The Impossibility of the Christian Life, Part 2 — Paul Washer

Let's open our Bibles to the book of John, chapter 15, again. Let's stand and please follow along with me as I read John, chapter 15. If you were here last night, I would just iterate that the reading of the Scripture is commanded in the New Testament.

I think it should be a central point in our services, and that we read by faith, believing that if we will fight the good fight here in the next few minutes, and focus our mind upon the Scriptures, that God will speak through His Word.

Please do not be guilty of despising the reading of the Scriptures, but take it as God, you know, always, there's this great opportunity that He will speak to you just through the Word that is read. So listen as I read John, chapter 15, verse 1.

Abiding in Christ, the True Vine

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the Word which I have spoken to you.

Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up, and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

These things I have spoken to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lays down his life for his friends.

You are my friends, if you do what I command you. Let's pray. Father, Lord, you know all things. You know how tired our body, and how tired our minds, Lord. But Lord, your strength is perfected in weakness.

That it is not eloquence, or the quickness of mind, but it is the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of your Word that has been read. Father, we preach by faith. We have believed, and therefore we speak.

Lord, I pray that you would take your Word, through the illuminating and renewing work of the Spirit. That you would apply it to our hearts, and that those who are Christian, would leave here with a greater capacity to know you and to walk with you.

And if there are those who do not know you, that their need would be exposed. That their sin would be made known to them. That Christ would appear to them glorious. Father, please help in this time. Lord, you know, I just want these things to be a reality in my life.

And I just want them to be communicated to my brothers and sisters in Christ. And that they be a reality in their lives. Lord, there is no hope here but you. But you are not. In Jesus' name, Amen. Jesus says in chapter 1, I am the vine.

We spoke about that last night. That He is the true source of all true spiritual life and power. Now, I make a division between spiritual life and power that is not so much made in Scripture as it is necessary for me to do so because of the times in which I live.

There are so many people who equate intimacy with Christ and the Holy Spirit with power for ministry. Power to do great things. Power to perform miracles. Power to impress. Power to cast extravagant signs and wonders.

Well, if there are any true signs and wonders, they are definitely the work of the Holy Spirit and cannot be contrived by men. But I want you to understand something. A man can stand in a pulpit and at times the Holy Spirit will be of great help to him, empower him to preach and to say things, to communicate truth to God's people.

And that is a power that is necessary not only for the preacher, but it's necessary for every believer as they minister in the body of Christ according to their gifts. So we need power. But power is not just for carrying out our gifts or our ministry.

Power is for living a godly life. You see, my great concern is not... Let me put it this way. I don't spend my time every day thinking about how I can be a more eloquent preacher or how I can even be a better expositor in the sense of using different techniques to communicate truth.

I would have to say the great burden of my day is drawn out of the great need of my day. And my great need is to be more godly. It is so easy to preach in a sense. I mean, I'm standing before you. You're listening to me.

But you really don't know who I am. You don't really know if I'm godly. You don't really even know if I'm sincere. But it's in watching me live that I will be vindicated or accused. And that's what I want you to see is that we need the power that flows from Christ.

But it's not just power to do ministry. It's power to be conformed to His image. That is the priority. And if we are conformed to the image of Christ, then everything else seems to fall in place. And, let me put it even in a higher degree, if we are manifesting conformity to Christ around the people who know us best.

You see, when we come into a place, even if we're not trying to be hypocrites, we will put on our best face. But it's around those people who are closest to us. Our wives, our husbands, our children, our infant brothers and sisters in Christ.

They really know. And so that's my desire. When people will ask me, Brother Paul, you must have all kinds of needs. What can we pray for you about? I always say this. Pray that I will love my wife as Christ loves the church.

Because the most difficult thing is to truly love and to truly be Christ-like around the people who are closest to you. But if you can't do that, everything else is just a stage and a play. And so we want to realize that all spiritual life flows out of Christ.

But I don't want young men just thinking, I need spiritual power so that I can do something with it, like build my own kingdom. It should be, I want this life. I want this power flowing from Christ. I want to be intimately connected to the Vine so that I can look like the Vine.

