SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/19/2016 11:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The Burning of Non-Abiding Branches”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 15:2a, 6
Message of the verses: “2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear
fruit, He takes away;… 6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown
away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the
fire and they are burned.”
We want to
conclude this section from the 15th chapter of John in this SD this
morning. We have been looking at the
branches that will be burned up as these verses tell us, and one thing we must
remember as we look at this is that the section from chapter 13-16 is a section
that Jesus is teaching His disciples, eleven of them were left after the
traitor Judas left to go and betray the Lord.
As we look at the three plus years that Jesus was with these men,
including Judas and look at this analogy that He is using here we see that one
of these men was a false believer, or better a non believer who was connected
to the branch, and not since he has left to betray Jesus he represents the
branches that are spoken of in these two verses, we can call them “Judas
Branches.” There are still “Judas
Branches” around today and have been around since the church age began. John speaks of some of them in his letters,
and Paul also speaks of them in his letters as do Peter and Jude as they seem
to be connected to the vine, but are not.
“1Jo 2:19 They went out from us, but they were
not really of us;
for if they had been of us,
they would have remained with
us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
Once again
I remind you of what happened when Jesus announced that there was a traitor
among His disciples, and the disciples had no idea who it was asking if it was “I”
but even after Jesus told them it was Judas and he left they still did not
understand it because they though because he had the money box that he was
going to go out to buy food for the celebration. It’s hard to spot a traitor and again we
think of the parable of the wheat that was planted, but someone came in and
planted weeds among the wheat that looked exactly like wheat until it became
time for it to bear fruit and when it did not bear fruit they cut it down and
burned it. Like I said it is hard to
spot a traitor, a non-believer who comes into a church who looks like a
believer but bears no fruit.
What will
happen to these “Judas Branches”?
Matthew 13:49-50 tells us “49 “So it will be at the end of the age; the
angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, 50 and
will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.” Other verses
tell us similar things (Matt. 3:10-12; 7:19; 25:41; Mark 9:43-48; Luke
3:17). There will come an anguish
protest from them as seen in Matthew 7:21-24 (21 "Not everyone who says to Me, ’Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father
who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ’Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your
name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ’I never knew
you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’).”
John
MacArthur concludes: “The choice that faces
every person is clear. To abide in
Christ as a genuine disciple will produce righteous behavior and result in
external joy and blessing. But those
whose profession of faith is false, like Judas, will be fruitless and
ultimately cast into eternal torment in hell.
The Lord’s sobering pronouncement concerning Judas, ‘Woe to that man by
whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would
have been good for that man if he had not been born’ (Matt. 26:24), applies to
all pseudodisciples. In the words of Peter,
‘20 For if, after they have escaped the
defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become
worse for them than the first. 21 For it
would be better for them not
to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy
commandment handed on to them.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: This is a very sobering section of Scripture
and once again I am reminded to look at 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Test yourselves to
see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this
about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-unless indeed you fail the test?” It is very good to test myself to make sure
that I am connected to the Vine that causes me to produce fruit through the
power of the Holy Spirit.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to produce
fruit through me that will bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Memory verses for the week (Romans 6:8-9) “8 Now if we have
died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ
having been raised from the dead, is never to die again, death is no longer
master over Him.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Daniel” (Daniel 1:8).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who first translated the Bible into English?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/19/2016 12:13 PM
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