Norm-Christine and verse one. I am the vine, the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except that abide in the vine no more, can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth, as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, their bird. If he abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein, as my Father glorified, that ye bear, much truth so shall he be my disciple that's all we'll read today there are four sections in this chapter we mentioned it in our ad in the paper you have the great parable and we've just read about that great parable then you have in the next few verses verses nine to eleven you have a glorious partnership We may not get to that this week, but we don't get to it next. Then you have a grim prediction in verses eighteen to twenty-five, and then the fourth, a gracious preacher in the final two verses. But we'll be dwelling this morning on the great parable that is the parable of the vine. It's very interesting that Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell quite a few parables. They record quite a few parables the Lord gave. But John gives only one parable, and that's this one. The only parable you find in John's gospel is the parable of the vine. Now Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not refer to us. So it must be very important when you find that John takes up this remarkable parable of the vine. These four sections we've mentioned to you take up four wonderful truths. you have abiding and fruit in the first section, you have love in connection with the second, that's that companionship, and you have hate in the third section, and you have the witness in the fourth. So this parable is the subject of fruit and applies to the Christian and the Christian only. Only a child of God can abide in Christ. And I trust that very clear. We'll emphasize it as we go along. This is the final great I am of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John. We've mentioned that previously. First of all, in chapter six, she opens up with, I am the bread which came down from heaven. Then he says in chapter eight, I am the light of the world. And then he tells us also, I am the good shepherd in chapter ten, and I am the door also in chapter ten. And he says, I am the resurrection and the life in chapter eleven, and also I am the way, he says in John fourteen six. But now the seventh and final one, I am the vine. Christ is the vine, and you'll notice what he says, I am the true vine. cooker of them are false ones, an untrue one that caused them to say, I am the true vine. Yes. Israel was the false vine. If you want to read the story about that, you read the first five verses of Isaiah chapter vine. God talks about planting a vine. He said, I had a wonderful vineyard. I cleaned out that vineyard. And I till that vineyard, and I planted in that vineyard a choice by what you're talking about. Israel. Did he not give them a wonderful vineyard, that is, the land of Canaan, with those luscious fruits, those grapes that were so big that it took two men to carry one month? God gave them a wonderful vineyard. and they were the choice nation. God selected them and planted them in the land of David. And God says, I look forward after all my trouble of bringing them up out of Egypt, bringing them through the wilderness, planting them in that choice vineyard, and I cared for them. I washed over them. I protected them. And I looked at they spring forth fruit. Jesus, they brought forth sour grapes. Sour grapes. God was so displeased. That vine withered up, because God says, I withheld rain from heaven. And that land, that vineyard, was destroyed by God. As God took down the walls and allowed the enemy to other nations to go in and dispose of that nation and settle there. God was disheartened because of the reaction of that nation. He had favored sour grapes, sour grapes. Is that true of some Christians today? God has planted you in a favorite spot. He's given you every opportunity to bring forth truth unto his glory, but sour drink. Sour drink. You know that land, that vineyard is so dry that it says concerning the Lord Jesus, he was a root out of a dry ground in Isaiah fifty-three. The nation of Israel was so dried up, so with it. that it was a dry ground out of which the True Lines came. All that was left of that great nation was a few faithful Jews, just a little flock. The twelve tribes scattered. The land, it was just a wilderness. And out of that dry land, out of that Jewish nation what was left of it. out came the Lord Jesus the true vine the true vine and so today it's not one nation if all nations now have the opportunity to know something of the true vine the Lord Jesus Christ you can know something of the true vine the Old Testament the land of Canaan was for one nation Christ is for all nations that includes you And that includes me. Then you stop to think of what God says about a vine, and what worthless creatures we are without Christ. Without the vine, what is the branches? Well, the branches mean nothing. All the branches are in heaven will produce depends on the vine, and a vine in itself. When you think of what God says about it, and I'm going to read it to you. It's over in Ezekiel fifteen. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, what is the vine tree? More than any tree. More than a branch which is among the trees of the forest. Shall it be taken thereof to do any work? Can you make furniture out of the vine? Or will men take a pin of it to hang upon a vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel. The fire devours forth the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. It is meat for any work. Is it meat for any work? Behold, when it was whole, it was meat for no work. How much less than it is meat, yet for any work when the fire has devoured it, and it is burned. