Trees Planted in the House of the Lord
IT sounds oddly to hear of planting a tree in a house, and of its flourishing in courts; but an oriental house is a sort of quadrangle. It is a four-square building, with the middle open to the sky, and generally there is a small garden, in which a palm tree, or an olive, or some other evergreen tree (for they generally prefer that sort) will be found planted; so that what seems strange to us — a tree planted in a house — was not at all strange to David or to anybody else who lived in the city of Jerusalem. And it isa very beautiful figure — this being planted within the four courts of God’s house, that we might grow right in the middle of the place where God with His family deigns to dwell.
Planting implies that there has been something done for us that we could not do for ourselves. A tree cannot plant itself. There are self-sown trees, but such are not,“those that be planted in the house of the Lord.” Land you know, there is a necessity that there should be a work of grace upon our souls, which shall come, not from ourselves, but distinctly from God, for “every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.’/ It cannot plant itself, and, if it could, it must be rooted up, because it would not be planted by the heavenly Father. There must be wrought upon us, in order to our being truly in the courts of the Lord’s house, a work of grace infinitely beyond the power of the will, or all the power that dwells in human nature. We must, in fact, be new-created. We must be born again. We must have as great a work wrought upon us as was wrought upon the body of Christ when He was raised from the dead. The eternal power and Godhead of the divine Spirit must put forth the fulness of its strength to raise you up from your death in sin, or otherwise you will be like sear branches and cast-off pieces of wood, but never will you be trees planted, made to live and to grow in the courts of the Lord’s house. There must be something done for us, if we are planted.
That implies, too, that there must be a great change in our position, for a tree that is planted has been growing somewhere else. It has to reach a certain height in the nurseryman’s garden, if we are speaking of England, and then it is planted where it is meant to be permanently fixed. So must it have been in the East. The tree grew somewhere else. After a time it was dug up, its roots were loosened, it was taken away from the place where it had been accustomed to stand. Many a tender rootlet was made to bleed, and it was then carried and put in another place altogether, and so, from being outside the court it came to be inside the court of the house of the Lord. So if we are to answer the condition described we must have been dug up and transplanted. This is to have undergone a great and wonderful change.
Planting means not only that something has been done for us that we could not do for ourselves, and that a great change has taken place in our position, but it implies that ¢here zs life im us. I suppose that flouse of the Lord. 53
if we speak of planting a post or planting a pillar we hardly use correct language. We plant a thing that has life in it, and we do not consider that a thing has been planted unless it be a living thing. Most certainly the promise could not be fulfilled to any but a living tree, for it is said — “They that be planted shall flourish, and they shall bring forth fruit.” God does not intend to have dead stumps standing in His court, —
“* That little garden walled around.”
And then it seems that the fact of our being planted implies that we ourselves have taken hold of the soil wherein we have been placed. A tree that is rightly planted, so as to flourish, begins to send out its roots — to drink in moisture, to select from the earth around it those portions which are fit food for vegetable life.
Are you so incorporated with the church of God that you have got a grip of the fellowship of the saints, that you have effectually laid hold of the citizenship of our Lord’s faithful disciples? Are you seeking for vital truth to sustain your soul’s vitality? Do you in the ordinances send out the rootlets of your desire, to seek after what God has prepared for you? Is there in you a living sap flowing, which sap is being fed by what you draw in from the soil in which God has placed you? Surely you know what this means? Sabbath days are often feeding times to you; and your visits to the Lord in prayer are building-up times to your spirit; and when you search the Word in private, and when the Holy Ghost communes with you in your quiet retirement — ay, and when, even in the midst of business, your soul breathes her swift ejaculations up to heaven, then are the roots of your soul taking hold of Christ, and drawing out of Him the vital element which you need. You are of the right kind if this be the case, and you shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall flourish Jecause God has said that they shall, Wis promises are sure to be fulfilled. If He plants a tree He will cause it to flourish. There seems to be very much against the Christian, many perils to which he is exposed, when he is first planted. Indeed, in the early childhood of Christian life we undergo aiworld of trial. Such was our weakness, and such our exposure to the bleak atmosphere of this present evil world, the chances were all against us. But there is no chance with God. What He plants is sure to take root. If He says it shall flourish, flourish it will. Satan may seek to tear it up; the foxes may try to spoil the vines; there may be chilling winds; there may be long droughts; the sun may seek to smite it by day, and the moon by night; but God has promised that it shall flourish, and flourish it must; therefore I invite young Christians to be very hopeful. See to it that you are rightly planted, and then you may depend upon it that you will really flourish. God, who hath been pleased to give you grace, will bestow on you more grace, and then more grace — grace upon grace — grace for every exigence and every emergency. As your needs arise those needs shall be supplied. Just as you require spiritual health, spiritual health shall be vouchsafed to you if you seek it at His hands,
. knowing that it is at His disposal. You shall not be a half-starved Christian — a sort of living skeleton of a believer — but you shall flourish; you shall be peaceful,
happy, strong, useful. Set your heart upon this, and ask the Lord to make you thrive, and bloom, and fructify. Your leaf shall not wither, and He will cause you to prosper if you are planted in the courts of the Lord.
