Pruning & Bearing Fruit — Robert B. Thompson

Lord, as we come unto you tonight, it is with thanksgiving and praise. Oh, hallelujah, Lord, we do give praise to you. Thank you, Lord. For surely it's true that goodness and mercy follows us all the days of our life.

And, Lord, we see those little touches from time to time, and we're thankful for them. Praise you. We pray tonight for Don Schulte. Oh, Lord, he's not eating. And we just pray for Audrey, that you'll strengthen her and give her wisdom and peace, Lord.

And touch Don. Yeah, just touch him, Lord. We pray that in the home where he is, that they'll take more careful attention of him, Lord. In Jesus' name, be with him, we pray, and with Audrey. And, Lord, with each household represented here, we pray your peace and your protection and health.

Oh, God, freedom from accident and injury. And, Lord, as we proceed tonight, Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit will guide in what is said and proceed, that your word may go forth. In Jesus' name, Amen.

The Kingdom of God and the True Vine

Let's turn to John 15. Just kind of continuing with the idea that we're talking about Sunday night, the sower. The fact that the kingdom of God is something in us. It's not a place where we're going. It's what is happening to us.

I don't know if it'll happen to us any better in heaven, if it'll happen at all. I just don't understand what goes on in heaven. But I do know the promises of the Bible always and exclusively have to do with our relationship with God.

In fact, the Bible is not even presented as a place of safety. Heaven is not presented even as a place of safety. But our safety is where? It's in Christ. You know, the Lord is our high tower. And so whatever we're going to do, we do it here, I guess.

I guess when we die, according to the scriptures, we rest. It's a place of rest. After death, the Lord said to Daniel, go thy way. You'll rest and then stand in your lot at the end of the days. So when you are haddock down here and God has finished with you for now, you go and rest.

And then evidently, life continues when the Lord returns pretty much. And I don't see any scriptural exception to that. Except possibly Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. So I don't know whether that's just them or what.

But it seems that when we die, we rest. It's a place of rest. You'll rest with your fathers as many times in the Old Testament. It's a place of rest. How many are tired and want to rest? I think it's a place of rest.

But what's going to happen as far as the plan of redemption is concerned is happening here and now. And that's impressed much on my mind because I feel that the Lord is speaking to this church and probably many other churches.

And he's saying he wants us to pay special attention because he's bringing forth Christ in us to a greater extent than before in history for most people. And we're just going to have to be more diligent, be very diligent.

I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He's the farmer. He's the farmer. And Christ is the vine that God has planted. Christ is the rootstock. He's the thing that God wants. He's the kind of plant that God wants.

I am the vine. My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. That's amazing that he would start off immediately when discussing this with something negative. But he did.

And there's always a reason for the placement and the ordering of things. And he's letting us know right off the bat this very significant statement. It's a very significant statement. You know, the longer I live, the more I can see the difference between being in Christ and being a Christian and religion.

And religion. We don't realize how much of our life is religious. And I'm not doubting religion because as long as we're human beings in this world, we have to be kind of anchored to something. But I think little by little the Lord is showing us there's a lot of stuff that really is not the real stuff.

It's just things that we do. And so, and this is brought out in this parable of the vine. And Emily was on the board, John 15. It's up there. I am the vine. You are the branches. And he says, I am the true vine.

And the first thing he says, I am the vine. I'm the kind of fruit that God wants. I'm what God wants. And my father is the husband. And then right away he says, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.

Now that so cuts across our religious thinking that it's astonishing. Because we have all these ideas of what constitutes a Christian and what it means to keep with the program. And of course in our humanistic age there's a lot of talk about, well once you go through the four steps of salvation you can never be lost and all this kind of stuff.

But that's just humanistic thinking. It isn't Bible. Yes, Larry. I know. And that is, honestly I hate to say this really, but an awful lot of this pressure for evangelism is not coming from God. In fact, it detracts from the work of God.

It does not augment it. It detracts and sidetracks it. So the fact, it dovetails into church growth. And I heard a minister not too long ago complaining because the people in this little church, as he put it, huddled.

They didn't go out and bring more in. They didn't go out and bring more in. But then there was another minister in the same meeting who hit it right on the head. Hit it right on the head. It wasn't me.

