8. The Fruit of the Spirit
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
I want to thank each one of you for the interest that you have already evidenced in this simple series of Bible studies in which we are trying simply to present the Word of. The Lord concerning the work as well as concerning the very nature and the personality of the Holy Spirit.
"Works Of The Flesh"
This morning I would like to lead us in a study of the "Fruit of the Spirit." In the Galatian letter, the 5th chapter, we read of the works of the flesh, but of the fruit of the Spirit. "The works of the flesh"--works of the flesh do not have to be planted, they do not have to be cultivated. There is no need to have men to come in and to lecture for weeks and weeks and to plead with people earnestly and in tears to get them to follow the flesh--to get them to curse, swear, be profane, dance, revel, drink strong drink, commit adul-tery, steal and practice fraud and deceit. There is no need for such help. Satan does not need to have anyone come in and lecture to the people and plead with them to practice such things. The works of the flesh spring up from the soil of the heart itself. They just flourish like briars and weeds and bushes and whatever obnoxious thing there is that may grow to hinder the production of a crop. They are just works of the flesh, and do not have to be planted, do not have to be cultivated. They do not have to even be wanted, they do not have to be desired on the part of the individual. They are his enemy and still they grow, and in spite of his best efforts. They are always present.
"Fruit Of The Spirit"
But the fruit of the Spirit has to be planted. Its fruit has to be cultivated. It is like our crops which have to be plant-ed and nurtured and in some sections, irrigated, and all of this in order that we might have a harvest. I would like for us to keep in mind the distinction between the works of the flesh, and the fruit of the Spirit, and I am reading of both. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest"--they are obvious. It is obvious as to their source. It is manifest as to where they came from. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, unclean-ness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the king-dom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21.) "But"--now right over against that--"but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (or self control, A. S. V.): against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's"--those who belong to Christ and are really Christians--"have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Galatians 5:22-24.) They don't practice the works of the flesh. They are new creatures. They are different. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit "--let us be consistent--"Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another." (Galatians 5:25-26.) The fruit of the Spirit is fruit which springs forth, comes forth from the Spirit. The Spirit is back of this fruit. He produces it.
Fruit From Seed
The Spirit begets this fruit through his seed, the word of God. In Luke 8:11 Jesus said of the parable of the sower, "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God," and in verse 14 of Mark 4 he said, "The sower soweth the word." And in Matthew 13:19 he said, "When any one heareth the word of the kingdom." The word is the seed, it is the word, it is the word of the kingdom, in the light of these three different explanatory passages. And so the word of God is the seed of the kingdom.
We pointed out the fact last night that the Holy Spirit created, that the Holy Spirit garnished the heavens, that the Holy Spirit made man, that he was our maker. O yes, God did it, and Christ did it, but the Holy Spirit had a part in it. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Genesis 1:26-27.) The Holy Spirit was back there when God was creating, when Christ was creating. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:1-3.) And the same is true of the Holy Spirit. (Genesis 1:1-3.) So the Holy Spirit made man, as we showed last night from several passages. The Trinity all had a part in the great creation of this wonderful, beautiful world. And when things were created, the Holy Spirit's special work seems to have been to garnish the heavens and to give laws to all things. He gave the law of reproduction and the command to multiply and replenish the earth to Adam and then again to Noah. And when the vegetable kingdom was made by him, he had the plants produce seed, every one after its kind. When planted, it would in turn reproduce it's kind upon the earth, and God saw that it was that way and that it was good.
Spirit Makes Christians
The Holy Spirit, in giving the spiritual law, produces Christians. The Spirit makes people Christians. He makes people to be faithful Christians, if they are led by the Spirit, by the teaching of His word, by this seed as planted in their hearts and cultivated properly, and if they weed out these foreign growths which naturally spring up (the works of the flesh). Keep them down, keep them out, give the fruit of the Spirit a chance to grow without being choked. Let us give it a good deep planting, as in the par-able of the sower, instead of trying to grow fruit on a rock where the plant has little root and lacks moisture, or where it is trying to grow among the thorns, to be choked out. Many of us are being choked, more or less, by the things of the world. "Cares" of the world--making a living--being able to meet our financial obligations and our general obligations everywhere, choke many. These pressures come down upon us and if we are not careful, they will choke the word out. They will choke down the little plant and it will not produce fruit, as wheat growing under a big thorn bush, which springs up when the warm spring rains come. Hot sunshine comes down upon it, and instead of growing slowly like the little plant, sometimes these obnoxious things grow very rapidly in the lives of people and they go astray and become terribly wicked in a very brief period of time.
