Archive: Fake Fruit

By Mark Rutland

Desperate for employment, a depression-era farmer applied at a passing circus. At the circus office door he made an impassioned plea.

“I’ll do anything,” he begged.

At this the manager’s eyes lit up. “You’re hired,” he nearly shouted, embracing the shocked indigent. “I need a new gorilla. The old one has died, and we cannot afford to import one. We have skinned old Kong out, and I need someone to wear the suit and do the gorilla act.”

The farmer’s reluctance dissolved at the mention of a sizable salary. Pride gave way to necessity, and his new career was launched.

As it turned out, the wheat-farmer-turned-ape-man rather enjoyed it. His act was dramatic and crowd-pleasing. He would swing out over the lion’s cage on a rope and chatter excitedly at the enraged beast below. The rope was carefully measured, and any actual danger seemed minimal.

But during a kiddie matinee in Oklahoma a miscalculation brought catastrophe, and the gorilla tumbled into the lion’s cage. The lion leapt upon him immediately and, placing a massive paw on either of the gorilla’s shoulders, began to roar in his face.

“Help,” screamed the man in the gorilla costume. “Help me! Someone please save me!”

“Shut up, you fool!” the lion whispered in his ear. “You’ll get us both fired.”

Unfortunately a great deal of what passes for true Christianity is nothing more than monkey-suit religion. The calamitous condition of the contemporary church is that she has a fair idea of what a Christian looks like. Hence, she can, if only for short periods of time and with varying degrees of success, imitate it. Granted, the criterion may vary because of local or cultural differences, and some may be more gifted than others at articulating it, but the fact remains that an immutable portrait of a Christian has achieved something of a universal, if somewhat shadowy, consensus.

Revival Turns to Riot

The primitive church at, say, Colosse in the first century A.D. had no such luxury. The word Christian had never existed, and the pedantic definitions of churchmanship awaited the arrival of the 20th century.

As Paul preached revival, power exploded in the streets of a Turkish seaport named Ephesus. The flames of burning magic books lit the blue-collar neighborhoods near the waterfront. There was an initial outpouring of the Holy Ghost accompanied by a variety of spiritual gifts which gave rise to a general spark of conviction. The longing for holiness among Ephesus’ new converts began almost immediately to cut into the profits of the local purveyors of idolatry.

Revival quickly turned to riot, and Paul reluctantly yielded to the pleas of his friends and moved to higher ground. He did not leave, however, before the seeds of revival were airborne.

The Church bloomed wild. Without benefit of proper clergy or church-growth experts, the churches of Colosse and Laodicea sprang to life in the white heat of revival. Later, as wolves came upon them with the impossible burdens of law, the precious innocence of early faith began to erode.

In Colossians 1:27 Paul moved past the basic problem of the law versus grace for salvation and dealt with an even more fundamental issue: How do I live as a Christian? What does it mean to live a holy life? What is the secret of true holiness?

The secret, Paul said, “is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

The secret of the gospel and of holiness, which was hidden from Moses and Abraham, is now revealed in the Church. The secret is simply the indwelling fullness of Christ in the earthen vessels of human beings.

Some have called it the “second blessing,” the “second work of grace,” the “deeper work,” the “higher path” or the “fullness of Pentecost.” John the Baptist called it being baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost (Luke 3:16, KJV). Jesus used the same terminology in Acts 1. Call it the baptism with the Holy Spirit or call it the second touch. It does not matter so much what you call it; it matters very much that you have it.

The filling of the Holy Spirit is not an option. It is God’s command that we receive the Holy Spirit, and it is God’s promise that we may.

The heart baptized in the Holy Spirit becomes a spring of living water. As the inner heart of a person is changed, his or her outward life will necessarily change. Holiness becomes less a matter of obeying rules and more a matter of partaking of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Weeping Into the Dishwater

The absolute necessity of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not being preached in America. Consequently there is a host of nice, decent, saved, church-going housewives who find themselves weeping into the dishwater every morning after the kids leave for school, with no idea why. They know something is missing, but they do not know what to ask for.

It is for their sakes and for businessmen, high school students, missionaries and believers of every age and station who cannot seem to find the flow of real life in their faith that the baptism with the Holy Spirit must be preached.

They have believed for salvation and often can articulate their assurance, but they are unable to love, live, give and forgive with any liberty. They probably are even aware of the Holy Spirit as a comforter, guide and companion. They have not, however, found the great release of the Spirit whereby He flows from them in a river of life.

Most teachings on the fruit of the Spirit only document what the fruit is and leave its production to the hearers. So, naturally, disciples despair because, try as they might, they never seem able to manufacture the fruit.

The fruit of the Spirit, much like nectarines and bananas, can be artificially duplicated to an extent. Such fruit is, however, a waxen, tasteless and not-nutritious deception because it is manufactured, not borne. Its artificiality is manifestly and nauseatingly apparent at first bite. It is only in untouched repose on the coffee table that ersatz bananas dare to pass themselves off as genuine.