It was another guy. But it stuck with me. It was so true. And he also has a small church. And he said, you know, the Lord has spoken to me. Never mind who comes and who doesn't. He said, you minister to the people that I sent to you.

And this guy has labored faithfully for years with a handful of people. And they come and they go. And just when he thinks he's got something going, five of them will leave. Audrey heard a preacher saying evidently he's having some pressure in his church.

And he was over the radio saying to the people, do you realize the first church split happened in heaven? I never thought of that. But that's an angle there. But anyway, did you pick up on that? Yeah.

But anyway, see the two different opposite viewpoints. One, the Lord is telling this faithful pastor, I will send the people. And you just feed the people that God sends to you. And you see, that rings with me.

Because the Lord has told me that many times. He says, you take care of the word. I'll take care of the attendance. But this fellow said that God spoke the words that he did to him so loud he thought other people in the house could hear it.

It was that clear. But it stuck with me. And I thought that's right. Because this other minister that was saying, see the Lord didn't tell him that people were huddling. The Lord didn't tell him that.

He's discontent because they're not going out and bringing people in. But you see, if you look at the New Testament, there's no accent on church growth. None whatever. But there's a lot of accent on being faithful with God's word.

And so much of this idea of bearing fruit, being evangelism, is totally sidetracking of God's will. Totally sidetracking because you end up with a million babies and no one who has any kingdom strength is able to do anything.

As we go along, you'll see why it's so important that we understand this is talking about character transformation and not about proselyting or getting other people to subscribe to your religion. It won't fit.

Bearing Fruit as the Moral Image of Christ

Alright, now every branch in me that bears no fruit, he cuts off, and you see how horrible that would be? He's saying, if you don't go out and save souls, I'm going to cut you off from Christ. Whoa. Right there, see?

No preacher that's concerned about huddling would ever say that because that doesn't even fit with what he believes. See, so the whole thing is a mess. But we need to understand that God has a very primary, a very fundamental purpose in our bearing fruit.

And that fruit is the moral image of Jesus Christ. In other words, the fruit is the Ten Commandments in shoe leather. Now, when God called out the first segment of his church, his royal priesthood, he called out the Jews by race.

And he gave them the thing that he wanted them to support and spread above all else. And what was the law? The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments. And when the Jews went into Canaan, they carried with them the Ark of the Covenant.

And the covenant was referring to the two tables of stone in the Ark. Because you see, mankind never before had that kind of understanding of God's requirements. Never before. It was entrusted to the Jews.

And when it went into Canaan, it was a judgment on the gods of Canaan. You shall have no other gods before me. Canaanites had gods coming out their ears. You shall make no graven images. They made their Asherah poles, their worship of lust.

You know, you shall not swear or keep my Sabbath and so on. And when it came in there, it was a judgment on those gods. So Israel, the first half of Israel, we're the second half of Israel, it's all one thing, had brought what God's intention is for the world.

And God wants the world to understand his moral rules, his nature, what he requires of all of his creatures. God wants that more than anything else. See, he's got a sick world. He's got a world that is destroying itself, and it's destroying itself because it has improper relationships with God and with other people.

And that's the basis of the destruction that's going on. And the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship with God and with other people. And so the world will never be anything but a howling nightmare of insanity until the people of the world, including God's people, keep his laws.

Of course, now it's greatly expanded, but the Ten Commandments now are written in our heart and mind and greatly enlarged and made more comprehensive. So I'm not speaking about the original Ten Commandments.

That was an abridged form of the eternal moral law of God. But the point is that God has one purpose. Now, he had a rebellion in heaven. That's what the preacher was talking about. The first church split happened in heaven where there was a division between the righteous and the wicked.

And evidently, up to that time, there had been no law because, you see, there had been no unrighteousness. So there was no such thing as sin. There was no such thing as sin until Satan acted in his own will.

And when he did, then you had a need for a law that described what righteousness is. But before that, you did not have any need. So God, in his disappointment with the angels, made a new race of beings called man.

