Leaves Without Fruit

Matthew 21 v 17, 19. We have heard a little bit about this fig tree yesterday. And I appreciated that, but what impressed me was when Jesus was hungry, He went to it to get something and all he found was leaves, only leaves. Made me feel I have to be careful if that would be my condition when the Lord visits and wants fruit. The leaves are all part of a tree or vine, and we cannot have sweet fruit without the leaves. Jesus spoke about Himself and said “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.” There is something mysterious about the vine and all of God’s planting, all His creation, it is so hard to comprehend, to think about what God has planned in the plant, and the leaves, the root system and eventually we have fruit.    I was studying a little bit about the vine and something strange happened in a home where we staying. They had a nice grape vine and it had nice dark purple grapes, very large and very sweet. Once when we were there they went out to pick some fruit, and when we tasted those grapes they were very bitter. Then they noticed that the leaves were missing. They happened to have a horse, and that horse had got loose and gone over and trimmed the vine and ate the leaves. The grapes grew, but no sweetness in them at all. That sweetness they get from the sun. They get more from the air than from the ground. I asked a man how that worked. If the leaves are there it gets oxygen and sun, I don’t know too much about it. This man told me that vines have a source of supply similar to our body. We have veins and arteries and it all works from the body, so it is in the plant, and we must have leaves in order to have sweet fruit.  This tree had all leaves, and this was a disappointment to Jesus, and so He said let no fruit grow on thee henceforth forever and the thing died. It is good to understand a little of what preceded it. Jesus was making His last visit to Jerusalem. It was written in the scripture “Behold, your king cometh unto thee make and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” That scripture had to be fulfilled, and so a few days before His crucifixion Jesus came near to the city and He sent two of His disciples to get this ass, this colt. He said “If anybody says anything to you about what you are doing, then you shall say the Lord has need of them and they will send it.” So the two disciples went and did as He said, and He rode into Jerusalem. People put their clothes there, and they cried saying “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna is the highest.” In Luke it tells us that some of the religious people were there and they wanted Jesus to hush them, and Jesus said “If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”  In Mark 11, Jesus went into the temple, He went three days in succession, the first day He just looked around and saw all that was going on. The next day He went in to cleanse the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and drove out those that sold doves. He said “that my house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” When Jesus looked at the temple in all its magnificence, and all that it was, and what was it? It was just the same as He saw in the trees, all leaves and no fruit. What was He expecting? The fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. When He went to look for what God wanted, a little praise, love and affection for one another and it was not there. All they were doing it for was for their own gain. They would not open the temple door for nothing, they had to get paid for it. The sacrifices, so different to what God wanted. When I was thinking of this it caused me to ask myself the question, what kind of fruit do I have in my life? If you want to get more of an idea, let us look at Matthew 6, and this is what Jesus saw. Versus 1 to 4. The only reward they are going to have is what people think of them. They wanted the uppermost parts, and to be seen of men, sounding the trumpet when they did something for others, telling everybody what they are doing it. That is the way of the hypocrites and Jesus saw it. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, they like to stand on the street corners and in synagogues, that they may be seen of men, but He told them what their reward would be. Leaves only, and that is what Jesus saw, He saw it in this one fig tree, and here He saw it in the religious world, and He doesn’t want to see that in His people, He wants to see the fruit of the spirit.  In Matthew 23 we have another picture of when Jesus was speaking, after He cleansed the temple, and they wanted to know what authority He had and He talked with them. V 23,25. Most people don’t like the dishes just clean on the outside, and leave the dirt on the inside. When we were children we had to clean the inside, we couldn’t get away with anything like that. These people were altogether thinking how they looked to other people, and they forgot how they looked to God. When we get up in the morning we clean ourselves and make the outside what it should be. It’s so easy to fix up the outside and I have been guilty of that. What about how we look before God, have we done something about the inside as well as the outside? God wants us a neat and clean people. So many times in the Old Testament and the New Testament we read that the people were to cleanse themselves, and change their garments and wash their garments, so they could appear before God clean.  Isaiah 1 v 16 – 18. When we think what God can give me by searching my heart, and when I think of this tree with just leaves and not the other part and we must have the two.    I have appreciated speaking a little about this sower and the seed, there is something nice about it. If you children want to notice a little plant some time, you will find there are always two parts. When it sprouts and germinates there is one part that goes down for water, and the other part that comes up for the sun. There are always two parts to every Christian, one that others see, but it is no good if there is no root system, where it can drink water, that is the secret part of our life that is the hidden part. If we have a hidden part, a communication with God, everybody will know that we worship God, because we are alive.  The nature of the seed is always reproduced, corn will always be corn, and wheat will always be wheat, whatever you plant that is what it is going to be and if you want a picture of predestination it is given in the seed. You hold the little seed in your hand and it is already predestined what kind of plant it it’s going to be at the height of the plant, the kind of leaves, the blossom and also the fruit, everything about it. Whatever you sow that is what you’re going to reap. If people want to sow wild oats, the poor souls have to reap that. I don’t want to but they have to. If a person is sowing this gospel seed, and it has life, it will reproduce Christians. It won’t be denominations, no they will be just like Christ. When people have the nature of Christ, they want to give to that, and if they cannot find that they pray for it, it is marvellous how you heard the gospel. You had a nature that you wanted to have fellowship with God, how that comes about I don’t know, but where there is a hungry seeking soul, there is a saviour and He bring you into a family. May be different in our outward aspects, but we are all one family. So we think about the seed, and this is what it takes and then you comes fruit. I was also reminded when we heard last night about the 10 virgins. The foolish were those who had a lamp and no oil, leaves and no fruit. That is not what God wants, He wants to have this fruit, He wants to have leaves so people can tell that the tree is there.  