Spiritual Depression: Pt.18 Gods Gym

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So we're up to chapter 18, which

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Dr. Jones calls in God's gymnasium, all right? So what we're going to do is we're going to read 15 verses from Hebrews 12, which is to set the whole thing.

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Everything we're doing tonight is pretty much based on this chapter. So, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

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You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons.

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My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him.

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For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure.

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God deals with you as sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline.

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But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

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Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live?

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For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good so that we may share his holiness.

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All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. Make straight paths to your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

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Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it may be defiled.

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This is a very, very important portion of Scripture. And noticing that it comes towards the end of the book of Hebrews, and one of the things that we notice with most of the epistles of the

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New Testament is the beginning of them is more doctrinal, and towards the end of the epistle is more practical, putting the doctrine into practice.

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We see it in Romans, we see it in Galatians, we see it in Ephesians, and here we see it in Hebrews.

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So here we're getting into some of the things that we have already learned if we've read through the book of Hebrews, and here is some very practical application, and why the good doctor calls it being in God's gymnasium.

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This is his opening paragraph. We must now proceed to give further consideration to the biblical teaching that God produces and promotes our sanctification, partly by various things that he does to us.

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Remember what we discussed last week, chastisement, and how people can go into spiritual depression because they don't quite understand what chastisement is all about.

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So over and above the positive instruction he gives us in the Scriptures, God deals with us in other ways also.

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If we do not respond to the teaching, if we are his people, and because we are,

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God will deal with us in chastisement. In this connection we have already seen that there are many places in Scripture where this particular doctrine is outlined and taught very plainly, but I think it will be generally agreed that there is no better statement of it than this, the one which we find here in the twelfth chapter of the epistle to Hebrews, and especially from verse 5 to verse 15.

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Indeed, the main argument of these verses is that if we do experience this treatment, it is a proof that we are

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God's children, but that if we do not, then it raises very serious doubt, to say the least, as to whether we are truly the children of God at all.

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We have also considered the reason why God does chastise, and we came to the conclusion that he does it in order to safeguard us from certain temptations that are always threatening us.

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There are certain dangers rounded about us in this earthly life, and we need to be kept from them.

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The danger of pride, self -satisfaction, smugness, the danger of drifting away and becoming worldly without realizing it.

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These horrible dangers that are constantly threatening the Christian in this life and this world.

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Now, all of what we've seen so far, these two paragraphs and whatnot, are all introductory and actually going back showing what we learned mostly last week, and then now we're going to come up to what we're going to do this week.

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And actually, this next whole slide is a repeat of what we studied last week, but it's important because this week's lesson in chapter 18 is definitely building upon chapter 17.

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So remember what we saw. Spiritual depression is often the result of God's chastisement upon a person.

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The scripture is clear that God chastises his children. That's what we read in Hebrews chapter 12.

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And if that's true, then, if we know that this is God's chastisement, why does it lead to depression in a lot of people?

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And remember we said the answer is rather simple. It's often misunderstood. People who are under the chastisement of God don't necessarily realize that they are under the chastisement of God, or if they do, they don't always realize the purpose of it or think that somehow

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God is not being fair with them. So one of the other things we looked at was that God's chastisement does not work automatically.

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What I mean by that, not that the chastisement doesn't work, but that the result isn't always automatic.

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When God chastises us, it's meant to drive us to some sort of action, and it's that action that is not necessarily automatic.

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Chastisement, therefore, must be understood and properly applied to a person to derive any benefit from it.

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Just think of the shame. Somebody comes unto the chastisement of God, and they disregard it, and they suffered all this chastisement, and yet it's done no good for their sanctification.

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That's a tragedy. So how does one apply it to himself wrongly?

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And we looked at several things. First, by despising it. That's what the

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King James says, or regarding it lightly, if you're reading from the New American Standard. In other words, by ignoring it and paying no attention to it.

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So if we're following along, we understand that we're going along in our Christian life.

