Series: Psalms
Title: The Husbandman and his Garden
Text: Ps 65: 8-13
Date: June 11, 2020
Place: SGBC, NJ
Psalm 65: 8: They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are
afraid at thy tokens: thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice
When I raised a garden, I walked
through it every morning and evening with a garden hose watering it. God does that in the whole earth. He makes the “outgoing of the morning and
the evening to rejoice”—from east to west—from the rising of the sun to the
going down thereof. The morning arrives with songs of rejoicing and the evening
goes out the same. I was standing out by
the creek this week, looking at how green and lush everything is right now. God did
that, he visits his garden daily and waters it making it bring forth in
abundance. Notice,
the “thou’s.”
Psalm 65: 9: Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou
greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou
preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. 10: Thou waterest the
ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it
soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. 11: Thou crownest the
year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. 12: They drop upon
the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. 13:
The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with
corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.
Brethren, God promises there will be perpetual
seasons so long as God holds this world in place. God created it to illustrate his unbreakable,
everlasting covenant to Christ and to his people in Christ.
Jeremiah 33: 20:
Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of
the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; 21: Then
may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a
son [Christ Jesus] to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests,
my ministers. [God’s elect]
Proposition:The continual provision God gives in nature illustrates how God is our Husbandman who sends his gospel like the rain and causes his people to be born like the tender plants in a garden—and how God continues providing by grace
through his gospel.
We are not unnecessarily
spiritualizing, in scripture, God often speaks of his people as the earth. In Jeremiah, God says, “O earth, earth,
earth, hear the word of the LORD” (Jer 22: 29).
The earth does not have ears to hear: God is speaking to his people who
are but dust. That is the spiritual meaning
of our text and that is how we will look at it.
GOD VISITS US
Psalm 65: 9: Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou
greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water:
Salvation begins when God visits us. The
earth was cursed in the fall—the result
is the earth is unable to produce food for man unless God visits and waters it.
Psalm 104:13: He watereth
the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
14: He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of
man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
Brethren, the earth would not bring forth food for us were it not for
God watering it and making it to do so.
In eastern, dry, sunny climates the earth is dry,
cracked, dust—likewise, man's heart—mine and yours and every son of Adam—is
cursed, dry, wasted and void as we come into this world. Sinners are incapable of producing spiritual
life. Incapable of producing fruit
acceptable to God. Sinners cannot make it rain and produce fruit.
Jeremiah
14:22: Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or
can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we
will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.
Likewise, God’s people are at
God’s mercy to visit and water and bring forth life in us, “Ye are God’s
husbandry” (1 Cor 3:9) God seals up our
hands—showing us our inability—to make us behold it is God who sends the water
of life
Job
37:6: For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small
rain, and to the great rain of his strength.
7: He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his
work.
Salvation is of the Lord—it
begins and is carried to completion by God visiting us—"Thou vistest
the earth and waterest it.”
John 3: 5: Jesus
answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6: That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7: Marvel not
that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
A NEVER-ENDING RIVER
Psalm 65: 9:…thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which
is full of water:
The
river of God is a never-ending supply of God’s mercy, grace, truth, and love to
his chosen people. The river of God is both
Christ the Incarnate Word and his written word by
which the gospel is preached unto us—the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us. As God said through Moses,
Deuteronomy 32:2: My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my
speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as
the showers upon the grass:
The river of God is the Spirit of God, the Water of Life.
Joh 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be
in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Joh 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture
hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Brethren, these are the same river of God full of water. I have pointed this out many times, God only
created one water. By that one water God
has continually caused life to spring from the earth. God created it to illustrate how there is
only one water of the word by which God continually causes life to
spring forth.
Isaiah 55: 1: Ho,
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money;…10:
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11: So shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall
accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it. 12: For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with
peace:…13:…and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that
shall not be cut off.
Christ the Word did not fail when he walked
this earth—God’s incarnate Word accomplished salvation God that sent him to
accomplish—“It is finished!” For God’s
elect, Christ conquered sin, death and hell by his blood. He honored God fulfilling his law. He reconciled his people to God and brought
in everlasting righteousness for his people.
Psalm 36: 8:
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou
shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. 9: For with thee is the
fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.
By Christ’s power the gospel we preach never
returns void but accomplishes God’s will.
Psalm 46: 4: There
is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place
of the tabernacles of the most High.