It mentions about another fig tree and the man came three years looking for fruit, and he said just cut it down don’t cumber the ground with the thing and the vine dresser said give it one more chance, I will dig about the roots and add fertiliser and then if there is no fruit then we will cut it down. If it brings forth, we will spare it, and if not cut it down. That was not the way with Jerusalem when they rejected Jesus that day. Jesus was the son of God and worked among them. He came into the temple and cast out those things and put it in order, and they wanted to know who gave Him the authority to do it. He asked them a question, was the baptism of John from heaven or of men? The wickedness of them they said “if we say is from heaven He will say unto us why did you then not believe him: if we shall say of men, we fear the people for all hold John as a prophet.” They thought the people would stone them. That is the class of people that had rejected the Christ, there was no fruit and that was the end.  When Jesus went outside the temple He said “They won’t see me until the time comes when ye shall say blessed it is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Jesus told the disciples when they spoke to Him about the marvellous stones in the temple, He said “There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” It looked like it was impossible. When I was reading a little about the history of the destruction of Jerusalem, the thing I liked about it was how true everything Jesus said came to pass. Some of those stones were 30 feet long and 7 ˝ feet high and 15 feet wide. There was no mortar used, and they said you could not see where one stone left off and another started, it was quite marvellous. When the Roman army broke through and they hammered on it for three days and never made a dent on it, and it looked impossible what Jesus said would come true, when Jesus said there would not be one stone upon another. Then when that siege continued someone threw a lighted torch into the temple and the result was that all the gold in the temple melted and it went down on to the stones. That is why the stones fell apart and not one was left on another. When the Roman generals went inside when it was burning, they said they have never seen anything like it. But when Jesus Christ the King of kings and Lord of Lords was rejected it went to nothing and was nothing. I can tell you something else that really struck into my heart. He was talking to the 12 apostles when He told them that parable.  “Who then is that wise and faithful servant, who went his Lord, he will find so doing?” He spoke that parable to the 12 apostles in Matthew 24 and the other in chapter 25, and that is why it really sounded in my own heart about what kind of fruit and my bearing or is that just leaves? We can talk, but do we have this love of God.  Let us turn to 1 Corinthians 13. When Paul was writing there were quite a few things in that church that was not good, some things Paul was trying to correct and then he talked about charity. It is kind of hard to read this first verse. “Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as down to brass, or as the tinkling cymbal.” Leaves only. Don’t we think quite a little about what people talk. Sometimes people can talk so nice, and we think they are wonderful, and are getting along wonderfully, but that is not always true. It’s how do we live. Just a sounding brass - just an empty life. Just empty faith. There is something about me, I always want to speak nice, but when I made my choice I could not even take part in meetings for a little while. When I started to take part I was 19 and there was only four people there. I still find it difficult. There is something about it, we like to have just nice leaves, but no, we have two have this life, it is the life of God.  V 3 Paul was speaking “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity it profiteth nothing.” He gave away all this stuff, everyone in the work gives away everything they have, it is quite a struggle. I think about all the young workers especially. It was a big struggle for me to have enough faith that the Lord will meet my needs and help me, and we are just so weak. We are able to have a job and take responsibility, and here when you give yourself into the work it’s not hard to give away the little I had financially, and that was not much, and besides leaving home was leaving everything I wanted. A normal person wants to get married, that is the way God created us, we want a home and family and that is why God created us. You are going to go and live for others and that is quite a thing. I tell you my dear friends, when we were children my mother and father heard the gospel in 1906. We had one great uncle and he decided in 1905, he was so true, stood out alone, his wife and six children turned against him, but he knew that this was the truth. The sister workers were put out of the building, when he heard they were to be put out he said. “I will go out with them.” And he did.  Mother’s best friend told her when she decided “don’t darken my door again” and she never did. The time came when they were both dying of cancer and my mother wanted to and she could not go. They told us a little about the hardship the workers had, and when you think of all the people who benefited from their sacrifice. When you go you give everything away and then you don’t know anything. Then your joy comes into your heart that cannot be expressed when you find someone so distressed and they find peace. The first year there was a woman who was ready to commit suicide, and her disappointment had been so great, and then the joy which came into her life. Her husband left and so did her three children, then when she found the Lord that was her joy and she was true until she died and she was eighty years old. You never know the joy of living for other people, you cannot build without losing all. Paul said in verse three that without the love of God it profiteth me nothing.  