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, as the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Why is the Jewish nation in the mess that's in today? Just because of disobedience, with enough, and the worst is yet to come. God says, unless the branches of vine and the vine, what good are the branches? No good. What can you do with a branch? You can't make anything out of a vine or a branch. You can't make a piece of furniture. It's all crooked and knotted. It's all as good for it as God. It's either for food or the fire. And friend, you can be either food and feast God or you can be the fire. You know something of the fire that will burn. It's the one or the other. Man is in this world either to be a fruit unto God or a fire that will consume throughout eternity. How sad and solemn is the situation. Think of the necessity of this life. Man separated from God. Your sins have separated between you and your God. So you're not united to yet. The vine in the branches speaks of communion. But man by nature is separated from God. Your sins are separated you from God. Then man is dead in sin. He's without the life of the vine. Man without Christ is fruitless. God doesn't get a thing out of the sinner. Not one grape, let alone a bunch. God doesn't get a thing out of the life of the sinner. just a barren piece of land with no fruit, no life. Ah, what's the means by which we have this branch in the vine? I think Matthew thirteen gives you the secret. You have the sower and it goes forth the sower. That was the Lord Jesus. Then the power and the powering and the harrowing of the soil is the work of the Holy Spirit. Convicting of sin, showing man his love. He needs a savior. Then you have the seed, and it's the word of God that he sowed. Then you have the soil, and that's the human heart. This is the process. Lord, you're becoming a branch in the vine. You're separated from God. If you have no life, there can be no fruit, and all you're good for is a fire. You know, there are three things in your Bible that are fruit-producing. That is, a fig tree. God likened man unto a fig tree, also the nation that is this. Then wheat, and then a grapevine. All fruit-producing plants. God wants some return. And when he planted Israel, he wanted returned. He got no fruit. And when the Lord was here, he saw a fig tree in his pathway, and he went and he looked. He lifted the big leaves. They looked lovely. Not for Paulius. He looked under the leaves, but there was no things. And he crushed it. And Israel withered up. He comes seeking fruit. from you, from me. He doesn't want the exterior, the outward appearance, a put-off. No, he looks for real fruit, the heart. For that's where the true fruit comes from. I wonder what he finds in your life as a Christian. So you have man like him under these things, fruit-bearing, is what God expects us what he wants. And all this is the result of death, except the corn of wheat falling to the ground that died and abided alone. But if it died, it bringeth forth much fruit. And so Christians can only bring forth fruit. If they know what Christ died for, and for whom he died, his life wouldn't enable you to bring forth fruit. His death only. He died that we might live. He died that he might be the vine into which we can find a place and produce fruit for his glory. And so the need of this union that we're going to bring for fruit unto God. You know, life and fruitfulness is the main subject of this chapter. He's not talking about salvation. That's not in this chapter at all. Once you're born again, you're in the vine. You're the true friend, and you're in the vine. You're saved, and the same life that's in that vine is in the branch. The same life that's in Christ is in you. That means you're saved, and you're saved forever. And you're going to live as long as the vine lives. Jesus Christ is going to live forever. So will every branch in that vine. What's he talking about here? Not salvation. You can't lose that. Once you're saying you're saying forever and he's given unto you eternal life, you'll never perish. He gives everlasting life and everlasting means exactly that everlasting. You have everlasting life when you're in that vine. And the very same life that's in that vine is in you, exactly. Jesus Christ is everlasting. And so is every plant. that is in that vine. But the subject he's talking about here is fruit bearing. You can't bring forth any fruit unless you abide in that vine. What kind of fruit is he talking about? Well, he talks about some lovely fruit over in Galatians chapter five and twenty-two, and it's ninefold. He speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. And when you are in Christ, you have the Spirit within you. And he says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, deepness, and temperance. Isn't that lovely to think of that big cluster of grace? And this is to be the fruit emanating from a Christian's life. You can produce it in the flesh. Only a plant that's in that vine can produce this fruit. You as a sinner cannot produce this fruit. An absolute impossibility. You've got to be a Christian to produce this fruit because the fruit of the Spirit produces it. You can do it. Man can do it. Only the Spirit is remarkable when you think of it. Three sets of threes in the fruit of the Spirit. First one, love, joy, peace. That's inward. Isn't that nice to have love, joy, and peace in your heart? Then the next