Dear friends, I bring you greetings from Providence Baptist Chapel in Chatham. It is such a joy to be amongst you. More than all of these things, it's always a privilege and a fearful thing to bring the Word of God to God's people. If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to John's Gospel, chapter 15. John 15. I appreciate the fact that I'm reading from the authorized version. You might not have that, but I hope you can make sense of it. John 15, and I will read the first eight verses of this passage. passage. John 15 and verse 1. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, 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 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, 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. Amen. May God bless this reading of his own precious word. Let us ask God's blessing upon his word. Our God and our Father, we have the scriptures before us, thy holy word. And oh Lord, we need the same spirit who inspired those holy men of old to speak to us and open thy word to us. Oh Lord, we are sinners. We are fallen in our natural state. And oh God, we are dead in trespasses and sins if we are without Christ. And we pray that thy Holy Spirit would awaken souls and would for the believers bring that manna from heaven from thy word. Blessed and we pray. May Jesus Christ receive all honor and glory. And we thank thee for this church that loves the scriptures and for a pastor who preaches the scriptures. And we pray that thy blessing might rest and abide here and forevermore. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Dear friends, we come to this marvelous illustration that our Lord Jesus Christ gives to us of Him being the vine, the true vine, and we being the branches. And this evening or this afternoon, I want to speak to you about abiding in Jesus Christ and how we have a wise gardener for our souls. Now, let me set the context of this passage. This is within a context of the night before our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. There has been a lot happening in these hours before the day comes, the next day comes, which is the day that Jesus Christ would be nailed to a cross and he would give up his spirit for our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ, just a few hours before this, He has washed the disciples' feet and He's shown Himself to be that servant King. He set an example for His disciples. He was in the upper room. It was there where He also instituted the Last Supper, the Lord's Supper. Judas has gone out. He's not with them. And our Lord Jesus Christ has been talking in the upper room about the comforter, the Holy Spirit. his other self, as it were, who is going to come. And so he speaks about the work of the Holy Spirit. So that's in chapter 13 and chapter 14. And then at the end of chapter 14, we find that then they leave the upper room. We read these words, he says, right at the end of chapter 14, arise, he says to them, let us go hence. Let us go from here, the Lord Jesus Christ says to them. So they leave the upper room, and now they're walking through the streets of Jerusalem. Shortly, they will arrive at the Garden of Gethsemane, and just before they enter, our Lord Jesus Christ will pray his wonderful high priestly prayer that we have in chapter 17. So these are the things that we are thinking of, and that's the context, and then he will be arrested, and all of those things that we read in the Word of God. So here they are in the street, and the Lord Jesus Christ is talking. to the disciples. They are there in Jerusalem. And in these streets there are walls, gardens, palm trees, vines. And these vines are not those on the hills of the mountains of Mount of Olives. The vines there are the ones that you might see in France or Switzerland or somewhere like that where the vine is cut back to the stump over autumn. The vines in the city However, often they run along the walls, up the side of the houses, and sometimes even around the windows. And our Lord Jesus Christ is seeing these things, seeing one of these vines, and uses it as an illustration, as He oftentimes did. And He's speaking to the disciples, but He's speaking to you and me as well this afternoon. And there are four characters, if you will, in this allegory, in this picture that he's painting. He's communicating a message and he's giving him a picture. First of all, there is the true vine in verse one. So if you have your Bibles, you look at it, it says, I am the true vine, he says. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He says so there in verse one. And then again in verse five. So we have a vine. And then the second character is the vine dresser. This is the husbandman. This is the person who looks after the vine, as it's mentioned in verse one again. That's God the Father. So we have a vine and someone who has planted it and tends to it. So there's Christ and the Father. Then thirdly, there are the unfruitful branches. These are the third characters that's described in verse 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit. That doesn't bear fruit. They're mentioned on several other occasions as well. These are barren. These branches are barren. So you could run your hand through the leaves of the branch and there is no fruit, there is not a single grape, not a sign of fruit at all. So that's the third category of characters we could say. And then the fourth character is the fruitful branches. So