Beginning in the 12th verse,
the Lord Jesus, our beloved, speaks concerning his church,
his bride, you and me, those who are washed in his blood,
born of his spirit, chosen as the objects of his love from
eternity. And this is what he says about
us. A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up,
a fountain sealed. 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, a fountain of gardens,
a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon. Now here's our
text. Here's the response of our hearts. 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. And I want to give you the message
of this text in two or three statements. The first thing which
strikes me in this text is the fact that our hearts are compared
to a fruitful garden. Now, this is true throughout
the scriptures, but it is so beautifully set forth in this
text and this poetic language of romance, but the poetic language
of not carnal, earthly romance, but the romance of the soul,
the love between Christ and his church. He compares us to his
garden. And here we speak, comparing
ourselves to a garden. If you and I are true believers,
then our hearts are the Lord's garden, and they bring forth
both for his honor and for his pleasure all manner of fragrant,
pleasant fruit. Now, there's no such thing as
a barren, fruitless, graceless believer. There's much talking
these days about carnal Christians, about Christians who, you know,
they have the name they're saved, but they don't have any grace.
They don't have any fruit. They don't have any, any knowledge
of Christ. Don't walk with the Lord. They're
just, they're going to get to heaven, but just by the skin
of their teeth. I hope you know better than to believe any of
that nonsense. According to this book, there's no such thing.
as a child of God who is fruitless, a child of God who does not bring
forth fruit to the glory of Christ and for his pleasure. Wherever
true grace is found in the heart, there is the fruit of grace also
to be found. The believer's heart. Turn over
to Matthew 13, if you will. Let's look at this first. The
believer's heart is a garden, a garden into which the good
seed of the gospel has been sown. Here in Matthew chapter 13 and
verse 18, our Lord explains the parable of the sower. You remember,
he said the farmer goes out and he sows his seed and he broadcasts
it. Some falls on stony ground, some
falls by the wayside, some falls in thorny ground, and some in
good ground. Now he says, listen to this.
This is what I mean by all that. Hear ye the parable of the sower.
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and understandeth
it not, Then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which
was sown in his heart. This is he which received the
seed by the wayside. Somebody hears the word, kind
of makes a little impression, but then the devil comes and
takes it away quickly. He receives seed by the wayside.
But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is
he that heareth the word and with joy receiveth it. He hears
the gospel first time he hears it and says, that's it. And he
runs like wildfire. But hang on, yet he hath not
root in himself, but dureth for a while. For when tribulation
or persecution arises because of the word, as it surely shall,
by and by he's offended. He also that received the word,
the seed among thorns, is he that hear the word and the care
of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But somebody received the word. Somebody sure enough received
it. He that received the seed into the good ground is he that
heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit
and bringeth forth some one hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. And
not all bring forth fruit in the same measure, but they all
bring forth the same fruit, and they bring it forth some hundredfold,
some sixty and some thirty. Now, obviously, our Lord is telling
us that no ground is naturally good. That's true both in the
physical world and with regard to our hearts. It naturally brings
forth thorns and briars and thistles and weeds of every kind. Before
the ground is fit to receive the word, it's got to be cultivated,
it's got to be plowed, it's got to be taken care of, and the
wise farmer spends a great deal of time cultivating the soil
before ever he sows his seed in it. He takes great care to
properly prepare his ground. I've watched Oscar do some of
his work. I don't have time to have the
leisure of going down and visiting on the farm much anymore. But
I remember years ago, he had raised a considerable amount
of corn and tobacco on his particular property, more than anyone in
the area. And I asked him, what's the secret?
He said, you've got to prepare the ground. Just got to prepare
the ground. That's the secret. It's got to
be prepared. In his case, you got to kill
out all the weeds. You just got to get a good, clean
kill. But what he's talking about is
preparing the ground to receive the seed. And our Lord tells
us plainly that as a farmer sows his seed, some may fall on rocks
and some by the wayside, some among thorns, but only that seed
which falls on ground which has been thoroughly, deliberately,
properly prepared, brings forth fruit unto his glory, brings
forth fruit, the fruit of his grace. How does a farmer prepare
his ground? Well, first thing he does is
he buys it. And our Lord Jesus bought us. We are compared in
the scriptures as a garden belonging to him. But then the gardener
or the farmer takes the ground and plows it, plows the field
thoroughly, plows the field and harrows it. And then he encloses
it so that no one breaks in. Nothing breaks in to destroy
what he's done. And he sows the seed. He scatters it. In this particular case, like
you'd sow wheat. Just throw it out there. The
more you sow, the better off you are. Just keep scattering
the wheat. And then he waters the ground. and he cultivates
the tender plant. That's exactly what our master
has done for us. As I said, he purchased us with
his own precious blood and he enclosed us as his peculiar garden. He said, these are mine. In everlasting
election, in his sovereign purpose of grace, he enclosed us. And
he says to all of hell, don't you come across this fence. These
are my people. And he declares to all our enemies,
this is mine. You can't have it. Not only has
he enclosed us in his decree of election and by his wise and
good providence, the time comes when he encloses us, especially
by his grace and by his spirit. He plows the field of our hearts,
thoroughly breaking up the fallow ground of our hearts and does
so by conviction. And there's not much preaching
these days about conviction. But I want to tell you something.
