This is a Blog for those interested in following hard after His heart. Those willing to strive to live a moment-by-moment life as we go through the transformation process with Him. It is not an easy life, but the Father expects each of us to become an offering for His pleasure. So, if this is you, then let’s journey together hand in hand. I am humbled that you have chosen to walk with me. Thanks!
Showing posts with label oneness with God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oneness with God. Show all posts
04 August, 2014
14 February, 2013
Spiritual Fruit - Part 3 Last One
Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on September 2, 1858, by Philpot
"From Me is your fruit found." Hosea 14:8
What is this fruit
then? It is faith, hope, love, godly fear, submission to God's will, tenderness
of conscience, love and esteem for the brethren, self-denial, putting off the
old man, putting on the new—and I might stand here until midnight and then not
exhaust the catalogue. These are set forth by the Apostle Paul in the Epistle
to the Galatians, where he says, "The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance—against such there is no law." Here are all the fruits of the
Spirit penned down by the Holy Spirit himself; but you may examine it for
yourselves, and indeed compare what is in your soul with it; then you will
confess how short you come of bearing that fruit—the bearing of which stamps
the Christian indeed—but we shall never bear fruit to God, until we are brought
to see that our fruit comes from God.
III. How this
fruit is from the Lord—"from me is your fruit found." How
positively and clearly is this set forth in the fifteenth and sixteenth
chapters of John's Gospel, where the Lord says, "Without me you can do
nothing." "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abides
in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me." So you see that
union with Christ is indispensable to the bringing forth of fruit; for as the
sap flows out of the stem, so it is with the believing soul and Jesus—only so
far as Christ flows into his soul is he able to bring forth fruit unto God.
"Abide in me and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except
it abides in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me." Then there
is a being in Christ by vital union, and an abiding in him by faith, prayer,
hope, and love, and a receiving grace for grace out of his fullness—so that
from him is our fruit.
Now, as we begin
to feel day by day our barrenness, and as our wrinkles arise in our face, we
begin to see that from Jesus only is our fruit. Let us then raise our souls up
out of our miserable selves, and fix our eyes upon him at the right hand of God
and beg of him to communicate his grace to our souls, and send down the
influence of his Spirit that will bring forth fruit in us—which is peace,
praise, and honor to God. No one can bring forth fruit without a conflict with self—self
checks the crop like the ivy clinging to and strangling the vine.
I have a
grape-vine in the front of my house, and almost the first thing I noticed when
I returned home yesterday was that every leaf was struck with mildew—in fact
the whole tree has been struck, as it were, with the same withering disease.
What an emblem of a poor, withered professor! There will never be a cluster
either fit to be made into wine or eaten as dessert. Now, when we see what we
are in ourselves we see nothing but mildew. As the grape-vine seems to have
more enemies than any other fruit, because, as it is said, it cheers the heart
of God and man, and we are represented in Scripture as branches of the vine,
therefore we need the grace of God in order that we may overcome these enemies.
Though I have not sufficient skill to cure the mildew on my vine—yet the Lord
has skill to cure the mildew in our souls, for his grace can and does and will
sanctify the sinner's heart.
Therefore whatever
despair I might feel about having any fruit from the vine on my trellis, there
shall be no mildew upon the trellis of your soul, for he can send a shower to
wash off the mildew, and put forth his hand to knock off the insects that feed
upon the fruit of the vine. The Lord says, "From me is your fruit
found." The fruit flows forth—the spirit of thankfulness, of brokenness,
and godly sorrow for sin. And yet there will be times and seasons when we sink
very low, and when we feel or fear that there never was a spark of grace in our
heart. But your very feeling of your unfruitfulness, is in itself a fruit. Your
mourning over your unfruitfulness and your being cast down into dejection—these
very things are spiritual fruit, for they are produced by the same Holy Spirit
that brings forth the blossoms of faith, hope, and love.
III. There is the
FINDING of this fruit. In a vine some of the richest clusters are found
under the leaves. Leaf and fruit go very much together, for where there is a
leaf full of mildew, you find nothing but a cluster of rotten fruit. Well, so
in grace—if there be little fruit there will be a withered profession, because
the 'leaf' represents the 'profession'. The world can see what you profess, and
they will see the mildew spots upon it. "O," they say, "that man
talks about religion—but he is just like us. You who have to deal with him know
how he deals, how he can laugh and giggle like other men, and how angry he is
if anything crosses him. It is only a profession—he goes to chapel, but we all
know what he is."
Here is a
profession with the mildew upon it. "See," they may say, "that
man was drunk last night—yet he goes to church on Sundays." If the 'leaf'
is so bad, what must the 'berry' be? If the man's profession is such, what must
be the man himself? So if the mildew has struck the leaf you may be sure the
mildew has reached the clusters.
