A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Evening, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

Be patient therefore, brethren, for the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious harvest of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receives the early and latter rain. Be also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draws near. (Jas 5:7 8)

1. The earth that yields seed to the sower and bread to the eater has received its constitution from God; and it is governed through his wise providence by fixed laws that are infinitely reliable; and yet, at the same time, with such diversified conditions and minute peculiarities as may well convince us that the Almighty intended the operations of nature to supply us with spiritual instruction as well as with material good. He who ordained the seedtime and the harvest meant to teach us by them. Nor has he left us in vague uncertainty concerning the lessons we should learn! In metaphor and parable he has interpreted them for us. The author of the Bible is also the architect of the universe. The book that is written and the things that are made equally bear witness to his eternal power and Godhead. He who shall study them both will see clearly the workmanship of one author. In the two masterpieces the hand of the same great artist may be discerned. We are all so dependent upon the labours of the field, that we ought at the season of harvest to remember how much we owe to the God of the harvest. It is only common gratitude that we should go to the field for awhile, and there hear what God the Lord may have to say to us among the waving sheaves. No matter what our business may be, the wealth of the country must after all, to a large extent, depend upon the crops that are produced, and the wellbeing of the whole state has a greater dependence upon the harvest than many of you could probably imagine. We will not forget the bounties of God. We will not fail at least to endeavour to learn the lesson which this bountiful season is intended to teach us. Our Lord Jesus often preached about the sowing and of the reaping. His were the best of sermons and his the choicest of illustrations: therefore, we shall do well if we go to the field, notice the scattering of the grain, and its harvesting, to enforce the exhortation of the text.

2. Our subject, tonight, will involve three or four questions: How does the farmer wait? What does he wait for? What is his encouragement? What are the benefits of his patient waiting? Our experience is similar to his. We are farmers, so we have to toil hard, and we have to wait long: then, the hope that cheers, the crop that buds and blossoms, and truly, too, the profit of that struggle of faith and fear associated with waiting will all crop up as we proceed.

3. I. First, then, HOW DOES THE FARMER WAIT?

4. He waits with a reasonable hope for the precious harvest of the earth, and has long patience for it until he receives the early and latter rain. He expects the harvest because he has ploughed the fields and sown the grain. If he had not, he would not be an example for our imitation. Had he left his fields fallow, never ploughed the soil, and never cast in among them the golden seed, he would be an idiot if he were expecting the soil to produce a harvest. It would produce thorns and thistles for him — nothing more. Away with the folly of those, who flatter their souls with a prospect of good things in time to come while they neglect the opportunity of sowing good things in the present time. They say they hope it will be well with them at the end; but, since it is not well with them now, why should they expect any change — much less a change contrary to the entire order of Providence? Is it not written “He who sows to the flesh shall reap from the flesh corruption?” Do you expect to sow to the flesh and reap salvation? That is a blessing reserved for him who sows to the spirit; for he who sows to the spirit shall reap from the spirit everlasting life. As for the man who scatters nothing except the wild oats of sin, who simply lives to indulge his own passions, and determinately resolves to neglect the things that make for his peace, — he can only upbraid himself if he expects to reap anything good from the Lord. Those who sow to the wind shall reap the whirlwind, those who sow nothing shall reap nothing, those who sow sparingly shall also reap sparingly. It is only those who by God’s grace have been enabled to sow abundantly, though they have gone out weeping, who shall afterwards come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. Patience by all means, but not that foolish patience which expects something good to turn up in spiritual things, as some fools do in business when they turn aside from legitimate trade to promote bubble schemes. You shall have, my brother, after all according to what you are, and to what you are fairly going for. If you are a believer, to you shall be the promise — you shall share the victories and spoils of your Lord. If you are a careless, godless worldling, to you shall be the fruit of your deeds, and sad and bitter shall be those grapes of Gomorrah that you shall have to eat. The farmer waits with a reasonable hope; he does not look for grain where he has sown garlic. Unless you are a fool, like him you will only count on the harvest of your own sowing.

