Isaiah 28:23-29

The ploughman

The parable of the ploughman and the thresher

1.

The general drift of the parable is obvious. The husbandman does not forever vex and wound the tender bosom of the earth with the keen edge of the ploughshare or the sharp teeth of the harrow. He ploughs only that he may sow; he harrows the ground only that he may produce a level and unclodded surface on which to cast his seeds. And when he sows, he gives to every seed its appropriate place and usage. He scatters the dill and strews the cummin broadcast; but the wheat he sets, according to the Oriental fashion, in long rows, and the barley in a place specially marked out for it, so marked as to exclude the borders of the field: and here, along the edges of the field, where it is most likely to be bitten or trampled by passing beasts, he sows the less valuable spelt. And this he does because God has given him discretion. Is God, then, less wise than the husbandman whom He has taught? So, again, when the harvest is gathered in, the wise husbandman still varies and adapts his means to his end. He does not go on threshing “forever”; his single aim is to separate the chaff from the wheat, to save as much of the grain as he can, and to save it in the best condition he can, that it may be gathered into his garner. And he thus varies his modes of treatment, and adapts them to the several kinds of seeds, because God has given him sagacity and wisdom. Will God, then, who gave the husbandman this sagacity, be less observant of time and measure? Will He crush and waste the precious grain of His threshing floor?

2. Nor is the historical application of the parable difficult to recover. Isaiah had to warn and admonish the chosen nation at a period in which they were utterly corrupt, when the judges took bribes and the priests mocked at the Word of the Lord, and the very prophets saw “lying visions,” or pretended to see them, and the people had made a covenant with Death and Hades. He had to threaten them with disaster on disaster. So corrupt were they, however, that they made a jest of him for his fidelity to their King and God. In their drunken carousals the priests and prophets mimicked and burlesqued the simplicity and directness of his speech, and turned his warnings into a theme for laughter and derision. But even in this godless and scoffing age there was a “remnant” faithful among the faithless, who were true to God and to the Word which He sent by the prophet. Were they to be consumed in the fire of the Divine indignation against the popular sins? Or, if they were preserved, were they to stand by and see the elect nation destroyed out of its place? Was there no hope for them? none even for the nation at large! There was hope; and that they might see it and be sustained by it in the cloudy and dark day of judgment, Isaiah discloses to them, in his parable, the secret of the Divine administration, namely, that judgment is mercy, and that it prepares the way for a mercy more open and full than itself. But the prophet has a message to the faithful remnant, as well as to the nation at large. And to them his message is, that even the good grain must be threshed, that even those who are faithful to Jehovah must share in the judgments which are about to fall on the entire nation. They cannot be exempted from the misery of the time; they must suffer, as for their own sins, so also for the sins of their neighbours. But this is their comfort, that the Divine Husbandman measures out His strokes with wisdom and grace. God is but separating that which is good in those whom He loves from that which is evil and imperfect in them; and, even in this process of separation, He will not lay upon them more than they are able to bear.

3. So that, in this parable, the mystery of the Divine providence is laid open, its secret disclosed. All ploughing is for sowing; all threshing is intended for the preservation of the grain. When God chastens us, it is not because He means to destroy us, but because He has set His heart on saving us, because He has appointed us to life and not to death. Nor are the ordinances and chastening of His providence arbitrary and without discrimination. He employs various methods, sends “sorrows of all sorts and sizes,” that He may adapt Himself to every man’s needs, and to all our varieties of place, time, and circumstance. “Cure sin and you cure sorrow,” say the reason and conscience of the world: and the sorrow comes that the sin may be cured, adds the prophet; the very miseries that spring from evil are intended to eradicate the evil from which they spring. It was in the strength of this sublime conception of the ministry of pain and sorrow that the Hebrew prophets met the terrible miseries they were called to endure and behold. (S. Cox, D. D.)

The spiritual power

A knowledge of agriculture is almost essential to the right appreciation of many portions of the Bible.

