Clough John Lesson 55

Pruning and Scripture – John 15:7-17

Turn to John 15 and we’ll continue our study of the vine and the doctrine of sanctification. Since the doctrine of sanctification, which is one of the great doctrines of the Christian faith has come up in the vine and the branch discourse we are going to complete that discourse tonight as well as review the five points of the doctrine of sanctification in light of this vine illustration and hopefully it’s a review for some of you, maybe for some who are new this will be the pulling it together for you on the mode, the way of the believer’s life. This discourse, John 15:1-17, is not meant to be a complete outline of church history; that’s Paul’s job. Paul will develop later in the New Testament epistles the ecclesiological doctrines that have to do with the organization of a local church, how it operates, what its rewards are, what its mechanisms are, what’s its offices and so on. John the Apostle, is interested only in preserving that part of Christ’s discourse that deals with the overall picture of sanctification. So while all of what we read here pertains to the Church, it wasn’t very clear at the time that it was given that it was going to pertain to the Church. It was just a general discourse on sanctification.

Now the vine imagery was given for several reasons and we want to again review why God chose the vine as an illustration of the new body of believers in the Church Age. The first thing was that the vine was used to produce grapes for wine and wine gave pleasure to men. So we have, then, men enjoying themselves and the way God communicated this was to pick something in common that everyone would understand. And up until this century in some fundamentalist circles everybody understood what drinking a good glass of wine was like. And therefore it was a useful illustration by God and given in the Word of God. Now God ordained that this, the vine, last for all time because of its characteristics. The wine would be a source of pleasure and it would be an analogy to how God has pleasure in whatever this fruit is that we’re going to deal with in the believer’s life. The grape vine is a picture, therefore, of pleasure, primarily; pleasure for God, used in analogy with man’s pleasure from the vine.

Another reason why the grape vine was used is that it was largely useless for anything else, you can’t get much lumber out of a grape vine. And similarly believers who are not productive are quite useless people. They’re useless because they don’t fit with the world system and they don’t fit with God’s system, they don’t fit anywhere, they’re just misfits all the way around. So again the fine stands as a picture of believers.

A third reason for God picking the vine is because the grape vine in order to continue its production of quality vintage wine has to be pruned; it has to be taken care of over and over and over and so also the believer has to be taken care of over and over and over on the part of God the Father. So those reasons are some of why God chose the grape vine. The grape vine is one of God’s great choices in history and creation just as the lamb is. Now the nation Israel in the Old Testament was considered a vine of God, not the vine, a vine. It was considered a vine because under the terms of the old covenant the nation Israel could have born again people in it and unconverted people. In other words, the nation at any given point had a mixed multitude, some on positive volition, some on negative volition with respect to the gospel and therefore you had only a sub percent of people who were truly regenerated. But now when we come to the church Jesus Christ says He is the vine, no longer a vine, He is the vine because under terms of the New Covenant there are only by definition fruitful branches in this vine. All the unfruitful branches, Jesus says, just are eliminated. There will be no Judas Iscariots in the body of Christ. So there’s a purging process and therefore there’s a difference in terminology between a vine and the vine. It has to do with the New and the Old Covenant.

Now in John 15:7 we come to the portion that gets into the reasons why sanctification proceeds like it does. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” That’s a third class “if,” maybe it will happen and maybe it will not happen. Maybe the person who claims to be a Christian isn’t a Christian, maybe we’ve got another Judas Iscariot situation on our hands, and so therefore there never will be abiding. Or there may be a case where a person who is a Christian is out of fellowship and for a moment, at least, they’re not abiding. But notice in this passage, there is nothing mysterious at all about what abiding in Christ is. Again, I warn you about Christian devotional literature, that gets on some vague phrase like abiding in Christ and makes a big to-do over this thing and turns a big, what would be a productive discussion into some sort of mysticism where I to in my closet and I experience these great spiritual vibrations and this turns out to be abiding in Christ. That is not abiding in Christ because in this context what do you read the very next phrase. That defines what abiding in Christ is, it tells you exactly what the Apostle John means, he has no reference whatsoever to any false mysticism, it says “if you abide in Me, and My words abide in you.” Those clauses are synonymous, they mean the same thing.

Now let’s prove this from other portions of John because there’s a very important point that comes out of this. The definition of abiding in Christ goes back to nothing more than our familiar bottom circle. Abiding in Christ means that we are in fellowship with Christ through His Word. Now let’s make sure we understand how we have fellowship with Christ. We do not have fellowship with Christ through all sorts of unanalyzed experiences. You have to be careful of this. I just finished reading Colson’s book, Born Again, and Charles Colson, one of Nixon’s men, became a Christian and he writes this book describing his early days as a Christian and it’s a very good book as far as giving experiences and recording what is happening in these certain areas. The problem with the book is that Colson, because he’s a baby believer does not know how to correctly analyze his experience. And so several times in the book it’s way off, but that’s all right, if you have discernment you can read the book and put it all together and not get sidetracked. But Colson will go through some emotional experience, at one point in the book he says I felt defeated and therefore I opened my heart up to the Holy Spirit and I asked the Holy Spirit to take over my life and I had a great quantum jump in my Christian experience. But then, very interestingly, toward the end of the book in almost the same language he describes another depression he had later on and he came out of that by simply trusting the Lord and describes it in exactly the same situation. Which obviously shows that he is very undecided in interpreting what’s going on in his life; at one place it’s because he had this point experience with the Holy Spirit, yet in another place, precisely the same experience is described as simply trusting the Lord. Now which is it, because those two kinds of explanation are not the same.

Now that’s because you have a man who is not trained in theology, who does not know his doctrine well enough yet to correctly analyze his experience. And he’s getting false readings from his experience like you will get false readings from your experience, unanalyzed or wrongly analyzed Christian experience is not fellowship with Christ. You cannot have fellowship with Christ; you can have a dream tonight and say the Lord spoke to you. How do you know the Lord spoke to you? There’s only one way you know the Lord spoke to you and that would be you’d have to compare it with the Word of God over a long time period and then you might conclude that you had a momentary flash of illumination by the Holy Spirit, that might be bona fide. You certainly never want to speak of it as revelation, not if you know what the word revelation and what the word illumination mean. That would be wrong, that would be to foul up another believer, that would be to spread misinformation and false or at least half-false doctrine. So, again we say, unanalyzed or inappropriately partially analyzed raw Christian experience is a source of trouble. The only way we can have fellowship with Christ is by means of the Word of God.