5. While he waits with a patient hope, he is no doubt all the more patient for the outcome, because his hope is so reasonable. And not only does he wait with patience, but some stress is put upon its length; “and has long patience for the precious harvest of the earth.” Now, brethren in Christ, our waiting, if it is the work of the Holy Spirit, must have this long patience in it. Are you a sufferer? There are sweet fruits to come from suffering! “It does not seem to be joyous for the present but grievous, nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised by it.” Have long patience for those peaceable fruits. You shall be brought out of your trouble, deliverance will be found for you out of your affliction when the discipline for which you were brought into it has been fulfilled. Have long patience, however, for the farmer does not find a harvest in the first month. If he has sown in the winter, he does not expect he will reap in the early spring: he does not go out with his sickle in the month of May and expect to find golden sheaves. He waits. The moons wax and wane; suns rise and set; but the farmer waits until the appointed time is come. Wait, oh sufferer, until the night is over. You have already passed through watch after watch; the morning breaks. Wait a little longer, for if the vision waits it shall come. “You shall stand in your lot at the end of the days.” Before long you shall have a happy exit out of your present trials. Are you a worker? Then you need as much patience in working as you do in suffering. We must not expect to see immediate results in all cases from the preaching of the Gospel, from the teaching of Scripture in our classes, from distributing religious literature, or from any other kind of effort. Immediate results may come. Sometimes they do, and they greatly cheer the worker; but it is given to some to wait long, like the farmer, before the crop reaches maturity. Truth, like the grain of mustard seed, does not grow into a tree tomorrow when sown today; it takes its time. Or, like the leaven in the measure of dough, it does not work in the next moment; it must have its time. If you have some principle to teach that is now obnoxious, go on with it. Perhaps, you may never see it accepted in your day. Do not mind the fickle winds or fret yourself because of the nipping frosts. Truth is mighty and it will prevail, though it may have a hard fight before it wins the victory. Souls may not be won to God the first time you pray for them, nor the first time you exhort them, no, nor the twentieth time. If you have gone to a sinner once on Christ’s errand and he has rejected you, go again seven times; indeed, go again seventy times seven; for if you should at last succeed by your Master’s gracious help, it will well repay you. The long, tedious winter of your waiting will appear as a short span to look back upon when you have reaped the field of your labour. The little patience that you had to exert for a while will seem as nothing, like the travail of the mother when the man-child is born into the world. Hush, then, your sad complaints, and still your petulant wailings.

   Oh dreary life! we cry, oh dreary life!
   And still the generations of the birds
   Sing thro’ our sighing; and the flocks and herds
   Serenely live while we are keeping strife.

Be patient, oh worker, for impatience sours the temper, chills the blood, sickens the heart, prostrates the vigour of one’s spirit, and spoils the enterprise of life before it is completed. Wait, clothed with patience, like a champion clad in steel. Wait with a sweet grace, as one who guards the faith and sets an example of humility. Wait in a right spirit, anxious, prayerful, earnest submissive to the ways of God, not doubtful of his will. Disciple of Jesus, “learn to labour and to wait.”

