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SCRIPTURE - John 15:5 SEPTEMBER, 2014 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. SUBJECT – CHRIST!!! THE X-FACTOR!!! PLAY/DOWNLOAD [MP3] To the subject scripture, I want to add the next 2 verses. John 15:6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. What would you say, if I told you that every one of the problems that you and I, as well as all of mankind, throughout the world, and ages face, is addressed in these 3 verses of scripture? What Jesus is saying, is really very simple. Yet, to the highly educated among us, the simplicity of it, seems to be a bit too much for them to swallow. And therein, lies the major cause of our problems. When we look at all the problems, wars, famines, diseases, poverty, crime, greed, laziness, pride, our inhumanity to man, idolatry, depression, and all things that are a burden to us, we think, that the only way to solve them, is by getting our top scientists, doctors, economists and others to formulate solutions, then putting the right politicians in office, and spending untold billions of dollars, as well as making more laws to reign in the evil ones among us, is the only solution. Yet, time and time again, when we do these things, it seems to work for a minute, then, we end up worse off than before we started. Why is this??!! That is what we are going to look at in this message. You see, we have a habit of taking the simplest things, and making them seem so complicated, that only the educated among us, could come up with what we think is the right answer. If you think I am just blowing smoke, think about this. From the very beginning of mankind's existence on the earth, God, gave man, 1 commandment to follow, and that was not to eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. That tree, was 'the knowledge of good and evil.' But, as we all know, Eve, got seduced by the serpent, and did eat it, then she gave it to Adam, and he ate it. The tree was aptly named because, its main characteristic, was to produce an awareness of just what was good, and what was bad from a position outside of God's point of view. You see, until then, Adam only saw things through the viewpoint of God, because that was all he knew. God walked and talked with him in the garden, every day, much like a parent of a newborn, teaching their child their point of view on how that child should act in society. The longer that child is kept from being influenced by those outside of the family, the better off the child will be, provided the situation is not abusive. Well, anyway, after they ate the fruit, the first thing they did was realize they were naked, and when they heard God coming, what did they do?? They ran and hid themselves. Why?? Because they knew that they were naked, but more than that, they knew they had disobeyed Him. You know the rest of the story. The point here is this. Today we have roughly, millions of laws, that were made up by man, as a solution to deal with problems that all stem from what Adam did, in the garden of Eden. And how did we get like this?? By doing the same thing Adam did, running from God. Now, what you have to know is that God has put in place natural, and spiritual laws, that will not change. As a result, when you violate any of them, the penalty is automatic. It may not appear immediately, but, rest assured, it will come. If you will remember, God told Adam, that if they ate the fruit of the tree, they would surely die. Yet, after they ate it, nothing happened, so they thought. What actually happened was, their bodies slipped from eternal existence, to mortal deterioration. They started on the path of dying. Had they not done what they did, they would be alive today. Not only that, we wouldn't have all the misery like I mentioned earlier, today. All of this is due to our trying to fix something that only God can fix. Every problem, bar none, has One solution that will eliminate it permanently, and thousands more that will probably make it appear to work for a little while, but, in the end will only serve to make things worse. That One solution is Jesus Christ. If we look at the subject passage of scripture, we see Jesus telling His followers that He is the Key to mankind being able to reconnect with God, the Father, and thereby, having the ability to get what we need from Him, to attain a life of peace and prosperity, free from all the ills that mankind faces today. And just how does mankind do that?? By following Christ's directions for our lives. However, this doesn't sit well with most of mankind today, because it is too simple. There has to be more to it. The educated elite among us, can't figure it out, and say, 'here you are telling me, that following directions of someone that presumably lived several thousand years ago, will solve all of these complicated problems we have today??? You must be mad!!! Besides that, what about the cost??' To the world, every thing essentially, is about money. Most of us, tend to think along the lines that the more expensive something is, the better quality it is. If, say for instance you went to buy something like a house or a car, and you saw two that were identical, and one was priced thousands of dollars less than the other, which one would you choose, and why?? Well, if you were a person that was, what is known as a 'cheap skate', you would probably pick the cheaper of the two, with no regard for the quality of the item. On the flip side, if you were a person that figured that the more expensive