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Natural Emblems Of Spiritual Life

by

A. B. Simpson

1. The Royal Bridegroom

" My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.

Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.

And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.

Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.

Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house;

So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.

And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favour.

The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.

She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.

With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king’s palace.

Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.

I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever."   Psalms 45:1-17

THIS is a picture of Jesus Christ from the full heart of one who loved Him so well that his pen seemed to move spontaneously as his fingers wrote His name: one who loved Him so fondly that his heart constantly bubbled over with what some one has called ‘passionate love for Jesus.’ Why is there not the same intense divine love to Him among us today? Our love should have a higher meaning for Him than for our human friends. If there is with any of us a cold respectful feeling of reverence for Him with no room for tenderness, it is because we have not seen Him as this vision presents Him. He wants us to come to Him, not distantly, but with loving and believing hearts if we would know Him as David did.

I. The Bridegroom.

This Psalm presents Jesus as the King in His beauty. There are many pictures of glory and majesty touched by this hand. Here we see the King of kings and Lord of lords. Look around upon earth everywhere; there is none like Him. The beauty of Jesus! Have you seen it? Has there risen across your sky a presence, not seen, but which touched your heart when it came and lit it up with the charm of its beauty, as the sun lights up a winter atmosphere? How wonderful is this vision of the King in His beauty. The face of Christ becomes illuminated to us as we look upon Him and are not afraid of the majesty in His countenance. But all is as nothing to what we shall see when we behold Him face to face. All the light and the power, the sweetness and love, the deep spiritual radiance that have sometimes shone from human faces will be combined in the countenance of our beloved Lord. It is the glory of Heaven to see Him as He is. So glorious will be the sight that we shall be transformed into His likeness, flashing back into His face His own beauty and glory. The countenance of Jesus is fairer than the sons of men. Have you seen the King in His beauty?

Is there a song for you in these sentences? Is there music in such a thought? Beloved, let the cry go forth, ‘We would see Jesus.’ What marvelous art has decked this beautiful Spring sky. It has filled the world with blossoms and the sky with glory, and set the stars in the heavenly blue. One brush of that heavenly artist will be enough to show you Jesus, for ‘He shall receive of mine and shall show it; unto you.’ The Holy Ghost can show you Jesus so you cannot help loving Him. He made Him real to you so that you can take hold of him and know that some one is there. You may not be able to put it in painting, or in writing, but you know Jesus has been revealed to you. From this time you are able everywhere to see Him only. The charm of every face you meet will be the reflection you see in it of Christ, and if that be not there the face is dead.

2. Grace is poured into His lips. Do you not know some people who appear very lovely, but who are very distant, so you cannot get near them? They are like great mountain peaks that are very beautiful, but you cannot climb them; or like some fair marble statue you can look at and admire, but are warned to keep your hands off. It is too nice to be touched. Our Saviour is lovely, but He is gracious too. He comes down to our level. He is fairer than the sons of men, and grace is poured into His lips. Oh! the grace of Jesus how full it is and how it overflows to all His followers, for ‘of His fulness have all we received.’ Do you know the fulness of this grace? Are you a poor stinted child, afraid to ask much of your Lord, or are you reveling in His love and favor? His lips are kind, they promise very much, but more than promises, they draw you close, and breathe upon you as Jesus did upon His disciples, and fill you with the Holy Spirit, then they draw you closer still, till He kisses you with the kisses of His mouth. Let us take from Him today all the grace that is poured into His lips.

3. Jesus is full of power. David calls Him, most mighty. ‘Beauty and goodness are not enough without strength. Nothing can ever stop Him. No man can work like Him. The biggest trouble that ever came to you in life is not so strong as the Most Mighty. The biggest devil that ever assailed you is not so great as the Mighty. He sits above everything that can possibly attack you. Remember when trouble comes to take it to the Rock that is higher than you are.

When the battle is raging hottest, and bravery and courage seem almost gone, if the general should ride along the ranks how it cheers the soldiers and makes them lift up the heart and say, ‘Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty,’ and they feel at once the battle is won. So Jesus is the pledge of victory, and as we give the battle into His hands He will become conqueror over every foe.

4. The moral qualities of our King are spoken of also; truth, meekness and righteousness, three jewels shining in His coronet. One has the sapphire’s shining lustre, another the meek, soft light of the stainless peal, and the third the purity and glory of the diamond. Jesus does not struggle. He is not coarse and rough. Jesus Christ is mighty, but He has hands as soft as any mother’s. He will not quench the smoking flax, yet He will not fall nor be discouraged. He has all omnipotence, but He has all sweetness of character.

5. He is conqueror not only over His foes but over the hearts of His people. There is a beautiful picture in the books of Moses that well illustrates this. There was a statute that allowed a Hebrew to win a bride from his enemies. If, in the sack of the city, he should capture some beautiful maiden, and love her, and wish to make her his bride, he should treat her gently and righteously. After the city was subdued, and he had taken away his weeping prize, he bore her to the home of his mother, where she was separated for a month until he could become known to her and win her confidence and love, the admiration of her whole life, and she was ready to accept him as her husband. He had conquered her when he had torn her away from her old home, but now he had gained another victory over her, the victory of love. So Jesus, too, is conquering His bride. ‘Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies.’ He brings us low at His feet, and then He wins our love. He first slays and then disarms us, and then He takes us to His arms. He humbles us, and then He lifts us up, so that we forget we are His subjects in the freedom and the rapture of His love.

6. The throne of Jesus is established forever. If any one doubts the divinity of Christ let him look at this passage. The Father here is saying to the Son, ‘Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.’ He is a divine King, not a human bridegroom or an earthly potentate; but in Him is the divine nature. I am afraid we do not half realize what these words mean. Do we not sometimes fear to utter them lest they should be mere hollow words upon our lips? Do we realize what it means to have a friend who is no less than the Eternal God? How we are humbled at such a thought. How it would make us shrink into nothingness, and be indeed blasphemy from us if it were not revealed as a blessed truth in God’s Word. If a man could somehow cease to be a man and become a crawling earthworm, his descent would not be one half so stupendous a change as for God to come down and take His place with us. He is ready to meet us with the kiss of love, but He wants from us the consecrated affection of the heart. He is knocking at its door and saying,

‘Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s home.

‘So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.’

He is our God and our King, but He is also our husband and our brother. His throne is established forever and ever, yet He stoops to our side, to conquer us and then lift us to His arms and bless forevermore.

7. The thought of so much kingly majesty and power might weary us and oppress the mind if it were not for the next picture, which is full of the springing spirit of gladness and joy. Jesus is anointed with the spirit of delightsomeness. He is always glad and joyful. Have you ever realized how different you are from your Saviour? Christians too often look like bats who are used to the night; and as they gaze up into the face of their Lord they are frightened at Him. There is not a person so happy in all the universe as Jesus. The Lord has made Him as happy as happy can be, and as we draw near Him we can feel the atmosphere around Him just saturated with His joy. How dreadful it is to get near people and feel they are like some great owl sitting on a branch in the midst of a solemn gloom, but how quickly you can detect a joyous heart. There are some Christians who are just baptized all the time with the spirit of joyousness. They have singing birds and spring flowers with them continually.

When an April day comes it can’t help bringing gladness. Every little twig is just bursting with buoyant springing life. So, when you draw near to these sunny Christians, you have such a sense of rest and homeness, and can talk on with no feeling of restraint. It is because they are anointed with the oil of gladness. But how much more is this the case as we get near to Christ. Though everything is black around us, if we only nestle up close to Him we shall find that the shadows will flee away and we shall be filled with His own sweet restful, happy spirit. Too many look upon Jesus as a kind of ogre who is keeping track of their evil deeds, and some day will bring upon them the terrible consequences. They know Him as the Judge and the keeper of righteousness, but not as the joy and sunshine of the day.

Oh, reach out your hand into these spaces and take hold of Him and know and share His joyousness of spirit. It will be the happiest hour you ever had, but even then you will not know nearly all the men that ever lived. His joy is inexhaustible. O, take this glorious King today and become His bride. Lie in His arms and taste His love and you shall sing like David, - ‘Thou art fairer than the children of men.’ ‘All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.’ There will be the smell of some bitter things amid all the sweetness. You will have some sorrow, but it will only be a cloud on which to paint a glorious rainbow.

II. - The Bride.

The next figure portrayed in this beautiful Psalm after the picture of Jesus the King and the Bridegroom, is the Bride.

1. The first thing that is spoken of her is the call extended to her by her loving Lord. ‘Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house.’ This call comes from afar off, and at first she seems not to listen. The word is, ‘Hearken!’ Have you heard that call, dear friends? Have you inclined your ear unto it? Have you considered it? This may take a good while. It is well to take time to think about and weigh it well, for it is a decision that will change all your future. But then should come the time of acting. Some of you have settled this question this week and it has been none too soon. It is beautiful, this call Christ has given to some of you - hearken - consider - incline your ear. But there is something else. You are to forget your kindred and your father’s house. What does that mean? Why, all the hindrances that are in your path, all the people around you that don’t love Him, the whole old worldly life, the old Adam nature that is within you. That is the father’s house, and you are to forget it and all the natural associations connected with it. Then Christ can take delight in you. He does not merely save us out of pity. He would rest in us and enjoy our love even as we do in Him. The King greatly desires thy beauty. It is sweet to Him, but it can only well up from a heart that is separated from everything but His beauty.

2. Therefore, the next step is the bride’s consecration. ‘He is thy Lord, and worship thou Him.’ She has turned from her father’s house when she heard His call, but she has not given Him the full surrender of her whole heart. Are there not Christians here today who are in the same place? Have not some of you heard the call of Jesus and turned away from your own people without fully yielding up to Him the first place in your life and love. Dear friends, you are not fulfilling this beautiful picture unless you are giving the homage of an uninvited heart, unless you are offering to Him without reserve the affection and worship of your whole being.

3. Then follows the adorning of the bride. The Holy Ghost comes and robes her for the bridal, and prepares the marriage feast.

‘The King’s daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold.’

‘She shall be brought into the king in raiment of needlework.’

These are the spiritual garments in which the bride is robed, and they are altogether divine. Gold stands for divinity.

The garments of Christians are all divine. Their righteousness is not their own. There is no good, or any possibility of good in them. Righteousness, love, faith, all are of Jesus Christ. If you are ready to be brought to the King you must have on His divine righteousness. You will notice too the garments are of wrought gold. They are made to fit each one. Your garments are made for you, not for anybody else. God wants every one of us robed in a tunic that is just our size, and He has it ready for us if we will wear it. That is, your divine holiness is for you and for no one but you. Before you are willing to take it, your soul may have to be tried in the fire, you may have to pass through great strain and agony in which perhaps you will see that your heart has not got a righteousness of its own. When once we see that He has all we need for word, or thought or action, we become clothed in the gold of His divine righteousness. Till then we have not fully forgotten our father’s house and our own people. Oh, dear friends, forget the world and give yourselves wholly to Christ this day.

