Gospel of John (2nd Yr Study 13 of 19, Chap 14 Cont) — G.W. North

Into thy holy presence Lord. God help us at all times to remember the God holy and here are preparing us to live in thy presence Lord forever and forever and the things of this world won't exist. We do bless thee father for the way thou dost save us, win us, sanctify us from this world.

We should be a people distinct unto thee. Lord we praise thee not just for us but for all thy truly born-again ones Lord who live in thy holy presence in thy consciousness that thou dost give us. Thy known holy presence will us whatever we do wherever we are except thou would not go if we go into sin.

Therefore Lord we pray thee in thy great love who had thine own son slain for us who teaches the solemnity as well as the joy of belonging to thee keep us. We pray thee enable us Lord to think right and to understand right.

And we ask thee father for nothing more than thyself being with us shalt be all in all to us this day. Amen. We'll turn to that 15th chapter of John's gospel now I'm way behind schedule always am it's my conscience complete.

Staying Busy for God and Learning Wisdom from the Ant

There's not time enough for anything really in this world. We'll have to keep busy all the time for God and remember to old King Solomon said to people in his days go to the ant thou sluggard consider her ways and be wise.

If we had the wisdom of ants we'd do better. Apparently they're very wise creatures or can teach us something from their ways will make us wise. That's so very wonderful isn't it. But there again I suppose it comes from the fact that I stored my mind and heart up with all right through the whole scriptures.

I can wander off on those. So I want to keep on to John with you beloved and may the Lord help us now you will remember. I hope that we finished the 14th chapter or at least we hurried through at the end.

The Upper-Room Teaching Continues in John 15

I'm coming into chapter 15 you will understand that this is one continuous teaching of the Lord in that upper room so some of it is just wonderful teaching. You don't need anybody like me or anybody else to teach you because it's so plainly stated it's right on the surface.

And I told you didn't I about that wonderful discovery of that tremendous diamond that was quite on the surface nobody dug for it and they didn't know the children that they were playing with the biggest diamond in the world.

They didn't just didn't know. They played around with it fooling about. And you see we can be like that. And if everybody was to read through the scriptures just pick up picking up the precious stone shall I say that on the surface where you don't have to do any digging or cutting or polishing in their wonderful first state they have to be recognized.

So you've done all that. I suppose something like that in these following chapters that is the chapters 15 and 16 I want to get through them both so that we can start on Monday in the will of God with a marvelous chapter 17 which as you will know though I may remind you of it on Monday because students are apt to forget as well as lecturers is the real Lord's Prayer.

They've got it all wrong. You will know that it's been systematically taught wrongly taught that those words in Matthew which is when ye pray say our Father. Now notice he said when you pray that wasn't the Lord's Prayer.

That was the disciples prayer. You know I guarantee you on Sunday morning they'll say let's say the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is in the 17th chapter of John and no one but he could have prayed.

Oh marvellous then for us to get to correct our ideas we through slipshod thinking unquestionable acceptance of statements through the denomination or person they say we accept them. And we never really think about it at all.

Thoughtless prayer is useless prayer. So then we're going to start in John 15 and eventually giving you a whole weekend to think about it. We're going to start on Monday in the 17th being in the will of God all right.

You will notice that in the end of 14 the very last verse but that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father gave me commandment even so I do arise. Let us go. Hence have you noticed the significance of that one verse.

Christ’s Obedience, the Cross, and the Father’s Purpose

I ought to have 10 years studying John's gospel with you. Here is the thing you know he did not first of all go to the cross. Or shall I say put the other way around. He did not go for the cross. To the cross first of all for you or for me.

He went for his father. Why. What I'm going to do now. I want the whole world he says it to know that I love the father. Father wanted him to die on the cross. So that's it. Don't blame the Jews don't blame the Romans particularly though they have a whole world of blame to bear for it.

It's because father wanted him to die and rise again so that he could have a family of newborn children. That's what he does it. And did it for the father's sake because God wanted a family in which of which you could be one.

If you fulfill the conditions. Without fulfilling the conditions you cannot be a child of God. Tell me all the conditions. Have I got what I have to do this. I have to do that. I have to do that. No you don't have to do anything.

But if you want to be a child of God you have to do what the father tells you. No rebels in father's family. You understand. You might have rebelled against your parents or all kinds of things. And you were dragged up in that sense never brought up properly to obey your parents first of all self.

Self self. And it was to crucify that self that Jesus went to the cross. Not just to take away your sins not just to shed the precious precious blood but to destroy you that awful self that you inherited through your parents from the devil.

