The following is a presentation of TFNN. The Tiger Technician Hour with your host, Hazel Chapman. Call now toll-free at 1-877-927-6648. Hi folks, down 139 on this Wednesday the 3rd of January. Yesterday we made an all-time high, an all-time high. I mean, this is really interesting. What a divergence we had. Let me just get my little arrow right here, there it is. So we go to the high of 37,790 yesterday, all-time high. And then we pull back. All-time high in January, maybe this is the only high it makes all week. Who knows? But it made an all-time high. This stands Leg C in the monthly chart to say that no matter what happens, you cannot get a peak C unless all of January, all of February has a lower high. Because if this is January's candle and you've gone to a Leg C extension, even that was by 10, 12, 15 points, it means that you have to wait for all of January to complete. But then you've got the next bar and that means that the whole bar of February cannot make a new high or whatever the January high is so that you can call it a peak C. Then March goes to a Leg D, imagine, right? And that means you've got to wait until April before you can get a peak D. So this is still very bullish. And the weekly chart is extended to Leg, I really think it's an A and not an F. So so far that's all very bullish. Short term, there's something completely different that's going on. Down makes an all-time high yesterday of 37,790. But the QQQ, it made as high four days ago on, that was December the 28th, was it? Yeah, 28th, that means I just typed that in. December the 28th at 412, 412.93. And yet it is 12 points lower at 400.26. Down 2.32, the nine-period roofing average is still over the 14, but it's turning down. The mankis are already turned down sharply. The stochastic, which is way up in the 95% area, actually it was even high 97%, has now pulled back under 80%. Now, the big thing is that I've discussed very frequently over the years in my webinars for subscribers to my opening call. If you're subscribed, you can get all these webinars. And I discuss that what's the counterpoint of a stochastic that's holding in the 95, 97% area? Is that it holds? Because as long as it's holding there, that's very positive. But what will happen if it starts to invert? What happens if it starts to reverse? Well, it goes under 80%, but very often it goes quite a bit under 80%. As you can see right here, it went down to the 46% level in late December and then started to rally. That nine-period roofing average never once got even close to turning pink, staying green, which is very positive. But now look at the steepness of this decline. This is the QQQ. This is something to monitor. And I have no choice but to consider the tiny little doji candle of the last week of December in the weekly chart of the QQQ is an alternate count. F slash B, I'll get rid of one of them when the time comes. But right now it's saying leg B in the monthly chart could become a peak B if all of January doesn't go about 412.92. That's a big ask. But I'm just saying that's what would happen to make it a peak B. In the meantime, on the very short term, look at the S&P. The S&P is pulling back quite sharp. It's down 26 points at 4,716, made a recovery high. The all-time high is 48, 18.62 back in January 2020. In fact, it's probably exactly two years ago to the day. And now what we're looking at maybe one day short. So most importantly, what we're looking at is this is a shorter term pullback in the in the daily chart, the weekly chart. It doesn't even look like an eye blink here. It just, we've had to move from 4103 to 4793. And now we're at 4716. That's just nothing. But look at that tiny doji candle from last week. That to me looks like it should be a pullback to the 46, 39 period moving average. And then 45, 70 is the 40 period moving average. To get that green in the weekly chart, first of all to get the green in the dating chart to turn pink. Oh, you'd probably have to see this at 46.92 to 46.88. And in the weekly chart, you'd have to see it even much, much lower. You'd have to see it at 45, 40. I just, I don't see that right now, but I do see an extremely overboard situation, which is the reason why. And I'll go through this. I discussed it yesterday with Tom. I did an interview that the Dow gave me the same, partly the same signal as it gave August the 1st. When the on balance volume gave that a fantastic reversal on the exact day August the 1st, where we actually went short the Dow. And that was in the Dow itself, 35,679 was the high. We went short just maybe just a little bit lower than that on that particular day. And we went short the Dow on Friday. So it was a day early, but still only 12 points or so 25 points away from the high. And more importantly, it's really just the start of something is to say, hey, all my indicators say this is oversold over, sorry, overbought. And that is the indicators that I consider really important. But that's the casting, which is probably the most important is at 93%. I'll take it a moment now to discuss this. So I don't want to go through too much. I'll talk about it over the week. But you can see that in the Dow, that doji candle right there saw that the on balance volume went to a high and in volume. It's only fractionally higher than the high of yesterday in on balance volume. So this is really the start. But what happened here? And I said to subscribers, are we here? Is this very much the same thing? Here's the nine over the 14. And look how long it took the nine over the 14 after that on balance volume reversal in the in the Dow. To the day. How long it took seven or eight days before sessions? I should say not days of the sessions before it turned pink. So is that going to happen here? I have no idea. I'll put a question mark. So what I'm looking at here is we've done our homework. We've got our stops in place and we'll see what happens. What's happening next? And all I can say is that it might take until the end of the week. Before the green nine-speed moving average even gets close. But the most important thing that I had was this particular pattern that I drew in the rectangle pattern that says you can make an arch formation going slightly above the left side high. That's that peak F right there. And then you got to watch it carefully because if it arches over in this particular instance any close below twenty seven thousand two hundred in the next couple of days and we're still way above that rate of three seven thousand four ninety would say oh be careful on the short term. As I said the weekly charts are also looking real good. We'll be back. That was on two twenty seven. That's a result thirty one. 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So Jeff A. and the Tiger YouTube want to know was that wasn't in 2017, we also made just slightly higher high just like we did right now in the doubt. Yeah, that was a little different. I don't really want to go into that now. Other than to say, if you recall in 2007, what happened was we had that sell off very sharp sell off right there. That was at the high of 1555 in July of 2007. And then everyone said, oh, this is it. This is it. And I said, you know, my some of my technicals are still very strong. Some things not right here. I think we're going to get in the weekly chart a pattern that I call the double hump. You know, there are camels that have not one hump, but two humps. There's a particular I always make a little kind of a joke about the whatever technique I used to have.  Everything falls out. That's like the same thing here. So what happened in the weekly chart is I said, I think we're going to get a rally. I don't know if it'll go to new highs, but it might be that pattern. I call the double hump that goes to like an E slash C or a G slash D something like that. It has these two little hiccups to the upside fools everyone and then it just tumbles. And that's exactly what we got. So yeah, you're you're correct. But the time it wasn't just a two day thing that was this is this is over a period of weeks if we talk about the same thing. All right. So with that said, let me just go through a couple of things that I think are really important right now. Dow is the Dow is down to 32. This is still nothing. I mean, we've had 232 updates at price wise. So many times just the Dow is plus 50 and then push all of a sudden it goes up 250 or 300 or 400. And a couple of very sharp down days, but not that many. This is different. This is what I said last week. I was exactly at this time Wednesday. So I was saying, you know what, I think what we're looking at is the chance that Friday is actually a day that closes below the highs. And then we come into the market on Monday night. The January the first with the futures open and they suddenly turned down and that Tuesday morning. We have a very weak session and it is it comes. Everybody says, what is it? Who would have thought of that? We thought, you know, we gave you new highs, new highs, new highs. And it comes as an absolute surprise. And what that would mean is that you get a sharp pullback and then those people that wanted to short didn't have a chance. Trying to look for the opportunity for the market to alleviate that selling pressure have a balance and then they can short. They've hardly had a chance to even do that. So this to me says that the three aspects I was looking at was one. There was a chance of a surprise sell-off, which is why we went short on Friday, short the Dow, short the one that I thought would be the weakest, which is the semiconductors. We got the SOXS three times along a short position, small but aggressive. We've taken a little bit off. You know, the fact that it's now up way over 20% in just two sessions is just we've already taken a little bit. So you just have to, you just got to do money management with this. You can't really tell. But that was number one was that there would be a surprise sell-off. Not a surprise to us because we were prepared for it, but a surprise for many people. That's number one. Number two is the duration might be, it might be severe and short-lived because of the surprise factor. Therefore, that nine-period moving average, I'm showing you the S&P right now, might not even get a chance to turn pink before there's a decent balance. And then that's the next one that you got to watch for the next decline after that if there is one. And the third thing is, it's going to be rotational. Wow, I did not believe it could be as rotational as it was yesterday. You had the Dow make an all-time high and then give back a little bit. And even today, it's just a little bit big deal, 240 points, just nothing. But what we did see was the QQQ, the index 100, look at this QQQ, three not four, three Qs, turned down. And one of the things I was looking at here, look at this. I can't look at that because that is there. Look at that tiny doji, two doji candles, very kind of doji-ish candles after such a massive move going from the 40,400s to the 17,000, 70,000s. And yet you get the end of the run.  