His chief business is with and for himself: how to set all to rights within, how to keep a continual Sabbath of soul, a constant composedness. He will not purchase earth with his loss of heaven. And inasmuch as the body is the soul’s servant, and should therefore be fit for the soul’s business—it ought not to be pinched or pined with penury or overmuch abstinence, as those impostors (Col. ii. 23), and our Popish merit-mongers, that starve their genius, and are cruel to their own flesh. They shall one day hear, “Who required these things at your hand?”—Trapp.
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. . . . 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. . . . And a man cannot hurt his neighbour without hurting himself. The rebound is heavier than the blow. . . . Such is the fence which the Creator has set up to keep men off his fellows. This dividing line is useful now to keep off 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.—Arnot.
It is to his own soul that a merciful man doeth good. For it hath been well said, there is nothing so much a man’s own as that which is given to the poor. That which men do, they do as to a poor soul, of as noble birth, and by nature of as great excellency as their own soul is, and so they do it, as it were, to their own. That which God doth, He doth to a sinful soul, degenerate from the birth which He gave it, and turned to be a rebel against Him. So that God is more ready to be good to His enemies, then we are to be good to ourselves.—Jermin.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 18–20.
Sowing and Reaping.
I. The life-work of the wicked contains within itself the germs of a three-fold bane: A deception, a death, and an abomination. 1. A deception. The wicked man expects from his life-work that which it cannot possibly yield. It is against the moral constitution of the universe that a life of wickedness, or an evil understanding in that life should yield satisfaction or any degree of real comfort to the worker. If a man sowed darnel in his field and expected to get a crop of wheat, he would be “working a deceitful work,” that is, he would be a victim of self-deception. Nature cannot go out of her way to gratify his desires, to prevent his disappointment. The ungodly man lives a life of ungodliness—he “pursues evil,” (ver. 19), he perversely chooses his own course, in other words, he “is of a froward heart,” (ver. 20), and he promises himself some kind of advantage. But it cannot be, he is doomed to disappointment. However much he lies to work his work, the issue of his work will not lie. The earth will not lie concerning what kind of seed is placed in her furrows. If wheat is hidden there she will not disappoint the husbandman by returning him tares—if tares are sown she will render back of what has been entrusted to her care. She will speak the truth about the sowing by giving according to that which she has received. The sinner wants to make God a liar. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” is the Divine sentence. “Ye shall not surely die,” is the assurance of the great deceiver. But the end will ever be what it was when man first suffered himself to entertain a doubt upon the matter. The man who builds himself a house upon the side of a volcano may promise himself, or may be promised by others, safety and peace, but unless he can quench the internal fires, that promise cannot be kept. The elements of destruction are ever at work under his very feet, the day will come when the devouring flame will burst forth and consume the work and the worker together. 2. Death. There are three kinds of death which are all the fruit of sin and which are developed out of one another as the blade, the corn in the ear, and the full corn are successive developments of one seed. There is that present paralysis of all the spiritual capabilities of the man which the Bible calls carnal mindedness. (Rom. viii. 6). Into this condition Adam came at once as soon as he worked his wicked work, and every son of his who lives a life of oppression to the Divine will is even now “dead” in this sense. The death of the body is but the outcome of this spiritual death, and although it is the portion of those who have been made spiritually alive, its character is changed from a curse into a blessing. But the consummation of both these “deaths,” is that irrecoverable paralysis of spirit, and that correspondent condition of body known as the “second death.” This is what the man “pursues” who “pursues evil.” 3. An abomination. A musical soul hates discord, an honest man hates dishonesty, the pure-minded turn with loathing from all impurity. Although God loves His creatures, He holds in abomination all that is unholy; a persistent frowardness—a constant refusal to fall in with the Divine plan of separating sin from the human soul will—it is here and elsewhere declared—result in the very creature whom He has made becoming an offence to his Divine Creator.
II. The life-work of the righteous will meet the certain reward of a Divine character and Divine delight. 1. A Divine character. He is now a partaker of spiritual life. A man’s present healthy life is in itself a reward for any self-denial he may practise in observing the laws of health. There is a joy in living which a diseased man knows nothing of. So there is a present joy in being in a state of spiritual health, in the exercise of all the graces which are the fruit of the spirit, (Gal. v. 22), to which a man who is morally diseased and dead is an entire stranger. The spiritual life which is the harvest of “sowing righteousness” or uprightness, is a present reward. But the present spiritual live and health is a prophecy and an earnest of a completed and perfected life in the city of God. Righteousness is the very life of God, and in proportion as His children attain perfection of character they attain a more perfect life. (See Homiletics on chap. [vii. 1–4]). 2. Divine delight. God is the Author and Fountain of all the righteousness in the universe, and He can but take pleasure in the work of His own hands. He delights in men of uprightness because He sees in them a reproduction of His own character. His “soul delighted,” (Isa. xlii. 1), in the work and character of His elected servant, His only-begotten Son, because He was, pre-eminently “the Righteous.” (1 John ii. 1). He delights also in His created sons in proportion as their character comes up to that perfect standard.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 18. 1. Opposite characters. The radical idea of the word righteousness seems to be that of equality, as the equilibrium of a pair of scales, etc. Hence, applied to moral or religious matters, it makes a correspondence between our obligations on the one hand, and our performance on the other. But as the rightful claims of God and man are embodied in the Divine law, righteousness is considered as obedience and conformity to that law (Deut. vi. 25). And as this rule rather declares what it enjoins to be fit and proper, than makes it so, righteousness, in relation to the arrangement and constitution of things, is order, fitness, reality, truth. The radical meaning of the word here employed to denote the wicked man appears to be that of inequality, unfairness. Hence wicked, that is, unequal, balances (Mic. vi. 11). Agreeably to this idea, the word, when used in a moral sense, means a want of correspondence between duty and performance—nonconformity to the laws of God. As righteousness is order, etc., so that which is the essence of wickedness, is disorder, incongruity, deception, a lie, an unsound principle. 2. Opposite practices. As is the tree, so is the fruit. Righteousness renders to God and to man their due. The unrighteous man robs God (Mal. iii. 8, 9) of time and talents which should have been devoted to His service. His work is—Deceitful (often) in its intention. Deception is the very object proposed. Deceitful (always) in its nature. Weighed in the balances, it is found wanting. 3. Opposite results. The deceiver himself often becomes the dupe of his own delusions. By abuse the moral sense becomes blunted, etc., then follows what is described Isa. xliv. 18, 20; 2 Tim. iii. 13. Deceitful in its results—generally in this world. A tradesman who makes a point of telling profitable lies, is detected and disbelieved even when he speaks the truth, and, being deserted, comes to ruin.—Certainly in the world to come. Every man loves happiness; but sin will leave the sinner to weeping and wailing, etc. On the contrary, the righteous has a sure reward. His reward is—1. Certain. The perfections and word of God assure this. 2. Suitable; a reward of truth, a reward in kind, an increase of correct and pious feeling (Matt. v. 6, 8). Hence, 3. Satisfying (Psalm xvii. 15). 4. Abiding (Psa. xix. 9).—Adapted from Sketches of Sermons.
Although the ungodly person labour much, yet he doth a work which neither shall continue, nor bring any fruit unto him. The hypocrite giveth alms oftentimes to be seen by men, but he shall never be rewarded for his liberality by the Lord. The transgressor of God’s law buildeth himself upon the show of an outward profession: such a house will fall. The vain teacher delivereth the straw and the stubble of error and vanity for true doctrine and sound divinity. This work cannot abide; the day will reveal it, and the fire will consume it.—Muffet.