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

The Potter

We have had some very wonderful meetings here. I am sure we are grateful to have been in such an atmosphere and been so conscious at the Lord's presence, the Lord speaking and the Spirit of the Lord moving and as I just thought back on what we have enjoyed, there was just a prayer in my heart that what I would bring and share in this meeting would not in any way detract from what has been accomplished and we fear sometimes that – well, we just know that apart from the Lord’s guidance, we could so easily hinder rather than help.

I would like just to turn your attention to Jeremiah 18 this afternoon for a little while, and we might consider Jeremiah's experience at the potter's house and we can just read together a few verses. The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying ••• so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. I want to read one more verse, it is a sad, sad verse, I don't think it has any relationship to our convention at all but let us just look at it. V.12 And they said there is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices ••• evil heart. It just rather shocked me when I read that verse a little further on. It was the response to Jeremiah's message to the children of Israel, and just to think with such a wonderful message of hope that there could be this response to it, they would say there is no hope. Everything about that message was hope but we just feel so very confident that hope, in every heart that the Lord's message of hope is stimulating and encouraging and inspiring in every heart.

The message to Jeremiah was: go down to the potter's house, then it just says: he went to the potter’s house and that helps us understand Jeremiah there has a little anxiety in his heart to get God's message, to be where God’s word would be revealed to him. Jeremiah just went and all you folks have come to convention. I am sure you have come for the same reason, because you are anxious about God’s message, you want to be where God’s message can be made clear to you, written upon your heart in a very real way. So he went to the potter's house and saw the work of the potter. Well, I am sure we feel we have been at the potter's house here. I just feel this appreciation as I stand here looking out over you folk. I just feel that I am looking out over the work of the Potter in this part of the country. This is the Potter’s work.

If we went to a pottery we would see vessels in various stages of process, we would see the clay that has just come into the pottery, we would see the vessels that have been completed, we would probably see a vessel on the wheel being shaped; we would see vessels on the shelf drying after they have been formed on the wheel, and we would see some vessels that had been through the kiln, through the fiery experience, and we would see them in different stages of process and our brother Robert was telling us today about this process we are going through. Looking out over you folks too, we see you at various stages of the process but it is so good that we are here in the Potter's house. This is where the work goes on and as Jeremiah found, even when things go wrong as sometimes they do, with one vessel it was marred but the potter made it again another vessel.

Maybe, I can just say something about that just at this point. I visited a pottery over in our country. As we were watching the potter work we asked about this little part of it, when something goes wrong with the vessel on the wheel what do you do? Well, he kind of knew why we were asking, he knew we were ministers. We would know something about Jeremiah 18 and he said: Well? in this pottery we don't, if something goes wrong with the vessel on the wheel we'd just throw the clay away, we don’t bother reworking the clay. In that particular pottery the clay comes into the pottery and all the preliminary work has been done, it is ready for the wheel. He said: we are not really equipped to rework the clay. He said: my time is valuable, clay is cheap, we just don't bother, and we throw it away.

I just felt so grateful that we have a Potter that He doesn't think that way regarding the clay that He works with. He doesn't say the clay is cheap. He doesn't say that the clay is precious to Him, the blood of Jesus purchased it, it is not cheap. These lives of ours they are not cheap, they are precious. He doesn't consider His time too valuable to work on them again and I am sure we feel that if the Potter didn’t have that kind of heart, well, I wouldn't be here. I don't know how many of you would say that but I think that would be the expression of many, maybe all, that we have needed mercy. What if the Potter hadn't remade the clay, what if He hadn't made it again another vessel? We would have missed so much, God’s Kingdom would have missed so much in the life of Peter when he failed. What with David, if the Potter hadn't made it again another vessel when he failed? What with Jonah if the Potter hadn't been willing to rework the clay to make it another vessel as seemed good to the Potter to make it?

I might share a little thought with you regarding Jonah. We studied Jonah not so many weeks ago where I have been and just some little fresh thoughts about Jonah as far as I was concerned. I might just share with you regarding the piece of clay that the Lord did remake, but there is a wonderful thing about that book that I appreciated and that is: the book begins with God speaking and the book ends with God speaking. It is a wonderful thing that the beginning and ending of the book God is speaking, still speaking to Jonah and Jonah at both ends of the book isn't really in such a wonderful spiritual condition. The beginning of the book he is just rebellious, in the end of the book he is angry, that is the last thing you read about him, he is angry but the hope of the book is that God was still speaking and I like to just remember that the book of Jonah just gives a small little segment of a man's experience; there is an afterwards to this book of Jonah that we really don't know very much about.