Now again to prove this point turn to 1 John. In our day we have to come down deliberately hard on this point and when you are in Christian groups and it’s your prerogative to do so without undermining the authority of whoever it is that’s in charge of that group you ought to stand up for this principle; it is an important one and if you do not stand up for this principle that group is going to be misled, somebody gets up and gives their glowing testimony about what happened last night at 3:00 a.m. and I had this great spiritual experience and God spoke to me and He told me that if I stood on my head five times and went blah, blah, blah, then I could have a great time in the Christian life, and now I want everybody in my Christian group to stand on their head three times at 3:00 a.m. in the morning and go blah, blah, blah and they too can have this great spiritual experience. That’s as stupid as this unanalyzed business is And the woods are full of ministers on the radio who are idiots, who write in so-called devotional books and they are professionally incompetent stupid ignoramuses. If there was a licensing authority by Jesus Christ they wouldn’t qualify for 100 years, it’s ridiculous how stupid it can get. And it’s all because we fail to go back to the Word of God. It is the Word that is the criteria and you don’t know a thing about Jesus Christ apart from the Word of God.

Let’s watch John and how he describes this. In 1 John 1:3-4, the same apostle, the same man who recorded those other words is telling us once again, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us;” notice which comes first in verse 3. Not fellowship with Christ, you don’t get fellowship with Christ unless you get fellowship with the apostles first and you can’t have fellowship with the apostles except through the Word of God. You don’t get fellowship with the apostles through the apostolic succession, laying on of empty hands on empty heads down through the centuries. That doesn’t provide any source of continuity. What provides continuity is people who adhere to the apostolic dogma of the New Testament and that and that alone is your guarantee of fellowship with Christ.

Let’s prove it, let’s take some spiritual experience that somebody has, it could be anything, you fill it in with your imagination, some hotshot thing that you’ve read about, somebody prayed for three hours or something and didn’t eat and had some sort of an experience and so out of this experience comes certain conclusions according to these people and here’s their conclusion 1, 2, 3. And usually they become crusaders for this kind of thing and they get the stuff written up and this is my secret to living the Christian life and all the rest of it. Now let’s look at something here first. How do I know that that is a work of the Holy Spirit? Just because some Christian says… Christians do things all the time, it doesn’t impress me and it shouldn’t impress you. What is it then that you can use to sort out the wheat from the chaff? What are you going to do when you pick up an article that says I had this great shining spiritual experience, or somebody gets up and testifies or somebody calls on the telephone or something and gives you this 1, 2, 3 business? There’s only one thing you can do, isn’t it? You can only go back to the Word, what does the Word of God say and let’s take that experience and analyze it in terms of the Word and then see what kind of conclusions we come to and see if those conclusions fit these conclusions. That’s the only way you can handle the situation. You see, there is not one answered prayer, not one spiritual experience that can ever be correctly interpreted apart from the Word of God; that’s what John means here. You have to have fellowship with us first, then and only then can you correctly deduce things. Now the Lord can give you spiritual experiences, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I am not saying that God cannot give you many exciting experiences, many fantastic answers to prayer. But Satan can also and how do you discern the difference. You don’t go eenie, meanie, miney moe or he loves me, he loves me not, that won’t work. What are you going to do?

You’re going to have to go back to the Word; it’s always finally, in spite of all these experiences that God may give you, ultimately it still goes back to the Word. That’s what John means and that’s what he means to have fellowship, and my words abide in you, that’s how you abide in Christ. You abide in Christ by following Christ’s own teachings which are contained in the canon of the New Testament and only in the canon of the New Testament. Oral tradition was at one time pervasive at the local church but all tradition gradually became corrupt and this is why apostolic succession or the continuity of the Church in history is a continuity now based on doctrine derived from Scripture and not based on any human organization, or any tradition handed down.

Back to John 15, with this we are now ready to review the doctrine of sanctification. Let’s go back to the divine viewpoint framework for a moment for this sanctification thing and let’s see; some have studied this and John 15 will provide you with a good exercise. So for the next 10 or 15 minutes you ought to be able to, if you remember the doctrine of sanctification, now is an opportunity to test yourself; now is an opportunity to take what you’ve learned from the divine viewpoint framework, you learned the basic principles, the basic outlines of sanctification, now you have a fresh new passage of Scripture dealing with a fresh imagery of this vine thing. Now let’s see if you can take these principles, read the Bible, combine the two and crank out even added illumination in your heart about the doctrine of sanctification.

Let’s see what new or sidelights we can learn on this doctrine, maybe new pictures that will speak and refresh the cutting edge of the doctrine of sanctification. Now keep in mind when we talk about sanctification our primary picture; the primary picture in your mind and your soul ought to be conquest and settlement period in Israel’s history. The basic imagery behind sanctification in all of Scripture is warfare. Now that’s the basic picture. You always find that, you’ll find it in the struggles that are the war, the spiritual war in the soul of the psalmist. You’ll find it in the external physical warfare of the nation Israel. Wherever you go and sanctification is stressed you see sorrow, heartache, and suffering in battle. Now that should tell you something right away. You see how healthy it is to have in your soul a basic sound Scriptural principle because now when you walk and you read something and they tell you this big song and dance that sanctification is such a wonderful thing, it’s pleasure all the way, you just float on cloud nine, you have this ecstatic experience all the time, you have the joy, joy, joy, and this goes on, this kind of thing, and after a while you begin to read that kind of stuff, that garbage, that propaganda, satanic propaganda is what it is and you begin to look at it and you begin to say well gee, I don’t have this joy, joy, joy all the time. So therefore I must not be sanctified, the Holy Spirit must not be working in my life. And you send yourself into a zoom spiral because you have compared your life against a pseudo standard. You have heard some misinformed believer say our group is so great, we just have the joy just leap through the wall. And obviously any other group isn’t going to have this kind of thing and obviously your group isn’t going to have this kind of thing and you’re going to see all the faults in your home and your marriage and your group and you’re immediately always going to come out on the lower end of the totem pole in some comparison like this and it immediately feeds you with an inferiority feeling, the bombed out response to this pseudo propaganda.

