Tag: Even the Wicked Bear Fruit - Jeremiah 12-16

Jeremiah 12:2 (ESV Strong's)

You plant them, and they take root;

they grow and produce fruit;

you are near in their mouth

and far from their heart.

Tag:  The Wicked Bear Fruit

The above passage is a prophecy from Jeremiah about the wicked - those who reject God’s Word and ways.   The entire prophecy is about God bringing the wicked down and their ultimate punishment.   Just a couple of verses later we read:

Jeremiah 12:4 (ESV Strong's)

How long will the land mourn

and the grass of every field wither?

For the evil of those who dwell in it

the beasts and the birds are swept away,

because they said, “He will not see our latter end.”

The arrogance of the wicked will bring them down.  God is not mocked - whatever we sow, we reap.   Yet, the truth we can also see in the above verse is that God “plants” the wicked and they “produce fruit.”   We need to recognize that the wicked can produce fruit.   We are not told the type of fruit that is produced, but we do see that their lives are fruitful.   There are several things we need to know about this “fruit,” however:

1.  The fruit is produced because God enables it to be produced.  The entire point of the verse is to declare that God has planted them, rooted them and used them to produce fruit.  Whatever the fruit is, it is not theirs to claim.   

2.   The fruit does not produce a righteousness for them.  They are not credited righteousness as a result of their fruit bearing.   This fruit, whatever it is, does not put them in a place of favor for God.   

3. The fruit does not negate their wickedness of rejected God’s truth and God’s plan.   Even though they were producing fruit it was not causing them to turn to God, but rather away from God. 

4.  The fruit did I not prevent God’s discipline of them.   This chapter is about Jeremiah’s prophecy about their certain destruction.   Whatever the fruit was that they produced it was not something that would prevent God’s judgment.   

What we can see is that wicked men, if they bear any fruit - any good in this life - it is because of God’s flavor and it is because God allows it.  But, it is not the fruit of righteousness.  Paul prayed for that type of fruit over the Philippians:

Philippians 1:9-11 (ESV Strong's)

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

God produces the fruit of righteousness in our lives.  But, not all fruit God produces in the lives of men is righteous fruit.