If you are altogether Christians, planted in His house — not merely in His garden, but in His house — then you shall flourish, for you have the promise that you shall. And flourish you well may, because of the goodness of the sovl. They are quite sure to have good soil in the little garden enclosed by the house. It may be rocky outside, but when a man has built the four walls of his house in the East, he generally takes all the soil that is in the middle away. It may be very bad and poor, but then he has brought in baskets the richest soil that he can possibly get, for he must have a good tree in the middle of his house. It would not do every moment of the day to look out, or rather to look in, and see a little scrubby tree half alive. No, he procures the best soil he can get, and those who are planted in the house of the Lord are planted in the best soil possible. They are planted where the means of grace abound. They are planted where Christians help one another with mutual fellowship. They are planted where the ordinances of the Gospel are freely enjoyed by all who dwell there. - They are planted where the Holy Spirit has promised to abide. They are planted where the Word of God does not return void. They are planted where the eye and the heart of Christ perpetually rest. They are planted in His church — the church that He hath redeemed with His most precious blood. The soil is good, and they ought to flourish, and they shall.
And then they are planted in a sheltered posztion. You know that trees, even if they have good soil, are sometimes a great deal kept back by having a cold northerly aspect. They may be very much bitten by the frost; but a tree that is planted right in the middle of the forecourt, surrounded by the walls, is sheltered. There is the natural warmth of the house round about it, and it is sheltered from that which other trees out in the vineyard, or out in the garden, may have to endure.
The cold could not get at you. You scarcely had enough of the cold of the world to do you any injury. The warm Sun of Righteousness was reflected upon you; not only did it come directly upon you by divine favour, but it was reflected upon you with grateful sympathy by the walls of the house of the Lord in which you had been planted. You know it has been so. Is it any wonder, then, that you flourish? There is a little wonder sometimes that you do not flourish more, and that you do not bring forth more fruit; for what more could God do than He has done for some of you who have been planted in the house of the Lord? Are you not like a vineyard on a very fruitful hill which He has edged about and walled, and in which He has. put a wine-press, and which He has watered every morning, and, lest any should hurt it, has kept night and day? How sour the grapes, and how few the clusters fit for the Great Vine-dresser to gather, no one knows better than yourself. Yet they ought to flourish, because they are planted in good soil, and ‘because they are placed in a sheltered position.
The greatness of God’s love makes Him very zealous for us and very jealous of us. If He sees those
whom He very much loves, with the slightest evil thing about them, He is quick to observe it and prompt to purge it away. You know that you do not like to see a spot on your dear child’s face. You will have it washed off as soon as possible. So will the Lord cleanse His people, both without and within. The care and the trouble He has had with us, as I have already said, none of us can tell. We ought to bring forth fruit, to the profit of the Husbandman, to the glory of God. Branches that bring forth fruit He purges. Those that bring forth very little fruit He lets very much alone. If there be a man who brings forth much fruit, that man will have much trial, because it will pay the Vine-dresser to prune him. Some branches will not pay for it. They will never do more than they are doing, and so there they are, and thus they are left to prove their feebleness; but those that will pay for pruning will be pruned again and again. And, truly, when the man of God is in his right mind, he will bless the Lord for the honour He puts upon him when He afflicts him with the view of making him still more useful. This is evermore our Lord’s design. Does He not say that they shall never perish whom He protects and provides for, holding them in His hands? But, as they cannot flourish if they run to wood, He will be quite sure to use His knife to take off this new shoot and that new shoot, because it is not fruit-bearing wood, and He takes it away, and He leaves the vine in such a condition that in will bring forth good fruit in due time. They shall flourish, and well they may, when they are so near to the Great Husbandman’s hand.