Now is the time of harvest. Wherever one goes throughout the land, there is to be seen the standing grain even now over-ripe, here the reaper with his sickle busily laying the corn in bundles, while the gleaner follows on behind, there the more modern reaping machine swiftly laying low a whole field, and now we see shocks of corn waiting the gathering into the barn.
It is a busy season, the season for which the farmer has been laboring and waiting all the year, for it determines the value of what he has done. It is, in fact, the judgment time of the year. The nature of the sowing appears in the reaping; and upon the harvest depends the farmer's future. If it is good, he can rejoice in his prosperity; if it is poor, it may mean bankruptcy.
Who thinks of the real significance of the harvest, as it comes year after year? It has a lesson, and a most important one, which should be impressed upon us more and more deeply by its regular recurrence; but such is the perversity of human nature, that instead of learning the lesson better by its constant repetition, we become entirely unconscious of it, even as we do of the ticking of the clock. Let us see if we cannot stir up our slumbering senses to appreciate the instruction and warning that God never wearies of giving us.
Jesus was one day teaching His disciples, and He said, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth, And should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knows not how. The earth bears fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he puts forth the sickle, because the harvest is come." (Mark 4:26-29,RV)
By the seen, the Lord teaches us of the unseen. That is, from what is apparent, He teaches us of the real, "For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18)
And only that which is lasting is real. Each year, therefore, we have a complete picture of the kingdom of God. The whole work of the Gospel, from its beginning till its consummation, is annually set forth in living pictures before the eyes of all men.
For a more detailed account of the matter, read the parable of the wheat and tares, and its interpretation, in Matthew 13:24-30, 37-43, together with Scripture already quoted. Seed is sown; it germinates and grows, but no one knows how. This we do know, however, that the seed must die in order to bear fruit. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit." (John 12:24)
It must die in order to live. "That which you sow is not quickened, except it die." (1 Corinthians 15:36)
And the work is wholly of God. "God gives it a body as it has pleased Him, and to every seed his own body." (1 Corinthians 15:38)
Sad to say, an enemy is also working, among the wheat, and tares spring up among the wheat. "The good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The field is the world." (Matthew 13:38-39)
The good seed, as we also learn from other scriptures, is the Word of God. (Matthew 13:19-23) Those who receive the Word, the incorruptible seed, into their hearts are born of it, thus being transformed into the same substance. This is the new birth, the passing from death to life. He who is not willing to die, cannot hope to live. The farmer who should refuse to cast seed upon the ground, seemingly throwing it away, would never reap anything. The harvest would surely come, but his hands would be empty. "He that saves his life, shall lose it." (Matthew 16:25)
In the growth of the grain we have an illustration of the Christian's growth in grace. "For as the earth brings forth her bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." (Isaiah 61:11)
In the first place, the work is wholly of God. The showers that fall upon the earth show the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; the sunshine which warms the seed into life, shows us how "the Sun of righteousness arises with healing in His wings." (Malachi 4:2)
So the grain grows, because under the favorable conditions which God provides, it cannot do otherwise. We also, if we are consciously as passive in the hands of God as the corn is involuntarily, and as willingly receive the things that pertain to life and godliness, which His Divine power gives in perfection, will as surely bring forth fruit to the glory of God throughout eternity, as the corn ripens to the harvest. For the harvest will surely come, and "the harvest is the end of the world." (Matthew 13:39)
Each recurring harvest is but a sign of the coming end of the world, when "every man's work shall be made manifest." (1 Corinthians 3:13)
The real harvest is yet to come; these yearly harvests are but the assurances of it. We allow them to come and go without giving them a thought beyond the pounds, shillings, and pence which they bring; their regularity makes us indifferent to the lesson they teach, whereas each returning harvest should but deepen our sense of the coming judgment.
The Jews had each year a round of service in their sanctuary, designed to teach them the truths of the closing act in the yearly service, which was the Day of Atonement. This came in the autumn, when the year ended. It was to them the day of judgment. It was their unbelief that made that typical service necessary.
If we will allow the veil of unbelief to be taken away from our eyes, we shall see the Gospel of the kingdom set forth even more vividly and really than it was in the Levitical yearly service. Their ceremonies were but dead forms; our lesson, which they also had, is the working of the living Word. Each harvest tells us that God will bring every work into judgment, and "the day shall declare it." (1 Corinthians 3:13) "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (Galatians 6:7-8)
What shall the harvest be in your case? You may know now as surely as when it comes, for the sowing determines the reaping. The harvest will surely come; it is even now upon us. Then, "Let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." (Galatians 6:9)--Present Truth, September 1, 1898.