And look what we were going to. And I said, there's a chance that this week we can get this kind of very, I have no choice. I'm going to have to put this in. This is an E, F, this is an F slash B right here. That's an E slash A, that's an F slash B. I'm going to watch this very closely. Why? Because let's go back to the Qs. Whoops. Let's go back to the Qs right here. Because the volatility index, and I'll get to that in a moment, is really important to monitor at this stage. And what I said was, I was a little concerned that the volatility index, yes, the VIX index, VIX and XS, had such a big move yesterday when we were almost at all-time highs in the Dow, but certainly not all-time highs after two or three days in the Qs or the S&P. I don't have the new stock exchange anymore, but I'm sure the same thing with the NYSE. And that was important that we actually pulled back, and by the end of the day, the VIX index went to the lows of the day, right about 1305 or so, after getting to the 14s, and it pulled back. To me, that was really, really important, and it was important for three reasons. Number one is, I do not like the volatility index to expand tremendously right off the top. To me, that's just, that's more hysteria. Number two is, the VIX index can do it, but I love what happened yesterday. We were close towards the lows and said, oh, never mind, never mind. Now, today is the follow-through. To me, that was the most important thing, both in the market being weak, the day is young. Anything can happen by the end of the day, but we've had some quite intense selling pressure. We've had a nice comeback in Microsoft and a couple of the other, the Magnificent 7 that really took a tumble yesterday, especially in the Nvidia. Let's see if Nvidia is trading right now. Come back a little bit. No, it's still down 7, or 6.8 at 474. Look at that double top, and I said, this is going to be one of the most unusual patterns I've ever seen in a chart goes to an all-time high. In the daily chart, 50266 was the high in Nvidia way back in the 24th of August. Let me just remember that 502.66. But then it goes to 505.48. There's no other way I could count that. That is a peak B. And then it goes to a higher, it goes to 504.33. It doesn't take out that left side high. And now it's got a peak C1, potential C1, which acts like a D right there, and a potential C2 right there. And that takes the place of all the others. So it would be so unusual to fail that a peak B at an all-time high in the daily chart always happened so rarely. I could probably, if I even remember it, I'd be able to count it on one hand. So let's just watch this very closely. Because this is just a high-level consolidation in Nvidia. What's the big deal? 505 is the all-time high. It's trading at 474 right now. The most recent though is in the 450 area. It's just in the sideways range. So the three things I'm looking at in the VIX is, where does it close the day to day? I need to see, can it hold the highs as the Dow closes? 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Also had these two tiny little gogies at its most recent recovery high in the 205s, it's trading at 196 right now. So the daily charts just say, hey, this is the kind of action you look at at turns. Now, the difficult thing at this particular stage is, what do you do when you are looking at this, but you're tempted, based on your looking at, say, the E-mini, you're tempted to try to play the long side. So what I've done, and I've actually been way, way better at this for quite a while now. I used to still like to trade the counter trends, but I'm trying to stick as much as I can to the major trend. We have a couple of people in the den, John's one in particular, who really looks at trends and he tries to stay with the direction of the trend for his major, the major core positions, and then he'll trade around it. So this is something I did for my CD, introducing the Chapel Wave methodology CD book that is that kind of out of print. But I'm just figuring out how I can ever make this back again into something that's a viable entity. But if in the way the web works, if I had to post anything right now, I'd lose copyright, it'll just go out there, it'll be gone. So I didn't really want to do that, I didn't spend my life trying to develop all these techniques so that I could just throw it away. It's something that I need to find to a certain degree. So look, you see the gray line, you see these gray bars going up? Well, you see this arrow, this red line and the arrow down? So you've got to identify the trend and then trade with the trend. And one of the things I like to say is if the tide is coming in, you can throw a piece of driftwood into the water and no matter what happens, that driftwood keeps on being pushed against the sand or the beach or whatever it is. If the tide is going out and you throw your piece of driftwood in, it just keeps going out, it just keeps, that's the tide. If you identify the tide, yes, within that you can get ripsaws, you can get riptides, you can get tsunamis, you can get all sorts of things. But basically what you want to do is to trade the trend. Why? Because if you are long and you are early, you are wrong, but the tide will save you. If you are wrong and you're going against the tide, well I know this out of personal experience, I've been a really fine sprinter, but a most horrible swimmer, even though I grew up in the water and I used to surf and stuff like that, I mean body surf, not the real thing, just these tiny waves. Lousy swimmer. Three times I can just remember offhand that I almost drowned. I mean really close to drowning. One, I was talking to a friend and my toes couldn't reach the bottom of the water and I was trying to paddle to talk with him. And I was too embarrassed to say to him, Brian, can you just hold me a little bit because I think I'm about to drown. And thank goodness as I was desperate, I was about to say that somehow or other the tide must have pushed me in a little bit deeper and I got towards the beach. So I managed to get my feet on the ground. So yeah, so the tide to me is most important. So wait, this is the wrong way. Look, if you're shorting all the way down, you can be really good. Sorry, if you're buying all the way down, you can be really good because you can get these little tiny waves to the upside. But the major tide is this. Doesn't that look correct? The tide is going up and your price is going up. The MACD is going up, the stochastic is going up and on the way down, you can short because the tide is going to save you. So I wanted to get that out of the way because I think that's right now that's really important to me. Why? I don't want to be too quick to do any covering. I think taking little bits off to make profits and garner some well-deserved reward. Yeah, but the tide seems to me that we've changed on the day, not the weekly yet, but the daily tide is changing. The nine-period moving average needs to cross negative and it hasn't done that to get a confirmation that the tide could go in fact even further to the downside. We haven't got that yet. Now let me do the same thing with gold. Remember I spoke about this. I said sideways action. Yes, it's pretty good when you think about what the dollar has done though. Actually, gold should have been way up in the 2170s. So this move at 20.43 is just saying, ah, it's struggling. And if you look at silver, that was the clue to me to say the silver was the one that was really acting against your dreaded H pattern, lowercase H. There it is. Fails at a peak B. We don't know if it's failed yet, but the tide seems to be turning to the downside. And the weekly chart is now underneath the chevron wave inside track, the propellant zone. And only that, you've got the nine-period moving average back to pink negative and the monthly chart. So that silver, if you look at high grade copper, if you're looking at high grade copper, let me get there, high grade copper. Yep, pulling back after that peak D. We're always looking at peak Ds in the chevron wave methodology. That's where you can. You don't have to be. That's where you can get pretty deep slides. And we're getting that in the high grade copper. Let's