Crest Baptist Church, we're going to begin in our hymnals, Psalm 169, Psalm 169,
standing on the promises of God. Page 169, 169.
I will shout and sing, standing on the promises of God.
Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God.
My Savior standing, standing, standing on the promises of God.
All right, good singing, everyone.
Next, we'll turn in our hymnals to 143.
143, my Jesus, I love thee, page 143.
Last hymn is on page 189.
Page 189, when I see the blood.
Page 189.
More on this day.
Please turn in your Bible to John chapter 15. John 15. John 15.
John chapter 15. John chapter 15.
John chapter 15 verse 1, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he takeeth away, and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeeth 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 accept 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 ye 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 he abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye 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 ye keep my commandments, ye 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, that ye 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.
He are my friends, if he do whatsoever I command you.
Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his 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 have 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 to you
These things I command you that ye love one another if the world hate you
He know that it hated me before it hated you if you were of the world
The world would love his own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you
out of the world, therefore the world hateeth 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.
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 comforter has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye shall also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Lord we just want to say thank you for all the great things you've done in our life. Thank you for this church
Lord, we ask that you fill brother Jared with your Holy Spirit
Allow him to preach with clarity and boldness from the pulpit and Lord give us ears to hear soften our hearts
Lord, we want to claim your promise that when your word go forth it will not return by void
But accomplish that which you set out to accomplish Lord. We thank you. We love you
and we ask this all in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
I want to thank Pastor Collab and Pastor Reyes.
If you're watching you right now in Arizona
for allowing me the privilege
to preach at Springcrest Baptist Church.
It's a tremendous opportunity
and I wanted to preach a sermon called The True Vine.
But this, let me just put the lapel on.
Does it matter if it goes like this or this?
Does it matter?
I think you put it on your top.
OK.
All right.
Just give me a second to get set up here.
So yes, the true vine.
Starting off in John chapter 15, I'm going to go verse by verse through this entire story,
not necessarily the whole chapter, but just the topic of the vine, Jesus Christ being
the true vine, God the Father being the husbandman, and we as Christians being branches.
So I'm going to use those words interchangeably throughout my sermon, and I just wanted to
And so John chapter 15, I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman.
So really I could gloss over verse one and just get straight into the story, the illustration.
But I want to take a moment to just talk about this concept of a vine.
And so I asked that you would turn to Psalm 80, Psalm 80.
And while you're turning there, I don't have a transition verse, but I have a transition story.
And Genesis chapter 3 verse 15.
God gave the first promise of the everlasting gospel where he told the serpent that her seed would crush his head and
The serpent would bruise his heel and this represents the death burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
Since then all those who have had faith in the Lord God and they believe that promise
They have been saved and that is salvation by grace through faith. The Bible tells us that
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight." And that was true
in the Old Testament. It's true right now. And it'll even be true in the Millennium,
when Jesus Christ is reigning in New Jerusalem for a thousand years, salvation will still be
by grace through faith. And, you know, I don't understand how that may be that, you know,
he's ruling there, but it still will be. Because Judas was with Jesus for three and a half years
So to be a part of the true vine to be branches and God's vineyard, you have to put your full faith and trust that Him and Him alone, His sacrifice is the only way for there to be remission of your sins.
Without Jesus, there's no other way. It's 100% Him and 0% us. And so that's just my take on salvation. That's what I wanted to start out with.
But you're there with me in Psalm 80, and I'll have you look at verse number eight. I'll read this a couple of verses.
It says,
Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?
The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts, look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine,
and the vineyard which thy right hand had planted, and the branch thou madeest strong for thyself.
So you can go back to John chapter 15, but I say a lot to say that you know
There's a lot of spiritual poison IV in this world. We live in there's a lot of
strange and froward vineyards that say you have to repent of your sins,
you have to dunk yourself in water to be saved, but there's no power in the water,
there's only power in the blood. And God's people, even though we all come from different
ethnicities, since the Garden of Eden, we've all had just that one thing in common, and that's to
be part of the true vine, where branches, because we put our faith and trust in Jesus and the Lord,
and whatever the Old Testament equivalent of that was, because it was Jesus' concealment,
about Jesus and always will be. So you're there with me in John chapter 15. I'm going to start in
verse 2 now and I'm going to break this down bit by bit. It says, every branch in me that
beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And I'm going to stop there and obviously I liken branches onto
Christians. So according to the Lord Jesus Christ, it is possible to be a branch and be a part of the
God's will after we get saved isn't that we weather away and we do nothing for Him.
