I again direct your attention to our Lord’s words in John 15 — “Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (vs. 2). Dear brethren, though we have fellowship with Christ, and sit with Him in heavenly places, our earthly nature is still in a defiling world. The world and Satan act on this nature; these and its own sin nature (for it is still enmity to God and all that He loves) are continually drawing the believer to dispositions and objects that defile the conscience, hide from him the glory of Christ, and hinder the blessedness of fellowship with Him and communion with the Father. How is their influence prevented? The Father purges every branch in the true vine.
While the flesh lusts against the Spirit, the Spirit acts against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other. The Spirit Himself directs the believer to everything opposed to the flesh; it fills him with communion and earnest desires to enjoy his fellowship with Christ and the Father, while Satan, the world, and nature work against this. How is the flesh subdued, that God’s children may enjoy their precious liberty? Precisely in this way: the Father purgeth them that they may bring forth more fruit. He sends afflictions and trials to increase their separation from the present world, and to weaken the sin that works in their members; then that word within them, which is Christ, has dominion, and by Him they bring forth more fruit.
Thus does the Father purge every branch in the vine. He plows up their hearts to remove from them everything that prevents their fruitfulness; He suits the affliction to the particular need for it, that it might root out of their hearts the lust of other things which tends to choke the seed. The other things, as I have said, are all and everything which is not Christ. Everything but Christ prevents our fruitfulness, even the least contact with the world. These causes do not destroy the seed where God has given it root, for it is the incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever; but, dear friends, they are the reason why we bring forth fruit, some thirty, some sixtyfold, instead of that hundredfold which affords such blessedness.
J. N. Darby