Now who do you suppose…who do you suppose in history is behind all of this crud? The only impact this joy, joy, joy propaganda has in most Christians is depression. Now who wants Christians to be depressed? Who wants Christians knocked off the line? Who wants Christians to give up? You know who it is, and therefore you know who the author of all this pseudo propaganda business is. So right here you can save yourself a lot of misery and heartache and trouble if you’ll simply go back to this and say now just a minute, just a minute, what is the basic, basic, basic picture of sanctification in Scripture? Struggle!

Let’s look at the doctrine of sanctification. The first point in the doctrine of sanctification is that sanctification has certain phases to it. That is, God has a blueprint for our salvation from eternity past and we call that positional sanctification. That is what God has, that is the plan, that is the blueprint, that is the design for our sanctification. That’s important to know because after all it’s kind of nice to know what kind of ballgame you’re in, if they have three bases and a home plate and they’re using a stick to hit the ball your sort of suspect it’s not a football game. In other words, get familiar with the rules, find out how to score, what kind of a game is this that we’re in and we learn that from the doctrine of positional sanctification. Now in this passage of the vine and the branches you have a statement given that tells us the stuff we covered last week and right smack in the middle of that passage, from verses 1-5, is a statement that has to do with positional sanctification, and I wonder how many people saw that statement. I’ll even give you a hint, it’s halfway between them. Obviously it’s in verse 3, “Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Now that is positional sanctification. It’s not saying that these people are perfect because of the Word that Christ has spoken to them. What it’s saying is that positionally they are secure, they’re locked into the plan. They are enrolled permanently in God’s training program. There’s positional sanctification coming out in this passage.

But there’s also experiential sanctification, that is the moment by moment type of sanctification, experiential. And experiential sanctification has to do with the Father’s work in time and that was given last week, and that’s given in verse 2, the last part of verse 2, “every branch that bears fruit He,” present tense, “is purging it, that it may continue bringing forth fruit.” That’s the Father’s work in history, the pruning action that we all experience and there you have God the Father involved in experiential sanctification and notice that even that picture of sanctification isn’t one that gives pleasure. I’m sure the vine, the grape vine, if it could talk would shout a little bit when someone comes along with a big set of shears and goes snip, snip, snip and cuts a few things off. So again, it’s not a totally pleasurable thing. Please notice the consistency of how our Lord reveals doctrine to us over the centuries. He doesn’t flit from this picture to this picture and have two totally contradictory pictures. These pictures are all selected to have a common theme to them. He is consistent when He reveals to us.

All right, we also have the ultimate sanctification and that is given in this passage. Ultimate sanctification is when we attain God’s ideal; this is the final goal and that’s in eternity future. Positional sanctification is eternity past. And in eternity future when we get put into our ultimate sanctification, at that point Jesus Christ says we are wholly pleasing God. This is why in verse 7 at the end, which we’ll see in a moment, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” He repeats Himself down in verse 16, “I have chosen you,” that last clause of verse 16, “whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.” That’s ultimate sanctification, in other words, we wholly please the Father at that point. So ultimate sanctification is seen in these passages.

So our first great point in the doctrine of sanctification, that is the phases of sanctification, all three phases, positional, experiential and ultimate, are taught in this vine and branch discourse. They’re all there. They’re there throughout the New Testament and all we have to do is over and over and over, once you get your basic outline of what sanctification is, it just merely becomes an exercise, you have to expend some energy, breathing requires some and thinking some more, and we input energy into the text of Scripture and we come out with an understanding. How come? Because we’re able to read this categorically. You have in the mentality of your soul a category that says sanctification, so you read through Scripture and you’ve got truth here, truth here, truth here and what you’re doing is you’re pulling out the truth that has to do with sanctification and putting it in this box and saying okay, here’s the category of sanctification, here’s what I know about that and I recognize that same truth coming out of this passage. This enables you, then, to read the Scriptures on your own, when you have this ability to categorize. The only thing you have to be careful of is that your categories are orthodox theology. Men who have struggled over centuries of time to come up with this orthodox Christian doctrine and if you specialize in getting this basic framework as we’re training you in the family training program, you’ve got the basic tool you need for Bible study.

Let’s go to the second point in the doctrine of sanctification; that too is taught in this passage and that is the aim of our sanctification. Now you have the phases, you want to learn to distinguish the phases, but then you want to learn about the aim. What is the whole end goal of the thing and if you know this that’ll save you from something else. See how much misery you can save yourself and your friends by just knowing a little doctrine, and that is that the aim of sanctification is not… repeat, the aim of sanctification is not to have some emotional experience per se. That isn’t the aim of sanctification. The aim of sanctification is loyalty to God and that’s given in John 14:21, “He that has My commandments” Christ said, “and keeps them, he it is that loves Me,” or is loyal to Me. So right there in the context we have the aim of sanctification repeated just as we learned saw it in the golden era of Solomon when we are to love God in every area of life and so we are to learn obedience. And the point that we make about this learning obedience is that this loyalty business comes by learning, learning through experience, learning through historical experience. Example: The Lord Jesus Christ was sinless, was He not? The virgin born Savior was sinless, yet the epistle to Hebrews says He, even in His sinlessness, had to learn obedience. Did you ever realize that Christ Himself had to learn. We make Christ so divine in fundamental circles we lose His humanity. We never stop to think that the Lord Jesus Christ had to learn. He had to get up in the morning, He had to read the Torah, He had to unroll the scroll, He had to know Aramaic and Hebrew, and as He read the text God the Father would speak to Him, early in the morning the Father would speak to Him.