Spirit Works By His Word
And so we have the word of the Spirit. David, one of the prophets said, "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue." (2 Samuel 23:2.) And Peter said, "Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake." (Acts 1:16.) New Testament writers often quoted the Old Testament Scriptures as the words of the Holy Spirit. In Hebrews 3:7-11, the Hebrew writer said, "As the Holy Ghost saith," and then he begins the quotation: "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," and quotes from Psalms 95:7-11 and stated the Holy Ghost said what is quoted. Hence, the Bible is not the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit; but he said what is in the Bible.
Bible Is True
Now I want to shock you a bit--and then I'll get you over it--so you will be better off when I get through with you. There are lies in the Bible! And there are no lies in the Bible! There are false statements in the Bible. There are no false statements in the Bible. You say, "You are contradict-ing yourself." O, no. No, I'm not. Every word of the Bible is the word of God and some words of the Bible are not the word of God. When a man lied in the Bible and God tells us the man lied, God is telling the truth--the man did lie. But the lie the man told is not the truth; though God tells us that the man told the lie, the lie is still a lie. For in-stance, in Psalms 14:1, we read, "The fool bath said in his heart, There is no God." Now it is true that the fool said that; but what the fool said is not true--is not the truth or any kin to the truth. He said there is no God, and that's not true. There is a God. And so God tells the truth when he says the fool said that, but the fool did not tell the truth at all when he said there is no God. What he said is not so.
And so every word in the Bible is true--"as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." (Psalms 12:6.) The Bible is the word of God--the word of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit spoke and wrote the Bible, the entire Bible, every word of it was guided, directed, by the Holy Spirit, and is the truth. When God says a thing happened, it happened! Now when men talk in the Bible, they don't always tell the truth; but God tells the truth when he tells us what they said and what they did. So, on the divine side, the Bible is, every word of it, true. The human element in it is not al-ways right.
No Error By Inspired Men
Men make mistakes but God gave the Holy Spirit to keep men from making any mistakes in writing the Bible. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." (2 Timothy 3:16.) "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:20-21.) Hence, the Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible, and if the Spirit did all of the talking, there wouldn't be any errors in the Bible, there wouldn't be any lies in the Bible, but when uninspired men talk, and the Holy Spirit through inspired men tell us what uninspired men said and did, then through these uninspired men, there are false statements in the Bible.
So, we need to know who the speaker is. Is he inspired or is he uninspired? If he is inspired, every word he speaks is the truth. If he is uninspired--now don't jump to conclusions, don't go on and say it for me, you'll miss it if you do. You thought I was going to say if uninspired, then every-thing he says is a lie. That isn't so. Uninspired men in the Bible often tell the truth without any guidance from the Holy Spirit. When the blind man, who was not inspired, in John 9, after he had been healed, said, "We know that God heareth not sinners," he told the truth, but he wasn't in-spired. John was inspired when he tells us that the blind man said that. The blind man was not inspired, but he told the truth anyway. He didn't say, "I know it," but he said, "we know it"--you know it the same as I do. "We know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth." (John 9:31.) He knew it because the Old Testament taught that truth and he knew it and so did the rest of his Jewish brethren know it and understand it.
Word Bears Good Fruit
So then, the seed is planted as we preach the word of God. We sow the seed of the kingdom (Mark 4:14 and Matthew 13:19) and this gospel--this word when preached--produces fruit. In Colossians 1 and beginning with verse 5, Paul thanks God for the hope, he says, "which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; which is come unto you, as it is in all the world and bringeth forth fruit." That would be the fruit of the Spirit, wouldn't it? In 1 Peter 1:12, Peter tells us that the gospel was preached "with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." Whatever the gospel produced, the Holy Spirit that preached it through inspired men produced, and hence the "fruit of the spirit." The Spirit there-fore, being the author of the seed, having revealed it and having confirmed it and having given it to us, with the law of reproduction after its kind, has commanded that we are to preach the word or be lost. We are to sow the seed of the kingdom unto others, or we ourselves will not be Christlike and Christians.
All fruit is not alike. There is good fruit and bad fruit. Jeremiah, in prophesying, spoke of the fruit in Jeremiah 24:1-2 : "The Lord showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the Lord, after that Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe:" --choice figs--" and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad." So as there is good fruit and bad fruit, no doubt, Jesus had that in mind when he said in Matthew 7:15 beginning, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but, inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." In other words, a man is just what he is. He is not something different to what he is. He is whatever he lives in his life. He is what he thinks. Or in other words, he is what he thinks all the time every day. Proverbs 23:7 : "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." And if you want good fruit, you have to sow down the garden or the field of your heart and mind in good seed.
