lord says, arise, let us go hence. And so it would seem that although this is still, and I believe the term is a right one.
It's still part of the Upper Room ministry. Yet it seems that this discourse was delivered on the way to the Mount of Olives. And there's a break here because the Lord has referred, and we were talking about it, some of us earlier this morning. He refers to the Prince of this world. He's referred to him before in that way in the 12Th chapter. But as has often been remarked, the Spirit of God doesn't call Satan.
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Either the God of this world or the Prince of this world, until man rejected the Son of God.
It was true that Satan had a lot to do with man's workings, his evil workings in the Old Testament. But when man crucified the Lord Jesus, and it looks here in this this gospel as if that had already taken place, then the Spirit of God uses the expression of what Satan, the God of this world that is perhaps more religiously and the Prince of this world that is politically.
And so, as you say, Brother Don, they were facing a hostile world.
It had been hostile before, but now, having taken and crucified the Lord Jesus, they were going to have to face that which was diametrically opposed to anything that was of God. And as you say, that is the kind of world that we live in. It's the kind of world the disciples face. But the Lord says, under those circumstances, I will give you everything necessary to be able to produce fruit for me.
And.
The Old Testament Israel was the vine, wasn't it? In Isaiah chapter 5 he says it clearly.
Verse seven it says, For the vineyard of the Lord of four hosts is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plan. And he looked for judgment, and behold oppression for righteousness, but behold a cry.
When you look for fruit in Israel, they brought forth wild grapes.
Now the Lord Jesus comes, and in John's ministry especially, you have him in connection with the family of God. That life that characterizes the family of God is eternal life, but it is only in Him that we have that life.
Fruit bearing is spoken of a lot in this chapter 15, but I like to think the theme of the chapter is not so much fruit bearing as it is abiding in Christ.
Fruit is the result of abiding in Christ, and it's beautiful just to get it in that context. So it's the life that we have in the Lord Jesus.
That eternal life, and as in the vine, the SAT flows up the vine into the branches and produces fruit, so it is in us now. And how important it is that we abide in the vine and so that that will produce his life in us, that will produce that fruit that he wants to see.
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm hmm.
I think that's very good to keep in mind because.
Fruit does not require effort on the part of the vine or the tree to produce it, does it?
It's its nature to produce it, and if given reasonable conditions, sunlight, water and so on.
It will produce fruit.
We can prevent its producing fruit by depriving it of some of those conditions, but the fact remains that it is the nature of the vine or the tree to produce fruit. And so here, if you and I and I believe we do, each one that is truly saved have new life in Christ. It is the character of that new life by the energy of the Spirit to produce fruit for God.
God looks upon the world as His.
And as a whole world, he wants to see it fruitful.
And by fruitful, we're speaking particularly the people that live in it.
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He wants them to.
The people that he can have pleasure in, whose lives reflect that which is pleasing in his sight. And so we know, as Bob just read in Isaiah chapter 5, God separated a people from all the filth of the world around them and set them apart for himself and said, now I'm going to treat these people as a vineyard.
And I'm going to shepherd them and I'm going to feed them and I'm going to look for fruit from them.
And so it's a picture of man in his natural condition before God. Since Adam sinned, is there anything in us as natural people that God can find a pleasure in as we are? And Israel is the test case. Israel is the one that God used to see if there's any fruit for himself. And his conclusion is no, no.
I did everything possible to get fruit and even sent mine own son.
Into the vineyard to see if there was to be or could be anything that would produce fruit in man. And the answer was nothing. And so here in this chapter, the Lord Jesus himself becomes the vine, and in him and all that are in him are now capable of bearing fruit for God. As he says later, without me you can do nothing. So there's no one in this room.
Whose lives can be fruitful for God unless their lives are connected by having new life through the Lord Jesus Christ without having his life, without being in the vine, there will be no fruit for God in your life as it was with Israel. He said, I'm going to cut the, I'm going to cut the vineyard down. If it's not fruitful for me, it's not, it's not worth anything. And so there may be a life or lives in this room this morning.