three, outward, peace, strength, and long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness toward others. The last three is upward. That's the God. Faith, meekness, self-control. And here you have the fruit of the Spirit. And this is only possible when a Christian is dwelling in Christ by the power of an untreated Holy Spirit. It's wonderful, isn't it, to know that I'm not only saved, I'm not only in Christ, but I am bearing truth. And that's what he's talking about in this chapter. It's not a case of The branch doing something for the vine, no. You never saw branch yet try to do something for the vine. It's the vine doing something for the branch. It's bearing it. It's sending its life through it, resulting in fruit. I'm not trying to do something for Christ. It's Christ doing something through me. All I got to do is let us. Whatever I've done for God in fifty-four years since I became a branch, I didn't do it. He did it through me. That's the point. The vine is doing something through the branches. It's the light of the branch of the... The vine going through the branches and producing the grace of the fruit. Without me, he says, you can do nothing. And it's only in the sense that I abide in Christ. But these things are so. A lot of people are running around trying to do something, for the Lord has run around like a chicken with a scale-off. Always busy running here, running there, doing that. They don't know something about the old hymn used to say, constantly abiding. constantly abiding, abiding in Christ, allowing him to work through me. That's why the apostle says, and he says to by the Spirit without me, ye can do one. If you do it without the Spirit, it's just the works of the flesh. And thus our responsibility is to abide in Christ. What does it mean to abide in Christ? To abide in Christ is to maintain that right relationship with God that enables him to work out his purposes through you. Any preacher gets on the platform and say, well, I can handle this situation. I don't need any help from the Lord. I'll preach the Bible. It's where it is. and all strength. That'll be a flop. It's only the preacher who preaches as the Spirit gives help that there'll be any fruit in the gospel. And there's something very noticeable here that the fruit is first character before its service. That those things I mentioned in Galatians, that character, A person on a sick bed can produce all nine of those things, and never step on a platform, and never go to the mission field. A sick person who's never put their foot on the floor can bear those fruits. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, faith, go over those nine things. That's character. They can be produced. by an invalid. That invalid can produce that fruit that God loves. That's character. And out of character is dead service. My service will only amount to fruit for God's will. That fruit is in my character. And I'm abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ. What I am characterizes what I do. I can know some preachers, and I'll tell you one thing. Their character is not very good. I know they've got a bad character. I don't think they're accomplishing much for their service either. Character comes first, and then service. That's what your Bible says. That's not what I says. And so here is our responsibility to abide in Christ. In utter dependence. upon the Lord in all that I do. I think I have the Lord saying that in verse ten. He said, if ye keep my commandments, ye abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. The Lord Jesus abiding in his Father. Now he says, you abide in me. The Lord Jesus Christ was abiding in his father's love. All he thought about was his father's will and his father's work, and he was abiding in the Father. Every moment of every day he was living an utter dependence upon God. He never took one breath out of fellowship with God. Jesus Christ abides in the Father. Now he says, you abide in me. Father, dependents are from God. That's the life we're abiding. Allowing the Lord for his life through you, producing fruit. It's nice to wake up during the night and know while I'm in Christ. I'm abiding in Christ. through the day, depending on the law for every day, trusting him for every day. Lord, you do it. I can. And he will. This is the secret of abiding, as we find it in the Bible. Abiding in Christ, the same very nature that was in God, that in Jesus Christ, it's in me. The wonderful thing. Divine nature. The nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't do anything in my own strength. Nine times in this passage. The word abide is found. Twelve times in the Gospel of John. Twelve times, I think it is. Or thirteen times over the epistles. Twenty-seven times. John speaks of abiding, abiding, abiding, abiding. Or continuing. Continuing. Abiding. in sight. You know there's something solemn in verse one and two. Verse two. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. This is Solomon. That a Christian is not bearing any fruit. He can take it away. Has he done that? Imagine a Christian living in this life with no testimony for the Lord. Over in First Corinthians, you find a case. For this cause are many weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. Well, then God says, I just took you home. In Acts chapter five, and Ananias and Sapphira, they both lied. And God said, you come up here. They were sleeping dead. He took it away. God has left his people here for a purpose, and that is a fair summary. Now if you want more of it, you have three degrees of fruit in connection with defeat in Matthew thirteen, thirty-four, sixty-hundred. Here he speaks of fruit, more fruit, much fruit. Did you notice those three things? You have fruit in verse two, you have more fruit in verse two, and you have much fruit in verse five. Fruit, more fruit, much fruit. And if you're a Christian, and there's no fruit at all, why does God want to leave you here? You're just a bad testimony for his name. And God has taken some hope. You're not hearing truth. But I think there's another... I enjoyed this past week. You know the Bibles are wonderful, though. Sometimes there's a word in the original Greek that has different expressions, different meanings. When put into the English language. And this is one. This word that gives us he taken away also is a word meaning aerial. It means something else. It means lifting up. Same as you have over in Revelation. Lifting up the hand. Lifting up the eye. Lifting up the voice. And it's nice, isn't it? Here is God in his severity as a keeper of his vineyard. He is a person saved and they're not bringing forth any fruit. and he takes them home. To leave you here is to disgrace my name. But on the other hand, and it's up to God as to which choice he makes, from which course he takes, he says his a branch is born fruit, and he listens it up. Quite often this happens when a man goes to his vineyard, especially in these parts of the country where this is their living, making wine. And after a terrible storm, he walks through the vineyard, and here's a big bunch of grapes, a big branch, loaded with fruit, and it's fallen off its support. And there it is down in the mud. A mud's all over the grapes and the leaves. What does he do? Go and get a saw and saw off that branch, no. He lifts that branch up. He washes it off. moved mud off the grapes and the leaves, sometimes from worms, you know. I read it one, and he found a snake curled under that big loaded branch of grapes on the ground. But he lifts up that branch, and he gets it back on its support, and the crop of grapes I'll read later on. He lifts it up. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord lifted up Simon Peter. Simon Peter had produced some fruitless life, and then he fell. He denied the Lord with oath and purpose. God could have taken him home. God said, no, I think Peter still has potential. The Lord saw his broken heart, and the Lord lifted him up. And he got back on the support again. The Lord says, I have prayed for thee, Peter, that I have prayed for thee a lot. When thou art converted or restored, establish it with me again, do you strengthen your brethren, produce some more fruit. And he did on the day of Pentecost, three thousand souls were saved, and Peter bore more fruit after that fall than he did before. In the knife the Lord can cut some off, and he can lift others up. But there's something else in this verse he does. And your Lord is in verse two. He purges it. He purges it. What's this? The gardener's using the knife now. She wants to cut away the purple of leaves and little shoots and sprouts. He cuts the vine. Lopping off something here, cutting out something there. Why? That it might bring forth more fruit. God wants. You can bear more fruit if you're bearing some. Maybe thirtyfold, but he wants sixtyfold. Maybe he wants ninetyfold. A hundredfold. He's the keeper of the vineyard. That's his. And he sees you've got potential for more fruit. He's not going to overdrive you or want to get more out of you than you can bear. So it has to do a little pruning with the knife. cutting out some things. And the nice sometimes it's painful. Per game. I remember one time when I knew this family well, I stayed in the home of Campbells of Petersburg, West Virginia, or Virginia. They're a lovely family. And Mr. Campbell had a nice great line. It ran right down from the back door to the bench at the back. My, it was lovely. So Mr. Bradford, who was a preacher staying at the time, I heard him tell this incident. Now Mr. Campbell told him that morning he was going to prune that vine. But he says, when I came home tonight, and I looked at one look at, he said, he ruined it. He said it was just like one stick bone out of it. He cut so close to the vine, he locked off just about everything. And he said, well, he may have been, most often bought it by, but he said, he won't have it. Mr. Bradford said, the next year it had the greatest crop of grapes in it ever had. Yes, sometimes the Lord has to use the knife to cut away some things. He comes pretty close sometimes. He's cutting things off. He wants more fruit. But you know, there's no time When the man of the vineyard, the owner of the vineyard, the keeper of the vineyard, there's no time that he's so close to the branches as when he's doing the fooling. Maybe you know something of the fooling night, the Lord is trying to get more fruit out of you. There's no time when you're passing through sorrows and suffering from hardships of existence. No time the Lord is so close to you as them. And he wants you to bring more, want more of you. I know Christians will go through some sad experiences, some painful experiences. But oh, how mellow they were after that experience, that close gush with death, when they didn't know whether they were going to make it. but the Lord and his grace brought them through, and they brought forth more fruit. They found out that light here was to be lived for him, not for seven. He purges it that it may bring forth more fruit, more fruit. Verse six is quite a difficult verse, but at the same time it has its meaning. I don't think verse six applies to a genuine branch. It says, if a man abide not in me, not in me, notice those words, he has cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. Men