Now the Father may have spoken to Jesus directly at certain times but most of Jesus’ learning was just the way any other human being learns it, through Scripture. We call this the doctrine of kenosis, when Jesus Christ voluntarily gave up His omniscience and therefore Jesus Christ literally did not know everything, not because He couldn’t but because it was not His Father’s will at that point in His ministry to know. And during the kenotic span of His life, from the virgin birth until the time that He attained His glorification after He rose to be at the Father’s right hand, Christ gave up the voluntary use of His attributes, such as omnipotence and omniscience. So, for example, when He was questioned in Mark 13 about certain things relating to the kingdom He said I don’t know, only the Father knows that. Now you have to argue if Jesus Christ was God He was omniscient and therefore you’re going to have to explain something like Mark 13 or you’re going to have to deny the deity of Christ, one or the other. So if Christ was God and Christ was omniscient, how do we explain the fact He says I don’t know? In the early church for 200 years there was a group of people that said see, that passage proves the Logos is not fully God. No, what it proves is the Logos was kenotic, during that time Christ gave up the voluntary use of His omniscience. He did not take advantage of His omniscience to learn something. Christ had to learn it like we have to learn it.

You see, that’s why He’s such a great high priest for us and when we understand this, this is why Christ should be a model for us. He’s a model because He had flesh, bones, and frustrations also. The other person, to use an illustration of learning obedience is Adam. Adam and Eve, before they fell, had to learn what obedience they did learn the hard way, sin causes the learning process to be harder, in fact, impossible apart from grace, but it doesn’t change what is required. Learning obedience was required even before sin existed. Don’t think loyalty to God is something to overcome sin; that’s wrong. You see, this is a fine point but something that many believers get fouled up on and never do get straight; they have some big hairy sin problem in their life and they think that sanctification consists of getting rid of that.

Let’s pick something like alcoholism; suppose this person has an alcoholic problem and they are so obsessed with coming to grips with this problem they can’t even think of sanctification apart from this. So they go on for a while and then they fall flat on their face, literally. And then they go on for some more and fall flat on their face. And they have a big hairy problem, and they think their sanctification has just come to an end every time they crash and burn. Ridiculous; their sanctification has increased here, they’ve had a momentary problem here, sanctification has increased there and so on. Your sanctification is not related to getting rid of an alcoholic problem.

Sanctification is more than dealing with sin. Sanctification would have been needed had we not had a sin nature. Innocence is not sanctification and Adam and Eve at the point that God created them, they left the fingertips of God Himself, they were not sanctified; they were sanctified only as they learned by trial, as they learned by decisions addressed to their volition, that’s how they became sanctification. So the aim of sanctification is loyalty to God and this is what the fruit is in John. The fruit is not necessarily soul winning, “that you bear much fruit.” What the fruit is… now it’s going to include that, it’s going to include personal evangelism but that’s not what the fruit, the main point of the fruit here is. The fruit is the loyalty to God.

Let me show you some passages on fruit in Scripture and I’m going to use these passages to prove two points. One is that the fruit has to do with primarily inner loyalty. Then we’re going to go through another verse chain that’s going to prove that you can be fruitful without any external works. So let’s take the first series of passages that show that the fruit is ultimately the interior character of loyalty. Luke 3:8, this is ht preaching of John the Baptist. He preached the gospel of repentance. In Luke 3:8 you have a group of people come out to him who are unregenerate and John apparently came from the same seminary Stephen did, he said, [7] you generation of snakes, who old you to flee from the wrath of God. And then he goes on in verse 8 to say, “Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of repentance,” the word “worthy” means fruit that fits, fruit that fits repentance. Now what he’s talking about, it looks like, is the external thing but he’s more interested in loyalty. Watch the context: verse 10, “And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do, then?” So he’s going to address well what does fruit look like, what does this fruit of repentance look like and give me some examples.

So he does, [11] “He answered, and said unto them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none,” this is in the area of the possession of material resources, so he’s giving a specific example of what this repentance is that he’s talking about, how it looks in history; the stewardship of belongings, “he that has food, let him do likewise. [12] Then came also the tax collectors to be baptized, and said to him, Master, what shall we do? [13] And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.” In other words, you men who operate in the tax structure, the tax system may be unjust but you operate within the system, just don’t cheat the system. Verse 14, “And the soldiers came,” and please notice verse 14, for any latent pacifists in the congregation, he didn’t say guys, now you’re Christians, you’re going to quit the army. What does he say, “Soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man,” now that’s not talking about not killing, that’s talking about unauthorized violence, “Do no unauthorized violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.” So he’s giving some very practical illustrations of this fruit worthy of repentance.

Now let’s go a little bit further, turn to Romans 6:16. From just John you would assume that this has to do, primarily with outward works; not so. Paul adds to our understanding. “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.” Now that’s the choice every Christian has, to yield to the sin nature or to be obedient. [17] “But God be thanked,” now look at the vocabulary he starts to pull up here, “But God be thanked, that whereas ye were the servants of sin, ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, [18] Being made, then, free from sin, y e became the servants of righteousness. [19] I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as ye have yielded your members servants to unrighteousness and to iniquity, unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness. [20] For when we were the servants of sin, we were free from righteousness.”

Look at the fruit here in verse 21, “What fruit had ye the in those things where you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. [22] But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end, everlasting life.” Now the fruit that he’s mentioning emphasizes the holiness which is an attribute of character, not a specific work. This is a certain molding of the inner mental attitude; this is a molding of the inner character. The word “fruit” has to do with this inner character, not the external work.

Turn to Galatians 5:22, this is an exposition of the fruit of the Holy Spirit and in this passage notice the qualities of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. They are all basically have to do with descriptions of somebody’s soul, not necessarily external works. [“But the fruit of the Spirit is] love, joy, peace, long-suffering,” notice the word “long-suffering” is patience, the “gentleness” is a sensitivity, that’s the best we can… it does not mean a gentle personality as such, this is the Old King James for gentleman, he’s a gentleman, somebody who’s sensitive to what is right and what is wrong in a situation, that’s what that “gentleness means, “goodness, faith, [23] Meekness, self-control; against such there is no law.” Now all of those nouns are quality, they’re nouns of quality of the soul. And we could go on and on and describe the same thing.