That are not connected to the Lord Jesus. And if that's the case and it stays that way, then eventually that life is going to be cut off and forever removed from the presence of God. But each who does belong to the Lord Jesus, then his work is ongoing to make that branch be more fruitful.
It's nice here in this chapter and all throughout the Gospel of John to see this lovely term that's used the father. I'm a true vine and my father is the husbandman. I like that little term in It's used in Colossians chapter 3 in connection with.
Husbands and it says in Colossians chapter 3.
It says in verse 19, husband, love your wives and be not bitter against them. And so the husband is a master of a home and of a dwelling and it's the home is to be a place of fruitfulness for God. There is to be a family in an environment that a brother would have in the home that there might be fruitfulness for God in that home.
And here we have the Father, He's the husband, and there is that sphere in relationship that we have to him that we're going to have fruitfulness and it's going to be in connection, as we've been saying, with the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.
And so the Father is really brings before us the affections and the relationship that we have with God and his desire is to work in our lives that there might be fruit and it's going to be through his Son That says in first Peter chapter one and verse seven that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire might be found under praise and honor.
And glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And so we know that the Lord is working with us and his desire is that there would be fruit in our lives. And the blessed thing is that the fruit is his. And He wants an abundance of fruit. And if there's anything in your life and mine that is going to hinder the production of that fruit, why he desires to deal with it. And that we might rejoice together at his appearing, that there might be that glory that he speaks of in first Peter chapter one.
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That fruit, I think you spoke of it in the Gospel meaning last year from Galatians 5. Just to mention it, The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, love. To think of it as the manifestations of the life of Christ in the believer. And that's what God wants to see.
And so often in our lives, there's perhaps a lot of show, lot of leaves.
That really takes away from the life of the vine to produce fruit.
Rather, we're not here to show what we are. I hope not. I think we have to confess that oftentimes that may be the case, but we need to judge it if that's the case because the father is there to prune that. He's the husbandman. Sometimes we don't understand why he allows the things that happen in our lives.
Well, we don't really have to understand, brethren.
Just to understand this, that the father is the husband and he knows what he is doing in our lives and to accept things from his hand. It really impresses me, brother. And so often when trials come into our lives, we tend to analyze and say, well, it was because of this person or that group of persons or this set of circumstances that had happened.
We're being short sighted if we if we take it that way. We need to look at a father's hand and sometimes the pruning process is rather severe according to our estimation, but there's a purpose in it that we bear fruit for God. We're not here brethren, for our own purposes, we're here.
For his purposes and his purposes that we bear fruit.
It's interesting to me when I've traveled over in Europe, in different places, they have different ways of pruning.
The grapevines and in Spain, traveling through there, they prune the vine almost completely, right down to the ground. It really looks severe, but they have a purpose in that. And so our father has a purpose. And we live in man's day, and so often we get our own purposes in view. What I'd like to do.
The way I feel about it, brethren, let's get beyond that.
God's purpose, He's going to prune us, and He has something in mind when He does, whether we understand it or not.
We have this.
Praise this verse. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, you take it away. We have a scriptural example of that. I'd be helpful to schedule example presented. Mr. Darby says that Judas scriptural example of it.
They if you go back to the Old Testament, to Isaiah chapter 5, you can see in the of which this is taken from that thought to the Jewish mind that all Israel was in outward relationship with the Lord Jesus. They were all connected to the vine of which they were to bear fruit for God.
But because there was no fruit from them.
Then.
Jehovah said he was going to remove it.
And the Lord Jesus became the true vine, and Judas became one who was in relationship with the Vine.
But there was no proof being produced in him because there was in reality.
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No true connection between his soul and the Lord. And so in the 13th chapter.
Judas is receives the soft the Lord says to him, that what you're going to do, do quickly. Judas goes out and it's night and then the Lord says now is the Son of man glorified?
