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The verse I want to focus on is here at the end of this chapter. It's a very famous verse, but it's Proverbs 11, verse 30. The Bible reads, The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that win his souls is wise. And this verse we could use in a lot of different applications, but I want to take the title of my sermon straight from this phrase here, the fruit of the righteous. And the title of the sermon this evening is the fruit of the righteous, the fruit of the righteous. And you know, when it talks about in this verse, in all the Proverbs, they really have a self-contained context, is it's talking about the fact that someone who is righteous, meaning that they're saved, not that they're perfect, but rather that they have Christ's righteousness, that the fruit that's going to come from that person is going to end up being like a tree of life, and then it gives you a practical application. It's someone who's winning souls to Christ. Now what's interesting is this phrase, the tree of life. Now go if you would to Genesis, chapter number 3. Genesis chapter number 3, but it likens the fruit of a righteous person as being a tree of life. Well there's actually, in the Bible, recorded a tree of life. And you know, in the midst of the garden, there was a tree of life. There was also another tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God commanded that the man should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but he did want him to eat in the tree of life. And after Adam and Eve sinned and they were punished, God is throwing them out of the garden. He makes a very interesting statement. Look at Genesis chapter 3, verse 22. The Bible reads, And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. So notice what the Bible says. If you take of the tree of life and you eat of it, you will live forever. Now what is that when we go out and preach the gospel? You know what we're trying to do? We're trying to encourage people to eat from the tree of life, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you eat of that tree, you will live forever. The Bible talks about Jesus Christ's salvation being like living waters. If you drink of his living waters, you'll have everlasting life. You'll be saved forever. You'll never thirst again. If you eat of the tree of life, you'll never hunger again. And we're not talking in a physical sense. We're talking in a spiritual sense, because once you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you're saved forever. So it says, hey, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that win his souls is wise. What can we learn from this verse? Well, we can learn this, that saved people get other people saved. What they say is going to be a tree of life. What they do is going to be a tree of life. Now go to Matthew chapter number 7. Matthew chapter number 7. And I kind of want to focus on both pictures of this, but a saved person, no matter how backslidden or no matter how sinful they are, they're always going to have that tree of life on their tongue. Meaning what? That if you ask them how to get saved, they're going to give you the right answer. And really, when it comes to understanding who is the righteous and who is the wicked, it's by what they say. That is how we determine it. In fact, the Bible teaches this doctrine over and over again, and I want to prove it to you, but look at Matthew chapter number 7. Let's look at a few verses here. It says in verse 13, Enter ye into the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth the destruction, and many there be which go in there at, because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. So the Bible says there's only one way to heaven, in fact. Not in this verse. This verse just says it's very narrow. It's so narrow, there's one way. Because Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the life, and the truth, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. So the only way to heaven is through what Jesus Christ did, his sacrifice. And a lot of people are wanting to get saved, but they're on the wrong path. And the Bible warns that only few people are even going to find that, that right path. But look at the next verse, verse 15. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. So the Bible says that a tree can be known by its fruit. And it's saying a bad tree would never produce any good fruit. It's making it clear why. Well, what does this mean? This is kind of a parable. This is kind of an illustration to picture something. But notice how he started off in verse 15. He's talking about a false prophet, which outwardly looks good. But there's something wrong with him, but what's wrong is on the inside. And the only way you're going to see what's on the inside is by the fruit that it produces. Just like a tree, if I see a couple of trees out there and I'm not an expert arborist. So if I look at a tree, it's just like, that's a tree. Which kind? I don't know. It's a tree. If you were to say, does this look like an orange tree or an apple tree, I wouldn't be able to tell you just by looking at them, necessarily. Now, once they start producing fruit, though, a five-year-old could tell you which tree is the apple tree and the orange tree. And you can know that it's definitely an orange tree. You know what's inside because of the fruit that it's producing. So even though I can't see someone's heart, even though I can't know everybody's motives and intentions and everything like that, by their fruit, I can tell you what they're like on the inside. And if a tree is producing rotten fruit or no fruit, that can also be an indication of something about that tree. Well, the parable exists with a false prophet. A false prophet can never produce good fruit, OK? Now, what is that fruit? Let me tell you what that fruit is. It's preaching the right gospel. It's preaching salvation, OK? Now, we have to understand, when we talk about false prophets, the Bible warns that there's many false prophets. If we were to try and identify how many false prophets there are, we wouldn't have enough time. Because let's just try big categories. Catholic. I mean, how do I know that Catholics are not saved and they're false prophets? Let me tell you what. They don't even give lip service to the right gospel. They just point blank say, salvation is by works. They just point blank say, it's not faith alone. That's how I know that it's not the right kind of tree, because of what the fruit is that they're producing out of their mouth when it comes to salvation. What if I ask a Jehovah's false witness? Are they going to give me the right gospel? No. What if I ask a Mormon? No. What if I ask a lot of Protestants? A lot of Protestants will just openly admit, yeah, you have to have works. Yeah, you have to do these things. That's how you can just eliminate. I mean, we're eliminating billions of people by just that quick analysis, right? Now, as you start whittling down and getting rid of all the bad trees and all the false prophets and start marking them up just based on what they plainly state about salvation, you do get to a small group of people that can give lip service to the right gospel, but they don't believe it. And we're going to