you look at verse two again, every branch that beareth fruit. So these branches are different. You touch it, you run your hand along, and there is fruit. You see it. You feel it. And then you go further along and you find more fruit. And then further on, there's more fruit. This branch is fruitful. So we must keep these four characters in mind to understand this illustration, this allegory. So we want to think about abiding in Jesus Christ. We want to think about this gardener of our souls. So if you're a Christian, you have a gardener for your soul. That's an amazing thing. Someone who would care for you. So let's think on these things. And I want to ask a number of questions. So first of all, I want us to think about the Lord Jesus Christ and his father. And I want to ask this question, what does this verse tell us? What does this passage tell us about the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father? The Bible is, first of all, a book about God, my friends. When the Lord Jesus Christ teaches, He teaches primarily about Himself, about the wholeness of God, who God is. And you look at how this passage speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father as distinct from one another. Jesus Christ is teaching something deeply theological in this passage. In verse one, the Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the true vine, and my father is the husband man. My father is the gardener, the farmer. In verse eight, he declares this, herein, that is, by this is my father glorified, that he bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. You see, the father is not the son. God the Father is not God the Son, and the Son is not the Father. They are distinct persons, yet they are spoken of in such a way that you cannot separate them from one another. They cannot have a, and you cannot have a vine unless there is a vine dresser. And you cannot have a vine dresser unless there is a vine. That's the way it is. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He takes this simple illustration to bring home to us one of the great mysteries of the Godhead, the Holy Trinity. Friends, the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. They're distinct, but can never be separated from one another. Now, let's look at this vine that the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about. How did this vine come to be here? How does any vine come to be there? So look at verse one. He says this, I am the true vine and my father is the husband man. My father is the gardener. My father is the vine dresser. My father is the farmer. So this vine owes its existence to the vine dresser who planted it. All that it is, it owes to the vine dresser. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as you know, He had no beginning. He is eternally God, and He is God in exactly the same sense as the Father, of the same essence. But here is the mystery. All that He is, He owes to the Father. This is what we call the eternal generation of the Son. Yet God uses simple illustrations or Christ uses simple illustrations to teach us this profound truth that theologians have written so many books on it. Who does this vine belong to? Who does the Lord Jesus Christ belong to? He belongs to the Father. For whose benefit does this vine exist? It exists for the vine dresser. The Lord Jesus Christ exists for the pleasure of the father. He's about the father's business. So we can say that everything the son is, he owes to the father, but you cannot say that everything the father is, he owes to the son. It's a great mystery. You can say that the son is the father's servant, but you cannot say that the father is the son's servant. It's an amazing concept and I would encourage you to study this doctrine, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. You study it and you find wonderful truths that boggle your mind. As my old teacher used to say, you cannot be saved if you do not believe in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. You need to believe in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. but you might lose your mind if you try to understand this very doctrine. It is what the scripture teaches, but who can plumb the depths of this doctrine? But it's wonderful to see some of these things from the scriptures. There are distinctions in the Godhead that we see here. Although there are three persons who are equally God and God in the same sense, there is order, there is relationship within the Trinity. Now, these verses tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ, what the Lord Jesus Christ is. Think of the wine dresser now. The wine dresser has a purpose. His purpose, of course, is to make wine, to sell grapes. How does he accomplish his purpose? By planting and by looking after a vine. And so the vine is the means by which the wine dresser's purposes come to pass. So God, too, has a purpose, an eternal purpose. By what means or through whom does God bring to pass His everlasting purpose? God's purpose comes to pass only through the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the true vine, the scripture says. In the Old Testament, Israel is described as a vine, but it let God down very badly. The Lord Jesus Christ, however, is the true vine. God's purpose is then realized, accomplished, is fulfilled perfectly in the Lord Jesus. And He never fails you, my friends. He never fails you. He never lets God down. The Lord Jesus then uses