Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold,
the husbandman waited for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath
long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye
also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth
nigh."–James 5:7-8.
THE EARTH THAT YIELDS seed to the sower and bread to the eater has
received its constitution from God; and it is governed through his wise
providence by fixed laws that are infinitely reliable; and yet, at the
same time, with such diversified conditions and minute peculiarities as
may well convince us that the Almighty intended the operations of
nature to supply us with spiritual instruction as well as with material
good. He who ordained the seed time and the harvest meant to teach us
by them. Nor has he left us in vague uncertainty as to the lessons we
should learn! In metaphor and parable he has interpreted them to us.
The author of the Bible is also the architect of the universe. The book
that is writ and the things that are made alike bear witness to his
eternal power and Godhead. He who shall study them both will see
clearly the idioms of one author. In the two masterpieces the hand of
the same great artist may be discerned. We are all so dependent upon
the labors of the field, that we ought at the season of harvest to
remember how much we owe to the God of harvest. It is but common
gratitude that we should go to the field awhile, and there hear what
God the Lord may have to say to us among the waving sheaves. No matter
what our business may be, the wealth of the country must after all, to
a large extent, depend upon the crops that are produced, and the well
being of the whole state has a greater dependence upon the harvest than
many of you could probably imagine. We will not forget the bounties of
God. We will not fail at least to endeavor to learn the lesson which
this bountiful season is intended to teach us. Our Lord Jesus often
preached of the sowing and of the reaping. His were the best of sermons
and his the choicest of illustrations: therefore, we shall do well if
are repair to the field, mark the scattering of the corn, and the
ingathering of it, to enforce the exhortation of the text.
Our subject, to-night, will involve three or four questions: How does
the husbandman wait? What does he wait for? What is has encouragement?
What are the benefits of his patient waiting? Our experience is similar
to his. We are husbandmen, so we have to toil hard, and we have to wait
long: then, the hope that cheers, the fruit that buds and blossoms, and
verily, too, the profit of that struggle of faith and fear incident to
waiting will all crop up as we proceed.
I. First, then, HOW DOES THE HUSBANDMAN WAIT? He waits with a
reasonable hope for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long
patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain. He expects
the harvest because he has ploughed the fields and sown the grain. If
he had not, he would not be an example for our imitation. Had he left
his fields fallow, never stirred the clods, and never cast in among
them the golden seed, he would be an idiot were he expecting the soil
to produce a harvest. Thorns and thistles would it bring forth to
him–nothing more. Out on the folly of those, who flatter their souls
with a prospect of good things in time to come while they neglect the
opportunity of sowing good things in the time present. They say they
hope it will be well with them at the end; but, since it is not well
with them now, why should they expect any change–much less a change
contrary to the entire order of Providence? Is it not written "He that
soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption"? Do you expect
to sow to the flesh and reap salvation? That is a blessing reserved for
him who soweth to the spirit; for he that soweth to the spirit shall of
the spirit reap life everlasting. As for the man who scatters nothing
but the wild oats of sin, who simply lives to indulge his own passions,
and determinately resolves to neglect the things that make for his
peace,–he can but upbraid himself if he collect to reap anything good
of the Lord. They that sow to the wind shall reap the whirlwind, they
that sow nothing shall reap nothing, they that sow sparingly shall reap
also sparingly. It is only those who by God's grace have been enabled
to sow abundantly, though they have gone forth weeping, who shall
afterwards come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them.
Patience by all means, but not that foolish patience which expects
something good to turn up in spiritual things, as some fools do in
business when they turn aside from legitimate trade to foster bubble
schemes. Thou shalt have, my brother, after all according to what thou
art, and to what thou art fairly going for. If thou art a believer, to
thee shall be the promise–thou shalt share the victories and spoils of
thy Lord. If thou art a careless, godless worldling, to thee shall be
the fruit of thy deeds, and sad and bitter shall be those grapes of
Gomorrah that thou shalt have to eat. The husbandman waits with a
reasonable hope; he does not look for grain where he has cast in
garlic. Save then that thou art a fool, thou wilt like him count only
on the fruit of thine own sowing.