Must Have True Doctrine
Some people say, "Oh, it doesn't make any difference what people teach, you are obligated to let everybody in the country sow your field down in 'tare seed' or 'Johnson grass' or something of the sort." That isn't so. In Mark 4:24 Jesus said, "Take heed what ye hear." I am not only obligated to hear but I am obligated to select what I hear. I have no obligation unto God to go to hear a false teacher preach. I have no obligation whatsoever to read his writings. I may do it and I will if I can get any benefit from it ---can be better informed and know how to refute his false doctrine--but I am not going to permit the soil of my heart to be sown down in false seed--tare seed, and the like. We know what it will produce. It will always produce after its kind. We are now what we have been thinking and doing. We are what we are today because we were what we were yesterday. Largely, very few have made any change since yesterday. So we are what we are each day because of what we were the day before. Ninety-nine percent of the people are in a rut and it is hard to get them out. They are satisfied to go on in the same old way, and keep the status quo. And so we must have the right environment in which to plant the seed--we must have the proper soil, the proper climate. You can't grow the finest fruits in a country where they have no proper season for it. And so we have to see that our hearts are right. The man is the farmer and his heart is his soil, his field.
Man Responsible
I was preaching once on the parable of the sower and a man who was a denominational preacher held his hand up. He had a little piece of paper in his hand. He said, "Could the wayside soil keep from being wayside soil? Could the thorny ground soil have made itself some other kind? Could the good ground have kept from being good ground?" He was a Calvinist in belief. Well, I scratched my hair then (I have to scratch my head now), but I scratched my hair a bit and I was a little confused at first. I had never thought of that myself. But in a moment I happened to think of James 4:8 : "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded." If the mind is the soil and I am the farmer I am to cleanse it from rocks and thorns and the like--fix up my soil so it will bear the right kind of crop. And I thought of Ezekiel 18:30-32 where he said, "Make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" This makes a man the farmer and his mind his soil. And King Hezekiah prayed, "Pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God." (2 Chronicles 30:18-19.) There is the idea, prepare your soil. Don't blame it off on God if your field is full of rocks that never have been gathered and hauled, off. If there is timber growing there, don't blame God with it. If you want to grow a crop, prepare the soil. Make preparations. "Prepare your hearts to seek God," as we just quoted.
Cultivation And then, in the cultivation of the crop, or of trees if you are thinking of fruit trees, the tree must be properly plant-ed. We read in Psalms 1 : "He"--this good man it describes "shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." That is in contrast to one planted on the mountain top. In Pales-tine you look up on some of those old mountains as though you were looking at the moon. Way up yonder, miles high, and not a thing growing up there! The soil has been neglected and it is washed off and there is nothing but subsoil --just clay or solid rock. Not a sprig of grass growing up there. If you were to plant a tree up there you would have no fruit. But this good man who meditates on his law day and night, is "like a tree planted by the rivers of water," way down where the soil lodged when it came from up there. "Down by the river side" where there is plenty of moisture, plenty of fertile soil. Give the word of God a chance in your heart and in your life--in your soul. Give it a good planting, plant it where it has an opportunity to grow properly. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." (Romans 6:5.) He had just said, "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." So plant it, plant it in obeying the gospel. And plant it in Christ, root it, and ground it in love. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him." (Colossians 2:5-7.)
Good Environment
We received him by obeying the gospel and that left us in Him for we were baptized into Christ. (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:26-27.) And thus grow in Christ! Grow in the environment of prayer. Grow in the environment of a good happy home. Give your children that opportunity. Grow in the environment of a good congregation. My heart almost bleeds when I think of so many boys and girls who don't have a chance to be Christians, in the kind of home they have and the kind of a congregation they have. They grow up in a fussing, wrangling, worldly, godless congregation, where the gospel is not permitted to be preached in all of its rebuking, condemning, encouraging, exhorting, trans-forming power! Select a good environment for yourself and your family. Don't pitch your tent toward Sodom like Lot did, choosing a bad environment, and lose your family and almost your own soul and have it vexed from day to day as in Genesis the 13th and 19th chapters.