And his whole purpose in man is to show forth to the... not his whole purpose, but one of his main purposes in man is to show forth to the angels and the principalities in the heavens both those who maintain their role with God and those who rebel, what his standards are.

And that came out in the Ten Commandments. And Satan knows that. He knows that's the first time God spoke since the rebellion that he would make known the difference between right and wrong. And, of course, that tree was planted in the garden, the knowledge of good and evil, as well as the tree of life.

The knowledge of good and evil is the eternal moral law of God. And it's a good tree, but you don't want to eat of it before you eat of the tree of life, which they did, and that's why they died. They couldn't handle it, and God knew they couldn't handle it.

But the Ten Commandments basically are a judgment against Satan and the fallen angels. And now God has brought forth a new race, man, destined to be God's judges, and they will judge the world, and they will judge angels.

Do you know where that's found? No man will judge the angels? 1 Corinthians 6. Know ye not that we should judge angels? So all judgment is given to Jesus Christ and through Him to those who are an integral part of Him, not those who are just of the Christian religion, but those who are an integral part of Jesus, share with Him.

And that's why He said, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven. So, judgment is basic to what has been going on for 6 ,000 years, it's a response to the creation of sin in the heavens. That's where it was created, in the heavens, in Satan.

Before that, there was no law because there was no sin. In fact, there was no knowledge of good and evil. There was no such thing as righteousness in Heaven, because righteousness is the opposite of unrighteousness, and there was no right to unrighteousness.

Therefore, there was no need for knowledge of good and evil because it was all acceptable of God until Satan said, I will be like the Most High. And he brought that down into the earth, and this was exactly what God knew would happen, because God is in the process.

Now, God found in Jesus, He said, Because you have love righteousness and hated iniquity, which is lawlessness, I have exalted you above your fellows. I have given you the oil of joy. I have anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows.

And then again, He says, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. And at that point, God took the word, the eternal word, the logos, and He made him the vine. He made him the root, the vine. This is what God is saying.

This and this alone is what I will accept. And by that He meant the moral character of Christ, which is shown in part in the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, and long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control is part of the moral image of Jesus Christ.

You have to add to this courage and other things to get the whole picture. But God said, This is what I want. I'm not taking anything else. So forget it, boys. This is it. Okay? That's the vine. That's the vine.

God planted the vine. And that's the vine. And the vine is Israel because Israel is married, is the bride of God. As it says in the Old Testament, also the New. But Israel of the Old could not show in themselves the law of God because Christ, who is the law of God, was not in them.

Christ, who is the covenant of God, was not in them. That cannot happen until you're born again. But He gave it to them. He wrote it with His own finger on slabs of granite so that mankind, Israel the priesthood first, and then through Israel the rest of mankind, as well as the angels, would have a way of understanding that God is saying, This is my law that governs all of my creatures.

You will have no gods before me. Satan tried to be another god. He said, You will have no gods before me. And Satan heard that loud and clear. Don't worry. Don't make any images. Don't make anything with your hands and worship it.

Watch your mouth. And don't take the name of God lightly. And then He gave us the Sabbath day once a week and then He expanded it greatly to where we live wholly in God doing His will. And then on with other laws of relationships about honoring your father and your mother and about stealing and about union, adultery, union that is not ordained of God and bearing false witness.

And God said, This is what I am. I do not change it. And this is Jesus Christ. He shows all of these to perfection. To perfection. He is divine. Now where is God going with this? God's intention in the church is that it be the moral light of the world.

That in the church mankind can see the full expression of the Ten Commandments. The full ramifying out of all elements of it. Like about swearing. It goes out to every idle word. Watch your mouth. What you say.

Jesus said, You are going to be judged by what you say. And let your yes be yes and your no be no because whatever is more than this comes of evil. And James talked about it. So it's expanded out in many ways that it was not expanded under the first covenant.

But its essence is the same. And that's why the New Covenant is the writing of the Torah of God on our mind and in our heart. Now where is God going with this? Where God is going with this is He wants people who are not carrying around the law of God in a box.

But they themselves are the law made flesh. So that in them you can see what it means to love God above everything else. And how He deals with us and so painfully to bring that to pass in our lives. So that you can see in us people who do not their own will but only God's will at all times.

