Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1464
“I will water it every moment,” Isaiah 27:3.
WHEN the Lord is most intent on justice He is, at the same time, earnest in His love. The day of vengeance of our God is also the acceptable year of the Lord. In the Scripture before us, the Prophet says, “Behold, the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,” (Isa. 26:21), and he foretells that the Lord will come forth as one armed with a great and strong sword to smite the fiercest of His enemies with a deadly wound (Isa. 27:1). Yet before He had bared His arm for the battle, He prepared chambers of refuge for His people that they might dwell as within closed doors until the tempest of indignation was past (Isa. 26:20). The shouts of war did not prevent the Lord from remembering His beloved and His song of love concerning her, for He says, “In that day sing you unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment.”
Happy people, who even in the day of wrath are satisfied with favor! Blessed heirs of Grace who hear the just and terrible Avenger say concerning them, “Fury is not in Me” (v. 4). The love of the Lord towards His whole Church goes forth to each individual member—the care which He displays towards the vineyard is exercised upon each vine which He has planted. So, then, we may without hesitation believe that the Lord will do for us, personally, that which He promises to do for His people as a whole! Or else there would have been exceptions stated and the Word of God would have run thus—I will water a part of My vineyard, but a portion of the plants shall be left to be dried up.” The Lord’s Word is so truthful that it would never raise ungrounded expectations by general statements if there were, indeed, cases not included therein.
We are always safe in concluding that if the Lord had meant to shut out one believing soul from a privilege, He would have mentioned it, for He has not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth, anything which would deny the happiness of any one of His people. This, then, beloved Friends, is the pledge of love concerning the spiritual life of my soul and yours—and the soul of every humble Believer in Jesus—“I will water it every moment.” This is a precious promise and the more we meditate upon it, the more rich it will appear. May we now be watered by the Holy Spirit while we meditate upon this promised watering!
In warm climates irrigation is essential to fertility, therefore travelers see on all sides, pools and watercourses, wheels, cisterns and channels for the water to flow in. The watering arises from necessity and it is carefully attended to because otherwise the farmer or gardener would look in vain for fruit. I remarked to a gardener in the South of France that the weather was bad, but he replied that it was good for the garden, for the rain gave plenty of water and that was the chief thing. In Paradise it was no mean advantage to its verdant bowers that a fourfold river pursued its course through its midst and that before the rain had fallen upon the earth there went up a mist from the earth and watered the face of the ground.
From the necessity and value of water to the plants of the earth, the Lord would teach us our own need of His Grace and the preciousness of that Grace—and render His promise of supply the more delightful to our souls. That we may prize the goodness of the Lord in the promises before us, we shall consider the necessity of our being watered; the manner in which the Lord promises to supply our need and the certainty that He will do so. O for a living meditation, not upon the letter of the Word, only, but upon its innermost teaching!
I. There is a great NECESSITY for the watering promised in the text. This we might conclude from the promise itself, since there is not one superfluous Word of promise in the whole Scriptures! It becomes more evident when we reflect that all creature life is dependent upon the perpetual outgoing of Divine power. Existence is a continued creation, for the creatures have no power within themselves to preserve their own being—even the solid rocks and the great mountains would reek away as so many shadows if eternal Omnipotence did not, every moment, keep them in being. The
world is not like a wheel, which, having received a great push from a strong hand, continues to revolve long after the hand is withdrawn, but, Divine energy goes forth continually to uphold all things which God has made.
Now, the same law holds good in the more choice and illustrious works of God in the kingdom of Grace and multitudes of illustrations of this are to be found in Holy Writ. Believers are stones, but their upholding comes continually from the foundation—they are branches perpetually sucking nourishment from the stem—members of the body always deriving life from the Head. Towards God we are streams and not fountains; rays of light, not suns; lamps which must be trimmed and nourished with oil; sheep which need unceasing care and feeding. The inner life cannot live upon itself! It is one mark of its presence that the Believer is not only dependent as a creature, but feels it as a living, sensible, instructed and trustful creature. The Christian has no quarrel with the hint of utter weakness which is implied in the text, for he is well aware that he must be watered, each moment, or he will dry up from the root and cease to be.