While he waits with a patient hope, he is no doubt all the more patient
of the issue, because his hope is so reasonable. And not only does he
wait with patience, but some stress is put upon the length of it; "and
hath long patience for the precious fruit of the earth." Now, brethren
in Christ, our waiting, if it be the work of the Holy Spirit, must have
this long patience in it. Are you a sufferer? There are sweet fruits to
come from suffering! "Not for the present seemeth it to be joyous but
grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of
righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby." Have long patience
for those peaceable fruits. You shall be brought out of your trouble,
deliverance will be found for you out of your affliction when the
discipline for which you were brought into it has been fulfilled. Have
lot patience, however, for not the first month does the husbandman find
a harvest. If he has sown in the winter, he does not expect he will
reap in the early spring: he does not go forth with his sickle in the
month of May and expect to find golden sheaves. He waits. The moons wax
and wane; suns rise and set; but the husbandman waits till the
appointed time is come. Wait thou, O sufferer, till the night be over.
Watch after watch thou hast already passed through; the morning
breaketh. Tarry thou a little longer, for if the vision tarry it shall
come. "Thou shalt stand in thy lot in the end of the days." Ere long
thou shalt have a happy exit out of thy present trials. Are you a
worker? Then you need as much patience in working as you do in
suffering. We must not expect to see immediate results in all cases
from the preaching of the Gospel, from the teaching of Scripture in our
classes, from distributing religious literature, or from any other kind
of effort. Immediate results may come. Sometimes they do, and they
greatly cheer the worker; but it is given to some to wait long, like
the husbandman, ere the fruit reaches maturity. Truth, like the grain
of mustard seed, does not wax into a tree tomorrow being sown to-day:
it takes its leisure. Or, like the leaven in the measure, it doth not
work in the next moment; it must have its time. If you have some
principle to teach that is now obnoxious, go on with it. Perhaps, you
may never see it popular in your day. Do not mind the fickle winds or
fret yourself because of the nipping frosts. Truth is mighty and it
will prevail, though it may have a hard fight before it wins the
victory. Souls may not be won to God the first time you pray for them,
nor the first time you exhort them, nay, nor the twentieth time. If
thou hast gone to a sinner once on Christ's errand and he has rejected
thee, go again seven times; nay, go again seventy times seven; for if
thou shouldst at last succeed by thy master's gracious help, it will
well repay thee. The long, tedious winter of thy waiting will appear as
a short span to look back upon when thou hast reaped the field of thy
labor. The little patience that thou hadst to exert for a while will
seem as nothing, like the travail of the mother when the man-child is
born into the world. Hush, then, your sad complaints, and still your
petulant wailings.
"O dreary life! we cry, O dreary life!
And still the generations of the birds
Sing thro' our sighing; and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife."
Be patient, O worker, for impatience sours the temper, chills the
blood, sickens the heart, prostrates the vigor of one's spirit, and
spoils the enterprise of life before it is ripe for history. Wait thou,
clothed with patience, like a champion clad in steel. Wait with a sweet
grace, as one who guards the faith and sets an example of humility.
Wait in a right spirit, anxious, prayerful, earnest submissive to the
ways of God, not doubtful of his will. Disciple of Jesus, "learn to
labor and to wait."
With regard to the result of Christian obedience, the lesson is no less
striking. The first thing that a farmer does by way seeking gain on his
farm is to make a sacrifice which could seem immediately to entail on
him a loss. He has some good wheat in the granary, and he takes out
sacks full of it and buries it. He is so much the poorer, is not he? At
any rate, there is so much the less to make bread for his household. He
cannot get it again; it is under the clod, and there too it must die;
for except it die, it bringeth not forth fruit. You must not expect as
soon as you become a Christian, that you shall obtain all the gains of
your religion, perhaps you may lose all that you have for Christ's
sake. Some have lost their lives; they have sown their house and land,
relatives, comfort, ease, and at last they have sown life itself in
Christ's field, and they seemed for the time to be losers; but, verily
I say unto you, this day, if you could see them in their white robes
before the throne of God, rejoicing, you would see how rich a harvest
they have reaped, and how the sowing which seemed a loss at first has
ended, through God's abundant grace, in the greatest eternal gain. Have
patience, brother, have patience. That is a false religion that aims at
present worldly advantage. He who becomes religious for the loaves and
fishes, when he hath eaten his loaves and fishes, hath devoured his
religion. There is nothing in such piety but pretension. If thou canst
be bought, thou canst be sold: if thou hast taken it up for gain, thou
wilt lay it down for what promises thee a better bargain. Be willing to
be a loser for Christ, and so prove thou art his genuine follower. The
husbandman, I say, does not expect immediate reward, but reckons upon
being a loser for a while. He waits, waits with long patience, for the
precious fruit of the earth. It is a reasonable waiting on the outset,
and not regretful when wearied and worried with delay.
