This article is a continuation, or offshoot of another article entitled "Let Them Alone." It was during the writing of that article that the idea for this one came.



In Matthew 7:17, Jesus tells us:

Every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

My point here is not to labour the well known principle that Jesus is teaching in this passage (that, in the end, the bad trees are cut down and burned), but to point out something about the church - or more accurately, what calls itself "the church" in these days.

It is very important to realize that not everything that calls itself Christian, is actually Christian. What is self-described, and what is revealed by the light of truth and reality are often two very different things.

In fact, Jesus, before he left, warned us quite strongly that by the time he returned, there would be almost no real Christians left on earth. (When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth? - It's a rhetorical question. The implied answer is "No.")

In fact, it is not possible, really, to describe or identify yourself as a Christian, or "saved", or "born again", or any other such label, because it is not YOU who have that control. You cannot simply decide that you are a Christian. There are certain conditions, which when met, make you a Christian, but you cannot simply decide to call yourself one. It doesn't work that way. That's putting the cart before the horse, to borrow an old adage. That's trying to push a string instead of pulling it.

So, what am I getting at in the title of this article? Just this...

In the "church" today, we are extremely adept at looking at this:





and seeing, this:

One day in church, a man who has shown not a shred of love for the brethren, not a shred of interest in the word of God, not a single care for examining himself to see whether he is of the faith, shows not a single sign of a new heart or a new life of desire for the good things of God's righteousness, has shown no repentance, and indeed thinks that he has nothing to repent of... suddenly this person "miraculously" starts producing something that everyone in the church looks at and nods their head and says, "Yep! Looks like fruit to me. Praise God!"

To all too many; far too many in the church, ANY fruit at all is taken as good fruit without any examination of the fruit or the tree that it fell off of.

The church is awash with theology that is nothing more than:

[Thud!]... "Hey look, good fruit!"

Such thinking is to be expected of churches who are only interested in "Church Growth." "Change" is the buzzword of the new godless church in America wherein they have set themselves in lockstep with the rest of the world in calling for "change" without even a shred of an idea what sort of "change" is actually good, if any at all.

Now just exactly how do we go about explaining that? It's a fantastic example of the blind leading the blind. The blind leading the blind are people looking at this rotten evil fruit and seeing it as good fruit, and testifying to others that it is good, thus misleading them.

To a lot of them, it's merely a matter of "Well... that's different. Hey! Different is good!" My God how far we've fallen into stupidity and foolishness. No wonder Jesus says of us "we are naked." We are clothed with doctrine about as deep as the teflon coating on a two dollar frying pan.

But the Bible says that if the tree itself is bad, then it's fruit is bad - no matter what it looks like to us!

We are supposed to judge the tree by the fruit, and instead we are judging the fruit on it's own merits without any regard to the tree itself at all - and the merits we, in our deceived, evil-loving hearts, are all to eager to pronounce as "good." We are notorious in our ability to call evil good, and good evil.

It's a very clever trick of Satan. He knows quite well that we are examining the fruit closely. We are told to judge the tree based upon the fruit it produces, and instead, we are judging the fruit wrongly, calling evil fruit to be good fruit, and then declaring the tree to be good.

In other words, we are declaring people to be genuine Christians based upon a faulty examination of a single fruit instead of a clear example of their testimony, doctrine and consistent behaviour.

The argument here is almost cyclical: We must judge the fruit to determine the goodness of the tree, but Christ tells us that in reality, it is the condition of the tree that determines the kind of fruit - no matter what we call it, or how we think it appears.

We have misunderstood this passage. We think that Jesus is telling us to judge the fruit whether it is good or bad. But that's not the case. We are told to use the fruit to judge the tree, and having done that, to declare the the fruit itself to be good or evil based upon what we find the condition of the tree to be. And the goodness or badness of the fruit is simply presented as being almost obvious.

One obvious challenge here is that we can't do that in a single "reading" of the instrument. If a work appears to be good, can we declare the tree to be good? No, because Jesus says that if the tree is bad, it's fruit is bad no matter how "good" it looks to us. Same thing with bad fruit. It doesn't necessarily, in a single instance, mean that the tree is bad.

But a consistent examination of the fruit, over a period of time, will determine the type of tree, and that we can actually use deterministically to declare the other fruit produced by the tree.

So how do we rightly examine the fruit in order to rightly judge the tree? By seeing what kind of fruit the tree naturally, and regularly, and consistently produces. After having done that, we can then rightly judge the tree, and then we can rightly judge the fruit to be good or bad based upon what we know of the tree that produced it. That, and only that, will help us avoid the error I mentioned at the top of this article: seeing rotten fruit and erroneously labeling it "good fruit" and thereby misleading many in the way.


