I. Those who promise and do not perform are wantonly cruel. To raise expectations without fulfilling them is one of the greatest unkindnesses of which men can be guilty. For however sorely the gift or the service desired may be needed, if the needy brother has never had any hope of possessing it, his sense of loss is not nearly so keen as it is if, depending on the word of another, he has felt as if the coveted good was almost in his grasp. The thirsty traveller in the desert feels his thirst more terribly after the deceitful mirage has led him to believe that a refreshing lake is just within his reach. He thinks he sees the sparkling water but a few paces distant, and is already in fancy drinking his fill when all his hopes are destroyed by the vanishing of the deception, and he is in a far worse condition than he was before its appearance. There are many men who are as deceitful and as disappointing as the mirage of the desert. Their large promises awaken bright hopes in the breast of some wayfarer on the journey of life, and he looks forward with confident joy to the time when he shall possess the promised gift. But his heart is gradually made sick by the deferred hope (chap. xiii. 12) until at last he becomes aware that he has been cruelly deceived, and finds himself a far more wretched man than he was before the promise was made to him.
II. As a rule he who promises most will perform the least. Those who bestow most upon others are those who do not spend much time in talking about what they will do. Sometimes a heavy cloud is seen in the heavens, which seems as if it would every moment fall in refreshing showers. But a few drops only fall on the parched earth, and while the husbandman is looking with confident expectancy it vanishes from his sight. On another day a cloud which seems to promise far less falls in abundance upon the thirsty land. This is not the rule in nature, but it is in relation to the promises and performances of men. The loud boaster is well-nigh certain to be a cloud without rain, and should therefore never be relied upon, and the greatest givers are generally those who promise least.
outlines and suggestive comments.
This verse may be understood, either of God’s gift to man, or man’s gift to God, or else of man to any other man. For many there are who boast of those gifts which God never bestowed on them; and though God be infinite in His bounty, yet by their lying do make Him more bountiful than He is. Many there are who boast of their gifts to God, either in regard of the church or the poor, whereas His church or His poor have them as little as God Himself needs them. Many boast of their kind gifts to others, whereas their not performing them makes them more unkind than if they never had promised. . . . Their false gifts are as the clouds, and their boasting as the winds. Their false gifts do lift them up, as the clouds are; their great boasting maketh a great noise as the wind doth. The winds drive the clouds and scatter them; so doth their boasting spread abroad the fame of their false gifts; and as the clouds without rain darken the heavens without watering the earth; as the dry wind troubleth the air without refreshing the ground; so these boasters even darken the heaven with their naughtiness, and trouble the earth with their brags, but satisfy none with their deeds.—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 15.
Forbearance and Persuasiveness.
I. Patience without speech is an overcoming power. The strongest smith will find a piece of cold iron too much for him—if he attempt to bend or break it he will be met with a resistance which he cannot overcome. But he places that apparently unconquerable bar upon the coals, and by degrees it seems to assume altogether another nature, and is ready to be fashioned to any shape or form. He gets this victory by waiting, and he finds it a far more effectual method than attempting to subdue the metal by physical force. Forbearance will sometimes do as much for the stubborn human will as the fire does for the iron. Many men who cannot be threatened into compliance with our wishes, may be overcome by patient kindness. A prince may be here put by Solomon as a type of all men in authority and high position, who by reason of their position are less under the power of others and consequently are less likely to yield to any other force than persuasion. With such men high-handed dealing and efforts to intimidate generally provoke a more stubborn resistance.
II. Patience seconded by gentle speech is doubly powerful. The smith’s work is not done when by waiting he has given time for the iron to become soft and impressible; he must then bring his skill and activity to bear upon it and so mould it to his will. So after long forbearance there must be wise and persuasive speech to finish the work. The long-suffering patience, perhaps under trial and provocation, has softened the hard heart or the stubborn will, and now the gentle words are listened to and have their full weight. But this would not have been the case if patience without speech had not gone first to make way for them.
III. Those who conquer by forbearance in deed and gentleness in word walk in the Divine footsteps. In the dealings of God with the human race, no attribute of His character is more manifest than “the riches of His forbearance and long suffering” (Rom. ii. 4), and it is by this that He “leads men to repentance.” “Instead of coming down upon man by storm,” says Dr. Bushnell, “in a manner of direct onset to carry his submission by storm, God lays gentle siege to him, waiting for his willing assent and choice. . . . To redress an injury by gentleness, and tame his adversary’s will by the circuitous approach of forbearance and a siege of true suggestion is not the manner of men, only of God.” It is not, alas! the manner of men in general, but all those who call Him Master try to imitate Him in this as in all other of His perfections that can be imitated by finite and imperfect creatures.
outlines and suggestive comments.