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SUBJECT: 02 - NEH 3:15 King's Gardens
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Kings' Gardens
December 29th, 1867
by
C. H. SPURGEON
1834-1892
"The king's garden."-- Neh_3:15
There have been many very famous kings' gardens, such as those
"hanging gardens" in Nineveh, wherein Sardanapalus delighted himself,
and that remarkable garden of Cyrus, in which he took such great
interest, because, as he said, every tree and every plant in it had been
both planted and tended by his own royal hand. Imagination might bid
you wander among the beauties of the celebrated villas and gardens of
the Roman emperors, or make you linger amid the roses and lilies of the
voluptuous gardens of the Persian caliphs, but we have nobler work in
hand. I call you to come with me to the orchard of pomegranates, to beds
of spices, camphire with spikenard, calamus and cinnamon, myrrh and
aloes, with trees of frankincense. I am not about to speak of the gardens
of any earthly monarch, for we can find far fairer flowers and rarer fruits
in the gardens of the King of kings, the resorts of his Son, the Prince
Immanuel.
There are six of these "kings' gardens" to which I shall conduct you, but
we shall not have time to tarry in more than one of them.
I. The first of these kings' gardens was The Garden of Paradise, which was
situated in the midst of Eden.
You will read of it in the book of Genesis. It was doubtless a fairer place
than we have ever seen, and much more marvellous for beauty than we
can imagine. It was full of all manner of delights, a fruitful spot wherein
the man who was set to keep it would have no need to toil, but would
find it a happy and refreshing exercise to train the luxurious plants. No
sweat was ever seen upon his happy brow, for he cultivated a virgin soil.
Abundance of luscious fruits ministered to his necessities. He could
stretch himself upon soft couches of moss, and no inclemencies of
weather disturbed his repose. No winter's wind scattered the leaves of
Eden, no summer's heat burned up its flowers. There were sweet
alternations of day and night, but the day brought no sorrow, and the
night no danger. The beasts were there; yet not as beasts of prey, but as
the obedient servants of that happy man whom God had made to have
dominion over all the works of his hands. In the midst of the garden
grew that mysterious tree of life, of which we know so little literally, but
of which, I trust, we know so much in its spiritual meaning, for we have
fed upon its fruits, and have been healed by its leaves. Hard by it stood
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, placed there as the test of
obedience. Adam's mind was equally balanced, it had no bias to evil, and
God left him to the freedom of his will, giving this as the test of his
loyalty, that, if obedient, he would never touch the fruit of that one tree.
Why need he? There were tens of thousands of trees all of which bowed
down their branches with abundant fruit for his hunger or his luxury.
Why need he desire that solitary tree which God had fenced and hedged
about? But, in an evil hour, at the serpent's base suggestion, we know not
how soon after his creation, he put forth his hand and plucked from the
forbidden tree! The mere plucking of the fruit seems little to the
thoughtless, but the breaking of the Maker's law was a great offence to
heaven, for it was man's throwing down the gage of battle against his
Creator, and breaking his allegiance to his Lord and Master; this was
great, great in itself and in its mischievous effects, for Adam fell that
day, and out of Eden he was driven to till the thankless, thorn-bearing
soil, and you and I fell in him, and were banished with him. We were in
his loins. He was "the father of us all," and on us he has brought the
curse of toil, and in us all he has sown the seeds of iniquity. Let it never
be forgotten, in connection with the garden of Eden, that we are not now
a pure and sinless race, and cannot be by nature, however civilised we
may become. Men are born no longer with balanced minds, but a heavy
weight of original sin in the scale. We are averse to that which is good.
The bias of the mind of man, when he is born into the world, is towards
that which is evil, and we as naturally go astray as the serpent naturally
learns to hiss, or the wolf to tear and to devour.
