A Sharp Knife for the Vine Branches
A sermon
(No. 774)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, OCTOBER 6, 1867, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away: and every
branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more
fruit."- John 15:2.
THESE are the words of Jesus. Unto YOU that believe He is precious, and
every word that He speaks is precious for His sake. You will be sure,
then, to give every syllable its weight and to let each word fall upon
your soul as coming directly from His lips. These are the words of our
Lord Jesus just before His departure from the world. We reckon the
words of dying men to be worth keeping, and especially of such a
matchless Man as our Lord and Master.
It may be said of Him, "You have kept the best wine until now," for in
this chapter and in that which follows we have some of the choicest,
deepest, and richest words that the Master ever uttered. You will
endeavor, then, to hear Him speaking as upon the verge of Gethsemane.
You will listen to these sentences as coming to you associated with the
groans and bloody sweat of His agony.
These are words, moreover, about us, and therefore to be received by us
with profound attention. The most of us who are here, are in Christ,
some one way or another. The majority of us profess to be Christians.
The text, then, is directed to us. When Jesus speaks about anything, it
is weighty and demands our ear. But when He speaks about ourselves to
ourselves, we must give Him the heart as well as the ear, and give most
earnest heed to the things which He speaks to us, lest by any means we
let them slip. We may have to regret one day that we did not listen to
His voice in love, for we may have to hear it when we must listen to
it, when the tones have become those of judgment, and Jesus the Judge
shall say unto us, "I know you not," even though we shall venture to
plead that we ate and drank in His Presence, and that He taught in our
streets.
Having, then, your solemn attention, we will read the text again:
"Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away: and every
branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more
fruit." The text suggests self-examination. It conveys instruction, and
invites meditation.
I. In the first place, it SUGGESTS SELF-EXAMINATION. I hear in these
solemn words the tones of His voice of whom Malachi said, "Who may
abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For
He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap." I discern in
these two heart-searching sentences, the voice of Him of whom John
said, "His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor,
and gather His wheat into the garner. But He will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire." Truly the Lord's "fire is in Zion, and His
furnace in Jerusalem." Happy shall that man be who can bear to be
thrust into the flames and to be covered with the hot coals of the
burning Truths of God here taught! But he shall be found reprobate who
cannot bear the trial.
1. Observe that our text mentions two characters who are in some
respects exceedingly alike. They are both branches, they are both
branches in the Vine: "Every branch in Me." How much alike persons may
apparently be, who, in God's sight stand at opposite poles of
character! Both the persons described in the text were in Christ: in
Christ in different senses, it is obvious, because the first persons
were not so in Christ as to bring forth fruit, consequently, as fruit
is that by which we are to judge a man, they were not in Christ
effectually, graciously, influentially, or so as to receive the
fruit-creating sap.
If they had brought forth fruit, their fruitfulness would have been a
sign that they were in Christ savingly. Who will venture to say that a
man who yields no fruit of righteousness can be really a Christian? Yet
they were in Christ in some sense or other, that is to say, the two
characters were equally esteemed to be Christians. Their names were
enrolled in the same Church register–in the common judgment of men
they were equally Christian. According to their own profession
they were so. In many other respects which we need not now catalog,
they were both in Christ as His avowed disciples– as soldiers
professedly fighting under His banner–as servants wearing His livery.
These two persons were probably equally sound in their doctrinal views.
They held the same precious Truths of God. If they heard falsehood,
they were equally earnest to denounce it. When they listened to the
Gospel they received it with joy, and so received it as to be willing
to assist in the spread of it–and even to make sacrifices for its
extension. These persons were equally attentive to ordinances. How
often has it happened that two persons of widely different states
before the Lord have been baptized at the same hour, in the same water,
into the same name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit! And they have then broken bread together with equal apparent
fervency, and with equal professions of enjoyment and devotion!
These people have been equally fair in their profession. Their moral
conduct has, in the judgment of all onlookers, been much the same. They
have avoided everything of ill repute and they have, in their measure,
sought after that which was comely and lovely in the estimation of men.