Then, too, the garments are wrought in little stitches. The finest threads of life are the victories we get in trial. You cannot need a thought so small but Jesus has got one ready for you. There is needlework so fine that it cannot be seen without a glass. For some embroidery needles are used so small that they can scarcely be seen. So the needlework of our spiritual garments is to be of every variety. Not for the church only, but for the warehouse, where the sleeves are rolled up and the labor is hard, for the factory where the hands are black with work, for the home, and for every place. The needlework inside must still be fine. That means it is much harder to do things right in little things than in big ones. It is harder to have the persecutors pluck out the hair than to have them kill you. God provides for the little things of life. Beloved, His grace can carry you through the world in bridal attire, so that at His coming you may be ready to go forth and meet Him.

4. The next view we have is of the bride passing in the marriage procession. Into the king’s palace she and her companions are brought with gladness and rejoicing. It is the same picture that Matthew gives us when the great cry was raised, ‘Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him.’ Oh, if we should stand afar off and see that sight we would never forget it. Many will enter into this marriage of the Lamb, and the door will be shut upon a storm-swept world. God forbid that it should come and you be left outside.

III. - The Marriage.

Then follows the marriage of the King with His dear bride, and an allusion to the attendants at the ceremony. There is the queen mother at her right hand in gold of Ophir. Perhaps this is a reference to the old Jewish Church who found it so difficult to separate from the world, but who comes out all right in Christ at last.

Then their posterity are spoken of, for this union is not a fruitless one. Oh, dear ones, you cannot come to be heart to heart with Jesus without everyone being better for it. There is a spiritual offspring to every useful life. A benediction does rest upon a life of blessing. Do not let us be content to have every year like the last one, but a great deal better. Instead of thy father’s shall be thy children.’ The bride of the Lamb today is not where she has been before. She is constantly moving on to higher things. This is a very solemn time we are living in. There never before was such an age. It is the world’s crisis. Life means more today than ever in the past. May the dear Lord take these children instead of the fathers.

Oh, beloved, cut away from the things that are keeping you from Him, stop this terrible drifting, give up the things that are wrecking your life. Let Jesus become real to you. Let Him make of you all that is in His heart for you. Be clothed in His righteousness. Commit your life and whole being entirely into His hands, and you will be filled with wonder that He can so love and keep you, and so use you to His honor and glory and dear to the praise of His name.

2. Springing Life

"All my springs are in Thee."   Psalms 87:7

I want to speak this morning of the spontaneousness of Christian life. It should be always springing, rather than constrained and mechanical. There is all the difference between these two aspects of it that there is between law and grace, or between man and God. Man’s life is like a vessel, which must be filled to the brim before any refreshment can be poured out to others. God’s is a great artesian well, which is ever springing and overflows from very gladness. It is beautiful to see the gladness of nature. It is overflowing all around us today because it cannot help it. Man makes a greenhouse and labors hard to get a few flowers. God scatters them plentifully everywhere.

There are millions of them in wild wastes, lonely deserts, where no man goes. They come from the springing fulness of nature. If God can so make beauty and richness spring out of this dreary earth, can’t He make righteousness and praise spring forth just as freely from our barren hearts? Look forth upon the abundance of nature, and see the evidences of God’s exhaustless resources everywhere, then expect Him to do for us and in us exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.

Christian life, then, should be a springing life.

I.

It is life, not character, that is worked up. Jesus said, ‘I am come that they might have life.’ There should be a springing fulness about it, and a constant supply, so that it will overflow all the time to others. When our Saviour was talking to the woman of Samaria He told her the same thing.

‘If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give Me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.’

‘Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’

As though He had said: ‘You have a well here, from which you can get water only by a bucket with a long descending chain. It cost much labor, and sometimes the well is dry, and you can get no water; the water which I can give you will be a fountain, springing not for a little time, but into everlasting life. It is the eternity of God begun already within you.’

Jeremiah’s complaint about the children of Israel was that they had forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. God is a spring of life to the soul in whom He lives. Dear friends, have you got this springing life? Have you something more than a bondage to duty - a close following of the promptings of conscience, a fear of displeasing God, a sense of obligation to Him? These things are right, but they are not enough. It is the spring of life within you, the immeasurable depths of God’s great heart throbbing within your own.

II.

There must, however, not only be springing life, but springing light in the Christian heart. ‘The dayspring from on high hath visited us.’ ‘To them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.’ This light does not mean cold, formal ideas of right and duty. It is the light of life. It is One who is Himself the Light dwelling within you. It is the light of the heart, and not merely the head. It is springing life, as well as apprehension and divine conviction of truth, and yet it is the other, too. If you see the sun, you know it is the sun. If you taste water, you know at once it is water. If you know Christ, there is nothing in the universe that can convince you it is not Christ.

So the enlightened heart will have constantly a sense of Divine guidance, which it knows comes directly from Christ’s own heart. Do you know this, dear friends? Have you got this springing light? Do you know of always being Divinely led? If you know the voice of the Shepherd so you cannot misunderstand it. This is not something which can be elaborately worked out. It comes from constantly watching Jesus and being always guided by Him. You cannot have it without much prayer, yet it is a very simple thing and sufficient for every need. ‘The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.’

III.

The Lord wants from us, also, springing righteousness. He tells us (Isa. 61:11) that it is like a plant springing from the seed sown in the soil. It is not to be a put on righteousness. The fruits upon a Christmas tree are tied on it, but what would you think to see an apple tree with the big, luscious fruit hanging to it by a cotton string? No, our righteousness must grow from roots running down deep into our being. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, all the graces of Christian character, God expects to see springing forth naturally from our lives. If they are not spontaneous they are not pleasing to Him. It is a terrible life to live to be always doing things because we ought to. We will constantly carry the atmosphere of labor and pressure about with us if we do. Our life should be a delight in all its departments, and so should be sweet and fragrant.

There should always be an air of ease and gladness about our service if it is to bring any pleasure to God. The tears upon the altar defile it. Our sacrifices should be bound upon it by our own glad surrender. If our righteousness has any life in it it will be springing. Holiness is not dead. It springs from on high, and is a real life within us. It ought to be an absolute pain for us to sin; and God will give to a life that is filled with obedience and purity a righteousness that springs from Himself and that will be sweet and fresh in Him always.

IV.

Our service should be springing service. If it is not it will not extend very far or be blessed with much result. Jesus said: ‘He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ If there is in us this spring of waters it will cut great channels by the force of the overflow, which will spread out to the desert around us. Like the stream from the smitten rock, it will pour out and rush wherever there is a low place to run down to, for water ever descends, and if it is running water it will cleanse and sweeten these low places, however filthy they are. It goes gladly, kept alive by its constant activity. Ah! friends, there must be within us this deep consciousness of the necessity of service. Like Peter and John, our feeling must be, ‘We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.’ Like our Saviour, we must know. ‘If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.’ Jeremiah once said: ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.’

It was the spirit of overflowing service, and, of course, it could not be restrained. Paul was once pressed by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem, and his friends tried to hold him back, but he cried out, in sorrowful entreaty, ‘What mean ye, to weep and break mine heart? For I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ It was the service of the old Hebrew slave, who might have gone out free, but who said: ‘No! I love my master. I will not go out free.’ And so he became a bondslave forever by the nail driven through his ear into the doorpost. It is willing service for the sake of others, and we must have this. If there is any shallowness in our words they will tell on others’ hearts. They will fall back listless and without result.

‘It needs overflow of heart

To give the lips full speech.’

We must have this overflow of heart in our work, which, like the circles from a pebble thrown into the water, will ever widen its boundary of joyful service. The first thought in Paul’s heart when our Lord appeared to him was, ‘What wilt thou have me to do?’ Zaccheus, when he hastened to receive the Saviour, greeted him with, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.’ It was the deep gratitude of the heart springing up in response to the word of Jesus. One touch of love had melted the heart and sent forth streams of love to all around. The sinful woman who came to the feet of Christ in the Pharisee’s house did not get a word from Jesus, but she could not keep back the love that was welling up in her heart for Him who had saved, and the little act of service she did was a joy to her. So let our service for Him be service we love to give. Don’t call it sacrifice. It should not seem a sacrifice. We should feel insulted to have it called a sacrifice. It should be the essence of joy to us.

V.

God wants from His people a springing love. What is love worth if it does not spring up unconsciously and without dissimulation? God wants this love from us, ‘because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.’ The sun comes in the morning, bringing with it all the effulgence of the dawn. It spreads glory to the high and to the low, and sends its bright, warm rays into the palace of the wealthy and the humble dwelling of the poor. The love of God is a great sunrise in the heart, and it should give back sunshine everywhere from the heart. The love of Jesus is not measured, but it is poured out like a mother’s kisses and tears, often on worthless creatures. It is love that not only bears, but bears with joyfulness. Paul’s picture of love is one of all patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness.

You step on a geranium leaf and go on without thinking of asking forgiveness, but how it covers you with a sweet bath of perfume! Oh, to be able to give back sweetness for injury! Oh, to be able, like some great ship, to throw off the waves of trial that come, and ride serenely above them all. We cannot do it unless we have this deep spring of love within our hearts. If the ship once gets water-logged it is not good for much. We must have confidence and faith and love to enable us to spring through every difficulty and ride above it. We must triumph over every opposition and be able to laugh at it. We shall not lose anything by this spirit of love, but we shall gain immeasurably. It is the only way to gain a victory over our enemies.

VI.

Then, too, we must have springing fruit. When our work is done, there must be something apparent from it. God has promised that this shall be, and Isaiah gives a beautiful picture of it’Isaiah 44: 3-5.

‘I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy offspring;’

‘And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.’

‘One shall say I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.’

This gives a glorious view of the abundant harvest that may be expected from work. It is indeed springing fruit among the grass and by the water courses. It is a combined picture of Christian life and fruit. Saying ‘I am the Lord’s,’ is confessing Christ; calling one’s self by the name of Jacob, is joining the people of God. Then comes higher ground. The surname of Israel means the victorious life of faith’what is sometimes spoken of as the higher Christian life. Or they are three pictures of Christian fruit. The first is the work of saving souls; the second is building up the Church; and the last is the work of adding to the number of God’s consecrated ones. Dear friends, it is possible to have all this variety of fruit springing up naturally and easily in our lives, but there must be an impetus and impulse for it that only God can give. Ask for this springing power, and God will surely give it.

VII.

God would have us also have springing health. We cannot get this by drinking of any earthly spring. It is possible for us to have within us tides of buoyant, exhilarant life, which will be more than sufficient for life’s toughest, hardest pressure, like that which kept Paul pressing in the midst of all difficulties. It is the life of Christ made manifest in our mortal flesh. It is divine health, not something mechanical, that is wrought into you from without. It is breathed in from within. Christ has this health for you. He is constantly full of springing health, and He is so willing to give it to you. Have you got all these springs, dear friends? The Lord has them for you. Oh, breathe in this spring of life today, and know what it is to work and not get tired, but find rest and pleasure in it all.

VIII.

God has for us, also, springs of praise. Isaiah says (64: 5), ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness.’ He classes the two together. God wants our springing thankfulness. He wants us to be natural in this, not perhaps always mechanically saying, ‘Praise the Lord?’ yet ready always to say it from a full heart. Only so can we be one with Him in the work of faith. We must be certain every envelope that comes from Him has a jewel inside of it. Every message from our King is one of mercy. Are there clouds in your sky, and does the rain sometimes fall? Ah, dear friends, it is your privilege to know that every cloud has a silver lining as well as a dark centre. Ask Him for this springing praise. Ask for such an attitude of heart before Him that you will not be able to understand a blow.

