MORE AND MORE
[p. 297] MORE AND MORE
John 15: 1, 2; 1 Thessalonians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:9, 10; Philippians 1: 9
It will be observed how the words “more and more” are found in these scriptures. They bear on us so that we should increase. While we are here increase is the order, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 13. The most spiritual is to move on. We never can assume to have reached that stature, that standard. Even Paul himself in writing to the Philippians says, “Not as though I had already attained” (chapter 3: 12); so that he accepts the general weakness, great as was his stature and measure. There will be no room for increase after we leave this scene; we are perfected. There is no idea of angels growing or increasing; nor is there any thought of the saints increasing after they are translated, or even in the interim between their falling asleep and their taking on their glorious bodies, bodies like that of our Lord Jesus. So this is the learning time.
We are urged not to miss our opportunity or to allow any hindering elements to interfere with our steady growth, growth after the pattern of the Lord Jesus. He is the standard. The bodies we are to receive are to be glorious. They are to be bodies of glory such as that of the Lord Jesus at the present time. His body, it is said, is one of glory. We are to be conformed to the image of His body of glory, and the divine thought is that we should be equal to that. There will be no discrepancy between that which is inward and that which is outward, and the present work of the Spirit is to that end. We cannot [p. 298] admit for a moment that there is to be any discrepancy, yet there is room for our side of the matter, for vigilance that we should grow, that it should be said in that day, as of Jacob and Israel, “What hath God wrought!”
Now this chapter in John that I have read stands by itself. It deals with the vine. The Lord Jesus expressly says, “I am the true vine”, allowing that there were other vines. Undoubtedly the Lord alludes to the planting of a noble vine. We cannot think of Him doing anything that was not noble. The planting was in Canaan. What care God exercised over His people in the wilderness that they should not carry any of its features into the land! But the wilderness is simply the type of the world in which the Christian finds himself when he becomes a Christian. We are enjoined to have our loins girded about with truth, so that our garments do not drag loose, so that we keep our skirts clear, unspotted from the world. We are apt to take on spots, and we have to be on our guard against them. “These are spots in your love-feasts”, Jude 12. At first they are not noticeable, but later they come into evidence as agents of the enemy. But then that is a terrible thing; they are not Christians at all there. But Christians may have their garments spotted; and, when we come into the assembly, they show up. Spots grieve the Spirit, and the spiritual, too. It may be they do not grieve the ones who have them. “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat”, 1 Corinthians 11: 28. It is not that he is to give up eating, but to judge himself and go on eating. “So let him eat”, but see that the spots are dealt with. It is a question of self-judgment, and, of course, all the wonderful system that God has set up in Christ and made available to us. Our bodies are to be washed with pure water, and our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. In Revelation we have, “Blessed are they that wash their robes”,
[p. 299] chapter 22: 14. They wash them that they may have right to the tree of life, and that they may enter by the gates into the city. There could then be no rebuke from the Lord or from the spiritual who sits beside you.
Jehovah certainly watched over Israel in the wilderness those forty years, bringing out His fatherly qualities. We know how children quickly get their clothes soiled, and it makes them unpresentable. That is what God sought to prevent, that they should be a plantation of a noble vine. It is no new thing for Him to plant. We read of His first planting in Genesis. There will be no planting in heaven. Planting contemplates soil with the power of life there. God planted a garden eastward — He took account of the compass — eastward in Eden. Eden is a wider thought than the garden. God planted the garden. Think of the blessed God doing that! Of all the trees of Eden He speaks of two, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. God put them there. Just think for a moment of God doing that! And then having done that He sets Adam in the garden to dress it and look after it. So God was accustomed to this thought of planting and He planted Israel, a noble vine. He refers to it later with great sorrow because Israel utterly failed, but now we come to the true Vine.
He was as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. Being a divine Person, He did not draw anything from the soil. He had all the nourishment in Himself. He is the true Vine, and He displaced Israel. He grew up before Jehovah as a tender sapling full of sap. He was to be the true Vine and unique, of course, for no other vine could grow up out of sapless land, dry land. He was a root out of a dry ground. He had the sap in Himself. “I am the root and offspring of David”. Christ is a divine Person and carries with Him all that is necessary for growth.
