Be the Branch

Drash on Parashah 51&52; Nitzavim & Vayelekh

MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

                Last week I talked about roots, vines, branches, fruit, seeds, and soil. It was a veritable lesson on spiritual horticulture. We learned that the roots of our faith is not Torah. The Root of our faith is actually Messiah Yeshua. He is also the vine. We are the branches. I was a bit fuzzy about the nature of the fruit last week, but thought it had something to do with Torah. Within the fruit is seed, which is intended to be put into new fertile soil so the Root of Messiah can grow in them too. This lesson will continue with the same imagery and teach us what it is to be a branch. I will also attempt to produce some clarity on the role of Torah in the illustration.

            I want to share with you three passages and I want you to make note of the similar imagery, wording, and other concepts brought out in these passages.

Adonai, God, planted a garden toward the east, in `Eden, and there he put the person whom he had formed. Out of the ground Adonai, God, caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adonai, God, took the person and put him in the garden of `Eden to cultivate and care for it. Adonai, God, gave the person this order: "You may freely eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You are not to eat from it, because on the day that you eat from it, it will become certain that you will die." [B’resheet/Genesis 2:8-9,15-17]

            The garden was a type of Temple. It was where God dwelled, and even walked through it daily. When Adam and Havah were expelled from the garden, they were expelled to the east. In the tabernacle and the temple, the way from the outer courts to the Holy of Holies was westward. This was a way of returning to the garden where God’s presence was. So everything in the garden was of God, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Havah could eat from any other tree, but not that one. They were given the choice of living by that which was of God or dying by that which was not of God.

Adonai your God will bring you back into the land your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you prosper there, and you will become even more numerous than your ancestors. Then Adonai your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your children, so that you will love Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being, and thus you will live.  Adonai your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hated and persecuted you; but you will return and pay attention to what Adonai says and obey all his mitzvot which I am giving you today.  Then Adonai your God will give you more than enough in everything you set out to do – the fruit of your body, the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your land will all do well; for Adonai will once again rejoice to see you do well, just as he rejoiced in your ancestors. "However, all this will happen only if you pay attention to what Adonai your God says, so that you obey his mitzvot and regulations which are written in this book of the Torah, if you turn to Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being.  For this mitzvah which I am giving you today is not too hard for you, it is not beyond your reach. It isn't in the sky, so that you need to ask, 'Who will go up into the sky for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?' Likewise, it isn't beyond the sea, so that you need to ask, 'Who will cross the sea for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?' On the contrary, the word is very close to you - in your mouth, even in your heart; therefore, you can do it!  "Look! I am presenting you today with, on the one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil -  in that I am ordering you today to love Adonai your God, to follow his ways, and to obey his mitzvot, regulations and rulings ; for if you do, you will live and increase your numbers; and Adonai your God will bless you in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you are drawn away to prostrate yourselves before other gods and serve them; I am announcing to you today that you will certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Yarden to enter and possess.  "I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, loving Adonai your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him - for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land Adonai swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya`akov." [D’varim/Deuteronomy 30:5-20]

"I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch which is part of me but fails to bear fruit, he cuts off; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. Right now, because of the word which I have spoken to you, you are pruned. Stay united with me, as I will with you — for just as the branch can't put forth fruit by itself apart from the vine, so you can't bear fruit apart from me. "I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who stay united with me, and I with them, are the ones who bear much fruit; because apart from me you can't do a thing. Unless a person remains united with me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, where they are burned up. "If you remain united with me, and my words with you, then ask whatever you want, and it will happen for you. This is how my Father is glorified — in your bearing much fruit; this is how you will prove to be my talmidim. "Just as my Father has loved me, I too have loved you; so stay in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will stay in my love — just as I have kept my Father's commands and stay in his love.  I have said this to you so that my joy may be in you, and your joy be complete. "This is my command: that you keep on loving each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than a person who lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave doesn't know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever you ask from the Father in my name he may give you. [Yochanan/John 15:1-16]

            Essentially, the same imagery and message is given in these three passages of Scripture. The Message doesn’t change because God doesn’t change. This basic issues that people deal with don’t change. As King Shlomo/Solomon says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Technology might change how we do things, but sin itself stays the same.

            Adam and Eve are given the choice to live on that which is of God or eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which leads to death. Israel is given the choice to follow God, and a man named Y’hoshua (God has saved), which is essentially the same name as Yeshua (God will save), into the Promised Land to live, or follow false gods and die. If Israel follows God and obeys Him He abundantly gives them the fruit they need to live. Yeshua tells us that without Him we can do nothing, but if we are properly connected to Him, He will bear the fruit through us that we are commanded to grow.

            It is interesting to note that we are commanded to bear fruit, but we are not the ones who actually grow it. Grapes are not the fruit of the branch, but the fruit of the vine. We find branches not in branch-yards but vineyards. The fruit we bear is not ours, but the Vine’s. Our focus as branches is to be properly connected to the vine and allow the Vine to grow His fruit through us. It becomes attached to us, but does not come from us.

As branches we make two basic mistakes. The first is attempting to take over the job of the Vine and grow the fruit ourselves. Whatever fruit we manage to grow is worthless and an unacceptable offering to God because it is our fruit not His. The seed it bears will not grow the Root in the soil of other people lives because again it is not the Fruit of the Root, it is the fruit of the branch and you can’t grow branches in soil. When we do this, we attempt to sit in the throne of God. This causes undue stress and work on our lives and the farthest from God’s will that we can get. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. The primary teaching of the Satanic Bible is not that Satan is God, but that you are. This cannot happen. We are branches. Branches are important to the vine in growing fruit, but branches are not the vine. We need to allow Messiah to be the Vine as He is and learn to live in the role of the branches that we are if we are to bear the fruit we are commanded and created to bear.