So that I can bear fruit to the glory of the Vine. Because it is all about Christ. I think it is safe to say that we live in a Christological universe, at least in God's mind. That everything He's ever done, He has done for His Son.

And if you and I are to go out and produce fruit, it's not to build our own kingdom, and it's not to somehow exalt ourselves, but it's to demonstrate how Christ has such power that He can work through such weakness.

Fruitfulness, Holiness, and the Reputation of Christ

Well, having said that, let's look at verse 1. I am the Vine and My Father is the Vine dresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

Now, I want to read to you something that I've written here. God is intensely concerned about the beauty and fruitfulness of the branches. God is intensely concerned about you as a branch, individually.

But He's intensely concerned about the branches collectively as a church, and not just with this universal idea, but this local church that you can point to. He is intensely concerned that we be fruitful and beautiful.

Now, why is that? Because God has done everything He has ever done for His Son. He loves His Son. He desires the glory and good pleasure of His Son. And He wants His Son's reputation to be very high, to say the least.

And that reputation, at least for this moment in time, depends somewhat upon the behavior of those who consider themselves to be His disciples. We can read this in the Old Testament. We read it again in the book of Romans that because of the bad behavior of the people of God, the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles.

And so the Father who sent His Son to die for us, who sent forth the Holy Spirit that we might be regenerated, is also intensely concerned not only with our freedom from the condemnation of sin, but He's intensely concerned with our freedom from the power of sin.

It is God's desire that you be a holy, pure, chaste, beautiful, fruitful people unsoiled by the world. And, my dear friend, you need to take this as seriously as God does. You do. But let me say something here that's very important.

There are places that you may feel the freedom to go that I can't go. There are things that you may feel the freedom to watch and to listen to and to participate in that I cannot. Many, many years ago, Leonard Ravenhill, a friend of mine, told him, said, Paul is really kind of downcast.

Leonard Ravenhill sent me a little tract. I still have it today. I don't agree with everything that's in the tract, but the tract puts forth a major truth, and it's this. Others can, you cannot. That's the name of the tract.

And basically, the whole idea here is this. If you truly want to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, if you truly want to be an instrument of God, then what others can do, you cannot. You have to guard this deposit that is within you.

You have to be zealous about this relationship. An illustration that I love to use is about an old man, a great violinist in Europe who played his last concert as an old man. And a young violinist came up to him and said this, Sir, I would give my life to play like you.

And the old man looked at him and said, Son, I have given my life to play like me. Do you want to see God's fruit in your life? Do you want to see God's beauty in your life? Do you want to be, even more than someone who is theologically correct, do you actually want to have a fragrance about you?

A perfume about you? Life-giving virtue flowing from you? Is that what you desire? Then you're going to have to take this relationship with Christ extremely seriously. You're going to have to seek for greater and greater intimacy.

And you're going to have to avoid the things that would soil you, that would twist you, that would grieve him. The Father desires such people because He cares about the branch. Because He cares about the vine.

Now, I want us to look at this text. Look what He says in verse 2. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. Now, the evidence of genuine conversion is the fruit that you bear. Make no mistake about it.

Regeneration, Faith, and the Evidence of Conversion

There is such horrible, indescribable heresy with regard to conversion in America today. The idea of the continuously carnal Christian. The idea that a person one time in their life made a decision, prayed the prayer, asked Jesus to come in, believed the promise of Revelation 20.

Now they're saved. They live the rest of their life like a devil. And they're Christian. That is not true. I have heard preachers say even this. A man can pray that prayer, ask Jesus Christ to come into his life, and then become an atheist and still go to heaven.

It's because they do not understand the doctrine of being born again. They do not understand the doctrine of Revelation. The doctrine of regeneration. The Scripture is very, very clear. Salvation is through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

And that is it. It is faith alone. You add works to it, and you are preaching another gospel. Salvation is by faith. Believing in Jesus, you are justified. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.