So you can see in us people who speak like Jesus. Every word has meaning. It's constructive. It's edifying. It's heavier than a universe full of sand. Every word. Remember God spoke about one of the Samui.

He doesn't let any of His words fall to the ground. You say, well I'll never get there. Yes you will. Yes you will. All I'm doing is telling you where God is going. I'm prophesying to the bones. But God will do it.

Okay? So just hang loose. I'm telling you this is the way. And the Spirit of God will help you to walk in it. Alright? So we are being made the moral law of God so that people can see that. And that's why Jesus said you are the light in Matthew 5 you are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Don't put your light under a covered up with a bushel basket. But let your light so shine that men may see your good works. That is the morality of God's law and then they will glorify God.

And that is God's purpose under the new covenant. And that's why He says in John 15 immediately He says I am the vine. Well He is. He is the Word made flesh. He is what God wants everybody to read. Living epistles Paul said.

You are becoming living epistles written by the Spirit of God on the fleshly tables of your heart known and read of all men. Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. It says in Isaiah.

Salvation as a Process of Transformation

I am the true vine and my father is the farmer. And then immediately He cuts off every branch in me that does not bear fruit. And that shows the fallacy of our approach to salvation. See we say to be saved you must go through four theological steps.

You must believe this and believe that and believe the next thing and you are saved. Well let's put it a little differently. If you do that you are embarked on you are permitted into the program. But then you have to work it out.

And that program has one goal in mind. And that is to make you the light of the world. And that's it's goal. Now whether you enjoy paradise or not you shall but whether you do or not it's not germane and it's not of the essence.

The essence is God has a need. That's the essence of it. God has a need and that need is to reveal to His creation His will. And that's why you've been called out of the world. Okay? Now you can see given that why if you don't bear fruit God cuts you out of the vine.

Well what do you cut out of? Well you cut out of Christ. Well what happens if you're cut out of Christ? What happens to a branch that is cut out of a vine? Well it dies. There's nothing there. Now that may seem very harsh because we think in terms of salvation as God making it possible when we die to go to heaven.

That's not what it's all about. What it's all about is God creating a testimony to His will among the nations of the earth. That's why you were called into the church is that you might bear fruit. Jesus said a little later on in this chapter I have ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit.

Because that's what God wants. He's the farmer and He wants fruit. In upstate New York there's a lot of apple trees. In fact one of our relatives has or had he's old now. He's dead and his wife is still living.

I don't know why they still have it but they had quite an apple orchard. Well you know farming is like any other business. You've got to make it pay. You've got to make a profit. And ground is valuable.

So if you have a tree there and it doesn't bring forth apples it's going nowhere. It's no good. You're not looking for a shade tree. You have one thing. What you're after is money to keep your life going and that money comes when you sell apples.

So you put those trees in there and you work on them and you hire help to go around and weed around them and plant them and water them and prune them and take care of them and spray them so they don't get diseased.

You do that for one reason. You don't want to see a bunch of trees out there. You want apples. Because that's your living. That's where you support your family. That's how you send your children to college.

That's how you put food on the table. It's for those apples. You sell them. And so a farmer knows farming is a risky business. You get a bad year or you get a bad disease comes in or something else comes in and you can lose your shirt and lose your farm.

So you've got to be on the stick with what you're doing. Now see that's a whole new concept of God. That's a whole new concept of God. It fits the parable of the talents, doesn't it? God says, you know I'm a businessman.

You know I'm straight. I want a profit. Now the profit that God gets in us is an evidence of the nature of Jesus so that the people around you can see what God requires of human beings. Now that isn't needed in the United States, is it?

We don't need that at all. We don't need that in the high schools. We don't need that in the workplace. We don't need people who show forth the life of Jesus, do we? What we need is people that invite us to church, right?

We've got our religion mixed up with God's plan. God isn't interested in getting a lot of trees into his orchard. Better to have one tree with fruit than a thousand trees with no fruit. And if you tell the trees with no fruit to go out and get more trees because that's fruit it's kind of a confusing situation.

