Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] You are listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit lancelimber.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates.
[00:00:17] And I thought this was a very great occasion. Not a great occasion, but a very opportune occasion since Mr. Shaw is away on the holiday and Nigel is in Paris at a conference to speak about gardens.
[00:00:36] As you know, I have been looking after the garden for a while, more or less. I mean, a lot of people do a lot of work in it, but I have principally been sort of watching over it. And whilst Neigel's been making plans, we've been quietly following them.
[00:00:56] And as one has done it, especially just now, this is a very heavy and busy time with everything growing. A lot of lessons suggest themselves from a garden. And it is very interesting that God actually planted a garden. It says in Genesis, chapter two, God planted a garden, and then it says he put man into it, and he told man to tend the garden which he had planted. This is very interesting.
[00:01:29] It's a little indication of the interest of the Lord in this. As we go on in Scripture, we find that this picture of a watered garden, and of course, it's always a watered garden in the Old Testament, for nothing else would be much of a garden in Palestine other than a watered garden. A watered garden becomes a picture of the church and a picture not only of those who've been redeemed and planted by God, as it were, but it also becomes a picture of our individual life.
[00:02:06] And that's why in Song of Solomon, the Lord spoke in that wonderful picture. He spoke of a garden enclosed. It was a walled garden.
[00:02:18] It was a private garden, and the spring was a private spring. It was a spring that they sometimes had a great slab of stone where no one else was allowed to go from it. It was a private well for the owner of the garden. And the Lord said, this is what you are to me, a garden enclosed and a spring sealed.
[00:02:42] That doesn't mean sealed so that you can't get at it, but sealed with the seal to mean that it can only be used by the owner.
[00:02:51] And then, of course, there's much else in that. Isaiah speaks of us that if we do so, if you read that whole chapter 58, you will discover that he says, if you deal with certain things that are troubling me amongst you, then you'll become like a watered garden. And then Jeremiah takes up the same thought and says that their life shall be like a watered garden. So now, this evening, I want to bring A few very simple lessons from the garden. Now, for those of you who are not gardeners, it will not be boring, I trust, at all, for we're not going to go into technical details, we're just going to explain one or two things.
[00:03:32] I shall explain them very, very simply so that those of you who don't know anything about gardening are not the least bit interest. I shall explain in such a way, I hope that it will help you. Now, the first thing I want to say, the first lesson from the garden is the basic needs of. Of plants.
[00:03:50] The basic needs of plants.
[00:03:54] Now, there are four basic things, absolutely basic and essential things that plants need if they're going to grow and flower and fruit.
[00:04:07] Very simply, they are light, heat, water, food.
[00:04:16] And, you know, there's a very, very wonderful sense in which we can learn a lot from these four basic essentials in the growth of plants.
[00:04:30] First of all, light.
[00:04:31] Let's look at one or two things. Light.
[00:04:34] Plants need light and air. If you've ever seen. If you've gone to a market or gone to some shop and bought a plant, you.
[00:04:44] You put it somewhere in a dank little shadowy corner and you couldn't understand why it went all yellow and passed out altogether within a week.
[00:04:54] Well, the whole point was, you see, the plants need light and they need air.
[00:05:00] Some plants can in fact, exist in a more shadowy and overhung spot. We'll talk about that a bit later. But all plants need light and air. That's why in the far, far Arctic north, plants won't.
[00:05:15] Of the long, dark winter that there is where there's not enough light. Apart from heat, there's not enough light, you see. So the basic need of plants are light and air. Now listen, you and I planted in the Lord's garden. We need light and air.
[00:05:39] And the first scripture I'd like just to quote is 1 John, chapter 1, verse 5. 1 John, chapter 1, verse five.
[00:05:52] God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
[00:06:00] Verse 7.
[00:06:02] If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. There's a tremendous need to walk in the light.
[00:06:19] Now, some of us are not growing.
[00:06:22] Some of us are not growing as we ought to grow.
[00:06:25] And we may well ask ourselves, am I walking in the light?
[00:06:32] Now, mark it, it doesn't say just walk in the light. It says, walk in the light as he is in the light. That's not your standard of light.
[00:06:45] In other words, I got A little standard of light. It's an entirely subjective thing.
[00:06:51] I can bring it down or put it up just as I wish. No, your standard is the law. God is light. Walk in the light as he is in the light.
[00:07:05] And if you look at Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 8 and 9, for ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.
[00:07:30] Walk in the light.
[00:07:33] We need light and God is light.
[00:07:38] Everything that belongs to darkness has no relationship, has nothing directly to do with the Lord. That God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. This is an acid test for us all and we all fail if we bring our lives up to its searching standard, to this acid test. God is light. That's the first thing. We've got to walk in the light. You can read your Bible, you can pray, you can come along to the meetings. But if you do not walk in the light, nothing will happen.
[00:08:19] You will just become static somehow or other, you may not even be aware of it. But you turn yellow, your leaves turn yellow and you get that sort of wilted look.
[00:08:33] You've not got the light, the light that you need. You see, light and air is an essential to the well being, the healthiness as well as the growth of plants. And you and I need the light of God as much as anyone else as any plant. It says in 1 Peter, chapter 2, and I think verse 9, who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. And in one of the psalms it speaks about seeing light in his light.
[00:09:09] So there's an ever growing appreciation of God's light.
[00:09:16] Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
[00:09:26] Well, those are tremendous promises. But you know, a lot of our troubles as Christians is that we're in the dark, in the wrong kind of dark. There are times when clouds come by God's command, but there are times when we get into the dark. And when we're in the dark, all kinds of things that belong to the dark take over.
[00:09:46] And then we're living a contradiction, and we know it. Light is essential. Now the next thing that's essential is heat.
[00:09:54] Plants not only need light and air, but they need heat as well. Heat and warmth.
[00:10:03] Plants, for instance, seeds will not germinate. Perhaps you've noticed it in your gardens, if you do watch them at all, that all of a sudden in the last few Weeks, thousands of weeds have started to grow. Well, why didn't they grow in February?
[00:10:18] Why didn't they go back in March? Why suddenly wait now to the last week or two? What makes them grow, grow, if you ever thought, well, what makes them grow is the warmth, the heat. And the warmth touches, as it were, the earth and the dampness. And all of a sudden everything springs to life. You see, the seeds need heat and warmth. And the plants, which have remained quietly dormant for a long time, at least to the naked eye, suddenly start to sprout and grow the moment they get heat, the minimum amount of heat and warmth that they need for growth.
[00:10:56] Now, you know this is very true spiritually. You and I not only need light and air, we need heat.
[00:11:04] And if you look at John, chapter.
[00:11:08] John, chapter 15, I believe we've got the little key to it. John, chapter 15, verse 9 and 10.
[00:11:20] Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide ye, abide ye or continue ye in my love.
[00:11:31] If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. If you and I want to grow, we got to learn how to abide in his love.
[00:11:50] Now that doesn't mean to say that we've got to try and find a love that's non existent.
[00:11:55] Many of us are slaves to our own natures and to false conceptions of the Christian life. And we think we've got to find a love that is universal, when in fact it's not within us to love universally.
[00:12:09] And therefore we get ourselves into terrible bondage and terrible trouble. You can't find that kind of love in you. Naturally, you'll find a love there for certain people, often with a lot of self interest involved. You can look after certain people who can serve certain people. That's not love, that's self interest. There's a lot that's selfish. That's a kind of love, a true kind of love. But it's natural love in which there's an awful lot of things.