look at crude oil. Crude oil is up 2.27 at 7266. So I spent quite a bit of time going through the charts of ExxonMobil, CVX, and RIG. Let's go to RIG. And it tells me that even here, you remember I spoke about this as, as we were going into the end of last week, I said there could be a rotational correction. And we're going to see which stocks in the sieve stay above the netting or which fall right through the cracks. And that's going to be important. So RIG and some of the offshore drilling, oil and gas, they're not doing as well. So the reason why I looked at the big multinational oil companies is they got a dividend. Well, you don't want to be buying dividend stocks when the capital is going to be just wiped off the face of the earth. Look at this ExxonMobil. If you were buying, where a lot of people say to me, ah, Exxon is going to the moon. It was up at 120, 119. I said, you know, I don't think so. I think it's stuck in a range. And it could actually start to make lower lows and lower highs. Well, if you bought at 115 and now you're at 103, that's 10. That's a 10% risk to your big capital. So who cares about your dividend if that's the case? Dividend means nothing. But wait a minute. We've got Verizon. Look at that. We're moving Verizon. This is this breakout from yesterday's high to today's candle in leg B and then leg C. Now legs C in the weekly chart. This is the first time that these stocks, which also give dividends telephone. Look at this. Look at that move. So it goes to P, F right there, F. And then it goes to A. That's an A because there's your starting point right there. That's an A. That's an A right there. So that's a B. And now it's leg C in the daily. And the leg F, maybe it's an alternate count because this could be a chapter inside right there. Instant restart. Look at that. Right there. That's E. And this could be F slash B. I'm very intrigued. Look at the horrible action in AT&T from when it was at 30. And it gets cut in half. It goes down to the 14-13 area. And here it is at 17. So this is what I'm talking about. The rotation says there are areas. Hey, Lily had a question in the den about Lily. She was in the farm. Yep. Lily's come alive again. It was fantastic. A sharp pullback. And now I'll do that when we get back. That was on 206. S&P's down 35. The Gold Report. As a precious metal, gold is still king. 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Market Insights comes with a 30-day money back guarantee for all new subscribers, so you have nothing to risk. Don't miss out on this opportunity to revolutionize your trading game. Head over to TFNN.com right now to join the thousands of traders who have already experienced the power of Tom O'Brien's award-winning newsletter, Market Insights firsthand. TFNN Educating Investors. Biotech Today. This program is brought to you by Vista Gold, traded on the NYSE American and TSX under the symbol VGZ. So, in the Chapway methodology, the Chapway Instant Restart is just a phenomenal technique that I discovered, of course, trial and error, a very expensive way to discover. Years ago, decades ago, and I just, it amazes me why it still works in this day and age. I don't know why, but what I see within three bars after a peak D, a new recovery high, now I've learned, and I've emphasized it here in the den for all our tigers, that if you get to a G-C, it happens so often that you can, in fact, get a D after that, we just saw that in the Dow. The Dow did exactly that thing. So the monthly chart, and I can't believe how many monthly charts have been doing the same thing over the last year, probably a year and a half. But this is an instant restart in Eli Lilly, right here. That means I have no choice but to consider this as a G-C. And as long as the technicals, which are absolutely fantastic in the monthly chart, continue to hold like this, it should go to a D. And then you've got to be careful. That means it should go over 629.97, the high of October of 2023. That's the way I'm looking at it. And if you look at the rectangle, you see why a rectangle pattern is so important. Look, we've been in the rectangle. We've gone up to the top, back again. Hell's walking the 9-period moving average and the 14-period moving average in the weekly chart. The technicals are still very weak, but that 9 is way strong above the 14. And that, to me, is very important. And that says, yes. That's where you can anticipate. Now, in the Chamber of Commerce, I'll just do this because the question was asked. So you had a peak E right there. You pull back, then you would peak A, peak B, pull back, but held that low that was at about 548. And here it is. So this becomes, every single peak from this low right here gets notated. That's your obligation in the Chapman methodology right there. It's the only obligation. Easy. So look at this. That's an A, that's a B. This is an A until it goes above that B. So that's an A. This is an A. This is an A. This lower one here is an A. I just want to put all those A's. It looks so crazy, right? That's an A. That's an A and that's a B. But then it goes even lower. That's an A and that's another B. And finally you've got yourself a C right there. That C is underneath that previous B. But that's the one that's because this is your starting point. Every peak is notated. So yeah, you're finding it at leg C in the daily chart. And this is a gray A. That's a gray A. This is now a B. And we'll see if it goes above that it starts an E right there. So yes, this is very strong. Eli Lilly looking very good. And that's my suspicion that the stocks that have had really good earnings have a real special. I mean Eli Lilly has all these different drugs and the approvals. Everything's working to their benefit and it shows up on the chart, right? And that is really important. So the answer is how about Lilly if time allows. Yep, time allowed because it was really important to look at that just as I want to look at the other areas. Let's just see if the XLU, which is the XLU is the S&P utility spider fund went to a DEFG right there above the 200 period moving average. And then kaplop EFG and that gets a down arrow. And then it's kind of stalled. And then we can charge at a peak B. Yeah, so this is holding OK because it's utilities. It has a relationship to the rates going a little higher. Oh, I never even did that. So let's just go to the TLT. Am I typing the right place? Yes, I am. The TLT made a peak G. G stash. See, this looks to me like it's going to become just a G. And add a doji candle, a silent doji after the high was made. Another doji yesterday, even another doji today. TLT is down 1.06 and look at the TNX.X. That is the tenure in this leg A right here, gray A, because I don't have any confirmation this is going to be going. I don't know yet how high it's going to go, but this is an A and it's at $39.95 and $40.89. This is a 200-period moving average. I'd call that a potential target. But look at this. It has the dollar, DXY. So you've got your yields going up. You've got your dollar going up. The dollar is up at 102.54. That's where I said I drew this in. I said, yes, your left side, right side price time match. Look what happened. It went to the exact day of this midpoint, the plum line from October. This was October the 3rd, 107.35. Then it makes a cup formation. And I said one of the techniques I used is to use the bottom of the cup for my left side, right side. If it looks visual because it doesn't look mathematical, it looks visual. And then this is my inside wedge target support line right there. And it went right to it on five days before five trading sessions ago. And that was the 28th, I think it was. Yep, the 28th, it hit 100.62. And yeah, we had 102.54. It was two points higher for the dollar. Two points like this to the upside after all the downside action. This is kind of important. And that's another reason why I think there's some kind of selling going on. So that was the dollar. The TLT is a little different. TLT, I keep forgetting to do this. I always did it on the TBT. And then I forgot all about the midpoint. There's the TBT. That's the inversion of the, that is the Lehman 20th short, Lehman 20th Treasury Bond Fund. Look at that. It went right to that base of support. And now it's running off the January inside wedge. I forgot to make it red. Dash pink. That's really what I like to do. Dashed pink. There it is. So this is the balance, but it's a pretty decent balance of 3123 up 62 cents. Yeah. So all of those things are coming together to say, just be kind of careful here.  