out of the mouth of Jesus Christ, but Father, when Jesus was on this earth, these great sermons that he preached are so dear to us.
And so, Father, I pray that you would speak to our hearts through the message this morning.
Help us to learn what you'd have us to learn.
And, Father, I just pray that you would guide and direct me as I preach this morning.
And Holy Spirit, I just pray that you would fill me and that you would come upon this service in mighty power.
And in Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Now, in John chapter 15, one of my favorite passages in the Bible,
this great speech that Jesus gives about the true vine, one of the great seven I Am's in the book of John.
You know, of course, in the Old Testament, you remember when Moses was at the burning bush,
and he asked, if they asked what God's name is when I go to Egypt to take the children of Israel out of Egypt,
what should I tell them your name is?
And he said, I am that I am.
And he said, tell them that I Am has sent you.
See, that's what the name that Jehovah God of the Old Testament calls himself.
And so Jesus Christ, being God in the flesh, as the Bible teaches,
uses seven great phrases in the book of John that begin with those words, I Am.
I Am the bread of life.
I Am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And here, I Am the true vine.
And so we see in this passage, the Bible says in verse number one,
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, you see, there's a danger of where you're in Jesus Christ, but you're not abiding in Jesus,
and you become worthless. You become what the Bible calls a castaway.
Now, are we talking about losing your salvation? Absolutely not.
You know, there's no such thing as losing your salvation.
You could not lose your salvation.
I'm here to tell you this morning that if I wanted to, I could not go to hell.
Why, Pastor Anderson, because you've done so many good works and lived such a godly life? No.
Because when I got on my knees as a six-year-old boy, and I prayed to God and said,
God, I know I'm a sinner, I know I deserve to go to hell,
but I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins and was buried and rose again.
And I just said, Jesus, I want you to save me right now.
All my faith's in you.
And at that moment, this is what happened, the Bible says in John 5, 24,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
You see, if God has promised me that I'm never going to come into condemnation,
if God has promised me that I've been passed from death unto life,
if God has promised me everlasting life, and he said the gift of God is eternal life,
I give unto them eternal life, and no man shall pluck them out of my hands.
See, once you have eternal life, it's yours, because it lasts forever, it's eternal.
Let's think about Titus 1, 2, the Bible reads,
In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.
1 John 2, 25, and this is the promise that he had promised us, even eternal life.
John 3, 16, the most famous verse in the Bible,
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth,
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already,
because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3, 36, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
And then turn, if you would, to one last place, and I'm sorry to be repetitive sometimes,
but we have to be grounded firmly in these key doctrines of the faith.
There's so many false prophets and deceivers that are out there,
so many people would lie to you and try to deceive you,
and if you don't know the Bible, they can spin you in circles,
and you've got to know what you believe.
So turn to 1 John, chapter 5. I'm going to show you one last place on this
before I get into the actual message.
Look at 1 John, chapter 5, right before the book of Revelation,
1st, 2nd, 3rd John, Jude, Revelation, right at the end of your Bible there.
Look at 1 John 5, 10, and I'm going to show you why this is the quintessential doctrine of being a Baptist,
why this is the quintessential doctrine of being saved,
and I'm not saying you have to be a Baptist to be saved,
but this is the key doctrine of salvation right here that I'm about to show you.
It's called eternal life. It's called everlasting life.
It's mentioned hundreds of times. Look if you would at 1 John 5, 10.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.
He that believeth not God hath made him a liar,
because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
You see, there's only two kinds of people in this world.
There are those that are making God a liar,
and there are those that believe the record that God gave his Son.
This is the record, by the way, the Bible.
But then he tells us a little more specifically what the record is in verse number 11,
and this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life,
and this life is in his Son.
See, there's the Gospel in a nutshell.
God has given. See, it's a gift.
He paid it all on the cross when he died for us and shed his blood.
He gives it to us freely, and it's through Jesus Christ,
but notice he says he has given to us eternal life.
Now let me ask you something.
Let's see, what's the date today? I don't even know.
October 9th? October 8th.
Here we are. Is it October?
Okay, October 8th, 2006.
If I have eternal life, how long is my life going to last?
I mean, let's just use a little bit of logic.
If I have eternal life, my life's going to last forever.
Now, does the Bible say that it says right here in verse number 11,
hath given to us eternal life? Is that past tense?
I mean, he already gave it to us. That's what it says in verse 11, right?
It says that he has given to us eternal life.
Does it say we're going to get it someday, or when we die we'll have eternal life?
No, it says he's already given it to us.
In verse number 13, he says that you may know that you have eternal life.
He's saying you have it right now.
On October 8th, 2006, have eternal life right now, and my life's going to last forever.
Now, let's say I go out tonight and I take off my wedding ring
and I go out and just say, I'm going to go party, I'm going to leave my family,
I'm going to go live it up, I'm going to commit adultery, I'm going to drink,
I'm going to do drugs, I'm going to do whatever I want to do,
I'm through with church, I'm through with preaching.
Is God going to take away my salvation from me?
No, no. Because think about this.
Let's say I went out and murdered people.
