We read God's Word this morning in John chapter 15. Gospel according to John chapter 15. We will read the first 17 verses of John 15. I am 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 purgeth 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 it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye 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, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. And greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. That's the reading of God's Word this morning. It's on the basis of that passage especially, but many other passages like it, that we have the teaching in the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 7. In the back of the Psalter, on page 587, 587, we have the Heidelberg Catechism's teaching in Lord's Day 7. Question 20 asks, are all men then as they perished in Adam saved by Christ? No, only those who are engrafted into him and receive all his benefits by a true faith. Question 21, what is true faith? True faith is not only a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel in my heart, that not only to others, but to me also. Remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits. Question 22 then follows up 21. 21 said true faith is knowledge and confidence. 22 asks what then is necessary for a Christian to believe. All things promised us in the gospel which the articles of our Catholic undoubted Christian faith briefly teach us. Question 23, what are these articles? And I won't reread them now because we recite them every Sunday. But before you close this psalter, let me point out that if anyone asks you whether you know the whole of the Bible and can sum up the teachings of the Bible briefly, you say, yes, I can do that for you in about 30 seconds. And then you recite the 12 articles of the Apostles' Creed. And when I teach Heidelberg Catechism to the 8th and 9th graders, then that's always a part of our review. What is your great misery, depravity? How are you delivered? By faith. What is faith? Knowledge of everything God's revealed in His Word. Can you, I ask them, summarize the whole of the Bible in 30 seconds? And then they recite the 12 Articles of the Apostles' Creed. That's what we have here in Lord's Day 7 with regard to faith. The Heidelberg Catechism is marching through very carefully the teaching of the Bible, beginning with a very important question, what is your only comfort as you live and die? And the answer we all have memorized, but we all ought to review, is very simple, that I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own. but belong to my faithful Savior, who with His precious blood hath fully satisfied for all of my sins, and delivered me from all of the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head. And He also assures me of eternal life. and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him. That's where we begin. My comfort is that I'm not my own, I belong to Christ. Then that comfort, the catechism works out in three main ways. It asks us, and now we've finished answering that question, what is the extent and nature and consequences of my misery? My misery is that I'm depraved, fully depraved. My misery is that I can't do anything about that by myself. My misery is such that God will judge me now in this life and in the life to come unless I am redeemed by the blood of a substitute. And the first part of the Heidelberg Catechism has laid that out very, very carefully in Lord's Days 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and presented very briefly the testimony of my Deliverer, Christ. I need Christ. You need Christ. We need Christ. Everyone needs Christ, and if you don't have Christ, you're going to perish. Now, Lord, day seven asks the question, very importantly, with an eye on a couple of Bible passages, all men perished in Adam, didn't they? And we know they did. Are all of those men and women and young people and children who perished in Adam saved by Christ? We've learned about Christ. We've learned about men in their misery. Now we need to ask the connection. What is the connection between Christ and men? Are all men, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ? And the answer is no. No. Only those who are united to Christ by a true faith are saved. And then, Lord's Day 7 defines true faith. So let's briefly look at this Lord's Day this morning under the theme that salvation is only for those who are in Christ. And then see, first of all, that salvation is only for some. And then we'll focus on question and answer 20. And then we'll see that salvation comes through faith. And then we'll focus especially on questions 21 and 22. And then I want to point out what isn't explicit in the Catechism, but is in the Bible, that faith and salvation come to us by grace. Salvation is only for those in Christ. Number one, it is for some. Number two, it is by faith, through faith. And number three, it's by grace. The Catechism takes its first step in its explanation of who are saved, as it were, ready to be militant. And that's unattractive to some, but it mustn't be because we've learned already from the Old Testament that our prayer to God is, as Psalm 144 verse 1 says, blessed be God who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight. We are, and must live what we are, a militant church. That is, we always need to have in view the errors that will assault the truth. And one of those errors that assaults the truth right here is the error called universalism. Universalism is a false doctrine. Universalism is the teaching that all men, as they perished in Adam, will be saved by Christ. And that's what the catechism's writers and authors had in view when they asked that question 20. Are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ? The question could have been framed this way. Who are saved? And a positive answer could be given, those who are united by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. But the catechism doesn't do that. I say the first step that the catechism takes is a step that indicates militancy. And that's very important. We learn from Jesus, whose entire ministry was always fighting against error. And if we want to follow