Chapter 13: The Secret Of Fruitfulness
CHAPTER 13: THE SECRET OF FRUITFULNESS
(Genesis 49:22.)
"Do I need here
To draw the lesson of this life: or say
More than these few words, following up the text:
The vine from every living limb bleeds wine,
Is it the poorer for that spirit shed?
Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth;
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice;
And whoso suffers most hath most to give."
MRS. HAMILTON KING.
A FRUITFUL BOUGH by a well." Often had the eyes of the dying man been refreshed by such a spectacle greeting him amid wastes of sand--an oasis in the desert. For hours the weary caravan has been pressing on, parched tongues cleaving to the mouths, eyes scorching in the head, the strength of the patient beasts and of the women and children almost giving out. When, lo the monotony of desert is broken by a welcome sight! Over some grey crumbling stones a vine reaches out its verdant and fruitful arms; and all press forward with redoubled haste, knowing most surely that down beneath the rootlets must be spreading themselves in dark, cool depths, where the longed-for water is stored.
It will well repay us to go into the vinery, and talk with some experienced vine-dresser of the growth of the vine, which had been a familiar object with our blessed Lord from early boyhood, and led Him to select the vine as the emblem of the union between Himself and those who believe. "I am the true Vine," said He, the Vine of which all others are parables and types. He might have chosen the summer corn, or the olive, or the forest tree; but He chose the vine, which clings, stretching out innumerable tendrils by which to hold and climb.
"And as it grows it is not free to heaven,
But tied unto a stake; and if its arms stretch out
It is but cross-wise, also forced and bound;
And so it draws out of the hard hill-side,
Fixed in its own place, its own food of life."
Visit the vine in the late autumn, when its treasures have been torn from it. Whilst the land is full of joy it stands stripped and desolate. Its sap sinks down to the root; its branches are cut back to the stem; its very bark is peeled off; and it is left to the nipping of the merciless frost. Nothing more desolate and dismal can be conceived in plant-life than the death which reigns supreme over the vine through the long, lone, winter. And as we contrast the glory of the spring with such desolation, we remember the words of Him who said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit "; and how, outcast and forsaken, He hung upon the Cross, in what may well be said to have been the darkest, saddest, hour of winter through which earth ever passed.
But when the sun leads back the spring, the sap begins to flow again; and beneath its impulse the branches start right and left from the long bare stems, and presently, when there is sun, flowers and the promise of fruit appear.
"The flower of the vine is but a little thing,
The least part of its life. You scarce could tell
It ever had a flower; the fruit begins
Almost before the flower has had its day."
Sunshine is essential. Without it the vine bears "nothing but leaves "--leaves in profusion, but leaves only. It is not enough for us to be connected by a living faith to Jesus: we must hold fellowship with Him, sunning ourselves in his smile, communing with Him, and surrendered to his companionship; so only can we hope to bear something more than the leaves of a mere profession.
But though the vine needs sunshine, it must also have the darkness. During the night it is said to rest: it does not grow; but it recuperates itself and prepares for the putting forth of fresh energy. During the day it consumes more sap than it can draw up from the root; and during the dark hours of night it is accumulating stores on which to feed. And this may suggest why sometimes after periods of much activity the great Husbandman draws down the blinds and plunges us into the black night of sorrow, or solitude, or depression. We have been too prodigal of our resources, and need time in order to recuperate our exhausted vigor, and to gather up stores for days to come.
The fruitfulness, however, of the vine largely depends on the care with which it is pruned. There is no tree pruned so mercilessly and incessantly, first with the sharp knife, and then with scissors. The Lord has many such implements. There is the golden pruning knife of his Word, by which He would prune us if we would let Him (John 15:3), so escaping the rougher and more terrible discipline of the iron pruning knife of affliction. Our Lord uses the knife, with its sharp clean strokes, which cut deep into our nature, and leave scars which it will take years to heal, or even to conceal. And there are the scissors also in his hand-cross events, daily circumstances which appear contrary to each other, but which nevertheless work together in the end for good.
