When you hear of some man who has been tempted and gone astray or fallen into drunkenness or murder, you thank G.o.d for His keeping power.
"I might have done the same as that man," you say, "if G.o.d had not kept me." And you believe He kept you from drunkenness and murder.
And why do you not need believe that G.o.d can keep you from outbreaks of temper? You thought that this was of less importance; you did not remember that the great commandment of the New Testament is-"Love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34). And when your temper and hasty judgment and sharp words came out, you sinned against the highest law-the law of G.o.d"s love. And yet you say: "G.o.d will not, G.o.d cannot"-no, you will not say, G.o.d cannot; but you say, "G.o.d does not keep me from that." You perhaps say: "He can; but there is something in me that cannot attain to it, and which G.o.d does not take away."
I want to ask you, Can believers live a holier life than is generally lived? Can believers experience the keeping power of G.o.d all the day, to keep them from sin? Can believers be kept in fellowship with G.o.d?
And I bring you a message from the Word of G.o.d, in these words: Kept by the power of G.o.d. There is no qualifying clause to them. The meaning is, that if you will entrust yourself entirely and absolutely to the omnipotence of G.o.d, He will delight to keep you.
Some people think that they never can get so far as that every word of their mouth should be to the glory of G.o.d. But it is what G.o.d wants of them, it is what G.o.d expects of them. G.o.d is willing to set a watch at the door of their mouth, and if G.o.d will do that, cannot He keep their tongue and their lips? He can; and that is what G.o.d is going to do for them that trust Him. G.o.d"s keeping is all-inclusive, and let everyone who longs to live a holy life think out all their needs, and all their weaknesses, and all their shortcomings, and all their sins, and say deliberately: "Is there any sin that my G.o.d cannot keep me from?" And the heart will have to answer: "No; G.o.d can keep me from every sin."
Keeping Requires Power Second, if you want to understand this keeping, remember that it is not only an all-inclusive keeping, but it is an almighty keeping.
I want to get that truth burned into my soul; I want to worship G.o.d until my whole heart is filled with the thought of His omnipotence. G.o.d is almighty, and the Almighty G.o.d offers Himself to work in my heart, to do the work of keeping me; and I want to get linked with Omnipotence, or rather, linked to the Omnipotent One, to the living G.o.d, and to have my place in the hollow of His hand. You read the Psalms, and you think of the wonderful thoughts in many of the expressions that David uses; as, for instance, when he speaks about G.o.d being our G.o.d, our Fortress, our Refuge, our strong Tower, our Strength and our Salvation. David had very wonderful views of how the everlasting G.o.d is Himself the hiding place of the believing soul, and of how He takes the believer and keeps him in the very hollow of His hand, in the secret of His pavilion, under the shadow of His wings, under His very feathers. And there David lived. And oh, we who are the children of Pentecost, we who have known Christ and His blood and the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven, why is it we know so little of what it is to walk tremblingly step by step with the Almighty G.o.d as our Keeper?
Have you ever thought that in every action of grace in your heart you have the whole omnipotence of G.o.d engaged to bless you? When I come to a man and he bestows upon me a gift of money, I get it and go away with it. He has given me something of his; the rest he keeps for himself.
But that is not the way with the power of G.o.d. G.o.d can part with nothing of His own power, and therefore I can experience the power and goodness of G.o.d only so far as I am in contact and fellowship with Himself; and when I come into contact and fellowship with Himself, I come into contact and fellowship with the whole omnipotence of G.o.d, and have the omnipotence of G.o.d to help me every day.
A son has, perhaps, a very rich father, and as the former is about to commence business the father says: "You can have as much money as you want for your undertaking." All the father has is at the disposal of the son. And that is the way with G.o.d, your Almighty G.o.d. You can hardly take it in; you feel yourself such a little worm. His omnipotence needed to keep a little worm! Yes, His omnipotence is needed to keep every little worm that lives in the dust, and also to keep the universe, and therefore His omnipotence is much more needed in keeping your soul and mine from the power of sin.
