(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, we're here in John chapter 15 and this is one of my favorite chapters in the book of John. And, you know, it's actually, I preached a whole sermon when I was a very active search on just the first eight verses. And I'm not going to re-preach that sermon. I'll cover a lot of the same material. But, quite honestly, John 15, especially at the beginning, is a very misunderstood passage in the Bible. Okay? Now to fully understand John chapter 15 when he talked about the parable of the divine and branches, you have to go to verse number 8 to understand what's going on, to understand the context. And what it says in John 15 verse 8 is this, Herein is my Father glorified, that he bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples. So to understand the context of the divine and branches, this is not a salvation parable. The point of this is to help you understand the purpose of our lives is to bear much fruits. Now we in this room, we understand what that's talking about. He that wineth souls is wise, but bearing fruit. The fruit of the righteous is the tree of life, and he that wineth souls is wise. So when he talks about bearing fruit, he's talking about us as Christians doing what we did all day. We started at 10.30 in the morning. We had one session of soul winning. Then we had a little bit of a break, had lunch. Then we had a second session, and then we had a break, and then we had a third session of soul winning today. Not just us, but other people from our church were out soul winning and preaching the gospel today. That is bearing fruit. And guess what? Our Father is glorified when we're bearing fruit. That is the importance to understand the context of this. We'll go back to this here in a little bit, but I want you to also see that it says, So shall you be my disciples. I've heard people say that every believer is a disciple. And that is the mark of being saved. Really saved if you're going to be a disciple. No, if you bear fruit, you're a disciple. But most Christians don't bear fruit. They don't get anybody saved. Therefore, they're not disciples. They're not really following the Lord. It doesn't mean that they're not saved. Look, if I had an apple, I guess I should have brought another piece of fruit for an analogy to understand tonight. But if I had an apple, and that apple just falls down here and just dies and rots in the ground and never produces any more apples, was it an apple? No. Yes it was, right? If I had an apple and it just falls, it was still an apple even though it didn't produce any other apples. And to say, well, you're not really a Christian unless you're bearing fruit. That doesn't even logically make sense with the popular. But I'm saying people can't understand the Bible. Look at verse number one. And this is a big parable where people say you can lose your salvation. And it's funny when Baptists will try to say they believe in eternal security and they'll try to talk about this parable and defend eternal security while still saying you've got to repent of your sins. It's like, how can we possibly do that? It doesn't make sense. You look at the fool when you try to do that. They don't understand the parable themselves, and they're not saved either by any large. It says in verse number one, I am a true vine, and my father is a husbandman. Every branch of me that there is not fruit be taken away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges that it may bring forth more fruit. And so what he says in verse number two is that there's some branches which bear fruit and some branches which don't bear fruit. It's like in any church, no matter how zealous the church is, at that church, there's going to be some branches that don't bear fruit. Now hopefully, especially if it's a Baptist church, they have at least some branches that are bearing fruit. But for sure there will be branches, there will be members that bear no fruit. So in a church even like ours, there are branches that bear fruit and there are branches that don't bear fruit. Now notice what it says, that if you don't bear fruit, it says he taken away. Every branch that beareth fruit, he purges that it may bring forth more fruit. Now what people do is take this parable and say, well see if you're not bearing fruit, you'll lose your salvation. What you have to understand is that this is a parable of the vine and the branches. Now this parable has never been confusing to me. When I first got saved, I perfectly understood it. There's a couple reasons why. One, because I'm saved and I hadn't heard false praise about it. And for number two, because this exact situation I dealt with every single year growing up. We would go to my grandfather's house and he had a big field with lots of trees and what ends up happening during the year. You know, my granddad was older, he couldn't take care of his backyard as much, so we would go out there and be like, Dad, and guess what? There would be trees where they had a lot of rotting branches and a lot of branches that fell on the ground. And what did you do to branches that were useless, that they were producing nothing? You break those branches off the tree. The ones that are rotten, right? Because they're getting in the way of the other branches producing fruit. So it's better if the rotting branches are just gone from the tree. Now a real understanding of how this works in a local church is quite honestly, as much as we love having people come to church, we hope they learn to work out, they train, they grow and things like that. In fact, if this church was filled full of mostly people that didn't preach the gospel, they would get in the way of all of us. That is the truth. They would persecute those that are bearing fruits, they would be mad at those bearing fruits, they would just be a hindrance, they wouldn't be a help. Because we would spend all of our time trying to motivate them to go soul warning and it would be demotivating to us. You come back and you say, I've got three people saved. Do they really get saved? I mean, do they get baptized? I mean, I didn't see them hit the water. Are you sure they got saved? I mean, I know that they said that they confessed. I know that they said that they believed. Maybe they were just a young person. I mean, why would you say something like that? Why are you trying to kill the zeal of those growing soil? But that's what happens when you have a church with few branches that are producing fruit and lots of branches that don't. Now with this church, that's not our problem. Every single week we have more branches that bear fruit than that don't bear fruit. And I believe it's always going to be like that. And quite honestly, I think God wants it like that. And he'd rather it grow at a steady rate because he wants to make sure there's always a good portion of the church bearing fruit. Because if we just immediately skyrocket to the morrow and had 20 minutes of people that do not bear any fruit, it could honestly be an hindrance to us. It's not necessarily a bad thing that a church steadily is slowly growing. Because if it just massively grows overnight, you're not likely to have a large percentage of soul owners. And it's better to have a large percentage of soul owners so when new people come in, you can train them and teach them and educate them and help them. And they don't just get filled with a bunch of people that don't produce any fruit. So that's what's going on with this parable. It's just that if you have a branch that's not bearing fruit, it gets in the way of a tree. It's not peaceful. Look, in the house that I had in Sacramento, in my backyard, there'd be branches that start to rot. The other branches are producing leaves, they look nice, it's a beautiful tree. But then there'd be branches that just start