That is salvation. But what you need to understand is the one who believes has been regenerated by the Spirit of the living God. And when Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 .17 that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, he is not reciting apostolic poetry.

He is not speaking in metaphor or hyperbole. He means it. It is a theological truth. It is a proposition. It is biblical. You really do become a new creature. It works something like this, although it is very simplified.

Prior to your conversion, you had a God-hating Adamic heart. At the moment of conversion, you became a new creature. And although there is an aspect of you referred to as the flesh, an unredeemed aspect of you that fights against this new heart, that fights against this new nature, you are a new creature.

And because you are a new creature, you have now new affections. New righteous affections. And those new righteous affections draw you to devotion to Christ and obedience. You see, have you ever wondered why the Gospel of John actually begins in the beginning?

Where do you hear that before? Where have you heard that before? You hear that in Genesis, don't you? The creation story. Why? John is talking about the new creation in Christ. This is big stuff. I like to put it this way.

There is a greater manifestation of the power of God in the conversion of one sinner than in the very creation of the universe. He created the universe ex niculo, out of nothing, but to make us saints.

He takes a mass of corrupt humanity and makes it into a new creature. And so it is a theological truth that the evidence that you have truly been converted is that you bear fruit. Not sinless perfection.

Not at all. Not that the true Christian doesn't struggle with sin. That's absolutely absurd. But I can tell you this, the true Christian will manifest a new way of life. Newness of life. It is the result of the converting, regenerating work of the Spirit of God.

It is the result of the indwelling presence of the Spirit in their life. The empowering of the Spirit. And it is the result of the continuous, relentless providence of God who says, You will be My people and I will be your God.

I who began a good work in you will finish it. And so because God the Father is so intensely concerned about the vine and the vine's good pleasure and the vine's reputation, He is going to govern over.

He is going to oversee this vineyard. The providence of God will be one of the greatest realities in the believer's life. It will be relentless. It will be inescapable. Now, in Christianity, evangelicalism, even reformed, whatever you want to say, even in the purest body of people, the most biblical church, you're going to have those who are truly converted and those who appear to be branches and yet are not.

And what does the Bible say is going to happen? It says, It says, Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. He removes them. Now, how does He do it? Well, I want you to look at a practical means in which He does it and I want you to look at a supernatural means in which He does it.

Church Discipline as a Practical Means of Removal and Restoration

First of all, the practical means. There are two reasons why evangelicalism in America, well, there are many, but I want to focus on two reasons why evangelicalism in America is so disgusting. One of them is the men preaching the Gospel do not understand the Gospel.

And they're leading people into an empty creedalism and they're popishly declaring them to be converted when they are not. That's one of the problems. The other great problem is hardly anyone in this country, I know there are a few, but there are so few that the percentage would be in single digits, absolutely.

Hardly any churches today practice biblical church discipline. And when a church decides it is not going to practice church discipline or it is going to ignore church discipline, it has basically looked at its Master and said,.

I will not obey You.

And I have heard people say, they've said it, they just didn't realize what they were saying, when they say something, we don't discipline anybody here, we're going to love people. As opposed to the Christ who commanded you to discipline people.

So I suppose your love is greater than His, and yet He says no greater love has anyone than this that He lay down His life for His friends. The same One who laid down His life for His friends commanded church discipline.

And the reason why the church is in such a state, because it's no longer understood, it's no longer practiced, even the entire way congregations are set up now, the megachurch mentality, it is absolutely impossible to do what Jesus said.

How do you know when your church structure is not correct? How do you know when your church is too big? When you can't follow the commands of Christ within that body. That's how you know. And you'd preachers today say, we can't do this because we're too big.

Then your bigness ought to scare you. We can't do this because we don't think it's loving. You have opposed Christ. Paul is very clear in his letter to Timothy in 1 Timothy, that he says, Timothy, I'm not sure I'm going to make it to you, so I'm writing to you these things that you'll know how to conduct yourself.

And what that means is, you don't have the right, nor does your pastor, or if you are a pastor, you do not have the right to conduct yourself in church as seems right in your own eyes. You have the strict command to follow the Master with regard to His bride.