[00:12:37] But you see, we have to learn to abide in God, in Christ, in his love. God is love, just as God is light. God is love and we have to abide in his love. Now, Jesus gave us the simple key to it all. If ye keep my commandments, ye abide in my love. In other words, you can't just say, I'm abiding in your love, Lord, and break the commandments. The moment you break the commandments, you're out of the love of God.
[00:13:04] This is so simple. Or what does it mean, the Commandments? Does it mean we've got to go right through? No. It means simply, we keep his word in our heart. We don't deliberately, maliciously disobey the word of the Lord.
[00:13:18] We study the Word of God. We seek to be not only hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word. Now this is practical. This is what it means to know the heat and the warmth that is necessary for our well being and our growth and our fruitfulness.
[00:13:34] We have to abide in his love. Learn to abide in his love. Isn't it lovely? In Ephesians, the last verse of the Ephesian letter, the very last verse, the Ephesian letter, Paul puts this little word which I have often looked at, verse 24 of chapter 6. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible.
[00:13:59] With a love incorruptible or in incorruptible? We haven't got a love like that. There's no good trying to say we have. We haven't got a love that's in incorruption, with a love incorruptible.
[00:14:12] But God has a love that's incorruptible. Look how he's loved us.
[00:14:16] I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Why? Why doesn't the Lord love go up and down like ours? Why doesn't he turn away from us as we would from one another? The Lord's love is incorruptible. Sometimes it's firm, sometimes it's severe, sometimes it's angry. But it's still love, and it's still the same.
[00:14:38] Well, now, that's the kind of love you and I need to know. And look at Philippians 1, chapter 1, verse 9.
[00:14:47] And this says, paul, I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discerned. So you've got to learn how to have an abounding love with knowledge and discernment. Some people you know can only love if they're ignorant.
[00:15:07] In other words, if you could be ignorant of me, you can love me. But as soon as you get to know me, your love flings.
[00:15:15] And you can love if you've got no discernment. You know, we've got those dreadfully discerning people who reserve their love for a tiny, tiny few because they're so discerning. But Paul says, don't have that kind of love which can love very few. Because it's got discernment and sees through so many, but has that love which abounds yet more and more in all knowledge and discernment.
[00:15:41] In other words, you can discern what's right and what's wrong. You can see right through a situation and still love more and more.
[00:15:49] You can have all the knowledge and yet still love. That's the kind of love you and I need to abide. Now, do you not think that the Lord Jesus knew that Judas was a thief?
[00:16:01] Do you not think the Lord Jesus knew that he was taking things out of the bag and spending it out of the little treasury, as it were, and spending it wrongfully? Do you not know that he. That he. Do you not think that he knew that Judas was going to betray him? That's the kind of love the Lord's love was with all knowledge and discernment he knew. He said to them, you know, I have chosen you, one of you, as a son of perdition.
[00:16:26] He told them himself, and they all looked back and said, a son of perdition. Can he be talking about one of us? A son of perdition?
[00:16:34] Couldn't be.
[00:16:35] That's the kind of love that the Maud love. That's the kind of love he says to us, abide in my love. Abide in my love. That's the kind of love you have. Abide in it. You don't have to try and get it. All you've got to do is to continue in it, stay in it and continue in it. Well, heat then. Water.
[00:16:54] Plants need water.
[00:16:57] You will soon find that out. If you don't water them, you'll find they'll pass out all together. They've got to get water plants.
[00:17:05] And this is one of their essentials. Now let's look at John chapter 4, that well known chapter, and John 4:14.
[00:17:19] Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. That the water that I shall give him shall become in him a spring of water springing up unto eternal life.
[00:17:32] A well or spring of water springing up upon to eternal life. Now that's what you and I need to discover. It was FBMI who said, Christians are divided into two kinds. Those who have to go back to the well again and again have to go to meetings, they have to go to conventions, they have to go to books. And all the time they have to go back and put down the bucket and draw up a little bit of water. It's all very hard, thirsty work. And take the water back into the little village. And store it and take a little bit from it, and next day it's all gone. And they've got to go all the way back and get a bit more. That's that kind of Christian who's dependent all the time on something outside of himself to keep him going. And there's the other kind of Christian who's got the thing within him.
[00:18:20] He's found the Lord within and found the spring of water, of the water of life, springing up unto eternal life. Now, water is absolutely essential to growth absolutely in plants, and it's absolutely essential for us. We've got to learn how first to drink the water of life, and then we've got to discover the spring within us. Otherwise we're running hither and thither to this one, to that one, to this meeting, to that meeting all the time trying to find something. And of course, I'm not saying that meetings are wrong or the conferences are wrong or books are wrong, or that other fellowship with other Christians is wrong.
[00:19:05] All that is necessary and right. But you won't find if you keep on running off to them. That's not really what the Lord wants. He wants a spring of water within you, springing up unto eternal life.
[00:19:18] And also, if you look at Revelation, there's a rather lovely little commentary upon this.
[00:19:23] In Revelation the very last chapter 22 and verse 17, he that is athirst, let him come.
[00:19:36] He that will, let him take the water of life freely.
[00:19:43] Well, there's no need for us not to be able to take the water of life. The very last words of the Bible say, come and take it freely, and you and I can come and we can drink as much as we want of the water of light. It's always there for us. And if we'll only see that sin is out of the way, we're walking in the light and we're abiding in his love. We can come to that water and we can drink deeply and fully. And then we need food. Plants need not only water because they get a lot of food from water, and they get food from the air, actually from the. When water brings the air, it catches particles, oxygen, brings it down to the leaves and takes into the plant.
[00:20:24] But this food that I'm talking about now is, well, fertilizers really, and other things, chemicals that are actually in the soil and plants need food.
[00:20:38] And I thought straight away of the spiritual milk, of the word. Well, now, 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse, verse 2. As newborn babes long for the spiritual milk, which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation as newborn babes long for the spiritual milk of the Word, there's food.
[00:21:06] Food, and isn't it wonderful? God gives the food that you and I require. If we're young, then he gives us milk. If we are older, there is solid food for those that are older. Turn to Hebrews chapter 5, Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 12. I'm going to read it in the American Revised Standard Version.
[00:21:37] He says this, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principle of God's word. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who had their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
[00:22:00] Now you see, God in his wonderful grace is able to provide milk for newborn babes and solid food for those that are growing a little bit older.
[00:22:10] And he'll always give it to you if you want it. God never gives his children indigestion. If you're getting spiritual indigestion, that's your fault.
[00:22:18] You're trying to get above your station. If you look at it that way. The thing is, always in God's word, there's something for us. Sometimes it's milk. It's there for us and we can get it. If it's solid food, it's there for us. Food, well, we all need that. Now, that's the first thing there basic needs of plants, light, heat, water, food.
[00:22:46] And then the next thing I like to just mention, the lesson from the garden is the power of life.
[00:22:51] The power of life.
[00:22:54] Once you've got life in something and it's got light, the light it needs the light and air it needs, and the heat and warmth it needs and the water it needs and the food that needs, it needs, then there is an amazing power inherent within that life which can in fact get it through anything. Sometimes some things look so dead. I'm always taken in by this. I don't know whether others are, but I'm always taken in by this. In February, particularly February, when the snow has gone or beginning to go, or March, you go out and you look at a few little twigs and. And you think, oh, tidy up. We start tidying up. For as you start to pull up this and you pull up that and you pull up the other, and those you know will tell you, don't pull up anything. Don't pull up any. You should have cut back everything in the autumn don't pull up any. That's why you should cut it back. Because you see those things that look so lifeless and you could swear that they're dead. In fact, there's life within them which you can't see with the naked eye. And at the right time they'll sprout someone. I'm afraid, tidying up the garden this last year, found a little thing that was called time. You know that little thing that creeps all over the place. And there it was, just a lot of little fine branches. And they pulled the whole lot up and it's gone, it's finished. But the where it was left, it's all covered in little green leaves now about to flower. You can go and look at it in the paving stones, you see, it looked so dead. If you ever go and looked at a tree, at an apple tree, really looked at it in the winter, you can't believe.
