Are you a person who likes sweets? If you are like many who do, the English Yew is one sweet you had better stay away from! The English Yew (taxus baccata) is an evergreen with sweet poisonous red berries and is a native to parts of Europe, Africa, Iran and Asia.
The English yew, like all the yews, contains highly poisonous berries which can be fatal to humans if they are ingested without removing the seeds. It is often found in churchyards and the plants live a very long time, often having been there before the churches were. Some suggestions as to why they are near churches are that they were planted at old pagan holy sites, where it was expedient for churches to be built. (http://www.bellarmine.edu/faculty/drobinson/EnglishYew.asp)
False Teacher English Yew Analogy
The beautiful, sweet, red berries of the English Yew are like dangerous false teachers! As the English Yew is “often found in church yards,” the same can be said about poisonous false teachers! To be more precise, many false teachers (the spiritual English Yews) are inside the churches of our day and behind the podiums! They too can be beautiful to look upon, with a very sweet ear-tickling message which is highly poisonous and spiritually fatal to one’s salvation and his relationship with God. So there are English Yews on the outside of many church buildings and spiritual English Yews on the inside. One should automatically know from this, that just going to church is not the key to salvation or anything else! One such bad experience came in from Bill, who shared terrible church experience with a spiritual English Yew.
Test Everyone and Everything
Clearly, Christians are commanded not to be gullible. We are to test, with the Bible (which is final authority and infallible) — all teachings, experiences, dreams, visions, testimonies, etc. This is something you must learn to do for yourself! You can’t just rely upon another, even a trusted loving person, who may be deceived himself! You must learn the Biblical message to identify the beautiful looking and fine-sounding spiritual English Yews, which are so prevalent and respected in our apostate day. They are all over TV, radio, in books, the internet, etc. Please know, any teaching, dream, vision, testimony, experience (including Near Death Experiences) which contradict the Biblical message, especially about salvation, must be flatly rejected and opposed. Don’t tolerate Jezebel like so many are. We are in a battle for eternity and souls. The devil’s kingdom operates on lies and deceptions. That is why GOD’S TRUTH is what the devil hates, like so many sinful people do. Remember as bad as the English Yew is to your health, the spiritual English Yew is much worse! Test everything and everyone with the Bible (1 Thess. 5:21; 1 John 4:1 cf. 2 Tim. 3:16,17)!
English Yew and Marijuana Argument
Soul winners confront all types of people.
Some try to wickedly defend getting high on alcohol or marijuana. In fact, I recently encountered one who was like that! His feeble argument for getting high on marijuana was, “Didn’t God create all the herbs of the field and say his creation was good?” Had he been rational and known about the English Yew, he should have quickly noticed not all of God’s creation is healthy for us to ingest, smoke, etc. Knowing about the English Yew is important for soul winners and all Christians.