Then he started to tell a little about charity. I am not speaking about it because I have it but it is one thing I am aiming at. Charity is a quality that will help you to suffer a long time and be kind. How good are you at suffering? Suffer a little while and grit your teeth. Yes I can do that, but be kind also. When those in the household are nice you, then you can be kind. I feel for you mothers with your little ones, you have lots to irritate and you can be kind. We workers have the same thing and we can be kind with you people. Oh I want to do that so much. This fruit of the spirit, love suffereth long and is kind. It is not envious, or desires what others have, neither is it emulous. This particularly means if we want to be equal or above other people. We don’t like to follow anyone that is what they fed me at school. The harder you study the more you learned and the better chance to get on and get more money and you are above other people. But what does Jesus want us to do? He wants us to be humble and if we are humble He gives us grace. God resisteth the proud. If I want the grace of God, I have to come down.  Charity vauntieth not itself, is not overbearing, is not argumentative, not puffed up or filled with pride, boastful or conceited, is not itself unseemly. I think you children at home your father and mother teach you what is becoming for you go to visit other people, because they don’t want a reproach on the family name. That is exactly what God wants. If you are unbecoming in the way we talk or in the way we act it is not nice, and our Master was otherwise. Charity is not that way, charity is not easily provoked. That is a hard one for me, because I have a bad temper. Anyone who has bad temper, I feel sorry for them because that is where I was. The only one thing you can do about it and that is to have God help us to help ourselves. When we start off unkindly, to say I’m sorry. May be we should say “If they had not done it, I would not have done it.” But no, that is not it, I should not have got angry.  Once my companion and I were living in a box car, we used to visit a certain family and this lady was very kind to us. One day I went there and the children got angry and this lady got angry also. And she put on an awful scene. I was glad my companion was not there, I felt so sorry for the lady, because it was like me and I knew how she felt.  I got some victory, but not as much as I would like to. After the upset and the girl went to school, it was kind of stiff and I just left. Next day we came for the noon meal, as was usual, but it was still stiff, and the next day was the same. The third day after things cleared around, she came and said to me, her husband was out with my companion. She said “you know my grandfather had a terrible temper and I take after him and I cannot do anything about it.” I don’t know where I got mine. I said I think I understand because I was like that also. One thing you can do, though, if you didn’t have a living God you could say that, but you have a living God and you put your trust in Him, and every time you get a little angry, you acknowledge you did wrong, no matter what you did, that is the only hope you have. God is the creator and He is the recreator, and if you have this relationship with Him and we grow in grace and knowledge of His word, and we feed on it, the same as we grow naturally, we will make progress. If we get sick, and that is the same thing spiritually, we must treat that sickness and take rest, and God gives us our strength again. That lady is still faithful. I hope that will be the way with all of us.  Charity doesn’t think any evil. Sometimes our thoughts are not too good, but doesn’t brood over the injury. Charity loves forgiveness. Some people have all the bad things you ever did marked down, and they could tell you, but love doesn’t do that. Love helps us to forget. It rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. When we have charity that is the essence of the fruit of the spirit, love, joy and peace. Whenever you have love there is joy, and when you have joy there it peace, and when you have love, joy and peace you have long-suffering, and a person who has these things will be gentle. That is what Paul was trying to get across to the Church of Ephesus when he spoke to them about “be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, for giving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you.” You really cannot roar at people who are tender hearted.  I just love to read what Paul wrote to those Thessalonians, “we were gentle among you, even as the nurse cherisheth her children” That was a approach when I read that, and I was not doing it. The tenderness of a mother with her little baby. I have seen many fathers with them, but they are not tender like a mother, and that was how Paul was to those Thessalonians. I cannot say too much about that, because I have a long way to go.  There was another one in 1 Corinthians 11 and I felt sorry when I woke up to that number of years ago. It speaks of the breaking of the bread, and Paul mentions to those people that they were coming together for the Sunday morning meeting, and it was for the worse and not the better. Why? Because they would not forgive one another and there was strife among them. When we break bread and we have unforgiveness in our hearts towards anybody, it is only going to go against us, instead of being a blessing to us. There was a certain family with unforgiveness and it is in Matthew 18. Peter was feeling a little bit may be like we are sometimes and he asked Jesus “If a brother trespasses against you seven times, should you forgive him?” Jesus said “Not only seven times, but until seventy times seven.” That is quite a thing you know, when you even seven times it. A person says they are sorry and asked you to forgive them, well don’t you do it anymore, but seventy times seven. That will keep you busy in a day won’t it.  We have this story about a king taking stock of his servants. One person told me that amount was worth $10 million. It was then the fellow could not pay, he could never have made it. The king said he was to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had so that he could get what he could, and the poor fellow fell down and begged for forgiveness. He forgave him because he was moved by his plea. Then he went out and found the fellow servant, and he only owed him a very small amount, and he took me by the throat and said “pay what you owe me.” He besought him and fell down, and said “have patience with me and I will pay you all” but he would do it. He said you pay me now. So he turned him over to the officer and they put him in jail. This fellow servant went to the King and told him what had happened, and that was so angry with his fellow servant. The king asked him to come back and he said “you wicked servant.” I forgave you all the debt because our desiredst me, and should you have had compassion on your fellow servant?” He was wrath and delivered him to the tormentors,” the last verse says “So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts the gift not everyone forgive his brother their trespasses.” That is pretty hard isn’t it? May it create a deeper desire in everyone of us, that no matter what people do to us, just to forgive, and ask God to cleanse us so we will not have ugly feelings and that is what Jesus taught.  