in the footsteps of Christ, we need to follow that example and fight against error. We need to do that at the beginning. We need to be militant. We need to be polemical. Otherwise, we aren't the church. The error, as I said, that the catechism is opposing here is called universalism or universal atonement. That is, the payment that Christ made, universalism teaches, is universal. It's for everyone. We, Reformed believers who look at the Bible, teach particular atonement and teach that the payment that Christ made on the cross was limited. The number for whom he died was definite, not indefinite, and certainly not unlimited. Universalism teaches that every single human being who ever lived will be saved. In the end, all men will go to heaven. In the end, no one will go to hell. Regardless, universalism teaches that they never believed in Jesus, that maybe they never heard the gospel of Jesus, but maybe they heard it and rejected it. that they lived ungodly all of their life, that they hated Christians, maybe persecuted Christianity, and died impenitently. All of them, Hitler included, will go to heaven and not to hell. Their answer to this question, are all men saved by Christ, is yes, yes. And your confession, that you make is no, no, only those who are engrafted into Him and receive His benefits by a true faith, for some. Now, there are different forms of universalism throughout history, and we can start most broadly. There are some pagan religions, not all of them, by the way, but there are some pagan religions that believed that in the end we're all going to be swallowed up into the peaceful void of whatever that void may be. Becoming narrower, you may know that it was not that many generations ago that the Roman Catholic Pope opened up Roman Catholicism to the possibility of universalism. That is, that everyone in the end is going to be saved. But then we may go even narrower and look at all of the other Christianity that's not Roman Catholic, and that is a spectrum from the grossest liberalism to the closest, carefulest orthodoxy that's called Protestantism, that many in Protestantism have adopted the teaching of universalism. They've done that in part by denying the doctrine of reprobation, That is, that God decreed that some would perish, and if you deny the doctrine of reprobation, then you need to open up yourself to the real possibility and probability and even certainty that everyone is going to be saved in the end. But just imagine the little doors and openings that will lead you to universalism if you and I are not careful, including the teaching that Jesus died for everybody. You think that through for a moment. Jesus died for everybody. If Jesus died for everybody, then is not your conclusion the conclusion you're required to come to that everyone is going to be in heaven? He died for everyone. Or the related teaching that's not true, that God loves everybody, if God loves everybody, and His love is not ineffectual because God is God. And if God loves everyone and God does not change, then when they die, they could not go to a place where the wrath of God is revealed. Jesus died for everybody, leads to universalism. God loves everybody, leads to universalism. Thirdly, in the preaching of the gospel, if the minister expresses God's desire to save everyone, that's going to lead almost inevitably to universalism. We need to be very, very careful and understand the teaching of the catechism here, for whom did Christ die and who in the end is going to go to heaven. Let's make that very practical this morning. Look at the children whose heads are low enough that I can't even see them behind the seats above them. or those who are a little bit older and can see me, what about them? We love them. We love our children. We love our grandchildren. What is the teaching of the Bible with regard to them? Are all of them going to be saved? I can't think of a more important and more practical question. Think of your brothers and your sisters. some of whom have rejected Christianity and are living in unbelief. That's an important question that I need to face. Are they going to be saved? It's a very important question when I go to the mission field where you support missionaries. What are they doing out there preaching the gospel to those who aren't Christians? What's their purpose of preaching the gospel? Is it not that if those who hear the gospel do not believe the gospel, they're going to perish, and that drives them to preach the gospel so that they do not perish who heard it? And then the importance of this question is for me. Am I saved when I die? And that's not going to be very long for some of us who are over 60 and 70 and 80. When we die, what's going to happen to us? And the answer to that question is very important. And if we believe that we're not going to perish, why is it that we believe that? That's what we're talking about. Now we need to do justice to the teaching of universalism, that is, to the argument that the universalists make. When the Catechism asks the question in 20, are all men then as they perished in Adam saved by Christ, the Reformed fathers had their eye on especially two passages that I'd like you to look at with me this morning. First of all, in Romans 5, Verse 18, where Paul is talking about, in verse 17, one man's offense, and before that, one man's obedience. And he says in verse 18, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. One of the first and most important passages for a universalist is there. And then if you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, a passage that is somewhat a twin to Romans 5 verse 18, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 22, the apostle says, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." If an Arminian or a Universalist would hold these passages before you and ask you your explanation of them, what would you say? Very important to hold them to a careful explanation of the Scripture, but to be able to hold yourself to the standard that you are able to defend your faith in the answer to question 20, are all men saved? And you say, no. No. What do you do with Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15? Well, the