Let's say I went out and did the most awful things and then I took a gun and took my own life.
If God were to take my salvation from me, then was my life ever eternal?
No, because it ended.
I mean, if I shot myself in the head and went to hell, hey, my life just ended.
That's not eternal life, that's temporary life.
My life would have lasted for 25 years, not eternal life that God promised.
But God said this is a promise that he had promised us, even eternal life.
Hey, I wasn't good enough to get saved in the first place.
How could I be bad enough to become unsaved?
It's not of works, lest any man should boast.
It's not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of the regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Hey, Jesus paid it all, my friend.
And once you're saved, you will always be saved no matter what you say.
What did he kill somebody? Oh, you're talking about Moses?
You're talking about Moses who became angry and killed a man with his bare hands and buried him in the sand?
Oh, you're talking about somebody who commits adultery and fornication like Samson?
Like Samson who went from one prostitute to another?
And then the last thing he did in his life was commit suicide?
The Bible says he went to heaven?
You say, well, wait a minute.
Hey, look, you've got to face the fact, my friend, that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.
It's not by us at all.
Don't try to take credit for your salvation.
Don't have pride and say, well, I'm going to heaven and this person's not because I'm better than them.
That's not it at all.
For all is an unclean thing, the Bible says.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
There is none that shaketh after God.
There is none that doeth good, no, not one.
That's why Paul said, not having mine own righteousness, which is up the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
See, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is why I'm going to heaven this morning,
not because of my own righteousness, because I wouldn't make it.
I'm not good enough. I've come short of the glory of God.
And so on from that.
We've been talking about this a little bit lately, but get back in John chapter 15, if you would.
Know what you believe.
I mean, things that are just basic foundational things about the Bible,
just nail them down and then don't worry about them again.
I mean, figure out whether Jesus is God. Yes, he's God.
And if you're saved, you know that.
Figure out whether eternal life really is eternal
or whether God's going to be an Indian giver and give it to you
and take it back and now I'm saved and now I'm not.
Hey, figure that out once and for all from God's word and then nail it down.
Don't let anybody dissuade you from what you believe.
Once you've seen it in the Bible, you should nail that thing down
and not have to reopen that issue.
You're never going to learn. Think about a student in a math class.
He's in first grade. He learns, you know, two plus two is four.
Two times two is four. Three times three is nine.
You know, he learns these basic truths.
Well, then he gets to third grade or fourth grade or whatever
and he gets into division, you know, and long division.
And then, you know, when he does long division and he kind of wonders,
well, is two times two really four?
You know, I mean, you're not going to learn like that
if you forget what you learned in third grade when you go into fourth grade.
You have to build upon what you've learned.
You shouldn't be changing what you believe all the time.
Find something that you believe in the Bible and just nail it down.
I mean, nail down what the Bible teaches.
It's hard to figure out that there's a real fire in hell, a burning hell,
and that there's a real heaven with streets of gold
and that eternal life is promised and to believe on Jesus Christ.
Hey, figure out what you believe and then nail it down.
And don't let people bother you or false teachers and false fathers.
Don't be just carried about with every wind of doctrine
that somebody tries to deceive you.
But get back to John chapter 15. I'm going to show you the lesson here.
It's not talking about losing your salvation.
God's not going to contradict the whole rest of the Bible in this one chapter.
Here's what he's talking about. It says in verse number 2,
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away,
and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now, what does it mean for a Christian to bring forth fruit?
And a lot of this is review, but then I'm going to get into the message.
Look, think about everything in Genesis 1, 1 on.
It says everything brings forth after its own kind. Is that right?
I mean, if you think about it, if I were to take an apple and I were to eat that apple
and take the seeds out of the apple and plant it in the ground,
what is going to be the product?
Apples. Yeah, wow. This is kind of a slow crowd.
Let me slow things down a little bit.
Hey, look, if you plant an apple in the ground, what's going to be the fruit that's produced?
Apples. What's going to be the fruit of an orange?
If I bury an orange in the ground, what kind of fruit is going to grow out of this?
An orange.
An orange, okay.
Hey, it's not that complicated to understand the great truth that's preached in Genesis 1
where he says everything brings forth after its own kind.
Animals bring forth after their own kind.
Fruits bring forth after their own kind.
Vegetables bring forth after their own kind.
So what do you think the fruit of the Christian is?
Another Christian.
See, fruit-bearing is a multiplication process.
If you take one apple, I can bury that apple and multiply it into thousands of apples.
And then those apples can become more apple trees.
And so from one apple, I can produce an entire apple orchard
that can produce literally millions of apples.
That's what bearing fruit is.
That's what God is talking about here when he says,
Abide in me and you'll bring forth fruit.
That's what he's talking about.
He's talking about you reproducing yourself.
You say, wait a minute, I thought it was the fruit of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace. No.
That's the fruit of the Spirit.
The Spirit is reproducing himself because God is love, the Bible says.
And so when he reproduces himself in you, that's where you get the love.
But I'm going to tell you something.
Your fruit is when you win somebody to Christ and make them like you.
