So good to see everyone this
morning. I was just thinking the other
day how long it had been since I had been here. I think it was
the conference a little over two years ago. And I was thinking,
I remember when Tony and a few of y'all started meeting over
in the Renaissance Center. Just a handful, and to see what
the Lord has been pleased to do here. To raise up his church,
call in his people, save his elect. Turn with me in your Bible
to the book of the Song of Solomon. Solomon, a man that our Lord
gave such great wisdom. In 1 Kings 4 verse 29, it says,
and God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much
and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore.
And God used this man. He didn't use David, he used
Solomon, a man that he had endued with so much wisdom to write
this book. The Song of Solomon, if you'll
see verse one of chapter one, it says the Song of Songs, which
is Solomon. And we know in 1 Kings 4 verse
32 that Solomon spake 3,000 proverbs and his songs were 1,500. But
of all the 1,500 songs, This is the Song of Songs. And it is a picture, this book
is filled with allegories and pictures of God's love for his
church, his bride. Someone said it's like being
able to enter into the holies of holies, to think about the
communion that God has with his church and how much he loves
his bride. how much he loves her and cares
for her and provides for her every need. And out of all those
allegories, I want us to turn over to chapter four, begin reading
in verse 12. Song of Solomon, chapter four,
verse 12. A garden enclosed is my sister,
my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain
sealed. The plants are an orchard of
pomegranates, and with pleasant fruit, camphor and spikenard,
spikenard and sapphrius, calmeus and cinnamon, with all trees
of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices, a
fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from
Lebanon. Awake, oh north wind, and come. Thou south, blow upon my garden. that the spices thereof may flow
out. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruit. Verse one of chapter five, I
am come into my garden. My sister, my spouse, have gathered
my mirth with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey, and I have drunk my wine with my milk. Hearing these verses, he sets
forth his church. his bride as a garden, that picture. As I was thinking about this,
in the day in which we live, even some of you are a lot younger
than I am, and I'm encouraged to see that many young people
here. Some of you may not have ever seen a garden, but I do
know this, everybody has partaken of a garden. When I was growing
up, everybody had a garden. I mean, it was just fact. I mean,
if you didn't raise a garden in the summertime, and if you
didn't put up what you made, you'd starve in the winter. But
here he uses, he pictures his bride as a garden. As I thought
about a garden, the first thing about a garden, he purposed to
have a garden. Before the world was ever made,
he chose a people. His bride, that's his garden,
that's his elect, he chose her. She was selected, the garden
spot is selected by Him. And He chose the place where
He would put the garden. You think about us sitting this
morning in this place in Kingsport, Tennessee. You know what this
is? This little spot right here is God's garden. God's picked
it out many years ago. And now I see how God has worked
in this place and He has nurtured it. It's His garden. It's no
accident. It's on purpose. But when he
chose the garden, the garden spot looked like any other spot. I'm going to use a lot of analogies
from a garden me and Sandy tried to raise last year. We went out
in the middle of the field and that field, that piece we picked
out, looked like the rest of it. Didn't look any different.
It had briars, it had thorns, and that pictures our human heart.
This not only pictures the church collectively as a whole all over
the world, but this pictures his church individually. This
is what he does when he purposes to save you. When he comes to
you, you're just like everybody else. We are by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. Our heart is just overgrown with
thorns and thistles. That's all that's there. It's
not gonna grow anything good on its own. Most of the time, a garden is
covered up with grass. One of the worst enemies in a
garden is grass. You have thorns, but you have
grass. It just comes up overnight. And we are described as grass,
1 Peter 1, 24, for all flesh is as grass. And all the glory
of man is the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower
of the rough faileth away. That's us. And when he found
us, We were barren and without anything. Just what grew naturally. What grew naturally. So we purposed
to have a garden. Then he purchased the garden. He redeemed it. I've had some
small gardens over the years, but where I was able to have
a garden, it was where somebody let me have a garden. And if
they'd wanted to, they could have just said, you're staying
out of my garden. This is not your piece of property. But the
Lord has enabled us, me and Sandy, to have a place there. And when
we put out that garden last year, that land was purchased, and
he paid for it. And he said, this is my garden.