There's never been a sinner converted who did not experience the sharp
plow of conviction. Sometimes we like to run ahead
of things, and I have mamas and daddies every now and then, husbands
or wives, call me or stop by and visit and say, you know,
my husband, my wife, my son, my daughter, I believe they're
ready. I say, leave them alone. Just leave them alone. Don't
you say a thing to them. Just leave them alone. Well,
don't you think we ought to get them to make a profession? Worst
thing you can do? Wait until God gets them to make a profession.
If God does the work, it's done. If you do it, you're going to
mess it up. But the convicting work of God's spirit convinces
us of our sin. And that's not pleasant. It's
never pleasant to have your heart exposed. If that ground out there
could speak, Bobby comes out in the spring and starts to plow
that thing up. When that plow hits the ground, it screams. Don't do this! And when the Word
of God comes in the power of God's Spirit and pierces the
heart, frequently men and women become antagonistic. They get
angry, they get upset. But if God's in it, He'll do
His work. Just wait. Just wait. And then
he plants the good seed where the ground is plowed. He plants
the seed of the gospel in our hearts, enabling us to hear his
word and understand the blessed word of grace. He said, blessed
are your ears for they hear. I was talking to Maurice earlier
this afternoon He's talking about the book of Revelation. He said,
I'm just shocked, just astounded at the things that men have taught
over the years concerning this. He said, he said, this is so,
so plain. All the pictures are found in
the Old Testament. If the Lord just give you eyes
to see, that's the key. Open this thing up. Well, I can
see that. How come? Because God gave you
eyes to see. I understand that. Wonder why
they don't understand it? Because he gave you ears. He
didn't give them ears. He plants the seed, causing us
to hear his word, to see his grace and his glory. And he waters
the ground. He waters the ground of our hearts
by his spirit and by his grace. Moses said, my doctrine shall
be as the dew of heaven. That sweet, tender dew. We get these gully washers here,
wash out the driveway and wash out ruts in the fields with all
the dew of heaven. It drops down and waters the
earth. And so the gospel drops down from heaven by the power
of God's Spirit on our hearts. And it's not like a torrent to
wash us away, but the gentle dew just to refresh, invigorate,
and enliven us. And the master graciously cultivates
the tender plants of his garden. And he does so with trials, adversities,
and afflictions. The other day, Shelby was out.
She's got a burning bush plant she planted. The thing's just
growing every which way. And she took those snips, started
cutting it off. Got to prune it. Otherwise, it's
not beautiful. Got to prune the fruit and vines
and fruit trees. Otherwise, they don't produce.
You got to cut them back. And this is exactly what our
master does with his garden. He prunes it wisely and graciously. Again, We would never choose
the pruning knife. Never. But we can't get along without
it. Do you understand that? We would never, we would never
look any trial, any heartache, any adversity in the face and
say, Lord, this is what I want. Oh, no, no, no, no. But we can't
live without it. We can't bear fruit without it.
And every heart that belongs to Christ is his fruitful garden. Turn to Galatians 5 for a moment. Galatians 5, 22. Now, I want you to notice carefully
the words that are used. These things are not accidental.
The fruit, you see that? It doesn't have an S on the end
of it. the fruit, one fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.
