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[00:00:05] Well, hello, everyone. We’re so glad you’ve joined us again today. My name is Penny and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I’m so excited about our call today. What do you have for the listeners?
[00:00:30] Well, today, Penny, we’re going to do another radical face call.
[00:00:34] And yes, very awesome. We’re wrapping up what we’ve been discussing. But real quick, for those who are listening in, if this is your first time and you’re not aware of radical face, radical faith is where we take a departure from specifically talking about real estate marketing and actually talk about living your life for the Lord and walking. Walking with Jesus. OK, so if you’re not interested in that, then you can just go and turn off this episode.
[00:01:08] But if you are interested, I invite you to listen in. So, yes, so, Penny, we have been talking on the last several episodes of radical faith with a topic basically do all who accept Christ go to heaven? And yes, yeah. And this has been a pretty exciting topic I shared last time that the reason I started this is actually a personal study of mine. A friend of mine that has been friends for years is just doing a lot of things that are totally contrary to what you would consider someone who follows the Lord. And so I’ve been really concerned. Is he a Christian or is he not? I know he accepted Christ. I know at one point there was life change, but I could see no evidence of Christ in him, even when he worked for us as one of our team members for a year.
[00:02:04] So that was that’s what prompted this whole study. And today we’re going to include everything. And it’s been really eye opening, hopefully has been eye opening for you, too. But it’s been a lot of fun.
[00:02:19] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s been great.
[00:02:22] So let me refresh everyone kind of where we are. I want to go through a quick review.
[00:02:30] Ok, so the review is starting in Matthew ten 22. Jesus says that you’ll be hated by all for my name sake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. I kept wondering, what does that mean enduring to the end? Does that mean that some people don’t endure to the end and therefore they lose their salvation? Or is there something else?
[00:02:53] Sometimes you can’t just interpret one verse by itself. You never can do that by one verse, by itself. Kind of have to look at the holistic part of God’s word. So one of the things we talked on on our first session was the parable of the sower.
[00:03:09] And if you remember, Penny, there are four soils that the seed is stone and you remember that. Yes, I did. OK, now there are three soils that accepted the seed to some degree. Do you remember what those soils were?
[00:03:24] The rocky, huh, the the thorny soil and the one on the path.
[00:03:34] Well, the Rocky, the Sawney and actually the Guzzo accepted it, the one on the path to Burch’s came and fluid and took it away before it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. OK, so so let’s real quickly that rocky soil. Jesus says it receives the seed with joy. Now the seed is the word of God. And we know that the word of God is Jesus, because in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. And he became flesh and dwelt among us.
[00:04:01] Ok, so these Jesus is talking about those who receive him as the word of God and says the rocky soil receives it with joy and it springs up into a plant really quickly. But when the sun comes in, tribulation comes, it immediately dies and withers because there’s no root.
[00:04:20] So you have this rocky soil that doesn’t really accept Christ. It just kind of accepts it superficially, but never takes Christ into into any depth. Then you have the thorny soil. This is the third soil and it says that it accepts the seed and it produces a full grown plant. But that plant grows up with thorns. And because there are thorns, there’s no fruit. So it’s a barren plant. And then you have the fourth soil, which is the good soil, and it says it received the seed.
[00:04:59] It accepts Christ and it produces fruit, some 30, some 60, some 100 fold. And then Jesus ends that statement, that section with a parable that the only the good soil is his disciple. So then we start to see that there’s a differentiation between fruit, something producing fruit and not. The next thing we talked about and think this was on our last session is the parable of the barren fig tree. Do you remember that parable?
[00:05:32] Yes, a little bit, not word for word, but I did a little talking about it. Yeah.
[00:05:39] So just in general, here’s what the parable says, that a master or an owner comes to his vine dresser and says, you know, I’ve been coming to this fig tree for three years and don’t have any fruit.
[00:05:53] Cut it down. And the vine dresser says, hold on just a moment, let me dig around it, put manure around it and give it one more year to see if we can get it producing fruit. But if not, then we’ll burn it will cut it down and burn it. And so this is a parable. We talked about the fig tree and the olive tree. The fig tree is basically representing Israel of the natural and the olive tree representing Israel or the promise. In other words, it’s kind of representing the flesh and the spirit and. As the flesh that produces no fruit, the only good thing for the fig tree when it produces no fruit is to cut it down. And and so that’s kind of where we left off to a degree last time. And then the final thing we started to discuss is the difference between converts and disciples that converts are people who accept Christ. And disciples are people who not only accept Christ, but pursue him, so we could say, I’ve remember in in some of the evangelism classes I’ve taken as we’re sharing with someone to accept Christ, that you’re actually doing two things. You’re accepting crisis, your savior, to save you from your sins. But simultaneously, you’re also accepting him as your lord to follow and obey him.
[00:07:18] Have you recognize that? Do you know what I’m talking about on that? Yes. Yes, OK.