And this is why Jesus came to us. You must get this plainly in your mind understand that. And then you'll begin to understand not so things that he said and did you see. And you won't blame those people that slew him years ago because they didn't slay him.

Nobody in this world slew Jesus. He is the unslayable. You must not think that sin overcame him on the cross. You must not think that the Jews killed him on the cross. You must not think the Romans killed him on the cross.

You must not think the death killed Jesus. It did not have I shocked you. Jesus voluntarily laid down his life. Three crosses. On this side a terrible man. On that side a terrible man. They were struggling not to die.

Keep that clear. They didn't want to die. They were paying the penalty for their crimes. They went to them because it was the Passover. You must read it. You must read your Bibles properly. You should never know what it teach what they teach.

You'll have to rely on some preacher or something like that. They went to one of one man he was alive on the cross screaming in terrible pain. So they broke his legs to hasten his death. They went to the other thief on the other side and did the same with him.

And when they came to Jesus they were staggered out of their minds. He was dead already physically. All he did was serve the father all right. And when he had finished the task that God his father laid upon him he dismissed his spirit.

The other two people you won't dismiss your spirit. If and when you die you will die. But he accomplished the work. God is not a sadist. He just accomplished the work. I have finished the work thou gavest me to do.

And when he if you like died he didn't say the people listening to see when his breath is finished he just dismissed his spirit. He overcame death. He slew death. That's what makes Paul say I'll be preaching to you instead of teaching.

But let's get you've got to get certain principles basic in your thinking. And when Paul talked like he talked says I was crucified with Christ. That it was all done for his father first of all who wanted a pure holy eternal family.

And then for you and for me. Now you please yourself what you do about this. Christ did it for you. If you don't accept that death unto the world and to sin and to all the trickery. And I don't know what's in the world.

That's up to you. I press it upon you. That you understand says poor he saw that what he saw what it was all I was crucified. I was crucified. He did it for me. And unless you are a crucified and living person you don't belong to God.

They're the only kind of children he has through his one human child Jesus. Perhaps I ought to have dictated that all to all to you. But I trust your hearts and minds are wide open. I don't want to have to come and waste my time dictating ABC to you.

This is the great thing that you have to understand. So he said I want the world. Verse 31. We haven't got into the 15th chapter yet. Goodness me. But that though I want the world to know that I love the father and obey his commandments.

So I am going to the cross. That's what he said. Marvelous isn't it. And you'll be of no good to God. Gifted though you may be talented though you may be singer instrument player got the gift of the gab so you could easily preach and all this business.

You'll be no good to God unless you've been to and through the cross and the grave. You'll be loved by him. He'll plead with you. He'll call you. But whether you respond or not is entirely up to you. Now this is the thing that we start with.

The True Vine and the Necessity of Abiding in Christ

Now he teaches the vine. You see it's quite logical. You know Jesus you know his thoughts. You know the way his mind works and his spirit works. He says I'm a true vine. I'm a true vine. And you've got to be one of the true branches.

Think of what all that I've just said. You've got to be one of the true branches of the vine. So you judge yourself and I must judge myself. We've got to come out of the fantasy the that it's in so called Christianity in the Christian world today you've got to come into the reality of the life God imparted to you by this way and only by this way.

I am the way he said in chapter 14 I am the way I've not just come to show you the way or to direct you according to a map. I am the way if you want to get anywhere with God. You've got to walk me like I have to walk down from that house this morning.

This is so simple. You could teach it in an infant's class. You've got to walk me. What a marvelous now he brings this. God is expecting fruit. That's right. He wants fruit from his son. And from his act of sending his son into the world and raising him from the dead after he had satisfied him with that wonderful death as it was called.

He departed from his body voluntarily. He never hung there being tortured. Tortured tortured after he had completed the work that God gave him to do. And everybody was surprised to be dead. He ought not to be dead.

He should be strong healthy man as they would say. And I said well you know when we got to that middle cross he was dead he gone. The other two were struggling cursing. I don't know what. Hanging on to every last breath didn't want to die.

They're gonna face the judgment. Then what a tremendous truth. Now then here is the very thing that God has. Let's read it. I am the true I now that's the statement first of all which would have shaken those men.

For I thought you were going to rudely because if I knew you I wouldn't think you were rude rudely go up without asking to be excused. Here is the thing they they heard this I am the truth. I do. You know why.

Because Israel of which they were part thought they were the vine of God. In fact they would point you back to Isaiah which I'm sure you're familiar with that wonderful fifth chapter of Isaiah where you're told God's complaining really to Israel.