this illustration to teach us something about Himself, something about His Father. And that's what the first thing is. That's the first thing that we can take from this passage, verse one of this portion. So it's not, you shouldn't just rush into learning about discipleship and this is talking about abiding in Christ and so on. Yes, of course it does do that. But right at the beginning, the Lord is teaching us something deeply theological and about his relationship with his father. So we should always sit down when the Lord is speaking about this and sit down and admire and worship our great God and think about the mystery of the Godhead. Now the second thing is this, so it said something about the Lord Jesus Christ and his Father, but then the second thing is about the third character, the unfruitful branches. So moving on to this second point, do you see what these verses tell us about unfruitful branches? So look at verse two, it says, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, he says. And then you look at the middle of verse four, he says this, the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. And then you look at verse six, We read, if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth, he is cast out as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burnt. What do these verses tell us about unfruitful branches? Well, some people find this a difficult concept. but we won't have any trouble if we understand the simple principle. The Bible often speaks about people using the terms they use of themselves. Let me say that again. If you can master this principle, passages like this become clear. The Bible often speaks about people using the terms that they use to describe themselves. So this happens repeatedly throughout the New Testament. That's why we find verses such as denying the Lord who bought them, for example. Not because the Lord ever truly bought them, but because they call themselves people who've been bought by the Lord. They call themselves Christians and say, Jesus Christ died for me. and yet they go on denying him. That's how the Bible is using. The Bible then addresses these people using the terms that they claim for themselves. Now do you say that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ this afternoon? Do you say that I'm a Christian, I belong to Jesus? like a branch belongs to the stem. Do you say that you're his just as the branch can can be said to belong to the vine? Do you claim that you are joined to Jesus Christ, just as the branch is joined to the vine? Do you assert that Christ's life is flowing through you, just as the sap of the vine is flowing through the branches? Do you say that? But here is the problem. You might say all these things, and I can say these things to you, because most of you, I don't know who you are. So I can just fire at everyone all at once. And hopefully it will hit some of you. Hopefully it will have impact on you personally. So do you say you are a Christian? Yet, do you bear fruit? You say all of these things, yes, I'm a Christian, but where is your fruit? Or you can say, I don't bear any fruit. I'm just words. When you approach a vine, what do you look for? You look for grapes. When you go to someone that claims to be a Christian, what do you look for? You look for evidences of Christianity. On a vine, you expect to see grapes. On an apple tree, you expect to see apples. On a pear tree, you expect to see pears. And on a Christian tree, you expect to see Christian fruit. That's what you see. What is Christianity? Christianity is believing the truth and living by that truth and having been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and being given new life in Jesus Christ. My friends, you and your children, unless you are converted, unless you are born again, you have no part in the kingdom of God. You have no part. You must be born again. That's what our Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus, who was outwardly part of the covenant people of God. But he said, you will not even see the kingdom of God. He said, these stones can sing praises to me. If you don't. It's about believing what God has revealed and behaving in a way that aligns with that what God has revealed by being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. So it's transformation. It's about believing. It's about living. So here's a mystery. Some people say they belong to Christ. They say they are His. They claim to be Christians and even claim that the life of Christ is flowing through them, yet they do not believe what God has revealed. They don't believe all the parts of the Bible, nor do they behave accordingly. They'd say, but they don't believe. There is no fruit. Why is this so? Look at verse 4. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself. This is because they cannot, they are not truly joined to Christ. Despite their claims, and sometimes they go and put a blue tag at the back of a cut out apple and they put it on a tree. So this is an apple tree. Here's a fruit. You can't do that, my friends, with Christianity. The farmer never goes out and puts fruit on the tree. It doesn't work like that. You can't make a tree, an apple tree, by just sticking stuff to it. But there are people who claim to be Christians who are trying to put things on themselves, force it on themselves. You cannot force it. The branch cannot bear fruit of itself. This is because those people who try to do that, despite all of their claims, they are not. Look at verse six. It says, 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. Sadly, there are millions of men and women today who have Jesus Christ's name on their lips. Many carry a Bible in their hands and countless numbers are in churches even today. Yet they are not joined to Jesus Christ. They have Bibles in their hands maybe, but not Bibles in their hearts. They make many claims about themselves. They are very active in different things, but they do not have a personal and saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not abiding in Him. They are not linked to Christ, and His life is not present in theirs. And that's why when you're trying to talk to them, and you say, well, why doesn't the penny drop? There is something that you see there's something wrong but you just can't get to it. Why can't they get it? May I put to you the suggestion it could be, it could be that they are not Christians. They made many claims about the Lord Jesus Christ. and the Bible addresses them using their own terms. But they say they are a branch, but they are not actually connected to the Lord Jesus Christ. They do not have that personal relationship with Christ, and so there is no fruit. They are not linked to him. They do not believe rightly, nor do they behave rightly. The fruit of the Spirit is absent in their lives. They are fruitless, they are ungodly. They may be present in the church, they listen to sermons, even at home. They may even seem kind and generous, but they're not characterized by a love for God and love for Jesus Christ. They talk church, but they don't talk of Christ. because they don't know him. But they can very much tell you about all the differences between their church and experiences in this church and that church and so on. But when he talks about Jesus Christ and how much they love him, they don't talk about their love for Jesus Christ. And I always find that very telling when somebody is happy to talk about church, but they don't talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. They're not depending on the blood of Jesus Christ. They lack a love for true Christians too, the Lord's people. They're not obedient to God's command. They say, oh, this part doesn't matter. Don't be so strict about this. You'll be a Pharisee. They use these kinds of terms to name people. Oh, don't be a Pharisee. Don't be a legalist. That kind of a thing. Don't be an extremist. And yet, this spiritual love is not seen. And also, spiritual joy is not seen. They are miserable. Everything is bad. Everything is sad. Everything is going wrong. And yet, we are told that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We are told that for the Christian, he sees that all things are not good, but all things are working for my good. And there seems to be faithfulness is lacking, gentleness is lacking, self-control is lacking. And my question is, I'm saying maybe it's because they are not Christians. So, what happens to such people? If you are disconnected from Jesus Christ, if you've actually never been attached by the work of the Holy Spirit and engrafted into Jesus Christ, What happens to a person like that? Verse 2 says, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he takes away, it says. Sometimes this happens through the discipline of the church, where someone's professional faith is revealed to be false, and they are removed from church membership. But it always happens at the last judgment. There are some people who we don't know, we never will find out in this life, but it always will be found out on the judgment day, my friends. In verse six, again, it says, if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth, cast out as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. So what I'm saying to you this afternoon is very important. Simply having Christ's name on your lips, going to church or doing some religious things or calling yourself a Christian offers no guarantee that you are saved. What matters is whether you are truly joined to Jesus Christ by grace. And as our spiritual forefathers put it, it's whether you have a personal interest in Christ that counts. So it's whether you are in Christ's embrace, and he is yours. It's whether you depend on him, whether you know him, whether you are in fellowship with him, whether you are communing with him, and whether you enjoy him. That's what truly counts. That's the whole issue. Your sins were laid on Jesus Christ and you take him and all that he freely offers to you in the gospel. If people are withered and are not bearing fruit because they are not joined intimately to the Lord Jesus Christ in this way, the Lord Jesus Christ says they are still on the road to hell. He says the day is coming when they will be gathered. There's a day of gathering, my friends, and they will be cast into the fire and they're burnt. Even in the context of this gentle teaching, our Lord Jesus Christ plainly speaks about hell. and ministers of the Gospel should warn their people that it's not what you say that counts, but what you are. So what are you? As the English would say, talk is cheap. Talk is very dangerous when it is deceiving. We can deceive ourselves. So let us look at what's the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. What has God done? You ask yourself, what has God done in my life, rather than what you have done in your life? Now, the third thing is this. I want to say something