6. With regard to the result of Christian obedience, the lesson is no less striking. The first thing that a farmer does by way of seeking gain on his farm is to make a sacrifice which would seem immediately to ensure a loss for him. He has some good wheat in the granary, and he takes out sacks full of it and buries it. He is so much the poorer, is he not? At any rate, there is so much the less to make bread for his household. He cannot get it again; it is under the soil, and there too it must die; for unless it dies, it does not produce a crop. You must not expect as soon as you become a Christian, that you shall obtain all the gains of your religion, perhaps you may lose all that you have for Christ’s sake. Some have lost their lives; they have sown their house and land, relatives, comfort, ease, and at last they have sown life itself in Christ’s field, and they seemed for the time to be losers; but, truly I say to you, today, if you could see them in their white robes before the throne of God, rejoicing, you would see how rich a harvest they have reaped, and how the sowing which seemed a loss at first has ended, through God’s abundant grace, in the greatest eternal gain. Have patience, brother, have patience. That is a false religion that aims at present worldly advantage. He who becomes religious for the loaves and fishes, when he has eaten his loaves and fishes, has devoured his religion. There is nothing in such piety except pretension. If you can be bought, you can be sold: if you have taken it up for gain, you will lay it down for what promises you a better bargain. Be willing to be a loser for Christ, and so prove you are his genuine follower. The farmer, I say, does not expect immediate reward, but counts on being a loser for awhile. He waits, waits with long patience, for the precious harvest of the earth. It is a reasonable waiting at the beginning, and not regretful when wearied and worried with delay.

7. And, while the farmer waits, you observe in the text he waits with his eye upward, he waits until God shall send him the early and the latter rain. He knows enough to look for this; even if he is a worldly man he knows that the harvest depends not only on the seed he sows and on the soil he cultivates, but upon the rain which he cannot control; the rain that comes at the command of the Almighty. If the skies are brass, the soil will be iron. Unless God shall speak to the clouds, and the clouds shall speak to the earth, the earth will not speak to the grain, and the grain will not make us speak the words of rejoicing. Every farmer is aware of this, and every Christian must remember it. “I am to wait,” says a sufferer, “for God’s help and for the graces that come by affliction, but I must wait with my eye upward, for all the ploughing of affliction will not profit me, and all the sowing of meditation will not prosper me, unless God sends his gracious Spirit like showers of heavenly rain. If I am a worker, I must work. When I wait, I must wait always looking upward.” The keys of the rain clouds which water the earth hang on the belt of Jehovah. No one except the eternal Father can send the Holy Spirit like showers on the church. He can send the comforter, and my labour will prosper; it will not be in vain in the Lord; but if he denies, if he withholds this covenant blessing, ah me! work is useless, patience is worthless, and all the expense is wasted: it is in vain. In spiritual, as in temporal things, “it is vain to rise up early and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness.” “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it.” We must have the dew, oh God, or else our seed shall rot under the soil. We must wait, and wait with our eye upwards, or else our expectation will perish as a stillborn child. So with regard to the comfort, and joy, and ultimate fruit of our faith, we must have our eye upward looking for the coming of the Lord from heaven, for the day of his appearing will be the day of our unveiling. Our life is hidden with Christ now; when he shall appear we shall appear with him. When he shall be revealed in glory before the eyes of the assembled multitude, we shall be conspicuous in glory too. Not until then shall the fulness of the reward be bestowed, but the risen saints shall be glorified in the glorification of their coming Lord. Oh, for more of this living with the eyes upward, less minding of earthly things, and more looking for and hastening to the coming of the Son of God!

8. Notice, however, that while the farmer waits with his eye upward, he waits with his hands at work, engaged in restless toil. He sows, and it is a busy time. When he sees the green blade, what then? He has to work. Those weeds must not be allowed to outgrow the wheat and choke it. Up and down the field the labourer must go, and the farmer must be at the expense of this, and all along until the wheat is ripened there is sure to be something to do in this field, so his eyes must be keen, his skill must be taxed, and no drudgery must be disdained. In all labour there is profit, but nothing is gained without pains. We look up to God. He will not accept the look of a sluggard. The eye that looks up to God must be attended with the hand that is ready for work. So if I suffer and expect the blessing for the suffering, I must spend solitary hours in my room seeking and searching; that is, seeking in prayer, and searching God’s Word for the blessing. If I am a worker, I must look to God for the result, but then I must also use all the means. In fact, the Christian should work as if all depended upon him, and pray as if it all depended upon God. He should be always nothing in his own estimation; yet he should be one of those gloriously active nothings of which God makes great use, for he treats the things that are not as though they were, and gets glory out of them. Yes, the farmer waits. He cannot push on the months; he cannot hasten the time of the harvest; but he does not wait in silence; in sluggishness and negligence; he keeps working and waiting too. So do you, oh Christian men! wait for the coming of your Lord, but let it be with your lamps trimmed and your lights burning, as good servants attending to the duties of the house, until the master of the house returns to give you the reward.