If I had to leave my bride with you and go on a long journey, I would give you careful instructions and I would deal with you if they were not carried out. And he has given us instructions. It is not a cruel, punitive church discipline.

No, it is a loving, compassionate church discipline that God has given us in order to restore sinners and to protect the reputation of the church. And when you refuse to be a part of that, you are disobeying Christ.

There's just no other way to say it. I'm sorry, there's not. There have been scholars down through the ages who have said, actually, that the moment a church ceases to practice church discipline, it ceases to be a church.

Brothers, it is so very, very important. Church discipline. Now, let me just go with you real quick what that means, because some of you have probably never even heard of this. It comes about that within the congregation it is discovered there is a brother in a sin, in a continuous, ongoing sin, usually public, usually scandalous.

But it doesn't have to be public necessarily. It doesn't have to be scandalous. A brother is in sin. Another brother goes to him and says, Brother, according to Matthew 18, Brother, you're in sin. And if the person says, Oh, I recognize it.

I repent. Thank you. Then he's won his brother. There's nothing left to do. Unless it be something greatly public and scandalous that must be taken care of in a public manner. But he's won his brother.

But if the brother says, I don't care. I'll continue in my sin. Then the brother who has rebuked him goes and gets wiser men than himself to judge, usually the elders. And they come together. And they deal with the brother.

Brother, you must turn away from this adultery. You must turn away from this sin you're committing. You must turn away from your idolatry. And he tells the pastor, No, I don't care. Then after much admonition and prayer and heart-wrenching intercession by those involved, finally after pleading and pleading, they bring it before the congregation.

And the congregation begs this brother with tears in their eyes, Please turn from your sin. And he says, No, I will not. Then they put him out. They do not put him out for punitive reasons. They put him out for redemptive reasons.

So that if he is a believer, God in His providence will deal with him. Even to the point of unleashing Satan himself until that brother is brought back into the fold. And the moment he walks in those doors repentant and broken, the church envelops him in such love, works for his restoration, lays down their life for him.

But in many cases, what happens is the man is turned out. He continues in his sin. The providence of God never becomes evident. Satan is never unleashed. And it is proven that that man has been a false convert from the start.

Brothers, we're not given options. I mean, I know what's taught in seminary. I deal with seminaries. Not in all seminaries, but in most of these seminaries today, it's like, well, if you want to start a church like this plan over here, plan A, and then there's plan B for this certain demographic, and then there's plan C,.

And this is a new way of doing it. Who gave you the right to think you?

One of the most fearful things that is going to be on the Day of Judgment is to have been an evangelical pastor in the United States of America. It will be terrifying. When many of them are cast into hell and others of them see their entire ministry burned up.

It's kind of a side note, but let me just share with you, because if you're a pastor here, I want you to realize this. Most churches today, you go to even some of the most carnal, and you will find within that church a group of people who all they want is Jesus.

I mean, it's unbelievable. All they want is to hear the Word preached. They just want to worship. They want to ministry. They just want Jesus. It's all they want. But it's a tiny segment of people in this huge carnal company, and the pastors, what do they do?

Now think about this. They spend all their time, all their energy, and direct everything in the service and everything in their ministries in order to cater to the carnal wicked in their church. And in doing so, the Bride of Christ is over there starving to death.

Can't you see it? It's all over America. This one little group in the church, all it wants is Jesus. It is the Bride of Christ. And this minister spends his entire life giving smoke up on the stage and dry ice and entertainment and all kinds of worldly carnal promises, feeding the carnal while the Bride of Christ starves to death.

And they will be judged for what they have done to His bride.

A bunch of little boys. Most of the lot unconverted. No sense of God about them and no sense of the stewardship and the seriousness of that stewardship. It would all do well to be converted and then to read Richard Baxter's Reformed Pastor.

It would help. Spurgeon's lectures to my students. Portraits of Paul. Don't think that I'm just some wild man up here. Open your eyes and look what's actually being done. If my wife had to go shopping late at night, she's coming out of the Walmart store and going to her car.