And he owns it. And listen, he owns all things. He owns it all. He owns this
whole world. It's all his. It's all his. But this spot,
particularly, is the place he purchased with his own blood.
He said, I'm gonna plant me a garden. Because he purposed it, because
he purchased it. But you just don't go out in
the middle of a field and plant a garden. There's a lot of hard
work goes into it. Then he has to prepare the garden. As he prepares a man's heart,
It's a lot of work. When me and Sandy last year,
we went out in that little piece of spot, we said, well, right
here's where we're going to put us a garden, a vegetable garden. The first
thing I did, and I made a mistake, and I should have knew better
than this, and most of you may not even know what this is. It's
called a disk, and it will just cut up just the top of the ground.
And I worked for that about 30 minutes with a tractor, and I'm
thinking, all I got was a mess. I should have knew better than
that. All I was doing was just cutting up a little bit of ground.
And the more I cut, the worse it got. You know what I did? What I should have done to start
with? Let me say this. What was I doing by just cutting
up that grass? Oh, I'm dealing with what's on
the surface. God doesn't deal with what's on the surface. He
deals with a man's heart. Religion just deals with a man's
surface. And all it does is make a mess. The latter sins are worse
than the beginning. That piece of ground looked worse
than after I'd messed with it than before I ever touched it.
Isn't that how religion looks? But what did I do? I went and
got me a plow. And you know what that plow does?
Some of you that may not know, it's a sharp blade, and it's
curved. And it's when you stick that
thing into the heart of the ground, and you go as deep as you can
go, and it turns that ground upside down, it turns it inside
out. You know how God prepares your
heart? He turns it inside out, and he sinks If you could imagine
that ground, that ground could speak when that plow goes in,
it was probably screaming, don't do it! But he's turning it inside
out. The scriptures say in Jeremiah
chapter four, verse three, thus saith the Lord to the men of
Judah and Jerusalem, break up the fowl of your fallow ground
and sow not among thorns. That fallow ground fitly represent
the heart of every unregenerate man, which is unopened to the
word of God and it is unbroken. What does he do? He breaks it
up. You that have seen fallow ground, you know what I'm talking
about. You know what a piece of ground looks like? Just like a bunch
of clods, doesn't it? Big old clods about that big
around. You can't sow seed with that. So then I went and got
the disc. And I began to disk it and cut
it up, breaking up the clods. And then I went and got me a
tiller. And when I got done, that piece of ground that was
once covered up with grass, that once looked like a bunch of big
clods, is now like powder. This is how God works in a sinner's
heart. He plows it, he disks it, and
then he tills it, he breaks it up, and the scriptures call it
good ground. Remember the parable of the sower?
Out of all four of the grounds, there was one ground that was
good ground. Now that ground didn't make itself good. He made
it good. He prepares to, he thoroughly
prepares it. He makes it like powder. The
heart that was once hard and was barren is now prepared. Prepared for what? He purchased it, he purposed
it, he provided, he's gonna plant it. Like that parable of the sword,
that one seed, when the seed was sown, it fell upon good ground. And he uses the best seed. I
bought seed before and you plant it. We planted it, we bought
some last year. It was just bad seed. They did
not come up. I raked down in the ground and
there the seed like it had never germinated. No life, no life. It says 1 Peter 1.23, being born
again not of corruptible seed. but of incorruptible, by the
word of God, which lives and abides forever. We can't see
men's hearts, but he prepares the heart. And through the preaching
of the gospel, he takes his word and he buries it deep in that
heart. And you know what happened? There's
life. There's life. As I thought about this, when
you plant a garden, you plant it. You go out there and you
lay your rose off, You say, well, this row I'm gonna have me some
lettuce, this row I'm gonna have me some tomatoes, and here I'm
gonna have me some beans, and here I'm gonna have me some squash,
and I lay all, and it's a variety of things. And he plants it on
purpose. If you're here today, and God
has been pleased to save you by his grace, you know what you
are? You're somewhere that he planted you. and we're all individuals, we're
all different. And he planted you, planted you. Here he speaks of spices, a variety
of graces. Sandy likes to plant some spices. I asked her this morning, I said,
what is it you like to plant? She said, I like planting basil
and rosemary. You look at them, and I look
at them, and you know what, it looks like a weed. But it's not. But it's not. She plants it. You know what
those things are used for? They put it on food. Gives it
spice. And he plants it in his garden.
