Springtime in Nature and Grace

Sermon Delivered by Charles Spurgeon, on May 1, 1887

Photographs by Larry Ricksen

Brothers and sisters, by nature we lie in the cold and death of winter—everything is frost-bound, withered, dead. We are nothing, we yield nothing, we can do nothing. The Word of God comes to us as the beams of the sun pour down their warmth from the heavens, and by a mighty and mysterious influence that Word begins to work upon us and we soon feel that we have entered upon quite another season of life. We are no longer in the cold winter—we have come to a blessed springtime. That is the theme upon which I am going to now speak.

I. First, notice in the text the descent of the Word, THE DOWN-COMING—“As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven.”

Our spring begins with showers alternating with rough winds. There is sure to be, at this period of the year, a rainy season, to prepare the earth for bringing forth fruit, to swell the buds on the trees and to work with sunshine to produce the spring. So is it spiritually—the down-coming of the Word of God is to our hearts like the falling of the rain from heaven.

Now, when we spiritually begin to live, it is usually rough weather, and we are apt to think it is bad weather. Drip, drip, drip, fall showers of repentance. Snowflake after snowflake falls and buries all our hopes. It is bad weather with us and we are not slow to complain of it. Oh, dear friends, if we did but know how God is blessing us—if we could but realize that these experiences are working out our lasting good—we should thank God that His Word comes down upon us as the rain and the snow fall from heaven!

The work of grace in our hearts, however, is like a spring shower in another respect. It differs very much in its method, for rain and snow do not always come down in the same way. Sometimes the rain fails very gently—we can hardly tell whether it is rain or not. At another time, the rain drives furiously. Big drops come pouring down and before we can reach a shelter we are wet through.

So is it with the snow—it falls at times as gently as the dropping of tiny feathers, but it may descend thick and fast—a blizzard blowing it into our faces and almost blinding us. So, there are some to whom God’s Word comes very softly. It does come, but it comes without tempest or storm. There are others to whom it comes very terribly—the Word of the Lord is full of dread to them—it is a tempest, a whirlwind. The rain or the snow comes down to them and there is no mistaking it—they are shivered through with its cold, they are wet to the skin with its moisture.

Hence learn this, that as the rain at one time differs from the rain at another time, and as the snow in one place varies from the snow in another place, and yet the rain is always rain, and the snow is always snow, so the entrance of divine grace into one heart differs from the way it enters into another, yet it is always the same grace.

In like manner, brethren, the coming down of the snow and of the rain differs also in time and in quantity. One shower is quickly over and another lasts all day and all night. The snow may in one season fall heavily for a few hours only. At another time, a week of snow may be experienced. So, the work of divine grace, when it begins in the soul, does not manifest the same in each person. Some of us were for years subject to the operations of God’s Spirit, and endured much pain and sorrow before we found peace in believing. Others find Christ in a few minutes and leap out of darkness into light by a single spring.

One thing more I may say about this coming down of the Word of God and that is, it is always a blessing and never a curse. If the rain should pour down very heavily and continue to fall until we might be led to think that the very heavens would weep themselves away, yet, friends, it can never produce a flood that would drown the world, for yonder in the heavens is the rainbow of the covenant.

So, when God’s grace comes streaming into the heart, there shall yet come a change of weather for you and your soul shall live. Let the grace of God but come, and let that grace come how it may, it is always a benediction to the one who receives it.

II. The second thing to notice in our text is, THE ABIDING. We have had the down-coming—now follows the abiding of the rain or the snow that comes down from heaven—“and does not return to it without watering the earth.” So is it spiritually—when God’s grace falls from heaven, it comes to stay.

My dear hearers, this morning I had to complain of some that they were like the rock upon which the rain falls, but which it never enters. It drops upon the granite and runs down the side of it, and produces no result. But when God sends His grace from heaven, you may know it by this sign—that it soaks into your soul.

Oh, how much of my preaching there is, and how much of other people’s preaching there is, that reaches the ears and that is the end of it! Oh, for hearers who drink in the Word of the Lord! O rain from heaven, would God that you did always find us like ploughed fields ready to drink you in! This is how grace works—it enters the soul, penetrates the heart, saturates the conscience, abides in the memory, affects the affections, gives understanding to the understanding, and imparts real life to the heart—which is the seat of life.

I wish that we always heard the Gospel in that fashion, but hearing is often mere child’s play. If it were true hearing, it would be the most serious work under heaven and it would be done in a reverential manner as a true part of divine worship. Then we should find the Word of God soaking into one’s heart as the snow and the rain from heaven enter the earth.

It appears from our text that this downpour, instead of returning to heaven, does this also for the soul into which it soaks—it fertilizes it, it makes the soul bring forth and bud. Yes, but the metaphor of my text cannot set forth the whole truth, for this Word of God, which is the rain and the snow, is also the seed.

What would we think of clouds that rained down seeds? That would be a new thing beneath the heavens, yet it is the old thing after all. The Word of God is the living and incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever. And whenever that seed is sown, God’s Word comes soaking into the soul, making the soul to live, and causing the heart to yield its life up to the living seed.

O beloved, if the Word of God has been to you like an uncomfortable shower, may it afterwards prove its living power, making you feel a new life that you never felt before, a something within, struggling, striving, a something which of itself was not previously there, but which comes with the heavenly Word and is indeed the sure evidence of the beginning of the new life within your soul!

And again the Word of God, when it comes into the soul and abides there, works in a person whatsoever God pleases—all His divine purposes—“will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” It is a very wonderful thing to get the Word of God thoroughly into your soul, to get soaked and saturated with it. Yet we have no idea what that Word may yet do for us.