So great are the spring prunings that more branches are taken out than left in; and the cuttings which litter the ground are said to be utterly worthless and fit only for the fire. Apple and pear prunings are used in many ways, such as supports for young and frail plants; but not so these. And so there are many professors amongst us, who have neither part nor lot with us, who must be taken away; just as there are many things in us all which need pruning out. What a comfort it is that the Vine-dresser leaves the pruning to no 'prentice hand! The novice does anything but that. No hand but the most skilled may handle the knife. "My Father is the husbandman."
It is a recognized rule that no shoot should have more than one bunch of grapes. All but that one are nipped off. And I am told that the vine-dresser will obtain a greater weight of better grapes in that one bunch, than he would by permitting two or three clusters to form. And so with merciless hand he picks off bunch after bunch of unformed fruit and berry after berry from the reddening swelling cluster. It is thus that we are sometimes shut away from one after another of our chosen directions of Christian activity: not that our Father would diminish our fruit-bearing, but that the strength of our life may be saved from dissipation, and conducted by one channel to a better and richer fruitage.
How many pruned ones may read these words! They are inclined to say that the Lord hath dealt very bitterly with them. Husband and sons buried in a distant land; poverty and want supreme in a deserted and darkened home; only one left of all the merry circle of bygone years: and yet out of all this shall come a golden harvest of blessing; and the one little grandson pressed to the heart, and his line to David, the sweet Psalmist and mighty king, shall be better than seven sons, and shall make the aged heart young again. "No chastisement for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Ruth 4:15; Heb. 12:11).
It is very needful that the pruned branch should abide constantly in the vine. "Abide in Him!" (1 John 2:28). This command was given first to little children. It was thus the beloved Apostle, whose head was silvered with many winters, wrote to young men and fathers, in the tender relationship of their father in the Gospel of Jesus. But there is a sense in which we too must become as little children, ere we can learn this sweet lesson of abiding in Him.
The little child is not self-confident: it fears the untried and unknown; it seeks, the companionship of mother or friend; and it is willing to be led. Oh for the child-heart, with its simplicity and trust; its unbounded faith and lovely guilelessness! Many strong men may read these words who glory in their strength; but they must be converted, and become as little children, if they would learn the secret of abiding in Him. When we are emptied of our own strength and self-confidence, and are utterly beaten and broken, we shall be ready to obey this saintly counsel, which is the echo of the Master's own command'' Abide in Me!"
It is said of the great soldier Naaman that "his flesh came to him as the flesh of a little child." It was a splendid combination! The stalwart form of the man of war combined with the soft, sweet flesh of childhood. And these qualities should blend in each of us--strong and simple, manly and childlike; like David, the champion of Israel, whose heart was not haughty, or exercised in matters too great, but was like a child weaned from its mother. Such are counted by the Father as his babes; fed with the sincere milk of the Word; taught secrets which are hidden from the wise and prudent; and instructed in the art of abiding in Him.
It is not easy to abide in Christ all at once. It is the growth of years; the result of perpetual watching and self-discipline; the outcome of the blessed Spirit's tender influence on the inner life. It is not at first easy to get the creeper to entwine itself in some chosen direction. The string, and hammer, and knife, must be used; but in time it is satisfied to adopt the new and forced attitude. And the clinging of the soul to Christ comes as the result of prolonged habit and self-discipline beneath the culture of the Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit will teach us to abide in Him." The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you"; and anointing is always used as a symbol of the Spirit's grace. "And even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him." This blessed art is taught by the Holy Spirit to those who are willing--eager--to learn. Never leave your room in the morning without lifting up your heart to Him and saying, "Teach me, O blessed Spirit, to abide in Christ for to-day: keep me in abiding fellowship with Him; even when I am not directly thinking of Him, may I be still abiding." Expect that He will do this. And when drifting from these moorings lift up your heart and say, "O my Lord, who art the Life and Light of men, give me more of thy Spirit, that I may better abide in Thee."
