In the Hay Field
A sermon
(No. 757)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, JUNE 23, 1867, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"He causes the grass to grow for the cattle."- Psalm 104:14.
VE who are condemned to live in this great wilderness of brick are very
likely to forget the seasons altogether. And our friends who live out
in the green country and see the changing seasons, are quite as apt to
hear the voices of the seasons with their ears only, and not to learn
the inward meaning with their hearts. Spring, summer, autumn, and
winter are God's four Evangelists whom He sends into this world to
teach those who are willing to be taught. But the most of men are far
too much intent upon the problem of how they may be fed to care for
spiritual instruction.
"He that has ears to hear, let him hear." As for others, in whom the
god of this world is reigning, they will not hear though Heaven, and
earth, and Hell should mingle their voices into one great thunder-clap.
Just now all the world is busy with ingathering the hay, and you could
scarcely ride for a few minutes in the country without enjoying the
delicious fragrance of the hay field and hearing the sharpening of the
mower's scythe.
I believe there is a Gospel in the hay field, and that Gospel we
intend, this morning, to bring out as we may be enabled. Our text
conducts us at once to the spot and we shall therefore need no preface.
"He causes the grass to grow for the cattle"–three things we shall
notice. First, that grass is, in itself, instructive. Secondly, that
grass is far more so when God is seen in it. And thirdly, that by the
growth of grass for the cattle, the ways of Divine Grace may be
illustrated.
I. First then, "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle." Here we
have something WHICH IS, IN ITSELF, INSTRUCTIVE. There is scarcely any
emblem, with the exception of water and light, which you will find more
frequently used by inspiration than the grass of the field. In the
first place the grass may be instructively looked upon as the symbol of
our mortality, "All flesh is grass."
The whole history of man may be seen in the meadow. He springs up green
and tender, subject to the frosts of infancy which imperil his young
life. He grows. He comes to maturity. He puts on beauty even as the
grass is adorned with flowers and the meadows are bedecked with varied
hues. But after awhile his strength departs and his beauty is wrinkled
even as the grass withers, and is followed by a fresh generation, which
withers in its turn. Like ourselves, the grass ripens but to decay.
The eons of men come to maturity in due time, and then decline and
wither as the green herb. Some of the grass is not left to come to
ripeness at all, but the mower's scythe suddenly removes it, even as
swift-footed Death overtakes the careless children of Adam. "In the
morning it flourishes and grows up. In the evening it is cut down and
withers. For we are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we
troubled." "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the
field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone;
and the place thereof shall know it no more."
This is very humbling for us to remember, but we need frequently to be
reminded of it, or we dream of immortality beneath the stars. We are
and we are wot! We are not substance but shadow! Our years are as a
shadow which declines and, as for our age, it is gone as a weaver's
shuttle. We pass away like the swift ships. We fly as the eagle. We
burst as the bubble. We sink back into the wave of time that bears us
as the foam dissolves into the sea–
"Great God, how infinite are You! What worthless worms are we!"
We ought never to tread upon the grass without remembering that whereas
the green sod covers our graves, it also reminds us of them. And it
preaches, with every blade it has, a sermon to us concerning our
mortality of which the text is, "all flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." In the second place,
grass is frequently used
in Scripture as an emblem of the wicked. David tells us from his own
experience that the heart of a righteous man is apt to grow envious of
the wicked when he sees the prosperity of the ungodly.
We have seen them spreading themselves like green bay trees, and
apparently fixed and rooted in their places. And when we have smarted
under our own troubles, and felt that all the day long we were
scourged, and chastened every morning, we have been apt to say, "How is
this just? How can this be consistent with the moral government of
God?" But we are reminded that in a short time we shall pass by the
place of the wicked, and lo, it shall not be. We shall diligently
consider his place, and lo, it shall not be, for he is soon cut down as
the grass, and withers as the green herb. The grass withers, the flower
fades away, and even so shall pass away forever the glory and
excellence of those who build upon the estate of time, and dig for
lasting comfort in the mines of earth.
It is true the kings of the earth are most often on the side of evil,
and the great ones with their pompous State are usually against the
Most High. But let not God's people mourn, though waters of a full cup
be wrung out of them, for the portion of the wicked is not forever.
They shall have their day and then shall come their endless night. They
are set in lofty places, but they also stand in slippery places. They
shall be brought to destruction as in a moment. "As a dream when one
awakes, so, O Lord, when You awake, You shall despise their image."
