Page 76 - Fundamentals Ebook

they may see your good works; but those works are fruit. So,
sometimes works and fruit are the same. James 2:26, “For just as
the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is
dead.” Faith without works is dead. Sometimes, not often, works
can be fruit.

I love Hosea 14:8, “O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you. I am like a luxuriant cypress;
from Me comes your fruit.” God says, “From Me comes fruit.” So,
we want to talk about the origin. Since you’ve been a Christian,
everything that you did in your own strength profits nothing. It
means nothing. That’s why we started with the vine and the branch.
Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing.” But there is a lot I
can do without Him; but nothing that is called “fruit”. I need to
abide in Him to have fruit.

I want to give three illustrations to show the idea of the origin of our
life. Colossians 2:6&7, “As you therefore have received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now
being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were
instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” The Lord Jesus is
called our soil. We are rooted in Him. What soil is to a plant, Jesus
is to us. The plant draws from the soil and produces.

Another illustration is Isaiah 37:31, “And the surviving remnant of
the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit
upward.” If you bear fruit upward, you bear root downward.

In the first illustration Jesus is like soil. John 15:4&5, “Abide in
Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it
abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am
the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him,
he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” The
soil is the source of the vine. The vine is the source of the grape.

Romans 7:2-4, “For the married woman is bound by law to her
husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released