By Their Fruits

The Savior told the Nephites, as He did His disciples in Jerusalem, that we should judge false prophets based on their fruits: "He shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit....  Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them" (3 Nephi 14:16-17, 20).  This seems fairly straightforward--if you want to judge whether someone is good, you look to see if their fruits (or works) are also good.  For example, a charitable person will do works of charity, a humble person will show humility in his or her actions, and a forgiving person will actually forgive people.  Mormon many years later appears to have been paraphrasing this idea when he spoke to the people of the church in his day.  He told them that he judged they had "obtained a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord" and that he believed this because "of your peaceable walk with the children of men."  He continued, "For I remember the word of God which saith by their works ye shall know them; for if their works be good, then they are good also" (Moroni 7:3-5).  At face value this seems to say that if we observe someone do good works, they must be good.  Someone who gives money to charity or prays to God or lends service to another must be good because their work is good.  And so Mormon had observed his people's good works and therefore judged of their goodness--it seems simple and an easy measuring rod to judge. 

But the subsequent statements from Mormon suggest that it is not that simple and that we must look at more than the outward appearance of works performed.  He said, "For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing.  For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness.  For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.  And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such" (Moroni 7:6-9).  In other words, it's not enough to simply look at the act someone does to know if they are good or evil, because the wicked can perform actions that appear good but stem from evil desires.  One can offer a gift (showing an outward sign of a good act) but not really mean it, and someone can pray to God but not do it with real intent.  This seems to imply that we have to know deeper than whether or not an act appears to be a good thing from the outside—perhaps it is like just observing that fruit exists and appears to be good versus actually taking the fruit and tasting it.  When you taste good fruit, you know at that point that the tree indeed is good; but if you only observe that the fruit looks proper from the outside you may not be judging it properly.  This is the kind of thing that the Savior condemned some of the Jewish leaders of.  He said to them, "Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness" (Matt. 23:27).  In other words, the fruit was present and appeared to be good—even "beautiful"—and yet all of their praying and donating money and professing faithfulness to the law amounted to nothing before the Lord because their hearts were wicked and murderous.  Gratefully our job is generally not to be the judge of others’ true intentions—but we do have to be the judge of ourselves.  Perhaps the most important question is whether we ourselves not only do good, but do it with the heart that the Lord requires.  In other words, is our fruit good both on the outside and inside?