She's attacked by free men who begin to beat her and abuse her severely. And you, knowing my wife, you walk by her, sir, and out of fear for your own skin, self-preservation, you act like you do not know what's going on, and you let her be abused by such men.

I'll find those men. I will. And I'll deal with them. But then I'll come for you. And all the evangelical pastors should hear what I'm saying. You cater to the carnal to keep your big church and your big buildings and everything else, while the bride of Christ wilts away in a corner pining only for Christ.

That's what's going on in America. That's what's going on in America. And there are certain things for which we should have no patience. And that's one of them. Just remember this. If you use carnal means to gather carnal men into your church, you will have to increasingly give them more carnal things in order to keep them.

But if you're looking for the bride of Christ and you're suffering all things for the sake of the elect, all you're going to have to do is preach Jesus and they'll come around. Let's go back to our message.

So there is a practical means of God's removal and that is through church discipline. I want you to know something. The pastor who comes to you and lovingly and fearfully rebukes you in your sin, don't you realize he's the man for you?

Don't you know he knows he's putting his job on the line, his reputation on the line, his own skin on the line?

So if he comes to you, he's got to be motivated by love. It's the flatterer.

Who's a son of perdition and the devil. It's not the pastor who cares for your soul. So God uses practical means to remove these branches. But then there are supernatural means. Ananias and Sapphira. That's a supernatural means.

Also, in 1 Corinthians 11, those who ate and drank judgment upon themselves in Corinth. Another supernatural means. And I'm going to share with you another that very few people speak of. I just want to read you a text.

1 Corinthians 11 -19. For there must also be factions among you so that those who are approved may become evident among you. Now, I want to share with you something. I want to come out there because I want to make this very, very clear.

False Teachers, Divine Providence, and the Removal of False Branches

Why are there so many false teachers in America today? Well, there are several reasons. You say, well, it's the work of the devil. Yes. But I want to show you how it is uniquely a work of God's providence.

These false teachers, by and large, what are they prospering? What are they proclaiming? They are men whose God is their belly. And they prove it by the way they live. Their God is their belly. They are sensual, carnal men.

They are materialistic. And that's all they think about. Now, those who go out to them, those who leave a local church, those who leave maybe a church where the Gospel is being preached and leave that church and go out to these men, why do they go out to them?

Are they deceived? Well, some of them could be. But why are they being drawn out? They're being drawn out by carnal, materialistic, sensual promises. And the fact that they're following after those promises prove that they have the same heart.

These carnal, wicked men gather around them carnal, wicked people whose God is their belly. They want prosperity more than Christ. They want healing more than Christ. They want Mercedes more than Christ.

They want all these things. They want the American dream in Jesus' name. Now, imagine this. If all those people were left in a true body, a true local church, do you realize what a corrupting influence they would have?

And so God raises up false prophets in order to draw this poison out of His church and away from His people and gather it all in one spot. Before there was medicine, if there was infection on an arm, they would put a balm.

They would put a mass of something, whether it be figs or some sort of cloth over the top of it in hope of drawing the poison out of the body. These false prophets like Benny Hinn and the rest of them, they have that purpose.

Those who would identify themselves with Christ but are carnal and fleshly people, if they remained in the church, they would destroy it. They would infect it. But they're drawn out by these heretics.

See, my dear friend, this Christianity thing is very prophetic, very apocalyptic in a way. These are serious things. These are just life and death, heaven, hell, works of God. Now, here's something that I want you to see that is very, very important.

God's removal of a person can be redemptive. There are Christians. We are all capable of this, of going astray. And so God will use church discipline to bring us back to the fold. That's the purpose of church discipline.

It's for His people. God will also use extraordinary events of providence in our life. Extraordinary things. Even to the point of striking us physically in order to bring His people back to Him. In order to bring an individual back to Him.

So it is redemptive. But you need to understand, the removal of branches also is indicated here in John and also in Matthew 7. Those branches are removed because they never were a part of Christ. And when they are removed, my dear friend, they are cast into hell.