Oh, if you want to grow in grace, do learn to begin here. In all your judgings and meditations and thoughts and deeds and questionings and studies and prayers, learn to be kept by your Almighty G.o.d. What is Almighty G.o.d not going to do for the child that trusts Him? The Bible says: "Above all that we can ask or think" (Eph. 3:20). It is Omnipotence you must learn to know and trust, and then you will live as a Christian ought to live. How little we have learned to study G.o.d, and to understand that a G.o.dly life is a life full of G.o.d, a life that loves G.o.d and waits on Him, and trusts Him, and allows Him to bless it!
We cannot do the will of G.o.d except by the power of G.o.d. G.o.d gives us the first experience of His power to prepare us to long for more, and to come and claim all that He can do. G.o.d help us to trust Him every day.
Keeping Is Continuous Another thought. This keeping is not only all-inclusive and omnipotent, but also continuous and unbroken.
People sometimes say: "For a week or a month G.o.d has kept me very wonderfully: I have lived in the light of His countenance, and I cannot say what joy I have not had in fellowship with Him. He has blessed me in my work for others. He has given me souls, and at times I felt as if I were carried heavenward on eagle wings. But it did not continue. It was too good; it could not last." And some say: "It was necessary that I should fall to keep me humble." And others say: "I know it was my own fault; but somehow you cannot always live up in the heights."
Oh, beloved, why is it? Can there be any reason why the keeping of G.o.d should not be continuous and unbroken? Just think. All life is in unbroken continuity. If my life were stopped for half an hour I would be dead, and my life gone. Life is a continuous thing, and the life of G.o.d is the life of His Church, and the life of G.o.d is His almighty power working in us. And G.o.d comes to us as the Almighty One, and without any condition He offers to be my Keeper, and His keeping means that day by day, moment by moment, G.o.d is going to keep us.
If I were to ask you the question: "Do you think G.o.d is able to keep you one day from actual transgression?" you would answer: "I not only know He is able to do it, but I think He has done it. There have been days in which He has kept my heart in His holy presence, when, though I have always had a sinful nature within me, He has kept me from conscious, actual transgression."
Now, if He can do that for an hour or a day, why not for two days? Oh!
let us make G.o.d"s omnipotence as revealed in His Word the measure of our expectations. Has G.o.d not said in His Word: "I, the Lord, do keep it, and will water it every moment" (Isa. 27:3)? What can that mean?
Does "every moment" mean every moment? Did G.o.d promise of that vineyard or red wine that every moment He would water it so that the heat of the sun and the scorching wind might never dry it up? Yes. In South Africa they sometimes make a graft, and above it they tie a bottle of water, so that now and then there shall be a drop to saturate what they have put about it. And so the moisture is kept there unceasingly until the graft has had time to stroke, and resist the heat of the sun.
Will our G.o.d, in His tenderhearted love toward us, not keep us every moment when He has promised to do so? Oh! if we once got hold of the thought: Our whole spiritual life is to be G.o.d"s doing-"It is G.o.d that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil.
2:13)-when once we get faith to expect that from G.o.d, G.o.d will do all for us.
The keeping is to be continuous. Every morning G.o.d will meet you as you wake. It is not a question: If I forgot to wake in the morning with the thought of Him, what will come of it? If you trust your waking to G.o.d, G.o.d will meet you in the morning as you wake with His divine sunshine and love, and He will give you the consciousness that through the day you have got G.o.d to take charge of you continuously with His almighty power. And G.o.d will meet you the next day and every day; and never mind if in the practice of fellowship there comes failure sometimes. If you maintain your position and say: "Lord, I am going to expect Thee to do Thy utmost, and I am going to trust Thee day by day to keep me absolutely," your faith will grow stronger and stronger, and you will know the keeping power of G.o.d in unbrokenness.
Kept Through Faith And now the other side-Believing. "Kept by the power of G.o.d through faith." How must we look at this faith?
Faith Implies Helplessness Let me say, first of all, that this faith means utter impotence and helplessness before G.o.d.