And, while the husbandman waits, you observe in the text he waits with
his eye upward, he waits until God shall send him the early and the
latter rain. He has wit enough for this; even if he be a worldly man he
knows that the harvest depends not only on the seed he sows and on the
soil he cultivates, but upon the rain which he cannot control; the rain
that cometh at the bidding of the Almighty. If the skies be brass, the
clods will be iron. Unless God shall speak to the clouds, and the
clouds shall speak to the earth, the earth will not speak to the corn,
and the corn will not make us speak the words of rejoicing. Every
husbandman is aware of this, and every Christian must remember it. "I
am to wait," says a sufferer, "for God's help and for the graces that
come by affliction, but I must wait with my eye upward, for all the
ploughing of affliction will not profit me, and all the sowing of
meditation will not speed me, unless God send his gracious Spirit like
showers of heavenly rain. If I am a worker, I must work. When I wait, I
must wait always looking upward." The keys of the rain-clouds which
water the earth hang at the girdle of Jehovah. None but the eternal
Father can send the Holy Spirit like showers on the church. He can send
the comforter, and my labor will prosper; it will not be in vain in the
Lord; but if he deny, if he withold this covenant blessing, ah me! work
is useless, patience is worthless, and all the cost is bootless: it is
in vain. In spiritual, as in temporal things, "it is vain to rise up
early and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness." "Except the
Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." We must have
the dew, O God, or else our seed shall rot under the clod. We must
wait, and wait with our eye upwards, or else our expectation will
perish as a still-born child. So with regard to the comfort, and joy,
and ultimate fruit of our faith, we must have our eye upward looking
for the coming of the Lord from heaven, for the day of his appearing
will be the day of our manifestation. Our life is hid with Christ now;
when he shall appear we shall appear with him. When he shall be
revealed in glory before the eyes of the assembled multitude, we shall
be conspicuous in glory too. Not till then shall the fullness of the
reward be bestowed, but the risen saints shall be glorified in the
glorification of their coming Lord. Oh, for more of this living with
the eyes upward, less minding of earthly things, and more looking for
and hasting unto the coming of the Son of God!
Note, however, that while the husbandman waits with his eye upward, he
waits with his hands at work, engaged in restless toil. He sows, and it
is a busy time. When he sees the green blade, what then? He has to
work. Those weeds must not be suffered to outgrow the wheat and choke
it. Up and down the field the laborer must go, and the husbandman must
be at the expense of this, and all along until the wheat is ripened
there is sure to be something to do in this field, so his eyes must be
keen, his skill must be taxed, and no drudgery must be disdained. In
all labor there is profit, but nothing is gained without pains. We look
up to God. He will not accept the look of a sluggard. The eye that
looks up to God must be attended with the hand that is ready for work.
So if I suffer and expect the blessing for the suffering, I must spend
solitary hours in my chamber seeking and searching; to wit, seeking in
prayer, and searching God's Word for the blessing. If I am a worker, I
must look to God for the result, but then I must also use all the
means. In fact, the Christian should work as if all depended upon him,
and pray as if it all depended upon God. He should be always nothing in
his own estimation; yet he should be one of those gloriously active
nothings of which God makes great use, for he treats the things that
are not as though they were, and gets glory out of them. Yes, the
husbandman waits. He cannot push on the months; he cannot hasten the
time of the harvest home; but he does not wait in silence; in
sluggishness and negligence; he keeps to his work and waits too. So do
you, O Christian men! wait for the coming of your Lord, but let it be
with your lamps trimmed and your lights burning, as good servants
attending to the duties of the house, until the master of the house
returns to give you the reward.