And in that act, in the 13th chapter, it was the final separation between the Lord and his relationship with Judas. It was John, the practical fulfillment that in God's ways he was taken away. And so it's possible that there is somebody in this room who is professedly in the vine. That is, you say I belong to the Lord Jesus. I have put my trust in the Lord Jesus. And as a result of that.
You're looked on it by others as born again and a true soul in the vine. But if it's not reality, there will be no fruit. And if there's no fruit, the time will come and you will be first from the vine.
So do I. So do I take it then that from the first part of that second verse, referring to the branch you take it on, that that is referring to a person who is a professor but is not a true believer?
I'll I'll just defer to better judgment, Mr. Garvey suggests and uses Judas as an example of it.
What about verse 6?
Sometimes these verses have been referred to by others about being saved and lost again.
Can we have some help in connection with the is that is referring to a person who is a professor in verse six as well. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
Have to be a little careful how we sometimes look at scripture because we like it to be.
This or that so that we don't have to be exercised about this or that. And I think it's important to see that sometimes Scripture is written so that it will exercise us as an individual if we're not walking as we should. Or as someone has said, God never gives comfort to a careless walking Christian. And so I say that because in verse six and in verse two, it's intended to.
Exercise us as an individual, that is 'cause our own consciences to be.
Before God, if we're not walking as we should, but on the other side of it, from God's perspective, God knoweth them that are His. And if we're real, we will abide in the vine and we will produce fruit. Every single believer who is in the vine is going to produce some fruit for God. There won't be a single fruitless soul in heaven, and they may not have very long to produce the fruit. The example of a person who.
Only had less than three hours of life left. Was one of the thieves on the cross. And I say well, from the time he was put on he had six hours or more or less to live. And sometime in that period, I guess in the first three hours he saved.
But he immediately is a fruit bearer because he is the one person that is given to us at that point.
To give a testimony to the Lord Jesus as to who he was and his perfection as a person. God looked upon that testimony of that thief and said there's some fruit for me. And so in these verses there will be if there's reality, there will be fruit and if there, there will be purging too as needed. But the other side of it is there's a test given and.
Profession may appear to be part of the volume.
Time that will be separated from it.
A believer by definition there is fruit because faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit.
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Just like to call attention in, in verse 2, there's a couple of words that are slightly different to verse six and I'll just read in verse two it says in me, the branch in me, but in verse six it says not in me.
And so perhaps thy word is exceeding broad, that commandment is exceeding broad. I just suggest to you an answer to the question that's possible, that this one here in verse 2 might be a believer and he's not bearing fruit in the way that the Lord would desire him to bear fruit. And in disobedience, direct disobedience to the word of God, there's a course of departure from the Lord himself and he's dishonouring Christ. And it says, I'll just read first John chapter 5.
And verse 16 and it says there, if first John 5, verse 16, if any man see his brother sin, a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask who shall give him life for him? Them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. And so there's that recalling. Perhaps someone has said a recalling of the ambassador, one that is taking the name of Christ and has perhaps at one time really upheld.
The truth of God and walked in obedience and with a real heart's affection for Christ, and then in an outward way dishonors the name of Christ in such a way that the Lord finds it necessary to remove him and to take him. Well, perhaps that might be in connection with verse two. He's really in me. But then in verse 6.
It's one that is not in me, one who never was true perhaps as you say, a professor professing to know Christ as Savior and going on in an outward way along among Christians, but then it says he's cast forth as a branch and is withered men gather them and cast them into the fire and they were burned. Well, we know that he never was a real believers, not in me. And so I just suggest those two wording differences in these verses that perhaps might speak to us of one.
Who really was a believer in verse two and got away from the Lord? How necessary it is for us to keep close to the Lord on a daily basis, that we might desire to bear fruit for Him day by day, hour by hour, to abide in Him close by. But then one who doesn't have any appreciation really for the finished work of Christ, never knew the Lord. He abides not in Him. He's not His.