I would like to talk with you in these few minutes? about our example with Jesus. All the time He was with His disciples they were wondering who was going to be the greatest, and they did not always have the best spirit, and He never upbraided them, He taught them and was patient with them and gave them an example. Then the time came at the Last Supper. I just think about Jesus at that time. He told His disciples to go and prepare the dinner, where He could eat the Passover with them, so Peter and John prepared it, and then they all came to the upper room. The Master had arranged for this upper room, and He asked them to the guest chamber, and that man must have been one who was serving Jesus. Then they met there. Normally when a person went into a home the guests were usually given water to wash their feet, or if they had a slave, the slave would wash their feet, and then sometimes that person thought enough of you they would do it themselves. But when they went to the room that day there were the 12, and they didn’t have a slave, so they went in and there was a table and they sat there. The dinner was all over and nobody had done it and everybody had a chance to do it. That is the way I have been many a time, I had the chance to serve and I did not do it. I had two younger brothers, and I thought they should do lots of things when I wanted to get out of it. There are certain things we have a chance to do. They did not see that opportunity, and after the dinner was all over Jesus got up and removed His garment and girded Himself, like the slave, and the basin of water and went to wash their feet. Wouldn’t that be humiliating? Wouldn’t they have been thinking I could have done it. When he came to Peter, I can understand Peter saying “thou shalt never wash my feet.” Some people don’t even want to brush their shoes, and here to have Jesus wash his feet, he said “you will never wash my feet.” Then Jesus said “if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me” and Peter said “not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” He felt terrible, and that is at the Last Supper, and that is how He served His disciples and this is very humiliating, when you should and you don’t. Then Jesus talked with them and it was His last visit with them, it was a meeting that Judas was washed out and others were cleansed.  Then Jesus was arrested and oh when I see the Lamb nature, no wonder it is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. They came to arrest Him and Jesus said “Whom seek thou?” “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said “I am he.” When they wanted to make Him a King, He hid Himself, and when they wanted to crucify Him, He said Here I am. Most people when others would be wanting to make them a King, they would be saying here am I. But crucifying, they would run the other way. But this is our King, and He was ready. He was not dragged as a lamb to the slaughter, He was led to the high priest and Peter saw when they spat on Him, and smote Him and demeaned Him in every way. Peter saw when He was reviled that He reviled not again.  Then He was taken to Pilate and then to Herod and then they mocked Him, and treated Him shamefully, then he sent Him back to Pilate and he could find no fault in Him, yet Pilate crucified Him. How did He do? He was a lamb, a lamb and a sheep the only animals that doesn’t cry when they know they’re going to die. It is hard for me to die daily, to die to the things that I should not have, and the way I speak and act, but this is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. What had He seen that day? Leaves only. What those people saw was divine love and because He died that way God raised Him up again, and He had given Him a name above every name “that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, that every time shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” He is the Lord. One more thing that I love and that is after He was resurrected, and was with His apostles 40 days, then we read about them during those 40 days. I don’t know just when it was but Peter said “I go fishing” and the others said that they would go with him. Why did he do that? I don’t know for sure, but I will tell you the way I feel when I made a big blunder what we feel we should do, and the enemy of our soul is reminding us of what we did. We might as well just quit, but Peter said “I go fishing” Back to his old trade. Then he fished all night, he did not stop and he did not get anything. In the morning they saw someone on the shore. That person said “children, not rebels, not you backsliders, but children have you any meat?” “No” “put your net on the other side and you shall find.” And they did that and they were not able to draw it in for the multitude of fishes.  Then they brought them in, and what did they see when they came to the land? They saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bread. Jesus had that little fire, bread and fish to give them, and after they had eaten, Jesus said “Peter do you love me more than these?” And he said “thou knoweth I love you.” Jesus said “feed my lambs and feed my sheep.” I will tell you when that first came really home to me and it was one time in early years, I was seven years in the work when I read that and I was feeling the same as Peter, I might as well quit and I can go no further. Maybe most of us have felt that way sometimes, and maybe some of you felt that way before you came to Convention and that was how Peter felt. Jesus said “feed my lambs and feed my sheep.” We can be so self-centred at times, we don’t think of others and we cannot make it ourselves we feel.  As we heard yesterday, the God of heaven who took the children out of the land of Egypt with two servants; 600,000 men besides women and children and he led them to the red Sea, and here the army coming behind and the sea ahead of them. “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” God made a promise to those people, if they followed Him, He would rid them of the Egyptians, and in one swoop the whole army was gone. The next thing no feed, and they murmured and what did God do? He gave them the angel feed; no water, speak to the rock and the water gushed out. That is the God we serve and that is the one who can help us. I hope there will be one thing in our hearts; think of His family, feed His lambs and feed His sheep as we meet in the little home. We cannot feed people if we are not there, and neither can you unless you are in contact with God, and neither can I, but we can be vessels in the hands of God to help pour out water to those that are weak.  