explain that and talk about that for a moment. But I can prove to you that what this is saying is it's saying that an unsaved person is not going to be able to explain salvation correctly and believe it and give the right answers in the sense that they're going to go out and preach some of the gospel and get them saved. It's just not going to happen. Now, let me prove this before I move on. Go to Matthew 12. Go to Matthew, chapter number 12. Now, there is other ways to gain information from this passage. There's other ways to interpret this passage in a sense that there's other things that we can learn from this. But I believe the primary context is what they say. That's why in the next verse it says, not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter in the kingdom of heaven. And then what do they say? They say, hey, we've done many wonderful works. And then while I profess them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. You know what that looked like? The Catholics. That was your Catholics and your Protestants and all these people that testified of their works. But you know a righteous person, you know what's going to come out of their mouth? The gospel of Jesus Christ. They're going to say salvation by faith. They're going to when push comes to shove, they believe the gospel. Matthew, chapter 12, look at verse 32. The Bible says, and whosoever speak of the word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him. Neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt. For the tree is known by his fruit. So we have a parallel passage where it's talking about the same concept of a tree being known by its fruit. What does it say in verse 34? O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil, notice this, speak good things? So you're saying, hey, evil tree can't produce good fruit. And then he says, how can you being evil, notice this, speak good things? He's pointing out the fact that their fruit is what they say. The fruit is what comes out of their lips. Now, the word fruit in and of itself is just a byproduct of any process or any action. Now, it can be defined in all kinds of different contexts. But I believe when the Bible's talking about the fruit of the tree, it's clear in this context it's talking about their words. It's talking about what they're going to speak and what they're going to say. And let me tell you this, false prophets say stupid things. They say evil things, wicked things, and that's how we can identify that they're bad. Notice these Jews were blaspheming the Holy Ghost. And he says, you guys are done. You guys are never going to even have any forgiveness whatsoever. Verse 34, oh, generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things. And an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say in you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Now, let's understand this context again. This is not saying that if you're saved, everything that comes out of your mouth is always right. A lot of people can be saved and say stupid things. They can say foolish things. They can lie. They can say all manner of evil. But here's the thing. A saved person is not going to preach a false gospel. I don't care how backslidden they get. I don't care how much sin is in their life. They're going to still say, well, you know what? Jesus paid for all my sins. They're not going to get up and be like, well, now I believe salvation by works. Now I believe I don't even believe in God. I'm just a Mormon now. Now I'm an atheist or whatever. They're not going to say that. That's evidence of the fact that they never believed. They went out from us, but they were not of us. They would no doubt have continued with us. So the Bible makes it clear. If someone is of the righteous remnant, if someone has this category, they're in this category, they're going to have a tree of life. What's going to come out of their mouth is the right gospel. Now they may never preach the gospel to someone. They may never witness. They may never share. You know what? They're not going to preach a false gospel. And look, false prophets are not going to give the right gospel. Now we're going to keep diving into this, and we're going to keep understanding this. But it's saying, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. You can't but help but speak the things that you've seen and heard. That's why it's important for Joe Biden not to go off script. Now here's the thing. It's not that their mouth and their physical body is incapable of saying words. It's not like I couldn't write out the right plan of salvation, and Joe Biden couldn't get up here and read it to you verbatim. Of course he could. And you could probably even get him to memorize it. Look, you could teach a parrot to preach the gospel. I could get a polly with a cracker, bawk. Leave our Lord Jesus Christ, bawk. But let me tell you what. That's not coming from the abundance of his heart. That's just you getting someone to robot and do these. Once they start speaking freely is once you start seeing what's in their heart, and once someone starts speaking freely, now they're never going to speak that which is right. If it's an evil tree, only evil things will come out. And if it's a good tree, only good things will come out. Let's get more doctrine here. Go to Luke chapter number 6. Let me keep proving this to you. So when it's talking about an evil tree, it's talking about a good tree, it's talking about these things, it's talking about what they're going to say. Now again, a saved Christian could get up and preach lies about other parts of the Bible. They could get up and say stupid things. They could use bad words. They could cuss. They could say stupid things. They can lie. It's not like just because you're saved you're automatically righteous. But you're not going to preach a false gospel. And Luke chapter number 6, look at verse 43. The Bible is going to give another parallel passage. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit. Neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good. And an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. Notice the Bible is making it crystal clear that what comes out of evil people is evil things, and what comes out of good people is good things. And how can I identify if this is a good tree or a bad tree? It's by what they say. That's why when you think about our soul winning program, what's our main emphasis in determining if we need to preach the gospel to someone? What they say. I mean, we're not looking at anything else. I don't look at someone and say like, you look pretty sinful, buddy. I don't know if you can get saved, you know. I don't look at somebody like, I don't know if you're going to get saved, you know. You're not the right demographic, or you're not, you know, you don't live in the right house, or the right neighborhood, or you don't go to the right church. It matters. The only thing that matters, look, I can look at someone that's a poor derelict in the gutter that has nothing going for them. And if I say, what do you have to do to be saved? And they say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you lose it? Never. Like, you're saved. And I could look at someone that's dressed in a suit, and they say, we just got back