There are things that are good, through and through. Good from the inside out and all the way through. There are things that are bad and evil on the inside, but which look good on the surface. No great revelation there. Lots of people know this. The problem for most "christians" in the "Church Growth/Revival" world today is that on the outside, both look good; and without looking inside, you will never notice the difference. (In my opinion, most "revivalists" are nothing more than "Church Growth-ites" minus the Church (building). Strip away the "conventional church" model and "Church Growth" is nothing more than "Revival". It's still "growth methodology processes" at the center of it instead of Sola Gloria ("For God's Glory, and nothing else.") The goal is not to glorify God, but to gather large crowds in order to glorify MAN.

Because of this, a tremendous amount of twaddle passes through the church today, completely unnoticed. This is why you can sit in a church over a period of time and watch the pastor go from teaching from Jesus' own words, to quoting C.S. Lewis, to The Law and the Prophets, to Charles Finney, to Ray Comfort... and no one even notices what has happened. They can go from Bible and solid doctrine, to heresey, and back again, without it even catching their attention that something horrible just happened.

It's like watching people stoned on some kind of drug: eyes glazed over, happy/tranquil smiles on their faces, while a parade of goodness and filth passes before their eyes, and they remain blissfully ignorant that they have been tainted, and in some cases led away into a new heresey worse than the one in which they are already deceived.



Now I want to talk a bit about this contrast between good and bad in another vein.

Jesus made an entire ministry on earth out of teaching us how to tell good fruit from bad fruit - good trees from bad trees.

He used several metaphors: Good trees and bad trees. Sheep and Goats. Wheat and Tares (Weeds). Good servants and wicked servants. The True Church, and the false, self-appointed, self-righteous church.


But notice what there is never an example of: There is never an example of one of these things becoming the other.


He speaks of the the bad tree as though it had always been bad and always would be bad. He speaks of the goats as though they had always been goats and would remain goats. Sheep as though they were always sheep. Even when they are described as lost, they are still called sheep - they are never refered to as goats. The goats are identified, not to be converted into sheep, but to be separated from His sheep. The weeds in his field He does not go in and change them from weeds to wheat - he simply leaves them as weeds until the end when they are burned.

Jesus' business seldom, if ever, seems to be a matter of transformation of kind, but only of distinguishing one from the other and separating them from each other. He separates his sheep from the goats. He gathers the weeds to be burned. He separates out the goats to be led away into eternal punishment.

He describes his mission as that of finding and calling out his own from the midst of these other things. And he claims to do it with 100% efficacy - a 100% success rate without even a single failure.

How can this be if salvation is a "choice" left up to man? How does "predestination" play into all this?

This is a very hard doctrine for some people. For other's, it is quite plain and simple.

Jesus, as described above, separates people into two groups. Those who will perish, and those who will receive eternal life. But it is important to notice how it works.

Those who will and will not inherit eternal life are identifiable by their attributes ("ye shall know them by their fruits") - not their "choices." What they ARE rather than what they CLAIM to be.

And here's the hard part:

Saved? You think you, or others around you are saved?

Follow this scripture train. It's departing the station NOW:

"None can come to the Father but by me..."
"None can come to me except by the Father..."
"Only My Father can reveal me..."
"All that the Father has given to me will come to me"
"Not a single one will be lost."
"My sheep know my voice and they hear (follow) me."
"To you it is given to understand"

What about the "Lost?"

Bad trees
Goats
Weeds
"You do not hear me because you CANNOT hear me."
"You do not follow me because you are not my sheep."
"To them it is NOT GIVEN..."
"I have come to cause division..."

It's important to notice that these people (on either side) are not there because they chose anything. God condemns them not for failing to choose, but for simply being what they are. If it is "not given to you", then where's your choice? If you CANNOT hear, then what are you expected to choose? If your flesh and blood cannot reveal him, then what possible options are there from which to choose?

Again, Jesus divides - separates! He said this himself. Separates the one thing that is what it is, and remains what it is, from the other thing that is what it is and also remains what it is. You think I have come to bring peace to the world? Far from it. I have not come to send peace, but a sword. I have come to cause division...

In other words, he has come to separate his own from the rest of the world. I mean, c'mon... that's what the word "holy" means!... SEPARATE!

As I said elsewhere, when Jesus speaks, the room is divided almost immediately right down the middle. A voice is heard, the word of God is proclaimed, and, as though out of nowhere, a line suddenly appears on the floor and you find yourself on one side or the other of it before a choice is even made.

"It is given to you to understand..." and the sheep are on one side, or "To them it is not given..." and the goats are on the other side.


Of course, we know from scripture that something happens; and we tend to call that something "conversion", or "transformation." Something happens. After all, we are ALL alltogether worthless and dead in sin, and yet SOME of us will live - being raised by him on the last day. But those, he refers to as his sheep from the very beginning. Even before he has found them, he calls them his sheep.