At the bottom of all faith there is a feeling of helplessness. If I have a bit of business to transact, perhaps to buy a house, the lawyer must do the work of getting the transfer of the property in my name and making all the arrangements. I cannot do that work, and in trusting that agent I confess I cannot do it. And so faith always means helplessness. In many cases it means: I can do it with a great deal of trouble, but another can do it better. But in most cases it is utter helplessness; another must do it for me. And that is the secret of the spiritual life. A man must learn to say: "I give up everything; I have tried and longed and thought and prayed, but failure has come. G.o.d has blessed me and helped me, but still, in the long run, there has been so much of sin and sadness." What a change comes when a man is thus broken down into utter helplessness and self-despair, and says: "I can do nothing!"
Remember Paul. He was living a blessed life, and he had been taken up into the third Heaven, and then the thorn in the flesh came, "a messenger of Satan to buffet me." And what happened? Paul could not understand it, and he prayed the Lord three times to take it away; but the Lord said, in effect: "No; it is possible that you might exalt yourself, and therefore I have sent you this trial to keep you weak and humble."
And Paul then learned a lesson that he never forgot, and that was-to rejoice in his infirmities. He said that the weaker he was the better it was for him, for when he was weak, he was strong in his Lord Christ.
Do you want to enter what people call "the higher life"? Then go a step lower down. I remember Dr. Boardman telling how that once he was invited by a gentleman to go to see a factory where they made fine shot, and I believe the workmen did so by pouring down molten lead from a great height. This gentleman wanted to take Dr. Boardman up to the top of the tower to see how the work was done. The doctor came to the tower, he entered by the door, and began going upstairs; but when he had gone a few steps the gentleman called out: "That is the wrong way. You must come down this way; that stair is locked up."
The gentleman took him downstairs a good many steps, and there an elevator was ready to take him to the top; and he said: "I have learned a lesson that going down is often the best way to get up."
Ah, yes, G.o.d will have to bring us very low down; there will have to come upon us a sense of emptiness and despair and nothingness. It is when we sink down in utter helplessness that the everlasting G.o.d will reveal Himself in His power, and that our hearts will learn to trust G.o.d alone.
What is it that keeps us from trusting Him perfectly?
Many a one says: "I believe what you say, but there is one difficulty.
If my trust were perfect and always abiding, all would come right, for I know G.o.d will honor trust. But how am I to get that trust?"
My answer is: "By the death of self. The great hindrance to trust is self-effort. So long as you have got your own wisdom and thoughts and strength, you cannot fully trust G.o.d. But when G.o.d breaks you down, when everything begins to grow dim before your eyes, and you see that you understand nothing, then G.o.d is coming near, and if you will bow down in nothingness and wait upon G.o.d, He will become all."
As long as we are something, G.o.d cannot be all, and His omnipotence cannot do its full work. That is the beginning of faith-utter despair of self, a ceasing from man and everything on earth, and finding our hope in G.o.d alone.
Faith Is Rest And then, next, we must understand that faith is rest.
In the beginning of the faith-life, faith is struggling; but as long as faith is struggling, faith has not attained its strength. But when faith in its struggling gets to the end of itself, and just throws itself upon G.o.d and rests on Him, then comes joy and victory.
Perhaps I can make it plainer if I tell the story of how the Keswick Convention began. Canon Battersby was an evangelical clergyman of the Church of England for more than twenty years, a man of deep and tender G.o.dliness, but he had not the consciousness of rest and victory over sin, and often was deeply sad at the thought of stumbling and failure and sin. When he heard about the possibility of victory, he felt it was desirable, but it was as if he could not attain it. On one occasion, he heard an address on "Rest and Faith" from the story of the n.o.bleman who came from Capernaum to Cana to ask Christ to heal his child. In the address it was shown that the n.o.bleman believed that Christ could help him in a general way, but he came to Jesus a good deal by way of an experiment. He hoped Christ would help him, but he had not any a.s.surance of that help. But what happened? When Christ said to him: "Go thy way, for thy child liveth," that man believed the word that Jesus spoke; he rested in that word. He had no proof that his child was well again, and he had to walk back seven hours" journey to Capernaum. He walked back, and on the way met his servant, and got the first news that the child was well, that at one o"clock on the afternoon of the previous day, at the very time that Jesus spoke to him, the fever left the child. That father rested upon the word of Jesus and His work, and he went down to Capernaum and found his child well; and he praised G.o.d, and became with his whole house a believer and disciple of Jesus.