He wants us to abide in Him. He wants us to love Him. You know,
Brother Mike was preaching today about how something I took away from that is that
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the end of wisdom is loving the Lord.
and that's something that we want to do so that we can bear fruit. It is regarded by God.
It is reasonable. It's our reasonable service to do that, not necessarily to be saved as a lot of
people will like to wrestle John chapter 15 to their own perdition, but it's because we are saved.
We don't have a leash on our neck that says we need to give God a basket full of fruit
on judgment day, otherwise we're not going to make it. That's not biblical salvation.
and teach at this church.
So we do want to be fruitful in every good work, as Colossians 1.10 tells us.
And we are the branches, and God's will for His children
is that we allow Him to perform good works through us by His Holy Spirit.
So God wants us to yield to the power of the Spirit in our lives
so that He could perform good works in us until the day of Jesus Christ.
But unfortunately, there are a lot of carnal Christians in this world.
They'll grieve the Holy Spirit, they'll resist Him, and they're not going to be
Christ Jesus to do, because we have been ordained to do these good works. Not
everybody's ordained to be a pastor and not everyone is ordained, well
technically you can be ordained to be a pastor's wife because your husband is as
a pastor, but we are all ordained to bring forth fruit. That is God's will and
the Bible says in the latter half of that verse, it says in every branch that
that it may bring forth more fruit. So the world may, you know, they may laugh at us and they may
mock us to scorn and be, they'd be like, Springcrest Baptist Church, don't you know if you attend
Springcrest, God just gonna constantly purge you and prune you your whole life so you can bear
fort fruit? And you know, that is what we want. You know, the Bible says the natural man receive
it's not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them for they are foolishness unto him.
And it says that he that is spiritual judge of all things yet
He himself is judge of no man for who has known the mind of the Lord that who had known the counsel the Lord that he may
Instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ
So John chapter 15 is complete foolishness to this world because we're trying to reap fruit
That's worthy of everlasting life that we would receive the recompense our reward for that in the life to come not in this life
The world cares about things that are temporal
things that are tangible that you could feel like money and things you can lust after with your eyes
and your senses, but John chapter 15 is talking about bringing fruit to God that only He can
appreciate. The world will never ever be able to appreciate any of the salvations that we produce
from Jesus Christ preaching that gospel of grace through faith, but the Lord God can, specifically
God the Father, the husband man who's constantly trying to reap us and purge us so He can get out
can get as much out of us as possible.
That's his will for us.
And we ought to allow him to use us.
You know, the world would, again, mock us as Christians.
Why would you let someone to use you?
But we should want God to use us.
It sounds backwards, but, you know,
the Lord confounds the wise with the foolishness of this world.
You know, even if we're protested, even if we're taunted, we always want to remember that we're not going soul-winning for the world.
We're doing it because we love the world and we love God and we want to fear Him and keep His commandments and fulfill the Great Commission.
So, there in verse 2 where it says, He taketh away, I used to read this verse and it said, If I don't bear fruit, God will kill me.
because it says he taketh away, but I've kind of shifted my interpretation of that.
If we consider ancient viticulture, if you have like let's say an apple tree,
and you have branches that are producing fruit, and you have other branches that aren't,
and they just kind of have thorns and spikes in them, you know, you may take them away,
like lift them up so they can get more light, so they could eventually produce fruit.
But you know, when Jesus came to the fig tree, he was saying how
Let it forbear will wait like a year or two and if it produces any fruit will take it and if not will cut it down
And so I do believe it is possible that you know if you completely just you fall away from the faith
You're not serving God and you lose your testimony as a Christian
You don't lose your eternal life, but your ability to tell someone hey, I'm saved
I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, but you're living in filth and you lose your testimony,
you become more detrimental to the cause of Christ simply because you refuse to let God
work in you. He wants to produce fruit, but you just won't allow him to. And I believe in certain
instances, God can take you home early. He can kill you because to who much is given, much is
expected. And so if you've been given the gospel, you've been given the King James Bible, you've
been handed all of this on a serveral plate, and you bury your towel and you do absolutely nothing
very well could take, he could take you home early.