When you get somebody saved and train them to be a soul winner like you,
that is what it means to bring forth fruit.
Now, look at what it says now with that in mind.
It says, every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.
Now if this is talking about losing your salvation,
then that would mean that the only saved people in the world
are people who win other people to the Lord.
And that's mathematically impossible
because if every saved person won people to the Lord,
well then it would only take like 40 years for the whole world to be saved
if you figure it out mathematically because it would be multiplying
till everybody's saved.
And so the sad truth is that the vast majority of Christians,
the vast majority of branches in the vine do not bring forth any fruit.
Ninety-nine percent of the people that you meet that are saved
and maybe yourself included have never won somebody to the Lord.
They've never seen one person saved in their entire life.
More than 99 percent.
I mean there are very few Christians who decide that I'm going to abide in Christ,
I'm going to let him purge me and I'm going to bring forth much fruit.
Very few.
So what is the Bible saying here?
He says if you don't abide in me, he says every branch in me that beareth not fruit,
he taketh away.
And every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
So the first step, number one, is that God wants us to bring forth fruit.
Before the purging, before anything else,
before he gives us any of the other commands in the chapter,
look at the first thing he says.
He says I'm the vine, I'm the true vine, and my father's the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.
The first thing he tells you is you must bear fruit.
You must be a soul winner.
You see, this is the order.
Number one, you get saved.
You want to know the order of Christian growth?
This is what it is.
Number one, you get saved.
Number two, you get baptized.
And number three, you win souls.
And you know what?
Sometimes you might even win souls before you get baptized.
Because winning souls, getting other people saved,
is the first command that God gives you to do after you get saved.
You say, wait a minute, Pastor Anderson, I don't really know all the Bible,
and I don't really feel confident.
I don't really have the boldness to talk to somebody.
I just don't know all the verses,
and I just don't know how I can get somebody else saved.
Hey, look, are you saved?
Then you must know how to get saved, somebody saved.
Why don't you just take one verse?
Take John 3.16 and take John 3.16 to somebody
and just tell them what it says and tell them how you got saved
and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ from John 3.16.
You don't need to know the whole Bible to be a soul winner
because the first step that you need to do as a Christian
is to be winning other people to Christ, to be bringing forth fruit.
Now, after you bring forth fruit, look at verse number five, if you would.
The Bible reads in verse number five,
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 you can do nothing.
And then look at verse eight,
Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit,
so shall you be my disciples.
You see, the first step is that you bring forth some kind of fruit.
I mean, let's say you just got saved,
or let's say you're just totally new to church.
Well, your first step that you need to be trying to do right now
is to try and bring forth fruit.
That's the first thing you should be trying to do.
Try to get somebody else saved.
Try to talk to some of those old friends.
You think about Andrew.
He got saved the same day the Bible says
he first findeth his own brother Peter.
And the first thing Andrew did was go get Peter saved.
And of course, Peter became a great man in the Bible and a great preacher.
You think about the woman at the well.
A woman at the well who'd been married and divorced five times,
literally, I mean, five times in a row.
And then she was living with somebody she wasn't even married to
Jesus wins her to himself at the well.
She gets saved.
The first thing she does is she just runs to town
and just starts telling as many people as she can how to be saved,
starts winning souls right away, and on and on.
You can see the apostle Paul did the same thing.
He got saved the same day he went and started preaching the gospel,
trying to get people saved.
So step one is you bring forth fruit.
But see, bringing forth fruit is not what glorifies God the most.
If you notice in verse number eight, the Bible says,
Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit,
so shall ye be my disciples.
So step one is you bring forth some kind of fruit.
I mean, you don't know the Bible very well.
You're probably still really worldly,
and you might be still into a lot of the sin that you were in
before you got saved.
You might still have a lot of the habits,
and you might be dressed like the world and act like the world,
but you just got saved.
You know that.
And so you start trying to bring forth fruit.
You start talking to people and talking to your friends
and preaching the gospel.
Well, then step two, here's what happens.
Look at verse two.
It says, And every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.
So you see, the next step after you bring forth fruit
is now God will purge you so that you can bring forth more fruit.
Now, what's that talking about?
Well, when you purge something, if you think about a branch,
think about a tree.
If there's something that's bad on the branch,
maybe a dead little stem coming off here
or a little bit of decay or rot here,
well, you have to trim trees.
See, I'm starting to learn.
I have a lot of trees in this house.
I didn't really know anything about trees until I moved here.
But I talked to my friend Jason,
and he was explaining to me about trees,
and he explained to me that you must trim trees
or they will not produce fruit right.
You must trim trees or else they'll die,
and they'll have all kinds of problems,
and so trees have to be maintained
if you want them to be productive.
And so what he's saying here is that there's some things in your life.
You've been saved, and I'm glad that you're bringing forth fruit,
but you could bring forth so much more fruit
if you would allow me to purge you
of some of the things in your life that are wrong,
that are holding you back.
And so God says, you know,
the branch that doesn't bring forth any fruit,
I don't have any time for it.
This is God's attitude.
I'm just going to take it away and not mess with it.