But there is a little verse back in 2 Kings 14 it may be good to just look at it. v.25 it says there about the Lord restoring the coast of Israel ••. according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah ••• and this is something that happened several years after the book of Jonah took place, this is part of the afterwards to Jonah's life, he referred to as God's servant. There was an afterwards of trueness and if we just had a little part of Peter's life and didn't have the afterwards, we have a wonderful afterwards recorded of Peter's life - we could be left with a part that would leave us with questions, wouldn't it, if we just had a little segment. The book of Jonah is a little segment of his life.

Well, then Jesus speaks always in positive tones of Jonah and I enjoyed this little thought about Jonah's experience that is recorded there in the first part just saying no to the will of God, running away, trying to run away, saying no and then he went through all that storm and experienced being taken to the depths and the Lord just planning experience after experience, the Lord having his welfare in mind and Jonah might have thought at times things were totally out of control but here was God planning his experience; God sent the storm, God prepared the fish. God spoke to the fish and said to deliver up Jonah to the shore and God prepared the gourd, caused it to grow then prepared the worm, then sent an east wind to come along to destroy the gourd and God was just working things out and often in our experience, that is what is happening, we hardly know it at the time, God is working things out.

Now, the first part of the book he is saying No. Then he got willing, then he got to the stage in his experience where he was outwardly in the will of God but inwardly out of tune with God. Sometimes, that is where we are, outwardly in the will of God, inwardly out of tune with God and he couldn't appreciate what God was doing for those people of Nineveh because he was out of tune, but God was still speaking. I enjoyed thinking of Jonah in connection with Jesus' words: except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. We think of two stages of Jonah's life. One stage he said no, he wouldn’t fall into the ground and then he got willing to go into the ground and maybe for a little while to die but then he got to that little stage where he was in the ground but wasn't dying, but God was still speaking, and we can just feel confident that Jonah learned to die, he learned to really die. We have been hearing about that previously in the meeting.

Anyway, let's come back to the potter and the clay. I kind of strayed. It's wonderful to know when things go wrong that the Potter will make us again another vessel. Well, just thinking about going to the potter's house and seeing what happens there, one thing we know is that the clay itself is all brought there to the potter's house. That is what the gospel is about, finding the clay, bringing it to the Potter’s house. There's a lot of clay in the world, not all clay is potter's clay. There are a lot of people in the world, there's just a few that the Lord is able to work with but, as you know, the wonderful thing is that it isn't beyond any of us to be potter’s clay, it is not beyond any of us. Potter's clay feels its need of God, it is not beyond anyone to feel their need of God. Potter’s clay is willing for the process, it is not beyond any of us to be willing for the process. It is not beyond any of us to be brought to the Potter's house. And placed in the Potter's hand because the ability is the Potter's, not our ability. If we counted on our ability that might just cancel us right out, in fact, it would, without question but this is the Potter's skill, we can all come to Him. It is not beyond any of us to be potter's clay.

Then, the Potter has a house, that is where He works, that is the fellowship of God’s people that is His house. We are so glad to be part of this House, just so grateful. Those of us who come from another land, we come here, we just know right away: this is the Potter's House. It is just like the Potter's House where we come from, we look out, we see those vessels they are just like the vessels where we come from, we see the kind of beauty that is being developed in lives, we see a love for Truth and righteousness in this world of sin and corruption, and it is the Potter's house. That is where He brings all this clay.

I heard one of our fellow servants who was over in a foreign land to him preaching the gospel and over in that land he went to a potter's house, and there they weren't quite as mechanized as in some other parts of the world, the equipment was very simple, many people were employed working the clay that was brought in there just right out of the place where it is dug, all the preliminary work was done there; we saw people working, working that clay and some of it was a work of cleansing, some a work of compacting, getting little air bubbles out of the clay; those little air bubbles, maybe they are something like pride, God's work is something that works that out of our lives, doesn't it? I enjoyed what we heard the first night - true unity depends on humility, wherever there is division, there is pride. Do you know there is a little verse, I think it's in Proverbs~ that says: only by pride cometh contention. Isn’t that quite a verse? Where there is contention, for sure there is pride. Part of the process is to get rid of the little air bubbles. What happens later? After the vessel is formed it goes to the kiln, heat is applied; that is the test and then if little air bubbles are still there, it hasn’t been detected and worked out, what can happen in that heat is that the little bit of air expands and forms a pressure and just kind of blows the side out of the vessel; in the test you get a little explosion, that is like pride.