O, you who know not the Lord, and rest not in the atonement of the Lord
Jesus, see to what an end you shall come– your end shall be the oven!
As the Eastern farmer gathers up the green herb and despite its former
beauty, casts it into the furnace, such must be your lot, O
vainglorious Sinners! Thus will the Judge command His angels, "Bind
them up in bundles to burn." Where, now, is your merriment? Where, now,
is your confidence? Where, now, is your pride and your pomp? Where,
now, your boasts and your loud-mouthed blasphemies? They are silenced
forever, for, as the thorns crackle under the pot but are speedily
consumed and leave nothing but a handful of white ashes, so shall it be
with the wicked! They shall pass away in the fire of God's wrath, and
the flames shall utterly consume them.
It is more pleasing to remember that the grass is used in Scripture as
a picture of the elect of God. The wicked are comparable to the dragons
of the wilderness, but God's own people shall spring up in their place,
for it is written, "In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall
be grass with reeds and rushes." The desert of sin shall yet be verdant
with Divine Grace. The elect are compared to grass because of their
number as they shall be in the latter days and because of the of their
rapid growth.
You remember the passage, "There shall be a handful of corn in the
earth upon the top of the mountains. The fruit thereof shall shake like
Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth."
O that the long expected day might soon come, when God's people should
no longer be a little flock, but when a multitude shall come to Christ
and the Redeemer shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied!
It is said of Zion's children, "They shall spring up as among the
grass, as willows by the watercourses"–two of the fastest growing
things we know of–so shall a nation be born in a day!
So shall crowds be converted at once, for when the Spirit of God shall
be mightily at work in the midst of the Church, men shall fly unto
Christ as doves fly to their windows, so that the astonished Church
shall cry, "These, where had they been?" O that we might live to see
the age of gold–the time which Prophets have foretold and longed for–
when the company of God's people shall be as innumerable as the blades
of grass in the meadows! Then Grace and Truth shall flourish where once
everything was barrenness.
How like the grass are God's people for this reason, that they are
absolutely dependent upon the influences of Heaven! Our fields are
parched if vernal showers and gentle dews are withheld–and what are
our souls without the gracious visitations of the Spirit? Sometimes
through severe trials our wounded hearts are like the mown grass, and
then we have the promise, "He shall come down like rain upon the mown
grass: as showers that water the earth." Our sharp troubles have taken
away our beauty, and lo, the Lord visits us, and we revive again!
Thank God for that old saying which is a gracious doctrine as well as a
true proverb, "Each blade of grass has its own drop of dew." God is
pleased to give His own peculiar mercies to each one of His own people.
"Your blessing is upon Your people." The river of God, which is full of
water, waters the Church which is a vineyard in which every vine is so
dependent upon God that He must be its heavenly dew, or it will dry up
at once. As you look at the fields of grass, think of them as being
comparable to the great company of the redeemed whom God shall make to
grow upon the face of the earth!
Once again, grass is comparable to the food with which the Lord
supplies the necessities of His chosen ones. Take the 23rd Psalm and
you have the metaphor worked out in the sweetest form of pastoral song.
"He makes me to lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside the
still waters." Just as the sheep has nourishment according to its
nature, and this nourishment is abundantly found for it by its shepherd
so that it not only feeds, but then lies down in the midst of the
fodder, satiated with plenty, and perfectly content and at ease–even
so are the people of God when Jesus Christ leads them into the pastures
of the Covenant, and opens up to them the precious Truths of God upon
which their souls shall be
fed.
Beloved, have we not proven that promise true in this House of Prayer?
"In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast
of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of
marrow, of wines on the lees well refined"? Why, my soul has sometimes
fed upon Christ till I have felt as if I could receive no more, and
then I have laid down in the bounty of my God to take my rest,
satisfied with favor, and full of the goodness of the Lord.
Whenever you see the sheep at noontide, resting in the rich herbage
beneath the spreading oak, think of that enquiry of Solomon when he
said, "Tell me where you feed, where you make your flock to rest at
noon." And when you see the herds with all their needs supplied both in
summer and in winter, then sing with the Psalmist, "The Lord is my
Shepherd, I shall not want." Thus you see the grass, itself, is not
without instruction for those who will incline their ear. It is a
memorial of our mortality, and of the passing away of the wicked. It is
a picture of the elect of God when watered with the dew of Heaven, and
an emblem of the spiritual meat with which God will satisfy the sheep
of His pasture.
