I titled the lesson Christ in
His Garden. We begin in verse 12 where he
says, a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut
up, a fountain sealed. Now you remember we looked at
these two terms our beloved called his people from last week's lesson,
a sister and my spouse. And both of those terms are used
to show us something of the kind of love that Christ has towards
his people. The love of Christ for his bride
is so great it can't be compared to any one kind of human love.
So he calls her my sister and my spouse. He calls her my sister. The love that a man feels for
his sister is a family love. We've got the same father. We've
got the same blood. We love one another in a family
love. A love a man has for his sister is a protective love.
He always wants to watch out for her. But the Lord Jesus Christ
is our older brother by incarnation. He didn't take on him the nature
of angels. He took on him the nature of flesh. And we became
Christ's little sister in the new birth when we're born again
with his nature. That's why he calls us his sister.
Then he calls his beloved my spouse. And the love of Christ
that he has for his bride is a love that a husband has to
his wife. It's a love of union. They're
one flesh. It's a love of provision that
the husband provides for his wife, how our Lord provides everything
that's necessary for his bride. And it's a love of protection,
how our Lord watches over and protects and keeps his bride.
Well, now in this verse, he goes on, he calls his beloved a garden,
my garden. It's a garden enclosed. God's
garden is closed off, it's separated from the rest of the world. That's
how God separated his people from this world in divine election.
God chose them out of the world, separated them, made them his.
And they're walled off. God himself is a wall of fire
around his garden, protecting his garden from the predators
in the world. And I have several ways that
a garden is a good picture of God's church. First of all, garden. It's taken from common ground.
You know, you got a bunch of ground, just ground like any
other ground. And you say, I'm going to put
a garden right here. Well, why don't you put it over
there? Well, because this is my ground and I choose to put
it right here. That's what God did with his
people. God chose a people out of the common lump of Adam's
fallen race to make them his garden. Well, why'd you choose
those people? just because I would, just because
that is the will of God in divine election. He chose his people
from the common ground of Adam's fallen race. Second of all, before
you plant a garden, you've got to own the ground. You know,
Jay and I have got this little old garden. Well, we didn't plant
it over there on our neighbor's yard. We did it on ground that
we own. Well, that's Christ's garden.
The Lord Jesus Christ bought his garden. made her his when
he bought her with the blood of his sacrifice. Then third,
if you're going to have a garden, the ground's got to be prepared.
You've got to clear everything out of there, so you've got a
garden. You've got to clear all the briars and the thorns and
the weeds out of there. You know, if it's an empty field,
there might be trash or debris or something in there. All that's
got to be gathered up and thrown away. And then the ground's got
to be plowed. It's got to be turned over. It's
got to be fertilized so the ground is ready when you come to plant
the seed. Well, that's what God does with
his elect. There's a lot of trash that's
got to be removed. He gathers it up and throws it
away. There's a lot of weeds and briars in there. It's got
to be taken out so he can prepare our hearts to receive his word.
And it's God that makes the hearts of his people to be good ground
hearers. You know, we're not stony ground
hearers or thorny ground hearers because the Lord's prepared the
hearts of his people to make them good ground hearers. So
when the seed of the word of God's planted, it'll take good
deep root in our hearts. It's God who prepares the hearts
of his people to receive his word. Then fourth, if you're
gonna have a garden, seeds gotta be planted. You know, you can't
just plow up and prepare that ground and expect something to
come up good. Nothing good grows in a garden
all by itself. The only thing that comes up
naturally in the garden is thorns and thistles and weeds. If there's
any good fruit going to be grown from that garden, it's going
to have to be planted there by somebody. That's us. There is nothing good that grows
from us of itself. The only thing that comes from
us naturally is sin and rebellion. That's what grows in us naturally.
