LivePrayerSermon 3001. The Vision of the Field
(No. 3001)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.
"For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown." Ezekiel 36:9.
THESE words were addressed to the mountains of Palestine. Albeit that they are now waste and barren, they are yet to be asfruitful and luxuriant as in the days of Israel's grandeur. God will turn to them-the vines shall then crown the summits andthere shall be harvests again upon the mountaintops.
The mountains of Israel were a soil of glass in which you could see reflected, at a single glimpse, the condition and characterof the people. While the Israelites were obedient to God, the mountains dripped with new wine and the little hills seemedto melt with fertility. Honey dripped from the rock and oil appeared to be distilled of the very flint. When the people sinnedso that God gave them over to their enemies, irrigation being neglected and the culture of the soil no longer profitable,the mountains straightaway became as blank and barren as though they were a howling wilderness! And then, again, when thepeople repented and turned to God, the soil began to cover the mountains, carried up there by the industry of the people,the sides of the hills were terraced, the waste places began to blossom and the vines were once more filled with clusters.You could thus read the history of the people in the condition of their hills.
I intend to take the hills of Israel as a representation of our own state-the state of our own heart. As they really did mirrorforth the condition of the people of old, the metaphor becomes peculiarly attractive. I shall divide the subject thus-first,man's heart, by nature, is like a waste field. Secondly, there is no hope for that field unless Godshall turn to it in mercy.Thirdly, when Hie does turn to it, He will have to till it, for, lastly, not until after tillage can it be sown with any hopeof success.
I. MAN'S HEART, BY NATURE, IS LIKE A WASTE FIELD.
A waste field produces no harvest. Reaper, you shall never fill your arms with sheaves, the axle of the wagon shall nevercreak beneath the load of harvest and the young men shall never dance with the maidens at the harvest home. Let the fieldlie waste and the fruit it will yield in a whole century will not be sufficient to feed a single individual!
Such is man, we say, by nature. He brings forth no fruit unto God. Leave him alone and he will live unto himself. Perhapshe will be a respectable sinner and, if so, he will selfishly spend all his life in trying to provide for himself, alone,or for his family, which is but a part of himself. He will go through the world from his birth to his sepulcher without athought of God. He will never do anything for God. His heart will never beat with love to Him. He may sometimes, out of sheerselfishness, go with others to worship, but he will not worship God, whatever difference he may show to the outward form.His heart will be in complete alienation from the God who made him. He will live and he will die a strange monstrosity inthe world-a creature that has lived without love to his Creator!
Perhaps, however, he will be a disreputable sinner. He will live in sin, find his comfort in drunkenness, perhaps in lust,possibly in dishonesty-but regardless, he will bring forth nothing that God can accept. I think I see the great God comingto look at the man, even as a farmer might come to look upon his fallow field. What can God see? Is there a prayer? Yes, hesays a few forms of prayer, but they are dead, lifeless things, and God cannot accept them. Does He see any praise? Perhapsa shriveled hymn growing up in the corner of the field, but since there is no heart in it, it rots and dies, and God abhorsit. He looks the whole field through. There is no thought for God, no consecration of time to God, no desire to honor God,no longing to produce in the world fresh glory to God, no effort to raise up to Him fresh voices that shall praise His name.He lives unto himself, or to his fellow men and having so lived, he so dies.
Now you know that there are a great many people who say to themselves, "Well, if we do good to our neighbor, if we are kindto others, that is enough." And they expect to have some reward for this. But, mark you, every servant expects his masterto pay his wages-surely then, if you serve your fellow men, they ought to reward you. Let them give you a statue, or let thememblazon your name on one of the rolls of fame. Let them sound down your exploits to future generations! Still, let your debtorand creditor account be fair. If you have not done anything distinctly and avowedly in the service of God, there is no remunerationthat you can reasonably expect God to give you! What have you brought forth to Him? Nothing whatever! And we say it sincerely,for we know how sadly true it is-the natural heart of man never does and never can produce so much as one single grain thatGod can receive as being to His honor and glory. As for the natural children of men in all their generations-
"Like brutes they live, like brutes they die. Like grass they flourish, till Your breath Blasts them into everlasting death."Alas for them! Unto You, great God, they render no prayer nor praise, no heart-felt love nor reverent adoration. They passthrough this world as though there were no God!