He said he took a vine out of Egypt planted it in a vineyard. Would you say that's on the blink. And they thought they were fine. They were the vine. But Jesus says I am the true vine. Thank you the true vine not Israel.

And you know that Israel has two symbols you know that don't you. The vine and the fig tree. The fig tree is the worldly standing. You know the vine was supposed to be their spiritual standard. All right bit of information perhaps that you already knew.

I have reminded you. So he says this I am the true vine. I want you to know that Israel whatever you want to call these days not bring you forth fruit unto God. Except that there are many Jews now and they're called messianic or something like that.

They've turned to Christ many Jews. Wonderful. There's just as wonderful if many Englishmen cook or Frenchmen or whatever you happen to be the thing is turned to the Lord. I'm not going to discuss that I'm just talking to you right from here so that you and me have the correct picture in our mind.

Now he says I'm the true vine. My father is the husband. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he takes away now that should have killed the die-hard Calvinistic place you might have been holding in your mind.

I don't know because they say once saved or was saved if you're in the vine and that's it whatever you do be and all that. But God said that branches are broken off the vine and that's it. Keep that clear because you might have been brought up in a very Arminian position of once saved or was saved don't matter what your law and say today lost tomorrow kind of thing.

That's a bit of a jive. But they don't quite preach that. But but still that's the thing of course you can get saved again. Oh dear oh dear oh dear beloved. You just believe what Jesus said. My father's the husband.

I am the vine and my father takes away the branches in me that don't bear fruit. Now you look at me eye by eye ball to eye ball now will you. Because I'm saying that to you and you and you you you you all of you you have to bear fruit not starve.

Keep living your life on hopes of going to heaven when you die. This is the thing this is the gospel. What have you born and still are bearing. Which is obviously the fruit of the vine. Jesus faced them up with you see you've got to be faced up to truth beloved.

It isn't to do with doctrinal stuff. You may have been fed from the beginning though. You've got to have some kind of doctrine by the way you know if you were in a university they would take these problems and they would say we will study the theory say kinetic energy or something like that.

If it you go to a seminary or college or church they call it the doctrine. So we will study this doctrine same thing in technical language. But it isn't knowledge of the laws that govern it. And there are laws of governing as we shall see in this 15th chapter.

There are laws of fruit-bearing got to be a branch in me. He says it's going to be broken off if it doesn't bear fruit. There's not a lazy bone in Jesus Christ you understand. Or an unfruitful branch of him.

For branches are in the vine. And you do know that the stock the vine the main stem never has fruit on it. Did you know that the fruit is only born on the branches. The branches have to bear the fruit.

He gives life unto the branches. So we say he's bearing fruit. That's all plain to you isn't it. This is what it is. Now let me read through and I'll emphasize some things. Here they go every branch every branch including a branch named North.

You understand though I'm not called that in heaven. I don't think he called me South either. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. They don't die. He takes them away. And every branch that beareth fruit he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit now.

That's the evidence. Do you know why I realized way back in my life that I needed God to do a great big thing in me called baptism in the Holy Spirit or fullness of the Holy Spirit. Because I'd never led a soul to Christ.

I knew that. Or I could preach. I could put words together. I could do all this. And I was brought up to sort of learn Bible texts from my youth three years of age. I think talk about this three years ago I remember standing on a platform in the Sunday school where I attended.

And I could say the Bible alphabet three. I could repeat it. Hmm. Yeah you see I listen. I'll give you the A and B anyway. I'll give you a bit C. And also I could listen a soft A. We say hey. A soft answer turneth away B.

But foolish words stir up anger C come unto me. I'm quoting from three years of age. Were you given that privilege. Or did some stupid person give you a sand tray or something. Or did you do painting.

Bearing Fruit Through the Word and the Indwelling Christ

The church is all going to pieces. Beloved. Only here and there. Do you find the people that are concerned to ground you in the scriptures from your earliest age. Only here and there. And this is the big thing for us to get there.

He purges purges that may bring forth more fruit. Now you're clean through the word that I have spoken unto you abide in me. Correction. It's your thinking if you like and I in you don't abide in me in heaven.

You abide in me in you. Oh if he isn't in you so could you dreaming about heaven. That's the wonderful thing he says it here. It's in the book. No fiddling no denominational emphasis or conjuring. You're in that upper room.

You remember I said that was a day I would have chosen if I'd had my choice. You're in that upper room with him. You're hearing it from his own lips. My father will take you away if you don't abide in me.

