Ripe Fruit

Amos 8:1-2 Ripe fruit before a Righteous God

As a trainer or preparer of sycamore fruit (figs)— he sees a basket of summer fruit—a vision suited to his capacity and harmonizing with his occupation. There is a basket of fruit which is so ripe that it has been gathered, and it is a sort of fruit—summer fruit—which will not keep, which will not keep until the winter, but which must be eaten at once. Amos sees at once that God’s purposes were now ripe with regard to His people, Israel, and that the nation itself had become ripe in its sin—so ripe that it must be destroyed! It teaches us, in these modern times, that there is a ripeness of men as well as of summer fruit; there is a ripening in holiness till we are gathered by the hand of Jesus for Heaven; and a ripening in sin till we are swept away with the rough hand of death, and are cast away into the rottenness of destruction! Spurgeon

The ripe basket of fruit was brought as a harvest offering unto God at the feat of tabernacles (booths) held in September/October. The feast was reason for joy because of the blessings of the harvest in which the fruit of the land had become ripe. This was a promise of prosperity for the future year (Boice). The link is made with sound as well as sight (Yates). The Hebrew terms for ripe (summer) fruit (qayit) and end (qets) sound alike. The word play of the two Hebrew terms identifies Israel as the basket of ripe fruit, ripe for judgement. The summer fruit signified the last of the harvest (Jer 8:20) the summer is ended. It was the last of the crop, the end of the agricultural year (Yates). The implication is the long summer of God’s patience has finally come to end, and there has been no harvest of repentance (ESV notes). Thus the finality and certainty of God’s judgement was at hand. We may see in this basket of summer fruit a picture of them. In the case of these summer fruits, there was a need that they should be at once eaten. And there is a need when a nation has become ripe in sin that it should be given up to destruction! There are such things as national sins, and there are consequently such things as national punishments. Spurgeon

God always times His decrees. He is never before His time, and He never is so much as a single hour behind . . . God is always wise and always proves His wisdom, not only by what He does, but by the time when He does it.

Spurgeon mentions two Great events which illustrate God’s perfect timing:

Incarnation: God had promised (Gen 3:15) that the seed of the woman would be born who would bruise the serpent’s head. He revealed through the prophets and practices of among the Israelites the character and coming of the Messiah (Heb 1:1-2). But for thousands of years the Lord came not, although sin was rampant, and the darkness dense, nothing could excite the Lord to an unwise haste. Nor, on the other hand, did He stay beyond the proper hour, for when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, made under the Law (Gal 4:4). In Heaven we shall probably discover that Christ came to die for our sins precisely at the only fitting moment, that in fact, Redemption’s work could not have been so wisely accomplished at the gates of the Garden of Eden as on Calvary; and that the reign of Herod and the Roman Caesar afforded the most fitting era for the Sacrifice of the Cross.

Second Coming We are apt to say, “Why are His chariots so long in coming? Do not the virgins sleep because the Bridegroom tarries, the wise as well as the foolish, have they not all slumbered and slept?” (Matt 25:1-13). And many are the servants who say in their heart, “My Lord delays His coming,” and are ready, therefore, to beat their fellow servants, to drink and to be drunk; but cheer your hearts, you who look for His appearing, He will not come too hastily, for why should the sun arise until darkness has had its hour?(Matt 24:46-51). Nor will He delay His appearing one moment beyond the proper time, for should not the sun beam forth in the morning? We know and are persuaded that when He shall stand a second time upon the earth, it shall be as much the fullness of times for Him to come, as it was the fullness of time when He came at first! When His feet stood on Calvary, they stood there in good time—and when they shall stand on Mount Olivet, and when He shall judge the nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, then, too, shall He come at His proper time, and His proper season. Watch then, Beloved, watch and wait earnestly; be not discouraged or cast down; “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years are but as one day.” (2 Peter 3:1-1, 2 Thess 2:1-17, Matt 24:29-44, 1 Thess 4:13-5:11) He shall come and you shall behold Him in His Glory, and shall be partakers of the splendor of His reign. Spurgeon

Learn this great Truth of God of the ripeness of God’s purposes to your own Life.