9. The farmer waits under changing circumstances, and various contingencies. At one time he sees the fair prospect of a good crop. The wheat has come up well. He has never seen more green springing from the ground; but, perhaps, it may be too strong, and may need even to be put back. By and by, after long showers and cold nights, the wheat looks yellow, and he is half afraid about it. Immediately there comes, or he imagines there is a blight or a black smut. No one knows what may happen. Only a farmer knows how his hopes and fears alternate and fluctuate from time to time. It is too hot, too cold; it is too dry; it is too wet; it is hardly ever quite right, according to his judgment, or rather according to his unbelief. He is full of changes in his mind because the season is full of changes. Yet he waits, he waits with patience. Ah dear friends, when we work for God, how often will this happen! I speak from no inconsiderable experience. There are always changes in the field of Christian labour. At one time we see many conversions, and we bless God that there are so many seals on our testimony. But some of the converts after a while disappoint us. There was the blossom, but it produced no fruit. Then there will come a season when many appear to backslide. The love of many grows cold. Perhaps we have found in the church the black smut of heresy. Some deadly heresy creeps in, and the anxious farmer fears there will be no harvest after all. Oh, patience, sir, patience. Ten thousand farmers’ fears have been disappointed this year. Many a fretful expression and murmuring word need to be repented of, as the farmer has looked at last upon the well filled ear, and the heavy wheat sheaf. So, too, maybe, oh evangelical worker, it will be with you. When God shall give you a rich return for all you have done for him, you will blush to think you ever doubted; you will be ashamed to think you ever grew weary in his service. You shall have your reward. Not tomorrow, so wait: not the next day perhaps, so be patient. You may be full of doubts one day, your joys sink low. It may be rough windy weather with you in your spirit. You may even doubt whether you are the Lord’s, but if you have rested in the name of Jesus, if by the grace of God you are what you are, if he is all your salvation, and all your desire, — have patience; have patience, for the reward will surely come in God’s good time. Now this is how the farmer waits, and becomes for us the model of patience.

10. II. Very briefly, in the second place, we have to ask, WHAT DOES THE FARMER WAIT FOR? for we are like him in this respect.

11. He waits for results, for real results; right results; he hopes also for rich results. And this is just what we are waiting for — waiting as sufferers for the results of sanctified affliction. May those results be real; may they be right; may they be rich. Oh that we might have every virtue strengthened, every grace refined, by passing through the furnace. There are great blessings connected with patient endurance as in Job’s case. He had a plentiful harvest, may we have the same. And you workers, you must work for results, for, although conversion is the work of God, it is in many cases as clearly a product of the holy living, devout teaching, and fervent praying of his servants, as any effect can be the result from a cause. Go on, go on, and may you have real conversions — not pretended conversions — not such as are sometimes chronicled in newspapers — “fifty-one conversions in an evening” — as if anyone knew! May there be real conversions, and ripe fruits for Jesus, in the growth and advance of those who are converted, and may many of them turn out to be such fruit bearing Christians when they are matured in grace, that the richest result in the prosperity of the Church may come to you from all your work. You are waiting for results. And you are, also, dear brethren, like the farmer, waiting for a reward. All the while until the harvest comes, he has nothing except expenses. From the moment he sows, it is all outgoing until he sells his crops, and then, recovering at once the principal and the interest, he gets his reward. In this world, do not look for a reward. You may have a grateful acknowledgment in the peace, and quiet, and contentment of your own spirit, but do not expect even that from your fellow men. The pure motive of any man who serves his generation well is generally misrepresented. As a rule the lounger looks on at the labourer not to praise but to blame him: not to cheer him but to chide him. The less he does, the less he will be open to rebuke, and frequently the more he does, and the more vigorously, the more he shall be upbraided. Do not look for your reward here. Suppose men praise you, what is their praise worth? It would not fill your nostrils if you were about to die. The approbation of those who have neither skill nor taste — what pleasure can it afford the artist? Should one stoop for it, or, having it, lift his head the higher? Our reward is the approbation of God, which he will give from his abundant grace. He first gives us good works, as one observes, and then rewards us for those good works, as if they were altogether our own. He gives rewards although they are not a debt, but altogether by grace. Look for the reward in the future. Wait a bit, man, wait a bit; your reward is not yet. Wait until the week is over, and then the wage shall come. Wait until the sun is gone down, and then there will be the penny for every labourer in the vineyard. Not yet, not yet, not yet. The farmer waits for the precious harvest of the earth. This is what we wait for too.

