SCCC - Sermons: 22 April 2007: Psalms 104:16 - HEIRS OF HEAVEN: The Mysterious Hand of God!

TOPIC: God As Creator-Sustainer
TITLE: HEIRS OF HEAVEN - The Mysterious Hand of God! [Adapted from Spurgeon's Morning & Evening Devotional; "Morning," August 13]

TEXT: Psalm 104:16

The trees of the LORD drink their fill, the
cedars of Lebanon which He planted ... .

TRUTH CLAIM

Do we hear God? Can we hear God? Jim Havlic asked rhetorically, “Does God speak audibly?” He answered himself, “No! He speaks louder than that.” [Quoted by Jerry A. Songer in Proclaim, Fall 1997, p.3]

Actually we hear the voice of God everywhere we go. We hear Him in the testimony and praises of His creation.

The City of LaVerne, California, has been blessed with a certain wisdom in planting and maintaining corridors of deodar*, a relative of the Cedar of Lebanon. These tall, stately trees line Bonita Ave., Third Street, parts of Second Street, and will one day border the northern side of Arrow Highway.

FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: How are Lebanon’s Cedars Typical of a Christian?
CONCISE OUTLINE:

They are in that ...

I. THE LORD PLANTED THEM!
II. THE LORD PROTECTS THEM!
III. THE LORD PROVIDES FOR THEM!
IV. THE LORD IS PRAISED BY THEM!

EXPANDED OUTLINE:
I. THE LORD PLANTED THEM!

Lebanon's cedars are illustrative of all Christians, in that they owe their planting entirely to the Lord. This is true of every child of God. They are not man-planted, nor self-planted, but God-planted.

The mysterious hand of God’s divine Spirit dropped the living seed into a heart which he had himself prepared for its reception. Every true heir of heaven has the great Green-thumb of Heaven as his planter.

II. THE LORD PROTECTS THEM!

Again, the cedars of Lebanon are not protected by any mortal power. They owe nothing to man for their preservation from stormy wind and tempest. They are God's trees, kept and pre-served by him, and by him alone.

It is precisely the same with the Christian. He is not a hot-house plant, sheltered from temptation; he stands in the most exposed position; he has no shelter, no protection, except this, that the broad wings of the eternal God always cover the cedars which he himself has planted.

Like cedars, believers are full of sap, having vitality enough to be evergreen, even amid winter's worst storms.

III. THE LORD PROVIDES FOR THEM!

Moreover, the cedars of Lebanon are not dependent upon man for their watering; they stand on the lofty rock, unmoistened by human irrigation; and yet our heavenly Father supplies them.

So it is with the Christian who has learned to live by faith. He is independent of man, even in temporal things; for his continued maintenance he looks to the Lord his God, and to Him alone.

The Living Water of heaven is his portion, and the God of heaven is its fountain.

IV. THE LORD IS PRAISED BY THEM!

Finally, the flourishing and majestic condition of the cedar is to the praise of God alone. As David puts it in Psalm 148, “Praise ye the Lord, fruitful trees and all cedars.”

In the believer there is nothing that can magnify man; he is planted, nourished, and protected by the Lord's own hand, and to Him let all the glory be given.

APPLICATION/CHALLENGE: The world needs to know their search for happiness and satisfaction is much like a search for cheaper gasoline. If someone is looking for cheaper or better gasoline by digging holes in the ground he’ll be disappointed to find crude oil. If its gasoline you want, the ground is the wrong place to look. Man in his search for meaning in life is looking in all the wrong places. Looking around in the world for what comes only from God is futile.

Without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist. Vitality is essential to a Christian. There must be life - a vital principle infused into us by the Holy Spirit, or we cannot be Cedars of the Lord.

The mere name of being a Christian is but a dead thing, we must be filled with the sap of divine life. This life is mysterious. We do not understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by what power it descends again. So the life within us is a sa-cred mystery.

Regeneration is by the power of the Holy Spirit entering into man and becoming man’s life; and this divine life in a believer after-wards feeds upon the flesh and blood of Christ and is thus sus-tained by divine food, but who shall explain to us? What a secret thing the sap is!

The roots go searching through the soil with their tentacles, but we cannot see them suck out the various gases, or absorb the mineral into the vegetable; this work is done down in the dark. Our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hidden in him; this is the secret of the Lord.

The size of the root ball of the Christian is as secret as the life it-self. How permanently active is the sap in the cedar! In the Chris-tian the divine life is always full of energy-not always in fruit-bearing, but in inward operations. The believer’s graces? Are not every one of them in constant motion? He is not always working for God, but his heart is always living upon Him.

As the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and fruit of the tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is externally mani-fested in his walk and conversation. If you talk with him, he cannot help speaking about Jesus. If you notice his actions you will see that he has been with Jesus. He has so much sap within, that it must fill his conduct and conversation with life.

*de•o•dar (dê¹e-där´) or de•o•dar•a (-där¹e) noun
A tall cedar (Cedrus deodara) native to the Himalayan Mountains and having drooping branches and dark bluish-green leaves. It is an important timber tree in India. [Hindi deodâr, from Sanskrit devadâru : deva-, divine + dâru, wood.]

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