And that should be a warning to us as Christians
that we do want to abide in him
and serve him to the best of our ability every day.
verse number three it says now you are clean through the word which I have
spoken on to you so I believe in this story of the vine this is salvation I
ask that you just turn a couple pages backwards to John chapter 13 verse 10
now you are clean through the word which I have spoken on to you
I'll just start reading in verse one to get to just give context.
It says,
Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that its hour was come, that he
should depart out of his world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world,
he loved them onto the end.
And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's
son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands
and that he was come from God and went to God.
his garments and took a towel and girded himself. After that, he poured water into a basin and began
to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then come
eth he to Simon Peter and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and
said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him,
Jesus answered him, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus saith unto him, and this is what the verse I was referencing in John 15 verse 3,
he that is washed, needeth not safe to wash his feet, but is cleaned every whit, and ye are clean,
but not all. And so I read you all that just to show that
being clean through the word that is preached, the word of faith that is nigh thee in thy mouth,
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart
that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And so throughout his entire ministry,
the Lord Jesus Christ
preach that you destroy this temple in three days, it's going to rise up again. He was constantly
preaching his future death, burial, and resurrection. And that is what made the apostles clean at the
last supper, all, say, Judas Iscariot, who never abandoned his self-righteousness. He never
trusted on Jesus. He never put his faith on him, and therefore he was never clean. The Bible even
fully proof that he was a reprobate and he was definitely not clean.
But notice what happens here in verse 4, right after saying that you guys are clean through
the word which I've spoken on to you, the gospel, he says this, abide in me.
Now, people who teach workspace salvation, they won't say that verse 3 is what gets you saved.
They'll say it's verse 4, which is to abide in meat.
And so what they mean by that is you make Jesus the Lord of your life, you serve him
every single day, and just maybe, just maybe, if you stick to that path long enough, you'll
go to heaven.
But that is pretty much the wide and the broad way that leads to destruction, which many
people in Christian cultures, that's where they go.
but straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to life and few there be that find it.
So the first thing Jesus says that after we're saved is to abide in me.
Now think about if there's someone you love on this earth, like a loved one, a family member,
and you get the chance to spend time with them, you would want to abide with that person as much
as possible. So you invite them over to your house, you fellowship with them. So how much more
should you want the Son of God to abide with us? You know, we want to do that every single day
reading, you know, the Bible, because the Bible says he is the word manifest flesh.
So to abide with Jesus, I in my sinful body right now, because I still have to be
sanctified. I'm not free from the power of sin just yet until I'm glorified. I
can't actually go to heaven and abide with Jesus face to face. I wouldn't be
able to live until I shed this, you know, terrestrial body and I get my
celestial body for all of eternity. So the only way that I can follow Jesus
In verse 4 is to read my Bible every day to spend time with him, to pray with him,
so he talks to me from the word and I talk to him through prayer. And I want to do that as
much as possible to fulfill that condition of abiding in me and I in you. So it says,
as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye
And so I'll just briefly share part of my testimonies. After I got saved,
it took me almost a year and a half to join a good church and to get baptized and to become a
disciple of Christ. And because I wasn't abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I was just living
that same secular life, I couldn't have been a good testimony to people. I couldn't have
bared fruit because I wasn't abiding in Jesus. I was still saved. I knew I was going to heaven.
because I wasn't abiding in his word, I wasn't able to go out and just combat false doctrines
because I didn't have a relationship with God. And you don't have a relationship with God to
be saved. You have a relationship with God because you are saved. And that is kind of what
the Bible's interpretation is of what it means to abide in me. The word relationship isn't found
in the King James Bible once, I believe. But abiding in him is, it's found several times and
synonymously with continuing it in the faith. Turn if you would to Colossians chapter 1 verse 23.
The first time I came to Springcrest, Pastor Shelley was preaching on this specific verse
back in January when Summer and I visited. We weren't married yet. We are now a priest God.
And he's preaching on the topic of being blameless. Let me find it here.
There are some colossians around my phone here.
Nope.
