Little Charles seems to be having lots of fun climbing the cherry tree. But if you have ever picked cherries in the heat of the midday sun, you will know exactly how Louise felt as she climbed wearily down the rickety old ladder and, heaving a big sigh of relief, emptied the fruit into the basket. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead, and telltale smudges on her hands and face hinted of the struggle she’d had—reaching, grasping, craning this way and that—trying to capture the clusters of beautiful dark red cherries, always seeming to hang just out of reach. Now after hours of hard work, the baskets were full. No time must be wasted in getting the precious fruit into the bottles and stored away for the winter ahead.
“Are you ready yet, Louise? I’ve filled my basket,” called her mother, wiping her forehead and looking up into the gnarled old tree. “My, but these cherries look good! And it’s a wonder to me because the trees are all so old and rotten.”
“Yes, I know; I nearly had a fall when one branch gave way beneath me!”
“Maybe that’s why they’re selling them for only five cents a pound, and I think we’ve earned ours; but let’s hurry, time is wasting.”
And truly, time was wasting, but it wasn’t until they had reached home and were preparing the fruit that they realized the truth. Cherry after cherry was cut open only to expose decay and rot at the heart, for nearly every cherry housed a well-established worm. Oh, the outward appearance was perfect enough, but the worms were working inside.
“Oh, Mother, after all our hard work!” wailed Louise.
With sinking hearts they looked at the empty bottles and thought of all the wasted time and effort—efforts well meant to lay up store for the future, and yet, worth nothing now.
How sad was their mistake in expecting to receive from a rotten tree, good fruit; and yet, it reminds me very much of many poor unsaved souls today, who, because they look all right on the outside, and perhaps spend their life toiling in good works, expect to inherit eternal life. Oh, how very sad it is that in that day they shall have to view all their time and efforts as wasted—efforts well meant to lay up store for the future. God’s holy Word tells us that if yet unsaved, we are “dead in trespasses and sins,” Eph. 2:11And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; (Ephesians 2:1); and in another place, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness... but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores...” Isa. 1:66From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. (Isaiah 1:6). Surely fruit or works fit for the eyes of God could not come from such corruption. God does not look on the outward appearance, as man does, but upon the heart, and He has said in His Word that our hearts are “deceiul above all things, and desperately wicked.” Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9). Nothing less than the fruit of the Spirit can satisfy a holy sin-hating God, and the Holy Spirit of God can dwell only in those who have owned their need of a Saviour and have been washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, shed on Calvary’s cross.
ML 08/29/1954