all in Romans 5.18 in connection with the free gift coming unto all and to justification does not mean the same thing as the all earlier in the text in connection with Adam. Here's the point you need to remember, and then I'll explain it more. The all under Adam is a large group of men and women. Every one of them is under condemnation. And the other all is also a large number of people, and every one of them is going to be saved. From a certain point of view, the alls are different. But from another point of view, the alls are the same. Every one of this number will perish unless they find themselves also in this large number of people. All. But if you think about that for a moment, it couldn't mean that everyone who perished in Adam is saved by Christ. Just try that once. The righteousness of one brings the free gift upon all unto justification of life. It wasn't offered to them anymore. Now let me back up. Those who are in this group who perish in Adam were not presented with an opportunity to perish in Adam. When Adam died, all men died. They weren't asked if they would like to be in that group. They were not asked if they'd like the consequences of his actions. Any more than those in this group are asked if they would like to participate in the benefits of this. God appointed Adam to be the head of this large number, and God appointed Christ to be the head of this large number of people. And 1 Corinthians 15 teaches the same thing as well, doesn't it? As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. They shall be made alive. They were recipients of these benefits. It does not make sense if you try to explain those passages in the very sense that the Arminian and the Universalist wants to make them. All of them died. All of them are made alive. And if all who are condemned are saved, then you're a universalist. No one has gone to hell. No one will ever be in hell. And you know that the Bible, and especially the passage that we had before us this morning, teaches differently. Who are saved? Well, you could answer that question rightly in the first place by saying the elect are saved. There are many who perish, cut off, cast into the fire, and burned. They eternally perish. That's Jesus' teaching in John 15. Only those who've been chosen by God and given to Christ will be saved. Reread John chapter 15. You haven't chosen me. I chose you. And then go back before John 15 and read John 6, this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that all which He hath given me I should raise up again at the last day. There's a certain number that God gave to Christ so that Christ would die for them. read just after John 17 where Jesus prays for them. He says, I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me, for they're thine. And that's what Jesus is teaching here. Who are saved? Those whom God chose. But that's not the approach of the Catechism. The approach of the catechism is not God's decree, but your experience. The approach of the catechism is something you may think about and experience personally. Not, may I have a peek into God's counsel and open the pages of the book that has my name in it. That's not the approach of the catechism. God doesn't allow us to do that. The approach of the Catechism is the approach of Jesus in the Scripture, and that's this question, do you have faith? Do you believe? Are all men as they perished in Adam saved by Christ? No, only those who have true faith. And so the Catechism is true to its promise at the beginning to be personal and experiential and comfort-themed. We're going to get to the comfort. We're aiming at that. We're going to begin by being personal and pointing the finger at each one of us, I included, and asking each one of us, do you believe? You who believe are not going to perish but be saved everlastingly. The catechism takes that approach because that's the approach of Jesus. I'm the vine, my father is the husbandman, every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away. He's identifying who his true followers are. There were large crowds who came after him. Many of them confessed to believe in Jesus. But many of them departed from Jesus, stopped following Him, and Jesus said to the whole crowd, This is how you may know whether you are truly a disciple of Mine, if you have true faith. And this is how you may know you have true faith. Do you bear fruit? That's the approach of Jesus. That's the practical approach of the catechism. And that's necessary because in the history of the Christian church, there's always been a danger of universalism, of course, on the one hand, but a presumption on the other hand. And that danger applies to us. You were born in the church. You're believing parents. You go to a Christian school, you went to catechism, and you presume that because those things are true of you, you are not going to perish. And that's not how you know whether you're going to perish or not. This is how you are to know whether you perish or not. Do you have faith? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? That is, are you engrafted into Him and receive all of His benefits through that bond called faith? Don't assume salvation. Don't presume the salvation of your children. Of course, there's another mistake. that you doubt the salvation that you ought to believe is yours, and that you wonder every day about the salvation of your children. But there is a danger of sinful presumption. And let's avoid that danger today. So let's ask ourselves now, what is true faith? And let's see especially three things what true faith is. Number one, faith is a graft. When a nursery man or a woman wants to grow a tree, or a fruit-producing nursery man wants to grow a fruit-producing plant, and that particular plant has a good stock but not good branches, he will take off the branches and graft into that stock new fruit-bearing branches. A little slice is made in the trunk, the new branch is put there, wrapped up, and eventually the life of the trunk flows into the branch, and that branch produces fruit. That's the illustration here. That illustration is Jesus' illustration when he says a number of things. Number one, I am the vine. That is, I am this