Ah, there will often be found two who publicly pray alike, have an
equal gift in prayer–and what is worse, preach with equal earnestness
and zeal! And to all appearance their family prayer is maintained with
the same consistency. But for all this the end of the one shall be to
be cast away as a branch to be burned–while the end of the other shall
be to bring forth fruit unto perfection–with everlasting life as the
reward.
Ah, Friends, man can counterfeit cleverly, but when the devil helps him
he becomes master of the art! You will see pieces of coinage which it
is almost impossible for you to discover to be mere counterfeits by
their appearance, or even by their ring. In the scales of weight they
almost deceive you–but you put them into the fire–and then the
discovery is made! Doubtless there are thousands in all Christian
Churches who have the stamp and the impress of the King upon them. They
look like the genuine shekels of the sanctuary who, after all, are only
fit to be like bad money, fastened down on the footstool of the
judgment seat with a nail driven through them–to their everlasting
reprobation and disgrace!
How can we tell a bold man from a coward? Two soldiers wear the same
uniforms–they talk equally loudly of what they will do when the enemy
shall come. It is the battle that tests and proves them. Some peculiar
phase of the conflict will bring out the difference. But till the
battle comes how easy it is for the base coward to play the hero while,
perhaps, the bravest man may modestly shrink into the rear! Our text,
then, brings before us two characters apparently alike.
2. Then, in the second place it shows us the distinction between
them–the great and solemn difference. The first branch brought forth
no fruit. The second branch bore some fruit. "By their fruits you shall
know them." We have no right to judge of our neighbors' motives and
thoughts except so far as they may be clearly discoverable by their
actions and words. The interior we must leave with God, but the
exterior we may judge, and must judge. There is a sense in which we are
not to judge men, but there is another sense in which he would be an
arrant fool who did not constantly exercise his judgment upon men. "By
their fruits you shall know them," is our Lord's own canon of sacred
criticism. If you would judge men and judge yourselves, this is the one
test–"by their fruits."
Now, then, what do you professors say who are present here today–you
who are so regular in your attendance upon the means of Divine Grace?
Will you now search yourselves to see whether you have any fruit? That
you may be helped in such an investigation let me remind you that the
Apostle Paul has given us a list of these fruits in his fifth chapter
of the Epistle to the Galatians. He says in the 22nd verse, "The fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."
Nine kinds of fruit–all of these should be "in us and abound." Let us
question ourselves whether we have any of them. Say, Professor, have
you brought forth the fruit of love? Searching question, this! I do not
ask if you can talk of love, but, do you feel it? I do not say, is love
upon your tongue? But, does love rule your heart? Do you love God as a
child loves its father? Do you love the Savior from a sense of
gratitude to Him who bought you with His blood? Do you feel the love of
the gracious Comforter who dwells in you, if you are, indeed, a child
of God? What do you know about love to the Brethren?
Do you love the Saints, as Brothers and Sisters in Christ whether they
belong to your Church or not? Whether they please you or serve your
turn or not? Say, do you love God's poor? Do you love God's persecuted
and despised ones? Answer, I pray you. What about love to the kingdom
of the Lord's dear Son, and to the souls of men? Can you sit still and
be satisfied with being saved, yourself, while your neighbors are being
damned by the thousands? Are your eyes never wet with tears for
impenitent souls? Do the terrors of the Lord never get hold upon you,
when you think of men plunging
themselves into perdition? "He that loves not his brother whom he has
seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" Have you this fruit,
then? If not, "every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away."
Next comes joy. Does your religion ever give you joy? Is it mere matter
of duty, a heavy chain for you to drag about like a convict, or is your
religion a harp for you to dance to the tune of? Do you ever rejoice in
Jesus Christ? Do you know what the "joy of the Lord" means? Does it
ever give you joy to think that He is the same even when the fig tree
does not blossom and the herd is cut off from the stall? Do you feel a
joy in reading the promises of God's Word? Have you a joy in secret
prayer–that joy which the world never gave you–and cannot take away
from you? Have you a secret joy, like a spring shut up, a fountain
sealed which is only open to you and your Lord, because your fellowship
is with Him and not with the sons of sin?