Oh, friends, that is faith! When G.o.d comes to me with the promise of His keeping, and I have nothing on earth to trust in, I say to G.o.d: "Thy word is enough; kept by the power of G.o.d." That is faith, that is rest.
When Canon Battersby heard that address, he went home that night, and in the darkness of the night found rest. He rested on the word of Jesus. And the next morning, in the streets of Oxford, he said to a friend: "I have found it!" Then he went and told others, and asked that the Keswick Convention might be begun, and those at the convention with himself should testify simply what G.o.d had done.
It is a great thing when a man comes to rest on G.o.d"s almighty power for every moment of his life, in prospect of temptations to temper and haste and anger and unlovingness and pride and sin. It is a great thing in prospect of these to enter into a covenant with the omnipotent Jehovah, not on account of anything that any man says, or of anything that my heart feels, but on the strength of the Word of G.o.d: "Kept by the power of G.o.d through faith."
Oh, let us say to G.o.d that we are going to test Him to the very uttermost. Let us say: We ask Thee for nothing more than Thou canst give, but we want nothing less. Let us say: My G.o.d, let my life be a proof of what the omnipotent G.o.d can do. Let these be the two dispositions of our souls every day-deep helplessness, and simple, childlike rest.
Faith Needs Fellowship That brings me to just one more thought in regard to faith-faith implies fellowship with G.o.d.
Many people want to take the Word and believe that, and they find they cannot believe it. Ah, no! you cannot separate G.o.d from His Word. No goodness or power can be received separate from G.o.d, and if you want to get into this life of G.o.dliness, you must take time for fellowship with G.o.d.
People sometimes tell me: "My life is one of such scurry and bustle that I have no time for fellowship with G.o.d." A dear missionary said to me: "People do not know how we missionaries are tempted. I get up at five o"clock in the morning, and there are the natives waiting for their orders for work. Then I have to go to the school and spend hours there; and then there is other work, and sixteen hours rush along, and I hardly get time to be alone with G.o.d."
Ah! there is the lack. I pray you, remember two things. I have not told you to trust the omnipotence of G.o.d as a thing, and I have not told you to trust the Word of G.o.d as a written book, but I have told you to go to the G.o.d of omnipotence and the G.o.d of the Word. Deal with G.o.d as that n.o.bleman dealt with the living Christ. Why was he able to believe the word that Christ spoke to him? Because in the very eyes and tones and voice of Jesus, the Son of G.o.d, he saw and heard something which made him feel that he could trust Him. And that is what Christ can do for you and me. Do not try to stir and arouse faith from within. How often I have tried to do that, and made a fool of myself! You cannot stir up faith from the depths of your heart. Leave your heart, and look into the face of Christ, and listen to what He tells you about how He will keep you. Look up into the face of your loving Father, and take time every day with Him, and begin a new life with the deep emptiness and poverty of a man who has got nothing, and who wants to get everything from Him-with the deep restfulness of a man who rests on the living G.o.d, the omnipotent Jehovah-and try G.o.d, and prove Him if He will not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that there shall not be room to receive it.
I close by asking if you are willing to experience to the very full the heavenly keeping for the heavenly inheritance? Robert Murray M"Cheyne says, somewhere: "Oh, G.o.d, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made." And if that prayer is in your heart, come now, and let us enter into a covenant with the everlasting and omnipotent Jehovah afresh, and in great helplessness, but in great restfulness place ourselves in His hands. And then as we enter into our covenant, let us have the one prayer-that we may believe fully that the everlasting G.o.d is going to be our Companion, holding our hand every moment of the day; our Keeper, watching over us without a moment"s interval; our Father, delighting to reveal Himself in our souls always. He has the power to let the sunshine of His love be with us all the day. Do not be afraid because you have got your business that you cannot have G.o.d with you always.