Who among us knows the infinite reaches of the divine purpose? Who shall cast the lead and fathom all the divine intentions concerning us? Verily, “it does not yet appear what we shall be,” but when the Word of God is truly in us, it will work whatever the divine purpose is and carry it out to the full without fail, for the Word of God is living and powerful to effect the designs and purposes of the Most High.

My beloved hearers, open your hearts to this Word. Drink it in. Do not try to hinder its divine operations. Pray to be completely under its influence. This, then, is how our spiritual springtide comes to us—first, showers under which we tremble and are troubled, but afterwards, a divine abiding which produces marvelous effects in our hearts and lives.

III. So, in the third place, I will briefly speak to you about THE RESULTS of the down-coming and the abiding. The rain has come and the rain remains. Now, what happens?

First, we are told, it makes the earth to bring forth and bud. I love the time of buds. There is nothing more beautiful than the rosebud, more charming I believe than the full-blown rose. And the buds of all manner of flowers have a singular charm about them. But when the grace of God has come into a young person’s heart, we very soon see the resutling buds—such as gracious purposes, holy resolves, and the beginnings of prayer. Childhood in grace is a sweet budding time, with many rare beauties and delights.

Some of you, perhaps, are complaining of yourselves that you have not begun flowering yet. Do not murmur on that account, but be thankful if you have only a bud. A little prayer, a faint desire after holiness, a hungering and thirsting after righteousness—these are buddings—be grateful for them. There are some birds that like to eat the buds of trees and they do much mischief to the garden. And there are some old Christians who, I think, are rather too fond of nipping buds, and so doing damage to young beginners. May God keep these destructive birds away from you who as yet are but feeble!

Beloved, if you are what the Lord would have you to be, you will not long be content with buds. If you serve the Lord and the Lord continues to visit you with showers of blessing, you will soon bring forth seed for the sower. You yourself will become a help to others. Your experience, your knowledge, your service, will become the seed of good for other people.

Grace also makes us produce bread for the eater. I was thinking today that next Tuesday (May 3rd, 1887), it will be thirty-seven years since I was baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Up to that day, I had never opened my mouth for Christ. I was not very old, so perhaps my timidity might be excused, but thirty-seven years ago, when I gave myself to Christ, I could not have imagined that I should stand here tonight to preach the Word to these thousands of people. The “bud” of that day has been “seed to the sower,” and blessed be God, it is still “bread to the eater.”

You may, perhaps, at first pass through a painful experience in which you will be made to see your own worthlessness, but you will, in due time, come out into a joyful experience, in which God shall bless you, increase your usefulness, and make you to be a blessing to those who are round about you.

IV. Now I have come to my last point. We have considered the down-coming, the abiding, and the result of the rain. Now let us notice THE REJOICING.

This is a time of joy—the music of the year is full in springtime. The winter has past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come. Let every child of God enjoy themselves for our text says, “You shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Why should we be so happy? Why should everything about us be so happy?

In springtime, one cause of happiness is new life. Things have been dead, but they are springing into life now. The blood runs more quickly within our veins—our whole being now seems warm with the new life that courses through our nature. It is also so spiritually.

We have come into a new life, the Holy Spirit has breathed upon us, and we live, and blessed be God, that life never gets old! After knowing the Lord these thirty-seven years, I feel His love to be as sure as ever, and the power of His grace as powerful as ever. There is a constant novelty about the life of faith, for the mercies of God are new every morning and fresh every evening.

Well, then, since you have a life of which you knew nothing before, since you can see all around you the tokens of a life which you never perceived before, be glad. Break out into sweet music because of the new life within you—that new life which can never die, but which shall in due season be enlarged and perfected into life forever in the Kingdom of God.

So we feel glad in the advent of spring and is it not so with us spiritually? We are no longer in bondage and no longer in fear. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” Reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, we rejoice in God. Let us be happy together, and come to this table, whereon are spread the memorials of our Lord’s great love to us. Let us not come with dull and heavy hearts, as though we were assembled at a funeral, but let us meet in joyful anticipation of the day when we shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb in glory.

Springtime, I think, is peculiarly pleasant because of its large promise. We are thinking of the hay harvest and of the fruit of the fields. We are reckoning upon luscious grapes and upon the various fruits which faith sees hidden within the blossoms. But you and I have come, by grace, into a land of hope most sure and steadfast. We have hopes grounded on God’s Word and they shall never be disappointed.

In springtime, once more, there always seems to me to be a peculiar sense of divine power and divine presence throughout all nature. It is as if nature had swooned awhile, and lay in her cold fit through the winter, but now she has been awakened, her Lord has looked her in the face and charmed her back to life. I trust that you and I feel this peculiar presence of God in the highest sense.

Some say that there is no God. Ah, me! Ah, me! Blind men say that there is no sun, perhaps, but they must be very blind if they think so. We know that there is a God, not only by the argument from design, which is a very strong one, but by better evidence than that. We have had dealings with God, personal dealings with Him, as when the sun, though it is ninety-three million miles away, has commerce with the earth, and the bulbs that sleep beneath the black mold begin to swell and upheave, and by and by the yellow cup is held up to be filled with the light of the sun.

There must be a sun, we know, because of all its warmth and genial glow, and the life force with which it charms the earth into the revival of spring. And though we have not seen God, for He is essentially inconceivable, we have felt His power charming into life our hope, our faith, our love.

If you do not know God, my dear hearer, conclude that there is a life which you have not yet discovered. As Columbus found a new world when his ships steered across the Atlantic, so may you yet discover a new world which you have not seen as yet. May God Himself steer your ship and bring you there!

Then, dear friends, when you reach that state, “Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” May God give you saving faith and this new life of which I have been speaking, through Jesus Christ His Son! Amen.