I. THE PROCESS OF SOWING IMPLIES A SOIL PREPARED FOR THE SEED. The reception of the Gospel implies preceding thought, reflection, and resolution; which may be beautifully and characteristically expressed by the agricultural term, cultivation.

II. THE PROCESS OF SOWING IMPLIES SEED ADAPTED TO THE SOIL. There is a variety of seed mentioned in the text, and modem as well as ancient agriculture verifies the truth of the prophet’s description.

1. Let the seed for the mind be marked as with a seal. As the ancients chose the best of their crops for seed, so let the truths selected for the mind be of the highest and holiest description.

2. Let the seed for the mind be varied. The Word of God, independent of other sources, furnishes a great variety of truths to suit the soul in every conceivable state. And the same truth is set forth in many different ways, and couched under many different figures, to fit all descriptions of minds.

III. THE PROCESS OF SOWING IMPLIES A SUITABLE SEASON. Men do not sow at all times. “There k a time to sow, and a time to reap.” So there is a season for sowing the good seed of the kingdom. Life is that season.

IV. THE SOWING PROCESS IMPLIES SKILL AND FAITH. All are sowers in the moral sense. Some, however, are not skilful sowers; and what an abundance of seed they destroy! They have great privileges, high immunities, transcendently over towering those of their fellow men; and yet it is to be feared they will reap but a poor harvest. But it is delightful to know, that others, with few privileges, and comparatively few opportunities, am sowing in their own minds, and the minds of others, the seeds of truth; and by their skilful sowing will reap a great harvest of future glory. (A. Gray, M. A.)

The discreet ploughman

The drift of these words is to comfort God’s children in afflictions; and, because when one is sorrowful, weak, taken up and over pressed with grief, we are then unfit and incapable of instruction, the anguish of the suffering destroying our attention, He therefore says, doubling it four times, “Give ye ear,” “hear My voice,” “hearken ye,” and “hear My voice”; wherein He insinuates that the matter He is about to deliver requires attention.

1. The only way to quiet one’s heart, and pacify one in all distresses, is to hearken what God says.

(1) Because God’s Word will work faith, which does purify the heart, overcome the world, and quench the fiery darts of Satan.

(2) It will teach a man wisdom, whence and why it comes, and that struggling with God is in vain, and that in so doing we shall have the worse.

(3) It will be a means to work patience in the heart.

(4) It will make us go to God and pray, and prayer will bring comfort and ease to the heart ere long.

2. All God’s children must be ploughed.

3. God will make a sweet and seasonable end of afflicting His children. He doth correct us for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

4. When the Lord hath made us plain, and hath filled us with hearts to receive good seed, then is the time of rest.

5. When God hath humbled us by His Word, then He will furnish and arm us with His Word, and enable us with strength that way. Many heaths do meet with streams and floods of water, and yet are nothing the better nor more fruitful; but God’s arable, the saints, are ploughed and instructed, as the Psalmist speaks: “Blessed is the man whom Thou correctest, and teachest in Thy law,” etc. To have the one without the other is nothing, and does no good, but when correction and teaching go together, then one sees all the good of affliction, and why God sent it upon him.

6. Skill in husbandry is the gift of God; wisdom must come from Him.

7. All God’s grain needs threshing and ploughing, and as they need it, so they shall have it.

8. The best grain shall have the sorest trial and hardest pressure. The fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, but are beaten with a staff; neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin, but beaten with a rod; but the wheat must have the wheel go on it. The meaning is an allusion unto that manner of the ancient Jews in treading their wheat, as appears by that precept: “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox or the ass that treadeth down thy corn” (Deuteronomy 25:4), for then the oxen, drawing a wheel over the wheat, did so bruise it, but not break it.

9. God Almighty knows best, and He appoints what shall be the means, time, and measure of the trials of His children.

10. God, in the chastisements, trials, and afflictions of His elect, hath wonderful wisdom and power beyond our understanding. He knows not only which is the best way to lead us to Heaven, but also He is excellent in working, to bring His counsel to pass. See it in examples. As in Joseph, appointed to be the greatest, save Pharaoh, in all Egypt. So David, after he was anointed king, in a state of honour and all pomp and pleasure, how was he vexed and ploughed with many crosses!