I've spoken about this for so long. This is the global X U.S. infrastructure and development ETF. It went to a peak F with a doji cattle on the train. I didn't believe it was the 28th. I think it was the 28th. And there's a little question mark because I'm about to put it down. I haven't got it yet, but look at that sharp move. And you can see Alcoa. We had Alcoa and I said, we're going to raise the stop. I'm not messing around. I, I want to take a profit when you've got gains while they there. So we got out of it. We, we were in a 33.50. Took a tatter for 3445. No, about almost a 3% gain. And then we're all out yesterday, 33.80 for a fractional gain on the overall. And now look where it is. It's at 3111. Look at the speed that a peak D can turn around at. And I had also said, I don't like this. A very quick peak A, P, C, D in a, in especially in a weekly chart with one or two bars in between. And then a doji candle. That just says, be careful. There could be quite a sharp pullback. I want to buy Alcoa again, but I don't want to do it just yet. I want to wait. And this rotation says, watch Caterpillar. What is Caterpillar doing? Whoa. I didn't even update it. Caterpillar went to a peak F, often instant restart, F, G, C, that definitely looks like a G. Put a question mark there to see what we're going to do over the next two days. Very sharp. We've done nine at 283. And a peak B, E slash B in the weekly charts, E slash B. And a new F, in the monthly chart. Even Caterpillar is pulling back by sharp. So infrastructure is coming. I'll be right back. Dow is down almost 300 points. We've down 76. That's about to happen. Tiger's Day questions. You can look over the shoulders of Tom O'Brien and the other TFNN hosts while they analyze charts during their live Tiger TV programs and join an interactive trading community with hundreds of members exchanging ideas, interact with other Tigers and Tigresses as they share trading ideas, news analysis, and discuss the market action all trading day, even at night and on the weekends. The Tigers Day Discord is accessible on mobile or tablets as well. So it's always at your reach. To sign up today and become a part of this educational community of traders, just visit the front page of TFNN.com. The reality is that navigating financial markets can be risky. Markets can be chaotic and difficult to understand. 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I suspect that there are a lot of people that never thought going into the beginning of the year just as before we even got into the beginning of the year that the markets have started to decline. So that says to me you've got speed to the downside. And you remember the chart we were looking at? I wonder if I can just get it back here. This is it. Yes. Remember, this is not what you want to be doing. The tide is down. That's why for those people doing intraday trading and all, take your profits as soon as you can if you're going against the tide because the tide is very strong right now. And it's the surprise tide. It means that there's room for the tide to continue at this point. Even if there's a sudden lake rounding to the upside, some serious damage has been done in a very short time. So with that said, I'm going to hand you over to Steve Rose and all the great programming, check-out mode, as I say, we do have two shorts in the newsletter. We've started to raise cash and the semiconductor short is doing very nicely.


And in this session we're going to discuss cheap grace and the fruitlessness of faith. Cheap grace and the fruitlessness of faith. We're going to look at John chapter 15 as a starting point here, specifically in verses one through eight, John chapter 15 verses one through eight. Cheap grace and the fruitlessness of faith, what impacts this error, this heresy of cheap grace just impacts so many different areas, just undermines the gospel at every turn. We're beginning to see that as Pastor Mike works through those passages. But here, undermining genuine biblical God-wrought faith in the Christian's life. Cheap grace and the fruitlessness of faith from John chapter 15. Let's begin reading together in verse one, John chapter 15 beginning in verse one. Here, the words of Christ. Christ says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered.  If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. And by this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit. And so you will be my disciples. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord and God, we praise you and thank you for this time together. What a joy it is, Lord, to study your word.  So grateful for the clarity of it, the truth of it, Lord. Just we joyfully rejoice, God, in submitting ourselves to the authority of it. Lord, thank you. Thank you for revealing yourself to us in your word. Thank you for Christ. Thank you for this glorious salvation, God. We're in awe of it. We're so grateful for it. And we love you, Lord. And we want to live a heart, soul, mind, and strength for you. Lord, thank you for this time of studying together. I pray that you bless it, God, and bless it to our hearts. God, bless the labor of your people for you and your vineyard, God, and just bless to our hearts and minds the truth of your word, that we might praise, exalt, worship, and honor Christ for his glory, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Charles Spurgeon once said that there is a vessel drifting. There's a vessel drifting, and she soon will be on the rocks. But a pilot has come on board, and he is standing on the deck, and he says to the captain and crew, I promise and undertake that if you will solely and alone trust me, I will save the vessel. Do you promise it? Do you believe in me? They profess to believe in him, and they trust the vessel implicitly to his care. And as the ship is tossed about on the waves, the pilot shouts, you with the helm there, and he doesn't stir. At the helm there, can you hear? And he does not stir. He doesn't stir. And the shout comes. I want you any confidence in the pilot. He says, oh yes, so yes, I have faith in him, he says. He will save the vessel if I have faith in him. But don't you hear the pilot? As he says, have faith in him, and you won't touch the helm? Now you aloft there, reef that sail, and he doesn't stir. But he lets the wind still blow into the sail and drift the vessel onto the coast. And now then the pilot cries, some of you look alive and reef that sail. But they do not stir. Why captain? He says, what shall I do? These fellows won't stir or move a peg. But oh, says the captain, I have every confidence in you pilot. I believe that you will save the vessel. Then why don't you attend the tiller and all that? Oh no, he says, I have great confidence in you. I don't mean to do anything. Now when that ship goes down amid the boiling surges, Spurgeon says, and each man sinks to his doom. I'll ask you. Did they have faith in the pilot? Did they not have a mimicking and mocking sort of faith, and only that? For if they had been really anxious to have the vessel rescued and have trusted in the pilot, it would be the pilot that had saved them, and they could never have been saved without him. They would have proved their faith by their works. Their faith would have been made perfect, and the vessel would have been secured. This chapter 2, verse 14, James says, what use is it, brothers, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works, can that kind of faith save him? The answer to that question is no. There is an absurd and a fruitless face that will cast your ship onto the rocks and send you to your doom. Paul explains to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 19, that you suffer the utter shipwreck of your eternal soul when you toss overboard and reject that working, vibrant, living, healthy, and fruitful faith that results in a good conscience before God. There is a cheap counterfeit, an unbiblical and damning notion of the grace of God and salvation that produces a worthless and fruitless faith in the wicked hearts of men. We're only too happy to choke it down. Much of the professing church today preaches a cheap grace that is in no way God's grace, and it leaves sinners standing idle on the deck of their own ship, their own sinking ship believing themselves to be saved, and yet death to the shouts of the pilot. It is a cheap grace and a fruitless faith. The captain of their salvation is bidding them, come and follow me, and they don't stir. Christ says, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple, and they won't lift a finger. God says, go work a day in my vineyard, and they shout back, I go, sir, and they never go. So if you're here today, and you profess to be a Christian, need to understand that our Lord Jesus Christ makes a very important distinction regarding those that profess to be in him. His distinction, as we'll see, is based on very important and very clear outward evidence, and that outward evidence depicts a very important and very clear inward spiritual reality. You might say to yourself, I thought the Lord was only concerned about my heart, as many do. You might even quote 1 Samuel chapter 16 verse 7, where the Bible teaches that the Lord does not see as a man sees, for a man looks at the outward appearance, or the Lord looks at the heart, or rest assured, you who say that, that you might think that or believe that, God knows your heart. The problem is, is that you don't. Jeremiah 17 says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And many of you out-witnessing, as I have, you've heard professing Christians who are living in their sin justify themselves in their sin and say, well, the Lord knows my heart, and they say that in a way that that's good for them. The problem is that it's not good for them, but God, rest assured, knows your heart. God makes a distinction, and we see it here in John 15, God makes a distinction based on fruit and the inner reality that that fruit affirms. And by the grace of God, we could ignore all of this cheap grace nonsense that is taught and simply go to the Word of God for ourselves and see ourselves examine ourselves in the light of God's Word. The question becomes in this for many today who are inoculated by this cheap counterfeit as will we humble ourselves enough to receive what God's Word graciously reveals to us. Right? But there is a distinction that's made. The first point on your notes from John 15 beginning in verse one is that you have to make the distinction. You've got to make the distinction as well. Jesus Christ, our Lord, makes a distinction, look at verse one. He says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Here at this point in John, it's just a