Starting in verse 21 and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works yet now hath you reconciled and the body of his flesh
talking about the Lord Jesus Christ through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight if you continue in the faith, in
Grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard and notice this which was preached to every creature
Which is under heaven so the gospel has been preached to the whole world
God has never withheld the gospel from any particular nation if they seek him if you draw near to God
He'll draw near to you
But considering this topic of abiding in him notice that it's possible that if you don't continue in the faith grounded and settled
It is possible that at the judgment seat of Christ you will be blamable
You could possibly be reprovable in his sight for refusing to abide in him from the moment
You got saved until the rest of your life and that is something that we as Christians
We should have a healthy fear of God whether might preach it
Someone had told him that you shouldn't be afraid of God and then he said that's a lie and I was like amen
you know, that we should be afraid of God. We should be afraid of not being accepted in his sight,
having an uncomfortable experience where, you know, the works that were not done for Jesus,
it gets just burnt away as like, hey,
Stubble and chafe whereas if we abide in him we can have some silver we can have some gold and some precious stone
Due to us abiding in him and him allowing us to produce
Fruit for his glory and his praise and his honor to redound to him
And so that's what Jesus wants us to do after we get saved.
And there's a consequence of not abiding.
Is that uncomfortable experience?
And knowing the terror of the Lord,
we should try and make an effort to abide in Him
each and every single day.
As standalone branches, we can't bear fruit of ourselves.
Turn back if you were to John chapter 15.
I should have totally just keep a bookmark in there
as I reference certain scriptures.
John chapter 15 verse four.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except to abide in the vine no more can ye accept ye abide in me
And so it wasn't until I started abiding in Christ
I joined a good Bible believing church from the preachers from the King James Bible and how it was right on salvation
Only then was I able to start producing fruit because I was a partaker of the vine
But I just had you know thorns and briars and bristles and no fruit
Obviously, we don't want that
first number five
Oh, and then really quickly I just want to mention Revelation chapter 3 verse 20 going back to someone abiding with you
Jesus said behold I stand at the door and knock and if any man hear my voice and open the door
I will come into him and will suck with him and he with me now obviously
He's telling that to the seven churches and
Revelation chapter 3 but it can still be applied to you know every day
He's knocking like when we wake up to spend time with him at any point and we should seek that and pursue it
Verse 5 I am the vine near the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit
For without me, ye can do nothing.
You know, anyone who has ever done anything great for God,
they had to have been habitually abiding in Christ.
It would be impossible to try and be a Christian
and to try and bear fruit to God without the Bible.
I know that sounds kind of strange and silly,
but churches that are, you know,
they don't use much Bible in their preaching.
They don't really preach a lot from the Bible.
It's more just vain philosophy,
and it's just the words of wisdom that man speak of.
It's going to be very difficult to bear fruit.
that God the Father, the husbandman, is going to purge and prune from your vineyard
when you're not abiding in Christ. So if I got saved, right, and I'm not using the gospel to
preach to somebody, the best that I can do, if I'm not abiding in his word, I can tell you like,
hey, you're a sinner. There's an adjustment upon earth that doeth good and sineth not.
We've all fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. We deserve to go to hell.
but without Jesus, I don't have a gospel. The best I could tell someone to do is repent of your sins,
try and do right, try and keep the commandments, but if I'm not abiding in Christ, if I don't use
the gospel that He has given us, I can't get anybody saved. I could preach to somebody,
I can show them the verses, I condemn them to hell, you don't believe on the Son, you're condemned,
There's no point to soul winning.
There would be no soul winning if salvation could be by works.
There'd be no point to God and do it because how do you know if you tell someone if salvation were by works
that they're going to do it?
You tell them that, hey, this is a gospel.
That's a false good news.
You wouldn't be able to.
That's why it's important that in verse 5, we need to abide in the words.
We need to abide in the gospel and the doctrines that he's given us
because without him, you know, we can't bring forth any fruit.
nothing. And so 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 5, I'll read this to you. The apostle Paul says in
his second epistle, and such trust have we through Christ to God word. Not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. In other
words, our sufficiencies of God without God, we can't do nothing.
The Apostle Paul is giving the success of his ministry to God. If it wasn't for his Damascus
road moment, him getting saved, believing on Jesus, repenting, turning away from the false
religion of pharisaical Judaism and to biblical Christianity, he couldn't have done anything
for the Lord God, for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's important that if we ever try and do
anything to please God, we want to do it exactly the way that he says it has to be.
Without being rooted in the vine we are incapable of letting our good work shine before men
so that they may glorify our Father in heaven.
