Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3248
“You eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.” Joshua 24:13.
THE Israelites, when they came into Canaan, entered into possession of a country which was thoroughly prepared for their occupation. There were walled cities and houses exactly adapted for their use and in habitable repair. The vineyards were in full bearing and the hills terraced ready for cultivation. They were not like emigrants to the wild west who have to clear forests and turn over prairies! They had not even to take possession of ruined cities and to rebuild them! For the most part, everything stood waiting for them, “houses full of all good things,” and even “the old corn of the land” stored up for their immediate use! Moses had promised them that it would be so and Joshua reminded them of the promise when it had become a fact.
As the Holy Spirit shall help us, let us first learn from the text as it referred to Israel And then, taking the general principle here mentioned, let us learn from their case to consider our own, for we also enjoy that which we have neither produced nor earned.
I. First, then, LET US LEARN FROM THE TEXT AS IT REFERRED TO ISRAEL. They entered into possession of wells which they had not dug, cities which they had not built, olive trees and vineyards which they had not planted.
In the first place, this was a fulfillment of the ancient Covenant Although all the details of these blessings to Israel were not mentioned in the Covenant made with Abraham, yet they were virtually included—and Moses mentioned them very particularly in the 6th Chapter of Deuteronomy when he told the people to beware lest they should forget the Lord who brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. So that every time an Israelite walked out into his olive garden and especially when he beat the tree to bring down its fruit, he could say to himself, “Here is the fulfillment of the promise made to our fathers.” If he was a truly devout Jew, he would never gather the grapes from his vineyard, nor drink of the milk, nor taste the honey which abounded in the land without recognizing that as the Lord had spoken, so the Lord had done! Jehovah had not fallen short of His promise in any respect—He had brought His people into just such a country as He had aforetime covenanted to bestow upon them!
Now, Beloved, are not we also in very much the same position as Israel was with regard to many things around us? Why, even in temporals it is so! No good thing have we lacked, though we have sometimes feared that we would. As our days, our strength has been—and we can truly say that the Lord has been mindful of His Covenant and that not one of His promises has failed. This is especially the case as we recollect the answers God has given to our prayers. He long ago gave the promise, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” And I, for one, have proved its truthfulness and desire to bear my testimony to the faithfulness of the Covenant-keeping God! Cannot you do the same, dear Friends? Why, I think you can hardly go into any room in your house—you cannot go to your beds, you cannot sit down at the table, you cannot walk along the street and I know that many of you cannot come to your pews in this place without thinking—“Here are the tokens of my Lord’s faithfulness, goodness and truth!” You who have lived to see 60 or 70 summers have witnessed great varieties of weather, but you can bear your testimony that according to
God’s Covenant, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night have not ceased! The outside world is hung with testimonies to the faithfulness of God—
“His Covenant with the earth He keeps!
My tongue, His goodness sing.
Summer and Winter know their time,
His harvest crowns the Spring.” But, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, when we come to think of what the Lord has done within us, can we look anywhere in our hearts, or to any faculty of our minds without perceiving evidences that the Lord is keeping His Covenant? He said, “A new heart also will I give you”—has He not given it to us? What is that heart that sorrows over conscious imperfection—what is that heart that longs after fellowship with God—what is it but that new heart that He has given to us? The Lord also said, “A new spirit will I put within you”—and what is that spirit of adoption whereby we cry, “Abba, Father”? What is that spirit which exults with delight in the Presence of God but that new spirit which He has put within us? Has He not kept His promise? Has He not given to us a sense of pardon, a consciousness of justification through faith in His dear Son? All the work of the Holy Spirit within the heart, if I were to speak upon it in detail, would only be a testimony that the Lord keeps the Covenant of His Grace which He made with us in the Person of Jesus Christ, His Son, even as He kept with Israel that ancient Covenant which He made with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob—