You are known by your Fruit
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 12 May 2013
Matthew 12:33-37 says, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the Day of Judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
It has been estimated that from the first 'good morning' to the last 'good night,' the average person engages in 30 conversations every day; some of you average more than that, some of you, less. Statisticians have estimated that each of us will spend 13 years of our life just talking. Words are very important in communication, but especially as mentioned in the Word of God, in Matthew 12: 37. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
Does it seem startling to you that Jesus said that your eternal destiny will be determined by your words? Let's find out why Jesus said this. In nine chapters, Christ offers Himself, His teachings and His miracles and then in the tenth chapter, He calls together men who will assist Him in that offer and in chapters 11-12, we find the open rejection of the people. Is this surprising? In reality it is not, it is just a fulfillment of John 1:11; He came to His own, and His own received Him not.
As we move through chapters 11-12, we have seen that the rejection gets worse and worse. First, there was doubt, then criticism, then indifference, then open rejection and finally, blasphemy. That is what we read in Matthew 12:22-32; that is the record of the blasphemy of the Jewish leaders against Jesus Christ.
In verse 24 the Pharisees say, "This fellow," referring to Christ, "Casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons," and that, of course, is a name for Satan. So they watched Jesus cast the demons out of a man who was blind, deaf and dumb (verse 22), they saw the amazement of the people (verse 23), who began to wonder if Jesus might not be the Messiah, the Son of David.
So they publicly accused that He did it all by the power of the Devil. They had concluded the opposite of the truth and had blasphemed the Lord and the Holy Spirit who worked through Him. They had committed the worst crime in human history. Then Jesus condemned them in verses 31- 32; He told them that that kind of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, who was at work through Christ, could never be forgiven.
In other words, if you have all the revelation there is to have - you have seen the miracles, heard His teachings, seen the quality of His life, seen His attitude, been exposed to everything there is about Him - and your conclusion is that He is from the Devil, then you are unredeemable. Their words became that which ultimately damned them.
But Jesus wants to clarify this. It is not that you are damned only by your words; it is that you are damned because your words will reveal the corruption of your heart. That is the substance of the passage. So the Lord begins to speak about what people say. He has just heard the most damning words that men have ever uttered, and so He talks about the tongue in verses 33-37.
He begins with a parable in verse 33, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit." That is a parabolic axiom, a statement of fact, a truism. If a tree is good, it has good fruit; if a tree is bad, it has bad fruit, because the tree and fruit are one. In other words, "Consider the tree good and its fruit good, or else, consider the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt."
So the Lord is saying, how can you say, when I cast out demons, which your own disciples also do, that I am evil? You've acknowledged it is a good thing to do. If that which I do is good, then the tree is good; but if I am evil, then doing that is evil, and if doing that is evil, then your own disciples are doing evil also.
They knew that disease was a result of sin; in fact, they even pushed that so far that they felt that if a person had a disease, he or she actually had sinned to get it, or their parents had. So they knew sin and disease were connected, so the healing from disease was to deliver one from the consequence of sin. They knew that was good. The healing of the blind, giving of hearing to the deaf and voice to the dumb - they couldn't deny that it was good. Jesus did good things, so He must be a good person. They should be consistent in their argument.
The character of Jesus’ life should have been clear to them from what He accomplished. If you were to look at John 10, in three different verses (25, 37, and 38), Jesus says through John's gospel, "If you have trouble believing Me," or affirming who I really am, “believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” How else can you explain what I do than that I am from God?
From the parable, He applies it in a strong way in verse 34, “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things?" That is the personalization of His parable. "What would we expect out of you but evil words, when you are evil to begin with?" Jesus was consistent in His evaluation; there was a corrupt tree, so He knew all the fruit would be corrupt. The blasphemy they uttered gave clear evidence of what was in their hearts.
Notice what He calls them: "Brood of vipers" or “children of snakes”. That was a favorite phrase used by our Lord. He wouldn't fit very well into that accommodating, lovey-dovey kind of approach where pastors are afraid to confront people about their sin and only say encouraging things. When rebuke needed to be given, Jesus gave it without hesitation.
There were several occasions when Jesus called the Pharisees a generation of vipers, and that was as strong an accusation as He could utter to them. In Matthew 23, He does that and also in Luke 3:7. The one who started calling them that was John the Baptist in Matthew 3:7. Keep in mind that this is all right in front of a large gathering of people.
Why does He select vipers? That represents the Old Serpent himself, Satan, the Devil - the original snake in the Garden of Eden. He is the father of all these other vipers. They descended from the Devil himself. They were filled with the poison of deadly legalism, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, treachery and moral filth. And they taught that to their victims as well.
After that He continues in verse 34, "How can you, being evil, speak good things?" And He applies the parable, "How could we expect anything else out of your mouths than blasphemy? Notice the statement 'being evil.' That is a strong theological statement, a statement of the depravity of the human heart. They were evil in everything they thought and did, and that is the legacy of the fall of Adam, that men are born into the world in sin.
That is why Paul says, "All have sinned," and to the Ephesians, "You were dead in trespasses and sins." David said in Psalm 51:4, "In sin did my mother conceive me." Jeremiah said, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" The Bible, from Old Testament to New Testament, shows the heart of man in all times and all circumstances, and his heart is always evil.
Man without God abides in that evil being and produces only evil products and fruit. 1 Samuel 24:13 says, "As the proverb of the ancients says, 'Wickedness proceeds from the wicked.'" So Jesus says, applying the parable, "We would expect vile things from vile people," and that is the case. They speak because of who they are.