thick trunk that comes out of the ground, and in today's practices has branches going down all of those wires, which branches then bear the fruit of grapes. I am the vine, you, he says, are the branches, and my father is the husband man, that is, the farmer, the caretaker who does this grafting. And the grafting is the point. The graft is faith. It's what Jesus talks about in verse 4 when he says, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. Now what the nursery man or the farmer today does is one thing, what God does is another. He, the nursery man, takes a living branch and puts it in a living trunk. God takes a fruitless branch, maybe we could even say a dead branch, and grafts it into Christ. So that whereas the branch formerly fruitless now is fruitful. And the graft, I say again, is faith. The branch draws all of its life from the trunk. All of salvation is stored up in our Lord Jesus Christ. And everything I need to bear fruit to the glory of God is found in Him. Those who are not abiding in Christ, here's the application now, those who are not living close to Christ, Those who are not drawing their life out of Christ, looking to Christ for strength, wanting to be with Him, wanting to speak to Him, wanting to hear Him, wanting to hang on to Him for dear life, those who are not doing that do not have true faith and may not assume that when they die, they will go to heaven. Those of you, and I put myself in this group, those of you who do not want to live close to Christ, do not want to draw all your life out of Him, do not want to hear Him, do not want to speak to Him, do not love Him, do not depend upon Him, do not trust Him, you must not imagine that you have faith. Faith is a graft that is bound to Christ. This isn't to discourage you whose life is not as close to Christ as you would like it to be. Those of you whose life is not as close to Christ as you would like it to be, and are repenting of that every day and praying to God, make me closer to Christ. I want to trust Him more and love Him more deeply and so forth. You have true faith, but this is a warning to you who have no interest in being with Christ and abiding in Him. You don't have saving faith. Faith is a graph. Second, as a graft, faith is fruitful, of course. John 15, he that abides in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. And that's why Paul in Galatians 5 speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. Those who live in connection with Christ will not only receive His life in them and have all of His benefits for themselves, but they will begin producing large clusters of much fruit. Fruit. What fruit is that? Well, look at Christ and the works He performed and the life He lived, and that will be the kind of fruit that we produce, that we do His works, that we think His thought, that we love like He loved and pity like He pitied and look out in the congregation for those who are needy and helpless and undeserving. Look at Christ and ask what kind of life He lived. He suffered. He was willing to give up and lose so that he did not even have a place to lay his head and in the end die for those needy, helpless, pitiful people. Look at Christ. See Him make a plan. See Him deliberate. See Him desire. See Him ponder. all night long in his prayers as to how the next day he was going to carry out his love for his people. And he got up in the morning and he went out and did it. You want to know what kind of fruit those who are engrafted into Christ produce? Look at the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and see if that kind of life is manifest in you. and those of you who aren't interested in being fruitful, and who examine their lives and see no fruit, why do you suppose that you have faith? Well, because you were born of Christian parents, and you went to church, and you studied catechism, and you had a Christian education, and you went to Sunday school, and you're here today. But that's not the evidence of true faith. The evidence of true faith is that we're fruitful. And again, this is not to discourage those of you whose fruit isn't as rich and full as you want it to be, who are daily repenting of that, that my life isn't as fruitful as it ought to be. You have faith. You want your life to be more fruitful. But this is to warn those of you who have no interest in living the life of Christ, in Christ's love and pity and forgiveness and suffering and giving up and dying for others. What right do you think you have to believe that you have true faith? You don't. And third, faith is knowledge. Faith is a bond. Faith is fruitful. And third, faith is knowledge. That's why the Catechism says what it does. It is a certain knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us. in His Word. It's not only that, it's an assured confidence, but it is that too, and it's that first, which is why the Apostle says in Hebrews 11, by faith we understand Faith is knowledge. And why Paul says in Ephesians 3 that we comprehend with all of the saints. We know the love of God. And why Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, speaking about the last days, that men shall depart from the faith. That's not Paul's teaching that there were some who truly were engrafted into Christ, and now they're not. That's a reference to departing from the knowledge and the confession of the truth of the Word of God. Men shall depart from the truths of Christ that they once confessed, they once defended, now they don't, and they manifest by that, that they don't have faith. Application? Do you have knowledge of God? Do you love that knowledge? Do you want that knowledge to grow? Is that knowledge more than in your brain, or is it, as I put it to the catechism students, by the Spirit of God pushed down from your brain into your heart so that you hang on to that knowledge and say, I love the truth of God in Christ? I comprehend with all of the saints the length and the breadth and the depth and the height of all of the love of God. Are you to be described as Jesus was trying to expose in John 15, one who apparently abides in Christ but doesn't produce any fruit? Are you one who appears to be in Christ, claims to be, but you don't have any