But this abiding is I in you. That's the one Jesus you have to abide in. He has to be in you. And you are to abide in him in you. It's true. It's right out of his own mouth. You don't have to conjure with it and bring up some sort of theological idea out of your head almost to combat it.

You've got to God's very interested in you and me of course by his grace. See now you are clean. Verse 3. 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 me.

So you've got to produce it of yourself because you are abiding in him. You don't bring full fruit through another gotta be yourself. I am the vine. I am the vine not you. You are the branches. You're just a branch of the vine.

Oh it is so wonderful. He that abideth in me remember and I in him. The emphasis is again that's the I you have to abide in the I am in you in you. Or is it somebody who just go to a building once a week to worship.

What it. What is this thing you've got hold of. Jesus Christ was the human life of the divine life of the eternal life. The exposition of it the display of it. That's it him so glorious. Oh I am the vine.

You are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you could 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 a fire their blood. If you abide in me and my words abide in you doesn't say the Bible my words the words I have spoken beloved. You've got to know this New Testament.

You might know Isaiah. You might know Moses. You might know all the other people. David especially the 23rd psalm the Lord my shepherd and so on and so on my words. So it doesn't matter what Moses. Oh yes.

Course is Jesus Christ the speaking Jesus Christ in you. This is what's called communion. It's so tremendous. That's how you're going to live. Cheap talk. When people talk about discipleship often. That's the way you'll be my disciples.

John only used this word disciples three times. The others were full of it. Disciples. The disciples father disciples. That disciples are you reading Matthew Mark and Luke. John only used the word three times.

He never once used the word Apostle. Never. He knew they were only trainee Apostles during the Lord's life on the earth. It's so glorious beloved. If you love me and my words does he speak to you. I didn't say except the New Testament abides in you my words.

So you are a child of God. Are you telling me you're in constant communion and communication with him. Does he speak to you in here. I suppose Derek has taken this with you in the past. But there were a group of people called the quietest and they taught and they were wonderful people.

The Quakers in England became were really quietest. Madam Guy all you've heard of madam guy horn. You've read her books. Haven't you. Yes she was a quietest. These people that had this blessed quiet inward glorious eyeball to eyeball mouth-to-mouth contact with God.

Oh I'm talking about the searching of faith of course. And the hearing of faith. This is the true Christian life. What it is come before. It's not in noise. It's not in instruments. It's not an organ.

Whatever you want. It's not in what should be. Aids to worship have sometimes become the enemies of worship. And madam Guy on wrote wonderful hymns. You should read her works if you haven't behind the 14-foot thick walls of the Bastille in France.

She loved God. They used to speak about in their times of persecution because they were persecuted even by men who ought to have known differently. They talk about turning in. Well I invite you every one of you this morning to turn in.

What do you find in there. Right. What is this voice whispers through your brain. What is it. It'll either be your life like is the life in the vine or your death. This is the marvelous thing you've got to know.

So that if you could be shut in a cell. I was reading or looking at trying to read some of the works of one of those men yesterday but I couldn't speak his language. But you know he talked to me you see and in would sweet communion with those whose rest is one are you in that time for six me.

Let us go on beloved up. But I do plead with you to take into your heart that if you don't bear the Jesus fruit you will be plucked away from the vine. The father will take you away and you will still call yourself a Christian or something.

That's the big thing. And the fruit of course it's not souls be one that is fruit in another area. The fruit is listen. It's listed for you by Paul in this fifth gospel. I keep saying in the fifth gospel as love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith self-control.

You never lose your temper to self-control is a fruit sometimes said to me don't you ever lose your temper. Or I said I lost it about 50 60 years ago and it's never come back. It's real. The salvation is real.

The things God exalts you to he has already accomplished in a human being called Jesus of Nazareth. And it's exactly that kind of life. It is that life that is imported imparted to you and me. That's what it is.

In case you know because you may not be a world traveler or even anything to God be a big preacher man and give appeals. And people respond. You say look at the fruit of my visits or something like that you can produce sweet grapes for the like grapes.

Don't you soon as God these kinds. And you and I have to prove it. You're not a snappy nasty your tempers dictated by your physical state or something. Oh I've got a bad head this morning. Get out of the way that kind of thing.

Oh she's got plenty of trials and difficulties you see. No no if God can't save us from difficulties in our personal makeup you see as well as from sins. He's really not much good to us. Is he. He's got to produce his son in you.

That's what it's all about. And how wonderful. Now listen to this. If you abide in me now you just think of this and my words abide in you you shall ask what you will what you will. And it should be done unto you here it is my father glorified.