I know this is not very popular today, but hell is just as much a reality today as it was 2 ,000 years ago. You know, I hear these preachers today. I actually hear them on CNN and other things like that.

When they're asked about hell, they say things like this. They say, well, you know, we just want to teach the words of Jesus in our church. And I'm sitting there and going, this guy has just disqualified himself for the ministry based either on ignorance or immorality.

They say, well, what do you mean? Well, here's what you need to understand. I challenge you to read the Bible. Read the entire Old Testament and you will find very few references about hell. Read the epistles and you will find very few references about hell.

We would know nothing about hell if it wasn't for the words of Jesus. Jesus talked more about hell than absolutely everybody else in the Bible. So when a man says we don't teach on hell, we just want to teach on the words of Jesus, either he doesn't know the words of Jesus or he is a deceiver.

Because Jesus is the One who talked about it. But since church discipline isn't practiced and the Gospel isn't preached correctly, what happens? We have so many people in evangelicalism today that go to church every Sunday and they are asleep in the pew and they are on the road to hell!

They are on the road to hell. One of the men I admire mostly in the present day and is a friend of mine is Ray Comfort. He goes out into the highways and the hedges and he preaches the Gospel to the lost that will never enter into a church.

I go into the church to reach the lost that are there. And there's just as many inside the church as there is outside of the church. But the ones in the church are even in greater danger because every Sunday that they hear a message that has any truth on it, it is heaping up more judgment upon them.

And they are asleep. They are convinced even by their own ministers, they are convinced that it is right with them. When it is not. Evangelicalism is filled with these false prophets and preachers who say, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

And to be responsible for damning countless, countless souls to hell. So it is a serious thing. Now I want to make one more statement about the father removing branches. There's a possibility here of an immediate reference to Judas.

He was the one that joined the lot, was called into the lot, and yet was the son of perdition from the very beginning, from the outset. Was the son of the devil. He had to be removed from this apostolic band in order that it might function correctly.

If you realize there, before the crucifixion of Christ and even during it, a lot of things were being done for that apostolic band. One is this wild branch was being removed. Judas, son of perdition, which without the presence of Christ being among them physically, he would have contaminated the whole lot.

He's being pulled out. The one who's going to be designated as one of the chief columns among them, Peter, he's having to be dealt with. In what way? It was necessary that Peter deny Christ. You say necessary?

Necessary. Jesus said, Satan has asked to sift you. And he doesn't say, and I've stopped him. He doesn't say that. But he says he's prayed for him. Now what's going on? When Jesus told everyone, you will deny Me.

You will deny Me. Even you will scatter. Peter said, not me. I won't. If Peter had been left in that state of pride, self-sufficiency, he could have never been of use to that apostolic band. He had to be crushed.

Providence, Suffering, and Conformity to Christ

But the amazing thing, my brothers, and this is always the case. This is from Samuel Chadwick. He was wondering what he should preach one day. And that happens to preachers. So he decided to take a walk in the village.

And he's walking along there. He comes to the blacksmith's shop and there's this gigantic man in this leather vest. And he's got this hammer. And he's beating this piece of metal on an anvil like crazy.

And there's another man standing beside him like this, finely dressed. And so Samuel Chadwick walked over there and tried to talk to the man swinging the hammer as though he were the blacksmith. And the man that was finely dressed said, sir, he's not the blacksmith.

I'm the blacksmith. And Samuel Chadwick said, well, you're just standing here. This man's doing all the work. He said, yes, he is. And in the old English, he said, this man's nothing more than an idiot, sir.

He's an imbecile. He doesn't even know what he's doing. And then Samuel Chadwick began to investigate. Well, what's going on? And the blacksmith said this, this man has no clue what he's doing. He's beating a piece of metal.

I'm telling him where to hit exactly. I'm telling him how many times to hit exactly. I'm telling him where to hit exactly. And this imbecile believes that he's destroying a piece of metal, but I am using him to create a work of art.