from church. I'm the pastor, in fact. You know, you already know where this is going. I'm the pastor. I preach the Bible. I love the Bible. What are you doing to go to heaven? Isn't it obvious I'm a pastor? You know, I do good things. I'm a good person. It's like, you're not saved. You're not saved. It's not an outward show. Because look, couldn't a tree look really nice on the outside? But if it's got thorns on it, and it's got poison berries, it's not a good tree. And a really weird looking tree, it could have great looking apples. And I'm like, hey, you know, I'll eat the apple. I don't really care what the tree looks like. Like, I wonder what the tree looked like of this apple. You don't really care. And at the end of the day, when it comes to salvation, we're looking at the fruit and say, what's the fruit? What'd they say? It's crystal clear. It's very provable. Now, what other things can we learn from this, though? Obviously, you could take a secondary application to all of these passages and say that a saved person will only produce saved people. And that an unsaved person would only produce other unsaved people. But I don't think that's the best way to measure someone's saved by converts. Obviously, yeah, apples are only going to be produced on an apple tree. And bananas are only going to be produced on a banana tree. And watermelons, they're not on a tree. So if you see a watermelon tree, tell me about it. It's weird. Someone glued that thing on there. But here's the difficulty with that. If I was going to go around and check to see if you're saved based on converts, what about people that have no converts? How do I know that? And additionally, think about this. Is there ever just necessarily a one person is the only person involved in getting someone saved? Is it one person planting, and another person's watering, and there's all these other steps? So whose convert is it? I mean, is it really Paul's, or is it Apollos's? Like, there's so many factors, necessarily, in someone getting saved that how does that even work? Or if you think about when it comes to discipleship, that could be another aspect of someone's convert. And again, somebody will say, well, Judas got people saved. No, he didn't. Judas didn't get a single person saved. And look, think about this. If Judas is getting people saved, why didn't he get himself saved? Like, who do you care about more than yourself? So you're going to tell me that Judas preached the gospel, and the gospel has so much power, it's just getting people saved left and right. But he, every time, is just like, it means nothing to me. The Bible says he's the devil from the beginning. Imagine that. It'd be like you going out, and you're just getting persons saved, and you're saved, and you're silent part of it, just sitting there, just like, uh. It's like, what? I mean, who heard the gospel more than Judas if he's getting these people saved? He did not understand the gospel, OK? So he couldn't have preached the right gospel. Now, obviously, he could have parroted the right things. He could have said some things that sounded right. But at the end of the day, no one was going to get saved from it. I can put some really fake apples on my dining room table. I could get, you know, you go to the store, like Hobby Lobby. I don't like the store, OK? You go to Hobby Lobby, you get all these fake apples, and you put them on the table. You know no one accidentally eats those? Who's accidentally eating fake fruit? All right, don't raise your hand, I'm just kidding. But it virtually doesn't happen, right? It's because, look, you know how many people get saved from the fake gospel? They don't. Because you can tell that it just doesn't work. It might kind of look the right way. It might kind of seem right or whatever. But as soon as they even try to take a bite, they're like, whatever. They're not going to eat it. They might take a bite, OK? But they're not going to eat the whole thing. They're not going to keep getting confused, like, this is kind of styrofoamy, you know? It's so weird looking. It's kind of mealy of an apple. No, they're going to throw that thing away. And when it comes to the good fruit, it's really emphasizing what people say. This is the evidence of salvation. The fruit of the righteous is preaching the right gospel. Point number one, it's going to be the right salvation every single time. Obviously, someone could be bad at explaining the gospel that's saved, or they might not have a lot of verses memorized, or they might be weak on it. But when push comes to shove, even the most watered down, I haven't gone to church in a long time, saved people, you can eke it out of them, can't you? They might say, like, accept Christ or something. And you're like, is it what Jesus did? Yeah, it's what Jesus did. I mean, they can at least give the right answer when push comes to shove. But an unsaved person getting someone saved, I mean, think about the tree of life, right? The tree of life is an apple. It brings nourishment. It brings life. Like, good food brings life unto you. You know what the unsaved person brings? Poison. Poison and thorns. Who is going to get any kind of life from that? That's all they can bring forth. Imagine me giving you poison berries and saying, have fun. Have some life. That's what Judas brought forth. Judas is offering people poison and thorns and all this other junk. He's not getting a single person saved. Now, go to 2 Peter chapter 2. Let's explain Judas even further, OK? Because when we talk about false prophets, I think our church only thinks about Judas. And it's like, look, there's way more false prophets than Judas. Have you heard of the Catholic Church? Have you heard of the Episcopalian Church? Have you heard of non-denominational churches? Look, the majority of false prophets are not Judas. And how do we determine that they're bad by what they say? But there are some really crafty, some really sneaky, deceptive false prophets and ravening wolves that will give the right answers about salvation. So it seems like they're saved and they're not. But let me explain that, OK? This is not how to interpret Matthew chapter number 7 and all the other passages. We interpret those with all the big picture of false prophets, right, that we eliminated by what they said. Just because there's an exception of someone that can say the right things about salvation and not mean them does not mean that that's not what that passage is saying. Now look at what 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 says. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who prevelly shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. This is an important phrase. What is feigned? Something that's feigned is fake. It's insincere. It means they don't mean it. You know what this means? They give lip service to the gospel. They give lip service to the things of God. They say the things that are right, but they don't mean them in their heart. You know, when the disciples are saying, hey, you're the son of God. It says, and so all the disciples said likewise. You know what it says about Judas? He was a devil from the beginning. He never believed. So if Judas said, oh, you're the son of God, he's just saying it. He doesn't mean it. He doesn't actually believe it. But if at that time in history, if you're at the time of Christ, where you're walking around the disciples, if you say that Jesus is the son of God, you believe that person saved. Because if you're acknowledging him as the son of God, you're acknowledging he's the Christ, you're acknowledging he's the Messiah, you are gonna be a saved person. But just because Judas could say that doesn't make him saved. It's feigned words. And there are some crafty, sneaky people that will come in and they will give lip service to the right thing, but eventually they'll get exposed. Eventually they'll manifest themselves. Eventually you know what'll come out? Jesus is the father. Eventually it's like, well, I really believe it works. I remember talking to a fellow pastor, a friend of mine, and he said there was this person in his church that was a flat earther. And he thought that this person was saved. And he's like, this is like the only flat earther I've known to not be wicked or to be saved or whatever. He had a lot of hope for flat earthers. And because every other single one was just an evil, wicked person, all right, that we've ever known. Well then, all of a sudden she drops the church and now she's preaching work salvation and is like a hardcore work salvationist. But she went soul-wanting all the time. Got a bunch of people saved. You know what she did? She faked it. And there's lots of people that fake it. And you know, when these people get exposed and you start talking to their soul-wanting partners, it's like, it was weird. You know, they were just preaching to them in like 50 minutes and it was like, I didn't even understand what they were saying. I was confused. The other person was confused. I think they just wore them down and got them to pray a prayer. I don't even think they believed it. And it's like, why didn't you say anything? But at the end of the day, I'm not gonna take that exception to interpret Matthew chapter number seven and all this other. Look, the fruit of the righteous is gonna preach the right gospel. We can tell those who are saved by what they preach. And notice, these people get discovered by the same evidence, though. How do I figure out this person was bad, though? Because this is another false prophet. If Matthew seven's saying false prophets are discovered by their lips, how did I figure out this guy was a false prophet? What did it say in verse number one? Who privily shall bring in damnable heresies. So they eventually preach some damnable heresy and you're like, whoa! That would never come out of a saved person. Look, no saved person is gonna get up and accidentally teach damnable heresy. You're not gonna get up and accidentally just be like, well, you gotta have works to be saved. Oops, I slipped a tongue, you know. Oh, oh, no one's burning in hell. Oops, you know. Oh, Judah's got more people saved than any other disciples, oops. You don't just accidentally say these things. You don't just accidentally preach damnable heresy. You don't actually preach a lot of heresy. It's what was in your heart. Now, look, everybody accidentally uses the transverses words, okay? Like, I say weird phrases like, instead of saying a breath of fresh air, I'll say like a fresh of breath air or something like that. Or I remember one time I was preaching about Judas and Jesus and I accidentally swapped names, okay? And I said something really bad about Judas but used Jesus' name and so obviously that was a complete accident. And I didn't even realize I said that. But if someone came up to me, you know what I would've said? That was wrong. That was wrong, I shouldn't even said that. I mixed up the name, sorry for saying that, I'll cut it out, you know. I wouldn't be like, that's what I really meant, you know. That's weird, okay. Go to Jude chapter number one, Jude chapter one. It's the title of the sermon, The Fruit of the Righteous. Look, the fruit of the righteous is gonna be a tree of life. It's gonna bring forth that which is good. And you know, no one's perfect. Nobody is incapable of making a mistake or an error but there's certain errors that the righteous won't make. The righteous is not gonna preach a false gospel. The righteous isn't gonna accidentally privily bring in a false doctrine or heresy that's damnable. Now obviously a saved person get caught away in heresy and other things but they're not gonna be the one bringing in damnable heresy. When someone's bringing in damnable heresy, they're a bad person every single time without exception. Look at Jude chapter number one, obviously, verse 12. These are spots in your feast of cherries. This is talking about false prophets when they feast with you. Feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. So now when it describes the fruit of these wicked evil people, what does it look like? It's withered, it doesn't even exist really. It's just bad. There's just nothing good about it. They're not bringing forth anything that can really manifest itself. It's always bad fruit. And what's that fruit? Look, whenever you talk to an unsaved person with these false prophets, you know what they're gonna preach? Just fruit that looks disgusting, fruit that's gross, things that have no fruit. One of the wonders of a false prophet is how they can say absolutely nothing while speaking. It's called without fruit. It's just like they say stuff and you're like, I didn't even understand what he was saying. He's just like repeating Bible verses incoherently together and mixing them together, it didn't even make sense. Go to Matthew 23, Matthew 23. Good preaching will be manifest to people. Good preaching will make things clear. Good preaching will not minister questions, it will answer questions. Good preaching will not leave you wondering what the preacher was saying. Good preaching will make you mad about what was being said, okay? You won't leave being like, I don't know what he was saying, you'll be thinking like, I don't know if I agree with that. At that point, it was a little, well, the Bible says it, you know. Good preaching will challenge you with the answer. It won't challenge you to find more answers. That's bad preaching. Matthew chapter 23, look at verse 15. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. So notice, an unsaved person, the only proselyte they can have is a child of hell. The only proselyte Judas ever made, if he made one, was a child of hell. And notice, this is basically you're without fruit. Think about this. He's saying you go everywhere. You compass sea, you compass land, you go up and down and you make one proselyte and he's just a child of hell. Meaning what? These people have no fruit. They're without fruit. Their fruit withereth. Whatever it even looks like that they were manifesting just gets destroyed and withered. It has no lasting effect. Go to Luke chapter number three, Luke chapter number three. So we talk about the fruit of the righteous as a tree of life. Look, only the saved can bring forth that good fruit. That's why it's so important for you and me to go ahead and preach the gospel. That's why it's so important not to just let people listen to all the false prophets out there, not let a Catholic priest, not let the Mormon, and not let the Jehovah's Witness be the only person that talks to them. Why? Because they can't get them saved. And you know what? People are not just knocking down the church door trying to get in and get saved. Usually the opposite direction that they're going. Usually they're trying to get out of the service before it's over. They're thinking like, when is this sermon gonna be over, you know? And at the end of the day, we have to go out of the highways and hedges and preach the gospel to people and we have to get them saved because the unsaved person can get no one saved, nor do they want to, my friend. They're not interested. They're interested in self-glorification. They're interested in, and wah, you know? Luke chapter three, look at verse seven. Then he said to the multitude that came forth to be baptized him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, notice this, and begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father, for I send you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham, and now also the ax is laid under the root of the trees. Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Now, here's the thing. What is John the Baptist looking for from the Pharisees to baptize them? Repentance. Repentance, okay? And specifically, fruits worthy of repentance. Now, I want to check whether or not someone has repented in regards to salvation. What am I looking for? I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. I put my faith in Jesus Christ. I'm looking for them to say something. What do they say? Well, we're the children of Abraham. Isn't that what the Pharisees consistently believe was gonna get them to heaven, is the fact they were the chosen people. They thought because of their lineage. They thought because of who their parents were. That was gonna get them to heaven. And John the Baptist is asking for them to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, which would be to believe on him that is on Christ Jesus. In fact, when you look up what John the Baptist was preaching in Acts, it tells you it was to believe in Jesus. That was the repentance he was preaching. But you know the Pharisees didn't believe that. The Pharisees still trusted in themselves. They were willing to justify themselves, and therefore they were unsaved and they died and went to hell. Now, other applications could be applied to this passage, and I understand that. And obviously, once you're saved, we should do other good things. We should do the works of God. And here's the thing. Good works are not necessary to save you. Good works are not an inevitable evidence of salvation. It is possible for someone to have no works whatsoever, zero, and be saved by their faith alone. The Bible makes that abundantly clear over and over again. And it's not just a hypothetical case. In fact, I think it probably happens a lot. When you really go out there and preach the gospel, you kind of notice there are a lot of people that are like the thief on the cross. They're ready to get saved by the skin of their teeth, by just faith in what Jesus did, and that's it. That guy didn't have any works. What works did he have? Zero. But you know what? He still went to heaven. He's not going to hell. Praise the Lord for that. Praise the Lord for his mercy and his grace. Now, some people are like, well, if he got off the cross, he would have done a lot of good works. You don't know that. I don't know that. Here's a guy. How about Lot? Tell me all the good works Lot had. Lot is a sorry Christian. Lot is like basically the epitome of the worst Christian. But he's still saved. And God didn't even look, he just said, just Lot. He said, hey, this guy is just Lot. He's righteous. He saved him from the city. And from his lifestyle, you'd be like, this guy, the guy who is a grandparent and a father the same day, he's from Kentucky. He didn't go to Zor-Ar. He's from Tennessee or something. It's like, no. What kind of righteousness is that? You would look at this guy and say he's righteous. He lives in the most wicked city. He doesn't preach any righteousness. He married his daughter to Sodomites. Then he fathered two children and grandfathered at the same time with his own daughters. And he's getting drunk in a cave by himself. Oh, he's such a righteous guy, though. Like, no, this guy is a shut-in. This guy is wicked. But you know what made him righteous is his faith in Jesus Christ. Now, I say all that to say this, though. Good works, though, are still an evidence of salvation. Good works can be an evidence of salvation. It's not the only evidence, and it's not the best evidence. What's the best evidence is what you say. Now, go to Matthew 25, Matthew 25. What could be some outward signs that you've trusted in Christ? Well, baptism's an outward sign. Baptism's an outward show. Do you have to get baptized to be saved? No, but it's a pretty public show, isn't it? And in fact, most everybody we see in the Bible gets saved, they got baptized right away. And praise the Lord for people that wanna get baptized after they trust in Christ. It doesn't get you saved, but it pictures that you trust in what Christ's death, burial, and resurrection has saved you. It pictures the fact that you wanna die to self, and you wanna walk in newness of life. It pictures the fact that you wanna serve God with your life. You don't wanna just keep living in the flesh, so it's super important. But you know what, it doesn't save anybody. But I'll tell you this, I've never seen anybody serving God fervently, and they're not baptized. And you know what, some of the good works, if you see people doing certain good works, it's usually an evidence that that person saved. It's usually a picture. Now, let's look at a dark parable and see what the Bible says about the righteous. Look at Matthew 25, and look at verse 31. When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divided the sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my Father, and ere the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungered, and ye gave me meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink. I was a stranger, and ye took me in. Naked, and ye clothed me. I was sick, and ye visited me. I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungered, and fed thee, or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in, or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we the sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the king shall answer, and say unto them, verily I say unto you, and as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Now, what's interesting about this parable is this. People that love work salvation, they love this passage. Because it seems like, oh, it's saying the righteous do good works. The righteous are doing that which is right. Now, what you have to understand about this parable is it's true that the righteous are doing good. What's not true is that's what saved them. This is the fruit of the righteous, but it's not what saved them. What saved them was their faith in Jesus Christ, but what we have to understand is this. Those who are saved are the only ones that do good works. And those who are not saved don't do good works. The Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please him. It's impossible to please him. I'm gonna make this more