Legacy show on The True Vine with Pastor Carmine Gabriele (Part 2)

In Part 2 of this powerful legacy message, Pastor Carmen Gabriel continues his teaching on John 15, diving deeper into what it means to abide in Christ, bear lasting fruit, and avoid the fire.

Key Takeaways:🔑 
• The difference between "hearing" His voice and actually following Him
• How to know if you're truly abiding—or just going through the motions
• What happens when branches are cut off and thrown into the fire
• Why God is more concerned with your fruit than your feelings

Scripture: John 15:1-6

Connect:🌐
New Life Fellowship: Corner of 4th & San Benito, Hollister, CA | Sunday 10:30 AM

Support This Ministry:🙏
Listener-supported. Donate at www.imdauntless.org or mail to: 1760 Airline Hwy. Box #103, Hollister, CA 95023

💬 Share your thoughts: ramona@blossomsofmylife.org

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Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Welcome to Blossoms of My Life Radio. Today we're going to be continuing the message of the true vine from Pastor Carmen Gabriel from New Life Fellowship in Hollister, California. And I need to ask up front, forgive if there's any kind of noises that you hear in the background. The message was recorded with no intention that it I would put it on the air, but when I heard it, I just knew that we had to share the message. And today will be part two. So thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.

Is Believing Enough

Hearing vs. Following

Your Disposition Toward God Matters

Modern Distractions: Phones, Baby Sitters, and a Forgotten God

SPEAKER_01 0:58

How many of you obey the laws? How many of you today will not go out and murder somebody? Raise your hand. Why do you do that? Why do you obey the laws and not go out and murder somebody? Why? You don't want to face the consequences. Now, those are big consequences when you murder somebody, but when you cheat on your taxes, hey, you know, that's not too bad. You know, so so we weigh the consequences based upon the act. But before God's sin is sin. Amen. Rebellion is rebellion. God doesn't have, you know, the real bad sins and then the medium sins and then the you know the little white light sins. God doesn't separate those things. It's all it's all disobedience. We want to follow God's laws. Why? Because we don't want to face the consequences. We don't want to be cut off of that high. Right? We don't want God to come along, and so we're all comfy and we're all feel like we're secure in our faith and everything's going great, and all of a sudden our hearts are far from God. We're inactive, we're not doing, we're not praying, we're not reading, we're not involved, we don't feel the hunger, we don't feel the passion for the lost and the dying, you know, and and and and all of a sudden we just feel like, you know, I'm just I'm just existing. There's no real purpose and meaning for my life. And when sin, when we when when we do commit sin, it doesn't bring the conviction like it used to. Right? When we disobey God, it doesn't bring the same conviction like it used to. And so we're beginning, we get a seared conscience. It doesn't affect us anymore. Amen. It's like we get callused. You work with your hands or a hammer long enough, you first you get you get uh blisters, and then you get blood blisters, and you keep working with that hammer, and pretty soon your hands will will get uh uh uh calluses, and your skin will be hardened. And man, it's just like it's like you know, nothing won't ever penetrate that skin because it's just hard. Many people have gone that way towards God. They've gotten callous before God, their hearts are callous, and now they have no fear of God. Now, you know, that's what's wrong with our nation today. Amen. That's what's wrong with our city today, that's what's wrong with our neighbors today. People that we fellowship and work with, they've gotten hard towards God, they no longer have a fear of God. Many of them have made money, they're God, right? They go, nothing's gonna happen to me. Hey, how about me getting blessed financially? I'll build bigger, better barns to store all my goods. And Jesus said, You fool, tonight your life will be required of you. Wow, wow, a rude awakening, brother Bob. When we think we're all secure, when we think we got it all together, and yet we know that we're undone. Amen. And so we need to understand and recognize here that Jesus says, If I'm in you, then you'll bring forth much fruit. What are we getting out of verse 6 of that same chapter of John? If a man abide not in me, Jesus says, Abide not. You know, a lot of people believe in God, the devil believes in God. How many of you know the devil believes in the Bible? He believes in the Bible, he believes in God. It's not good enough to believe. You got to do something with that belief. Amen. Some changes have to come forth from that belief. You can't believe in God and be part of the world. God says, Come out from among them, saith the Lord, and be you separate. God has called Christians to be separated. Amen. Like the sheep from the goats. We no longer belong to the goats. We are his sheep. Jesus said, His sheep hear his voice, and what do they do? They just hear his voice. That's for a lot of Christians today. They go to church and they hear a message, they hear his voice. But what do they do when they leave the church doors? They don't follow him. They don't take him into the workplace, they don't take him where they go. It's just the father's thing from their minds until next Sunday. Right? Whatever sin comes their way, whatever they want to do, it's fine with them. Because Jesus is not in their minds until next Sunday comes. When next Sunday comes, then then Jesus is back in their minds, back in their in their in their vocabulary. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. And then a man and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they shall be burned. This is a key verse here. Right? It's a key verse. If we don't abide in the Lord, then we're cast off as a branch. You know, I went the other day and there's along along our fence there's a bunch of bushes. I don't know what they are, sagebrush or whatever, and they're taking over around this pine tree. I couldn't even see the pine tree. So I went over there with some pruning shears. And I just went down I started and I started clipping all this sagebrush away from around this pine tree because it couldn't breathe. I felt like I couldn't breathe. So I had to go relieve the tree because I felt like I couldn't breathe. And so I went in there and I began to cut, cut, and prune all this sagebrush around this pine tree. And then I just threw through the branches to the side there. And then a couple of days later it went by and it's all brown and dead. Brother Joshua, you know what? When you're cut off of your vine, when you're cut off from the root, you're going to die. It's only a matter of time. I hear it, amen. And how do you know? Because the leaves begin to shrivel up. You see a lot of people walking around, they're shriveled up and dead. There is no life in them, there's no joy. They don't want to sing the songs, they don't want to lift up their hands, they don't want to give testimony, they don't want to bother. It's even a task to stand up. Their efforts are their sacrifice. I want to talk about that too. The sacrifices that they're making is not acceptable unto God. Wow. The efforts and the sacrifices that they're making, they're not acceptable unto God. Because He is worthy of our praises, He is worthy of our sacrifices. Amen. And so today, you know, our menial efforts of the things that we show that we love God aren't really what God wants. Amen. Some people think they go to church on Sunday morning and that suffices God. No, it doesn't do that. God wants you to love them 24-7. God wants you to think about them 24-7. Before you do a sin, God wants you to think about the consequences before you go do that sin. Amen. If you love God, you're going to be quick to first of all, house God. What does God say about this? Now we all fall short. I fall short. Amen. Do you fall short? And we're going to talk about that as well. The disposition of an individual. We're going to talk about Esau and Jacob. Esau didn't hunger after God. He sold his birthright for a cup of pea soup. His birthright, he was firstborn, he was going to get all the blessings in the family. But because he was hungry, because his disposition was not on God, was not on the blessings that would come from being firstborn. Jacob comes along and takes his birthright from him. So Esau wasn't an idolater, he was a fornicator. And he looked at look at the things of God. They had no value. You know when the things become valuable to those people, it's when they die and they stand before God. Then it becomes valuable. It's too late then. Right? It's too late then. Jacob, on the other hand, his name was the deceiver. He deceived Jacob, he deceived Esau, took his birthright. But Jacob had a hunger and a love for God. He wasn't perfect by no means. What's your disposition here this morning? Amen. You have a hunger for God. To seek him out, to serve him. And so it's a disposition, it's a nature of who we are. And God looks at that disposition. He looks at that hunger and that appetite. He says, if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. And men gather them up and cast them into the fire and they are burned. Now we know what the fire is, right? We know what the fire consumes, doesn't it? I mean, I'm I'm amazed, man. We throw stuff in our wood stove and it's solid, it's uh cardboard, and you light it up, and after a while, it just becomes ashes. Nothing left of it. Nothing left of it. I scoop it out, put it in a bucket, and go throw it out in the orchard. It's just ashes. Ashes. And tell us what that's what the Lord is saying here to us this morning is that we need to recognize and understand that without him we have no hope. We have no hope. Abraham didn't falter at the promises of God. But he remained faithful all the way to the end. Can you do that? How many of you purpose to remain faithful all the way to the end? How many of you want to run and finish the race? Raise your hand. How many of you want Jesus reading you? Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. Come and enter to the joys of the Lord. How many of you want that? Well, if you want that, then you gotta. There's sacrifices to be made. There's decisions that need to be made. There's lifestyles that need to be lived. There's choices that need to not only make that first choice, but you need to continue to make that choice. You can't allow your body to dictate your faith and your love for God. This body gets tired, this mind gets tired, this heart gets tired, but it cannot deter you from serving the Lord. He is the truth of the living God, and he is coming back for those who are looking for his appearance. Amen! He's not coming for the idle, he's not coming for the lazy, he's not coming for the unholy, he's coming for the godly. Hallelujah. He's coming for the godly. Yes, Lord. Praise God. And then, you know, and then I'm gonna have to stand and give an account of the message that I've given. And I'll gladly do that. Amen. Because when you serve the Lord and you honor God, you're not gonna be popular.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