There is a splendid example of this in actual operation in the Gospels, and it's narated and explained by Jesus, Himself! You can't get a more apropos, adept, or authoritative example than this:

When the disciples asked him about this very subject, he explains how it is given to them (His disciples) to understand, but to them (the great masses of men, in general) it is not given. He has already explained how it must "be given", and that unless it is "given", they will not come, and how they cannot come otherwise. This is where all the other scriptures that seem to be "hard sayings" start to make perfect sense. "You did not chose me; I chose you." "You do not love me except that I first loved you." "Let the dead bury their dead... Leave them alone..."

To His disciples, he speaks plainly - because they are his own. But to the public; the crowds, he speaks in parables - riddles - lest they should "hear with their ears, turn and repent and be saved." In other words, Jesus knows that his message is only for some, and not for all. It is available to all because He speaks to the entire crowd. But "available" and "received and heard" are two completely different things.

He knows that those in his audience that are his; that his Father has given him; that they will in fact "hear with their ears, turn, repent and be saved" and that not a single one of them will fail to hear; not a single one of them will be lost. He knows that in that crowd, there are mostly goats that cannot hear him under any circumstance (John 10), but that there are also some of his Sheep in there, who "know the voice of the shepherd" and who "come out when he calls them and follow him." He knows that there is no work of "conversion" to be done, here, but a work of separating; of "calling out" that which is already within.

This view of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, by far, the most offensive thing that I know for certain is the truth. This is the "hard saying" that keeps most men from following him. This is the same sort of thing that he mentioned in John 6, where everyone except his twelve disciples abandoned him. There are some things about the "Good News" that are only good news to the sheep. For the vast majority of people who hear the "good news", they hear nothing.


This goes to the very heart of what is wrong within Christianity today; whether in the institutional church, the (so called) emerging church, the modern church, the home church, the whatever church.

The problem is that they have adopted a new method of trying to separate the sheep from the goats. Christ preached the Gospel of Repentance and Faith because He knows that THAT message (and only that message) will divide the sheep from the goats; that his sheep will HEAR THAT AND COME OUT!

Today, we seem to have taken this tact of parading back in forth in front masses acting like a sheep; "baa baaaa baaaa baa..."; and hoping some in the crowd will say, "Hey, that's a sheep over there. Lets go hang out with them..."

It ain't gonna happen!

Unless they hear the Gospel of Repentance from Good Works, and Faith in Christ Alone, they will not come out. The goats aren't coming out no matter what you say, preach, dance, study, proclaim or sing worship songs about.

It is His sheep you are looking for, and they respond to one, and only one message:

The Kingdom of heaven is at Hand. Repent you sinners; Believe and Trust Christ alone and you will be saved from the wrath to come.

The difference is that his sheep know his voice when they hear it, and they follow him. The goats never hear that voice, and so never follow; they remain the goats that they are throughout.

We are ALL sinners. We are ALL under condemnation as sinners. But some of us are sheep who are his and will be saved, and some of us are goats who will not. And the way the Bible paints it, that is God's choice, not ours.

We SEEM to have the ability to make free will choices. We SEEM to have the ability to choose to be a goat or to be a sheep. But do we?

In a recent (admittedly pointless) debate with an athiest, the matter of free will was brought up and the example was given: "When Alice asks the Cheshire cat which way she should go, to the left or to the right, Alice has absolute free will to choose to go either to the left or to the right."

In a sense, the real question is not which way "should" she go, but which way "could" she go? I admit right away that she could go either left or right. But while Alice is free to choose, she is only free to choose from amongst the options that are actually available to her.

In other words, she may choose to go left. She may choose to go right. She may also choose to do neither, but stand right where she is. However, she is not free to choose to flap her arms and fly straight up instead! She is free to choose, but only to choose from among the options that are available to her. Flying is right out.

Same with us. The Bible may make it appear that we are free to choose anything - even to choose God. But even THAT get's shot down in flames:

You think you decided to follow Christ?
"You didn't choose me. I chose you!"

You think you decided that you love God?
You love me only because I first loved you.


You think that you heard God?
To you it is given to have ears to hear....

You think that it is you that seeks God?
All that the Father have given to me will come to me.

You decided?
...Salvation is of the Lord, it is a gift (ie, something given to you).

It is given. It is given. It is given. Again... where is your choice in any of these scenarios?

Take any case that you want where someone was saved.

How about Peter and Andrew - the first converts? Jesus just saw them and said follow me. And they did. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.

Paul? He didn't choose. He was captured.

How about Lydia? God opened her heart. She didn't choose God. God chose her.

They were all sinners converted to saints - but they were, and always were SHEEP. Jesus just found them (I have come to seek and save that (sheep) which is lost..." He's not looking for goats. The goats aren't his. The goats are and will remain goats. The sheep are and always remain sheep - Jesus simply finds them.


Food for thought...