The "streams" of the
never-ending gospel which makes us glad are streams of eternal election—God’s
people are chosen by God’s free grace not based on anything in us. It is streams of everlasting covenant of grace
fulfilled for his people by Christ Jesus.
It is redemption, justification, pardon, adoption, regeneration,
perseverance and eternal life by Christ.
This river flows from God our Father and the Lamb without end.
Revelation 22: 1:
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
EFFECTUAL TO PRODUCE
Psalm 65: 9…thou
preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it.
God is always effectual to
produce life and fruit in his garden. First,
God prepares the ground in his child. The
dry, hard state of our natural hearts will not do—the plough cannot dig into it—there
must be a new heart given where the seed is planted and grows.
So God showers us with the
gospel and brings us down from our pride, humbling us, giving us a soft heart
instead of that hard heart—Psalm 65: 10:..thou
settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers:
After
the plough runs through the ground there are ridges, furrows—high rows of dirt
where the seed is planted. But those
furrows are pushed down flat by the hard rain. . By
nature we are proud high ridges: condemning others, justifying ourselves. God resisteth the proud and giveth grace
to the humble. A broken and
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
So God sends the hard rain. He
makes his child hear the law’s curse against us. We behold our sins in light of his holiness, in
light of Christ who bore our sins
Oh
how vile we are before God in ourselves—an
abomination to God! You know this about
yourself only when God has sent the hard rain. God humbles us and keeps humbling us—he gets
the job done
But God also sends the doctrine that distills like the
dew: the gospel declaring how the innocent Lord Jesus was made sin for his
people that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Having been made sin for us, God then made
him a curse as he bore the condemnation his people deserved. The Spirit of God makes this personal to his
child—we behold Christ laying down his life for me the vile sinner.
God blesses it and makes life spring forth and continues
blessing us all our days—Ps 65: 10…thou blessest the springing thereof.
1 Thessalonians 1: 5: Our
gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and
in much assurance.
God continues sending the shower of the gospel and brings forth
fruit in his child all our days.
Now, when you plant seed in a garden at different times there will
be different size plants. God’s garden
is full of plants all growing at different rates: tender plants just springing
up, plants beginning to bloom, plants bringing forth a little fruit and others
bringing forth more fruit.
Brethren, remember, the growth is of God: God causes his people to
grow and bring forth fruit at different rates—"first the blade, then the
ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” (Mr 4:28) Brethren, do not speak critically about your
brethren. It will start out a little
here and there. Then you will focus on
the sins of your brethren. Before long
that will be the only thing you can see.
Before long you will cease loving and become hard toward your brethren. Besides that, to do so is to judge our
Husbandman who is bringing forth fruit in the believer he has planted. Would you judge God because one tomato plant
in your garden is producing more fruit and another less? And we certainly should never try to weed
God’s garden: Christ said we will pull up the wheat and leave the tares. Instead, remember, God’s church is—
Deuteronomy 11:12: A land which the LORD
thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the
beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.
Jeremiah 17: 7: Blessed is the man that trusteth in the
LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. 8 For
he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her
roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be
green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease
from yielding fruit.
Isaiah 44: 3:
For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground:
I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: 4 And they shall spring up as among the
grass, as willows by the water courses.
Here is the sure result of
God’s husbandry—Psalm 65: 11: Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and
thy paths drop fatness. 12: They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the
little hills rejoice on every side. 13: The pastures are clothed with flocks;
the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also
sing.
God encircles the whole year
with goodness like a crown. He gives the
early and latter rain. There is no
draught in God’s church. No plant that God
plants ever withers and dies. It is
because as God walks through his garden, “his paths drop fatness” the
whole year through.
He drops these blessings only
upon his chosen people, the church of the Firstborn—“they drop upon the
pastures of the wilderness, the little hills…the valleys also”— the
pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn”. We are in one of those “pastures in the
wilderness”, on one of those “little hills” in one of those “fertile
valleys”—his local church. By God’s
grace He brings his sheep into his pasture and his sheep are well-fed by the
showers he provides. His valleys are
covered over with corn of his planting. Brethren, we have nothing to worry about ever!
Psalm 23: 1:
« A Psalm of David. » The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not
want. 2: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still
waters. 3: He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for
his name’s sake….6: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Now, remember, the reason for
all this back in verse 1, “Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto
thee shall the vow be performed.” Christ
fulfills his vow to the Father doing everything in our salvation and thereby,
each of his people perform the vow of giving God all the glory for every aspect
of our salvation—"and the little hills rejoice on every side….they
shout for joy, they also sing.”
Amen!