Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
Plants God has not planted
1. What is meant by plants.
(a) Every doctrine:
(b) Every practice:
(c) Every person.
2. Some plants God never planted.
(a) What is meant by planting? Planting is setting or putting things into the ground, as trees, herbs, flowers. So mystical planting denotes the transplanting (in a spiritual way) this or that person, from a course of open profaneness into a visible profession.
(b) Who is it that plants people in the gospel Church? God, and gospel ministers.
3. Run a parallel between an external planting; and a spiritual planting.
(a) A planter, as one instructed into the mystery of that art, has wisdom and skill in planting which others have not; so a minister of Christ is one God hath taught the mysteries of the gospel unto.
(b) A planter must have a call by the owner of the vineyard; so every minister must be called and regularly empowered.
(c) A planter must have fit and proper instruments for his work.
(d) A planter doth not know infallibly the difference there is in plants.
(e) A skilful planter knows that a wild, ungrateful tree never bears good fruit.
(f) A planter observes the proper season for planting.
(g) He doth not only plant, but water.
(h) He greatly rejoices to see his plants grow, thrive, and bear much fruit.
As to plants.
(a) They must be well-rooted.
(b) They must be pruned and purged.
(c) Some plants, who promised well, prove barren and good for nothing.
(d) Plants that prove utterly barren, are rooted up or cut down.
4. Why shall every plant God hath not planted be rooted up?
(a) Because they are wild plants.
(b) Because all plants that God hath not planted, have no right to be planted in his vineyard.
(c) Because they do but cumber the ground.
(d) Because they are good for nothing but the fire.
The plants which God Himself has planted shall stand and never be rooted up.
(a) Because they are ordained to bring forth fruit:
(b) They are planted into Christ:
(c) The love of God to them is everlasting and unchangeable. (B. Keach.)
On the efficacy of the Gospel in the extirpation of error
I. How far has this prophetic declaration been already accomplished?
II. There are certain circumstances which have impeded the progress of Christianity, and suspended its moral and sanctifying influence.
III. We have reason to believe that the final issue of the gospel kingdom will be very glorious indeed, and that the prediction of the text will then be fulfilled, in a sense hitherto unknown to the world. (Habakkuk Crabbe.)
Rooting up plants
I. That ‘tis the heavenly Father’s own hand that plants every plant that must grow and prosper.
II. That every plant which is planted by any other hand or power, shall not prosper, but be rooted up.
III. That those which see not things so, and cannot leave them to God they bring upon themselves much trouble and unquietness. (John Webster.)
Difficult and questionable rules of conduct
When we speak of principles and rules of life, which every one knows and every one believes, by which the young and the old, the learned and the ignorant, the prince and the labourer, are regulated, and these principles and rules of life are false, or only true in part, the mischief thence arising is incalculable, is immense. These are “plants which the heavenly Father hath not planted.”
I. Most men are of opinion, that we cannot pass a day without sinning and acting wickedly.
II. We think we cannot be perfect; and with this we not unfrequently excuse all the sins and errors we commit, however various and gross.
III. We argue that we should merrily enjoy life, particularly youth, which so rapidly passes by; we should not embitter it by unseasonable gravity, by unnecessary sorrow or care. This may be true, but the consequences drawn from it with reference to virtue and religion are false.
IV. We say, We are after all, weak naturally corrupt beings, of whom not much is to be expected, and whom God, in His mercy, will not judge with rigour.
V. We say, We should not be particular; we should not aspire to be wiser and better than others. We should regulate ourselves by the persons and the societies, in which and with whom we live.
VI. We have false conceptions concerning daily repentance. How frequent we hear it said: “If I sin every day, I however repent every day, and at any rate we must repent daily.” VII. It is imagined that a certain devotion, or rather, certain acts of Divine worship can supply the defect of a virtuous life, or atone for the disorderly life we lead, and the sins which we commit. Or,
VIII. We rely upon Divine grace, and by it hope to be saved, though we are not so virtuous and holy as we ought to be. (Zollikoper.)