Cultivation Required
Cultivate the plants, prune the trees, do what you can to cultivate in such a way as to have the maximum amount of the best possible fruit. We read in Matthew 3:10 where John the Baptist said, "Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees." When I was a young man, I remember, I used a blackboard in preaching. Sometimes I do now, but not often. It is a very effective way to preach. I would draw a tree. You couldn't tell much about what it was (I would tell them what it was) and then I had an axe drawn at the root of it. The audience would sit there and look at the axe while I preached. The axe was lying there, ready. "The axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." That sounds like going to hell, doesn't it. In John 15, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." There he is with his pruning knife just ready to clip those branches off, of which I am one, if they do not produce fruit. He is clipping off all these old fruitless branches, and we are going to hear a great wailing at the judgment, of brethren who have been deceived and disappointed, when they meet God in judgment to find that they bore no fruit.
Be Fruit Tree
They have been nothing but shade trees, ornaments. They didn't bear any fruit. God says bear fruit or burn. In John 15:8 he says, "Herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so,"--adverb of manner--"So shall ye be my disciples." If you don't bear fruit, you are going to hell. That is what Jesus said. We have the opportunity to bear fruit and there is a great crying need for it. And if we don't produce it, we will burn, as sure as there is a God.
God is the husbandman and he prunes off the old fruit-less branches. He may have had some of us cut off until we are almost withered beyond being re-grafted. You can't properly graft an old dead branch. It's gone forever if it once dies. It can be cut off and can come back in a reason-able and proper manner and time.
The Fig Tree And then again, we read of the fruit trees. In describing them in Luke the 13th chapter, Jesus gives us some fine things concerning the fig tree. There has to be patience exercised in connection with this fruit-bearing proposition. "He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" He had become a little too much impatient with it! But listen: "And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down." (Luke 13:6-9.) Give it a chance. Some of them have not had much of a chance. When you find many backsliders in the church and a lot of indolent, fruitless members, there is usually a real cause back of it. The church isn't what it ought to be. Many times the leaders are not what they should be. The preacher is not what he ought to be. And the homes are not what they ought to be. We are not making our environment what it should be. And the seed of the kingdom is not being sown like it ought to be. We need therefore to be patient. We read, "Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men." (1 Thessalonians 5:14.) So there is good and bad fruit, and it is essential that we bear the good fruit, or we will be lost.
Fruit Not Miraculous
Notice, too, that this fruit is not miraculous fruit. He did not say the fruit of the Spirit is speaking in tongues, heal-ing the sick miraculously, raising the dead, casting out devils. No, but the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy," etc. Don't you see the difference? The miracles were temporary like the ladders and scaffolding round about this fine meet-ing house. They were essential at one time but when the building was finished, they were all removed and would have been in the way had they left them there. Miracles are not needed today. No miracle is needed today. It would upset the whole scheme of God in redemption to start working miracles now. It would create distrust in his laws and nature. If he were to feed us with manna just one year, the next year we wouldn't plant any crops and the chances are we would have a famine and would starve, because he didn't work miracles again the second year. It would create distrust, upset the whole scheme of nature. It is a blessed thing that we don't have miracles today, but it is wonderful that we can have the fruit of the Spirit.
Take Heed To Soil And Seed
We can plant the seed. Now the first harvest came without seed. Of necessity, it had to be thus and to produce the first seed. But we don't have any harvest this side of that without seed. A man who plants his seed and prays for a harvest has a million-fold more faith than the man who would ignore planting seed and pray, "Oh God, give me bread, give me a harvest." So, bear the fruit. Be the right kind of tree properly planted in Christ. It is the nature of the tree that produces the right fruit. It's the nature of a bad tree to produce bad fruit. It's the nature of a bad man to produce a bad life, bad fruit. It's the nature of a good man to produce good fruit. It just comes out from the inside. Out of the abundance of heart, the mouth speaketh and life flows. "Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life." (Proverbs 4:23.) "Issue" means to flow forth and hence the flowing of life, like a stream from a fountain, comes from the heart, comes from within.