He that never mourned because of sin has never repented, but he who has
never rejoiced because of forgiveness cannot have seen the Cross! Come,
then, have you produced this fruit of joy? The Lord give it more and
more to you! If you have never had it, then hear the sentence–"Every
branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away."
Next follows peace. Oh, blessed fruit! An autumn fruit, mellow and
sweet, and fit for an angel's tooth. It is the fruit the blessed feed
upon in Heaven–peace with God, peace of conscience, peace with one's
fellow men–"the peace of God which passes all understanding." The
peace which "keeps the heart and mind through Jesus Christ." "Great
peace have they which love Your Law: and nothing shall offend them."
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ."
Ah, my Hearers, some of you make a great deal of noise, perhaps, about
religion, and yet never have peace of conscience! This is what
ceremonialists never can obtain. "We have an altar, whereof they have
no right to eat which serve the tabernacle" of outward ordinances, and
carnal, vainglorious, pompous ceremonies. Of our altar, where the
finished sacrifice is eaten as a peace offering, they cannot eat. They
find no peace after all their "masses," and holy offices, and
processions, and sacred hours, and priestcraft, and I know not what!
Poor slaves, they go down to their graves as much in bondage as
ever–with the dreary prospect of a purgatorial fire before them–no
delightful prospect of waking up in the likeness of Christ! They have
no sense of the truth of that glorious passage, "and you are complete
in Him." He that has Christ has this one of His fruits, namely, peace.
He who knows no peace with God has good need to tremble.
Mention is next made of long-suffering. I fear there are many
professors who have very little of this, a quality which may be viewed
in many aspects. There is patience, which bears God's chastising hand
and does not turn against Him, but says, "The Lord gave, and the Lord
has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Long-suffering
towards God– suffering long. Then there is long-suffering towards
man–bearing persecution without apostasy. Bearing slander and reproach
without revenge–bearing the errors and mistakes of mankind with tender
compassion. The Believer should have much of this.
Some of us, perhaps, may be naturally quick-tempered. Divine Grace must
overcome angry passions. It is not for you to say, "I cannot help it."
The fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering–you must help it! If there
is no change in your temper, there is no change in you at all–you
still have need to be converted. If the Grace of God does not help you,
in a measure, to keep under that temper which will be there, but which
you must restrain, you have need to go to God and ask Him to make sound
work in you, or there is no work of Grace there as of yet. We must have
long-suffering–or we may be found fruitless–and then woe unto us.
Next in order is gentleness, by which I understand kindness. The
Christian is a man of kindness. He recognizes his kindness with his
fellow men. He wishes to treat them as his kin. He has compassion for
those who are suffering. He endeavors to make his manners kind and
courteous. He knows that there is a natural offense in the Cross to
carnal men. He does not wish, therefore, to make any offense of his
own. He desires in his own life not to be morose, suspicious, harsh,
proud or domineering, but he seeks to imitate his Master, who said of
Himself, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and
lowly in heart."
The Believer in Christ should be gentle towards all men with whom he
comes in contact. This is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and, I may
add, a fruit of the Spirit in which many professors are terribly
deficient. Do not think that I judge you. I judge you not–there is One
that judges you, it is this Word of God which we speak. Gentleness is
the fruit of the Spirit and if you have it not, you have not this fruit
of the Spirit–and what says the text, "Every branch in Me that bears
not fruit He takes away!"
We are next reminded of goodness, by which is undoubtedly meant
beneficence, benevolence, generosity–not merely kindliness of
manner–but bounty of heart. Oh what a fine thing it is when our
Christianity gives us a noble spirit! We cannot all be nobles in
pocket, but every child of God should be a noble in his heart. "Come
in," said a poor Scotch woman to some of the Lord's people, "I have
room for ten of you in my house, but I have room for 10,000 of you in
my
heart."
So should the Believer say, "Come in, you that are in need. I have not
the power to help many of you, but I have the will to help all of you
if I could." The Christian should be like his Lord and Master–easily
entreated, ready to communicate, making it his delight and his business
to distribute, like a cloud that is full of rain and empties itself
upon the earth. A Christian should be like the bright and sparkling sun
scattering his beams abroad and not hiding or hoarding his light. If
you have not this fruit of the Spirit in some measure I beseech you to
remember the solemn words of the text, "Every branch in Me that bears
not fruit He takes away."