11. Nothing can stay Him from working, to hinder our comfort and deliverance in due time. Why? Because He is “the Lord of hosts,” and all the creatures must do what He wills. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)

The voice of God in the tillage of the field

The Scriptures are full of the fresh air of the country; it is easy to see that many of the writers of them were country people, or, if not, at least went about the world with their eyes open, and had a keen interest in those matters of the street and the field that make up the life of the people. When Moses described the Land of Promise to the Israelites it was a husbandman’s description that he gave of it. It was “a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olives and honey.” The Psalmists looked out upon the open face of nature, and saw in it a world eloquent of God--the dew and the rain, the valleys and the hills, the lilies and the cedars spake of Him. He made the earth soft with showers, and blessed the springing thereof. One prophet describes the evil case of the people in this way: “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” Another calls the same people to repentance: “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you” The great Lord Himself, standing in the midst of His worlds, bade men “consider the lilies of the field,” and in His doctrine said, “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” And when Isaiah, in the words before us, draws out a detailed account of the operations of husbandry, in order to drive home lessons in Divine things, he was well within a long line of precedents. (E. Medley, B. A.)

God’s processes of moral and spiritual husbandry

I. THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF TIMELINESS IN GOD’S WORKING. Doth the ploughman plough continually to sow? “Doth he continually open and break the clods of his ground?” That is, is the man always at one thing, forever engaged in one line of work? Is there not order, is there not succession, are there not appointed seasons? Men do not plough at midsummer, and reap at Christmas. There is a time, a day, an hour, and the careful husbandman, who would make the most of his opportunity, must submit to this element of timeliness. He must have his spells of hard work, and his days of comparative inaction. And herein he is not exceptional, this tidal system holds good in all spheres. Is it not so very evidently in the general life of man! Is there not there a sowing time, a most blessed spring tide; is there not a period of watching and waiting, and anxious carefulness, and then, by and by, the harvest? Ay; and when the spring time is neglected, then by no effort, and by no tears, can the loss be retrieved. It is so in the fife of the spirit. Looking at the facts as we find them, and they are of God, is there not the element of timeliness there? There are tides of the Spirit; seasons when repentance and faith are easy; seasons when Heaven seems very near to this world, and by a step we find ourselves in the presence of Christ. There are days of the Son of Man, the dew sparkles upon the grass, the sun rises without clouds, and sheds a tender light. God and Christ, indeed, are no more real, no more actual than they always are, but they are more real to us. And then all is different, we come into another world. But what are all these facts of life but so many expressions or the higher fact, that there is an element of timeliness in the working of God Himself? The urgent lesson from this fact is this--let us work while we work, let us catch the opportunity on the wing.

II. THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF VARIETY IN GOD’S WORKING. Through multiplied detail does the prophet enforce this fact. Different sorts of seed are sown in a different fashion. And a like variety obtains when the harvesting comes; one is dealt with after this manner and another after that. And has not the Creator therein given us a visible example of the methods He pursues in that great field wherein He is the husbandman, and we are me husbandry? He has no fear of precedent, He works out His end in every variety of method. The life of Christ, as that stands recorded in the Gospels, supplies the confirming illustration! Run over in your thought His dealings with Nathanael, and Peter, and Thomas, and John. See how He handled Nicodemus and Mary of Bethany. He cast truth into their minds in a different way, and wrought for the spiritual harvest just as variously. From all of which there comes the Divine voice that bids us, above all things, be simple, be natural, not striving after another type and style of experience than that which is our own. If we are true to ourselves and to our God, we shall have our own experience, that which for us is most fitting and the best.

III. GOD’S WORKING IS A PROCESS. Your parable is full of method, of succession, of processes. And every ploughing time, every sowing, and every reaping, are but visible examples of what happens in the higher field of God’s activity in the spirits of men. Conscience grows, character grows; light comes slowly, there is dawn, twilight, the mellow morning, and the golden day. There is no antagonism between nature and grace, between God speaking in nature and God speaking in the life and death of His Son. (E. Medley, B. A.)