[00:07:23] And to accept him as your savior, but not as your lord is to not accept him. Mm hmm. And so a convert is those who accept him as savior, but not as Lord, a disciple as those who accept him not only as savior, but also as Lord. And that’s kind of where I want to start to wrap up and two days talk and show you scripturally how this starts to apply in this starts to make sense with all these parables and and the message that Jesus has only the one who endures to the end will be saved.
[00:07:55] And and what does all that mean? So with that and in line, let me go with the final parable we’re going to talk about. This is the parable of the virgins. And I’ll let you read it real quick.
[00:08:12] We’re going to go to Matthew 25, and his first is one one through 13.
[00:08:20] All right, should we read out of the E.S.P?
[00:08:24] Yeah, let’s do ESV They’ll be best.
[00:08:26] Okay. All right. One through 13, Matthew. Twenty five. Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. Four when the foolish took their land, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry. Here is the bridegroom come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose in their lamps, and the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves. And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut afterward, the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord opened to us. But he answered, truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch, therefore, for, you know, neither the day nor the hour.
[00:09:41] Well, pretty powerful, though, truly. I tell you, I do not know you. It’s reminiscent of the other parable that we read last time of I think it’s the sheep and the goats or something there. But the people who say, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name and heal the sick and do all these mighty works? And Jesus said, be gone for I never knew you. Yeah, very similar here. So let’s kind of look at what’s going on here, because this is interesting. So first off, you know, the Lord works in patterns.
[00:10:18] We see these patterns everywhere. If you just look in nature, the pattern of a tree is very similar to the pattern of a bush, which is similar to the pattern of a of a blade of grass. OK, there’s a common structure. There’s patterns. You see the patterns in his creation of living mammals, living beings, where there’s bones, there’s muscles, there’s tendons, ligaments, there’s circulatory system, there’s a brain. So we see these patterns throughout in God’s creation. We see patterns also throughout scripture. One of the patterns we see in scripture is the pattern of God’s sovereignty. And choice, let me say this makes sense. God chose Abraham. To bless Abraham, and he chose him from among all of the other people of that time, and he gave the promise to Abraham and his descendants and not anyone else. Follow me so far. Yes. Yeah, OK. We see that pattern then manifests it even further when he chose Israel, the nation of Israel, above all other nations. And at this time, Israel was in bondage in Egypt. So we see the pattern of God choosing. We also then see the pattern of God inviting while they were in in Egypt. God freed them from the slavery and invited them to the promised land. And how many people those had he invited, do you think they accepted that invitation?
[00:11:58] Not all of them.
[00:12:00] Well, hold on, how many people of Israel left Egypt to go on their way to the promised land?
[00:12:08] Last year, all of them did OK, so they all accepted the invitation, was that invitation given to Egypt itself? That I don’t recall, no, because he destroyed Egypt and only called his children the nation of Israel out of Egypt. OK, so we see this pattern of invitation being to a select group of people, but not everyone. We see the pattern that all of those who all of those who were invited accepted the invitation.
[00:12:45] But then of all of those who accepted the invitation, did they all? Enter the promised land, no, no. So there’s a difference between those who accept the invitation versus those who endure to the end and actually enter into that promise, does that make sense? Mm hmm. Yes. OK, so that’s the pattern. And we see it throughout scripture and we see it again here with the Tinbergen. So here’s a pattern. Okay. The bridegroom representing Jesus. Invite 10 virgins to his wedding feast. OK, now those 10 versions, do you think that there were more than simply 10 versions in that town or that village where this parable would supposedly be taking place?
[00:13:35] For sure? Yes. Yeah. So only 10 virgins out of everyone were invited.
[00:13:41] How many of those 10 virgins accepted the invitation to come? They all did. They all did. So all of those who are invited, God chose to invite a group out of the masses of people. And yet all 10 of those accepted the invitation. But how many of those endure to the end? And received that she’s only half OK, so now we start to see this pattern still continuing and now this pattern is given as the kingdom of heaven is like this. OK, so what happened is a real question. Why do you think only part of them got to go to the face and the others were cast away?
[00:14:29] Well, according to the scripture, five were wise, meaning prepared, and the other five were not prepared.
[00:14:38] Very, very interesting. So the five who were wise were intending. To endure to the end, they were serious about the invitation and the other five who were unwise and foolish, they kind of treated that invitation frivolously. Mm hmm. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. OK, now, what did the wise ones do different than the foolish ones?
[00:15:07] They were prepared with enough oil to last night.
