As We Sow, We Reap
“The merciful man doeth good to his own soul; but he that is cruel troubleth his olni flesh. The wicked vorketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. They that are of a frownrd heart are abomination to the Lord: but such as are upright in their way are his delight.” — xi. 17, 18, 20.
THE merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he
that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.”
Blessed are the merciful; all the good they do to others returns with interest to their own bosoms. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” In every act that mercy prompts there are two parties who obtain a benefit, — the person in need, who is the object of compassion, and the person not in need, who pities his suffering brother. Both get good, but the giver gets the larger share. In common life, the act of showing mercy to the needy is very good for the man who shows it. The good Samaritan who bathed the wounds and provided for the wants of a plundered Jew, obtained a greater profit on the transaction than the sufferer who was saved by his benevolence. It is like God to constitute his world so. Even Christ himself in the act of showing mercy, has his reward: when He sees of the travail of his soul He is satisfied.
Like other fixtures in nature, this principle has its counterpart. When light departs, darkness comes in its stead: when a human bosom is a stranger to the blessedness of the merciful, it tastes the misery of the cruel or the careless. As mercy blesses, cruelty torments both the parties, — the one who bears and the one who inflicts it. This is a law of God, set deep in the constitution of things — a law that magnifies his mercy. A man cannot hurt his neighbour, without hurting more deeply himself: the rebound is heavier than the blow. The man who chastises his brother with whips, will himself, by the movements of providence, be chastised with scorpions. Such is the fence which the Creator has set up to keep man off his fellow. This dividing line is useful now to check the ravages of sin; but when perfect love has come, that divider, no longer needed, will be no longer seen. It is like one of those black jagged ridges of rock that at low water stretch across the sand from the edge of the cultivated ground to the margin of the sea, an impassable, an unapproachable barrier: when the tide rises, all is level and it is nowhere seen. This law of God, rising as a rampart between man and man, is confined to this narrow six thousand year strip of time: in the perfect state it will act no more, for want of material to act upon.
“The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.”
Wickedness is a work that deceives its performer; it may do the harm which he intended to a neighbour, but it cannot procure the good which he expected for himself. By necessity of his condition, every man’s life, and every moment of it, is a sowing. The machine is continually moving over the field and shaking; it cannot, even for a moment, be made to stand still, so as not to sow. It is not an open question at all whether I shall sow or not to-day; the only question to be decided is, Shall I sow good seed or bad 1 Every man always is sowing for his own harvest in eternity either tares or wheat. According as a man soweth, so shall he also reap: he that sows the wind of vanity shall reap the whirlwind of wrath. Suppose a man should collect a quantity of small gravel and dye it carefully, so that it should resemble wheat, and sow it in his field in spring, expecting that he would reap a crop of wheat like his neighbours in harvest. The man is mad; he is a fool to think that by his silly trick he can evade the laws of nature, and mock nature’s God. Yet equally foolish is the conduct, and far heavier the punishment, of the man who sows wickedness now and expects to reap safety at last. Sin is not only profitless and disastrous; it is eminently a deceitful work. Men do not of set purpose cast themselves away: sin cheats a sinner out of his soul. The devil, man’s great adversary, acts by deceiving: he is a liar from the beginning.
The same law sparkles brightly and beauteously in the counterpart: “To him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.” The reward is sure, because it comes in the way of natural law:
the reward follows righteousness as fruit follows the seed. The only righteous man that ever lived, the Righteous One, sowed in this desert world — sowed in tears; but he sowed righteousness. Out of that sowing a great increase has already sprung, and a greater is coming. From that handful on the mountain top a harvest shall wave like Lebanon. “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom.” Behold the husbandman returning home with joy, bringing his sheaves with him! To his members in their own place the same law holds good. Sowing righteousness is never, and nowhere, lost labour. Every act done by God’s grace, and at His bidding, is living and fruitful. It may appear to go out of sight, like seed beneath the furrow; but it will rise again. Sow on, Christians! Sight will not follow the seed far; but when sight fails sow in faith, and you will reap in joy soon. More of the word of God is scattered over the world in our day than at any previous period of the Christian dispensation. The result, though unseen, is not doubtful; in grace as in nature, things proceed by law, and the ultimate result is sure.
“They that are of a froward heart are abomination to the Lord: but such as are upright in their way, are his delight.”
To think of God only as “angry with the wicked” is but half a truth; and half a truth sometimes becomes practically a falsehood. To picture our Father in heaven all in shade is to hide half His loveliness, and keep His creatures terrified away. There is another side of His character, and the two together make up the divine perfection: the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. It is an encouraging and not a presumptuous thought, that the Holy one delights in every good thing which grace has wrought in His children. “Ye are God’s husbandry:” that field He watches and waters night and day. Many weeds grow there to grieve Him, and many spots lie barren; but our “Father is the Husbandman;” the Husbandman is a Father, and he suffers long. He bears with the barrenness of His garden; and, in as far as it thrives, he tastes the fruit and counts it pleasant. It was a wilderness until He, in sovereign mercy, took it in, and many things mar its fruitfulness yet; but He does not therefore despise or desert it. He loves all that He recognises as His own there, That humble and broken heart becomes His dwelling-place.
ill Stt.