Abiding In The Vine
Thank God for Jesus, You made it possible for us to be redeemed out of the hands of the enemy; taken out of the death sentence which was given by Adam and Eve. Father, we thank You that we are new creatures in Christ Jesus with new promises made; so Lord, thank You for your word. We ask You to give each one an ear to hear and a heart to receive. Impart your word to each of us that we might know the reality of the word of God. We thank you Jesus, that You have allowed you to live in this hour in this day for we know that in this hour you have purposed to take your strength out of captivity and your glory out of the enemy’s hands. Lord, we are privileged to see You do this. We are privileged to be a part of it.
Lord, I ask you to make us aware that with what You are giving to us, we might allow You to do that mighty work that we each need in our lives; so we can be in that place that we can be in this hour. We give You glory and we thank You for your perfect provision for each of us no matter what we have been or what our lives have been, You have redeemed us by your precious blood. We thank You Lord Jesus, for the perfect plan that You have for each of our lives, as we live our lives as a living sacrifice unto You; which is our reasonable service. Jesus we ask You now to bring life to each one that hears and prepare us not only to learn but to do; and we give You glory for it, in Jesus name. Amen.
I’d like for you to turn to Isaiah 11 and John 4.
1. “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2. And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
3. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
4. But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
10. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
11. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”
Turn to Luke 4 verse 18:
18. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.”
Turn to Isaiah 4:1:
1. “And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
2. In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.”
Turn to John 15: 1:
1. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2. 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.
3. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
4. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10. 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.
11. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Go back to Isaiah 4:
2. “In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.”
Jesus is here in the 11th chapter spoken of:
1. “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:”
That branch is Jesus.
2. “In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely.”
Whose fruit is it? It’s the Lords; we are His branches. If we don’t bear His fruit we are going to be cut off. If we bear His fruit then it’s going to be excellent and comely. The branches are going to be beautiful and glorious. What is going to make that branch beautiful and glorious? We’re not talking about Jesus the branch we’re talking about us the branch. Jesus makes it very clear in this scripture that you aren’t the vine you are only the branches. But the life from the vine has to be from the branches so that He can bear the fruit of the vine not the fruit of the branch. The fruit comes from the vine not the branches. In order for us to be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth excellent we must abide in the vine and our fruit has to come from Him not from our selves.
So Jesus speaks here of His love. He says I am the true vine my Father is the husbandman, but you are the branches. You can’t be the fruit of yourself. There’s only one way that you can bring forth that fruit. That fruit He talks about abides in me.
John 15:7: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10. 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;”
What is it that God is requiring of us through Jesus? What is God requiring of us today? I feel we are in this dispensation when God is requiring of us that this fruit come forth perfect. In this fruit in that day shall the branch be beautiful. What is God trying to do with us today that we are fighting against? He’s trying to make us the branch that’s connected to the vine; and the vine is Jesus and Jesus has the Father. The Father is love so is the Son. So out of His branch must come love. In order for us to be filled with His love we have to get rid of everything else.
Let’s go to the commandment, the first and great commandment. In Mark He said, “Hear, O Israel; The lord thy god is one lord: …love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and all thy strength…” and love thy neighbor as thy self. We are speaking here in Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 4 of something that is happening. Jesus was given the Holy Spirit by the Father. He was given the Holy Spirit without measure. God is bringing forth the branches today. Jesus the true vine is bringing forth the branches in His love so that we can see the total fulfillment which was given to us by God the Father. First thing He said, “Have ears to hear.” Then receive it and obey it. Hear O Israel thy God is one Lord love Him with all your heat, your mind and all your strength; in order for us to love God with all there is within us.
We have to get rid of everything inside of us: all the things that have been placed there through our generations, our ancestors; all these horrible things of Satan out of the pit. The music they have, I’m going to tell you one thing. I don’t want to hear you singing it or playing it because this is God’s property. We aren’t going to have it. We are cleaning house. God’s getting ready to clean tables on the enemy and move everything from this property that the enemy has used to destroy it. We are abiding in the vine. We have to allow him to purge and cleanse and purify us.
We are living in the last days. He’s already begun a mighty work throughout the world. We aren’t going to do it because we are such important people. We aren’t going to do it because we are special to God. We are only going to do it if we are filled with His love and glory and only if we allow God to take out of our lives everything that the enemy has put there or we have allowed him to put there. It doesn’t matter how it got there it has to be taken out so that God can do something with his perfect love. His perfect love must come into us. Murder, envy, jealousy and strife have to go for Jesus, the true vine, to be in us.