In 36 there's a. It says if.
A man is talking about the person. I think that's helpful to distinguish that it's the person there. And I think Judas obviously was never a believer, and he was.
His whole, his whole being was.
Corrupt he was awakened from the the core. But in verse two, there are two kinds of branches. It's not talking about the whole vine. It's just talking about.
A branch, and I believe there are, there are all of us, as Dom says, there's things are put here to exercise this. We have branches, we have parts of us that are not fruitful and the Lord cuts them off. And the second part is there are branches that have some fruit, but he also prunes them so there'll be more fruit. And so the Lord knows what each one of us needs.
It's a wonderful thing when your Lord's dealing with you to know that there's a wise husbandman that's cutting the branches.
I don't know if I can. I know what a husband is.
I I studied animal husbandry and I wasn't very good at taking care of animals, but.
There is the word.
It needs to be used here in connection with clients.
So it it certainly suggests maintaining a relationship with the.
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What you're dealing with if, if you're going to be good with animals, you have to like them, you have to love them. You can't just do it as a job doesn't work. And I believe that even applies in in dealing with plants. You're not interested in that you might not be very good.
But our, our, our father is good and he cares about this. But I see you have some fruit trees beside your house, Doug. And I see that they're pretty well pruned this year.
That husband Rick, there's you got to know which branch, how far to cut. I, I learned this from the racing family. They there's what is called fruit wood. This is apples, not vines. And it's the 2nd it's wood that's been there in the second year.
And the buds on it will bear fruit. What grew the fruit just one year old never bears fruit on an apple tree. It's And so that's the parts you cut off and you leave the fruit was.
I suggest just not as an extreme depth or not as a so I say an expanded definition, but the thought of husbandry is the taking care of something with a view to allowing it to produce its full potential.
And that's true of taking care of animals. It's true of taking care of plants.
It's true of a husband taking care of his wife. His object ought to be in every case, to allow whatever is under his care to produce its full potential in the case of.
Vines and so on. As we mentioned, there is pruning. That's part of it. There is the providing of proper nutrients and care in every way. The pruning must be done very carefully. I grew up on a fruit farm and I used to prune grapes and it had to be done with care. You had to assess every vine, look at the amount of vine that it had produced. In some cases you even took a cheap scale out to the vineyard and weighed the amount that you cut off and then you said, OK, now this vine is produced.
This number of pounds of fresh growth in the past year, therefore I can leave 40 new buds for this year. This vine has produced more growth. I can leave 60 buds on that one. After a while, of course she got so you could eyeball it without the scale, but the point was you assessed the potential of the vine according to what it was able to produce and gave it the number of buds to produce fruit based on that assessment.
God does the same with you and me, doesn't it? And so it's a very, very careful process. But as Doug points out, there has to be a care. You can't do it with a kind of a distant, abstract view of things. If all you've got in your head is the business of it, something won't work, right? There has to be that care. And that's the way God the Father's care is for you and me, isn't it?
And so just one more comment. We don't want to belabor the point. I've appreciated what was said and we can take things in these first few verses in different ways.
But I remember an old brother now with the Lord, he made this comment. He said, Remember that in Scripture there are degrees of communion with God.
And degrees of abiding in Christ. And he made the same point that Dawn has made, that there is no such thing as a believer that produces no fruit. Yes, there may be one that so dishonours the Lord that he has taken home a sin unto death, but there is no believer in that sense that will have nothing in a coming day to show for his life. Down here the question is.
How much am I abiding in Christ? How much communion is there? How much fruit is there? Not that I should be occupied with the fruit, That's not the point. But I should be occupied, and I believe Bob put it well with abiding in Christ and then there will be much fruit. Well, is that still possible today? Indeed it is. Indeed it is, and it's not what we do that counts. Again, quoting our beloved late brother Eric Smith.
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Not what you do that counts. It's what you are. If what you are is right, what you do will always follow suit. But if you are something wrong, if what you are is not right, then what you do will never be right. And so every right thought, if we could bring it right down to basics in your heart and mind toward God's beloved Son, His fruit for God, That's not the only thing.