Ah! brethren and sisters, beware of thinking too little of the fall. Slight
thoughts upon the fall are at the root of false theologies; the mischief that
has been wrought in us is not a trifling matter, but a thing to be trembled
at. Only the divine hand can reclaim us. The house of manhood has been
shaken to its foundations; each timber is decayed; the leprosy is in the
tottering wall. Man must be made new by the same creating hand that
first made him, or he never can be a dwelling place fit for God. Let those
who boast of their natural goodness look to the garden of Eden and be
ashamed of their pride, and then examine their own actions by the glass
of God's most holy law, and be confounded that they should dream of
purity. How can he be pure that is born of woman? "Who can bring a
clean thing out of an unclean thing? Not one." As our mothers were
sinful, such are we, and such will our children be; as long as men are
brought into the world by natural generation, we shall be "born in sin
and shapen in iniquity;" and, if we are to be accepted by God, we must
be born again, and made new creatures in Christ Jesus.
Alas! then, alas! for that first king's garden! The flowers are gone; the
birds have ceased to sing! The winter's winds howl through it, and the
summer's sun scorches it! The beasts of prey are there. Perhaps the very
site of it, which is now unknown, may be a den of dragons, an habitation
for the pelican of the wilderness, and the bittern of desolation! Fit image,
if it be so, of our natural estate, for we were altogether given up to
desolation and destruction, unless one mighty to save had espoused our
cause and undertaken our redemption.
II. The second king's garden to which I will introduce you is very
different from the first, but it yields more fragrant spices and healthier
herbs by far. It is
The Garden of Gethsemane--the garden of
the olive-press, wherein the Lord Jesus
Christ was the olive, and God's anger
against sin was the press.
Put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stand is
holy ground! 'Tis night. Yonder are twelve men walking, and talking
sweetly as they walk. Observe one, a mysterious, majestic Person, who is
evidently superior to the rest. It is the Son of Man. Hush! It is the Son of
God, and as he talks you can hear words like these, "I am the vine, ye are
the branches; abide in me and I in you." We will conceal ourselves
behind that group of olives, and will see what is to happen here. This is
the place where that mysterious Son of God was often to be found with
his disciples. Just as God walked in the first garden in Eden, so the Son
of God walked in the second garden; and as God in the first garden
communed with man, so of the second garden it is written Jesus ofttimes
resorted thither with his disciples. See, he has dismissed eight of them.
He has told them to wait yonder, and on he goes with only three--Peter,
and James, and John--the chosen out of the eleven- -and speaking to
them, and bidding them watch, he leaves them, and is all alone. Let us
draw as near as we may; we see the Son of God in prayer, and as he
prays, his earnestness gathers strength. He is striving with an unseen
enemy--struggling like a man who would overcome an adversary,
wrestling so vigorously that he sweats; but it is a strange sweat! "His
sweat was, as it were great drops of blood, falling to the ground." He is
beginning to drink the cup of Jehovah's wrath, which was due to our
sins, a cup which we could not have emptied even through eternity,
though every drop of it had been a hell. Christ is quaffing the wrath-cup,
and as he trembles under the fiery influence of the draught of worse than
wormwood and gall, he cries, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from
me." But he recovers himself, and his prayer is, "Nevertheless, not as I
will, but as thou wilt." Backwards and forwards you see him go like a
man distracted. Three times he looks to the disciples for comfort, but
they are slumbering, and then again he returns to his God and casts
himself upon his face, with strong crying and tears, pouring out his soul
in blood before high heaven, such is the anguish of his tortured heart.
Herein behold the beginning of our redemption. Jesus then began to
suffer in our room and stead, atoning for our iniquity. The mischief of
Eden fell upon Gethsemane. The mist of sin rose up in the garden of
Paradise, and as it rose it gathered and collected into a black,
tremendous storm cloud, and anon it burst, with flashes of lightning and
with claps of thunder, upon the great Shepherd of the sheep, that we,
who deserved to be overwhelmed by the tempest, might find fair weather
in the rest which remaineth for the people of God.
Perhaps no sight that was ever beheld of men or angels, except the
crucifixion, was more tremendous than the agony of Gethsemane. It
must have been a terrible spectacle to have seen martyrs in the fire, or
men and women devoured by lions and bears in the Roman
amphitheatre, but then to the Christian's eye there was a pleasure
mingled with these ghastly sights, for God sustained his faithful ones.
