Proverbs 24:30-32; Luke 6:44; Song of Solomon 1:6
I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction.
Of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.
Mine own vineyard have I not kept.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): The vineyard of the slothful man is not fuller of briars, nettles, and stinking weeds, than he that is slothful for heaven, who hath his heart full of heart-choking and soul-damning sin.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Our souls are our fields and vineyards, which we are every one of us to take care of, to dress, and to keep—and a great deal of care and pains it is requisite that we should take about them. These fields and vineyards are often in a very bad state, not only no fruit brought forth, but all overgrown with thorns and nettles—scratching, stinging, inordinate lusts and passions, pride, covetousness, sensuality, malice—those are the thorns and nettles, the wild grapes, which the unsanctified heart produces.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. “Can a fig tree,” saith James, “bear olive berries? or a vine, figs?” James 3:12. Should not every man in like manner bear his own fruit, proper to his calling? Do his own work? Weed his own gardens?
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Every gardener should kill his own weeds…A great many men think they know the plague of other people’s hearts and there is a great deal of talk in the world about this family, that person and the other. I pray you think of your own evils…He would be a poor gardener who used his hoe on other men’s weeds and not on his own—if we could bring ourselves to feel that weeding our own garden, watering our own plants and fulfilling our own vocation is what God requires of us, how much better it would be for the entire Church of Christ!
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Before the plants and flowers will flourish in the garden, weeds must be rooted up, otherwise all the labours of the gardener will come to naught. As the Lord Jesus taught so plainly in the Parable of the Sower, where the “thorns” are permitted to thrive, the good Seed, the Word, is “choked.” He defined those choking “thorns” as “the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches; the lust of other things and pleasures of this life,” Mark 4:19; Luke 8:14. If those things fill and rule our hearts, our relish for spiritual things will be quenched, our strength to perform Christian duties will be sapped, and our lives will be fruitless—the garden of our souls being filled with briars and weeds.
JOHN TRAPP: Earthly mindedness sucketh the sap of grace from the heart, as the ivy doth from the oak, and maketh it unfruitful. Correct therefore this choke-weed.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Remember that there are many kinds of evil.
C. H. SPURGEON: All land will grow weeds, but you will not find the same sort of weed equally abundant in every soil—so in one heart the deadly nightshade of ignorance chokes the seed—and in another the prickly thistle of malice crowds out the wheat. It is well if each of us, in examining himself, has found out what is his own peculiar transgression. It is well to know what evil weeds flourish most readily in the soil of our heart…Covetousness, discontent and murmuring, are as natural to man as thorns are to the soil.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Covetousness, or the greedy clutching at more and more of earthly good, has its roots in us all, and unless there is the most assiduous weeding, it will overrun our whole nature. So Jesus puts great emphasis into the command, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness,” Luke 12:15; which implies that without much ‘heed’ and diligent inspection of ourselves, there will be no guarding against the subtle entrance and swift growth of the vice. We may be enslaved by it, and never suspect that we are.
THOMAS COKE: Hypocrisy among professors is the most common and deadly weed—and this being the character which God especially abhors, we should be the more jealous over our own souls, that this rank weed of bitterness spring not up under the profession of godliness, and mar the whole.
C. H. SPURGEON: Pride grows apace like other ill weeds. Even in the renewed heart it all too readily takes root…Of all creatures in the world, the Christian is the last man who ought to be proud and yet, alas, we have had mournful evidence both in past history and in our own observation—and worst of all in our own personal experience—that Christian men may become lifted up to their own shame.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Depend upon it, nothing is more odious in the sight of God. When a child of God is tempted, after many humblings, by reason of sin, yet still to take up with the supposed idea of somewhat good in him. This dreadful weed, which is the very ground-soil of our nature is rooted in our very inmost affections. And the humblest of God’s people too often discover, when grace enables them to discern spiritually, the buddings forth again and again of the baleful blossom.
C. H. SPURGEON: Certain weeds may be indigenous to the soil of your nature and therefore it may be doubly difficult to extirpate them, but the work must be done.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Every vice—if allowed in the mind, will, as weeds, choke up the good seed.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Did you ever try to cure some trivial bad habit? You know what infinite pains and patience and time it took you to do that, and do you think that you would find it easier if you once set yourself to cure that lust, say, or that petulance, pride, passion, dishonesty, or whatsoever form of selfish living in forgetfulness of God may be your besetting sin? If you will try to pull the poison fang up, you will find how deep its roots are. It is like the yellow charlock in a field, which seems only to spread in consequence of attempts to get rid of it—as the rough rhyme says; “One year’s seeding, seven years’ weeding.”
C. H. SPURGEON: Unbelief is one of those things that you cannot destroy. “It has,” says John Bunyan, “as many lives as a cat.” You may kill it over and over again, but still it lives. It is one of those ill weeds that sleep in the soil even after it has been burned and it only needs a little encouragement to grow again…If you throw up the soil from 10 or 20 feet deep there will be found the seeds from which weeds grow. Now those seeds cannot germinate until they are put in a convenient place. Then let the sun shine and the dew fall—and these weeds begin to show themselves. There may be many weeds in our nature, deep down, out of sight—but should they be thrown up by some change of circumstances we shall find in ourselves evils we never dreamt of. Oh, let no man boast! Let no man say, “I should never fall into that particular sin.” How do you know, my Brother?
A. W. PINK: He who does not cultivate the garden of his soul, will quickly find it grown over with weeds.
C. H. SPURGEON: True revivals must begin at home. If you want to kill weeds, take the hoe into your own garden.