short time now before the crucifixion of Christ, he is about to go to his death. And Jesus Christ is gathered together with his disciples, Judas the traitor, that betrayer has left to go and make provision for his betrayal. And Jesus and the disciples are about to cross over the Brook Kidron and make their way toward the Garden of Gethsemane. When here in John 15, Jesus Christ makes the last of seven I am statements that prove his deity, that he is God in the flesh, showing himself to be God in the flesh. And he says to the disciples, I am the true vine. And my father is the vine dresser. Jesus, the true vine, in contrast with all that is false, in contrast with all that is shadow and type, he paints an important picture of the believer's union with himself, the Christian's union with Christ, just as a branch depends on the vine for life, for growth, for fruit. We become, as Christians, joined to Christ by faith. And just as the vine or that branch depends on the vine, we depend on Christ for life, for growth, for health, for vitality, and for fruit. We depend on Christ for our very lives as a Christian. Galatians chapter two verse 20 says, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So the father comes along, Jesus is the true vine. The father comes along, he is the vine dresser. The vine dresser plants and waters and tends and cares for the vine, cares for the branches, loves the vine and so tends to the branches. The vine dresser tends to the branches and he here makes a distinction. He takes away the fruitless branches and he prunes and cares for those that bear fruit. There's a distinction and it is here that Christ makes this important distinction verse two, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Here in verse two, there are two types of branches. We need to come to understand this. Two types of branches that are depicted here. These branches both represent those who profess to be in union with him. They are professing to be in him. There is the true branch genuinely abiding in the vine, producing fruit. And there is the false branch that is not abiding in the vine, bearing no fruit. At first blush, they both look the same. There is many have said like wheat and tares, good fish, bad fish. Foolish virgins and wise virgins, they both look the same. They're both near the vine, they both got leaves on them. They both would say, Lord, Lord, there's only one that's doing the will of the father. There's one that is true and one that is false. And we can tell that by the fruit that's produced. There is a faith that is a belief in, a trust in, a reliance upon, a hope satisfied in none other but Christ. And that is, that faith is gifted by God. It is supernatural. It produces a God wrought conviction about who Christ is and what he has done for you. And that produces a faithful following with heart, soul, mind and strength abiding in the vine. But there is also here a pseudo faith, a false faith, a fruitless faith. It is a belief in a trust in a reliance upon a hope satisfied in none other but a decision that's made, a prayer that is prayed, an emotional experience, maybe religious activity. It results in no great conviction about Christ. It results in no great change of heart. It may produce the external leaves of a moral reformation, but it won't produce the internal renovation, total transformation of a dull and rebellious heart. It is a fruitless faith. Let me give you some distinguishing characteristics of the fruitless faith of the fruitless branch here. One, it is a dead faith. It's a dead faith. James says again that faith by itself, if it does not have the fruit of works, is dead. It is a dead faith. He goes on to say in chapter 2, verse 26 there in James, for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Now Christ said of the church in Revelation, church at Sardis, Revelation chapter 3, he said I know your works. You have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead.  This spiritual application might be it. It is a zombie faith. I never thought that I would use a zombie application in a sermon, but there it is. It's a zombie faith. It may look like a real person. It may not smell as good. It may have really bad teeth. It looks like a real person. It moves around like a real person, but its throat is an open tomb. There may be activity there. He's moving around, but it is heartless. He is dead while he walks. It's a zombie faith. He's producing no vital signs of real life. There's no heartbeat for Christ. There's no love and affection and zeal. He's just dead while he walks, and there's not going to be any fruit. You don't see zombies winning Nobel Prizes and inventing cures to medicines, and no, he's dead while he walks. Listen, don't mistake activity for fruit. You can be doing a bunch of stuff and be dead. You can actually work and have no driving heartbeat for Christ, no love, no affection, no zeal, no hatred for sin, no broken heart over sin, no mourning over sin, no poverty of spirit, no meekness in submitting to the Lord Jesus Christ, no hungering and thirsting for righteousness, no desire for the Word of God. They call themselves a Christian, and yet there is no fruit of a living, thriving, healthy faith. You come along and you put them under conviction through the Word of God, maybe you put them under the laws, you evangelize them, and they gnash their zombie teeth at you, right? Proving in their defensiveness and self-righteousness, proving they're a zombie. It's just a dead faith, a fruitless faith. Secondly, it's a presumptuous faith. It's a presumptuous faith. This faith presumes to claim Christ while refusing to acknowledge that Christ makes demands on your life. Christ makes demands on your life. If you're in Christ, we submit to Christ as Lord, we obey Him as Lord, there are demands to the Christian life. It is a faith claimed without repentance and turning from sin. It's a faith that says I claim Christ and yet continue to live the way I've always lived, or continue to live the way everybody I know in the world continues to live. It's a faith claimed without submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and as such this fruitless faith is just a faith that hears. It doesn't obey, right? Jesus asks in Luke 6.46, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? It is a presumptuous faith. The verbal allegiance alone will get you nowhere. A profession alone will get you nowhere. The name, the label alone will get you nowhere. James says again in chapter 1, verse 22, prove yourselves to be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. John comes along and says, little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous. He who sins is of the devil. Let no one deceive you. This doing, by the way, is to be done as a way of life. This is the way of life of the Christian. We're to be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. It is one thing to build a shed, right? But it's another thing altogether to be a builder. We're to be a doer, we're to be a doer of the word, we're to be people of the book. Christians are to live as doers of the word. Otherwise, if you're living your so-called Christian life, professing to be a Christian, but not submitting the Lordship of Christ, not living out a healthy, vibrant, fruitful faith that comes from the Lord and the Lord alone, it's a gift of God and your faith is presumptuous and empty and shallow. Presumptuous faith is often a one-time, one-dimensional faith that is exercised almost exclusively to get salvation, and that's it.  Not that much really to do with Christ. There's no real love, no real zeal, no real affection for the Lord. I remember reading Jonathan Edwards, a treatise on religious affections. And it's just the one thing you can't fake. There's so much that you can produce fake fruit. You can produce hypocritical fruit. You can produce leaves. You can produce a moral reformation in your own strength, but you can't produce genuine God-wrought fruit. You can't produce a love and affection, a zeal, a heart. You can't change your own heart. When the whole of the Christian life is motivated by faith in Christ, it is driven by faith in Christ, propelled by faith in Christ, executed by faith in Christ. This presumptuous faith is the faith of Esau. Esau could have cared less about his birthright. He just wanted the blessing. And how many people do you know that claim Christ for that very reason?  