They clapped their hands amidst the fire. They sang when the wild
beasts were leaping upon them. Such holy joy beamed from their
countenances, that their brethren were comforted rather than distressed,
and saints wished to be there with them, that they might die as they died
and win the martyr's crown. But, when you look at Christ in the garden,
you miss the help which the martyrs had. God forsakes him. He must
tread the winepress alone, and of the people there must be none with
him. Ay! and yet, dark as that night was, the darkest night that ever fell
upon this world, it was the mother of that gospel light of finished
redemption which now enlightens the Gentiles and brings glory unto
Israel.
Let us leave the king's garden, then, with feelings of deep repentance
that we should have made Jesus suffer so, and yet with holy gladness to
think that thus hath he redeemed us from the ruins of the fall.
III. I claim a moment's thought for The Garden of the Burial and the
Resurrection.
In Joseph's garden, in the new tomb, the Beloved of our souls slept for
awhile, and thence arose to his glory-life. Detained of death he could not
be, for he was no longer a lawful Captive, he had finished his work and
earned his reward, and therefore the imprisoning stone was rolled away.
He is not here, for he is risen; the seal is broken, the watchmen are
dispersed, the stone is removed, the Captive is free. What comfort is
here, for, as Jesus rose, so all his slumbering saints shall likewise leave
the tomb. His resurrection is the resurrection of all the saints. Wait but
awhile, and the tomb shall be no longer the treasury of death. So surely
as the Lord came forth from the sepulchre to glory and immortality, all
his saints are justified and clean. None can accuse us now that the Lord
has risen indeed no more to die. His one offering hath perfected for ever
all the chosen ones, and his glorious uprising is the guarantee of their
acceptance. Faith delights in the garden where Magdalene found her
unknown, yet well known, Lord, and where angels kept watch and ward
over the couch which the immortal Sufferer had relinquished.
Henceforth it is to us a king's garden, abounding with pleasant fruits and
fragrant flowers.
IV. And now I desire to take you to a fourth king's garden. You will not
have far to go. Put your hand into your bosom and your finger will be on
the latch of its door. It is The Garden of the Human Heart.
The heart is a little garden, little apparently, but yet so extensive that
it is all but infinite, for who can tell the limit of the heart of man, or
how far-darting the imaginations and the affections of the soul of man may
be? Now, this little-great thing, the human heart, is meant to be a garden
for God. Did I say it was a garden? It should be so, but alas! by nature it
scarcely deserves the name, for I perceive it to be all overgrown with
weeds; thistle and briar, deadly nightshade, and nettles, and I know not
what besides, spring up everywhere. I see trees, but they drop with
poison, like the deadly upas, whose drip is death. There are no luscious
fruits, but instead thereof grapes of Gomorrha and apples of Sodom: this
loathsome den of festering evils is what should have been God's garden,
but lo! it is a tangled wilderness of all manner of noisome things; thorns,
also, and thistles doth it bring forth.
What must be done to this neglected garden? What heavenly horticulture
can be used upon it to reclaim it from its desert state? God, the great
Husbandman, must come and turn it over after his own fashion. The
rough plough of conviction must be dragged through it. The spade of
trouble must break up the surface and smash in pieces the clods, and kill
the weeds, and fire must burn up the rubbish. Has that ever been done in
the garden of your heart, dear hearer? Have you ever had your soul
ploughed and cross ploughed and harrowed with sorrow till you were
driven well-nigh to despair? Have you seen your sweet sins killed, so that
you could not take pleasure in them any longer, but desired to be clean
rid of them? That must be done if the garden is to be reclaimed and
made worthy of the divine owner.