The arrivals of Christ are well-timed, as is every act of God! The time when you were called by Divine Grace was the proper time for you to be converted. That hour when Jesus looked on you with an eye of love, when you were dead in sin, was a time of love, and it was a time of wisdom, too. God did not wait too long, else you might have been driven to despair or to desperation in sin. He did not come too soon. You may have wished that He had come before, but doubtless He had some end to serve, that in permitting you to learn more fully the lesson of your own sinfulness you might be the better prepared to adore the Infinite, matchless, Sovereign Grace, which has now plucked you as a brand from the burning! Your calling, I say, was well timed. It came to you not as unripe fruit shaken from the tree, or beaten off by hailstones, but as fruit that was gathered in its season. So, mark you, shall it be with all that occurs to you in life. Your trials always come to you at the right moment. Do you doubt it? Do you say that troubles always follow troubles? That they are not equally enough distributed, and that you generally receive one severe blow just when your strength and patience have been exhausted by the endurance of another? Ah, this is the language of your reason, but the language of your faith should be, “Great God, I leave my times and seasons in Your hands, for well I know if You smite me again, and again, and again, it is that You may multiply to bless me, that my manifold trials may produce in me manifold blessings.” So be of good cheer, my Hearer; I know that in looking back, you have seen that your troubles have come to you at the right time. Have they not always come just when you had strength to bear them, or else, have they not come just when they were required to wean you from this world, to deliver you from carnal security into which you had well-near fallen? Or to wake you up from some deadly slumber of indifference, which might have destroyed you? And mark you, as your trials, so your deliverances! You want deliverances now; God will not give it to you in your time, but in His. He will not send to you His mercies before their date; you shall wait until the tribulation has had its perfect work, by producing patience; then the hour of your extremity shall be the hour of God’s opportunity. He knows when your strength is spent, and you are ready to perish—then shall the Sun of Righteousness arrive with healing beneath His wings! Your deliverances from trouble shall always come to you in time enough; but they shall never come too soon, lest you be proud in your heart. Learn, Believer, to be resigned to God’s will! Learn to leave all things in His hands! It is pleasant to float along the stream of Providence. There is no more blessed way of living than the life of faith upon a Covenant-keeping God—to know that we have no cares—for He cares for us; to know that we need have no fear—except to fear Him; to know that we need have no troubles, because we have cast our burdens upon the Lord, and are conscious that He will sustain us Spurgeon

We need not fear Death Acts 23:11, 27:21-26, 28:5-6

Consider the day of our death and gain great confidence to continue boldly and steadfast: —to feel that, “plagues and death around us fly, but until He pleases, we cannot die.” We may walk among a thousand graves, but no grave shall open its mouth for us! We may stand where pestilence is blazing forth, and devouring the nations as the fire devours the stubble, but we must lie secure! We are immortal till our work is done! God’s purpose for our death shall not be fulfilled till that purpose is ripe, and surely we would not have Him wait longer than His appointed time. I take this first head by way of cheering my own heart and yours; for I am persuaded that the Doctrine of Predestination—the blessed truth of Providence—is one of the softest pillows upon which the Christian can lay his head, and one of the strongest staffs upon which he may lean in his pilgrimage along this rough road. Cheer up, Christian! Things are not left to chance—no blind fate rules the world! God has purposes and those purposes are fulfilled; God has plans and those plans are wise, and never can be dislocated! Oh, trust Him, and you shall have each fruit in its season, the mercy in its time, the trial in its period, and the deliverance in its needed moment. Spurgeon

We need not fear Discouragement Heb 12:1-11, 1 Peter 1:3-9

You see it—the basket full of fruits—quite ripe and requiring to be eaten. Here is the picture of what some of us are, and what all of us must be. With the righteous man there is a time of ripening. In one sense, the moment a man is converted he is fit for Heaven. In another sense he is not fit—otherwise God would take him at once to Himself. The Christian, when first converted, is but a bud upon the tree, a mere blossom. There is need that he grow unto perfection and that that fruit should become ripe fruit. Christians are every day ripening by the perfecting power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3: 18), without whom they can never advance in the Divine life!

Spurgeon suggests that the Holy Spirit uses means.

Ripened by the care of God: the great Husbandman who looks for fruit from men, and walks among the trees each day, and bids the sunshine of His love and the dew of His kindness fall upon them, that they may bring forth much fruit. They are ripened by every Providence which passes over them! The cold wind ripens them. Even winter’s frost, which might destroy our fruit, ripens that which grows in the Garden of the Lord. The sorest tribulation which ever exercises a Believer is a ripening dispensation, and is making him ready to stand in the full development of his grace before the glory of his Father’s Throne. In fact, without affliction, no Christian can ever ripen! He is like the sycamore fig of Amos—there must be the scratching of the rind of the fruit—there must be a bruising with the iron comb, or else the Christian will not become ripe. We may grow in some things by prosperity, but true ripeness in Divine Grace can only be obtained in adversity (Acts 14:19-22)! Our cares, our losses, our crosses, our depression of spirits, our temptations from without and from within—these are all ripening dispensations—they are making us ready for the time when our beloved Lord shall come and gather us into the basket!

Ripened by the knowledge of Him— We are being ripened each day by what we hear under the ministry, and by what we read in God’s Word. The means of Grace co-act with God’s dealings in Providence. We are learning each day what we knew not before. We begins to comprehend with all saints what are the heights and depths, and lengths and breadths, and he knows the love of Christ, which passes knowledge (Eph 3:19, 2 Kings 22:11). Things which were mysterious to us, once, are now plain enough. We are no more a child in knowledge, but has become a man in understanding (Eph 4:11-16)! We shall ripen in knowledge until We will know even as we are known.

Ripened by Experience. That experience of his which was but as a little unripe fruit, has now swelled out into the full orb of the ripening. We have felt and tasted and handled of the good Word of God; religion is not a theory to him now—it is a matter of fact!

Ripen by Spirituality. He becomes less worldly; he shakes off more and more the cares which once were chains to him; he bears his trials more easily than he once did. A great wave that would have drowned him, now merely washes his loins with its foamy crest. He is not afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. . You listen to him; you watch his daily walk and conversation; he is one from whom you may learn much; a person who is to be imitated—for there is a sweet smelling perfume of fellowship with Christ about him in all that he says and all that he does! He is a ripe Christian, ripening for Heaven;