But the one who's going to obey me and bring forth the fruit,
he says, I'm going to purge it.
Now, you ever wonder why people get saved
and they come to church for a while,
or maybe they even come to church for years,
and eventually they just kind of wash up?
You know, after six months, they're gone.
You've seen that happen before?
I mean, they'll be in church,
and they'll be coming and faithful.
Six months, they're gone.
You know, a couple years, they're gone.
Totally out of church.
Why?
Because they didn't bring forth fruit.
Do you want to be in church five years from now?
Do you want to be living for God five years from now?
Or do you want to just be this Roman candle type of Christian
where, boom, you know, big, exciting,
oh, I'm all excited about church.
Wow, I'm so excited about reading the Bible.
And then it's like, you're gone.
Nobody hears from you again.
Hey, it happens all the time.
Do you want to be one of the people who loses that excitement,
loses their zeal for the Bible?
Boy, you're on fire for God,
but you just kind of get in a rut.
You know, you just fall out of church.
Hey, the way to avoid that is to bring forth fruit,
because the Christians who don't bring forth fruit
will eventually get out of church.
Period.
I mean, Christians who never bring forth fruit
will eventually go back to the world.
They're still saved,
but they will eventually get out of church.
They will eventually quit on God.
The only way to make sure that you're going to stay in the vine,
the only way to make sure that you're abiding,
the only way to make sure that years and years from now
you're still living for God is to be a fruit producer.
So you have to decide right now, hey,
I'm going to be one of the few, the proud,
one of the few people that actually wins people to Christ
and produces fruit.
And that's the only way that you're going to abide in this thing.
That's the only way 50 years from now
you'll still be here in this church or in a church of like faith,
still believe in what you believe right now,
still excited about what you're excited about right now.
It's the only way.
You can't get around it.
You must learn to win souls.
You must produce fruit.
And so if you decide, okay, I'm going to produce some fruit,
then God says, hey, I like that.
Wow, somebody's producing fruit.
Wow, somebody's not only saved,
but they're also wanting to win people to Christ.
Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to begin to purge this person
so that they can bring forth more fruit.
And God will get out his little saw
and begin to cut on you a little bit.
And he'll start to cut things off.
Now, do you think that's going to hurt a little bit sometimes?
It might be kind of a painful process
to have somebody cut something out of your life
that's maybe very deeply rooted in your life.
Think about some of the deeply rooted habits that we had,
maybe from before we were saved,
maybe even from after we were saved.
But we decided to bring forth fruit.
God's going to have to start cutting some of that stuff out.
Think about your music.
Music can be a very strong addiction, believe it or not.
The world's rock music and whatever music you're into
that does not glorify God,
that's usually sung by a bunch of sodomites and queers
and this Hollywood promiscuous crowd and this worldliness.
Hey, that music can be very deeply rooted in your life.
I remember when I was 17, 18,
I was quitting listening to the rock music.
It was the hardest thing I've ever given up in my life
was getting over that addiction of that music.
And I'm going to tell you something.
Some of the things that God has to cut out of your life
in order that you would bring forth more fruit,
it's going to hurt a little bit to give those things up.
I remember when I was 17 years old,
I walked for the first time into an independent,
fundamental Baptist, soul-winning church.
I walked in, I had bleached blond hair,
you know, all punked out.
I mean, I was dressed just as worldly as you can believe.
I walked in there, I mean,
my parents were embarrassed to even bring me there.
And I was the one that actually recommended the church
because I found the track and I said,
Mom and Dad, this is where we're going to go, you know.
And my parents were probably embarrassed of even the way that I looked.
I walk into the church, I sit down,
within two weeks I was out soul-winning.
But I was still worldly.
I was still listening to all the music,
still watching all the wrong movies and everything.
They're all wrong. That's a redundancy.
But I was just still into all the worldly stuff,
still all the worldly friends,
but I just got excited about winning souls.
You know, and that's kind of what drew me into this church,
even though I didn't agree with
half of what the pastor was preaching, I just said,
Man, actually getting people saved,
I've never even heard of such a thing.
This is great.
And so I went out soul-winning for the first time.
Went out with a guy by the name of Dan Dion,
he took me out soul-winning and
we spent two and a half hours out soul-winning,
knocking doors.
I watched him win people to the Lord.
And I said, Hey, let me get the next door.
And that was my first time and I knocked on the door
and I just did what he did.
I was just kind of stumbling through, trying to learn.
And nobody got saved when I was talking that first time,
but a girl that I talked to, actually a young child,
she came to church the next day
and somebody else got her saved.
So I was like, wow, God used me in some way
to get somebody saved.
And I went soul-winning every week
about one to two hours a week
for about that first year,
from the time I was 17 to 18.
And I'll be honest with you, I saw very few people saved.
I think I saw like one person saved or something.
I mean, it's that.
But see, God saw, you know, this guy's worldly,
this guy's an idiot.
But he said, this guy is bringing forth fruit.
I mean, it's a little bit of fruit.
You know, it's not much.
But this guy is bringing forth fruit and God said,
you know what, I think I'm going to purge him.