But every believer can produce fruit. The Saint of God that's laid aside on a sick bed, not very pleasant, but that can be some of the most precious fruit for God. Then there are those whom God gives the ability and the strength to go out in the active for him, Precious fruit for God.
But whatever is the result of that new life in Christ, in you and me?
Is fruit for God and that's what he looks for.
When I was a child, very common question is the family arrived at the dinner table for a meal was my mother would say to us children, have you washed your hands? And if we had not, we were sent back to wash our hands.
Through my mother believed that it was important for us. We were going to be picking up food.
And eating it, that we not contaminate it or spoil it.
Lord Jesus here in verse three says, now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you in the 17th chapter in His prayer to the Father, he says, Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is the truth. And I believe we have in this chapter a principle that is very important to us, and that is when God is going to produce fruit in something.
He sanctifies it, He sets it apart from that which would contaminate it.
And that which would hinder its growth and its fruit fairy. And so it's the work of the husbandman and it's a work that is ongoing in our lives. And it's a work in which we should be exercised ourselves, that we not seek to get nourishment from the Lord Jesus as part as being in the vine and at the same time think that we can live.
An unsanctified, unholy manner of life.
It works against the very work of God to produce fruit.
And when in fact in in the example of Judas, the Lord was disturbed at the Last Supper until Judas went out and recognized that one who was unclean had left the presence, and then his heart was free to flow in a way that it had been restrained up to that point among them. And so the heart of the Lord Jesus is restrained toward us.
If there is that working in US which has not accepted the washing, that is necessary to be cleaned.
Those versions in the 5th chapter of Galatians are helpful to most of us are so simple I think.
Relations.
5/22.
The fruit of the Spirit of the Spirit is.
Love God, he long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, page weakness, temperance. Against such there is no law, there is that.
They have, they have, our Christ have Christified the place with the affections and love.
Then he says, if we live in the Spirit, and we do, you're all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus in the third chapter.
If you live in this church, let us also walk in this year.
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Could almost say that. Did she live in this spirit?
Why don't you walk here? And then the very last thing he said.
To take it personally, the last person, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. They go together.
That's crazy.
And dividing in divine everyone of those.
Things that are mentioned there in verse 22 and 23.
Are passive, aren't they? They're not actions in themselves, and that's what fruit is. Sometimes we talk about being fruitful and we think it's all we've done for the Lord. It's not doing so much as what is produced by the Spirit of the God as we abide in the vine.
That's the thought in fruit. And so like Bill said, somebody that's laying on a bed ill.
God can produce fruit in that person if they are abiding in Christ, in the enjoyment of that life that we have in the Lord Jesus. That is the automatic result of abiding is fruit bearing. And I enjoyed what Brother Eric Smith used to tell us too. He used to talk about the different forms of discipline in our lives.
This, in John 15, is productive discipline.
He proves so that we will bear more fruit. Sometimes we say, why does the Lord allow these things? What did I do wrong?
It's not always because we did something wrong that He allows pruning in our lives, brethren. Sometimes it's because of what He wants to be produced in our lives, and that's fruit. So these are important lessons.
Our brother Harry Ho said to us a long time ago, we ought to read this night first for ourselves. Every day of her life. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue. Yeah, my love, the first spirit of love, the 1St.
How important. I'd just like to emphasize what Don brought before us of the word. Now you're clean through the word.
That I have spoken unto you.
What concerns me is that we seem to neglect the word so often in our lives. We live busy lives, just don't have time.
I don't know what we can say to encourage especially our dear young people to be in the word. We're passing through a contaminated world and we pick it up the contamination without even realizing it at times. You walk through a park and you're not watching where you're walking, you'll pick up contamination.
Why we need the word to cleanse us on a daily basis.
And it doesn't take that long to read a portion of the Word of God.