[00:24:37] If you didn't know that that tree would bear leaves and blossom and fruit, you, you could hardly believe it. You'd think a person was out of their mind if they said to you, this tree is covered with leaves and heavy bow down with fruit later in the year. Because we're used to this miracle, we can understand it, but if we weren't used to it, we couldn't believe. We think a person was out of their mind.
[00:25:04] Dead old stick, dried up, dead, dirty, ugly looking stick with a few sort of branches. How can that possibly burst into life and bear much fruit? Yet it does.
[00:25:21] And everything bursts wonderfully into growth. Sometimes something looks so thin, it's obviously alive and it looks so thin you think, oh dear, that's not going to grow. But it does. And when you come back a few months later, you're amazed. It's smothered with great. With great spikes of blue. And yet you remember that it looked so thin and so straggly and so weak. You see, it is the power of life within that, and it's a tremendous thing. Now, do you know that in the last few days, literally things have grown inches? That's not an exaggeration.
[00:25:59] Things have grown inches in the last few days.
[00:26:03] They've gone underway now. They've overcome things and now they're tilting up.
[00:26:10] It's the power of life within. Now listen, you and I have got a life within us. It is Christ.
[00:26:20] And do you know the greatest secret that any Christian can discover is Christ within?
[00:26:26] The greatest secret? Make no mistake, it transforms and revolutionizes our lives. When we really discover it, we all know it. Theologically but when we actually discover it, we've made the biggest discovery in the universe when we discover that Christ is really within.
[00:26:42] Because then somehow or other you found a life within in which is inherent everything. Do you know that in that life, in that dried old stick of an apple tree, in the actual life are all the leaves and all the blossom and all the fruit.
[00:26:58] It's amazing to think of it. Of course, I know bees have to do their job and other things have to do their job before finally it bears its fruit. But in actual fact, everything is within the life of that tree. The leaves, the blossom, the fruit and the power to grow is all within the life of that tree. Now, do you know the whole Christian life, everything to do with it? Leave the necessary, the thing that's necessary to help us to grow blossom not only beauty, but a very necessary thing and fruit which is the end of it all, the objective of God. It's all within the life of Christ.
[00:27:38] The fruit of the Spirit. Oh, to discover it. We know it so well that to discover it in practice or it would change us.
[00:27:49] Well, now there's a life which is bent on growth according to character. Now, what do I mean? Well, I mean this.
[00:27:59] Let's take a few flowers. You all know Lupins.
[00:28:02] Lupin has lupin knife.
[00:28:06] And it can't be a delphinium and it can't be a daisy. It has to be a lupin and it has lupine life. And the lupin life is bent on growing according to the character of a lupin. It can't become anything else.
[00:28:20] If only the lupin will obey the of its life, then it will become a lupin fully flannel seed or fruit. You see, it's so simple. A daisy cannot become a lupin and a lupin cannot become a daisy. And neither of them can become a delphinium. And all three of them can't become an apple tree. They've all got a different kind of life. And the life within them is bent on growth according to character.
[00:28:50] According to character. Now, it is a most wonderful thing that God has placed Christ within us. And that life of Christ is bent on growth according to character. In other words, it is according to the character of Christ. We are being conformed to his image.
[00:29:06] And the wonderful thing is that every one of us is original.
[00:29:10] We're not like so many thousands of little machines that God is sort of made mass producing.
[00:29:17] Sometimes we do. We get such a strange idea of the Lord, such preconceptions that we do get mass produced because we Copy each other. Or we go running off to one and to this one the other, and we have no life of our own. But if only we could see that the life within us is absolutely original.
[00:29:37] We are being conformed to Christ.
[00:29:39] But that doesn't mean that when we all get to glory, everyone is going to be just the same as Christ was physically.
[00:29:48] Do you understand what I mean? Christ is so great, so great that he will be manifested in each of us in a different way. And yet it will all be according to character. Well, I leave that with you. But it's a tremendous thing.
[00:30:02] This life that's within us will fulfill itself if its laws are obeyed.
[00:30:10] And only if its laws are obeyed.
[00:30:13] The lupin becomes a lupin as the laws of its looping life are obeyed.
[00:30:19] Then it grows into a lupin. And the same with a daisy, and the same with an apple tree. And the same with the Christian and with the Church. If we will only obey the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Romans chapter 8. If we will only obey the law of the life, in other words, we won't contradict it, we won't hinder it, we will cooperate with it, then Christian character, the character of Christ will be the result.
[00:30:47] But of course, I'm afraid most of us are doing the devil's work and we're busy contradicting it and busy raking up problems and difficulties that stop that onward march of life.
[00:31:00] And yet you see, if you look at Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 16, Ephesians 3, 16, we read it. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man, strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man, then all the rest, that Christ may dwell in your heart through.
[00:31:31] And then it goes on and goes on. Verse 20. Now, unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.
[00:31:43] According to the power that worketh in us.
[00:31:46] What is that?
[00:31:47] According to the power of His Spirit.
[00:31:50] Christ dwelling in us through faith.
[00:31:54] You see it, A tremendous life to Christian life. It really is.
[00:31:59] I could give you a number of illustrations of this. The adaptability of life. It's an amazing thing, the way something will adapt itself. As you go out today, as you go along the street, you look on the gutter outside the gyms, and there you will see a little weed and it's growing. It's very pretty. A little bit of groundsel growing in the gutter.
[00:32:22] How has it adapted itself to a few little bits of debris and leaf at the bottom of the gutter? It's got its roots into it and it's adapted itself, got plenty of air, quite a bit of reflected light from the other side. It's got the warmth it needs, the water it needs. Most certainly, being in a gutter, it's got all that it needs.
[00:32:45] And there it is. It's adapted itself. Now, just listen to this.
[00:32:49] I wonder if you've ever realized the miracle of alpine plants. It's rather wonderful. Do you know that the temperature on a summer day can be very, very hot indeed in the mountains right high? And the ultra violet rays of the sun are much, much stronger than down in the lowlands. And yet at night, on the same day, the temperature can drop below freezing.
[00:33:15] And yet those little plants right up beyond the tree line have got a life in them that's adapted itself to tremendous heat in the day and tremendous cold at night. Now, just listen to this.
[00:33:32] The seeds of some alpine plants will not germinate unless they've first been frozen.
[00:33:39] Do you ever know that?
[00:33:41] Unless they've first been frozen. Now there is the adaptability of life. It is the most amazing. Now, listen to this. The period of growth is short, merely June to August. There is no spring, and summer passes directly into winter in the high mountains. During this short mountain summer, the alpine plant will shoot up, grow, flower, ripen its fruits, disperse its seeds.
[00:34:07] Most alpines are perennials. They have only two or three months at the most in which to complete their entire life cycle.
[00:34:17] That's an amazing theme. You see, if God has put you up on the high mountains, he'll give you a life that's adapted to it.
[00:34:25] And everything, everything that is necessary to overcome all the difficulties are there. That's why often mountain clinic plants have hairs, many hairs, even on the flowers, to protect them during the night. Well, there's a lot here that perhaps would be interesting to stay with. There's something else that says in this little book. The soil is often scanty and in many places rather dry. The plant must use twistily the little nutriment available.