No, the fruit that he's talking about here is the fruit of the Spirit. Okay? I think that's rather plain. And when we don't bear it, we're cut out of the vine which shows us that it's not something you take or leave.

Now you can watch people in church attend church for thirty years and they don't change. I pondered that, I pondered that. What is wrong? What are we doing wrong? Why do not people change? How can they be under the word for fifteen years and remain carnal?

How can that be? And I'm not sure I understand the answer to it. But I would say that if the preacher is doing his part they're not doing theirs because the very nature of redemption is personal change.

It's the very nature of it is becoming a new creation. And when this isn't happening we're not in Christ. It matters as if any man be in Christ there is a new creation. Not if any man be in the Christian religion but if any man be in Christ.

And if there's no new creation if we're still what we were a year ago we're not being saved. Salvation is a process that you work out with fear and trembling. And we're not being saved if we're exactly the same we're still critical we still have unforgiveness we're still telling off-color jokes we're still the same old person we were we're not being saved.

Salvation is a process. We're not bearing fruit therefore there's a danger. Okay? Oh hallelujah. I knew you'd enjoy that. Alright. While every branch that does bear fruit he prunes it. Now what is that like?

Pruning, Barrenness, and Spiritual Preparation

That means that our life has in it much frustration. Because just as we get going something happens and clips it off. Now if you go out into a branch and you see a branch that bears fruit you notice that in addition to bearing fruit I'm talking about branches now we are not vines.

We're branches. Okay? In addition to bearing fruit it bears a lot of leaves and twigs and new shoots that come off it and starting new branches and other things. And this is not the way that you get good fruit.

So let's say this branch has borne some fruit but it's also borne a lot of leaves. Now from the tree's standpoint leaves may be really nice. Think, oh boy this is fleshing me out here. I've got these leaves.

Look at the symmetry. I'm a beautiful tree. But you see the farmer doesn't want leaves. They're no good to him. No good whatever. He doesn't want any leaves there. The tree may want them but the farmer doesn't want them.

So what does he do? He cuts the branch back. And with it goes parts of the places that bore fruit as well as all these leaves and little new things coming off and everything else that all goes off is burned.

Okay, well when the life comes into the tree in the spring then it's not all pouring out in leaves and branches that are going nowhere. You have to prune down. I spent one summer when I was working my way through Bible school thinning corn.

Now California, you don't do this in Iowa because they get a lot of rain. In California they don't get enough rain. This was down in Chula Vista. So you can't grow good corn there unless unless you thin it out.

So you wait till the ears are up. They're coming up. You've got some ears going. The stalk's up. The ears are coming up. And then somebody has to go through and this is back-breaking work. Believe me.

Because your work bent over. And you go through like this ripping off every ear except two on each stalk. It all goes to the pigs. Because if you don't you're going to get six or eight run ears because there's not enough rain in Chula Vista as there is in Iowa to give you, say, five good ears of corn off that stalk.

You're not going to get it. You're going to get a bunch of little old ears because the life of the plant is being distributed to all these ears. They're all claiming some of the life from it the chlorophyll or however corn is made and so you rip it off and throw it to the hogs.

And then you get two good ears there. Now that's what God does with us. He's not looking for you know, we've got a lot of stuff going in our life and we're branching out here and we're branching out there and we've got this going and we've got that going and the next thing and God lets it go for a while because there's some good there.

And then He proves it back. He says, I don't need all this stuff. And that is a very disappointing experience. Because we are dearly in love with everything we're doing and every aspect of our personality and we don't want to lose any of it.

It's like a novice pruning. He goes up to prune and he figures well you know it's the sun acting on the leaves that is giving life to this plant and so he'll get a little pair of scissors and clip off a leaf or two and it breaks his heart because he feels, you know, I'm losing my tree here.

But someone who knows what they're doing doesn't have time. Maybe they've got to prune a hundred trees in a day and all they do is they go through and rip, rip, rip, rip, rip and so that the trees so the birds can fly through it and then they're on to the next one and then they're on to the next one and you've got piles of branches on the ground.