Love As we think about this fruit of the Spirit, we find love is first. (Galatians 5:22-23.) Maybe it's first by divine choice, and not by accident or chance. Because out, of love must come forth everything. Galatians 5:13 : "By love serve one another." All of our service must come out of it. And by love the whole gospel scheme of human redemption from God came forth out of the fountain of love. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." (John 3:16.) God loved. God did not love this world because it was lovable. We wait to love people until they are lovable--that is, if we are fol-lowing the flesh. Christians don't. They are like God, they love people whether they are worthy of it or not. They love unlovable folks. They will even love their enemies. There are two ways of loving God's way of loving and man's way of loving. "If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?" (Matthew 5:46-48.) And if you salute those that greet and salute you, what thanks have you? What have you done worthy of any commendation? Just nothing. The publicans, the sinners, would do that. Christians ought to give more and live on a higher plane than other folk. We receive more and we ought to give out more. Freely we received, freely give. (Matthew 10.) And because God has loved us we should reciprocate his love. We should love much in return, and love like God loves. He loved us while we were yet sinners, and unworthy of it. (Romans 5:7-8.) He "commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners"--unworthy--"Christ died for us." That is the way we are to love. We love him because he first loved us; that is, because we first found out he loved us, because the seed has been sown in our hearts, telling us about his love. (1 John 4:19.) And then we are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. (Matthew 22:37.) It will correct our lives Godwardly, if we will love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind and with all of our strength. (Mark 12:29-30.)
And then it says, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." That will control his conduct toward his neighbor and his life will be all right' neighborly-wise, also. And God-wise it will be all right if he loves God supremely and then loves his neighbor like he loves himself. Did you ever know of a man that would get out and tell lies on himself and try to ruin his good name until nobody would credit him and believe him? Did you ever know a fellow who would destroy him-self like that? Well I'm 74 years old and I have never known of a man who did that. I think one ought to be in the insane hospital if he goes to doing that. So man is good to himself. He doesn't tell the bad on himself. He lets the folks find out if they can; but otherwise, he will just fix it with God and leave it there. There is no use to adver-tise one's sins. And so he doesn't try to destroy himself and his standing with the people. Well if he loves his neighbor like that, he won't hurt his neighbor. Don't you see? He will treat him right. He will be good to his neighbor. He wouldn't steal from himself. Did you ever know of a fellow stealing out of one pocket and putting it over in the other pocket? Why people don't do that, because they love them-selves. And if we love our neighbor as ourselves, we would no more steal from him than we would steal from one pocket and put it in the other pocket. And if we love our neighbor's husband or wife as we love ourselves, we would no more think of committing adultery than we would think about destroying ourselves. One is doing that in committing sin like that, destroying his own soul.
"Love suffereth long and is kind." (1 Corinthians 13.) Love does that; it is personified. Love is spoken of as a person there, as a being, a personality. "Love" does so and so. He means a person actuated by love does that. You can put God there and say God "suffers long and is kind," and the like, and it will make good sense, all the way through. You can put Jesus in there and say Jesus "suffers long and is kind," it still makes good sense. And you can put the word Christian in there and say a Christian "suffers long and is kind," and it still makes good sense. But if you put your own name down there, how do you feel? "I suffer long." About the first thing you know you are ready to start commenting and just leave off making the application any further. We are such poor specimens of it. God and Christ were good examples. I wouldn't be ashamed to put Paul down there, but when I put Gus Nichols of Jasper, Alabama, down there, well, I get embarrassed before I go very far, and I feel like having a prayer instead of preaching a discourse.
We also need to consider the sacrifice that God made. (John 3:16.) Love sacrifices. "God so loved the world that he gave"--and love always gives. Love is liberal. I over-heard a mother and her daughter talking just before "Eas-ter" in an adjoining room to mine, when I was away in a meeting. The daughter said, "Mother what are we going to be able to do for Easter?" She said, "Darling, your daddy and I have already talked it over." (They were just poor people, like most of us.) She said, "We have talked that over and I am going to redo my hat and my old suit and we are going to buy you a new outfit." I thought that is just like a mother to say we will re-do my old outfit and we will get Mary a new outfit for Easter. That is just like love, and oh, how this old world does need it! It is crying out for it! And there are so few people responding to the call, and the cry of great need.
That's not all, but love bears our burdens and makes them light. It is said in Genesis 29:20 that when Jacob worked seven years for Rachael, they "seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her." Love made seven years of slavish toil to seem like a few days. That's what love can do. It can make our burdens light. While a nurse sits there bored to death at the long hours of night waiting upon a little child walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the mother sits there way in the small hours of the morning going into her seventh week. It's a joy that she can serve. She moistens the parched lips, ad-ministers a few drops of water, gives the medicine. She doesn't watch the clock. The nurse may watch the clock. There is a difference in the conduct of people who love and those who are serving for money--a world of difference there. And without love we are going to be ruined. We need to love to serve. I quote from Galatians 5:13, "By love serve one another."