Abiding in Christ does not mean that you must always be thinking about Christ. You are in a house, abiding in its enclosure or beneath its shelter, though you are not always thinking about the house itself. But you always know when you leave it. A man may not be always thinking of his sweet home circle; but he and they may nevertheless be abiding in each other's love. And he knows instantly when any of them is in danger of passing out of the warm tropic of love into the arctic region of separation. So we may not always be sensible of the revealed presence of Jesus; we may be occupied with many things of necessary duty--but as soon as the heart is disengaged it will become aware that He has been standing near all the while; and there will be a bright flash of recognition, and a repetition of the Psalmist's cry, "Thou art near, O Lord!" Ah, life of bliss, lived under the thought of his presence; as dwellers in Alpine valleys live beneath the solemn splendour of some grand snow-capped range of mountains!
Abiding in Christ means a life of converse with Him. To tell Him all; to talk over all anxieties and occurrences with Him; to speak with Him aloud as to a familiar and interested friend; to ask his counsel or advice; to stop to praise, to adore, and utter words of love; to draw heavily upon his resources, as the branch on the sap and life of the vine; to be content to be only a channel, so long as his power and grace are ever flowing through; to be only the bed of a stream hidden from view beneath the hurrying waters, speeding without pausing towards the sea. This is abiding in Christ; this is what David must have meant when he said, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life: to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple."
When this abiding is secured, the root will supply all needed power in fruit-bearing. Methinks I have overheard the branches complaining that it is quite impossible to expect from them the ruddy clusters of the autumn. "Alas!" they sigh, "if you look for fruit from us, you are expecting impossibilities: we can never produce it." But they are not expected to produce it; they have only to be still, and let the root pour its tides of sap through their open ducts. And it will be discovered in blessed experience that there need ,be no striving, no effort, no "must" in the matter; but that spontaneously and naturally and easily the juices of the plant will break forth into manifestation, and will swell into the luscious cluster of purple grapes. The difficulty will not be in bearing, but in not bearing. There is a whole heaven of difference between fruit and works--the fruits of the Spirit, and the works of the flesh.
Oh that Christian people would learn that there is a great danger in their putting forth their own self-directed energies in Christian living; and that their true power consists in being still, while Jesus from his hidden life in heaven pours out through them his grace and power and blessing on the world.
This is the true cure for depression on the one hand, and for pride on the other. For depression: because however weak we are, our weakness cannot be a barrier to the forth-putting of his might. Indeed, it will be the chosen condition of its greatest manifestation; for surely more glory will accrue to Him, if He produces much fruit through those from whom no such results could otherwise have been anticipated. For pride: because clearly the branch cannot exalt itself as the creator of the fruit, when it has been simply the channel through which the fruit has been produced.
The whole lift of the vine with its fruitful boughs is a parable of self-sacrifice. The one aim of its existence is to bear fruit, "to cheer God and man." Not even rule over the trees is to be compared with this (Judges 9:13). And the passion which fills the heart of Jesus, and of us also, if we have drunk into his spirit, is to bear fruit for the glory of the Father, in the blessing and salvation of men. Our Lord is set on revealing to men those hidden beauties of the nature of God, with which He has been familiar from before the birth of time; and He communicates this desire to his true disciples (John 15:8).
It is dear, therefore, that our pleasure and plans and personal gains must all be laid aside in order that this purpose may be secured. It was said by James Hinton, who had seen deeply into the heart of Christ, "If God could give us the best and greatest gift, that which above all others we might long for and aspire after, even though in despair, it is this--that He must give us the privilege He gave his Son, to be used and sacrificed for the best and greatest end." But how few of us have really entered into the spirit of this thought! We seek our life; we hedge ourselves about; we are ambitious to get a brief power; we give to others what we can easily spare. And so we lose from our lives their joy and power. But if we could but learn to efface ourselves in daily, hourly self-sacrifice, always considering what Jesus desires to do by us, and what will best promote the highest welfare of earth's weary and toiling myriads, then our joy would be full; we should live at the well-head of life; we should climb with elastic steps those higher levels of experience, where men may see the pavement of sapphire stones and the dearness of the light of heaven.