Sermonette: Born Wild, Trained Upright
Submitting to God's Cultivation of Us
#729s
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 16-Jul-05; 16 minutes
description: (hide) Like a wisteria plant, to God we also are high maintenance plants. Like wisteria and grapevines, we need to be trained and pruned in order to produce quality fruit. As the vine of Israel, we need to cooperate with the Husbandman, and with all our being, resist reverting to our wild (carnal) state. If unattended, isolated systems tend to break down, tending to wildness and disorder. Entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, suggests that all things tend to revert to a chaotic or a wild state. If we are left unattended, untrained, or uncultivated, we will tend to base carnal behavior, bearing detestable or no fruit. God is cultivating a vine, of which we are the branches. If we don't yield to or respond to His cultivating, pruning (or discipline), we will be lopped off and destroyed. If we yield to His correction, we will be productive branches, bearing fruits of righteousness.