12. III. Thirdly, WHAT IS THE FARMER’S ENCOURAGEMENT IN WAITING? Well, he has many.

13. The first is, that the harvest he waits for is precious. He waits for the precious harvest of the earth. It is worth waiting for. Whoever walks through a grain field, such grain fields as we have seen this year, where the crops are plentiful, will say, “Well, this was, after all, worth all the trouble and all the expense, and all the long patience of that winter which is over and gone.” If the Lord should draw you near to himself by your affliction, if he should make his image in you more clear, it will be worth waiting for. And if, after your labours he should give you some soul for your reward, oh, will it not repay you? Mother, if your dear child should after all be brought back from his sinful ways to love his Saviour! Sunday School teacher, if some of those little girls should love the name of Jesus, and you should live to see them honoured members of the Church of God, will it not be worth waiting for? It would be worth while to preach every Sunday for a million years, if only one soul were brought in at last. I remember Mr. Richard Knill saying, if there were one unconverted person, and he were in Siberia, and God had ordained that he should only be saved by all the Christians in all the world (and that would be a vast number), all of them making a journey to Siberia to talk with him, it would be worth all the trouble if the soul were at length brought in. And so it would be. We may wait, therefore, with patience, because the reward of our labour will be precious. Above all, the reward of hearing the master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” is worth waiting for! Even now to get a word from him is quite enough to cheer us on, though it is a soft, still voice that speaks it, but oh, the joy of that loud voice, “Well done.”

14. It would be worth going through a thousand perils by land and by sea to come out and win that “Well done.” We might consider it worth while to face the lions of hell and do battle with Apollyon himself, to snatch only one poor lamb from between their jaws. It would be worth while to do all that I say, if we might hear the Master say to us, “Well done,” at the last. This then encourages us, as well as the farmer — the preciousness of the harvest.

15. A godly farmer waits with patience, again, because he knows God’s covenant. God has said “seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, shall not cease,” and the Christian farmer knowing this is confident. But oh, what strong confidences have we who have looked to Christ, and who are resting on the faithful word of a covenant God. He cannot fail us. It is not possible that he should permit our faith to be confounded. “Heaven and earth may pass away,” and they shall, but his word shall not fail. Those who sow in faith shall reap abundantly. The glory shall be theirs. And, brother workers, if we do not for a time see all the results we expect, still the Lord has said, “Surely all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” The day must come when the dwellers in the wilderness shall bow before him and lick the dust. “He has set his king upon his holy hill of Zion,” and those who said, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us,” will have to submit themselves and lick the dust at his feet. Have courage, therefore. The covenant stands good, the harvest must come as surely as the seedtime has come.