The husbandman waits under changeful circumstances, and various
contingences. At one time he sees the fair prospect of a good crop. The
wheat has come up well. He has never seen more green springing from the
ground; but, peradventure, it may be too-strong, and may need even to
be put back. By-and-by, after long showers and cold nights, the wheat
looks yellow, and he is half afraid about it. Anon there comes, or he
fancies there is a blight or a black smut. Nobody knows what may
happen. Only a farmer knows how his hopes and fears alternate and
fluctuate from time to time. It is too hot, too cold; it is too dry; it
is too wet; it is hardly ever quite right, according to his judgment,
or rather according to his unbelief. He is full of changes in his mind
because the season is full of changes. Yet he waits, he waits with
patience. Ah dear friends, when we work for God, how often will this
happen! I speak from no inconsiderable experience. There are always
changes in the field of Christian labor. At one time we see many
conversions, and we bless God that there are so many seals to our
testimony. But some of the converts after a while disappoint us. There
was the blossom, but it produced no fruit. Then there will come a
season when many appear to backslide. The love of many waxes cold.
Perhaps we have found in the church the black smut of heresy. Some
deadly heresy creeps in, and the anxious husbandman fears there will be
no harvest after all. Oh, patience, sir, patience. Ten thousand
farmers' fears have been disappointed this year. Many a fretful
expression and murmuring word need to be repented of, as the farmer has
looked at last upon the well-filled ear, and the heavy wheat sheaf. So,
too, mayhap, O evangelical worker, it will be with you. When God shall
give you a rich return for all you have done for him, you will blush to
think you ever doubted; you will be ashamed to think you ever grew
weary in his service. You shall have your regard. Not to-morrow, so
wait: not the next day perhaps, so be patient. You may be full of
doubts one day, your joys sink low. It may be rough windy breather with
you in your spirit. You may even doubt whether you are the Lord's, but
if you have rested in the name of Jesus, if by the grace of God you are
what you are, if he is all your salvation, and all your desire,–have
patience; have patience, for the reward will surely come in God's good
time. Now this is how the husbandman waits, and becomes to us the model
of patience.
II. Very briefly, in the second place, we have to ask, WHAT DOES THE
HUSBANDMAN WAIT FOR? for we are in this respect like him. He waits for
results, for real results; right results; he hopes also rich results.
And this is just what we are waiting for–waiting as sufferers for the
results of sanctified affliction. May those results be read; may they
be right; may they be rich. Oh that we might have every virtue
strengthened, every grace refined, by passing through the furnace.
There are great blessings connected with patient endurance as in Job's
case. He had a plenteous harvest, may we have the same. And you
workers, you must work for results, for, though conversion is the work
of God, it is in many cases as clearly a product of the holy living,
the devout teaching, and the fervent praying of his servants, as any
collect can be the result from a cause. Go on, go on, and may you have
real conversions–not pretended conversions–not such as are sometimes
chronicled in newspapers– "fifty-one conversions of an evening"–as if
anybody knew! May there be real conversions, and ripe fruits for Jesus,
in the growth and advance of those who are converted, and may many of
them turn out to be such fruit-bearing Christians when they are matured
in, grace, that the richest result in the prosperity of the Church may
come to you from all your work. You are waiting for results. And you
are, also, dear brethren, like the husbandman, waiting for a reward.
All the while till the harvest comes, he has nothing but outlay. From
the moment he sows, it is all outgoing until he sells his crops, and
then, recovering at once the principal and the interest, he gets his
reward. In this world, look not for a recompense. You may have a
grateful acknowledgment in the peace, and quiet, and contentment of
your own spirit, but do not expect even that from your fellow-men. The
pure motive of any man who serves his generation well is generally
misrepresented. As a rule the lounger looks on at the laborer not to
praise but to blame him: not to cheer him but to chide him. The less he
does, the less he will be open to rebuke, and the more he does
oftentimes, and the more vigorously, the more he shall be upbraided.
