Farm Laborers

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 5, 1881,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then
neither he who plants is anything, neither he who waters, but God that
gives the increase. Now he whoplants andhe who waters are one: and
every man shallreceive his own reward according to his own labor. For
we are laborers together with God: you are God's husbandry." 1
Corinthians 3:6-9.

IN all ages since the Fall there has been a tendency in the human heart
to forget God and get away from Him. Idolatry has been the sin of all
nations, including God's favored people, the Jews, and including
certain persons who call themselves Christians who still make idols out
of crosses and images. This vicious principle of ignoring God and
setting up something between our minds and our Creator crops up
everywhere and in every department of thought. When men study the works
of God in Nature, they often hang up a veil to hide the great Worker.
Because God acts in a certain way they call His method of action a Law
and straightway they speak of these Laws as if they were forces and
powers in and of themselves and thus God is banished out of His own
universe and His place is taken up in the scientific world by idols
called, "natural laws."

Take the region of Providence and here you find persons, instead of
seeing the hand of God everywhere, looking to second causes. They are
seeking causes of prosperity and becoming very despondent if they do
not appear to exist; or viewing the agents of affliction and becoming
angry against them, instead of bowing before the God who has used them
for correction. It is easy to make idols out of second causes and to
forget the God who is everywhere present, causing all things to work
together for good. That this evil principle should intrude into the
Church is very sad and yet it is with difficulty excluded.

You may bar all your doors as fast as you please, but the idol-makers
will come in with their shrines. In the instance of the Church at
Corinth, Paul found the Brethren forgetting their God and Savior in
their high esteem for certain preachers. Instead of all saying, "We are
Christ's disciples," and uniting together to promote the common cause,
they established parties and one said, "Paul, who founded this Church,
is to be had in the greatest reverence and we are of Paul." Others
replied, "But Apollos is more eloquent than the Apostle Paul and by him
we have been edified till we have gone beyond Paul and, therefore, we
are of Apollos." But a third party declared that they were of no sect
whatever, for they were "Brethren" and were "of Christ."

These last, I suspect, either ignored or denounced the other two
parties and would not commune with them, in order to testify against
their sectarianism and to promote unity. I only surmise this from the
conduct of those "Brethren" who in our day take the Corinthians to be
their model and cut off everybody else, being more exclusive than any
other sect in Christendom! The Apostle warns the saints in Corinth
against this–he brings the Lord before their minds and bids them
remember that if Paul plants and Apollos waters, still, it is God that
gives the increase. Since they think so highly of men, he will have it
that "neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters anything" but
God that gives the increase is everything.

See to it, dear Friends, that you set the Lord always before you in
this Church and in all your Churches! Know them that labor among you
and esteem them highly in love for their work's sake, but do not make
them your dependence. Remember that the ablest ministers, the most
successful evangelists, the most profound teachers are, after all,
nothing but laborers on God's farm–"laborers together with God." Let
your mind be set upon the Master and not upon the servants! Do not say,
"We are for this man because he plants," or, "we are for the other
because he waters," or, "we"–a third party–"are for nobody at all."
But let us join in ascribing all honor and praise unto God who works
all our

works in us, since every good gift and every perfect gift is from above
and comes down from the Father of Lights, to whom be glory world
without end!

I shall begin at the end of my text because I find it to be the easiest
way of mapping out my discourse. We shall first remark that the Church
is God's farm–"You are God's husbandry." In the margin of the revised
version we read, "You are God's tilled ground," and that is the very
expression for me. "You are God's tilled ground," or farm. After we
have spoken of the farm, we will next say a little upon the fact that
He employs laborers on the farm. And when we have looked at the
laborers–such poor fellows as they are–we will remember that God
Himself is the great Worker– "We are laborers together with God."