Nestle closely on His bosom, and do not take anything else but love. A loving, trusting child meets with no repulse, but compels its father to meet it with the same confidence it gives. A praiseful, trusting heart compels God to meet it with the same joy. So learn to take life’s trials, and turn them into cups of blessing, and thus the whole life may be full of that sweet spirit of praise which alone can glorify our dear Lord.

IX.

There is one other spring spoken of in the Bible, which I think includes, indeed, all the others. When Joshua’s daughter Achsah was married., she claimed from her father, beside the pleasant land he had given her, springs of water, and he gave her the upper and the nether springs, so that she had the fountain down in the valley and the spring away up among the hills. So our springs are not only to be away up high, but down low also, where we don’t expect to find them. God wants us to have both. It is easy for us, perhaps, to understand what it is to be high up in spiritual elevations, but we need quite as much the springs that are down on the common level for the daily tasks of life. We ought to be able to go through the plodding steps of ten weary hours with fresh springing gladness, for it is our privilege down in the low places to have the springs too.

If there is a long day before us, we want more spring for it. It there are hard tasks to be performed, we want to get through them with a real spring. If we are surrounded by forbidding circumstances, or are in the midst of uncongenial people, lubricate the whole and keep the face shining. Ask God for the little trials, as well as for the long pulls, for the great average of life is made up of them. You need His help for your sewing and your knitting, and your darning and your ironing, and your washing and your scrubbing, and your sweeping; for seeing that things don’t get spoiled, for keeping yourself sweet when harassed by others, or when you have done faithful work and then been blamed for it. We want the nether springs for all this. Children need these springs for their hard lessons, for the grammar that won’t get learned, for the figures that get so twisted together, for the writing and drawing that seem so hard.

We all need great fulness of joy for the every-dayness of life. There are the valley springs, but they come from the upper ones, and we need them both. We cannot have one apart from the other. We need the upper to sweeten and fill the nether. They are Martha and Mary together, and they make life glad. We cannot have the upper springs if we do not have the lower. If there is not victory in the low places there will be no great spiritual power. And we can tumble over a broomstick as well as over Goliath of Gath. We can fall and break our necks over some little stone in our way, as well as over some great adversary. The reason why we do not have more sweet communion with God is because the devil is watching for some trifling issue to come between us and Him, and we let it come. Then when he has us down, he tries to keep us there.

The upper springs help the lower and the lower the upper. We have the promise that we shall mount up with wings as eagles, we shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint. We must have wings to our feet for all this. Don’t try to live in this way. That is not springing. Take Jesus this morning for everything that is to be met in the next twenty-four hours and tomorrow do the same, and so on, and you will find that every moment will be overflowing, and you will be full of springing life in both the upper and the lower springs. While I am sure we have felt this morning how important it is that we have all these springs, there are a few things about them I want we should remember.

1. A spring must be full to have power. To drive machinery, the water must be above the brim. If it is nearly full, it is not a spring. It must not only be quite full, but running over. We must have a bigger Christ than we have capacity or space to hold. If this is not so, go to your knees about it. If you are in shallow water, go to Him. He wants the springs to be full.

2. The spring must be on high ground, for water rises as high as its source, and a spring up in the mountains will supply a city with water.

3. The spring must be compressed. It must be shut in to have power. If water is out in a great, broad open space, with no banks, you must put up an enclosure. If you shut in the spring, you give it an impulse. The barriers in our lives, the things we think hinder us, make the water go stronger. Trust God even when He seems to make it hard to trust. If trials come, be brave in His strength, and welcome them. If a discouragements sweep over you, press through them in victory. If some suggestion of evil or temptation from the Evil One attacks you, perhaps through a friend, you will be glad for not yielding, and stronger because of the assault. Don’t quarrel with God’s way of making springs. Let Him manage as He chooses.

4. A spring must be managed rightly to be turned to good account. God values spontaneousness of spirit and life, but we must have also systematic, practical, wise, trained habits and principles of duty. The springs of Saratoga ran wild before they were utilized. The outlet of Lake Superior, Sault Ste Marie, is developing into one of the most wonderful parts of our country because they are utilizing the immense water-power there. Another Minneapolis has sprung up in that region in a short time. They are shutting in the water and making it run in channels of utility. It is necessary for us to have habits of system and order. Some people run over constantly with good impulses.

They need to fence in a little to be all right. It is grand to have an enthusiastic nature, but it needs to be kept on the right track, or, like a steam-engine, it will tear everything to pieces. There must be right principles and also right habits, and these must work together in rank. Dr. Gordon describes three kinds of preachers he once heard, and the story illustrates my meaning clearly. The first was an intellectual man, but he came away from his church, feeling he had been treated to a view of Alpine glaciers. They were beautiful, but they were cold and chill as death. The second man was all gush and fervor.

He had fire enough to burn a world or set a church in flames. There was a great explosion of power, but there was want of aim. It was like gunpowder set off in the yard, which hit nothing. There was any quantity of unction and feeling, but there were no points. The third man had all the intellect of the first and the fire of the second, both the upper and nether springs. There was a good deal of truth, and fire enough to kindle the truth, and the congregation were fed in mind and soul. Our life must be turned to account. The power in us must be used to the utmost for God. He hath given us the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.

There is a tower on the Rhine which has had a clock in it for centuries, a perfect clock, yet it lacks one thing. The janitor winds it regularly, but there are no hands on the dial. It goes, and goes, and goes, but it don’t tell anything. The people have a superstition about it, and don’t want it changed, and so its power is wasted. How is it with you, dear friends? Do you testify with your lips as much as God wants you to? Are you using your pen as much as pleases Him? Are you using to the utmost all the resources He has put into your life? Are you working for others as much as you can? Are there hands on your dial, and are they pointing in the right direction?

May God quicken all these springs within us, and consecrate them to His service, for His name’s sake.

3. Planted By The Rivers Of Water

"Thus saith the Lord : cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed be the man who trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is."   Jeremiah 17:5-8

WE spoke last Sabbath of the springs of Christian life. Let us look a little this morning at the rivers of their supply. It is glorious to have a spring in the midst of your garden, but it is more beautiful to have a river flowing by the side of your house. You can have a deeper fountain if it is supplied by a river.

This picture Jeremiah gives us is of a man planted by the rivers of waters, who spreads his roots out in all directions and is growing in all seasons. It illustrates the spontaneousness of spiritual life and its abundant resources, which can keep the soul rich and beautiful down to the glorious end. There were really two pictures Jeremiah saw, and we see their examples all around us. There have been two races all through history. There have been people whose sources of life and strength have been earthly, human, visible, and temporal, and there have been people whose life has been supplied from the unseen world, even from the divine heart of God Himself.

I.

Jeremiah’s first picture shows us the power of human comfort and how weak we find it to be. How many people there are in the world who live an intense self-life. They lean on their own righteousness, and try to draw consolation from their own merits and virtue, and what advantage do they get? There is no blessed spiritual experience accompanying such a life. In view of this, it is the great purpose of God to drive men to despair, and so He lets fall into their lives many adverse circumstances. The Lord Jesus Christ can never do anything for a soul till it is thoroughly stripped and stunned and completely prostrated. Then He can lift it up. When Jesus questioned the young ruler about the commandments, he could reply, ‘All these have I kept from my youth;’ but there was the point where he failed.

So he is trying to show us that the very thing we pride ourselves on is a desperate failure. There is something always which the unregenerate heart is not able to give up. If we trust in anything that has not Christ in it, and find in it any measure of comfort, God says, ‘cursed is that thing in which you trust,’ and it will become a bitter portion. Anything that keeps you back from Christ is cursed of God. You may be a beautiful and cultivated woman, and amiable child, a daughter of refinement, an accomplished and talented man. Yet God says, ‘cursed!’ You are leaning on a broken reed, and some day it will pierce your hand.

A Christian has the same lesson to learn in the life of sanctification. We are still poor, imperfect creatures, and our heart and flesh need discipline. It is a temptation of the devil to think there is anything good in us, and yet you have confidence that there is some good in you. Down deep in your heart you believe there is. This is shown by a spirit of criticism which seems quietly to say: ‘I would not have done that.’ Ah! friends, the reason you are not fully saved is because you are not desperately lost. So long as we think there is any good in us, Jesus cannot entirely fills us. There is room still for a little self.

This is true of other things besides spiritual graces. How many people trust to their own natural endowments and live according to their own sound common sense and prudence, and the natural qualities that were born in them. They think it only sensible to follow human maxims, and guide their lives by the average thought of the time, and the general standard of public opinion. They consider it a little fanatical not to look at things from a reasonable point of view. This is all trusting in human flesh. It is unsafe to rely upon the strongest judgment or be influenced by the best opinions of man. Each of us must have our direction supremely from the Word of God. The man that trusts in the favorable opinion of his fellow-man, and looks for success in his work to his approval, will be greatly encouraged by the help man gives him and greatly discouraged by its failure.

We must look higher, beloved, for the true springs of life; none of these will satisfy continually. Our confidence in man must be withdrawn if we are to be always joyful. True faith springs according to the difficulties and depressions that surround us. It turns away from everything that is human. We shall find it a bitter mistake to rest for happiness or comfort in the number of earthly friends around us, no matter how true and loving they may be. The circumstances in which we are placed, the pleasant things in our lives which arise from social intercourse or proceed in any way from man, will not support us if we lean much weight over on them. They do not rest the heart. They do not root us in true happiness. The human nature is not and can never be the divine nature.

What a contrast to this is the rest that comes to the heart that is trusting in Jesus. God has shown us fully that this is our true place. There will come testings even while we are so resting in Him; but we shall be able to thank God for them, and say in the midst of the trial, ‘All my springs are in Thee.’ Without anything, we have everything in God. With everything we have nothing but God. Both extremes are true. In both situations alike it is possible to have nothing but God. We may have everything the world can give and yet lean only upon Him; not trusting them though having them, and not unhappy if they are withdrawn. It is the effect of confidence in anything but man to separate from God, and the effect of trusting in God is to weaken our trust in everything around us. The things that strengthen our faith are not the pleasant things of the world.

They are hard things usually that separate us unto God, and shut us up to Him alone. All the Scripture characters were unable to stand prosperity. They could trust in the day of discipline, but when they became strong and prosperous their heart was lifted up and they fell. Saul began well, but he ended wretchedly. Solomon is the saddest type of all. He began in humble dependence upon God, but when his kingdom grew and was powerful, his heart departed from God and he sank in the grossest idolatry. King Asa was greatly blessed of God with a prosperous reign, but in a little while he too leaned upon his own wisdom, and in the day of his strength he was slain by a disease in his feet. So Uzziah’s heart was lifted up, and he departed from God who had so greatly helped him. The story is the same all through time. Having too much of earth to lean on makes us let go our hold of God.

There are two words translated by the word man in our text, and they are very expressive in the Greek. One means strong man, and the other frail man, so that the verse really means, ‘Cursed is the strong man that trusts in weak, frail man.’ Man thinks himself to be very strong. God sees him to be very weak; and leaning on this weakness, he gets a terrible fall and is likely to be dashed to pieces in despair. Dear friends, beware of any confidence in your own strength. It is best to know you are weak and broken, and trust God to put strength and faith in you.