The word “fruit,” then, has to do with this inner character. Now having made that point let’s go on to the second one and show a very surprising thing in Scripture, that it is possible to be fruitful without completion of works from the outside in certain cases. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9:16, we’re looking at the individual soul of the believer. The soul of the believer has character in it; this character should be the character of the Lord Jesus Christ as sanctification proceeds. Now I can have a certain character here that wants to do something in the external world out here but because of something called a hindrance of circumstance I may not be able to execute that work in the external world, but God looks up on the intent, not up on the final product.

In 1 Corinthians 9:16, “For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of,” this is Paul’s personal testimony, “for necessity is laid up on me; yea, woe is me, if I preach not the gospel!” Now what he’s saying is that I have been called to preach the gospel of the ancient world. Now that’s my calling; I have to do that but I can do that with an out of fellowship or in fellowship attitude. Paul was a brilliant man, he could preach the gospel when he was out of fellowship very easily. He could win people to Christ while he was out of fellowship. He could benefit the ancient world while he was out of fellowship. But watch what he says in the next verse. [17] “For if I do this thing willingly,” if I do it “willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, a dispensation is committed unto me,” in other words, I’ll be fruitful in the external world, people will be won to Christ but it’ll have absolutely no bearing on my own personal character, my own personal sanctification. The aim of sanctification, loyalty to God, will be missing from my soul. So you see, the loyalty, the aim of sanctification inside Paul is not necessarily related to what’s going on outside. He could actually be doing the work and having absolutely no improvement on the inside of his soul. The work may or may not be beneficial to him personally. It will always be beneficial to God but not necessarily to Paul.

Turn to 2 Corinthians 8:12, another passage like this. You see, in 1 Corinthians 9 we had the case, let’s draw a chart, V will be for volition or let’s say fruit on the inner soul, and over here we’ll put works, good works, works that are pleasing in an objective way to God. Now let’s put a believer in fellowship and a believer out of fellowship and compare what happened. In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul says it’s possible for a believer out of fellowship to be producing works. But unless that believer is in fellowship it’s of no benefit to the believer that’s doing it. Now in 2 Corinthians 8 we have the reverse, the chapter on giving, “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that which a man has, and not according to that which he has not.” And this shows the opposite, this shows that here’s a believer in fellowship and he’s developing the inner character because he is willing to give, but because of poverty he can’t give. God doesn’t care, no works on the external and yet on the internal credit. Sanctification has to do primarily with the inner character and only secondarily with the external works that are going on. See, you can be cut off, hindered from actually having the fruit of the Holy Spirit flowing into a concrete work outside here. You may be trapped on a desert island with the gift of giving, now what are you going to do. You’re trapped on a desert island, you’ve got the gift of evangelism, what are you going to do, win the trees to Christ. You see, hindrances can cut down your production if God didn’t have this kind of a system, but God doesn’t have a system that is locked in one to one with what the works are; He has a system that is based on what we will call the potential works of your heart. And Paul reverses it just so we get the clear picture, he says it’s also possible to do these great works and have absolutely no benefit personally. So watch it now. The fruit of which John 15 speaks has to do with the aim of sanctification and that is not necessarily… not necessarily related to specific works.

We come now to the third point in the doctrine of sanctification, the means of sanctification. How does sanctification occur in the Christian’s life. Two things are required, always two things are required; a law and grace. Let’s look at the system from the Old Testament point of view, New Testament point of view. In the Old Testament the Law was the Torah, that was their Law. What do we mean by a law? We mean revealed will of God. And the Old Testament had a revealed will of God. Now what is the equivalent of the Torah for us? The word of Christ; turn to John 15, the passage we are studying. Here we have the means of sanctification right in this very passage. In the Old Testament, it’s the Old Testament Torah, in the New Testament concept it is the law of Christ. In John 15:7, “My words abide in you.” Verse 10, “My commandments.” In verse 14, “You are My friends, if you do whatever I command you,” to do. So there is a law under the New Testament dispensation. Just because the dispensationalists label it grace and law don’t get confused. There is law in the New Testament dispensation, the revealed will of God for us. It’s different in content a little bit from the Old Testament but it’s there. And you have to have that, you cannot be sanctified apart from law. Always remember that, there’s no way because you have no yardstick, you have nothing to interpret your experience. You can’t judge yourself, whether you’re right or whether you’re wrong, you’ve got to have a standard outside of yourself that’s objective and that is the law, the Word of God.

But now let’s look in the other column; grace. That’s the second thing that’s always required. And before we get to grace, let’s just go back in the Old Testament a moment and just look at how the law got in the soul. See, this law, to be effective has to be inside. We’ll put in inside the soul, well how did the Law in the Old Testament get inside the soul. Turn back to Deuteronomy 6, just a few passages on their techniques of getting the Word of God in the soul. Deuteronomy 6:6, now this, some of you who are education majors this ought to hit you right between the eyes because here you have the philosophy of education of Scripture. Did you know that the reason for education as far as the Word of God is concerned is summarized right here. This is the central passage in all the Bible on the philosophy of education. Education, according to the Bible, is to put God’s Law inside the soul. That, in a nutshell, is the biblical view of education. “These words, which I command you this day, let them be in your heart,” that is in your soul, on the inside. How are they going to get the word on the inside? [7] “You will teach them to your children, you will talk in terms of them,” that doesn’t mean talk of them, in the Hebrew it means talk with them, “when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Now that is a teaching technique that was used. Now what does that teaching technique mean? It does not mean a Bible story every day in the home.

What that is talking about was that whatever the topic of conversation is in the home, whether it’s changing a light bulb in the kitchen or whether the car is broken down or whether daddy lost his job last night, whatever the conversation is it ought to be with reference to the Word of God. For example, a man loses his job and this is a crisis in the home; a crisis of security in the home. Here all the children are wondering where the next meal is coming from. In that situation the parents ought to come to grips immediately with the fact that they’d better start responding to the crisis of a loss of job doctrinally by faith biblically in front of those children because those children know that they’ve encountered something serious, it’s in the air. You don’t have to tell them, children, we will now learn, they’re learning just watching you and they know that something deep is bothering daddy and mamma, it’s written all over your face; they sense it.