I. We begin by considering that THE CHURCH IS GOD'S FARM. The Lord has
made the Church of His sovereign choice to be His own by purchase,
having paid an immense price for it. "The Lord's portion is His people;
Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." Because the Lord's portion was
under mortgage, therefore the Only-Begotten Son laid down His life as
the purchase price and redeemed His people to be the Lord's portion
forever and ever. Henceforth it is said to all Believers, "You are not
your own; you are bought with a price." Every acre of God's farm cost
the Savior bloody sweat– yes, the blood of His heart! He loved us and
gave Himself for us–that is the price He paid!

What a ransom! The death of Jesus has sometimes almost seemed too high
a price to pay for such poor land as we are, but the Lord, having set
His eyes and heart upon His people, would not draw back, but completed
the Redemption of the purchased possession! Therefore the Church is
God's freehold and He has the title deeds of it, yes, of you and of me,
for we belong only to Him and we are glad to acknowledge the fact–"I
am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine." The Church is God's farm by
choice and purchase.

And now He has made it His by enclosure. It lay exposed, for a time, as
part of an open common, bare and barren, covered with thorns and
thistles and the haunt of every wild beast, for we were, "by nature the
children of wrath, even as others." We were part of the dreary desert
till Divine foreknowledge surveyed the waste and electing love marked
out its portion with a full line of Grace and thus set us apart to be
the Lord's own estate forever. In due time effectual Grace came forth
with power and separated us from the rest of mankind, as fields are
hedged and ditched to part them from the open heath.

Has not the Lord declared that He has chosen His vineyard and fenced
it? Has He not said, "I will be a wall of fire round about you and a
Glory in the midst"?–

"We are a garden walled around,

Chosen and made peculiar ground.

A little spot, enclosed by Grace

Out of the world's wide wilderness." The Lord has also made this farm
evidently His own by cultivation. What more could He have done for His
farm? He has totally changed the nature of the soil–from being barren,
He has made it a fruitful land! He has plowed it, dug it, fattened it,
watered it and planted it with all manner of flowers and fruits. It has
already brought forth to Him many a pleasant fruit and there are
brighter times to come when angels shall shout the harvest home and
Christ "shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied."

This farm is kept what it is, as well as made what it is, by God's
continual protection. Not only did He enclose it and work upon it by
His miraculous power to make it His own farm, but He continually
maintains possession of it. "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it
every moment: lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day." If it
were not for God's continual power, her hedges would soon be thrown
down and wild beasts would devour her fields. Wicked hands are always
trying to break down her walls and lay her waste, again, so that there
should be no true Church in the world, but the Lord is jealous for His
land and will not allow it to be destroyed. If God were to leave the
Church, she would become a howling wilderness, but she shall not come
to such an end.

A Church would not long remain a Church if God did not preserve it unto
Himself. What if God should say, "I will take away the hedge and it
shall be eaten up; and break down the wall, and it shall be trod down:
and I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor tilled; but there
shall come up briars and thorns: I will also command the clouds that
they rain no rain upon it"? What a wilderness it would become! What
does He say? "Go you now unto My place which was in Shi-loh, where I
set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness
of My people Israel." Go you to Jerusa-

lem, where of old was the city of His Glory and the shrine of His
dwelling–and what is left there today? Go you to Rome, where once Paul
preached the Gospel with power–what is it, now, but the center of
idolatry?

The Lord may remove the candlestick and leave a place that was bright
as day to become black as darkness itself! But God's farm remains a
farm because He is always in it to prevent its returning to its former
wildness. Omnipotent power is as necessary to keep the fields of the
Church under cultivation as to reclaim them at the first. Inasmuch as
the Church is God's own farm, He expects to receive a harvest from it.
He comes to us looking for sheaves where He has sowed so plentifully.
The world is a wasteland and He looks for nothing from it–but we are
tilled land and, therefore, a harvest is due from us!

