The Keeper of the Vineyard 2
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Beloved, do you not think that we often live as day long as if there were no God? Do you not sometimes find yourselves going about the world as if God and you were strangers to each other? Do you not, at least now and then, venture upon the stormy sea of another day without getting your Pilot on board? And do you not think that, at night, when you come to the temporary haven of your chamber, you may often have cause to say to the Lord, "Alas! alas! my God, I have lived this day, and you have protected me, I doubt not, but still, I have not been mindful of you, I have not looked up to you, I have not been hanging on your breast, I have not been nestling under your wing as the chicken hides itself under the hen"? I would that, as church-members, you and I, all of us, would learn the blessed lesson of this text, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day--during my people’s nights of adversity and during their days of prosperity, in their nights of soul-sorrow and in their days of hallowed rejoicing, in the nights when their spirit lies slumbering, and in the days when the sunlight of my countenance shines upon them, and they go forth strong to labor and to do my will, I will keep them under as circumstances; I will never leave them, I will never, no never, forsake them."
I am always afraid, whenever I preach about the security of God’s people, lest you should grow carnally secure, that is to say, lest, instead of realizing the preciousness of the doctrine, and its practical bearing, you should merely be satisfied with the outward shell of it. I want you not only toknow that God does keep you, but to feel the power of that blessed truth in your inmost soul, to enjoy it, and to live upon it. You know that it is one thing to look at honey, and to be told that it is sweet to the taste; but it is a very different thing to eat of it, and to prove its sweetness for yourself. Be it yours, like Jonathan, to dip your rod into the honey of this text, and to eat of it abundantly, for so shall your eyes be enlightened, and every day you shall be able to say, "The Lord is my keeper: the Lord is my shade upon my right hand: the Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man or even the devil himself may try to do unto me."
II. Now, with greater brevity, let me talk to you upon the second part of the subject, the Lord’s CONTINUAL WATERING. He that keeps, waters. "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day."
I was rather struck, the other day, by this remark of a somewhat eminent horticulturist: "Depend upon it, "said he, "that watering is a very essential part of a gardener’s business." It is especially so in hot weather, for there is little doubt that, if the flowers are to be kept constantly in bloom, and if the beds are to look fresh and beautiful, the watering-pot must be in frequent use. In the summer, how very soon the grass looks brown, and how very speedily the flowers begin to droop their heads, and then to shrivel up their leaves, all for lack of watering! Well, now, we have this gracious provision in the text to meet the needs of the Lord’s vines, the Keeper of the vineyard himself says, "I will water it every moment."
We will handle this part of the subject, as we did the other portion, in the form of questions, and the first enquiry shall be, "Do I need watering within as well as keeping without?" The answer that must be given is,
Yes, that I do, for there is not a single grace I have that can live an hour without being divinely watered! Have I not seen many a professor come forward to join the church, full of faith of a certain sort, and full of zeal after a fashion? But, after a few months— and there are some hypocrites who hold out even for years— they begin to flag; they do not care for the house of God as much as they did, they grow worldly and careless, and at last they give up their profession altogether. What is the reason of their failure?
Just this, they were not watered; they never had the living sap to nourish their roots; they never sucked up the living water of God’s grace and so, having no watering from the Most High, their flowers all withered, drooped their heads, and died. There is no wonder at this result, for he who has only the strength that is within himself will be like snow that melts, and passes away. It is only the man who derives his strength from God who will be like the sun that shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. There is no grace I have, then, which does not need watering from above!
Beside that, the soil in which I am planted is very dry. Ask any Christian whether he ever gets any real good out of the world. Do you not find it a very dry soil where you go to business? The other day you said that you would change your position; you would be a fool if you did so, for it would only be a change of troubles. The God who gave you your present set of trials knew that they were the best for you! If all the crosses in the world could be laid in a heap, and I were told to take my pick of them, I would choose those that I have now, for I know what they are, and God fits my back to them. But I do not know what the others are, and I have no proof that I could bear them. You had better not take my troubles, for they might crush you, while I can bear them through the divine strength that is given to me; but if I had yours, they might crush me, while you can patiently endure them through God’s grace. This world, however, is no very genial soil for a Christian’s growth. Worldlings may flourish in it; but if the Christian would have living water, he must get it from some other place than this earth, for, spiritually, it is a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
Then, again, the atmosphere that is round about us does not naturally yield us any water. The means of grace, which are like clouds hovering over our heads, are often nothing but clouds; they come and they go, but we receive no rain from them. The other day, we looked up, and we said that it would rain directly; but lo! the one black cloud was soon gone. So, you sometimes go up to the house of God, and you say to yourselves, "Our minister has often cheered and comforted us, perhaps he will have a good word for us today;" and when the text is announced, and the sermon is begun, you think, "Here is a cloud, there will be some rain presently;" but, whether it is your fault or the minister’s, we will not say, but often there is not a drop of moisture to refresh your spirit, the reason being that the Lord will have you know that he, and he alone, must water you if you are to be effectually revived! He will teach you that you need watering, that all your graces constantly require fresh supplies of divine grace, but that you must have them directly and alone from him.