So now what are you going to do? You can’t avoid the situation because it’s there and if you send them out of the room, and you can discuss things in private, I’m not saying don’t, but all I’m saying is you’re never going to be able to cover up your own personal response as parents before your children; they will sense it, they’ll read right through your soul. So in that situation you’ve got only one option, you’d better sit down and say okay, now is God going to or not provide our needs? Start off, if nowhere else, in Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in Christ Jesus.” And in front of those children cope with a nasty situation Scripturally. Then you’ve educated them, and that’ll be a lesson they could have learned that 84 times in a school semester and it’d just 84 times go right out their ears, but after they’ve watched their own parents have to sweat through in the middle of a home situation crisis, they won’t forget it; it’s been indelibly imprinted in their soul. That’s what this is talking about.

Wherever you are and have a chance to interact, [can’t understand word] speaks with reference to the Word of God. And this is why you can’t do that, there’s no way you can follow out the technique of verse 7 if you don’t have the framework thing that we’ve done in the family training program. That’s why we came to that framework idea, because we asked ourselves, how as parents are we going to work with out children and consistently surround them with the divine viewpoint environment if we can’t pull the doctrine into the situation. And I can’t pull the doctrine into the situation if I’ve got a pile of notes four feet high and I can’t get any handle on them; I’ve got to have some means of categorizing what God’s will is or I can’t use it, and therefore what happens? I cut off the next generation; they become uneducated.

There are other passages in Scripture, Deuteronomy 17:14, here’s another technique they have for getting the Torah into the souls of people; not only was it done in the home. By the way, it also shows you, education majors, that it’s the third divine institution of family that is more prominent in education than the state. “When thou art tome unto the land which the LORD thy God gives you, [and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say,] I will set a king over me,” and it describes how and what he’s going to do and it says, verse 18, that king, it says “And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests, the Levites; [19] And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God,” that means government officials are to have daily Bible study. Imagine what a revolution that would cause. It’s talking about Bible teachers, not bed partners.

Deuteronomy 31:10, the third system they had for getting the Word of God into the soul of people. They used the home, they used government, they had an official indoctrination system for all government officials, and Deuteronomy 31:10, “And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of ever seven years … in the feast of tabernacles, [11] When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God….” Verse 12, “Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law. [13] And that their children, who have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live,” see verse 13 “that their children, which have not known anything, may hear,” children are not born sanctified, in case you haven’t noticed. And so therefore they had a third system for sanctification or getting the Word of God in the soul, required citizenship; every seven years every citizen, including children of citizens had to read God’s Word en toto, the whole thing. You see how they surrounded their people with doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine.

On the way over to John stop at Psalm 1, the individual also had his system and the psalmist describes how he did it. Psalm 1:2, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” So here’s the individual now, absorbing the Word of God, thinking on the Word of God, meditating on the Word of God over and over and over and over and over.

Now we’ve just seen four passages that have to do with the means of salvation under this area, the law, getting the law of God into the soul. Now how did they get the law of God into the soul? Only by repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, over and over and over and over, day after day, year after year. And you know, we’re not that different than they are. So when we come to the New Testament and we see the law of Christ, do you think that comes into the soul any easier than the Old Testament came into the soul? It does not. So we have to meditate in doctrine day and night. That’s what a church ought to be. This church is not an evangelistic agency; my job is not to get up here and give some little tear jerker and play 40 stanzas of Just As I Am so everybody can come down front. That’s not my job; my job is to train you so that wherever you go you can handle yourself spiritually; that’s my job. And you are to be the ones that lead people to Christ, not me. My job and the job of every pastor teacher is to teach and if you move some place and you get into a local church that’s not doing that job you’re in the wrong place. I don’t care whether Aunt Tilda bought the first brick or not, and whether your family has gone there for the last 58 years. You go where you’re getting the Word if you know what’s good for you Scripturally speaking.

The other means of sanctification is grace, so turning back to John 15 we’ll see that in addition to Christ’s commands He also gave us that second means of sanctification, grace. Now grace under the Old Testament can be seen many ways, we’ll just name two. It can be seen in the giving of the Law in the first place, the idea that a holy God would speak to sinful men, make His will known to them, that’s grace. What did God do before He gave them the Law? He got them out there where they could hear it. What was that for? By grace, by grace God redeemed Israel and took them out there and then by grace He talked to them. So the very act of giving the Word to begin with is an act of grace. And then the act of enabling, that is that we can obey the Word, or haven’t you noticed? Your soul doesn’t like the Word of God. When you read the Word of God it’s not really… you’re not jumping up and down with joy every time you see some great passage, and least of all are you jumping up and down with joy when you’re in a temptation situation, a trying situation, some adversity some time where you’re threatened to worry, cop out, forget it. The Word of God isn’t joyful at that time, be honest with yourself, it is not joyful, it’s a trial in your soul. And that’s because of the sin nature, we all have that sin nature, it rebels against the Word of God. Now if it were just that [can’t understand word] we would never be obedient to the Word. And so therefore God in grace overcomes in some way and it’s still a mystery unknown to theologians how this happens; enabling grace to work in the soul so that the soul becomes receptive to the will of God. Whatever receptivity you have tonight to the Word of God is solely by grace. Whatever receptivity I have to the Word of God, whatever joy I get out of the Word of God is only because of the Holy Spirit, not because of my own nature. My own nature would flee from the Word of God, would rebel against being interfered with by the Word of God and so would yours.