[00:34:56] It is very, very difficult for an alpine plant. And yet God is so adapted. The life within it is alpine life. Now, it is a very interesting thing. Sometimes right down the valley you will find the same things right up on the mountain, but the thing in the valley is much bigger, and it can't in fact grow right up there on the mountain. It's adapted to the valley. And when you go right up High, you'll find the same thing, only it's more alpine. It's adapted itself to the heights. And so with light, the life that's in us.
[00:35:26] Let me give you another little illustration.
[00:35:28] In this house, two years ago, one and a half years ago, I think it was possibly two years ago, we planted a thing called clematis, a mountain, a Chinese mountain. Clematis, that little thing you've all seen with a little white, pinky, white star like flower. Within a matter of months, that plant, once it got its roots into the soil and got what it wanted, it shot right up to the bathroom window of next door. And now it's right up to the parapet of the house.
[00:36:02] But the one we put on Mr. Rudd's wall actually shot up and into his loft under the slates and into his loft. And of course, you've seized all. It's rambling all over the place. You see that that plant is adapted to grow it.
[00:36:22] It's got a life that's adapted to growing and it grows. Once it can grow, it's happy. It wouldn't do anything if it was down. We had a very striking example of this. In this garden across the way by the central heating storage tank, oil tank, there's an old and very beautiful jasmine, white summer Indian jasmine. And that jasmine never did anything. It was an old bush down here about this.
[00:36:47] It never did anything. And I couldn't understand it, for Mrs. Johnson often used to bring us bunches of white jasmine. And I thought, well, it looks just the same white as an owl as well. They asked old Mr. Archer in the. Oh, quite simple. He said, you want to get one of the boys, you said to make an arch. And he said, once it gets rambling over there, he said, it'll. It'll. Oh, it'll be so happy. Well, Bomba, Bomba, you remember Bomba, he made us the arch and built us the arch and up went the old jasmine. Do you know, you should have seen it the next time around. You all saw it for the first time last summer. One last of color and fragrance.
[00:37:23] As soon as it got where it wanted to be climbing, it couldn't climb before. There was nothing around it it could get up to climb. But as soon as it got something to climb on, it started to climb and it started to flower and it was very, very happy.
[00:37:38] And you see, this just shows you we've got to a bay the law of the life within us.
[00:37:45] But the power of that life can get us through anything.
[00:37:50] That life can overcome any and every obstacle. And difficulty. Yes, it can. Now, listen, the point with most of us is we expect the life to remove the difficulty and the obstacle. But it doesn't always do that. Light has an amazing way of just simply overcoming it.
[00:38:11] There used to be a silver birch tree in the graveyard, unfortunately removed. I've always been very sorry about it. But it was a beautiful silver birch tree. Somehow the seed had got into the tomb, into the vault, not into the coffin, but into the vault. And it grew.
[00:38:27] And somehow how it happened, we dove over that little sapling, grew up, came out under the brickwork and just in the crack over the brickwork between the great stone slab of the vault. And it lifted up the stone vault slab on the top and cracked it.
[00:38:47] How it did it, I don't know. It was the power of life within it to overcome. It didn't remove, just grew through it.
[00:38:56] So simple. It just simply grew through it. Now, do you know, we've got a little cherry, a little Japanese cherry, which is. Which was given to us last autumn. We planted in the front. Now you can go around and look at all these things if you wish to, in the front. And it didn't do anything. And I said to Mr. Archer, Dead, absolutely dead. Something else we've got from the market, which is dead. And he. I'd feed it for a while, leave it for a while and wait. So we waited.
[00:39:23] Now, around its base is a great thick piece of sacking which is tied its sort of trunk to a stake.
[00:39:32] I went to look at it the other day and I thought I saw a little leaf which had blown down from a tree on the sacking. So I went to pull it up when, to my amazement, I discovered, being evidently a somewhat perverse tree, it had decided to sprout in the only place through the sacking.
[00:39:48] And now we've got two branches both coming through the sacking on either side.
[00:39:53] It's an amazing thing that it's just simply burst through the actual setting. It's not removed the difficulty. It was evidently the only place the life could get through the trees died down to that level. And strange enough, that was the only place it could get through.
[00:40:07] The cells are evidently all, you know, diseased or hardened or whatever has happened to them. Botanists would tell us more. But the light tried to get £20 sacking and show itself. What do we do, dissolve the sacking? No, we go through it. And so it went through the sacking. And so it is with this light that's in us, we may have many problems and difficulties. God will remove some of them as we trust and believe others. God will not remove the life within us, will overcome them.
[00:40:35] And it will just grow up and around and over and on. And that's the power of life. And do you know what the key to that life is? Well, it seems very strange, but the key to that kind of life is death.
[00:40:51] It's death.
[00:40:53] You see, all plants live in a seasonal cycle.
[00:40:58] Perennial plant, all live in a seasonal cycle. They have an autumn and they have a hard winter of death.
[00:41:07] And only after the cold and the frost and the damp of autumn and winter is past do they come into a new place of growth, beauty and fruitfulness. And the wonder is this, that the first year you often get very little, and the second year you get more, and the next year you get even more. And the next year you get more. And before long you can start to divide the thing up. And whereas you had one little plant, before long you've got three. And in a few more years you'll be able to give your friends a bit of everything as well.
[00:41:43] You see, it started to grow and it's got the key to its life. It can't just grow forever statically. In other words, sort of have an eternal summer. It has to be plunged into its autumn and winter in order to know a new spring and summer. Summer. And this must go on in an ever increasing way. Now, this is surely what the Lord Jesus meant when he said in John 12:24, John 12:24, those well known words, verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone. But if it die, it veareth much fruit.
[00:42:29] This is the key to life. And you see, this is the reason why some of us, because we're trying somehow to evade the cost of the Christian life, are not going.
[00:42:41] There is a perennial cost to the Christian life. That is, it's not all cost.
[00:42:48] You see, some of us want to be an eternal summer. And we want the Lord to shine us every day and all day, every month, in and out. And we want to have a lovely time, full of fruitfulness, never ceasing and so on. And the Lord said, look, I can't do that. I'm not going to do that. There is a perennial cost. Now listening. The sharper the winter, the more fruitful the summer.
[00:43:10] And if you're prepared for the perennial cost of winter, I'll give you the perennial blessing of the summer.
[00:43:17] It's so simple, so very simple. But you see, we don't always want it, do we?
[00:43:23] We could stay in the old summer and be there all the time. Spiritually we'd like. But Gillette's babyhood, it's really just irresponsible babyhood, that's all. See, when we grow up, we've got to care for us. We've got to. We've got to shoulder the burden. We've got to get into the actual living.
[00:43:40] Can't forever be carried. Can't be forever. Just have everything nice in the nice people running around and giving us little toys and looking after us and dabbing the tears of our cheeks. We've got to grow up and we've got to know something of the way of the Christian life. Now, this is what the Lord meant about in Song of songs and chapter four and verse 16, when the bride, in response to the Lord said, areto north wind and come thou south. Now this is interesting. The north wind in Palestine brought the sharp cold, short winter. And the south wind brought all the warmth and fruitfulness of summer. And you see, she says in this, let my beloved come into his garden and eat his precious fruits. She's got the secret. Without the north wind and the south wind, there could be no precious fruits.
[00:44:35] But when she got to the bush, she should come north wind and come south wind. Then she could say, come into thy garden and eat thy precious foods, Lord. You see.
[00:44:47] But it wasn't just south wind. It was north and south wind.
[00:44:51] Well, there we are. That's the power of life. That's another little lesson from the garden. Now, there is yet a third lesson from the garden I'd like just to dwell upon very briefly this evening. And it's what I've entitled.
[00:45:05] Sounds awful. Pruning or thinning? Division and staking.