Worse than this, the field that has never been plowed or sown does produce something. There is an activity about human naturethat will not let us live without doing. Unless you should shut yourselves up in a cell like a monk, or live on the top ofa pillar, like Simeon Stylites, you cannot very well pass through life utterly inert-without any purpose of mind, withoutany movement of the limbs, without any stir of the passions! And I suppose that even Simeon Stylites did exert some influence,for he led other people to be as great fools as himself. And even monks do some mischief by losing the interest on talentsfor which they ought to have rendered a good account-and spending their time in laziness which they ought to have employedin useful service. "None of us lives to himself." Is there no wheat growing on that soil? No barley? No rye? Very well, then,there will be grass, and cockle, and stickers and all sorts of weeds. So it is with the unrenewed heart. It produces hardthoughts of God, enmity against the Most High. It is prolific of evil imaginations, wrong desires and bitter envying. As theseripen, they bring forth ill words-idle, or, it may be, lascivious words and perhaps atheistic, blasphemous words! And as theseripen, they come to actions-and the man becomes an offender in his deeds, perhaps against man, certainly against God. He livesto produce sour grapes. The apples of Gomorrah hang plentifully upon him.
I know I am describing some here present. There are many such persons to be found in all our assemblies. They have done nogood in their lives. Measuring their lives by the standard of God, they have done nothing. On the other hand, they have beenguilty of much evil-they have brought forth fruit unto sin. Nor is this the worst of it. The bad farmer, who lets his fieldsrun to weeds, does mischief to the neighboring farm. Here comes the wind, willing to waft seed-good seed if it can find it-intoother soil. It will take the down of the flower seed and bear it into a garden where it will be needed. Or, if it must, itwill carry the seeds of the thistle and so, when it comes sweeping by the farmer's neglected field, it does damage to allthe fields in the neighborhood.
It is so with the sinner. "One sinner destroys much good." Is he a father? His children grow up to be as ungodly as himself.Is he a master? Then his men, like him, break the Sabbath and neglect the ways of God. Is he a workman? Then his fellow workmen,who are younger than he, take encouragement from his evil example and they are led into sin while they blindly follow in hiswake. Whatever station of life you put him into, he does mischief! The more eminent he is, the more eminently mischievoushe is. I do not allude to those who are grave offenders against the laws of society. I mean those good, decent people whohave no fear of God before their eyes. I think they do very much mischief, for the devil's cause gets respectable throughhaving them on its side! Those who persistently live in violation of Divine Law and who do not bend their necks to the yokeof Christ, may be very amiable, very moral and very excellent. If so, in a certain sense, the more is the pity because theyget an increase of power to do evil, for others say, "If such good men as these can live without religion and live despisingit, why shouldn't we?" Thus a bad cause, which would be hissed off the stage if there were none but rascals to side with it,still walks respectably in the light of day because of these persons who back it up! God deliver you, my dear Hearers, frombeing like a field that does mischief unto others! Beware, you upas tree, lest your poisonous influence should receive thereward of Hell fire! Beware, you cumberer of the ground, standing there and
sucking nutriment out of the soil, and cursing the other trees of the vineyard, lest the sharp ax should soon cut you to thecore and lay you level with the ground!
A barren field resembles the heart of man in that all the good influences that fall upon it are wasted. Comes there sunshine-itproduces no harvest on the fallow land. Here are the precious drops of dew glistening in the morning, but they cannot producean ear of corn. And here fall the sweet smiling showers of rain that make the new-mown fields all fragrant, but this fieldgets no good from it. It is even so with you who are still in a state of nature. You have the blessings of Providence, butthey do not make you grateful. You even have the blessings of the outward means of Divine Grace, but they excite in you nolongings towards God. Surely, my dear Friends, if this has been long the case with you, you must be near unto cursing!
