The Sluggard Shall Come to Want

“The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.” — xx. 4.

THE reproof of sloth fulness often recurs: we may safely infer that it was a besetting sin in the Hebrew commonwealth. It is a vice to which primitive and pastoral communities, other things being equal, are more liable than merchants and artisans. You may expect to find more of it in the Scottish Highlands than on the wharves of Liverpool, or in the mills of Manchester. As a general rule, it is not the weak side of the Anglo-Saxon race; our history and position in the world prove that we possess in large measure the counterpart virtue. Other vices thrive on our busy industry, like parasites upon living creatures; but it cannot be said that we are nationally a slothful people.

Individual instances of sloth, however, occur amongst us; all the more inexcusable because of the industry which abounds. Short and sure is the process by which the sluggard’s sin finds the sluggard out. If he does not plough, he cannot reap: if he is idle in the seed-time, he will be hungry in the harvest. The very alphabet of providential retribution is here; the simplest may read the law when it is written in letters so large, and so fully exposed to the light. We submit to the law as inevitable; and wherever reason is even moderately enlightened, we acquiesce in the law as just and good. No man who neglects his field in spring complains that it does nothing for him in autumn: we all know that such the law is, and most of us secretly feel that such it should be.

God’s system of government is not to work for man, but to supply him with the means of working for himself. He gives rain from heaven; but if we do not till and sow on earth, our fields will not be fruitful, our hearts will not be glad. He gives seed.

but lie gives it to the sower. Kiches without limit are stored in His treasuries, but only the hand of the diligent can draw them forth. No man expects a different arrangement of the providential laws, and no wise man desires it. It is better for man, as man now is, that he is placed in circumstances to win his bread by the sweat of his brow, than if bread had dropped into his lap from heaven, or sprung spontaneously from the earth. Our Father has graciously turned the very curse into a blessing: the rod that was lifted in anger to smite the alien, descends as discipline to correct the child.

There is a silent submission to the law, if not an intelligent acquiescence in its propriety. All our habits of acting are formed in accordance with it. A poor man honestly seeking work is everywhere respected: a sturdy beggar clamouring for alms is everywhere despised. The common sense of men falls in with the express injunction of the gospel, that he who will not work should not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. iii. 10).

This principle lies deep in the nature of things, and pervades every department of the divine government. Its operation is as sure and uniform in morals as in matter. The Scriptures frequently employ the physical facts as types wherewith to print off for learners the spiritual law. May “He that ministereth seed to the sower increase the fruits of your righteousness,” was Paul’s prayer for the Corinthians when he longed for their growth in grace (2 Cor. ix. 10). He knew that God would give it; but he knew also that it would be given only as the increase of the field is given. Writing at another time to the same people, he says, “We are labourers together with God; ye are God’s husbandry“(l Cor. iii. 9). True, the Author and Finisher of their faith will not leave them in the greatest of all matters to their own resources; God works in concert with men for their good, but he works in a special department and within well-defined limits. He is a fellow-worker in promoting their spiritual progress, but it is as he co-operates with men in their” husbandry.” He does not relieve the husbandman from tilling. God is a fellow-worker in giving him rain from heaven; but if he does not till and sow he will beg in harvest, although the Almighty offers to be his partner in the work. Such is the law by which the husbandry of the heart is regulated. The promise, sufficient, yet not redundant, is,” Their

Boul shall be as a watered garden”( Jer. xxxi. 1 2). Notwithstanding the promise of an omnipotent co-operator, the garden well watered by the rain of heaven will be a fruitless waste if it be not tilled, fenced, sown, weeded. This is no abatement from the worth of the promise or the kindness of the Promiser. If He should so work with men, either in spirit or in matter, as that the fruit would be sure independently of the husbandman’s labour, all distinctions between good and evil would be lost and government become impossible.

He is in this husbandry a fellow-worker; the industrious cannot fail: but He works only in his own department; the lazy cannot succeed. Your soul is the garden: it need not lie barren, for he will water it; but it will lie barren, if you do not work.

The watered field will fill no man’s bosom in the harvest if it be not tilled in spring. “Break up your fallow ground” (Jer. iv. 3). When the heart is beaten hard by troops of worldly cares treading constantly over it, and not broken up or made small by exercises of self-examination and godly sorrow, the seed does not go beneath the surface, and, so far from reaping a golden harvest, you never see even the promises of spring. But although the field be tilled and broken from its depths, the labour will be unprofitable if it be sown with tares or not sown at all. “The seed is the word;” and ourselves are the field to be cultivated. Put the good seed plentifully in. Hide the word in your heart diligently, hopefully, as the husbandman commits his precious seed to the ground. If we do not sow our own field, how shall we help to sow the field of our neighbour? Even a tilled and sown field may be rendered in a great measure unproductive for want of fences. If it be left exposed to every comer, its early sprouting will be trampled under foot, and the hopes which it kindled will be quenched in tears. If men would treat their souls as carefully as they treat their fields, all would be well. Draw defences round your soul: keep out those who would cruelly or carelessly tread down the buds of beginning grace. Leave not your heart open, like an exposed common, to the reckless tread of promiscuous passers. Tempters, like wild boars of the woods, prowl round about your garden: ward them resolutely off; keep it for the Master and his friends. Further still: the tilled, sown, fenced garden, may be overrun with weeds, and the full-grown fruit be choked before it reach the ripening. In the garden of your soul weeds spring up without any sowing: unless you labour daily to keep them down, they will gain upon the good seed and overtop it. As a man who loves his garden may be seen stooping down every now and then in his daily walk through it to pluck out and cast .over the wall each weed that meets his eye as it is struggling through the ground; so a man that loves his soul and would fain see it flourishing, is ever on the watch for malice and envy and falsehood, and vanity and pride and covetousness, — for any and for all of the legion-species of bitter roots that are ever springing up, troubling himself and defiling his neighbours (Heb. xii. 15). They that are Christ’s have crucified, and all their life long continue to crucify, their own lusts.

All these efforts for the garden will be useless if it is not watered: but, on the other hand, the plentiful watering of the garden with rain from heaven will not make it fruitful if any of these operations are neglected. These operations lie to our hand. God works with us, indeed, but he will not perform for us these works. He co-operates by giving us refreshing rain, and commands us to meet his gift by our industrious labour. He does for a soul what he does for a garden: it shall be watered. The grace of the Spirit shall not be wanting; yet, in the spiritual husbandry, the sluggard who will not plough shall not reap.

Not having any ripened grain to reap, he falls a-begging when the harvest comes: “Lord, Lord, open to us.” But it is too late: the Lord does not give at that time, and in that way. He will give seed to the sower in spring, but not alms to the sluggard in harvest. He gave seed and rain, and saw them wasted. He pleaded with men to accept and use them, and they would not. At last, when they plead with him, he will not. In an accepted time they would not take the seed: in a rejecting time they cry for the fruit of eternal life, and are sent empty away. Alas! the sluggard begs in harvest, “and has nothing:” his soul was the only real treasure that he ever had, and now it is lost.