Everybody’s sermon

“I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes.” Hosea 12:10

Suggested Further Reading: Matthew 13:36-43

If you have an opportunity to journey into the country during the next three weeks, you will, if your heart is rightly attuned, find a marvellous mass of wisdom couched in a cornfield. Why, I could not attempt for a moment to open the mighty mines of golden treasure which are hidden there. Think, beloved, of the joy of the harvest. How does it tell us of the joy of the redeemed, if we, being saved, shall at last be carried like shocks of corn fully ripe into the granary. Look at the ear of corn when it is fully ripe, and see how it bends toward the earth! It held its head erect before, but in getting ripe how humble does it become! And how does God speak to the sinner, and tell him, that if he would be fit for the great harvest he must drop his head and cry, “Lord have mercy upon me a sinner.” And when we see the weeds spring up amongst wheat, have we not our Master’s parable over again of the tares among the wheat; and are we not reminded of the great day of division, when he shall say to the reaper, “Gather first the tares and bind them in bundles, to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” O yellow field of corn, thou preachest well to me, for thou sayest to me, the minister, “Behold, the fields are ripe already to the harvest. Work thou thyself, and pray thou the Lord of the harvest to send forth more labourers into the harvest.” And it preaches well to thee, thou man of years, it tells thee that the sickle of death is sharp, and that thou must soon fall, but it cheers and comforts thee, for it tells thee that the wheat shall be safely housed, and it bids thee hope that thou shalt be carried to thy Master’s home to be his joy and his delight for ever. Hark, then, to the rustling eloquence of the yellow harvest.

For meditation: Some Scriptures on summer and harvest: (Genesis 8:22; Proverbs 6:8; 10:5; 26:1; Jeremiah 8:20).

Sermon no. 206
25 July (1858)