[00:15:11] That’s right. They were prepared with enough oil. So oil in scripture. Represents the Holy Spirit. I don’t know if you knew that this is why you anoint with the oil. OK, there’s an anointing of the Holy Spirit. OK, and and so you could actually start to say that the five who endured to the end and enter the feast were the only five who came with the Holy Spirit. So now we see that an invitation is given to all. At the moment of accepting that invitation, there was half of them who accepted it and prepared with oil to endure to the end, prepared with the Holy Spirit. The other five who came, they did not have oil representing. They did not have the Holy Spirit. Does that make sense? Yes. So so they so they accepted the invitation. But not all who accepts the invitation receives the Holy Spirit. Because some accept the invitation frivolously for what they get out of it and some accept the invitation seriously based on loving and serving the master as their lord. And I think is that key ingredient, accepting him as lord, savior and Lord, that is the differentiating. And if we’re going to see that a little bit more, is that pretty cool?
[00:16:39] Yes, that’s awesome. I love that.
[00:16:42] So let’s look at some other scriptures and we’re going to break down into this little bit more. So, John, 15. We’re going to read verses five, six and eight, John, 15 to John, 15 is the vine dresser or parable.
[00:16:59] All right, five, six and eight, five on the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I am him. He it is that bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing if anyone does not abide in me, he’s thrown away like a branch and Withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
[00:17:31] Ok, so let’s analyze this real quick and understand a little bit more. If you abidin him, he says whoever abides in me bears much fruit. In other words, if you abide in him. You will bear fruit. If you don’t abide in him, then the indication that you don’t abide in him is you don’t bear fruit. Does that follow me so far? OK, yeah, only those who bear much fruit prove to be my disciples. OK, by this, my father’s glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. So bearing fruit is the indication of being his disciple. This is what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the sower. Only the good soul, that steward of the seed, enough that it bore fruit was considered his disciple. So then what’s the difference between a convert and a disciple? As we talk, a convert accepts the word of God. But doesn’t bear fruit, it accepts the invitation and goes about their only own, their daily life on their own, the disciple is the one who accepts the word of God and follows it. They see the difference now. And by following it, he’s bearing fruit. So let’s look to a little bit deeper verse. Hebrews 10. And this is going to be verses 35 through 39, Hebrews 10, 35 to 39.
[00:19:10] Ok, let’s see. Thirty five, therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised for yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay.
[00:19:29] But my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. And one more verse, but we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have saved and preserved their souls.
[00:19:47] Yeah, so right on the surface, this appears you can lose your salvation. Do not throw away your confidence. Do not shrink back, because if you throw away your confidence, if you shrink back, then the Lord takes no pleasure in you. So it seems like, hey, we can lose something that we’ve had, right? Yeah, that’s kind of what it seems. And there’s these other verses we’ve read. The one who endures to the end will be saved. That means if you don’t injure, you’re not saved. So maybe I had salvation and then I lost it. I want to go a little bit deeper because that’s not really what this is saying. I don’t think so. To throw away your confidence first means that you don’t endure to the end. Let’s just kind of tie this back to Jesus passage. Only those who endure to the end will be saved. And then it says we have need of endurance. And the enduring to the end is what allows us to receive what was promised is what we saw with the parable of the ten versions and all these other things we’ve shown, those who shrink back and don’t endure to the end are destroyed, but those who endure, they preserved their souls. OK, so that’s just a real quick summation of the concept of what this is saying. And then here’s what’s really interesting. The writer of Hebrews says we are of those who have faith and preserve their souls, so if we have faith, we preserve ourselves. Shrinking back and being destroyed, what that means is we don’t have faith. Because that’s the one who is not, as those who have faith, in other words, if we’re the ones who have faith and preserve our souls. Then having faith is is part of the ingredients of enduring to the end, but if you don’t have faith, then those are the ones who who throw away their confidence. They shrink back and they don’t endure kind of a deep, deep thing. But does does that make sense?
[00:21:44] Yes. Yeah, it sure does.
[00:21:46] Ok, so then it says at the end or somewhere there in the middle when you have done the will of God, OK? When you have done the will of God, let me find that in this verse.
[00:22:07] Thirty six, thank you.
[00:22:09] Yes, so. When you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. OK, so think about for a moment the parable of the talents and parable of the miners. OK, the king the master gives a gift to or resources to servants in both of them, and only those servants who did. The Masters will receive the favor from the master. Those who received and accepted that gift accepted that resource. They accepted it, but they did nothing with it. They’re the ones that were cast out and banished. And that’s kind of what we see here. When you have receipt, when you’ve done the will of God, doing the will of God. Is following his commands, treating him as Lord and is therefore evidence of having faith, and that faith is evidenced by enduring to the end. So it’s kind of a circular concept, but it’s how it all keeps pointing the same spot. One last thing, and then we’re going to get out of the weeds a little bit and go back up a little bit higher. Titus once. Titus, one, 15 and 16.
[00:23:27] All right, I’ll see. Verse 15 and 16, yes.