to die. And guess what you do? You end up taking a machete and chopping those things off. I find my tree with my machete and just chop those branches off. You say, why? Because they're getting in the way of the rest of the tree. They're a hindrance, they're not a help, they're not good for it. So that's what happens to bad branches. And see, this is an analogy not of my believers. It's an analogy of believers that don't bear fruit. Now look, if there's going to be believers that bear no fruit and never go soul winning and have no love for soul winning and don't care about them whatsoever, I'm not talking about people that maybe have health problems and they can't go if they like to. I'm talking about people that just literally just don't care about soul winning. Look, you know, they're welcome to go to offensive church down the road. Now obviously we welcome them to church, we praise the word of God, we hope they're going to change. But look, they're never going to change by honestly God might rather have them at one of the Bible Baptist churches. Why? Because of the fact that they're probably going to fit in a little bit better there. Because it won't really be a help to us. I want our church to grow, I want new people to come, I want people to leave those dead churches. But you know, if they're going to leave, what's going to help us is that they actually join in on the world, especially the work of God of soul winning. But it says about the branches that bear fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now look, it's not a pleasant experience for a branch to be purged. Us as believers, it's not really a pleasant experience to be purged when we bear more fruit. When God makes you feel guilty about the music you listen to, he makes you feel guilty about what you spend your time doing, what you're watching, the places you go, the things you allow yourself to see and to hear, things like that. It's not always a pleasant experience. Look, you know, for me, when I got rid of all the music I used to listen to, you're thinking, man, if I had never spent all that money, that's a lot of money I'm just throwing down the drain, right? I mean, it's not pleasant when you see and you feel guilty about the stuff you're doing. It's not pleasant, okay? But you have to realize the reason why is that you may bear forth more fruit. Look, do not be mad at me if I preach hard against something. Why? Because of the fact that I'm here to try to help motivate you to bear more fruit, okay? Look, I'm no different than you. Some of these things have on my toes as well, but I try the best I can to preach everything in the Bible. I try not to hold back on anything. I'm not perfect on anything. I don't have some hidden sin in my life or anything like that. But I'm still guilty of some of the things that I preach and I need to preach it as much as you guys do. Let's not get mad if the preaching goes against that one thing that you're struggling with. That is meant to help you bear forth more fruit, okay? This is something that God wants. He wants you to make changes in your life. Your entire life, you're meant to be making changes. You're never going to reach a point where you've got everything figured out, okay? God is going to want you to always make changes. It's never going to be pleasant. It's never going to be fun. It's never going to be easy, but it's done so that you can bear more fruit. That's the reason why. Verse number three. Notice what he says. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken on you. Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken on you. Very clearly what he's saying is you are clean or made clean or you receive salvation, you receive everlasting life. Why? Or how? Through the word. That's what the Bible says. Now turn to John 13. Let's cross reference it and show that this is the case. Let's see that being clean here. He's talking about spiritual salvation. Now notice what it says in John 13, verse 10. Jesus saith to him, he that is washed, he that is not saved who washes his feet, but is clean in every way. And ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him, and therefore said, Ye are not all clean. When he's talking about who's going to betray him, he's talking about Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot was never saved. We know that. He was never a believer. He was the devil. And he was never clean. He's like, you're not all clean. You're not all saved. Why? Because Judas Iscariot is not saved himself. So go back to John 15. And so notice what it says in verse number three, that ye are clean through the word which I have spoken on you. Now there is a sense that we are also not only spiritually made clean through salvation through the word of God, but also even just kind of a daily cleansed. You're also clean through the times you hear the word of God. That's why with sermons, there needs to be a lot of word of God in your sermons. That's what helps cleanse you and continue making you more clean and help get sin out of your life. But the initial time that you get made clean is also through the word of God. Every single person in the world that is saying that God is saved through the word of God. That is what the Bible says. Now this is something that is always going to be a fighting point. Because people like to tell us about that testimony they heard. And I never heard anybody use the King James Bible. I never heard anybody use the word of God. And I just kind of, you know, whatever, I heard some sort of testimony and it got really emotional. I prayed a prayer and that's why I'm saying, look, I don't believe this. I don't care what the personal experience is because the Bible says you're clean through the word which I have spoken on you. And look, the NIV is not the word of God. The New King James is not the word of God. They make changes in those ones. Now, if you could find, now here's the thing about this. People say, you're saved before 1611, nobody got saved in the English language. That's not what I'm saying. You say, why? Because the Bibles before the King James were very similar. When I say similar, a lot of the verses were the exact same. And so, yes, you know what, you could meet someone in the Lord and, you know, the Bible is the kingdom for you. And I haven't read all of them. I'm not saying that I've read every single one. But I'm just saying, you know, this argument of the King James versus the other verses, this is not the same thing as the King James versus the Great Bible or the Father in the Bible or those other Bibles that came before. It's not the same thing at all. Those ones were actually trying to have a perfect Bible. Whereas the ones that make the new ones, they were intentionally corrupting the Lord. And, yes, you know, people could get saved if you showed them verses from the ones that came before 1611. So, yes, before 1611, they could get saved in the English language. But before they even had a Bible in the English language, they could get saved in the English language. You say, why? Because you can translate the word got from one language to another. If you speak that language, you could actually translate it. Now, yes, there would be some things that are hard to translate, but there are also some things that wouldn't be that hard to translate. The gift of God is eternal life, okay? Look, you don't need to be an expert to understand how to translate that. You can figure out how to translate that in a lot of languages without being an expert at that language. Look, I remember when I first visited the Philippines in 2014, September of 2014, and I remember that I was talking to someone that did not speak great English, and I remember my wife, you know, was preaching the Gospel of God to that person, and that person got saved, okay? And they did not understand