The Keeper of the Vineyard

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"I the Lord do keep it, I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Isaiah 27:3.

My discourse this evening can hardly be called a sermon; it will be just a simple talk about a few experimental truths, but I trust that it will be useful to some of the Lord’s people. The text follows a terrible verse, in which the Lord’s enemies are threatened with "his sore and great and strong sword." But even when God has the most anger against his adversaries, he is still full of love for his people. The Church of God is here compared to a vineyard. The vine is a tender plant, needing continual care; and if the vineyard is not well fenced, and guarded, the enemies of the vine are sure to get in, and destroy it. The Church is called "a vineyard of red wine", because the red grape happened to be the best kind grown in Palestine; and, in like manner, God’s Church is to him the best of the best, the excellent of the earth, in whom is all his delight. But what is true of the whole Church is also true of every member; the same God who keeps the vineyard also protects every vine, no, not only so, but his care extends to every little branch, to every spreading leaf, and to every clinging tendril of that vine which he undertakes to keep night and day. Well did Toplady sing,

"Upon my leaf, when parched with heat, Refreshing dew shall drop The plant which your right hand has set, Shall never be rooted up. Each moment watered by your care, And fenced with power divine, Fruit to eternal life shall bear The feeblest branch of your."

Our text mentions two much-needed mercies, and upon each of these I will speak briefly. We find in the text, first, continual keeping, and then, secondly, continual watering. In these gracious words of the. Lord, we have a promise that we shall be kept from foes without and from foes within. God is both a wall and a well to his people, a wall to guard them from their adversaries, and a well to supply all their needs out of his ever-living, over-flowing fullness.

I. First, then, concerning the CONTINUAL KEEPING which the Lord promises to his vineyard: "I the Lord do keep it... lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." I will talk of that keeping in an experimental way, putting the subject before you in the form of questions, which may be applied either to the Church as a whole, or to each individual believer. The first will be, "Do I need keeping? I trust I have been called by God’s grace, that I have been washed in Jesus’ blood, and that I have been made one of the Lord’s children; do I need keeping? "Ah! if I know anything of myself, I shall be compelled to answer that I do, for my foes are innumerable, and I, like the vine, am subject to all sorts of perils and dangers.

There is the arch-enemy, my brethren; how he longs to lay the axe to the roots of God’s vines! If we were in his power, you and I would not have a grain of faith or a spark of love left. He is desirous to have us, not only that he may sift us as wheat, but that he may burn us as chaff. When we think of his malice and cunning, we may well pray, "Deliver us not over unto the will of our enemy." When God’s people have met Satan in a hand-to-hand conflict, they have always found it a stern and difficult struggle, for he is ferocious, malicious, and powerful, and he comes against us, not only to worry us, but seeking whom he may devour. We need keeping, then, if it were only because of that one adversary, who would make a speedy end of us if we were left in his grip even for an hour.

Like the vine, too, we have not only to dread him who would cut us down, but there is a wild boar of the woods, that would fain tear us up by the roots; I mean, that wild boar of unbelief that is constantly prowling around us. How does it seek with its sharp tusks to ruin our vines and fig-trees! You know, dear friends, how unbelief takes away your comforts, how it destroys your strength, and how it mars your usefulness. Perhaps some of you at times hardly know whether you are the Lord’s people or whether you are not his. Our friend, who addressed us last Sabbath, said that

God's people ought never to have doubts and fears. I quite admit that they ought not to have them; but that they really do have them is quite as certain. I like that good old hymn of Dr. Watts, and sing it as I find it, "When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies I bid farewell to every fear And wipe my weeping eyes."

I am afraid, dear brethren, you and I cannot travel the same road if you are always confident, and if you never have reason to look back and cry because you have lost your evidences. This I know, there are seasons with me when I do not doubt my Lord and Master, but I do doubt my interest in him; and I have to come to him just as I came at first, as an empty-handed sinner, and accept his grace as he freely presents it. Yes, if the Lord did not keep us, the wild boar of unbelief would soon tear us in pieces, and we should have no grace left, but should become useless forever.