Physical husbandry the effect and emblem of Divine teaching

I. THAT PHYSICAL HUSBANDRY IS THE EFFECT OF DIVINE TEACHING. How did man come to know that by depositing a seed in a soil which had been dressed after a certain fashion, that solitary seed would produce thirty, sixty, or a hundred, fold? We are familiar with the operation now, and the wonderfulness does not strike us; but, antecedently, nothing seems to us more marvellous. Whence, then, came this great agricultural truth? It is not innate, nor of necessary discovery. The text gives the most satisfactory answer: “His God doth instruct him.” The point suggested: and which we wish to insist upon, is that all true secular ideas, as well as spiritual, are from God. Christians refer true ideas of worship to God, but not true ideas of commerce, agriculture, navigation, medicine, architecture, and the like. In fact, they do not regard God as having much to do with the practical mind of this working world.

1. Our position is suggested by a priori reasoning. One might justly infer that He who gave us an organisation, which so connects us with the material world as to render a certain course of conduct indispensable to our physical well-being, would give us some ideas to guide us in the matter, and the more so when we remember that the welfare of the soul itself greatly depends upon the condition of the body.

2. Our position is sustained by Scripture. There are specific examples in the Bible, of God’s condescending to teach men secular work, such as the building of the ark and the tabernacle, and the passages are numerous which imply that God acts upon the genera mind of mankind.

3. Our position is implied in the doctrine of providence. How does God interpose on behalf of men now? Not miraculously, but by giving us directing ideas. A good man is brought to a painful crisis in his business. He is filled with anxiety. One step will decide his commercial fate. What will help him? A true directing idea would dispel his darkness and clear his path. Or, a government is brought to a solemn crisis in its history. The fate of nations depends upon the next act. How can providence help it at that moment? By suggesting an idea that will reveal the true and safe path.

Ideas are our guides in all the labyrinth walks of life, and all our true ones come from God. This doctrine should lead us--

(1) To recognise God in all the true developments of mind.

(2) To seek His aid in all secular undertakings.

II. THAT PHYSICAL HUSBANDRY IS THE EMBLEM OF DIVINE TEACHING. The prophet here describes the operations of the husbandman in order to illustrate God’s method of training humanity. Two thoughts are here implied--

1. That moral fruitfulness is the great end of God’s dealings with man. What is moral fruitfulness? Right heart qualities (Galatians 5:22).

2. That to realise this end, God employs a variety of instrumentalities. Does not thin subject impress us with the divinity of life? Man is the organ of Divine thought, and the object of Divine operation. Away with all frivolous ideas of life! Life is solemn and sacred. We are ever in close connection with the Infinite: He besets us “behind and before.” (Homilist.)

Breaking clods

I. THE VARIOUS WAYS IN WHICH GOD DEALS WITH HIS PEOPLE.

1. He ploughs the ground, i.e., He breaks up the hard, natural heart. For this purpose He employs--

(1) The terrors of the law,

(2) Judgments in providence.

2. The second process is harrowing. “Doth He open and break the clods of His ground? When He hath made plain the face thereof,” etc. The object is to bring the ploughed ground into such a condition as will best secure me proper reception of the seed. There are many clods in the human heart, too, which need to be broken.

(1) The clod of prejudice.

(2) Of pride.