16. Moreover, every farmer is encouraged by the fact, that he has seen other harvests. I suppose if the farmer had never heard of a harvest, and had never seen one, it would take some considerable persuasion to get him to sow his seed. But then he knows his father sowed seed and his grandfather, and that the race of men in all generations have sown their seed in the soil as an act of faith, and God has accepted their faith, and sent them a return. And, oh brethren, have we not multitudes of examples to confirm our confidence? Let us cheerfully resign ourselves to the Lord’s will in suffering, for just as others of his saints who went before us have reaped the blessing, so shall we. Let us work on for our Lord and Master, knowing that apostles and confessors, and a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, have seen great results, and so shall we. Let us patiently wait until the Lord comes, for just as in the first coming those who waited for him rejoiced, so shall those who are found watching and waiting at his second advent. We have not only the promise of God, but that promise fulfilled to tens of thousands who have preceded us, therefore, we should be ashamed to be impatient, rather let us patiently wait and work on, until the day breaks, and the harvest comes.

17. IV. And now, brethren, do you ask, WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PATIENCE?

18. To patiently wait for God’s appointed time is our business. I have shown you how we are to wait, but notice this, whatever benefit there may be in patience, it is very clear there is none in impatience. Suppose a man should be impatient under suffering. Will it diminish his suffering? Will it increase the probabilities of his restoration? We all know that the irritability of temper which is caused by impatience, is one of the difficulties which the physician has to battle with. When the patient is calm there is a better chance of his recovery. If we were never impatient until there was any good to be derived from our fretfulness, we should not be impatient just yet. There is a story told of Mr. Hill being on board a vessel once. It is said he heard the mate swear, and afterwards he heard the captain use a profane oath. I think Mr. Hill interposed as the captain was about to swear again, and said, “No, no, let us be fair, let every man have his turn. Your mate has sworn, and you have had an oath. Now it is my turn — my turn to swear.” The captain looked at him somewhat astonished, and could only admit that there was a degree of rightness and propriety in every man having his turn. However, Mr. Hill did not swear, and the captain said, “I suppose, sir, you do not mean to take your turn, you do not mean to swear.” “Oh, yes,” said the good old man, “I mean to swear as soon as I can ever see the good of it.” We might do the same by our impatience brethren. Let us be impatient as soon as we can ever see the use it will serve. If the farmer should need rain just now, his impatience would not influence the clouds and make them pour out their torrents. If your child happened to be very petulant, and have a very noisy tongue, and a mischievous disposition, the mother’s impatience would not calm the child, control his temper, still his fitful passion, or subdue his stubborn mood. Whatever happens to you, there is nothing that can happen to you worse than your being impatient, for of all troubles in the world that one can be troubled with, an impatient spirit is about the worst. Oh that you would endeavour to conquer impatience. It cast Satan out of heaven, when he was impatient with the honour and dignity of the Son of God. He was impatient with being a servant to his Maker, and was driven from his high estate. Let us be rid of impatience which made Cain kill his brother, and which has done a thousand mischievous things since. May God grant us patiently to watch and wait like the farmer.

