“Fruit, More Fruit and Much Fruit”
Sunday, January 29, 1956
I want to read again, maybe you could read it with me. John 15:1-7. Let’s not read responsively. Let’s read together and not too fast. John 15:1-7. 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 purges it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now, ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. 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. 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, If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, ye shall as what ye will and it shall be done unto you.
Now, the will of God is that we should bear fruit. The will of God is a pressure. I have said this a number of times and I have no reason to change my mind, that the will of God may be likened to gravity, and the pressure of the will of God may be likened to the pressure of gravity on matter. Now, you know and I, that the tug and pressure of gravity, for it’s a tug rather than a pressure, is universal all over this world of ours. And that affects not only material, heavy things, that is, or hard things. It affects liquids and gases and even atoms. It affects everything where there is any matter, any surface at all.
The will of God is like that. It is a continual, moral pressure toward an end, or a continued pressure toward a moral end; and that end is chosen for us by a holy God. For moral creatures, that end is moral. For material things, that end is material. But for those who have moral perception and are capable of taking the image of God, capable of being holy or being made holy, capable of obedience and faith, this will of God is a pressure toward moral ends, and it is exerted by the God who is a perfect God of perfect love who therefore must act always out of goodness.
One of the slickest tricks of the devil is to teach us as he taught Adam and Eve in ancient times, that God isn’t quite fair, and that God is capable of being unjust and even cruel toward people. We’ve got to get back to the doctrines that God has a nature that makes it impossible for Him to be severe or cruel. God is a God of goodness, and therefore everything God does must flow out of His goodness. God is a God of wisdom, and everything He does must be done with perfect wisdom. There can be no mistakes. There can be no second great acts on the part of God. But all the acts of God are perfectly wise because God is perfectly wise. And God is not only good and wise, but God also is love. And God is incapable of acting except out of love.
Now, I want you to understand that everything God does, He does with all of Himself. So that when God, in any part of His universe, does anything, love is present. And all God’s will is bathed in love, springs out of love, moves out of love and toward love, and has love for its center and its beginning and its end; so that the will of God therefore, is the moral pressure that God is exerting upon moral creatures toward an end afore-chosen by Him out of goodness and mercy and wisdom and love. And that means the end that God has chosen for you is such, that if you later, when you are perfect, if you go on to know God and become one of these children if you’re not already, and God someday glorifies you, and you have a perfect mind, you will see that it is exactly what you would have chosen if you could have been choosing. You will see that the ways of God are so perfectly wise that you could not have added by one amendation, or amendment, one change of one sentence, one letter, one punctuation mark. You couldn’t have improved the high, wise will and purpose of God for your life.
Now, with that high purpose of God, with that constant pressure of God on our hearts, God wills that we should bear fruit. And what do we mean? I told you last Sunday night, something of what the fruit is. Can I condense it tonight and say that it is our re-creation of the image of God in lives that had been previously devastated by sin. The bearing, the receiving of fruit, the bearing of fruit, the production, the creation of fruit within a life, is one way of saying. And I explained last week what that fruit was. Tonight I say, that the high purpose of God is a recreating of His own image within the lives of those who have been devastated by sin. It is a doing it over, and a doing it better. It is lifting it up on to a higher level, even than Adam was, when God made Him in His own image and likeness, and set him in the earth.
Now, this will of God is an unremitting pressure. My friends, we sometimes leave the impression, and I think God’s people get the idea, that we have got to give God the noisy treatment. That we have to subject Him to a great deal of stirring up, that if enough people pray long enough and loud enough, and keep at it enough, that we will finally rouse the drowsy ear of God, and God’s heavy eyelids will open and God’s lethargic form will finally shake itself loose. Then, God will think our way, and perhaps if we keep it up enough and are noisey enough and persistant enough, and colorful enough and dramatic enough, we will finally get God aroused enough that He will be willing to do something for us.
Now, I don’t know what I can say to change this and to make us see how wrong we are in this, for it’s exactly the other way around! It is your ear that is heavy. It is your eyelid that falls shut. It is your heart that is lethargic. It is your will that is frozen and slow to move. And it is God who exerts the pressure. It is God who is the aggressor. It is God who takes the first step. It is God who does all this. And it is not our task to arouse the heavy ears of a lethargic God out of his century-old somnolence and try to get Him interested in us. It is God’s work to arouse us out of our 6,000 years of heavy-eared lethargy and indifference. The pressure of God is always there because the gravity is always here. There isn’t anything here anywhere, a grain of dust, there isn’t anything, no molecule, there isn’t an atom anywhere in this building anywhere that does not have a certain pressure, a certain tug upon it. I call it pressure, but as I’ve said, it’s really a pull. And it’s that pull of gravity, always everywhere, a leaf floating in the air, a rock on the hillside, the water, the rain, the mist, everything has that tug, that pressure, the will of God in the material world, moving toward an end.
