Look at the large harvest of opportunity in labouring for God. The great and diversified machinery of religious societies, needing direction and energy; the mass of fellow sinners around us, claiming our sympathy and helpfulness. “While we have time, let us do good” (Gal. iv. 10). How high is the privilege of gathering with Christ in such a harvest! (Matt. xii. 30). How great the shame of doing nothing, where there is so much to be done! What a harvest also is the present “accepted time” (2 Cor. vi. 2). Mark the abundance of the means of grace, the living verdure of the gospel. Can I bear the thought of that desponding cry of eternal remorse—“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved?” (Jer. viii. 20).—Bridges.
The opportunity is in all matters carefully to be observed. He gathereth in summer who, redeeming the time, maketh his best advantage of the season; for the summer is that fit season wherein the fruits are got into the barn for the whole year following. He that thus in due season provideth for his body or soul, is worthily called a son of understanding, or a wise man; for he hath not only prudently foreseen what is best to be done, but wisely took the occasion offered unto his best advantages. On the contrary side, he sleepeth in harvest who fondly letteth slip the most convenient means or opportunity of doing or receiving good. Such a one is a son of confusion, that is to say, one that shall be ashamed or confounded, by reason of the want or misery whereunto he shall fall through his own folly.—Muffett.
The use of the word “son” in both clauses implies that the work of the vine-dresser and the plough had been done by the father. All that the son is called to do is to enter into the labours of others, and reap where they have sown.—Plumptre.
As the former verse commendeth labour and pains and therein diligence, so this commendeth the diligence of watchfulness, in taking opportunity and not omitting it. For there may be much labouring, but there will be little benefit, unless there be a gathering in summer. The taking of pains may show a mind to gather, but the unseasonableness of the pains will not show the wisdom of the mind.—Jermin.
I. God affords opportunities for good. In this view we may regard the whole period of life. 1. You are blessed with a season of Gospel grace while many are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, upon you hath the light shined. 2. You have a season of civil and religious liberty. What advantage do we possess above many of our ancestors who suffered for conscience sake! They laboured, and we have entered into their labours. 3. Who has not experienced a day of trouble? 4. Where is the person who does not know what we mean by a season of conviction? II. I would enforce upon you the necessity of diligence to improve your reaping season. 1. Consider how much you have to accomplish. The salvation of the soul is a great—an arduous concern. Religion is a race, and you must run; it is a warfare, and you must fight. The blessings of the Gospel are free, but they are to be sought, and gained. 2. Consider the worth of the blessings which demand your attention. . . . Is it not desirable to be redeemed from the curse of the law; to be justified freely from every charge brought against us at the bar of God; to be delivered from the tyranny and rage of vicious appetites and passions? Great is the happiness of the good here; but who can describe the exalted glory and joy that await them hereafter? 3. Remember that your labour will not be in vain in the Lord. The husbandman has many uncertainties to contend with, but probability stimulates him; how much more should actual certainty encourage you. 4. Remember that your season for action is limited and short. Harvest does not last long. Your time is uncertain as well as short. 5. Reflect upon the consequences of negligence. Is a man blamed for sleeping in harvest? Does every one reproach him as a fool? You act a part more absurd and fatal, who neglect this great salvation. Having made no provision for eternity, your ruin is unavoidable. It will also be insupportable.—Jay.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 6, 7, and 11.
The Way to Present Blessedness and Future Fame.
We connect the first and last of these verses, because the latter clause in both is the same. I. Opposite characters revealed by a great contrast in speech (verse 11). When a righteous man opens his mouth, it is as if the cover was removed from a pure, clear well of water. He has no evil intentions to conceal; his words are an index to his heart. By them men may read his thoughts with the same ease as they can see what is at the bottom of a clear spring of water. There is medicinal virtue in them—they heal as well as refresh the spirits of men. What a well of life have the words of Christ been for centuries to millions of the human race. But a wicked man cannot let all the thoughts of his heart be laid open to the light of day. His “mouth conceals injury” (see [Critical Notes]). He has plans which are not devised for the good of his fellow-creatures, and he must use his words not to reveal, but to hide what is in his mind. And if he lets his tongue loose, and permits his thoughts to flow out into words, they do not bless his hearers, but are like a poisonous stream, carrying moral death wherever they flow.
II. Character yields a present blessing or a present curse. “Blessings are upon the head of the righteous,” etc. A man’s present comfort within himself, and the inheritance of good-will he now receives from his fellow-men, as well as the favour of God, are all dependent upon what he is in his character. The kingdom of heaven is now inherited by him. All the beatitudes uttered by our Lord speak of a present blessedness. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” etc. The opposite truth is not expressed, but it is implied. Curses, not blessings, are the present inheritance of the man whose “mouth is covered by violence.”
III. Character determines the nature of our future fame (verse 7). 1. The memory of the righteous is blessed, because what they did upon the earth is the means of bringing blessings upon others after they are gone. Many a son has received kindness for the sake of the righteousness of his father. God blesses the children for the father’s sake. “I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant’s sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes” (1 Kings xi. 34). “Fear not,” said God to Isaac, “for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake” (Gen. xxvi. 24). Cyrus was raised up to deliver Israel for Jacob’s sake (Isa. xlv. 4). Men can but bless the memory of those whose past godliness is the means of bringing blessings upon them in the present. 2. The just man’s memory is blessed because he leaves behind him reproductions of his own character. All life will reproduce itself. After a tree has decayed and gone to dust, others will be in full life and vigour that were seedlings of the old tree. Intellectual life is reproductive. The man of mighty genius leaves disciples to carry out his ideas after he is gone. Good men are the parents of good children, or make other men good by their words and lives. “They that dwell under his shadow shall return,” and “they shall grow as the vine” (Hosea xiv. 7). The good must be held in blessed remembrance so long as there are those upon earth who are the reproductions of their character. 3. The memory of some is blessed because they did deeds which never can be reproduced by others—which have left a fragrance behind them which can never be repeated. The one act of Abraham, when he prepared to offer up Isaac at God’s command, can never be repeated; but it is the one which, above all his other acts of faith, causes him to be held in everlasting remembrance. And so it has been with many of the leaders of the Church in all ages. They have performed acts of godly heroism which we cannot imitate, but of which we reap the reward, and for which we bless their memory. Especially is this true of Him who is pre-eminently the Holy One and the Just, whose glorious “name is blessed for ever” (Psa. lxxii. 19), because “He endured the cross and despised the shame.” But the converse of all this is the lot of the wicked. We can but remember them when we are brought face to face with the evil they have left behind them; but we turn from the remembrance as we turn from some offensive putrid object, while the memory of the just is as a sweet savour. Contrast the feelings with which Christendom now regards the emperors of Rome and the fishermen of Galilee.