19. But the benefits of patience are too many for me to hope to enumerate them. Suffice it to say, patience saves a man from great discouragement. If I expect that God will bless my labours to a large extent in the first month, and so strain every nerve and toil with every sinew until my strength is ready to yield, and my spirit begins to flag; and the blessing does not come within the time I looked for; I shall be disheartened. But, if I expect some result, a great result in God’s appointed week of harvest, even though I may not count on seeing it myself at once; I shall keep on renewing my labours, reviving my hopes, and encouraging myself in the Lord my God. Surely a farmer would give up his farm in sheer despair if he expected a harvest in a month’s time after sowing. He would be in a very sad way month after month, if waiting to see it was not a condition for which he was thoroughly prepared. If you expect an interval during which your patience will be tried, you will not grow discouraged, because it is absolutely necessary that you should wait. Expect to wait for the glory; expect to wait for the reward which God has promised; and, while you are waiting on the Lord your food shall be certain, and your water shall be sure: you shall often eat food, thank God, and take courage. The short days and long nights shall not be all charged with gloom, but very often they shall be tempered with good cheer. When we have patience it keeps us in good heart for service. A man who is required to wait for a reward keeps up his courage, and when he has to wait, he says, “It is no more than I expected. I never thought that I was to kill my enemy at the first blow. I never imagined that I was to capture the city as soon as I had ever dug the first trench; I expected to wait, and now that I have to wait, I find that God gives me the grace to fight on and wrestle on, until the victory shall come.” And patience saves a man from a great deal of haste and folly. A hasty man never is a wise man. He is wise who pauses for a little while, and ponders his ways, especially when adversity crosses his path. I have known brethren in the ministry to get discouraged and leave their pulpits, and repent as long as they ever lived that they left a sphere of labour, where they ought to have toiled on. I have known Christian people to get discouraged, and touchy, and angry, to abandon the church of which they were members, to go out in the wilderness, and leave the rich pastures behind them. They have only had to regret all their lives, that they did not have a little more patience with their brethren, and with the circumstances which surrounded them. Whenever you are about to do anything in a great hurry, pause and pray. The hot fever in your own system makes you unfit to act discreetly. While you wait for a more healthy temperature of your own feelings, there may be a great change in the thermometer outside concerning the circumstances that influence you. Great haste makes little speed. He who believes shall not make haste; and as the promise runs, he shall never be confounded.

20. Above all, patience is to be commended to you because it glorifies God. The man who can wait, and wait calmly, astonishes the worldling, for the worldling wants it now. You remember John Bunyan’s pretty parable (since you all know it, I will only give the outline) — of Passion and Patience. Passion wanted to have all his best things first, and one came in and lavished before him out of a bag all that the child could desire. Patience wanted to have his best things last, and Patience sat and waited, so when Passion had used up all his joy, and all he sought for, Patience came in for his portion, and as John Bunyan very well remarked, there is nothing to come after the last, and so the portion of Patience lasted for ever. Let me have my best things last, my Lord, and my worst things first. No matter what they may be, they shall be over, and then my best things shall last for ever and ever. He who can wait has faith, and it is faith that denotes the true Christian. He who can wait has grace, and it is grace that denotes the child of God. Oh that the Lord would grant to everyone of you more and more of this excellent grace of patience, to the praise and glory of his name.

21. I am almost finished. Still there is one other respect in which our case is like that of the farmer. As the season advances, his anxieties are prone to increase rather than to abate. If he has had long need of patience while the seasons have succeeded each other, and while organic changes have been in the course of development, surely there is a stronger demand on his patience as the crisis approaches when he shall reap the produce. How anxiously at this season will he observe the skies, watch the clouds, and wait for the opportune time to harvest his crops and store them in good condition! Is there no peril that haunts him lest, after all, the blast or the mildew should cheat his hopes; lest fierce winds should lay the full grown stems prostrate on the ground; lest then the pelting showers of rain should drench the well filled ears of grain? I might almost call this the farmer’s last fear, and yet the most nervous fear that agitates his mind. Similarity, beloved, we have a closing scene in prospect which may, and will in all probability, involve a greater trial of faith, and a sterner call for patience, than any or all of the struggles through which we have already passed. Perhaps I can best describe it to you by quoting two passages of Scripture, one especially addressed to workers, the other more particularly to sufferers. For the first of these texts; you will find it in Hebrews. “Do not cast away therefore your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” (Heb 10:35,36) This is sweet counsel for you, oh pilgrim, city bound to Zion. When you were young and strong, you walked many a weary mile with that staff of promise. It helped you over the ground. Do not throw it aside as useless, now that you are old and infirm. Lean upon it. Rest upon that promise, in your present weakness, which lightened your labour in the days of your vigour. “Do not cast away your confidence.” But, brethren, there is something more. The Apostle says, “You have need of patience, after you have done the will of God.” But why, you will say, is patience so indispensable at this juncture of experience? Doubtless you all know that we are never so subject to impatience as the time when there is nothing we can do. All the while the farmer is occupied with ploughing, harrowing, tilling, drilling, hoeing, and the like, he is too busy to be fretful. When the work is done, and there is nothing more to occupy his hands, then the very leisure he has to endure gives occasion to secret qualms and lurking cares. So it always is with us. While “we are labourers together with God,” our occupation is so pleasant that we little heed the toil and moil of hard service. But when it comes to a point where we have nothing more to do, for it is “God who gives the increase,” we are apt to be grievously distrustful; our unbelief finds full sway. Hence it is, brethren, that after our fight is fought, after our race is run, after our allotted task is finished, there is so much need of patience, of such patience as waits only on God and watches in prayer, so that we may finish our course with joy and the ministry we have received from the Lord Jesus. And what about the second text? Where is that to be found? It is in the early part of this epistle of James. “Let patience have her perfect work, so that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.” (Jas 1:4) Oh, how indisposed all of us are to take this advice! I think I see Paul retiring thrice to wrestle with God in prayer, so that he would remove the thorn from his flesh. He felt the rankling, and he craved for relief. He had hardly thought of it as a relief that must irritate before it could relieve, or as a medicine that must gripe before it could heal. But oh, patience is then worked up to its climax, when the soul so accepts the chastisement from the hand of God that she cannot, and will not, ask him to change his treatment or alter his discipline.

