Appeal
199
feet and told Him all the truth. Christ did not reproach her. He gently
said: “Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.”
Here was distinguished the casual contact from the touch of faith.
Prayer and preaching, without the exercise of living faith in God, will
be in vain. But the touch of faith opens to us the divine treasure house
of power and wisdom; and thus, through instruments of clay, God
accomplishes the wonders of His grace.
This living faith is our great need today. We must know that Jesus
is indeed ours, that His spirit is purifying and refining our hearts. If the
ministers of Christ had genuine faith, with meekness and love, what a
work they might accomplish! What fruit would be seen to the glory of
God!
What can I say to you, my brethren, that shall arouse you from
your carnal security? I have been shown your perils. There are both
believers and unbelievers in the church. Christ represents these two
classes in His parable of the vine and its branches. He exhorts His
followers: “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.”
There is a wide difference between a pretended union and a real
connection with Christ by faith. A profession of the truth places men
in the church, but this does not prove that they have a vital connection
[229]
with the living Vine. A rule is given by which the true disciple may be
distinguished from those who claim to follow Christ but have not faith
in Him. The one class are fruit bearing, the other, fruitless. The one
are often subjected to the pruning knife of God that they may bring
forth more fruit; the other, as withered branches, are erelong to be
severed from the living Vine.
I am deeply solicitous that our people should preserve the living
testimony among them, and that the church should be kept pure from
the unbelieving element. Can we conceive of a closer, more intimate
relation to Christ than is set forth in the words: “I am the Vine, ye are
the branches”? The fibers of the branch are almost identical with those
of the vine. The communication of life, strength, and fruitfulness from
the trunk to the branches is unobstructed and constant. The root sends