What are the consequences of this strong self-trust? The prophet tells us several of them.

The man who trusts in himself will soon become like a poor deserted thing away out in the desert. The picture is either a naked, leafless shrub, or a lonely traveler, or some poor thing wandering away from the fold with no help near, lost in the wilderness. God is far away. He shall not see when good cometh. There will be thousands of things in life that will be attractive, but he will not see them. He is a sad, earthborn thing, murmuring about his lot, and he will not see any of his many blessings. Ahab’s life was wretched because of one little thing that was lacking in it, and he could not see the good that was all around him. Hiram, king of Tyre, was so displeased with the cities Solomon gave him, that he called them ‘Cabul’ ‘displeasing.

They were the land of discontent to him. Earthly things are so big they are apt to crowd out everything else. People sometimes find one thing failing, and how often they lose also all sense of God’s blessings. They have had the privileges of God’s grace for many years, they have had abundant opportunity of service, but now their lives have become miserable and wretched. They have nothing to praise God for. One little fly has spoiled their whole pot of ointment. You could put some Christians in a desert and they would find a whole world of beauty around them, and a delightful field of study in every leaf and bird and flower. Everything would be singing and shining for them. They find good everywhere.

The laughter of a child, the stirring of a leaf or flower, the swallow in the sky, the breath of balm in the air constantly being a whisper to their ear of God. Others are not so. They miss opportunities because they are not looking for real good anywhere. They are resting in earthly things. If God comes near they do not understand Him. If opportunities of service come to them, they do not perceive it. They have one earthly aim, and following that they miss everything else. Life goes by and out of it comes nothing. They do not see when good comes.

He shall live in a parched land, that is a land swept by fire with the good all burnt out of it. There is no use in trying to raise a crop there, for the roots will be all burnt. The land is calcined. So earthly things soon come to be, and the heart that trusts in them soon gets burnt over, the substance all gone. There is no freshness. Everything is withered. Then, too, it is a salt land. You know the difference between salt and fresh things. Everything seems to be in a kind of brine. The spring and the freshness are out of life. This is the fate of those who live on the fruits of this accursed world. The people they trust in are taken far away and they are left in solitude. They have trusted in man and soon there is not a man in sight. Everything pleasant is gone, and they are in a salt land, not inhabited. It is the horrible caricature of a disappointed life.

Everything the heart valued is gone. They have leaned on some one, and now every one avoids them, and gets out of the way. They depended on having everything right, and nothing is right. They do not know the lesson Tauler, the preacher, learned before he could say, ‘All my days are good and none are ill.’ He never had a bad day. Dear friends, do you realize how practical this is in life? If you pursue some earthly thing, how it cheats you. If you build in God, He adds the earthly things to you, but not while you are leaning on them. If circumstances around you disappoint you and make you morose, it comes from a lack of confidence and trust in God. That is the cause of the trouble. Delight yourself in God, and He will give you the desire of your heart. Delight yourself in earth, and God will take from you the thing you are trusting in. God gave Joseph the best of the land of Egypt. If you are God’s consecrated child you can have the best of the land. Do you believe God is giving the best thing to you? He gives the best. Or do you think He might have done better by you than He has?

Have you not the best portion there is to be had? and are you so sure of it that you would be afraid to change with anybody for fear of losing by it? Are you really trusting Jesus with all your heart, that He is doing the best thing for you? or are you groaning in spirit because you have not the best? Notwithstanding the trying things that are in my life, the pressure upon all sides that has grown sharper every day since I knew my Lord better, I believe He is doing the very best possible thing for me. I believe I am dwelling in the land of Goshen. If I trusted in myself I could not believe this, but my trust is in Him, that He will do the best thing for me, and that He is doing this now. Dear friends, where is your trust today?

II.

Let us look now for a little on the other side of the picture. ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.’

There are two sides to this. Don’t miss the two words trust and hope. They have reference to both the present and the future. Many say everything is not all right now, but some day it will be. The man that trusteth in the Lord says all is right now. Trust means a present attitude. The true child of God is leaning on Him now with all trust, and is looking for Him tomorrow with all expectation and confidence. It is easy to stand off and say, ‘Some day it will come all right.’ It will never come right until it comes right now. The future is made out of the present, and the future will be all blasted by miserable discontent and grumbling today. You should be afraid of it.

There is no safe way but take to the present as well as the future, and trust for both. ‘Blessed is the man whose hope the Lord is.’ Does this mean a hope for the better fixing up of things by-and-by? Oh, no! You may hope for that perhaps, but it is not what this verse says. Are you looking to have circumstances harmonize a little more with your feelings? Perhaps they may, but that is not this verse, ‘Whose hope is the Lord.’ If the furnace should be heated seven times hotter than usual, say with Daniel’s friends, ‘Our God is able to deliver, but if not, we will not yield.’ If the fig tree never blossoms, trust Him anyhow.

All along the future you can see the glories of God’s promises, but you should be able to say, I am happy in Him now, He makes my soul glad now. Tomorrow it shall be the same. Thank God though He strip you of everything, though you never see blossom or fruit on your earthly desires, you have something sweeter than them all. You have the Lord. Dear friends, hold your hearts to these two words, trust and hope. Anchor them both in God Himself, not in the best working of any human plan.

What is the source of this man’s life who is thus trusting and hoping in the Lord? He is like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river. You see there is one river, but there are many waters. God is the only fountain of life, but there are many streams that flow from Him. There is His living Word, association with His beloved children, the work of His church, and all the helps of Christian life. These are the waters, but the river is God Himself. There is but this one great stream, but there are manifold deltas of outpouring.

We are given many precious pictures of this man.

1. He shall not see when heat cometh. He is elevated above all trouble. He comes out of the fire with no bruises or burns to be healed, and with no smell of fire upon his garments. When Jesus came out of the grave He did not bring the grave clothes with Him. You would not know He had worn them. Many people come out of the grave after having been crucified with Christ, but they smell of the mould and damp all the time. They never quite get rid of trouble. They hope they are sanctified, but they have had an awful time of it. They are misunderstood by their friends, and they are continually hungry for compassion and pity, and petting.

But blessed be God, there are others who can say continually I never was so happy, so victorious, so near God as now. If you ask them if they are not often misunderstood they will tell you no, they do not know what it means to be misunderstood. They are a perpetual channel of blessing, and their life is one of sweet victory always. It is beautiful to be so far above the waves that we do not see them rise. When all is over, a week or so afterward, we can look back and say, ‘Well, I was in a narrow place. The shores were so close on either hand I could touch them, but I got through. I am glad I looked up and not around to see how close they were, or I should have lost heart and gone down.’

Dear friends, if you see me in any trouble don’t tell me of it. I shall have strength to get through if I don’t look at it. When it is over I can look back and see God’s presence through it all, and the angels of help and love He sent me. Even in death itself it will be our privilege to see only the joy of Jesus. We may be saved constantly from the crushing power of pain, and see only the Lord. Afterward we can look with gratitude to Him upon the valley that is behind.

2. He is always fresh and sweet. His leaf is always green. There may come a long spell of drought, but he is not anxious nor afraid. There may be a long strain of sorrow, and the trouble may be very sharp. The Israelites were in the wilderness many long years, but they rebelled, and for forty years God was grieved with them. The trouble may come closer, and grow harder every hour till it comes a very evil day in which we stand, but thanks be unto God, He not only keeps us from being crushed by the sorrow, but also from having any care about it.

3. There is no fruit lost in the time of drought. We not only have no cares of our own to manage through the trying hours, but there is time for fruit-bearing. We are not only enabled to bear the troubles, but we do not lose our fruitfulness for a moment. We are sustained by Him till we fall in the armor or rise to glory in the chariots of His grace. Our Saviour’s life well illustrates this. Everything at the last was crushing His heart and growing heavier every moment. Earth, if she understood would have thrown her arms around Him. When do we get the sweetest word of love from His lips? In every case it is after a bitter fight with trouble. The dearest message in the New Testament, ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ was spoken when His own heart was breaking, yet He did not cease from bearing fruit.

‘Moving unruffled through earth’s war.

The eternal calm to gain.’

God wants fruit from us at all times. I am afraid some people here this morning have got a little discouraged, and are not doing so. Perhaps you have let a little spirit of criticism come in. You may not like this way of testifying or that way of serving the Master. Some one you worked for, perhaps, has gone back from the Christian life. You think it is not worth while to work much in your cold church or formal prayer meeting. The home influences around you do not promote Christian activity. Is that the picture of this text? He shall not cease from yielding fruit. The sweetest strawberries are gathered from the rock.

The fruits of the wilderness are always sweeter than those of the garden. The more trials we are in, the more sympathy we should have for the people around us. Our own conflicts and victories are intended to give balm to others’ hearts. I have been in awful battles sometimes, and wondered why the conflict was so hard. But He has caused me to trust Him for strength, and afterward I have been called to some poor child of His in similar trial, and have seen that all this discipline He had given me for their help. Trust Him in the trying hour, dear friends, hope for nothing that comes not to you from His faithfulness, and you will surely find Him to be a true friend and a safe refuge in the time of trouble.

Does God tell you in this verse that you are to raise fruit? No. You are only to stretch out your roots to the river. Get near to the water, and take it in. Look to God and He will do the rest. Abide in Christ, and He will do very much for you. Get full of Christ and as you are tapped Christ must flow out from you to others. There was a vine transplanted once to Hampton Court, England, and for several years it disappointed the gardener very much by not bearing fruit after all his care. It was a healthy plant, and yet it had no grapes. One year it suddenly surprised them all by blooming and bearing, so that the over-laden vine was a wonder to all the Court.

The curious gardener traced its roots to find the cause of it, and found they had just burst through the soil and reached the Thames River. In and out of the rocks they had gone up and down among the stones until they got to the river. Since then it had not ceased from bearing fruit. It is the same way in God’s garden. What a rest it is to have nothing to do but to drink in God. We have not got to be busy about bearing fruit. The lilies have no care. They are not fearful that every little cloud which comes will separate them from Him. We have only to be filled with God, and He will make the fruits of righteousness and glory abound to the praise of His own.

4. Hosea 14:5-8

"I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and His beauty shall be as the olive tree, and His smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under His shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine ; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do with idols? I have heard Him and observed Him ; I am like a green fir-tree. From Me is thy fruit found."   Hosea 14, 5-8

THIS is another one of the beautiful emblems of Christian life with which the Old Testament is full. We are God’s husbandry, and His gardens shall be full of plants, and flowers, and fruits.

This chapter is one of His earliest appeals to backsliding Israel, and it gives us a little glimpse of that yearning love which sought to hold them back from darkness and apostasy. Though it was lost to them, it has been a source of comfort to many a backslider since. It is a lovely picture, and it is brought out by unworthiness. Israel stumbled, and sinned, and fell down to miserable death, and it gave us this view of God’s loving heart. If Christ is struck, there always comes something lovely from Him. It is the Old Testament story of the Prodigal Son in Hosea, and it is a chaste picture as sweet as Heaven itself.

I.

