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I. As the sap is the vital principle of vegetation, so IS THE HOLY SPIRIT THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE — of all life in every realm where living things move and have their being. But the life of man is the highest outcome of His vital force, revealing itself in his physical, mental, and emotional energy. From Him and from Him alone has come that most wonderful of all forces, which can arrest the moral decay within the souls of men and transform them into living trees of the Lord's right-hand planting.

1. The creation of the Christian Church was an evidence of this Divine energy.

2. Another evidence of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church is its imperishable vitality. He has enabled it to grow through all these centuries, to survive the wear and tear of years, the storms of persecution — still clothed with foliage, and laden with fruit for the healing of the nations.

3. If the presence of the indwelling Spirit accounts for the existence and indestructible vitality of the Church, it also explains the marvellous variety of its forms of life.

II. The movements of the sap are suggestive of THE METHODS BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVEYS HIS LIFE TO MEN.

1. There is a mystery in His operations. Nature in all her works for ever "half reveals and half conceals the soul within." So is it with the energy of the Lord and Giver of Life. His ways are past tracing out, nor can it be otherwise. He is a Spirit, moving with absolute freedom whensoever He listeth on whomsoever He pleaseth, in whatever manner He may choose.

2. A second analogy between the movement of the sap and the energy of this spiritual life lies in its gentleness.

3. The impartiality of the Holy Spirit's influence. The sap leaves no part of the tree unvisited. The unseen network of roots and fibres, the pillared stem and its bark, the branches and their twigs, with the innumerable leaves — all receive their supply. It is so with the individual — the mind, will, and affections, aye and the body also, are penetrated by the Divine influence. It is so when the Divine grace descends upon a congregation — it reaches the richest and the poorest, the youngest and the oldest, the learned and the illiterate. It will be so when it enters the open heart of the habitable world — for we may perceive by the very trees of the wood that God is no respecter of persons!

III. Returning once more to the trees of the Lord, we see in their abounding fulness THE RESPONSE THEY GIVE TO THE SPRING LIFE IMPARTED. They are filled — they are satisfied. The human heart is not like the three things of the wise man — the grave, the thirsty earth, the flame of fire — insatiable. It longs and craves and seeks, but there is a supply. "We cannot hope from outward forms to win the passion and the life whose fountains are within," but the Holy Spirit brings to the soul that inward stream of life to fill it with all the fulness of God. Then are we satisfied, as the trees are, and for similar reasons. Their yearnings are appeased — the impulse to unfold themselves in form, colour, movement, is met, and that mysterious ecstasy of travail to bear fruit is abundantly fulfilled.

(E. J. Brailsford.)

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KJV: The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;

WEB: Yahweh's trees are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon, which he has planted;