By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12: 1-3).

That promise the Lord our God made to our father Abraham some four thousand years ago, before Abram’s name was even changed to Abraham, meaning “Father of a multitude or Father of many nations.” Now we all know that from Abraham, through his son Isaac and his grandson, Jacob, came forth the twelve tribed nation of Israel, of which the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and some Germanic peoples are descended and are the Caucasian peoples of our Western civilization as we know it today. If we look through our history book called the Bible, we will find that throughout all the years that the Israelites spent in the Promised Land, that Godly promise of Gen. 12 never really materialized.

This is in part due to the fact that God had commanded the Israelites to remain separated from the peoples round about them, lest they would fall into idolatry and serve other gods. Even during Israel’s heydays under the rule of David and Solomon, the nation was by and large an isolationist country and thus God’s promise to father Abraham could not yet be fulfilled. Some two thousand years after the promise was made to Abram we witness the first advent of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Redeemer and the Saviour of mankind. It was through His teachings, which were carried on by the Apostles and Disciples that the first of the blessings became apparent, because man was being released from the bondage to sin, under which burden he had been since the fall of Adam way back in the Garden.

We are all familiar with the account of the dispersion of the twelve tribes of Israel and how they migrated ever westward to eventually form the nations in West and Northwest Europe which would expand and come to dominate the better part of the earth. In the seventeen hundreds England, France and Holland started to colonize North America, the East and West Indies and the quest for Empire building was on its way, soon after followed South Africa and Australia. This was not prompted by a benevolent spirit toward the native and indigenous peoples, but was driven by the desire for riches for companies and the countries behind them, but nevertheless, the people in these colonized regions did come to benefit from the advanced knowledge and technology of these western colonizers. This was after the Reformation, when the Spirit of God was moving mightily among the people that had thrown off the yoke of Papal Rome. Yes, God’s blessings were starting to flow, according to the promises made to Abraham, but it was not until the twentieth century that the blessings of the Western world really became evident.

It was through our inventions and technical advancement, both in industry and agriculture that the Israelite nations of the West became the benefactor to the rest of the peoples of the world. We’ve invented everything from a bicycle to the jet engines for our airplanes and everything in between. We invented the steam engine and the combustion engine, we harnessed electricity and we invented the tractor and the harvesting machines and combines. We developed ways to grow food in places where nothing grew before. The United States and Canada alone can grow enough corn and grain to put a loaf of bread on most everyone’s table. Oh yes, God’s promise to Abraham is being fulfilled in the Latter Days!

One thing we can be sure of, once the Lord our God promises a thing, He will surely make it come to pass. It may not always be on our timetable, for we cannot know the mind of God, but once spoken it will be fulfilled and it has. “Listen to me, O House of Jacob, all you who remain of the House of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth…Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. …What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel.” (Isa. 46: 3,9,10,11,13) NIV. Yes! Our God is ever faithful to Israel, His beloved, His chosen one!
Thus if God’s promise to Israel is being fulfilled in these Latter days that we are now living in, as I have shown, then it stands to reason that there must be an entity or people that are, or used to be known as Israel, hence that Godly promise could not be fulfilled; and so that brings us to the title verse of this essay. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matt. 7:20). Jesus spoke these words in the Sermon on the Mount. Even though He was speaking about good trees and bad trees, He was not referring to actual, edible fruit, but to fruits of the Kingdom, fruits of the Spirit. In Scripture the Israel people are symbolically likened to the Olive or Olive tree, for example see Hos. 14, where as the nation of Judah is likened unto the Fig or Fig tree, see Jer. 24.    In the denominational church world and by their own contention, the Jewish people are considered to be all that is left of the twelve tribes of Israel, and thus are the Chosen People. What everyone seems to forget is the fact that Jacob-Israel prophesied way back in Gen. 48:19 that the sons of Joseph, who received the birthright, would become a multitude of nations. The Jewish people have never even come close to fulfilling that prophecy. As a matter of fact since the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by Titus, they have not been a nation except for the past sixty years. Furthermore it was prophesied that Judah, from whom the Jews claim to be descended, would never lack a lawgiver, or king, until Shiloh (Jesus Christ) come. The Jews have not had a King of the Davidic line since Zedekiah died in a Babylonian prison some twenty-five hundred years ago, another indication that they are not who they claim to be. Furthermore Jesus told the Pharisaic Jews (modern day Talmudic Jews) that the Kingdom of God would be taken from them, and given to a nation or nations bringing forth the fruits of the Kingdom. (Matt. 21:43). Thus, another disqualification.

Lastly I want to direct your attention to Matt. 21:19. It is here that we read that Jesus curses the fig tree because it bore no fruit. In Mark 11:19 we can read the same story, but Mark emphasizes the fact that it was not yet the season for figs. Now Jesus was totally aware of that fact, yet He cursed that fig tree nevertheless and said “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever.” Was Christ being spiteful or petty? I think not! Christ here made a very prophetic statement and gesture, indicating that the fig tree or rather the fig tree nation would never bear any fruit in the Kingdom of God from that time forward.

Well, my dear friends, I have laid it out for you. I have shown you what our Bible teaches and now it is up to you to decide whom that you think are God’s chosen, servant people, the one that both Father and Son love with a never ending undying love? May your service in the Kingdom be richly rewarded? God Bless.