Yet the waste field does produce something pleasant to the eyes, something worth looking at, for have you not seen the gorgeouspoppy and the finest specimens of the ranunculus growing in the field that was never plowed and sown? And there is the dog-roseyonder and the foxglove, and the forget-me-not, all springing up and flourishing where there should have been furrows forwheat! And so a man may have a comely appearance and make a fair show in the flesh, although he does not live near to God.In his character and reputation, there may be many a gaudy flower-yes, as red and as conspicuous as the poppy. He may shineamong men and men may talk much about him. But, as the Lord lives, if the Lord's plow has never gone over him, the brightblushing weeds are still just weeds! A poison and a pest, not a blessing or a balm-as the farmer right well knows. Let thoseof you who are in such a state see an apt emblem of yourselves every time you pass a piece of waste ground, and say, "Thatis just what we are, and what we shall be to the end of our lives, unless the Grace of God shall interfere to retrieve usfrom endless ruin."
II. THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THIS FIELD UNLESS GOD SHALL TURN TO IT IN MERCY.
Even so, unless the Lord shall turn to men, no good will ever come of them. The text says, "I am for you, and I will turnto you." Man never does of himself turn to God, and that for obvious reasons. We are sure he never can, for he is "dead intrespasses and sins." We are certain he never will, for by nature he hates anything like a new birth. And if he could makehimself a new creature, he would not, for Christ has expressly said, "You will not come unto Me that you might have life."Man is unwilling to give up sin-he loves it too much-he is unwilling to be made holy for he has no time for spiritual things.God, then, must come to man, for how can man, being naturally dead, and naturally unwilling, ever come to God? Experiencetells us that he will not. When did you ever find a man who had come to God-who would say that he came of his own naturalinclination? All the saints on earth will tell you that it was Almighty Grace that made them willing in the day of God's power.If there is any man who ever came to God of himself, I can only say that I know I am not that man-
"Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God."
If any unconverted person here will tell me that he can turn to God when he likes, I ask him why he does not turn now? Whatmeasure of damnation must be his due, when, according to his own confession, he has a power which he will not use! Sinner,talk not vainly of what you can do! Man, you can burn in Hell and you can fit yourself for the flames, but this is about allyou can do for yourself! You have destroyed yourself! For that inglorious deed, your will was free and your agency free likewise.But only in God is your help found. For this, be sure-you have neither might nor skill. If ever you are saved, it must beby another power than your own and by another faculty than that which dwells in your puny, wicked heart. God must do it! Ifyou wait till your waste field plows itself, or brings forth a harvest, you may wait till doomsday! And if I wait until myHearers save their own souls, and turn to God with full purpose of heart, I may wait till these hairs are gray, or till thesebones are carried to the tomb! And even then they will not have saved themselves! If you have turned to God, my dear Hearers,you know that the Lord has done it, so give Him the glory! If you have not been converted, God help you to cry to Him instantlyand earnestly, "Turn us, and we shall be turned." Look to Him who is exalted on high to "give repentance and remission ofsins." Seek Him and you shall live!
Oh, that you could now see your wretched plight, that you could feel your imminent peril, that you could believe in the Sovereignoperations of God's Grace! Then would I venture to prophesy that salvation had this day come to your house-yes, to your veryheart!
III. WHEN THE FIELD IS TO BE PUT UNDER CULTIVATION, IT MUST BE TILLED.
So, when God turns to any man in His mercy, there has to be an operation, a tillage, performed upon his heart! The farmer,unless he is a fool, would never think of sowing his corn upon a field that remains just as it was when it lay fallow. Heplows it first. Although we are to scatter the seed everywhere, upon the wayside as well as upon the good ground, God neverdoes. Common calling is addressed to every man, but effectual callingcomes only to prepared men, to those whom God makes "willingin the day of His power."
Now, what is the plow needed for? Why, it is needed, first of all, to break up the soil and make it crumble. It has gottenhard-perhaps it is a heavy clay and then it is all stuck together by the wet and all baked and caked together by the sun thatshines on it. Or perhaps it is a light soil. Well, this may not need much plowing, but still, it will cake over, as we allsee even in our little gardens. After the rain has gone, the sun comes, the ground cakes over and there will be no place forthe seeds to thrust in their tender roots. The corn will not sink down into the earth unless the soil is broken up-and themore thoroughly pulverized it becomes, the more like dust you get it-the more hope there is that the seed will take good root.
