Song of Solomon 4:15

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.

The Church a garden

Again and again the Church is represented as a garden, all up and down the Word of God, and it is a figure specially suggestive at this season of the year, when the parks and the orchards have put forth their blossom and the air is filled with bird-voices.

1. It is a garden because of the rare plants in it. Sometimes you will find the violet, inconspicuous, but sweet as heaven--Christian souls, with no pretence, but of much usefulness, comparatively unknown on earth, but to be glorious in celestial spheres. In this garden of the Lord I find the Mexican cactus, loveliness within, thorns without, men with great sharpness of behaviour and manner, but within them the peace of God, the love of God, the grace of God. They are hard men to handle, ugly men to touch, very apt to strike back when you strike them, yet within them all loveliness and attraction, while outside so completely unfortunate. But I remember in boyhood that we had in our father’s garden what we called the Giant of Battle--a peculiar rose, very red and very fiery. Suggestive flower, it was called the Giant of Battle. And so in the garden of the Lord we find that kind of flower--the Pauls and Martin Luthers, the Wycliffes, the John Knoxcs--Giants of Battle. What in other men is a spark, in them is a conflagration; when they pray, their prayers take fire. When they suffer, they sweat great drops of blood; when they preach, it is a pentecost; when they fight, it is a Thermopylae; when they die, it is martyrdom--Giants of Battle. But I find also in the Church of God a plant that I shall call the snowdrop. Very beautiful but cold; it is very pure, pure as the snowdrop, beautiful as the snowdrop, and cold as the snowdrop. I would rather have one Giant of Battle than 5000 snowdrops. You have seen in some places, perhaps, a century-plant. You look at it and say, “This flower has been gathering up its beauty for a whole century, and it will not bloom again for another hundred years.” Well, I have to tell you that in this garden of the Church, spoken of in my text, there is a century-plant. It has gathered up its bloom from all the ages of eternity, and nineteen centuries ago it put forth its glory. It is not only a century-plant but a passion-flower--the passion-flower of Christ; a crimson flower, blood at the root, and blood on the leaves, the passion-flower of Jesus, the century-plant of eternity. Come, O winds from the north, and winds from the south, and winds from the east, and winds from the west, and scatter the perfume of this flower through all nations. Thou, the Christ of all the ages, hast garments smelling of myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces.

2. The Church of Christ is appropriately compared to a garden because of its thorough irrigation. There can be no luxuriant garden without plenty of water. I saw a garden in the midst of the desert, amid the Rocky Mountains. I said, How is it possible you have so many flowers, so much rich fruit, in a desert for miles around? I suppose some of you have seen those gardens. Well, they told me they had aqueducts and pipes reaching up to the hills, and the snows melted on the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, and then poured down in water to those aqueducts, and it kept the fields in great luxuriance. And I thought to myself--how like the garden of Christ! All around it the barrenness of sin and the barrenness of the world, but our eyes are unto the hills, from whence cometh our help. There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the fountain of gardens and streams from Lebanon. Water to slake the thirst, water to refresh the fainting, water to wash the unclean, water to toss up in fountains under the sun of righteousness, until you can see the rainbow around the throne. I wandered in a royal garden of choicest plants, and I saw the luxuriance of those gardens were helped by the abundant supply of water. I came to it on a day when strangers were not admitted, but, by a strange coincidence, at the moment I got in the king’s chariot passed, and the gardener went up on the hill and turned on the water, and it came flashing down the broad stairs of stone until sunlight and wave in gleesome wrestle tumbled at my feet. And so it is with this garden of Christ. Everything comes from above--pardon from above, peace from above, comfort from above, sanctification from above. Streams from Lebanon--oh! the consolation in this thought. How many have tried all the fountains of this world’s pleasure, but never tasted of the stream from Lebanon! How many have revelled in other gardens, to their soul’s ruin, but never plucked one flower from the garden of our God! I swing open all the gates of the garden and invite you in, whatever your history, whatever your sins, whatever your temptations, whatever your trouble. The invitation comes no more to one than to all: “Whosoever will, let him come.” ( T. De Witt Talmage.)