The prophet tells us what God promises to be to the reviving soul. The figure of dew is an exquisite description of His cheering and comforting grace. It does not speak of storm and tempest, and the breaking up of nature, but of drops of refreshing that can be taken every day, and every night, and are more in the aggregate than all the rain. The dew does not fall at all. It is always here, and we can gather it at anytime for the body and for the soul. The plants do not need heavy clouds to give them rain. They have only to be cool and quiet, and from the surrounding air drops of spray will fall to feed the vegetation. The dew was there all the time, but they did not drink it in. If you are hot, and tired, and weary, and sick, what you need is to get cool, and calm, and quiet, and take in the refreshing of God’s love. You can make dew any minute.

If you bring a pitcher of ice-water into a hot room it will be covered with drops of dew at once, for the air is full of moisture. Do you ever get fretted, or heated, or tired, or passionate, and do you wonder why God does not refresh you? Get quiet and cool, and lo! from the surrounding air, which is full of God, you will gather drops of refreshing which will rest, and quiet, and calm you. Did you never see a sick child lying on its mother’s breast, which was full of nourishment, and yet the poor little thing was too sick and too tired to drink? It needs to get quiet, and nestle close up to that loving heart, and then it can drink and be satisfied. God is always full of quiet and restful love, and we must get quiet to take it in, and our hearts will be full of praise. Look up and feel that you touch Him, and then rest in Him. He is not far from every one of us.

The air of this Tabernacle is laden with Him today. The air of this beautiful spring is teeming with the out-going of His affectionate love and far-reaching, yearning tenderness. Everything speaks of God. From out of the spaces around He will gather, if we let Him, close to us, so that we may evermore live and move and breathe in Him. God is in everything. Everything is in God. This is what we need. This is the thought of greatest blessing to us today. The baptism of the Holy Ghost thus comes to us every day, and ceases to be wonderful. We can take more of Him in, moment by moment, than by striking spasmodic paroxysms. Innumerable common-places make up the sum of life. I suppose we walk around the world many times during our lives, if all our little steps were counted, but we are doing it so constantly that we do not realize it. If the air we put into our lungs in the course of twenty-four hours were put into a receiver we would be startled to see how much we have breathed in.

If we could see the long procession of oxen and sheep and other animals it takes to support one life we should be frightened and horrified to think we could eat so much ; yet we do it, by taking a little at a time. What God wants is a set of Christians who know how never to cease communion with Him, and who grow strong by the constant inflowing of His Holy Spirit, which is the result of always abiding in Him. What will be the consequence of such living? Life for the soul, the body, the heart, the intellect, the whole being. The dew will spread refreshing over all, and will sweeten us for home life, for social life, for business life, and in every place where God shall lead us. The effect of all this is clearly and beautifully given in this chapter by a succession of images, which may be divided into two classes’blessings for ourselves and blessings for others.

1. The blessings to ourselves arc summed up under the figures of the lily, the cedar, the olive, and Lebanon.

The lily is one of the characteristic emblems of the Bible. It is probably the crimson lily, for in the Canticles it is compared to the lips of the Beloved, and in the New Testament to the robes of Solomon, which probably were not white. There were perhaps fifty species altogether, and they were of every shade. It was the most rapid free growing plant in Palestine. The lily is the emblem of purity, the rose of natural, passionate love. It is the emblem of Venus, and so of unhallowed love, while the lily typifies the pure fragrance of the heart, and so of that hallowed, unalloyed love which is full of God. Christ uses it to typify the growth of the Christian, and throughout the Canticles it represents the exquisite purity of the Beloved. We are to grow, then, as the lily. That is, we are to be pure and we are to grow rapidly. The lily grows from a bulb. It is a rapid development and unfolding from the root. So are we to grow from the deep roots which the Lord has implanted in us. The lily has ever a sweet growth.

It is always giving out fragrance simply and without effort. It is not working hard to grow. It rests and grows because it cannot help it under the genial influence of the sun and rain and moisture. It doesn’t make itself grow. It rests and grows. It looks up to the sun and then sends its roots down and grows. So should we grow. It is an agony to be always watching and trying to develop ourselves. It is a weariness to have the responsibility of our own advancement. It would wear us out. It would he a great toil to have to spin and weave our spiritual garments, and when they were finished they would not be beautiful, like the lily’s. No we must grow spontaneously, like the lily, if we are to have real growth. We must be lifted above the necessity and fear of our own spiritual culture. Our life must be divinely impelled. This is life more abundantly.

It is just dropping down into God and so growing. The secret of it all is to abide in Him. ‘He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.’ This will save the Christian from a hot-headed desire to do much for the Lord. Without Me ye can do nothing. So the Lord said to Ephraim, ‘From Me is thy fruit found.’ We need to learn this to keep self-righteousness down and to dwell in His life, which shall sustain us and keep us growing all the time. Do you believe He loves you well enough to do this for you? We do not grow more because we do not rest enough. What would you think of a gardener who started in March to prune a tree, then rested awhile, and then pruned again, and so on until June? Would he have much of a tree left by that time, do you think? It would die by bleeding to death long before the summer. It could not stand it.

It needs to rest, so that it can root itself and become established in the soil. Then it can develop in the arms of nature. When I was a boy I was very fond of gardening, but I always killed my plants by pulling them up to see if they had rooted. If I found they were sprouting all right I would put them back, and then I would wonder that they did not grow, but I had killed them by not letting them alone. It is the same with spiritual as with natural things. We feel that we must have a hand in the work. We think it would not be reverent if we did not have a sense of responsibility about our growth and were not a little anxious and even careworn about it. But God is saying to us, ‘Be careful for nothing.’ He wants us to cast all our cares on Him, and in that sweet, restful quiet we can grow as the lily.

We are to grow, also, as the cedar. Away down out of sight we are to cast forth our roots as Lebanon. The best growth is where man sees nothing of it. All over the land today there arc men and women we know nothing about who are quietly getting ready for great usefulness. Some day they will burst upon the world like a Moody or a John Baptist. All my life I have seen people put aside for a while, and then suddenly spring out into great power in the Lord’s work. The cedars that grew so strong in Northern Lebanon did not understand what they were growing so for. But one day Hiram’s axemen came and they were sent down to Jerusalem and fashioned into the glorious temple.

You do not know, my brother, why you are growing down so long into the quiet, deep places, which are often places of trial. It is a precious sort of life. It is growing in the rich loam of the wilderness, which all the gardeners are so glad to get for garden soil. Be thankful for these years. Grow like Lebanon in them. The winds may howl, the rocks may be all through the land, but fasten your roots around them and grow into permanency and strength. Grow downward in your closet and in the discipline of life. Don’t be afraid of the discipline of the Holy Ghost. He knows how to teach. Some day He will use you in making the temple of God.

We must grow also like the olive, an upward growth which spreads the branches far out into the air. But, remember, there can be no beauty above unless there is strength below. There must be strong roots down deep in the soil, if the leaf is to be rich and unctuous and bathed in oil. The olive is the symbol of the Holy Ghost. So there is to be not only beauty of growth but the presence of God in the midst of it; so that many shall say they love to be among this people, for they are so filled with the Holy Spirit. Let that be your beauty, dear friends. Let your culture be the shining of His face upon you and through you. Let your refinement be the production of His beauty in face and character. So shall your growth be like the olive, rich and beautiful in the Holy Ghost.

His smell shall be like Lebanon. The Bible says much of fragrance and the sense of smell. Isaiah tells us that Jesus was to be of quick scent in the fear of the Lord. I am sure we all admire the magnificent, rich scent of the garden more than its fruit. There is something in incense and the sweetness of odors that is expressive of the heart of things. Perfume expresses the homage of the consecrated heart far more than the richness of flowers or the sweet taste of fruits. It is expressive of the holiness of Christian life. In the offering of the Lamb upon the altar, the fat was always given to God, which was like offering Him the fragrance of the flesh.

It is typical of that exquisite delicacy of feeling which cannot be chiseled out into a marble statue, cannot be made into a picture, cannot be put into words even, but which you are conscious of in every fibre of your being. You know it at once in others, because you know it in Him. What is it in the closet that makes the hour there so delightful? It is the inexpressible sense of God’s presence, is it not? It is the hallowed consciousness of the atmosphere of heaven. There is the sweet breath of fragrance in the air like incense, and which pours over you like a cloud of glory. Have you not known, as you bowed before Him, what it is to be covered with this cloud of incense and find its fragrance something sweeter almost than heaven? Far better than by any answer to your prayers you know you have been with God.

As you have gone there, heart-weary and feeling tired and sick, how it has fallen upon you and rested you. It is sweeter than love. As you bow there in silence you have said, ‘Thou art the chiefest among ten thousand. All Thy garments smell of myrrh.’ I believe we shall be conscious of this sweet fragrance in the air of heaven. How many Christians live in an atmosphere of stern virtue, of cold righteousness and, driving work. They may have a sphere of wide usefulness, they may be full of service and devotion to the Master, but they lack the sweetness of the garden. There is much in them that will have to be crushed out if they get it. We have to live in the midst of tropical heat sometimes to get the fragrance of Lebanon.

2. God tells us also in this passage of the blessing His children may be to others, and He speaks of them under various types.

First, we are to be a pleasant shade. Are you a shade, dear friends that will comfort and cheer your Christian friends? Each of us ought to be a blessing to a score at least. Have you such a refreshing nature that people will delight to come and dwell with you? You know what a rest it is to be with some people who have been such a blessing to you. How sweet their sympathy is, and how readily they seem to understand you, while others are so different. God will enable you, if you are large-hearted and not selfish, to be just such a refreshment wherever you are, so that people will come to you and not get heated by the reflection of your sore heart, but will find you always rested and free from care, and so be quieted and helped themselves. A little rock in the wilderness can give no shade.

It is so heated itself that it scorches one to touch it. But a great rock can, take in the heat on one side and yet have a cool one left for you too. Our Saviour is like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, and He means us to be. One way we can do it is by prayer. There is a good deal in this ministry of intercession. May the dear Lord lay it upon you to have a real loving sympathy in whatever concerns your brother. If he is in any trouble or any sin, God means to help him. You cannot be a blessing unless you have this grace. There are many ways in which we can do this. We can be a shade for the poor, for the aged, for the helpless, for the frail ones, for the failing ones who will soon be with Him, and whom it may be an eternal blessing to us to help. Don’t refuse His voice when He calls you to this, beloved, but learn to be a shade.

We are to give them also staple and abundant fruit. They shall revive the corn the Hebrew says. There is much practical usefulness in this life. We are to raise corn for the people who are famished. Our fields are to be cultivated and our granaries kept filled for the perishing multitudes of earth, and that too with what will really supply their wants. It is not oranges we want to raise, but corn; not century plants nor greenhouse plants, but it is all corn, the staple of life. Oh! the glory of doing duty like this grandly-doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way. Thank God for the toiling, delving, unceasing plod of every-day life, and for being able to go to it with a zest and a spring and the enthusiasm of the whole heart.

It is glorious to be doing service for Him not only on some occasion, but on every occasion. To go up attic stairs when no one knows anything about it, and to go there day after day with the sweet consciousness that you are giving corn to some starving one, that you are feeding some poor child of His. It is precious to be able not only to be a shade to the weary by the way, but also to feed the hungry with substantial corn. The Lord does want servants who can be thus depended on, who go on always winning souls, reclaiming backsliders and keeping ever fruitful.