3. The third process is that or sowing the seed.

4. The threshing. In order that the Christian may become useful as well as fit for Heaven, affliction is necessary.

II. THE SKILL DISPLAYED IN THESE VARIOUS OPERATIONS.

1. The skill is not expressly referred to in connection with the ploughing. But it may nevertheless be seen. Farmers know that there is such a thing as ploughing too deep, and also ploughing too shallow. In the one case the gravel may be reached and turned up to the surface, and so render the seed to be afterwards sown comparatively useless. Or, the too cold soil may be turned up, and thus the seed sown will perish. In the other case, the proper depth of the soil is not reached, and the crop will therefore be but a thin and sickly one. So it is with God in His dealings with His people. Some natures need to be thoroughly aroused, some hearts to be opened up to their very depths, in order that the Word may take root and bring forth fruit. No superficial work will do here And although God’s messengers may and often do err, God Himself never will, for “He is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” Again, other natures need to be dealt with in a different way. They require to be dealt with gently and lovingly, and the wise Husbandman acts accordingly:

2. But the skill of the farmer is referred to in this passage in connection with the sowing of the seed. Different soils require different kinds of seed, if there is to be a good crop. So does God act too. Some souls need doctrine, others history. Some need words of Divine love and pity, others the Divine warnings and threatenings.

3. The skill of the farmer is seen, too, in employing different kinds of threshing instruments for the different kinds of grain. So also does God deal with His people. Some need only a comparatively light affliction, their natures being of such a kind that treatment of a different kind would utterly overwhelm them and drive them to despair. Others need to be put into the furnace seven times heated. And it is to be observed that as the bread corn, or most precious material, gets as it were the roughest treatment, so it is God’s choice ones that are subjected to the greatest trials. (D. Macaulay, M. A.)

Inspiration in common life

Observe--

I. HOW GOD GUIDES THE LOWLIEST OF HIS CHILDREN IN ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THEIR WORLDLY LIFE. Why should we be surprised to read of inspiration in common life!

1. It arises from the fact that we distinguish between intellectual life and vulgar life, and exclude God from the latter. Inspiration is not limited to the world of scholars, scientists, painters, and musicians; God is equally in the so-called vulgar world, giving the lowliest toiler mastery in all that relates to his sphere of life. The vulgar world is vulgar no more. The whole world of human duty is one kingdom, the working out of one Divine purpose.

2. Because of our habit of distinguishing between influential life and insignificant life, and excluding God from the latter. We are not surprised to hear of God inspiring princes; it seems quite in order when God gives to Solomon supernatural enlightenment. But the ploughman seems utterly insignificant, his affairs so few and simple. But is the ploughman so utterly insignificant! The fact is, he is one of the most important characters in the world: if things go wrongly with him, they go wrongly with us all We might do without a king; we could not do without a ploughman.

3. Because of our habit of distinguishing between sacred life and secular life, and excluding God from the latter. We readily think of God inspiring the prophet and the priest. Yet the passage before us makes us feel that the ploughman’s realm is not lees spiritual than that of the prophet.

II. HOW GOD GUIDES THE LOWLIEST OF HIS CHILDREN IN ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THEIR INNER LIFE. There is a great spiritual nature in the lowliest of men. We have heard of the epitaph once put over s peasant: “Only a clod.” I do not know whether that epitaph was written in a pathetic or in a cynical temper, but it was really very full of suggestion. What wonderful things are in a clod! All possibilities of music, colour, light, fragrance, are there, “So you think you know what a clod is, do you?” archly asks Schopenhauer. Indeed, we do not. It will astonish you on the morning of the resurrection to see what God will bring out of that clod. And God is ever ready to guide and save His lowly children. He makes them to know the deepest truths of revelation and spiritual life (Matthew 11:25). All through life God continues the same gracious guidance. “The Lord preserveth the simple.” (W. L.Watkinson.)

Agriculture

Agriculture is the most ancient o fall pursuits, for Adam was a gardener, Cain a farmer, Abel a herdsman, and Cain did not go to live in a city or attempt to build one until after he had committed his great crime. It is not only the most ancient, but also the most necessary, and all other pursuits could be more readily spared than this. The most careless observer who walks through an agricultural show must be forcibly struck with the great importance of agriculture. All kinds of inventions, yea, almost all sciences, are consecrated to this pursuit--the products of the mine, the forest, the quarry, the hammer, forge, saw, and engine have been pressed into its service. How many kinds of toilers and artisans have brought their inventions and labour to make tilling the ground profitable? How many sciences wait reverently upon husbandry? For it geology ransacks the bowels of the earth; chemistry proclaims what nutriment certain plants absorb from soil, and what enrichment certain alkalis will give; botany collects her varied grasses to make possible the permanent pasture, on the principle of the survival of the fittest; astronomy smiles on it, and causes the sun to do morn for its prosperity than any king, however gracious, and the clouds more than any landlord, however beneficent. (F. Standfast.)