You're not gonna be popular. You're not gonna say things people want to hear. Amen. If there's someone in the congregation that's living in fornication and adultery, the last thing they want to hear is God's gonna judge you for that sin. That's the last thing they want to hear. They want to hear, oh, you know, I'm weak. I've been weak in the faith. I'm weak, I'm weak. I want to talk to me about the strength of the Lord. No, you need to forsake that sin. You know it's wrong, and because you know it's wrong, it's wrong. Amen. A child many times doesn't fully understand the consequences. That's why God gives them lenience, amen. Under the age of 12, the age of countability, they don't know right from wrong. But when you know right and wrong and you choose to do the wrong, there are consequences to be paid. Amen. Amen. I don't go out and murder anybody, but if a cop cot catches me on the street without my seatbelt, I'm gonna get a ticket of 180 bucks. If he sees me on that cell phone and err, it's not just the kids, brother. Amen. It's it's everybody. We've lost our social skills. We go to restaurants, everybody pulls out their their iPhone, and they're checking out this and breaks lists, and and they're figuring that out, and checking out no more conversation. Conversation is we don't know how to talk to each other anymore because we're too busy looking at the phone. The best baby sitter around. You give you give Olivia a phone, and she won't bother you the rest of the day. The only time she'll bother you say, My battery's dead, Papa. That's the only time she'll come and remind you, plug it in, and they'll run it all away to the yellow, and then they'll cry out, My battery's dead, Papa. Right? That's the way we are in the Lord. Many times we don't think about God. We don't, we're not, we're not motivated towards God, but let something happen in our life. Let a difficulty come or a life-threatening situation come, and guess what we do? We cry like little babies. Amen. We cry like little babies. Oh God, where are you? Why have you forsaken me? Lord, why? Lord, why? Lord, why? Well, he may be pruning you. Amen. Because serving God doesn't mean you're not gonna have promise. As a matter of fact, serving God means you're gonna have more promise. The people that used to like you will no longer like you because they don't like who's living in you. Amen. Is there enough of Jesus in you that people don't like? Amen. Is there enough of Jesus in me that people don't like? And that that that falls on again. This message is not for you, it's for the world, but they'll never hear it. Amen. They'll never hear it, they'll never go and hear it. As a matter of fact, if this message was for the world, half of them would have got up, well, maybe three fourths of them would have got up and left. Well, I'm not going to that church no more. I'm not gonna hear that no more. My friends, this is what's gonna bring you into eternity is the truth. The truth will set you free.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Amen.

It's Not About Church Size, It's About Faithfulness

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Amen. It's the truth that will set you free. And I I again we're gonna continue on and we're gonna find out that the pastors are and priests and leadership, Christian leadership is to blame. It's to blame, it's to blame. I guarantee you, if every church preached a message like I preached today, we would stop church hopping. Amen. Because wherever they would go, they'd get the same message, Joshua. Right? Wherever they would go, you know, they'll get the same message. Because God's the same yesterday, today, and forever doesn't change. God doesn't change the message because of Presbyterian or Methodist or whatever. The message doesn't change, it's the same message. Who's changed it? The leadership, the church has changed it. Amen. They're gonna be held accountable for that. Amen. They're gonna be held accountable for that. I certainly don't want to be in their shoes. I don't want to tell you what you want to hear. If what if if if if what you want to hear is not what God wants to say, and I believe this is one of the wonderful things about new life. We may be a lot of things, man, but we we don't we don't skip on the word. We put it out there, Aaron puts it out there, everybody that comes up here puts it out there, and it's up to us to line up to the word. Amen. And you know what, Malachi? We're gonna talk about, I got so much to say, I can't think of my time out. But Malachi, his name means messenger. He's a messenger. Guess who I am? I'm a messenger with a message. It's not my message, it's his message. Amen. And the more I proclaim his message, the more his spirit will flow in and through me and give me the boldness that I need to do it.

unknown 17:52

That's right.

The End is Near

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Amen. Don't look in my faults. Hear the message. Amen. I don't like the way it's presented. I don't like he, he doesn't use a microphone. He's loud, he's he's he doesn't explain it right. No, listen to the message. I'm just the messenger. Amen. I'm just the messenger. The message. It's God's message. Amen. And I will do it so that you'll feel so good about it, you'll bring 20 other friends tomorrow because I know you can't do that. It's all the Spirit of God that draws them. You can't draw them. They might come to them, they might come because you invited them and they like you, but if they don't like Jesus, they won't come back. Do I hear an amen? They don't like they're not in love with Jesus, they're not gonna come back because you ask them. Right? But don't stop asking them. Amen. Don't stop, don't stop praying for them, don't stop doing, you know, because a lot of people say, Well, how many in your church? How many in your church? How many in your church? And throughout the years, I used to say 200, and then 150, and then 100, and then 75, and then 65, and now we're down to 35. It doesn't matter how many is in the church. Amen. That doesn't that doesn't show success in in the Lord how many's in the church. What shows success is that you're preaching the word of God, and it will not return void. Amen. It will produce whatever God wants it to produce. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord. If they need to come in here for a pruning, so be it. Amen. So be it. If this is the pruning place, so be it. At least they heard it. Amen. Amen. At least they've heard it. And again, we point fingers at somebody, there's four pointing back at us. So we don't stand up, we don't put ourselves up in self-righteousness and be like the person that said, but you see the beggar come in and throw himself down at the altar, and the righteous person that's there, the Pharisees and God, I so thank you, I'm not like him. I'm so grateful, so thankful, I'm not like you. And we forget to realize that we are no better than him. Amen. We're all in the same playing field, we're all the creation of God. And you know, I want in my the end of my life, I want a finale. Just like when you buy fireworks, you buy the big Komodo dragon. The big Komodo dragon lasts four minutes, but it costs 70 bucks. You gotta pay for the finale if you want it for it to last four minutes. But I want my life to be a finale in the Lord. I'm not gonna shriek back, I'm not gonna hold back, I'm not gonna be seeker-friendly, I'm not gonna I I love people, I love, I love them to come to the Lord. I'm compassionate, long-suffering, but I will not compromise his word. Amen. I will not compromise his word. And I believe, Alicia, why Richard is doing so well is because you come to a non-compromising church and he has sat down and listened to messages and seen the power of God through prayer. When Aaron was up here and prophesying more people, and and Richard was back there going, Wow, I've never seen this, I've never seen God move this way. God is real. He saw God in a real way. That's what got a hold of him. Amen. And that's what we have here. We have got God's in our midst. Amen. What a privilege it is. Through the worship, I feel the Lord coming. I come here two hours before the presence of the Lord is here. Glory, why? Why is your presence here? Why have you found favor with us, Lord? Lord, we're nobody's Lord. We're not proclaimed, no one hardly ever knows us, Lord. We're just on the corner, fourth, and San Benito Street. You know, who are we, Lord? Without you, we wouldn't even exist. We would have, we would have uh gone bankrupt long ago. It would have folded long ago. And people ask, are you still there? Are you still there? Are you still preaching? Are you still serving the Lord? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because I'm going for that finale. Amen. And when you grab your hands to the work, you don't look back, you go forward. No matter how hard the task is. Amen. Amen. Because you're looking at a veteran in the faith. I'm a veteran in the faith. What's a veteran in the faith? A veteran in the faith means you give your heart to the Lord and you stick with it, and you don't quit. You don't look at people, you don't look at situations, you don't look in churches, you look to the Lord your God and you fulfill his calling for your heart and your life. Amen. Even if it comes down to being like Noah and his family, was the only ones left. You get in the boat. Right? And we're about there now, glory to God. Right? We're about there now, but you know what? God is faithful. And the ones that the ones who remain, believe in the Lord, believe in his promises. We're not complainers, we're not looking, we don't mourn. We don't, you know, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh, what's gonna we believe in the Lord and He moves. Amen. That's where we stand. We stand on God's promises, and God says He will not fail us.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Thank you, Lord.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

You believe that? We He will not fail us. He will not fail us, He'll be faithful. All the way to the end.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Amen. Glory to God.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

And you know what? The end is near.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Hallelujah.