item, was of better quality, and would last longer, you would most likely pick that one. The thing is, if you want the best deal for your money, you would have to be familiar with the 'makeup of the product', to determine if you are getting a good deal, or not. If you are going to spend more money on something that will fall apart way before it should, then, that is not good. On the other hand, if you are spending the lesser amount of money on an item, that may fall apart, a few days or weeks later, then, that is not good either. Well, over the years, man has essentially been investing money, time, and even their lives in a product that is essentially designed to fail, because of the cheap shoddy materials [solutions], he has come up with, to combat and solve his problems. In each case, man relies on his limited knowledge of how he thinks things work, not knowing the complexity of God's creation. And invariably, when he thinks he has it all figured out, something comes along to show him, how much of a failure he really is. Jesus, in the subject verse says that He is the vine, and mankind are the branches. And, as long as we stay attached to Him, we will blossom. If you know anything about trees, vines and plants, you know that it is the trunk, or main vine, that supplies nourishment to the branches, and leaves, or other parts of the unit. As long as the branches, stay connected to the source of nourishment, they will bear fruit. However, once the branch is disconnected from its source of food, it will begin to die, and so will all the fruit that is connected to it. By the same token, from Adam on down, mankind has been disconnected from our source of nourishment, God, and as a result, we are, as has been described about people on death row, 'dead men walking.' A dead person, is one that doesn't know anything because they are incapable of functioning, because their bodies have shut down. Therefore, they are useless. And the only thing you do with the dead, is bury them. When Jesus says, that 'without Me, you can do nothing', He literally means just that. He is the One that gives us our breath, so that we can have life. If you can't breathe, then neither your wealth, education, influence, position, or anything else will do you any good. That is the simple basic Truth about our problems. If we don't correct this one thing first, then the rest is going nowhere. What Jesus then goes on to say, is proven time after time, and that is, if we do not abide in Him, we essentially are good for nothing but to be destroyed. What does it mean to abide in Him?? It means to literally take up permanent residence in Him, or to totally go back to the relationship we had with Him, before Adam disobeyed Him. That means to make Him, and His directions, our total focus for the solutions to our problems. When we do this, what can we expect?? He goes on to say, 'you can ask what you will, and it SHALL BE DONE TO YOU!!' Now notice, Jesus said 'IT SHALL BE DONE', not it may be done, depending on if there is a solution available, and you have enough money to pay for it. Or depending on how your astrological sign lines up, or what the courts, politicians, the educated elite say. It especially doesn't say, depending on what science says. If ever there was an iron clad promise to solve a problem that you or I are facing, then, this one is it. And, guess what!!?? It doesn't cost a dime!!! How simple is that?? But, once again, that is too simple. We would rather throw away billions of dollars, sacrifice millions of lives, waste untold resources and time behind the pursuit of a temporary fix, to our problems, rather than get a permanent fix, for free. How stupid is that!!! There is a price to pay for ignoring what Christ says, and even though most don't want to admit it, the evidence is slapping us in the face, day after day. And what makes it worse, is when we refuse to accept it, and actually rebel against it. I know a lot of people that have read some of the things I have said, tend to look at me as being some type of 'religious nut.' That's fine. But, when I am telling you what God has to say about it, then, by default, you are calling God [Christ] a nut. And the really sad part about this is, it is a lot of so-called Christians that are doing it. That's right, a lot of people that claim to love the Lord, when hearing a message from Him, tend to reject it because, they would rather believe the blind ramblings of people, that in many instances, are enemies of Christ, that promote the best way to solve this nation's problems, is to keep Christ out of the affairs of government. Well, you see what that is getting you. Government is as dysfunctional as ever, with nothing getting done. Why is that?? If you don't want to abide by what Christ says, then, you pay the price. The economy is collapsing, our enemies are rising up, and causing us problems. Jobs are leaving this nation, people are losing their homes, people from other nations are flooding our borders, helping to devour our resources, and our response is only making things worse. All because we refuse to bring Christ in to the picture. In algebra if I presented a problem to you 5 + x = 12, or 12 minus x = 5, you could figure out the answer, as to the value of x, being 7. It's a simple case of deduction. Figuring out the problems of mankind is just as simple. If, [mankind - X = destruction], and [mankind + X = life and blessing], then Christ, is the only value that X [the cross], can be. Get back to Him, today!! He is our only hope!! |