Then comes faith, by which is probably not meant the Grace of faith
which is rather a root than a fruit, yet that is included. The fruit of
the Spirit is, indeed, faith in God. Without this there is not even the
commencement of anything like security in the soul. Do you believe on
the Son of God? Have you faith? If you have faith but as a grain of
mustard seed, it is a sign of life within you. If you have little of
it, pray, "Lord, increase our faith!"
But the faith here, I think, means faithfulness–faithfulness towards
God, faithfulness towards conscience. How little some Christians make
of that nowadays! Why they swallow their consciences! There are
ministers who subscribe to words which they know to be deceiving the
people and help to buttress a Church which is doing its utmost to lead
this nation into downright Popery. The good and gracious ministers in
the Establishment are the prop and pillar of it and by their influence
they maintain a system which enables traitors to pollute this land with
Popery.
O that our friends had a little more tenderness of conscience and would
come out from their unhallowed alliance with the Popish Ritualists. How
earnestly do I pray that none of us have the remotest connection with
anything which would take us back to that Antichrist which God
hates–which He so hates that He has bid His servant John call the
apostate church by a dreadful name–a brand of infamy, a name which God
never uses till He has cast off and utterly abhorred a thing.
My Brothers and Sisters, may your consciences be faithful and may you
be faithful to your consciences! Men that trifle with doctrine, it
seems to me, little know what sins they commit. I tell you who trifle
with doctrines that you are as bad as thieves! You are worse, for the
thief only robs men, but you rob God and your own souls! By helping to
foster error, you are heaping together the elements of a pestilence
which, unless Divine Grace prevents, will utterly destroy this land.
We must have faithfulness, also, in our dealings with our fellow men in
business. Saints are men of honor. The Christian man "swears to his own
hurt, and changes not." He does not take an oath, but his word is his
bond. O that we may have this fruit of the Spirit–faithfulness,
directness, straight-forwardness, doing the right, loving the true, and
walking uprightly before the Lord our God!
The next fruit is meekness. May we possess much of this for there is a
peculiar benediction promised to the meek– "Blessed are the meek: for
they shall inherit the earth." The Christian is to be as harmless as a
dove. In his Master's battles, bold as a lion, but for himself and for
his own causes, tender, gentle, shunning debate, loving quietness,
ready to take a rebuke rather than to administer one–feeling himself
to be weak and frail. Moses was the meekest of men, often provoked, but
only once speaking unadvisedly with his lips. It is marvelous how he
bore with the people! They were the most provoking people in the world,
except ourselves–but yet, like as a nurse is tender with a sick
child–even so was he with a foolish people.
How often did they provoke him and grieve his spirit! He grew angry in
ignorance and dashed the two tablets of stone upon the ground when he
saw the idolatry of the people. Moses, the meekest of men, could not
bear that! And God's meekest servants grow wrathful when they think of
the idolatry into which this land is sliding so rapidly. But meek we
must be towards all men–and if we have not this fruit, the Master
says, "Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away."
Do not forget temperance, which is now generally used in respect to
meats and drinks, but which has a far wider significance, though it
includes that. The man who indulges the appetites of the flesh and
cannot control himself as to eating
and drinking need not even pretend to be a Christian. He has first to
prove that he is equal to a beast before he may pretend to be a child
of God! He has first to show that he is a man before he may claim to be
a Christian. Those who indulge in drunkenness shall drink of the wine
of God's wrath before long, and then how bitter will their sweet wines
be to them! How will that which has been sweet to the throat be as
poison in the heart forever and ever! If we have not that kind of
temperance, evidently we can know nothing about true religion.
But there must be an equal temperance in all other things, a temperance
in your dress, in your expenditure, in your temper and, indeed, in
every act. There is a moderation to be observed, a narrow road to be
followed which the tutored eye of the spiritual man can see and which
it is a fruit of the Spirit for the spiritual foot to tread. God grant
that we may have these fruits. Beloved in the Lord, I am persuaded that
no Truth of God needs to be pressed more upon my own soul and yours
than this–that positive fruit is the only test of our being in Christ.