In the new birth, the Holy Spirit of God comes into a sinner's
heart in sovereign, life-giving power. And where the Spirit of
the Lord comes, there is fruit. The fruit of the Spirit brings
life, abundant, productive life. Now the produce of the Lord's
garden is called the fruit of the Spirit, not the produce of
our hands. Just above this, it talks about
the works of the flesh. That's us. That's what we produce. Everything
we produce is described as the works of the flesh. But the fruit
of the Spirit, that's fruit that comes up from the sap of the
vine or the sap of the tree, comes up and brings out and buds
forth because of the life that's in the root. It's the fruit of
the Spirit. You'll notice also that Paul
speaks of the fruit of the Spirit as one. He names a number of
virtues, but these things are all one thing. They are all the
fruit of the Spirit, like a cluster of grapes. We'll go out there
in just a few weeks, hopefully. If the birds don't get them first,
we're going to have some of those rich, dark, dark purple concord grapes,
and you'll just pull off a cluster. There'll be a bunch of grapes
on there, but it's just one cluster. And this is the fruit of the
Spirit. It is one fruit, but many virtues. They're not moral
virtues. They're not just characteristics
of a man. But these fruit of the Spirit
are the virtues of grace brought forth in the heart by the power
of God's grace. Now, when he talks about this
fruit of the Spirit, notice that he doesn't talk at all about
action. He doesn't know it all about
appearance. He doesn't say a word about what you wear, how you
comb your hair, what you eat, what you drink. Doesn't say a
word about that. Religion does, but not the word of God. What
you talk about when the fruit of the spirit, he talks about
heart, attitude, inward principle. You see, the Lord looks on the
heart. Human religion changes a man's actions, but the grace
of God changes his heart. Hypocrites reform their outward
behavior. Believers undergo a mighty renewing
of grace in their hearts. In every believing heart, these
three clusters of fruit are found. Now notice how he separates them.
Though these are one fruit, they're found in three distinct clusters.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. That's talking, Ron,
about our attitude toward God. Believing men and women, sinners
who trust Jesus Christ alone for acceptance with God are no
longer terrified by God. They're no longer under dread
and fear and terror at the thought of God, but rather they're made
to love Him and joy in Him and walk at peace with Him. That's
the fruit of the Spirit. Believers love God. and they rejoice in Him, and
they walk at peace with Him. They love His Word, His will,
His ways, His worship, and they love His people. That's the fruit
of the Spirit. Now, you can try to fake it if
you want to. You can paste on outward religious
superficiality and, you know, I see fellows in a These fellas
want to get your money, get on television and they smile like
a possum eating briars and just sing like sugar sweet fellas.
Don't you trust them? The fruit of the spirit is not
hypocrisy and deceit. It's love. And love is not a
word. It's what you are. Love is not
just a smiling, sweet, sugary sentiment. Oh, no. Love cares. Love cares. It's joy. joy before God, joy in his providence,
joy in his grace, joy in his goodness, peace. The true believer
has peace, peace with God through the blood of Christ, peace from
God speaking into his heart, pardon and forgiveness, and the
peace of God ruling his spirit as he walks in this world rejoicing
in peace. My Father rules, the heavens
new rule, and he who rules the heavens is God my Father. He
does all things well. The fruit of the Spirit is also
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. This describes our relationship
with one another. Believers are many women made by God's grace to be long-suffering. made by God's grace to be gentle,
made by God's grace to be good to one another. And believers
are. Believers are now religious people. They can be as crooked as a snake
curled up. Religious people, they can be
as mean as the devil himself. Religious people, I'd rather
confront a thug on the street than most religious people in
their deceit. But believers, oh no, believers are long suffering. They're patient, patient in God's
providence and patient with one another. And they are gentle,
gentle with one another. And they are good to one another. Really good. That means if Larry
Chris is my brother, if I am one with you in Christ, I'm always,
always, in my attitude and conduct, in the bent of all things, I
walk before God and you with gentleness, goodness, and walk
before God and you with long-suffering toward you. Now you say, you
don't ever get upset? We are still in this body of
flesh. And if you hang around for five minutes, you're going
to see that I am. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. But
in the bent and character of our relationship, this is what
it is. It's the fruit of the Spirit. It's not something you
conjure up, something God does. The fruit of the Spirit is faith,
meekness, temperance. This describes, James, our inward
relationship with ourselves. The believer, the child of God,
is a person who believes God. But this word faith here does
not so much refer to our faith in Christ or our doctrinal faith,
but rather it refers to faithfulness. The believer, the man or woman
who is born of God, by God's grace is made to be faithful. He's faithful. What does that
mean? It means you can count on him.
If he says, I'll do something, something comes up better tomorrow,
that doesn't make any difference. I said, I'd do this. He swears
to his own hurt and abide by it. He's faithful. You can depend
on him. You depend on him everywhere.
That's right. You find a believer, you'll have
found the best employee you can get. I didn't say religious fellow,
I said a believer. You find a believer, you found
the best husband you can find, the best wife you can find. You
find a believer, you found the best son, the best daughter,
the best parent that you can find. Believers are made faithful,
not just faithful to be at church on time, not just faithful to
do this or do that, faithful in every aspect of their lives.