Barrenness suits the moorland, but to a farm it would be a great
discredit. Love looks for returns of love. Divine Grace given demands
gracious fruit. Watered with the drops of the Savior's bloody sweat,
shall we not bring forth a hundred-fold to His praise? Kept by the
eternal Spirit of God, shall there not be produced in us fruits to His
Glory? The Lord's husbandry upon us has shown a great expenditure of
cost, labor and thought–ought there not to be a proportionate return?
Ought not the Lord to have a harvest of obedience, a harvest of
holiness, a harvest of usefulness, a harvest of praise? Shall it not be
so?

I think some churches forget that an increase is expected from every
field of the Lord's farm, for they never have a harvest or even look
for one. The people come together and take their seats on Sunday and
listen to sermons–that is, when they do not go to sleep–the
sacraments are celebrated, a little money is contributed, a few poor
folk are relieved and affairs crawl along at a snail's pace. As to
affecting the whole village, or endeavoring to bring the surrounding
population to Christ, I do not think it has occurred to some churches
to attempt it and when certain warmer spirits seek to bring sinners to
Jesus, the older and more prudent folks fetch wet blankets and use them
with very great effect so that every sign of enthusiasm is damped down.

Brethren, such things ought not to be! I conceive that if there were no
Christians in England but the members of our baptized Churches, these
would suffice for God's great designs of mercy if they were once
awakened to real labor. Alas, the loiterers are many, but the laborers
are few. Look, my Brethren, at the number of Non-conforming Churches in
this land and at the earnest ministers remaining in the
Establishment–if these were more fully quickened into spiritual life,
would there not be workmen enough on the home farm? If all churches
felt that they did not exist for mere existence's sake, nor mere
enjoyment's sake, would they not act differently?

Farmers do not plow their lands or sow their fields for amusement–they
mean business and plow and sow because they desire a harvest! If this
fact could but enter into the heads of some professors, surely they
would look at things in a different light! But of late it has seemed as
if we thought that God's Church was not expected to produce anything,
but existed for her own comfort and personal benefit. Brothers and
Sisters, it must not be so! The great Husbandman must have some reward
for His husbandry! Every field must yield its increase and the whole
estate must bring forth to His praise! We join with the bride in the
Song in saying, "My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: you, O
Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof
two hundred."

But I come back to the place from which I started. This farm is, by
choice, by purchase, by enclosure, by cultivation, by preservation
entirely the Lord's. See, then, the injustice of allowing any of the
laborers to call even a part of the estate his own! When a great man
has a large farm of his own, what would he think if Hodge, the plowman,
should say, "Look here, I plow this farm and, therefore, it is mine! I
shall call this field, Hodge's Acres"? "And," says Hobbs, "I reaped
that land last harvest and, therefore, it is mine and I shall call it
Hobbs's Field." What if all the other laborers became Hodgeites and
Hobbsites and so parceled out the farm among them? I think the landlord
would soon eject the lot of them! The farm belongs to its owner and let
it be called by his name. It is absurd to call it by the names of the
bumpkins who labor upon it. Is that a disrespectful title to apply to
laborers? Why, I meant it for anybody and everybody whose name is used
as the head of a party in the Church!

I meant Luther, Calvin, Wesley and other great men, for at their best,
as compared with their Master, they are only farm laborers and we ought
not to call parts of the farm by their names! Remember how Paul put it,
"Who, then, is Paul and who is Apollos?" "Is Christ divided? Was Paul
crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" The
entire Church belongs to Him who has chosen it in His Sovereignty,
bought it with His blood, fenced it by His Grace,

cultivated it by His wisdom and preserved it by His power! There is
still but one Church on the face of the earth and those who love the
Lord should keep this Truth of God in mind.

Paul is a laborer, Apollos is a laborer, Cephas is a laborer, but the
farm is not Paul's, not so much as a foot of it, nor does a single
parcel of land belong to Apollos, or the smallest allotment to
Cephas–"You are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The fact is that in
this case the laborers belong to the land and not the land to the
laborers–"For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas." We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake!