Learn the lesson that the natural sun shines upon you all the day, and you enjoy its light, and wherever you are you have got the sun; G.o.d takes care that it shines upon you. And G.o.d will take care that His own divine light shines upon you, and that you shall abide in that light, if you will only trust Him for it. Let us trust G.o.d to do that with a great and entire trust.
Here is the omnipotence of G.o.d, and here is faith reaching out to the measure of that omnipotence. Shall we not say: "All that that omnipotence can do, I am going to trust my G.o.d for"? Are not the two sides of this heavenly life wonderful? G.o.d"s omnipotence covers me, and my will in its littleness rests in that omnipotence, and rejoices in it!
Moment by moment, I"m kept in His love; Moment by moment, I"ve life from above; Looking to Jesus, the glory doth shine; Moment by moment, Oh, Lord, I am Thine!
"YE ARE THE BRANCHES"
An Address to Christian Workers Everything depends on our being right ourselves in Christ. If I want good apples, I must have a good apple tree; and if I care for the health of the apple tree, the apple tree will give me good apples. And it is just so with our Christian life and work. If our life with Christ be right, all will come right. There may be the need of instruction and suggestion and help and training in the different departments of the work; all that has value. But in the long run, the greatest essential is to have the full life in Christ-in other words, to have Christ in us, working through us. I know how much there often is to disturb us, or to cause anxious questionings; but the Master has such a blessing for every one of us, and such perfect peace and rest, and such joy and strength, if we can only come into, and be kept in, the right att.i.tude toward Him.
I will take my text from the parable of the Vine and the Branches, in John 15:5: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Especially these words: "Ye are the branches."
What a simple thing it is to be a branch, the branch of a tree, or the branch of a vine! The branch grows out of the vine, or out of the tree, and there it lives and grows, and in due time, bears fruit. It has no responsibility except just to receive from the root and stem sap and nourishment. And if we only by the Holy Spirit knew our relationship to Jesus Christ, our work would be changed into the brightest and most heavenly thing upon earth. Instead of there ever being soul-weariness or exhaustion, our work would be like a new experience, linking us to Jesus as nothing else can. For, alas! is it not often true that our work comes between us and Jesus? What folly! The very work that He has to do in me, and I for Him, I take up in such a way that it separates me from Christ. Many a laborer in the vineyard has complained that he has too much work, and not time for close communion with Jesus, and that his usual work weakens his inclination for prayer, and that his too much intercourse with men darkens the spiritual life. Sad thought, that the bearing of fruit should separate the branch from the vine!
That must be because we have looked upon our work as something other than the branch bearing fruit. May G.o.d deliver us from every false thought about the Christian life.
Now, just a few thoughts about this blessed branch-life.
Absolute Dependence In the first place, it is a life of absolute dependence. The branch has nothing; it just depends upon the vine for everything. Absolute dependence is one of the most solemn and precious of thoughts. A great German theologian wrote two large volumes some years ago to show that the whole of Calvin"s theology is summed up in that one principle of absolute dependence upon G.o.d; and he was right. Another great writer has said that absolute, unalterable dependence upon G.o.d alone is the essence of the religion of angels, and should be that of men also. G.o.d is everything to the angels, and He is willing to be everything to the Christian. If I can learn every moment of the day to depend upon G.o.d, everything will come right. You will get the higher life if you depend absolutely upon G.o.d.
Now, here we find it with the vine and the branches. Every vine you ever see, or every bunch of grapes that comes upon your table, let it remind you that the branch is absolutely dependent on the vine. The vine has to do the work, and the branch enjoys the fruit of it.