don't administer the judgment of God. And as one scholar puts it, it was a peg stuck in. it wasn't a real grant. It's crosswalked. It's like the tears in Matthew thirteen, almost like the real wheat. So much so when the Lord says, don't you disciple tear up the tears? You're like they pull up the tooth. There's such a similarity. And there are people who can be very much like a real grant. But they've never received the light of Christ. They've never been born again. They've never been crooked by the Spirit. They've never been washed in the blood. And they look like a branch. But they're not. The result is they wither up. And then they make them. What can then? Well, I'll tell you one thing. If you profess to be a Christian, you better live it. And if you want to know how a Christian should live, ask the unconverted. They know. And you know the unconverted can really use the tongue. Do you know what the tongue is like? Well, you'll find this over in James. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body and set of them fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. And if you're professing to be what you're not, the unconvert will burn you up with a tongue and tell you what a hypocrite you are. Find out you didn't have anything after all. That's why you're not bringing forth much fruit. How wonderful to bring forth fruit. Answer this, Lord. Are you fruit-bearing this morning? At no time, as I've already said, is the Lord so close to his people, as when he's doing the prudence, maybe he's close to you as well. In fact, if you're not even saved, he may be drawing close. He wants you to be saved. He wants you to consider your life. You're not even a branch in the vine. You'll have no real life until you get into Christ and Christ gets into you. And then in the power of the Holy Spirit and daily fellowship of the Lord you can bring forth through. You know that our big branches, there are little branches, there are old branches, there are young branches, Christian. But it's nice to be a little branch in a big vine. just a little branch in a big vine. And that's where I am. Just a little branch in a big vine. Or like the bottle. And a man wants to throw it out into the ocean. Well, he'll have to let a little of the ocean in. He lets all those things go at the bottom. But he lets so much in, have enough air in there. And he throws it out. And there you have a bottle in the ocean and the ocean's in the bottom. And said, that's the only thing that keeps us going now. Are you a Christian? You're a saved? A little of Christ is in you. Here you are, you're floating around in this great vast low ocean of the love of God. Because Christ is in you, the hope of glory. How vast is this... atmosphere, this element in which we live and move and have our being. Jesus Christ is everywhere. And this morning, I can by faith abide in him. He by his Spirit can quicken my heart, as a sinner who can quicken me to be enlightened in Christ, a branch in the Bible. Then, by abiding in him, The branch can look up to this liege and look at the sunshine as it shines down and warm, and the rain falls, it leaves that. The night comes and so the day, the doom falls as well as the snow. And all the branch does is if the vine and the vine, he takes what comes, and it grows, it grows, and it grows. This is the life of Christ who abides in Christ. Take me what comes. For he permits the same. It's part of the prudent. As long as I am bearing fruit, that's to me. And the more we abide in Christ, the more we know this power, the more lucid the fruit. And more is the quantity as well as the quality of the fruit. What about the unsaved? We are bearing old fruit. Your life is wasted up to now. You've lived for self, and you've lived for time. And you'll have all eternity to remember that. You've spent your life here for self, and for time, with no consideration for eternity. What shall it profit a man if he gamed the whole world, and lose his own soul? Life is lost. How wonderful to be saved and be a branch in the vine, the real thing, and bear fruit. Even if you bear only thirty percent, that's wonderful. The Lord would like you to bear sixty, he would like you to bear a hundred. And there are some Christians who have gone to heaven a hundredfold. They were a branch that was in the vine. and Christ in all this fullness filled their hearts and lives much deeper what glory to God what reward in eternity how about your life empty fruitless nothing to it all you've done and lived for yourself wouldn't you like to be a Christian would you like to have this life, the life of Christ in you, the life of the vine in you, the branch? I know from day to day you're bearing fruit. For his Lord, that's the most satisfying life a human being can live. Look back over your life and see that you did bear some fruit. Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to thy presence. We thank thee for thy precious word. We do trust that those of us who are saved will be exercised about the amount of fruit that we are bearing. We thank thee for our Lord Jesus and our security as granted in him, having his life. Father, may we be exercised about the quantity and quality of fruit you may be bearing. Remember the unsaved. Holy Father, they have nothing. But I will call to remember their past, a blank. The future is not bright, it's dark. Holy Father, speak to the unconfirmed. They may come to know Christ, whom to know his life eternal. He loved them. He loved them now. He gave himself for them. He shed his thought upon the cross that they might be saved. May someone trust him today. He asked him in his name and for his sake. Amen.