Just so, the lives of many in the Church are a constant whirl of polishing and posing-shiny, plastic apples with a dark inner reality. The genuine fruit of the Spirit is not for still life arrangements on dusty pianos. In the crucible of daily life the indwelling Holy Spirit buds, blossoms and bears the true fruit of the character of Christ.

The key to Pentecostal power is Upper Room brokenness. To come fully alive in the supernatural power of God, one must die to the world’s grasp. The corrupting clutch of worldliness will not be shaken off easily; it is a fight to the death.

Masterpieces Smashed to Pieces

I once read an anthropological study of an ancient temple in Asia. Its altar area was literally buried under shards of pottery. The study explained that the people in that region were pottery makers who regularly sacrificed the fruit of their craft to their god.

Having created their masterpieces, that work which stood to gain them the most fame and profit, the craftsmen would take the vessels into the temple and smash them to pieces before their stone god. The broken fragments were mute testimony that in sacrificial worship the craftsmen had given up all hope of gain from the vessels.

This is the perfect picture of what Hudson Taylor called “the exchanged life.” Only when I am a broken vessel on the altar of a living God can I know the power of His life in and through me.

David Seamands once said, “We receive the Holy Spirit broken in our brokenness.” I cannot, of course, know all that those words meant to him.

To me, however, they seem to say that brokenness is our lot by virtue of the Curse and our own wretched sin. As long as we cling to our brokenness, owning it to ourselves, imposing on it some fleshly semblance of wholeness, we will never know His power.

When the pride of self-ownership is broken by our brokenness and we see ourselves as we really are, in utter self-abandonment we can cast the shards of our lives before I AM; and He will receive and restore them to wholeness. God longs to fill every believer with the Holy Spirit

We must understand there are two sides to sanctification. There is that sense in which I sanctify myself to God. At the same time my dedication must be fully met by His work of grace.

In addition, He must sanctify me to Himself. The miracle is not that sinners cast their poor, broken lives on His altar; the miracle is that He receives those lives and declares them acceptable in His sight

The few verses at the end of Zechariah are provocative indeed; they speak of a new day of holiness.

On that day HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty (14:20-21a, NIV).

To the ancient Jew these must have been strange words indeed. Everyone knew the sacred, golden bowls and vessels dedicated for use in the Lord’s house were not the same as saucepans in a squalid hut. In this passage the prophet brings new light to holiness.

Holiness is not just for the religious parts of life. Peeling potatoes, no less than prayer, belongs to God. Saturday night, no less than Sunday morning, must bear the sacred inscription, “Holy to the Lord.”

Zechariah says that even the tiniest, ornamental bridle bells must be no less consecrated to God than the altar vessels. In our lives this must mean that the most peripheral, unreligious aspects in our lives must be as dedicated to God as our thoughts at a prayer meeting.

The Holiness Hounds

The frivolity of many charismatics with respect to worldliness and sensuality is an embarrassment to the body of Christ It is as though some charismatics believe that speaking in tongues is all that matters.

We have all excused much in the name of the newness and liberty of the Spirit Now, however, it is past time we lovingly confront some garish inconsistencies in the body of Christ

At the risk of being accused of legalism, surely there is some way we can point out that Spirit-filled women really ought not look like streetwalkers, and Spirit-filled businessmen and attorneys must not participate in the cut-throat ethics of the world. Immoral, materialistic slaves to fashion hardly bespeak the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus.

We cannot sanctify our hearts by changing our wardrobes or not using tobacco, but surely if our hearts are clean our wardrobes and ambitions will eventually reflect that condition.

What, however, can be the rationale for Spirit-filled people leaving their spouses because “God doesn’t want us unhappy”? How can we justify television preachers lavishing two-million-dollar homes on themselves “because God has been mighty good”?

Ironically, the holiness set has seen the ethical side of heart holiness quite clearly, yet has often missed some profound implications. Quite frankly, some of the most cold-blooded, steely-eyed, gossipy, backbiting, unloving, waspish, uncharitable people in the Church are virtual holiness hounds. I have seen some folks shout, run the aisles and hold up one hand while singing old holiness hymns, only to stomp out in fury if someone dared hold up both hands. That, they believe, is charismatic!

No wonder many in the mainline denominations no longer take the holiness message seriously. If this generation is going to experience a sustained move of the Holy Spirit it must hear a gripping message of love and power.

Neither loveless holiness dogma nor flippant charismatic disregard for holy living will open the door to revival. The message for this day is nothing more nor less than scriptural Christianity.

It is the message of the changed heart, baptized in love, separated unto God and ministering in apostolic power! The primitive, unfettered, sanctified holy Church with all its graces and gifts intact is the only sufficient instrument of power to address this confused generation.

Mark Rutland is an approved UM evangelist and is president and founder of the Trinity Foundation. This article is excerpted from Mark Rutland’s book The Finger of God, published by Bristol Books in 1988.