The vine is a type of the richer, deeper things of Christian life. It represents not life only, but exuberant, higher life and so the higher help which we should be able to give from a deep rich experience. It is not enough, dear friends, for us to leave a life of sin and then become only an average Christian. We must take the cordial of the kingdom. We must be ready to enter into the inner chambers of the Father’s house when He bids us go. Some say that is not my calling. I cannot rise higher than I am. Don’t say that, dear friends. Take not only the corn, but the wine, also. Know that it is for you, and enjoy it and give it to others.

We cannot do the common things of life well unless we have the higher things, too. The people who try it wear out and run dry. We want the varieties of His table. If we live on dry bread and water we cannot have a high physical life. We must have meat, and fruit, and vegetables. We must be able to mount on wings as eagles, as well as to walk and run. We must have the quickening impulses that come from drinking the wine of the kingdom. Then we can go out and revive the corn.

We meet with fragrance here again. It means that not only our character, but our work, is to be fragrant. It is one thing to have a sweet spiritual life; it is another to have our work sweet. God wants it to smell like Lebanon. When people come into our church, or our prayer-meeting, or our mission-work, they should at once feel, ‘How sweet this is! What happy, enthusiastic, cordial, large-hearted people these are! This is a holy, heavenly place.’ So our work should smell of Lebanon as well as our heart. The Lord wants to give it this fragrance. He wants it to go far off, like the sweet smell of spices that is wafted far out to sea from the shores of ‘Araby the blest.’

God speaks to us, too, of winter fruit here. What about the cold, bleak winter time, when the days are so short and the nights so long? Is there any fruit then? The picture reaches even this: ‘I am like the green fir-tree.’ This is the tree of winter, which lasts when all else is dead. The spring lily is gone, the summer vine has perished, the autumn corn is dead, but the winter fir is alive and green still. All through that cold season, while the blasts are blowing and the snow is flying, it keeps sweet and beautiful as ever. Beloved, do we see the lesson? Are there not times in our lives when circumstances seem to be against us, and when others, too, are not bearing fruit? Then it is time to stand firm and true. Then is the time when God values the people who do not flinch. When we find them we know what they are worth. God bless the fir-trees! They kindle a loving fire upon our hearth and fill our rooms with the very light of heaven! May God make you faithful, dear friends, under all adverse circumstances, to the glory of His dear name.

II.

What is the fountain of all this life we have been speaking of? It is God Himself. ‘From Me is thy fruit found.’ Ephraim could boastfully say, ‘I will have nothing more to do with idols.’ All God could say is, ‘I have heard him and observed him.’ It is not enough to say I will not go back again to the world. We must learn the deeper lesson, ‘From Me is thy fruit found. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered.’ Oh, beloved, God is a great rock to His people. Back of all our moods and depressions it is sweet to know there is one heart that never changes. If our roots are planted in Him, if our heart is drinking in His life, we, too, are kept from falling.

As I look back over my life I see many changes, many dark and anxious hours, many weary hours of pain when it almost seemed that faith would go; but just as I have been ready to sink in discouragement, how He has come to save and buoy me up! I think of it sometimes in quiet hours till it brings the tears to my eyes. How wonderful He has been to you and to me! It melts my very heart into weeping. I cannot understand it. He never changes, but goes on with one eternal purpose of love and blessing! I have not a bit of faith in you, dear friends. I wish you had none in yourselves.

I know there is with many of you an over-confidence in safe hours and an over-anxiousness in dark hours, both of which are self-confidence. Oh, look ever to Him, lean everything ever upon Him, and say, ‘Until that hour when I shall stand in glory before Thee, my faithful God, I take Thee to be my life and strength and righteousness.’ Then can you begin to grow as the lily, and your life shall become as sweet as Lebanon. Then only can you be free to become a blessing to others.

5. The Vine And Its Branches

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing."   John 15:1-5

LET us look at some of the reasons why the vine is a chosen emblem of the Christian life and character of God’s individual and collective people.

First, it is the most abused thing of anything that is made, and perhaps the most fatal. It is the chosen symbol of the thing that is dearest to God’s heart, and yet it has become an accursed thing. The devil would not be bothered with spoiling that which is of no value. No one would think of counterfeiting a copper penny; but a bank-note is often counterfeited because it is worth something. So the devil loves to defile that which is of value to God, and has made the vine his chosen instrument of mischief to the human family for the very reason that God prizes it so highly, both in the physical and typical world. The time will come when God will restore it to its original beauty and meaning.

In ancient times the fruit of the vine was used without fermentation. It is the mixture with leaven and corruption which has made it such a curse. The devil does not use evil things to harm the world, but good ones. He has taken the vine and cursed the world with it, and so he has done with religion. Evil always comes in the form of good. The great apostasies that are cursing the world came in the form of good.

I believe he is not working so hard today in the drinking-saloons of this city as he is in the Church of God and among the people of God turning their eyes away from Him to fashion and style, and human culture, and trying to turn every good thing to some evil use, that he may dishonor God and curse man. As he has turned the beautiful vine into accursed alcohol, so he has turned the beautiful religion of Jesus Christ into Romanism, Mohammedanism and Mormonism, introducing into it as complete corruption as that which has changed the fruit of the vine into the very wine of hell.

I.

There are many beautiful ways in which the vine is an emblem of God’s people.

I. It is good for nothing if it does not bear fruit. You cannot make lumber of it nor turn it into firewood, nor can you carve it into ornaments. It is absolutely good for nothing but fruit-bearing. Ezekiel gives a pretty picture of its worthlessness for any other purpose:

‘Son of man, what is the vine tree more than any other tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest?’

‘Shall wood be taken thereof to do any kind of work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?’

‘Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it and the midst of it is burned? Is it meet for any work?’

The Christian, too, is not good for anything if he is not bearing fruit for God. If you are disjointed and out of adjustment to everything around you, you cannot be fruitful, and are to be most pitied of all creatures. You are losing both worlds. Many Christians are in this deplorable state. Dear friends, God has but one work for you to do, and that is to bear fruit. The unfruitful branches are taken away and cast into the fire and burned.

2. The vine is dependent for its sources of supply upon the earth and the sky. It takes in sustenance by means of its leafage and rootage. Its porous leaves drink in nourishment from the surrounding air, and its long roots extend hundreds of yards, taking in nutriment from the soil. So the Christian is dependent for his sustenance upon his leafage and rootage. He must be deeply rooted in Christ, and he must draw in strength from a constant atmosphere of prayer. The same susceptibilities and nature are given to him in this respect as to the vine. This plant has been known to reach out its long rootlets and feel its way to some old bone and feed upon it and grow strong. So, dear friends, should we be able to feel our way to Christ and feed on Him and grow up in Him in all things. So, too, when we are in a dry atmosphere, we should be able to draw refreshment and cheer from Him. A vine is not dependent for its life on the situation it is placed in. It can grow and flourish on a sand-bank if its roots can only reach out to the streams of water. It does not matter where it is; if the springs are near the fruit will come. Dear ones, are you living in this way?

3. The branches grow out of the vine. They are the trunk extended. So we are a part of Christ. We are nothing unless we are united to Him. It is our privilege to be partakers of the Divine nature.

4. The vine does not bear any fruit. The leading trunk and stems never have any bunches of grapes on them. They are always borne by the little twigs that branch out from them. Our business is to support the branches, and they bear the fruit. Jesus does not say, ‘I will bear the fruit,’ but, ‘I will bear you.’ He might have done it and done it a great deal better than we can, but He has given this work to us. He does not speak audibly to the unconverted, or call the brethren nearer, or send His voice out to the nations. You do that. What an honor! what a trust it is to have this fruit-bearing committed to you! What a beautiful sight a vine is in fruit-bearing time. There are no blossoms on it, but great clusters of luscious grapes, and they are all borne by the young, tender branches. So the young, tender branches in the Church are doing this work, and His life is supporting them while they do it, the rich purple bunches covering them to His praise and glory.

5. The branches of a vine are dependent on the parent stem for their life. Cut one off and it will die. You cannot propagate them by cutting off a slip and planting it. The connection must be maintained. Sometimes a branch will grow by half cutting it and then planting it, and after a while it will sprout and can then be severed from the stem. The meaning is very plain, beloved. A Christian separated from Christ dies. He hath told us, ‘Apart from Me ye can do nothing.’ We must keep up this vital union with Him. He is the vine and we are the branches.

6. A vine runs to leaves if it is let alone, and is of no value. So Christian life, if uncultivated and unpruned, becomes vain, conceited and showy. Knowledge puffeth up unless God holds us back. The chief work the gardener has with the vine is to train and prune it. It has seemed to me sometimes as I have looked at him that he would mutilate and hack it all to pieces. The poor vine was stripped almost bare, and the trellis seemed naked. But he knew what he was about. He left leafage enough for the fruit. Dear friends, God would not have you grow luxuriantly. It is necessary to keep you down. That is why He has the knife in hand so much. One of the greatest lessons we have to learn in life is to know our own worthlessness. It is no loss to us to have a constant knowledge of this.

There should be nothing but a deep disappointment at the self within us, and a consciousness, which should not be discouraging, of our own nothingness. Moses had to fail in his work before he could succeed in it. Joseph was kept down many years before he was able to do God’s work. His self-life had to perish in the dungeon before he could come to the throne. God kept Moses for forty years in the wilderness before he could get the Moses out of him. And so it has been all the way down to Simon Peter and you. The Lord has been cutting off the luxuriant self-growth before the vine could bear rich fruit.

7. The fruit of the vine is typical of Christian life. Wine in the Bible represents the glad, full life of God, and so it is the type of the higher, richer and more joyous things of Christian life. Christ would have every one of us full of the red wine of the kingdom. There must be some taste in our Christian life. He would have us have more joy and spring and gladness, more fresh, exhilarating life. It was not only life, but life more abundantly, that He came to bring.

8. The fruit of the vine is always found in clusters. You never find one grape ripening alone. These beautiful clusters picture forth Christian fellowship. Jesus saves people together, in clusters, you might say. There are not one or two, here and there, but there are great vines of them. Christians should not only be joined to Christ, but united to each other, and so grow up into a holy temple in the Lord.

II.

What is the spiritual teaching of this whole parable? I think we may learn three simple and beautiful lessons from it: The necessity of union with Jesus Christ, the necessity of abiding in union with Him, and the glorious results of so abiding. It is a simple alphabet of Christian faith. There is no art about it, therefore it takes no art to learn it. There is not a great machinery of thousands of wheels to watch, but one central point only to look after, and the rest is God’s work. Keep track of that one important point and all the belts and wheels will do their work perfectly. There is one simple thing only to learn in our blessed religion. The religion of Confucius was so cumbrous that it takes an intelligent Chinaman twenty years to learn it. Brahminism and Buddhism are just the same.

The details of Masonry, which some people pretend to think a religion, are endless. It is almost the same with Judaism. There are not only the ten great commandments, but there are numerous directions and subordinate laws to be learned. How different is the religion of Jesus Christ. It has reduced the decalogue from ten to two commandments, which are kept by having a heart full of love to God and our neighbor. So faith means just abiding in Christ. We have not to watch this or that spirit within us, we have not to be always doing this or that work for Him. There is no drudgery about it. We are responsible for being in Him and abiding in Him. It is profoundly simple, it is capable of being understood by the simplest child. By thus abiding in Him we abide in love and fellowship with all His children, because they with us are dearly loved by our common, infinite Friend.