And so, it is the will of God that we should holy be, and that will is always a moral pressure, like gravity, always pushing; everywhere all the time. Among the various races of the world, among the various denominations, in the various churches and in the independent groups and in the group who won’t admit they are in a denomination, denominational, and among the old people and the young people and the middle-aged people and sick people, unwell people, and educated people and ignorant people, always everywhere, and all the time. This moral pressure of God is wherever there are moral creatures, pressing, urging, always pushing and urging us on that we might bear fruit. That is, that we might have recreated within us, the moral image of God in these lives of ours that have been previously destroyed by sin.
Now, He says here, fruit and then He said more fruit, and then He said much fruit. Notice, fruit and more fruit and much fruit. And this fruit that He is talking about here, comes of course in degrees. There is an either/or method of preaching. I’m afraid I indulge in it myself sometimes. It is an either/or method. You’re either in, or you’re out. You’re either good, or you’re bad. You’re either holy or you’re unholy. You’re either mature, or you’re immature. I wish it was that easy my brother, I’d take a tape measure and fix my congregation up, or at least I’d know where you were. I wish that it were that easy, but it is not. A farmer doesn’t divide his trees up into, and say, well, these trees only bear a little fruit, these bear more. He’s always urging his trees toward more fruit. And he’s grateful for what fruit he gets. If there is no fruit, the axe lies at the root of the tree. It’s not a tree after all.
And Jesus said, going from the orchard to the vineyard. If the branch bears no fruit, it’s an evidence that it is not joined to the vine in a living union, and therefore it is taken away. But if it bears fruit, it is purged in order that it might bear more fruit. And He says “this is the will of God that you might bear much fruit. My Father wants that ye should bear much fruit” in verse eight. “Here in is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” So, there is fruit, and there is more fruit; and there is much fruit.
Now, I want to point out again, that God is easy to please, but He’s hard to satisfy. God is a Father. He’s a husbandman and the Father. And the husbandman who looks upon the branch and notices that for the first time it’s beginning to bear is a happy man. He’s glad and pleased that that branch is beginning to bear. And if it doesn’t bear so heavily that it’s in danger of breaking off the first year, He’s not going to feel too bad about it, because He’s waiting for that fruit, and He knows that there must be growth and development there. And He’s glad there’s any fruit at all. So, He trims it in order that He might have more fruit. And then, when it has more fruit, why he says, “now is the husbandman glorified if it bears much fruit.” And He goes on from fruit to more fruit to much fruit, and then, when we come to much fruit, again, we have no ending. There’s no place where we say, well, this is your limit, sir. You cannot go beyond this. There’s no going beyond it because I believe that the fruit a Christian can bear, that is, the amount of the image of God the human heart can take, I think that there is no limit to it until we see Him face to face.
Now, I’m going to tell you this. We say that there will be a day when we shall see Him as He is and shall be like Him. Do you hear me? I believe that that is true. But I also believe that we can be more like Him now. And I believe it’s possible that we can, by a daring act of faith and reckless prayer, and by a life of obedience and sacrifice and insistence, I believe that we can reach out into the tomorrow and in some measure pull back to them now, that which we’ll receive then. I believe that some men bear so much of the image of God upon their lives that they’re bearing much, very much, fruit. I have seen only a few in my day, but I have seen a few that I felt that when it was said, they shall look upon His face and His name shall be on their forehead, and they shall be like Him, and they shall see Him as He is. I have seen a few people who had upon their character so much of God, that all I can say is that they reached out by faith into the future and took a little of it ahead of time, and pulled it back into their own heart, So, that they took more of the image of God than the average Christian, even the average good Christian.
Does that arouse any desire within your heart? Or, is that simply a theory that I’ve tossed out here that means nothing? Does it arouse in your heart any desire, that you should walk on this earth and be a man a little more like God than the average Christian. That you should have a little more of the image of Jesus recreated in your character than even the best Christians round about you? The man or the woman who judges his life by the other Christians around him is already, and if not dead, at least he’s reached a state of stagnation. For it’s not the will of God that I should say, well, I’m not too bad. I’m as good as McAfee. I’m not too bad. I know Mr. Chase. I know him pretty well and I’m average along with him. Or, pick out some of the others of you and say I’m about like brother so and so, or sister so and so.
Oh, that’s no way to live my brethren. There’s only one Being in the universe that has such honor from me that I can say I’m approaching on being like Him. You dare not say, well, Mr. Tozer, I know him, and so, I think I’m fairly on an average with him. I am not your model. I’m not your example. I’m not the star of your hope and the gleam toward which you move. Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, and who would recreate the image of God in you and me, He is our example; and the longing to have the fruit, the image of God in these nine fruits of the Spirit recreated within us. This is the will of God, and you can’t escape that no matter where you go. God’s pushing and desiring, day and night, during meetings, and when meetings are over, in the middle of the dark night, and in the bright day, and when you’re young, and when you’re old, always this pressure, this moral pressure toward the image of God is upon the hearts of men. And God’s pleased when He sees it appears. He’s pleased even with a little bit of it. He’s glad. He’s glad when He sees a little of it.
There’s a passage in the book of Zephaniah. I never heard anybody preach on it in my life, never, and I don’t know why. I think it is one of the greatest verses I ever knew or ever read. Zephaniah 3:17: “the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is Mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in His love. He will joy over thee with singing.” Now, do you hear this my friend? Here is the God who is easy to please, happy in His Father love, singing over His people, rejoicing over them with joy and singing over them with joy and love, and resting in His love.
Here is the picture of a Father of the family. This is not the picture of the judge, nor of the sovereign God, The High and Lifted up with a sword, or His train filling the temple. But this is the picture of the Father in his household. This is a picture of the husbandman in His vineyard, glad for the fruit that He sees, and pleased with it. And while He is easy to please, He’s hard to satisfy. While He is glad and will sing with joy when He sees fruit, He says this fruit is only a prophetic indication of what can be, namely, more fruit. And when more fruit appears, God sings the louder, and says this is an indication of what can be namely, much fruit. And so, He continues His pressure, on until fruit gives way to more fruit, and more fruit, to much fruit.
But now, how is it? How does He get fruit, and how does He get more fruit and He gets much fruit? He purges it that it may bring forth more fruit. Purgeth, and the various translations have four different words they use: purge, cleanse, trim, and prune. And of course, they all mean the same thing. If He sees that there is fruit in His child, He cleanses it, He purges it, He trims it, He prunes it. If we think about it as a person, it’s a purgation or a cleansing. If we think about it as a vine, it’s a trimming or pruning. The taking off of the things that oughtn’t to be there, in order that there might be more fruit. If there is no fruit on the branch, He taketh it away. But, if there is fruit, He pruneth it that it might bring forth more fruit.
And so, here’s the kind hand of the husbandman. Oh, if you’d only remember that. You wouldn’t squirm under the will of God. And you wouldn’t cry out in fear like a baby with his first haircut, or a child at the dentist, afraid to go in, scared to death because of that stranger with a long instrument that you’re, that he was afraid of. We go to God like that, and we forget that the Father is the Husbandman, and that He’s not out to destroy. He’s out to perfect. He’s not out to kill. He’s out to make it alive. He’s not out to humiliate. He is out to raise and elevate. God never humiliates people. He humbles them. There’s a vast difference between humiliation and humbling. There are those who preach the God humiliates, and you’ve always got to lose your dignity, and lose your poise, and go out of yourself, and be something other than human for a moment, and be humiliated until when it’s all over your red-face and wonder why you did it. No, God never humiliates, but God does humble a man. Job wasn’t humiliated when it was all over, but boy, he was humbled. All right, God humbles people, and He does it as He’s pruning. It’s the kind of hand of God that does it.
Now, I point out that pruning hurts. Christianity is not a painless religion. They’re trying to make it painless in the day in which we live. They’ve given us a rubber cross, and in place of nailing a man on with nails, they stick him up with plastic, and they put us up there with a scotch tape. And there we are, it was painless. Oh no my brother, the religion of Jesus is a pain-filled religion. It cost John the Baptist his head for preaching the coming of Jesus. It cost Jesus His head, not His head, but His life. He went not to the beheading, but He went to Calvary and went to a gallows and was hanged there in blood and tears and sweat and sorrow that He might bring salvation to the world. And every one of the Apostles but one, died a martyr’s death.