I used to have on my desk a motto from the International Harvester Company which I kept for eight years. It said, "I will love to do my work each day." And I saw that thing so much all day long for eight years, that it became a part of me. And I believe that, God being my witness, I can say that I really love my work. I have even reached the point where I love for the brethren to criticize me. If they get any pleasure out of it and if they think it will do any good in the world, just let them go to it. Love makes the whole schedule a heavenly program, instead of being bored to death by it, eaten up by it, and becoming nervous wrecks and going to the hospital. We are becoming a nation of tranquilizer addicts because people don't love to do what God wants them to do. They are bored to death by their work. "All things work together for good to them that love God." (Romans 8:28.) To love God, we, will do what he said and then everything will work for our good. That which was calculated to be evil will be turned into good.
"Old John" was the blind mule about the old home and the father had said to the boys that he wished Old John would die. He was blind and had been turned out to die. They didn't want to kill him. They loved Old John. He had been a faithful old mule all of his life. One day while the father was away, Old John fell into a deep pit about the place and the boys said this was their opportunity to get rid of Old John. "We are going to bury him alive." And they got their shovels and started shoveling dirt on him and as it would fall in on his back, he would shake it off. He would tramp around and stay on top, just like a Christian always wants to stay on top of his problems, instead of be-ing subdued by them, overcome instead of being overcome by the world. And when they got him buried alive, Old John went walking off! The thing that they had calculated would destroy him had turned out to be the only way in the world that they could have gotten him out. And so I thank God that when everything sometimes seems to be headed toward my destruction, that everything is actually working like it did for Joseph to get him out of the pit and make him food administrator to save his people. With that sort of faith and love, nothing can keep us from succeeding.
Love is not just a sentimental feeling, either. It is a strong attachment to someone because of the worthwhile-ness, the worthy characteristics of that someone. And God is worthy, and when we do our best, we haven't loved him enough. He doesn't require us to do more than we can; but he is worthy of more, worthy of better preaching than we can do, better singing, better praying, better worship. He is worthy of more liberal giving than we can do. He doesn't demand any more of me than I can do, but he is worthy of more. "He that bath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." (John 14:21.) And the golden rule is a matter of love. (Matthew 7:12.) But I only have time to touch these other points.
Joy
"Joy in the Holy Ghost." (Romans 14:17.) "Rejoice . . .and again I say, rejoice," said a man while in jail for preaching the gospel. (Php 4:4.) My wife and I were in that old pit, that old dungeon in Rome. Tradition says it is the same one just across the street from the old court house, and pretty close to the block where they cut Paul's head off. He wrote and said, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice." In every chapter of the Philippian letter, he used the words joy, or rejoice in some form or other. And he was right then being persecuted, unjustly--was in jail and on the way to death and likely knew it. Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the "pleasures of sin." (Hebrews 11:24-27.) There may be pleasure in bank robbery, in robbing lovely wonderful young people of their virtue, robbing people of their good name and the like. There may be some joy to a totally-depraved person in that; but there cannot be any pleasure in that if you have a pure heart--if you love God and love people. Sin has its pleasure for sinful people, people whose hearts are wicked. But it also has a stinger in it. A mother's little child was being cared for by a maid. Little Johnny was crying and the mother told her to give him whatever he wanted. Little Johnny cried out again in a moment. The mother said, "I said give little Johnny what he wants" and the maid gave it to him about that time. And then little Johnny screamed even louder. The mother said, "I said give little Johnny what he wants." The maid said, "That's the trouble, he wanted this yellow jacket that was crawling here on the floor and when he got it, he found out he didn't want it." It had a stinger in it! And that is true of sin. Mil-lions of people have been stung nearly to death by their sins. They are all swollen up. You know sometimes a sting can kill a man. I had a friend out near our town sometime ago, and had it not been for a nurse, one of our girls in the congregation there, who was out at the house when he got stung by just one bee, a honey bee, she said he would have died. Just one sting can kill certain people. They are allergic to it. Sin has its sting. "Be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23.) And, "The way of transgressors is hard." There is the stinger. (Proverbs 13:15.) And then again, "whatsoever a man soweth," and if it's to the flesh, he will reap "corruption" another stinger. (Galatians 6:7-8.) It does not pay to sin. Not only does crime not pay, but no sin pays. Even the most innocent sort of an evil thought has a stinger in it. You may not feel it at first, but it will poison your soul eventually.
