Chapter 9
GROWTH
When the believer has been brought to the point of entire surrender and perfect
trust, and finds himself dwelling and walking in a life of happy communion and
perfect peace, the question naturally arises, "Is this the end?" I answer
emphatically "No, it is only the beginning."
And yet this is so little understood, that
one of the greatest objections made against the advocates of this life of
faith, is, that they do not believe in growth in grace. They are supposed to
teach that the soul arrives at a state of perfection beyond which there is no
advance, and that all the exhortations in the Scripture which point towards
growth and development are rendered void by this teaching.
As exactly the opposite of this is true, I have
thought it important next to consider this subject carefully, that I may, if
possible, fully answer such objections, and may also show what is the
scriptural place to grow in, and how the soul is to grow.
The text which is most frequently quoted is 2
Pet, 3:18, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ." Now this text exactly expresses what we believe to be God's will
for us, and what also we believe He has made it possible for us to experience.
We accept, in their very fullest meaning, all the commands and promises
concerning our being no more children, and our growing up into Christ in all
things, until we come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ. We rejoice that we need not continue always to be babes,
needing milk; but that we may, by reason of use and development become such as
have need of strong meat, skilful in the word of righteousness, and able to
discern both good and evil. And none would grieve more than we at the thought
of any finality in the Christian life beyond which there could be no
advance.
But then we believe in a growing that does really
produce maturity, and in a development that, as a fact, does bring forth ripe
fruit. We expect to reach the aim set before us, and if we do not, we feel sure
there must be some fault in our growing. No parent would be satisfied with the
growth of his child, if, day after day, and year after year, it remained the
same helpless babe it was in the first months of its life; and no farmer would
feel comfortable under such growing of his grain as should stop short at the
blade, and never produce the ear, nor the full corn in the ear. Growth, to be
real, must be progressive, and the days and weeks and months must see a
development and increase of maturity in the thing growing. But is this the case
with a large part of that which is called growth in grace? Does not the very
Christian who is the most strenuous in his longings and in his efforts after
it, too often find that at the end of the year he is not as far on in his
Christian experience as at the beginning, and that his zeal, and his
devotedness, and his separation from the world are not as whole-souled or
complete as when his Christian life first began?
I was once urging upon a company of Christians
the privileges and rest of an immediate and definite step into the land of
promise, when a lady of great intelligence interrupted me, with what she
evidently felt to be a complete rebuttal of all I had been saying, exclaiming,
"Ah! but, my dear friend, I believe in growing in grace." "How long have you
been growing?" I asked. "About twenty-five years," was her answer. "And how
much more unworldly and devoted to the Lord are you now than when you began
your Christian life?" I continued. "Alas!" was the answer, "I fear I am not
nearly so much so"; and with this answer her eyes were opened to see that at
all events her way of growing had not been successful, but quite the
reverse.
The trouble with her, and every other such case,
is simply this, they are trying to grow into grace, instead of in it. They are
like a rosebush which the gardener should plant in the hard, stony path, with a
view to its growing into the flower-bed, and which would of course dwindle and
wither in consequence, instead of flourishing and maturing. The children of
Israel wandering in the wilderness are a perfect picture of this sort of
growing. They were travelling about for forty years, taking many weary steps,
and finding but little rest from their wanderings, and yet, at the end of it
all, were no nearer the promised land than they were at the beginning. When
they started on their wanderings at Kadesh Barnea, they were at the borders of
the land, and a few steps would have taken them into it.
When they ended their wanderings in the plains of
Moab, they were also at its borders; only with this great difference, that now
there was a river to cross, which at first there would not have been. All their
wanderings and fightings in the wilderness had not put them in possession of
one inch of the promised land. In order to get possession of this land it was
necessary first to be in it; and in order to grow in grace, it is necessary
first to be planted in grace. But when once in the land, their conquest was
very rapid; and when once planted in grace, the growth of the soul in one month
will exceed that of years in any other soil. For grace is a most fruitful soil,
and the plants that grow therein are plants of a marvellous growth. They are
tended by a Divine Husbandman, and are warmed by the Sun of Righteousness, and
watered by the dew from Heaven. Surely it is no wonder that they bring forth
fruit, "some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thity-fold."