English very well, so it wasn't the King James Bible, but she translated it into English. You say, well, how do you know that person got saved? Well, obviously, we go off what they say. You know, we can't know 100% for sure. But quite honestly, I'm about as confident as that as anyone I've ever met in my life. You say, why? Because right afterwards, they hand it to Catherine Idol and say, now that I have Jesus, I don't need to see him. Not only that, but two years later, they answered me on Facebook, saying, man, I was so, so thankful for when you talked to me a couple of years ago. I mean, they certainly seemed to understand, okay, Catholicism is straight out of them. Amen. They completely rejected Catholicism. Amen. Why? Because you can translate from one language to another. Okay? Look, Brother Herman can preach the Gospel in six languages. Translate from one to another. Look, there's certain phrases that aren't that hard. The gift of God, that's not that hard to translate. Okay? You can translate from one language to another. Okay? So, yes, you know, people can get saved before 1611 in the King James Bible. But anyone who got saved in the English language, they were hearing the words of God in that language. That is right. Okay? In Acts 2, the word of God is translated into all manner of languages. Yep. And it can be translated into any language. There's nothing magical about English. There's nothing magical about Greek or Hebrew. There's nothing magical about the Arabic language or the Muslims. There's nothing magical about these languages. No, the word of God can be put into any language. You say, why? Because God's the one who created languages. Amen. Right. He's outside. Like, look, the word of God was settled in heaven before we were even alive and before this world was created. I mean, before Adam and Eve, the word was already settled up in heaven. Yeah. And so the word of God gets proclaimed on earth because people claimed it in any language. Amen. That's right. Now notice what it says in verse number four. So people that are on stage would say, see, if you don't abide in the vine, you're going to lose your salvation. Now, is that what that says? No. No. It says that you can't bear fruit. And this is really a good test of whether somebody's safe. You want to find out if somebody's safe, you know, and it's possible people could be confused. 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When you think about bearing fruits, one person saved per week in a year is 52 salvations. That is a doable number in a lot of places, not just here in the Philippines. In the U.S. that is a doable number. Now, you might have to do a lot of sewing. You might have to really be looking for opportunities in your personal life, like you get off work. When I just lived in Maryland on my lunch break when it wasn't raining, when it wasn't snowing, when it wasn't really cold, when the weather was good, I would usually go out walking for an hour. So I would go out walking for an hour and I would just have something I was memorizing or something like that. And I was always just praying every day, you know, God gave me opportunities to preach the gospel. And you know, I can't say this happened every day, but I'll tell you what, when I was really zealous and really looking for those opportunities and really writing about it, honestly there was like times where most days, at lunch, I'd want someone in the Lord. And these are just people walking by. I was not the Lord. It was just people. And look, the U.S. is not super crowded like the Philippines with tons of people. But I was just kind of going for a walk, which, you know, the place we were, you know, it was kind of a nice walk. I started to walk out like five, ten minutes to go to the area I was. Just kind of walk and just look for an opportunity. Everybody would stop, you know, walk by me or whatever. I would stop and try to preach the gospel. And quite honestly, I had a lot of times where I was coming back excited. We said, why? It was in the most receptive area. It was not the most receptive area. But you know, God can set up the appointments because there's not a lot of us that are preaching the gospel. And there was one time specifically that I remember where I talked to this guy and he was sort of depressed because he didn't tell me what he had done. But he had to go to Maryland. You know, he was on trial for something. He had done something. And when he was traveling across the country, I think it was like some sort of speeding or car violation. And he lived in Illinois. So you had to go back to court for specifically this one thing. And so he was there just like killing time. And he was like, yeah, you're not from Illinois. You know, I don't even, you know, live here. And I was just thinking, hey, so God sent you here. I didn't tell him that. But I'm thinking God sent you here so you could preach the gospel. He ended up being saved. That's honestly why I believe. And what was really interesting is because we had done a couple of so many marathons. We had done one in New York. Boston was the first one and then New York City. Just me and some of my friends from Rich Designs, brother Jeff Butsters, some other people you guys might know. And then some other people that were kind of in the movement at the time. There was a lot of smaller school. We only had a small group of eight or ten people we had in the location. We're planning to do one in Chicago, Illinois. But quite honestly, there just wasn't enough people interested in it. So we're like, you know, this is like 12 hour crash crossing. My focus is only nearby. I'm only going to have like four or five people. But it was like just within a few weeks after that, this person from Illinois. I tend to think that one of us won an 11th award in Chicago. You know, I couldn't be wrong, but it seemed like quite a big coincidence to me. What I'm saying is this, that no matter where you live, you can bring forth much fruit. And you've got these missionaries that have this story about how, in my area, I can't get anybody to say, well, I don't believe it. Because the Bible says you can bring forth much fruit. It might be more difficult, but if it's so difficult that you can't conquer that battle, why did you beat that battle? And don't tell me what the Lord gave you. Look, if you can't run anyone to the Lord, then that's not what God wants you. I don't care what time period either. Because in the Old Testament, it doesn't say during this time period or in the future. During the Old Testament, all of them won lots of people. All of the people that wrote the Bible, that were prophets of God. Jeremiah won tons of them. Amen. Isaiah won tons of them. All of them. Ezekiel won tons of them. You say, why doesn't it mention them winning all these people in the Lord if that's what they did? Let me explain something to you. Let's say, for example, that the Bible was written in the modern day. And the Bible is talking about very Baptist church in Sacramento. You know what it would probably highlight? It would probably highlight the protest where we had 500 plus sodomites outside. Does that mean that we weren't doing any soloing? No, we were doing soloing. That's why we got a protest. But the significant event that you would write down is the fact that we would protest by about 500 people. Jeremiah preached a lot of stuff that was really significant. That doesn't change the fact that he was still a soloist. You will never be used greatly by God. Nevertheless, you're abiding divine. If you abide divine by the promises of the airport from the truth, it doesn't matter when you live or where you live. That's what the Bible says. Now notice what it says in verse number 6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch in his wither, and then gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. So this is the big verse they use to say you can lose your salvation. This is one of the big arguments. Probably top five, at least top ten though. Let's say you can lose your salvation. This is the verse they use. Why do they do that? Well, it talks about into the fire, and they are burned. Now first off, this is not a salvation parable. That's an important thing to understand. Remember, in verse 8, here in this my father glorified that you can bear much fruit. It's not a salvation parable, but I want you to understand something. Go back to the analogy I said growing up where you have trees that would have branches that were basically in the way. You would cut off those branches, all of them, and when you have a lot of trees, you have a lot of branches on the ground, you have a lot of weeds, you have a big mess in the backyard. You say, what do you do to get rid of those branches and those leaves? Here's what you do. You have something called a big brown pile. You put them all together and you set them on the lathes. That's what you do. What do you do? You get a wheelbarrow. You get a giant wheelbarrow where you basically load it full of branches and then you put it to the burn pile. So basically you do this all day and the burning of the branches is the last thing all done at the same time. Now if what they're saying is correct about these branches, because notice these branches are gathered and cast into the fire and the burn. They're burned at the same time. Look, if this was affirmed to someone losing their salvation, when people die unsaved, they immediately go to hell. You don't wait to gather a bunch of unsaved people and cast them into hell. It happens immediately. This has nothing to do with people going to hell. You say, why is it that you do it all at one time? Because it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to cut off one branch and burn it and then cut off the next branch and burn it and then the next branch. You've got thousands of branches. You gather them together, you put them in a burn pile and you set it ablaze. That is what we do. Here what it sounds like is they basically have something burning, maybe a snow rub or something and they gather them and throw them all in. But you're still throwing a bunch at one time and it makes sense to gather them into one spot. Look, when you sweep the floor, what do you do? You sweep all of the dirt and everything into one spot. Right? That's common sense. You say, why don't they get it? Because they're not safe. Amen. They don't understand. This is not a complicated character. It really is not complicated. We need to stop and just think about what the Bible is saying. And it's not complicated for us as believers. This is exactly what it's talking about. Often, Jesus would use parables. You say, why? Because people that are saved understand them. People that are unsaved don't understand the Bible. There are sometimes parables or dark ones that are confusing. But by and large, didn't Jesus say he would speak to the unsaved or would not understand what he's saying? They didn't get it. Now, we understand this because you start off with the fact that, wait a minute. You never lose your salvation. So that's not what it's talking about. That's the first thing. We know you can't lose your salvation. Whereas them, they think you can lose your salvation. So they see fire and they think you can talk about losing your salvation. They don't stop to think about it because of the fact that they already believe that you can lose your salvation. They think that this is what it's teaching. They don't understand the Bible at all. This is a parable talking about bearing fruit. What it's basically saying is this. That if you're a Christian, that does not help lend souls to the Lord. You're just in the light. You're essentially useless. When I preached this sermon on this topic, I remember somebody, you know. It's funny because sometimes you can see things on YouTube and then people make comments and they disappear. And somehow I saw this person's comment. Maybe then it was gone. And this person at the time was like supposedly in this movie. Now he's like one of these guys or whatever. What a shock. But he was really offended by what I said. He's like I know you didn't really mean this but you know at the 50 whatever minute mark, you said that you know if you're a Christian then you're not bearing fruit that you're useless to God. No, no, no, no. That's exactly what I meant. That's exactly what I meant. Okay. It wasn't out of context. I meant exactly that. That if you're a Christian, that's what this whole parable is about. It's like I preached this sermon for like an hour. And that's my whole point. Is that if you're not bearing fruit, you're useless. It's like how did you like that sermon? That was the whole point of the sermon. I'm sorry if you don't go solo. And I understand the fact that you know some people might have health problems. There can be exceptions. But by and large, I mean in this room, aren't we all in the enough shaped priests of the gospel? Aren't we all in the enough shaped priests of the gospel? Aren't most people in the enough shaped priests of the gospel? Most people have the ability to think in truth. Right. Because they have a lot of excuses. And quite honestly, they're not very valuable. Yeah. I understand our lives can be busy. Make some time. I'm not saying we have to do so only as much as the other people. We're not comparing ourselves to mom and child. We're making different schedules. But you've got to find some time to bear fruit. Amen. That's great. Why is this so important? Well notice what it says in verse 7. If you abide me in my words of adieu, he shafts a foot in the moon and it should be done unto you. Here it is, my father glorified. That you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples. Okay. Now notice what it says in verse 7. That if you ask what you will, shall be done unto you. There's right there, and I don't want to go on a side tangent. But basically when you pray to God, you're much more likely to get your prayers answered if you're living in abiding by him. Amen. That's right. That's when you get your prayers answered. That's true. See right here. You committed adultery last night. And then all of a sudden you say, God, please bless me with pay raise. It's like, what's wrong with that? You know, it's like my son, if my son's going to rebel against me and break all of my rules and this and that, you know, I'm going to sorbete. It's like, well, I'm sorbete, son. The ruse is coming. You're not getting the sorbetes. You're going to get the punishment. All right. Look, you know, if we want God to answer our prayers, we need to be abiding in the word. Abiding in the word. Okay. Verse number 8. How is our father glorified according to this Christian? Thank you very much for reading. John Piper, who is probably the most famous Calvinist that hasn't yet kicked the bucket of God to hell. John Piper, he wrote an article and says, how does it glorify God before he gets some people to help? That's a great question. How would that glorify God? Because my Bible says our father is glorified when we bear fruit. When we basically save people from hell and they believe on Jesus Christ. And they can say, according to John Piper, it's the other way around. God is glorified when we don't get saved. Praise the Lord that they didn't get saved so God can send them to hell. Look, I preached the Gospel to some people today that did not get saved. And according to John Piper, apparently, apparently according to John Piper, God is glorified when those people weren't. No, God says he's glorified when we bear fruit. When we save them from hell. He doesn't want them to go to hell. Amen. They reject him long enough and they never