II. In the second place, GOD IS SEEN IN THE GROWING OF THE GRASS. He is
seen, first, as a Worker, "He causes the grass to grow." He is seen
secondly as a Caretaker, He causes the grass to grow for the cattle.
1. First, as a Worker, God is to be seen in every blade of grass if we
have but eyes to discern Him. A blind world this, which always talks
about "natural laws," and "the effects of natural causes," but forgets
that laws cannot operate of themselves, and that natural causes, so
called, are not causes at all unless the First Cause shall set them in
motion. The old Romans used to say, God thundered, God rained. We say,
it thunders, it rains. What "it"? All those expressions are subterfuges
to escape from the thought of God.
We commonly say, "How wonderful are the works of nature!" What is
"nature"? Do you know what nature is? I remember a lecturer in the
street, an infidel, speaking about nature, and he was asked by a
Christian man standing by whether he would tell him what nature was.
"Walk in the fields, and see nature"–"nature did this and nature did
that"–these are common phrases but is there any meaning in them? Is
not that an old heathen way of talking?
If we see aright, we see God working everywhere. We frequently talk as
if we were trying to thrust our God into the distance. Our good old
forefathers, the Puritans, when they wanted rain, used to pray that God
would unstop the bottles of Heaven. At another time that He would be
pleased to bind up the clouds, that there might not be too much rain.
We run to the barometer, or grumble at the bad weather. They referred
all natural phenomena to the Most High and were accustomed to see Him
at work in all the events of life.
We have grown so wise nowadays that we find a thousand second causes
interposing between the world and its Maker. Unhappy is the wisdom
whose boasted discoveries would gladly push us away from our heavenly
Father into a wild sea of laws and second causes. To my mind it would
be even better if we could get back to the untutored mind of the Indian
who sees God in every cloud and hears Him in the wind. We need our
God–we are like orphans without Him– and it is well to be reminded,
in the simple language of the text, that He is very near us, for He
makes the grass to grow for the cattle.
The simple production of grass is not the result of natural law apart
from the actual work of God. Mere law would be inoperative unless the
great Master Himself sent a thrill of power through the matter which is
regulated by the law– unless, like the steam engine which puts force
into all the spinning-jennies and wheels of a cotton-mill–God Himself
were the motive power to make every wheel revolve. How I could fall
down and find rest on the grass as on a royal couch, now that I know
that my God is there at work for His creatures!
Having asked you to see God as a Worker, I want you to make use of
this–therefore I bid you see God in common things. He makes the grass
to grow–grass is a common thing. You see it every day everywhere, yet
there is God in it. Dissect it and pull it to pieces. There are the
attributes of God illustrated in every single flower of the field, and
in every green leaf. Come, my Friends, see God in your common matters,
your daily afflictions, your common joys, your everyday
mercies. Do not say, "I must see a miracle before I see God." In truth,
everything is a miracle, everything wonderful, everything teeming with
marvel.
See God in the bread upon the table and the water in your cup. It will
be the happiest way of living if you can say in each Providential
circumstance, "My Father has done all this." See Him in common things,
I say, and see Him in little things. The little things of life are the
greatest troubles. A man will bear that his house is burned down more
quietly than he will bear to see an ill-cooked piece of meat upon his
table–when he reckoned upon its being done to a turn. It is the little
stone which gets into the shoe and makes the pilgrim limp. Oh, but to
see God in little things, to believe that there is as much the Presence
of God in a sere leaf falling from the elm as in the avalanche which
crushes a village!
O, to believe that the guidance of every drop of spray, when the wave
breaks on the rock, is as much under the hand of God as the guidance of
the mightiest planet when steered in its courses! To see God in the
little as well as in the great is true wisdom! Think, too, of God
working in the solitary things, for the grass does not merely grow
around our populous cities, and where men take care of it, but up there
on the side of the bleak Alps where no traveler has ever passed! Where
only the eyes of the wild bird has beheld their lovely verdure, the
moss and the grass come to perfection and display all their beauty, for
God's works are fair to other eyes than those of mortals.
And you, solitary child of God, dwelling far away from any friend,
unknown and obscure in a remote hamlet. Or you in the midst of London,
hiding away in your little attic, unknown to fame, and forsaken by
friendship–you are not forgotten by the love of Heaven. He makes the
grass to grow all alone, and shall not He make you flourish in
loneliness? He can bring forth your graces and educate you for the
skies in solitude and neglect. The grass, you know, is a thing we tread
upon–nobody thinks of grass–men pass over it and have no compassion
for the stems which bend beneath their weight, and yet God makes it
grow.