His branches will wither and die unless we allow Him to purge us and cleanse us with His love. Not just a portion of it, but with all our heart, with all of our soul, with all of mind and all of our being; so that His love can be seen in the branches; glorious and beautiful, filled with His love. A demonstration of His glory to a world that doesn’t know Jesus: the Muslim world today. The only thing that’s going to break those Muslim powers is God’s love and glory. He knows what to do as soon as we let Him fill us with it. He knows how to use us by His spirit. He’s going to help us.
Then the verse in Isaiah 11 says, ‘God gave to Him His spirit without measure.’ Jesus said that He gave to us His Spirit. When Jesus perfects us the way He wants us perfected He’s going to give to us His spirit without measure, because His love is going to take the place of everything else. When that’s all done then He’s going to pour out His spirit straight from the heavens from the Father and He’s going to give to us His spirit without measure. It’s happening now as we yield ourselves to Him. In this place you have heard enough of the truth that you ought to be walking on the clouds today.
Isaiah 11: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots….” And the true vine shall bring forth branches not of themselves but of the vine. The life in them is in the vine. It isn’t in the branches. The fruit that’s in the branches isn’t our fruit it’s His love. His love will be given to the world as we allow Him to change us. He will have His spirit rest upon us. He is doing it for those who have given their lives a living sacrifice unto Him and allowed the true vine to come forth in Him.
God has to remove it all. Let it go, let God take it. Allow him to become the true vine inside of you with the love of God: the fulfillment of God’s word in us. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, with knowledge and the fear of the Lord. What is it going to do? It’s going to give us a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. Number one the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon us and remain upon us and the spirit of wisdom. This spirit is coming from God. God will pour out His spirit upon us in the same measure that He gave it to Jesus when we get rid of all these things in our lives and allow Him to remove everything from us except His love. Then God is ready to give His spirit without measure and with it comes the spirit of wisdom from God.
We want to get so much learning. The greatest thing we can get is God’s love in us to fill us with His love, His wisdom and understanding and His spirit of counsel and might and with knowledge and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Would we rather have that than to struggle with our own? Take out all the garbage that we have inherited! Let Him take it out and give us His love without measure and His wisdom without measure.
How great is His counsel. What is it He is going to give us? A quick understanding in the fear of the Lord and He that shall not judge it by the sight of the eyes. With righteousness shall He judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. (Is. 11:5) “And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.” God is preparing a people to be filled with His branches. We aren’t our own. If we are abiding in Him, and He in us then the fruit in these branches is His love. Not human love. In order for us to have this we have to live in Him and He in us.
So He is calling forth the people today when Jesus is going to give forth everything He has for man in the fullness of His spirit. We can have it if we empty our lives and become one with Him in the spirit and one with Him in all we do, if we do it unto the Lord and the Lord’s blessing is with it. If we are doing it with a wrong attitude and we carry on with that attitude God isn’t going to bless us. If we do them by the spirit of the Lord and because we are doing it unto the Lord then the blessing of the Lord will be upon us.
Sometimes other powers come into the kitchen because the attitudes are bad. The blessings of the Lord can’t come because we prevent those blessings from coming. He can’t come if we don’t have the right attitude. If we mouth off and we aren’t doing things the way the Lord wants them then we can’t have His blessings. The enemy will come with the curses and you will receive those instead of God’s blessings. It is for us to realize that we are now His branches and His branches are the vine of love. He judges differently than we do. He doesn’t look at us as we do one another; but He judges by the spirit of the Lord, by His understandings.
I remember when the Lord set me in this place and He gave me a very special anointing. Down through the years people have come with problems but all I saw was the finished product. I saw the finished product in their lives or I would have lost heart. God didn’t let me see the condition of them. He let me see the finished product. That’s why when people come and the Lord speaks to us concerning them and I see the finished product. The finished product actually is God’s love in us; in our heart, soul and mind and in every part of our being. Something happens to us; then we see everybody differently. We don’t see them in the same light. We see them with quick understanding and the fear of the Lord, we can love them. We can hate the enemy with his powers but we can love the individual. We hate the evil that’s there. We have to be able to divide and separate that which is of the devil of the flesh and that which is of God. We have to love the person. We can hate the stuff they are connected with. But we can love them no matter what we see, no matter what they do. Not love the evil or the filth or their mouths that speak out garbage but love them.
Jesus said offences must come, but forgive them. If seven times in one day they come to you forgive them. That’s hard to take. Seven times seventy forgive them. Let His love cleanse you. When we put out of our mouth hate we are putting a curse there on the people when we tell them we hate them. We have to love them no matter how evil it is. No matter the stuff they spew out of their mouth we have to love them with the love of the Lord. We have to pray and forgive them.
Jesus said He will “…make them of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. 4: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.”
