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Flip over, if you would, to Matthew chapter 12, just a couple pages to the right in your Bible. We'll come back to Matthew 7, but in Matthew 12, 33, the Bible reads, 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. And the title of my sermon tonight is, The Tree is Known by His Fruit. Now first of all, let's talk about what the Bible means by fruit here. We just read in Matthew chapter 7, the famous passage that said, Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves, ye shall know them by their fruit. What is he talking about in regard to fruit there? Well first of all, turn to Psalm 132. Right in the middle of your Bible is the book of Psalms. Go to Psalm 132, and we'll talk about what he means by fruit. Now on just a literal level, when he says the tree is known by his fruit, if we were to walk around an orchard say, and look at the trees, most of us would identify that tree by what kind of fruit is growing on the tree. Most of us would not be knowledgeable enough to be able to distinguish an orange tree from a grapefruit tree, from a lemon tree, simply by looking at the leaves, or the trunk, or the bark. Now someone who is an expert would be able to look at those things and immediately know, hey, this is an apple tree, this is a plum tree. Well, okay, plum trees are kind of easy to spot, but you know, most of us with less knowledge, we would check the fruit right away and say, oh, this is a banana tree, this is an apple tree, this is a cherry tree, et cetera. And so Jesus is using this illustration that's very obvious on a physical level that we identify trees based on what kind of fruit grows on that tree. And he's saying in the same way, that's how you identify false prophets, you'll know them by their fruits, just as a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. But when it comes to human beings, and we want to talk about human beings bringing forth fruit, obviously we're not talking about a literal fruit of apples and oranges. Obviously it's symbolic, it's a metaphor. Now when the Bible talks about people bringing forth fruit, first of all, there's the physical fruit that people bring forth, which would just simply be having children. You see, when the tree is producing fruit, it's going through a reproductive process. It's multiplying. And in fact, the first time we see the subject of bearing fruit in the Bible is in the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, where it talks about how everything brought forth after its own kind. The cattle and the creeping thing brought forth after their own kind. The plants brought forth after their own kind. Same exact principle. And he tells Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. He's talking about them physically reproducing and having children. Look down at your Bible there in Psalm 132 and look at verse 11. The Bible reads, the Lord hath sworn in truth unto David, he will not turn from it, of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. So what's the fruit of our body? Obviously that's referring to a child. And when David gets this promise that the fruit of his body is going to sit on that throne, first of all, it's referring to his son, King Solomon. And then beyond that, it's referring to the fact that Jesus Christ, the son of David, would eventually sit upon that throne of David, his father, the fruit of his body. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 11. On that same note, I'll quote for you from Romans 7 verse 4, wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. All throughout the Bible, the fruit of the body, the fruit of a person physically is talking about them having children, being fruitful. Deuteronomy chapter 28, when it's talking about the different blessings that would come upon the children of Israel if they obeyed the Lord, it says, Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle. Okay, so when cattle is fruitful, obviously we're talking about more cattle. And when a fruit tree is fruitful, we get more fruit. If it's an apple tree, we get more apples. If a human being is fruitful, we have little humans running around. Everything brings forth after its own kind. So our physical fruit is pretty easy to understand. It's when we have children. But the spiritual fruit is found in Proverbs 11 verse 30. It says, The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. So through soul winning, winning souls, winning someone into Christ, that is being fruitful. You're basically reproducing. I mean, if we have one saved Christian, and then they preach the Gospel unto someone else, and then that person now gets saved, well, now we've become fruitful because we've multiplied. Now there's two of us. And then if me and that person were to go out and talk to a couple other people and get them saved, and then there'd be four of us, well, we've multiplied. We've brought forth fruit. We've reproduced, just so that everybody understands what it means to be fruitful. Now go over to Matthew chapter 23, and we'll see the fruit of the false prophet. So we see the fruit of the righteous, the fruit of a godly Christian who's bringing forth fruit, who's multiplying. It's when they win a soul, which makes perfect sense because when a lemon brings forth fruit, when it produces a tree that's a tree of light that brings forth more fruit, it's going to be a lemon tree every single time. And when the apple reproduces, we're going to get more apples. When the cow reproduces, we're going to get more cattle. And when we as believers reproduce, when we're fruitful, we get more believers. That's why when the Bible talks about Christians bringing forth fruit, it talks about them bringing forth fruit, some 30, some 60, some 100. It's quantifiable. Now a lot of people mistakenly will say that when we bring forth fruit, that's the fruit of the spirit, they'll say. Well that's the fruit