Perhaps you are oppressed and down-trodden, but let not this depress
your spirit, for God executes righteousness for all those that are
oppressed. He makes the grass to grow, and He can make your heart to
flourish under all the oppressions and afflictions of life so that you
shall still be happy and holy though all the world marches over
you–still living in the immortal life which God Himself bestows upon
you though Hell itself set its heel upon you! Poor and needy one,
unknown, unobserved, oppressed and down-trodden, God makes the grass to
grow and He will take care of you.
As I turned over this text in my mind, to catch the various gleams of
light which glance from it as from a prism, I thought, "How many are
those blades of grass!" Set a child to count them, even in one acre,
and how long the task will occupy–and yet each one of those blades God
makes to grow as much as if there were not another in all the field! So
with all the myriads of God's people–He preserves each child as if He
had no other.
He loves as much every single one of all the blood-bought seed as if it
were the only object of Divine Grace, the only one that should sing
within the pearly gates. Be of good comfort, then–the God who abounds
in mercy towards the grass of the field will not forget you.
2. But I said we should see in the text God also as a great Caretaker.
"He causes the grass to grow for the cattle." Does God, then, care for
oxen, or does He say it altogether for our sakes? "You shall not muzzle
the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn," shows that God has a
care for the beasts of the field. But it shows much more than that,
namely, that He would have those who work for Him fed as they work. God
cares for the beasts, and makes grass to grow for them. Then, my Soul,
though sometimes you have said with David, "So foolish was I, and
ignorant: I was as a beast before You," yet God cares for you.
Do you remember our sermon upon "The Ravens' Cry"? [Volume 12, #672.]
"He gives to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which
cry"–there you have an instance of His care for birds, and here we
have His care for beasts. And though you, my Hearer, may seem to
yourself to be as black and defiled as a raven, and as far from
anything spiritually good as the beasts, yet take comfort from this
text! He gives to beasts their food, and He will give to you, though
you think yourself to be beast-like, what your spirit needs at His
hands. Observe, He cares for these beasts who are helpless in caring
for themselves. The cattle could not plant the grass, nor cause it to
grow.
Though they can do nothing in the matter, yet He does it all for them.
He causes the grass to grow. You who are as helpless as oxen to help
yourselves, who can only stand and moan out your misery, and know not
what to do–God can prevent you in His loving kindness, and favor you
in His tenderness. Now let the bleating of your prayer go up to
Heaven! Let the moans of your desires go up to Him, poor guilty ones,
and help shall come to you though you cannot help yourselves.
We generally say beasts are dumb and speechless things, yet God makes
the grass grow for them. Will He hear those that cannot speak, and will
He not hear those who can? The beasts shed no tears of penitence and
pour forth no sobs and sighs of fervent prayer, and yet their needs are
supplied! Will God let that poor young man yonder continue month after
month seeking Him, and will He not be found of him? Shall that poor
woman's briny tears all fall in vain, that poor broken heart cry out in
bitterness, and meet with no response?
Shall the Lord of Mercy answer the beasts, and not hear men who are
made in His own image? Since our God views, with kind consideration,
the cattle in the field, He will surely have compassion upon His own
sons and daughters when they desire to seek His face. How often the
cattle are oppressed by man! I am sure it is painful to see them driven
through these streets, bruised and faint, with their poor tongues
hanging out of their thirsty mouths. I wish the authorities would
provide suitable drinking troughs for them, for at present their
sufferings are a disgrace to our city.
It is frequently so sickening a sight to see poor tortured cattle in
our thoroughfares, that it makes one long to fly from such brutality,
and cry–
"Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless mass of shade,
Where sights of cruel men and maddened beasts Might never reach us
more."
Yet the great God looks after those poor dumb cattle whom men despise!
Comfortable thought for some of you who are of the meekest and lowliest
spirit. You despise yourselves, and others despise you, but He who
causes the grass to grow for the cattle has an eye to you! Man may have
nothing for you but strokes from the rod. Thoughtless, heartless man
may goad and vex your spirit and drive you through the streets of this
busy world without so much as a drop of comfort to cool your burning
tongue and fevered brain when you are fainting with many cares and
fears. But God thinks of you, God cares for you still.