And now we get to verse number six. Now verse number six is probably the part of the message
where I'm going to spend the most time on because this is what
individuals, many churches like to use to preach this workspace salvation.
And so I'm going to read it, give you the wrong definition, and then I'm going to preach what I
believe the Bible, the reason why God gave us this verse. Because when I was a Christian,
and I was starting to learn doctrine, I would come across on the internet, you know, people would,
they'd use John 15, 16, faith that works is dead to teach Lordship salvation.
And as a babe in Christ, I didn't really know how to combat it.
I didn't have the preaching from biblical pastors that teach salvation by grace through faith,
and so it was really frustrating to me. And there were times where I thought,
you know, God, why did you have to give us these verses that these false prophets,
they're wrestling to their own perdition? But here's the thing, God didn't give us the Bible
for the false prophets. He gave it for us. He gave it so that his word wouldn't return void,
but everything that he gave us, it would be for his true vine. It was only for his
that he give these words. And so, in verse number six, it says,
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. So remember, we said that salvation and the
context of this story, you got to be clean to the word that is
preached. You believe that you're saved. The next thing that
you should do is to abide in Jesus. And so the way they'll
God's gonna pluck you off the branch and throw you into hell.
But that is not what John 15.6 is teaching, and that is not what Jesus was trying to illustrate to us.
He's saying, if a man abide not in me, if a man doesn't want to yield himself to me, to crucify his flesh daily,
and to try and be a disciple, and to assemble with other believers, he's going to experience divine chastisement.
He won't go to hell, but God can make his life hell on earth, metaphorically, so to speak.
God will punish and scourge and chase in his children, but he's not going to do that to the bastards,
to the children who are not by Christ Jesus, who haven't believed on Jesus.
And so I would like to prove that this fire is not talking about hell.
And so I ask that you turn to Hebrews chapter 6.
Hebrews chapter 6, and while you're turning there, I'm just going to reread the verse again.
Abiding in him means serving him, loving him,
fairing him, trying to keep his commandments,
having a relationship with him.
Cast forth as a branch,
withered and men cast him into the fire and there are bird.
You know sometimes just for the sake of a tree if a branch isn't producing any fruit sometimes
It's better to cut it off so the branches that are producing fruit that are part of the true vine can actually produce even more fruit
So it's like if you have a Christian that's detracting from the body of Christ that they're doing harm to Christ
God would take them off cut them off take them homerily so the Christians that are purge it are that are producing fruit will continue to do that
So, in Hebrews chapter 6, I'm just going to start reading in verse 13 just right above.
He's talking to the authors, talking to individuals who are kind of weak in the faith, for everyone
that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God
and of the doctrine of baptisms and of laying out of hands and of resurrection of the dead
and of eternal judgment. And this will we do if God permits. For it is possible for those who are
once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost
and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away, so apostasy, to renew them again unto
repentance, seeing they crucified to themselves a son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh off the pondet, and bringeth forth herbs
meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God. But that which beareth thorns
and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned."
So the common misinterpretation for this passage would basically be Arminianism, which is just like an offshoot of Calvinism from a
strange sour foreign vineyard, which teaches that you can lose your salvation and you can never get it back again.
Now what's interesting about this besides that being false is that we see in verse 6 we have individuals
they were saved because verses 4 and 5 tells us they were enlightened. They've tasted of the heavenly gift.
partakers of the Holy Ghost, they've tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to
come. So this is without a doubt talking about saved Christians. And then they apostatized in
verse number six. But notice how it gives two pathways in verses seven and eight. We, as Christians
Fruit we want to be like verse 7 like which the earth represents us
The water represents the word of God and we want to bring forth herbs meet for God to receive a blessing
But then verse number eight, I believe this is very similar to the judgment that comes in verse number six and it says that which Barath thorns and briars is rejected and is nigh on to cursing whose end is to be burned.
So I believe that same topic of being burned is the same judgment we see in John 15 verse.
number six, where you have individuals, they're not abiding in Christ, they fall away, and they don't receive the blessing that comes with
continuing in the faith to try and be holy and unreprovable before Christ, like the earth that brings forth blessing,
but they're rejected. They don't lose their salvation, but their testimony on earth is rejected.
It's invalidated, and so therefore God no longer has any use for that individual, and so they experience that chastisement.
I'll just have you turn a couple pages over to Hebrews chapter 10.