Then, you know, the vine is often subject to injury from various kinds of insects. Almost all plants of any value are attacked at times by a peculiar kind of fly which devours the leaves, and prevents fruit-bearing, and the vine is specially liable to attacks of this sort. So is it with Christians; we have the fly of pride. If the great enemy never came to out us down, and unbelief never tried to root us up, the very quietude of the atmosphere and the calmness of the soft summertime would begin to breed that deadly fly, which goes before destruction. I think we have even more cause to fear the effects of carnal security, and self-confidence, and pride, than the assaults of Satan himself. I do not know how it is with you, my brethren, but at times I feel so dead that I would almost welcome a temptation from Satan, so that I might feel a little spiritual life stirring within me in opposition to it.

There have been dark times in our experience, which have caused us great sorrow of heart, and yet we have come to look back upon those sad seasons almost with a sort of envy, and we have wished that we might have them over again, so that we might feel at least some pulsings, some palpitations of the new life within us. Oh, that dreadful fly of pride! John Bunyan tells us, in his Holy War, that it was Mr. Carnal-security who drove Emmanuel from the town of Mansoul. He would have stayed there always, and have given Mansoul high holiday, but that Diabolonian, Mr. Carnal-security, whose father was Mr. Self-conceit, and whose mother was Lady Fear-nothing, filled the townspeople with such high notions of their greatness, that the blessed Prince went his way in sorrow and anger. Alas for us when we say, "My mountain stands firm, I shall never be moved;" for we are then in direst peril. That cankerworm of conceit, that caterpillar of pride, that locust of carnal security, would soon destroy God’s vineyard if it were not written, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." This promise assures us that the Lord will preserve us from the assaults of pride as well as from the attacks of unbelief, and from the malice of the great adversary of our souls.

Then, dear friends, beside the enemies I have mentioned, the vine is subject to the attacks of the little foxes that Solomon speaks of in the canticles: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines." There are plenty of little foxes of all sorts about, nowadays; I mean false doctrineand skeptical teaching. Some of these crafty foxes come nibbling at us, trying to make us doubt the inspiration of Scripture. Some of them even dare to try to root up and destroy our confidence in the divinity of Christ. Others of these little foxes are still more insidious; they seek to tempt us away from the outward means of grace, and aim at making us forsake the assemblies of God’s saints. Men pour into our ears all sorts of heresies and lies, until our souls scarcely know truth from error, and we are carried to and fro, and have a hard battle to fight. Ah! if the Lord did not keep his Church, she would soon become a prey to the craft of her adversaries; but he does preserve his vineyard from the little foxes, and from the great foxes, too.

His vines have tender grapes, and the foxes would devour them if they could; but, blessed be the Lord, they are unable to do so! Our Lord preserves us, and protects us from all the craft and cunning of our adversaries.

Besides, dear friends, when we have a few grapes that are beginning to ripen, there are the birds that come and try to pick the fruit, — those dark-winged thoughts of worldliness and selfishness which come to us all. We begin to say, "Well done!" to ourselves; and then it is always ill-done. If we ascribe our success to our own perseverance, our own zeal, and so forth, we shall be like the birds which steal the fruit that belongs to the master, or like dishonest workmen, who are set to until the garden, and rob their employer of the produce. Let us never try to get our Master’s money, to put it out to usury, and then, when the interest comes in, spend it on ourselves. The temptation to selfishness, to live for this world alone, or to seek to bring forth fruit merely for our own aggrandizement, is so strong, and comes so easily upon us, that, if the Lord did not keep us, we should none of us retain our Christianity for a single hour, but should be wholly given up to worldliness, and selfishness and every other form of sin.

