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The Difference Between Good and Rotten Fruit

by Jerry Ousley  
10/18/2024 / Christian Living

The Difference Between Good and Rotten Fruit

By Jery D Ousley

 

            I love a good, ripe peach.  Take that bad boy, wash it off, and take a big bite, skin and all.  If it is good and ripe there’s nothing like it.  But the other day, I grabbed one that looked a little bit over ripe, but I’ve eaten those before.  Just because it looks a little rough on the outside doesn’t normally affect the inside.  But this particular peach was different.  It not only looked rough on the outside, but it tasted even more rough when I took that big bite.  That one taste was all I needed.  I spit it out in the trash and promptly threw away the rest of that peach.  There’s nothing like them, good or bad, when they are good then they are really good, and when they are bad, they are really bad!

 

            I suppose this same principle is true for all fruit.  It can be sweet as honey or rotten to the core.  Someone once told me that they were afraid of biting into raw fruit for fear of finding a worm.  I told them, “A whole worm is a whole lot better than a half worm!”  They got it.

 

            Jeremiah 24:1-10 tells of a vision given to the young prophet.  It involved two baskets of figs, one good and one rotten.  It was given to Jeremiah just after Babylon had conquered Jerusalem and carried away captive, many good people.  It didn’t seem fair and seemed that God had punished those who had been loyal to Him.  In contrast, those who had been rebellious and had not been killed were left in the land. It seemed to make more sense to let those good people remain in the land and take the bad. But God always knows what He is doing; He did then and He always does.

 

            God explained to Jeremiah that the good figs were actually those who had been taken to Babylon to preserve and protect them.  They would flourish in Babylon (and later Persia) for a period of seventy years (see the next chapter) and then allow them to be returned to Israel.  The bad figs would perish in the land, inter-marry with the pagans relocated there and soon dissipate into the multitude.

 

            As I read this passage, my mind was directed to how this might apply in our own lives today. You see, God wants His children, those who have elected to come to Him, to bear good fruit (Matthew 7:16-20).  But sooner or later we all fail.  We do so because we are human.  Just because we have come to the Lord, allowed His Holy Spirit to take abode in our lives, and save us from the curse of sin, death and hell, doesn’t mean that we won’t fail Him from time to time.  We all do.  When we are completely honest with ourselves, we know that this is true.  We might try to hide it from others, but we cannot hide it from God.  He knows and sees all.

 

            I want to be careful with this, because some feel that everything bad that happens in our lives is punishment from God.  That just isn’t the case.  You see, our sin has been forgiven when we come to Him.  That isn’t a license to do whatever we take a notion to do, but it does mean that when we ask forgiveness for our wrong-doing, He is faithful and just to forgive us, all because of what Christ did for us.

 

            But there are times when we need to be re-directed in our lives.  Israel needed re-direction when God had the good people taken captive to Babylon.  They didn’t think so at the time.  They thought God had failed them and sold them into slavery in a foreign land.  But there they prospered.  There they were given favor by the Babylonians at the direction of God Himself.  They prospered and they flourished until the time came to return to their own land.

 

            Just so, there are times that it may seem that the things we are going through are because God has failed us.  Didn’t He say that whatever we asked for in His Name that He would give it to us? (see John 14:14).  If He is that good, then He must want to heal us, and make us to prosper.  Why has He let this calamity come upon me?  Sometimes we need the re-direction mentioned above.  He will allow things to happen in order to turn us around and get us back on the path we are to trod.  It isn’t a punishment but a loving push in the right direction.  So perhaps you aren’t being forsaken.  Maybe you aren’t being punished.  It may just be the guiding hand of God who in His grace is giving you that gentle push you need to get back on track.  Think about it.

 

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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