This is pretty much the same idea in verse 26.
If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth.
There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for judgment
and fiery indignation. There's that same fire, not hellfire,
but the judgment that God pours upon his church, his people, his vine, his vineyard.
which shall devour the adversaries. You don't want to be an adversary of God as a born-again believer.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore our punishments suppose he
shall he be taught worthy who hath
trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant
wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite.
unto the Spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said,
vengeance belongeth to me, I will recompense, sayeth the Lord.
And again, the Lord shall judge his people,
not just anybody, his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God. And you know, we as Christians,
we don't want to put a target on our back.
because you know there's you know the sport of archery if God wants to shoot at us from heaven
with his errors his divine chastisement he will not miss you know someone in the street you're
out so wanting they could try and shoot at you throw a knife at you or something they might miss
but if God wants to punish you because you deserve it because you've apostatized from him
I have no reason to see why he's not going to get you and that should put a healthy reverential
fear of God in our lives that we do want to abide in him we want to press forward until the very end
We don't want to forsaken, we don't want to apostasize, but we want to continue to produce fruit.
If you would go back to John chapter 15, we just have a couple more verses in this story.
It says, if ye abide in me, verse 7, and my words abide in you,
ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
And so we go straight from, you know, Lordship salvation to a prosperity gospel,
which is that you ask God for something, whatever it is, you'll receive it.
But I believe the way we ought to look at verse number 7 is we want to ask for things from the new man.
I don't want to ask God for things according to my old man, according to the flesh,
If it's the new man that's asking God that's praying for something that pertains to the kingdom of
God that would benefit his will on this earth, I have no reason to believe that if I ask God for
something that he would give it to us if it's the new man asking. An example of this is like when
you go soul-winning and you ask the Lord's blessing on the soul-winning and that he would protect us
from people who would try and hinder the cause of Christ and he would give us wisdom to preach to
ready to hear the gospel, that low-hanging fruit.
You know, I believe if we ask that,
God would for sure grant us that in that moment,
because it's according to His will.
If we're the condition to get that request answered,
whatever we ask is that if we abide in Him
and His words abide in us, we'll ask what we will
and it will be done unto us.
And so you can apply it to soul-winning,
you could apply that to asking the Lord's blessing
before you break bread and have fellowship.
Anytime you ask something according to the new man,
I believe that you will have that.
Now, obviously, you know, the Apostle Paul,
he did get stoned and he did suffer great persecution.
And so we could still suffer, you know,
if we pray for something in a new man.
But I believe John's verse seven is telling us that,
Anytime we pray to God, we want to make sure that it's the new man that's asking him,
not according to our flesh, but according to the Spirit that he's given us,
that he's sealed within us until the day of redemption of his purchased possession,
our souls, you know, the branches we're abiding in the vine. And so then we get to verse number eight.
And it says,
In order to be a disciple, you have to bear forth much fruit.
In order to be saved, you don't have to bear forth fruit,
because salvation's a free gift. Jesus gives us that freely.
But to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have to bear forth fruit.
And not just any fruit, fruit that glorifies the Father in heaven,
the husbandmen, the one who's constantly trying to purge us and prune us.
to get as much out of us as he possibly can.
And so the last place I'll have you turn
in the Old Testament is gonna be Hosea.
Hosea chapter 10 verse one.
And in the context of Hosea, obviously there's a lot of spiritual hordom in Israel, and Hosea, he's preaching, trying to exhort them to repentance.
But this is obviously the beginning of a wayward slide, where eventually the northern nation gets taken away by Assyria.
But in Hosea chapter 10, this is a very simple verse.
Verse 1, Israel is an empty vine.
unto himself. According to the multitude of his fruit, he hath increased the altars according to
the goodness of his land. They have made goodly images. Their heart is divided. Now shall they
be found faulty. He shall break down their altars. He shall spoil their images."