[p. 300] But what I want to stress on this point is that “every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away”. The Father does that. “My Father is the husbandman”. John has a great way of bringing divine Persons together. Here it is the Father, the Husbandman, and the Son, the Vine. They are together, and there are the branches. “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away”. The branch will never be saved, it is burned. Men gather it and burn it. It is soon to be so of the vine of professing christendom. The Father knows all those that are unreal. The Father is intensely active in relation to the Son — “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”. That principle runs through John. He takes away what is an encumbrance in such a position. He leaves others to burn them, but He takes them away. We are each to inquire as to whether we are truly abiding in Christ. The Father’s eye is upon you, and He is looking for reality; He knows reality and unreality. He will not tolerate a branch professedly in the vine not bearing fruit. It is just in the way; it is unsightly, unfruitful. It is not a question of the Father burning them; it is men that burn them, but the Father takes away unfruitful branches. As the Lord says here, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away”. It is the Father’s work. It is unsightly; being incongruous, it must go. Other things will follow. There will be agents to do the burning. The Father is concerned about the Son, and will not tolerate anything outwardly identified with Him unless it is real.
Then the Lord says further, “every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit”, full results. We read of a certain man who had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit upon it, and did not find any. “And he said to the vine dresser, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find [p. 301] none: cut it down; why does it also render the ground useless? But he answering says to him, Sir, let it alone for this year also, until I shall dig about it and put dung, and if it shall bear fruit — but if not, after that thou shalt cut it down”, Luke 13: 7 - 9. That is the Lord Jesus seeking fruit in Israel. So the Father here is purging. If we are not disciplined we are bastards and not sons. How blessed it is to be under the Father’s hand! The Father purges it; He removes what would interfere with fruit. We all need it; let us not shrink from it. Whether it be John or Paul or Bartholomew, every one of us comes in for it. It is essential to us. The Father sees something that is hindering. He says, There it is; I know it is there; it was there from the beginning. The Father has noticed some little crooked thing at the beginning, some little thing that the flesh would have. The Father knows that, if that goes on, something seriously evil will happen. It is as sure as possible that something will happen, and the Father will give you to understand that He purges every branch that bears fruit, however little or however much. The Father knows, and He would tell you fully and freely that there is fruit, some fruit, however little. It is “every branch that beareth fruit”. It does not say how much.
He is saying to some of us here tonight, There may be ever so many commendable things about you, but one thing is lacking, and that lack has been hindering growth. The Father knows, and He loves you too much to allow you to go on like that, because sooner or later you will come into discredit. “He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit”. If it were Paul it would be applied to him, even though the Holy Spirit dwells on Paul, regarding him as a model. Paul does not say, ‘having attained’, although he was just about to be offered up; his course was almost finished, and he was writing the most spiritual letter;
yet he says, “Not as though I had already attained”, Philippians 3: 12.
Well, the Father purgeth each branch that it may bring forth more fruit. You say it may be a little exacting, but the Father says it is to your advantage as well as His. You are going to get some wages. It is a question of what our wages are. John spoke about getting wages. The Lord says, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” John 11: 9. Yea, He worked twenty-four sometimes. He taught the disciples during the day, and then He went out and prayed all night. What a work this was! So that it is a question of wages. “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross”, Hebrews 12:2. That is what He would call wages.
The Lord says, “that no one take thy crown”
(Revelation 3: 11), to Philadelphia. It is for each of us to understand what his crown is. I often challenge myself as to what my crown is, what my wages are. Each one should seek to see what his wages would be.
The Father would say, I am going to get more out of you. Think of what we cost the Father. The Father delivered up His Son to secure us. He is deserving of all the fruit, and hence it is right to say, “more fruit”. Think of what you will be alongside of Paul.
I often think of how it will be there. We often sing
“Nor what is next Thy heart
Can we forget;
Thy Saints, O Lord, with Thee
In glory met”. (160:8)
I am sure that we shall know all the great saints. It is no small thing to think of these great saints with whom we shall converse. There will be only one street, and it is made of gold. It is all gold. God can walk there; Christ can walk there; Paul can walk there; and we can converse there with them.
There must be perfect correspondence. We are responsible down here that we bear more fruit. My [p. 303] stature up there will hinge on that. I do not want to be short. Each of us wishes that his stature will be according to the divine thought. You want to be sure of it. You want to know what is to happen. You want to have an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I have met christians who were satisfied with the pardon of their former sins.
Now what I have said would fit in with what we have in Thessalonians. There Paul is just saying what I have tried to say: “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more”, but sometimes there are dark spots. “These are spots in your love-feasts”. There may be shallow conditions, but then there are meetings that are pleasing. One is thankful when one finds that. But then the word is, “more and more”. Enoch is a model of being pleasing to God. He had this testimony before he was translated that he pleased God. It is said about Enoch that before he was translated he pleased God, but it is before. He was not a discredit, not a dark spot. He walked with God for three hundred years. Wickedness was increasing in the world. The devil’s power made it corrupt. Genesis 6 tells us that the wickedness of man was great on the earth; but the deluge was brought in to cleanse the world and to start a new world. Enoch would see that and he would say, ‘I must walk with God’, and he did for three hundred years. What a walk of faith with God could be written! How can two walk together except they be agreed? Enoch and God were agreed. His son lived to be the oldest man, nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died, but not Enoch. God would say, I love you so well that I will take you out of this scene of corruption up to where I am. He had this [p. 304] testimony that he pleased God. The Lord is going to take us, and that very soon. You want to have the testimony that you are pleasing to Him. You can never have too much of it for God. He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 3: 17. There is no deficiency whatever in Him.
I go on to verse 9: “Now concerning brotherly love ye have no need that we should write to you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another”. That is a beautiful thought, that we are taught of God to love one another. The Lord quotes in John’s gospel that we are all taught of God. How touching that is! One of the greatest businesses of God is teaching the brethren. Everything is actually done by the Holy Spirit down here. “He shall guide you into all the truth”, John 16: 13. That is the idea; it is God that is doing it. He is teaching us to love one another. I believe it is one of the hardest lessons to learn. “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves”, John 13:35. Love for all saints is a great field opened up for us, and these Thessalonians are said to have love towards all in Macedonia. “But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more”. It is that one should love another more and more. One can speak of it in a little way. The more you encounter the saints in serving, the more you love them. I often think of the high priest’s clothes. They were for beauty and ornament. The more we see each other in the light of those garments the easier it is to love one another.
Now we have in Philippians, “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more”. This I have already dwelt on, as seen in Thessalonians, but I wish to speak on what follows. Paul says, “That your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence”. That is the [p. 305] idea. The love is the same as in Thessalonians, but here the love is in connection with full knowledge, more and more in full knowledge. That is, you are not content to be just mediocre, you want the complete thought of the word. Full knowledge, whatever there is to be known, is to be known entirely. It is that love may abound more and more in full knowledge and in all intelligence; so that we can name things. Adam named the animals. Through knowledge we can name things. How shall I know the saints in heaven if I do not learn to know them now? I have got to learn to know things, and persons, and name them. Just picture to yourself how long it would take to know the brethren up there. The Lord Jesus is to be the firstborn among many brethren. The idea is that I can name them. There were one hundred and twenty names in Jerusalem, a “crowd” of names, but you can pick out the persons, Peter and all of them. So it was with Adam. As the animals came up to him he could name them intelligently. The ability was divinely given. But look at the intelligence the saints have: “we have the mind of Christ”, the same faculty of knowing things that He has. We should know all that is to be known, and if we do not know we should ask God to help us. That is the idea. God encourages us to go in for full knowledge, and then with “all intelligence” you can know everything. God says that the Unction teaches us all things, and is true, 1 John 2: 27.
That is my message. I urge on all that we should increase more and more in what is of God. “The path of the righteous is as the shining light, going on and brightening until the day be fully come”, Proverbs 4: 18.