The weeding of the garden
I. Plants that God has not planted.
1. Some have been planted by the minister’s hand. Some conversions are of human, not Divine, origin.
2. Some were planted by their fathers and mothers. They have got a kind of family religion.
3. Many professors of religion are self-planted.
II. Their uprooting. It sometimes comes in this life.
III. The work of self-examination. Am I a plant of God’s planting?
1. If I am of the Lord’s planting, there was a time when I had to be taken out of the place where I once grew.
2. If planted by God there will be sorrow that we were ever anything else.
3. We have learnt our utter helplessness.
4. We are all planted on one soil, and indeed on one rock. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
God’s plants grow everywhere
Other plants which the “Heavenly Father hath not planted” have their zones of vegetation, and die out of certain degrees of latitude, but the seed of the kingdom is like corn, an exotic nowhere, for wherever man lives it will grow, and yet an exotic everywhere, for it came down from heaven. (Dr. Maclaren.)
Plants not planted by God are very beautiful
If you go into the fields, there are many plants that grow there that are quite as lovely as those in the garden. Look at the foxglove and the dog rose; look at many of the blossoms we pass by as insignificant, they are really beautiful; but they are not plants that have ever been planted. Now, how many we have in our congregations that are really beautiful; yet they are none of God’s planting-men and women whose character is upright, whose manners ate amiable, whose life is irreproachable. They are not immoral, they neither cheat nor lie; but they are exemplary; their disposition is kind, tender-hearted, and affectionate. Yes, but there must be something more than this, for Jesus says, “Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Though it be a lovely plant, though it seem to be a fair flower externally, yet since the root of it hath sucked its nourishment out of the wild wastes of sin, whether of infidelity or of lawlessness, it is evil in the eye of God, and it must be plucked up. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Wild plants fruitful
Further, how many there are of our wild wood plants that even bring forth fruit. The schoolboy in the country can tell us that the wood is an orchard, and that often he has had many a luscious meal from those wild fruits that grew there. Yet, mark you, though the birds may come and satisfy their hunger from those wild fruits, and though the seeds may be in the winter the sparrow’s garner, and the linnet’s storehouse, yet they are not planted, and they do not come under the description of the text-plants that have been planted. So, too, there may be some of you who really do some good in the world. Without you a mother’s wants might not be provided for; from your table many of the poor are fed. Oh! this is good, this is good; I would that all of you did more of it, but I pray you remember that this is not enough; there must be God’s planting in you, or else the fruits you bring forth will be selfish fruits. You will be like Israel who was denounced as being an empty vine, because, forsooth, he brought forth fruit unto himself. Charity is good. Noble charity, be thou honoured among men! But there must be faith, and if we have no faith in Christ, though we give our bodies to be burned, and bestow our goods to feed the poor, yet where Christ is, we certainly can never come. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Many of those wild plants have very strong roots
If you were to go and try to dig them up, you would have a task before you not easily accomplished. Look at the wild dock: did you seek to pull it up? Piece after piece it breaks away, and you have to send some sharp instrument deep into the soil before you can root it out, and even then, if there be but a piece left, it springs up and thrives again. Oh how many there are who have as much tenacity of life in their false confidence, as there is in the dock-in its root! Some of you cannot shake. “I never have a doubt,” said one, “I never had a doubt or a misgiving.” You remember Robert Hall said, “Allow me to doubt for you, sir,” because he knew the man to be an ill-liver. And so we have some-they are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men; they speak with an air of satisfaction: their language sounds like assurance, but it is presumption; it looks like confidence in Christ, but it is confidence in themselves. And such will strike their roots very deep, and they will be very strong indeed, so that you cannot shake them; yet, alas for them! they are not plants of the Lord’s right-hand planting, and therefore the sentence is passed; and ere long it shall be executed without pity-“they shall be rooted up.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Uprooted plants
1. That system of philosophy which ignores Divine Truth, or contradicts the plain statements of God’s Word, cannot endure.
2. In the various departments of science those views which are the offspring of glaring misconception or of uncertain hypothesis, necessarily possess the element of perishability.
3. A like course of reasoning may be applied to the different religions of the world. Consider some of the plants which the Father hath planted:-
1. Every disciple of Christ.
2. The Church.
3. The Bible.
4. In the garden there are also many tender little plants which, though not conspicuous, are equally the object of the Father’s solicitude.
5. God is pledged to establish the good and to eradicate the evil. The rose will not always have its thorn. (J. T. Lamont.)