When your father and your mother forsake you, then the Lord will take
you up. The cattle, forlorn as they are, have God to think of them and
so have you. Shall they be silently trustful, and will you be noisily
complaining? There is this also to be said–God not only thinks of the
cattle, taking care of them–but the food which He provides for them is
fit food! He causes grass to grow for the cattle, just the sort of food
which ruminants require. Even thus the Lord God provides fit sustenance
for His people. Depend upon Him by faith and wait upon Him in
prayer–and you shall have food convenient for you.
You shall find in God's mercy just that which your nature desires,
suitable supplies for your grievous needs. This convenient food the
Lord takes care to reserve for the cattle, for no one eats the cattle's
food but the cattle. There is grass for them and nobody else cares for
it, and thus it is kept for them. Even so, God has a special food for
His own people– He knows how to preserve it, too, and keep it for them
and them only. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and
He will show them His Covenant."
Though the grass is free to all men who choose to eat it, yet no
creature cares for it except the cattle for whom it is prepared. And
though the Grace of God is free to all men, yet no man cares for it
except the elect of God for whom He prepared it, and whom He prepares
to receive it. There is as much reserve of the grass for the cattle as
if there were walls around it–no one else eats it–no one else cares
for it. And so, though the Grace of God is free, and there is no bound
set round about it, yet it is as much reserved as if it were
restricted–and none might receive it but the elect of God.
God is seen in the grass as the Worker and the Caretaker. Then let us
see His hand in Providence at all times. Let us see it and lean upon
it, not only when we have abundance, but even when we have none, for
the grass is preparing for the cattle even in the depth of winter. God
is preparing and breaking the soil. He is sending the juices into the
roots, giving the roots a little rest that they may afterwards bring
forth abundance. And you, you sons of sorrow, in your trials and
troubles, are still cared for by God. He has an end to serve in all
your griefs and miseries. He will accomplish His own Divinely gracious
purpose in you–only be still and see the salvation of God! Every
winter's night has a direct connection with the joyous days of mowing
and reaping, and each time of grief is linked to future joy.
II. Our third head is most interesting. GOD'S WORKING IN THE GRASS FOR
THE CATTLE GIVES US ILLUSTRATIONS CONCERNING DIVINE GRACE. I ask every
Christian here to give me his earnest attention for a few
minutes, and I think he may hear something which may cheer him. I will
suppose that I am soliloquizing, and I will say to myself as I read the
text, "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle. Here I perceive a
satisfying provision for that form of creature.
"Now, I am also a creature, but I am a nobler creature than the cattle!
I cannot imagine, for a moment, that God will provide all that the
cattle needs and not provide for me. But naturally I feel uneasy. I
cannot find in this world what I want–if I were to win all its riches
I should still be discontented–and when I have all that heart could
wish of time's treasures, yet still my heart feels as if it were empty.
There must be somewhere or other something that will satisfy me as a
man with an immortal soul.
"God altogether satisfies the ox. He must, therefore, have something or
other that would altogether satisfy me if I could get it! There is the
grass–the cattle get it–and when they have eaten their share, they
lie down and seem perfectly contented. Now, all I have ever found, as
an unconverted man, has never satisfied me so that I could lie down and
be content. There must be, then, something somewhere that would content
me if I could get at it."
Is not that good reasoning? I ask both the Christian and the unbeliever
to go with me so far. But then let us proceed another step: "The cattle
do get what they need–not only is the grass provided, but they get it.
Well, then, why should not I obtain what I need? I find my soul
hungering and thirsting after something more than I can see with my
eyes or hear with my ears. There must be something to satisfy my
soul–why should not I find it? The cattle find that which satisfies
them–why should I not obtain what would satisfy me? There must be such
a thing. I cannot suppose that my heavenly Father made me as a creature
without making something, also, that could satisfy my largest desires.
There is such a thing, and surely if the cattle get what they need, I
shall not be left unsupplied."
Then, I begin to ask in prayer, "What is this which You, O God, have
provided to satisfy my soul?" And while I am praying, I also meditate
and think, "Well, God has given to the cattle something which is
consonant to their nature– they are nothing but flesh, and flesh is
grass–there is therefore grass for their flesh. But, then, though I am
flesh, I am something else besides, I am spirit. Then, if I am to get
something to satisfy me, it must be spiritual–a spiritual meat.
Where is it?"