I hope you will remember what Jesus saw when He visited the Temple, leaves only. When it should have been the house of prayer, and here it was full, just a den of thieves. If we have our love for the Lord, we have one interest, and that is for our King and His kingdom, and His people, and we will have an interest in those who don’t know our King. We can tell about what we have enjoyed, and that will bring a blessing to others and a blessing to ourselves. Let us have this fruit of the spirit, because as we abide in Him and He abides in us, there will be the fruit of the spirit, joy, love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness and faith. Amen. - Convention - Tasmania  Matthew 21 v 17, 19. We have heard a little bit about this fig tree yesterday. And I appreciated that, but what impressed me was when Jesus was hungry, He went to it to get something and all he found was leaves, only leaves. Made me feel I have to be careful if that would be my condition when the Lord visits and wants fruit. The leaves are all part of a tree or vine, and we cannot have sweet fruit without the leaves. Jesus spoke about Himself and said “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.” There is something mysterious about the vine and all of God’s planting, all His creation, it is so hard to comprehend, to think about what God has planned in the plant, and the leaves, the root system and eventually we have fruit.  I was studying a little bit about the vine and something strange happened in a home where we staying. They had a nice grape vine and it had nice dark purple grapes, very large and very sweet. Once when we were there they went out to pick some fruit, and when we tasted those grapes they were very bitter. Then they noticed that the leaves were missing. They happened to have a horse, and that horse had got loose and gone over and trimmed the vine and ate the leaves. The grapes grew, but no sweetness in them at all. That sweetness they get from the sun. They get more from the air than from the ground. I asked a man how that worked. If the leaves are there it gets oxygen and sun, I don’t know too much about it. This man told me that vines have a source of supply similar to our body. We have veins and arteries and it all works from the body, so it is in the plant, and we must have leaves in order to have sweet fruit.  This tree had all leaves, and this was a disappointment to Jesus, and so He said let no fruit grow on thee henceforth forever and the thing died. It is good to understand a little of what preceded it. Jesus was making His last visit to Jerusalem. It was written in the scripture “Behold, your king cometh unto thee make and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” That scripture had to be fulfilled, and so a few days before His crucifixion Jesus came near to the city and He sent two of His disciples to get this ass, this colt. He said “If anybody says anything to you about what you are doing, then you shall say the Lord has need of them and they will send it.” So the two disciples went and did as He said, and He rode into Jerusalem. People put their clothes there, and they cried saying “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna is the highest.” In Luke it tells us that some of the religious people were there and they wanted Jesus to hush them, and Jesus said “If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”  In Mark 11, Jesus went into the temple, He went three days in succession, the first day He just looked around and saw all that was going on. The next day He went in to cleanse the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and drove out those that sold doves. He said “that my house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” When Jesus looked at the temple in all its magnificence, and all that it was, and what was it? It was just the same as He saw in the trees, all leaves and no fruit. What was He expecting? The fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. When He went to look for what God wanted, a little praise, love and affection for one another and it was not there. All they were doing it for was for their own gain. They would not open the temple door for nothing, they had to get paid for it. The sacrifices, so different to what God wanted. When I was thinking of this it caused me to ask myself the question, what kind of fruit do I have in my life? If you want to get more of an idea, let us look at Matthew 6, and this is what Jesus saw. Versus 1 to 4. The only reward they are going to have is what people think of them. They wanted the uppermost parts, and to be seen of men, sounding the trumpet when they did something for others, telling everybody what they are doing it. That is the way of the hypocrites and Jesus saw it. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, they like to stand on the street corners and in synagogues, that they may be seen of men, but He told them what their reward would be. Leaves only, and that is what Jesus saw, He saw it in this one fig tree, and here He saw it in the religious world, and He doesn’t want to see that in His people, He wants to see the fruit of the spirit.  In Matthew 23 we have another picture of when Jesus was speaking, after He cleansed the temple, and they wanted to know what authority He had and He talked with them. V 23,25. Most people don’t like the dishes just clean on the outside, and leave the dirt on the inside. When we were children we had to clean the inside, we couldn’t get away with anything like that. These people were altogether thinking how they looked to other people, and they forgot how they looked to God. When we get up in the morning we clean ourselves and make the outside what it should be. It’s so easy to fix up the outside and I have been guilty of that. What about how we look before God, have we done something about the inside as well as the outside? God wants us a neat and clean people. So many times in the Old Testament and the New Testament we read that the people were to cleanse themselves, and change their garments and wash their garments, so they could appear before God clean.  Isaiah 1 v 16 – 18. When we think what God can give me by searching my heart, and when I think of this tree with just leaves and not the other part and we must have the two.    I have appreciated speaking a little about this sower and the seed, there is something nice about it. If you children want to notice a little plant some time, you will find there are always two parts. When it sprouts and germinates there is one part that goes down for water, and the other part that comes up for the sun. There are always two parts to every Christian, one that others see, but it is no good if there is no root system, where it can drink water, that is the secret part of our life that is the hidden part. If we have a hidden part, a communication with God, everybody will know that we worship God, because we are alive.  The nature of the seed is always reproduced, corn will always be corn, and wheat will always be wheat, whatever you plant that is what it is going to be and if you want a picture of predestination it is given in the seed. You hold the little seed in your hand and it is already predestined what kind of plant it it’s going to be at the height of the plant, the kind of leaves, the blossom and also the fruit, everything about it. Whatever you sow that is what you’re going to reap. If people want to sow wild oats, the poor souls have to reap that. I don’t want to but they have to. If a person is sowing this gospel seed, and it has life, it will reproduce Christians. It won’t be denominations, no they will be just like Christ. When people have the nature of Christ, they want to give to that, and if they cannot find that they pray for it, it is marvellous how you heard the gospel. You had a nature that you wanted to have fellowship with God, how that comes about I don’t know, but where there is a hungry seeking soul, there is a saviour and He bring you into a family. May be different in our outward aspects, but we are all one family. So we think about the seed, and this is what it takes and then you comes fruit. I was also reminded when we heard last night about the 10 virgins. The foolish were those who had a lamp and no oil, leaves and no fruit. That is not what God wants, He wants to have this fruit, He wants to have leaves so people can tell that the tree is there.  