I ask again the question with which I began, and I beg you each one to ask it himself, "Do I need keeping?" Oh, my heart, never did the tender vine so much need the gardener’s care as you need to be kept by your Lord! You are like an infant, suffering from a thousand diseases, but unable to cure itself of any one of them; you are helplessly weak, and if your Father, God, should leave you, there is nothing for you but to die in despair. Dear brothers and sisters, let us have a deep consciousness of the dangers to which we are exposed, not that we may live trembling lives, but that we may be weaned from all trust in self, and may be driven nearer to God, and always seek to live under his divine protection.

Another question may occur to someone here, "Even if I have to face all these dangers, can I not keep myself if I am very watchful and very prayerful? May I not by my own power and vigilance keep off these adversaries?" Ah! there is something wrong in the very question itself, for who is to keep me watchful, who is to make me prayerful? If my watchfulness and prayerfulness depended upon myself, I might slumber, and so I should very soon be destroyed. Brethren, it is a great mercy that the text puts it not that we must keep the vineyard ourselves, but, "I the Lord do keep it."

Watchfulness is our duty; it is our privilege to abide much in earnest, wrestling prayer; but still, to keep up the watchfulness and the prayerfulness, there must constantly be the secret incoming of divine strength. Our watchfulness and prayerfulness are proofs of God’s gracious working; the real cause of the vineyard of the Church, and each individual vine being preserved, must always be found in this blessed assurance, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." What did you say, "Cannot I keep myself?" Alas! You are your own worst enemy! Augustine was wont to say, "Lord, save me from that evil man, myself!" And you and I have good reason to pray the same prayer. We can very soon destroy ourselves, but we can never save ourselves. I bless the Lord that there is not even a semblance of truth in that verse in Wesley’s hymn-book, "A charge to keep I have A God to glorify; a never-dying soul to save, and fit it for the sky."

It is the Lord who saves the souls of his people, and it is the Lord who fits them for the sky; but if they had to do it themselves, not a solitary soul among them would ever see his face with acceptance, or stand with joy before his throne. "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." It is always so put; and for us to get rid entirely of all idea of carnal strength, is both right and safe. It is well for us to feel that, in ourselves, we are as weak as water, and as insignificant as the insects that die in a day; and that, for all true strength we must look to God, and to God alone. Rest assured that you and I are never so weak as when we fancy that we are strong, and that we are never so strong as when we are conscious of the greatest weakness. This is an enigma; but our experience has often proved it to be true. Our supposed riches are generally the marks of deep spiritual poverty, while conscious poverty is an indication of the unsearchable riches which faith is enjoying.

Learn to live every day, dear brothers and sisters, in Jesus, as having nothing, yet possessing all things. This is how God would have you live, trusting him for all the grace you continually need. When you wake in the morning, you are to look forward to temptations and trials, but you are to cry to the Lord for deliverance from them, and not to think of keeping yourselves during the day, but to place yourselves again in the hands of God, to be kept and preserved by him who has said of the vineyard of his Church, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Then, when the day is over, let this be your evening song,

"Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood,
I lay me down to rest,
As in the embraces of my God,
Or on my Savior’s breast."

I will mention only one other question, and then we will leave this part of the subject, "Do I enjoy this keeping?" This is a question that must make you search your heart. Do you enjoy this keeping? Is it your habit and mine every day to look to God to keep us? When we wake in the morning, is this our first desire, "Lord, keep me this day beneath the shadow of your wings"? When we go out to business, or on our Lord’s service, are we conscious that we are still under the Lord’s eye, and protected by the Lord’s power? When, at any time, we have slipped and erred, do we bitterly repent that we could have acted so wrongly as to wander away from the good Shepherd? And at night, when we look back upon the engagements of the day, are we in the habit of blessing God for as his unseen mercies? Have we learned to bless him for preserving us from all the mysterious spiritual dangers by which we are surrounded? Has it, in fact, become our practice to make this text experimentally our own, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day"?

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