Fruitful labor.
"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters." "There will he widespread desolation," says the prophet; "the fields will be untilled, the land will he covered with briars and thorns; but a glorious change shall come over the scene'—the 'wilderness shall become a fruitful field' (Isaiah 32:15), the happy scenes of industry will again be witnessed, the arts and industries of agriculture will revive and flourish in all their former fullness. Happy will be the land that shall put forth its whole strength in the field; 'blessed are they that sow beside all waters.' 'Two general truths spring from this passage.
I. THAT THEY ARE BLESSED WHO PUT FORTH ALL THE POWERS WITH WHICH THEY ARE ENDOWED. It should be the happiness of Israel in its time of restoration to leave no soil uncultivated that would yield produce; they would sow beside all waters. All its inhabitants, with all their agricultural implements, would be busy in the open fields; no strength left unexercised in the homes; no weapons left unused in the storehouses. Unhappy indeed is
II. THAT THEY ARE BLESSED WHO ARE ENGAGED IN REMUNERATIVE LABOR. This is peculiarly true of the Christian workman.
1. He had the very best seed to sow: truth, which God took centuries to prepare, which is the purchase of a Savior's tears and blood, which is exquisitely adapted to the soil for which it is intended.
2. He has well-watered, i.e. fertile, responsive soil in which to place it. He has, amongst others:
." A due discrimination of character would be made in the times of the Messiah, and persons and things would be called by their appropriate names (comp. Malachi 3:18; Matthew 23:13-33; Ephesians 5:5)" (Henderson). "The differences between good and evil, virtue and vice, shall be kept up, and no more confounded by those who put darkness for light and light for darkness" (Matthew Henry). These sentences show that the subject introduced is the influence of a righteous reign in helping men to see things as they really are, and to estimate persons according to their true worth, and not according to the mere show they may make. We deal specially with those confusions which come by false judgments of persons, and these take the following, among other forms.
I. ADMIRATION OF TALENTS BLINDS US TO BADNESS OF CHARACTER. What is thought to be "genius" is too often allowed to excuse all sorts of laxity. The men who can astonish and amuse us may be unclean, untruthful, injurious; but we readily pass all this by. When righteousness reigns, talent will have to go with character, or men will count it to be Satanic agency. What a man can do must never be separated from what the man is.
II. THE COMMAND OF WEALTH BRINGS FLATTERERS TO BAD MEN. There is no more painful sign of the moral deterioration of a race, than its worship of the rich because they are rich. Money can never make goodness. Wealth is not the stability of a nation. Its hope lies wholly in its good men. Yet the rich man may be violent, rude, masterful, cruel; nevertheless, multitudes will fawn on him, and call the "Vile person liberal." When righteousness reigns, that confusion will be rectified, and the rich man shall have worship only if he deserves it for what he is.
III. THE RANK AND SOCIAL POSITION OF MEN NOW BEWILDER THEIR FELLOWS, AND MAKE TRUE ESTIMATES NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE. Well does Robert Burns remind us that
"The rank is but the guinea-stamp,
A man's a man for a' that."
No word of bitterness need be spoken concerning those to whom God has entrusted talents, or wealth, or social position. The point to enforce is simply the peril of letting these things confuse our ideas of moral character and moral worth. Evil is evil, and must be denounced as evil, in the genius, the man of wealth, and the man of title. Let Christ reign, and sin will be called sin, wherever it is found. He will strip all disguises off, and show us things as they are, and men as they are. The Lord hasten his coming!—R.T.