King’s Gardens

King's Gardens

A Sermon

(No. 790)

Delivered on Lord's-Day Evening, December 29 , 1867, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the [3]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"The king's garden." Nehemiah 3:15.

THERE have been many very famous king's gardens, such as those "hanging
gardens" in Nineveh, in which 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 orchards of pomegranates, to beds of
spices, camphor with spikenard, calamus and cinnamon, myrrh and aloes,
and 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 "king's 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 king's 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 marvelous for beauty than we can imagine. It was full of all
manner of delights–a fruitful spot in which 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 inclement 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 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 offense to
Heaven, for it was man's throwing down the glove 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 he was driven out of Eden 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 that in connection with the garden of Eden we
are not now a pure and sinless race, and cannot be by nature, however
civilized 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, Brothers 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 worked 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–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 shaped 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 and 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 is so, of our natural estate,
for we were altogether given up to desolation and destruction unless
One mighty to save has 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, in which the Lord Jesus Christ was the olive, and
God's anger against sin was the press. Take off your shoes, for the
place where you stand is holy ground! 'Tis night. Yonder are 12 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, you are the branches. Abide in Me and I in you."
We will conceal ourselves behind that group of olive trees 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 oftentimes resorted there with His
disciples. Look, 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 11–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 downing the wrath-cup, and as He trembles under the fiery
influence of the draught of worse than wormwood and gall, He cries, "If
it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." But He recovers Himself and
His prayer is, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."
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!

Behold here the beginning of our redemption. Jesus then began to suffer
in our place, 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 then 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
remains 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 eyes 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. Yes, 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 has 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 then 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 sepulcher
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 has perfected forever 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 on 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?
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 the grapes of Gomorrah and apples of
Sodom. This loathsome den of festering evils is what should have been
God's garden, but it is a tangled wilderness of all manner of noxious
things! Thorns, also, and thistles does 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
Farmer, must come and turn it over after His own fashion. The rough
plow of conviction must be dragged through it. The spade of trouble
must break up the surface and smash to 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
plowed and cross-plowed and harrowed with sorrow till you were driven
well-near 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 sown, and the planting of slips from the Tree of Life and 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, love, hope, patience, perseverance, and zeal must be carefully
cast into prepared soil by the Holy Spirit's hand, and fostered by the
same kindly care. Before 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 is 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 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–so the hoe must be constantly kept going if the garden
is to he 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 Your 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 be cut up by the root one day, as I believe
and hope, but till then I must be incessantly watchful. The roots are
still there. Alas, alas, alas, that it should be so! O Lord Jesus, help
us, or we shall be overgrown with our besetting sins. Corruption still
remains even in the heart of the regenerate, and the garden of the King
of kings is often overgrown with weeds. But for God it is still a
garden–a garden for Jesus to walk in, and there are happy times when
He deigns to sit down in the arbor 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 as 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 is 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 tonight, 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 shrubs, 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 Divine Grace is at 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 remember, 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 uniforms as Christian soldiers and never,
at any time, 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 fashion." You
must be either out of the fashion, or out of the true Church–remember
that, because the place for Christ's Church is altogether out of
fashion.

You are called to go forth outside 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–king's gardens must not be left open to thieves and robbers. Be
not conformed to the world, but be 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 any which way–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 even, 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 Divine 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 is 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 what Christ's
deserves–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 Savior Jesus Christ. The Prayer Meeting
should be a school of practical education for our Beloved young
members, a place for the young nestlings to try their callous wings.
When 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 Gardener 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," he says, "I am walking in my
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 does 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 does 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 and 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.

Yes, 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! 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 always, 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! Even the assembly of the firstborn 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 is a garden, what does it need?
One thing it certainly requires is labor. You cannot keep a garden in
proper order without work. We want more laborers 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 arena quite
as likely again. She says that she has been here for two years and 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 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 understand 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 can this be? You have been here twice every Sunday and that young
woman has been here twice. Well, there are 200 times–200 opportunities
that you have lost! Two hundred times that you have let that poor soul
go away burdened without speaking to her! I need laborers very badly,
real hard-working soul-winners! I need planters who can get the young
slips and put them where they will grow! I need helpers who will gather
up the young lambs, just as they are born, and carry them in their
bosom a little while. We need 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 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
today 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 stragglers. 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 when we see backsliding begin. How much
can be done by old Christians in trying to stop backsliding among the
young! I believe that half the cases that have gone badly might have
been stopped by a little judicious forethought.

I say again, what can we, who are the officers of this Church, do with
so many? Why, we number more than 3,500 in Church fellowship. But if
you will look after each other, and seek wherever you see a little
decline or a little coldness, to bring the Brother back, the King's
garden will be well cared for. The King's garden needs laborers–may
you all labor, and its needs in this respect will be met. Sometimes we
need, Brothers and Sisters, 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, even though 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 cause 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 need forgiveness
before many days are over. We have none of us, perhaps, the sweetest of
tempers, but if we do 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. And 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 needs laborers, but, dear Friends, it
needs something else! It needs new plants. I wish I might find some
tonight. 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 worked 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
to the skies.

But, dear Friends, all the laborers and all the new plants would not be
what the Church requires if she had not something else–for every
garden needs rain, and every garden needs sunshine. This Church, if it
had ever so many laborers, could never prosper without the dew of the
Holy Spirit and the sunshine of the Divine favor. 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. 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 weeknight services–be sure of
it–farewell to the vital power of godliness, for weeknight 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 needs 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 fervor and more constancy
in supplication! One favor 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– but 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 in which 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 time 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 you bear much fruit; so shall you
be My disciples." May your prayer be not for fruit only, but for much
fruit, and may God send it! Remember, if there is any fruit at all, it
all belongs to the King. If a soul is saved, He shall have the glory of
it. If there is 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
10,000s time 10,000s, 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 have
done. "And he showed in 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 bore 12 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 on their foreheads. And there
shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the
sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign forever
and ever."

In that garden of the Paradise above may we all be found at the last.
Amen.
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The Arrows of the Bow Broken in Zion

A Sermon