Look not for your reward here. Suppose men praise you, what is their
praise worth? It would not fill your nostrils if you were about to die.
The approbation of those who have neither skill nor taste–what
pleasure can it afford the artist? Should one stoop for it, or, having
it, lift his head the higher? Our reward is the approbation of God,
which he will give of his abundant grace. He first gives us good works,
as one observes, and then rewards us for those good works, as if they
were altogether our own. He gives rewards though they are not a debt,
but altogether of grace. Look for the reward hereafter. Wait a bit,
man, wait a bit; your reward is not yet. Wait till the week is over,
and then shall come the wage. Wait until the sun is gone down, and then
there will be the penny for every laborer in the vineyard. Not yet, not
yet, not yet. The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the
earth. This is what we wait for.
III. Thirdly, WHAT IS THE HUSBANDMAN'S ENCOURAGEMENT IN WAITING? Well,
he has many.
The first is, that the fruit he waits for is precious. He waiteth for
the precious fruit of the earth. It is worth waiting for. Who that
walks through a corn field, such corn fields as we have seen this year,
where the crops are plentiful, but will say, "Well, this was, after
all, worth all the trouble and all the expense, and all the long
patience of that winter which is over and gone?" If the Lord should
draw you near unto himself by your affliction, if he should make his
image in you more clear, it will be worth waiting for. And if, after
your labors he should give you some soul for your reward, oh, will it
not repay you? Mother, if your dear child should after all be brought
back from his sinful ways to love his Saviour! Sunday-school teacher,
if some of those little girls should love the name of Jesus, and you
should live to see them honored members of the Church of God, will it
not be worth waiting for? It there worth while to preach every Sabbath
for a million years, if but one soul were brought in at last. I
remember Mr. Richard Knill saying, if there were one unconverted
person, and he were in Siberia, and God had ordained that he should
only be saved by all the Christians in all the world (and that would be
a vast number), all of them making a journey to Siberia to talk with
him, it would be worth all the trouble if the soul were at length
brought in. And so it would. We may wait, therefore, with patience,
because the reward of our labor will be precious. Above all, the reward
of hearing the master say, "Well done, good and faithful servant," is
worth waiting for! Even now to get a word from him is quite enough to
cheer us on, though he a soft, still voice that speaks it, but oh, the
joy of that loud voice "Well done.
It were worth going through a thousand perils by land and by sea to
come out and win that "Well done." We might count it worth while to
face the lions of hell and do battle with Apollyon himself, to snatch
but one poor lamb from between their jaws. It were worth while to do
all that I say, if we might hear the Master say to us, "Well done," at
the last. This then encourages us, as well as the husbandman–the
preciousness of the fruit.
A godly husbandman waits with patience, again, because he knows God's
covenant. God has said "seed time and harvest, summer and winter, shall
not cease," and the Christian farmer knowing, this is confident. But
oh, what strong confidences have we who have looked to Christ, and who
are resting on the faithful word of a covenant God. He cannot fail us.
It is not possible that he should suffer our faith to be confounded.
"Heaven and earth may pass away," and they shall, but his word shall
not fail. They that sow in faith shall reap abundantly. The glory shall
be theirs. And, brother workers, if we do not for a time see all the
results we expect, yet the Lord has said, "Surely all flesh shall see
the salvation of God." The day must come when the dwellers in the
wilderness shall bow before him and lick the dust. "He has set his king
upon his holy hill of Zion," and they that said, "Let us break their
bands asunder, and cast their cords from us," will have to submit
themselves and lick the dust at his feet. Have courage, therefore. The
covenant stands good, the harvest must come as surely as the seed time
has come.
