FRUITFULNESS

^[p. 329] FRUITFULNESS

Romans 7: 4; Psalm 1: 3; Psalm 92: 12 - 15; Romans 6: 22

It is in mind to speak about fruitfulness. The word belongs to the third day of creation, the earth, being brought again from the deep, was to cause grass, vegetables and trees to abound in it, and the thought becomes applicable to man, for God uses what He places in creation to illustrate what He places in man. The idea of fruitfulness abounds in Scripture, not necessarily in the creative sense, but in the sense of righteousness, which we are to follow. In the prophets, Jehovah says to Ephraim, who is in mind in the book of Hosea, “From me is thy fruit found”, Hosea 14: 8; that is to say, God is the source of fruit, whether in the ordinary creation or in man, he too being a creation. Man belongs to the sixth day, not the third, and so he is placed with cattle; indeed Jehovah says to Job that He made the cattle with him (Job 40: 15). They were all made the same day, but the idea of man transcends all else in the creation outside of God Himself, even angels. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” meaning that he had the first place in the mind of God in the creation. We all know how longevity marked man in the beginning before the deluge, but how it was reduced. It is always intended to be a question with us as to whether we number our days, or whether in our youthfulness we are unduly hopeful. We are to number our days so as to acquire a wise heart, for God was pleased to reduce the number of man’s days.

The allusion in Psalm 92 is that he becomes old, and he may as well accept that, but then the point is that he is to be fruitful in his old age. God would encourage us in our old age not to give up, not to give up too soon, not to give up at all until the last breath. The Lord dismissed His spirit, involving an act of power; not that any of us may be spoken of in that way, because falling ^[p. 330] asleep is not an act of power. Jesus did not die from exhaustion. God forbid we should think so. He dismissed His spirit. He took life so as to lay it down. He had power to lay it down and to take it again. That is a great matter to keep in our souls. But then our days are limited and, according to Psalm 92, the point that in one’s mind is that even if we become very old, we bear fruit in old age; there is no withering up, but always fruit bearing. There may be signs of the disappearance of life, and weakening, and of course those of us who are old are not unaware of that, not weakness but weakening, a process, a condition. It was seen in many who shone in the testimony, such as David. There is a striking difference between the David of 1 Kings and the David of 1 Chronicles. In the latter he is vigorous and able to stand on his feet and speak to his people, and in his old age, speak the most wonderful things of God. It is something that those of us who are old might well covet, to stand on our feet and not to pine away, or expect to be carried, but to stand on our feet and speak to the saints, speak a word in season to him that is weary, as the Lord says Himself, because there are many weary, many alas, and it ought to be a stimulation to the young people if they are weary, to see the older ones speak a word in season to the weary. So as I said, David shone in his old age. His life was worth writing about, it was worth recording. Not that those who seek to serve the Lord think of their lives being recorded, but they are registered in heaven. That is more than a record here on earth, very much more. Each of us has his place there for the Lord says, “But rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven”. That is a very great matter; whatever there be in those names on earth, it will be recorded in heaven, the bearing fruit will be recorded, it will be known. They are already known there as fruit-bearers. We do not want to be removed because there is no fruit. It is a most solemn thing to be removed for that reason, that there is no fruit for God.

^[p. 331] The first scripture read refers to bearing fruit unto God. He is looking for fruit and it comes from Himself, but still there is the Spirit’s work which has to be kept in mind. He is here constantly, from the time He came; He is the other Comforter. Since the incarnation the earth has never been without a divine Person. God has never forsaken it, nor is He doing it now, and if He is here we may reckon on Him for all that is needed, even in regard of political matters, to say nothing of the Spirit’s matters, the matters that refer to us as Christians. If the Spirit is here He will attend to what is needed for the testimony, and what is needed pre-eminently is fruit for God, as the passage read in Romans 7 says, “So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”. The we includes all of us. All men are not bearing fruit; if anyone here is an unsaved person, he is not bearing fruit unto God. He may have a farm or business which he regards as fruit-bearing, but it is not for God.

Fruit-bearing for God is from the believer, from the Christian, and so we are to be set free from legalism. If we are tied up by it, and many are, we shall not bear fruit. We need to get delivered from the bondage, whatever it be that is binding the soul, in that sense, and the epistle to the Romans is just for that very purpose, that we might be free to bear fruit unto God; that we might do it not simply when we are met together as we are tonight, but always. The idea of fruit-bearing goes on in its season, “bearing fruit in its season”, as the Psalm says. So the seasons govern our positions, the question of what a season may be, and that we do not forget we are in it, and use what is provided from God in order to augment the idea of fruit-bearing. And so we have our readings and our prayer meetings, and so on. Whatever it be that augments the position we are to avail ourselves of it, so as to render fruit in its season.