Anyway, this servant of God watching all this work going on, he was talking to the potter what are all these people doing? And in the language of that country the potter used a word that meant this: they are making the clay obedient, getting the clay into the condition that when it gets on the wheel it is going to just respond to my hand; they are making it obedient and a lot of people are working, a lot of work was being done. This servant of God asked: do some of these other people work on the wheel? No, he said, just I do all the work on the wheel. Well, he said there’s a lot of people preparing the clay, can you keep up to what they are doing? Oh, he said, that's easy. I can easily keep up to what they are doing. It takes far more time for them to make the clay obedient than it does for me to shape it when it is on the wheel. I wondered with our lives if a lot of God’s effort, and even at convention here, is just making the clay obedient. That hymn says: Oh soften me and mold me and for Thy will prepare, and in all this work the Potter is making you soft. There needs to be the right amount of water in the clay then when it gets on the wheel and the potter begins to shape it, he is continually using water, he has a pail of water right beside him and dips his hand in; he doesn’t touch that clay without his hands being wet. This water, we know, is like God’s Word. That is what God uses to make us obedient, to soften us, that is what He uses then to shape us, to accomplish this work that He is anxious to do.

One time the potter was working, when he got finished working he said to those who were watching: did you notice with this vessel that the walls of the vessel are not even, but the thickness varies one side to the other in the walls of the vessel? He said, the reason that it happened like that was because I didn't get the clay perfectly centered on the wheel, there was just a little bit of wobble to it on the wheel, it made it so that the end product, the walls are not unified and the very first thing the potter does when he moves the clay over to the wheel is he tries to center it on the wheel. Maybe we can say that it's wonderful we are in the potter’s house but the work gets done when we are in the potter's hands and I hope none of us will be satisfied just to be in the Potter’s house. Some of us have spent all our days attending meetings, going to conventions and we might get familiar with the Potter’s house - wonderful to be here but we need to be in the Potter's hands, that is where the work gets done. That is a very individual thing, to be in the Potter’s hands.

Then getting this clay centered on the wheel, I like to think the wheel is like the will of God and then if the Potter can just get us centered right in the will of God, the will of God for you and the will of God for me, and the Potter knows where that center of the wheel is and the Potter’s hands will be pressuring us toward the center and I hope we will appreciate the center of the wheel. Sometimes I fear the center of the wheel, sometimes we might be afraid of the center of the will of God but that is where we need to be, that is where the work is perfected, in the center of the wheel, and if the clay is a little off center there will be a wobble, the work can't be done so perfectly and if the clay would get far enough off center the wheel would reject it, the centrifugal force of the wheel would just dispel it.

Sometimes we feel or would entertain the thought we would like to live somewhere near the border, we somehow fear the center of the wheel and want off the center and we would like to know how far off center we can be and still stay on the wheel. There is no mark on the wheel that tells where that place is, we have no way of knowing where that would happen. Someone has said: we are so prone to trust what we should fear and so prone to fear what we should trust. We sometimes fear the will of God. That is what we can trust the most and sometimes we are so prone to trust our own thinking and our own will; that is what we should fear.

I knew a young lad that grew up in a very good home, he is the youngest of four, his eldest brother is in the work, his two sisters are hearty professing women and this boy professed for a little while but somehow he feared the center of the wheel and he got off center and eventually the wheel rejected him and he was off the wheel altogether and maybe a good 20 years have passed, maybe 25, since he left the wheel and life has been cruel to him. He went down the road of drug addiction, the road of a broken marriage, illegal trafficking and in trouble with the law. He trusted what he should have feared and wonderful to say just a few months ago he came back, his life is on the wheel again, he is very anxious to find the center, very anxious, but he has come back with scars, some scars will remain the rest of his life, some scars even in his mental capacity, they will never be restored, we can trust the center of the wheel.