Moreover, every husbandman is encouraged by the fact, that he has seen
other harvests. I suppose if the farmer had never heard of a harvest,
and had never seen one, it would take some considerable persuasion to
get him to sow his seed. But then he knows his father sowed seed and
his grandsire, and that the race of men in all generations have put
their seed under the clods as an act of faith, and God has accepted
their faith, and sent them a return. And, O brethren, have not we
multitudes of instances to confirm our confidence? Let us cheerfully
resign ourselves to the Lord's will in suffering, for as others of his
saints who went before us have reaped the blessing, So shall we. Let us
work on for our Lord and Master, knowing that apostles and confessors,
and a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, have seen great
results, and so shall we. Let us patiently tarry till the Lord come,
for as in the first coming those that waited for him rejoiced, so shall
those who are found watching and waiting at his second advent. We have
not only the promise of God, but that promise fulfilled to tens of
thousands who have preceded us, therefore, we should be ashamed to be
impatient, rather let us patiently wait and work on, till the day
breaketh, and the harvest cometh.
IV. And now, brethren, do you ask, WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PATIENCE?
To patiently wait God's appointed time is our business. I have shown
you how we are to wait, but note this, whatever benefit there may be in
patience, it is very clear there is none in impatience. Suppose a man
should be impatient under suffering. Will it diminish his suffering?
Will it increase the probabilities of his restoration? We all know that
the irritability of temper which is caused by impatience, is one of the
difficulties which the physician has to battle with. When the patient
is calm there is a better chance of his recovery. If we were near
impatient till there was any good to be derived from our fretfulness,
we should not be impatient just yet. There is a story told of Mr. Hill
being on board a vessel once. It is said he heard the mate swear, and
afterwards he heard the captain use a profane oath. I think Mr. Hill
interposed as the captain was about to swear again, and said, "No, no,
let us be fair, let us have everything turn and turn about. Your mate
has sworn, and you have had an oath. Now it is my turn–my turn to
swear." The captain looked at him somewhat astonished, and could not
but admit that there was a degree of rightness and propriety in every
man having his turn. However, Mr. Hill did not swear, and the captain
said, "I suppose, sir, you don't mean to take your turn, you don't mean
to swear." "Oh, yes," said the good old man, "I mean to swear as soon
as ever I can see the good of it." We might do the same by our
impatience brethren. Let us be impatient as soon as ever we can see the
use it will serve. If the farmer should want rain just now, his
impatience would not influence the clouds and make them pour out their
torrents. If your child happened to be very petulant, and have a very
noisy tongue, and a mischievous disposition, the mother's impatience
would not calm the child, control its temper, still its fitful passion,
or subdue its stubborn humor. Whatever happens to you, there is nothing
can happen to you worse than your being impatient, for of all troubles
in the world that one can be troubled with, an impatient spirit is
about the worst. O that ye would endeavor to conquer impatience. It
cast Satan out of heaven, when he was impatient at the honor and
dignity of the Son of God. He was impatient at being a servant to his
Maker, and was driven from his high estate. Let us be rid of impatience
which made Cain kill his brother, and which has done a thousand
mischievous things since. May God grant us like the husbandman
patiently to watch and wait.
But the benefits of patience are too many for me to hope to enumerate
them. Suffice it to say, patience saves a man from great
discouragement. If I expect that God will bless my labors to a large
extent the first month, and so strain every nerve and toil with every
sinew till my strength is ready to yield, and my spirit begins to flag;
and the blessing does not come at the time I looked for; I shall be
disheartened. But, if I expect some result, a great result in God's
appointed week of harvest, even though I may not count on seeing it
myself at once; I shall keep on renewing my labors, reviving my hopes,
and encouraging myself in the Lord my God. Surely a farmer would give
up his farm in sheer despair if he expected a harvest in a month's time
after sowing. He would be month after month in a very sad way, if
waiting to see it were not a condition for which he was thoroughly
prepared. If you expect an interval during which your patience will be
tried, you will not grow discouraged, because it is absolutely
requisite that you should wait. Expect to wait for the glory; expect to
wait for the reward which God hath promised; and, while you are waiting
on the Lord your bread shall be certain, and your water shall be sure:
you shall often eat meat, thank God, and take courage. The short days
and long nights shall not be all charged with gloom, but full often
they shall be tempered with good cheer. When we patience it keeps us in
good heart for service. A man to whom it is given to wait for a reward
keeps up his courage, and when he has to wait, he says, "It is no more
than I expected. I never reckoned that I was to slay my enemy at the
first blow. I never imagined that I was to capture the city as soon as
ever I had digged the first trench; I reckoned upon waiting, and now
that is come, I find that God gives me the grace to fight on and
wrestle on, till the victory shall come." And patience saves a man from
a great deal of haste and folly. A hasty man never is a wise man. He is
wise that halts a little, and ponders his ways, especially when
adversity crosses his path. I have known brethren in the ministry get
discouraged and leave their pulpits, and repent as long as ever they
lived that they left a sphere of labor, where they ought to have toiled
on. I have known Christian people get discouraged, and touchy, and
angry, fall out with the church of which they were members, go out in
the wilderness, and leave the fat pastures behind them. They have only
had to regret all their lives, that they had not a little more patience
with their brethren, and with the circus stances which surrounded them.