desire to sit down and read the Bible? When the beacon lights, or ignited by the Word, or the standard beer, or perspective magazines, or other good literature come into your home, you never open them, or perhaps you have no interest in getting them. Why do you suppose that you have a true and a living faith when you know the Word of God says that faith embraces for truth all that God has revealed in His Word and that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life and those who are united to Jesus Christ love that truth? Why do you, who say you are united to Christ, not have any interest in knowing and learning and growing in that knowledge. This too is not intended to discourage you who because of your mental capacity are limited. It's not to discourage you who are busy that you don't have as much time as you would like to read but you are determined to read the Bible and the explanation of the Bible by God's servants. This is not intended to discourage you who are going to make good resolution to do better in reading and studying and subscribing to good magazines and buying good books to sit down and read them. No, you have true faith. But this is to ask you who say you have faith but you have no interest. When you leave the sanctuary this morning and go home to talk about the Word of God that you heard this morning or that you'll hear again this evening, why do you imagine that you have a true faith? You're one of those branches that appeared to be in Christ but is going to be broken off and cast into the heap and wither and then will be gathered up in the end and burned in the fire. That's a horrible, horrible thing to think about, but it's the call of the gospel to you and to me to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and not be presumptuous. And last, and I'll just be very, very brief here, faith is confiding in Christ. It's not only a certain knowledge Catechism says, but it's also an assured confidence that the Holy Ghost works in me by the gospel. That's where it comes from. Preaching of the word is the tool that God uses to give me faith. The Holy Ghost works that in my heart so that I am confident that not just to others, but to me also. Remission of sins and all the other blessings of Christ are mine. I confide in our Lord Jesus Christ. Read Ephesians 3. Faith is characterized by confidence. Read Hebrews 10. Let's draw nigh to him with a full assurance of faith. Read James 1. Ask in faith, nothing doubting. May I speak to the young people for just a moment? If you are getting to that age where your catechism training is almost finished and you are thinking about going to that room and making confession of your faith, and you can say to yourself, I want to be close to Christ, and I am. And if you can say about yourself, I want to produce fruit, and by the grace of God, I've begun, although the clusters of my grapes are really, really small, I want them to be fuller and richer. If you can say to yourself that you know Jesus Christ from the Bible, and that you want to grow on that knowledge, and if you can say to yourself, I am confident that not only to others, but to me also, all the blessings of salvation are given, then you make a beeline to that room and you say to the elders, I want to confess my faith. And if you can't, then you stay out of that room until the Holy Spirit works by the preaching of the gospel and the reading of the Word In your observation of the administration of the sacraments, you wait until the Holy Spirit works faith in your heart. You may not make confession of faith unless you have faith. But when you do abide in Him and are fruitful and know Him and trust Him, then you not only may, what a great blessing that will be, And then when you get to the consist room, you make this your confession, first of all. When they ask you, do you have faith? You say, yes, God gave that to me as a gift, and it's one of the most precious gifts any man or woman could ever receive. The gift of faith. And then you open the word of God for the elders. You plan this in advance. to the book of Philippians at the end of chapter 1, and you read that it is given to me not only to suffer for Christ, but to believe on Him. It was given to me to believe. I didn't muster this faith in myself. God gave me that gift of faith. For, Paul says in Ephesians, by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself, it's the gift of God. And then go back to the passage we read this morning, John 15, and say, Jesus told me that I didn't choose him, he chose me and ordained me that I should go and bring forth fruit and that my fruit should remain. I have faith. and that you don't pat yourself on the back, because it was given to you as a gift. And you leave that room, not puffed up with pride, but humility, and you live in the congregation graciously and kindly and meekly in your attitude to all the other members, because what you have, you've received. You've not earned. He gave it to you. God brings me into union with Christ. God produces fruits in me. God enables me to hold for truth everything the Word of God teaches. And God works in me the assurance that to me also. So shall we remember? In the last place this morning, what Jesus said about fruitfulness, abiding in His commandments, as the Father loved me, so I love you. And this is the proof that you are in me, that you love one another. So shall ye be, not become, my disciples. In that way, you will know that you are Jesus' disciple, that your faith is a true faith when you love the neighbor, starting, may I say it this morning, with her. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father which art in heaven, thanks for faith. Thanks for the word that works faith in us. Thanks for all things that we have in Christ. We pray as we failed to pray in the congregational prayer for Bob and Vicki. We'll submit to more appointments and a surgery. We pray that there may be success in that. and that if it be thy will, relief from pain. And we pray for Brother Nick Klein, too, who's injured, not seriously, but yet unable to worship with us. Keep them, Lord, and all of thy people. These things we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.