The Joy in Harvest
A. E. Gregory. Isaiah 9:3 You have multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest… is the joy of the reward, the joy of victory. I. THE REWARD OF LABOUR. God gives us comparatively few things ready for use. The world is much more like a manufactory than a storehouse of ready made goods. God gives us the raw material, but we must work it up into the manifold forms in which we require it for the purposes of life. God does not give us bread, but the possibility of bread. Even so God gives His Word, not as life, but as the possibility of life. The seed stored in a cellar, though it has in it the possibility of life for a city, is valueless until it is sown broadcast in the fields; and the Word of God, though it has in it the promise of life eternal for the whole world, may be concealed in a convent cell or buried in a dead language, whilst all around the souls of men are perishing for lack of knowledge. Man lives by bread, but not by bread alone. As there is a life which bread sustains, so there is a life which truth sustains. To sow the truth, to prepare for its harvest, is as truly to save spiritual life as the sowing of corn in its season is the saving of natural life. Every man is a sower, and every man in due season shall be a reaper. "Whatsoever a man soweth," etc. Is not this the solemn lesson of the harvest time, that he who would reap hereafter must sow now, that he who would rest hereafter must work now? II. THE REWARD OF PATIENCE. If the earthly husbandman has need of long patience, how mush longer patience does he need who seeks a spiritual harvest! The corn of wheat grows slowly, but God's truth grows more slowly still. What are the uncertainties of the changeful skies compared with the uncertainties of the changeful human life! Yet if he will let patience have her perfect work he shall have no need to complain of his harvest. III. THE REWARD OF FAITH. Faith and patience always go together. The man who believes can wait. When a child puts seed into the ground, he does so without any of that strong conviction of its vital power which experience has given to his father, and so from want of faith in the seed he appeals to sight, and digs it up to see how it is getting on. There are many older children who make a similar mistake as to spiritual sowing. The Gospel sower must have faith in his seed. We cannot feel too strongly the truth that the power lies in the seed, not in the sower. This is as true in the Church as it is in the cornfield. (A. E. Gregory.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. WEB: You have multiplied the nation. You have increased their joy. They rejoice before you according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.