of the spirit. That's not the fruit of the Christian, that's not the fruit of the righteous. See the spirit brings forth fruit. God is love. When he reproduces, he brings forth love. He brings forth joy. He brings forth peace because he is the prince of peace. Those are the things that the Holy Spirit does in our lives. He gives us love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness. These things come from him. But what is our fruit? What is our reproduction? It's when we win someone unto Christ. It's when we preach the gospel and get someone saved. That's why that person is known as our son in the faith. That's why Paul over and over again when he talks about people that he had won to Christ, he calls that person my son in the faith. That's why he talked about Onesimus in the book of Philemon, whom I have begotten in my bonds. Now he's not saying hey while I was in prison I fathered a child. No he's saying when I was in prison I won somebody to Christ and this guy is my son in the faith. Not a physical son but a spiritual son. Why? Because there's reproduction that took place there when we win someone to Christ. But the false prophet also reproduces himself. He also produces an evil fruit. Look at Matthew 23 verse 15. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte. Now a proselyte is a convert from one religion to another. He said 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 they are reproducing also by taking people and ruining them. And turning them into a false teacher and a false prophet and a hypocrite just like they are. That's the fruit of the false prophet. Go to Jude. We're going to be back in Matthew 7 in a moment but go to Jude, second to last book in the New Testament right before Revelation is the book of Jude. I'll start reading in verse 11 while you're catching up there. Woe unto them. And by the way Jude is a book that's about false prophets. It's parallel with 2 Peter 2 which is also about false prophets. When he's describing these false prophets he says in verse 11, woe unto them for they've gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward and perished in the gainsaying of Corey. These are three false prophets from the Old Testament that God lifts up in an example of what a false prophet is like. He says in verse 12, these are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds. Watch this, trees whose fruit withereth. So they're producing a garbage fruit, a withering fruit. And then the next phrase he says without fruit which he's saying without legitimate fruit, without any fruit that's actually worth anything because that which is produced is corrupt and withereth. And then he says without fruit twice dead. Remember how it said that they can pass sea and land and make one proselyte and when he is made they make him twofold more, twofold more the child of hell than themselves, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. So notice here he says that they are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you. This is parallel with 2 Peter 2 which states that there shall be false prophets among you that will privily come in and they've crept in unawares Jude said. How are we going to identify these people? Well the tree is known by his fruit. Now go to Matthew chapter 7 where we started. How do we identify the false prophets? Because they are according to the Bible wolves in sheep's clothing meaning that they will impersonate a righteous person. They might outwardly appear righteous unto men but inwardly their heart the Bible says could be full of extortion, excess, they could be whited sepulchres that appear beautiful outwardly unto men but inside they're full of rottenness and dead men's bones. How are we going to identify these things? And this is all introduction because I'm going to get into some examples in our lives where we should always identify the tree by its fruit because the tree is known by its fruit and a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. So these are words of wisdom if you want to discern between the righteous and the wicked as Malachi chapter 3 stated this morning and between him that serveth the Lord and between him that serveth him not. And so look if you would at Matthew chapter 7 verse number 15 it says beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye 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 is cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Now the first thing I want to point out here is that this scripture is often misquoted and misapplied that you can tell who's saved by their fruits. Who's heard that before where they say hey well the only way we can tell if somebody's saved is by looking at their fruits. Now that's taking this passage out of context because that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about false prophets. He doesn't say you'll know the saved by their fruits. Is that what he says here? No he says you'll know false prophets by their fruits so you can tell a good prophet by his fruit and a bad prophet by his fruit but this is not a test of salvation. That's not what's being taught here and here's the difference. What if we had a tree that doesn't produce any fruit? Does that mean that that tree is not really a tree? I mean isn't it possible that a tree could exist, not have any fruit on it, never produce any fruit but it was a real tree all along? Okay how about this is it possible there could be a human being who lives their entire life never has a physical child and they were still human? It's pretty obvious right of course but if they have a child it better be human and it's possible for an apple tree to never produce any apples but let me tell you something if it produces fruit it's going to be apples. It's not going to be oranges, it's not going to be bananas and so the tree is known by his fruit but what's being represented as a tree here is a prophet, a preacher. The preacher is a tree. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise and when I say preacher I don't just mean a pastor, I mean anybody who's opening their mouth and preaching the gospel. You know if you go door to door and you're knocking doors and you're giving people the gospel and you're telling people about Jesus and you're preaching salvation unto them you know you're a prophet in a sense, you're a preacher in a sense because you're speaking forth God's word right? Whether you're behind a pulpit or not, whether you're a pastor of a church or not, man woman boy and girl who open their mouth and preach the word of God are preaching and they can be fruitful and they can win souls unto Christ and they can bring forth fruit unto God. Man woman boy girl some 30 some 60 some 100. If you are preaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ, if you are one of the true sheep of God's hand, when you bring forth fruit it's going to be good fruit. You're going to win people to Christ, you gave them the correct gospel, you preached it to them, they got saved and you have somebody who's actually a Christian now, somebody who's actually a born again child of God. Whereas if you're a wolf in sheep's clothing, if you're an evil person and you're preaching lies, you're preaching false doctrine or you might even give lip service to some true doctrine and to some true things but secretly you're coming in with damnable heresies, you're like a Judas, you're like a Corey, you're like Cain, you're like Balaam, you know these various false prophets that are mentioned, your fruit is going to be rotten fruit and what you're doing is destroying lives at that point. See the false prophet, the wolf in sheep's clothing that creeps in unawares, he is a destroyer. He's not one that's bringing forth good fruit that's beneficial to the kingdom of God and that's where people are being saved and on their way to heaven. He's actually making people two fold more the child of hell by teaching lies. You think of the Jehovah's false witnesses going door to door. I always think of the Jehovah's witnesses, so called, every time I'm reading the book of Proverbs and I get to that verse that says a false witness will utter lies and it says the faithful witness is going to deliver souls and the false witness is going to utter lies so I always think of them bringing a false gospel. That's a corrupt tree, that's a false gospel and they are bringing forth evil fruit. They're deceiving people and teaching them lies that hey, Jesus didn't die on the cross for you. You're not going to go to heaven when you die if you believe in Jesus. They say hey, hell's not a real place, it's just all figurative, nobody's burning in hell. They deny the core doctrines of the Bible, they deny the bodily resurrection of Christ, they deny that Jesus died on the cross, they don't believe in heaven and hell, all these different things. That's a corrupt tree. You're never going to get any good fruit out of that. Well they're doing some good. No they're not. It's a corrupt tree bringing forth evil fruit. False prophets are identified by their fruit. We should look at the fruit of a preacher or the fruit of a church and we can tell something about that church. What kind of work is being accomplished? What kind of converts are coming out of that ministry? Are they true, saved, born again Christians or are they phony, false teaching heretics and devils? This is how we identify the false prophets. One thing I was thinking about with this is why there's a problem with these kind of internet only preachers where they don't actually have a real church where they preach but they're just kind of an internet guy. Internet preacher, internet pastor and in many ways the same thing could go for in the past the TV preacher, TV pastor in many ways but when we think of the internet only preachers, how do we check their fruit? How do we even know what their fruit is when there's no physical location we can show up and check it out? It's all just internet only. There's no address where we could type in that address into a GPS and physically go there and show up and do a little random fruit inspection, just kind of check things out and see, hey what is the fruit of this ministry? What's being accomplished for God? No, we have no idea and there are so many frauds and charlatans on the internet because of the fact that you can't physically go there and check it out so people are tricked and they're deceived by it because it's all an illusion, it's not real. Now somebody sent me a link recently and they said, hey is this a real church or is this guy for real, is this a real pastor? And I went to the web because this is one of these kind of internet only guys so I went to his church's website and here's what I noticed, no service times and no physical address. Now that right there should show you this is not legitimate. A real church doesn't hide their address and have no published service times. It said, well if you're looking for service times or if you want to visit us, just give me a call, just give me a call if you want to get the service times. I mean that doesn't, come on, what kind of games are you playing? I mean a real church doesn't hide. They publish the address and say, hey this is where we are, why? Because the goal is to grow, the goal is to reach people, the goal is to preach from the housetops and say, hey here we are, come on down, you know, come and visit our church not to sit there and just say, well give me a call and we'll talk. It's because it's a fake church that's why and people on the internet are being sucked in because they haven't gone and shown up and done a physical check. You know it's funny there's this guy and this is a perfect example of you know the tree is known by his fruit. There's this guy on YouTube and this guy cracks me up so much and I've never actually talked about this guy by name but