Have you properly ever properly read this 15th chapter of John. Prospects of this beloved. Oh you'll really be a child of God. You really will pleasing your father. He says I'm good. I'm going. What I do remember the last word of that 14th chapter shouldn't be in the chapter divisions.

You'll get tired of me saying this. He said as the father gave me commandment I'm going to do it even so I do arise. Let's go heads. And he was heading for Gethsemane. Tremendous. As the father have loved me so have I loved you.

Continue ye in my love. Do you really believe you're loved. And just so like father loved Jesus. Believe that this is the family he's producing for the world to come. Get this deep into your heart. Perhaps it you would do well to remember it by writing it.

But here it is in the old covenant God prepared an earth first. He made you know the creation. Then he prepared man to live in the creation. Now beloved he's preparing men first. He's going to make a new creation.

It's reversed. Make the earth first. Then we'll fit for man to live in. Okay. Then we'll prepare men to live in it. He is preparing men and women. And has been doing so from that first Easter morning when the Holy Ghost came and prepared them by filling the wall with a Holy Ghost that they could live in that great new creation.

That's what it's about. Don't assent to it in your mind though it's good to do that. But with all your heart say oh praise God this is the thing don't be like I used to be when I used to have to learn when I went to school how to swim.

I'm not a good swimmer. I can swim all right. But I'm not one of these great swimmers whereas other boys and in my class and age used to go whoo in. I used to stand on a break like that and test the water and often slumped back into my little cabin.

I've always been a cold man. I'm colder than my name. Here is the tremendous thing to get hold of. Plunge in beloved. Plunge in. I hate the first few seconds of getting into a shower. Even then I turn up ever so hot.

I say who had the heat. The temperature this heat. You see beloved this is what it's about. I only gave up a bath because I fell in it twice when I had the stroke and so I had to buy one of those horrible things called a shower.

But here you are beloved. And here you must understand don't be so human and don't guide it by your neighbor or what your family does. You are important and you got a plunge right in the more in that mess.

Excuse the word you accomplish. That's just success not. I'm a Sunday school teacher. I'm a deaconess. I am this I am. That they are mere offices in the church church. Is you gotta please a wonderful father.

I'm never going to get through. Am I. My ambition for Monday morning fades. But here's the great truth beloved get it right into you. If you don't abide in Christ son daughter whoever you are no matter what you call yourself where you come from or where you think you're going.

If you do not abide in Christ you'll get precisely nowhere significant. They use this word burning. You'll be burned. Oh it's so great beloved if you keep my commandments. And only if ye shall abide in my love.

Even as I 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 your joy might be full. That's where you should rejoice that Christ is abiding.

I'm going to heaven when you die. Get it out of your thinking. It's what you are now that will decide what you will be then. And this is the big thing first get. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

So now you can gauge how much people enjoy of the love of God by how they do or do not love you. That's how you can gauge. You don't judge nothing to do with judging. You just simply know. Or else you've got nothing up here.

How marvelous it is. Greater love hath no man than this. That a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if and only if. Keep it there. You do whatsoever I command you. Oh but Jesus loves me.

But you haven't got the right reciprocal love unless you accept his commandments in your life. I ought to stop and give you some illustrations of this. I suppose none of you are really understanding what I'm.

Perhaps all of you are. I don't know. But here's the thing you have to obey. God is not pestering you all day. We say do do this. Do do that. He's not that kind. He won't be more like a devil. The devil drives you.

God leads you. You perceive this beloved. You're only his friends. If you do what he commands you. Henceforth I call you not servants. For the servant knoweth not but his Lord doeth. But I have called you friend for all things I've heard of my father I've made known unto you.

You haven't chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you. You should go. He doesn't say remain. You should go and bring forth fruit. And that your fruit should remain for whatsoever. You should ask of my father in my name.

He made now a bit of it. That's all so tremendous isn't it. You can't stand still. Dear Christian. You know a grapevine cannot produce its fruit unless it sends out branches that go and go and go. And as they go the branch the branches.

But what. Not just one bunch. Because it went a little way. You've got to go. Going and growing are simultaneously going and growing and producing are simultaneous. That's it. Hallelujah. Now don't suddenly get a fit in your head that you're going to go and live in China or something like that.

That's not what I'm talking about. May God bless us. Oh apologies to my dear friend. She must have some Eastern blood in her. But. But this is the thing. And she will undoubtedly go home. But but you know what I'm talking about.

Don't get terrible things into your head. Just be simple. Just abide just grow and produce. The father will break you off if you don't. Jesus said so you can all break for five minutes.