This article is the second half of "Bad Tree... Good Fruit". It stands pretty much on it's own, though, and I am presenting it here as it's own article.


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. Good seed and Tares (Weeds). Wheat and Chaff. 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. Not One.

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 demonstrate that they ARE rather than what they SAY they are.

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. Christ died for all; even though it secured the salvation of only some. Christ died for and saved those "to whom it was given to hear and understand, turn, repent and be saved..." But his death secured nothing for those "to whom it was not given", who, when he spoke, did not hear the voice of the shepherd calling them because they could not, because they were not his sheep.

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 of the 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!

It's a perfect example of Jesus' example of calling them "wolves in sheeps clothing". Why do you think he used that term? Because it's literally (if figuratively) true. They've gone and gotten themselves a sheep skin, they've stuffed their wolfish little body inside it and they are walking about going "baaaa baaaaaaa, baaaa, baaaa", hoping that some simpleton will think "hey, that's a sheep over there. Let's 'fellowhip' with them..." They draw near, and the wolf eats their lunch right on the steps of the church sanctuary!

The only thing that brings the sheep out is the voice of the shepherd - the words of Jesus Christ.

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...