I feel like, I feel like it's time to talk about this guy because he's earned it. This guy has made literally over 200 videos specifically attacking moi and so you should get something for that. I mean you should get some recognition when you've created that. I mean I appreciate this guy drawing so much attention to the truth and so he's made literally two to three hundred videos. I don't know the exact number. He's earned a pulpit mention. He's arrived. All right. So this guy, his name's Brian Denlinger. Who's seen these videos? Aren't they a riot? So you know Husky whatever the tag 39XP whatever but anyway this guy is a riot. He made, I remember he made a video like two or three years ago and he said all right everybody this is my last video I'm making about Steven Anderson and I kid you not a week later he started a whole another series of videos about me that ended up being like 50 installments. So I mean this guy's addicted. I mean this guy is making video after video. He's literally into the two to three hundred range of videos specifically plus I think even in a lot of the videos that aren't even about us I think he just kind of will kind of just throw me out there as like a little illustration too but anyway this guy what's so funny is that lately he's on this thing where he's making all these videos saying Pastor Steven Anderson is a Jesuit. He's a secret Roman Catholic. So this guy is falsely accusing me of being a Roman Catholic of all things but you know one other thing that's funny about living in 2016 is the way people throw around false accusations so lightly with no evidence you know there's no evidence presented hey here's the smoking gun Pastor Anderson's a Jesuit. He's a secret Roman Catholic that has infiltrated the independent Baptist movement. You know it's so ridiculous to accuse me of being that but what's he basically saying he's saying that I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing you know I'm pretending to be an independent Baptist but in reality I'm secretly a Roman Catholic a Jesuit spy now here's my question my question is if I'm a Roman Catholic if I'm a Jesuit what am I accomplishing for the Roman Catholic Church is what I'd like to know what am I what have I done for them lately because you know I I was part of producing a major film New World Order Bible versions is a strongly anti-catholic film and it's been viewed about 1.5 million times. I'm not doing a very good job as a Jesuit Roman Catholic spy you know you know I'm preaching sermons against Catholicism I mean after the tribulation has been viewed about 13 million times and it rips on Catholicism in that film you know in the first few minutes it talks about evil men are working around the clock to bring in new it's like the Pope is on the screen while it says that you know but I'm a Roman Catholic so it's like well who do we trust who do we believe you know do we believe Brian Denlinger okay or do we believe Pastor Anderson you know that he's not a Roman Catholic alright of course my mom's here she knows I'm not Catholic you know she raised me to be a Baptist she brought me to the Baptist nursery when I was a baby and you know she gave birth to me and kept me Baptist born and Baptist bread and when I die I'll be Baptist dead you know but anyway it's it's hilarious but here's here's the question how do we identify who is the false prophet here according to the Bible well the Bible says the tree is known by his fruit beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves ye shall know them by their fruits so if we wanted to check out Brian Denlinger's fruit I want to where do we show up to see that is what I'd like to know what's the address where do we show up to the church and see because supposedly Brian Denlinger is this man of God you know even though he just makes videos by himself talking into a camcorder I don't even think he goes to church anywhere to my knowledge I don't think he's a part of any church in fact I've even heard him explicitly say hey Christians need to quit going to church buildings and just worship at home by themselves with the Lord just by yourself have a little talk with Jesus but my question is where do I show up where do I go to see a fruit inspection on Brian Denlinger where are all the people that he's won unto Christ where are all his converts I want to see them and I want to do an inspection to figure out whether his fruit is rotten or not now here's the thing if people wanted to check me out and figure out whether I'm for real well all they have to do is come to 2714 West Southern Avenue Tempe Arizona 85282 and they can come down here three times a week Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night and they'll find a couple hundred people to talk to many of whom were one to Christ through my preaching through this church's ministry many of whom were baptized with these hands right here or even if they can't make it all the way out to Arizona we you know we hold soul winning marathons all over the nation they could have shown up in Atlanta where 125 people showed up many of whom were one to Christ by this ministry many of them probably half of them a lot of them and they can see the souls being saved the people being baptized and now that they can talk to those people and do a fruit inspection and figure out what they actually believe and find out that they're actually doctrinally sound and anybody who shows up at Faithful Word Baptist Church Sunday morning Sunday night and Wednesday night and walks around and talks to the people around this room will realize that the people that are in this building are doctrinally sound they are rooted and grounded in the faith the average church member not talking about the pastor not talking about the deacon the average church member in this church has read the Bible cover to cover knows doctrine on salvation very well and is a productive soul winner them