Now in this parable, it says that every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it so that it
will bring forth more fruit.
Now this is basically talking about trimming the tree.
So if there's a branch that brings forth fruit, he'll purge it so that it'll bring forth even
more fruit.
And that purging in our lives would be God removing sin from our life and helping us
to be cleaned up and more efficient in bringing forth fruit.
So what this is saying is that if we go out and win souls to Jesus Christ, I'm gonna
prove that in the sermon, that's what it's referring to, that God will then help us to
clean up other areas of our life.
Now a lot of people have this backwards.
They think, you know what, I need to get my life totally cleaned up, then I'm gonna go
out soul winning.
And in fact, it's the opposite.
We need to get out there and at least bring forth some fruit, then God will purge us,
then we'll bring forth even more fruit.
Now let me say this.
If you have a lot of junk in your life, you're not gonna bring forth much fruit.
But you still need to get out there and try to bring forth some fruit.
Because when God sees you bringing forth fruit, He says, "Here's a branch that I can purge
so that it can bring forth more fruit."
I don't believe in this thing of waiting to go soul winning until your life's all in order.
First of all, if you wait that long, you'll probably just never do it.
Because none of us have all our ducks in a row.
None of us are perfect.
None of us are fully a purged, perfect branch.
We all have sin in our life and imperfection within us.
And so if you're going to be waiting for that, you just wait and it never comes.
But a lot of people today think that they have to get certain sins out of their life
before they can do soul winning.
Look at the Bible and think about, for example, the woman at the well.
God used her to bring a lot of people to Jesus just immediately, just right away.
She didn't clean up her life.
A lot of other people that you see in the Bible, the same day they get saved, they're
soul winning.
The Apostle Paul was like that.
He gets saved and just immediately he goes out and starts preaching the gospel.
He had more to learn, but he still got out there right away.
Other people that you see in the Bible, like the guy that was demon possessed, he gets
saved and just right away he just goes out and starts preaching the word of God.
Why not?
I mean, and a lot of people will say this, "Well, I don't want to go soul winning until
I've cleaned up my life because I don't want to be a hypocrite."
Have you heard that one before?
Pretty common.
You don't want to be a hypocrite, you know, I'm telling people one thing, but here's the
thing.
When you go out soul winning, what message are you preaching?
The message that you're preaching is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be
saved.
You're not preaching clean up your life and you shall be saved.
So these people that say, "Oh, I don't want to go soul winning because I don't want to
be a hypocrite," makes you wonder, you know, do they understand the gospel?
The gospel is a free gift purchased by the blood of Jesus.
You're not out, look, Paul said we preach not ourselves, but we preach Jesus Christ.
We preach Him crucified.
So you're not a hypocrite telling people to believe on Jesus if you've believed on Jesus
and you're not a hypocrite.
Yeah, but I'm not living a perfect life, but are you telling people to live a perfect life
and you'll be saved?
No.
So that excuse goes out the window and that's just what it is, it's an excuse where people
are timid to get out there in the highways and hedges so they just come up with an "Oh,
I'm not ready yet," and then they're just never ready type of a thing.