Spring Follows Winter

1 at any time our mind should grow desponding concerning the progress of the Gospel, and I confess mine is very heavy at times, it ought to encourage us to remember that the Gospel will conquer, not because it looks as if it would, but because God has declared and decreed that it shall do so. I know of no efforts which have been made to promote the advent and progress of spring. A blustering March; a cold February; rain and mist through November, December, and January; I saw nothing in the atmosphere or the sky to help on spring. Did it want.any helping? Did it need human aid? No; the earth pursued its ordained orbit, and every hour it neared the point where spring, laden with flowers, lay in kind ambush, longing to scatter her garlands over the glad earth. God wants no helpers to create spring: He sends it in His own time, and lo it cometh. Even thus the Lord stands in no need of creature help to effect the designs of His grace. Spring has never lingered until assembled parliaments have permitted and commanded its coming; neither has it waited for emperors to smile, and say — “Let the buds come forth.” Far away in the dense forest, and here in Merry England ina thousand woods, the sap is flowing in the trees, and myriads of buds are swelling, but not by man’s art or aid. “The daffodils are blooming in the meadows where no man planted them, and the bluebells in the dells where gardener’s

spade has never come. Yea, and I know right well that the dews of Divine grace and the showers of regenerating love tarry not for man, nor wait for the sons of men.

If there had been a general revolt against the spring, it would not have been delayed. If the kings of the earth had set themselves, and the rulers taken counsel together, no single gleam of sunlight would have hesitated to shine forth. If the Pope himself, in his infallibility, had issued a bull forbidding the sun to re-cross the equator, and advance to the northern tropic, I venture to predict that it would have pursued the even tenor of its way, despite the bidding of his Holiness. None can stay the marches of the year, or turn the seasons from their course. -Who is he that can fight against the Lord, or withstand the power of the Most High? Our help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth. We do not reckon on the progress of the Gospel because we have a company of rich men to help us, a goodly fellowship of eloquent divines to advocate the cause and a considerable number of respectable persons to support the good work. No, our Master has not come to such a beggarly state of dependence that He needs a mortal’s help. He has told us that “cursed is he that ‘trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm,” and He has not. come to trust in man Himself and make flesh His arm: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” As comes the spring by God, Jehovah’s own arrangement; so shall come the time of the church’s triumph, and the victory of truth, by God’s appointment, let men say what they will.

Be it never forgotten that the disheartening circumstances of the winter may have been all of them promotive of the success of the spring. I cannot tell what connection there may have been between the sharp frost and the colouring of the cowslip, but I have no doubt that if the flowers could speak they could tell. I do not know what is the connection between the drenching showers and the gushes of song from the woodlands, but doubtless the larks and the thrushes hold the secret among them; neither do I know how howling winds are linked with leafy bowers, but what the oak or the elm could say if they were permitted to prophesy for awhile it is not for me to guess. There is an intimate inter-marriage and commingling of the dark and of the bright, the chill and the warm; and from this has come forth the joy of spring. Every child knows that March winds and April showers bring forth the sweet May flowers; so all the sorrows and troubles which the church has borne, and shall yet bear, are mothers of the victories she shall yet achieve. Her days would never be so bright if her nights had not been so dark. Believe, therefore, that the worst times are working on towards something better. We have God’s promise to sustain us in all our efforts to spread abroad His kingdom, He has Himself declared that, “As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” The

Lord God cannot lie, He must keep His promise; and He canno the disappointed by unforeseen difficulties; His power is irresistible; therefore we feel quite sure that His word must win the day!

Bethink you for a moment, you who are growing weary through the long night, whose watches seem as if they would never end. I hear you cry, “When will the day break, and the shadows flee away?” Be not dispirited, but encourage yourselves with these thoughts. Remember what a sowing has already gone before. Christ sowed the earth with His own self.:

Remember, too, who is the Husbandman of this field. He has not bidden His church till the world without Divine help: “My Father is the Husbandman.” God Himself is watching over the broad field of the world to promote the growth of what the Saviour sowed, and shall He fail? Shall it be said at the close of the great Husbandman’s work, there is no result from it? The idols are still firm on their pedestals; Antichrist sits upon her seven hills in pompous state, and the simple Gospel is still in the minority! Will the Almighty fail? How think you? Can Omnipotence be defeated? No! It cannot be; as Jehovah liveth, it cannot be! The living God must conquer.

Moreover, there is the Spirit of God Himself, as well as the Father and the Son, and He has deigned to dwell in the midst of the church, The Spirit of God is here, and is specially at work. He moved upon chaos, and turned it into order; He it is also that quickeneth the dead, and shall He be defeated and disappointed in the conversion of this world?

Let the thought be accursed, for it is near akin to blasphemy, if it be not blasphemy itself. The triune God must make the knowledge of Himself to “cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” God’s honour is engaged in the matter. On this battle-field of the world He has flung down the gauntlet to the powers of hell, and Satan has taken up the gage of battle, and the fight has raged long, but it must end in victory for God, it cannot be otherwise!