My companion and I visited a young lady in our field a few years ago, just a routine little visit that we try to accomplish for the young people away from home, and in the city where we were this young lady was at university. We had some concern about her because she was so talented with music, that is what she was studying at university, music, the distance she could have gone with music was really quite unlimited and we worried about her plans. Anyway, this day we were just having a little visit, we weren’t going to bring up our concern really, we just wanted to be an encouragement to her. She began to tell us, it was just her second year at university, she began to tell us about a relationship she had had that she had broken off. She said she just realized that wasn’t for her; he was a professing boy, but then she began to tell us about the university year, she said: it isn’t meaning as much to me as last year, I am just not getting as enthused about university this year. She went on a little bit about that, she told us her music does not enthrall. She went on and we were just wondering, she just continued on and on talking like this. Finally we thought we knew what she wanted to tell us. Are you wanting to tell us that God is speaking to you about the work? Yes. That is what she wanted to tell us and that was the center of the wheel for her, and now she has been three years in the harvest field; she was among the row that were at the airport when I left and wonderful to see her life in the center of the wheel.

She had quite a test upon her when she had been a year in the work. She had an elder sister in the work and that sister gave up in Linda’s first year in the work, hadn’t been all that easy. Her mother died when she was young, she had quite a bit of growing up years without her mother and then in the music world, that was a big adjustment; her first year had its difficulties, we wondered just what would happen when her sister gave up but, you know, Linda just put her roots down deeper, she is still in the center of the wheel. The center of the wheel for you may not be the work, but there is a center of the wheel for every one of us.

When the Potter works He works with one hand in the vessel the other hand outside; if the work is all on the outside, it would be an ornament but not a vessel. God is interested in vessel. God is interested in lives that have an inward capacity to hold something much more precious than themselves and He works on the inside and on the outside. Sometimes, maybe we could feel that maybe His work should all be on the inside but the Potter can't work like that, there needs to be pressure from both sides. You would end up with some odd looking piece of pottery if the potter just stuck his hand down the middle and there was no support on the outside in shaping on the outside. The Potter works on both sides and He will affect our heart. He will affect our mind, our activities, our standard, how we live, how we do business, how our home life goes, He will affect it all. He will affect how we spend our time.

We were talking to some young folks sometime and they were asking us about a certain place, wondering about going and we just said to them, if you went there, what would you think if you saw some of the workers there? Without any hesitation they said: we would be shocked. We just asked why would you be shocked. Because they have better things to do and you know, if we would go someplace where we would be shocked to see the workers, you think Christ would be there? Would we want to be anywhere, where He would not be with us? Moses prayed: if Thy presence go not with me, carry me not up thence, was his prayer. The time comes for the kiln testing.

One potter told us he said that lime is the clay's worst enemy, you get a little bit of it in the clay and you put it into the kiln and the chemical reaction with the heat, it would explode and affect other vessels, not just the vessel with the little bit of lime. There is a verse in Hebrews 12. v.15 Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up ••• many be defiled. A little root of bitterness could be something in our heart that would be like the clay's worst enemy, that in a certain situation there is a reaction that is wrong and it damages others, the tests bring it out. Somebody said: fill a barrel with anything, as long as you keep the barrel still and quiet, you hardly know what is in it but put it on a wagon or trailer and take it over a rough road, then you know what's in it, and we all prove that in our experience when we are tested over rough roads, what is in us spills out and we need to watch that we have grace.

I would just like to speak about the glazing, the final firing, just in closing. Have you ever watched a potter putting paint on pottery? You wonder why he is using the paint he is using because to us it just looks so drab and dark, we wonder why he is using it, it is not beautiful at all. It is marvelous what happens when the glazing material gets into the kiln, those colors change; the colors that look so drab become radiant; blacks become reds, things like that; it takes the final firing to bring that out and I just thought of the final firing being death. Some day we are going to face the final firing. Maybe some things in life we will never understand about, but the final firing will make the difference and when that time comes our tears will turn into joy. Jesus said: Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Joyful; that happens in the final firing when all tears are wiped away, our suffering turned into glory - suffering must precede the glory - we may not understand now but in the final firing the color will be brilliant and the cross that we carry here will be exchanged for a crown in the final firing.

I think we will just sing the closing hymn for this meeting because it is a hymn I value. It is a hymn of prayer and it is 370, and we have the wonderful privilege of praying for each other as we go through this process. The 1st verse of 370 is a prayer for God's people, the 2nd is a prayer for His servants, and the last 2 applies to all of us. I wonder if we could sing it this way this afternoon in closing. If just the Lord's servants sing the 1st verse - that is the workers praying for God's people. The 2nd verse the workers are silent, you folk sing? This is your prayer for us, then all sing the last two verses. We do appreciate your prayers for the workers; we long to be faithful in praying for our friends. 

 D. Shultz