^[p. 332] We have had a season lately, many of us, a peculiar kind of season too, we have been thinking of the one thing for months. Not, of course, excluding other things, for the service of God has to go on, and it did go on, even in the time of war. One has to thank God that in many places where the war raged, even as in this country, the brethren were able to proceed and carry on the service in such a time. How God honoured that! The brethren were to bear fruit in such a time, and they did. What we have had lately was a pre-eminent sort of time. Our brethren have had to do with it for months and it has cost toil and expense and all that, but God had His eye on it. It was to be a season, but it was only for three days and three nights, although these seasons are becoming more frequent than they used to be: meetings for three days take place every year in some places. It is a great matter, and these seasons bear fruit in the saints, fruit unto God. They are not holiday times, they never will be, they are times for fruit-bearing, spiritual fruit; and for drawing upon what there is in the sense of promoting spiritual fruit, fruit unto God. Further, the tendency in these meetings is to liberate the saints, to liberate us from legality or worldliness or whatever else it may be that interferes with the fruitfulness God looks for.

These seasons are important and we have the thought of a season, in the book of Revelation, in which Satan is bound. He is not bound now, but the day will come when he will be. He will be cast out of heaven too; that day is near, and yet we have to wait for things: One of the most important things is to wait for what God promises, because God has made promises. The Lord says He is to come quickly. You say, It is a long time, and He has not come yet; but He has made the promise and the moment will come, it will come to the moment of the calendar. “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry”. He is never said to tarry. He may delay deliberately in order to let things happen, but He is never said to tarry. He is to be counted upon to come at the ^[p. 333] season appointed, and so Satan has to be bound for a season, that is to say, one thousand years. It is a very important thing to have in our minds that this earth is going to see that wonderful period — the thousand years. That is not simply for persons to speak of in a prophetic sense; it is a fact to be waited for, because we shall reign over the earth then with Christ in that day. Satan will be bound and the earth will bring forth its fruits. It will be a wonderful time, I would think, for all that is created. What God will do for man and for His creature! The creature itself looks for it according to Romans 8. He looks for deliverance, he looks for the salvation that is coming; the revelation of the sons of God. The spirit of sonship will pervade that period, for in the true sense, the spirit of sonship will be in the millennial day, because the saints who form the assembly will come out to reign over the earth and they will be all sons of God, and will have an immense influence over the earth. It is a very precious thing to have in our hearts such seasons as that, so that we should not become drooping or depressed, but lively and walking by faith and not by sight. When the millennium comes, they will be walking by sight, but the present is the time of faith. The time of faith is a time of fruitfulness, when we should bear fruit for God.

Now I refer to the first Psalm because it gives the thought of fruit. The Psalms are really a sort of counterpart of the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is God’s disclosure of His mind in the early days of Moses. The thing was in purpose and the Pentateuch opens up the mind of God, it opens up the law. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. But still the law had its place and conveyed light in its time, but it brought forth the idea of the godly man and, dear brethren, I would appeal to those of us who are here as to godliness, and the first element would be righteousness. The second epistle to Timothy places righteousness as the first item in the list. We are to ^[p. 334] follow righteousness. We are to follow it, we are to pursue it. It is a question of the fruit that God is looking for. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them who make peace, and there can be no healthy assembly unless there are peacemakers in it. There may be troublers, but the peacemakers will overcome them. They are the fruit of righteousness.

The local assembly should be marked by peace and peacemakers will overcome the troublers, not that I would insinuate there are any here who are troublers, and yet there may be. There may be troublers; Achan was a troubler, the troubler of Israel. I need not enlarge on that, but in spite of the fact that there are troublers, there are peacemakers, not simply sons of peace but peacemakers, people who make peace. It is more to be a peacemaker than merely to be a peaceful man. Solomon means peaceful. His name means that. It did not cover everything in him, but a peacemaker is more than a peaceful man, and I would mention that specially, because there is always a need for peacemakers, if there is any little trouble, to put things right. Sometimes we are safer in saying nothing, if there be trouble, for if the trouble is waning, let it die out. Sometimes it does. God in mercy operates so that trouble wanes and disappears, so that there is no need of discipline. That is a great comfort, for if there be no trouble there is no need for discipline, for cutting off. We have the expression in Scripture, “I hate putting away”. Putting away is a very sorrowful thing. The word now is to withdraw, but to have to withdraw from somebody who once shone in the service is a very humbling thing, both for him and for the persons who have to withdraw from him; if they love him they feel it. The word withdraw is used in 2 Thessalonians for a person who does not work. He is not doing anything violently bad, but he likes to be idle, and all that promotes idleness and slothfulness is contrary to God. It is said in 2 Thessalonians we are to shrink from everyone who walks disorderly; and there it is one who ^[p. 335] does not work. There is no fruitfulness in that. It does not mean that he is put away, or withdrawn from in the full sense, but to shrink from such a one as unworthy of the confidence of Christians. He is not a peacemaker or a peaceful man. If he were, he would be doing what he could.