They're faithful. Believers are honest, dependable
folks. And they are meek. Now that doesn't
mean that they, we're getting a lot of these folks who've got
this Far Eastern mystic nonsense, you know, where they worship
frogs and stuff like that. They walk around and kind of
shuffle their feet. That's not meekness. I'm not
talking about a pretense. I'm not talking about a show.
Meekness, Paul Harries, is knowing who and what you are before God
Almighty. That'll take the pop out of your
suspenders. That makes you understand you're
nothing. Christ is everything. That's meekness. And true faith,
the grace of God in a man's soul, makes him temperate. The word
temperate means control from within. Our Lord has made us
unto God kings and priests. A king is one who rules. Now,
we're not kings in the sense that we rule the world or the
nations of the world or other people. Don't even want to be.
But believers are kings in the sense that they rule their passions. The believer is no longer under
the dominion of his lust and his passions, but rather his
lust and his passions are under his dominion as he walks before
God with temperance. The fruit of the Spirit is faith. meekness, temperance. Now these
things, I repeat, are not the result of our labor's self-discipline
or self-denial. They're not the result of a religious
committee getting together and deciding how we ought to behave.
These things are the fruit of the Spirit. And this fruit of
the Spirit, it's just simply the overflowing of grace in the
renewed heart. He said, my spirit will be unto
you like a well of living water just overflowing. That's the
fruit of the Spirit. Secondly, our garden and its
fruit needs the breath of heaven. Awake, O north wind, and come
thou south. Blow upon my garden that the
spices thereof may flow out. In this prayer, there's an evident
sense of inward sleep. It is a confession that we ourselves
need to be awakened. It is not the spirit of God that
needs to be awakened, but it is it is us that need his awaken. Awake, O North wind, O South
calm. The graces that are within us
by God's planting. need the breath of God constantly
upon them to bring forth the fragrant, joyous sense and aroma
that they contain within. Let me see if I can illustrate
it for you. Shelby got all these flowers planted along the upper
side of the house here. And frankly, because of my difficulties with
pollens and stuff, I don't get down sniffing too much. But we
walk along the other day and there was a it wasn't too hot,
just a little bit damp and The wind blowing around the corner
of the house and man, a lot. When the wind blew and brought
the fragrance out of those flowers, it just smelled so good. It just
smelled good. That's what we need. Oh, come
spirit of God, blow upon your garden that the fragrant spices
may go out, not for men to smell, but for him whose garden this
is. Come and blow on us. Now notice,
sometimes when the Lord sends reviving to his people, he revives
our hearts with the chilling north wind of affliction. Sometimes
he revives our hearts with a gentle southern breeze of grace and
mercy. But more often than not, he uses
both the cold winds of the north and the gentle breezes of the
south, because it takes both to burst open these fragrant
flowers and cause the scent and fragrance of these graces to
bring forth for his pleasure and his delight. Oh, we need
a visitation from the God of all grace. If the breath of heaven
will blow upon us, the fragrant flowers of our garden will fill
the air a sweet incense to Christ Jesus, the Lord. One last thing. This is what we greatly desire,
that our Lord himself will visit his garden. Let my beloved come
into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits. We don't desire the spices of
our garden to fill the air with fragrance for our own enjoyment,
nor even for the delight of the daughters of Jerusalem, but rather
that our spices may flow forth for the pleasure and enjoyment
of him who loved us and gave himself for us. The highest,
noblest wish of our souls is that Christ may have joy pleasure
and delight in us. What a great condescension that
he would, but what a blessed hope that he shall. Here he is
called my beloved. Oh, that's sweet music. He who
is God of the universe, our savior, our redeemer is my beloved. And she acknowledges that she
belongs to Christ. My heart is his garden. The fruit
and affection of my heart belongs to him, only to him. Now, let
my beloved come. Let him come any way he will
into his garden. Any way he will. If you have
to knock down the hedge, come on, knock it down. Come into
your garden. Let him come in his glorious
second advent. Let him come in the majesty of
his judgment seat. Let him come and make all things
new, but oh, let him come into my heart. Come into his garden
and eat his pleasant fruits. He said, behold, I stand at the
door and knock. If any man will hear my voice. Have you heard his voice? Have
you heard his voice? Any man will hear my voice and
open the door. That's not talking about him
waiting to save a sinner. He stands at the door of this
congregation and knocks. And he said, Merle Hart, if you'll
open the door, if you will open the door, I'll come in and I'll
suck with you and you with me. Lord Jesus, the door is open. Come in and eat your pleasant
fruits. Amen.