Outwardly, you know what? We look like nothings. Nothings. The seed takes root in the heart. And I tell you this, everything
our Lord plants is good. Everything evil that grows in
my garden comes from me. That's the weeds, that's the
thorns, that's the unbelief, that's the pride, that's the
selfishness. Where does that come from? That comes from within
and defiles me. And that's all that would be
there if not for his grace. those things that are not planted
by our Lord. He said, every plant which my heavenly Father hath
not planted shall be rooted up in his own time. You remember
the parable of the wheat and the tares? The wheat represents
the children of God, and the tares represent the children
of the wicked one. And he went out into the field, and the field
was covered with wheat, and it was covered with tares, too.
And they said, well, where did these tares come from? He said,
an enemy had done this. They said, you want us to go
pull them up? That's what we'd like to do. You can't tell the difference
between a wheat and a tare. If we were to go out in God's
garden and try to separate the wheat and the tare, you know
what we'd do? We'd pull the wheat up. If we looked at Lot, we'd say, well,
surely he's a tare, wouldn't we? But our Lord said, leave
them alone. Let them grow together to the
harvest. And one day, he's going to root them out. He's going
to gather together his wheat into his barn. He knows the difference. It's his. So he plants his garden. And he
doesn't just plant it and forget about it. He's got to prune it. I saw my grandmother do this,
and the first time I saw her prune tomato plant, I thought,
what in the world is she doing? These plants were probably up
about that high. They were already blooming. They
didn't have any tomatoes on them, and she went through, and some
of you don't know what I'm talking about, but she went through and
cut the suckers off. That's where the vine would break out, and
it's covered in leaves. You don't eat leaves. And that's
what she told me. I said, Granny, what? I called
her Granny. I said, what are you doing? She said, I'm pruning
them. She said, I don't want some tomatoes. She said, if I
don't prune the vines, all I'm gonna have is vines. I want some
tomatoes. When she got done, it looked
like just a bunch of spindly stalks. That's all was left.
But she had some of the best tomatoes I've ever seen. You
know why? She pruned it. And God prunes you. He will cut
off Oh, you know what we are? We're just a bunch of leaves
in that just talk. And he cuts it off. That we may
bring forth much fruit for his, it's his garden. And he knows
exactly what I need to cut off. He prunes it. He prunes it so
that we'll bring forth more fruit. When we planted our seed, I don't
just plant them, I scatter them. I just sow them. And you ain't supposed to do
that. You're supposed to plant them ever so far apart. Then
what I'd have to do, I'd have to go pull some of them up. Because
if I didn't, none of them would grow. It's his garden. He's planted those in his garden.
And he knows what is best for his garden. But you know, sometimes
he takes some out of his garden. If you'll turn over to chapter
six, verse two, it says, my beloved has gone down into his garden
to the beds of spices to feed among the garden, to feed in
the gardens, to gather his lilies. As I thought about those that
God has planted over the years in his garden, some of them he
takes out of his garden at a young age. You know, I thought of David
Brainerd. who was a missionary to the Indians
up north, and he wore his body out preaching to those Indians. He was 29 years old when the
Lord picked him up out of his garden. Top lady, wrote Rock
of Ages, 38 years old. Spurgeon was only 57. That's
a young man. And I thought about our brother,
Brother Cody, 57 years old. He said, why would God do that?