[00:45:13] Now, of course, I don't know whether everyone knows a lot about this, but in fact, it's a very, very important part of a garden. First of all, pruning.
[00:45:24] Many plants need annual pruning, annual pruning, sometimes drastic pruning, but it is always with an objective. Now, if you prune, you're always told if you do it properly. And very few people do. That's why it's such a terrifying procedure.
[00:45:45] You should always do it with a sharp knife, so sharp that it doesn't crush what you're cutting. And you know, that's just like the Lord when we prune. Often when we meddle with one another's lives, we do use blunt instruments.
[00:46:00] And we do an awful lot of crushing and damage in cutting back a Few things. But when the Lord does it, just a few snips and it's cleanly done. Or it hurts, but it's cleanly done and it's done without any possibility of disease.
[00:46:18] That's the trouble with pruning. You get disease. You see, if you crush something when you cutting it back, then disease, something will get in and you've got disease. But pruning is very, very essential. Now, I don't want to Black and Dear Mr. Hallo Brown's name, but that was the wrong way to prove. If you want to go into the garden, you can see one or two of the trees that Mr. Hallow Brown used to prune. And we've been told the great delight he had like a little boy when he got the saw in the spring and dashed out to the garden and saw the whole crown off the tree. Just simply saw it right through and the whole crown toppled over, according to Mr. Rudd. And he was absolutely delighted. Then he saw it all up and burnt it. You've seen the great family going back right to chowder or. Most men love cutting trees and burning and all the rest of it. And in this garden there are a whole number of trees, as Mr. Shaw and Nigel will tell you, permanently disfigured because they were. They were just sickly hacked about. It was the wrong way. And God doesn't do that kind of thing. He doesn't sort of dash into your life and sort of pour off the whole thing and the whole crown of the tree falls down. No, that's not pruning. Now, pruning is an art. And there are three things that are an objective in pruning. Now listen carefully because then we get the spiritual lesson. Three things. Fruit, flower, shape.
[00:47:43] Fruit, flower and shape. And you know that when the Lord gets on with pruning, that's what he has in mind. He has fruit. That's his supreme objective.
[00:47:55] And mark you, he's after flower. He's after beauty.
[00:48:01] Beauty and fragrance that comes to blossom as he's after shape.
[00:48:08] The Lord doesn't like things that are lopsided, that are ugly. It's very interesting. The Hebrew word for beauty is form.
[00:48:15] In other words, the idea is you often worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Often we say in holier way, it says the new version. Because the idea is of something ordered, you see, that's God's idea of beauty in its right place. It doesn't mean to say that it can't all be overflowing and spontaneous and free. But it's all right, you know, you get the idea. Oh, there's symmetry. There's something about it. Even when there's great disorder seemingly, yet there's some balance about it all. That's beauty. That's beauty.
[00:48:52] And this is the whole objective of pruning. Now, I remember the terrible fear I had over pruning roses. Dreadful thing. It seemed so simple. I read three or four books about it all and they told you exactly what to do. And then I went out and looked at the rose bushes. And then the more I looked at them, the more I lost all my confidence. And they'll tell you in the house. We snipped here and we snipped there and it took us half an hour just to snip one little branch off. We were so worried about it. So finally I thought, this is no good. I'm a scarp. And ask Mr. Archer. I got all the books and everything. I went up to this old seasoned gardener and Joseph come down, down he comes. And what happened? Oh, my word, he went just like the. The barbers, you know. And all bits of pieces fell off. Burl and burl. And he said. He said, tip, tip, tip, tip, like this, you see. And he went to one after, another one after, ended that hot, now it be rose. And the garden was done.
[00:49:53] But, you know, it may seem to me, well, how did he do it? How did he do it? But you see, it was interesting the way he did it. It wasn't just without design. He knew just what he was doing. All those terrible instructions about outside buds and never cutting it with an inside bud. And seeing that everything went out.
[00:50:16] And then when they all grew, I thought, oh, he's ruined the piece. Ruined. I'm fully convinced to ruin it. But when they grew, perfect shape, perfect flowers.
[00:50:25] And of course, roses don't bear fruit incense. So we leave that. But you see what I mean, you see, there's. There's something in it.
[00:50:33] Now, Juno, let me give you another little illustration. In the garden, there was a rose tree that was planted and it died a rose clyer. And I was a little sorry about it. And finally I thought, well, I'll phone up the couple from whom it came and tell them. Which I did. Well, they didn't offer to replace it with a new one, but a rather sort of.
[00:50:54] Sort of.
[00:50:56] Well, I don't know what to say. How to describe the lady on the other end. Well, she said, cut it back, she said, to 2 inches from the level of the earth. I said, cut it back.
[00:51:07] Well, there's 12 foot of it? Yes. She said, cut it back to 2 inches from the top of the ground.
[00:51:13] I said, oh, and then will it grow? She said, well, if it doesn't, it's dead.
[00:51:20] I thought, well, at least even I know what to do with this thing. So I went out to the garden and I just simply. Oh, I felt terrible about it. I hardly dared look at it. I cut it and the whole crown of this tree fell down as all the dead. Of course, I took it away. Well, about a month later, just a little tiny shoot appeared and we thought, it's alive.
[00:51:41] Do you know, this year that has sent up one great stem. And on that single stem it has 38 really large cabbage roses.
[00:51:53] 38 blooms on one single stem.
[00:51:57] It was cut right down back. The most drastic pruning it could have had. And then it sent out something like that. Now, the Lord knows a lot about pruning. And In John chapter 15, from verse 1 to verse 8, he tells us all about his pruning.
[00:52:16] Now, I can't read all that now, for time is going. But I'd like just to mention what the Lord says. He.
[00:52:25] Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, or cleanseth it, or pruneth it that it may bear more fruit. And then he goes on. You see in verse six, if a man abide not in his cast, forces abrasion withered. They gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
[00:52:46] Now this is very, very interesting. If you read in 2 Corinthians, chapter 3, 12, 7, you'll find that Paul knew a little bit about pruning.
[00:52:55] He was a wonderful plant in God's garden. And he grew and he grew and he grew. And somehow he was even caught up into the third heaven and saw things that's not even lawful for a man to utter.
[00:53:06] And he grew so great and God trust him so much that the Lord said, well, now then, he's going to grow too big.
[00:53:14] He's going to grow too big and everything's going to be spoiled. I'm afraid we're going to have to do some very drastic fruit.
[00:53:21] And so to Paul was given a fall in the flesh that crippled him. It finished him, he says. He calls it a messenger of Satan.
[00:53:31] And he said it was like the agony of impalement.
[00:53:34] So terrible it was. And he said, I besought the Lord that he would take it away, that the Lord's in thy grace's division. It was drastic grooming. But you see, Paul learnt the secret. He found that God's strength comes to its completeness in his weakness. And then again in Hebrews, chapter 12, you've got the same thing. Don't despise the chastening of the Lord.
[00:53:55] See? And then if you read on in that, you will discover that the chastening of the Lord is not pleasant at the time. So don't pretend that it is. It's not blame, but after one, it yield us the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
[00:54:11] You see, there's fruit. God's after fruit. Now, why do we. What do we poo?
[00:54:17] What do we poo? Well, now, there are four things we.
[00:54:21] Straggly shoots.
[00:54:24] Now, I don't know if in your Christian life there are any straggly shoots. I'm afraid there are a lot in mine. I'm sure there are a lot in yours. In other words, shoots that are not bearing any flower or fruit. Well, the loss is out of them.