[00:23:37] To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences have are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their words. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
[00:23:58] Oh, do you know anyone who professes to know God? But there’s no evidence. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people profess to know God. I think we can change that to today’s terminology. Fairly simply accepts Christ. You know, this is like my friend , I was that prompted the study for me, you know, I know he accepted Christ. But. There’s no evidence of it. OK, and so you have they profess to know God, we could say that they are the ones who accepted Christ, but they deny him by their works.
[00:24:39] In other words, they never followed his commands. They don’t treat it seriously. They treat it flippantly. It’s the five foolish versions of the five wise virgins. Do you see this parallels? Yes. Yeah. OK, so so what’s going on is all scripture is kind of is continues to talk in the same things and add insight that there’s a difference here. So now I want to because everything falls back on the fruit. The fruit is the indication of Christ in you. We talked earlier that the fruit is the womb of the seed. The seed is the word of God is Christ in you. So when you bear fruit then is Christ being formed in you make sense? Yes. So we’ve got this back and forth. There’s a difference between merely accepting Christ and Christ being formed in you. Everyone’s given the seed. Everyone’s given the opportunity to accept only a few. Is Christ formed in you and and have you do you remember those passages that say things like work out your salvation or persevere under. OK, yeah. Yeah. How do you work out your salvation? Is that work that you do to earn your salvation. What do you think.
[00:26:01] Oh, gosh.
[00:26:07] That’s that’s a tricky question, because I do recall that there are places in scripture where the focus is not on work, that’s on relationship and are actually condemned.
[00:26:19] And we’re saved by grace, not a result of our work. As a gift of God and you can’t bring a gift. OK, yeah. So this is where we have to, you know, look a little deeper and see what the big picture is saying. Working out your salvation, I believe, is the same as enduring to the end and the same as persevering under trial. And all of these are indicating that Christ is being formed and has been formed in you because that’s that’s the path to salvation. Christ in you, the Holy Spirit, the five versions with the oil.
[00:27:07] So then here’s the big question, OK? All these are kind of big questions, but they all kind of keep coming back to this. So if you had to endure to the end, if you have to work out your salvation, if you have to persevere under trial, only those who endure to the end will be saved. All of these things. And here’s kind of the wrapping up question that I want to finish on. Can a true Christian, a disciple of Christ, go through a season of not bearing fruit, a season of no evidence of Christ being formed in him? In other words, if we went back to my friend at one point, he accepted Christ. At that point, he received it with joy and there was life change. But for the last number of years. There is no evidence that I’ve seen, including having worked with him for a year. No evidence of Christ being formed in him. No or let me say no evidence of fruit. That’s probably the better way to say it. So is it possible for someone to be a true disciple and no longer be producing fruit?
[00:28:22] No longer being no longer producing fruit for a season or for the rest of their life.
[00:28:28] No, no longer showing evidence.
[00:28:32] Of Christ in them for a season or for longer period? Yes, I absolutely think that’s possible for sure.
[00:28:42] Yeah, yeah, OK. And this is what we would call a lot of times we use the term a carnal Christian. It’s not in the Bible, but I think Paul uses the word carnal or carnality.
[00:28:54] So you’ve heard the term carnal Christian, right? Yes. How would how would you define a carnal Christian?
[00:29:03] Somebody who says, oh, yeah, I’m a believer, I go to church and then they live their life as someone who’s not a believer, OK, so they live it is not a believer.
[00:29:14] Then the question is, is that Colonel Christian still say.
[00:29:17] So, uh huh. That’s a good question.
[00:29:24] This person we’re talking about who professes Christ is a true disciple and we say that they can go through. Seasons of no evidence of Christ and no evidence of fruit. Would that be a cardinal Christian at that point? Yes, OK, so now let’s let’s dig into scriptures and let’s look at at what scripture says. Let’s go to Psalm some one. Versus one through three.
[00:29:59] Blessed is the man who walks not in the Council of the Wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night.
[00:30:14] He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yield this fruit in season and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. All right.
[00:30:26] Would it be safe to say to convert the word this righteous man, this man who is righteous would be considered in today’s terminology that true disciple of Jesus? Can you. OK, so so let’s convert this. So this is saying that a disciple of Jesus is the one who delights in the law, the Lord. And in that law, he meditates day and night. He’s like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and all that he does is prosper. All in all that he does, he prospers. So this is saying that this righteous man or a disciple. Is like a good tree that always bears fruit in that season.
[00:31:16] And it also says that Leaf never withers, which means that it’s always healthy. OK, so. Can that tree go through a season where it looks dead?
[00:31:32] Or according to yeah, according to this, according to this, no, because it says it always like you said, it’s always producing fruit. Its leaves never wither, never means never.
[00:31:46] That’s right. Never means never. OK. Also, we see one other thing here says that it’s like a tree planted by streams of water. So water. OK, back to the patterns and scripture and what we’ve talked about no. Numerous times, character. OK, what what does water represent in scripture? The spirit, yeah, right, the river of life, I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me, OK, so that river life is the spirit of Jesus. Out of the temple comes living water. Yeah. And the farther it goes, the more it multiplies. Representing the kingdom, you have Jesus talking to the woman at the well and saying if you drink, I have water that if you drink from you’ll never be thirsty again because it’s living water. So here we have this tree planted by I want to add some words in here, tree planted by streams of living water and that living water keeps that tree healthy and alive and bearing fruit all the time.
