THE GARDEN OF THE LORD
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
Let my Beloved come into
His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits.” –(Cant. Iv:16.) Full of deep and
marvelous meaning is the invitation which we here see the Bride presenting,
with such tender, joyous confidence, to her beloved Lord. It contains no
expressions of a painful and humiliating sense of unworthiness, no shrinking
from the approach of the glorious One Whom she is awaiting; we can perceive in
the very form of the language which she uses that she is sweetly at rest as to
the fitness of the fair abode into which she invites her Beloved, and that she
is blessedly conscious of the pleasantness of the fruits which are “laid up”
for Him.
Dear readers, are not
many of us sorrowfully aware that our hearts which ought to be as “gardens of
the Lord,” and filled with pleasant fruits” for our Beloved, are totally
barren, or abounding only with wildwood growths which speak of a lamentable
desolation? We have made no end of endeavors, it may be, to cultivate our
garden, and yet it is running to waste, with nothing to show for all the
toilsome care which we have expended on it; and we would fain know the secret
of our failure.
In Genesis i:12, we read
how “the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind… and
God saw that it was good,” but as we
read further we learn how the ground was cursed because of the sin of
man, and brought forth “thorns and thistles.” The heart of man was innocent and
fair in the sight of the Lord, but corrupt seed was sown in it by the enemy,
and now as the earth without cultivation abounds in rank and poisonous growths,
so our hearts without the tilling of the heavenly Husbandman can “bring no
fruit to perfection.”
Those of us who have discovered
the total inefficiency of any self-effort to overcome our inborn corruption,
may well stand amazed at the miracle of grace represented in these words of a
sanctified heart, “Let my Beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant
fruits.” Notice that she says “His garden”
and “His pleasant fruits,” not
“mine”; she has lost all thought of herself in Him, for well she knows that
this garden has grown from Divinely-planted, seed, and has been brought to
perfection only by His constant care and unceasing supply of the “water of
life.” “Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion,… and their
soul shall be as a watered garden.”-(Jer. xxxi:12.)
But we must give our
hearts unreservedly into the care of the Divine Husbandman, if we would have
Him make our “wilderness like Eden” and our “desert like the garden of the
Lord.” Whatever of self-growth we put forth must ever result in spiritual
“thorns and thistles.” In Eccl. ii:5,6, we read: “I made me gardens and
orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water
therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees.” Here we see human effort
displayed to its greatest advantage, but this is the fruit “pleasant” to the
soul of this apparently successful husbandman? We find that as soon as he
ceases his labors with the expectation of enjoying the fruit thereof, he is
obligated to confess that there is no satisfaction resulting from it. His words
of bitter mourning must strike a sorrowful response in many hearts who are
grieving over unprofitable self-effort; “Then I looked on all the works thy
hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all
was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there
was no profit under the sun.” –(Eccl. ii:11)
However we may labour to
plant in our hearts rich spiritual vineyards and gardens, and to provide
plentiful means of irrigation, there will be no satisfactory fruit, for all is
the growth of corrupt seed, and we cannot “gather grapes of thorns or figs of
thistles.” We may plant trees of “all kind of fruits,” as did this great King,
but, like him, we shall only pronounce the result “vanity,” and our work shall
be “grievous” unto us; for there can be no satisfactory increase except from
the incorruptible seed which our Redeemer alone has the power to implant in our
souls. We, too, may provide for our garden many “pools of water,” but how
different will be the temporary refreshing afforded by these, from the “well of
living waters, and streams of Lebanon” (Cant. iv:15) which are supplied by the
Heavenly Husbandman. With new depths of meaning, come to us our blessed
Saviour’s words: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but
whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life.”-(St. John iv:13-14)
Do some of us think
despairingly of the poor soil and desert places in our hearts, and feel that
they could never be made as gardens of beauty and fragrance for our Lord? O,
listen to His marvelous words, and believe that by His transforming grace, even
our poor hearts may abound with vendure and fruitfulness; “For the Lord shall
comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden
of the Lord.” –(Isa. lxi:3.) What a marvel of mercy and power is here shown
forth; the glorious “new creation,” of the “Eden” of the redeemed and
sanctified hearts.
Again we read: “And the
desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that
passed by. And they shall say, This land
that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden.” -(Ezek. xxxvi:34,35) Deaf friends, if any of
us are mourning over the desolation and desert places existing in our souls,
let us resign them joyfully to Him Who by His almighty power can destroy every
“root of bitterness” in them and cause them to “blossom like the rose.” “And
the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought,… and thou shalt be like a watered garden
whose waters fail not.” (Isa. lviii:ii.)
But if our garden to
yield “pleasant fruits” for our Beloved, it must be entirely set apart for His
use. It must be so hedged about by a spirit of loving consecration to our Lord
that NO foreign plants shall creep poisonously upon it, lest the “lusts of
other things entering in, choke the word and it become unfruitful.”
He would say of us in
His beneficent care : “A garden inclosed is
My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up; a fountain sealed.” Blessed thought!
“Inclosed” for the “Eden” of our Lord; “shut up” from the impurities of earth;
“sealed” for Divine service. How shall we then sing with the voice of melody”:
“Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the
species there of may flow out.”-(Cant. Iv:16.) By the blessed influence of the
Holy Spirit breathing upon our souls, the “spices” or fragrance of our lives
devoted to God shall “flow out,” and shall witness to all men of the garden which
our Beloved has prepared for Himself. Let us ever remember our Saviour’s words
so full of blessed encouragement and comfort: “Herein is My father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye
be My disciples. –(St. John xv:8.) “Pleasant” to Him will be the fair fruits of
a sanctified heart, made pure by His Holy Spirit, for “the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance; against such there is no law.” –(Gal. v:22,23.) And by the power of
that blessed Spirit we shall hear Christ’s voice in our gardens, responding blessedly
to the call of our souls: “I am come into
My garden, My sister, My spouse; I have gathered My myrrh with My spice; I have
eaten My honeycomb with My honey; I have drunk My wine with My milk: eat, O
friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.”-(Cant. v:1.)
My Beloved is gone down
into His garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather
lilies.”
****
Consecration is the death to self-life and self-will.
Consecration is the condition of entire and
permanent soul-union with Jesus. –D. Clark.
***
CONSECRATION AND FAITH PLEDGE
CONSECRATION PLEDGE.
Dear
Lord; I present myself unreservedly to Thee.
My
time.
My
talents.
My
tongue.
My
will.
My
property.
My
reputation.
My
entire being.
To
be, and to do, anything that Thou requires of me.
PLEDGE OF FAITH.
Now
as I have given myself away, I am no longer my own, but all the Lord’s.
I
believe Thou dost accept the offering I bring.
I
trust Thee to work in me all the good pleasure of Thy will.
“Wherefore
come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and I will
receive you.”
As I do give myself to Thee, I
believe Thou dost receive me now.