[00:54:36] The first thing you get rid of. You look into the bush now. Now that I've got the hang of it. And you look for anything that's weak and you just snip them off drastically. No good. Get rid of them altogether. They'll not do anything even if you lead them. They're only an ornament and they're there. And often they'll attack disease. So you get rid of them. That's the first thing. Prune. The second thing with pruning is dead wood. Cut out all dead wood. You got any dead wood in your land?
[00:55:03] Had a blessing 30 years ago.
[00:55:06] Dead wood now. Or the Lord cut it right out. Right out. It's dead wood now. It's got to go.
[00:55:12] It's a disease carrier. Often, oh, how often we Christians hang on to things that happened a long, long time ago. God bless us there. But you see, God cut out dead wood as well as straggly wood. Straggly shoots, they're out and suckers. Now, this is something we've all got to learn. There are things that come out from the base that look just so strong and they've got such beautiful leaves. But instead of having seven leaves, instead of having five leaves, they have seven leaves in roses. And those things, they may look marvellous to the uninitiated, but they're taking the whole life of the tree into themselves.
[00:55:50] And you know, sometimes in our Christian life we get like something happens. It looks so much of the Lord, it seems to be of the Lord. And it grows and we find it's taking everything. Everything's going into it. We're getting all upside out it comes.
[00:56:05] It's false. It's Canterpeak. It's not a God. It's something that's taking away the life from the right place.
[00:56:14] And there's a fourth kind of thing that has to be cut out. Not cut out, but pruned. And that is really good strong shoots. And this is the thing that always worried me. When you saw these wonderful, great strong shoots. It didn't seem right to tamper with them, but they got to be tempered with. They're the strong ones are the ones you've got to really cut.
[00:56:32] Not right, not to nothing, but you've got to cut them back.
[00:56:36] Otherwise, you see, the tree will be lopsided.
[00:56:39] And so God is after this in our lives. He wants to see fruit and flower and form in us. And he does just this.
[00:56:50] He doesn't want anything to get out of hand. So you've had a great blessing, have you? Just supposing you've had a great blessing. I don't know what it could be. Supposing it's something to do with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And the great strong shoot's gone out, you see, and it's in danger of lopsiding the whole team. The Lord said, I've got to prune that back and I'll put. While your wonderful experience. You don't know what's happened to it. It's just somehow died on.
[00:57:15] And you think, oh, dear, what's happened to me? Blessed experience.
[00:57:20] It's done.
[00:57:22] Something's happened to it. It was so wonderful. Have I had the Lord forsaken me? Has the Lord left? He's not left you at all.
[00:57:30] Not left you at all. He's just cut it back so that there'll be form and balance in the tweet. Now, another thing is division.
[00:57:39] Many plants must be divided at least every three years or there will be deterioration. I don't know if you know that. But if you leave a plant too many years, if you leave it for 8, 9 years, then gradually the flowers will get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, shorter and shorter, until finally there's nothing very much left. And you see garden. God has this in his garden as well. He knows how to divide it is a real spiritual lesson. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 again, you know, I'm sure this well. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Then it goes on. Verse 8. We are pressed on every side, yet not straightened, perplexed, yet not unto stare pursued yet not forsaken, smitten down, yet not destroy. Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, a life also of Jesus may be manifested in the body and so on.
[00:58:34] Now, you see, there are three things here about division.
[00:58:40] First, breaking up.
[00:58:43] It's not easy to be broken up, especially when you think you're growing.
[00:58:51] But that's just when the danger is. If you're not growing, God will break you up.
[00:58:56] But once there's growth, he'll break you up. Do you know why? Because you're getting a bit too big, that's why.
[00:59:04] You're getting a bit too great, too large.
[00:59:07] And just let him, that thinker, stand up. 10 see thirsty form.
[00:59:13] See, God doesn't do it until you're growing. When you're growing, he says, I've got to break this up. Now humble yourselves that you may be exalted.
[00:59:24] That's the lesson, Brokenness all the time. This lesson. Every so many years in the garden, those wonderful crowns got to be taken up out of the earth and broken up.
[00:59:37] And same with us. Every now and again spiritually, the Lord says so and so is getting a little bit too lucky.
[00:59:44] There's danger now. There'll be deterioration if we lead them. Go on, we break them up.
[00:59:52] Well, I don't know if any of you know anything about that breaking up work, brokenness, how necessary it is for Christ to be revealed so that there's beauty and strength and health and blossom of fruit.
[01:00:04] Because we're being broken up continually. And in fact we're growing. If you break up a thing into three, very quickly the three start to grow. But if you leave them together, everything deteriorates. Isn't it interesting?
[01:00:17] And then again, you've got to get rid of the old core.
[01:00:22] Do you know that in these plants that center part which was so fruitful to begin with, has died and become hard and crystallized and it has to be thrown away. You can't plant it anymore. You've actually got to take it up and throw it away.
[01:00:36] And do you know, this is what the Lord does with us.
[01:00:39] Things crystallize, you see. Indeed, he says, well, now that's no good. We've got to go on. We've got to go on with the law. We can't always be static. And he sometimes would break us up and would take out the hardcore and throw it away. And so sometimes you've had a real experience of the cross, oh, many years ago, and now you've got to come into a new experience of the cross altogether. It's the same experience, but it's a new way, you see, The Lord's taken away the old hardcore and you're back again in a new experience, you see. Well, there again, that's another liberalism. And then we have to replace plants that ramble.
[01:01:14] There's a plant, I don't know if any of you know it, called monada or bergamot. It's an old herb and it's one of the strangest plants in the garden for a very strange flower. We sometimes put it in the vases in the library and it rambles literally in a year.
[01:01:29] And there's one down the end of the garden. And I went to look at it and I thought, that's very strange. It's just not there.
[01:01:34] I looked and looked and looked and looked and then about, I suppose about one and a half, two foot away, I found had rambled, see, and there it was all coming out. Well, we had to take it out and put it back.
[01:01:50] It all cord died. And is it. It wouldn't stay where it shouldn't. And do you know, some of us are just like that. We're hopeless spiritual realms, you know. God says, stay there. And before he knows where you are, where's he gone? There.
[01:02:03] And he has to take us up. And it costs the bitching to be dug up and put back. But some plants have to be continually put back into place. And then the staking. Well, I don't know whether I've got to say a lot about staking. Many plants had to be tied to stakes.
[01:02:23] Many plants have to be tied to steaks. And I thought of Ephesians 4 and verse 1, where the apostle Paul said, called himself, I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord. Now isn't this a beautiful thing? He says, I, therefore the prisoner in the Lord. Do you know, don't you think Paul could have said, I, therefore the prisoner of Caesar?
[01:02:49] Or he could have said, I, therefore the prisoner in this prison, in this Roman prison. Or he could have said, I, therefore the prisoner of this Roman guard.
[01:03:02] It was true. He was a prisoner of Caesar. He was a prisoner of imperial Rome. He was a prisoner in a prison. He was a prisoner of a Roman guard. He actually had a chain from his arm and from his foot, chained to the foot and to the arm of a guard day and night. He couldn't even sleep without being chained to a guard. Yet Paul chose to disregard it all.
[01:03:27] And his attitude was, God has put me here.
[01:03:33] And so he preferred to call himself the prisoner of the Lord.
[01:03:39] Now that's a Lesson in the way of looking.
[01:03:43] Just a little lesson in the way that you look at them. You can say, oh, dear, my circumstances. Or you can say, oh, my problem.
[01:03:53] Or you can say, oh, well, you know, it might be my husband, it might be my wife, it might be my children, it might be my parents, it might be the person I work with. But, you know, it's in the end, you have to look at some things, not all of them, but at some things. We have to distinguish wherein it lies. But in some things, we have to say, I am the prisoner of the bulb.