The value of agricultural labour

How foolish and sinful it is for those who possess wealth acquired by the toil of others, and who are designated independent, to despise or oppress those on whose humble toil they are indeed most dependent. What would be the value of the broad acres, if left without culture? It is the toil of the peasant which makes them productive, and which wrings from the soil those ample revenues that sustain the proprietor in luxurious ease. Of what benefit would be those pieces of silver, gold, or paper which we call cash, without indefatigable industry producing the necessaries and comfort which money brings? Would shillings and sovereigns satisfy the cravings of hunger! No more than molten gold could assuage thirst. The painter must lay down his brush and palette, the poet his pen, the philosopher suspend his experiments, and the voice of the orator be dumb, the jewelled crown become a worthless bauble, the most stately palace become a region of desolation, but for the labour of the agriculturist and fisherman. (F. Standfast.)

Interdependence of the man of leisure and the son of toil

Labour is the foundation on which the mighty fabric of human society rests, and none but the vain, proud, and foolish will overlook their obligation to the toilers. Acknowledged reciprocity of advantage should bind all classes together in one strong common bond of mutual support; for if the man of leisure is dependent on those sons of toll for the very necessity of existence, it is equally certain that to such the toilers are indebted for the social order which preserves liberty and life, for the books which inspire to intellectual elevation, and for the sciences which indefinitely expand the compass of our being. If the arch be indebted to the foundation stone for its very existence, it could not retain its graceful sweep or strength one moment without its keystone. (F. Standfast.)

Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?--

The ploughman

I. OUR TEXT MAY BE ANSWERED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. “Yes, the ploughman does plough all day to sow.” When it is ploughing time he keeps on at it till his work is ache; if it requires one day, or two days, or twenty days to finish his fields, he continues at his task while the weather permits.

1. So doth God plough the heart of man, and herein is His patience. The team was in the field in the case of some of us very early in the morning, for our first recollections have to do with conscience and the furrows of pain which it made in our youthful mind. It is a dreadful thing to have remained all unbeliever all these years; but yet the grace of God does not stop short at s certain age.

2. The text teaches perseverance on our part. “Doth the ploughman plough all day?” Yes, he does.

(1) Then if I am seeking Christ, ought I to be discouraged because I do not immediately find Him?

(2) The same is true in seeking the salvation of others. Ploughing is hard work; but as there will be no harvest without it let us put forth all our strength, and never flag till we have performed our Lord’s will, and by His Holy Spirit wrought conviction in men’s souls. Some soils are very stiff, and cling together, and the labour is heart breaking; others are like the unreclaimed waste, full of roots and tangled bramble; they need a steam plough, and we must pray the Lord to make us such, for we cannot leave them untilled, and therefore we must put forth more strength that the labour may be done. I heard some time ago of a minister who called to see a poor man who was dying, but he was not able to gain admittance; he called the next morning, and some idle excuse was made so that he could not see him; he called again the next morning, but he was still refused; he went on till he called twenty times in vain, but on the twenty-first occasion he was permitted to see the sufferer, and by God’s grace he saved a soul from death. “Why do you tell your child a thing twenty times?” asked someone of a mother. “Because,” said she, “I find nineteen times is not enough.” We prize that which costs us labour and service, and we shall set all the higher value upon the saved ones when the Lord grants them to our efforts. It is good for us to learn the value of our sheaves by going forth weeping to the sowing. Start close to the hedge, and go right down to the bottom of the field. Plough as close to the ditch as you can, and leave small headlands. What though there are fallen women, thieves, and drunkards in the slums around, do not neglect any of them; for if you leave a stretch of land to the weeds they will soon spread amongst the wheat. When you have gone right to the end of the field once, what shall you do next? Why, just turn round, and make for the place you started from. And when you have thus been up and down, what next? Why, up and down again. And what next! Why, up and down again. You have visited that district with tracts; do it again, fifty-two times in the year--multiply your furrows. We must learn how to continue in well-doing.

