“Why me, Lord?”
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
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
Our Vine-dresser
She, supposing Him to be the gardener… – John 20:15
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” – John 15:1
He says, “I am the true vine: My Father is the husbandman,” and that is one view of it; but we may also sing, “My Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine”-that is to say, He acted as gardener to it. Thus has Isaiah taught us to sing a song of the Well-beloved touching His vineyard. We read of our Lord just now under these terms-“Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to Thy voice.” To what purpose does He dwell in the vineyards but that He may see how the vines flourish and to care for all the plants? The image, I say, is so far from being unnatural that it is most pregnant with suggestions and full of useful teaching. In one of His own parables our Lord makes Himself to be the dresser of the vineyard…When the “certain man” came in and saw the fig tree that it brought forth no fruit, he said unto the dresser of his vineyard, “Cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?” Who was it that intervened between that profitless tree and the axe but our great Intercessor and Interposer? He it is who continually comes forward with “Let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it.” In this case He Himself takes upon Himself the character of the vine-dresser, and we are not wrong in “supposing Him to be the gardener.”
If we would be supported by a type, our Lord takes the name of “the Second Adam,” and the first Adam was a gardener. Moses tells us that the Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it…Behold, the Church is Christ’s Eden, watered by the river of life, and so fertilized that all manner of fruits are brought forth unto God; and He, our second Adam, walks in this spiritual Eden to dress it and to keep it; and so by a type we see that we are right in “supposing Him to be the gardener.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm
Do You Thirst?
“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.”-John 7:37
Provision is made most plenteously; all is provided that man can need to quench his soul’s thirst. To his conscience the atonement brings peace; to his understanding the gospel brings the richest instruction; to his heart the person of Jesus is the noblest object of affection; to the whole man the truth as it is in Jesus supplies the purest nutriment. Thirst is terrible, but Jesus can remove it. Though the soul were utterly famished, Jesus could restore it.
Proclamation is made most freely, that every thirsty one is welcome. No other distinction is made but that of thirst. Whether it be the thirst of avarice, ambition, pleasure, knowledge, or rest, he who suffers from it is invited. The thirst may be bad in itself, and be no sign of grace, but rather a mark of inordinate sin longing to be gratified with deeper draughts of lust; but it is not goodness in the creature which brings him the invitation, the Lord Jesus sends it freely, and without respect of persons.
Personality is declared most fully. The sinner must come to Jesus, not to works, ordinances, or doctrines, but to a personal Redeemer, who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree. The bleeding, dying, rising Saviour, is the only star of hope to a sinner. Oh, for grace to come now and drink! “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
http://bible.christiansunite.com/Morning_and_Evening/chme1231.shtml
A Hunger and Thirst for Our Beloved
“I thirst.” – John 19:28
Know ye not, beloved, -for I speak to those who know the Lord, -that ye are crucified together with Christ? Well, then, what means this cry, “I thirst,” but this, that we should thirst too? We do not thirst after the old manner wherein we were bitterly afflicted, for He hath said, “He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst:” but now we covet a new thirst. A refined and heavenly appetite, a craving for our Lord. O Thou blessed Master, if we are indeed nailed up to the tree with Thee, give us a thirst after Thee with a thirst which only the cup of “the new covenant in Thy blood” can ever satisfy. Certain philosophers have said that they love the pursuit of truth even better than the knowledge of truth. I differ from them greatly, but I will say this, that next to the actual enjoyment of my Lord’s presence I love to hunger and to thirst after Him…I would grow more and more insatiable after my divine Lord, and when I have much of Him, I would still cry for more; and then for more, and still for more. My heart shall not be content till He is all in all to me, and I am altogether lost in Him. O to be enlarged in soul so as to take deeper draughts of His sweet love, for our heart cannot have enough. One would wish to be as a spouse, who, when she had already been feasting in the banqueting-house, and had found His fruit sweet to her taste, so that she was overjoyed, yet cried out, “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.” She craved full flagons of love though she was already overpowered by it. This is a kind of sweet whereof if a man hath much he must have more, and when he hath more he is under a still greater necessity to receive more, and so on, his appetite for ever growing by that which it feeds upon, till he is filled with all the fulness of God. “I thirst,”-ay, this is my soul’s word with her Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1409.cfm
Our Lord Thirsts for Us
“I thirst.” – John 19:28
Our blessed Lord has at this time a thirst for communion with each one of you who are His people, not because you can do Him good, but because He can do you good. He thirsts to bless you and to receive your grateful love in return; He thirsts to see you looking with believing eye to His fulness and holding out your emptiness that He may supply it…And what makes Him love us so? Ah, that I cannot tell, except His own great love. He must love, it is His nature. He must love His chosen whom He has once begun to love, for He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His great love makes Him thirst to have us much nearer than we are; He will never be satisfied till all His redeemed are beyond gunshot of the enemy. I will give you one of His thirsty prayers-“Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” He wants you brother, He wants you, dear sister, He longs to have you wholly to Himself. Come to Him in prayer, come to Him in fellowship, come to Him by perfect consecration, come to Him by surrendering your whole being to the sweet mysterious influences of His Spirit. Sit at His feet with Mary, lean on His breast with John; yea, come with the spouse in the song and say, “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for His love is better than wine.” He calls for that: will you not give it to Him…Let all your love be His. I know He loves to receive from you, because He delights even in a cup of cold water that you give to one of His disciples; how much more will He delight in the giving of your whole self to Him? Therefore, while He thirsts give Him to drink this day. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1409.cfm
He Hath Said 