When Timothy was dragged through the city, it was by the tail of a cart until he was dead. And all down the years, men have suffered for the gospel of Christ. Not only as martyrs, but they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffered persecution. Jesus Himself learned obedience by the things that He suffered. And if it would bring forth fruit, He purgeth it, pruneth it, trimeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now, if you have ever trimmed any kind of a tree or vine, you will notice that one thing invariably follows the trimming, and that is the bleeding. Now, they take it at the right time of year, so it doesn’t lead to death. If you trim certain trees at the wrong time of year, they’re likely to bleed to death. But they will bleed anytime, a little. And if there was any life in the branch, I know the branch would whimper and perhaps cry out in pain when the clippers snipped off something that didn’t belong there. That God in His kindness knew one leaf too many, one tendral too many, and so He clipped it off. And it didn’t kill the vine, but it did hurt the vine. Fortunately, vines have no nerves, but unfortunately, maybe you and I do. So when the Lord trims us, we bleed.
Some people want to be martyrs because they’ve had to give up something that hurt. They want to write a tract about it. Somebody sent me a whole box full of tracts, something the Lord has done for her, something she’d given up and she wrote a four-page booklet about it and send it to me, for me to distribute. I set it in a corner, and after it’s gathered dust long enough, I’ll put it in a furnace. I don’t know that I ought to have a crown on my head and be ridden into the city with police escort because I have suffered a little twang of pain here and there when the Lord is trimming things off for my good and His glory. I don’t think so. Christianity has some pain in it. This painless Christianity of the present day, this rock and roll stuff that we’ve got in the name of Jesus now doesn’t have any pain in it. It anesthetizes the victim, and he can’t feel anything. But the Lord never operates with a patient under ether. He always operates raw.
Years ago, I had a tooth pulled. The Dentist, after it was over, I said, “thank God Doctor for the anesthesia.” Yes, he said, oh, that’s some Dutchman, named him with long name, he said he invented this stuff. It has saved a lot of suffering. I had a deacon in my church in Indianapolis by the name of Mr. Daggett. One day he showed up looking rather the worst for wear and looked if he’d been through the wringer. Well, he said, Pastor, I had eleven teeth pulled, eleven teeth and he said I wouldn’t take any anesthesia. I told him no, don’t put anything in, take them out. He took them out alright, eleven teeth. He and I used to go out hunting. I haven’t hunted for, how long has it been? I guess twenty-five to seven years. But we used to go out and he had one eye and I had two eyes. We’d come in, he would had the rabbits and I had the experience. That was Daggett. God bless him. I hope he’s still alive and still happy in God. But he was a big, rough, tough fellow who would go out and knock a rabbit down with one eye and take even teeth out without even having Novocain.
Well, I’m a sissy. I haven’t gotten my bid in for martyr, not that kind of martyrdom. So I’m most happy for anything that will soften the pain a little. But in the kingdom of God, God has no Novocain. When He trims a branch, He just lets it hurt. And He does it because you’re you. He does it because you’re who you are and what you were. Jesus refused the sop. And the scholars say that there was a merciful pain deadener they gave to people, somewhat like our Novocain or like some of our pain killers, and that the Romans would give it when a man had suffered so much that the pain was becoming too terrible. They would give him this and he would take a merciful drink of it and then spend the latter part of his hours dying without much pain. Jesus refused it. He wouldn’t allow one bit diminution of the pain that He suffered to save us. And that was not from any heroics on Jesus part, that’s because He was what He was. Morality is what it is. Spirituality is what it is. God’s who He is, and people is what they are.
And therefore, God can’t give us any Twilight sleep. And He can’t deaden the pain. He has to let us suffer a little. But really, it isn’t suffering very much after all, because I read here in my Bible about what Paul had to say, blessed would be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforted us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us so our consolation also bounded by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer, or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
I’ve had, oh, I don’t know how many people come to me. And in the course of conversation say to me before we prayed, Mr. Tozer, then tell me the story of what they’d gone through. And I’ve said to them all right now brother, or sister, you know what’s happened to you. God has let you feel the pruning hook in the sword, and the pang and the pain and the spear. And it was the only way God could ever prepare you to help anybody else. Doctors can go to school and learn the theory of medicine, but until they’ve had a couple of years in actual practice, nobody will go to him. You can learn on the field somewhere maybe the theory of aerodynamics and how to fly an airplane, but until you’ve had your so many 100 hours in the air, nobody will ride with you. And so, we as God’s children can learn the theory of suffering and consolation, but until we’ve suffered, we’ve served our apprenticeship to suffering, we can’t be any good to anybody else much. So, the Lord lets it hurt. But he says, fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.