Joy is the fruit of the spirit. God wanted us to be the happiest people in all the world. He didn't want us to go around all the time like we were just back from the funeral of our whole family buried at one time. He wants us to be able to say, like Job, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21.) And like David. When his baby died, he went and washed his face and took food and was cheerful, and said, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." (2 Samuel 12:15-23.)
Peace
Isaiah 26:3 : "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." Hebrews 12:14 : "Fol-low peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Romans 14:19 : "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another." Romans 5:1 : "There-fore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." Obeying the gospel, being at peace with God makes for peace. And then again, in Isaiah 9:6 Christ is called "the Prince of Peace." Ephesians 2:14 says, "He is our peace." He is the source of it. The angels, in Luke 2:13-14, sang, "On earth peace, good will toward men," when he was born and they ushered him in. They introduced him, as it were, to the world. Thank God for the Prince of Peace. Had he not come we would have long ago destroyed one another by our inhumanity one toward another. It is too bad like it is, in spite of his influence. What would it have been had he never come? "As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." (Romans 12:18.) Be content with such things as you have. (1 Timothy 6:6-12.) All of this makes for peace. "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." (Php 4:11.) Matthew 10:34 teaches us not to have peace at any price. "I came not to send peace"--that is at any price, at the compromise of truth. We are to be aggressive and take the sword of the spirit and put sin down in this world. Attack it. Attack it everywhere, beginning in the church, and in our homes and in our own lives.
Longsuffering
Longsuffering means to suffer a long time. Those two words got married and became one word. Long-suffering. (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 4:1-3.) And that may mean %in order to attain some worthy goal, like educating the children, getting them through college--suffer and suffer and suffer hardships that they might get by, get through some-how. Find a way or make one. Longsuffering love does that. It took Noah Webster thirty-six years to write his dictionary of the English language. He suffered a long time to accomplish what he did. It took Adam Clark forty-three years to write his commentary on the Bible. Forty-three years of longsuffering. It took a long time to get' the job done. But it was worth it.
I was preaching in a meeting and a lady came forward with a large number of others--enough to make twenty-three to be baptized in the entire meeting. Only a few came that morning to be baptized, the most of them were restorations. But when Sister Barnwell came right behind her husband and was seated, I was surprised. She had the reputation of being the best woman in town--the best woman in that church, at least. They lived three miles out and when nobody in the family cared enough about the Lord to worship, she still cared and she would walk in to town three miles in bad weather, and worship, and walk back and then cook dinner for the rest of them. What a godly, wonderful woman she was. And when I got to her to see why she had come, I said, "Sister Barnwell, why have you come?" She was crying and she said, "I don't know, Brother Nichols, why I came. The first thing I knew I was down here. You see, this is my husband, and I have prayed forty-one years to see this." That is longsuffering. Sometimes it takes a long time to get a big job done--converting a husband or a wife. You could move a mountain and you wouldn't do anything comparable to that. Miracles are out. This is so much better than miracles. Miracles never have converted anybody directly; they were not for that purpose. Also, long suffering in persecutions (2 Timothy 3:12; Matthew 5:9-12) is another fruit of the Spirit.
Kindness
We should show kindness to the brethren. (1 John 3:1749.) Add to your faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. And that gives you the admission into the everlasting kingdom. (2 Peter 1:5-11.) Ephesians 4:32 : "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake bath forgiven you." A Chris-tian is kind in the use of his tongue. If a man doesn't bridle his tongue, his religion is vain. (James 1:26.) Even a dog likes kindness. He will leave his home if it is not a kind environment and then he will come over and live at your house if you are kind to him. Our son-in-law who lives at Jasper took our old torn cat away from us. We were away from home often and the first thing I knew Old Tom wouldn't stay at our house at all. He was down with Rile and Bertha. And so even lower animals respond to it. There is tremendous power in it. It is more powerful than mir-acles. Kindness will cause us to actually engage in benevolence. (James 2:14-18.) Don't say, "Depart in peace," but do something about it. Stand for it in the church and from the church treasury. (1 Corinthians 16:1-3.) At the judgment that will come up as the main subject. "I was sick and you did some-thing about it." (Matthew 25:31-46.)