What has the vine to do? It has to do a great work. It has to send its roots out into the soil and hunt under the ground-the roots often extend a long way out-for nourishment, and to drink in the moisture.
Put certain elements of manure in certain directions, and the vine sends its roots there, and then in its roots or stems it turns the moisture and manure into that special sap which is to make the fruit that is borne. The vine does the work, and the branch has just to receive from the vine the sap, which is changed into grapes. I have been told that at Hampton Court, London, there is a vine that sometimes bore a couple of thousand bunches of grapes, and people were astonished at its large growth and rich fruitage. Afterward it was discovered what was the cause of it. Not so very far away runs the River Thames, and the vine had stretched its roots away hundreds of yards under the ground, until it had come to the riverside, and there in all the rich slime of the riverbed it had found rich nourishment, and obtained moisture, and the roots had drawn the sap all that distance up and up into the vine, and as a result there was the abundant, rich harvest.
The vine had the work to do, and the branches had just to depend upon the vine, and receive what it gave.
Is that literally true of my Lord Jesus? Must I understand that when I have to work, when I have to preach a sermon, or address a Bible cla.s.s, or to go out and visit the poor, neglected ones, that all the responsibility of the work is on Christ?
That is exactly what Christ wants you to understand. Christ wants that in all your work, the very foundation should be the simple, blessed consciousness: Christ must care for all.
And how does He fulfill the trust of that dependence? He does it by sending down the Holy Spirit-not now and then only as a special gift, for remember the relationship between the vine and the branches is such that hourly, daily, unceasingly there is the living connection maintained. The sap does not flow for a time, and then stop, and then flow again, but from moment to moment the sap flows from the vine to the branches. And just so, my Lord Jesus wants me to take that blessed position as a worker, and morning by morning and day by day and hour by hour and step by step, in every work I have to go out to just to abide before Him in the simple utter helplessness of one who knows nothing, and is nothing, and can do nothing. Oh, beloved workers, study that word nothing. You sometimes sing: "Oh, to be nothing, nothing"; but have you really studied that word and prayed every day, and worshiped G.o.d, in the light of it? Do you know the blessedness of that word nothing?
If I am something, then G.o.d is not everything; but when I become nothing, G.o.d can become all, and the everlasting G.o.d in Christ can reveal Himself fully. That is the higher life. We need to become nothing. Someone has well said that the seraphim and cherubim are flames of fire because they know they are nothing, and they allow G.o.d to put His fullness and His glory and brightness into them. Oh, become nothing in deep reality, and, as a worker, study only one thing-to become poorer and lower and more helpless, that Christ may work all in you.
Workers, here is your first lesson: learn to be nothing, learn to be helpless. The man who has got something is not absolutely dependent; but the man who has got nothing is absolutely dependent. Absolute dependence upon G.o.d is the secret of all power in work. The branch has nothing but what it gets from the vine, and you and I can have nothing but what we get from Jesus.
Deep Restfulness But second, the life of the branch is not only a life of entire dependence, but of deep restfulness.
That little branch, if it could think, and if it could feel, and if it could speak-that branch away in Hampton Court vine, or on some of the million vines that we have in South Africa, in our sunny land-if we could have a little branch here today to talk to us, and if we could say: "Come, branch of the vine, I want to learn from you how I can be a true branch of the living Vine," what would it answer? The little branch would whisper: "Man, I hear that you are wise, and I know that you can do a great many wonderful things. I know you have much strength and wisdom given to you but I have one lesson for you. With all your hurry and effort in Christ"s work you never prosper. The first thing you need is to come and rest in your Lord Jesus. That is what I do. Since I grew out of that vine I have spent years and years, and all I have done is just to rest in the vine. When the time of spring came I had no anxious thought or care. The vine began to pour its sap into me, and to give the bud and leaf. And when the time of summer came I had no care, and in the great heat I trusted the vine to bring moisture to keep me fresh. And in the time of harvest, when the owner came to pluck the grapes, I had no care. If there was anything in the grapes not good, the owner never blamed the branch, the blame was always on the vine. And if you would be a true branch of Christ, the living Vine, just rest on Him. Let Christ bear the responsibility."