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The Word of God has given us instruction, and we are not paying heed to the

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Word of God. Remember, that's one of the whole premises for being under the chastisement of God, is we're walking in disobedience, disobeying the

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Word of God, and then what happens is God chastises us, and the purpose of the chastisement, if you remember last week, is to bring us back into obedience, and some people just ignore it and wonder, why is this happening to me?

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Sometimes they even develop a stoic attitude. Oh, this is just something that I have to endure.

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They often regard it this way. It's one of those things that just happens in this life. After all, sometimes bad things happen to good people.

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That is not a Christian response, and we need to understand that that is stoicism, and in fact, if you remember, you've heard me use him several times,

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Rabbi Kuchner, when he wrote the book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, that was his conclusion.

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His conclusion was, it's just bad luck. Sometimes it happens, that's what he says, and the good doctor says, there's nothing so dangerous to the soul as to cultivate this impersonal attitude towards life, which is so common today.

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In other words, if it's affecting your soul, there is nothing impersonal about it, and to just simply regard it, oh, this is just one of those things, this is part of life, that is to deny the

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Christian message, because if you understand, especially now, if you're a child of God, everything that happens in your life is there for a reason.

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We may not realize it in this life, but there is nothing that just, oh, this was just by chance.

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Second, by giving in or giving up, and this is what we see in Hebrews 12, 5.

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My son, do not regard the discipline of the Lord, do not regard lightly the discipline of the

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Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him, nor faint when you are approved by him.

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The danger here is to feel a sense of hopelessness. In other words, there's nothing

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I can do. This is my lot in life, or I'm hanging in there.

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My favorite words. And this is often accompanied then by a sense of purposelessness.

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If you have hopelessness, then the danger is to say, what's the purpose of all of this?

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The person may actually articulate it this way, I can't take this anymore, it's too much for me to handle.

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How often have you heard people say that? If you ever hear a

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Christian say that, you need to rebuke them, because that is not a

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Christian attitude. The Christian has been promised that nothing, there will be no temptation that will overtake you, but such as is common to man, and it will not be greater than you can handle, and there will always be a way of escape.

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So to say this, you know, in fact, I know I said this once before, but I used to do that,

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I used to say it all the time, like getting ready to go to work and my shoelace would break, I'd say, I don't need this right now.

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And then I started studying and preaching, and I said, well, you know what, if it had happened, it's exactly what

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I needed at that moment. I don't necessarily know why, but...

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And that leads to the third wrong response to chastisement, which again is in chapter 12, verse 15 this time.

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See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble.

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Now you can see how those first two responses can lead to this. That root of bitterness, and just taking a negative view on all of life, there's nothing good, and looking at everything with a jaundiced eye.

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The whole personality of the individual begins to change as bitterness becomes a dominant feature.

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If you've lived for any length of time on this earth, I've lived 75 years now, and I can tell you,

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I know people who started off, you know, they were joyful, they were happy, and by the time certain things happened, because they didn't respond properly, their whole personality changed, and they become, you know, like the old -fashioned way to live it, curmudgeon, you know.

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Use it in a sentence tomorrow. Curmudgeon, use it in a sentence. If you don't know what it means, look it up.

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The good doctor says, I have known people who before their misfortunes befell them seemed to be very nice and friendly, but I have observed that when these things happen, they become bitter, self -centered, difficult, difficult even with those who try to help them and who are anxious to help them.

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They turn in upon themselves, and they feel that the whole world is against them. You cannot help them.

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The bitterness enters into their souls. It appears in their faces and in very appearance.

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A complete change seems to take place. We often unconsciously proclaim what we are by the way in which we react to the things that happen to us.

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There's a couple of great truths in that, you know. We say it, you know, like anybody who's been in the military or in a police department or any type of job such as that, you know, you don't really know the middle of a man until the bullets start to fly.

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And I've seen many a guy boasting, big macho guy, and then the bullets start to fly and he's hiding under a desk someplace, you know.

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Same thing here. When the chips are down and things are not going well, that's when you start to see the character of a person.

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See, if we respond to chastisement in any of these ways, it will have no effect upon our sanctification.

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Remember last week we looked at what is the purpose of the chastisement. One of the major functions of chastisement is to aid us in our sanctification.