It's his garden. You see the picture. It's his
garden. It's his garden. I remember back
just a few years ago in the church I used to pastor in North Wilkesboro. Within one month's time, less
than a month, There was a lady that died at the age of 47. Then
there was another gentleman, he was probably 65 within a month's
time. And I just got news this week
that another lady from that same congregation, 54 years old, Lord
took her home. That's his garden. That's his garden. He put you
here where he wanted you. You're here as long as he wants
you here. And when he's ready to take us home, he comes and
gets us. He's gathering his lilies. They're
his lilies. This is his garden. He rules
over all things. We'd stand back and look. He'd
start pulling this one up. We'd say, what are you doing?
He knows what's best. He provides for his garden. He
knows what that garden needs. That garden, I want you to hear
this, that garden, and you and me, we need his continual care. If he leaves us alone for a minute,
we're in a mess. Last year, me and Sandy was gone
probably about a week and a half or something, and while we're
gone, I think it rained every day. And I hadn't checked all
my garden and I went out there and all it was was covered up,
looked like in grass. I couldn't even hardly see the
plants. What happened? That's what happens by nature.
Gotta leave you alone, that's all you're gonna grow. Pride. With glory in what we do. But
you won't leave it alone. He'll never leave it nor forsake
it, never. Never. When I came back and my
garden was that way, what did I do? I didn't just leave it.
I had to go get the tiller, I had to go get my hoe, and I had to
start pulling weeds. He prunes, and he digs, and he
tills, and then he starts pulling them. You know, some of them
weeds was wrapped around the very plant. Some things wrap
around us so close we think it's gonna choke the very spiritual
life out of us. He must fertilize it all to make
it grow. As I thought about this, a man
in my church, he owns a cattle farm. He called me last year
and he said, Mike, you come over here to the house. He said, I'll
give you a whole load of manure, cow manure. What in the world
are you going to do with that cow manure? I took it and when
I turned I dumped it on my garden. That's about all manure is good
for, is fertilize. This world serves God's purpose. It does. Everything serves his
purpose. Everything. We speak in the book
of Revelation, it talked about when the Satan was standing there
to devour the woman, the child, as soon as it was born. You know
what it said? The earth helped the woman. All things serve his
purpose. Because what are you going to
do with that manure? When I go stir it, it ain't going
to do nothing but stir up a stink. But if I can get it tilled up
in the ground, and that ground's got to have fertilizer. It's
got to, it won't grow nothing. And God uses everything in this
world to serve his church. Even the wicked are created for
the day of evil. All things. I've thought about it. I think
it's in Luke 13, eight. Remember our Lord, he came to
the vineyard. And I think he said he'd been coming for three
years to get fruit and there was no fruit on it. And one interceded
for him. He said, give me another year.
Let me dig about it and let me dung it and see if it won't bear
fruit. I think it was Matthew Henry
had a good point. When he dug it, he had prepared for him to
dung it. He dug it. He had to break it
up. Break it up. But here in our text, He says, and I believe it's the
bridegroom, Solomon speaking, he said in verse 16, awake on
north wind and come thou south and blow upon my garden. Who controls the wind? He does. If the wind doesn't blow, nothing's
gonna grow, nothing. There's no wind upon his garden
without his command. It blows at his command and it
blows as hard as he commands. Someone said the wind is nature's
fan. What the wind is to the garden,
the Holy Spirit is to God's garden. The wind blows where it will.
The first, notice here, he says the north and the south wind,
these are contrary winds. He first says the north wind,
that's that cold wind. That chilling wind that blows
away the clouds. North wind is a picture of adversity
and trials. Why does he send trials? Why
does he send? He calls for the north wind to
mature the plant, to strengthen the plant. I remember when I
was just a boy, my dad always had a garden I remember one evening
he came in and he was going to set out some tomato plants. Some
of the prettiest tomato plants I believe I'd ever seen. He set
them out in about two or three days, they died. You know what
he said? Them was hothouse plants. Them
plants was raised in a hothouse somewhere. They'd never been
out in the environment, never been had affected by any wind
or anything, and they couldn't stand it. And God says, come,
old north wind. Blow upon my garden. And it will blow as long as he
wants it to blow. But if it blowed forever, you
know what would happen? We'd freeze to death. See, picture, he knows what we
need. He knows exactly what we need. But then he says, come thou south
wind. The warm winds. that bring the
blessings of the rain. Can you just picture them little
plants starving for water and he sends the rain and we begin
to soak it up. Oh, the rains of his blessings,
the blessings of his grace. God's never had a crop that failed. He knows exactly what, listen
to me, He knows exactly what you need. Today, He knows what
you need. As I tried to think about and
seek a message for the Lord, I don't know what you need, but
He does. He knows exactly what you need.
