Spurgeon: October AM
* 10/01/AM
"Pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O
my beloved."
--Song of Solomon 7:13
The spouse desires to give to Jesus all that she produces.
Our heart has "all manner of pleasant fruits," both "old and
new," and they are laid up for our Beloved. At this rich
autumnal season of fruit, let us survey our stores. We have
new fruits. We desire to feel new life, new joy, new
gratitude; we wish to make new resolves and carry them out by
new labours; our heart blossoms with new prayers, and our soul
is pledging herself to new efforts. But we have some old
fruits too. There is our first love: a choice fruit that! and
Jesus delights in it. There is our first faith: that simple
faith by which, having nothing, we became possessors of all
things. There is our joy when first we knew the Lord: let us
revive it. We have our old remembrances of the promises. How
faithful has God been! In sickness, how softly did He make our
bed! In deep waters, how placidly did He buoy us up! In the
flaming furnace, how graciously did He deliver us. Old fruits,
indeed! We have many of them, for His mercies have been more
than the hairs of our head. Old sins we must regret, but then we
have had repentances which He has given us, by which we have
wept our way to the cross, and learned the merit of His blood.
We have fruits, this morning, both new and old; but here is the
point-- they are all laid up for Jesus . Truly, those are the
best and most acceptable services in which Jesus is the solitary
aim of the soul, and His glory, without any admixture whatever,
the end of all our efforts. Let our many fruits be laid up only
for our Beloved; let us display them when He is with us, and not
hold them up before the gaze of men. Jesus, we will turn the key
in our garden door, and none shall enter to rob Thee of one good
fruit from the soil which Thou hast watered with Thy bloody
sweat. Our all shall be Thine, Thine only, O Jesus, our Beloved!