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There is something that we're not doing. Remember, two main functions or two main tools that God uses to sanctify us, the word and rebuke or chastisement.

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And if the word is not working, then you can expect chastisement. Okay? These things that happen to us in life test us.

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They test us to the very depths and they show whether we are truly children of God or not. Those who are not children of God are generally made bitter by misfortunes.

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What is the Christian's response? I'm going to learn through this. God is teaching me something.

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He is sanctifying me. Thank you. And we'll get into that. We're even thanking him for the affliction.

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So what is the remedy then for this type of spiritual depression? How do we avoid the traps that will lead us into bitterness?

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Once again, the answer is simple. Respond correctly. Okay, end of the lesson.

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Just respond correctly. It's that simple. But how do we do that? First, remember this important point.

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Okay? And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons.

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This makes all the difference in the world. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you know you are one of his children.

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So you know that whatever discipline or chastisement is coming to you, it is coming to you as a loving heavenly father.

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You have to know that first. Otherwise, nothing else we say is going to make any difference.

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So the source of the chastisement is very, very important. Because you are a child of God and chastisement comes from him, your entire attitude toward it must reflect that important truth.

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If we respond in a very ungodly way, then what we're saying right at the outset, we're not even getting into the effects of it, but right at the outset, you know you're not going to learn.

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It's not aiding you in your sanctification. And remember, what is the number one goal in our life?

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It's our sanctification. It's becoming like Christ. So there are a number of exhortations given to the child of God regarding chastisement.

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It's all in this section of Scripture. First, don't forget the exhortation that was given to you in the

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Scriptures. Now, remember, these Hebrew Christians, and that's why this book of Hebrews is so important, and always to keep in mind who the book was written to.

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We can argue who wrote it. All right? I mean, even the great scholars argue, you know,

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Paul, Apollos, you know, whoever else you think.

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All right? But who it was written to, I think, is more important than who wrote it, because these were

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Hebrew Christians. What does that mean? They grew up with the Old Testament Scriptures. You can understand somewhat, not excuse them, but you can understand the church in Ephesus, the church in Galatia, all right, who were primarily

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Gentile churches, okay, not understanding some of these principles because they didn't study the

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Holy Scriptures, you know, from the time they were young. But Hebrew Christians, they grew up learning the

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Old Testament Scriptures. They had the book of Proverbs. Just imagine.

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They had the book of Proverbs, which addresses all of these issues. Almost everything that we're going to study in Hebrews 12, you can go back and find a corollary in the book of Proverbs, all right?

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That means they were without excuse. That's why the author says, and you have forgotten.

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Notice he took for granted that they had learned. He didn't say, if you learned. He said, no, he presumes that they learned it.

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He says, you've forgotten the exhortation, okay? So they were without excuse.

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But you know what that means? That means present -day Christians are without excuse. Because if you grew up in the church, all right, you too have the book of Proverbs.

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So now the second response to remedy this is also in the fifth verse.

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And you have forgotten the exhortation, which is addressed to you as sons.

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Now, I underlined addressed because, you know, by now you realize that some of the translations, it's hard to translate the full meaning of a word from Greek or Hebrew into English.

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It's just hard because our language isn't near as rich in meaning as some of those early languages were, all right?

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The word addressed means to discuss or to reason with or even to preach.

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So in other words, this exhortation, which was addressed to them, it wasn't just, oh, by the way, don't do this.

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It was discussed and argued. In other words, there was a dialogue back and forth involved in the teaching and the training of especially the book of Proverbs.

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So that word addressed is important. It can also mean to argue as in the sense of debate or presenting a legal argument.

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All right, so in other words, this is not something that they didn't understand. There would have been time spent on dwelling on this particular point.

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So these Hebrew Christians had forgotten this major exhortation and that is what?

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As sons, all right, and not to forget the discipline. So here's another quotation from Dr.

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Jones. You see, the word of God does not merely give us general comfort. What it gives us always is an argument.

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All right. There is nothing that I so dislike and abominate as a sentimental way of reading the

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Scriptures. This is going to be a little burr under some of your saddles.