So if there's going to be good, profitable fruit grown in us,
God's going to have to plant it there, isn't he? Because nothing
good naturally is going to come from us. In Isaiah 61 verse 3,
the trees of righteousness are talked about. And Isaiah says
the trees of righteousness are the planting of the Lord. He
planted them in the garden. Then fifth, if you're going to
have a garden, It's got to be tended to. You can't just plant
it and walk away and come back in the fall and harvest out of
your garden. A garden's got to be tended to. It's got to be
weeded or the weeds, I mean quickly, the weeds will just overgrow
everything. You've got to be constantly watching
that garden and weeding it and taking care of it. Well, that's
us. A believer will tell you that's
us. We've got to be constantly weeded. The weeds of doubt, the
weeds of lack of faith, they've got to be pulled up. And not
just once, over and over and over again, they got to be pulled
up because you pull them up and more are going to grow in their
place. God's got to be constantly weeding his garden. The weeds
of unloving, ungrateful, unforgiving, hateful, selfish attitude has
got to be constantly pulled up and more is going to grow in
their place. So God's got to be constantly pulling those weeds
up. That's why I told you this Wednesday night, when the husbandman
comes to weed his garden, you've got nothing to worry about if
you're connected to the vine. He's coming to pull up weeds
so that the vine can grow stronger and better and produce better
fruit. God's not coming to weed his garden in fury towards his
people. There's no fury in him. He's
coming to weed his garden because he loves his garden, cares for
it. The garden's got to be constantly tended to. And then six, if you're
going to have a garden, it's got to be watered. No matter
how good a garden starts, it'll die quickly unless you're constantly
watering that thing. Well, God's garden is watered,
constantly watered. He put a fountain in it that's
constantly springing up so that his garden is watered. He calls
it a garden that's closed. Look at verse 15. He says a fountain,
or this is, The fountain, he's put a fountain of gardens, a
well of living waters and streams from Lebanon. There's all kinds
of water. There's fountains, there's living
waters, there's streams. This is a well-watered garden
that produces a lush green garden. But the fountain is sealed. Look
in Zechariah chapter 13, next to the last book in Old Testament. The fountain is sealed. The spring
is shut up. Yet this fountain is open for
sin. Zechariah 13 verse one. And that day there should be
a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. Now Zechariah says
the fountain's open. Solomon says the fountain is
sealed. Which is it? What does that mean? Well, it
means this. This fountain is open to every
sinner who comes to be cleansed from all of their sin by the
blood of Christ alone. But this fountain is closed to
anyone who comes to this fountain that just needs a little help
getting rid of the rest of their sin. I can take care of some
of this, but I need some help getting rid of the rest of it.
Then that fountain's closed to you. The fountain is sealed so
that no one can ever come and corrupt this fountain. This fountain
is always open to cleanse sinners from all of their sin. This fountain
is well-watered, a fountain springing up of life through the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now seventh, a garden doesn't
just have one kind of plant growing in it. You know, an orchard has
one thing growing in it, orange trees or apple trees or whatever.
You know, a rose garden has got one thing growing in it, roses.
But a garden has several different things growing in it. Jan and
I have this little, small garden. I mean, just a little old thing.
We've got three things growing in just that little space. We've
got tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers. It's just in a little,
very small space. Well, God's garden has all kinds
of different fruits of the spirit in it. And this garden is God's
whole church. But this garden is also the heart
of every individual believer. Each heart is God's garden and
it's got all these different fruits of the Spirit growing
in it. Look at verse 13. Thy plants are an orchard of
pomegranates with pleasant fruits, camphor with spikenard, spikenard
and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. Now I'm not going
to spend a lot of time on each of these spices and fruits. Quite
honestly, I don't know what they all mean. I don't think that
that's necessarily the point of this passage. But I know this
about all these spices and all this fruit. They all picture
the atonement for sin in our Lord Jesus Christ. We talked
about these pomegranates last week. Pomegranates are a picture
of the blood atonement. If you cut open a good ripe pomegranate,
there's seeds that are floating in there in a sweet red juice.
That's a pomegranate, a picture of the blood of Christ. And those
pomegranates were on the hem of the garment of the high priest.
Remember they alternated a pomegranate and a bell, pomegranate and a
bell. So when the high priest was alone in the Holy of Holies
on the Day of Atonement, as he was moving around doing the different
activities that he was supposed to do, those pomegranates and
bells would knock against each other and ring so the people
would know the high priest is still alive. God's accepting
his sacrifice that he's offering for our sin. Those pomegranates
are a picture of the blood atonement, were accepted in the atonement
of Christ. And then these other spices were
used in the best perfumes and best medicines of the day to
make people smell better and make them feel better. Well,
those are all picture of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ makes
us smell better because we smell like him. We're washed in his
blood, smell like him. And his sacrifice gives his people
perfect health. A believer's gotta have perfect
health because we have eternal life. If never gonna die, We
must have perfect health in the sacrifice of Christ. And then
the rest of these spices, they were used in the holy perfume
and the holy anointing oil that they used in the temple. They
use these things with the sacrifice and with the incense that they
burned in the temple. All that's a picture of Christ,
a picture of the sweetness of his sacrifice and a picture of
the sweetness of his intercession. incense they put on, coals and
the smoke went up. There's a picture of the intercession
of Christ. Well, all these spices, where
are they growing? They're growing in God's garden.
They're growing in the hearts of his people because God's given
every believer a heart, a new heart that trust Christ alone,
that trust the person of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ and his
intercession for his people. They trust him alone. Now these,
Solomon calls them all different kinds of pleasant fruits. Look
over Galatians chapter five. All these pleasant fruits refer
to the fruit of the Spirit. And we read these different kinds
of the fruits of the Spirit. Notice that the fruit of the
Holy Spirit is never something we do. The fruit of the Spirit
is always attitudes that come from the heart. Your religious
hypocrites, they deal with the outward actions. And they can
even clean those things up a little bit. They can at least hide them
from everybody but your wife. But all they're concerned with
is the outward, that's it. God's people have a work of grace
done in the heart. It's the attitude, it's the motive.