about the gardener and the fruitful branches. That's the third point, and I have a question. You see what the Bible says here is about the fruitful branches. Again, look at verse two. Some branches do bear fruit. Praise God for that. Some branches do bear fruit. Look at it. Every branch in me that beareth, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, doesn't bear fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit, it says. In the world, dear friends, there are boys and girls, there are teenagers, there are young people, there are older men and women who are genuinely joined to Jesus Christ. That's a wonderful thing. They claim to be joined to Him, and they truly are. They claim to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and they do. They claim to be Christians and love God, and they do love God. Not merely the God of their childhood, but the God of the Bible. They enjoy Jesus Christ. They treasure their relationship with Him. At times it is, the preacher is preaching, and they begin to question themselves. But my love is so weak and faint. And some of you this evening, maybe I'm firing at everybody, and maybe you as a Christian, I was trying to hit the non-Christians, and I got you. Sometimes it is, that's the problem with us preachers. We are worried that people who should get the message, they don't get the message and the people who don't need to get the message on that point, they do get it and they get all worried about it. So I hope I'm shooting at the right people and the Holy Spirit is directing things to you. But sometimes it is that those Christians, they get worried. Do I love Jesus Christ? I do love him, but my love is so faint and I'm so oftentimes worried and unbelieving and all of these things. And they get worried about these things. But that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing for you to be worried at times. All Christians do get worried at times. And that's a sign because we love the Lord Jesus. We want to make sure we are right with him. These people, all of them, without exception, something happens to them. The scriptures here speaks about purging. They're purged. Now that's a literal translation of it. The word that is used is to do with the cleaning and if we were to interpret it, not translate it, interpretation of that word is pruning. So here we have this. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, it says, that it may bring forth more fruit, it says. So all of those who are truly Christians, those who are joined to Jesus Christ, those true branches, God cleans. How does He clean things? He prunes them. Pruning is the process by which the fruitful branches are made even more fruitful. For those unfamiliar with pruning, it involves this cutting back. cutting back the tree. The leaves, the foliage that hinders the growth are stripped away and the branches that consume too much sap without producing fruit, they are removed so that the sap can flow to the right places and make the remaining branches as fruitful as possible. So, and pruning is a painful process. The tree weeps. when it is pruned. The sap flows out for a time and the pruning is painful because it involves the knife. And no tree is pruned once and for all. Imagine. Your life, you men, if you've got a garden and you've got to cut the grass, and your wife tells you the grass is too long and it needs to be cut, imagine if you only had to do it once a year. Wouldn't it be wonderful? I don't do it for us, actually. I get the children to do it. But it would be a wonderful thing not to have to cut the grass anymore. Just once. That's it. Done. Finished. But my friends, in the spiritual sense, it's the same thing. The pruning has to happen again and again and again and again. And it is painful. And so in the Christian life, we do sense the pain of God's pruning hand that comes upon us. So anyone who's cared for fruit trees knows that it must be pruned regularly, often annually. And so without pruning, the tree stops bearing fruit as it should. And in Christ's vine, every branch that bears fruit is pruned so that it may bear more fruit. Our Lord Jesus Christ explains this in verse three. Look at it again. He says, you're all ready. clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." He says, now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. you're already pruned, that's what he's saying. You're already pruned because of the word that I've spoken to you. The principle way God prunes his branches and cleanses his branches and sanctifies his branches is through his word. So if you're a Christian, he's pruning you, even now. And that's one reason why you come to hear his word. Because through it, God encourages you. through the word of God, God confronts your sin. And sometimes it is you think, it's the pastor. He knows what I'm doing and he just wants to expose me in front of everyone. How dare he do that? I've had people come and say, you know, pastor, I know you knew about this issue, but you didn't have to say it in the pulpit. And I had no clue. I didn't know. I was not even referring to this person. I was thinking about somebody else's sin. So it is the same and sometimes I'm talking about myself but in a third person and I'm speaking about myself but I say things like, I know a man, it's very apostolic to say things like that and the people think I'm talking about them but it's the Holy Spirit that is applying these things and it's the Word of