From there, He moves to the third thing, which we'll call the principle, at the end of verse 34. Here, He directly states the principle that He has in mind, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Whatever you are on the inside is going to spill out of your mouth. That is the principle of this Bible passage.
The Pharisees blasphemed Jesus. But Jesus says, “Your blasphemy shows that you condemn yourselves because if that is what comes out of your mouth, then that is what is in your heart. We cannot expect anything different from you, being evil." This is one of the most definitive, far-reaching, and practical applications in all of Scripture.
Let's look at some terms in that principle at the end of verse 34 so that you'll understand what it is saying. The heart is the basis of our thinking - our thoughts, our mind, our will, our source of knowledge. It sometimes means emotion, but the idea here is the place of thinking, reasoning, the mind and the will.
Let's go back to Matthew 12. He says that their thinking process is blasphemous, and it will come out of your mouth. Notice He says, "Out of the abundance of the heart." He uses a word which means an overflow. It is a surplus, and the word implies an excess. It's as if the heart is full of something, and it has to have an overflow valve, and the mouth is that valve. So that when your heart overflows with thought and intent, your mouth is going to be the spill-over.
A man's character is known by his mouth. I don't have to talk to a man very long or on very many different occasions to find out whether in his heart is pure and wholesome or lustful, evil and full of dirty thinking. I don't have to listen to him very long to find out whether his heart is kind, gentle, and thoughtful, or cruel, because out of his mouth it will be known.
Go back to this principle in Matthew 12:34, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." I don't have to take time to show you that this principle is all throughout the Scripture; you can do that yourself. If you read Proverbs 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 18, the first part of Psalm 64, and many more places, you'll find this same principle illustrated or commented upon. In the New Testament, you'll find the same thing.
For example, in the familiar epistle that deals with the tongue, in James 1:26 says, "If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless." In James 3:8, it says, "No man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison."
Paul, describing the sinfulness of man in Romans 3:13-14 says, "Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." The mouth becomes the ultimate demonstration, as it were, of the evil heart. Whatever is in the heart will come out the mouth.
Let's look at the principle expanded in verse 35. He just applies it. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things." That's so simple; obviously you can only bring out what you have got inside.
If you are an unbeliever and don't know God, in you dwells no good thing. So you can't get any good out of it, because there is nothing good in there. You can only bring evil out of the treasure because evil is all there is in your treasure. You are like a computer; if there is garbage in, there is garbage out, and you can't violate that.
So the Lord says, then, that you will be judged by that. The criteria by which God determines your eternal destiny can be the record of what you say, for an evil person will not utter anything that is truly good. Only a good person made good by the grace of God and the transformation of his heart will utter good things, and evil as well, as we try to overcome the flesh.
Therefore, we come to the fourth point, the punishment in verses 36-37, "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the Day of Judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Some people have a problem believing that we will ultimately be judged on our works and on our words. This is not to negate salvation by grace through faith, but simply to show you that salvation by grace through faith will demonstrate itself in good works and good words, so that they become the objective criteria by which God can make that judgment. If Christ has never changed your heart, then you will speak words by which God will condemn you.
Look at verse 37 and the last phrase, "By your words you will be condemned." That judgment here is primarily the judgment of the Great White Throne which is the ultimate eternal judgment. Christians aren't going to be there because our sins have already been dealt with and paid for at the cross. Sure, we have sinned with our words, but ours are under the covering of the blood of Christ.
For unbelievers Luke 19:22 says simply, "Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant." You see, when God comes to the time to judge the evil people in Revelation 20, He opens books. Those books have in them all the deeds and words of these people. You can run through all the deeds and words and find no good thing, and He keeps a complete record.
We are accountable in our lives for everything that we say, and God has a way of recovering all of that and using it in that time of judgment to indict the ungodly. But it also says in verse 37, "By your words you will be justified." What does that mean? That means that a believer will be justified objectively by his words. When there is a transformed heart, there will be a transformed mouth, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Careless words speak of those words uttered in a thoughtless way, the careless words that kind of just escape. When we get angry, we get upset, anxious, fearful, irritated, frustrated, and then it comes out - those careless words that came out accidently. The real you will come out when you speak in anger, in hatred. Now go back to verse 36. Consequently, we have to give an account for every idle word that we speak.
This is tremendous accountability for "Every idle, useless word." Take the unbeliever. How does this relate to him? He is the main object, because Jesus is speaking here about the Pharisees. Their words are useless in promoting the Kingdom of God and advancing the name of Christ and exalting God's glory.
The Bible says they are evil words, for the mouth of the wicked pours out evil words. They are lustful words, for the lips of an adulterous woman drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech. They are deceitful, for the tongue is a deadly arrow which speaks deceit. They are cursing words; his mouth is full of curses. They are oppressive words; his mouth is full of oppression, says the Scripture.
Christians are also accountable to God for what we say. We have to learn to tame our tongues too. There are those good things, those times we praise and thank God, those times we exalt Christ, and speak truth and wisdom, when we utter those words that prove we are the redeemed. But then there are those times when that bitter water comes out of the same fountain and James says, "These things ought not to be."
Paul says, "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt." Our speech should be spiritual, wholesome, fitting, kind, sensitive, loving, purposeful, edifying, gentle, truthful speech, and we should pray what the psalmist prayed in Psalm 141:3, when he said, "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips." Let us pray.