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Good. All right. There are so many people who read the Scriptures in a purely sentimental manner.

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They are in trouble and they do not know what to do. They say, I will read a psalm. It is so soothing.

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The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Emphasis on mine.

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They make of it a kind of incantation and take the psalms as another person takes a drug.

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That is not the way to read the Scriptures. The word of exhortation reasons with you, argues with you, and we must follow the logic of it and bring intelligence to the

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Scriptures. We can never bring too much intelligence to our reading of them. They are not merely meant to give us general comfort and soothing.

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Follow the argument. Let them reason it out with you. This is akin to our doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture.

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If all you are doing is reading the Scriptures, you know, like you would, as I mentioned Sunday morning, chicken soup for the soul.

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You want to read some nice, warm -hearted, go ahead, buy chicken soup for the soul.

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There are some great stories in there. And there is nothing wrong with that. I am not demeaning it.

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I have read a lot of them. But if it is something to do with your spirituality, with your sanctification, you have got to read the

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Scriptures as marching orders, not as a salve. And, in fact, if you ever heard

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J. Adams get on this subject, he was ten times more acerbic than Dr.

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Jones. And he would say, in fact, he even hated the word devotions. He said, if you want to read the

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Scriptures devotionally, that is fine. But don't have your devotions. It is not a warm, fuzzy time.

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It is a time where you go to the Scriptures, you read what it says, understand what it says, and put it into practice in your life because those are your marching orders.

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It is not a message, you know, from a guru.

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It is the marching orders of your king telling you what he expects of you.

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Yes? There are some churches, though, that they take a lot, especially the Old Testament, as prescriptive instead of descriptive.

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So, I mean, how would you tell them to distinguish what are marching orders in the sense of how we apply the

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Scriptures to our lives? And when sometimes God wasn't talking to us, he was talking to the Israelites, or it was like a historical account.

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Because a lot of them, they were taking things out of context. Well, yeah, that is one of the problems, and that is exactly what

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Peter is talking about, how the untaught, the untrained distort the Scriptures, you know, and that is what we have to be careful of.

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There are two, you know, Mike, do you want an answer to that? Tell them they need to become

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Reformed. And read Reformed scholars because I think the

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Reformers did a fantastic job of that, is understanding how to take the

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Scriptures in context. Because a lot of times, like, the health, wealth, prosperity, they do that.

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They take a lot of Old Testament Scriptures, which, again, God was talking to Israel at that time, and they take it for themselves.

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That is what I mean when I say what is descriptive as opposed to prescriptive. Well, you have to understand there is a lot of things prescribed in the

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Old Testament that is meant for us as well. All right, so you can't just make a clear distinction that, you know, the

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Old Testament is only descriptive. No, no. When that law came down on Sinai, that was meant for us as well, you know.

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All right, that being said, I just want to, I don't want to mislead somebody.

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I'm not saying that books like the Psalms are not beneficial to comfort somebody who is sick, and they are.

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I do it all the time. In fact, my preference is when I'm ministering to somebody who, especially if they're getting close to passing away,

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I love to read the Psalms of Ascent. All right, because those are the Psalms that would be sung by the

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Israelites as they were ascending to go to worship. OK, and they're very uplifting.

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But you still focus on the truth of it, not just that it's nice poetry, but what is it saying?

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That's my whole point. The Bible is meant to be understood, and that's how you get comfort from it, because the

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Bible is a very comforting book. OK, so I just didn't want to want to leave that at that point.

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OK. All right. So. Continuing. The great argument is that it is

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God who is doing this, and he is doing it to you because you are his child.

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OK. It is God who is doing this. We have to get away from this.

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Oh, well, God wouldn't do that to you. I mean, we see that in the church a lot today. Oh, God wouldn't do this. Yeah, he would.

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In fact, you're lucky. He could have done a lot worse to you. You know, don't say it in that way.

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I can just picture somebody going, you know what

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God is. No, a little bit more grace and compassion than that.

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But, yes. What would you say to somebody who asks the question of what?

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What would God do? Because there are things that go against his nature. Yeah, he won't sin.