It is so easy for us to wrap ourselves up in the idea that attention to
religious ceremonies is the test, but it is not so, for, "Except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and
Pharisees," who were the most religious people of their day, "you shall
in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven."
I know it is easy to think, "Well, I do not indulge in drunkenness. I
am no rogue. I do not do this or that." This matters little! Remember
that the judgment will not be about those things which you do not do,
but about positive things. How does Jesus Christ put that judgment
matter? "I was hungry and you gave me no meat. I was thirsty and you
gave Me no drink. I was a stranger and you took Me not in. Naked, and
you clothed Me not. Sick, and in prison, and you visited Me not." The
absence of positive fruit was that which condemned the lost. "Every
tree," says John, "that bears no fruit shall be hewn down and cast into
the fire." He does not say, "Every tree that bears bitter fruit, or
sour grapes," but "Every tree that brings forth no fruit."
Fruitless professors, tremble! I may not speak so as to make this Truth
of God penetrate as I wish it should into your inmost souls, but I pray
the eternal Spirit to make it like fire in the bones of every deceived
man and woman! If my Lord shall come to you, my Hearer, day after day,
as He once came to the fig tree, and should find leaves upon you and no
fruit, I tell you He will say, "Henceforth let no fruit be on you
forever," and you shall wither away. What is His own parable The master
of the vineyard said to the husbandman, "Behold, these three years I
come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none: cut it down; why
cumbers it the ground?"
And when the husbandman interceded, you will remember his intercession
was only so far: "If it bears fruit, well: and if not, then after that
you shall cut it down." Jesus the Intercessor agrees with His Father
the Husbandman. Mercy agrees with Justice–if there is no fruit–the
tree must come down. May I beseech you to lay these things to heart.
You must bear fruit unto God by the power of the Spirit or it is down
with you! God fingers His axe this morning. It is sharp and if He does
but lift it, woe to you, barren fig tree! Woe, indeed, to me also, if I
am found barren in the day of the Lord's appearing!
In closing this weighty business of self-examination, I must remind you
that our Lord tells us that although these persons were in some points
alike, the solemn difference between them led to a solemn
result–"Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away." There
are many ways in which the Lord takes away barren branches. Sometimes
He allows the professor to apostatize. He gets rich and then he will
not go to the place of worship which he used to frequent when he was a
poorer man and was humble enough to hear the Gospel–he must go to some
fashionable place where he can listen to anything but the Truth of
God–and thus by his own pride he is taken away.
Or else he is allowed to fall into open sin. We always should regret
the falls of professors, but sometimes it is possible that discovered
sins may be a blessing, for they take away from the Church men who
never ought to have been there and who were an injury to it. Many
bright professors have stood well for a long time, but at last they
have been snuffed out ecclesiastically by reason of their outward sins.
God has taken them away. Some have been taken away in a more terrible
sense, by death. God has removed them. They have lived in the Church
and died in the Church, but have been taken away in solemn judgment and
cast into the fire.
Then there is a taking away which is worst of all, when the Master
shall say, "Depart, you cursed!" Now, remember, these were respectable
people. These were people like you–decent, good people, who attended a
place of worship, and contributed, and were very moral–but still they
had not Divine Grace in their souls. They had nominal Christianity, but
not the fruit of the Spirit, and what was done with them? "Lord, cannot
some mild means be used? How sad to see
these branches cut off!" "No," He says, "if they bring not forth fruit,
they must be taken away." "But, Lord, they never reeled in and out of
the gin palace! Lord, they were much too good and much too amiable to
be found among the debased and the debauched!"
"Take them away! They brought no fruit, and they must be taken away."
"But, Master, they were so diligent in the use of ordinances. They were
so constant and regular in the form of prayer!" "They brought forth no
fruit," says He, "take them away." There is only this one thing for
them–if they had, through saving faith, been made to bear the fruit of
the Spirit, they would have been saved–but as there was no fruit, take
them away. What is done with that which is taken away? If I could take
you just outside the garden wall I would let you see a heap of weeds
and slips that are taken from the vine. There they are heaped together
with a little straw, and the gardener burns them. The other branches
with their purple clusters are in honor, but these dishonored things
are burnt outside the gate.