[01:04:18] The circumstances are secondary. The people are secondary. The Lord's got me here, I'm a prisoner. And you know, these poor plants, their stake there, and if they were left alone, they'd just fall over here, they fall over there, and they'd grow into all weird shapes. But they have to be tied back to the stake so that they can grow up and so that their real beauty and form can be admired by all.
[01:04:46] Staking.
[01:04:47] God does a lot then, in staking. Well, I think I shall have to close. But I would like to close with just mentioning a few troubles in the garden, because I believe they also have lessons for us.
[01:05:01] There are troubles in the garden, you know, and the first trouble that I just briefly mention are weeds.
[01:05:09] Of course, botanically, there's no such thing as a weed, so I'm told by our botanical brothers everything of flowers or weeds. I mean, there's no real distinction, but we call some things flowers and some things weeds.
[01:05:25] But you see, weeds in a garden, they take the goodness from the soil that belongs to the plants, and they choke the growth of the plants.
[01:05:38] And what are weeds?
[01:05:41] What are weeds in God's garden? Well, I think you got it in God's word.
[01:05:46] Matthew, chapter 13, verse 22, tells us quite clearly. What are the weeds? They're called thorns. There.
[01:05:53] Chapter 13, verse 22. And he said, he that was sown among the thorns, this is he that heareth the word and the care of the word, the deceitfulness of riches. Choke the word, and he becometh untid.
[01:06:05] Or Luke, chapter eight is again the same story, rather more clearly put, verse 14.
[01:06:14] And that which fell on the thorns, these are they that have heard. And as they go on their way, they have choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, as bring no fruit to perfection.
[01:06:25] No fruit to perfection. The fruit's there, but it just doesn't get anywhere. Now, have you ever seen a plant trying to flower a much weed, all great weeds rampant around it? And they see the poor things struggling and it's not coming to perfection.
[01:06:40] It's absolutely choked by the weeds around it.
[01:06:45] The goodness is being taken from the soil, the air and the light is being taken from it. Everything is going and it's struggling and it can't bring anything to perfection. Now, you know there are weeds in our lives.
[01:06:58] And some of us, we allow what is here called the cares of this life, the pleasures of this life and the riches of this life. Well now, I wonder. I think all of us know something of the cares of this life and some of us know something of the riches of this life.
[01:07:16] And I suppose most of us know something of the pleasures of this life. But you see, don't think because you never go into the world or never have any touch with the world, you don't anything about weeds.
[01:07:29] If you're a warrior, you know a lot about weeds.
[01:07:34] And all that anxiety, all that worry in you is just a weed which is taking the goodness that should be going into growth and is choking it, choking you. Cast your care upon him, for he careth for you.
[01:07:52] And then of course, you may know a lot about pleasures of this life. There's nothing wrong sometimes. Some of the pleasures of this life, they're quite legitimate. But you see, when you put a lot upon them, weeds grow. They take what should be going into spiritual growth and you're choked.
[01:08:08] And the same with riches or resources. Natural resources doesn't just mean money, it means natural resource. Are you talented or a big personality or something? Yeah, it can get right in the way. It can become a weed and actually stops you growing in the Lord instead of helping you to grow in the Lord. Because you've got riches, riches of personality, riches of self sufficiency, riches of strong will or riches of some talent or other.
[01:08:35] Well, I leave it all with you. Riches. Another thing is disease.
[01:08:39] Now, there are only three diseases I'll mention in the garden at a common mildew, wilt and rust.
[01:08:49] Mildew, wilt and rust.
[01:08:52] Three main diseases in the garden. Now I hope that all of us know what to do with weed. Pull them out.
[01:09:01] There's no short way to get around. Don't use a flamethrower. You'll as Mr. Archer does up there, not in the flower garden, otherwise you'll ruin all the plants. There's only one way to get weeds out. They've got to be hoed out. They've got to be pulled out by hand, often more delicate the plant, more care in weeding. So that's one thing. But now what diseases? Well, now, these three things of any in. What's mildew? Mildew is the fungus. I wish Mildred was here.
[01:09:31] Mildew is a fungus which grows where there is no wind, in airless spots, and often where it's enclosed by walls. In other words, mollycoddled. And do you know, there are many Christians suffering from spiritual mildew.
[01:09:50] Long, long, long time ago.
[01:09:53] They forgot what fresh air spiritually was like.
[01:09:57] And there they are in their little walled corner, airless.
[01:10:03] You know, sp.
[01:10:06] Staleness has come and mildew grows. Do you know that mildew is like lung cancer to the human being, to the plant?
[01:10:14] It kills me. Do you know how it does it? It spreads over the whole leaf and stops it breathing. And the whole plant gradually shrivels up and dies. It can't brew. Do you know, that's just what some diseases do with her.
[01:10:28] We've got into an airless spot. We've got stale.
[01:10:33] Somehow or other, we've not been growing as we should do. And I tell you one thing we're afraid of storm.
[01:10:38] See, some of us who don't like windy spots, spiritually, we get away into a nice little comfortable corner where it's all going to be now. Well, you'll suffer from mildew. Nothing ever suffers from mildew. It's in a gale.
[01:10:50] Did you know that? Yes. Truthfully, if it's in a windy spot, it'll never have mildew. But get it into a nice little comfortable spot, and there you'll suffer for mildew.
[01:11:00] Well, that's one thing we can apply a lot about liver to the seeding. We haven't the time. There's thing called rust. Now, this is another very interesting fungus which attacks plants suffering from lack of nourishment.
[01:11:15] And there's a lot of that spiritually. You haven't been reading the Bible.
[01:11:20] You haven't been praying.
[01:11:22] You hadn't been seeking true fellowship. And you see, you thought it was all going along all right. You could carry along for a long time happily. And then suddenly the disease strikes you and it's finished. You're finished.
[01:11:35] Rust is a terrible thing. It can wipe out a whole bed of. For instance, and geraniums. It can wipe them out.
[01:11:44] And Junior does that with Christians.
[01:11:47] We think, oh, I'll miss my readings down. It's a quiet time, and I was gathering gradually. We miss a bit more and we stop. We don't realize we're suffering from lack of nourishment. We're living on the past, you see. Everything seems all right at the time. And then the disease attacks and we find we can't do anything. We're in the grip of something that's bigger than ourselves and whipped.
[01:12:11] Well, well, well, there's a lot of that. That's another fungus. It gets into the witch root, into the root and squirt and spread upwards. And the whole plant is in a moment. And you look one day you look at the plant, it looks very nice. And the next day you go back and squilt it and you think, whatever's wrong with that plant. Do you know some Christians are like that.
[01:12:32] One day they seem to be quite alright and the next day they're gone.
[01:12:36] Something, some disease, spiritual disease got into them. It got into them and they were willing to. Well, there we are. Diseases.
[01:12:43] We could say a lot about that, couldn't we? Spiritual collapse.
[01:12:48] But lastly, there are insects.
[01:12:52] There are insects in the garden as well. There are just these main ones. There are the green fly. Do you know what the green fly do?
[01:13:00] They suck the SAP from the most succulent shoots in the plant. They live on that. They puncture it with their little sort of whatever it is and then they cook out the SAP. And if you look at them there they are smothering a whole new shoot and they're actually choking the plant. So the bud is there and you watch the bud and you see the bud doesn't grow because they're. They're beautifully taking all the life that was going into the bud. Do you know anything about that spiritually, anything about that? Literally something that sort of is taking your lifeblood away. Spiritually.
[01:13:40] Something very small.
[01:13:43] Sometimes if you pass by a bush, you wouldn't even notice it.