We must begin this life by being established in right relations to Him:

1. Our union with Christ is the beginning, and this must be consummated at a definite point. Is He yours, and are you His? There are two sides to it. We must know of both being true for us. ‘Abide in me, and I in you,’ is His command. It is not, Are you with Christ and is Christ with you? The meaning is different altogether. Are we in Him? is He in us? How can we be in Christ? We can understand it better, perhaps, by a few illustrations from human affairs. We have an ambassador who represents our country at the Austrian court. In some sense we are in him, for we are represented by him. We have a legislator at Congress; in the same sense we are in him. If he declares war, the nation declares war. If he passes a statute, we pass a statute, for he is representing us. A father acts for his family, for he is their representative. When Adam fell we all fell. He represented us and we were in him. ‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’ That is, all who were in Adam died, so all who are in Christ shall be made alive.

Adam was the federal head of the human race, and in him all die. Christ is the federal head of the new creation, and in Him all are made alive. If we are in Him, He acts for us. We are offered freely whatever belongs to Him. He stands with outstretched hands calling us to Him, and as many as receive Him, to them gives He power to become the sons of God. He stands, then, ever for them. It is a glorious place. All that Christ does is the same as if you do it. He passes over to us all the consequences of His great work. He kept the law without failure, and He passes that over to you. He redeemed man on the cross, and He passes that over to you. You died on the cross in Him. He passes, up into heaven, and as we acted in Him, He carried us along with Him. How close the relationship.

John carries it a little further when he says: ‘As He is, so are we in the world.’ In Christ shall all this be fulfilled. Now see what follows from this: If you come to God in prayer, how do you come’in your own name? The best individual who comes in that way must come only in the character man gives him. He can come only in his own name and worthiness. But if you go in Christ’s name, you are at once received as Christ would be received. Your petition is not, ‘Father, I want this; give it to me and I will become worthy of it.’ Oh, no! It is, ‘Father, Christ wants this; Christ bought this; He is worthy of it and I am in Him.’ That is what it means to be in Christ. We are standing in His standing. We go in His character and claim whatever belongs to Him. It brings us up to high, exalted places. It puts us on the throne with Him and allows us to reign with Him. It is a glorious privilege.

There is another side to this thought also. We are not only in Christ, but Christ is in us. He brings into our life and experience all that there is in Himself. He not only takes us up where He is, but He comes down where we are and dwells in us as an actual personality. It would fill us with awe if we understood it. It is just as if we could see the Son of God walk into this house this morning and stand here with His robes of dazzling whiteness and eyes like a flame of fire. It is as real a Christ who comes to live in us as any person is real who comes and makes his abode with us. The Lord Jesus does indeed come to dwell in His people. This is not a beautiful figure of speech, but it is a real visitation of God. I wonder if we know what this means. Does it seem an awful thing to have God visit us? My idea of it used to be that it would kill a person. It would be more than he could stand. And yet it is represented in God’s Word as an actual visitation.

Christ is not to be an outside influence which moves on our emotions and feelings and elevates us into a sublime idea of God, but the real presence of Christ has come within us to remain, and He brings with Him all His resources of help and love and mighty power. Do you understand what this means, dear friends? If you do, it seems to me you must feel like falling before Him in adoring wonder for His goodness. If you have God within you, how it should make you walk in holy reverence always, for you carry within your breast a jewel of infinite value. I go back in memory this morning to the time when He first came to me in this way and taught me to trust His presence, and lean in prayer upon Him every moment. I came to realize it quietly, for there was nothing startling about it. Day after day the consciousness, became clearer that God was here. I did not have to mount up to the sky to find Him. I never whispered to Him but He answered, ‘Here am I.’ Oh, how precious it is to be overshadowed thus by the cloud of His presence.

Do we know that the mighty God is walking in the midst of us this morning? The Bible has always held out two great promises respecting Him. First ‘ I will come to you, and second, I will come into you. For four thousand years the world looked forward to the fulfillment of the first. The other is the secret which Paul said has been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to His saints, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. This is just as great a revelation of God as the incarnation of Jesus, for it makes you like Christ, and free from sin as He is. If Christ is in you, what will be the consequences? Why, He will put you aside entirely. The I in you will go. You will say, ‘Not I but Christ.’ Christ undertakes your battles for you. Christ becomes purity and grace and strength in you.

You do not try to attain unto these things, but you know you have obtained them in Him. It is glorious rest with the Master. Jesus does not say, Now we must bring forth fruit, we must pray much, we must do this or that. There is no constraint about it except that we must abide in Him. That is the centre of all joy and help. If the springs are full there will be no trouble about the delta down by the ocean, or the channel down in the valley.

2. There is great need to abide in this union with Christ. Many enter into it but do not stay, and their peace of course is interrupted and their experience unsatisfactory. They have received the first word and have come to Christ. They need the second word to abide in Him. We greatly need this fixed habit of staying where God places us. It is a word expressing choice, and is a word of trust. It means staying in God. When the dear Lord led me into this place I entered it without any feeling whatever, and simply trusted Him for everything, but after several months I found there was a great change in my feelings. Then I immediately turned round and trusted the change and became happy and buoyant because I was changed. It completely rooted up my faith.

I had taken up the little plant of trust from the soil God meant it to live in, and planted it in the hotbed of my own preparing, and of course it died. Ah! how many trust in their own feelings or their own altered circumstances. It is not abiding in Christ. Answers to prayer often prove a great snare to Christians, for they sometimes lead them to depend on their faith rather than on the simple word of God. God would have us know that word is as true now as it was six months ago, even if it does not seem so. He wants us to ask in simple dependence on His word, and claim its fulfillment, and then believe we have it. If the answers always came immediately we would soon begin to look on them very complacently, and they would not increase our real faith. Strong Christians are often hurled back into failure because they are not abiding in Christ, but in themselves. God says, ‘You are dependent on me now as at the beginning.’ When we have learned this lesson, then God can bless us.

There is many a sunny, happy life that is not a trusting life. The fig tree was not blessed because it was not abiding, though it had many beautiful leaves. When we come into this blessed place, then God can afford to give us blossoms and fruit too. A Christian who has been twenty-five years in the way is as weak as he was twenty-five years ago. He is good for nothing in stability of experience, if he does not understand the art of abiding in Christ. He is like a water pipe which held an inch of water when it was first laid, and still holds it today. It is filled and emptied, filled and emptied constantly.

The law of habit is one of the great natural channels of God’s working. A thing that is repeated and repeated again and again, after a while comes to be natural. This will help us to learn the lesion of abiding. At first it will be a little difficult. We may sometimes forget and look back at self again, but after a little time the habit becomes fixed, and it is just as natural for us to take Christ for this or for that as it is to breathe. A drowning man is sometimes restored by pumping air into him a while till the spark of life in him catches the motion and establishes the habit of breathing again. So it should be with the habit of trusting for one thing after another. Salvation was settled long ago. Spiritual keeping perhaps is settled too. Then may come up particular temptations which cannot be settled in a general way. We must believe for them separately as they appear. And so before long the habit of trusting for them also will be established.

A dear friend came to me a while ago; I am sure you would not dream who she is, so sweet and earnest is her Christian life. But she told me a little of the trial she was having with her temper. She said ‘she had often been completely broken down for days through mortification at some sudden yielding to it.’ I gently encouraged her to take time to trust for it. The next time I met her she told me she had been kept almost entirely from giving way to it, and little by little the habit of trusting for it became so established that now it gives her no trouble whatever. Then she was ready to go on to something more. So little by little we can acquire the fixed habit of trusting for every need. You can trust God wholly for your body, and all its weakness. You can trust Him for money matters and business perplexities. You can trust Him about other people; you can trust Him about all the circumstances of life. Are you doing this, dear friends? Is this matter of trusting God really a habit with you?

It will take you a little time to get firmly rooted in it. You will not acquire it the first day you try it, nor the second day, but patiently persevere in it and you will get it. Learn, too, to bring very trifling things to Him. The habit of abiding is formed more by many little links than in any other way. Suppose our garments were made with only a few long stitches in them. It wouldn’t be long before we should be dressed like New Zealanders. It is the little stitches that count. Many people take a big stitch in their Christian experience and then leave a space. They need a big thing occasionally because they come so seldom. They have to be lifted up again and again. God puts a pry under them once in a while and lifts them up, and they think they have had a wonderful experience. It is not wonderful at all. They have not learned to abide in Christ.

Before you leave this church today you may need to trust Him for a dozen things in going up the aisle. You will find twenty things you ought to lay over upon Him before night. You may hear things at the dinner table today for which you should trust Him. When Spurgeon was a young man he once stood with some friends on the platform of Crystal Palace, which was just then completed, and his friends wondered if his voice would fill the great hall. He stepped forward to try it, pausing just a moment to think what he should say when he did speak. It was not a verse of poetry, nor a quotation from some great author he gave, but he sent ringing through that vast building this simple verse from the Bible: ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’ Then he left the verse with God.

Twenty-five years afterward he visited a dying man who told him that long ago he was working in Crystal Palace, and thinking about his soul, when suddenly, it seemed to him from heaven, a voice repeated a verse from Scripture, and he felt that God had spoken to him, and right then and there he gave his heart to Him. If we are really abiding in Christ everything we do will be blessed by Him. We may not know how, but God will take care of it.

3. What are the effects of thus abiding in Christ? We have not time this morning to speak at much length about them, but we will look at a few before we close.

We shall be kept from sin. ‘Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.’

We shall bring forth much fruit. The Spirit will bring the life of Christ constantly to us, and fruit must be borne, and that without effort, as the grapes come naturally in the vine when the sap distributes the life of the vine to every part.

We shall ask what we will, and it will be done for us. Our prayers will be Christ’s prayers, and they cannot fail to be heard.

His love will abide in us. How precious to be living constantly in the love of God.

His joy will remain in us. Our life will be full of the rich, red wine of holy gladness. We shall be always victorious, always large-hearted, always like a garden full of sweetness, and our constant happiness will carry others along by the power of its very joyousness.

Our fruit shall remain. It will be permanent, laid up in heaven forever. Our life will he one continuous series of everlasting help to the hearts of men, and the record will be found in eternity upon the books of God, and perhaps upon the walls of our mansion there by-and-by.

This is all to be obtained by abiding in Him. We need to get way down into the heart of God, and stay there, then, like the river in Ezekiel’s vision which ran down to the sea in the east, and down to the sea in the west, and sweetened the wild places wherever it went, so we shall carry a blessing wherever we go. Is it selfish to wish to be so used by God? Selfish! Why, it is for His glory. He wants you to have this power. ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit.’ Rise up in victory this morning, dear friends, and take all this glory of Christ, and give it out to a starving world for Jesus’ sake.

6. Divine Husbandry

"Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For this God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."   Isaiah 28 : 24-29

THIS is another teaching of the spiritual world from natural emblems. It describes the divine husbandry. There is first the process of plowing the hard ground, then harrowing it, and preparing it for scattering the seed. Afterward there comes the threshing of the grain when it is ready, and grinding and bruising it, and making it into bread, and so preparing it for the food of man. It is a little unfamiliar, I suppose, to many of you, but it is a beautiful picture, and it is profitable sometimes to turn aside into these obscure passages of Scripture, and see the exquisite teaching they give of the hearts of God’s children.