God that comes and it cuts and it prunes The purpose is because God wants to make you more fruitful. It's actually a good thing. You see, my grandfather was a gardener. He has quite a number of gardens in Iran. And you know, the only time he would get close to the trees is either when he's taking the fruits off or when he's pruning. That's the only time. So if you are in pain, God is dealing with your life, actually He's the closest to you. He's not somebody who's sitting somewhere and then on a computer, if I could use this illustration, please forgive me, I'm not seeking to be disrespectful, but some of us, we are dealing with, if you're dealing with computers, you're working on a system, maybe your files are stored somewhere on some other computer, on a network somewhere, and you just go and press the file and press on delete and it's done. You do it from a distance. It's all done. God doesn't deal with us like that. He comes close to us and some of you have maybe pruning tools that has long arms attached to it and you can stand at the bottom of the tree and just cut the thing at the top of the tree. The Lord doesn't deal with us like that. He comes close to us to prune us and cleanse us. So in those times, when you're in pain, you can be the psalmist. You say, Thou art with me. Thou art with me. God, you are with me in the time of pruning. So the Lord encourages you through his word and chastens you and confronts you and exposes your heart and reshapes your attitudes and refines your desires and realigns your priorities through the word. The word of God does, and it does work, making you more fruitful. And this pruning process isn't always pleasant, as I've said. And the scripture reveals wonderful truth that that makes us rejoice, of course, but they also pierce our conscience and challenge us deeply. And that's part of God's pruning. It's why Christians who meditate on scripture, when they listen to it preached and continually place themselves under its authority, are often the most fruitful. You can distance yourself. You can say, I'll do these things online. I don't need to come to the prayer meeting. I don't need to gather together with God's people. I didn't need to listen to the sermons to come to church twice or a variety of things that we might say on a regular basis. If we are giving excuses about our lack of involvement in the body of Jesus Christ, then I would say to you, you're less fruitful than those who are." That's the bottom line. While Jesus Christ doesn't tell us everything about the pruning process here, the rest of the Bible shows us that God uses other means as well. And so when you are bereaved, for example, God is pruning you. Though it's a terrible experience, a painful experience, He uses it as to draw you closer to Him. When you're ill, the pain is real, yet God uses it to make you more like Him. When you lose a job, when you have an accident, when you face an unexpected setback, when you experience a heartbreak of a broken relationship maybe, or an engagement, when you fail an exam, when you see your hopes dashed, These hard things in life are part of God's pruning process. Maybe He's taking away certain idols from us and it's painful. Pruning is hard to take. It's painful, yet a tree is pruned and it bleeds so the Christian Christ branches. Yet through this painful process, dear friends, God makes us more fruitful, and he gets closer to us in those times. He's closest to us in those times, and he brings us nearer to himself. So you think about it. Don't have hard feelings about God, dear friends, in those times. When you're at pain, when things are very black and dark in your life, and you might think, where is God in my life? God is there. But it's too dark for you to see that he's there. But He's there with you. His Word is there to comfort you. His promises are there. Every branch of mine, He says, every single one of them, I'm going to prune them. And you are one of those, I'm just pruning you. I'm cleansing you. I'm purging you. And dear friends, I will finish because my time is gone. Let me say this, and I'm not saying all the things I wanted to say, but let me say this as an illustration. Again, using my grandfather, we spent a lot of time with my grandfather, because my parents were always at work. So we were always, after school, we were going to my grandfather's village and we had many experiences, many good experiences, and plenty of sermon illustrations because of it. But he used to have a flock of sheep, we could say. I don't know if you can call maybe 12, a flock of sheep. But he had about 12 or so sheep and goats. The goats were not very nice, but the sheep were always quite pleasant, always fearful. And once a year, what he would do, he would try to wash all of his animals. He couldn't really get the goats, because the goats were always jumping up and down everywhere. But the sheep, they would all go together, and there was a narrow pathway that led to a sort of a brook, a very small, shallow river, right in the middle of the village. And so as children we would just stand around and we'd be watching them and we'd be laughing and throwing stones at them and stuff like that. But what used to happen was that the sheep were fearful because you see there were times in the year my grandfather would go with a knife and he would actually slaughter one of the sheep and it was tasty and nice. But it's not very nice for the sheep and so the sheep were fearful