It mentions about another fig tree and the man came three years looking for fruit, and he said just cut it down don’t cumber the ground with the thing and the vine dresser said give it one more chance, I will dig about the roots and add fertiliser and then if there is no fruit then we will cut it down. If it brings forth, we will spare it, and if not cut it down. That was not the way with Jerusalem when they rejected Jesus that day. Jesus was the son of God and worked among them. He came into the temple and cast out those things and put it in order, and they wanted to know who gave Him the authority to do it. He asked them a question, was the baptism of John from heaven or of men? The wickedness of them they said “if we say is from heaven He will say unto us why did you then not believe him: if we shall say of men, we fear the people for all hold John as a prophet.” They thought the people would stone them. That is the class of people that had rejected the Christ, there was no fruit and that was the end.  When Jesus went outside the temple He said “They won’t see me until the time comes when ye shall say blessed it is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Jesus told the disciples when they spoke to Him about the marvellous stones in the temple, He said “There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” It looked like it was impossible. When I was reading a little about the history of the destruction of Jerusalem, the thing I liked about it was how true everything Jesus said came to pass. Some of those stones were 30 feet long and 7 ˝ feet high and 15 feet wide. There was no mortar used, and they said you could not see where one stone left off and another started, it was quite marvellous. When the Roman army broke through and they hammered on it for three days and never made a dent on it, and it looked impossible what Jesus said would come true, when Jesus said there would not be one stone upon another. Then when that siege continued someone threw a lighted torch into the temple and the result was that all the gold in the temple melted and it went down on to the stones. That is why the stones fell apart and not one was left on another. When the Roman generals went inside when it was burning, they said they have never seen anything like it. But when Jesus Christ the King of kings and Lord of Lords was rejected it went to nothing and was nothing. I can tell you something else that really struck into my heart. He was talking to the 12 apostles when He told them that parable.  “Who then is that wise and faithful servant, who went his Lord, he will find so doing?” He spoke that parable to the 12 apostles in Matthew 24 and the other in chapter 25, and that is why it really sounded in my own heart about what kind of fruit and my bearing or is that just leaves? We can talk, but do we have this love of God.  Let us turn to 1 Corinthians 13. When Paul was writing there were quite a few things in that church that was not good, some things Paul was trying to correct and then he talked about charity. It is kind of hard to read this first verse. “Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as down to brass, or as the tinkling cymbal.” Leaves only. Don’t we think quite a little about what people talk. Sometimes people can talk so nice, and we think they are wonderful, and are getting along wonderfully, but that is not always true. It’s how do we live. Just a sounding brass - just an empty life. Just empty faith. There is something about me, I always want to speak nice, but when I made my choice I could not even take part in meetings for a little while. When I started to take part I was 19 and there was only four people there. I still find it difficult. There is something about it, we like to have just nice leaves, but no, we have two have this life, it is the life of God.  V 3 Paul was speaking “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity it profiteth nothing.” He gave away all this stuff, everyone in the work gives away everything they have, it is quite a struggle. I think about all the young workers especially. It was a big struggle for me to have enough faith that the Lord will meet my needs and help me, and we are just so weak. We are able to have a job and take responsibility, and here when you give yourself into the work it’s not hard to give away the little I had financially, and that was not much, and besides leaving home was leaving everything I wanted. A normal person wants to get married, that is the way God created us, we want a home and family and that is why God created us. You are going to go and live for others and that is quite a thing. I tell you my dear friends, when we were children my mother and father heard the gospel in 1906. We had one great uncle and he decided in 1905, he was so true, stood out alone, his wife and six children turned against him, but he knew that this was the truth. The sister workers were put out of the building, when he heard they were to be put out he said. “I will go out with them.” And he did.  Mother’s best friend told her when she decided “don’t darken my door again” and she never did. The time came when they were both dying of cancer and my mother wanted to and she could not go. They told us a little about the hardship the workers had, and when you think of all the people who benefited from their sacrifice. When you go you give everything away and then you don’t know anything. Then your joy comes into your heart that cannot be expressed when you find someone so distressed and they find peace. The first year there was a woman who was ready to commit suicide, and her disappointment had been so great, and then the joy which came into her life. Her husband left and so did her three children, then when she found the Lord that was her joy and she was true until she died and she was eighty years old. You never know the joy of living for other people, you cannot build without losing all. Paul said in verse three that without the love of God it profiteth me nothing.  