II. We now have to notice, as our second head, that THE GREAT
HUSBANDMAN EMPLOYS LABORERS. By human agency God ordinarily works out
His designs. He can, if He pleases, by His Holy Spirit, get directly at
the hearts of men, but that is His business and not ours. We have to do
with such words as these–"It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe." The Master's commission is not,
"Sit still and see the Spirit of God convert the nations," but, "Go you
into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." This is
God's method in supplying the race with food.

In answer to the prayer, "give us this day our daily bread," He might
have bid the clouds drop manna, morning by morning, at each man's door,
but He sees that it is for our good to work and so He uses the hands of
the plowman and the sower for our supply. God might plow and sow His
chosen farm, the Church, by miracle, or by angels, but it is a great
instance of His condescension towards His Church that He blesses her
through her own sons and daughters. He employs us for our own good, for
we who are laborers in His fields receive much more good for ourselves
than we bestow. Labor develops our spiritual muscle and keeps us in
health. "Unto me," says Paul, "who am less than the least of all
saints, is this Grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ."

It is a Divine Grace, then. We find it to be a means of Grace to our
souls to preach the Gospel. I have heard it said and I believe there is
some truth in it, that those who have to preach are under the
temptation of getting so familiar with sacred things that they cease to
feel their power. If this is true, it is an awful proof of our total
depravity, for the more familiar we are with holy things the more we
ought to be affected by them. And this I know, it has been the greatest
means of Grace to me to be bound by my office to study the Scriptures
and wait upon God for help in expounding them.

Some of you who do not grow in Grace by hearing other people might
possibly get on better if you were, yourselves, to try and preach. At
any rate, you might not be quite so faultfinding with other folks! When
I hear a person say, "I cannot hear my minister," I suggest to him to
buy a horn. "Oh," he says, "I do not mean that. I mean that I cannot
enjoy his preaching." Then I say to him, "Preach yourself." "I cannot
do that." Then do not find fault with those who are doing their best."
Instead of blaming the plowman, just try a turn in the furrow,
yourself! Why grumble at the weeds? Take a hoe and work at them like a
man!

Do you think the hedges untidy? Put on the leather gloves and help us
trim them! Our great Master means that every laborer on His farm should
receive some benefit from it, for He never muzzles the ox which treads
out the corn. The laborer's daily bread comes out of the soil. Though
he works not for himself, but for his Master, yet he still has his
portion of food. In the Lord's granary there is seed for the sower, but
there is also bread for the eater. However disinterestedly we may serve
God in the husbandry of His Church, we are, ourselves, partakers of the
fruit. It is a great condescension on God's part that He uses us at
all, for we are poor tools, at the best, and more hindrance than help.

The laborers employed by God are all occupied upon necessary work.
Notice, "I have planted, Apollos watered." Who beat the big drum, or
blew his own trumpet? Nobody! On God's farm none are kept for
ornamental purposes. I have read some sermons which could only have
been meant for show, for there was not a grain of Gospel in them. They
were plows with the share left out, drills with no wheat in the box,
clod-crushers made of butter! I do not believe that our God will ever
pay wages to men who only walk about His grounds to show themselves.
Fine orators who display their eloquence are more like Gypsies who
stray on the farm to pick up chickens than honest laborers who work to
bring forth a crop for their master.

Why, many of the members of our Churches live as if their only business
on the farm was to pluck blackberries or gather wild flowers! They are
great at finding fault with other people's plowing and mowing, but not
a hand's turn will they do themselves. Come on, my good fellows! Why do
you stand all the day idle? The harvest is plenteous and the laborers
are few. You who think yourselves more cultivated than ordinary people,
if you are, indeed, Christians, must not

strut about and despise those who are hard at work. If you do, I shall
say, "That person has mistaken his master. He may probably be in the
employ of some gentleman farmer who cares more for show than profit,
but our great Lord is practi-cal–and on His estate His laborers attend
to necessary labor."