believe they get sent to hell, but he doesn't one day. That's the whole reason why he sent us forth to preach the Gospel so people would not go to hell. That's why he died for everybody. He doesn't want them to go to hell. But he's not glorifying predestined people to hell. What kind of a monster? And look, I'll tell you what, this is the honest truth about cowardice. And this is my big doctrine. I'll tell you what, when it comes to people that are in cowardice churches, that doesn't necessarily mean that for someone, for a church here in the Philippines, that might be the best church in America. And my advice, do everything you can to move or pray that you can because that's just an equation. But for those that are in churches like that, even maybe in America, maybe some people are saved and not that knowledgeable about the Bible. Or they don't realize how I was in a cowardice church for a year and I didn't grow up in a pastor with cowardice. I'm sure he used a lot of key words, but I had only been saved for a year and a half. But he lied about being cowardice. He said he wasn't. My pastor wasn't lying, but apparently he was, hardcore cowardice. But here's the thing about this. When it comes to cowardice that are members of churches, you know, most of them are just ordinary. They're tough to get saved because they've got a false religion attached to them. It's not just like getting a Catholic state that doesn't even deal with anything, really. But, you know, when it comes to the ones that are these preachers and leaders, these people are monsters. Right, right. They are monsters. John Piper is a monster. John MacArthur is a monster. All of these high-level Catholics, they'll be monsters. Out of what mind would you say that God wants people to burn in hell? I mean, what in the world? What kind of God do you worship? I mean, there's one guy, I don't remember his name. I think I might have the name, but I don't want to guess. I don't want to misquote or whatever. But this guy, what he said is this. He's a famous columnist as well. He said, every person before they're saved hates God and wants to kill God. Wow. What? They want to kill God? Look, I'm sorry, but that thought never even came into my mind. What in the world kind of person would have that? Look, if that came into their mind, you know, I'll tell you what happened. That person was a wicked person who became a reprobate, and then the devil wanted to use it for his glory. Instead of God's glory, the devil said, you know what, I'll make this guy religious and he can be one of my best Calvinist preachers. He's a godly person. That's the truth. Because some people, I've noticed this, some people that are very wicked people end up becoming hardcore religious and not saved. So why is that happening? Because the devil's like, I can really use this person. That's the truth. And anyone who would say that they hated God and wanted to kill God. I'm sorry, but doesn't the Bible talk about haters of God? I'm sorry, that's not a normal desire. I've never hated God. And so it's ridiculous to say that God is glorified and sinned. He doesn't want people to think that's ridiculous. That's all the Bible says. Any normal person, any normal person would say that as well. Not just saved people. Any normal person would say that. I mean, I always tell people this during my Zona presentation. I always say mali ha'ma halata'im na'minu. After I've told them about the judgment of God and Revelation 21a, I'm getting the bad news. It's like, well obviously God loves us. And I don't want them to think I'm just there saying, of course God loves us. Everybody's agreeing with that that I've said. But apparently if I run into a Calvinist or John Piper, he's going to say, no, I don't agree with that. No, that's not true. That's not obvious that God loves us. It's like, well you serve a different God than I do. Okay. Verse number nine. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. And so once again, he says, Jesus says the Father loved him. And he's like, I loved you. Once again we're seeing the distinction between the Father and the Son. Verse number 10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide my love, even as I kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. So what you see is that the Lord is trying to propel him to deliver God. He's saying, keep my commandments. Continue ye in my love. Say, what does that teach you? It teaches you it's not automatic. If he has to say, hey, continue. Hey, keep my commandments. Once again, this Calvinistic idea, or this repentance of sins idea, that it's automatic. And why is it that every great man of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and every great man of God, when they're preaching, they're always trying to motivate people to really forgive. Look, if it's automatic, you wouldn't have to do that. That's true. It doesn't really make any sense. And so verse number 11. These things that I have spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Now, I want you to notice here in verses 12 and 13, that he says, as I have loved you. Now, Jesus has not died of a cross yet. But when he's saying, as I have loved you, in the past tense. In verse number 13, he says, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And I understand that Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world. But honestly, more than that, what I'm trying to teach you here is that there's a symbolic laying down of your life. Okay? And we, just as the Lord has loved us, we can lay down our lives each and every day. Look, when you get married, one of the big parts of marriage is that the husband of life lay down the lives of your spouse. He's saying, you know, I don't wonder what's better for my spouse who I'm married to. That's a big part of marriage. Yeah. Is that you're just willing to lay down the life. Look, when you get married, you have to understand something. You're not always going to see eye to eye. Things are going to come up. Now, some things seem small, but quite honestly, you've done something the same way for 25 years. You know, for 25 years, you know, you put the toilet paper this way versus the other way. For 25 years, you know, you say, I'd like to get the dishes clean before we go to bed at night. Where as the other person, you know, lets them sit overnight. When you have, there's a lot of things like that. Those seem like small things, but when you have like a million things like that, they will love you. Right. It's natural. That's what happens when you first get married where you're frustrated with some of the things you're supposed to do. Your husband has always left his shoes, you know, in his room. And you're upset because you think they should be careful. Those things happen. When you get married, there are definitely things where you have two sides. And guess what? You've got to find a way to compromise. The answer is not the husband saying, hey, I'm the husband. You just do what I say. That's not the answer to having to get back to marriage. It doesn't work that way. Now there might be certain things that are important to you and you want it done a certain way. I understand that. But honestly, the answer is to make some sort of compromise. What you're doing is laying down your life every day. Right. That is the secret. You say, is that easy? Of course it's not easy. That's the whole purpose of the Christian life is to lay down your life. Is it easy? See, actually living the Christian life prepares you for marriage. Because living the Christian life, you're laying down your life all the time. It helps prepare you for marriage. Because that is what you're doing when you get married. Then once you get married and have kids, what are you doing? You're basically laying down your life for the betterment of your kids. That's what you're