[00:32:59] Never without bearing fruit in that season, never withering its leaves. Make sense. Mm hmm. Yeah, but I know that’s the only time Scripture really talks about that metaphor. So let’s go to some 92 verses, 12 to 15.
[00:33:18] Ok, that was a joke.
[00:33:23] The passage was not a joke, but the scripture, that’s only time scripture uses that metaphor, it was a joke. We’re going to find that out. Yeah, okay.
[00:33:31] 90 to 12, 13.
[00:33:34] Well, okay. The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon, they are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him.
[00:33:59] So the righteous man. The disciple. Bears fruit in old old age, by implication bearing fruit because of the pattern we see the Lord does, there’s periods of a fruit when plants bear fruit and in periods where they don’t. So bearing fruit is kind of off and on because it’s a pattern. When we get to heaven, bearing fruit is all the time. We’re going to see that in just a moment. But in the natural, their seasons are bearing fruit. But there’s one thing that is always true, and it says that this this righteous person bears fruit in old age and is never full of sap and green. In other words, the leaves do not whether they’re always healthy and interesting in that.
[00:34:49] Yeah, that would even signify that they don’t go through like a fall season where they are dormant.
[00:34:56] Oh, that Carnel Christian that you were talking about is ok.
[00:35:04] Starts to make. Yeah. Starts to make starts to say well maybe that idea of a carnal Christian is not a true Christian. Hold that thought, we’re going to come back to that, but let’s go to Jeremiahs 17, seven and eight.
[00:35:25] All right, Jeremiahs, 17, seven and eight. Blessed is the man who trust in the Lord whose trust is in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when he comes for its leaves, remain green and is not anxious. In the year of drought, it does not cease to bear fruit.
[00:35:48] Oh, so now we have some parallels coming. The sower and parable of the sower in the seed on the rocky soil, tribulation came heat with the sun and immediately shrivel. But here it says that it does not fear when he comes for its leaves remain green, they remain green. Why? Because it’s planted by water, living water. OK, even in drought, even in tough times.
[00:36:22] As a disciple of Christ, it says in tough times it does not cease to bear fruit. Hmm. Its leaves remain green so they do not wither. It’s always bearing fruit, do you see a pattern, what God told? Yeah, let’s look again to Ezekiel 47, verse 12.
[00:36:49] All right.
[00:36:51] By the way, forty seven since this passage is equals looking into the heavenly realm right now. So so just keep that in mind.
[00:37:01] When he when you read this verse 12, chapter forty seven. Yes. And on the banks on both sides of the river there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruits fail. But they will bear fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.
[00:37:30] So now we see all these imagery coming together, not imagery, characters and patterns. There is living water that flows from the sanctuary that keeps these trees.
[00:37:42] So this is this is basically a new Jerusalem where this is happening, I believe. And the trees are on both sides of this living water coming from the sanctuary. They bear fruit constantly, their leaves do not wither. They remain healthy, so is, if you recall, some of the things we’ve talked about is that the physical world is a shadow of the spiritual world.
[00:38:12] And what is Vehicule is telling us is in the spiritual world, this tree is always healthy and always producing fruit. In the physical world, we find that the tree of the righteous man always bears fruit in its season. The season in the heavenly realm is every month. The season in the natural realm may not be every month, but its leaves never wither. They always remain. Green has always, ever full of sap oak. So now let’s go to Matthew eight.
[00:38:51] Ok. All right, Matthew, three, verse eight says Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
[00:38:58] So now we get another KIYA bearing fruit.
[00:39:01] Ok, so we found we’ve we’ve established that the one who is a disciple always bears fruit, always has healthy leaves, always is indicative of Christ. And now we find that bearing fruit is in keeping with repentance, which means that if you’ve truly repented, you will bear fruit because repentance is a key. By the way, I would suggest to you. Let me ask you those soil number two and three, which is the rocky soil and the thorny soil. Do you think they truly repented when they accepted the word of God?
[00:39:41] No.
[00:39:43] And why do you know that?
[00:39:45] Well, because true repentance would mean that they’ve completely turned the opposite direction and they don’t do that anymore.
[00:39:53] So do you think the good soil would have been true repentance? Yes. OK, so now we start to see there’s this differentiation, accepting Christ without repentance. Social acceptance, let’s call it an accepting Christ with repentance. Simply accepting Christ doesn’t mean Christ gets formed in you. There’s the fruit that’s born of repentance, that’s for bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And so repentance is the key to bearing fruit as the key to being that good soil making sense. Mm hmm. All right. And let’s move a little bit further, Matthew. Matthew, seven. 15 through 20.