Then he started to tell a little about charity. I am not speaking about it because I have it but it is one thing I am aiming at. Charity is a quality that will help you to suffer a long time and be kind. How good are you at suffering? Suffer a little while and grit your teeth. Yes I can do that, but be kind also. When those in the household are nice you, then you can be kind. I feel for you mothers with your little ones, you have lots to irritate and you can be kind. We workers have the same thing and we can be kind with you people. Oh I want to do that so much. This fruit of the spirit, love suffereth long and is kind. It is not envious, or desires what others have, neither is it emulous. This particularly means if we want to be equal or above other people. We don’t like to follow anyone that is what they fed me at school. The harder you study the more you learned and the better chance to get on and get more money and you are above other people. But what does Jesus want us to do? He wants us to be humble and if we are humble He gives us grace. God resisteth the proud. If I want the grace of God, I have to come down.  Charity vauntieth not itself, is not overbearing, is not argumentative, not puffed up or filled with pride, boastful or conceited, is not itself unseemly. I think you children at home your father and mother teach you what is becoming for you go to visit other people, because they don’t want a reproach on the family name. That is exactly what God wants. If you are unbecoming in the way we talk or in the way we act it is not nice, and our Master was otherwise. Charity is not that way, charity is not easily provoked. That is a hard one for me, because I have a bad temper. Anyone who has bad temper, I feel sorry for them because that is where I was. The only one thing you can do about it and that is to have God help us to help ourselves. When we start off unkindly, to say I’m sorry. May be we should say “If they had not done it, I would not have done it.” But no, that is not it, I should not have got angry.  Once my companion and I were living in a box car, we used to visit a certain family and this lady was very kind to us. One day I went there and the children got angry and this lady got angry also. And she put on an awful scene. I was glad my companion was not there, I felt so sorry for the lady, because it was like me and I knew how she felt.  I got some victory, but not as much as I would like to. After the upset and the girl went to school, it was kind of stiff and I just left. Next day we came for the noon meal, as was usual, but it was still stiff, and the next day was the same. The third day after things cleared around, she came and said to me, her husband was out with my companion. She said “you know my grandfather had a terrible temper and I take after him and I cannot do anything about it.” I don’t know where I got mine. I said I think I understand because I was like that also. One thing you can do, though, if you didn’t have a living God you could say that, but you have a living God and you put your trust in Him, and every time you get a little angry, you acknowledge you did wrong, no matter what you did, that is the only hope you have. God is the creator and He is the recreator, and if you have this relationship with Him and we grow in grace and knowledge of His word, and we feed on it, the same as we grow naturally, we will make progress. If we get sick, and that is the same thing spiritually, we must treat that sickness and take rest, and God gives us our strength again. That lady is still faithful. I hope that will be the way with all of us.  Charity doesn’t think any evil. Sometimes our thoughts are not too good, but doesn’t brood over the injury. Charity loves forgiveness. Some people have all the bad things you ever did marked down, and they could tell you, but love doesn’t do that. Love helps us to forget. It rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. When we have charity that is the essence of the fruit of the spirit, love, joy and peace. Whenever you have love there is joy, and when you have joy there it peace, and when you have love, joy and peace you have long-suffering, and a person who has these things will be gentle. That is what Paul was trying to get across to the Church of Ephesus when he spoke to them about “be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, for giving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you.” You really cannot roar at people who are tender hearted.  I just love to read what Paul wrote to those Thessalonians, “we were gentle among you, even as the nurse cherisheth her children” That was a approach when I read that, and I was not doing it. The tenderness of a mother with her little baby. I have seen many fathers with them, but they are not tender like a mother, and that was how Paul was to those Thessalonians. I cannot say too much about that, because I have a long way to go.  There was another one in 1 Corinthians 11 and I felt sorry when I woke up to that number of years ago. It speaks of the breaking of the bread, and Paul mentions to those people that they were coming together for the Sunday morning meeting, and it was for the worse and not the better. Why? Because they would not forgive one another and there was strife among them. When we break bread and we have unforgiveness in our hearts towards anybody, it is only going to go against us, instead of being a blessing to us. There was a certain family with unforgiveness and it is in Matthew 18. Peter was feeling a little bit may be like we are sometimes and he asked Jesus “If a brother trespasses against you seven times, should you forgive him?” Jesus said “Not only seven times, but until seventy times seven.” That is quite a thing you know, when you even seven times it. A person says they are sorry and asked you to forgive them, well don’t you do it anymore, but seventy times seven. That will keep you busy in a day won’t it.  We have this story about a king taking stock of his servants. One person told me that amount was worth $10 million. It was then the fellow could not pay, he could never have made it. The king said he was to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had so that he could get what he could, and the poor fellow fell down and begged for forgiveness. He forgave him because he was moved by his plea. Then he went out and found the fellow servant, and he only owed him a very small amount, and he took me by the throat and said “pay what you owe me.” He besought him and fell down, and said “have patience with me and I will pay you all” but he would do it. He said you pay me now. So he turned him over to the officer and they put him in jail. This fellow servant went to the King and told him what had happened, and that was so angry with his fellow servant. The king asked him to come back and he said “you wicked servant.” I forgave you all the debt because our desiredst me, and should you have had compassion on your fellow servant?” He was wrath and delivered him to the tormentors,” the last verse says “So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts the gift not everyone forgive his brother their trespasses.” That is pretty hard isn’t it? May it create a deeper desire in everyone of us, that no matter what people do to us, just to forgive, and ask God to cleanse us so we will not have ugly feelings and that is what Jesus taught.  