Whenever you are about to do anything in a great hurry, pause and pray.
The hot fever in your own system ill fits you to act discreetly. While
you tarry for a more healthy temperature of your own feelings, there
may be a great change in the thermometer outside as to the
circumstances that influence you. Great haste makes little speed. He
that believeth shall not make haste; and as the promise runs, he shall
never be confounded.
Above all, patience is to be commended to you because it glorifies God.
The man that can wait, and wait calmly, astonishes the worlding, for
the worldling wants it now. You remember John Bunyan's pretty parable
(as you all know it, I will only give the outline)–of Passion and
Patience. Passion would have all his best things first, and one came
in, and lavished before him out of a bag all that the child could
desire. Patience would have his best things last, and Patience sat and
waited, so when Passion had used up all his joy, and all he sought for,
Patience came in for his portion, and as John Bunyan very well
remarked, there is nothing to come after the last, and so the portion
of Patience lasted for ever. Let me have my best things last, my Lord,
and my worst things first. Be they what they may, they shall be over,
and then my best things shall last for ever and for ever. He that can
wait has faith, and it is faith that marks the true Christian. He that
can wait hath grace, and it is grace that marks the child of God. O
that the Lord would grant to every one of you more and more of this
excellent grace of patience, to the praise and glory of his name.
I have well nigh done. Yet there is one other respect in which our case
is like that of the husbandman. As the season advances, his anxieties
are prone to increase rather than to abate. If he has had long need of
patience while the seasons have succeeded each other, and while organic
chances have been in course of development, surely there is a stronger
denoted on his patience as the crisis approaches when he shall reap the
produce. How anxiously at this season will he observe the skies, watch
the clouds, and wait the opportune time to get in his crops and garner
them in good condition! Is there no peril that haunts him lest, after
all, the blast or the mildew should cheat his hopes; lest fierce winds
should lay the full-grown stems prostrate on the ground; lest then the
pelting showers of rain should drench the well-filled ears of corn? I
might almost call this the husbandman's last fear, and yet the most
nervous fear that agitates his mind. In like manner, beloved, we have a
closing scene in prospect which may, and will in all probability,
involve a greater trial of faith, and a sterner call for patience, than
any or all of the struggles through which we have already passed.
Perhaps I can best describe it to you by quoting two passages of
Scripture, one specially addressed to workers, the other more
particularly to sufferers. For the first of these texts; you will find
it in Hebrews 10:35-36. "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which
hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, What,
after ye have done the will of God, ye may receive the promise." This
is sweet counsel for thee, O pilgrim, to Zion's city bound. When thou
wast young and strong, thou didst walk many a weary mile with that
staff of promise. It helped thee over the ground. Don't throw it aside
as useless, now that thou art old and infirm. Lean upon it. Rest upon
that promise, in thy present weakness, which lightened thy labor in the
days of thy vigor. "Cast not away your confidence." But, brethren,
there is something more. The Apostle says, "Ye have need of patience,
after ye have done the will of God." But, why, you will say, is
patience so indispensable at this juncture of experience? Doubtless you
all know that we are never so subject to impatience as when there is
nothing we can do. All the while the farmer is occupied with ploughing,
harrowing, tilling, drilling, hoeing, and the like, he is too busy to
be fretful. It is when the work is done, and there is nothing more to
occupy his hands, that the very leisure he has to endure gives occasion
to secret qualms and lurking cares. So it ever is with us. While "we
are laborers together with God," our occupation is so pleasant that we
little heed the toil and moil of hard service. But when it comes to a
point where we have no province, for it is "God that giveth the
increase," we are apt to be grievously distrustful; our unbelief finds
full play. Hence it is, brethren, that after our fight is fought, after
our race is run, after our allotted task is finished, there is so much
need of patience, of such patience as waits only on God and watches
unto prayer, that we may finish our course with joy and the ministry we
have received of the Lord Jesus. And what about the second text? Where
is that to be found? It is in the early part of this epistle of James.