So obviously not necessarily everybody in Israel during the time of Hosea is unsaved rejected reprobate
I believe there are some saved people, but the prophet is saying that just overall just Israel overall
They're an empty vine. They're bringing forth fruit, but it's not fruit that glorifies God the Father in heaven
They're bringing forth fruit unto themselves. And so they were creating altars made to sin. They were burning strange incense not onto the Lord
They're not
acting like the peculiar people that he intended for them to be,
they're kind of just not abiding in the words that he's given them, they're doing things the
way they want to. So therefore they're not bringing forth fruit to God, they're bringing
forth fruit to themselves. And that's pretty much the theme of chapter 10. Turn just a couple pages
And it says in verse one, I'm just going to read the first eight verses here, which is almost the whole chapter.
so will we render the calves of our lips. Asher shall not save us. We will not ride upon horses,
neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ye are our gods. For indeed the fatherless
findeth mercy. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away
He shall grow as a lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
His branches shall spread, his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.
They that dwell under his shadow shall return, and they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine.
The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." And I read all that just to get to verse 8.
Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I've heard him and observed him.
I am like a green fir tree. Now pay attention to this last part. From me is thy fruit found.
From me is thy fruit found.
And I believe that me, that word me, is talking about the Lord God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So in chapter 10 we saw that they were an empty vine, they were bringing forth their
own fruit, but in chapter 14 verse 8 we see that Hosea says, from the Lord God, from the
Lord Jesus Christ, is their fruit found.
And only from the Lord Jesus Christ can we actually produce fruit.
We see that theme in the Old Testament with Hosea, I just picked a story that's kind
But He's the only person, He's the only...
There's no other way to bring forth fruit than other from the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I have some examples here in the New Testament of the types of fruit that we can bring,
because God's not just interested in one type of fruit. He wants everything that we can possibly get.
Soul winning, your converts, that's an example of fruit.
But the Bible says in Hebrews 13, 15,
the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
So God wants a spiritual fruit basket so many different types of fruit. Here's another one in Philippians 4. This is Paul
talking to the church of Philippi because they were generous and they gave him money for his ministry
for the ministering of the saints and he says in
Philippians 4 17 and 18 not because I desire a gift
But I desire fruit that may abound to your account, but I have all and abound
I am full, having received of Ephroditus the things which were sent from you,
an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.
Galatians 5, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such, there is no law. And in Colossians 1-10,
being fruitful in every good work. So the New Testament shows us that soul-winning is great,
bringing forth fruit. The Bible says by your fruits, you'll know them. And so soul-winning is how
And someone accuses me of that I would go to someone who I've led to the Lord
I don't have you talk to that person and ask them what it is they believe so that you would know that by my fruit
That's how you'll know me
That's a great way of testing someone, whether they're saved or they're not saved.
But also the sacrifice of God, you know, praising God with your lips, the fruit of your lips.
There's so many ways that you can bring forth fruit to be God, to please God.
And in John 15, I'll close with verse 16, where it says,
He have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,
that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
That whatsoever you shall ask of the Father, and my name, He may give it to you.
Something that we ought to do as Christians is ask God,
how can we produce more fruit?
What areas are there in our lives
that we're not necessarily thinking about spiritual things
and how can we do it?
Cause it's more than just soul winning.
Soul winning is the beginning.
Now that's the foundation to preach the gospel
to every creature, every nation.
But there's so much more.
There's praying, there's thanking God,
there's singing spiritual songs and psalms and hymns.
That's fruit.
God wants as much as he can get out of us.
I don't believe that God has a favorite fruit,
whether it's just like apples for soul winning
or oranges for asking the Lord's blessing.
He wants everything that he can get from us.
And the Bible has made it clear,
I hope my sermon has made it clear,
the only way that you're gonna be able to bring forth
all the different types of the multitude of fruit
that could be purged and pruned by the husband men
and the context of this story is if you abide in him.
And we're not all ordained to be bishops and deacons
pastor wives, and maybe an evangelist, but we have all been ordained to bring forth fruit.
And, you know, that is a huge part of the Christian life after we get saved. You can't
have sanctification without trying to bring forth fruit. And that's the message I had today.
Pastor Cobb, would you mind praying and asking just the Lord's blessing on the preaching of his word?
I was asking if you could pray to close the message
again this evening for you many blessings for you watch over us but thank
for the privilege that you've granted it when you come together here in your name.
Other than for the message that we heard this evening and for the message of the
prayer to the Lord give bless this young life and give him much fruit is the
We'll give us now our scene of Bethesda and Jesus
and the floor of history as we ask, amen.
Amen.
All right, everyone, turn to 491, page 491 in your hymnal.
491 in your hymnal.
You can see.
I can hear them on the left side.
Okay.
Thank you.
are dismissed.