We find that the
best clusters sometimes grow on the lowest bough; so it is in
grace—the humbler a man is the more fruit he will bring forth. The
same sap that feeds the branch nearest the stem feeds the branch farthest off.
"From me is your fruit found." Your soul may be often cast down, and
you may say, "Was there ever any sinner like me?" but your complaints
do not take you into the world again—you are not telling lies or joking and
gossiping with your neighbors—but you are mourning and groaning that you are
not bringing forth fruit unto God.
Now, the Lord may
speak these words to encourage his saints—"Come out of the world. From me
is your fruit found. Not from the world. Do not be carried away with the things
of time and sense. Not from worldly-mindedness, not from family distress is
fruit produced—but from me, out of my fullness by the communications of my
grace."
If you don't get
it from that source you will get it nowhere, and every branch that does not
bear fruit, he hews down. So that we come to one of two things—you must either
be a branch that bears fruit from Christ—from the communications of Christ's
love to your soul—or else one that bears not fruit, which the Father takes
away. There is no intermediate state whereby we have part from ourselves and
part from Christ, for "from me," says the Lord, "is your fruit
found."
12 February, 2013
Spiritual Fruit
Spiritual Fruit
Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on
September 2, 1858, by Philpot
September 2, 1858, by Philpot
Man unites in himself what at first sight seem to be completely opposite things; he is the greatest of sinners—and yet the greatest of Pharisees. Now, what two things can be so opposed to each other as sin and self-righteousness? Yet the very same man who is a sinner from top to toe, with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint, who is spiritually nothing else but a leper throughout, how contradictory it appears that the same man has in his own heart a most stubborn self-righteousness.
Now, against these two evils God, so to speak, directs his whole artillery—he spares neither one nor the other; but it is hard to say which is the greatest rebellion against God—the existence of sin in man and what he is as a fallen sinner; or his Pharisaism—the lifting up his head in pride of self-righteousness. It is not easy to decide which is the more obnoxious to God—the drunkard who sins without shame; or the Pharisee puffed up with how pleasing he is to God.
The one is abhorrent to our feelings, and, as far as decency and morality are concerned, we would sooner see the Pharisee; but when we come to matters of true religion, the Pharisee seems the worst—at least our Lord intimated as much when he said the publicans and harlots would enter the kingdom of God before them.
Now, in this Book the Lord seems sometimes to knock Ephraim to pieces and then to put him together again. Sometimes we find denunciations against his backslidings, and then when Ephraim is broken to pieces the Lord seeks to raise him up, as he says in the 13th chapter, "When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in
Never think to stand upright by your own self-righteousness—you have fallen by your iniquity, and now you must humble yourself before the Lord your God. Turn to the Lord your God and say unto him, "Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips"—that is, we will sing and praise your holy name. "Asshur shall not save us," that is the king of Assyria, "we will not ride upon horses," that is the devices of men, "neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods"—our idols are self and self-righteousness—"for in you the fatherless finds mercy."
Well, I need not go on with the chapter. Ephraim shall say, "What have I to do any more with idols?" Here is Ephraim brought away from his idols—"I have heard him and observed him; I am like a green fig tree;" and then the words of our text, "From me is your fruit found," as though he would show Ephraim this—"Ephraim, though you are a sinner, let not that cast you down, so that you shall think there never can be any fruit in you—look upward and not to yourself for this fruit."
In opening up these words I shall with God's blessing show—
I. What is the fruit called here "your fruit."
II. How this fruit is from the Lord, "from me is your fruit found."
III. How this fruit not only is from the Lord but is found also to be such, and made manifest, for we not only have it from the Lord, but it is found to be from the Lord—"From me is your fruit found."
I. What is the fruit? Now, I sincerely believe that wherever God the Spirit has anything to do with a man's soul—(and oh! if God the Spirit has nothing to do with a man's soul, what a dreadful condition it is in!)—in his quickening and regenerating operations upon it, his communications of life and grace to it, there will always be a desire to bring forth fruit unto God. No child of God can be an Antinomian, especially when God first begins to work upon the heart. If he has been years in the work, there may be a leaning in his wretched heart to this weakness, to this carelessness—but no beginner has any leaning toward, or is ever upset, by this Antinomian devil. On the contrary, his longing is to work out his own righteousness. He is trying to keep the law, working hard to please God by a life of obedience—he is seeking to be holy, and endeavoring to overcome the wicked passions of his heart. So that you never find a child of God under the first teaching who has any leaning towards Antinomianism—it is his desire to please God by his own acts and words.
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