I cannot describe to you that day of doom, that terrible fate which
shall come upon fruitless branches of the spiritual vine. They will be
outside the gate with a great gulf fixed between them and Heaven, where
the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever–"where their worm
dies not, and the fire is not quenched." If such people are cast away,
what will become of some of you? If these good people who were in
Christ, in a way, still perish because they brought forth no fruit, O
you who are like hemlock in the furrows of the field, you who produce
the grapes of Gomorrah and the apples of Sodom–what shall be your doom
in the day of account when the Master shall come forth in robes of
judgment to execute righteousness among the sons of men?
II. Briefly on the second point. THE TEXT CONVEYS INSTRUCTION. Looking
at it carefully we observe that the fruit-bearing branches are not
perfect. If they were perfect they would not need pruning. But the fact
is there is much of original inbred sin remaining in the best of God's
people. So whenever the sap within them is strong for the production of
fruit there is a tendency for that strength to turn into evil, and
instead of good fruit evil is produced. It is the strength of the tree
and the richness of the sap which makes the branch produce too much
wood so that it needs pruning. The gardener desires to see that
strength in clusters, but alas, instead it runs into wood.
Now observe that in a Christian when the sap comes into him to produce
confidence in God, because of the evil that is in him it often produces
confidence in himself, and he who would be strong in faith becomes
strong in carnal security. When the sap would produce zeal, how very
frequently it turns into rashness, and instead of zeal with knowledge,
fanaticism is brought forth! Suppose the sap flows to produce
self-examination? Very generally unbelief is the outgrowth and instead
of the man doubting himself, he begins to doubt his Lord. How often
have I seen even the joy of the Lord turned into pride, and when the
man should rejoice in Christ Jesus he has began to rejoice in himself,
to grow proud and say, "What a fine experience I possess!"
That love which we ought to bear towards our neighbors–how apt is that
to run into love of the world and carnal complacency towards its evil
ways! The gentleness which I praised just now often turns to a silly
compliance with everybody's whim. And meekness, which is a fruit of the
Spirit, how often that becomes an excuse for holding your tongue when
you ought boldly to speak! The fact is, it is very difficult to keep
ourselves, when we are in a flourishing state, from producing wood
instead of grapes. God grant us Divine Grace to keep us from this evil!
And I do not know how the Grace can come except by His judicious
pruning.
I say the fruit-bearing branches are not perfect because they bear a
great deal that is not fruit, and, moreover, not one of them bears as
much fruit as it ought to do. I do not agree with Mr. Wesley's opinion
about perfection. It is very difficult to see how he could have done
more than he did, but I do not doubt that even he felt that he might
have been more like his Lord. None of the Lord's people with whom I
ever came into communion have dared to think themselves perfect–and if
they had said so, and proved it–I should have rejoiced to think that
there were such people, but greatly sorrowed to find that I belong to a
very different order of beings myself. "In me, that is, in my flesh,
there dwells no good
thing."
The Master is bringing us upon our way to bring forth more fruit, but
as yet, the fruit-bearing branches are not perfect. Therefore we are
taught, in the second place, that pruning is the lot of all the
fruitful Saints. You may escape it if you are not fruitful–you will be
cut off–you will not be pruned. But all the fruit-bearing Saints must
feel the knife. Observe Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob–had not those
Patriarchs their trials? Moses and David, Jeremiah and Daniel– who
among those escaped? Though they honored their Master much, who escaped
without the pruning knife? And if you
come to the Believers of the New Testament, surely the flame was seven
times hotter with regard to them than with regard to the elder
Brethren.
How does the Lord prune His people, then? It is generally said by
affliction. I question if that could be proved as it stands–it needs
explanation. It is generally thought that our trials and troubles purge
us. I am not sure of that, they certainly are lost upon some. Our Lord
tells us what it is that prunes us. "Now," says He, in the third verse
of the chapter, "you are clean (or pruned) through the Word which I
have spoken unto you." It is the Word that prunes the Christian, it is
the Truth that purges him–the Scripture, made living and powerful by
the Holy Spirit–which effectually cleanses the Christian.