Then when the soil is broken up, and the clods are turned, there must be
seed-sowing, and the planting of slips from the tree of life, seeds from
the nurseries of heaven, seeds that shall turn to flowers which shall be
full of sweet perfume, acceptable to Christ. The seeds of faith, and love,
and hope, and patience, and perseverance, and zeal, must be carefully
cast into prepared soil by the Holy Spirit's hand, and fostered by the
same kindly care. Ere the heart can be called a garden fit for the King of
kings, these must bud, and blossom, and yield their fruits. When I regard
attentively that garden which was so lately covered over with weeds, but
which is now sown and planted, I perceive that the plants grow not well
unless the soil be drained. There must be always drained out of us much
superfluity of naughtiness and excess of carnal confidence, or our heart
will be a cold swamp, a worthless plant-killing bog. Affliction drains us.
We do not like to have our money or our friends taken from us, and yet
the love of these might ruin us for all fruit-bearing if God did not remove
them. Besides the draining, there must also be constant hoeing, and
raking, and digging. After a garden is made, the flower- beds are never
left long alone, the gardener must have his eye upon them or they run to
riot. If they were left to themselves, they would soon breed weeds again
and return to the old confusion, but the hoe must be constantly kept
going, if the garden is to be clean. So with the garden of the heart;
cleansing and pruning must be done every day, and God must do it
through ourselves, and we must do it by constant self examination and
repentance, striving in the power of the Holy Spirit to keep ourselves free
from the sins which do so easily beset us. I find that the weeds grow fast
enough in my soul, and keep me in full employment to check their
growth. Cowper talks about
"The dear hour which brought me to thy foot,
And cut up all my follies by the root."
Surely, good Cowper must have made a mistake! I know mine were
never cut up by the roots. When they have been cut down, the root soon
sprouts again. They will come up by the root one day, as I believe and
hope, and till then I must be incessantly watchful; but the roots are there
still; alas! alas! alas! that it should be so! O Lord Jesus, help us, or we
shall be overgrown with our besetting sins. Corruption still remaineth
even in the heart of the regenerate, and the garden of the King of Kings
is often overgrown with weeds. But still for God it is a garden now, a
garden for Jesus to walk in, and there are happy times when he deigns to
sit down in the arbour of our souls. What a royal garden our poor heart
then becomes! It may be the body is covered with poor garments, it may
be our whole outward man is very sick and faint; but still our manhood is
a King's garden when Christ is within, and we are kings and priests unto
our God when Jesus holds fellowship with us. The angels come into that
garden too, and when the air is still, and the noise of outside cares is
hushed, we have often enjoyed a little heaven within our heart, the
beginning of the heaven to which we hope soon to go. Dear hearer, do
you know what we mean by paradise within, glory beaming in the heart,
heaven in the soul? Jesus can teach you this.
The heart is a King's garden, beloved. Jesus bought it with his precious
blood, and he has now by his grace come into it and claimed it to be his
own. My friend, if he has not come to you yet, I hope he will. If you have
not given your heart to him, I hope you may be led to do so by his
gracious Spirit. But, if your heart be his, oh, keep it for your Beloved! Do
not give the keys to anyone else. The love of husband, wife, and child,
each of these is to have its proper place, but the heart's core is the King's
garden. Mark you, it is not the husband's garden, nor the wife's garden,
nor the child's garden; the dearest idols we have known must not be set
up there; it is the King's garden. I hope you will say to-night, before you
go to rest, "O king, come into my garden, and eat my pleasant fruit!
Awake, O heavenly wind, and blow upon the garden of my soul, and let
all the plants of my new nature give forth their sweetness, that my
Beloved may be charmed with my company, and that I may be filled with
his sweet love."
V. However, I want you to spend most of your time in a fifth garden, and
that is The Garden of the Christian Church--our garden, and yet the King's
garden, planted and flourishing in this place.
Follow me in each word of the text. What is it? A garden. The church of
God is a garden. Many thoughts are gathered in that one metaphor like
bees in a hive. It is called a garden in the book of Solomon's Song, so I
know that we are not wrong in using the illustration. But what does a
garden mean?
