Isaiah 27:6
He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We are just coming to the most beautiful season of the year—Spring, when everything around us is shaking off the chill grave clothes of winter and putting on the beautiful array of a new life. There is something very delightful in the spring-time of nature…There is a great beauty in a fruit tree when it is in bloom. Perhaps there is no more lovely object in all nature than the apple blossom.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Under the genial warmth of the sun, those trees will be covered with blossoms. Then, after a few days, those pretty blossoms will all have disappeared—blown off by the winds. Nevertheless, if those trees be examined closely it will be found that where those blossoms were are now little green buds. Many weeks have to pass before the owner of those trees is gladdened by seeing the buds develop into fruit.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): They pass through many alterations, from one degree of growth to another, from buds to blossoms, from blossoms to flowers and fruits.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): It is truly pleasing to witness the springing bud, and the unfolding blossoms.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): The young Christian is lovely, like a tree in the blossoms of spring.
C. H. SPURGEON: The love of his espousals, his first love, his first zeal, all make the newborn Believer comely. Can anything be more delightful than our first graces? Even God Himself delights in the beauty of the blossoming Believer. “I remember thee,” says He, “the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness,” Jeremiah 2:2.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The Lord takes great notice of the springing and buddings forth of grace, of the first acts and exercises of it in young converts.
C. H. SPURGEON: But this beauty soon fades—one shower of rain, one descent of hail, one puff of the north wind—and very soon the blossoms fall like snow.
A. W. PINK: What percentage of blossoms on the apple and plum trees mature and bear fruit? Many a promising bud is nipped by the frosts of spring and never develops into a flower.
C. H. SPURGEON: March winds and April showers, bring forth May flowers.
THOMAS ADAMS (1583-1656): Sin, repentance, and pardon, are like to the three spring months of the year—March, April, and May. Sin comes in like March, blustering, stormy, and full of bold violence. Repentance succeeds like April, showering, weeping, and full of tears. Pardon follows like May, springing, singing, full of joys and flowers. If our hands have been full of March, with the tempests of unrighteousness, our eyes must be full of April with the sorrow of repentance; and then our hearts shall be full of May, in the true joy of forgiveness.
C. H. SPURGEON: The Lord has looked upon you and has made you feel uneasy—that is a bud. Oh, that the uneasiness might open into full repentance! The Lord has looked upon you and He has given you desires. Oh, that the Grace of God may increase those desires till they shall open into resolution and determination!
A. W. PINK: There is a large number who so far from despising and rejecting it, “receive the Word with joy, yet hath not root in himself, but dureth from a while,” Matthew 13:20,21. That was the case when Christ Himself sowed the Seed…“Ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light,” said Christ of certain ones who sat under the preaching of His forerunner; but observe that He declared not that they had “sorrowed unto repentance.”
MATTHEW MEAD (1629-1699): Never rest in convictions till they end in conversion. This is that wherein most men miscarry: they rest in their convictions, and take them for conversion, as if sin seen were therefore forgiven, as if a sight of the want of grace were the truth of a work of grace.
A. W. PINK: Like the promising blossoms and buds on the trees in the spring, which are blown off by unfriendly winds or nipped by the frost, the beneficial effects produced by an illumined understanding and an aroused conscience, sooner or later, wear off. The temptations of the world and the corruptions of their hearts either stifle their convictions, or cause them to deliberately cast them out, and the sequel is that they either avowedly or practically repudiate the Faith they have owned. They may not go so far as to openly disclaim and renounce Christianity—but they cease to maintain practical godliness…The genuineness of saving faith is only proved as it bears the blossoms of experimental godliness and the fruits of true piety.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It is in this way that we are to approve ourselves “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, in whom he shall be glorified,” Isaiah 61:3.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Many with their mouth show much love, but their heart goes another way. They had a good mind to be religious, but they met with something to be done, that was too hard, or something to be parted with, that was too dear, and so their purposes are to no purpose. Buds and blossoms are not fruit.
C. H. SPURGEON: How far have your buds developed? Have you begun to pray a little? Oh, that your prayer might be more intense! I hope that little bud of private prayer will grow till it comes to family prayer so that you can pray with your wife and children. You have been reading your Bible lately, have you? Oh, thank God for that! I hope that bud of Bible reading will open into the daily habit of feeding upon the Word of God…Some of you have another sort of bud—you have been thinking of what you can do for Christ. You thought you were converted, but you have never done much for Christ…Well, that is a bud—may the Grace of God be so abundant that you will leave off trying and get actually to doing!
MATTHEW HENRY: Good purposes, indeed, are good things; they are like buds and blossoms, pleasant to behold, and give hopes of good fruit; but they are lost, and signify nothing, without performances. So good beginnings are amiable; but we shall lose the benefit unless there be perseverance, and we bring forth fruit to perfection.
C. H. SPURGEON: Resolves are good, like blossoms, but actions are better, for they are the fruits…Are you sending forth blossoms and bearing fruit, or do you feel dry and barren?
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Every moment we stand in need of Jesus Christ: while we stand—we are upheld by His power only; and when we are falling, or have fallen, we can be saved only by His mercy.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): All our sap and safety is from Christ—“Without me ye can do nothing,” saith Christ, the true vine, John 15:5, from Whom we have both the bud of good desires, the blossom of good resolutions, and the fruit of good actions.
C. H. SPURGEON: A fruitful tree is one which is well sustained at the root. It is by no means wisdom to cry, “I will work hard and try to bear fruit.” Fruit is not produced by work. No vine toils to produce grapes. It buds and blossoms and bears fruit in the order of its nature.