I want heaven. And you know, by the way, I'm not really concerned about whether or not Jesus is gonna be there when I get there. They despise their birthright. They just want the blessing. And Esau says, sought repentance with tears and could find no place for it. The glorious thing about heaven is Christ. When we get to heaven, we're gonna worship and praise the lamb who was slain for all eternity. And it is gonna be glorious. But if you can sit in churches today and you hear a preacher talk about the glories of Christ and hear it again, another sermon about the glories of Christ, and you're like... You're missing it. You don't get it. You have a dead faith. Presumption, a presumptuous faith is wanting the gift without the giver. Wanting salvation without the savior. It is a presumptuous faith. But also here, it's a fruitless faith. It's a fruitless faith. The distinguishing factor of the Christian life observably outwardly is fruitfulness. We're to be fruitful in our faith. I'll turn with me for an example of this to Luke chapter 13. Luke chapter 13. There's just a good example here in a parable that Christ taught. Luke chapter 13. And look beginning in verse six. Luke chapter 13, verse six. This is the parable of the barren fig tree. And again, another example. Scripture is replete with examples of this false fruitless faith depicted everywhere. And it's depicted everywhere for a reason. And we need to be warned by it. We need to take heed to these warnings that our faith is genuine, that our faith is producing fruit, that we are in abiding in the vine. Here in Luke chapter 13, beginning in verse six, he also, it says in verse six, spoke this parable. He says, a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Now initially you gotta recognize from verse six here that you're planted with a purpose. You're planted with a purpose. Great care was taken by the vineyard owner in planting this vineyard. If you can imagine, he puts it in a choice place. He tills the ground, he weeds the ground, cares for the plants, the shoots. He tends to them, he fertilizes them. And then all that care that was given, he put a wall. He built a tower, did all this for his vineyard. And like the Lord says of Israel, what more could I have done for my vineyard? Today, the church, what more could I have done for you? The Lord brings you to a healthy, loving, thriving, biblical church that preaches the word of God, puts a Bible in your hands. What more could God do?  Turn to the Lord in faith and repentance. Turn from your sin and be saved. The Lord here in verse six, he comes expecting to find fruit. You were planted with a purpose. The purpose is to produce fruit for the Lord. That fruit comes in many forms but the Lord comes expecting to find fruit. It's appointed for men to die once and then comes the judgment. And so you have, as a result of verse six here, where each one will be judged according to his works, according to the fruit that he produces. Verse seven, it says, then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground? And we're reminded in this, one of the greatest graces of God. Aren't you happy for it and just praising the Lord for it? One of the greatest graces of God is time. The patience of God, the long suffering of God.  Three crops a year. One of those was virtually unedible. You had two crops that were produced and fig trees were expensive. They were very valuable. And so this fig tree, not only not producing three rounds of fruit per year, hadn't produced any fruit for three solid years. You know, anyone would look at the fig tree and say, this is a complete total loss. This tree is worthless and almost in righteous indignation. It's like, man, dig that thing up. It is worthless. Get it out of here. Why does it take up the ground? But the Lord here is gracious, full of compassion, right? Slow to anger, bounding in mercy. You might understand here, the profession, the external leaves, doesn't, they don't matter. It's worthless without the fruit. It doesn't matter what the intention of the fig tree is. I intend to produce fruit. I desire in my heart to produce fruit. What matters is the fruit. Are you producing fruit? I don't want to sin. Go and sin no more. Turn from your sin and follow Christ. Again, not sinless perfection, but you've got to turn from your sin. You can't continue to live in the world and expect that you're a Christian. Religious activity by itself doesn't matter. The Lord comes and he comes seeking fruit, verse eight. But he answered and he said to him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit well, but if not after that, you can cut it down. Literally it means there, dig around it and fertilize it. It means dig it and dung it. You're to dig it and dung it. You come to a loving, faithful, healthy, biblical church and you've got brothers and sisters who've been following the Lord and you've got brothers and sisters who will come and they'll dig around you and they'll dung you. That's all in love, right? Let me dig around. I want to dung you. So that's a loving thing for a Christian to do. The Lord in his patience and his grace and his compassion, he's long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but eventually in verse nine, you have their appointment here with perdition. You have an appointment with perdition. It's a point that men die once and then comes the judgment. John the Baptist said in Matthew three, again, speaking of fruitless faith. And even now he says, the ax is laid to the root of the trees, therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  The Lord comes seeking fruit. Fourth, ultimately it is an unsaving faith. Ultimately it's an unsaving faith. James again in chapter two, verse 19, James says, you believe that there's one God, you do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. And I read this from one of the commentators, says I have no doubt that devils are very orthodox. I do not know which church they belong to, although there are some in all churches. There was one in Christ's church when he was on earth, for he said one was filled with devils. And there are some in all churches. Devils believe all the facts of revelation. I do not believe that they have a doubt. They have suffered too much from the hand of God to doubt his existence. Now think about it for a moment. They have felt too much of the terror of his wrath to doubt the righteousness of his government. They are stern believers, but they are not saved. And such a faith, if it be in us, will not, cannot save us, but will remain to all intents and purposes a dead in operative faith. It is a faith which produces works which saves us. It is a faith which produces works, right? That saves us. The works do not save us, but a faith which does not produce works is a faith that will only deceive and cannot lead us into heaven. So what about these branches here? We see in John chapter 15, beginning in verse one and two. What about that branch that is bearing fruit? Verse two, Jesus says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. In every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. So the father, the vine dresser, right? In his loving, tender compassion, as a loving father disciplines his own son, he cuts away those things that stand in the way of a righteous life. He cuts away those things that stand in the way of holiness, of bringing honor and glory to Christ. Sometimes that's painful and difficult. Pruning often takes place through difficulty, through trial, through suffering. He made the captain of our salvation perfect through suffering. You're gonna suffer. There's gonna be difficulty, there's gonna be trial, but it's through that that he graciously and lovingly conforms you into the image of his son. It's how we are prepared by God for heaven. It's how we are conformed. We were predestined to be conformed into the image of his son. It's how he makes us more like Christ. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12, and there's an explanation here for that. Hebrews chapter 12, this is a blessing and it's good and the Lord works all things for our good. Hebrews chapter 12, and look beginning in verse seven, this faithful, loving, compassionate, patient, loving, faithful pruning that the Lord does that we need is good for us. Hebrews chapter 12, look at verse seven.  For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? If you spare the rod, you spoil the child, right?  You despise your son. We fathers discipline our kids because we love our kids and they need that, it's for their good. Verse eight, but if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers when you are, then it says you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we've had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect and another argument from the lesser to the greater here. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but he for our profit that we may be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable what? The peaceable fruit, it yields fruit. Fruit, if you're in the vine, if you're abiding in Christ, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. And the pruning shears there that the Lord uses is the word of God.  It's the body of Christ, it's the word of God, it's the spirit of God convicting you of sin. It is trial and difficulty in your life. It's the grace and compassion of a loving heavenly father who disciplines those whom he loves. So you wanna produce good fruit. Point one on your notes. You had to make the distinction. Point two on your notes. You have to check the connection. Do you wanna produce good fruit? Do you wanna abide in the vine? You've got to check the connection. It says in verse three, back in John chapter 15. Verse three it says, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, Christ says, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, 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 bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. In verse three, the disciples minus one were already born again because they embraced the gospel that Jesus Christ was preaching to them. But next, we must understand here that there is only one fruit producing source of power for the Christian, we must abide in him. And I think about it this way for a moment. The source of life to an apple tree is the root. Whether it has apples on it or not, the source of life to that tree is the root. Apples on the tree wouldn't give the tree life, but the whole of the life of the tree will come from its roots evidenced in the apples. If that tree stands in the orchard when spring comes, there's no bud, there's no blossom. When it stands there over the summer and there are no leaves, there are no fruits, and it stands there the next year with no leaves, no fruit, no bud, no blossom, you would say that it is dead. And so it is with the fruitless professor in Christ. There is no connection to the root. It's the connection to the root that produces the fruit. Here, beginning in verse three, Jesus is just saying, abide in me, get the connection. Listen to this from John MacArthur. The question here is not whether we're saved by grace, but how grace operates in salvation. No lordship advocates love to portray themselves as champions of grace, but they characterize grace in an anemic way that misses the whole point. God's grace is a spiritual dynamic that works in the lives of the redeemed through faith, right? Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. True grace is more than just a giant freebie, opening the door to heaven in the sweet by and by, but leaving us to wallow in the sin in the bitter here and now. Grace is God presently at work in our lives. By grace, we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. By grace, He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. Now that is an efficacious and effective, a working, a vibrant, a dynamic grace that pours out into your life through your faith. You living by faith under the God doing, according to all His good pleasure in you, you live by faith in the Son of God.  You're not an inert, dead, faultless, fault fruitless professor. You're producing fruit for the Lord. And it's that dynamic grace of God in salvation that does that. You must be connected to the root. This is intimately connected with our understanding of the new birth, with our understanding of regeneration, with our understanding of the grace of God in salvation. In a basic sense, the branch is not gonna survive, will not survive, will not produce fruit if it's not connected to the vine. Neither will the professing Christian be saved unless connected to God the Father through union with His Son. The believer can't bear fruit on his own. The Lord says that here in John chapter 15. If they are true believers, then that believer cannot fail to produce fruit and cannot fail to produce the right kind of fruit. This is the nature of God's grace. So where does cheap grace come in then and throw a wrench in this deal? We have the power of God by His grace in salvation. The Lord's sustaining us. If we abide in the vine, where does cheap grace come in and throw a wrench in this? Many go to church, right? Many filling churches for various reasons. Maybe it's to placate a guilty conscience. You come under some conviction.   And so maybe to placate an accusing conscience to justify themselves in their sin. Maybe it's for the kids. I don't wanna make sure to raise my kids in a Christian home, so to speak. Maybe it's for the music. Maybe it's to pass out cards for business contacts. Maybe it's that girl that you met, whatever it is. Many people go to church for various reasons, whatever the reason. They come under the desire maybe to be saved. Maybe they face some conviction of her sin and you say, you know what, I wanna follow Christ. I wanna be saved.  And they may often hear in those churches in the quietness of this moment. No one looking around, every head bowed. Pray this prayer silently as I prayed aloud. Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner, right? Admitting yourself to be a sinner is not enough. Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Make me the man that you want me to be. Save my soul, amen. No mention of repentance, no contrition over sin. It is simply looking at the blessing like he saw. If they even mentioned the word repentance at all, it isn't often biblically defined. The person is under the distinct impression that what he is doing is saving him. It is a replacing God-wrought means of repentance and faith to be saved with man-made methodology to be saved. It is a replacement of the means of God with man-made methodology. Almost immediately, they are certified to be born again after their sincere decision to accept Christ. It means to say they have a deceitful heart. They don't know what sincere means. They're baptized soon after and therefore they think of themselves and they're told that they are children of God. They're told not to doubt. That's of Satan. Don't doubt. It's Satan who makes you doubt. If you've prayed and you prayed sincerely, where is Jesus right now? Well, Jesus is in my heart. That's what they're told. They're told that that's the basis of their assurance. The grounds of their assurance is the sincerity of their heart in praying to receive Christ. Is that the grounds of our assurance? Sincerity of your deceitful heart? Is that where our assurance is grounded? The sinner walks away with the understanding that he has savingly believed due to what he has done. He's made a decision. This is decisional regeneration. Over time, he begins to indulge and sin a little. Again, his fervor at one point waxes and wanes. I remember when I was 12 years old. I was the first time that I walked down the aisle to say a prayer and asked Jesus into my heart. And I was fervent for a while. Carried a Bible in my back pocket, talked to other people about Christ and I was no more saved than the Pope. I was just lost. I had departed the faith, ran headlong into my sin. My life became this inexorable march toward more and more sin, a fence against God. I was lost no matter how sincere those tears were that I cried when I walked the aisle. Over time, he begins to indulge and sin a little. He finds he has no power against it because there is no power against it apart from abiding in the vine. He slips back into all the same patterns of sin that he was in prior to being born again. And he says to himself, this is not of works. This life is not of works. I can do this or that and get forgiveness. All I've got to do then is ask for forgiveness. And he slips farther and farther into the world, sinning more and more as others do. And as he becomes more and more in this pattern, he justifies himself more and more confirmed in the idea that he can pretty much do as he pleases. Having no desire for the real truth of God's word, he morphs his theology. It's a theology of his own mind, his own creation, a theology of his own wicked heart to justify himself in his sin. And he believes that this is Christianity. I can just go and ask for forgiveness. So as the pastor then of the first Baptist church of the far country, he comes along, he looks at the congregation and he does the same thing. How can Christians live like this? So he says to them, says to himself, they must be carnal Christians. And he justifies them in their sin. Those that grow up in that church that want to be a pastor, maybe they come under a little bit of conviction. When I was 17 years old in just horrendous sin, I went down front again and crying to the pastor at the time about my sin and thought in my guilty conscience, with this kind of emotional response, maybe the Lord wanted me to be a pastor. Placating a guilty conscience had nothing to do with me becoming a pastor, just in sin. So they go to the denominational cemetery, I was seminary, where they teach the exact same thing. They teach the exact same methodology and the cycle continues, the cycle continues. This is the industrial machinery for mass producing false converts of cheap grace. It is not a grace that is efficacious in the life of the believer to turn them from sin. It is not a God wrought faith and repentance. It is a man-made pseudo-faith, pseudo-repentance at best. This is the product of a wicked man-made wisdom perverting and corrupting the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield full of mercy and good fruits, full of good fruits without partiality, without hypocrisy. You know, it's a law of nature, right? It's a law of God, a law of nature that we bring forth fruit after our own kind. It says that in Genesis chapter three. We bring forth fruit after our own kind. Well, if you're in Christ, if you're abiding in the vine, then you're gonna bring forth fruit according to your kind. And your kind is born again, Christian, born again in Christ abiding in the vine.  You are bringing forth fruit of your own kind. What do these fruits look like? One, you have the fruits of repentance. Fruits of repentance will be there. In 2 Corinthians chapter seven, beginning in verse 10, the Bible says, for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. Now, let's take for a moment. How do you know the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow?  You wanna be in Christ. If you're abiding in the vine, if you're in Christ, you're going to produce godly sorrow and godly fruit over sin. How do I know that it's godly sorrow? How do I know that it's not worldly sorrow? Because godly sorrow produces fruit. Look at verse 11, for observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner, what diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, just righteous anger over sin, right? A hatred of sin, what fear, a fear, a healthy fear of the Lord, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication, a clearing of yourself, just don't wanna have anything to do with that sin anymore. I don't wanna be thought of in that way. I don't wanna have that stench on me any longer. Lord, help. In all things, it goes on to say you proved yourself to be clear in this manner. So it produces fruits of repentance. But this saving faith, this fruitful faith produces the fruit of obedience. Produces the fruit of obedience. If you're not submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and obeying the Lord from the heart, you're not a Christian. The Lord calls us, the Spurgeon said this, I said, a man cannot really believe that Jesus Christ has taken away a sin by such sufferings as those of the cross and yet trifle with sin. Said, as a man is a liar who says, I believe that yonder bleeding savior suffered on account of my sins and yet holds good fellowship with the very sins that put Christ to death. Oh, sirs, he said, a faith in the bleeding savior is a faith that craves for vengeance upon every form of sin.  