It is spring time in the Northern countries of the Northern Hemisphere. Spring is a time when nature comes alive and plants begin to grow and to bloom again. It is a beautiful time of the year. After the snow and cold has laid the trees, grass and flowers dormant, to see them come to life, and to smell their aromatic fragrance, is invigorating.
It is a time when we can see the early flowers bloom in all their vivid hues, beginning with the tulips and the daffodils. Then the fruit trees blossom and begin to emit their rich fragrance. One rejoices in the new birth seen in the natural world.
It is also a time when those who have a little piece of land start to plan their vegetable garden. To have a vegetable garden is a lot of work. The very first work is to till the soil, to break up the fallow ground that has been lying dormant all winter. This dark mud will soon be full of vibrant green vegetable plants after many weary hours of tilling and planting. Then comes the pulling of the weeds, watering and pruning, until there is finally a harvest in the fall time. Then the cycle begins all over again.
Deep inside every soul is an appreciation of a beautiful garden. A well-ordered, well-maintained and designed garden is appreciated by all. We can read in the Bible how many kings have spent time and wealth to secure a beautiful garden. Solomon and Cyrus built many gardens so they would have a place to enjoy and retire. The famous gardens of Babylon which king Nebuchadnezzar enjoyed were remarkable. And the wicked King Ahab killed an innocent man in order to secure his vineyard.
There are different types of gardens. There are forests, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, orchards, and vineyards.
God knew the necessity of working in the open air in order to bring vigour and strength to mankind and, therefore, He made the very first garden and gave it to Adam and Eve to live in as their first home.
“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” Genesis 2:8
In the Bible, two significant gardens are mentioned, which will be discussed in relation to salvation.
GARDEN OF EDEN
The first one is the Garden of Eden. “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Genesis 2:9. The garden was beautiful, perfect, with no sign of curse or decay.
The first Sabbath on this planet was spent admiring the beauty of this garden. Adam and the Creator were there and they enjoyed the experience. In this garden there was no winter chilling breeze or summer heat burning the flowers. The Lord had come to commune with Adam in the cool of the day.
Then the Lord gave Adam and Eve work to do in the garden. “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Genesis 2:15. On the brow of Adam was no sweat like we experience on a hot summer day. Adam was happy to keep this garden.
Then God planted two trees in the midst of the garden. One was the tree of life and one was of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There were thousands of trees that Adam and Eve could enjoy eating the fruit of, however, we know the familiar story of how Eve’s curiosity led her to the tree of knowledge. As Eve was standing there, she was looking at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the more she looked the more her desire grew until finally she ended up partaking of it. A little girl was asked as to whether she would eat of the tree and she responded by saying, “I would look and look at it but I wouldn’t take it.” Is this not so true with many Christians? They only want to look, but if they keep looking at what is forbidden, finally it does not appear so sinful any longer and they end up partaking of it, which is what Eve did.
THE RESULT
There were thousands of trees but the one they were not to have caught Eve’s curiosity. She partook of it. The perfection was now marred. Although she didn’t die immediately, a curse was pronounced on the ground and they had to leave their perfect and peaceful Eden home.
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.” Genesis 3:17-20
After sin, much more was involved in the maintenance of a garden. The work was not the same as it had been in Eden. In the sweat of their brow, man was to work and the yield would never be the same as before. In fact it would continue to deteriorate as sin increased and pollution increased. However, there is still some beauty to be seen and lessons to be learned, but the perfection of Eden was lost. Because of sin they lost their Eden home, therefore God had a plan in place to restore mankind to Eden once again.
GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
The other significant garden mentioned in the Bible was quite different from the Garden of Eden. In this garden the Lord also came in the cool of the day to rest. This is the Garden of Gethsemane. In this garden there were thorns and a winter chill and the burning heat in the summer. There were also thieves and robbers.
In this garden, the Saviour went through a most difficult experience.
We read of how the forces of evil were using all their energy to try to destroy Him just prior to the final conflict. “He feared that in His human nature He would be unable to endure the coming conflict with the powers of darkness. In the wilderness of temptation the destiny of the human race had been at stake. Christ was then conqueror. Now the tempter had come for the last fearful struggle. …. In His agony He clings to the cold ground, as if to prevent Himself from being drawn farther from God. The chilling dew of night falls upon His prostrate form, but He heeds it not. From His pale lips comes the bitter cry, ‘O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.’ Yet even now He adds, ‘Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’ … As the agony of soul came upon Him, His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. The cypress and palm trees were the silent witnesses of His anguish. From their leafy branches dropped heavy dew upon His stricken form, as if nature wept over its Author wrestling alone with the powers of darkness … The Saviour trod the wine press alone, and of the people there was none with Him. But God suffered with His Son. Angels beheld the Saviour’s agony.” –The Desire of Ages, pp.686-693. That agony was a necessary preparation for the struggle ahead. After the struggle, we see the strength He gained that led to victory. “The storm had in nowise abated, but He who was its object was strengthened to meet its fury. He came forth calm and serene. A heavenly peace rested upon His bloodstained face.”–The Desire of Ages, p. 694
Will the forces of darkness focus their energies against God’s people at the end of this world’s history? Yes, they will. We need to learn to trust and yield to our Heavenly Father as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane.