The beauty of the text seems to me to lie in the last two words: "I will water it every moment." There is no plant except a plant of grace that needs to be watered every moment; but we do. I do not know to what object I can compare a Christian better than to one of those gaslights yonder. The believer is not a candle, for a candle can burn of itself when it is once lighted, because it carries its own burning materials; neither is he a lamp that is supplied with a store of oil, except in a certain sense; but he is just like one of these gaslights. Turn the tap out of the connection with the gasometer, and out goes the light at once. There must be a stream of gas continually flowing to keep up the burning. And so is it with the Christian’s spiritual life, it must be perpetually streaming in from his Lord, he cannot live even the tenth of a second unless life flows to him from God.
Look at your hand; I suspect that, if for a moment you could altogether suspend the circulation of your blood, if you could utterly cut off the life-floods so as to dissever your hand from the rest of your body, though it were but for a second, yet vitality would be gone. And so, if the Christian could be for one instant without union to Christ, without receiving supplies of divine grace, he would at once expire.
I will not talk to you much longer, for we want to gather around the communion-table; but I will just put this one question— "Have we all realized, as a matter of experience, that the Lord does water us every moment?" Brethren, I am very much afraid that there are but few of us who have ever learned the full meaning of this gracious promise. You can, perhaps, say, "The Lord waters me every Sabbath, and on Monday nights, and Thursday nights." Possibly, you can go even farther, and say, "He waters me every morning, and every evening;" but to be watered every moment, to have continually such a conscious connection with Christ as to be really receiving of his grace— you ask, "Is this experience attainable? It may be possible for a minister, for he has time to think of these things; but it is not possible for us working people, who have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows; nor for us business men, who have to be all day long occupied with accounts."
Oh! but, beloved, there are some of the Lord’s people who have proved that this blessing can be obtained, and that it is possible to be in the world and yet to be living near to God, and every moment to be watered by him. Have you never heard of that poor servant girl who expounded the meaning of the passage, "Pray without ceasing"? Some person could not understand how anyone could pray without ceasing, but Mary said, "Why! when I dress myself in the morning, my heart prays that I may be robed in my Savior’s righteousness; when I light the fire, I pray the Holy Spirit to kindle a flame of sacred love in my heart; when I spread the cloth for breakfast, I ask God to feed me with the bread of heaven; and whatever I do, all day long, I try to turn it into something that will make me live near to my God!"
Do you not see, dear friends, that a stirring life may yet be a spiritual life? There are some people, you know, who, when they get hold of some hobby, can attend to business, and yet ride their hobby as well. It may be that they have taken to working out some mathematical problem; if so, you will see them attending to the shop, but all the while they are thinking about that problem, and the very first opportunity they get, they begin figuring away on a scrap of paper, trying to work it out. Whatever takes place during the day, the man is always thinking of that problem; and when he is on his way home, as he is riding along, he is still thinking of that one thing because his heart is full of it. Thus it may be with you, so that, while you are engaged in business, and in the lawful affairs of your daily life, your heart may still be always going out towards God.
I was struck by a remark of a dear friend, the other day, who said that Mr. So-and-so was so fond of everything Gothic that he had his chairs Gothic, and his bedstead Gothic, and all the furniture of his house Gothic. I think that a Christian should have everything full of Christ, so that, whether he eats, or drinks, or whatsoever he does, he does all to the glory of God. It was said of Ambrose that he used to eat, and drink, and sleep eternal life; so may it be said of each of us! Why, sometimes, when we have some dear one upon our hearts, we may go and attend to fifty thousand things, but we do not forget that beloved object of our affection. A mother may have to go on an errand, and she may be compelled to stay away a long while, but her sick child at home is on her heart all the time. So I want that we should have Christ, and have the Holy Spirit, and have our Father who is in heaven, continually upon our minds, and in that way shall we learn the meaning of this passage, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day."
Now, as I close my discourse, I fear that there are some of you who are not saved, and to you I have to put a personal question—"Why should not this night be the time of your salvation?" Why did you come into the Tabernacle tonight? Some of you have been inconvenienced, for you have had to stand all through the service; I hope you have not come here for nothing. I trust that the Lord meant to bless you when he induced you to come up those steps and between those pillars. Remember that the righteous God must punish sin, but that his Son, Jesus Christ, was punished in the place of all those who will believe on him. To believe on him, is to trust him; have you done that? Then, though your sins were as scarlet, they are now whiter than snow. If you have trusted Jesus, your iniquities, which were like a black cloud, have all been rolled away, and you are so completely saved that there is now no condemnation to you, for you are in Christ Jesus. God bring you to trust in Christ, for believing in him, you are saved!
May we, who are about to gather around the communion-table, have our Master’s special presence and blessing! Amen.
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