The word to us is, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might”. This would break up Trade Unionism, which is one of the crimes of the moment. It is robbing man of his liberties, and God does not intend that. Governmentally, God has given this country to have laws that are more or less healthful and wholesome, but to rob men of laws God has made for them governmentally is a crime, and the saints ought to have in mind to pray for the laws God has made governmentally through parliaments. God ordained these institutions and the men who rule, too. He has ordained them for the moment and they have inaugurated laws that are wholesome and liberating to a point. We have to go further than that as Christians, for the fulness as to liberty is that we are set free from the law in the sense of legal bondage in our souls, to be married to another. That is to say, to be to Christ, to be to Him who is raised from the dead. Think of that! What a world He will bring in presently, what a season He will bring in for this poor benighted world! a season marked by life and marked by the fruit of the earth in its fulness, and “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”, Isaiah 11: 9. We are entitled to look for these things and glory in them too. We anticipate them, but we do so because we are set free to be to Christ, not to be to any union or combination of men, but to be to Christ who is raised from among the dead, to bring forth fruit unto God.

So the godly man is seen in the Psalms. I was speaking of the Pentateuch, and how law came in that time, and bore on David, because Moses had David in mind, for he was to rule. Judah was to rule and David was to be ^[p. 336] a ruler, and so he wrote psalms. He was the sweet psalmist of Israel. Israel was well off in David who wrote the Psalms. So he wrote down the suggestion of the godly man, and the suggestion in Psalm 1: 3 is that he bears fruit. What a man! Think of the earth being peopled by men like this. The man of Psalm 1 is not a member of the assembly, of course; he is earlier; but God did not have to wait for the assembly for godly men, He had His godly men before. There is much said about the godly man in the prophets, and the Psalms. Elisha is a suggestion of a godly man, and so here the description is, “he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. He is not taking things away from other people. He is not a robber. We do not want to be robbers, taking away what belongs to other people. “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain: which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”, Proverbs 1: 19. That is what an unfair man will do, take away the life of his fellows, saying, ‘I want what you have and I will take it by force if you do not give it me’. That is not of God, and we do not want to have the least sympathy with that. If we are to be godly men we must hold to what is right, and walk about the streets as those who do what is right. We are to follow righteousness, and that must include everything that is righteous.

The next passage is what I have already alluded to, the old brother, the old sister. The Lord would turn all the elderly ones into fruit-bearers. The younger are glad to help. It is a poor thing if a young person does not extend a hand to the older one, but at the same time, the older one has to learn to be dependent on God and His sustaining grace, so that he or she would not simply be going to the seaside to die. He or she would stay where he has been earning, and where he has been serving God and the brethren, to bear fruit there, to bear fruit in season. That is what you get here. The word is, “The ^[p. 337] righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God”, Psalm 92: 12, 13. Think of that; planted in the house. No one planted in the house will forsake the meetings, you may be sure of that. Being planted in the house means your roots are there, and all your joys are there. I mean to say you are to take root where you are planted. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit”. The older ones are to bear fruit in season, and see to it that the fruit is there, that we are not withered up. “Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God”. That is a testimony. “To show that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him”.

I thought that would be worth while enlarging on in Psalm 92, and then to point out what we get as to holiness in Romans 6: 20 - 22. It says, “For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life”. There is something in the idea of everlasting life that is peculiar, in the sense of its being the end, whether the end in time, or the end in effect of what is being done. Eternal life is a triumph, and we are to lay hold of it. Whether it be it is the end of our lives, or the coming of the Lord, or whether it be the end in effect, of what our service has been or is; it is a great triumph that it terminates in eternal life. We may well finish with this, that we have eternal life. We are to lay hold of it. It is a real thing, something that abides, something that is not measured by finance or whatever it be that governs matters of business and industry. It is another thing altogether, it is to be the end of what I am doing. It is God’s end: it is a great triumph from His side. “There ^[p. 338] the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”, Psalm 133: 3. It is the end from God’s side. But then the end of what we are doing, fruit-bearing, is everlasting life; “ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”.

It is what is due to God pre-eminently, because God is God. Holiness becomes His house for ever, and so if one has continued there he is marked by holiness, not simply by righteousness, he goes beyond that. The fruit of righteousness is holiness in one sense, but holiness is what is due to God in a peculiar way in the fruit that we bear. “Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”. So we have triumph and these things make us victorious. We are apt to be depressed because of conditions. Conditions are very bad in some parts of the world, even in parts that may seem prosperous; but the triumph is that God is ending with what is very good, and the end is not only life, but holiness, meaning that God’s house is taken care of. We are concerned about His house, and that the things in it are done rightly, and done in a holy way, so that there is testimony to holiness in every local assembly.

May God use the word. I believe it is important and one would commend it to the brethren.