An Evil Root Heart Produces Evil Fruits of Mind and Life! Think About It!? What Is In Your Heart Comes Out Of Your Mouth! Is That an "OH ME!" Or Is That An AMEN? Ponder That . . . !

A Devotional for Thursday August 13, 2026

From the Pen of

English Baptist Pastor John Bunyan, Author of The Pilgrim's Progress

A Tree is Known by Its Fruit

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit”

Matthew 12: 33.

An Evil Root Heart Produces Evil Fruits of Mind and Life! Think About It!? What Is In Your Heart Comes Out Of Your Mouth! Is That an "OH ME!" Or Is That An AMEN? Ponder That . . . !

Thus . . . a man [is] made righteous even of God by Christ or through his righteousness. Now if . . . a man is thus made righteous, then in this sense he is good before God. Before he has done anything of that which the law calls good before men. For God maketh not men righteous with this righteousness, because they have been, or have done good, but before they can do good at all. Hence, we are said to be justified while ungodly, even as an infant is clothed with the skirt of another, while naked, as touching itself (Romans 4: 4-5). Works therefore do not precede but follow after this righteousness. And even thus it is in nature, the tree must be good before it bear good fruit, and so also must a man. It is as impossible to make a man bring forth good fruit to God, before he is of God made good, as it is for a thorn or bramble bush to bring forth figs or grapes (Matthew 7: 15-16).

But again, a man must be righteous before he can be good; righteous by imputation; before his person, his intellectuals, can be qualified with good, as to the principle of good. For neither faith, the Spirit, nor any grace is given unto the sinner before God has made him righteous with this righteousness of Christ. Wherefore it is said, that after he had spread his skirt over us, he washed us with water, that is, with the washing of sanctification (Ezekiel 16: 8-9). And to conclude otherwise, is as much as to say that an unjustified man has faith, the Spirit, and the graces thereof; which to say is to overthrow the gospel.