“When you shall besiege a
city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy
the trees thereof by forcing an ax against them; for you may eat of them, and
you shall not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ
them in the siege; only the trees which you know that they be not trees for
meat, you shall destroy and cut them down; and you shall build bulwarks against
the city that makes war with you, until it be subdued” (Deut. 20:19,20).
Many are the beneficial
lessons that the Holy Spirit has put before us by means of the instruction
given to Israel. We are familiar with the fact that the things that happened
unto them were our types, and written for our learning. And such is the passage
quoted above. Just as, when God commanded Israel saying, “You shall not muzzle
the ox that treads out the corn,” He had His own servants in mind (as so
clearly shown us by the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 9:9-14), so here may we not see
pictured by the “trees good for food,” these same servants in another aspect,
and made the objects of the Lord’s particular care?
The children of Israel were admonished against all recklessness and waste in felling standing timber when
they besieged the cities of the land. They were carefully to ascertain the
character of each particular tree before venturing to lift an ax against it.
All fruit trees were to be spared because they were part of God’s gracious
provision for ministering food to His people.
May we not say that God
would have us make the same distinction today? There are trees to the very
roots of which the ax must be laid; trees that are either mere cumberers of the
ground, or producing only that which is noxious and poisonous. Such are the
present day advocates of human righteousness as a basis of acceptance with God,
or the propagators of wicked teachings that deny the very foundations of the
faith. Soldiers of the Lord of Hosts may be assured of His approval when they
use the ax against these—exposing their fallacies. “Every plant,” said the Lord
Jesus, “that My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.” To oppose
fearlessly such evil teachers and denounce their doctrines and practices is in
accord with both the Spirit of the Lord Jesus and His apostles. None reproved
hypocritical pretensions more scathingly than Christ Himself. No modern
controversialist, with any claim to piety, would be likely to use stronger
words than those of John the Baptist when he sternly arraigned the “generation
of vipers” of his day. Tremendously telling are the denunciations of the
apostle Paul when necessity compelled him to meet the errors of false teachers
troubling the early Church. John, Peter, and Jude did not hesitate to decry the
antichrists, the purveyors of damnable heresies, and the ungodly men “turning
the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and
our Lord Jesus Christ,” who were creeping in among the saints and seeking to
overthrow their most holy faith.
But, be it noted, those
so solemnly accused and vigorously combated were not erring saints or brethren
with mistaken views, but they were relentless “enemies of the cross of Christ,
whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things.”
And wherever such are found today, and are manifestly proven to be such, they
should be dealt with in the same way.
But there is grave danger
lest the ax be lifted up against another class altogether—the fruit-bearing trees—whom
the Lord has forbidden our judging or condemning. Every fruit tree is the
object of His tender solicitude. Such are truly born of the Spirit, and genuine
lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ. They may at times, in their zeal for God, or
their earnest passion for the souls of lost men, overstep bounds and use
methods of which their more conservative or better instructed brethren disapprove,
but they are the Lord’s servants and He has said, “Who are you who judges
another man’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.”
The spirit of criticism
may lead to very unhappy results, and often one is in danger of finding himself
arrayed against people and movements which God is owning and blessing. The
utmost care is required to distinguish things that differ—that what is of God
and what is of Satan may not come into the same sweeping condemnation. And our
Lord Himself has given us the rule whereby we may make this distinction. He
has said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” A corrupt tree produces
corrupt fruit, whereas a good tree brings forth good fruit. In either case, the
fruit may not always be the same in quantity or quality, but it will be either
deleterious or “good for food.” Because healthful fruit is sometimes small, or
not up to the standard, one does not necessarily chop down the tree, but
rather, wisely uses the pruning knife and purges it that it may bring forth
more and better fruit.
This pruning process is
one that all God’s fruit trees have at times to undergo. Often He uses one
servant to correct and help another; but this is accomplished far better by a
kindly personal admonition, or a brotherly effort to instruct, than by unkind
criticism and a hard judging spirit. A beautiful example of this gracious care
for one of God’s fruit trees is given us in the Book of Acts, in the case of
Apollos whose earnestness and love for the Scriptures appealed to the hearts
of Priscilla and Aquila, though he was not at all up to the standard of New
Testament truth. He had not gotten beyond the baptism of John. But this godly
couple, instead of exposing his ignorance to others, or roundly denouncing him
as a legalist without true gospel light, took him into their home, and there in
true Christian love expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. What
precious and abiding fruit was the result!
It is to be regretted
that the same gracious spirit does not always characterize us when we meet
with, or hear of, those who are manifesting similar devotedness, while ignorant
of much that we may value. How senseless the folly that leads us often to array
ourselves against such servants of Christ, in place of manifesting a godly
concern for them. We thoughtlessly lift our axes against God’s fruit trees and
would destroy where we might save. Many a one who is ignorant of such precious
truth is nevertheless bearing fruit in the salvation of souls and the refreshment
of the spirits of believers; while, on the other hand, one may have a very
clear intellectual grasp of divine principles and understand much that is
called high truth, who produces very little of this same blessed fruit.
Oh, beloved brethren, let
us keep our axes sharp for the deadly trees of sin and fundamental error that
abound on every side; but shall we not seek grace from God that we may have
spiritual discernment to refrain from damaging in any way trees that are good
for food?
Satan and his emissaries
can be depended upon to bestow enough abuse on real Christians and true
servants of the Lord Jesus without their fellow servants joining in the same
unworthy business. Let us not forget the words already quoted:“Who are you who
judges another man’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” And the
Holy Spirit goes on to say, “Yes, he shall be upheld; for God is able to make
him stand” (Rom. 14:4).
(From Help and Food, Vol.34.)