“Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.”—Isaiah xxxii. 20.
These words form part of a great prophetic vision. The prophet is standing among his countrymen like a watchman on the walls of Jerusalem. And far away, as he looks, the distant horizon of his stormy sky is bright with Messianic hopes, but around him the shadows lie dark and heavy.
It was his destiny to speak to a people whose ears were dull of hearing and their hearts without understanding; but he never lost the conviction that the holy seed of God’s spirit was alive in them. Amidst all present discouragement he lived in the hope of a brighter and better day, when the eyes of those around him would be opened, and their hearts changed, and a new spirit would
take hold of them, and righteousness, peace, prosperity, and gladness would prevail. And no man’s life is worth much which is not inspired by some such hope.
What Isaiah saw immediately around him was sin and moral blindness. What he saw immediately in front of him was the consequence of these in woe and desolation. “Year upon year,” he cries, “shall ye be troubled, ye careless ones: thorns and briers shall come upon the land of my people: until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness shall become a planted field.” But in the day of that outpouring, the heart of the people would turn and be uplifted, renewed, and purified, the wilderness would become a planted field. And this thought brings him to the final outburst of the text I have just read to you, which is a blessing on those true Israelites who realised the high calling of God’s people, and were inspired to fulfil it, sowing everywhere and always the seeds of Divine influence. The whole vision is highly
instructive, for it is the vision of what occurs again and again in all human history; but it is of this blessing with which it closes that I desire to say a word or two to-day.
Amidst all the threatening and discouraging symptoms of the national life, Isaiah turned to the bright vision of those servants of God whose faith should never fail, and in whom there should be no variableness, and no wavering. “Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.” Sow your seed of good influence, he seems to say to them, in good times, in bad times; sow it in this place, and in every place, sow it in the wastes of the moral wilderness, sow it in the face of every enemy, sow it in faith and hope and without fear. It is on them he depends to prepare for that happier season when the wilderness of the spiritual life around him should become as a planted field; and with prophetic insight he perceives that it is on such as these that the Divine blessing always rests. “Blessed are they that sow beside all waters.” It is a text to be taken with
us whenever any change comes over the circumstances of our life. If we are changing from a life of rule or discipline to a life of free choice, from school to home, from boyhood to manhood, this blessing declares that there should be no change in the attitude and purpose and aim of life.
It is another way of saying that the laws which should guide our conduct, and the principles which should inspire and direct us, are of universal application; that they know no difference of time or place, and that if they bind you here they should bind you everywhere. And simple and obvious as this may seem, it is not altogether an easy truth to carry into practice. “Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.” Your seed field is not here or there only; it lies on every side of you, and in all places; it spreads into the future farther than your eye can travel, and it will extend itself before you as you go; and the reality and vigour of good purpose in you will be determined by your recognition of this truth.
Let us consider it with reference to our own case at such a time as this.