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He can't sin. He can't die. He can't contradict himself. Those are the things that he can't do.

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As far as what can he do to individuals? Paul answers that.

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Does not the potter have the right over the clay? You know, and that's what we need to understand.

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He made us, you know, and he can pretty much do with us as he pleases.

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But you're right. He cannot act outside of his nature. Are you looking to say something?

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I was going to say that even when God comforts us in his word, many times he's also convicting us.

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Yes. And like I thought of, I went to Asa. And when Asa said, why do the wicked prosper?

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Then he goes into the house of the Lord and he did find comfort from the word of God. But it was also him being humble and saying,

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God, I really should not have been questioned here. I really know. Thanks for reminding me that you're a God. I'm not.

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You're working at all these things for your purposes. So even when God is comforting us with his promises, many times he's also convicting us saying you should know this.

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You really should be trusting me all the time. Oh, by the way, this was not a charismatic moment. I didn't sense that he had something to say.

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I just know. I just know him well enough. I saw the look on his face. I know. I said, he's got something to say. But no, the

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Lord didn't tell me to pick on Dave. So it is

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God who's doing this to you and he's doing it to you because you are his child. This is, that's the great, that's the central argument of this whole passage.

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And then we continue. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them.

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All right. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live?

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Don't forget whatever God is doing to you. It is so that you would have that life and have it abundantly.

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For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good.

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And here's the key again that we might share in his holiness. It is for your sanctification.

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Why do you go through tough times? If you're a child of God, it's for your sanctification. And again,

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I just want to reiterate, these words are for children of God alone. If you're not a child of God, these promises aren't for you.

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You're going to be going through tough times and not that God is not in them, but it's not necessarily for your benefit.

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This is probably the most important and overriding principle in the entire argument of Hebrews chapter 12.

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But there are other important principles as well. Look at Hebrews 12, 11. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful.

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It's not fun being disciplined by God. I mean, let's be honest about it.

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So if somebody says, oh, I'm enjoying the discipline of God. I'm going to take you to a good biblical counselor and have your head examined.

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It's not fun. Don't tell me it was fun when you got spanked by your parents. That's not fun.

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And it's not fun being disciplined by God. Scripture says it's not joyful for the moment.

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It will be sorrowful. Yet the results are worth the chastisement.

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There's the difference. When it's over, you can look at the results of it. If you have taken the lesson and applied it to your life, then it's worth it.

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The only people who are going to derive benefit from the treatment, says this man. When he says that, he's talking about the author of Hebrews, are those who carry out the exercise, those who are exercised thereby, those who submit to God's treatment.

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If you shake it off, the treatment will do you no good. If you faint under it, it will do you no good.

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If you become bitter, it will do you no good. It only does you good if you submit to the process.

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So the writer of Hebrews continues then in his exhortation, using the analogy, and this is where he brings this in.

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As I studied this chapter, I felt that this was a very beneficial analogy.

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All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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This here, this word that is translated trained, is the same word as we get the word gymnasium from, gymnasio.

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So the analogy then is from the Greek athletic competitions. In the gymnasiums, they would strip off anything that would hinder their competition.

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That's why I'm sure everybody's heard like in the Olympics, the athletes sans clothes is how they compete.

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That wasn't because they were perverted. It was because they wanted to take anything that would interfere with their competition.

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In fact, the author actually began this analogy in the opening of chapter 12. This is the first time the word appears, but look at the opening.

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Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, this is directly from the

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Olympic Games, the ancient Olympic Games. Let us also lay aside every encumbrance.

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Every encumbrance, he's not talking about sin here. Here he's talking about sin and the sin which so entangles us.

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What he's talking about here is the encumbrance. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I used to be a track man in high school.

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I ran a half mile. And what we would do is we have the small shorts, the muscle -type

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T -shirts and whatnot. That was it. I didn't put on my fedora and put an ascot on.

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All right. Why? Because what would happen if I'm running and it starts to get loose? It could tangle me up.

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It wasn't against the rules to wear that, but it could encumber me.

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And that's the example that the author is using here of an athlete who is running and he wants to get rid of anything that is going to encumber him in his competition.