doing. You're exhausted when you get home from work. You say, no, I need to teach my son more to God. I need the same hands. I need to spend time with my son. I need to spend time with my daughter. See, the Christian life is a great thing because it's difficult because it prepares you for other things in life. Because life is not easy. Life is difficult. And so when it comes to this idea of laying down your life, to the best of our ability, we should try to lay down our life for others. And when it comes to marriage, quite honestly, it's going to be both sides laying down their lives for the other person. That is the secret. Now that's not easy. But that is one of the best things when having a marriage to lay down your life for the person you're married to. Verse number 14. You're my friend if you do whatsoever I command you. And so verse 14, he has a prerequisite on being friends with him. If he do whatsoever I command you. You are a friend of God and you're also actually doing his deeds. He's doing his command. He's doing what he tells you to do. Turn to James 4. James 4. And we'll try to fly through these last words. I spent more time than I wanted on opening parable. But it's a really interesting parable. It's a great chapter in the Lord of God. It's not a long chapter in the John, but it is a great chapter. James 4 verse 4. He adulterous and adulterous says no need not for the friendship of the world is an entity with God. Whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. The sad reality is a lot of safe people are enemies of God. Because you basically have two sides. The side of the world versus the side of God. And if you're not on the side of God, you're on the side of the world. There's no industry. I prefer the side. I might not be as motivated as other people. I don't really be by them much. I don't really know so much. I'm still on your side. You're not on our side unless you're all the way. If you don't go so many, you're not on our side. You're on the other side. You're farming. You're not helping. You say how do you do that? Because you're branches that are getting in the way. That's what Bible says. That's what the beginning of this chapter is about. And what it says in James 4 verse 4. Be adulterous and adulterous. What does that mean? It means that there's some people that are safe. Some men and some women that are going boring around on God. And going after other gods and other desires that they have. Becoming a friend of the world. Defending the sodomites agenda. Yeah, right. The sodomites persecute us. They hate our guts. Right, yeah. Everywhere you go, you go on Google. You see all this rainbow stuff this month. You go on Facebook and put up a live video. All this rainbow stuff. Hey, do you want to put your video with all these rainbow posts? No, I don't. Right. I'm OK without it. And then you've got Christians that say, oh, we'll just keep it running. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So? It's good. I mean, answer that question. Whose side are you honestly on? Look, if there's some preacher that goes overboard on preaching against the sodomites, I won't be mad at that preacher. Yeah. Why would you be mad if you went a little bit overboard? Isn't it a bigger problem if you're actually praising the sodomites? Right. And you know, here's the thing that's funny about this. Baptists, most Baptists think sodomites exist. Most Satan people think sodomites exist. Go on. But they think it's very difficult for them to exist. They think it's very rare. It's like, you know, yeah, I've never seen it in my lifetime. But you know, I've heard of cases. It's like a one in a million cases. Look, if it's so incredibly difficult, which I don't believe them get Satan. If it's so incredibly difficult, why don't you worry about just the normal unsaved Catholic out there? Why are you so concerned about this one person? Maybe you can just catch that, you know, like a pink elephant you're chasing after, a pink uniform you're chasing after. One! To get saved. Look, it's not going to happen. Right. It's like, why are you concerned if it's something that's so incredibly rare? Look, we went so many, I don't know how many hours our church went sowing today. As a church, from everyone going sowing, you know, and just here, I know Brother Chris went sowing, maybe some other people. We had 12 saved in this area. Look, considering how many people went out sowing, it was a lot more than 12 hours of sowing. Right. Just in the morning session, four people, an hour and 45 minutes maybe. That's seven hours of sowing. The second session, we were a little bit tired. There was five of us, though. I think there was a little bit less sowing, but we were still probably five hours. And then that's 12 hours, not even counting the last session. But we spent, it was more than one hour for salvation. It was difficult sowing for us. Right. It's not bad in other areas. For us, it was difficult. It was difficult. Okay. Look, we're spending all this time, why do they worry about that one person making no sowing? It's ridiculous. They're just trying to justify their actions, what's going on. Turn to James 2. And remember, what we're talking about is being friends, okay, with God. There is some prerequisite to being friends with God. It is not automatic. You're actually expecting it to be when he says it. It says, James 2, verse 23 and 24, and the scripture was fulfilled to say, Abraham believed God, and he was imputed unto him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God. Why was he called the friend of God? You see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only. You see that? We're justified by our works. Why? Because that is a prerequisite to being the friend of God. Right. This has nothing to do with salvation, once again. The unsaved people always don't understand stuff. John 15, James 2. No, if you want to be the friend of God, you're justified by our works and your faith. That's right. That's how you're a friend of God. If you're not a friend of God, you're not doing his will. It's so confused on James 2. I don't understand it. No, he's talking about doing the works and having faith. He's not talking about spiritual salvation. You're justified by works, okay? That has nothing to do with spiritual salvation. That's true. Abraham was not justified by his works in terms of getting to heaven, but if you want to be a friend of God, you've got to do the works. Right, nice. So it says in James 2, verses 23 and 24. Now go back to John 15. Back to John 15. And you know, that ought to be important to us, to want to be friends with God. It should be important to us, okay? John 15, verse 15. Henceforth I call you not a servant, because a servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known on you. Now, this is kind of a really touching verse when he talks about being a friend. He says, I'm not calling you servants. Aren't we all servants of the Lord? Yeah. That is what we're expected to do. But he said, you know, you're not just a servant. You're a friend. It would be like if you had somebody that worked for you. If somebody works for you, they are expected to do what you tell them to do. Right. Okay, now if you're smart, you're going to be a nice boss. But the people that work for you, you that have, you know, bosses, you're expected to do what your boss says. And you know, he can just order you around all the time. He says, you know what? He says, you know what? I will get you not just as a worker or an employee. I will get you as a friend. There's a strong saying in Jesus' name. Because we are all just servants. The problem is, what he's saying for us, it actually goes well for men. You're not just a servant. You're a friend. It's like a parabellum. I love it. That's what he's saying. Verse number 16. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And ordained you that you should go and bear, bring forth fruit. And that your fruit should remain, and whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, you may give to you. Boy, the Calvinist's love is first. The story of the rest of John 15. And you go off your crazy interpretation. See, he's chosen us. We did not choose him. OK? What has he chosen us to do? He says he had not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that, that word there, that is connecting what was just said and what's about to be said, that you should go and bring forth fruit. And that your fruit should remain. What did he say? I will ordain you and chosen you to bear fruit. Amen. It's not confusing because it's a saved person. He has chosen us to be the ones to win people in the world. Right. It's not the job of angels. Right. God's not going to come down and have increased gospel with him. Yes. He has chosen us that are saved to bear fruit. That's what he says. That's right. It has nothing to do with salvation. This whole chapter has nothing to do with salvation. It's funny because the Calvinist will claim for you to turn security. It's funny because the people that say you can lose your salvation at the beginning of John 15, they seem to have the same interpretation as you because here you are saying this is something to do with salvation. What does this have to do with salvation? It's talking about bearing fruit, bringing forth fruit, and he's chosen believers to bring forth fruit. He's given to us the ministry of reconciliation. That's what the Bible says. Right. He hasn't chosen us. Now, he's chosen us for salvation based on if we believe on him. No, that. That is mentioned in the Bible. That's not what this verse is talking about. And I've heard them quote this verse. This verse has nothing to do with that. And yes, he has chosen us to salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit and believe of the truth. Believe of the truth. We believe. Okay. That's why he's chosen us for salvation because we believe. But this verse is just talking about being chosen to bring forth fruit. And this is a very important thing to understand because Calvinists will use words like chosen and they'll say things like, well, see, this is what this means. You can be chosen for a lot of different things in your life. Right. Yeah. It's not just in reference to salvation. It sometimes is in reference to salvation. In John 15 verse 16 it says nothing to do with salvation. When you talk about bringing forth fruit. Verse number 17, these things I command you that you love one another. So he's commanding these things. And it says he's commanding these things that you love one another. He wants us to love one another. If we're doing his will and obeying him, we will love one another. The Bible says in verse 18, if the world hates you, he know that it hated before it hated you. If you were out in the world, the world would love his own. But because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hated you. So what the Bible says is that the world loves his own. If you are loved by the world, then that means you're not of the world. Right. Yeah. Now I want you to understand the difference here because the Bible says we have the ability to get peace and development as much as possible. We have peace development. You know, and people let you know it shouldn't work. General people shouldn't like you and think you're a nice person. That's not a jerk. I'm not talking about people who all think you're a jerk. But what I'm saying is the fact that when you believe certain things, the world will automatically hate you. Now, look, when I worked on my little job in Maryland, you know, people just thought of me as a hard worker and everything. Everyone liked me. Then all of a sudden they found out, oh, this is what he believes. And I never even said what I believed. And then somehow everybody knew what I believed. And it's just like, you know, you're all in the principal's office. You're in the boss's office. And I was in trouble for believing certain things. Okay. And I asked them. I was there, you know, and they said, you've never had this situation come up. And it's like, I said, I've never said anything about what I believe or what I can say. They talked about the part that I'm sexist with women. That's one thing. And that I even saw it. It's like, I've never even said anything before. And, you know, I told them. And I didn't look. And I didn't try to backpedal and say, no, no, no, that was something bad. Do you know what I said? Because, look, I worked hard to make this job. I went down there three times. One of these jobs was in the career field. I went and I was able to stay in the area where I was living. So I had facility insurance with union right parents. I wanted this job. The only company. You know what I told them? I said, well, what are you telling me? Are you telling me you fired? You know, I'm not going to apologize for what I did. That's what I told them. And they said, well, they said, we talked to all your co-workers and we weren't sure what to do. And they said, all of them said they didn't really do the work for themselves. And so I was like, so you're basically saying you would fire me for that. I was like, OK. And I was like, I just want to make sure that you're not going to change your mind. That's what I told them. And they said, you know, basically, you know that it was fine. I said, hey, I never talked about what I believed in. During lunch, I said, everybody knows, I read my Bible. I'm just here to work. And I don't care what anybody believes. People can believe whatever they want. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I'm just here to work. That's why I got that. And so that was the situation I was in. Basically, I called the principal's office. I was a little kid or something. I did something wrong. And then it was funny because a few weeks later, they had some sort of class for everybody at work. And I'm assuming it's because of me. It was like a class, not diversity. We're basically being accepting one another. And it's really funny, though, because for whatever reason, this is the only time. I was so exhausted. It was like such a tired woman. I fell asleep during it. And so it made me look like I was being disrespectful, I guess. I don't know. I didn't get a chunk of that. But basically, they brought this thing about being accepting it. And it was so ridiculous. And it was funny because they didn't really bring up the sodomites much in this thing, I think because they were worried they wouldn't want to play both sides or use both sides or whatever. But look, I can't even remember why I got it. Oh, basically, the world's going to hate you when they find out you didn't deserve it. And it's like, before that, everybody loved me. And then after that, there were certain people that didn't really like me very much. And it's just like, well, I mean, whatever. It is what it is. And I was still nice to those people. I was polite to those people because it doesn't help me to be a jerk to them. That's true. People hate you because it's not helping to be a jerk to them. Right. But the world is going to hate you just because of what you do. It has always been like this. It's not something that's new. It has always been like this. Now, we're going to the next verse, verse number 20. Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. They have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. Now, this is a great verse about the preacher, the story of the great rapture. The Bible says the servant is not greater than his lord. The lord was persecuted, and yet the fact is that during this incontrovert, there's no persecution. What they're saying is that we are greater than the lord. That's what you see in John 15, verse 20. Now, I'm sure they say this has nothing to do with rapture. Well, it doesn't directly apply to rapture, but you're saying there's going to be no persecution. You're saying you're greater than the lord. Yeah. Now, here's the reason why people that have preached here don't get this. Because in 99.9% of the situations, people that have preached here are not going to be forgotten. Right. Very rarely do they know the lord. That's true. They don't understand what persecution is. Right. And so they really don't get it. Yeah. They don't understand what persecution is. They think they're being persecuted. It's like, you're not being persecuted. You know someone who's being persecuted? Pastor Anderson's being persecuted. Can they take that out of countries? And what has he done? Pastor Venice with all the protesters? That's persecution. And guess what? That persecution isn't even big persecution. I mean, didn't the Catholic church just brutally kill millions upon millions upon millions upon millions to say, the idol would make us that high? Well, I think it was higher. When you look at the numbers, it was. Because of the fact they're responsible. And that's a whole other thing. I'm a person. I like them all. But anyways, they're responsible for a lot of wars that took place. And things are made into people they killed. But look, Revelation 17, you can see, as this gives hands towards the Roman Catholic Church and also in the times of Babylon, that they're responsible for shedding blood. Right, yeah. That's persecution. It's persecution when they tell you, hey, I'll cut off your hand unless you agree that it compasses the power. It's persecution when we'll cut off your limbs unless you agree that, you know, when you take this little breath, it's going to turn your body into this. That's reality. That's persecution. We don't have persecution in today's world. Even we don't. Okay? But it's going to be bad during the end times. Yeah. And we understand the fact that, you know what, it's going to be after the church takes place. And look, it's going to be bad. It's hard for them. It could happen. I don't personally think it's going to happen in a lifetime because I know most people think it will. I don't personally think that. Let me tell you something. You know, the persecution, whether it happens or not, is only going to get worse from here. Right. It's not bad now, but let me tell you something. This LBGT agenda, that's a large part of it. It's only going to get worse from here, especially when they start controlling the media out. So you don't get something like vaccines online. And right now, they are censoring a lot of videos of people saying stuff against vaccines. People are making videos saying, my son got a vaccine 15 minutes later. He was dead. They're starting to censor those videos. And the truth is that us as believers, we have the word of God, so we're going to understand what the Bible says to you. We can be on that topic. But the average world out there, they're going to be gay, right? And just follow what the masses say. That's true. Because they're not going to hear any stories of the contrary. And they don't have the Bible to understand that injecting something unclean in your body is not good. Right. But look, the persecution is going to get bad in this country and in this world as well. Verse 21. But apparently these free trippers, they're greater than their Lord because they don't think they're going to suffer any persecution. They say these free trippers. But all these things that they do want to do for my name is sin because they know not him that's sin. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. But now they have no hope for their sin. Now, I want you to understand when I said they had not had sin. He's not saying they're sinless. What he's basically saying is this, that if the preaching has never been done against their specific name that they're guilty of, basically they're able to hide that sin and also they don't fully understand what they're doing is wrong necessarily. Right. But now they have no hope for their sin once it's been exposed. And to a true level in this church, there might be certain things that I preach about and you might say, I've never heard that. I didn't know that that was wrong. But see, once you hear the preaching, look, you know what? You're not going to be innocent. God's not going to be merciful. Right. You know what is right, what is wrong and you choose not to make changes that God wants you to make. Okay. Verse number 23. He that hated me, hated my father also. If I had not done among them the worst which another man did, they had not had sin but now have they both, now have they both seen and hated both me and my father. So if you hate the Lord, he hated your father also. So let me ask you a question. Is it possible to deny Jesus Christ, to hate Jesus Christ but love God? Is that possible? No. Not possible. So tell me how Judaism, tell me how the Jews today, these modern day Jews that aren't even really Jews, tell me how they love God. I'd really love to hear that, how they blaspheme Jesus Christ and they say they love God. Uh-huh. You say they don't really blaspheme. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. Nobody blasphemes. I mean probably more than eight years. Jewish people blaspheme our Lord. It was just on Sunday that Brother Bo was talking about just a Filipino that converted to Judaism, whatever that means. Yeah, I don't know if they just decided they were Jewish and they took all the classes that they required or whatever. Just mocking Jesus Christ. Like you can look at the famous comedian. Who knows Sarah Silverman? Who doesn't? Anybody? She's a famous Jewish comedian, okay? And she kind of got in trouble a few years ago because of the fact she was just mocking Jesus Christ and she said, I'd do it again. And she's like mocking him, saying, oh, you know, using all these customers. She's like, I'd do it again. You say, what's in the heart of these Jewish people? Well, look, it's not that individual person. It's what that religion is teaching. Yeah. Religion is wicked and as a result of being in that wicked religion, that's the sort of person you're mocking Jesus Christ. Okay? Look, they hate our Lord. And if they hate the Lord, how could we say that they love Him? Uh-huh. Look, nobody can deny Jesus Christ and hate Jesus Christ and say they love God. And not only that, though. Look, Jesus proclaimed to be God in the flesh. If you deny He's God in the flesh, if you deny He's the Savior, if you deny He's the Christ, if you deny He's the way to heaven, you're calling Him a liar and a fraud and you hate the actual Jesus of the Bible. Right. And so if you hate the actual Jesus of the Bible, you also hate God's word. Right. Okay. You cannot say you love Jesus and then you go, oh, man, I just... I love the New Testament. It's so loving. It's so kind. Jesus was so kind. He didn't say nothing. But, man, the Old Testament, all those people are being built. No, you can't say you love the New Testament. Yeah. It's not the way it works. Right. And you just don't understand why Jesus came here. Okay? That's what you should say. But if you love Jesus, you love the Father, vice versa. If you love the New Testament, you love the Old Testament. And they go hand in hand. Verse number 25. But this cometh the past, that the word might be fulfilled as written, and their law. They hated me without a cause. This is the way it's going to work. Jesus was hated without a cause. We are hated often without a cause. We can come to you wrong and people are going to hate you. Verse 26. But when the Comforter has come, whom I will send on you from the Father, you, the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify. 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