themselves I mean that's just the truth that's your average church member you know I I'd be more than happy for this fruit to be inspected now you know do we sometimes have bozos in our church and false teacher well yeah the Bible always talks about weirdos infiltrating and false prophets and so forth but the vast majority of people that are here can show you this church is the real deal anybody who's been here knows that anybody who's been to our soul winning marathons and just talks to the people and by the way they're physically this isn't a chat room I'm talking about no I'm talking about flesh and blood I remember when I was a kid they had this commercial on TV on the Nickelodeon channel as a kid they said it's beyond virtual reality it's beyond any video game it's actual reality you know you go out and showed a kid going outside and he's bouncing a basketball you actually feel the ball you actually feel the air blowing it's so real I mean you'll swear it's real because it is real you know I mean I'm talking about you can actually show up and there's 250 people that actually believe and know and love and practice the Bible and they're right here come look at them come talk to them you can show up in Atlanta Georgia Portland Oregon San Antonio Texas and by the way I'm not saying just we're not the only legitimate church other great churches show up at Verity Baptist Church where my mother is a member you know show up at Steadfast Baptist Church show up at at Word of Truth Baptist Church show up and talk to people and you'll see that the fruit is good fruit it's good good good people doctrinally sound because people will say just because your church grew or just because you're reaching multiplying you know so does Joel Osteen yeah but if we went to Joel Osteen's church we'd find some fruits all right but it wouldn't be the kind of fruit that we're looking for you know some fruit cakes some tooty fruity dudes that aren't you know yeah I mean think about you know and I know and by the way one of the great things about going soul winning you learn about all the churches in your area don't you those of you who go in Gilbert you know the Gilbert churches because you'll you'll knock the doors of like 20 people from that church and they're all saved and then you're thinking to yourself okay this church must be pretty good church because I keep knocking doors of people from that church and they're all giving me the right answer that they're saved but then there'll be another church and it could even be Baptist where everybody from that church is giving you the wrong answer everybody's telling you it's works everybody's telling you lose your salvation what does that tell you about the tree see you're testing the fruit right there when you go soul winning and you're talking to the people from these churches and they're all showing corruption that tells you that's a rotten tree or it tells you that it's a good tree and honestly I'll say this every time I go out soul winning I always run into somebody who's already saved isn't that the truth virtually every if not two or three people I mean there's a lot of people that are saved in this world and especially in the United States of America I mean when I go soul winning I I virtually never go out without running into somebody that says it's all by faith you can't lose yourself a you know that knows for sure that they're safe and and that gives you a feel for what these various religions and and churches and pastors are teaching because you check out the fruit it's impossible to check out this Denlinger's fruit he doesn't have any there's nothing there there's nobody there it's just it's him and okay his wife comes on sometimes and they put on funny outfits and everything but the point is you know you can't show up at most of these places there's no evidence it's just we're just supposed to take their word for it oh believe me there's a lot of fruit from this ministry you know and by the way we're not talking about clicks and likes and and and cyber chats and and and friends you know and look those are real people I get that but you know what we don't really know some of them because we never met him or anything right kind of a difference when you're standing in front of a flesh and blood human being I know that you know a lot of people are starting to not understand the difference between real life and that which is online but there is a difference right and look I'm all for having an online ministry look our church we're streaming right now where we have three different live streams right now we're streaming to you this service being streamed to YouTube and two different Facebook channels right now simultaneously because the threefold cord is not quickly broken all right this sermons getting out one by hooker by crook you know but the point is that I'm all for internet ministry because the end like I said the other day I think the internet is like the printing press of the 21st century it's a revolutionary tool to get information out and to end to get the gospel out and to get the Word of God and sound doctrine out all for internet ministry I'm talking about internet only ministry internet only preacher because here's the thing if a ministry is reaching millions of people on the internet right but at least if there's a physical place we could go and actually do a sampling check the fruit well that's gonna assure you a lot more than some bozo that isn't even going to church anyway there's no physical place where we can go and do a fruit inspection of that fruit Brian Denlinger and so this guy yeah I just you know what he's earned it folks all right so you say why do you spend time talking about him because he you know what he deserves it he's made he's made hundreds of videos and so I it's time for me to give him the recognition that he deserves but let's move on to something else go if you would to Proverbs