When you and I preach or teach it will be well if we say to ourselves,
"What will be the use of what I am going to do? I am about to teach a
difficult subject–will it do any good? I have chosen an abstruse point
of theology–will it serve any purpose?" Brothers, a laborer may work
very hard at a whim of his own and waste his labor, but this is folly!
Some discourses do little more than show the difference between a
tweedle-dum and a tweedle-dee–and what is the use of that? Suppose we
sow the fields with sawdust, or sprinkle them with rosewater, what of
that? Will God bless our moral essays and fine compositions and pretty
passages?

Brothers, we must aim at usefulness–we must, as laborers together with
God, be occupied with something that is worth doing. "I," says one,
"have planted." It is well, for planting must be done. "I," answers
another, "have watered." That is also good and necessary. See to it
that you can each bring in a solid report, but let no man be content
with the mere child's play of oratory, or the getting up of
entertainments and such like! On the Lord's farm there is a division of
labor. Even Paul did not say, "I have planted and watered." No, Paul
planted. And Apollos certainly could not say, "I have planted as well
as watered." No, it was enough for him to attend to the watering. No
one man has all gifts. How foolish, then, are they who say, "I enjoy
So-and-So's ministry because he edifies the saints in doctrine, but
when he was away the other Sunday I could not profit by the preacher
because he was all for the conversion of sinners"?

Yes, he was planting! You have been planted a good while and do not
need planting again, but you ought to be thankful that others were made
partakers of the benefit! One sows and another reaps and, therefore,
instead of grumbling at the honest plowman because he did not bring a
sickle with him, you ought to have prayed for him that he might have
strength to plow deep and break up hard hearts. Let us do all that we
can and try to do more, for the more work we can turn our hands to, the
better. "You must not have too many irons in the fire," said somebody.
But I say, "Put all your irons into the fire and if you have not fire
enough, cry to God till you have! Set your whole soul on fire and keep
all your irons hot." Yet you may find it wise to direct your strength
into one line of things which you understand so that, by practice, you
may come to be skillful in it. Each man should find out his own work
and do it with all his might.

Observe that, on God's farm, there is unity of purpose among the
laborers. Read the text. "Now he that plants and he that waters are
one." One Master has employed them and though He may send them out at
different times and to different parts of the farm, yet they are all
one in being used for one end–to work for one harvest. In England we
do not understand what is meant by watering, because the farmer could
not water all his farm–but in the East a farmer waters almost every
inch of ground. He would have no crop if he did not use all means for
irrigating the fields. If you have ever been in Italy, Egypt, or
Palestine, you will have seen a complete system of wells, pumps,
wheels, buckets, channels, little streamlets, pipes and so on, by which
the water is carried all over the garden to every plant–otherwise in
the extreme heat of the sun it would be dried up.

Planting needs wisdom and watering needs quite as much–and the piecing
of these two works together needs that the laborers should be of one
mind. It is a bad thing when laborers are at cross purposes and work
against each other. And this evil is worse in the Church than anywhere
else. How can I plant with success if my helper will not water what I
have planted? Or what is the use of my watering if nothing is planted?
Farming is spoiled when foolish people undertake it and quarrel over
it, for from sowing to reaping the work is one and all must be done to
one end. O for unity! Let as pull together all our days, even as we
have done in this Church to now.

We are called upon to notice in our text that all the laborers put
together are nothing. "Neither he who plants is anything, neither he
who waters." The workmen are nothing at all without their master! All
the laborers on a farm could not manage it if they had no one at their
head and all the preachers and Christian workers in the world can do
nothing unless God is with them! Remember that every laborer on God's
farm has derived all his qualifications from God! No man knows how to
plant or water souls unless God teaches him from day to day. All these
holy gifts are the grants of free Grace. All the laborers work under
God's direction and arrangement or they work in vain. They would not
know when or how to do their work if their Master did not guide them by
His Spirit, without whose help they cannot even think a good thought!