You say: "Won"t that make me slothful?"
I tell you it will not. No one who learns to rest upon the living Christ can become slothful, for the closer your contact with Christ the more of the Spirit of His zeal and love will be borne in upon you. But, oh, begin to work in the midst of your entire dependence by adding to that deep restfulness. A man sometimes tries and tries to be dependent upon Christ, but he worries himself about this absolute dependence; he tries and he cannot get it. But let him sink down into entire restfulness every day.
In Thy strong hand I lay me down.
So shall the work be done; For who can work so wondrously As the Almighty One?
Worker, take your place every day at the feet of Jesus, in the blessed peace and rest that come from the knowledge - I have no care, my cares are His!
I have no fear, He cares for all my fears.
Come, children of G.o.d, and understand that it is the Lord Jesus who wants to work through you. You complain of the lack of fervent love. It will come from Jesus. He will give the divine love in your heart with which you can love people. That is the meaning of the a.s.surance: "The love of G.o.d is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Rom.
5:5); and of that other word: "The love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor. 5:14). Christ can give you a fountain of love, so that you cannot help loving the most wretched and the most ungrateful, or those who have wearied you hitherto. Rest in Christ, who can give wisdom and strength, and you do not know how that restfulness will often prove to be the very best part of your message. You plead with people and you argue, and they get the idea: "There is a man arguing and striving with me." They only feel: "Here are two men dealing with each other." But if you will let the deep rest of G.o.d come over you, the rest in Christ Jesus, the peace and rest and holiness of Heaven, that restfulness will bring a blessing to the heart, even more than the words you speak.
Much Fruitfulness But third, the branch teaches a lesson of much fruitfulness.
The Lord Jesus Christ repeated that word fruit often in that parable.
He spoke, first, of fruit, and then of more fruit, and then of much fruit. Yes, you are ordained not only to bear fruit, but to bear much fruit. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit" (John 15:8). In the first place, Christ said: "I am the Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman. My Father is the Husbandman who has charge of me and you." He who will watch over the connection between Christ and the branches is G.o.d; and it is in the power of G.o.d through Christ we are to bear fruit.
Oh, Christians, you know this world is perishing for the want of workers. And it lacks not only more workers-the workers are saying, some more earnestly than others: "We need not only more workers, but we need our workers to have a new power, a different life; that we workers should be able to bring more blessing." Children of G.o.d, I appeal to you. You know what trouble you take, say, in a case of sickness. You have a beloved friend apparently in danger of death, and nothing can refresh that friend so much as a few grapes, and they are out of season; but what trouble you will take to get the grapes that are to be the nourishment of this dying friend! And, oh, there are around you people who never go to church, and so many who go to church, but do not know Christ. And yet the heavenly grapes, the grapes of the heavenly Vine, are not to be had at any price, except as the child of G.o.d bears them out of his inner life in fellowship with Christ. Except the children of G.o.d are filled with the sap of the heavenly Vine, except they are filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus, they cannot bear much of the real heavenly grape. We all confess there is a great deal of work, a great deal of preaching and teaching and visiting, a great deal of machinery, a great deal of earnest effort of every kind; but there is not much manifestation of the power of G.o.d in it.
What is lacking? There is lacking the close connection between the worker and the heavenly Vine. Christ, the heavenly Vine, has blessings that He could pour on tens of thousands who are perishing. Christ, the heavenly Vine, has power to provide the heavenly grapes. But "Ye are the branches," and you cannot bear heavenly fruit unless you are in close connection with Jesus Christ.
Do not confound work and fruit. There may be a good deal of work for Christ that is not the fruit of the heavenly Vine. Do not seek for work only. Oh! study this question of fruit-bearing. It means the very life and the very power and the very spirit and the very love within the heart of the Son of G.o.d-it means the heavenly Vine Himself coming into your heart and mine.
You know there are different sorts of grapes, each with a different name, and every vine provides exactly that peculiar aroma and juice which gives the grape its particular flavor and taste. Just so, there is in the heart of Christ Jesus a life, and a love, and a Spirit, and a blessing, and a power for men, that are entirely heavenly and divine, and that will come down into our hearts. Stand in close connection with the heavenly Vine and say: "Lord Jesus, nothing less than the sap that flows through Thyself, nothing less than the Spirit of Thy divine life is what we ask. Lord Jesus, I pray Thee let Thy Spirit flow through me in all my work for Thee."
I tell you again that the sap of the heavenly Vine is nothing but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the life of the heavenly Vine, and what you must get from Christ is nothing less than a strong inflow of the Holy Spirit. You need it exceedingly, and you want nothing more than that. Remember that. Do not expect Christ to give a bit of strength here, and a bit of blessing yonder, and a bit of help over there. As the vine does its work in giving its own peculiar sap to the branch, so expect Christ to give His own Holy Spirit into your heart, and then you will bear much fruit. And if you have only begun to bear fruit, and are listening to the word of Christ in the parable, "more fruit," "much fruit," remember that in order that you should bear more fruit you just require more of Jesus in your life and heart.
We ministers of the Gospel, how we are in danger of getting into a condition of work, work, work! And we pray over it, but the freshness and buoyancy and joy of the heavenly life are not always present. Let us seek to understand that the life of the branch is a life of much fruit, because it is a life rooted in Christ, the living, heavenly Vine.
Close Communion And fourth, the life of the branch is a life of close communion.
Let us again ask: What has the branch to do? You know that precious, inexhaustible word that Christ used: Abide. Your life is to be an abiding life. And how is the abiding to be? It is to be just like the branch in the vine, abiding every minute of the day. There are the branches, in close communion, in unbroken communion, with the vine, from January to December. And cannot I live every day-it is to me an almost terrible thing that we should ask the question-cannot I live in abiding communion with the heavenly Vine?
You say: "But I am so much occupied with other things."
You may have ten hours" hard work daily, during which your brain has to be occupied with temporal things; G.o.d orders it so. But the abiding work is the work of the heart, not of the brain, the work of the heart clinging to and resting in Jesus, a work in which the Holy Spirit links us to Christ Jesus. Oh, do believe that deeper down than the brain, deep down in the inner life, you can abide in Christ, so that every moment you are free the consciousness will come: "Blessed Jesus, I am still in Thee."
If you will learn for a time to put aside other work and to get into this abiding contact with the heavenly Vine, you will find that fruit will come.
What is the application to our life of this abiding communion? What does it mean?
It means close fellowship with Christ in secret prayer. I am sure there are Christians who do long for the higher life, and who sometimes have got a great blessing, and have at times found a great inflow of heavenly joy and a great outflow of heavenly gladness; and yet after a time it has pa.s.sed away. They have not understood that close personal actual communion with Christ is an absolute necessity for daily life.
Take time to be alone with Christ. Nothing in Heaven or earth can free you from the necessity for that, if you are to be happy and holy Christians.
Oh! how many Christians look upon it as a burden and a tax, and a duty, and a difficulty to be often alone with G.o.d! That is the great hindrance to our Christian life everywhere. We need more quiet fellowship with G.o.d, and I tell you in the name of the heavenly Vine that you cannot be healthy branches, branches into which the heavenly sap can flow, unless you take plenty of time for communion with G.o.d. If you are not willing to sacrifice time to get alone with Him, and to give Him time every day to work in you, and to keep up the link of connection between you and Himself, He cannot give you that blessing of His unbroken fellowship. Jesus Christ asks you to live in close communion with Him. Let every heart say: "O, Christ, it is this I long for, it is this I choose." And He will gladly give it to you.
Absolute Surrender And then finally, the life of the branch is a life of absolute surrender.
This word, absolute surrender, is a great and solemn word, and I believe we do not understand its meaning. But yet the little branch preaches it.
"Have you anything to do, little branch, besides bearing grapes?"
"No, nothing."