And God began to cut out some of those things out of my life.
And God began to cut out the wrong music out of my life.
God began to cut out the television
that I was filling my mind with for four hours a day.
God began to cut out all that worldly garbage
that was holding me back.
And as God began to cut out those things out of my life,
and I remember one day when I took the last of my rock music
and I threw it in a garbage can at the church dumpster,
nobody was around, I was by myself,
and I just said, God, I want to bring forth much fruit.
And I threw it in the trash and I said,
God, is this what it's going to take for me to be able to see people saved?
I don't need this stuff, God.
I need your power to see people saved.
And I threw it in the trash can.
And boy, that's why I started bringing forth much fruit.
I'll tell you that right now.
I mean, the change as God purged me of the wrong things,
the amount of people that I began to see saved really multiplied a lot
because God was able to use me
because I had been a purged branch that could be productive for God.
Think about some of the hang-ups that people have, the addiction.
I mean, good night.
You dress a certain way your whole life,
and then you find out that the pastor tells you you're dressed like a hooker
because you're wearing a miniskirt and a halter top.
Hey, look, that is the way that hookers used to dress, my friend.
I don't care if the whole world's wearing it now.
Hey, it's wrong. It's a sin. It's ungodly.
If you knew the mind of a male, a man, and you dressed that way,
you're just inviting guys to lust after you.
The Bible says,
Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her,
committed adultery with her already in his heart.
You see how it says with her?
You want to participate?
When you walk down the street dressed immodestly
and some guy looks at you, he's committing adultery with you in his heart.
You want to be involved in that?
You want a man to commit adultery with you in his heart?
Hey, then dress modestly like the Bible says.
The Bible says to have your skirt down to your knees at least
because he said cover up your thighs, cover up your nakedness.
You say, well, my thigh is exposed. It's not nakedness.
Well, that's what the Bible says.
And see, God is going to have to purge your wardrobe
if you want to produce much fruit.
Hey, if you want to be one of the 99% Christians that don't produce any fruit,
hey, go ahead and dress however you want.
But you're going to be taken away.
You're not going to be around here long.
You're going to go back to the world.
You're going to go back and it's saying,
unless you decide that I'm going to let God purge me,
I'm going to bring forth fruit, and I want to bring forth much fruit,
so I'm going to let him purge my music collection.
I'm going to let him purge my wardrobe.
I'm going to let him purge my video cabinet.
I'm going to let him purge the sin out of my life.
Hey, the reason that you justify so much of this sin
and the reason that these liberals and the new evangelicals and charismatics
justify all the sin and everything's okay and it's fine,
it's because they just go by what the world says is fine.
If you get your head in this book and start reading this book,
you'll realize that God's standards are a lot higher than you thought.
You'll realize that the stuff that you thought was okay is not okay,
and you don't know because you haven't read it.
Read it cover to cover and then come tell me how rock music's okay.
Read it cover to cover and tell me how it's okay to put on a bikini
and put on a halter top and put on a miniskirt
and be poured into a tight pair of pants.
Hey, read it cover to cover and come tell me that.
You won't be telling me that because it's not true.
It's a lie.
And just because the whole world is going into wickedness,
just because you can't even walk down the street or go to the store
without seeing some cross-dressed faggot in the store,
hey, I'm going to tell you something.
God's word has not changed, and so we need to let God purge us.
Why?
So that we can bring forth much fruit,
not just so we can show people how holy we are or something.
It's so that we can bring forth fruit.
Isn't that what we want?
Don't you want to stay in church?
Don't you want to help somebody else get saved?
Hey, then let God purge you.
I was thinking about addictions like alcohol, cigarettes, drugs.
I talked to a buddy of mine.
He said, man, he started telling me when he quit smoking.
And he said, it's like the first three days, he said, was the worst,
just to get that nicotine out of his system for the first three days.
And after that, it wasn't too bad.
And I was thinking to myself,
that's just some of the pain that you have to go through as God purges you,
that three days of torture, of the nicotine withdrawal or whatever.
But I'm thinking to myself, didn't Jesus go to hell for three days?
I mean, didn't Jesus die on the cross and then go to hell for three days
and actually suffer eternal damnation in hell, crammed into three days?
My friend, hey, let God purge you.
Go through the pain, go through the three days of torture,
and just say, I'm going to let God purge me
because I'm tired of wasting my money on the alcohol, the cigarettes.
I'm tired of wasting my health and throwing my body down the drain.
Let God purge you so you can bring forth more fruit.
But number two, there's something else that God sometimes has to purge us of
if we're going to bring forth more fruit.
Look, if you would, at 2 Timothy 2.
It's toward the end of the New Testament again, 2 Timothy 2.
And you say, Pastor Anderson, why do you preach hard on sin?
I mean, why do you yell about sin and get all upset?
Because I want this church to be a fruitful church.
I want my family to be fruitful. I want myself to be fruitful.
And so the only way that that's going to happen is if this church gets purged.
I mean, if myself gets purged,
that's the only way that a branch is going to bring forth fruit is if it gets purged.