[00:40:39] All right, seven, 15 to 20. Beware of false prophets to come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are groups gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistle. So every healthy tree bears good fruit. But the disease tree, there’s bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a disease tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
[00:41:18] So Jesus is reemphasizing everything that comes back to fruit. If you see good fruit, you will recognize that they are my disciple, if you don’t see good fruit. You will recognize that they are not my disciple. Yeah, good, good trees consistently bear good fruit. By implication, we know that means it’s in its season. Nature shows us that, you know, an apple tree, a good apple tree can have a bad apple on it periodically, but it will never produce a crop of bad apples. A good tree will always produce good fruit. So if there’s a harvest, a bad fruit, you can count on that tree being a bad tree. Makes sense. Yeah. All right. Just a couple more verses to wrap this up, John. 15 to.
[00:42:16] Back to the vine dresser. OK.
[00:42:20] All right, John Tuffin, first to every branch in me that does not bear fruit. He takes away every branch that does bear fruit. He pretends that it may bear even more fruit.
[00:42:33] He takes away if you do not endure to the end, you will not be saved, right? Mm hmm. But if you endure, you will and enduring is going to be indicative of fruit isn’t indicative of your endurance. So here’s what’s really interesting with this.
[00:42:50] That word being the Hebrew word that’s translated, takes away, actually has as all Hebrew words that can be translated different ways, and the translators always try to figure out what’s the best way to translate it. This one, I think, actually has a double meaning, just knowing how God works. And a lot of times there’s multiple dimensions to his word. We can’t just say this is demeaning, OK, because it’s usually a lot more than that. But every branch that does not bear fruit he takes away that word takes away, can also be translated, lifts up. So let me give you the picture of what I think is actually going on. So first, let me go back and give you a logical reason for this picture, because Jesus is giving a parable that his disciples will understand the vine to produce fruit is a very important thing in their life. So if a branch is not bearing fruit, let’s say it’s down in the dirt or in the shade, the vine dresser is going to do everything you can to cause it to bear fruit because that’s where the money is. But eventually, if it’s never producing fruit, he’s just going to go and cut it off so it doesn’t take any more. So this is the same thing we see with a barren fig tree. The master says cut it down. The vine dresser says, give it one more chance. Let me go in there and really work on it and help it and give it every opportunity to bear fruit.
[00:44:26] Then if it doesn’t, we’ll cut it down. That’s what we see here, I think. So if we can kind of retranslate this, every branch that does not bear fruit, God lifts up.
[00:44:42] Brushes it off, cleans it off, ties it up to get more sunlight, to give it an opportunity to bear fruit, but if it doesn’t bear fruit, then he takes it away. OK, I think that’s kind of the double meaning that’s going on here. The other thing that we’ve seen this in this first is every good branch. Always bears fruit. OK, because if it doesn’t bear fruit, it’s a bad French and it’s taken away, that means that only the branch that survives and endures, it’s a branch that continues to bear fruit. Notice also that the branch that bears fruit gets pruned. Do you know what pruning is?
[00:45:28] Yes, it’s like cutting away in order to produce more healthy, stronger vine or branch or fruit trees.
[00:45:39] So so in this case with the grapevine, what is so dangerous are pruning away.
[00:45:46] Probably some of the. Places on the vine where the grapes have tried to come out, maybe they’re not all the way out or they’ve already come out once and it’s like the next season and they’re they’re pulling away all the dead stuff so that the new growth can come out a little bit more.
[00:46:06] What’s actually going on? Yes, cutting out dead stuff as well. But what happens is SAP is either going to go to a leaf or go to the grape. So when a vine dresser prunes a vine, what he’s doing is he’s actually pruning away all the health, not all, but he’s pruning away healthy leaves that are consuming sap so more that SAP can then be redirected to produce a bigger crop of fruit. That make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So when the vine dresser when this says that he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit, what he’s doing is he’s pruning away healthy leaves. The leaves are healthy. The same pattern we’ve seen in these other passages that the righteous man will have healthy leaves all the time to leaf does not wither. Because if it withers, it dies and we already know that he’s going to cut away anything that’s dead, so he’s pruning the living stuff and that’s just another indication that it is so healthy that all the leaves are living and vibrant.
[00:47:11] Going back to those how the passage, as we saw last passage then, is Romans seven for.
[00:47:19] Ok.
[00:47:23] All right, Romans seven, verse four, likewise, my brothers, you also have done to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
[00:47:40] That’s right. That we may bear fruit for God indicates a continuance of bearing fruit, not passes, so that we have borne fruit, but we continue. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. All right. So let me go back and ask you this question, OK? Can a true Christian, a disciple of Christ, go through a season of not producing fruit and having no evidence of Christ in the.
[00:48:12] They can go through a season of being withered.
[00:48:19] Yeah, OK. So.
