Teachings – A Path Strewn with Leaves and Broken Branches

A PATH STREWN WITH LEAVES AND BROKEN BRANCHES

UNFOLDING FIFTY-ONE

WHERE WE ARE

Supposing him then to be the gardener, we leave to Jesus His church, our lives – His planting of us, pruning, and enjoyment of the fruit. He was the first fruit of the Father’s planting and Christ is now our husbandman. He oversees the church, watches over and loves it. It is His bride. He died for it. Thus, we know that he will empower and cultivate what grows there, and all will go well in the long run because of His Father’s promise to Him and to us of a new heaven and earth. 

SCRIPTURE

Mark 4:26 & 29

“And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;”

Matthew 13: 27 & 29 

“So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?”

“But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.”

A PATH STREWN WITH LEAVES AND BROKEN BRANCHES
UNFOLDING FIFTY-ONE

Pastor begins –

“Constantly our trouble is that we have so many plants to look after that we have not time to cultivate any one in the best manner, because we have fifty more all wanting attention at the time… “

Issues arise in the church.

“In the church of God there is a discipline which we cannot exercise. I do not think it is half so hard to exercise discipline as it is not to be able to exercised it when yet you feel that it ought to be done.”

Yes, but there is hope –

“In every time of darkness and dismay, when the heart sinks and the spirits decline, and we think it is all over with the church of God, let us fall back on this, ‘supposing Him to be the gardener,’ and expect to see greater and better things than these.”

Yes, it is true –

“Many are to the church what weeds are to a garden. They are not planted by God: they are not growing under His nurture, they are bringing forth no fruit to His glory.”

Yes, but supposing Him to be the gardener, did He not promise?

“”Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away?”

Then again, certain of us suffer in the garden, but… 

“Take the supposition of the text into your mind. The Lord has been pruning you sharply, cutting off your best boughs, and you seem to be like a thing despised, and that is constantly tormented with the knife.”

“Yes, but ‘supposing Him to be the gardener,’ suppose that your loving Lord has wrought it all, that from His own hand all your grief has come, every cut, and every gash, and every slip: does this not alter the case?”

Then, in the end, 

“Supposing Him to be the gardener, and God to come and walk among the trees of the garden, then I expect He will remove the whole of the garden upward with Himself to fairer skies.”

Oh, to be found in Him! God grant we may be!

THOUGHT GOING FORWARD

Yes, this discourse should have a profound, spiritual impact on our attitude about the church for it challenges us to elevate our sight, and see that it is our great God, Lord and King who is the gardener. Yes, there are tares… those whom God did not plant along side us. You – those who are His – stand for the truth, reach for the Sun of Righteousness. That Sun shall ultimately scorch, burn the tares while the true wheat shall be watered with His living water that flows from an everlasting stream.

IN TRIBUTE TO SPURGEON’S LOVE OF SHORT RYHMES

When looking up, I need not know
whom it is that stands beside.
Whether kin or foe, I’m called to grow
and in Christ I shall, if I abide.