After this struggle, it was in this garden Jesus was arrested. Later the crown of thorns was pressed into His holy temples and He was nailed on a tree; a tree that grew in the vicinity at one time. He died not far from this garden.
Although a garden is often thought of as a place of beauty, this garden is associated with the arrest of our dear Lord and Saviour after His night of struggle with His Father.
These two gardens were vastly different. We can compare these two gardens to the heart of man. Eden was a place of peace and happiness while Gethsemane is associated with Jesus’ struggle. He gained the victory when He submitted 100% to His Father’s will. Jesus needed to go through this experience in order for the possibility for Eden to be restored for mankind. We need to follow the footsteps of Jesus and also go to the Garden of Gethsemane figuratively and yield to the working of God if we wish to be restored to Eden once again.
THE GARDEN OF THE HEART
Christ’s Word is the seed and that Word is placed by God into a person’s heart. In the Garden of Eden all the plants were good for food, and only one was forbidden. Unfortunately Eve was fascinated with the plant that was forbidden. After this, briars and noxious weeds sprung up in their new home outside of the Garden of Eden. These were of the devil’s planting. The Lord wants to plant His Word in a person’s heart, but the devil plants his weeds.
Although the devil plants weeds, if we allow Him, Jesus has promised to come in and do some serious gardening and pull up those weeds. “But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Matthew 15:13
Unfortunately, some people like their weeds. However, in a garden the tender plant can’t thrive amongst the thorns. It will eventually be choked.
What gives Jesus the right to do this gardening?
“For He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: … He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not…. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:2–5
Our Saviour has borne our curse; therefore He has claimed the right to do His horticulture. He wants us to grow also as a tender plant; however, it can’t flourish in a garden that is full of weeds.
Ask yourself what sort of plants are growing in your heart. What sort of thoughts do you cherish and love? In the cool of the day the Lord is walking in your garden and, like Adam and Eve, have you hidden in the bushes the things you love and have grown to appreciate?
The weeds and thorns that the enemy has planted are a problem when they come out of your heart. “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23
PLANTING
“He came unto his own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:11–13
There are different methods of planting here – either planted by God, or by the will of the flesh. Maybe you have some wild plants growing in your life; the drunkard, the one with corrupt language, the adulterer and those that live by stealing or cheating. All this, God did not plant. Nor were jealously and envy planted by God. These must be rooted up out your heart, or you yourself will be rooted up and burned in the end.
There are many professors of religion that go to church but yet were never planted by God. They come but they continue to maintain their thorns and their weeds. There are some weeds that have beautiful flowers yet God didn’t plant them. Some of the most admirable things about yourself may need to be rooted up. This is the work that will be done in the Garden of Gethsemane.
There is also the possibility to be planted by blood and not of God. Some say, “I am religious because my father is religious.” That is to be admired but if you do not get planted by the Lord, following your parent’s steps blindly will not achieve anything. Every plant that God did not plant will be uprooted.
There are some plants that have a vigorous root system that can be chopped down but will shoot up again quickly. You may have dug them down to the root but if one sliver is left behind the weed will grow again. Have you had a desire to change your life and been in a meeting thinking that God is speaking directly to you? You sense your depravity and wish to change but the next day you don’t take heed to what you heard the night before. During the night the weed sprung up again.
A true Christian is only born by God; planted by God, and maintained by Him.
THE FIG TREE
There was a fig tree that was not producing and the dresser of the garden had a proposal for the owner, “And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it.” Luke 13:8
He proposes to pull the weeds and turn the soil. This is the Master Gardener at work in the Garden of Gethsemane. He proposes to work on many souls, uprooting their weeds and turning the soil. He is digging and chopping those roots until the heart bleeds. He allows circumstances to come about that may cause suffering and pain, all because He is trying to uproot a nasty plant. What would happen if you didn’t let the roots go? What would happen if you hung onto a cherished thought and said, “Lord, you can have everything but this?” The plant will grow again. Unless every sliver is gone it will grow again. God is drawing us out of the world by all sorts of suffering and sometimes turning things upside down. Some Christians are hanging on to weeds, not thinking of the punishment. But we need to come into the Garden of Gethsemane if we wish to be worked and prepared for entrance to the Garden of Eden.
PURGING
If you love certain sins that you have grown up with that God would like to pull up and you refuse to come to Gethsemane to be worked, He will let you keep your sins; but in the end, you yourself will be rooted up. “And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me.” Ezekiel 20:38
You are to loathe yourselves and hate these thorns growing in your heart. “And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed.” Ezekiel 20:43
If you will come to Gethsemane and surrender your garden bed to the great horticulturist, God is going to do a work, not with the thorns we have planted. No, He will restore the peace of Eden once again. He wants to plant your garden with pleasant plants that tend to health and life. He is not coming to do the gardening in our way but His way. “And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for My name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.” Ezekiel 20:44
Our gardener is not just proposing to turn the soil but to burn the weeds. If you do not allow Him to do it now, one day there will be a great fire around the city and He will burn every tree in you. “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched.” Ezekiel 20: 47, 48
It’s not just believing doctrines correctly, but being a living, growing plant according to the tender pruning and training of the Master Gardener. He will restore Eden if you allow Him. You do not choose the circumstances and growing conditions; it is the Lord who does.