And God mentioned that before. But young brother in Bolivia who I really value, I asked him one of the last time, one of the times I was down there.
Are you reading the scriptures? He says yes, sometimes.
I say, what do you mean by sometimes? Well, maybe two or three times a week.
I said, brother, we need it more than that. Why don't you read more? I'm just too busy. I said come on now, let's address this in our mind. And I say, how long does it take to read a chapter? He wasn't busy then. So we sat down and read a chapter together and we didn't read that fast.
And I said, I'm going to calculate how long it takes this. It was about 30 some verses that chapter. It took us 7 minutes. 7 minutes is not very much time.
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Can't you take at least that much time to read on a daily basis? Set aside time. If you don't have time, set aside some time. It is so important in the world we're passing through.
To give some undivided attention to the Lord.
I said to another young brother or a young mother, young person, I don't remember if he was a believer or not. I said to you, read the Bible. He says no, I always pray.
They say well.
He says, I don't have any time to read the Bible. I said, well, that's like saying to God, God, I want you to listen to me, but I don't have any time to listen to you. Does that sound good? You said, well, it kind of sounds lopsided, doesn't it? Yeah, I think so. Let's take some time to listen to him, give him our undivided attention. Oh, it's so important. It's so vital in a world we're passing through. The enemy wants to drive wedges in between you and the Lord because he knows.
If that happens, there will be no fruit, no abiding fruit in your life.
Don't let him do it.
Lord help us, dear brethren, dear young people, They're older ones too. Sometimes we allow that to happen.
Click to read one verse in the 138th Psalm.
It says there in verse 2, the 138th Psalm, verse two, I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for Thy truth. For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. And so there is often times a great profession of trying to live for the Lord, and so on. But we cannot do it independently of the word of God, can we?
And so here it says you're clean through the word, which I have spoken unto you. And so we have a great emphasis sometimes on portions of Scripture that are our favorites perhaps. And I'm as guilty as anyone else.
But I think this particularly speaks to us of the blessedness of habitually reading the Gospels and seeing from the words that the Lord Jesus spoke the perfection of all of his ways, and how the Spirit of God presents Christ as that holy man that was perfectly fruitful in this world and in a barren world. We need the Word of God, and it will have that cleansing effect in our lives. And it is that word that first imparts life to us.
And we cannot do without that word until we get home to glory. We'll see the Lord Jesus. He is the living Word. We'll have the Word in person throughout all eternity.
There's a verse in that, say in 119 Some by thy word, if I kept me from the past of the destroyer.
Had me stronger than we think.
That's by the word God will be kept in the past, the destroyer. Another verse in that same Psalm says wherewithal. So a young man cleanse his ways by taking heed thereto, according to thy word. So it's it's very important and wonderful to read. Also important to take heed to it, to apply it in our lives.
Abiding involves 2 directions.
There's 4 abide in me and I and you.
Just as Bob commented on the two directions and.
Prayer is talking to God and reading His Word is God talking to us, and we need both sides of that in connection with abiding in the Lord Jesus, our whole place and position for before God is in him. We would have nothing with God if it was not for Himself, if we could not abide in Him, and we will abide in Him in that way for eternity. But we need the other side as well.
Need that fruit, that food that comes from himself to ourselves, that comes to where we are and meets our needs and enters into the circumstances of our lives as we are and and nurtures us, feeds us, directs us. And so it's important for us to abide in Him and for Him to abide in US. He is in us, our very life.
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The new life that we have in Christ, Christ in you, the hope of glory. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with Him.
So the Lord Jesus is forever now connected with us. We will as true believers I speak. We will never be disconnected from himself.
That word abide.
Occurs a number of times in this chapter.
And I noticed it occurs.
In first John two as well, which is the same author of course.
Abiding.
I'd like to hear your comment on that expression, Don. What does it mean to abide?
Not positive but I think maybe in John chapter one where it says.
When they came to the Lord Jesus and the question was where dwellest?