All God's laborers must go to Him for their Seed or else they will
scatter tares. All good Seed comes out of God's granary. If we preach,
it must be the true Word of God or nothing can come of it. More than
that, all the strength that is in the laborer's arms to sow the
heavenly Seed must be given by his Master. We cannot preach unless God
is with us. A sermon is vain talk and dreary word-spinning unless the
Holy Spirit enlivens it. He mast give us both the preparation of the
heart and the answer of the tongue, or we shall be as men who sow the
wind. When the good Seed is sown, the whole success of it rests with
God. If He withholds the dew and the rain, the Seed will never rise
from the ground–and unless He shall shine upon it, the green ear will
never ripen.

The human heart will remain barren, even though Paul himself should
preach, unless God the Holy Spirit shall work with Paul and bless the
Word to those who hear it. Therefore, since the increase is of God
alone, put the laborers into their place. Do not make too much of us,
for when we have done, we are all unprofitable servants. Yet, though
Inspiration calls the laborers nothing, it makes a great deal of them,
for it says, "Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his
own labor." They are nothing and yet they shall be rewarded as if they
were something! God works our good works in us and then rewards us for
them!

Here we have mention of a personal service and a personal
reward–"Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own
labor." The reward is proportionate, not to the success, but to labor!
Many discouraged workers may be comforted with that expression. You are
not to be paid by results, but by endeavors. You may have a stiff bit
of clay to plow, or a dreary plot of land to sow where stones, birds,
thorns, travelers and a burning sun may all be leagued against the
Seed– but you are not accountable for these things–your reward shall
be according to your labor! Some put a great deal of labor into a
little field and make much out of it. Others use a great deal of labor
throughout a long life and yet they see but small results, for it is
written, "one sows and another reaps." But the reaping man will not get
all the reward–the sowing man shall receive his portion of the joy.
The laborers are nobodies, but they shall enter into the joy of their
Lord!

Unitedly, according to the text, the workers have been successful and
that is a great part of their reward. "I have planted, Apollos watered,
but God gave the increase." Frequently Brethren say in their prayers,
"A Paul may plant, an Apollos may water, but it is all in vain unless
God gives the increase." This is quite true, but another Truth of God
is too much overlooked, namely, that when Paul plants and Apollos
waters, God does give the increase! We do not labor in vain! There
would be no increase without God, but then we are not without God! When
such men as Paul and Apollos plant and water, there is sure to be an
increase! They are the right kind of laborers. They work in a right
spirit and God is certain to bless them.

This is a great part of the laborers' wages. I am rich, I am increased
in goods, I have need of nothing when I see souls converted–my heart
leaps for joy, my spirit is glad and I am ready to sing, "My soul does
magnify the Lord"–but if it were ever to come to this, that I stood
here Sunday after Sunday and saw no conversions but the Church rather
going down than increasing, I should take it as an intimation that I
had better take my plow somewhere else and scatter the Seed on other
soil. I would break my heart over non-success, or cry to God to break
it, for he that works and gets no fruit is disheartened in his labor.

What would you farmers do? You are half inclined to give up, now,
because you have had two or three bad years. But what would you do if
you never saw a harvest at all? Why, you would clear out and be off to
the western prairies or to the bush of the southern continent to see if
the soil somewhere else would repay your labor! Do the same, Brother
ministers! If you have been at work in one spot for years and have not
led souls to Jesus, pack up your traps and go somewhere else! Do not
forever break your plow upon rocks. It is a big world and there is
plenty of good ground somewhere–let us seek it! If they persecute you
in one city, flee to another and let the Word of God be published all
the more widely by your moving about!

III. So much upon the laborers. Now for the main point again. GOD
HIMSELF IS THE GREAT WORKER. He

may use what laborers He pleases, but the increase comes only from Him.
Brothers, you know it is so in natural things– the most skillful
farmer cannot make the wheat germinate, grow and ripen. He cannot even
preserve a single field till harvest time, for the farmer's enemies are
many and mighty. In farming there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the
lip and when the farmer thinks he shall reap his crop, often there are
blights and mildews lingering about to rob him of his gains.

