It Is in His Own Hands
Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. – Malachi 3:11
I am sometimes troubled by the question, what if roots of bitterness should spring up among us to trouble us? We are all such fallible creatures, supposing some brother should permit the seed of discord to grow in his bosom, then there may be a sister in whose heart the seeds will also spring up, and from her they will fly to another sister, and be blown about till brethren and sisters are all bearing rue and wormwood in their hearts. Who is to prevent this? Only the Lord, Jesus by His Spirit. He can keep out this evil. The root which beareth wormwood will grow but little where Jesus is. Dwell with us, Lord, as a church and people: by Thy Holy Spirit reside with us and in us, and never depart from us, and then no root of bitterness shall spring up to trouble us.
Then comes another fear. Suppose the living waters of God’s Spirit should not come to water the garden, what then? We cannot, make them flow, for the Spirit is a sovereign, and He flows where He pleases. Ah, but the Spirit of God will be in our garden, “supposing our Lord to be the gardener.” There is no fear of our not being watered when Jesus undertakes to do it. “He will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.” But what if the sunlight of His love should not shine on the garden? If the fruits should never ripen, if there should be no peace, no joy in the Lord? That cannot happen “supposing Him to be the gardener;” for His face is the sun, and His countenance scatters those health-giving beams, and nurturing warmths, and perfecting influences which are needful for maturing the saints in all the sweetness of grace to the glory of God. So, “supposing Him to be the gardener” I fling away my doubts and fears and invite you who bear the Church upon your heart to do the same. It is all well with Christ’s cause because it is in His own hands. He shall not fail nor be discouraged. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm
Deliverance from Gloomy Fears
…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
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
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
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
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
He Hath Said 