The expression where as well as thou and the expression abiding, I believe have the same common thought to them. And there is where do I live?
Do I live in with? Do I live with him before God?
Where is my heart rest?
We're dwellers. Where's my heart dwell? Does it dwell with himself or do I have other interests, as he says in the chapter, Except you abide in me and I abide in you. You can't have any fruit because it's bringing before us the thought that it's impossible to be fruitful apart from yourself.
If I don't dwell with him and he with me in the everyday communications and place of my heart in life, and then looking at it in the practical application of it, then there's going to be nothing. My life is is fruitless.
Unless we dwell together in a practical, everyday sense of the word, that I get up this morning and have fellowship with the Lord Jesus as as being with Him, or no.
So it says, he says in another place in my father's house are many mansions. The thought was I want you to abide for eternity where I live. I want you to be where I am. And I think that's kind of the thought in in the expression is that where do you live?
Where do you dwell? Do we dwell with the Lord? Does He dwell with us in the everyday matters of our lives? And if we if we don't walk in fellowship and communion with each other?
Then there with us there's some sort of independence of will or action, and then I'm not abiding, practically speaking, in the mind, I'm walking in independence of the vine and I am going to be a loser or the Lord.
The Father, the husbandman, is not going to have the fruit that he desires from the vine, but he says I'm going to have it, so I'll prune the vine. And so things come into our lives that the Lord Jesus can't share with us.
And so.
You can't say, well, I'll do that with you, or we can enjoy that together and the Lord may bring something into our lives so that that thing has to go.
So that we can abide with one another. But if there's anything in my life that's not perfectly consistent with God as light and love, then I can't have fellowship with God in that thing and I can't abide with God in it. And so he will come in.
Sooner or later into my life to remove anything and everything which is not consistent with God as light and God as love.
And that's pretty extensively testing, really, if we're honest about it. Is everything in my life consistent in John's first epistle, first John one, when he he brings about the importance of communion with the Father and enjoying one another and having fellowship with each other, it's on the ground.
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Of perfect consistency with what God is, because that's the only ground that God can have any fellowship with us.
And that's the only ground on which the Lord Jesus gives life with us, and we with Him.
So it's really the constant enjoyment of a settled relationship, isn't it, Abiding. And that's why I believe.
You were mentioning about the Word of God, Bob, and I think it's a most needed exhortation. And I would add to it that if you don't feel like reading the Word of God, you don't have an appetite for it. Read it anyway. Read it anyway, even if you say I don't feel like it.
It'll do you good, and you'll find that it's what you need in order to cleanse you. If you don't have an appetite for it, something's wrong.
But the very thing you don't have an appetite for is the thing that is needed in order to put you back where you need to be. But there's more than that here, and that is the sense of the Lorde love. My brother Clem just mentioned it and I well, remember Harry Hayhoe saying that to us.
Read that verse and say it over to yourself every day of your life. And I can't mimic the way he used to say it, but it was with emphasis and.
He said come and see.
That's for us. Come and see.
So the enjoyment of the Lord's love.
I don't mean that that isn't there in the word, but the word, properly read, brings before me not merely a set of truths, not merely a set of right principles, not merely a set of commandments and dos and don'ts. All of that, in one sense, may be there.
But over and above it all, it brings before me the person of the one who a few chapters back said.
Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came under this hour. And then the answer to it was, Father, glorify thy name, whatever it took.
Is that my prayer? Is that yours, Father glorify thy name? If so.
The pruning may be hard to take, but I'll be willing to endure it if the Father's name is glorified.
The circumstances may be very difficult, but gone through in the sense of the Lord's love will be an experience not to be missed, even though it may be difficult.
And so it's the sense of his love that we need to have. I know, Doctor, time is long gone, so you look at the clock. Sorry.
We have been to be thy pride in thee, Lord Jesus, Amen. I love Nathan.
#31.
Eternal.
Remains on.
The Daily.
Strike.
Angering was a season brilliant.
I reason.