In such-like manner must human hearts be broken. "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." The more thoroughlypulverized the heart becomes, the better. Hence, there needs to be the sharp plow of the Law of God driven right through theheart to break up its crust and split the clods. And then must come that blessed plow of the Cross, which is the best plowthat yet ever went across a field-that blessed plow of the Cross, which, as it goes over it, turns up the soil, even the veryheart of it, and makes the sinner feel his sin and hate it, too, because of the love of God which is shed abroad by ChristJesus the Lord. Thus you must be tilled, then, that the heart may be broken, for the Seed of God will never get into an unbrokenheart!
And the plow is also needed to destroy the weeds, for they must be killed. We cannot have them growing. To spare the weedswould be to kill the wheat. The plow comes and cuts some weeds in two. Others it turns over and throws the heavy clods onand leaves them to lie there and be buried. It turns the roots of others up to the sun, and the sun, by the brightness ofits shining, scorches them and they die. Some soils need cross-plowing-they need to be plowed this way and the other way,and then they need someone to go through the furrows, afterwards, and pull up the weeds, or else they will not be all rootedout of the soil. And I am afraid that many of us who have been plowed still have divers weeds left in us! The field must notonly be plowed, but the weeds must be killed! And so it must be with you, my dear Hearers. If the Lord really saves you, Hemust kill your drunkenness, He must kill your swearing, He must kill your whoredom, He must kill your lying, He must killyour dishonesty. These must all go! Every single weed must be torn up-there is no hope for you while there is a weed living!
True, I mean not those weeds which still exist, even in the regenerate, but even they must be doomed. John Wellman, a memberof the Society of Friends, tells a strange story on himself. One night, after he had been reading the Scripture, as he layawake, he heard a voice saying, "John Wellman is dead." And, being a Quaker, he was greatly struck therewith and wonderedhow it was that he could be dead. He asked his wife what his name was and she said, "John Wellman." Whereupon he perceivedthat he must be alive. At last he understood it to mean that he was dead to the world-that he was henceforth no longer whathe formerly had been, but a new creature in Christ Jesus. And it will be a blessed thing for you, my dear Hearers, when thesame thing may be said of you in the same sense, "He is dead." There is a man I used to know-I wish I did not still know himso well. I used to meet him every day, some years ago, but we parted company. He would not go with me to Christ, so I wentwithout him. I became a new man and he is dead. Oh, how often I wish he were buried, for I have to drag his dead body aboutwith me and, as it putrefies in my nostrils, I have to cry, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the bodyof this death?" That rascally old man bears my own name and once he was identical with myself. I could gladly wish he wereburied! In like manner, may it come to pass with you that you may die to the flesh and that henceforth you may live in thespirit unto God! And though the old man is still prone to corruption, what a blessed stroke is that which takes the life outof him so that he can no longer rule over you, but the new man reigns supreme!
Plowmen tell us that when they are plowing, if the plow jumps, the work is done badly. They must plow it all alike, from endto end, from headland to headland. If the plow jumps, it has gone over some weeds or knots and not torn them up. I would likealways to preach so that my plow may never jump. I sometimes say a hard word because I do not want my plow to jump-I wantto tear up all the knots and not leave one in the ground. If one sin is tolerated, or one malicious
desire is spared, the life of God is not completely reigning in us! The Lord make a clean sweep of the weeds and burn them
all!
Well, now, mark you, in this tilling there are different soils. There is the light soil and the heavy soil-and so there aredifferent sorts of constitutions. There are some men who are naturally tender and sensitive. Many, too, of our sisters arelike Lydia-they soon receive the Word. There are others who are like the heavy clay soil and you know that the farmer doenot plow both soils alike, or else he would make a sad mess of it! And so, God does not deal with all men alike. Some have,as it were, first a little plowing and then the seed is put in and all is done. But some have to be plowed and cross-plowed,and then there is the scarifier and the clod-crusher and I know not what, which have to be rolled over them before they aregood for anything. And perhaps, after all, they produce very little fruit. Different constitutions need different modes ofaction. Let this comfort some of you who have not been so much alarmed as others have been. Different soils must have differentmethods. Christ does not deal with all men precisely in the same way in His heavenly tillage.