The other mistake we make as branches is to connect ourselves to the fruit and not to the branch. The treat the fruit as the branch and attempt to gain the things we need in life from the fruit that has come from us as the branch. When the fruit becomes the vine, this is idolatry. Idolatry is the biggest sin in the Bible because it violates the first and most important commandment, “You are to have no other gods before me.” Take a look at this passage from Yesha’yahu/Isaiah.  

All idol-makers amount to nothing; their precious productions profit no one; and their witnesses, to their own shame, neither see nor understand. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that profits no one anything? All involved will be ashamed, but more than anyone else, the people who made them. Let them all be assembled, let them stand up; let them fear and be shamed together. A blacksmith makes a tool over burning coals; with his strong arm he shapes it with hammers. But when he gets hungry, his strength fails; if he doesn't drink water, he grows tired. A carpenter takes his measurements, sketches the shape with a stylus, planes the wood, checks it with calipers, and carves it into the shape of a man; and, since it is honored like a man, of course it has to live in a house. He goes to chop down cedars; he takes an evergreen and an oak; he especially tends one tree in the forest, plants a pine for the rain to nourish. In time, when it's ready for use as fuel, he takes some of it to keep himself warm and burns some more to bake bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, carves it into an idol and falls down before it. So half of it he burns in the fire; with that half he roasts meat and eats his fill; he warms himself; says, "It feels so good, getting warm while watching the flames!" With the rest of the log he fashions a god, a carved image, then falls down before it; he worships it and prays to it. "Save me," he says, "for you are my god!" Such people know nothing, understand nothing. Their eyes are sealed shut, so that they can't see; their hearts too, so they can't understand. Not one thinks to himself or has the knowledge or the discernment to say, "I burned half of it in the fire, baked bread on its coals, roasted meat and ate it. Should I now make the rest an abomination? Should I prostrate myself to a tree trunk?" He is relying on ashes! A deceived heart has led him astray; so that now he won't save himself, just won't say, "This thing in my hand is a fraud!" "Keep these matters in mind, Ya`akov, for you, Isra'el, are my servant. I formed you, you are my own servant; Isra'el, don't forget me. Like a thick cloud, I wipe away your offenses; like a cloud, your sins. Come back to me, for I have redeemed you." [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 44:9-22]

We tend to think that because we don’t go to shrines and bow before statues with names, we don’t have idols in American society today. Take a look at this teaching from Dwight L Moody, who died a little over 100 years ago, yet his words still remain true today.

YOU don't have to go to heathen lands today to find false gods.  America is full of them.  Whatever you make most of is your god.  Whatever you love more than God is your idol.  Many a man's heart is like some Kafirs' huts, so full of idols that there is hardly room to turn around.  Rich and poor, learned and unlearned, all classes of men and women are guilty of this sin.  "The mean man boweth down, and me great man humbleth himself" (Isaiah 2:9).

A man may make a god of himself, of a child, of a mother, of some precious gift that God has bestowed upon him.  He may forget the Giver and let his heart go out in adoration toward the gift.

Many make a god of pleasure; that is what their hearts are set on.  If some old Greek or Roman came to life again and saw man in a drunken debauch, would he believe that the worship of Bacchus had died out?  If he saw the streets of our large cities filled with harlots, would he believe that the worship of Venus had ceased?

Others take fashion as their god.  They give their time and thought to dress.  They fear what others will think of them.  Do not let us flatter ourselves that all idolaters are in heathen countries.

With many it is the god of money.  We haven't got through worshiping the golden calf yet.  If a man will sell his principles for gold, isn't he making it a god?  If he trusts in his wealth to keep him from want and to supply his needs, are not riches his god?  Many a man says, "Give me money, and I will give you heaven.  What care I for all the glories and treasures of heaven?  Give me treasures here!  I don't care for heaven!  I want to be a successful businessman."  How true are the words of Job: "If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had begotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above" (Job 31: 24-28).

But all false gods are not as gross as these.  There is the atheist. He says that he does not believe in God; he denies His existence, but he can't help setting up some other god in His place.  Voltaire said, "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one."  So the atheist speaks of the Great Unknown, the First Cause, the Infinite Mind, etc.  Then there is the deist.  He is a man who believes in one God who caused all things; but he doesn't believe in revelation.  He only accepts such truths as can be discovered by reason. He doesn't believe in Jesus Christ, or in the inspiration of the Bible.  Then there is the pantheist, who says: "I believe that the whole universe is God.  He is in the air, the water, the sun, the stars" the liar and the thief included.

SOURCE: Excerpt from The Ten Commandments, by Dwight L.)Moody (1837 – 1899)

          As branches, are commanded to bear fruit. These are the blessings, needs and desires that we all have in our life and which God intends to give us more abundantly than we can imagine. The more fruit we have, the more seeds we have to plant in others as fertile soil. However, when we try to be the vine or we make the fruit the vine, bearing more fruit becomes impossible. We are cut off from the vine and not only does our fruit die, but so do we and we are cast into the fire. Success in this life is determined by the degree to which we learn to be the branch, acknowledge the Messiah as the Vine, connect ourselves to Him, and properly use the fruit He grows through us, always careful not make the fruit the vine. Be the branch, worship the Vine, and be thankful for the fruit you have.