[00:48:26] Help me understand, because these passages all indicate that they’re righteous, man. Even in times of trials there, leifs, say, full in green. Police never wither’s they’re always showing up.
[00:48:42] Ok, so I may have misunderstood your original question, but I was I was just thinking of, like, your friend, someone who does accept Christ becomes a believer, but then choices of their own take them away from following the path, being faithful to the end, and they cease to bear fruit.
[00:49:05] So but if they cease to bear fruit, then were they a good tree at one time that been turned into a battery or were they never a good tree?
[00:49:15] Hmm.
[00:49:17] And let’s go back and to find one more thing, because this is the tricky part. Yeah. Did he bear fruit? Fruit, is Christ formed in you or did he do works, which is Lord Lord, did we not cast out demons and heal the sick and do mighty works in your name? And Jesus says, go away for I never knew you. They did things that looked like the fruit of a believer, but they were never believers. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Is it possible to. Yeah. Is it possible to accept Christ with joy. Accept the word with joy and jump in with joy and start to modify your life with joy but never endured when the trials come. Yes. Yeah. Because that’s the rocky soil right there with joy. OK, so my friend. Who is in a pattern of no evidence of Christ in him? Can he be a true disciple? No, and if he’s not a true disciple, then does he, quote unquote, go to heaven?
[00:50:26] No.
[00:50:28] Of course, that means scripture because Jesus says, depart from me, I never knew you. That’s right.
[00:50:33] And if he doesn’t go to heaven, does that mean he lost his salvation or he never had it?
[00:50:43] Personally, I well, let me let me clarify for the list. OK, let me clarify that. I think it depends on the individual person, because personally, I have seen people that have become radically saved, if you want to use that Christian term, gone to seminary, studied the word no, had a relationship with the Lord, did not care about words, only cared about serving the Lord, knowing the Lord intimately and through events in their life, chose to completely reject God and live the rest of their life as a, I hate to say heathen Christian, but someone who is completely separate from the Lord not bearing fruit. Yes. So for me personally, I believe that person was saved in the beginning because they were bearing fruit, but then chose to reject that. So I think it depends on the person. So maybe if your friend never bore fruit in the beginning, then no, he was not truly saved.
[00:51:48] And bearing fruit is Christ being formed and not the works and the attitude and the gifts that they have, that’s Christ being born in them. And so what we. Yes, so I’m of a slightly different persuasion. The focus of this call is not so much which persuasion are you? My persuasion is if Christ is in you. Can you get him out of you? If Christ has a if you have been adopted as a child of God, can you unadopt yourself? No. Right, and therefore, if Chris is truly in you, Chris will live in you and it says, if Christ lives in you, if that trees planted by streams of water, it will always be healthy. It will endure every trial. Mm hmm. But if we accept Christ and grow up as a Christian. Is the works we do fruit or simply works? Is it the thorny soil? Or is it something different? Therein lies, you know, another topic, if we I’m not sure we’ll do that type of topic because there’s a lot of light out there. Well, let me wrap up. Here’s a conclusion that I do see from all of this. You must be bearing fruit. And enduring to the end if you’re to be called his disciple.
[00:53:21] That, you know, if we go through the first versus we at the very beginning of this session of this topic, Matthew 10 22, but the one who endures to the end will be saved, Matthew, 24 13. But those enduring to the end shall be saved. Mark 13, 13. All who endure to the end without renouncing me shall be saved 21, 19.
[00:53:46] But if you stand firm, you will win yourselves. I think they’re all kind of talking about the same thing of if you’re planted by streams of living water, you will always endure. So back to the question. Do all of you accept Christ go to heaven? I think we see the answer is no. And if not, then can they lose their salvation, kind of what we’re talking about here? And and I think the key is following Christ Christ in you, I want to show you a couple of verses. First, John, two, three and four.
[00:54:27] Ok, verse three and four, and by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments, whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments as a liar and the truth is not in him.
[00:54:42] Ok, so now we start to get some you say there’s clarity. We’re now getting to. Yeah. In other words, if you’ve truly accepted Christ. John says you will keep his commandments. You will not just that you did at one point, but if you have not truly accepted Christ, you will not. If you keep his commands, that means that you’re persevering, keeping his commands makes sense.
[00:55:11] Yeah. Yes.
[00:55:12] Ok, let’s look at a little bit further. First, John, 219.
[00:55:18] Ok, verse 19, they went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all that they all are not of us.
[00:55:37] When they were with them, do you think, Paul, excuse me, do you think John and the other disciples thought that they were actual disciples, true disciples?
[00:55:50] Yes, yes. When they were with them? Yes.
[00:55:52] Ok, so what is John telling us here?
[00:55:57] Hmm, if they had stayed, they would have been if they had endured to the end. We can use that term again, then they would have been the disciples, they would have been with them.
[00:56:09] So were they true disciples at one point that simply through life choices fell away or were they never true disciples? Wow.