And so the point is not just to be separated,
just to see how separate I can be or how holy I can be.
The point is to bring forth fruit.
The point is to take somebody that's on their way to hell and get them saved.
But look, if you would, at 2 Timothy 2.
I'm going to show you another kind of purging that God wants to put you through.
The Bible reads in 2 Timothy 2, 19.
Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal.
The Lord knoweth them that are his.
I'm talking about those that are saved.
And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
So he's saying that everyone who's saved,
I mean, should try their best to forsake sin.
But look at the next verse. He says,
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor.
He says, this is what God says,
Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,
but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor.
He's saying there are a lot of people that are in this household of faith that are saved,
that are our brothers and sisters of Christ.
Let's face it, they're vessels to dishonor.
Let's face it, they're the wood and the earth.
He says they're not separated from iniquity.
He says they are living in sin.
Yes, they're saved, he says, but they're living in sin.
They're dishonoring God with their life.
They're still part of the household of faith, but they're just living wrong.
They're living in sin, and that's the majority, by the way.
But look at the next verse in verse number 21.
If a man therefore purge himself from these...
What's the these?
The people mentioned in the verse before.
If a man therefore purge himself from these,
he shall be a vessel unto honor,
sanctified and meet for the master's use,
and prepared unto every good work.
And then it says,
Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them.
See, the people are mentioned here.
With them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
He says there are a lot of people that are saved Christians,
but let's face it, they're dishonoring Christ with their lives.
I mean, they're ungodly.
And he says, if you purge yourself from these,
then you'll be a vessel unto honor,
sanctified and meet for the master's use.
He says, yes, you're saved, yes, you're a child of God,
but don't you want to be used by God?
Don't you want to be meet for the master's use?
Don't you want to be a vessel that God can use?
Don't you want to be prepared to every good work?
It says in verse number 21.
Don't you want to be ready for some great work that God has for you to do?
Don't you want to be a fitting vessel that God can use?
You've got to purge yourself from people who are just totally living in sin
just because they call themselves a Christian.
See, the old friends, especially friends who are Christians,
especially friends that are saved
but want nothing to do with living for God,
they just want to live the sinful life.
They're saved, but they don't want to be sanctified.
They don't want to live a holy life.
They don't want to be in church.
They don't want to be a soul winner.
That's who you've got to purge yourself from.
You say, wait a minute.
I'm never supposed to hang around with anybody that's unsaved, right?
Wrong.
God says that if somebody's a fornicator, an idolater, a covetous person,
he said if they're unsaved, then it's not as bad to hang around them.
He says you can have a meal with them.
It's fine.
But he says if somebody who's called a brother is a fornicator,
an idolater, a covetous person, it says with such and one,
no, not even to eat.
He says don't even have a meal with somebody who's a Christian
who lives an ungodly, fornicating life.
That's what he says.
I mean, look, I'll go out to eat with somebody who's unsaved
that's a fornicator.
I'm not going to go out to eat with some person who's been saved
for ten years that's a fornicator.
Because God says I need to purge myself from these kind of people.
Those are the kind of people that will hold you back the most
in the Christian life, not the unsaved, worldly crowd.
And I'm not saying you should make them your buddies either.
Ideally, you're going to have good, godly Christian friends.
But these people who claim the name of Christ,
but they live worldly and ungodly,
those are the people that are going to mess you up the most.
And that's why God says if you want to be meat for the master's use,
if you want to be a vessel that can be used by God,
he says you must purge yourself from these.
And so number one, you've got to be purged from some of your habits
that you've developed over life that are contrary to the Bible.
You know, rock music, the movies with all the cursing and nudity
and all the filth and ungodliness.
You know, the clothing that's wrong, the sinful that you've maybe wore your whole life.
You've got to be purged of that.
And then also sometimes you've got to be purged from your liberal,
worldly Christian friends who justify all their sin
and their fornication and ungodliness.
Hey, you've got to be purged from them if you want to be used by God.
If you don't want to be used by God, then don't worry about it.
Do whatever you want.
And so we see that the purging process is so that we can bring forth more fruit.
Now you say, Pastor Anderson, I've been trying to purge myself of some of these things.
I've been trying to, you know, quit some of these things.
I've been trying to, you know, get rid of some of these addictions and sins
and hangups in my life and I'm just having a hard time.
And I've been trying to, you know, stop hanging around the worldly crowd
and I'm just having a bad time with it.
Well, look, let's say you're having a bad time with it.
Let's say you're having trouble purging yourself and having God purge you.
Well, then, look, just focus on bringing forth fruit then.
Because if you say, I tried and I can't get over it, look,
then just focus on bringing forth fruit and God will purge you.
Because he said every branch that's bringing forth fruit, he purges it
that it will bring forth more fruit.
And so you say, I tried to quit and I can't.
I tried to stop this and I can't.
Well, look, increase your soul winning.
Increase your preaching of the gospel and watch God begin to purge you.
I'll guarantee that God will purge you because God promised he would.
And so the Christian life's not just some do's and don'ts.
You know, like, wow, I'm such a great Christian because I didn't do this
and I didn't do this and I didn't do this.