God must give the increase. If any man is dependent on God, it is the
farmer and as he, we are, all of us, dependent upon God from year to
year for the food by which we live. Even the king must live by the
increase of the field.

God gives the increase in the barn and the hayrack–and in the
spiritual farm it is even more so, for what can man do in this
business? If any of you think that it is an easy thing to win a soul, I
would like you to try. Suppose that without Divine aid you should try
to save a soul–you might as well attempt to make a world! Why, you
cannot create a fly! How can you create a new heart and a right spirit?
Regeneration is a great mystery–it is out of your reach. "The wind
blows where it will and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell
from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of
the Spirit."

What can you and I do in this matter? It is out of our pale and beyond
our line. We can tell out the Truth of God, but to apply that Truth to
the heart and conscience is quite another thing. I have stood here and
preached Jesus Christ– preached my whole heart out–and yet I know
that I have never produced any saving effect upon a single unregenerate
man unless the spirit of God has taken the Truth of God and opened the
heart and placed the living Seed within it! Experience teaches us this.
Equally is it the Lord's work to keep the Seed alive when it springs
up. We think we have converts but it is not long before we are
disappointed in them. Many are like blossoms on our fruit trees–they
are fair to look upon, but they do not come to anything! And others are
like the many little fruits which fall off long before they have come
to any size–a cold night or a blight will come and away go our hopes
of a crop–it is just so with hopeful converts.

He who presides over a great Church and feels an agony for the souls of
men will soon be convinced that if God does not work, there will be no
work done. We shall see no conversion, no sanctification, no final
perseverance, no glory brought to God, no satisfaction for the passion
of the Savior unless He gives the increase! Well said our Lord,
"Without Me you can do nothing." What is the effect of all this upon
your minds? Briefly I would draw certain practical lessons out of this
important Truth of God–the first is, if the whole farm of the Church
belongs exclusively to the great Master Worker and the laborers are
worth nothing without Him, let this promote unity among all whom He
employs!

If we are all under one Master, do not let us quarrel. It is a great
pity when ministers harshly criticize one another and when Sunday
school teachers do the same. It is a miserable business when we cannot
bear to see good being done by those of a different denomination who
work in ways of their own. If a new laborer comes on the farm and he
wears a coat of a new cut and uses a hoe of a new shape, shall I become
his enemy? If he does his work better than I do mine, shall I be
jealous? Do you not remember reading in the Scriptures that upon one
occasion the disciples could not cast out a devil? This ought to have
made them humble, but to our surprise we read a few verses farther on
that John and others saw one casting out devils in Christ's name and
John said, "We forbade him, because he follows not with us."

They could not cast out the devil, themselves, and they forbade those
who could! A certain band of people are going about winning souls, but
because they are not doing it in our fashion, we do not like it. It is
true they use all sorts of strange devices and wild excitements–but
they do save souls–and that is the main point. Yet there are gentlemen
who never converted half a soul in their lives who cry, "This is
fanaticism!" Go and do better before you find fault! Instead of
caviling, let us encourage all on Christ's side. Wisdom is justified of
her children. The laborers ought to be satisfied with the new plowman
if his Master is. Brother, if the great Lord has employed you, it is no
business of mine to question His right. I do not like the looks of you
and cannot think how He can have such a fellow upon the farm, but as He
has employed you, I have no right to judge you, for I dare say I look
as odd in your eyes as you do in mine!

Can I lend you a hand? Can I show you how to work better? Or can you
tell me something so that I may do my work better? May not the Master
employ whom He pleases? If a new hoe or a new rake comes out and you
that have been doing work steadily for years open your eyes and say, "I
shall not use that new-fangled thing"–are you wise? Do not use the new
invention if you have not tried it and can work better in your own way,
but let the other man use it who finds it a handier tool. If new
methods of getting a hearing for the Gospel are invented by the
ingenuity of earnestness, let the Brothers use them. And if we cannot
imitate them, let us at least feel that we are still one, because, "One
is our Master, even Christ."