The Devil Knows

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Huh? The end is near. The end is near. Well, I've never seen the signs like we've seen today. You know what? The merchant comes and smashes everything up, and people build them back up. And God says, This is coming back down again. Right? Because rebellion does not receive blessings. Amen. Don't matter how many times, you know, those poor people in Napa lost all their homes in that fire. And then they went, now they're in the process of building up. Another fire is going to come and take it away again. Because unless God builds a house, those that labor, labor in vain. Huh? Unless God builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain. All these people in the floods in Louisiana, all these people are that they're just flood after flood, tornado after tornado, and all these kinds of things. And after it's over with, they start building again, and walk up another one. You know, if I was there, I'd pray about movie. Right? How many times does it take for you to lose your house before you think, you know what? I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna go to the mountains and live. But no, it's the mentality of people that think that nothing's ever gonna happen again to them. But the greatest thing is when Jesus comes and they're found without. Amen. They're found without. Like the devil, the devil told the sons of Heva. They're trying to cast out demons, and I'm closing. And here's these guys trying to manipulate, trying to try to pretend that they're mighty men of God, you know, casting out demons, you know, they're going through the form. A lot of people go through the form of godliness, but they're denying the power thereof.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

They have no power, they got the robes, they got the speeches, they got the televisions, they got all these, they're going through the form of it, but they have no power. And the devil's when they try to cast out those demons out of the sons of Skeva, the devil speaks back to them and says, Paul, I know, and Jesus I know, but who are you? How many of you know the devil knows if you belong to Jesus or not?

SPEAKER_03 25:50

That's right.

Closing Information

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Huh? He knows. That's why the biggest struggles come because he knows that you belong to Jesus. You come out from among them. He's written you on the palm of his hand. He answers your prayers, he goes before you. Amen. He encompasses to put protection home around you. The devil knows who belong to Jesus. If the devil's not bothering you, then you're not doing anything right. You're amen here. If the devil doesn't bother you, that means you don't you don't pose a threat to him. You're not in prayer, you're not fasting, you're not the word, you're not in church, you're not witnessing, you're not doing if he doesn't pose a threat. But if you are in Christ and you're doing the fullness of what he wants, look out, man. You're gonna be bombarded. But the shield of faith will protect you from all the fiery darts of the enemy. You know, when I became a Christian, I'm gonna close with this. I became a Christian, I found out that there was a God and a loving God, a forgiving God, a friend, my shepherd. I also found out there was a devil. Anybody experienced that? Did you find out there was also a devil? I didn't find Jesus, or Jesus found me and saved me, and I forgot all about the devil. As a matter of fact, the devil came home with me and into my mother. I tried to tell my mother what happened in that church, and my mother says, What's the matter? You crazy? We're not Catholics, you can't go up to that church. I like you better the way you were. The devil entered into my mother. The next morning, the devil entered into my friends. When they came over, I tried to tell them. And the devil spoke through them and said, Carmen, we know there's no God. You can't live this kind of holy life. You can't do it, you can't do that. I go, No, no, no, it's real. He's in my heart, he's in my life. I found out that the devil's in my friends now. Do I hear an amen? Anybody get do I do I get a uh what they call that? Do I get a witness? Do I get a witness? Right? I found out that it was the devil. There's a God who loves me, and there's a devil who hates me, who wants to destroy me. How do I get away from the devil? Run closer to Jesus. Let's stand. Oh glory.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Thank you for listening to part two of the message True Vine from Pastor Carmen Gabriel out of Hollister, California, New Life Fellowship Church. I hope that you were blessed as I was, and I just pray blessings over you. And I'm hoping that if you would like a copy of this message or you'd like to email me, you can do so at my website, imdauntless dot org. God bless you.