A farmer has a large variety of implements. Go into the shed of a man who is a high farmer and what a number of implementsyou may see! I mentioned some of them just now, but there are far more than I can talk about. So it is with our Heavenly Father-Hehas all kinds of implements. Sometimes it is a Providential trial. One man loses a child. Another has to bury his father.And yonder one has had to follow his wife to the grave. Some have temporal losses- business becomes bad-perhaps they are outof work and half starving. Others are stretched upon a bed of sickness and others are brought near to the grave. These circumstancesare all so many different sort of plows with which God plows the soil of our hearts!
The laborers whom the Lord employs are dissimilar, likewise, by the diversity of their gifts. Ministers are some of one sort,and some of another. Even the same minister is not always engaged in the same sort of operation. There are some Sundays whenI know some of you find me a terrible scarifier, for I have the terrors of the Lord on my conscience and there is very littlecomfort in the solemn warnings I am constrained to utter. But if, sometimes, I come down upon you like a clod-crusher, itis necessary that with true Grace and good hope, I may at other times drill in the seed and nourish your hearts with the veryessence of the Gospel. The faithful evangelist has to become all things to all men to accomplish his Master's work. But youmust be tilled, for there is no sowing the ground until it has been first stirred about.
And, you know, the farmer has his proper time for plowing. Some soils will do better at one season and some at another. Thereare some soils that break up best after a shower of rain and some that do best when they are dry. There are some hearts, andI think almost all hearts-that are best plowed after a shower of heavenly love has fallen upon them. They are in a gratefulframe of mind for mercies received and then the story of a dying Savior comes to them as just that which will touch the stringsof their hearts. Anyway, dear Friends, I would like to pass the question around, Have you been tilled? Has your heart beentilled? Has the soil of your heart been turned up? Have the secret things of your heart been discovered and brought to light,just as the plow turns up the ants' nest? Have you been brought to know your own corruptions? Are there straight furrows rightthrough you so that you can cry out, "O God, You have broken me in pieces, be pleased to come to my help"? Then I am gladof it. You are ready to despair of yourself, but I am not ready to despair for you. You tremble, but I am encouraged. I rejoice,not that you are made sorry, but that you sorrow to repentance after a godly manner! God has broken your heart and I knowthat He will bind it up. If He has plowed you, He will sow you, as He said to the mountains of Israel, "I will turn to you,and you shall be tilled and sown."
IV. UNLESS GOD HAS TILLED THE HEART, IT CANNOT BE SOWN WITH ANY HOPE OF SUCCESS.
After plowing, there comes the sowing. When the heart is ready, God sows it-sows it with the best of wheat. The wise farmerdoes not sow tail corn but, as Isaiah says, he casts in "the principal wheat." The seed which God sows is living seed. Ifa farmer were to sow boiled seed that has lost its vitality, what would be the good of it? But he sows living seed. And sothe Truth of God which Jesus Christ preaches and bids us to scatter, is living wheat-living seed-and when that drops intothe soil, God watches over it. The grub may come and the crow may come, but none of these shall get the seed-
"For Grace insures the crop "-
and up it shall spring-"first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." It shall grow, for God has preparedthe soil for it!
Now, I want to scatter a handful of the good Seed of the Kingdom. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."Trust Jesus, and you are saved. There-I saw a handful of that Seed go on the wayside and another handful went upon some ofyou who are choked with thorns. But if there is a broken heart here, the Seed has fallen upon good ground, for that brokenheart says, "What? If I trust Christ, shall I be saved?" Yes, you will be saved in a moment! Every sin forgiven you in a moment,for Jesus Christ took your place and stood and suffered all the punishment of your sins! Therefore God having been just inpunishing Christ instead of you, can let you go free, and yet be just as though He had sent you to Hell! If you trust Christ,the merit of His suffering and the virtue of His righteousness shall be yours. You shall go your way rejoicing because youhave peace with God through Jesus Christ! Will you believe or not, Sinner? God give you the Grace to trust Christ! Trust Himnow. And if you do, then I shall know that God has plowed you, that God has prepared you before He bade me drop in the Seed!Let those of us who know the power of prayer drag the harrow across the field, for when the Seed is once in, it needs harrowing.Thus let us preach the Word, and thus let us pray that the Seed may take root, spring up, grow and bring forth a hundredfold!So sinners shall be saved and so God shall be glorified!