Turn to James 1:4. "Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Oh, how indisposed we all of us
are to take this advice! Methinks I see Paul retiring thrice to wrestle
with God in prayer, that he would remove the thorn from his flesh. He
felt the rankling, and he craved for relief. He had hardly thought of
it as a seton that must irritate before it could relieve, or as a
medicine that must gripe before it could head. But oh, patience is then
wrought up to its climax, when the soul so accepts the chastisement
from the hand of God that she cannot, and will not, ask him to change
his treatment or alter his discipline.
Seemeth it not as though patience were a virtue par excellence which
puts the last polish on Christian chastity? We will hie us back to the
cornfields again: I am afraid we were forgetting them. But this time we
will not talk so much with the farmer as with the crops. Knowest thou
then what it is that gives that bright yellow tinge of maturity to
those blades which erst were green and growing? What, think you,
imparts that golden hue to the wheat? How do you suppose the husbandman
judges when it is time to thrust in the sickle? I will tell you. All
the while the corn was growing, those hollow stems served as ducts that
drew up nourishment from the soil. At length the process of vegetation
is fulfilled. The fibres of the plant become rigid; they cease their
office; down below there has been a failure of the vital power which is
the precursor of death. Henceforth the heavenly powers work quick and
marvellous changes; the sun paints his superscription on the ears of
grain. They have reached the last stage: having fed on the riches of
the soil long enough, they are only influenced from above. The time of
their removal is at hand, when they shall be cut down, carried away in
the team, and housed in the garners. So, too, beloved in the Lord, it
is with some of you. Do I speak as a prophet? Do I not rather echo a
trite observation? "The fall of the year is most thickly strewn with
the fall of human life." You have long been succoured with mercies that
have come up from mother-earth; you have been exposed to cold dews,
chilling frosts, stormy blasts; you have had the trial of the vapory
fog, the icy winter, the fickle spring, and the summer drought; but it
is nearly all over now. You are ready to depart. Not yet for a brief
space has the reaper come. "Ye have need of patience." Having suffered
thus far, your tottering frame has learnt to bend. Patience,
man–patience! A mighty transformation is about to be wrought on you in
a short space. Wait on the Lord. Holiness shall now be legibly, more
legibly than ever, inscribed on your forefront by the clear shining of
the Sun of Righteousness. The heavenly husbandman has you daily,
hourly, in his eye, till he shall say to the angel of his presence,
"Put in your sickle." Then, as we pronounce your obituary with the meed
of praise due to one in whom God has wrought a perfect work, we shall
record that you were patient under affliction, resigned to the will of
the Lord, and ready to depart and to be with Christ, which is far
better. Patience has had her perfect work: you lack nothing. God grant
unto you this gracious "nunc dimittis" when your time for ingathering
has come!
Now, I have only spoken to believers, because as I have already said,
the unbeliever cannot wait with patience, for he has nothing to wait
for. There is nothing for him but a fearful looking for of judgment.
Oh, it must be an awful thing to go from a life of poverty, or of
suffering, or of drudgery here, into the world where the wrath of God
abideth for ever. It matters not what your position here may be, if at
the end you enter into rest. Equally little does it matter what joys or
wealth you have here, if after all you are driven from the Lord's
presence. May you be led to believe in Jesus. There lies safety. May
you rest in his precious blood. There is pardon; there is salvation.
God grant it, for Christ's sake Amen.