- Feb 27, 2023
- 4 min read
“Beware of the false prophets, [teachers] who come to you dressed as sheep [appearing gentle and innocent], but inwardly are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them [that is, by their contrived doctrine and self-focus]. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the unhealthy tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruit you will recognize them [as false prophets].”
Matthew 7:15-20 AMP
In the past three years, I have taken up the lifestyle choice of gardening. I grow a lot of different plants for a lot of different purposes. I grow some seeds for fruit, some seeds for protection, and some seeds for health. BUT I am not in the habit of planting poisonous and dangerous plants in my garden. I know that if I plant the seeds of those plants then I have the potential to have those plants alongside my other food-bearing plants. BUT how often do I let the seeds of poison fall into my life and wonder if they will grow and produce fruit? How often do I seek out poisonous seeds and plant them alongside the fruit? How often do I play dangerous games in my garden by allowing poison to grow?
I spend a lot of time in my garden pruning plants. It is an important part of growing tomatoes. I spend a lot of time in my garden prepping for planting this time of the year. I remove the weeds and trees that sprout over the winter from the planters and replenish the nutrients with fertilizer and add more soil. I take a lot of time working on my garden before I plant the first seed. And there are a lot of these garden metaphors and planting metaphors in God’s Word on which we should take notice. We started out our history in the Garden. Our ancestors judged that a fruit was good in their own eyes rather than being obedient to God’s Word. So, fruit is an important metaphor and analogy to consider.
Likewise the idea of sheep and wolves lies all around biblical narrative to explain our obedience as sheep to our Lord who will protect us from the wolves lying in wait around in the world.
My takeaways from this part of the Sermon are many BUT I will focus on two today. First, there is real danger out there inside of Christian communities just as there is real danger out there in the world. That danger comes from those that are looking to deceive themselves and deceive us as well. Whenever someone has some hidden knowledge, I get really concerned because we are dumb and God isn’t making this any more complicated than it needs to be. If it were too complicated then we couldn’t do it. We can barely do love God and love neighbor, how could we handle something more complex?
And finally, people don’t walk around with thorns and thistles BUT we can still identify them as poison by their fruits. It’s kind of become a cliche for me anymore these days, however, I say it a lot, “Bad fruit, bad tree.” That is really my goto for judging how things are going, and that is by the harvest. And when I judge harvest, it is always looking at the quality and not the quantity of the fruit being harvested. I am sure we see a lot of places with full parking lots and capacity crowds that are bearing fruit of quantity and not quality. And some of these overflowing places bear both quality and quantity fruit. Sometimes we get too concerned with how much fruit is being produced and use this as a judgment criteria when we should be more focused on the quality. Just because there is a lot of fruit doesn’t mean we should automatically be suspect . . . BUT I oftentimes am.
So, what can I do about the fruit I bear? How can I be certain to avoid the ravenous wolves? How can I avoid false teaching? How can I produce better quality fruit? That all begins with what seeds I allow into my life.
How can I judge the seeds? That begins with knowing God through study and prayer. Knowing God and His Word is a good shepherd and a good gardener. Knowing God and His Word is an abundantly easy way to protect ourselves from planting bad fruit. I will know that the fruit is bad by discerning it from the good fruit that I see. Life isn’t about knowing all the bad fruit. It’s about spending more time around the good fruit so you can easily identify the bad.
I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!