Spring in the heart

‘Thou blessest the springing thereof.’ Psalm 65:10

Suggested Further Reading: Revelation 2:1–7

God is blessing the springing thereof. In looking back upon my own ‘springing,’ I sometimes think God blessed me then in a way in which I desire he would bless me now. An apple tree when loaded with apples is a very comely sight; but give me, for beauty, the apple tree in bloom. The whole world does not present a more lovely sight than an apple blossom. Painters have declared that there is nothing in the whole world to excel it in beauty. Now, a full-grown Christian laden with fruit is a blessed sight, but still there is a blessedness, a peculiar blessedness about the young Christian in bloom. Let me just tell you what I think that blessedness is. You have probably now a greater tenderness about sin than some professors who have known the Lord for years; they might wish that they felt your tenderness of conscience. You have now a graver sense of duty, and a more solemn fear of the neglect of it than some who have known the Lord for years; and you have a greater zeal than many. You are now doing your first works for God, and burning with your first love; nothing is too hot for you or too hard for you. To go to a sermon, now—no matter what weather it may be—seems to you to be an imperative necessity; you would go over hedge and ditch to hear the Word. But some who are of older growth want soft cushions to sit upon; they cannot stand in the aisle now as they used to do, everybody must be particularly polite when they come in, or they care not to worship at all.

For meditation: The believer is the apple of God’s eye (Psalm 17:8; Zechariah 2:8); what kind of apple tree would you be in God’s eye? One that still produces pleasing fruit (Song of Solomon 7:8) or one that has withered away (Joel 1:12)?

Sermon no. 675
11 February (1866)