"What, then, does affliction do?" you ask. Well, if I may say so,
affliction is the handle of the knife–affliction is the grindstone
that sharpens up the Word of God. Affliction is the dresser which
removes our soft garments and lays bare the diseased flesh so that the
surgeon's lancet may get at it. Affliction makes us ready to feel the
Word, but the true pruner is the Word in the hand of the Great
Husbandman. Sometimes when you lay stretched upon a bed of sickness you
think more upon the Word than you did before. That is one great thing.
In the next place, you see more the applicability of that Word to
yourself. In the third place, the Holy Spirit makes you feel more,
while you are thus laid aside, the force of the Word than you did
before.
Ask that affliction may be sanctified, Beloved, but always remember
there is no more tendency in affliction in itself to sanctify us than
there is in prosperity! In fact, the natural tendency of affliction is
to make us rebel against God which is quite opposite to sanctification.
It is the Word coming to us while in affliction that purges us. It is
God the Holy Spirit laying home Divine Truths and applying the blood of
Jesus, and working in all His Divine energy in the soul. It is this
that prunes us, and affliction is only the handle of the knife, or what
if I say the ladder which the gardener takes to reach the vine so that
he may prune it better?
Now it may be that some of us have been afflicted a great deal and have
not been pruned. I know some people who have been very poor–I do not
see that they are any better for it. And I know some others who have
been very sick, but I have never heard that they have been improved.
Alas, some people are of such a character that if they were stricken
till their whole head were sick–and their whole heart faint–they
would not be benefited! If they were beaten till they were all bruises
and putrefying sores they would still go on to rebel–for these things
only provoke them to a greater hatred against the Most High. We must be
pruned, but it must be by the Word, through affliction.
Now the object in this pruning is never condemnatory. God does not
purge His children with a view to visit them penally for sin. He
chastises, but He cannot punish those for whom Jesus Christ has been
already punished! You have no right to say, when a man is afflicted,
that it is because he has done wrong. On the contrary, "every branch
that bears fruit He purges." Just the branch that is good for something
gets the pruning knife! Do not say of yourselves, or of other people,
"That man must have been a great offender or he would not have met with
such a judgment." Nonsense! Who was a holier man than Job? But has any
been brought lower than he?
Why, the fact is, it is because the Lord loves His people that He
chastens them–not because of any anger that He has towards them!
Learn, Beloved, especially you under trial, not to see an angry God in
your pains or your losses, or your crosses–instead, see a Husbandman
who thinks you a branch whom He estimates at so great a rate that He
will take the trouble to prune you–which He would not do if He had not
a kind consideration towards you. The real reason is that more fruit
may be produced, which I understand to mean more in quantity.
A good man who feels the power of the Word pruning him of this and that
superfluity, sets to work, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to do more
for Jesus. Before he was afflicted he did not know how to be patient.
He learns it at last–a hard lesson. Before he was poor he did not know
how to be humble, but he learns that. Before the Word came with power
he did not know how to pray with his fellows, or to speak to sinners,
or lay himself out for usefulness. But now the more he is pruned, the
more he serves his Lord.
More fruit in variety, too, may be intended. One tree can only produce
one kind of fruit, usually, but the Lord's people can produce many, as
we have already seen. And the more they are pruned the more they will
produce. There will be all kinds of fruit, both new and old, which they
will lay up for their Beloved. There will be more in quality, too. The
man may not pray more, but he will pray more earnestly. He may not
preach more sermons, but he will preach them more thoroughly from his
heart with a greater unction. It may be that he will not be more in
communion with God as to time,
but it will be a closer communion. He will throw himself more
thoroughly into the Divine element of communion and will become more
hearty in all that he does.
This is the result of the pruning which our heavenly Father gives. And
if such is the result, the Lord keep on pruning, for what greater
blessing can a man have than to produce much fruit for God? Better to
serve God much than to become a prince. He that does much for Christ
shall shine as the stars forever and ever! He is good in God. He is
blessing his fellow men. He is bringing joy into his own spirit. Oh, if
on bended knee we might seek but one favor, I think we should not ask
the wisdom which Solomon craved–we would petition for this–that we
might bring forth much fruit, so that we might be Christ's disciples.