He knows exactly what this church needs, and that's what He's gonna
send. There gonna be trials, there'll
be adversities, but there'll be some soft wins. It's like,
just like the weather now. You say, this ain't January weather.
That's the way it was back home. A week ago, we was below zero.
And then the other day, we was in almost 70 degrees. God controls
all that. He knows what we need. He knows
exactly what we need. Sometimes our Lord revives our
hearts with the chilling rough wind of affliction. That's what we're gonna try to
look at a little bit. Job, look at Job. Talk about a cold north
wind. Revives the heart. He said the
Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. And sometimes he revives
us with the gentle southern breeze of his grace and his mercy. I remember years ago when we
had a garden at Sandy's mother's had come a rain and some strong
winds. And we went up there, she'd had
some pretty corn stalks. That's probably up about that
high. And after that rain and that wind, there was not a single
stalk standing. If you've ever tried to raise
a gardener, that's not only discouraging, that's depressing. You've worked
that hard and you've tilled it and fertilized it and washed
over it and nurtured it, and now it's just laid over. And
I asked her, I said, what are you gonna do? She said, I'm not
gonna do nothing. I said, you're not gonna do nothing?
She said, no, just wait a few days. And a few days, the sun started
coming out. And that corn started standing up. You ever feel like
you've just been blown over? Laid flat. If you're his, you
just wait. He'll raise you up. The sun,
they were drawn toward it, the S-U-N, we are drawn toward the
S-O-N. So it calls for the north wind
and the south wind. Why? That the spices therefore
of may flow out. Imagine walking in that garden
and you don't smell anything. But when that wind begins to
blow, you now smell those spices. What are those spices? That's
his grace. That's his mercy. This is why
he planted the garden. Why did he plant the garden?
Why? So he can enjoy the spices. It's his, it's what he's produced.
The fruit of the garden. What is the fruit of the garden?
Galatians 5.22. But the fruit, not fruits, the
fruit of the Spirit is love. You don't love by nature. You
do, you love yourself. That's who we love, let's just
be honest. Love. This is through the Spirit. That's
His love. And we love Him because He first
loved us. He said, love your enemies. Apart from grace, that's
impossible. That's impossible. You don't
see the spices coming out of his garden. They're standing
there stoning Stephen to death for preaching the gospel. And
Saul of Tarsus is standing there consenting to it. And I can't
think of a more horrible death than stoning someone to death,
other than crucifixion. And they're stoning him. And
what does this man do? He prays and he says, Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. You
know what that is? The wind blew. and brought out the spices that
he'd put in that heart. Through the Spirit is love, joy,
joy, joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength,
peace, oh, peace of mind, peace of conscience, the peace of God
which passes all understanding, How did all this come about?
He planted the garden, he purchased it, he watered it, he pruned
it, and he's gonna bring forth these spices, and when the wind
blows, he smells them. He's long-suffering. Gentleness,
goodness, faith. The trying of your faith worketh
patience. Imagine Abraham. God had brought
him through all those things. He said, now Abraham, I want
you to take your own son, the only begotten son, and take him
to Mount Moriah, and I want you to offer him up. And in his heart,
he did. Faith, meekness, temperance,
these are the spices that he produces. Man by nature tries
to produce. It's an impossibility. It does
not grow by nature in these hearts. It just doesn't. But if you're
his. I remember one of the greatest
statements I ever heard Henry Mahan make. He said, if God ever saves
you by his grace, he's gonna make you gracious. He will make you, and he will.