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And then, of course, the sin which easily entangles us as well. In other words, lay aside everything and anything that would hinder you from training in God's gymnasium.

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Having done that, the next step is an examination based upon the Word of God. Notice chastisement and the

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Word of God always go together. And that begins with the question, why is this happening to me?

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And when I say that, not, oh, woe is me, why is this happening to me? But I mean a legitimate quest for information.

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Why? I need to evaluate my circumstances. Why am I going through this at this particular time?

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Psalm 119, 71, it is good for me that I was afflicted that I may learn your statutes.

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See, there's always a reason. And sometimes it's because you have strayed into sin.

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Other times it's just to teach you a lesson that you're not positively learning.

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Sin, it must be confessed to God. Then you must begin the positive steps.

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Following the analogy of the gymnasium, start training the muscles that have atrophied from lack of use. Look at verse 12.

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Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. Make straight the paths of your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be out of joint but rather be healed.

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I could go at length here talking about what this is talking about in the gymnasium. What do you do in the gym?

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Start with lighter weights, then you build yourself up. You've got to strengthen those weak limbs.

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And then straight the path of your feet. You want to start walking on the straight and narrow. You want to avoid something that's going to trip you up.

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Because you can get hurt. We just don't have time to go to length into that.

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But then there's one more positive step. Pursue peace with all men. Notice the word pursue.

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It means to strive or hunt for. Again, the analogy of exercising in the gymnasium.

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You ever watch the athletes exercising in a gymnasium? It's like they're driven. Sometimes you look and think, that guy's crazy.

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What are you to pursue? Peace with all men and holiness. Peace and sanctification.

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And then this is his closing paragraph. And he always gives a good closing. Finally, and beyond all else for our encouragement, look at the one who subjected himself to it all.

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Though he need not have done so, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.

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He knew what it meant. He said, Father, if it be possible that this cup pass from me, nevertheless my will, not my will, but thine be done.

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He endured it all for the joy that was laid up for him, and for your salvation and mine. So when you may feel that the discipline is too much and that it is very painful, in addition to all that I have said, look unto him.

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Keep looking at him and follow him, and as certainly as we do so, we shall find that this which for the moment is so painful and grievous will afterward yield, even in this life and world, and still more in glory, this wonderful fruit of health and righteousness, of peace and of the enjoyment of God.

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I do not know what you feel, but as I have meditated this last fortnight upon this great word,

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I say honestly and in the presence of God that there is nothing that gives me greater comfort and greater solace than this, to know that I am in God's hands and that he so loves me and is so determined upon my holiness and upon bringing me to heaven, that if I do not listen to his word and follow it, he will deal with me in another way.

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He is going to bring me there. It is alarming, but it is also glorious. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. Take the exercises, my friend. Hurry to the gymnasium. Do what he tells you.

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Examine yourself. Practice it all, whatever the cost, however the great pain, and enter into the joy of the

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Lord. Questions? I know that was a lot tonight.

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Yeah, Joe. Does chastisement cause people to doubt their salvation?

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Yes. That's the whole purpose of what we're going through. This chastisement, if not understood correctly, can lead to spiritual depression and part of that can be doubting their salvation.

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That's when you need to sit down with that person and say the fact that you're going through chastisement very well may be proof that you are in fact saved.

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Yes. What could be considered a weight? You know when it mentions therefore since we are thrown by so great a crowd of demons.

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You're going to have to speak up, Mike. What's considered a weight when it says to lay aside every weight?

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Anything that would encumber you. Anything that would encumber you. It could be.

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Yeah, see, the difference is this. Not only are we to lay aside sin, which so easily entangles us, but then anything else that encumbers us.

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That can be good things. Do you know what it means to prune a plant?

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Because I didn't. I thought I did. I thought it meant cutting off all the bad pieces. That's not what it means.

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It means cutting off even good branches so that the better branches are more full and especially in the realm of grapes.

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That's why you see them out there in the midsummer cutting branches off.

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It's sometimes even cutting off small grapes. And what's the purpose for it? Sometimes even good things can stand in the way of our sanctification and get in the way of getting the better things.