Now I notice and I’ll try to close this in the next seven or eight minutes. I notice how some of the Old Testament; it would be a wonderful sermon in itself if somebody would preach when God’s pruning the Old Testament characters. There was Abraham: take thee thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest and take him up onto a mountain that I will show thee and offer him there. I know the scholars have dodged and twisted and tried and turned every direction, but when they have had their contortions, it all comes back to one thing, Abraham thought God meant him to slay his son, and all the pain of it was in his heart. And Abraham took his boy and started. And the boy even had the wood on the back, on his own back what was to be burned with. And there was that stoical old man of God mounting up that hillside.
I don’t think there’s a nobler thought and nobler sight away from the story of Jesus. I don’t think anywhere there’s a nobler thought, not David kneeling at the bier of Absalom his beloved Son, and saying, Oh Absalom, Absalom, my boy. Would God I could have died for thee. We turn away respectfully, with hushed voices from that scene. But I think when the old man of God was on his way up the hill to be pruned and trimmed and purged and cleansed from a love that wasn’t pure, a love that was too idolatrous. I think the picture of the old man on the winding path up with rocky hillside to the top of Mount Mariah with his boy walking behind him with a load of wood on his back. If I was an artist, I could paint that old face, kind, but set, and those seeing-eyes and that stubbly beard with his jaw jutting just a little and the head up at the back just a little bout. He was caught, and he was being ground there, ground between the upper and the nether millstone and he was bleeding. He was bleeding. But he couldn’t have been Abraham, the friend of God, if he hadn’t bled. But he was bleeding. If it bears fruit, He cleanses it that it may bring forth more fruit.
And then there was Joseph, you know, of course, the sequel to this story. He didn’t offer his son. He raised the knife to do it, against the screaming protests of his father’s heart. And God said, Abraham lay not thy hand upon the lad. I never meant you should slay him. I only meant that I should be first, and he’s second. You didn’t know it Abraham my friend, whom I believe in and trust. You didn’t know it, but Isaac had gotten in between me and you. And your love for Isaac was a little too strong. And the only way I could take him out of your heart was to take him out with a knife. And he never let him use that knife, but he went through all the psychological heartache of it all. He went through all the tears and sorrow and pain of it all. He gave up his boy in his heart though he never actually killed him.
And there was Joseph, you say Joseph was a perfect character? There’s none perfect upon Earth and so Joseph wasn’t perfect either. Joseph was a nice boy. And he was bearing fruit. The Lord said, Joseph, I’m going to have to trim you and purge you in order that you might bear more fruit. So He let them sell him like an ordinary cow down into Egypt. And then when he got down there, He let him get into that ridiculous situation there in the house a Potiphar. If that wasn’t a face reddening, embarrassing situation.
And then He let him be wrongly accused and tossed into prison like a common bum. And here was Joseph, the boy that never had done anything wrong. The Lord knew what he done alright. He said, Joseph, you’re a fine boy, but you’ve got some, some little tendrils there and a few little, little excrescences here and there on you that I want to trim off. And so, He put him in prison for two years or more, and then let him come out.
And there was Job. We won’t develop that tonight, but you know about Job? Job was a good man and he bore fruit. And God even told the devil, he was a good man. He said have you seen my servant Job? He fears God escheweth evil, but Ed Robinson said it doesn’t say he fears God and cheweth tobacco. But he fears God and he feared God and escheweth evil and he was a good man and you couldn’t find fault with him. In the first chapter of Job, Job could have joined this church. The board would have said, I’d have said as chairman of the board, we’ve got a request here, an application for membership Brethren, a man by the name of Mr. Job Job. And he wants to join our church. Does anybody here know him? One of the board members speaks up and a deacon and says yes, I know him quite well, wonderful man, wonderful man. He’s got a nice family. He’s so conscientious, if they have a meeting or party, he offers a sacrifice and praise like they did something wrong, a wonderful fellow. He eschews evil. He hates it. And he fears God above many. Well then, don’t you think we ought to admit him? Oh, I move here Mr. Chairman, we admit him. In a couple of years, the nominating committee would have said, don’t you think Paster that brother Job Job ought to be a deacon; and he would have been elected deacon without a vote against him. Two years later, don’t you think a man of this godliness and reputation and spirituality ought to be made an elder? Yes, I think we’ll make him an elder. He could have been one of our finest men And if Job had died, boy it would have taken as an hour and a half to get him properly buttered up. We would have had them in from all around telling what had meant to thmm; what a saint he’d been, what a godly man he was, and how he escheweth evil.