Faithfulness
"Be thou faithful unto death." (Revelation 2:10.) Matthew 25:14-30 : "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." They had done something and had done it well. "Thou good"--they were good, morally good and then they were "faithful." Faithful is another married word. These two words, faith and full got married. They became one word. And hence the word faithful means what both words mean. It simply means full of faith to the end. Even young people can be faithful. "I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one." (1 John 2:14.) We need to be faithful to the church. We need to be faithful to its eldership and its deacons--cooperate with them 100 per cent plus. We need to be faithful to the song leader. We need to be faithful to the janitor. We need to be faithful to one another. We need to be faithful to God. We need to be faithful to the outside world and render proper service and respect our obligations to the outside world. Be a good example at least. And be faithful to the Lord.
Meekness
"Meekness" is the very opposite of pride. Meekness is strength suffering. It is not weakness. It is not an inferior-ity complex either. People are no account in the church who have an inferiority complex. They never undertake any-thing worthwhile, because they always imagine they can-not. They are just about as harmful in the church as those who are full of pride, and have themselves over-rated. In Romans 12:3-4, Paul says man ought not to think of himself more highly than he ought, and he ought to think highly of himself. He is a child of God most high. His heavenly father owns it all, and he is heir to it. We don't need to go around imagining that we are nothing. I think the Israelites did themselves a disfavor and a discredit when they said, "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers." When a man gets a grasshopper complex, he is no account. (Numbers 13:33.) No wonder they didn't go over and take the land. They said it is worth it, it is wonderful and it is fine; but we are grasshoppers, and they are giants. We have to deal with folks like that in the church. They hinder the work of the church. They are always saying, "We can't." "It is impossible for us to reach the budget, and thus and so." Gala-tians 6:1: "In the spirit of meekness, considering thyself." That is when you are restoring the other fellow. "I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:1.) I want you to think about his meekness and his gentleness and then be influenced by that to live likewise. That is the idea.
Temperance This is the same as self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23.) Man needs to control himself. There are those who would like to undertake to control the world; but they cannot control them-selves. They would like to control a family; but they can-not control themselves. They would like to control the church, but they cannot control themselves. And a man who cannot control himself cannot control anything prop-erly. When Adam fell and when sinners fall, they bring down everything in the world under them. Every thing that is under them comes crashing down with them. That is why it is so bad for somebody to fall. They do not fall alone. They bring others down. Paul said, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away." (1 Corinthians 9:25-27.) "If you live after the flesh, ye shall die." (Romans 8:13.) Learn to control yourself. Christians do control themselves. They cease to be Christians when they cease to control themselves. They who are Christ's "have crucified" the flesh. They have already accomplished it, every last one of them. "They that are Christ's have cruci-fied the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Galatians 5:24.)
Strong drink, cigarette smoking--we have a brother that is going to the grave smoking cigarettes; no doubt he has lung cancer and he still will not stop. How on earth can a man learn to be Christ-like and go around sucking a cigarette? He is taking money away from the family, sometimes, that is needed in the family budget. How can a man do that, the echo answers back, "How?" and be a Christian? And then we are to eat and drink to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:30-31; 1 Corinthians 6:20.) "Glorify God therefore in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." This body belongs to God, he has bought it and I am not honest if I don't deliver it. If I go down and buy a brand new automobile and the man says, "We are going to service it and I'll send it out. I'll present it in the afternoon." And I wait and night comes and still he hasn't delivered the car. I wait and the next day passes and he hasn't delivered it. Weeks and weeks pass and he hasn't delivered it. And months and months go by and he hasn't delivered it. What do you think of a fellow like that? I bought it, I paid for it. It's mine. He is supposed to present it. He is supposed to deliver it and he hasn't done it. Is he an honest man? Is he a man of integrity? Is he a worthwhile type of a citizen? He is a thief. He may be out of jail but he ought to be inside--a man that would do that. And that is some of my brethren. Not relative to automobiles, but God has bought' their bodies, and paid for them, and their spirits, and they won't deliver the goods. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12:1-2.) And they won't do it. They don't do it. They won't let God have the body. They won't let God have the spirit. Although they won't let God have it, he has bought it, he has paid for it. He paid a tremendous price for it. If all the wealth of the world were converted into gold, and that whole sum offered for one man's spirit and body, it' wouldn't be comparable to the price that God paid for my soul and spirit. No wonder Paul said, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." (2 Corinthians 9:15.) You can't speak it’s worth! You can speak a billion. You can't comprehend it perhaps. And you can speak a trillion, but you can't comprehend that, of course. You can't even speak the value of the Son of God to a man. A billion worlds like this would not equal the value of the Son of God. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." (2 Corinthians 9:15.)
Let us stand and sing the hymn of invitation.