chapter number 22 Proverbs chapter number 22 and again the reason I bring that up I'm not just trying to get on him I'm not saying that this guy is real relevant to your life or anything but the reason I bring it up though is because it's not just him there's a lot of people like him a lot tons some of them are like him where at least at least I'll give him this at least he's being honest and he's actually saying hey I don't go to church and neither should you some of these guys pretend that they're actually pastoring a real church no no service times no physical address you know it's them and a buddy is what it really comes down to you know and by the way you know Brian Denlinger has the goal to accuse me of being a Roman Catholic I'm not a real Baptist by the way he came out with a video saying you can lose your salvation that's not Baptist doctrine I'll tell you this every single Baptist Church in the state of Arizona to my knowledge all believe in the eternal security the believer no matter how liberal they are even if it's a southern Baptist they'll still say hey eternal security the believer I mean that's I know there's some goofball Baptists in the South that think you can lose it but every Baptist where I grew up in California and every Baptist where I live now in Arizona they all believe in the eternal security he said you can lose your salvation and he said that I've lost my salvation because I'm because I spoke against the Jews he literally said he said you know when you just go against the Jews God will take away your salvation and he said you can lose it so who's the Baptist here but let's move on Proverbs chapter 22 the Bible says this in verse 6 train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it look at verse 15 foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him now when we think about this concept of the tree being known by his fruit the tree being good and the fruit grit the thing that comes to mind quite a bit is child rearing and here's why because we interact with a lot of people in our lives that are not fundamental Baptist they're not even Christians because we strongly have a philosophy of being in the world but not of the world so we don't isolate ourselves and seclude ourselves from anyone who's not a Baptist or not a Christian now I strongly believe that your close friends should be believers you know our best friends especially our wives husbands you know any a young person their girlfriend or boyfriend hey it better be another believer don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers you don't want to sit there and have your BFF be some unsaved false teacher or something you know but here's the thing though I don't believe in isolating ourselves from the world I believe in being a part of the community being salt and light in the community talking to people and not you know hiding somewhere or being in an ivory tower in a compound somewhere so I strongly believe in being in the world but not of the world okay so we have all kinds of people that we interact with whether that's through various food related groups of produce coops or you know group beef buys where people chip in and buy the whole cow and and you know we deal with things like that different organic food coops and and different groups and and you know midwives or or home birth community or homeschooling community where we interact with these aren't our best buddies or you know close friends necessarily but they're people that we interact with that we get along well with and you know what I've noticed is that even the ones who are completely liberal completely left-wing completely non-christian or if they're a Christian they're more like a neo-evangelical Christian and they're not a fundamentalist even if they are saved I've noticed that they all love our children and think wow your children are really well-behaved and they're really happy they're smiling they're happy they're obedient and they love it but here's what's funny none of these people would approve of spanking in many cases you know we'll take our kids out in public and oh your children are so nice I can't believe it I mean so many bratty kids these days look how happy your children are how good they're being but then you start talking about spanking and they get real quiet and see here's what's going on the tree is known by its fruit see they like the fruit you know we we show them the fruit and say look you know here's our time and here's what they say well you know you guys were the exception you know I've even oh I've even had people say this to me they said well I'm against spanking but I'm not against you guys spanking because you guys you guys are doing it right you know you guys are the exception but you know but they're gonna raise their one kid or two kids or whatever you know without spanking and but then but then you know after a few years and their kids got footprints all over the ceiling then all of a sudden they're saying now what was that about spanking you know why because you got to look at the fruit I mean all kinds of people out there on the internet books at the library magazine articles that'll tell you all these half-baked parenting advice and tell you all this stuff about attachment parenting or you know parenting where there's no consequences not even no spanking just no consequences or hey you never tell your children know about anything it's all positive you show them unconditional love and only positive reinforcement and it's going to be great but I'd like to see the fruit of that and guess what the fruit of that is an ugly sight the fruit of that you want to go see the fruit of that it's the kid that's throwing himself on the ground and the checkout and here's the thing look I'm not saying that my children are perfect my children disobey my children get into trouble but generally they're very happy well-adjusted obedient children all right kids