III. To conclude. Our text INVITES MEDITATION. I will hint at the
points on which it invites our thoughts. It suggests to every
unconverted person here this one thought–it seems that it is not very
easy for the righteous to be saved–"If the righteous scarcely are
saved, where shall the ungodly and the wicked appear?" If the branches
in Christ that bear no fruit are taken away, what must become of the
Sabbath-breakers, the despisers of God, the atheists, the drunkards,
the unchaste, the dishonest, the blasphemers? I raise the
question–solve it! Let it burn into your soul!
Secondly, what a mercy it is to the Believer that it is pruning with
him and not cutting off! Ah, let the knife be very sharp. Let the Word
of God throw us into the great deeps till we almost despair. Yet, thank
God we are not cast into Hell! Dear Friends, your prayer should be,
"Lord, let Your Word cut deep into me. Do not let the preacher mince
matters with me. Deliver him from sewing pillows under my armholes and
lulling me to sleep. Lord, I would be faithfully dealt with! I put the
proud flesh before You–cut it out that the wound heals not so as to be
worse when healed than it was when a running sore."
What a mercy it is not to be cut off! Ah, Christian, you are desponding
and doubting today while the Word is searching you–but you might have
been in Hell! Think of that! You are poor, or you are full of pain, but
you might have been driven from the Presence of God! How can you, as a
living man, complain about whatever God may place upon you? In the next
place it would be well to think how gently the pruning has been done
with the most of us, up till now, compared with our barrenness. I
wonder the Lord has not cut us much more. He who has a deep-seated
disease requires sharp medicine. And when the sore runs deep, the
doctor must cut deep, too. With all the rust that is on us, it is a
wonder we are not filed more. There is so much alloy, it is marvelous
that we are not more often put into the fire. O Spirit of God, You have
hard work with some of us! Still we bless You, for Your gentleness has
been manifested very graciously. How tenderly have You dealt with our
frail dust, O God of love!
Again, how earnestly we ought to seek for more fruit! If this is what
God seeks after, we should be after it! If He often goes the length of
pruning the vine–although He does not love to do it, for He does not
afflict willingly, or grieve the children of men for nothing–let us
agree with God and seek to yield more fruit. How concerned should every
one of us be to be efficaciously and truly one with Christ! I ought to
have said that the whole gist of the text lies in that "in Me, in Me,
in Me." You see, if a man is not in Christ at all, why then, of course,
there is no hope of any sort! And then, when he is in Christ, there
come the questions–is he in Christ by living faith, by real trust? Has
he the faith of God's elect? Has he been born again from above? Is he a
spiritual Grace-taught soul? Let these be the questions which shall
rest upon our minds.
I would that this morning my text might be sweet to you. Sweet, I said,
because if for the moment it seems bitter, the end is sweetness.
Faithful are the wounds of such a friend as Jesus! If He has wounded
any of you, it is not to drive you from Him but to make you cling
closer to Him! Have you never learned that, when you feel the most
humbled, most afraid, most full of sin, most conscious of your own
imperfection, the best thing is to cling to Christ more?
"Well, Lord, if I have been the most cursed hypocrite that ever lived,
I will come to You. If up to this moment I have been deceived and have
not had a grain of true faith, nor a single one of the fruits of the
Spirit, yet here I am, a poor vile sinner! I fly to the fountain–a
naked sinner. I wrap Your righteousness about my loins! I am a poor
sin-sick, lost sinner–I look up to You on yonder Cross and I do
believe that You can save me! From the very jaws of death, and out of
the belly of Hell do I cry unto You, and You will hear me."
O Sinners and Saints, come to Christ again whether you are His
experimentally, or are strangers to Him, come to Him now, for still the
Gospel bell rings out sweetly, "Whoever will, let him take the water of
life freely." O God, grant us Grace to come now afresh, and Yours be
the praise! Amen, and Amen.
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The Great Attraction
A sermon