Jesus is our holiness, our joy, our peace, our love, if we will allow Him to make us to be a part of His vine, so that we can be His branches. They can be filled with His love each branch. This is the cry of Jesus’ heart. This is what He gave to us and the love of the Father to be in us and the love of Christ to be in us that we might love one another. If His love is in us then it will show forth. If the hate is there we won’t have His love. But as He changes our lives, remember He’s the true vine and He’s filled with love. This love has to come through the branches and bring forth the love.
When Jesus had just come out of the mount of temptation where He had won for us the victory over Satan, not from the cross; He won that victory right there in mountain of temptation as the son of man. He died on the cross for our sins and cleansing. But on that mountain He defeated Satan. He comes down out of that mountain in Nazareth where He had been brought up. His custom was He went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood out to read.
Luke 4:17. “And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
22. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?”
Why did they say that? Because they didn’t believe that this was the Christ the son of the living God who was speaking to them. What did they want to do? When he finished talking to them what did they want to do? They were going to throw him over the mountain and destroy him.
28. “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29. And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
30. But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
31. And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days.
32. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.
33. And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice,
34. Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.”
Remember this was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He defeated Satan over there in that wilderness. He came in the fullness of the spirit. He came to His hometown and they totally rejected him. But it was the beginning of His earthly ministry. He made the declaration and the “…spirit of the Lord was upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; …to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
He made a declaration and the devil was going to end it right there, but it was just the beginning and until the appointed time for Him to be taken by the enemy He went on in the power of the spirit of God and obeyed God. The whole gospels give the story of what Jesus did when He walked the earth.
He has commissioned us when He spoke just before He returned back to the Father. He said that He has commissioned us to go into all the world and preach this gospel of the kingdom to every creature. He hasn’t changed that command. It’s still before us. There’s a world full of darkness and sin; but Jesus has called us to take His love and His glory. So the result of His love and His glory is beautiful and glorious. What is going to happen with this beautiful and glorious people?
Isaiah 4:2: “In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious.…”
What is the beauty and glory of this branch? God’s love and glory in us. The fruit shall be excellent. What is the fruit of our lives? Jesus’ love! The fruit shall be excellent and comely. What are they going to see? They are going to see Jesus. They will feel His love and glory. No power on earth will be able to stop them if their hearts are crying out for Jesus. When He reveals himself in His love and glory we are going to bow before Him. And He will draw them in His love and glory. See why it is so important for us to allow the Lord to change our lives?
Quit struggling with it! Just die nicely. Realize you will resurrect in a few minutes because it’s His love that is going to come forth; the rest of the stuff needs to be buried. So we say, “Lord let me die so you can live, so that we can fulfill this beautiful purpose of God; that His spirit will be in us with His wisdom and understanding glory.” Not seeing things as man see them but bringing us forth in the realm of His spirit to be trained in Ezekiel’s wheel. For only those can go forth that are trained by Him, that He has revealed Himself to and allowed Him to take from them these things that rise up. This is the last days of purity and holiness from the Lord that He might fill us with His love. The moment you separate yourself, God is there for you. He will take it and you won’t remember what it was like. God took it away. God said all your heart, soul, and mind then there’s no room for anything else. You will be filled with His love and peace.
But Lord, I don’t deserve that kind of treatment! They would come with their insults. He said you hard head let go of it. When I let go there was no problem. I just prayed for people that despitefully used me. I found out most of it wasn’t even real. I found out they didn’t even know I existed. The Lord said let go of it. God took it. God wants to take it all out of us and fill us with His love; then He can come and take us where He is.
This same Jesus is coming again, but He’s not coming with all the junk in us. He said you have to be without spot or wrinkle. Are we all spotless? We have to abide in the vine so He can make us glorious and make us beautiful, filled with His love so that the world may know who Jesus is. He could have saved us and taken us to heaven. But He redeemed us so that we could be that light to those that don’t know him. That the world may know that He loves them.
The Lord is dealing with us. God hears our prayers when we pray by the spirit, He will change our lives. He wants to change our lives. If we fight about, it will be slow. We can be filled with His love, peace, joy and righteousness as we abide in Him and allow Him to come forth in us. It’s up to us. The challenge is up to you. Just say here I am.
Father we thank you for this word. We thank you that you made a perfect provision for us, that your love should come and your love should abide in us and you will make us your branches that the fruit of it is so glorious and wonderful because it is your love. I ask you to do that mighty work and impartation of your love to us; let your love fill us, let all hate be removed so that your love remains. Cleanse us, Lord, and make us pure. Impart the love of your spirit without measure, your understanding and might. Breathe upon these people and remove these things which are not of you. Let us be filled with the fullness of the Father. Impart it deep in us. Jesus we thank you for your great love. Forgive us for these things we have permitted in our lives; that the true vine may be in us. We thank you. We give you the glory and praise. Amen.
June 27, 1996