at times. Maybe that's the day. That's the day they were going to get the knife. But you see, those times that he was going to cleanse them, he would force them down this alleyway and they would go and they would all line up just at the edge of the water. They would not jump in. All line up. And so we would all sit around watching and laughing. And then my grandfather would do one thing. He would go close to the sheep. and he would grab hold of them and throw them into the water. Just do this one after the other. And the sheep would jump in, all bleating, all fearful, all shivering, and the wool would begin to soak up the water and they would become heavy and then their knees would buckle up and they would have to sit down in the water. It was so shallow, they wouldn't drown. But the sheep thought they were drowning. That was the issue. So they were even more fearful. And so they thought, you see, my grandfather was drowning them. He wasn't drowning them. He was there to clean them, to wash them. And it was only those times, once or twice a year, that he would get close to them, because the rest of the time they were stinking. And my grandfather didn't have anything to do with that. You see, dear friends, I thought after I was converted, thinking through these things, I thought how wonderful illustration this is of what the Lord does with us. Oftentimes it is that when He is to clean us and prune us and to Sanctify us. He gets close to us. He throws us into the water of his word. And we think he's seeking to drown us. He's not seeking to drown us. He wants to clean us. And it is in those times that he's so closest to you. And so it is in those times you can cry to him. You can pray to him. He will hear you. Better than the times that you think all is going well. And friends, it is in those times that the Lord is, His attention, if we could say, the most is upon you and He will hear you. So here it is, the Lord says He will prune you. There is a gardener of your soul that comes in your life and I don't know what is going on in your life. I don't have any understanding of if God is at work and you feel so pain in your life, And the Lord Jesus Christ says, I am the true vine. I'm the vine, you're the branches. The reason you are being cleansed and pruned and cut and are bleeding and feel the pain is because you're part of me. You're one of my branches. and you cannot make fruit by yourself, but I am producing fruit in you. Fruit of love and grace and maturity and patience and kindness and all of these things, so that you would realize who I am. So think about these things, dear friends. And those of you who are not a Christian, I've given you the warning here as well, that there is There's no hope for you if you're just trying to be a Christian. You cannot try to be a Christian. Only God makes you a Christian by His grace. But yet you might say, I'm so unfruitful. I've been so unfruitful for all these years. Can God do a miracle? Of course He can do a miracle. He makes the unfruitful branches that are ready to be cut down. Those that are branches that are even singed with the fire He takes them and He grabs them by His grace into His body. And some of you, you've had messed up lives. Some of you have had years that you think, it's all wasted, all these years. What a mess I've made with my life. This is what God does. He came, the Lord Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. The Lord Jesus Christ came, not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. Dear friends, this is the wonderful message of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ came and died for sinners like us, so that we poor sinners might be made alive in Him and to walk after Him, to have our sins all forgiven, every single sin forgiven completely. And then what he does, as long as we are alive, as long as he's given us time in this world, he begins to garden our souls. He begins to prune us. He begins to cleanse us. He begins to make us ready. So all of this talk, these past few days, it's been about the work of God. We want the Lord to be working in our families. We want the Lord to be working to do this work of grace in our children by His word as they are facing the scriptures and we want them to be experiencing the pruning of God as well by His word so that they might be more fruitful as long as they live and then they enter into that eternal garden. the garden of Eden of heaven, the paradise of God. And one day the Lord says, today, I will call you up. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. And the Lord will call us. And the Lord will receive us. And then it will be no more pruning. No more pain. No more tears. All these things shall pass away. That's what the scripture says. Well, may God bless these few thoughts to us. And I didn't finish the sermon, but come next week and hear it. Well, may God bless us. Let us just briefly pray. Lord, we bless thee and thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his abundant mercy and love towards us. We thank you, O Lord, for that gardener of our soul, that husbandman. And Lord, we pray that thou will help us to, in the midst of the pain and in the midst of the tears, to realize that thou art with us. Thou will never leave nor forsake us. And we thank Thee for these things. We thank Thee for the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is unfailing and unending. We pray these things, glorifying Thy Son in Jesus' name. Amen.