I.

This passage tells us first of the plowing of the land. This is preparing the ground for divine seed. It is necessary to break up the clods, and plow deep furrows in the hard soil, and turn it over to the air, and sunshine and dew, so that when the seed is sown the tender roots and fibres of the plant may easily penetrate it, and find nourishment. The hard surface must be pulverized and made light and soft. So in the spiritual life, the plowshare must break up the indifferent heart, and make openings in it, and so give room for the Word to lodge. In the sinner’s case this work is indispensable. God has to make a place for His truth in a heart that has become so hardened by long sin that there is no sensitiveness to thoughts of Him. And so He sends deep cuttings down into these lives, strong pressures of sorrow and pain that make them hearken, sudden blows that break them to pieces.

So also it is in Christian life, which is apt after a while to become monotonous and hard. It is very easy for Christians to fall into the habit of thinking that everything will ever be as it has been, and there never will be any great change. It is the secret of the conservatism in the church today. Everything has gone on as it is now going for many, many years, and there is no place for fresh seed to fall. There are many green, grassy plains, but there is no place for grain. So too in individual Christian lives. How many beautiful lives we see which resemble green lawns, but in which there is no fruit. They need summer fallowing. The grass ought to be turned up in midsummer, and the sub-soil exposed to the sun and rain, and so become broken and pulverized, and ready for the seed. Then, too, there are hearts that have become crystallized into certain fixed lines of thought.

All their ideas and views of God have taken on a hard form, at least a very set one, and the Lord has to break this all up, and so He lets darkness, and sorrow, and trial sweep over them until the heart is broken and crushed. Like the beautiful meadow it seems to be all torn, and rent, and destroyed, rather than improved by the husbandman. But before the year is over there are rich harvests to reward the labor. If God is thus plowing your heart, dear friends, be patient under it, even if it is a deep plowshare He uses, and He is turning up great furrows and double depths.

It sometimes happens that after a few harvests have been gathered the soil becomes exhausted, and refuses to yield much increase. I have known such farms to be sold for a mere song by old farmers who have not known the improved methods of treating their land, and not unfrequently they have been bought cheap by some intelligent person who has plowed them at once with a deep sub-soil plow, and brought up soil from beneath that had never been used before. He has turned over great layers of earth that had never seen the sunlight, and they have richly rewarded his labor.

Are there not some Christians who have kept along on the same slow average for twenty or thirty years until the soil is exhausted? They have used about six inches deep and no more. The truth that once was so fresh and sweet has come to have little meaning to them, Ah! there are depths within them they never thought of, and soil which can be brought to the surface, and which will prove a surprise to them, and all who know them. What they need is sub-soil plowing. This will touch depths within which they never dreamed were there, and will bring up to the surface stores of sympathy, and love, and power that will make altered beings of them. Don’t shrink from this deep plowing, though it may be painful. It will bring a glorious recompense, and it will not last forever. You notice that the plowman does not plow all the time. ‘Doth the plowman plow all day to sow?’

You are not to stay at this work all your life, but must go on to something sweeter. Therefore, remember the advice of Peter, and be not discouraged though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness, for after that ye have suffered awhile the God of grace will surely stablish, strengthen and settle you. To Him be glory and dominion forever. The plowing will not last all the day. There is a season for resting. And so you will find it in Christian life.

II.

The next process is that of harrowing. ‘When he hath made plain the face thereof’ has reference to this. Plowing breaks the land up into clods and leaves great masses of hard earth which need to be pulverized, or else the seed will fall down a foot or two into the open spaces and never come up. So after plowing he makes plain the face of the land. He smoothes the surface of the soil, gently pulverizing it, until the rough field looks like a garden. The teeth of the harrow have crushed every clod, and the soft ground is as smooth as velvet. Then the farmer can scatter the small seed, and hope for a bounteous harvest. Do you know what this means, dear friends? You perhaps know all about the great breakings up of the soil by the pressure of heavy trial. Do you know of the little, fine self-crucifixions?

Be sure God will not rest while there is one little bit of hardness left in your nature. One proud, willful, selfish thought must not remain. You would be satisfied with the rough soil, but God says, ‘No, harrow it over.’ Some have been under this process for years. Long ago the rough, hard soil was broken up, and now it has long been lying in quiet submission. God has got it in such a state that seed cast into the ground will not be lost. It is not when the heart is all crushed with sorrow and fear that God casts in the seed. He lets it rest awhile. It is not time now for sermons or preaching to do much good.

It is gentle sympathy and quiet teaching that are most needed. And so God rests the bruised heart, and teaches it Himself. How wise, how gentle He is. Dear Christian friends, do you know this fine harrowing from God’s hand? He takes such pains with every one of us. The little trials that come and irritate us so much never make Him impatient with us. But He lets the same little temptation come to us again and again and again, till it seems we shall never get through with it. These small testings are hard to bear, are they not? It is breaking up the little fragments, and it must be finished before the next work can be commenced.

III.

Now comes the sowing of the seed. The soil has been broken up by the sharp plow, and then has been prepared by the little teeth of the harrow, and now the grain can be cast in. There are many kinds of seed to be sown, and the plants that come from them are not of the same value. The fitches and the cummin are scattered and cast abroad, but the wheat and rye are sown in rows. There are lots of different people in the world, and God has many different plants in His husbandry. They are not only the fruitful wheat and barley, but there are fitches and spelt also. They either describe different Christians, or different qualities in Christian life.

Many Christians are like the fitches and cummin, which seem to be a sort of blending of grass and grain. Some think they are savory plants used in preparing food, others think they are for cattle. It is not known exactly what they are, but they refer to two orders of some kind of plant. Then there is wheat, the most valuable grain, and barley, perhaps the most universally raised of any oriental grain, both for cattle and mankind. The spelt occupies a subordinate place; we do not know what it is exactly. So God’s church is full of different people. There is a place for the humble ones, and there is a place for the highly gifted ones, too.

If only both are consecrated, they are alike useful. The church needs the higher graces of inspiration and power, but the simpler ones of love and faith are indispensable. They come down to the common-place of everything we do. There are also the savory plants of life. God has need of them all. He is training all for usefulness and neglecting none. The farmer does not neglect the timothy on which the cattle feed. It would be as bad as to neglect the wheat and barley. So God does not leave a single individual or a single virtue uncared for. Whatever there is in His people that is of value, He prunes and trims till it is fruitful. Dear friends, let God develop every part of your life till He makes you a full-rounded Christian to His own praise and glory.

The farmer, however, takes special care of the wheat. He plants it in rows and selects the soil with discriminating care. So God develops most that which will be of special value. The faith which will be blessed to thousands of souls, the love that delights to gather in the lost, and that makes the work and the people dear to you, these receive more careful training from the great Husbandman. This is why He is dealing with you as He is. The soil is being prepared and the seed being sown. Ten years hence, perhaps, there will be glorious work for you to do.

IV.

Having planted the seed, no one can train the growing plant aright but God. One plant wants pruning, another needs watering, and He takes constant care of all. ‘I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day.’ So He is keeping you every moment of life. His jealous, watchful love is brooding over you every moment, cutting off each wayward shoot, pulling up each weed, sending the rain in invigorating streams, letting the clouds cover you, and the bright sunlight fall on you, sending deeper teaching where it is needed, digging around the roots and cultivating the soil, removing hindering things out of the way, and guarding always with watchful love. If you should have the care of a child for fifty years, you would think it a great charge. How wonderful is the love of God, shown as much in keeping us from evil as in dying for us on the cross. It is indeed a jealous love, guarding us lest we harm ourselves, or lest some evil thing touch us. Eternity will be all too short to utter the praise that is His due.

V.

The next process is that of threshing. This is taking the seed out of the straw, and separating the valuable part from the light and worthless chaff. This process is different with the different grains. ‘The fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised.’ He means that the fitches and cummin are so light that they do not need a cart-wheel to roll around upon them, or the feet of oxen to tread upon them in order to take the grain out of the chaff. The threshing was different in those times from what it is now. The barn floor was cleared and the sheaves spread out upon the ground, and then the oxen and heavy carts were driven in, and they trod the grain over and over and over; after that the straw was shaken and the heavy grain was found underneath it on the floor. It was not so with the fitches. They were too light for that.

They were held in the hand of the farmer and struck with a rod, and the fine seed would fall out of them; that was enough for them. But when he came to the wheat, a heavier process was needed, and so he used the cart-wheels and oxen. Do you not see a lesson for life here, dear friends? Is not God teaching you something from this? Have you not sometimes looked at Christians and marveled at the easy times they have? No cart-wheel seems to be turning over on them, and no oxen are trampling them down. No red blood is being pressed from their very heart, while you are having such a conflict and such a hard time.

Maybe they are only fitches and cummin, and are not worth the heavy blows you are getting. The farmer does not thresh timothy and blue grass, and break it with a heavy machine. But he takes great pains with the wheat. So God takes great pains with those who are to be of much use to Him. There is a nature in them that needs this discipline. Don’t wonder if the bread corn is treated with the wise, discriminating care that will fit it for food. He knows the way He is taking, and there is infinite tenderness in the oversight He gives. He is watching the furnace you are in lest the heat shall be too intense. He wants it great enough to purify, and then it is withdrawn. He knoweth our frame. He will not let any temptation take us but such as is common to man, and He will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it.

Do you believe in this disciplining love of the Husbandman? and are you trusting Him with the leading and government of your life? Oh! that you would cease to envy or be disturbed by the people around you. Some day you will be glad for the training and blessing they have brought you. God will not be too hard on the wheat. He will not let the cart-wheel crush the grain. He will not let the oxen trample hard enough to tread out the precious life of the grain. This trial time will only be long enough to do its separating work, then the precious grain will be gathered into the granary. Afterward it is to be crushed between the mill-stones and made into bread. God lets not anything of it be lost.

The cart-wheels and the oxen and the mill-stones never injured the full grain at all. Sometimes you think, ‘Oh! I had such faith a month ago, but there came a severe trial to me and it is all gone.’ You have not lost a bit of real faith. Ah! no. God will not let anything that is real be lost. You did not have it when you thought you did, or you would not have lost it. He will not let a single corn of wheat fall and be lost. Nothing in your life which is of Him shall ever be separated from you, but it shall all be found at last unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

VI.

Next comes the grinding of the corn and preparing bread. The threshing floor is not the place to make bread. God will not let the devil have any part in this work. The chaff has been separated by the oxen on the threshing floor, and the heavy cart-wheel has helped in this. He does sometimes use Satan in other people to get the original evil out of us, but He uses His own blessed hands to make us into bread. When the enemy is through with us, then He takes us alone, and, with the fire of the Holy Ghost and the pressure of His own hand He makes us into bread for other people. This is something that cannot be done anywhere else.

The enemy must be put entirely away, and alone with Himself the Holy Ghost must kindle the fire of God’s love. He will put you upon the altar in the heavenly places, and begin to burn you till you go up as a cloud of incense - a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor. We no longer desire the world. God is consuming our own love of everything. He is taking our very soul and turning it into bread and giving it for others. We may be bread to satisfy His love for us, and we may be bread to satisfy the hunger of others. We may be enabled to strengthen and establish and teach even as He does.

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