you like getting a little positive mention up here so they're good kids you know listen they do dumb things they disobey but they're good kids they're generally very obedient and they're very happy that's the thing that really stands out is how happy they are but I'll tell you one thing that my kids don't ever do even though they do disobey they get in trouble they get a spank I'll tell you one thing that my kids never do they never throw themselves on the ground and start throwing a fit who knows what I'm talking about each of my children has done that once in their life and they never did it again I'm just I'm just being honest they've all done it like once but oh oh they know that that's unacceptable and by the way when I was growing up I would have never done such a thing either now you say oh that's horrible because they're scared to do it yeah they're scared to do it well look how happy they are look at the fruit see you're you're like oh man I don't like this tree man it looks ugly yeah you look you're look if you're looking at spanking you're looking at the tree why don't you take a look at the fruit I mean that's really what matters at the end of the day and by the way you know obviously it's you know if you spank your children right it isn't that ugly I mean I some people don't spank their kids right some people do go overboard and just you know or treat their kid like a jerk I mean look you can be strict and spank your kids and still be loving and kind and you don't have to get angry and scream and and and and be a jerk and sometimes people go too far in that direction no question about that okay but if you're doing it right spanking is essential it's not just well it works for some people no it's essential the Bible says withhold not correction from the child for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die thou shall beat him with the rod shall deliver a soul from hell I mean it's a serious subject in the Bible he that spareth his rod hateth his son but he that loveth him chasteneth and be times it's not the whole thing it's not the whole element of child ring there's a lot more that goes into child rearing but it is a component that a lot of people don't want to face and they'll they'll try to do everything else that we do or try to do everything else that other people do and they'll try to say well I'm gonna do everything else like the Bible says but I'm just gonna skip that one component but that's like making a batch of cookies and just skipping one ingredient if you leave out a single ingredient it's just not going to work the whole thing is going to be ruined because it all has to work together and so you have to follow the whole counsel of God on child ring you know here's another example of the tree and its fruit how about the schools the public schools that's a pretty good-looking tree if you think about it because if you show up at the public schools those buildings are usually pretty impressive they're up to date they're well maintained you walk into the computer lab and you'll see a lot of state-of-the-art computer machinery it looks very nice you'll you'll go into maybe the the gymnasium and there's a nice swimming pool or are you helping her and let's just say a quick word of prayer for her real quick dear Lord we just pray that whatever the situation is Lord we just pray that you'd please just heal Lord and and please just let everything be okay dear God and and give us wisdom and dealing with the situation right now dear Lord and Lord just please bless Catherine and help her to be okay in Jesus name we pray amen I'm gonna continue preaching and let them handle that but we see a very beautiful tree there we see something that looks like it's gonna put out a great product but when we look at the actual product that's coming out of it when we look at the students when we look at their beliefs we can see that that is a corrupt tree why because we look at the evil fruit that comes out of it and that is the standard for judging anything in this world you know if you want to know whether that's a good school look at who's coming out of it you want to know if that's a good church talk to the people in that church look at the product that's coming out of that church and that will tell you whether that is a good tree or an evil tree the Bible says in Proverbs 19 27 cease my son to hear the instruction that cause it to err from the words of knowledge and the Bible says in Psalm 1 blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stayeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law death he meditate day and night and so whether it's a church whether it's a preacher whether it's a school whether it's child rearing principles whatever the case may be we need to stop and examine the fruit of these trees because there are many false prophets gone out of the world the Bible tells us there's a lot of deception out there there are a lot of bad trees out there and we need to inspect the fruit to know whether that's something that we should be listening to or not but a lot of people are just blindly listening to all these internet teachers without doing a fruit inspection or they're just blindly dropping their children off at an institution where they're going to be brainwashed in a false belief system known as atheism or agnosticism at the public school system and so as the scripture said in Matthew 12 33 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 let's bow our heads in that word of prayer father we thank you so much Lord for the opportunity to be in your house Lord and we thank you for these warnings because there is so much deception it's hard to know Lord sometimes who to trust but help us to follow your advice Lord and to check the fruit to figure out what is legitimate and what is not what is real and what is unreal Lord and please just bless us as we go our separate ways in Jesus name we pray amen