It's heartbreaking if you're a very tender gardener with your plant. Well that's the way we are with our lives. We feel that every little thing has significance in the kingdom. But it may not even be sinful it may be perfectly alright but God says this is taking life from this person it's not going anywhere it's just runny ears there's nothing there bing, bing, bing, it goes and we don't know what's going on and we think the devil's got in and God's left and we hurt and we're so disappointed and our friends criticize us and everything else goes wrong because we have been pruned back.

And let me tell you there's a lot of the Christian life that is pruning. And when God has someone that He wants to get especially rich fruit out of He really holds them back. I mean He holds them back.

And of course they don't understand that He says, Sing, O barren, sing! They sing! Lord, everybody's having children all over the place and I don't have any children what's there to sing about? He says, you're going to end up in New Jerusalem.

You can read that in Isaiah 54. Yeah, you're going to you're, oh boy you're in for wonderful stuff. Let's take a look at that. Isaiah 54 because maybe somebody in here right now has a season of barrenness but I'll tell you this I was telling Isaiah 54 up to the archangel up there and it'll appear up here now how far you can go in Christ depends on how willing you are to be pruned.

And God will not transgress your personality too much. If He sees that you've reached just about as much as you can handle without acting out in some negative way then God's going to back off. He's going to back off.

He doesn't want to ruin you and destroy you and have you going around so gloomy and full of doom and everything that you're spiritually unhealthy. So always keep a good attitude toward God. And if it seems He's picking you to pieces say, pick on Lord.

Just pick on. Keep it up. Because God has your good in mind. Don't cling to the leaves when God goes to cut it off. They cut away. Yeah, but there won't be anything left. Let God worry about that. Yeah, but the world is waiting for my ministry.

They're all going to hell and here I am doing nothing. You know, Jesus got an awful lot done in three years. And He didn't do much traveling either. Just a little area to travel around in. But He changed the course of the world.

God can get a lot done in three years. Yes? Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It surely is. Oh, barren woman, you know, burst into song. You know, in those days, if you didn't bear a child, particularly a male child, you were kind of despised by your husband or your neighbors.

And God says, if you don't have any kids, get a bigger house because you're going to have them. You will spread out to the right and left. Your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

I mean, that's not a small promise. That's not a small promise for someone who has no children. If you think about it, your descendants will dispossess nations when you have no children. So here's somebody that's living by faith in the promise of God with no evidence that anything's going to happen.

Now, you may be here tonight and you may have a real zeal to bear fruit. A real zeal to bear fruit. And as far as you can tell, nothing's happening. But God has spoken to you about things. Let God be God.

Just let God be God. You go out and raise up your ishmaels, all you're going to create is a wild man. Just let God be God. He cares more about the world than you or I do. Yes, He does. He cares more about sinners going to hell than you or I do.

He sure does. Do not be afraid. You will not suffer shame. You say, but I'm getting old and nothing's happening. Do not be afraid. You will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace. You will not be humiliated.

You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widow. Isn't that a wonderful promise? Isn't that magnificent? Isn't that something? For your maker is your husband. The Lord Almighty is His name.

The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He is called the God of all the earth. And you know, there's so many instances in the Bible where this has been true, like Sarah and Elizabeth and Hannah. But you know, Hannah is particularly touching because Elkanah had two wives and this other one was always giving Hannah the business.

You ever read that? And he's tormenting her. He said, I'm better to you than ten sons. Don't worry about it. But when she had a son, she had a woman. And if you'll notice, if you read your Bible, after that she had more children.

You see, God had, when God's bringing forth light, He goes through this withholding of what you want. It's just, you know, you're creating energy within there and God's building within there and you're going through all these and preparing you.

God is preparing you. Always do what is practical, but don't try to kick the door down. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit. And Hannah had to go through that.

She just had to go through that. Why couldn't she just have Samuel in a nice way, like everybody else? No, that would be funny. And the same way with Sarah. You know, here's her handmaid mocking her. Can't have kids.

This is stressing. And if you're anxious to go in the ministry and you've got the call of God in your life, it's stressing for God not to be using you. Not to see some great thing coming forth. But that's the way it is.

A wife who married young only to be rejected for... And I notice this because it's key to the way God works with people. For a brief moment, I abandon you. See, and that's what we can't understand. Everybody else is doing fine.