Bearing Fruit - Part 3

Tell them what it really is, brother, sister, or don't tell them at all. Don't lie. Come to Jesus, they say.

It's like heaven and earth flat. They're lying. Heaven's coming, brother.

Not yet. In this world, Jesus says, you shall have tribulation. Brother, sister, if you've made a study of persecution, affliction, and tribulation, tribulation is the only moment.

Paul said he was driven to despair of life. He never said that about persecution, or affliction, or tribulation. In this world, you shall have tribulation.

It's heaven and earth. You will live God. Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

It's not heaven and earth. It's not everybody's going to befriend you and love you. All of Godly and Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Brother, sister, you want right with God. Things are going to go wrong. And God allows things.

It is perfect wisdom, because the devil thinks he'll destroy you. God knows this is going to make you what he wants you to be. Trust him, though.

You think the devil's in control, and God's lost a bit of control in your life. Don't you dare believe it. God won't allow him to do a thing.

He ultimately won't make you what he's looking for, the fruit he's looking for. Oh, come to Jesus, they say. It's going to be heaven and earth, you know.

I can't believe what they're preaching today. Come to Jesus, and you'll prosper. Can you believe that? Prosperity is everywhere.

As a doctrine. It's rubbish, it's trash. Stop preaching it, you're lying.

You don't come to Jesus to prosper. No wonder they come. That's not true.

It's just not true. He'll provide your needs, but believe me, you're not going to be promised to be prospering and rich in wealth and all that. Oh, my, what a lie.

And when they don't prosper, you'll get hundreds of thousands of people across America, sir, who when they realize it isn't true what you say, they become bitter against you and God and the church. And they're bitter enough because of the lies people are telling theologians. Stop it.

Don't you preach prosperity, sir. God does prosper certain and some. Like the rich man in Nazareth.

Well, the rich man didn't get to heaven, Nazareth did. He sat there begging in his wombs in poverty. It's not always prosperity.

Oh, no, sometimes either the means by which God refines us is bringing us on knees. I wonder if God will ever make America seek him again unless he takes away your wealth and gets you into such a recession that you become dispirited as a nation and start seeking. God's ways are not our ways, sir.

Come to Jesus and you'll prosper is not true. Come to Jesus, they say, and you'll be healed of sickness. Have you ever heard that being preached? I don't believe that.

And they have made you sick and you will be healed. Everyone that came to Jesus, he prayed for everyone, he was healed. Same with us, that's not true, though.

I'll take you through a half an hour of doctrine showing you the rest of the Bible that tells you that not everybody's healed. The godliest supper. The godliest bag of sickness from the bag.

Why don't you look at all the scriptures, sir? Because any verse you take, if it's not looked in the light of all scriptures and if there's any scripture that disagrees with your interpretation, you've got half. You've got to compare your verse to the light of all. Or you can't.

Or then you're like the Jehovah Witnesses, they're too scared to read the next verse. They don't want to look through the Bible. Cancel the verse they're saying.

Oh no. Not everyone is healed. We pray for you, you must be healed, they say.

If you're not healed, it's unbelief or sin in your life. Now that's a tragic statement. Why isn't it their sin to pray for you if you're not healed? Well, they're unbelief.

Why do they have to blame the person they're praying for? So you can't stand in the shadow of the godly people who suffer and who die in sickness. Little one, tell them it's sin if you pray and they weren't healed. Be careful, God will judge you.

Like he judged Job's friends. Oh, be careful. No.

No. It's not come to Jesus and it's just joy on earth and peace and health and oh, everybody's going to die in old age and nobody will die of sickness. Everything will prosper and everybody, it's not heaven and earth.

No. That's a lie. You come to Jesus, there's purging, there's the trials of your faith from the man God sees.

You're real, there's reality. Don't doubt that. And out of this comes holiness.

Out of this comes Christ-likeness, comes fruit. It doesn't just come from kneeling and asking God for a work of grace. The fire is refined, sir, after the work of grace is there.

And fruit comes. Oh, I've wept. I haven't shouted hallelujah like they told you you will if you come to Jesus all the way.

Brother, if you shouted hallelujah every step of the way, you're a great man. You're greater than I'll ever be. I have groaned.

I have groaned. I have wept on my face in moments when oh, hell, it seemed came against me to destroy me and God stood back and allowed it. I shall never forget the worst trial that ever came in my life was about 11, 12 years ago.

If you had told me that God would ever allow these things in my life when I was first saved, I wouldn't have believed you. I wouldn't have believed that God would ever do that to a child who had given his whole being to God and desired for God with every breath in his body, with every faculty, with every being, no matter what it cost, I wouldn't have believed you. Had you said God would bring these things in my life one day, well, they came.

They came. Everything, brother, you can name it, it just came upon me. With such, I was down in the dust weeping most of the days.

It was like God had forsaken me. I don't know if there was anybody left on earth that didn't think why has God so forsaken this man who served and was preached all over, who poured out his soul for God. Why has God forsaken this man? I believe people were thinking that everywhere.

I don't think there was a person left in the mission that I served God in Africa that wasn't wondering why has God forsaken this man. I was, it was like I was being destroyed and God was standing back and allowing it. Oh, one thing came after the other.

The next thing, I don't know if you know that hymn. Our brother was speaking last night, brother John, about this hymn. When sorrows like sea billows roll, you know.

That man knew what it was about. He's in the school of God and wrote that hymn. When sorrows, they come like sea billows.

You know what that means? There's one wave that comes on. Brother, it knocks you down. But it's merciless to see, you know.

You just get up and there's another wave. And you're down again. And you think, no, as you get up, oh, another one.

It's just like sea billows. They just come until you can hardly get up at all. Does God allow that? Oh, yes.

While I was on my knees weeping before God was grappling with the scriptures. Holding on to any promises, suddenly the telephone rings. And they tell me, my wife, my children are all in hospital.

My cars rolled and rolled and other cars. And the terrible accident they've been in. They found our way for me from the other side of our land.

I just put the phone down. I didn't even speak. And I got on my face and I said, God, let me die.

Can a man pray that? Can a man stand in the pulpit and say that's Christianity and get away with it? And so you may never let me back in your pulpit. But I tell you something, it's the truth. It comes upon us.

Job was not the only man that prayed, let me die. Jeremiah was not the only man that came to a place and said, God, let me die. I prayed that from my heart.

Let me die, God.