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We are following a good Bible precedent, as welt as yielding to an almost irresistible suggestion, when we seek to listen awhile to some of these teachings of God which he addresses to us through the spring. The references to this season are frequent in the pages of Scripture. They tell of the sowing and the seed time, the springing of the corn, and the varied voices, scenes, and processes of the spring. He who wrote that sixty-fifth psalm had often noticed the earth upturned by the plough, and how the rain loosened the clods, and the hard ridges were made soft with showers, and settled down to the level of the furrows after the corn seed had been cast in, and so God blessed "the springing thereof." And he who wrote this psalm from which our text is taken, had often witnessed the wonderful bursting forth of life after the winter was over and gone, and he here celebrates God's mighty working: "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, and they are created: thou renewest the face of the earth." And the eye of our Lord, the great Teacher, once and again fell upon some sower in the springtime going forth to sow, and he tells, in the first of all his parables, of the varied fate of the scattered seed. And he tells, too, how the devil knows the fit season for sowing seed; for when the great husbandman had cast good seed into his field, then the enemy came and sowed tares, which, when the good seed sprang up, appeared along with it to its hurt and harm. From beginning to end, by our Lord and by his apostles, and by the holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, the allusions to the seed time and the spring are constant, and they constitute a positive direction to us to keep open eye and mind and heart for the lessons such seasons have to impart. Those lessons are very many. We can but note a few of them. And -

I. DOES NOT SPRING SPEAK TO US OF GOD AS THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE? For:

1. Life is starting from every pore of nature. The whole face of the earth heaves and throbs with an inexhaustible tide of life; every spot teems with the beginnings of new life. Who does not feel impressed with the unspeakable affluence of him who is its fountain? Every wood and grove, every hedgerow and field, every garden and pasture, bear witness to his bounty. Where but a few weeks before all was sombre and silent, bare, and seemingly lifeless, now, what a change has come over the scene! The grey clouds of winter have been replaced by the bright blue skies, the brown carpet of fallen leaves has yielded to the beautiful green with which the grass has covered the woodland ways. The till now hushed grove is resonant with song and the murmur of innumerable insects. The bare skeleton-like branches of the trees are laden with glorious foliage, and the stripped hedges are all clothed again with leaves and blossoms and flowers. Fulness of life everywhere; this is the common characteristic which meets the eye throughout the whole realm of nature at this beautiful season of the year.

2. And with what wondrous care all this is accomplished! As silently, as irresistibly as the tender blade pushes its way up through the heavy soil which, one would think, must forever hold it down. But slender as is that newly formed blade, yet to that which hath no might God increaseth strength, and so in due time it appears above ground, for God maketh it to grow.

3. And how quietly all this goes on! What a contrast to the noise and strain, the fret and toil, the loud din, and all the other accompaniments of man's strenuous labour! Here, as was said of Solomon's temple

"No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung."

4. But whilst all this is interesting to observe in the natural world, it is yet more delightful to look upon the Divine energy of life which each spring tide shows as a promise and pattern of the higher spiritual life, which, with equal generosity, God shall one day cause to spring forth before all the nations. Why should it not be? If all this fulness of life be for the lower creation, shall the higher, the moral and spiritual, be left unblessed? "If God so clothes," etc. True, the lower life has to do with material things, and the higher with spiritual. But can that be any bar to him who called us into being, even as each spring he calls into being the full life we see around us? If, in consistency with that lower nature, he gives the new life, can he not, in consistency with man's higher nature, cause that also to be born again and to enter into the new and better life? He has done so already with one and another of us, even as he did with all the children of God in all the ages all along. In perfect harmony with man's freedom, he yet found means to convert, regenerate, and fully sanctify such as Paul, John, and myriads more. And - all glory to his Name! - he is doing this every day. Therefore we accept, not deny or doubt, the blessed prophecy of the spring. And let us each one take it for ourselves.

II. AS LOVING ALL THAT IS BEAUTIFUL. See the wealth of beauty which everywhere spring presents, in colour; song; fragrance; beauty everywhere. Then, if God so loves beauty, let him have it. In our worship, our sanctuaries, most of all in our character. In this last God himself will help us. The beauty of the Lord our God shall be upon us even as, and yet more than, it is upon all the grace of nature in this blessed spring tide.

III. AS PREDICTING AND PROMISING THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.) If God gives new life and form to bare grain, shall he not to human souls? "And to every seed its own body." Spring is the perpetual resurrection parable.

IV. AS ADDRESSING TO US MOST EARNEST APPEAL. "Work while it is called today;" "Now is the accepted time," etc. If the husbandman waste the spring season, what hope of harvest can he have? Its days run along, and will soon be gone. - S.C.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

WEB: You send forth your Spirit: they are created. You renew the face of the ground.