Jesus said, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:43-45)
We don’t really have an out like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. When Glinda asks, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Dorothy replies, “I’m not a witch at all. Witches are old and ugly!” If only the world presented evil people as visibly old and ugly. (It doesn’t.) Satan himself masquerades as “an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). The world continually deceives us into thinking of shades of gray goodness when God’s Word portrays good vs. evil as very much black and white.
In recent days, Dan Bongino (formerly a podcast host and Secret Service Agent) and now Deputy Director of the FBI startled many with this post on X.
What “shocked [him to his] core” is likely the same thing that James O’Keefe (formerly of Project Veritas) mentioned as amplification within days.
There are two groups I’d like to discuss with respect to fruit, deceivers both…and the types of people that Bongino and O’Keefe likely encountered as they discovered the intensity of a spiritual battle before them.
First, there are those who look perfectly good on the outside but are rotten to the core. The same kind who can commit evil, atrocities even, with a smile on their face with a firm and friendly handshake that doesn’t hint at the evil within. What O’Keefe refers to as the lack of conscience and darkness in men’s hearts. It’s not just the hate mail, rage posts, and death threats that display an ugliness in the soul seeping through a highly polished exterior. No, it’s the evil in its purist form that remains hidden. Only when one ventures close enough can one sense it: the evil that remains hidden to visibility but is felt unmistakably in the spiritual realm. Yes, that’s the kind of moral betrayal that shakes one to his core, and after seeing its reality, one is forever changed in his views of good and evil. It’s this spiritual darkness that we do battle against as Christians.
Second, however, are those who are supposed to produce good fruit, but through a lack of abiding, and a lack of faithfulness, or through downright betrayal, they’re barren instead. They seem so benign, but they deceive as well. They are the Christian pretenders whose good fruit is not evident beyond, perhaps, some token bits. On one extreme, there are columnists, for example, who identify as Christian but out in the public square, they proclaim a very different message and side with the devil every chance they get. On the other extreme, there are the proclaimers of Christ who secretly betray us. Somehow, we’re still surprised when a Christian leader turns out to have committed great evil against his flock, his frock, and his God.
Each of those is the Judas in our midst, the same dark heart that would share in Jesus’ ministry but betray Him in the end. Sad to say, the devil still has his servants working in the world, producing evil fruit wherever they go, but managing to hide behind the smile, the pat on the back, the power, position, or prestige, and the fellowship of what portrayed itself as friendship. Only to be a betrayer of trust, a betrayer of Christ.
Remain vigilant, my friends. The battle is upon us. Bear fruit for Christ. Understand the times, and don’t let evil surprise you or shock you to your core. It’s more real … and black and white than we know on this side of heaven.