“Like a Watered Garden, and Like a Spring of Water”
‘¢ A ND THOU SHALT BE LIKE A WATERED GARDEN.”
This figure of a garden is a very sweet and attractive one. I need not tell you how much taste may be displayed and how much pleasure may be derived from the cultivation of such plots of ground. Our fancy is soon at work to invent a picture of flower-beds, and fruit-trees, shady walks, and pleasant fountains, laid out close to some grand mansion, and opening its fairest views to the best apartments of the palace. Such a garden needs constant care, and then, although it may be more beautiful at one season than another, it will never be like a wild heath, or totally bereft of charms. But alas! some professors of religion are not like this: there is little evidence of diligent cultivation in their character. Instead of flowers of some kind all the year round, it is hard to say that they ever show much bloom: fruits you would never expect from them. But you know that it is a comely thing for every Christian church, whether it be a large mansion or a little villa, to have a garden surrounding it, so that you may look out from the windows and see the various walks and the different plants that flourish there. I have seen some gardens attached to small houses where the owner has portioned
* Isaiah lviii, 11. off little plots to each member of his family. And thus I believe the home has been made pleasanter and happier. But oh! it is always a good thing when every member of the church has a spot to engage his heart and hands, and when they can all look with so much more satisfaction upon the tender blossoms and the full-blown flowers because they have watched and tended and watered the plants with a ministry of love. This, though, is merely a hint by the way. It is not the exact meaning of the passage before us. Your own soul is to be under cultivation. The heavenly Gardener shall rejoice in your bloom.
An African traveller tells us that he has often seen the contrast between an unwatered garden and a watered garden, and has been much surprised at it. In the case of the watered garden there may be a spring just outside of it, and the master has diligently brought in the water every morning, or every evening, poured it into the trench, and made it run along, and so the plant receives the moisture, and bears fruit, forming a pleasant contrast to the arid desert outside. But there is another garden, with similar plants, apparently selected with the same care, but as it has not been watered, the traveller says that he has frequently observed the holes where the plant should be, without a vestige of the plant that has been perceptible. There was the trench where the water should have flowed; there were paths in the garden; there was everything save and except this — there was no life, because there was no water. O Christians, you know what this means! When the Holy Spirit visits God’s people, they are like a garden that is watered every day.. They are green and flourishing, and their graces are an honour to the God who nourished them. But if the Holy Spirit be taken away from them how different is it! If He were utterly withdrawn from us — which, thank God, He will not be — we should be just like the wilderness from which we were taken, and not a vestige of grace would femain. Christian, as all depends upon the watering of the Spirit, so make it a matter of soul concern with thee to be watered continually by God’s grace. Oh, do not trust to the stock thou hast, for it will fail thee! Do not rely upon what thy soul may find within itself as being its own wisdom and strength, or thou wilt be deceived; but go thou to the Lord, and pray that thou mayest be as a watered garden — not asa garden only, but as a watered garden. So may each one of us do!
As “a spring of water whose waters fail not.” There are many wells in the East which do fail, and many apparent springs which deceive the traveller. I observe that the margin has it, “whose waters deceive not, or lie not.” When a caravan comes to a well, if there be no water in it the travellers are deceived; and if the husbandman should come to a reservoir, and find the water is all gone, then the reservoir has lied unto him and deceived him. And how many a man who has appeared like a Christian has been but a mere deceiver! We looked into his conversation, where there should have been a savour of godliness, but we found none. We hoped that in his actions he would be like the Master whom he professed to serve, but we saw none of that Master’s likeness. We trusted that when he came into communion with the church, he would add to its comfort and its usefulness, but he has merely added to its numbers, and has been an encumbrance upon its march. He has been a deceiver; his waters have lied unto us.
Not so God’s true people; they shall not deceive. They shall have so much grace that when a Christian friend expects to find grace in them, he shall not be disappointed. He shall be refreshed by their conversation, he shall be encouraged by their holy example. A spring of water is not dependentupon anything beyond itself. Deep down in the caverns of the earth great treasures of water have been prepared by God, and the spring subsists upon its own secret source. And so does the Christian. God has provided in the covenant a depth of living water. It is one of the blessings pronounced upon Israel’s sons. Christ Himself has declared that he who drinks of the water of life shall find it in him, “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The reservoir must be filled at certain times, and then it gets dry, but the spring is filled from itself. So the Christian is not dependent upon the ordinances. He thrives upon them, but he is not dependent upon them. If, by Providence, he is denied the use of them, he has a spring within; nay, he has a spring in the secret depths of the eternal love of God, which wells up within him at all times, so that he becomes as “a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” I do not know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say whatever state of heart 1 came into, I should be like a well-spring of water, whose waters fail not. I should rather have to take the comparison of an intermittent spring that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir which we had no reason to expect would always be full.