But, it will be asked, what is meant by growing
in grace? It is difficult to answer this question because so few people have
any conception of what the grace of God really is. To say that it is free,
unmerited favor, only expresses a little of its meaning. It is the wondrous,
boundless love of God, poured out upon us without stint or measure, not
according to our deserving, but according to His infinite heart of love, which
passeth knowledge, so unfathomable are its heights and depths. I sometimes
think we give a totally different meaning to the word "love" when it is
associated with God, from that we so well understand in its human application.
But if ever human love was tender and self-sacrificing and devoted; if ever it
could bear and forbear; if ever it could suffer gladly for its loved ones; if
ever it was willing to pour itself out in a lavish abandonment for the comfort
or pleasure of its objects, -- then infinitely more is Divine love tender and
self-sacrificing and devoted, and glad to bear and forbear, and to suffer, and
to lavish its best of gifts and blessings upon the objects of its love. Put
together all the tenderest love you know of, dear reader, the deepest you have
ever felt, and the strongest that has ever been poured out upon you, and heap
upon it all the love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then
multiply it by infinity, and you will begin perhaps to have some faint glimpses
of what the love of God in Christ Jesus is. And this is grace. And to be
planted in grace is to live in the very heart of this love, to be enveloped by
it, to be steeped in it, to revel in it, to know nothing else but love only and
love always, to grow day by day in the knowledge of it, and in faith in it, to
intrust everything to its care, and to have no shadow of a doubt but that it
will surely order all things well.
To grow in grace is opposed to all
self-dependence, to all self-effort, to all legality of every kind. It is to
put our growing, as well as everything else, into the hands of the Lord, and
leave it with Him. It is to be so satisfied with our Husbandman, and with His
skill and wisdom, that not a question will cross our minds as to His modes of
treatment or His plan of cultivation. It is to grow as the lilies grow, or as
the babes grow, without a care and without anxiety; to grow by the power of an
inward life principle that cannot help but grow; to grow because we live and
therefore must grow; to grow because He who has planted us has planted a
growing thing, and has made us to grow.
Surely this is what our Lord meant when He said
"Consider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and
yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one
of these." Or, when He says again, "Which of you by taking thought can add one
cubit unto his stature?" There is no effort in the growing of a child or of a
lily. They do not toil nor spin, they do not stretch nor strain, they do not
make any effort of any kind to grow; they are not conscious even that they are
growing; but by an inward life principle, and through the nurturing care of
God's providence, and the fostering of caretaker or gardener, by the heat of
the sun and the falling of the rain, they grow and grow.
And the result is sure. Even Solomon, our Lord
says, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Solomon's array cost
much toiling and spinning, and gold and silver in abundance, but the lily's
array costs none of these. And though we may toil and spin to make for
ourselves beautiful spiritual garments, and may strain and stretch in our
efforts after spiritual growth, we shall accomplish nothing; for no man by
taking thought can add one cubit to his stature; and no array of ours can ever
equal the beautiful dress with which the great Husbandman clothes the plants
that grow in His garden of grace and under His fostering care.
If I could but make each one of my readers
realize how utterly helpless we are in this matter of growing, I am convinced a
large part of the strain would be taken out of many lives at once. Imagine a
child possessed of the monomania that he would not grow unless he made some
personal effort after it, and who should insist upon a combination of rope and
pulleys whereby to stretch himself up to the desired height. He might, it is
true, spend his days and years in a weary strain, but after all there would be
no change in the inexorable fact, "No man by taking thought can add one cubit
unto his stature"; and his years of labor would be only wasted, if they did not
really hinder the longed-for end.
Imagine a lily trying to clothe itself in
beautiful colors and graceful lines, stretching its leaves and stems to make
them grow, and seeking to manage the clouds and the sunshine, that its needs
might be all judiciously supplied!
And yet in these two pictures we have, I
conceive, only too true a picture of what many Christians are trying to do;
who, knowing they ought to grow, and feeling within them an instinct that longs
for growth, yet think to accomplish it by toiling, and spinning, and
stretching, and straining, and pass their lives in such a round of self-effort
as is a weariness to contemplate.
