“Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching (concerning) his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a VERY fruitful hill: And he fenced (dug)it, and gathered (cleared) out the STONES thereof, and PLANTED it with the CHOICEST (best) vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and made a winepress therein:and he looked that IT SHOULD bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” ISAIAH 5:1,2

Bad fruit, dried fruit and fruit that withers right there on the vines, the fruit trees that can be completely laid waste by the sucker plants that take hold under the host tree and drain every ounce of life from it until there is no nutrients left for the main tree while the parasitic plants thrive. We know that we ARE the plantings of the Lord.

We ARE the plants in the midst of his beautiful spiritual garden. We know that he said, “I AM the true (genuine) vine, and my Father is the husbandman (vinedresser).

Every branch IN ME that beareth NOT fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth (prunes) it, that it may bringeth forth MORE fruit. 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. 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. If a man (person) 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.

If you abide in me, and my WORDS abide in you, YE SHALL ASK WHAT YE WILL, AND IT SHALL BE DONE UNTO (for) you. Herein is my Father glorified, THAT YE BEAR MUCH FRUIT: So shall ye be my disciples.” JOHN 15:1-8 

Notice in our starting scripture a perfect picture of what the Lord does to us at the moment of salvation. He pulls us up out of the grunge and the dirt clods and He digs up the roots and removes all the weeds (sin, snares, and blight) and clears away all the stones (the hard, painful problems that we cannot overcome ourselves) and plants the best of the best (Himself) into us. He the protects that vine by, He, Himself being the High-Tower in the midst of it. Completes it with a press that the fruit that SHOULD come forth will turn to His Wine to be shared among others.

But instead of beautiful, ripe grapes comes forth wild, untamed, bitter fruit and that is what so easily can happen to us. Especially in the day in which we are to grow. And this is not a problem with WHERE we are planted, because this is a FRUITFUL HILL, blessed of the Lord to be all hat is needed for ANYTHING planted there to grow and thrive. When heartache, strife, and church offense comes into play, many are hurt, wounded, and left, what they feel to themselves and their fruit now withers away. Anointing and talents just left hanging out to dry on a tree that HAS been blessed by the Master’s hand in order to produce those fruits.

No one can seriously tell me that they can watch the news, read a paper, or even spend an hour or so in public and NOT see that this world and especially this country is absolutely gone to hell in a handbasket. The election gets funnier everyday, we have a choice between a person who thinks it is fine to abort and dismember babies for profit and an egotistical misogynist, blacks and cops wiping each other out and the sick twisted circus our society has become is now complete with sadistic clowns on the loose to bring on more terror.

Is it a shock? When the majority is me, me me and drug addictions are through the roof, leaving countless children parent less and reared by social service programs, and sex is nothing more than shaking hands and church is often a place to be patted on the back, and EVERYONE is offended, EVERYTHING is offensive and who cares?

The only care is this society is for number one, good old self and it is everything the Bible said it would be and more! No surprise that so much fruit is withering and turning bitter, BUT we are PLANTED IN HIS HILL. That is why we must ABIDE in HIM, in a place not of this world but in that secret place of the Most High, that place under the shadow of His wings, and that place where our fruit will grow and the pruning through the trials and hurts of this world will produce even more fruit that we can share with those who are starved out from this world. So if you have been hurt, you have been offended, or the most horrifying of all words, DISCOURAGED, please take note, check “your” tree, your “branch” and see how that fruit is coming along and note what needs pruned, what needs watered, and what needs to be held up to the SON for light and nourishment. Withering can come through heat from the enemy, it can come from lack of water, it can come from many things but they are preventable and MUST BE prevented:

JUDE:12 (4) …. “Trees whose fruit withereth, WITHOUT FRUIT, TWICE DEAD, PLUCKED UP BY THE ROOTS.” They were twice dead, because they HAD been spared, they had been dressed, they had been given everything possible to ensure fruit, ONLY to die again, and now all left to be done is to destroy them, roots and all to never, ever grow again. We HAVE to stay out of this world, ABIDE IN CHRIST. Jesus left us without some really, really scary words as He was on the way to His crucifixion, and to ponder this, tells all that needs told:

LUKE 23:31: “For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” What will happen in a hate-filled, demonically overran, self-righteous, self-seeking, God-hating world?  The reason that we are warned and warned to stay “out” of the “world”, come out and be a “separate” people. We absolutely can not worry about this world, and be concerned about “fitting” into a world that we were NEVER designed to fit into. We have become more worried about looking good and making the Gospel “attractive” that putting forth the Gospel as itself, the Gospel DOES not need us, we and the world need it. Our love affair and hoping into bed to lie with the world is exactly what is happening to our churches.

JOHN 17:5,6,9-21: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory, which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men (humans) which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me: and THEY HAVE KEPT THY WORD.

I PRAY FOR THEM: I PRAY NOT FOR THE WORLD, BUT FOR THEM WHICH THOU HAST GIVEN ME: FOR THEY ARE THINE. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee, Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

WHILE I was with them in the world, I KEPT THEM IN THY NAME: those that thou gavest me I have kept, And none of them is lost (destroyed) but the son of perdition (destruction) that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now I come unto thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them thy word; and the world hateth them, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT OF THE WORLD, EVEN AS I AM NOT OF THE WORLD. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep the from the evil (evil one) THEY ARE NOT OF THE WORLD, EVEN AS I AM NOT OF THE WORLD. SANCTIFY THEM (set them apart) through thy truth: thy word is truth.

As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, they also might be sanctified through the truth. That they ALL may be ONE; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that THEY MAY ALSO BE ONE IN US; that the world may believe that thou sent me.”

Jesus taught extensively on this subject for a reason, to let us know that WE ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD and it is time for believers to start being believers and quit trying to be something we are not. Let our fruit grow in Christ because when He visits, He expects to find fruit or we will all end up like that little fig tree.

Finishing up, He has done His job in us, we need more, we need only to ask, because we don’t want to answer Him this question, ISAIAH 5:4-7 : “WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE MORE TO MY VINEYARD? THAT I HAVE NOT DONE IN IT?

Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

AND NOW GO TO (come); I WILL TELL YOU WHAT I WILL DO TO MY VINEYARD:

I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up (burned or consumed); and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down (trampled down): AND I WILL LAY IT WASTE: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come upon it briers and thorns:

I will command the clouds that they rain no more upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: for he looked for judgment (justice), but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.”

That should make all of us consider checking our “trunks” and asking the Lord to prune, weed, and set us in those good places and get back to the business of the Kingdom. The only thing dried fruit is good for is fruitcakes and we have plenty of those to deal with at the moment! We don’t need anymore!

Φλογίζω Σαλπιζω NBJ 2016

God really challenged me with these lyrics many years ago, as I was being stubborn in a battle that He let me know, it really isn’t who is wrong or who is right, He wants peace and what could ever be worth us losing or diminishing the price He paid for us, what argument, what battle, what hurt could ever amount to the price He paid for us in His own blood. What could we EVER gain to compare to the debt we OWE HIM. Nothing is worth letting our fruit waste away.