II. THE TEXT MAY BE ANSWERED IN THE NEGATIVE. “Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?” No, he does not always plough. After he has ploughed he breaks the clods, sows, reaps, and threshes. In the chapter before us you will see that other works of husbandry are mentioned. The ploughman has many other things to do beside ploughing. There is an advance in what he does.

1. On God’s part, there is an advance in what He does. He will not always make furrows by His chiding. He will come and cast in the precious corn of consolation, and water it with the dews of Heaven, and smile upon it with the sunlight of His grace; and there shall soon be in you, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, and in due season you shall joy as with the joy of harvest. But what if the ploughing should never lead to sowing; what if you should be disturbed in conscience, and should go on to resist it all? Then God will make another advance, but it will be to put up the plough, and to command the clouds that they rain no rain upon the land, and then its end is to be burned.

2. This advance is a lesson to us; for we, too, are to go forward. Don’t be making furrows all day; get to your sowing. Let the ministers of Christ follow the rule of advance. Let us go from preaching the law to preaching the Gospel. You cannot get a harvest if you are afraid of disturbing the soil, nor can you save souls if you never warn them of hell fire. Still, we must not plough all day. The preaching of the law is only preparatory to the preaching of the Gospel.

3. Another lesson to those of you who are as yet hearers and nothing more. I want you to go from ploughing to something better, namely, from hearing and fearing to believing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Spiritual husbandry

1. Never was seed or plant better adapted to the soil than the Word of God is adapted to universal man.

2. Since the Bible is adapted to our moral nature, it is ours to adapt our lives to its great teachings. If we find unseemly pride springing up in the soul, let us go and see the terrible effects of self-confidence by the Red Sea, as Pharaoh and his army sink into its depths; or by the plains of Babylon, as Nebuchadnezzar herds among the beasts. Ii you find any vice growing in rank deformity in your soul, go and look at the Deluge or the Dead Sea. If you find self-sufficiency springing up in the heart, and condemn the shortcomings of others, go and listen to the claims of God. How penetrating! far-reaching! and absolute! If everywhere around you, you see tokens and footprints of the king of terrors, in mourning garbs and joyless faces, in darkened earthly prospects, go listen to the promises of immortality, the doctrine of the resurrection. If you mark manifestation? of the being of an awful Deity, go find a near, visible, and all-beneficent Deity whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven; get proofs of His low by its being shed abroad in your own heart. Ii you see around you all nature in bondage, groaning and waiting for its redemption, go see a new heaven and a new earth, in which shall dwell righteousness. (F. Standfast.)

Beneficent ploughing

When the plough of God’s providence first cuts up a man’s life, what wonder if the man should exclaim a little, yea, if he should give way to one hour’s grief, and say he thought he had escaped all that kind of treatment! But the man may come to himself ere eventide and say, Plough on, Lord; I want my life to be ploughed all over that it may be sown all over, and that in every corner there may be golden grain or beautiful flowers: pity me that I exclaimed when I first felt the ploughshare, Thou knowest my frame, Thou rememberest that I am but dust, but now I recollect, I put things together, I see Thy meaning; so drive on, Thou Ploughman of eternity! (J. Parker, D. D.)

The principal wheat

The principal wheat

I. The prophet mentions it as a matter of wisdom on the part of the husbandman that HE KNOWS WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL THING TO CULTIVATE, and makes it his principal care. Here let us learn a lesson. Do keep things distinct in your minds. Sort things out, and divide and distinguish between the precious and the vile. The farmer, who finds that wheat ought to be his principal crop, makes it so, and lays himself out with that end in view: learn from this to have a main object, and to give your whole mind to it.