God gives his people a new heart. And these things come from the
new heart. Now we're still in the flesh. The garden's got to
constantly be weeded and tended to because we're still in the
flesh. So you don't always see that inner work of the heart
by outward actions of a believer. But a believer has new attitudes
and new motives because God's given him a new heart. Now in
our text, Solomon mentions the camphor tree, which is a cypress
tree. I don't know anything about a
cypress tree, but this is what I read about them. that the fruit
of a cypress tree grows in clusters. Well, the fruit of the Spirit
that Paul lists in Galatians chapter five grows in three clusters. The first one, Galatians 5 verse
22. The first cluster is fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. Now this cluster is a
cluster of attitudes that describes a believer's attitude toward
our God. By nature, we hate God. But a believer's received a new
heart and a new birth, and that heart loves God. That heart loves
Christ. God loves His people, and we
love Him. He loved us first, but we do
love Him, because He's given us a heart of love. And a believer
finds his joy in Christ. Now, there are a lot of things
we can enjoy, a lot of things make us happy, but a believer's
joy is Christ. We rejoice in God's grace to
us, His free, sovereign, matchless grace. We rejoice in His grace. We rejoice in God's eternal purpose
of redemption. We rejoice in God's electing
love for His people. We rejoice in the sacrifice of
Christ that puts away our sin. We rejoice in Christ. And we
rejoice to be with the people of God. I rejoice to have this
time we can spend together worshiping because we're family. But the
rejoicing goes back to who's our father. We're all part of
one family. And a believer has peace. Peace
with God through the blood of the cross of Christ. We don't
make our peace with God. Believer's not trying to make
peace with God or keep peace with God. A believer trusts Christ. We trust him to make peace with
God for us. We trust him to keep peace with
God for us. It's by his person and by his
blood. So the first cluster of this
fruit is our attitude toward God. The second cluster is long-suffering,
gentleness, and goodness. Now, this is a cluster of attitudes
that describes the believer's attitudes towards others. Now,
people who are in God's garden, believers, children of God, they're
not harsh, critical people. They're kind people, they're
gentle, they're patient, because God's been so gentle and patient
with us. And there's no goodness in us
naturally. If that goodness is in us, where'd it come from?
God had a planet there, didn't he? And goodness is seen in our,
just a general kindness and generosity toward other people. Goodness
in this sense, I think is seen best like, you can just sum it
up like this. When people see us coming, they're happy to see
us coming. They don't think, oh boy, You
know, we're gonna have problems now. No, they're happy to see
us coming. That's the goodness that he's
talking about here. It's our attitude towards others.
Then the third cluster is faith, meekness, and temperance. Against
such, there is no law. This is a cluster of attitudes
that describes the inward character of a believer. This cluster tells
us what a believer really is, what God has made us in Christ. A believer has faith. Faith has
been planted in the heart. A believer's a faithful person.
We believe God, we're faithful to follow Christ. They're honest,
a believer is an honest person. They're honest with God about
who they are and who he is, and honest with men, they're a faithful
person. And a believer's meek. We know what we are by nature,
so we've got no reason to be puffed up, do we? because we
are what we are in Christ. It's by his work and by his grace. We are what we are in Christ
because of who he is and because of the grace of God. Now, this
is not a fake meekness or fake humility. Yes, I know God. I know God. I know the gospel. I have eternal life. I know God
loves me. Yes. I've got no reason to be
proud of that. What has any of that got to do
with me? Not one thing. All of it is by
God's grace. So I don't have any reason to
be puffed up and proud and difficult to get along with. In meekness,
we worship God. In meekness, we preach the gospel.
In meekness, we deal with one another, because we are what
we are by God's grace. Then a believer has temperance.
It's self-control. Now here's the motive. It comes
from within. These religious hypocrites, they
have a show of temperance, don't they? They have a show of controlling
the outward actions, but it's because they're trying to earn
something. It's because they're afraid of the law, afraid of
getting punished. They're trying to earn something from God. But
God's given his people a heart that's motivated by love. And
a believer's self-control is motivated by love. It's motivated
by God's grace in us. Then eighth, back in our text,
Psalm 4. A believer's like a garden in
this sense. A garden needs different kinds of weather all throughout
the year so it will grow the best and produce the best fruit.