Every action that you do that is not God’s perfect will, will be plucked up whether by your permission now or by God, later, with no permission from yourself. The question is, does your soul long to be loosed from your sins? Do you long to change your life? Have you experienced the tilling of the garden in your life in your circumstances where everything was turned upside down?
Give God permission to take every sliver of weed out of your life. Do you long to reflect the image of Jesus Christ? Long to have His disposition of character, sympathy and love? Do you thoroughly mourn over who you are? If this is what you are experiencing, the ground is getting soft and this is good soil.
If this good soil is being ploughed over, all the weeds are being pulled up and the garden bed is clean. Then when good seed is planted, it will spring forth and grow into a perfect plant. Eden will be restored. “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God… And this will we do, if God permit.”Hebrews 6:1, 3
It is good also to have every doctrine correct because then the plant will have nutritious soil in which to grow. These must come into action in your daily life and be manifested in all that you do. It is not enough to keep talking about the seeds, because they won’t grow unless they are planted. Let’s plant the seeds of truth and keep our soil nutritious by continually working on the lines of truth.
A WARNING
“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.” Hebrews 6:4–6
Christ may have been planted in your heart; you may have tasted and become enlightened of the heavenly gift. You may even have been partakers of the Holy Ghost, tasted of the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, and eaten of the tree of life but if you should fall away, you crucify the Son of God afresh. The plant may have grown into a tall cedar and borne fruit for awhile, but if it is not nurtured, it can die prematurely from lack of maintenance.
If you have partaken of the goodness of God and the seed has grown inside of you, be sure not to kill the plant. We may have had the most amazing experiences, but be not deceived; this side of glory, we need to keep our heart diligently for out of it are the issues of life. The good plants need to be nurtured, the weeds killed. If one sliver of weed is retained the seed that God has planted will eventually be killed. If it is killed, there is no hope.
We are not to trust our own thoughts or what is generated from our own being but that which comes from revelation by Jesus Christ. “Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55:6–7
“The testimony borne to you by the Spirit of God is: Parley not with the enemy. Kill the thorns, or they will kill you. Break up the fallow ground of the heart. Let the work go deep and thorough. Let the plowshare of truth tear out the weeds and briers.” –Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p.53
EDEN RESTORED
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For 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. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign [that] shall not be cut off.” Isaiah 55:8–13
God is proposing to renovate your garden. You need to forsake those weeds and give them to Him. Keep His perfect will and word ever before you saying, “Not mine own will but Thine be done.” That is how Jesus planted seeds in Gethsemane (submitting to His Father’s will). We need to be in the Garden of Gethsemane also, in order to have Eden restored.
The promise is that instead of the thorn and briar shall come up the fir tree. If God’s will is done, He will create Eden again. That plant will flourish into everlasting life. The weeds will die.
“The Lord is acquainted with us individually. Every one born into the world is given his or her work to do for the purpose of making the world better. . . . Each one has his sphere, and if the human agent makes God his counselor then there will be no working at cross purposes with God.” –In Heavenly Places, p. 228
CONCLUSION:
Your life may be so confusing that you don’t know where you are going or what you are doing and everything seems to be a tangle, but you need to go to the Garden of Gethsemane and submit to the working of God. If you ask Him to do some vigorous gardening, He will. All the plants in His garden will be beautifully placed to complement each other. Each will continue to grow to add more beauty to the garden.
“He allots to every one a place and a work, and if we individually submit ourselves to be worked by the Lord, however confused and tangled life may seem to our eyes, God has a purpose in it all, and the human machinery, obedient under the hand of divine wisdom, will accomplish the purposes of God. As in a well-disciplined army every soldier has his allotted position and is required to act his part in contributing to the strength and perfection of the whole, so the worker for God must do his allotted part in the great work of God.” –In Heavenly Places, p. 228
“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He might be glorified.” Isaiah 61:1–3
These are the trees and plants the Lord wants in His garden; in the Garden of Eden.
It is my wish and prayer that you would go to the Garden of Gethsemane and yield to the working of God on your garden so you can be prepared to have a part of the Eden restored. It may need fire, “beauty for ashes” in order to burn the old, and create the new. Ashes from fire are an excellent fertilizer for soil. This garden that will spring forth is much more beautiful than that which was there before.
“For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” Isaiah 61:11
The Garden of Eden will be restored. Will you be a part of it? You will if you go to Gethsemane yielding your life to the working of God, the Master Gardener, as Jesus did. You may have gone there in the past, but it must be done daily. Say, “Lord, take my life, I give it to you;” and He will turn it into something beautiful and you will be restored in Eden in the great hereafter. Amen.
Wendy Eaton