[00:56:25] Yes, so question, if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us.
[00:56:34] So then no.
[00:56:37] But they’re going show that none of them belong to us.
[00:56:42] Then, now.
[00:56:43] Let me right, let me go back to your friend that. You just mentioned went through seminary and everything and then turned away. Mm hmm. Based on what this scripture is saying, could that person had truly belonged to Christ?
[00:56:59] Hmm. Based on the scripture, no.
[00:57:02] Ok, so now we’re starting to see. That the evidence of a true disciple. As one that is always indicative of a true disciple going through tough times or not, they always hold to the word of God, they always follow there’s commands. They have Christ being formed in them, which is life. The spirit gives life to our mortal bodies and gives life to our soul. And the spirit is in us and producing life and that life keeps our lives ever full of sap and not withering even during tough times. And we’re always and consistently producing fruit in our season, but is always a healthy tree, never a sick tree. Sick and dying tree. Makes sense. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. OK, now there are, I think, gradients of how much fruit one produces. Some trees produce a handful of apples and other trees produce bushels on bushels of apples. I think this is what what Jesus talks about in the parable of the sower, the goodwill, some producing thirtyfold, some six-fold, some 100 fold, the parable of the talents and the minus. You know, some people produce 10 times. Some people it is five times, some people it is two times. So it’s not the amount of fruit that indicates, but simply the presence of consistently producing fruit and consistently having the indication of Christ in you. I have a friend that’s going back and forth. He came out of the drug world, drug dealer world.
[00:58:33] His girlfriend was murdered. He’s Dayman oppressed. I lead him to the Lord, his life change and he goes back into the old way. But he struggles. He struggles with it because he knows it’s not good. He knows it’s wrong. He wants to get back to the Lord and there’s constant struggle. You see Christ being in him. But the battle between the flesh and the spirit between the you know what Paul says in Romans seven, I think I do the things I don’t want to do, but I do them because the flesh is doing it, not me. OK, and so I think you can see a disciple, a true believer going through tough times and. They’re struggling and they’re not that, quote unquote, perfect Christian, but there’s always you can see the evidence that Christ is still there, may be submerged, maybe squashed a little bit and strangled out, but still there and still evidence there because they’re still there is fruit. Not enough that we would he wants, but there’s fruit. And I think the production of fruit is that sanctification process because there’s the evidence of Christ still being there, making. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, last passage, Romans 29. And then we’re going to wrap this up and we’re actually wrapping up. I just do this last passage and then we’re going to closing comments.
[01:00:01] All right. Romans 11 verse twenty nine for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
[01:00:10] Oh, is eternal life a gift? Yes, it is. How do you know that? Because scripture tells me that’s right, Roman, 63, what is it for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord, right? Mm hmm. If as if it is a gift from God. Can he revoke it?
[01:00:37] Not according to the scripture.
[01:00:41] Not according to this scripture, not according to scripture, not according to scripture.
[01:00:48] Ok, great. So if you’ve received the gift of eternal life. Can you lose the gift of eternal life? No. OK. So back to can you have a colonel, Christian, someone that doesn’t show any evidence of Christ? Don’t know that’s really up for God to decide, but the real real issue is if crisis formed in him, there will always be healthy leaves somewhere. OK, yeah. So. So this once saved, always saved. OK, seems to be evident here because being saved is a gift from God and that gift is permanent, right? Yes. Yeah. And here’s I think this is what we’ve been going around all these sessions, the evidence of you having truly received that gift. You’re producing fruit of repentance. Okay. And you’ll constantly bear fruit and you will persevere to the end because Christ is formed into Inju. And what crisis started, he will bring forth until he is finished that good work in you. But if you’re not and this is kind of the the ultimate message, if you’re not constantly bearing fruit, if your leaf seems to be withered and you’re not healthy spiritually as a Christian, then at that point I think that’s when you need to consider seriously consider if you truly repented and are following the Lord or if you simply merely accepted Christ, but then accept him as Lord. That’s for the heart to find out. But I think that’s kind of where all this tends to point us to is is that.
[01:02:39] All right, so well, this was awesome, baby, I know we need to probably wrap up and I just really enjoyed this today. It was just as real good to just kind of hear the scriptures, see what the Lord thinks, get his thoughts and his perspective and tie it all together and and just sort of allow my brain to saturate. Yes. And all of that was really good.
[01:03:04] There’s a lot there. So for those listening, I’d encourage you to go back and listen and study, take your Bible out, go through these passages and really take a deep look at what the Bible is saying, because it’s amazing. You’ll change your perspective on a lot of things you’ve held close to your heart as these are the trees. And yet. God’s truth may be different.
[01:03:28] So, all right, well, you’ll have a great day, agree with that. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. And we’re excited to be with you next time. And we bless you and look forward to our next call. Thank you, baby. And be blessed already by.
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