Grow, dear friends, but grow, I beseech you, in
God's way, which is the only effectual way. See to it that you are planted in
grace, and then let the Divine Husbandman cultivate you in His own way and by
His own means. Put yourselves out in the sunshine of His presence, and let the
dew of heaven come down upon you, and see what will come of it. Leaves and
flowers and fruit must surely come in their season, for your Husbandman is a
skilful one, and He never fails in His harvesting. Only see to it that you
interpose no hindrance to the shining of the Sun of Righteousness or the
falling of the dew from Heaven. A very thin covering may serve to keep off the
heat or the moisture, and the plant may wither even in their midst; and the
slightest barrier between your soul and Christ may cause you to dwindle and
fade as a plant in a cellar or under a bushel. Keep the sky clear. Open wide
every avenue of your being to receive the blessed influences our Divine
Husbandman may bring to bear upon you. Bask in the sunshine of His love. Drink
in of the waters of His goodness. Keep your face up-turned to Him. Look, and
your soul shall live.
You need make no efforts to grow; but let your
efforts instead be all concentrated on this, that you abide in the Vine. The
Husbandman who has the care of the vine, will care for its branches also, and
will so prune and purge and water and tend them that they will grow and bring
forth fruit, and their fruit shall remain; and, like the lily, they shall find
themselves arrayed in apparel so glorious that that of Solomon will be as
nothing to it.
What if you seem to yourselves to be planted at
this moment in a desert soil where nothing can grow! Put yourself absolutely
into the hands of the great Husbandman, and He will at once make that desert
blossom as the rose, and will cause springs and fountains of water to start up
out of its sandy wastes; for the promise is sure, that the man who trusts in
the Lord "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." It is the great prerogative of our Divine Husbandman that
He is able to turn any soil, whatever it may be like, into the soil of grace,
the moment we put our growing into His hands. He does not need to transplant us
into a different field, but right where we are, with just the circumstances
that surround us, He makes His sun to shine and His dew to fall upon us, and
transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances into the
chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. I care not what the
circumstances may be, His wonder-working power can accomplish this. And we must
trust Him with it all. Surely He is a Husbandman we can trust. And if He sends
storms, or winds, or rains, or sunshine, all must be accepted at His hands with
the most unwavering confidence that He who has undertaken to cultivate us, and
to bring us to maturity, knows the very best way of accomplishing His end, and
regulates the elements, which are all at His disposal, expressly with a view to
our most rapid growth.
Let me entreat of you, then, to give up all your
efforts after growing, and simply to let yourselves grow. Leave it all to the
Husbandman, whose care it is, and who alone is able to manage it. No
difficulties in your case can baffle Him. No dwarfing of your growth in years
that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no
crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar
the perfect work that He will accomplish, if you will only put yourselves
absolutely into His hands, and let Him have His own way with you. His own
gracious promise to His backsliding children assures you of this. "I will heal
their backslidings," He says: "I will love them freely, for mine anger is
turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the
lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his
beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell
under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the
vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." And again He says,
"Be not afraid, for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree
beareth her fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength. And the
floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten; and ye shall
eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who
hath dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never be ashamed."
Oh! that you could but know just what your Lord
meant when He said, "Consider the lilies, how they grow; for they toil not,
neither do they spin." Surely these words give us a picture of a life and of a
growth far different from the ordinary life and growth of Christians; a life of
rest, and a growth without effort; and yet a life and a growth crowned with
glorious results. And to every soul that will thus become a lily in the garden
of the Lord, and will grow as the lilies grow, the same glorious array will be
surely given as is given them; and they will know the fulfilment of that
wonderful mystical passage concerning their Beloved, that "He feedeth among the
lilies."
This is the sort of growth in grace in which we
who have entered into the life of full trust believe: a growth which brings the
desired results, which blossoms out into flower and fruit, and becomes a tree
planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;
whose leaf also does not wither, and who prospers in whatsoever he doeth. And
we rejoice to know that there are growing up now in the Lord's heritage many
such plants, who, as the lilies behold the face of the sun and grow thereby,
are, by beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, being changed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord.