When I turn to God's Word, I find there that though the grass withers,
the Word of the Lord endures forever, and the Word which God speaks
unto us is spirit and life. "Oh, then," I say, "here is something
spiritual for my spiritual nature, something suitable to me as an
immortal being." O may God help me to know what that spiritual meat is
and enable me to lay hold upon it, for I perceive that though God
provides the grass for the cattle, the cattle must eat it themselves.
They are not fed if they lie down and refuse to come and eat!
Then what must I do? Must I imitate the cattle and eat that which God
provides for me? What do I find provided in Scripture? I find the Lord
Jesus Christ laid down as the Food of my soul. I am told that He came
into this world to suffer, and bleed, and die instead of me, and that
if I trust in Him I shall be saved. And being saved, the thoughts of
His love will give solace and joy to me and be my strength, the
strength of my life and my portion forever. I do not find the cattle
bringing any purchase money to the pasture, but they enter it and
receive their portion–they open their mouths and receive what they
need.
Even so do I, by an act of faith in Jesus. Lord, give me Grace to feed
upon Christ! Make me hunger and thirst after Him! Give me the faith by
which I may be a receiver of Him, so that I may be satisfied with
favor, and full of the goodness of the Lord. I think my text, though it
looked small, begins to grow and swell as we meditate upon it!
Now, I want to introduce you to a few more thoughts on this matter as
illustrations of Divine Grace. Preventing Grace may here be seen in a
symbol. Before the cattle were made, in this world there was grass. We
find in the first chapter of Genesis God provided the grass before He
created the cattle. And what a mercy that there were Covenant supplies
for God's people before they were in the world! He had given His Son
Jesus Christ to die, to be the Sponsor and Surety of the elect, before
Adam was made in the garden. Long before sin came into the world, the
everlasting mercy of God foresaw the damages of sin and provided a
Refuge for every elect soul.
Oh, what a mercy it is for me, that, before I hunger, God has prepared
for my hunger! That before I thirst, God has opened the rock in the
wilderness to leap forth with crystal streams to satisfy the thirst of
my soul! See what Sovereign Grace can do! Before the cattle come to the
pasture, the grass is grown for them, and before I feel my need of
Divine
mercy, that mercy is provided for me! Then I perceive an illustration
of Free Grace, for wherever the ox comes into the field, he brings no
money with him. There is the food ready for him, but he brings nothing
with which to purchase it.
So I, poor needy sinner, having nothing, come and receive Christ
without money and without price. He makes the grass to grow for the
cattle, and so He does provide Grace for my needy soul, though I have
now no money, no virtue, no excellence of my own! And why is it, my
Friends, why is it that God gives the cattle the grass? You will
perhaps be surprised when I say to you that the reason is because they
belong to Him. Here is a text to prove it. "The silver and the gold are
mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." That is why He provides
grass for them–because they are His ownproperty.
How is it that Christ is provided for God's people? Because "the Lord's
portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." Of every
herd of cattle in the world, God could say, "They are Mine." Long
before the farmer put his brand, God had set His creating mark upon it.
They are God's making, preserving, and feeding altogether. So, before
the stamp of Adam's Fall was set upon our brow, the stamp of electing
love was set there. "In Your book all my members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."
Another thing may, perhaps, surprise you still more! God feeds the
cattle because He has entered into a Covenant with them to do so.
"What? A covenant with cattle!" says somebody. Yes! Truly so, for when
God spoke to His servant Noah, in that day when all the cattle came out
of the ark, we find Him saying, "I establish My Covenant with you, and
with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with
you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with
you." So there was a Covenant, you see, made with the cattle, and that
Covenant was that seedtime and harvest should not fail. Therefore the
earth brings forth for them, and the Lord causes the grass to grow.
Does Jehovah keep His Covenant with cattle, and will He not keep His
Covenant with His own beloved? Ah, it is because His chosen people are
His covenanted ones in the Person of the Lord Jesus that He provides
for them all that they shall need in time and in eternity, and
satisfies them out of the fullness of His everlasting love! Once,
again, God feeds the cattle and then the cattle praise Him. We find
David saying in the 148th Psalm, "Praise the Lord…you beasts and all
cattle." They have their music for God! The Lord feeds His people in
order that they may praise Him, to the end that their glory may sing
praise unto Him and not be silent. While other creatures give glory to
God, let the redeemed of the Lord especially say so, whom He has
delivered out of the hand of the enemy.