So enablement under the Old Testament occurred and enablement in the New Testament occurs and that’s what verse 2 is talking about. The Father, says Jesus, prunes; that’s talking about not only experiential sanctification but it’s talking about clearing out the stuff that needs to be cleared out so that He can enable us to keep on producing. That’s part of the gracious enabling of the Father, daily, you don’t even ask for it. This enabling ministry isn’t a function of your own consciousness; the Holy Spirit doesn’t sit there and wait for us to tell Him, hey, Holy Spirit will You help me out? We’d never ask Him. The Holy Spirit undertakes on His initiative for you personally to overcome points in your soul and you life so the Word of God will work, all without you asking. See, it doesn’t depend upon you, it depends on the sovereign, almighty work of God the Holy Spirit. We could go on and describe the work of the Son, that’s in John 14:21 and the work of the Holy Spirit, John 14:16-17. So all three members of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are involved in grace and gracious enablement. Finally the other two points of the doctrine of sanctification we’ll get later on as we go through the passage, point 4 and point 5; point 4 is the dimensions of sanctification, and point 5 is the enemies of sanctification.

So let’s look at a few verses and see if we can see some of these principles. John 15:7, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” That’s the summary statement and every verse after this explains that. Christ winds up in verse 16 where He started in verse 7. So that’s where He’s going, He’s giving you a summary sentence. “If you abide in Me,” that is, if you are “in Me” and sanctification is proceeding you’re going to get to that place where you can ask the Father whatever you want “and it shall be done to you.” Now we’re not going to get there until our souls are perfect and so our soul will always ask what He wants and so this is the ultimate goal of sanctification, getting to a position where we will be able to ask anything on our hearts and whatever we ask that’s on our heart will be right. And you know as well as I do that we’re a long way from that right now. So obviously this is talking about ultimate sanctification, the goal. We’ll prove it to you in just a little bit.

John 15:8, “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and,” not so, “and that you become My disciples.” So notice in verse 8 we have defined for us what bearing much fruit is, it is a synonym for becoming a disciple, see, there’s two words in the Greek here, John uses the word for believers, they’re already believers, they don’t have to become believers, they’re saved people, but what they do have to become is disciples. Disciples means trained ones, that is people who are sanctified, and that’s will. And that’s when we’re productive, when the grape vine is producing, when it’s a mature vine and we’re disciples when we’re mature and you get mature by the operation of grace and law. You do not necessarily get mature because you’re in some little bully thing of one on one. Now it’s all right to have a Christian friend to help you, but some organizations seem to make a practice out of assigning somebody to some new Christian and everywhere this new Christian goes; if they go down to the mall and they have to go chase them around the mall and if they go down to the pizza parlor they’re in the pizza parlor. The point remains that this bully operation goes on in the name of discipleship. That’s bullying, that’s not discipleship. You know you’re creating a false issue because here is some new Christian, and first of all, an older Christian is always intimidating to a new Christian, a new Christian thinks gee, look at all the things I do wrong and boy, they do everything right. That is until they get to know you. And so you are naturally a source of intimidation to this person and you go around everywhere they go and they can’t get away from you. Now what do you suppose that does to the mentality of a new Christian. He can’t get carnal without you knowing all about it. Now that is not the way God designed sanctification; that is a violation of privacy; you have a right to privacy and a new Christian has a right to privacy and don’t you violate the right to privacy. Disciples are not made by the one on one operation.

John 15:9, “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love.” Now if you stop in verse 9 you’d say well that’s nice pious wording but it doesn’t tell us anything. But Jesus didn’t stop with verse 9, He finished it in verse 10 and verse 10 tells you exactly what it means. “If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” Now what does the love mean? That you please Him. Look at the last part of verse 10, “I kept My Father’s commandments, and I abide in His love.” What does that mean? I please Him, the Father is pleased with the Son. Jesus said this many times in his ministry and John recorded it; everything I do pleases the Father. So the love here is a pleasing, it’s not some mystical esoteric thing. He’s just saying that if you keep My commandments you’re going to keep Me pleased. Just like I kept my father’s commandments and I kept him pleased.

John 15:11, “These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might stay with you, and that your joy might become full.” And with verse 11 you have the connection between sanctification and happiness. Happiness Scripturally is always a byproduct; happiness never is a direct product of your life. Whenever you get cranked up with the idea that you are going to attain happiness you have just become what is known as a hedonist, and all hedonists will always find, whether it’s the bottle, whether it’s sex, whether it’s drugs, or whatever it is, whenever you try to pursue happiness it’s like a cat in front of your nose, you never get it, because you start doing one thing and that becomes pleasurable but since you are seeking and sucking pleasure out of that very thing, finally you suck it dry and then you have to advance to something else and you come over here, I’ve got happiness here, and you work this thing over and work it over until that runs dry and then you go to something else and so hedonism has always failed historically. It always destroys itself and therefore a lesson to learn from thousands of years of human experience: no man has ever attained happiness by trying to attain happiness. We attain happiness only by trying to please God. That’s the solution, and this is one of the great promises of Scripture. In this way Jesus Christ personally gives each one of us a promise, “that your joy might be plethora,” in other words, the highest most beautiful, most enjoyable kind of happiness that you can ever imagine, that will be pleasing down into the inner depths of your soul. Christ says that is a product of following My Word; I give all this to you, “that your joy might become plethora,” it might become full and complete.

John 15:12, “This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” He returns to this same theme and He’s going to illustrate it. [13] “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He is shortly going to discuss this. In verse 13 we might point out something, a little exercise in imagination. I don’t know how many of you saw the film Midway, I was talking to some of the people here about it and the universal remark about this, and I noticed particularly the young people remarked about this watching the film, it didn’t dawn on me until I got the response from the young people, and there was a decided difference in the older peoples view of the film and the younger people’s view of the film. And the things the younger people seemed to come up with out of that thing was when they saw the American pilot fly the dive bombers in without…the American navy had three kinds of planes, torpedo planes that flew on the deck and came in and they had to ride it right in on the water level, the dive bombers who had to come in all the way down and those guys couldn’t let go of the target, divert to avoid any anti aircraft fire, they picked out their target and had to dive for it, and then the fighter cover that had to come in on top to protect. And of course in the battle of Midway the fighters, like everything else in the military, snafu and the fighters are over at some place and the dive bombers are over here and so when they found the target the fighters couldn’t find the target, the dive bombers did, the dive bombers went in and [can’t understand words] them and killed them all.

