Christian Life

Deliverance from Gloomy Fears

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises Leave a comment

…supposing Him to be the gardener… – John 20:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel. – Genesis 3:15

I was sitting about a fortnight ago in a very lovely garden, in the midst of all kinds of flowers which were blooming in delightful abundance all around…I walked down the garden, and I saw a place where all the path was strewn with leaves and broken branches, and stones, and I saw the earth upon the flower-beds, tossed about, and roots lying quite out of the ground: all was in disorder. Had a dog been amusing himself? Or had a mischievous child been at work? If so, it was a great pity. But no: in a minute or two I saw the gardener come back, and I perceived that he had been making all this disarrangement. He had been cutting, and digging, and hacking, and mess-making; and all for the good of the garden. It may be it has happened to some of you that you have been a good deal clipped lately, and in your domestic affairs things have not been in so fair a state as you could have wished: it may be in the Church we have seen ill weeds plucked up, and barren branches lopped, so that everything is en deshabille. Well, if the Lord has done it out, gloomy fears are idle.

Supposing Adam to be the gardener, then the serpent gets in and has a chat with his wife, and mischief comes of it; but supposing Jesus to be the gardener, woe to thee, serpent: there is a blow for thy head within half a minute if thou dost but show thyself within the boundary. So, if we are afraid that the devil should get in among us let us always in prayer entreat that there may be no space for the devil, because the Lord Jesus Christ fills all, and keeps out the adversary. Other creatures besides serpents intrude into gardens; caterpillars and palmerworms, and all sorts of destroying creatures are apt to devour our churches. How can we keep them out? The highest wall cannot exclude them: there is no protection except one, and that is, “supposing Him to be the gardener.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

Supposing Jesus to be the Gardener

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 2 Comments

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if Thou have borne Him hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. – John 20:15

I was sitting about a fortnight ago in a very lovely garden, in the midst of all kinds of flowers which were blooming in delightful abundance all around. Screening myself from the heat of the sun under the overhanging boughs of an olive tree, I cast my eyes upon palms and bananas, roses and camellias, oranges and aloes, lavender and heliotrope. The garden was full of color and beauty, perfume and fruitfulness. Surely the gardener, whoever he might be, who had framed, and fashioned, and kept in order that lovely spot, deserved great commendation. So, I thought, and then it came to me to meditate upon the Church of God as a garden, and to suppose the Lord Jesus to be the gardener, and then to think of what would most assuredly happen if it were so. “Supposing Him to be the gardener,” my mind conceived of a paradise where all sweet things flourish, and all evil things are rooted up…You know the “Him” to whom we refer, the ever-blessed Son of God, whom Mary Magdalene in our text mistook for the gardener. We will for once follow a saint in her mistaken track; and yet we shall find ourselves going in a right way. She was mistaken when she fell into “supposing Him to be the gardener”; but if we are under His Spirit’s teaching, we shall not make a mistake if now we indulge ourselves in a quiet meditation upon our ever-blessed Lord, “supposing Him to be the gardener.”

It is not an unnatural supposition, surely; for if we may truly sing-

“We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground,”

that enclosure needs a gardener. Are we not all the plants of His right-hand planting? Do we not all need watering and tending by His constant and gracious care?..We are not going against the harmonies of nature when we are “supposing Him to be the gardener.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

Let Jesus Tend to His Garden

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15

One has a work given him of God to do, and if he does it rightly, he cannot do it carelessly. The first thing when he wakes, he asks, “How is the work prospering?” and the last thought at night is, “What can I do to fulfill my calling?” Sometimes the anxiety even troubles his dreams, and he sighs, “O Lord, send now prosperity!” How is the garden prospering which we are set to tend? Are we broken-hearted because, nothing appears to flourish? Is it a bad season? or is the soil lean and hungry? It is a very blessed relief to an excess of care if we can fall into the habit of “supposing Him to be the gardener.” If Jesus be the Master and Lord in all things, it is not mine to keep all the church in order. I am not responsible for the growth of every Christian, nor for every backslider’s errors, nor for every professor’s faults of life. This burden must not lie on me so that I shall be crushed thereby. “Supposing Him to be the gardener,” then, the church enjoys a better oversight than mine; better care is taken of the garden than could be taken by the most vigilant watchers, even though by night the frost devoured them, and by day the heat. “Supposing Him to be the gardener,” then all must go well in the long run. He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep; we need not fret and despond. I beg you earnest workers, who are becoming depressed, to think this out a little. You see it is yours to work under the Lord Jesus; but it is not yours to take the anxiety of His office into your souls as though you were to bear His burdens. The under-gardener, the work-man in the garden, needs not fret about the whole garden as though it were all left to him. I want you thus to perceive the limit of your responsibility: you are not the gardener Himself; you are only one of the gardener’s boys, set to run on errands, or to do a bit of digging, or to sweep the paths. The garden is well enough managed even though you are not head manager in it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

