The Lord lamented that “this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted.” (Matthew 13:15) This was not merely the condition of especially wicked people. The Lord’s light was and is so advanced that very few did or do understand it. In most cases, it requires repeated attempts of teaching by lesser qualified intermediaries before you get it. The Lord’s description here probably applies to you just as well as it did the Pharisees. If you don’t already possess a certain quantum of truth, it is very unlikely that you will recognize it as true upon being exposed to it. Instead, like a scientist who lacks the instrumentation to observe a property directly, you will have to rely upon secondary evidence, what the scriptures describe as the fruits of the principle.
The Lord said:
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. (Matthew 7)
What does “good fruit” mean? Good means that which improves or benefits. The outcomes in a person’s life are determined by the light that the person lives according to. Outcomes here is not limited to a narrow interpretation.
“Good fruit” does not mean temporal prosperity. There are countless examples of righteous men from history who went through severe adversity, the chiefest of them the Lord himself. It is not in the absence of adversity that truth is manifest, but the endurance of godly character through it. When that begins to crack, when you see the limits of someone’s endurance, you will discover limits to their truth. God dwells in everlasting burnings, where he endures every bit of reality pertaining to our existence. Jesus corrected his disciples’ error in supposing a certain man’s physical handicap resulted from sin (see John 9:2-3). He said that the man’s blindness was actually a blessing so that “the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John 9:2-3) When we judge, we ought to judge righteous judgment, or judgment according to God’s understanding, and not according to our sight, or man’s understanding: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24)
Trees that bear evil fruit are hewn down and cast into the fire. While this almost certainly refers to the fires of hell, remember that just as the outcomes of righteousness do not wait until after death to manifest, neither do the outcomes of wickedness. Good fruit implies the capability to endure the vicissitudes of life—not to avoid them, as in the case of the righteous blind man, but to endure them.
Higher truth can withstand greater tribulation. Light and truth is, at its root, the mechanism by which God makes us capable of overcoming the things of this world. The more suffering a person can bear while maintaining Christ-like poise, the more truth they have. Poise can be deceptive when it is granted by ignorance. A fool can be very calm in the midst of a storm, because he has no reckoning of the storm.
Bearers of truth are humble. They truly believe that everything they know is incorrect or incomplete, and therefore are least likely to dismiss something out of hand.
Bearers of truth tend to overcome obstacles. They are more prepared for and resilient to future events because they have an expanded awareness. Bearers of truth do things differently. They don’t take people’s word for it. They think and act according to what they have determined is true, not what the crowd believes is true.
Bearers of truth do not have much respect for tradition. They test things. They adopt things most people won’t consider. Because of this, they are frequently ostracized from social groups, churches, and even workplaces.
While all of these qualities will manifest in someone who possesses further light and truth, none of them guarantee it. Those who pass these tests are worth investigating, but everything they present as putative truth must still be tested.
It may seem tempting to oversimplify the testing process. We live in a generation where people are unwilling to listen to an argument that is longer than a soundbite. When you limit a message to a certain level of simplicity, you cut yourself off from anything more substantial. You would not expect anyone to convey a college course in one sitting or stream a movie in five minutes. You should assume that significant ideas will require significant time to investigate. You can’t shortcut the process by substituting your feelings for your rational process—you will almost always feel bad about any corrective instruction; this is a well-known phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. You can’t shortcut the process by offering a low information prayer to God—he expects you to lay a foundation of informed reason using the rational faculties he has given you before crowning them with revelation.
While the reward for correctly mining truth from others is great, the risk is also high. You can reject bearers of truth, and you can accept frauds.