[01:13:47] Other people may not even notice it. But it's there, Alex, tapping all the time, taking your. Your lifeblood away. Your light, it's fastening on it.
[01:13:58] You know that once greenflies get a hold on a bush, they can actually cripple it so that it actually starts to bend over and all gnarled and the leaves turn up and go terrible. You can't believe what damage those little creatures can do. Now. You know we have an ultra bold.
[01:14:16] A few years ago they brought out a thing called systemic spray.
[01:14:19] And you mix everything else and get it on yourself, but you mix it out and you spray it all. Aren't they and these little things, one little bite and they're dead.
[01:14:28] And we could be clear just spiritually not being irreverent. There is a way to get rid of these things that sort of try to get our life blood. They stuck our life's blood. Do you know what it is to get Christ within, if you will only. I will only allow Christ to grow within.
[01:14:50] Then we shall find that he himself within us resists all these things.
[01:14:56] I don't want to be irreverent, but, oh, if only we all had a good deal more holes within. I believe a lot of these wretched edelphins would take one bite and die.
[01:15:07] Can't bear holos.
[01:15:09] One bite of it and they'd be finished. And that's the way to get rid of them, isn't it? Well, I mustn't stay. I could say, say a lot more about it. But do you know you cannot get rid of green fly unless you get rid of Ann?
[01:15:22] And there are many people who go around the garden, spray it with soap suds and lots of other things, you know, and I think that spirit is coming to a meeting and you feel much better for it. And you've got rid of the green fly for that night and off you go home. And the little ant, the black ants run up the sten in the early dawn and put back the green fly. Did you know that? The dairy flower.
[01:15:42] And they actually have farms of green fly aphids which they put on and they milk them.
[01:15:50] And so you see, you won't get rid of green plants if you got rid of the ants.
[01:15:55] And during many of us, just so we try to get rid of the things that are attacking us, but there are other much deeper seated causes that will only come back each time we go into one conference and the Lord meets us and we come back, we're on top. And now we're not going to go under anymore, we're going to go right on with the Lord. Or we come to a meeting with some like Mary Rhys comes away all wonderful and we're going to go right on with the Lord.
[01:16:20] And after a while the old green fly are all back smothering us again.
[01:16:28] So you've got to get rid of the ant. So remember, if you want to get rid of green fly spirit, you've got to look for those deeper causes in your life as well and get rid of them. And then of course there are slugs and snails. These are things which you don't need. Did you know my mother said to me the other day, what does a slug look like? She does a lot of gardening, but she's never seen a slug. Because they all come out at night.
[01:16:50] They come out at night. These are things which come out at night and they devour all growth and they have to be mercilessly destroyed. Absolutely mercilessly destroyed. I thought about Psalm 118 that was read to us last night. In the name of the Lord I will cut them off. That's the only way. With floods. In the name of the Lord I will cut them off. Now that's the way doing spiritual things. They belong to the dark, they belong to the night.
[01:17:20] Insidiously they come up and they swarm at you ever seen something which is completely eaten by slugs? You cannot believe that a little creature at a slug or a snail could eat it. And yet to draw, you see of a few little skeletons of a leaf that come out in the night and you go look for the slug. You won't find them, it hidden themselves. They're hidden things.
[01:17:41] Oh, in some of our lives there are things that belong to the night in the dark. And they come out. You can't find them in the day, but they come out at night and they take every bit of our life.
[01:17:51] Well, they've got to be cut off in the name of the law. And you know, there's a thing called woodlouse. I suppose we all know what a wood loust is. It's a little grey thing with lots of legs all around it like armor on its back. And I never thought they were dangerous at all till in this garden, a whole lot of little pansy bushes, little things growing beautifully and suddenly perfectly healthy, they collapse.
[01:18:16] And we've looked for the slugs and we watered it, we'd slugged it and I don't know what else. And nothing's happened. And finally we got in our great friend Mr. Larcher, and he took one look at them the other day and he said they're wood lice. And he said, you know what they do to it? He said, they come out at night, they live on decayed dead matter. They come out at night and they come up to the little park and they eat just a little channel round the bark of the step, that all.
[01:18:44] And although you can hardly see it, it's finished, the prana.
[01:18:48] Now, do you know anything about that?
[01:18:51] Something spiritual that comes out when you're really getting on with the Lord and it's, it's just biting a little channel, hardly visible right round. And the life supply is no longer coming.
[01:19:05] See, most of our statement SAP goes up through the center eye ought issues, but it doesn't. It goes up on the, you know, the outside, but the outside skin, just under the outside skin, you see. So when this creature eats across, that's finished Just like the deer in the park. When they strip the larp, it's finished. Trees, finished dies.
[01:19:21] Well, you've got to. We've got to deal with wood lice. And the last thing is wire worms.
[01:19:27] They live in the roots.
[01:19:30] They live in the root. They attack the roots of something. And when you see all the leaves all crinkled up of all the stems, dark wireworms in the moon. Do you know anything about that spiritually?
[01:19:40] Those things?
[01:19:42] Evil heart of unbelief that gets into the very foundation of our Christian life. And gnaws and gnaws and gnaws and gnaws and gradually everything on top starts to look loud and twisted. It's an evil heart of un belief.
[01:20:01] Well, how do you deal with those? I must finish. How do you deal with those? Dust them with the DDT powder. That's the way to get rid of them. And do you know what I thought of the Scripture? Psalm 119, verse 11. Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against demons. It's God's word. Ye are clean to the word that I have spoken unto you, said the law. Thy word have I hid in my heart. If you don't want to sin, hide God's word word in your heart. It's like a dusting powder for these things that get into the loose and bite the stem.
[01:20:35] Get rid of them by God's word and see that God's word is mixed with faith, as it says in Hebrews chapter four. It says it was not united with faith in them that hoped. Now see that God's word is united mixed with faith in your heart. Believe it, believe it. Accept it and believe it and trust it. Well, I could say so much more about the garden. I'd like to say quite a lot about some plants that like the sun and some plants that like the shade and that a tall plant that must go at the back and small plants that must go in the front. And not a plant that like poor soil and not a plant that like rich soil. You know, God has a place for every plant. Thank God. Thank God for some of the plants that like the shade.
[01:21:17] And then what we do in this garden, if we hadn't got a view, there's a beautiful thing, flowery white over in. Right under the trees. It's called polyictum.
[01:21:25] It's the most beautiful thing with a great fluffy purple flower that looks rather like one of those fluffy ladies hats in pale purple, pale mauve. And you know, it loves the shade. I thank God for things that like the shade.
[01:21:39] Ah, those things, you know, that are very, very demanding. They must have the sand and they must have good soil and they might be in just the right position or they won't throw where there are those of us, I'm afraid, like that as well. And God knows all about us and he puts us right in the right spot. And there are other things, you know, that they don't require a lot. Thank God for them. They're just as beautiful and God can put them away in a quiet spot and they brighten that quiet corner and make it a glory.
[01:22:11] Well, that's what God does and he has a sovereign place for people.
[01:22:15] He doesn't put tall things in the front of the board, he puts them at the back and he puts the small things in the front.
[01:22:20] And you know, there's a whole lot in putting things together so that you don't have everything too gradual. But, oh, we could say such a lot about God's placing of it all in his path. But God has a place and we must stay in it. And we must learn our lessons. And we must be absolutely sure that where God is places, it is for our best. If we want shape, spiritually, good form, balance, if we want flower, beauty and fragrance, if we want fruit, be sure that where God has placed us, he is the gardener and he knows just the right spot and he knows just what is required to bring us to the greatest point of glory.
[01:23:06] Jesus was.
[01:23:13] From the.