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ECCLESIASTES 11:6-10; 12.
Ecclesiastes 11:6. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand: for you know not whether shall prosper, eitherthis or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. It is our business to sow the good Seed of the Kingdom, to sow itbroadcast, to sow it at all times-"In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand." The result ofour sowing does not rest with us, but with the great Lord of the Harvest. Some of the Seed may fall by the wayside, some amongthorns, some upon a rock, or upon rocky ground with only a thin layer of earth; but if God has called us to be sowers, andwe really sow Gospel Seed, some of it will fall into good ground and bring forth fruit, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or even a hundredfold!
7. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. And as it is so pleasant for the naturaleyes to behold the natural sun, how much more pleasant is it for the spiritual eyesto behold the Sun of Righteousness! Sweetas the light of the sun is, the light of the Sun of Righteousness is far sweeter.
8, 9. But if a man lives many years, andrejoices in them all; yet let him remember the days ofdarkness; for they shall bemany. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, Oyoung man, in your youth; and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth,and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes: but know you that for all these things God will bring youinto judgment. Nobody in his senses supposes that Solomon exhorted young men to walk according to their own heart and accordingto the sight of their eyes! This is a common way of speaking-as we may say to a man who is going to excess in drink, "Well,drink your full, and be drunk; but you will have to suffer for it. It will certainly exact a penalty at your hands by-and-by."Nobody would be so foolish as to say that we had exhorted the man to drunkenness! On the contrary, we did, as it were, warnhim not to continue in his evil course by reminding him of the penalty which would assuredly follow. So here Solomon seemsto say, "Do this if you will. Do it if you dare. But remember that there is a Judgment Day coming and God will judge you forall these things-and according to these things will He measure out your doom."
10. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart and put away evil from your flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. There isno doubt that if we were holy, we would be happy. So, if we advise men to put away sorrow from their heart, we must remindthem that they cannot do it except by putting away sin. The roots of evil must be cleared away, otherwise, in the long run,to cut down the shoots and leave the roots may be but to strengthen the evil. The removal of sorrow can only be effected bygoing deeper and clearing the heart of sin-and this can only be accomplished by God's Grace.
Ecclesiastes 12:1. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw near, when you shallsay, I have no pleasure in them. Do not give God the dregs of life. Do not offer in sacrifice to Him anything that is wornout. Remember that among the first fruits which the Jews were to bring to the
priest to be offered on God's altar, there were to be "green ears of corn, dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of fullears." The Lord delights to have the hearts of His people while they are yet children. The Lord said through Hosea the Prophet,"I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms," as if, while they were but little, God had taught them to take theirfirst steps in walking. There is also that passage in the prophecy of Jeremiah, "I remember you, the kindness of your youth,the love of your espousals, when you went after Me in the wilderness." God delights in those early evidences of love in themorning of life, while the dew is upon everything and there is a sparkling freshness all around. I pray that you who are youngwill remember your Creator in the days of your youth!
2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the star, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain. As they doin old age, when troubles seem to multiply and the brightness of life seems to have gone.
3, 4. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders ceasebecause they are few, and those that look out of the windows are darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the street, whenthe sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the birds, and all the daughters of music shall bebrought low. This is a wonderfully vivid description of the failure of our natural powers. "The keepers of the house shalltremble"-these are our arms which are the guardians of the house of our body. We naturally thrust out our hands and arms toprotect ourselves if we are likely to fall, so they are "the keepers of the house." "The strong men shall bow themselves,"that is, our legs and knees begin to shake. "The grinders cease because they are few." Our teeth gradually decay and, at last,fall from their places. They are like the first falling stones of a decaying wall, tottering to show how the rest will soonfollow. "Those that look out of the windows are darkened." The eyes begin to lose their quickness of sight and fresh windows-doublewindows-are sometimes needed to assist the failing sight. "The doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grindingis low." The voice fails. Then there comes sleeplessness, so that the first little bird that chirps in the morning wakes upthe aged man. And as for music, his ears sometimes fail to catch the sweetest melody and his own voice is unable to attuneitself as once it did-"All the daughters of music shall be brought low."
5. Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish.This is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetic description that were ever penned! Here we have a true picture of the nervousnesswhich creeps over men in the decline of life. Then there is the flourishing of the almond tree-there are many before me nowwhose white hair shows that the almond tree is flourishing!
5. And the grasshopper shall be a burden.Those things that we treated lightly in our youth become a very heavy burden in ourlater years. A little work wearies, a little care fatigues and a little trouble frets us as it never used to do.
5. And desire shall fail The whole nature becomes more calm and less ambitious-and less ardent than it used to be.
5, 6. Because man goes to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: before the silver cord is loosed, or the goldenbowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. "The silver cord" is the spinalmarrow, which gradually relaxes, for the strength and power of it are gone. The whole frame begins to show symptoms of theparalysis which is creeping on. "The golden bowl" is the skull, which contains the brain, and whoever has seen a skull mustsee how appropriate the figure is. Then, in "the pitcher" and "the wheel" we have a reference to the circulation of the bloodof which Solomon seems to have had at least some inklings. There have been writers who have affirmed that the entire systemof anatomy might very well be gathered from these words. They are wonderful, not only because of the poetic imagery whichis on the surface, but also because of the depth of meaning which lies beneath.
7. Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it Thus will it happento us all unless Christ shall first come. The machinery of our being will stand still. The fountain of life will be dry; nolonger will the living floods rush through their appointed courses as they used to do. Please remember that we are not merelytalking about people in the street, of whom we know nothing, but about ourselves, also, for we are mortal-so we must die.Let us believe this and prepare for it.
8. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity. This seems to be the conclusion to which Solomon came by the experimentof his own life, as well as by the teaching of God. This Book of Ecclesiastes begins thus-"The words of the Preacher, theson of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
9. And moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yes, he gave good heed, and sought out,and set in order many proverbs. That man is not fit to teach who does not give good heed and set his words in order. He whosays whatever comes first into his mind, only gives out chaff which the wind drives away. But he who would scatter his seedbroadcast must take care that he has in his seed-basket good seed that is worth sowing in the broad furrows of the world-field.
10. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words. The Hebrew expression means words of delight, for words that delightthe ear may help to win the heart and so prove to be "acceptable words."
10, 11. And that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and the words ofscholars are as well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd. The true preacher's words pierce us like the sharp ox-goads piercethe cattle, but they are also like nails that are driven into the wood, and clinched so that they cannot come out. There mustbe something to stir our emotions, and something to retain in our memory. We need the goads, for we are like the ox that isslow at the plow. And we need to have the nails well driven into us for our memory is often like a rotten piece of wood whichlets the nail slip out as soon as it has to bear any weight. May the Holy Spirit make all of us, who are preachers, to bewise so as to know how to use the goad and how to drive the nail!
12. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there in no end: and much study is a weariness of theflesh That is what Solomon said and he had never seen the British Museum, or the Bodleian and other noted libraries, for,if he had done so, he would have said with an emphasis, "There is no end," for the books of his day could scarcely have beenone in a thousand, or one in a million, compared with those which are now produced! I should not wonder, however, if the onein a million was quite worth the million. There are many books made that may benefit the printer, the publisher, and the bookseller,but they are not likely to benefit anybody else!
13. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.Reverent walking before the Most High. Reconciliation to Him so that we can thus walk and thus live, and all this proved bya life of obedience to His commandments-"This is the whole duty of man."
14. For Godshall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil Noticethat expression, "every secret thing." It is not merely our public actions that God will judge, otherwise we might be moreat our ease-but He takes account of our most private thoughts, words, deeds and intents. Who among us can endure that ordeal?Yet we must endure it if we are to stand before Him. O Lord, prepare us, by Your Infinite Grace, through faith in Your dearSon, and by the regenerating work of Your gracious Spirit, for this solemn testing time! Amen.