And the thing that impressed several of the people I talked with was that here these pilots were, they could get away, but the enemy was there and they knew they were going to get killed if they went in, and yet they knew also that if they didn’t go in there was no chance of getting the enemy; they chose to go in, regardless of air cover or not, and lose their life. They said gee, you know, I don’t think I could do that, I don’t think if I knew for sure that I was going to die I could face a situation like that and actually do it. And of course none of us really knows until it actually hits whether we could really pull something off like that. But if you stop and think, if you faced the thing of certain death, and you’ve got time to think about it, and you know you’ve got no other alternative, it’s either that or your loved ones, and you have to lay your own life on the line, there’s basically two things that go through your soul at that point, at that time of the crisis and if you think of these two things they’re all related to sanctification. Before you can give your life in that kind of a situation you’ve got to be assured of two things; one is that the Lord is going to take care of what we’ll call the flack, in other words, you may think well, gee, I’m married and I have a family and what’s going to happen to my wife or you may be a single person, my parents depend upon me, who’s going to take care of my parents and I can think of 1008 different obligations I have in life and here I am and in about 2 minutes I’m going to lose my life and I know I’m going to lose it and here I am thinking about this thing before I’m going to lose my life.

Now at that time what do you have to do? You have to be convinced that the Lord is going to take all those details and take care of them. So what does it become? It becomes a battle of faith, do you, can you, in that situation, put your life and all the details in His hand and say okay, I’m going to have to trust the Lord for my wife, for my children, for my parents, for all these other obligations. Do I believe that He is going to be big enough to handle it. And then there’s something else that boils down to the same issue. After I give my life, is it going to be effective or is this going to be a waste. I’ve got to somehow believe that the sacrifice of my life in the long range will be effective and that involves details over which I cannot control. Those pilots that lost their life in that first wave that went in on the Japanese fleet, they had no idea how effective they were going to be. It was totally in the Lord’s hands, and you have to either have a happy-go-lucky attitude which is just a gross unbeliever attitude, or you have to have the believer’s attitude which is by faith. So at this point of giving your life in the middle of a crisis that itself is a crisis primarily not of love at all, it’s primarily a crisis of trust; do you or don’t you trust in that kind of a situation? That’s why John says “perfect love casts out fear,” because by the time you battle through in your soul that you could trust the Lord in that kind of a situation, you have become free to love. See, only a secure kind of person can love. That’s why the word “love” today is so ridiculous. The word “love” today obviously means nothing more than copulate; well any animal can copulate so obviously that doesn’t involve any trust. Real love is only possible with someone who has established a base of security. An insecure person can’t love, they’re going around seeking love but they’re not giving a thing. Whatever they give it’s designed in the final analysis to fill the vacuum in their own soul and they’ll manipulate you, they’ll do all sorts of things, but because they are insecure themselves they are unable to love. The true lovers are the secure people who have an enormous amount of trust and faith.

So Jesus goes on and completes this statement, after He says “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” then He goes to the friends and here is something else He brings out, same theme of faith. Who was the friend of God in [can’t understand word]. Abraham. And who is the model of faith? Abraham. And you can’t trust somebody as a friend until they know you, something else, practical doctrine, no extra charge. But you can’t be a friend of anybody either unless you know that person’s soul. You can have many acquaintances if life but very few friends because there are very few people that you can a deep personal relationship with. You just physically can’t; you can’t emotionally, it’ll just drain you to have too many. So your numbers of loves and friends are always limited simply by the capacity of the soul to have these deep relationships. That’s why God, for one thing, has ordained marriage; your ultimate love can only be focused in one direction, it can’t be split-focused.

So here we have Jesus Christ in the role of a friend and the enormity of this statement is that He is the God-man, and here is God incarnate calling us a friend. [14] “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”] “Henceforth,” He says in verse 15, “I don’t call you slaves [I call you not servants;]” like the Old Testament, “for the slave doesn’t know what his lord’s going to do, [for the servant knows not what his lord doeth: but] I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” That’s the kenotic mentality of Christ. “All things I have heard of My Father expresses His dependency, in His kenosis, on the Father’s omniscience, and whatever He has received from the Father’s omniscience He has passed on to us; He has totally entrusted the believer with His soul. You see, same theme; here’s two people. Now this person over here, friend one, friend two; friend one has to trust friend two before friend one can bare their soul to friend two. You can only have a friend, people you can trust. Trust again is the basis for friendship. And so when Christ says “you are My friends” it not only means that we know something, it means He trusts us. That’s an enormous statement. The God of the universe trusts you enough to lay bare His soul.

And finally He closes out in John 15:16-17, with an assurance of our ultimate victory, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you,” He just wants us to remember election, “and I have ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you.” Notice there are two results in verse 16; the first one, go bring forth fruit, fruit remain, that’s all one clause. The second clause, “Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.” Now the sector of verse 16 is that clause a leads to clause b and if you look at clause b, clause b doesn’t look like it’s much of an improvement on clause a. You’d like it to say it’s the reverse, I have chosen you and ordained you, whatsoever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you and that you should go and bring forth fruit. But that’s not the way He does it. Verse 16 is talking about Christian missions, that you should go and bring forth fruit. That includes soul winning but it includes the great commission kind of soul winning which was to make disciples of nations so that there is a loyalty produced in the souls of those that are won. Parallel references are in John to show you the missions concept, John 4:35; John 12:20; John 17:18. Missions are through and through this Gospel; “that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain,” that is the election of the results of this thing. The loyalty will remain because it’s elected; the whole program is grounded on God’s sovereign purpose. The final clause, b, the ultimate result, is “that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you,” just a reflection of verse 7 again, ultimately pleasing God so that in ultimate sanctification we get to that point where we can ask anything that is on our heart and it won’t be anything on our depraved heart because the depraved heart has been totally dealt with.

John 15:17, “These things I command you, that ye love one another.” The ultimate thing, the new commandment that He’s given time and time again. Next week we’ll deal with the enemies of sanctification in verse 18.