It's gonna produce the fruit of a hatred for sin. It's gonna produce the fruit of obedience in the Christian life. A Puritan said this. He said, a duty may be neglected and yet a man may be saved. But a duty persistently and willfully neglected may be the leak that will sink the ship. We're to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The fruit of genuine saving faith is obedience to the Lord. Are you obeying him? Are you living for him from the heart? Next, it produces the fruits of the Spirit. Galatians chapter five, verse 22. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against us there is no law. It produces the fruit of the Spirit. It produces the fruit of worship in spirit and in truth from a grateful heart. Produces the fruit of worship. Listen to Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 15. Here the Bible says, therefore by him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. It's gonna produce worship. If you're biting in the vine, you're devouring his word, you're learning of him. It's gonna produce a worship in your heart for Christ. You wanna worship the Lord, honor the Lord, exalt the Lord. It's gonna produce worship. It produces the fruit of converts for Christ through evangelism. Talking about it, if you're in the Lord, it's gonna produce the fruit of you opening your mouth. Taking a stand for the Lord. Proverbs chapter 11, verse 30. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. He who wins souls is wise. It produces the fruit of a poor spirit. The fruit of a mourning over sin. A meek submission to the Lordship of Christ. It produces the fruit of a pure heart with a good conscience. Produces a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. You recognize these as the beatitudes. It produces a heart of mercy. It produces even the fruit of persecution. Right, second Timothy 312. All who desire to live godly in this present age will suffer persecution. And eventually it produces the fruit of life eternal. Amen. You must understand that you cannot do this in and of yourselves. We bear the fruit that he produces in us. You must make the connection. You must abide in him. We must draw near to him. He certainly draws near to us. It is he that works in us to will and to do according to his good pleasure. You must draw strength and empowerment from his spirit through his word. So you make the distinction. What fruit am I producing? What fruit's being produced? You'll know them by their fruit. You make the distinction. You check the connection. Am I in Christ? Am I abiding in the vine? Or am I doing this on my own? In my own grit with my own effort? You check the connection. And thirdly, you choose your direction. You're left with nothing. But choose your direction. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Verse six, back in John chapter 15. Verse six says, If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered.  Verse seven, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so you will be my disciples. There's two results here. There's condemnation, condemnation and there's joy, blessing and glory. There is either Christ or total collapse. One of the two. Which one do you want? It's an absurd thought to choose this fleeting and passing world. It is an absurd, ridiculous notion to choose the fleeting pleasures of sin, pleasurable for a season and to disregard what Christ has done to save sinners. It's an absurd choice but here it is. Condemnation or joy, blessing and the glory of God, your Creator, Christ or total collapse. This was said at a time when the disciples here in John 15 had the ideal object lesson of a false branch among them, Judas. Nothing left here with the false branches but to throw them into the fire. It's interesting when you think about the word that Christ used for hell in the New Testament often is Gehenna and Gehenna was a waste dump outside the city of Jerusalem where the worm never dies, the fire never goes out. It was a waste dump. If you can imagine Jerusalem, a pretty large city at that time, all of their refuse thrown into Gehenna. Dead animals, the leftover junk from cooking your food and the sacrifices thrown in Gehenna. The stench, the maggots, the filth, the bacteria, the stench.  I think about that for a moment. What do you do with something you don't want? I can't keep that foul stinking filth in my own house.  What do you do with something that you've created to reflect your glory, to worship the sun and you've shed your blood to redeem? Give it everything, give it everything, including your own sun. What do you do with that that bites the hand that feeds it? What do you do with that foul stinking, filthy thing? What do you do with that that won't live to the purpose for which you created it? You take it to the dump. You throw it in Gehenna. We are created to bring glory to God the Father, to worship Him from our birth because sin and Adam, we rebel against Him. Matthew chapter seven, verse 21, this is not everyone who says to me, "'Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, "'but he who does the will of my Father in heaven, "'many will say to me in that day, "'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, "'cast out demons in your name, "'dun many wonders in your name?' "'And Christ says that I'll declare to them, "'I never knew you, depart from me, "'you who practice lawlessness would live for God." We're glorified to see God the Father glorified high and lifted up to exalt Christ who paid the ultimate price for sinners. And Jude rightly says, rightly says they are wells without water, these traders wells without water, these rebels, clowns without rain, they're carried about by the winds, they're late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, filming up their own shame, wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Is that not an appropriate response to the rebellion of man against God? Holy God, our creator, however, here in verses six through eight, Christ in astounding mercy, in astounding patience, calls us into the miracle of who he is and what he has done by saying, abide in me, Christ must be our center, his word, his will, his glory, his life, his death, his resurrection, his intercession, Christ is our portion. Christianity is union with him. And by the grace that is from God, we must abide in the Lord Jesus Christ, turn from your sin, place your faith in Christ, your trust, your reliance, your hope. Is it an obvious choice?  Why would you continue in this fruitless, empty husk of a life that you are clinging so tightly to? Why won't you place your faith in and trust in Christ to save you? Why wouldn't you follow him? We will not have a place in heaven because we're fruitful or without being fruitful. We don't earn a place in heaven, pardon me, by being fruitful.  And that fruitfulness coming from abiding in Christ, abiding in the vine, the power of his spirit at work in us. Fruit is the distinguishing mark of the true Christian. Despite what cheap grace would say, despite the wicked, worldly reasoning of self-justifying, self-righteous men, fruit is the mark of the one in whom God is working. Fruit is the mark of the one who abides in him. Produce fruit for God's glory. Point three, choose your direction. The Lord Jesus Christ says, come, follow me. Will you follow him? He says, come, abide in me. I'll give you the water of life freely. Follow Christ, let's pray. Father in heaven, we praise you and worship you. We long to see our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, exalted God high and lifted up, worthy of all honor and praise and glory. So we praise you and thank you for this glorious truth, God. And Lord, I praise you, God. I'm so thankful to you, Lord, that it's not according to my own effort, now that it's not according to my works, and I can't do anything apart from Christ. Thank you, Lord. I'd be destitute and without hope in this world. Lord, your grace and in your mercy and your compassion, Lord, your loving kindness toward us, your patience with us, that you made provision for our sin, which you didn't have to do when we're so undeserving, the God you did.  What an awesome thought. So we praise you, we worship you, we thank you. God, protect us from this mindless, heartless, empty, ritualistic, religious nonsense that says that we can just be, just clean up the outside of the cup, and yet be a Christian when our inside is just full of dead men's bones. So we thank you, Lord, for the glorious working of your spirit in us, God, the glorious working, the outworking of your grace toward those who believe in that it produces this fruitful faith. Lord, and thank you, Lord, that you've given us that fruitful faith as a means by which we can examine ourselves and test ourselves, as Paul says, whether we're even in the faith. And thank you, Lord, that that fruit is a testimony of our trust, independence, and you, but also got a testimony of your great goodness and grace and saving wicked sinners to a lost and dying world Lord, certainly, that needs you. And we pray that we would be walking trophies of your grace, God, just displaying the beauty and excellencies of Christ for your glory, for your eternal worship and praise. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.