John 15:2 Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it… I. THE TEXT SUGGESTS SELF-EXAMINATION. It mentions — 1. Two characters who are in some respects exceedingly alike; they are both branches, and are in the vine: and yet for all this, the end of the one shall be to be cast away, while the end of the other shall be to bring forth fruit. 2. The distinction between them. The first branch brought forth no fruit; the second branch bore some fruit. We have no right to judge of our neighbours' motives and thoughts, except so far as they may be clearly discoverable by their actions and words. The interior we must leave with God, but the exterior we may judge. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Paul has given us a list of these fruits in Galatians 5:23. Say, professor, hast thou brought forth the fruit "love?" etc. It is so easy for us to wrap ourselves up in the idea that attention to religious ceremonies is the test, but it is not so, for "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees," etc. 3. The solemn difference between them leads to a solemn result. (1) Sometimes God allows the professor to apostatise. (2) Or else he is allowed to fall into open sin. (3) Some have been taken away in a more terrible sense by death. II. CONVEYS INSTRUCTION. The fruit-bearing branches are not perfect. If they were, they would not need pruning. Whenever the sap within them is strong, there is a tendency for that strength to turn into evil. The gardener desires to see that strength in clusters, but alas! instead it runs into wood. When the sap comes into a Christian to produce confidence in God, through the evil that is in him, it often produces confidence in himself. When the sap would produce zeal, how very frequently it turns into rashness. Suppose the sap flows to produce self-examination, very generally, instead of the man doubting himself, he begins to doubt his Lord. How often have I seen even the joy of the Lord turned into pride. That love which we ought to bear towards our neighbours, how apt is that to run into love of the world! Gentleness often turns to a silly compliance with everybody's whim, and meekness, which is a fruit of the Spirit, how often that becomes an excuse for holding your tongue, when you ought boldly to speak! 2. Pruning is the lot of all the fruitful saints. It is generally thought that our trials and troubles purge us: I am not sure of that, they certainly are lost upon some. It is the word (ver. 3) that prunes the Christian. Affliction is the handle of the knife, the grindstone that sharpens up the Word; the dresser which removes our soft garments, and lays bare the diseased flesh, so that the surgeon's lancet may get at it. Affliction makes us ready to feel the word, but the true pruner is the word in the hand of the Great Husbandman. Sometimes when you lay stretched upon the bed of sickness, you think more upon the word than you did before, that is one great thing. In the next place, you see more the applicability of that word to yourself. In the third place, the Holy Spirit makes you feel more, while you are thus laid aside, the force of the word than you did before. 3. The object in this pruning is never condemnatory. God chastises, but He cannot punish those for whom Jesus Christ has been already punished. You have no right to say, when a man is afflicted, that it is because he has done wrong; on the contrary, just the branch that is good for something gets the pruning knife. It is because the Lord loves His people that He chastens them. 4. The real reason is that more fruit may be produced. (1) In quantity. A good man, who feels the power of the word pruning him of this and that superfluity, sets to work to do more for Jesus. Before he was afflicted he did not know how to be patient. Before he was poor he did not know how to be humble, etc. (2) In variety. One tree can only produce one kind of fruit usually, but the Lord's people, the more they are pruned the more they will produce. (3) In quality. The man may not pray more, but he will pray more earnestly. 5. What greater blessing can a man have than to produce much fruit for God? Better to serve God much than to become a prince. III. INVITES MEDITATION. 1. "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the wicked appear?" 2. What a mercy it is to the believer that it is pruning with him and not cutting off! 3. Think how gently the pruning has been done with the most of us up till now, compared with our barrenness. 4. How earnestly we ought to seek for more fruit. 5. How concerned should every one of us be to be efficaciously and truly one with Christ! (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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