In the first place, it implies separation. A garden is not the open waste,
the heath, or the common; it is not a wilderness; it is walled around; it is
hedged in. Ah! Christian, when you join the church, remember you, too,
become by profession hedged in for King Jesus. I earnestly desire to see
the wall of separation between the church and the world made broader
and stronger. Believe me, nothing gives me more sorrow than when I
hear of church members saying, "Well, there is no harm in this; there is
no harm in that," and getting as near to the world as possible. It does not
matter what you may think of it, but I am certain that grace is at a low
ebb in your soul when you even raise the question of how far you may go
in worldly conformity. We are to avoid the very appearance of evil, and
especially just at this festive season of the year, this Christmas, when so
many of you are having your parties, your children's sports, and all that
kind of thing. I would have you doubly jealous, do recollect, church
members, that you are to be Christians always, if Christians at all; we do
not grant dispensations to sin, as the Roman Catholics did in Luther's
day. You are always to wear your regimentals as Christian soldiers, and
never, at any time, to say, "Well, I shall do this just now; it is only once a
year; I shall do as the world does; I cannot be out of the fashion." You
must be either out of the fashion, or out of the true church, recollect that,
because the place for Christ's church is altogether out of the fashion. You
are called to go forth without the camp, bearing his reproach. If you want
to be in the camp, you cannot be Christ's disciple, for the love of the
world is enmity to Christ. You must be a separated one or be lost. If you
want to be the common, you cannot be the garden; and if you are willing
and anxious to be the garden, why, then, do not attempt to be the
common. Keep the hedges up; keep the gates well bolted; kings' gardens
must not be left open to thieves and robbers. Be not conformed to the
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. The King's
garden, is a separated place--keep it so.
The king's garden is a place of order. You do not, when you go into your
garden, find the flowers all put in anyhow, but the wise gardener
arranges them according to their tints and hues, so that in the midst of
summer the garden shall look like a rainbow that has been broken to
pieces and let down upon the earth, delightful to gaze upon. All the
walks are regular, the beds are in proportion, and the plants well
arranged, just as they should be. Such should the Christian church be--
pastor, deacons, elders, members, all in their proper places. We are not a
load of bricks, but a house. The church is not a mere heap, but it is to be
a palace built for God, a temple in which he manifests himself. Let us all
try to maintain order in the household of Christ, and above all things
hate discord and confusion. Let us be men who know how to keep rank,
maintaining a decent order and regularity in all things. We seek not the
order which consists in all sleeping in their places, like corpses in the
catacombs, but we desire the order which finds all working in their
places for the common cause of the Lord Jesus. May we never become a
disorderly, disunited, irregular church. May there be order in the garden,
preserved by the power of love and grace.
A garden is a place of beauty. Such should the Christian church be. You
gather together the fairest flowers from all lands, and put them in your
garden, and if you see no beauties in the streets, you expect to see them
in the florist's beds. So, if there be no holiness, no love, no zeal, no
prayerfulness outside in the world, yet we should see these things in the
church. We are not to take the world to be our guide, but we are to excel
it. We must do more than others. The Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples
that their righteousness must exceed that of even the Scribes and
Pharisees, or they could not enter the kingdom; and the genuine
Christian must seek to be more excellent in his life than the best
moralist, because Christ's garden ought to have the best flowers in all the
world. Even the best is poor compared with Christ's deservings, let us
not put him off with withered and dying plants. The rarest, richest,
choicest lilies and roses ought to bloom in the place which Jesus calls his
own.
The king's garden is a place of growth, too. I do not suppose the florist
would think that soil fit to be a garden in which his plants would not
grow. It would be a dead loss to him if the slips remained slips, and if
the buds never turned to flowers. So in the church of God. We are not
introduced into fellowship to be always the same, always little children
and babes in grace. We should grow in grace, and in the knowledge of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The prayer-meeting should be a
school of practical eduction for our beloved young members, a place for
the young nestlings to try their callous wings. If they try to pray, at first
they may almost break down, perhaps, but if they will not give way to a
foolish timidity, they will soon get over it, and find themselves useful,
not merely in public prayer, but in a thousand works of usefulness
besides. Growth should be rapid where Jesus is the Husbandman, and the
Holy Spirit the dew from above.