Happiness in Yielding

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father Leave a comment

Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15

Let each one of us yield himself up entirely to Him. A plant does not know how it ought to be treated; it knows not when it should be watered or when it should be kept dry: a fruit-tree is no judge of when it needs to be pruned, or digged, or dunged. The wit and wisdom of the garden lieth not in the flowers and shrubs, but in the gardener. Now, then, if you and I are here to-day with any self-will and carnal judgment about us, let us seek to lay it all aside that we may be absolutely at our Lord’s disposal. You might not be willing to put yourself implicitly into the hand of any mere man (pity that you should); but surely, thou plant of the Lord’s right-hand planting, thou mayest put thyself without a question into His dear hand. “Supposing Him to be the gardener,” thou mayest well say, “I would neither have will, nor wish, nor wit, nor whim, nor way, but I would be as nothing in the Gardener’s hands, that He may be to me my wisdom and my all. Here, kind Gardener, thy poor plant bows itself to Thy hand; train me as Thou wilt. Depend upon it, happiness lives next door to the spirit of complete acquiescence in the will of God, and it will be easy to exercise that perfect acquiescence when we suppose the Lord Jesus to be the gardener. If the Lord hath done it; what has a saint to say? Oh, thou afflicted one, the Lord hath done it: wouldst thou have it otherwise? Nay, art thou not thankful that it is even so, because so is the will of Him in whose hand thy life is, and whose are all thy ways? …Doth Christ train us? Oh, let us never cause the world to think meanly of our Master. I do not know how to put it, but surely, we ought to do something worthy of such a Lord. Each little flower in the garden of the Lord should wear its, brightest hues, and poor forth its rarest perfume, because Jesus cares for it. The best of all possible good should be yielded by every plant in our Father’s garden, supposing Jesus to the gardener. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

Be This Your Joy

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father Leave a comment

Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15

One of the duties of a Christian is joy. That is a blessed religion which among its precepts commands men to be happy. When joy becomes a duty, who would wish to neglect it? Surely it must help every little plant to drink in the sunlight when it is whispered among the flowers that Jesus is the gardener. “Oh,” you say, “I am such a little plant; I do not grow well; I do not put forth so much leafage, nor are there so many flowers on me as on many round about me!” It is quite right that you should think little of yourself: perhaps to droop your head is a part of your beauty: many flowers had not been half so lovely if they had not practiced the art of hanging their heads. But supposing Him to be the gardener,” then He is as much a gardener to you as He is to the most lordly palm in the whole domain. In the Mentone garden right before me grows the orange and the aloe, and others of the finer and more noticeable plants; but on a wall to my left grows common wallflowers and saxifrages, and tiny herbs such as we find on our own rocky places. Now, the gardener had cared for all of these, little as well as great; in fact, there were hundreds of specimens of the most insignificant growths all duly labelled and described…Oh feeble child of God, the Lord taketh care of you! Your heavenly Father feedeth ravens, and guides the flight of sparrows: should He not much more care for you, oh ye of little faith? Oh, little plants, you will grow rightly enough. Perhaps you are growing downward just now rather than upward. Remember that there are plants of which we value the underground root much more than we do the hull above ground. Perhaps it is not yours to grow very fast; you may be a slow-growing shrub by nature, and you would not be healthy if you were to run to wood. Anyhow, be this your joy, you are in the garden of the Lord, and, “supposing Him to be the gardener,” He will make the best of you. You cannot be in better hands. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

“Why me, Lord?”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15

“Supposing Him to be the gardener.” That is the reason for the existence of a spiritual people still in the midst of a godless and perverse generation. This is the reason for an election of grace in the midst of surrounding vice, and worldliness, and unbelief. “Supposing Him to be the gardener,” I can see why there should be fruitfulness, and beauty, and sweetness even in the center of the wilderness of sin. Why are we allowed to grow in the garden of His grace? Why me, Lord? Why me? How is it that we have been kept there, and borne with in our barrenness, when He might long ago have said, “Cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?” Who else would have borne with such waywardness as ours? Who could have manifested such infinite patience? Who could have tended us with such care, and when the care was so ill-rewarded, who would have renewed it so long from day to day, and persisted in designs of boundless love? Who could have done more for His vineyard? who could or would have done so much? A mere man would have repented of his good intent, provoked by our ingratitude. None but God could have had patience with some of us! That we have not long ago been slipped off as fruitless branches of the vine; that we are left still upon the stem, in the hope that we may ultimately bring forth fruit, is a great marvel. I know not how it is that we have been spared, except upon this ground-“supposing Him to be the gardener”-for Jesus is all gentleness and grace, so slow with His knife, so tardy with His axe, so hopeful if we do but show a bud or two, or, perchance, yield a little sour berry-so hopeful, I say, that these may be hopeful prognostics of something better by-and-by. Infinite patience! Immeasurable longsuffering! Where are we to be found save in the breast of the Well-beloved? Surely the hoe has spared many of us simply and only because He who is meek and lowly in heart is the gardener. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

An Oasis of Life in a Desert of Death

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15

Upon a hard and flinty rock the Lord has made the Eden of His Church to grow. How came it to be, here an oasis of life in a desert of death? How came faith in the midst of unbelief, and hope where all is servile fear, and love where hate abounds? “Ye are of God, little children, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one.” How came there to be a people for God, separated, and sanctified, and consecrated, and ordained to bring forth fruit unto His name? …How comes the Church of God to flourish in such a clime? This present evil world is very uncongenial to the growth of grace, and the Church is not able by herself alone to resist the evil influences which surround her. The Church contains within itself elements which tend to its own disorder and destruction if left alone; even as the garden has present in its soil all the germs of a tangled thicket of weeds. The best Church that ever Christ had on earth would, within a few years, apostatise from the truth if deserted by the Spirit of God. The world never helps the Church; it is all in arms against it; there is nothing in the world’s air or soil that can fertilise the Church even to the least degree. How is it, then, that notwithstanding all this, the Church is a fair garden unto God, and there are sweet spices grown in its beds, and lovely flowers are gathered by the Divine hand from its borders? The continuance and prosperity of the Church can only be accounted for by “supposing Him to be the gardener.” Almighty strength is put to the otherwise impossible work of sustaining a holy people among men; almighty wisdom exercises itself upon this otherwise insuperable difficulty. Hear ye the word of the Lord and learn hence the reason for the growth of His Church below. “I, the Lord, do keep it: I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm