| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 27 |
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The Husbandman does not trouble to prune the fruitless branches, but only cuts them off and casts them away. “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.” All through the Bible uselessness meets God’s disfavor and condemnation. The wicked are compared to the chaff which the wind drives away. Chaff is of no use; it feeds no hunger; it has no value and no beauty; it is fit only to be burned. The fruitless branch stands for the formal profession of religion. Merely nominal church members without spiritual life are not of any benefit to the church. For a time the Husbandman may be patient with them, waiting while He tired in all ways to bring them into real union with Himself, and to make the fruitful; but when due efforts have been made and there is still no fruitfulness, they are cut away.
It is the fruitful branches which the Husbandman prunes and tends. The motive of His care is that in this way these branches may become more fruitful. “Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” The pruning process is a very important one. Dead twigs must be cut away. Sometime there is too much foliage. There is not life enough to nourish all the branches. Some of them, therefore, must be cut off, that what remains may receive full nourishment. There may then be less fruit for the present, but it will be better, richer fruit. The Husbandman does not prune the unfruitful branches — pruning would do them no good. It is the Christian that the Father chastens and causes sometimes to suffer under sore discipline. Mere formal professors of religion are left alone, and often they grow very luxuriant, like unpruned vines. But in their luxuriance there is no spiritual fruit.
Notice also that the object of the Father’s pruning is that the branch may be made to bear more fruit. It sometimes seems that the pruning is destructive. Great branches are cut off, and it seems as if the very life of the vine is endangered. But He who holds the knife knows that what He is doing will make the vine in time more luxuriant and its fruit sweeter and more luscious. If only we would bear this in mind when we find ourselves under God’s chastening, it would help us to bear the pain in patience and also to cooperate with God in His design to make us more fruitful. Earthly prosperity is often to a Christian like the excessive luxuriance of a vine, which the vinedresser must cut away with his merciless hand in order to save the vine’s life.
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