Again, a garden is a place of retirement. When a man is in his garden,
he does not expect to see all his customers walking down between the
beds to do business with him. "No," saith he, "I am walking in the
garden, and I expect to be alone." So the Lord Jesus Christ would have
us reserve the church to be a place in which he can manifest himself to
us, as he doth not unto the world. Oh! I wish that Christians were more
retired, that they kept their hearts more shut up for Christ! I am afraid
we often worry and trouble ourselves, like Martha, with much serving, so
that we have not the room for Christ that Mary had, and do not sit at his
feet as we ought to do. The Lord grant us grace to keep our hearts as
closed gardens for Christ to walk in.
This, then, is a poor description of what the church is; and now, very
briefly, whose is it?
The church is a garden, but it is the King's garden. The church is not
mine, nor yours, but the King's. It is the King's garden, because he chose
it for himself.
"We are a garden walled around,
Chosen, and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness."
We are the King's, because he bought us. Naboth said he would not give
up his vineyard, because he inherited it. So doth Christ inherit us by an
indefeasible title. We are his heritage, and he has so dearly bought us
with his own blood that he will never give us up, blessed be his name!
We are his, because he has conquered us. He won us in fair fight, and
now we acknowledge the validity of his title- deeds, and confess, every
one of us, as the members of his church, that we are his, and that he is
ours.
What a nobility this gives to Christ's church! I have sometimes heard
people talk disparagingly of church meetings; there may be but few
persons present, some of those may be young members, some may be
very old, yet I have been much grieved when I have heard people despise
such a church meeting, for Christ would not despise it. Let such beware.
Whenever the church meets, either as a whole or representatively, there
is a solemn dignity cast about that assembly which is not to be found in a
parliament of kings and princes. Ay, I will say it--if Louis Napoleon
could call a senate of all the potentates in this world in Paris, and hold a
congress there, the whole of them put together would not be worth the
snap of a finger compared with half-a-dozen godly old women who meet
together in the name of Christ as a church, in obedience to the Lord's
command; for God would not be there with the potentates-- what cares
he for them?--but he would be with the most poor and despised of his
people who meet together as a church in Jesus Christ's name. "Lo, I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the world," is more glorious than
ermine, or purple, or crown. Constitute a church in the name of Christ,
and meet together as such, and there is no assembly upon the face of the
earth that can be compared with it, and even the assembly of the first-
born in heaven is but a branch of the grand whole of which the
assemblies of the church on earth make up an essential part. The church
is the King's garden.
I am going to ask, now, if the church be a garden, what does it need?
One thing it certainly requires, is labour. You cannot keep a garden in
proper order without work. We want more labourers in this church,
especially of one sort. We want some who will be planters. I had a letter
last week from a young woman; I do not know who she is; I do not know
where she sits; it may be in the top gallery, it is quite as likely to be in
the second-- perhaps more likely; and in the area, quite as likely again.
She says that she has been here for two years; that she has been very
anxious about her soul, and she has often wished that somebody would
speak to her, but nobody has done so. Now, if I knew where she sat, I
should say to the friends who sit there, that I am ashamed of them! As I
do not know where she sits, will those of you who do love Christ, but
who have not been in the habit of looking after others, be so kind as to be
ashamed of yourselves, because there is somebody or other to be blamed
in this business. If you love Jesus at all, I cannot tell how you can let a
person come to this Tabernacle for two years and not speak to them.
Somebody has been negligent, very negligent; whoever it may be, let him
see to it. I do not say you can speak upon the best things the first time
you see them, though you might try to do that at any rate; but how can
you have been silent for two years? How is this? You have been here
twice on the Sunday, and that young woman has been here twice; well,
there are two hundred times--two hundred opportunities that you have
lost; two hundred times that you have let that poor soul go away
burdened without speaking to her! I want labourers very badly, real hard-
working soul-winners. I want planters who can get the young slips and
put them where they will grow. I want helpers who will gather up the
young lambs just as they are born, and carry them in their bosom a little
while; spiritual nurses who will give comfort to the broken-hearted, and
pour in the oil of consolation into the wounds of poor trembling sinners.