Look at verse 16. Awake, O 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 fruits. Now at the beginning of this
verse 16, this is the Lord speaking. A lot of the writers think that
this is the church, praying that the Holy Spirit would come and
blow upon us. And that certainly is the prayer of believers. We
pray the spirit will come blow upon us and give us life and
give us that we worship him in spirit and in truth. But I'm
sure this is not a believer speaking. I'm sure this is the Lord speaking
because I have never one time known of a believer to pray the
Lord send him trials. Have you ever prayed that? I
mean, I just being perfect honest with you, I've never prayed that,
that the Lord send me trials. And that's what's happening here.
When he's talking about the north wind, he's talking about the
wind of trial. And who commands, oh, north wind
to come and blow? Well, God does. This is his wind.
So this is Christ speaking. And he commands the north wind
of trial to blow. Now that's a cold wind. It's
a wind that brings winter time. It's a wind that blows all the
plants look dead. Now we saw this earlier in our
study Song of Solomon. Those plants aren't dead. The
root's still under the ground. They're not dead, but they sure
look dead in the wintertime. And wintertime, it's a hard time.
The ground is cold, the plants are brown and brittle and ugly
looking. It's a hard time, but it's a
necessary time. If you want that garden to produce
all different kinds of good fruits and spices in the spring, wintertime's
necessary. If it was left up to us, we'd
never pray for the north wind to blow. We'd always want that
warm southerly breeze blowing, you know, making everything comfortable
and nice. But if all we had is that south
breeze constantly blowing, you know what our garden would be?
It would be a desert. All that would grow in that garden
is cactus and tumbleweed. When winter comes, the ground's
frozen. All those insects that would
normally destroy the garden, they're killed in the wintertime.
They get froze out, you know, in the cold ground of wintertime.
So the wintertime is good for the ground, isn't it? It's good
for the garden. Those times of trial that we never pray for,
we never pray that they come, they're times that are good for
a believer because they make us more fruitful. Maybe the best
comparison I can make is the pain after surgery. I wish I
never had to endure that pain, but I know I'm thankful for it,
because later on it's going to produce something better. It's
going to help us later on. So the Lord calls this cold north
wind to blow when it's time. But he also commands the warm
south breeze to blow. If all we had is the north wind,
it's necessary. But if all we had is the cold
north wind, we'd have the frozen tundra of the North Pole, wouldn't
we? So we need the warm south wind to blow. And God commands
that south wind to blow too. So the warm temperatures of spring
will come and everything can be given life, a time of refreshing. We need that warm south wind
to blow. So it'll bring those warm gentle
showers of spring that water everything, get everything ready
to start growing. And these south winds, these
are the times of refreshing, the time of growth, Those times
believers praise for, don't we? We long for those times because
they're times of such enjoyment. This is a time of refreshing.
But the garden, if it's going to really produce good fruit
and all this variety of spices, it needs both that cold north
wind and it needs that warm south wind blowing. And when both those
winds blow at just the right times and just the right amounts,
then the garden will bloom. And it brings this pleasant smell.
Everything blooms and you get that nice south wind blowing. It blows the fragrance of the
flowers and the spices and all that all over the place. Because
both winds blew at just the right amount, just the right time.
And when the garden produces good fruit, It's enjoyed all
over the place. Not just in one place, but all
over. Some of y'all got big gardens. You can grow more tomatoes and
beans and cucumbers, you know what to do with. What do you
do with them? You go giving them to people. The fruit's enjoyed
all over the place. That's God's garden. God doesn't
just plant these fruits, the fruit of the Spirit in your heart
for just you. It's for all of us. So you'll
be a blessing to others. And God makes his garden fruitful. for the good of the whole world.
It's God, Christ is speaking, calling the north wind and the
south wind. Then at the end of the verse, the bride speaks.
She says, let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant
fruits. The bride says, let my beloved
come into his garden and enjoy his garden. These fruits are
the fruit of the Spirit. They're His fruit. It's the fruit
of the vine, it's His fruit. He's the vine, we're the branches.
We just bear His fruit because we're connected to Him, but it's
His, it's His doing. And what the bride's saying is,
let my beloved come and have a time of communion with me and
enjoy His work in me, enjoy His fruit. And she talks about Him
enjoying His garden. When she talks about eating,
that's what she's talking about, enjoying. If you eat a good meal,
you're not just sitting down putting nutrients in your body.
It's enjoyment. A best meal is not only good
food, but good fellowship. You got people around the table
and you're enjoying the meal, you're enjoying communing, talking
with everybody. It's enjoyment. That's what she's
talking about. Come eat your fruit in a time
of enjoyment where I can enjoy communion with you. you enjoy
communion with your people. Come enjoy all the glory of this
fruit. It's all been produced for your
glory. Come enjoy it, and let us enjoy a time of communion
with our bridegroom, and let our bridegroom come enjoy a time
of communion with his bride. That's what she desires. She's
not praying for the north wind, is she? She's praying for the
south wind. She's praying for that time of
enjoying communion with her bridegroom. All right, I hope the Lord bless
that too.