This Truth of God, however, ought to keep all the laborers very
dependent. Are you going to preach, young man? "Yes, I am going to do a
great deal of good." Are you? Have you forgotten that you are nothing?
"Neither is he who plants anything." A great preacher is coming full of
the Gospel to comfort the saints. If he is not coming in strict de-

pendence upon God, he, too, is nothing. "Neither is he who waters
anything." Power belongs to God! Man is vanity and his words are
wind–to God alone belongs power and wisdom. If we keep our places in
all lowliness, our Lord will use us. But when we exalt ourselves, He
will leave us to our nothingness.

Next, notice that this fact ennobles everybody who labors in God's
husbandry. This passage makes my heart leap as I read it! My very soul
is lifted up with joy when I mark these words, "For we are laborers
together with God"! We are God's fellow workers–mere laborers on His
farm–but laborers with Him! Does the Lord work with us? Yes. "The Lord
works with them with signs following." "My Father works hitherto, and I
work," is language for all the sons of God as well as for the great
First-Born! God is with you, Brother! God is with you, Sister, when you
are serving Him with all your heart. Speaking to your class concerning
Jesus, it is God that speaks through you! Picking up that stranger on
the way and telling him of salvation by faith, Christ is speaking with
you even as He spoke with the woman at the

well!

Addressing the rough crowd in the open air, young man, if you are
preaching of pardon through the atoning blood, it is the God of Peter
who is testifying of His Son even as He did on the day of Pentecost! O
Brother laborers, ours is a high honor, since the Father is with us and
works by us! As Mr. Wesley said, "The best of all is, God is with us."
The Lord of Hosts is with us and, therefore, we cannot fail! If we
could, in working with God, be defeated, then God's own honor would be
compromised and that cannot be!

But, lastly, how this should drive us to our knees! Since we are
nothing without God, let us cry mightily unto Him for help in this, our
holy service! Let both sower and reaper pray together, or they will
never rejoice together! As a Church, God has blessed us so richly that
in generations to come it will be spoken of as a wonder that God should
so greatly favor a congregation for so many years–but it has been
wholly and only in answer to PRAYER. So far from supposing that our
union and prosperity are in any measure due to me, I declare that the
only cause of all the soul-winning that has been done in this place is
to be found in the prayers of the saints! God in great mercy has given
the spirit of prayer to you and to others who love me and, therefore, I
am highly favored. I am terribly afraid lest this prayerfulness should
be dampened–I am jealous lest you should begin to think the preacher
is something and so should fail to pray for him!

There is a thinner congregation when I am away and, therefore, I am
afraid that you have some reliance upon me and do not expect a blessing
if I am absent. Is it so? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made
perfect in the flesh? Have you begun to be of Spurgeon? This will never
do! Brothers and Sisters, this will never do! We must get rid of the
tendency before it grows upon us! God can bless one man as well as
another. I do not know that He always does so, but He can and, perhaps
if you expected Him to do so, He would do so. If you came up to this
house with the same prayerfulness for others as you apportion me, you
would get the same blessing! I am weakest of the weak apart from God,
therefore pray for me, but others are weak, too, and, therefore, pray
for them, also.

Do let us pray mightily for a blessing! Pray always! Pray in your
bedchambers, at your family altars, at your work, in your leisure and
also in this place! Come in larger numbers to pray for a blessing! We
have many appointed Prayer Meetings–keep them all flourishing! The
windows of Heaven are easily opened if our mouths and hearts are opened
in prayer. If the blessing is withheld, it is because we do not cry for
it and expect it! O, Brother laborers, come to the Mercy Seat and you
shall see God's farm watered from on high and tilled with Divine
skill–and the reapers shall soon return from the folds bringing their
sheaves with them, though, perhaps, they went forth weeping to the
sowing. To our Father, who is the Husbandman, be all Glory, forever and
ever! Amen.
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What the Farm Laborers Can Do and What They Cannot Do