In every church there ought to be some to watch over those who are
planted. When we receive members we ought to look after them, and as
one person cannot do it thoroughly, as even the elders and deacons are
hardly numerous enough for so great a work, it should be the aim and
duty of all the experienced Christians in the church to fondly tend the
younger ones. I believe that many of you do this, and I am very thankful
to zealous friends who are not in office in the church, but who do a great
deal in visiting the sick and watching over the younger members. Only I
want all of you to do it. Oh! if everybody were duly anxious about
keeping this garden in order, how beautifully trimmed all the borders
would be, and how few weeds should we find springing up in the beds!
May I ask you, members of the church, are you doing your duty by the
King's garden? You are yourselves his own chosen ones, and he has
worked for you, so that you have no need to work to save yourselves; but
still, you must not be idle, for your Lord has said to you, "Go, work to-
day in my vineyard." Are you doing it? I thank you if you are. If you are
not, blame yourselves.
There should be a little band in every church to collect the straggling. Our
vines will grow out of order if they can, but we must deal wisely with them,
and fasten them up in their places. We must be on the alert where we see
backsliding begin. How much can be done by old Christians in trying to stop
backsliding amongst the young! I believe that half the cases that have gone
badly might have been stopped by a little judicious forethought, if believers
had taken them in time. I say again, what can we, who are the officers of this
church, do with so many? Why, we number more than three thousand five
hundred in church fellowship. But if you will look after each other, and seek
wherever you see a little decline, a little coldness, to bring the brother
back, the King's garden will be well cared for. The King's garden wants
labourers; may you all labour, and its wants in this respect will be met.
Sometimes we need, brethren, to burn up the rubbish and sweep up the
leaves. In the best church there will always be some falling leaves.
Somebody gets out at the elbow with another brother. We are not any of
us perfect. We get on far more than reasonably well with one another, as
a church. I never saw any church that was really so well knit together in
Christian love as we are; but there are always a few leaves about, and not
a little dust to be put in the corner and burned. May I ask a brother,
whenever he sees any mischief, to sweep it up and say nothing about it.
Whenever you find that such-and-such a brother is going a little amiss,
talk to him about it quietly; do not spread it all over the church, and
make jealousies and suspicions. Pick up the leaf and destroy it. When a
brother member has offended you, so that you feel vexed, forgive him;
for I dare say you will want forgiveness before many days are over. We
have none of us, perhaps, the sweetest of tempers, but, if we have the
sweetest, the way to prove it is by forgiving those who have not. If every
one would seek to make peace, there never could be any great
accumulation of discord in the King's garden to annoy him; but when he
came walking in he would find it all beautiful and in good order, and all
the flowers blooming delightfully, and he would find his delights with
the sons of men.
Now, I have said that the church wants labourers, but, dear friends, it
wants something else. It wants new plants. I wish I might find some to-
night. Our King finds plants for his garden outside the wall. He takes the
wild olive branches, and grafts them into the good olive, and then the
sap changes the nature. A new thing that! It is not thus in our gardens at
home, but wonders are wrought in the garden of the King. He transplants
weeds from the dunghill, and makes them to grow as lilies in the midst
of his fair garden. Will you be such a plant? May the Master's love
constrain you to desire to be such a one, and, if you desire it, you shall
have it. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are his. Rest alone upon
him, and you are a plant of his right hand planting, and shall never be
rooted up. God grant that you may blossom in the skies.