I would like to talk with you in these few minutes? about our example with Jesus. All the time He was with His disciples they were wondering who was going to be the greatest, and they did not always have the best spirit, and He never upbraided them, He taught them and was patient with them and gave them an example. Then the time came at the Last Supper. I just think about Jesus at that time. He told His disciples to go and prepare the dinner, where He could eat the Passover with them, so Peter and John prepared it, and then they all came to the upper room. The Master had arranged for this upper room, and He asked them to the guest chamber, and that man must have been one who was serving Jesus. Then they met there. Normally when a person went into a home the guests were usually given water to wash their feet, or if they had a slave, the slave would wash their feet, and then sometimes that person thought enough of you they would do it themselves. But when they went to the room that day there were the 12, and they didn’t have a slave, so they went in and there was a table and they sat there. The dinner was all over and nobody had done it and everybody had a chance to do it. That is the way I have been many a time, I had the chance to serve and I did not do it. I had two younger brothers, and I thought they should do lots of things when I wanted to get out of it. There are certain things we have a chance to do. They did not see that opportunity, and after the dinner was all over Jesus got up and removed His garment and girded Himself, like the slave, and the basin of water and went to wash their feet. Wouldn’t that be humiliating? Wouldn’t they have been thinking I could have done it. When he came to Peter, I can understand Peter saying “thou shalt never wash my feet.” Some people don’t even want to brush their shoes, and here to have Jesus wash his feet, he said “you will never wash my feet.” Then Jesus said “if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me” and Peter said “not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” He felt terrible, and that is at the Last Supper, and that is how He served His disciples and this is very humiliating, when you should and you don’t. Then Jesus talked with them and it was His last visit with them, it was a meeting that Judas was washed out and others were cleansed.  Then Jesus was arrested and oh when I see the Lamb nature, no wonder it is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. They came to arrest Him and Jesus said “Whom seek thou?” “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said “I am he.” When they wanted to make Him a King, He hid Himself, and when they wanted to crucify Him, He said Here I am. Most people when others would be wanting to make them a King, they would be saying here am I. But crucifying, they would run the other way. But this is our King, and He was ready. He was not dragged as a lamb to the slaughter, He was led to the high priest and Peter saw when they spat on Him, and smote Him and demeaned Him in every way. Peter saw when He was reviled that He reviled not again.  Then He was taken to Pilate and then to Herod and then they mocked Him, and treated Him shamefully, then he sent Him back to Pilate and he could find no fault in Him, yet Pilate crucified Him. How did He do? He was a lamb, a lamb and a sheep the only animals that doesn’t cry when they know they’re going to die. It is hard for me to die daily, to die to the things that I should not have, and the way I speak and act, but this is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. What had He seen that day? Leaves only. What those people saw was divine love and because He died that way God raised Him up again, and He had given Him a name above every name “that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, that every time shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” He is the Lord. One more thing that I love and that is after He was resurrected, and was with His apostles 40 days, then we read about them during those 40 days. I don’t know just when it was but Peter said “I go fishing” and the others said that they would go with him. Why did he do that? I don’t know for sure, but I will tell you the way I feel when I made a big blunder what we feel we should do, and the enemy of our soul is reminding us of what we did. We might as well just quit, but Peter said “I go fishing” Back to his old trade. Then he fished all night, he did not stop and he did not get anything. In the morning they saw someone on the shore. That person said “children, not rebels, not you backsliders, but children have you any meat?” “No” “put your net on the other side and you shall find.” And they did that and they were not able to draw it in for the multitude of fishes.  Then they brought them in, and what did they see when they came to the land? They saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bread. Jesus had that little fire, bread and fish to give them, and after they had eaten, Jesus said “Peter do you love me more than these?” And he said “thou knoweth I love you.” Jesus said “feed my lambs and feed my sheep.” I will tell you when that first came really home to me and it was one time in early years, I was seven years in the work when I read that and I was feeling the same as Peter, I might as well quit and I can go no further. Maybe most of us have felt that way sometimes, and maybe some of you felt that way before you came to Convention and that was how Peter felt. Jesus said “feed my lambs and feed my sheep.” We can be so self-centred at times, we don’t think of others and we cannot make it ourselves we feel.  As we heard yesterday, the God of heaven who took the children out of the land of Egypt with two servants; 600,000 men besides women and children and he led them to the red Sea, and here the army coming behind and the sea ahead of them. “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” God made a promise to those people, if they followed Him, He would rid them of the Egyptians, and in one swoop the whole army was gone. The next thing no feed, and they murmured and what did God do? He gave them the angel feed; no water, speak to the rock and the water gushed out. That is the God we serve and that is the one who can help us. I hope there will be one thing in our hearts; think of His family, feed His lambs and feed His sheep as we meet in the little home. We cannot feed people if we are not there, and neither can you unless you are in contact with God, and neither can I, but we can be vessels in the hands of God to help pour out water to those that are weak. I hope you will remember what Jesus saw when He visited the Temple, leaves only. When it should have been the house of prayer, and here it was full, just a den of thieves. If we have our love for the Lord, we have one interest, and that is for our King and His kingdom, and His people, and we will have an interest in those who don’t know our King. We can tell about what we have enjoyed, and that will bring a blessing to others and a blessing to ourselves. Let us have this fruit of the spirit, because as we abide in Him and He abides in us, there will be the fruit of the spirit, joy, love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness and faith. Amen.

E. Tenniswood