manifest to you because on the surface people would bring up all this anecdotal evidence of, well, what about this wicked person and all the good that they've done? But let's keep reading this and understand what the passage is saying. It says in verse 41, then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was a-hungered, and ye gave me no meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and ye took me not in. Naked, and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee a-hungered, or a thirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, verily I say it unto you. And as much as he did it not to one of the least of these, he did it not to me. And they shall go away in everlasting punishment, but the righteous end of life eternal. Now, what is Christ trying to say? He's trying to say, hey, if you serve God's people, if you minister unto God's people, you're ministering unto me. He takes that personally. He says, hey, if you help a little child, one of my children, hey, you're helping me. Hey, you help a man, woman, boy, child, girl, whatever, you're ministering unto me, you're blessing me. And whenever you don't help God's people, whenever you're not a blessing unto them, you're not blessing Jesus Christ, okay? Now, here's what you have to understand. The righteous are the only ones that do this. The unrighteous don't. Now, let me prove this to you even further. Go to Luke chapter number 10, Luke chapter number 10. So, those that are blessing God's people and doing good unto God's people, that's an evidence of the fact that this person's saved. Because the fruit of the righteous is gonna do good things. It's going to do good works, okay? It says in Luke chapter 10, look at verse 31, and by chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed by on the other side. So, you have an unrighteous person, the priest, what does he do? Does he help this person that's, now, I'm kind of skipping the context of this, but there's a guy who fells among thieves and he's beaten up and all his money's taken from him, and a priest walks by, sees the beaten up guy, and he just keeps on going. And then another guy walks by, just keeps on going. Then we get a third guy, verse 33, but a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will pay thee. Now which of these three thinkest thou was neighbor on him that fell among the thieves? So Jesus Christ is pointing out the person that did the right thing. What did the right person do? Well, the guy's obviously hurt, he took him in. He's a stranger, he took him in. He paid for him, he fed him, he's given him food, clothing, shelter, everything that we saw in Matthew 25. But did the priest do it? No. Did the Levite do it? No. And you wanna know why they didn't do it? Because they weren't gonna get anything in this world for it. They weren't gonna do anything in this world for it. Now, go to Philippians chapter number three for a moment. Go to Philippians chapter number three. And you may not necessarily understand what I'm saying just yet, but let the Bible speak for itself here. Because the Bible makes it clear that only the righteous do the right. And the evil people, they don't do anything good. Philippians chapter number three, look at verse 17. Look at verse 17. Brethren, be followers together of me and mark them which walk, so as you have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. So notice, he contrasts the righteous apostles with the fake apostles, the true prophets, with the false prophets, and he says, hey, you know what these false prophets are like? Their only God is their belly. Everything they do is for self-interest. Everything they do is for their own glory. Therefore, anything they do that appears righteous or appears good is actually evil. It's actually always bad. It's actually always wrong. And who really helps God's people? How many of the unsaved wicked are trying to assist you today? Go to Matthew 23, go to Matthew 23. I mean, when we see someone that's hungered or thirsty or we see someone in prison in the Bible, who is it that's ministering unto God's people? Is it the unsaved or is it the saved? It's always the saved or they're getting nothing. It's either the saved are helping them out or they're getting neglected from the needs that they have. Look at Matthew 23, verse number three. Let me prove this to you. Now, Jesus is preaching about the scribes and Pharisees, which we know are unsaved. We know they're unrighteous, okay? Look at verse three. All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. But do ye not after their works, for they say and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Notice this phrase. But all their works they do for to be seen of men. Now, how many of their works were righteous? None. It says all their works. Now, what are works? Works are things that you do that's good. But you know what? All of the good that they do is to be seen of men. Therefore, in the sight of God, it's abomination. Therefore, in the sight of God, it's not righteous. Therefore, in the sight of God, it's rejected. And here's the thing. When we contrast the righteous and the wicked, all the wicked, all their good is just garbage. All the charity donations they make, it's all for their own glory. All the alms that they do is to just sound a trumpet. All the things that they do that it makes it seem like they're good, it's all wicked. It's all evil, it's all unrighteous. Look, the fruit of the righteous is true good works. And you know what true good works are? Doing alms in secret. Yeah. Not going around blowing a trumpet about it. Hey, praying for people in private. Hey, doing good unto people not to be seen of men. That's what the real righteous are like and that's actually an evidence of who the righteous truly are. And whenever you do these things unto God's people, Christ is gonna repay you because you're ministering unto him. Go to Luke chapter 13. Go to Luke chapter 13. Let me prove this even further. Luke chapter number 13. Who prays for the sick? Well, the elders of the church are the ones that come and pray for the sick, right? When Jesus Christ is talking about people being sick, what does the Bible say in James chapter number five? Hey, if any be sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church. So it's the saved ministering unto the saved. Hey, whenever Peter's thrown in prison, who's praying for him? The saved are. When did an unsaved person show up and start talking to Paul and Silas and trying to minister unto them? The only question they have is what must I do to be saved? It was still about themselves. The unsaved is not going around blessing the righteous. The unsaved hates the righteous. The unsaved persecutes the righteous. The unsaved does not do good works. That's what that parable is teaching us and instructing us and letting us understand. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. How could you tell me that God's pleased with anything an unsaved person's doing? You can't. They don't. Luke chapter 13, look at verse 14. Look at verse 14. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day and said unto the people, there are six days in which men ought to work. And them therefore come and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. The Lord then answered him and said, thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his oxer's ass from the stall and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, who Satan hath bound low these 18 years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day. Look, there is a woman who's needing healing for 18 years. How many of the unsaved people helped her in those 18 years? Never one time. Oh, just come back another time. They just push him off. They devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. The Bible says they do their alms to be seen of men. They broaden their phylacteries. Everything they're doing is fake. It's not real. It's not sincere. Hey, the Democratic Party, it's all fake, my friend. Everything they do is to be seen of men. Oh, look at all the people that we help and we love. They don't actually sincerely help anybody or love anybody. They're actually harming them. You know, and some people think, well, I give money to the homeless. You're hurting them. That's the worst thing you can do is give a homeless person money, give them cash, offer them a job, and then you won't wonder why they're homeless anymore. You say, hey, I got a job, do you want to work? Well, what about some cash, you know? That's the worst thing you, look, what's the worst thing you can give an alcoholic? Alcohol. The worst thing you can give a drug addict is drugs. The worst thing you can give a homeless, lazy person is money. The worst thing you can give to people on welfare is more government assistance. They need less. We don't need, hey, you know what a person that's unrighteous needs? The law. They don't need the law. They don't need to be congratulated on their sin. They need some hard preaching. And at the end of the day, the righteous are the ones that do the righteous things. They feed the hungry, they give drink to the thirsty, physically and spiritually. They take in the stranger, they take in the naked. They are the ones that help the sick. They are the ones that visit people in prison. It's not these wicked Pharisees. Now go over to Galatians chapter number five. Galatians chapter number five. So point number one, the fruit of the righteous is the right salvation. Another point, the fruit of the righteous is good works. And you know who does good works? Only the righteous. That's what the Bible teaches. And that's the correct interpretation of Matthew 25. It's not to say that all you have to have works to be saved and these people that didn't have any works that didn't get saved. Look, you can be the guy, the thief on the cross, and you can still go to heaven with no works. But what the Bible is teaching as a whole, as a collective, the righteous are the ones that do the good works, and the unrighteous are the ones that don't do any good works. They do none. And specifically to God's people. When we talk about God's people, they're not ministering unto Christ, they're not ministering unto God's people. So you say, what's some evidences of the fruit of the righteous? Well, if they have the right gospel. Hey, if they're doing the right works, good works, preaching the gospel and getting people saved. But here's the last one. Another fruit of the righteous is they're gonna have the right spirit. They're gonna have the right spirit. And the Bible talks about even the fruits of the spirit specifically. Look at Galatians five, verse 22. It says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, ending one another. Now, the Bible teaches when you're saved, you have the old man, you have the new man. If you walk in the old man, you're not gonna do anything that's right. But as long as you're walking in the new man, you are going to produce the fruits of the spirit. Now, here's the thing. An unsaved person cannot produce the fruits of the spirit. They don't have the new man. They can't walk in the spirit. They can't do these things. Now, what are the fruits of the spirit? Love. Now, that might sound radical, but it's true. The unsaved do not love. And that's their mantra. Love wins. It's gonna win, but you know whose love is? God. And God's gonna win, and God's people are gonna win. But you know what? The unsaved don't love. The only person they love is themselves. The unsaved don't really love. They might give lip service to love, but they don't love. They're full of hatred and bitterness. They love death, okay? But they don't have true love. They don't have true charity. They don't have true joy. The Bible says that the unsaved are without hope. What is there to joy in when this is the only life you have and the next is hell? They have no true joy. They have no true peace. They have no long suffering. They have no gentleness, goodness. How about faith? They have no meekness, temperance. Look, the only way you get those is by crucifying the flesh and walking in the Spirit. So if you wanna have true joy, you wanna have true love, you wanna have true peace in your life, you have to crucify your flesh daily and walk in the Spirit. You have to read the Bible. You have to study the Word of God. You have to go to church. You have to actually say no to the things of this world because you know what? The things of this world, the carnal mind is enmity with God. You cannot please God. Look, the unsaved, you know how pleasing they are to God? Zero. He's angry with the wicked every single day. So what's the fruit of the righteous? Well, it's the right salvation, it's good works, and it's the fruits of the Spirit. Only the saved can produce the fruits of the Spirit. Go to Ephesians chapter five, go to Ephesians chapter five, just turn to the right in your Bible and look at verse number eight. For you are sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. You know what's one of the aspects of the right spirit? Is that you reprove dark works. That you reprove error. That you reprove false doctrine. And you know who does that? Only the righteous. You know who preaches against false doctrine? The righteous do. Hey, the righteous reprove the works of this world. All the other stuff is just junk, it's phony, it's fake, it's not real. And whenever you identify someone having the right spirit, hey, that's a righteous person. It's scary when they have the wrong spirit, though. Number 17, those last words are gonna have you turned, but I'm not gonna give you a lot of application for this sermon, I wanna give you a lot of doctrine, and then you can apply this all over the place. But there's a story in Numbers where a man named Korah, he comes and he attacks Moses, and he attacks Aaron. And he is basically putting shade on them, he's trying to say, wow, you guys just lift yourselves up, you came, you wanna be a prince over us, you wanna be a ruler over us, you know, you didn't deliver us into the land of milk and of honey, you know, you've taken us out in this wilderness. And they're really, they're kind of accusing Moses of a lot of things in this chapter. And specifically, Korah, he's mad that he's not in charge. That's what he's mad about, okay? And he wants to be in charge. Well, Moses understands the gravity of what he's saying. And he has the wrong spirit. And Moses is begging and pleading with him not to believe this, not to say these type of things. But he says, all right, you wanna see who's of the Lord? He says, take you a rod, every one of you. All these people that think that you're so righteous, you think you're so good, all of y'all take a rod and Aaron's gonna take a rod. And he says, tomorrow, God will manifest who he has chosen. God will manifest his elect. Now, look what it says in verse one of chapter 17. I'll give you a little context. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, and take every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, of all their princes according to the house of their fathers' 12 rods. Write thou every man's name upon his rod. And thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi, for one rod shall be for the head of the house of their fathers. So they all take a rod, there's all these men, there's this controversy of who's of God, who's not of God, who's the right prophet, who's the false prophet. How do we discern who is right here? Well, look what it says, let's keep reading. I love this chapter. It says in verse five, and it shall come to pass that the man's rod, whom I shall chew, shall blossom, and I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, whereby they murmur against you. And Moses spake unto the children of Israel, and every one of their princes gave him a rod of peace, for each prince won, according to their fathers' houses, even 12 rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods. And Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness. And it came to pass that on the morrow, Moses went into the tabernacle of witness, and behold, the rod of Aaron, for the house of Levi, was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord and all the children of Israel, and they looked, and took every man as rod. So notice, only one rod budded. It was Aaron's, and what did it bring forth? Fruit. Now, what do the false prophets bring? They're without fruit. They're fruit withereth. They don't have anything. They don't have any good works to show for them, themselves. They don't have any good gospel to give. They don't have any good works to give, and they have no good spirit to give. They have nothing to give. And the only thing they can do is fake it. Now, their rods might have looked the same. They might have talked their big talk, but they didn't produce any fruit, did they? Look at verse nine. And Moses brought all the rods from before the Lord and all the children of Israel, and they looked, and took every man as rod, and the Lord said to Moses, bring Aaron's rod again, notice this, before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels. And thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me that they die not. So notice, he says, hey, why don't we get this rod as a testimony against the rebels? And look, you know what the rebels are? They're people without fruit. And you know what happens to Korah and all his company? They die, and they go alive into the pit. They go straight into hell, no return ticket. It was a one-way trip, all right? Never coming back. So how can we apply this sermon? Well, here's the thing. Whenever you're trying to figure out some of the unsaved, you're trying to figure out who the false prophets are out there. First of all, we can mark off everybody with the wrong gospel. Just mark them just gone, okay? But what about the people that give lip service? Well, let's look at this guy's works. Let's look at this guy's spirit. And let me tell you this, an unsaved person will never have any good works. They will never have the right spirit. And they'll eventually manifest their false doctrine outwardly. And when you look at people that are attacking you and you look at these evil people that are trying to come against you, look at their ministry and say, what kind of fruits does this ministry have? Where are all the people in their church that they got saved, okay? And then let's go beyond that. Okay, how about all the good works that they've done? Or was it works to be seen of men? Are they going around bragging about all the good things that they did? How about their good spirit? Where's their true love? Where is it that they're getting up and they're preaching hard against sin? You know, it's funny to me that everybody that I think's a really wicked false prophet, they never have protesters outside hating on them. Because they're not approving any of the dark works, do they? They don't have anybody, there's nothing to hate. The devil will be persecuting himself at that point. The devil's not gonna do that. The devil's gonna find a church that's doing something for God and attack him. Listen to Dean Miller's life story. You should listen to that sermon. There's a reason why the devil's attacking that guy. Why, because he's producing a lot of good fruit. Because he has the right spirit, okay? And when it comes to a church and you're trying to figure out, is this the right church? Well, when you see all the good works happening, you see all the right, the spirit, and you see all the people getting saved, you know it's a good tree. And when you look at a ministry, that all they're doing is taking someone else's fruit and pasting it onto their tree, they're duct taping it onto their tree, and they have no fruit to show for themselves. I mean, if someone told me, I've been soul winning for 20 years, well, do you have any converts here? No. Okay, well, where's all the good sermons that you preached? Well, I don't have any. Okay, well, what, you know, where are all the people that you've ministered unto? Where, you know, where are they at? I don't know. Okay, well, where's the spirit at? Then you start saying, this guy's not the right tree. This guy's a bad tree. And you know what, sometimes they'll say this, time will tell. Yeah, well, time's not on their side, number one. And at the end of the day, when I see a bad tree, you know what, we need to be like John the Baptist attitude and say, hey, bring forth fruits, meet for repentance. Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Let's see it. But at the end of the day, it's gonna be hard to always identify who's righteous and who's not or who's good. That's why we have all these different passages in the Bible to teach us. As a quick review, hey, they're gonna have the right gospel. They're gonna be doing good works and they're gonna have the right spirit. Otherwise, it's not the right type of tree. And check your own life and see, is there any area where I'm failing? Do I need to improve in and work on? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for this great chapter. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to preach the gospel and get people saved. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to have good works and to minister unto God's people. I pray that we would be motivated to minister unto God's people. I pray that we would have the right spirit, that you could give us more love and more joy and more peace in our lives. And not only that, but you'd also help us to improve the darkness that's out there, to preach against sin and wickedness and try to warn people and try to love them through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we thank you that you've given us all this victory and we get it through your name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.