But, dear friends, all the labourers and all the new plants would not be
what the church requires if she had not something else, for every garden
wants rain, and every garden needs sunshine. This church, if it had ever
so many labourers, could never prosper without the dew of the Holy
Spirit, and the sunshine of the divine favour. We have had these
blessings to a very great extent. We must pray that we may have more. I
should like to know of some of you, how long it is since you have been to
a prayer-meeting. Shall I stop and let you count? Well, you have not
been just lately, because it is Christmas-time. Very well, I did not expect
to see you; and, if I had expected, I should have been disappointed. But it
was not Christmas-time last October, and yet you were not here then.
Some of you very seldom come at all. If you are lawfully detained at
home, I would never ask you to come, or upbraid you for minding your
home duties, for you have no right to leave legitimate business that ought
to be done to come here. But I am certain that some of you are idle, and
might come if you liked. I pray the Lord to send you a horsewhip in the
shape of trouble in your conscience till you do come, for it very much
weakens us all in our prayers when our numbers decline; and whenever
people come to despise week-night services, be sure of it, farewell to the
vital power of godliness, for week-night services are very, very much the
stamp of the man. Any hypocrite will come on a Sunday, but a man does
need to take some interest in religious services to be found mingling with
the people of God in prayer. Am I to believe that some of you do not care
whether souls are saved or not? Am I to believe that some of you, our
church members, have no care whether our ministry is blessed or not?
Am I to believe that you continue members of a church in which you
take no interest? Am I to believe that it is nothing to you whether Christ
is crowned or despised? I will not believe it, and yet your absence from
the meetings for prayer tends to make me fear that it must be so. I beg
you correct yourselves in this matter, and as the King's garden wants
rain and sunshine, and we cannot expect to have it without prayer, let us
not forget the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is.
Oh! for more prayer, more to pray, and for those who do pray, to pray
with more fervour and more constancy in supplication! One favour I
would ask. If you cannot come to the prayer meetings--and many of you,
I know, cannot, and I do not speak to you, blaming you--do pray in the
family, do pray in the closet for us. Do not let us become poor in prayer.
It is a bad thing to become poor in money, because we need it for a
thousand causes, and cannot get on without it. But we can do without
money better than we can do without prayer. We must have your prayers.
I had almost said, if you do not give us your daily prayers give up your
membership, for it is no good to yourselves, and cannot be of any use to
us. The very least thing that a church member can do is to plead with
God that the blessing may descend. It is the King's garden, and will you
not pray for it? It is the King's own garden wherein he loves to walk, and
which he has purchased with his blood; shall not your prayers go up that
his church may flourish, and that his kingdom may come?
And now, lastly, on this point. This King's garden, what does it produce?
If there had been time, I meant to have waited while you answered the
question as to how much you produced. Sometimes in our garden we
have a tree which is so loaded with fruit that we have to put props under
it to keep the branches from trembling; there are one or two in this
church of that sort, who bear much fruit for God, and are so weak in
body that their very fruitfulness of zeal and earnestness seems as though
it would break them. I pray God that with his gracious promise he may
prop them up. I am afraid that this is not the picture of most of us. You
say to the gardener sometimes, "Will there be any fruit on that tree this
season? It is time that it should show." He looks, and looks, and looks
again, and at last the good man says, "I think I can see one little one up
at the top sir, but I do not know whether it will come to much" That, I
am afraid, is the photograph of many professors. There is fruit, or else
they would not be saved ones, but it is "a little one." Herein is my Father
glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." May your
prayer be, not for fruit only, but for much fruit, and may God send it.
Remember, if there be any fruit at all, it all belongs to the King. If a soul
be saved, he shall have the glory of it. If there be any advance made in
the great cause of truth and righteousness, the crown shall be put upon
his head. The keepers of the vineyard shall have their hundreds, but the
King himself shall have his ten thousand times ten thousand, for he
deserves it all.
VI. And now, dear friends, before I send you away, there is one more
garden I must mention, but the time is so far past that I shall not keep
you to say much about it; it is The Garden of the Paradise Above.
I shall let God's word speak to you about that garden, and then I have
done.
"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the
street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life,
which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month:
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there
shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in
it; and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his
name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and
they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth
them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever."
In that garden of the paradise above may we all be found at the last.
Amen.
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