Should you ask such, how it is that they grow so
rapidly and with such success, their answer would be that they are not
concerned about their growing, and are hardly conscious that they do grow; that
their Lord has told them to abide in Him, and has promised that if they do thus
abide, they shall certainly bring forth much fruit; and that they are concerned
only about the abiding, which is their part, and leave the cultivating and the
growing and the training and pruning to their good Husbandman, who alone is
able to manage these things or bring them about. You will find that such souls
are not engaged in watching self, but in looking unto Jesus. They do not toil
nor spin for their spiritual garments, but leave themselves in the hands of the
Lord to be arrayed as it may please Him. Self-effort and self-dependence are at
an end with them. Their interest in self is gone, transferred over into the
hands of another. Self has become really nothing, and Christ alone is all in
all to such as these. And the blessed result is, that not even Solomon, in all
his glory, was arrayed like these shall be.
Let us look at this subject practically. We all
know that growing is not a thing of effort, but is the result of an inward
life, a principle of growth. All the stretching and pulling in the world could
not make a dead oak grow. But a live oak grows without stretching. It is plain,
therefore, that the essential thing is to get within you the growing life, and
then you cannot help but grow. And this life is the life hid with Christ in
God, the wonderful divine life of an indwelling Holy Ghost. Be filled with
this, dear believer, and, whether you are conscious of it or not, you must
grow, you cannot help growing. Do not trouble about your growing, but see to it
that you have the growing life. Abide in the Vine. Let the life from Him flow
through all your spiritual veins. Interpose no barrier to His mighty
life-giving power, working in you all the good pleasure of His will. Yield
yourself up utterly to His sweet control. Put your growing into His hands, as
completely as you have put all your other affairs. Suffer Him to manage it as
He will. Do not concern yourself about it, nor even think of it. Trust Him
absolutely, and always. Accept each moment's dispensation as it comes to you,
from His dear hands, as being the needed sunshine or dew for that moment's
growth. Say a continual "Yes" to your Father's will.
Heretofore you have perhaps tried, as so many do,
to be both the lily and the gardener, both the vineyard and the husbandman. You
have taken upon your shoulders the burdens and responsibilities that belong
only to the Divine Husbandman, and which He alone is able to bear. Henceforth
consent to take your rightful place and to be only what you really are. Say to
yourself, If I am the garden only, and not the gardener, if I am the vine only,
and not the husbandman, it is surely essential to my right growth and well
being that I should keep the place and act the part of the garden, and should
not usurp the gardener's place, nor try to act the gardener's part.
Do not seek then to choose your own soil, nor the
laying out of your borders; do not plant your own seeds, nor dig about, nor
prune, nor watch over your own vines. Be content with what the Divine
Husbandman arranges for you, and with the care He gives. Let Him choose the
sort of plants and fruits He sees best to cultivate, and grow a potato as
gladly as a rose, if such be His will, and homely everyday virtues as willingly
as exalted fervors. Be satisfied with the seasons He sends, with the sunshine
and rain He gives, with the rapidity or slowness of your growth, in short, with
all His dealings and processes, no matter how little we may comprehend them.
There is infinite repose in this. As the viole
rests in its little nook, receiving contentedly its daily portion satisfied to
let rains fall, and suns rise, and the earth to whirl, without one anxious
pang, so must we repose in the present as God gives it to us, accepting
contentedly our daily portion, and with no anxiety as to all that may be
whirling around us, in His great creative and redemptive plan.
The wind that blows can never kill
The tree God plants;
It bloweth east, it bloweth west,
The tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.
The tree God plants
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,
Spreads wider boughs, for God's good-will
Meets all its wants.
There is no frost hath power to blight
The tree God shields;
The roots are warm beneath soft snows,
And when spring comes it surely knows,
And every bud to blossom grows.
The tree God shields
Grows on apace by day and night,
Till, sweet to taste and fair to sight,
Its fruit it yields.
There is no storm hath power to blast
The tree God knows;
No thunder-bolt, nor beating rain,
Nor lightning flash, nor hurricane;
When they are spent it doth remain.
The tree God knows
Through every tempest standeth fast,
And, from its first day to its last,
Still fairer grows.
If in the soul's still garden-place
A seed God sows --
A little seed -- it soon will grow,
And far and near all men will know
For heavenly land He bids it blow.
A seed God sows,
And up it springs by day and night;
Through life, through death, it groweth right,
Forever grows.