Hey, if you didn't do everything and you never win somebody to Christ
and you never bring forth fruit, you're a failure in life.
But if you got a cigarette in one hand, you know,
and you got the wrong clothes on and you got, you know,
a rock music CD in the other hand and you win somebody to Christ like that,
I'd rather hang around with you any day than the person who quit all that stuff
and does not win souls.
See, winning souls is everything.
Bringing forth fruit is everything.
But the guy with the cigarette and the rock music CD,
pretty soon God's going to purge him of that if he keeps on bringing forth fruit.
And so that's where you have to keep your focus and say,
well, I want to purge myself so I can be used more by God,
but I try and I fail so I'm just going to keep bringing forth as much fruit as I can
and God will do the purging.
That's what you have to do.
Now, I'm not excusing sin and I'm not saying not to try to quit the sin,
but God will help you quit the sin if you're a fruit bearer,
if you're bringing forth the fruit.
But look back if you would at John chapter 15.
Look at John 15 and verse number 4 and I'm going to show you this.
The Bible 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 you except you abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abided in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit,
for without me you can do nothing.
So remember, step one, bring forth some fruit.
I don't care if you got saved yesterday or five minutes ago.
Bring forth fruit.
Number two, let God purge you so that you can bring forth more fruit.
And then number three, the most important part about this whole process
is that you've got to be abiding with Christ.
You've got to be as close to Jesus Christ as you can
in order to bring forth maximum fruit.
Now, how are you going to do that?
Well, look through this passage how many times this is mentioned.
It talks about abiding in him, being with him, having fellowship with him,
but look at verse number 9.
The Bible says, as the Father had loved me.
Watch how this word love comes up over and over.
As the Father had loved me, so have I loved you.
Continue ye in my love.
If you keep my commandments.
See, that's part of the purging right there.
If you 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.
Now look at the word love again in verse 12.
This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this,
than that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Now, you'll see him going back and forth between two things.
He's talking about keeping his commandments
and then having the right love.
Do you see how he goes back and forth?
He switched about four times.
He's talking about love and then he says,
if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.
And then he says, this is my commandment that you love one another.
And then he says, greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
And then verse 14, he says, you're my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.
And so he's going back and forth between this idea of obeying God
and abiding in his love by obeying him,
and then that's going to cause you to have love for the brethren
and love for other people.
So number one, you bring forth fruit.
Number two, you're purged so that you can bring forth more fruit.
And then number three, you get your heart and your love right
where you're keeping God's commandments,
because that's the purging that took place.
You're keeping his commandments,
and that causes you to be closer to God because you're keeping his commandments.
He says, you're my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.
That's how you can be my good friend.
And that's how you are abiding in Christ by keeping his commandments.
Well, what's the result of that?
You'll begin to have more of a love in your heart.
The love in your heart is what's going to cause you to bring forth more fruit.
Because if you think about it, what motivates me,
what motivated me yesterday to be out knocking on doors in the middle of the day,
in the high heat of the day, knocking on doors?
What motivated me to do that?
Why? Why did I do that?
There's one reason why I did that, because of love.
You see, if I love people, I'm going to give them the gospel.
I'm going to want to get them saved.
I mean, do you love your unsaved loved ones?
Do you love your friends that aren't saved?
I mean, if you believe the Bible, you know there's a heaven and there's a hell,
and that the only people that are saved are people that are trusting Jesus Christ alone for salvation,
that believe the record that God gave to the Son, that God has given to us eternal life.
Do you love your friends?
Do you love your loved ones? Do you love your relatives?
Do you love people that you come into contact with from day to day?
I mean, the people that you run into at work, do you love those people?
Do you just walk down the street and meet people just here in Tempe, Arizona,
and just see people?
Did you know that those are real human beings that you see,
just people that you walk by and don't really care about and see?
Did you know that every single human being that you see has a soul
that's one day going to go to heaven or hell?
Did you know that every single human being that you run into
is somebody who Jesus Christ has died on the cross for that person?
And he thinks about that person all day long,
and he has a plan for their life that he'd like to see happen,
and he'd like to see that person get saved?
Did you know that that person is important to God?
Did you know that he's an important person?
That person is somebody's mom or somebody's dad,
somebody's brother or sister or mother or child or nephew or uncle, aunt, cousin?
Hey, somebody is who that person is.
They're a real human being.
They're a person with a soul that you ought to love that person.
And when you walk down the street and you see people walking down the street,
does your heart ever break and you just say,
oh, God, help these people to be saved?
Yeah, you watch people, and they have no direction in life,
no purpose in life.
They don't understand anything about life.
They're unsaved.
They're going to live a stupid, miserable life of sin and whatever.
They try to have fun with all the drugs and the alcohol and the promiscuity,
and they just end up destroying their life.
Kids out of wedlock, they don't know who their dad is,
living off the government.
Their life's a mess, screaming and fighting and hating each other,
and then what happens?
They die and go to hell.
Boy, doesn't that break your heart?
Don't you love those people and also want to get them saved?
Don't you want to get them the gospel?
Hey, that love is what's going to motivate you to say,
I'm going to abide in Christ.
I'm going to abide in church.
I'm going to be in my Bible reading it.
I'm going to let God purge me.
What do I need this stupid music for?
What do I need this stupid clothes for that are wrong?
Well, what do I need it for?
I need to be used by God.
I need to be purged from these things.
I've got to get these people saved because I love them.
But you know, when there's a lack of purging that goes on,
when there's a lack of fruit bearing, it's only because of a lack of love.
But the closer you get to Jesus Christ, the more you read in this Bible,
the more you get in church and get out of the preaching of God's Word,
the more that you allow yourself to be purged,
the more that you begin to bring forth a little bit of fruit,
the more God will put that love inside of you.
And the Bible says the love of Christ constraineth us to preach the Gospel.
See, the love of Christ is forcing us practically.
I mean, because it's just inside of me,
this love that I have that makes me want to get everybody saved.
If my sin is going to hold me back from getting somebody to save
and that person is going to go to hell
because I wasn't meat for the Master's use,
because I wasn't a branch that was purged that could bring forth fruit,
what a tragedy.
We've got to have love in our hearts for our fellow man.
And see, it's all tied together.
See, you have to just jump into this cycle somewhere,
because bringing forth fruit makes God purge you.
God purges you, you bring forth more fruit,
and then because you bring forth more fruit, God purges you even more.
And then you have more love, and that makes you bring forth more fruit
because of the love, and now you're abiding in Christ,
so you bring forth more fruit, and then God purges you more,
which gives you the ability to produce more, and it goes on and on and on.
And you say, well, where do I jump into this cycle
of more fruit, love, purging, love, fruit, purging?
Where do I jump in?
You jump in with the fruit. That's where it starts.
You jump in, in verse number 2 at the beginning,
and he says, bring forth fruit, and I'll start purging you,
and we'll start this whole process.
And if you don't, you're going to be cast away.
You're going to be, as it says in verse number 6,
you're going to be withered up.
You're going to be a withered up branch that man just...
He said the only thing that they're good for,
he said if you think about a tree that has branches that die and fall off,
he says the only thing you can do is make a campfire with it, you know?
You get a warm feeling, but it doesn't produce anything worthwhile.
It doesn't produce any fruit.
And I'm going to tell you something.
There are churches all over that are withered up and dead.
They've withered and died, and maybe they even believe right,
but they're dead as a doornail when you walk in the door.
Nothing's happening. Nobody's getting saved. Nobody's getting baptized.
Nobody's excited about the things of God.
Nobody's excited about the Bible.
It's because they didn't bring forth fruit.
And if this church ever ceases to bring forth fruit, this church will die.
I don't care how many people we have.
I don't care if everybody here is still here and everybody's still reading the Bible
and everybody is still dressed right and they got their hair right
and they're following all the rules in the Bible.
This church ceases to bring forth fruit.
This church will die and wither up and be worthless and good for nothing.
That's what the Bible says.
We must bring forth fruit.
We must love our fellow man.
We must love one another enough to where we can see somebody that's on their way to hell
and love them enough to give them the gospel
and love them enough to be the kind of person that we need to be
where God could use us to see a multitude saved.
Hey, God doesn't use everybody the same.
God looks for the cleanest, most purged vessel he can, and that's who he uses.
That's why he used the apostle Paul greatly to see thousands and probably a million people saved.
That's why he used these men greatly.
And go ahead. Be worldly. Be not purged.
And you might see a couple people saved in your life if you're lucky, and praise the Lord for it.
That'd be great. You've still beat 99% of people.
But don't you want to be somebody who really glorifies God?
And don't you want to be somebody who brings forth much fruit?
I mean just multitudes of fruit. I mean just hundreds of people saved.
Hey, it's available to you. I don't care if you're male, female, rich, poor, talented, not talented, shy.
It's available to you. God can use you, no matter who you are, to see multitudes saved.
I promise you, anybody in this room could decide,
I am going to be a fruit-bearer. I'm going to do what God has said in this chapter.
And you could jump into this thing. I guarantee you that God could use you to bring forth huge amounts of people
went into Christ. Just watch. Just see what God can do.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, I thank you so much for the Bible and the promises of God.
I love how you just flat out say, if you abide in me, you're going to bring forth fruit.
I mean, every branch that abideth in me, bringing forth fruit, what a blessing.
All I have to do is abide in you, and I know I'm going to be productive.
I know I'm going to see people saved. I know I'm going to have fruit born.
And yeah, it's not going to be overnight, but I'm in it for the long haul. I'm in it for a lifetime.
So God, please, I beg of you, help me to abide closer to you than I am this morning.
Help everyone in this room to decide that their passion, the fire in their soul that's going to just compel them
and constrain them to say, I must abide in Christ. I must be purged. I must bring forth fruit.
People are dying going to hell, and I've got to bring forth fruit.
God, please, would you just stir us up? Help us to never lose our zeal.
Help this church not to wither up and die because of a lack of fruit.
Dear God, but please just use us and help us to be...