But the Lord saw Job and He took a different view of Job. He knew that Job was a good man, but a proud man if that’s possible. We knew Job feared God greatly but was very sure of himself. And so, God put Job out on the ash pile with some kind of boils, scraping himself with a piece of broken butter crock, the potsherd was all it was called. And then he turned loose those sanctified hypocrites, called the three comforters. And talk about steel wool, if they didn’t give him the treatment. They trimmed him I tell you. If it beareth fruit, He purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
Did that hurt Job? You and I you know, that’s just something we talk about. But job was a human being with nerves. That hurt. That hurt to get argued. That hurt to get accused. That hurt to get called a hypocrite. That hurt Job. And when his wife; the only time she appears in the picture, God bless her memory. The only time she appears in the picture she said, “why don’t you curse God and die?” That was tough too coming from your wife. And he turned to her, proved he was still ahead of the house, boils and all. And he said, “thou speakest as a foolish woman. Am I to receive good at the hand of God and not evil also? Naked came I into the world and naked I’m going out, bless it be the name of the Lord. And the old lady fled. And that’s the last we hear of her. But Job came through all right. He said, “when Thou hast tried me I shall come forth as gold.
So, the husbandman sings as he prunes and trims as he sings and sings as He cleanses, mops up the blood little goes on pruning and singing over his family. He has it to do, and he loves them. And he has all tomorrow to think about eternity ahead. We think only about the pain. But he thinks about Eternity, Eternity with all its years, and your place in eternity thinks about that. So, He doesn’t spare it because He loves you. He doesn’t hurt you because He doesn’t love you. He hurts you because He does love you. Now I asked you can you pray this prayer? Can you pray this prayer tonight? Your Christian? Can you pray this prayer and mean? Oh, God, prune me. I’m so delighted Thou has discovered any fruit at all. Father, Husbandman, I asked Thee, prune me to the last vestige of sin is gone, and the clear image of Christ appears. Anybody that can’t make that prayer will not grow in grace, never, because God can’t do anything with them. They won’t hold still for the knife. But can we pray, O God, prune me, Thy child, Thy poor, weak child until the last vestige of sin is gone, and the clear image of Christ appears. Please God, do this and don’t spare me. Have mercy upon me, but don’t spare me. I don’t want to be a stunted, retarded Christian. I want to bear fruit. And then I want to bear more fruit. Then I want to bear much fruit. I want the image of Jesus restored, the image of God restored to my devastated soul. And if it means the knife and the pruning, then O God, prune me until the last vestige of sin is gone and the clear image of Christ appears.
Could you pray that prayer tonight? Would you be willing to? Now, think with me about it? Would you be willing to enter into a contract with God, knowing that you’re His child, born of his Spirit, knowing your name is in His book of life, and nothing can take you out of his hand; knowing that His love holds above the highest height and down deeper than the deepest depths? Not death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers and things present nor things to come can separate you from the love of God. Knowing that, you pray, O God, purge me, cleanse me until the last vestige of sin is gone, and Thy clear image appears in my heart. If there are a substantial number of people here tonight who could enter into such a spiritual contract with God, I believe we’d be on our way to a real revival, real revival. I believe it.
Now I’m going to pray as we bring the meeting to a close and very sacred thing, and I don’t want anybody to be careless; I, 10,000 times would rather nobody would respond and that anybody would respond carelessly. So don’t respond unless you mean it, really mean it to the point where you don’t care. You’re reckless by you’d say “Mr. Tozer pray for me.” I’m going to stand and I’m going to by this act, I’m going to engage God in prayer and enter into some kind of a spiritual vow that I will want him to trim and prune and purge, until the last vestige of sin is gone, and the image of Christ appears clearly in my heart. And I want you to pray for me. Who will get up?