1. This farmer was wise, because he counted that to be principal which was the most needful. His family could do without cummin, which was but a flavouring. They certainly must have wheat, for bread is the staff of life. That which is necessary he regarded as the principal thing. Is not this common sense! A creature cannot be satisfied unless he is answering the end for which he is created; and the end of every intelligent creature is, first, to glorify God, and next, to enjoy God. Other things may he desirable, but this thing is needful Other herbs may take their place in due order, but grace is the principal wheat, and we must cultivate it.

2. This farmer was wise, because he made that to be the principal thing which was the most fit to be so. Of course, barley is useful as food, for nations have lived on barley bread, and lived healthily too; and rye has been the nutriment of millions: neither have they starved on oats and other grains. Still, give me a piece of wheaten bread, for it is the best staff for life’s journey. And what is there that is so fit for the heart, the mind, the soul of man, as to know God and His Christ! Other mental foods, such as the fruits of knowledge, and the dainties of science, excellent though they may be--are inferior nutriment and unsuitable to build up the inner manhood.

3. Moreover, this farmer was wise, because he made that the principal thing which was the most profitable. Our grandfathers to rely upon the wheat stack to pay their rent. The figure holds good with regard to spiritual religion. That is the most profitable thing.

II. The husbandman is a lesson to us because HE GIVES THIS PRINCIPAL THING THE PRINCIPAL PLACE. I find that the Hebrew is rendered by some eminent scholars, “He puts the wheat into the principal place.” That little handful of cummin for the wife to flavour the cakes with he grows in a corner; and the various herbs he places in their proper borders. The barley he sets in its plot, and the rye in its acre; but if there is a good hit of rich soil he appropriates it to the principal wheat. He gives his choicest fields to that which is to be the main means of his living. Hero Is a lesson for you and me. Let us give to true godliness our principal powers and abilities.

1. Let us give to the things of God our best and most intense thought.

2. Be sure, also, to yield to this subject your most earnest love.

3. Towards God and His Christ also turn your most fervent desires.

4. Then, let the Lord have the attentive respect of your life.

5. We should give to this principal wheat our most earnest labours.

6. This should also take possession of us so as to lead to our greatest sacrifices.

III. THE HUSBANDMAN SELECTS THE PRINCIPAL SEED CORN WHEN HE IS SOWING HIS WHEAT. When a farmer is setting aside wheat for sowing, he does not choose the tail corn and the worst of his produce, but if he is a sensible man he likes to sow the best wheat in the world. Let me learn that if I am going to sow to the Lord and to be a Christian, I should sow the best kind of Christianity.

1. I should try to do this by believing the weightiest doctrines. I would believe not this “ism,” nor that, but the unadulterated truth which Jesus taught; for a holy character will only grow by the Spirit of God out of true doctrine.

2. Next to that, we ought to sow the noblest examples.

3. We should sow the best wheat by seeing that we have the purest spirit.

4. And then, we should endeavour to live in closest communion with God. It should be our desire to rise to the highest form of spiritual life.

IV. THE HUSBANDMAN GROWS THE PRINCIPAL WHEAT WITH THE PRINCIPAL CARE. It is said that the large crops in Palestine in olden time were due to the fact that they planted the wheat. They set it in lines, so that it was not checked or suffocated by its being too thick in one place, neither was there any fear of its being too thin in another. The wheat was planted, and then streams of water were turned by the foot to each particular plant. No wonder, therefore, that the land brought forth abundantly. We should give our principal care to the principal thing. Our godliness should be carried out with discretion and care.

V. Do this, because FROM THIS YOU MAY EXPECT YOUR PRINCIPAL CROP. If religion be the principal thing, you may look to religion for your principal reward. The harvest will come to you in various ways. You will make the greatest success in this life if you wholly live to the glory of God. The Eastern farmer’s prosperity hinges on his wheat, and yours upon your devotion to God. In the world to come what a crop, what a harvest will come of serving the Lord! (C. H. Spurgeon.)