When he left us, a neighbor gave us a variety of a plumb branch which we planted in our backyard to see if we could cultivate some fruit. With the years it has become a strong tree which has been an amusement for our grand-kids when they come to visit for the strange wide form it has grown which they safely climb. But it also gives us much fruit. It usually has a lot of leaves, and around December it loses all of them and by January it starts showing the little green buds which will grow into the fruit. By May they start getting big, red and start falling, and will be constant for a couple of months as the leaves start growing back. There are so many fruits that it’s impossible to consume all, and we have to pick them for if they stay in the grass they will be bitten by I do not know which night crawler or rodents. Some of them fall already bitten. I have to go out daily and make a selection for there are many which are not completely grown to the max, or still green, or wimpy, or half eaten. So I choose the plump and juicy and the ones with no mark of having been grabbed by any claws or teeth and the rest I throw against the base of the trunk, by the roots, so they will rot there. (I saw a farmer do that once on another fruit tree. Maybe they become a food for the tree.)
One day as I was picking the good ones and getting rid of the bad ones it came into my mind that prophetic portion of the Bible in Mathew 25.32 talking about when the Son of Man comes in Glory: and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And I started thinking He will separate the “good” from the “bad” just like I’m doing with the fruit to take inside the house just the plump and juicy, oh God, how awful for the ones who did not ripe, or the ones who got bitten by the animals. I got sad because there are so many people today who do not care to learn the truth of what is going to happen in the near future who will stay behind, like in the times of Noah, when everyone laughed at him for obeying his Lord, which saved him, and all of them drowned. I cry every time I think of all those who do not care to learn about salvation and think the Word of God is fiction. I feel sorry for all those who let themselves be lied to for not searching the truth.
The bad thing about this is that whoever insists on not searching the truth will be thrown out, like I do the bad fruit now, and will rot to death. Probably we will all die, but surely we will all rise up. Jesus said: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds, to a resurrection of judgment.” (John 5. 28-29) And what do you think the just Judge who knows everything about all of us will do?
The good thing is that if we are willing to change, we can, as long as we’re still alive. All we have to do is ask Him to forgive us and accept Him as our Savior who came to this world of corruption to pay our debt shedding his blood in our place.
If we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1.9)
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