THE NIPPING AND THE BUDDING
THE NIPPING AND THE BUDDING
In the millennium every saint will flourish “like a tree planted by the rivers of water ... whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (Psalm 1: 3). How beautiful to see a man every way prospering, and every leaf and movement expressive of beauty and vigour: that is what man will be, as man, in the millennium. But the saint now is to be much more than that, even the expression of the heavenly Man - to bear leaves and fruit such as Christ bore, but unknown and unnoticeable here among. men. The most beautiful ornaments cannot be seen in the dark. The leaves and fruit of the heavenly plant can only be seen by those who have heavenly vision. But the trying part is, the more I am the heavenly tree, the less do I bear the leaves and fruit of the earthly tree. The leaves of the latter wither, or are blighted, as the leaves of the former are seeking and asserting their [p. 92] place; and this accounts for much of the chilling weather and frosts which affect the saint now in his journey. The leaves of the two trees cannot grow together. We feel the nipping of the leaves of the old tree, but we ought to look then for the budding and blossoming of the new one. It would be a poor thing to endure the nipping of the one without the budding of the other; but if you have the budding, you ought not to sorrow because you are a sufferer from the nipping.
It is most interesting and instructive, the different kinds of nipping the saints are subjected to. I believe it is, as a rule, the one which is the most trying to them - the one which naturally they feel most. Job says, “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me” (Job 3: 25). Where there is a fear, it is where there is vitality; and there death must supervene - the nipping must come. But when I come fully to lose sight of myself in abhorrence before God, and because of Christ, I am assured that if every leaf withered, I have a portion in Him which will not only endure but surpass everything here, and that it will grow every day more and more in its own perfect blessedness. Death has been morally entered into, and I have a grave here; and though the leaves or mercies of this scene may still surround me, I have been so introduced into and delighted, nay, satisfied with what is entirely outside it, that they are but garnishing to my table, fringe to my dress, the hyssop on the wall to the cedar of Lebanon. God does not grudge us the hyssop, when He has given us the cedar; but if we are making too much of the hyssop, He removes it, that we may exclusively turn our attention to the cedar. I trust that the fragrance and beauty of the cedar may so fill your heart, that everything which would come in between you and Him may be quickly and fully refused, and that you may have increased power from Him to raise you above the trials of the way, and thus prove His virtue in your very infirmities.