Willingly gracious. What is it, that's what he's
brought forth. Then something else, he takes
pleasure in his garden. It's his garden, his garden. Here the bride speaks, latter
part of verse 16, let my beloved come into his garden and eat
his pleasant fruits. Let him come into his garden
the moment she asked, he came. Someone said the bride, listen,
the bride does not desire for the spices of her garden to fill
the air with their fragrance for her own enjoyment or even
for the delight of the daughters of Jerusalem. Her desire is that
her spices may flow forth for the pleasure and the enjoyment
of her beloved. Why did we come here this morning?
Why did we come here? We didn't come here to get. We
come to give him all the glory. Because you know what a garden
does for a long time? For a long time, all a garden does is take.
It took the seed, it took the fertilize, it took the pruning,
it took the nurturing, and why? Now it comes, that garden's giving
back. It's giving back what he gave. I thought about Peter. The Lord
worked on Peter a long time, didn't he? Imagine Peter, he
walked with our Lord for three, three and a half years. And our
Lord's getting ready to go be our substitute for sin. And he
said, Peter, he said, you're gonna deny me. He said, oh, not
me, Lord. Everybody else may, but not me.
He said, before this night's over, before the clock crows
twice, you're gonna deny me three times. And he did. And he did, still a bunch of
full of weeds, ain't he? You know, Pentecost is only,
I think, 40 or 50 days from the time of Passover. So less than
a month and a half later, this same man, this same man, stands
on the day of Pentecost, this same man, and stands and preaches
the gospel, exalts our Lord, puts him on his throne, exalted
high and lifted up, and God saved 3,000 souls. Was this the same
man? to spices. He came to his garden. He's gathering
his spices. That garden that has been taking
for so long is now giving. Our Lord told Peter, he said,
when you converted, strengthen your brethren. And as I just mentioned that
story from Peter, I can see it in your faces. It still strengthens
you. It still encourages your heart,
because you say, boy, that's me. I'm just like Peter. Strengthen your brethren. He is always pleased with his
garden. Listen, here's where men can't grasp
it. He's as pleased with Peter when he was denying him, and
he was as pleased with him when he was preaching the gospel.
He was as pleased with David as he was when he was laying
in the arms of Bathsheba. Isn't that right? You know what
that is? That's just grace. Only grace can understand that. Then the last thing, he protects
his garden. Notice in verse 12 of chapter
4, a garden enclosed is my sister. Where we live in West Virginia,
the way I have is probably as many deer as I believe I've ever
seen anywhere. as many deers and as many rabbits,
and you think I'm going to go out there and put me a garden?
And you think I'm going to get anything from that garden if
I don't do something? You know what I had to do? I had to put me a fence
around it. That's one reason I didn't do it the first year
we was there. I go, what's the use? And the man in my church, he
said, here's what you need to do. I got some of that orange fencing like
you see them used on the side of the roads. Put it up, and
it's just plastic, real flimsy. And I got me some pie pans and
tied them up. Never had a single deer get in that garden. Never
had a single rabbit. Why? I was protecting my garden
because those animals had no right in my garden. I didn't
plant that garden for them. If I want to feed them deers,
I'll put a deer feeder down there and feed them. If I want to feed
birds, I'll put a bird feeder. But that garden was for me. God
says, that's my garden. And he protects it. I said, we're
going to try to look at Job in a little bit. And you know what
Satan said? When God said, if you consider
my servant Job, he said, you put a hedge about him. And he couldn't get to him till
God permitted it. God protects his garden. And
God protects his little work. And God protects you. God protects
you. John Gill said about that hedge,
that fence was a wall of protection from all that was around him.
Said he encompassed him about with his love as with a shield,
a hedge which could not be broken down by men or devils. He surrounded
him with his almighty power and none could hurt him. He guarded
them by his providence. He caused his angels to encamp
about him. He himself was a wall of fire
around him. So thick was the hedge and so
strong was the fence that Satan could not find the least gap
into that fence till divine permission allowed it. Oh, that verse one
of chapter five, that he may come to his garden. I pray he'd come to his garden
today and that he would visit with us. And what he's planted
in our hearts may go back to him. That I may
give him, look, all we do is take, take, give back the glory. It's all his. It's all his, amen.