Nor even yet is our text quite exhausted. Turning one moment from the
cattle, I want you to notice the grass. It is said of the grass, "He
causes the grass to grow"–here is a mighty blow to free will, because
if the grass does not grow without God's causing it to grow, how is it
that Divine Grace should be found in the human heart apart from Divine
operations? Surely Grace is a much more wonderful product of Divine
wisdom and more complicated than the grass can be! And if Grace does
not grow without a Divine cause, depend upon it, Grace does not dwell
in us without a Divine implantation! And if I have so much as one blade
of Grace growing within me, I must trace it all to God's Divine will.
As the grass all depends upon God's causing it to grow, so the Divine
Grace we have depends upon God's constant kindness and tender loving
mercy to make it ripen to perfection. You are a babe as yet in Grace,
and that you are alive unto God at all is due to God's quickening
power. But if ever you are to attain to the stature of a perfect man in
Christ Jesus, that must be due to the continuous putting forth of the
Divine energy. There is no having Grace, and no growing in Grace except
God gives us both the one and the other–for if He causes grass to
grow, much more must Grace come from
Him.
Again, if God thinks it worth His while to make grass, and take care of
it, and make it grow, much more will He think it to His honor to cause
His Grace to grow in my heart. If the great invisible Spirit, whose
thoughts are high and lofty, condescends to look after that humble
thing which grows by the hedge, surely He will condescend to watch over
His own nature which He calls the incorruptible seed, which lives and
abides forever! Mungo Park, in the deserts of Africa, was much
comforted when he took up a little piece of moss and saw the wisdom and
power of God in that lonely piece of verdant loveliness.
So when I introduce you today to the fields ripe and ready for the
mower, how your hearts ought to leap for joy to see how God has
produced the grass, caring for it all through the weary months of the
long-delayed spring–and the rigorous cold of a suddenly perpetuated
winter–until, at last, He sent the genial rain and sunshine, and
brought the fields to their proper condition. And so, my Soul, though
you may have many a frost and biting winter, and much to
bear with, yet He causes the grass to grow, and He will cause you to
grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
Once again, you perceive that the grass does not grow without an
object–the grass grows for the cattle. And then you know what the
cattle grow for–they grow for man! So the whole business comes to a
point. But, then, what does man grow for? That is the next question.
Then, my Soul, if there is any good thing growing in you, it is for a
purpose– and you, yourself, if you are favored with Divine
manifestation, are blessed for a purpose! And as the grass does not
refuse to be fed upon by the cattle, take care that you do not refuse
to yield yourself unto God!
And as the cattle do not refuse to give themselves up to labor and
slaughter, so bow yourself and render yourself to God, for God has an
end in sparing and blessing you, and preserving you, and strewing your
path with kindnesses. Take care that you do not miss this end, for to
gain it will be your happiness as well as God's glory. It should be
your chief end on earth to serve Him, and to glorify Him forever above.
I draw to a close when I have noticed that the existence of the grass
is necessary to complete the chain of nature.
There would be no cattle if there were no grass–and no cattle, no
something else–so the whole chain would go to pieces. So the meanest
child of God is necessary to the family. They in Heaven without us
cannot be made perfect–the little ones are as necessary to God's
family as the great ones. The Lord cannot, will not, put you away from
it, my desponding Friends, because, though you cannot see it, you are
one stone in the building. And if you are taken away, what becomes of
the next, and the next? Perhaps every heir of Heaven is necessary to
complete the purpose of God. I said "perhaps," but we know it to be so,
for we are told by Paul that we are the fullness of Christ.
The church is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all.
Nature would be incomplete without the trembling grass blade, and the
economy of Divine Grace would be incomplete without you, Mr. Fearing,
and you, Mrs. Much-Afraid. You are necessary to complete the Divine
purpose–in order to let it be seen, world without end, that God is not
defeated–that since Christ loved His own, He loved them to the end.
And so He can say, "Of all which He has given Me, I have lost nothing."
Oh, how blessed it is to think of this! Since we are all thus
necessary, if saved by Grace, let us begin this morning to bless and to
praise the God of Providence and Grace! While the grass, with its
verdure, serves God by beautifying the earth. And while the cattle take
their turn, also, in the economy of creation, let each Christian say to
himself, "Lord, what would You have me do?" And having found it,
whatever our hand finds to do, let us do it with all our might.
The Lord bless these remarks to you, and make them profitable to your
souls for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
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The Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God
A sermon