22. Does it not seem as though patience were a virtue par excellence which puts the last polish on Christian chastity? We will hurry back to the grain fields again: I am afraid we were forgetting them. But this time we will not talk so much with the farmer as with the crops. Do you know what it is that gives that bright yellow tinge of maturity to those blades which first were green and growing? What, do you think, imparts that golden hue to the wheat? How do you suppose the farmer judges when it is time to thrust in the sickle? I will tell you. All the while the grain was growing, those hollow stems served as ducts that drew up nourishment from the soil. At length the process of growth is fulfilled. The fibres of the plant become rigid; they cease to do their work; down below there has been a failure of the vital power which is the precursor of death. Henceforth the heavenly powers work quick and marvellous changes; the sun paints his superscription on the ears of grain. They have reached the last stage: having fed on the riches of the soil long enough, they are only influenced from above. The time of their removal is at hand, when they shall be cut down, carried away in the wagon, and housed in the barns. So, too, beloved in the Lord, it is with some of you. Do I speak as a prophet? Do I not rather echo a trite observation? “The fall of the year is most thickly strewn with the fall of human life.” You have long been helped with mercies that have come up from mother earth; you have been exposed to cold dews, chilling frosts, stormy blasts; you have had the trial of the vapoury fog, the icy winter, the fickle spring, and the summer drought; but it is nearly all over now. You are ready to depart. The reaper still has to come after a brief while. “You have need of patience.” Having suffered so far, your tottering frame has learned to bend. Patience, man — patience! A mighty transformation is about to be accomplished in you in a short time. Wait on the Lord. Holiness shall now be legibly, more legibly than ever, inscribed on your forefront by the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness. The heavenly reaper has you daily, hourly, in his eye, until he shall say to the angel of his presence, “Put in your sickle.” Then, as we pronounce your obituary with the mede of praise due to one in whom God has accomplished a perfect work, we shall record that you were patient under affliction, resigned to the will of the Lord, and ready to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Patience has had her perfect work: you lack nothing. May God grant to you this gracious “nunc dimittis” (a) when your time for ingathering has come!

23. Now, I have only spoken to believers, because as I have already said, the unbeliever cannot wait with patience, for he has nothing to wait for. There is nothing for him but a fearful looking for of judgment. Oh, it must be an awful thing to go from a life of poverty, or of suffering, or of drudgery here, into the world where the wrath of God remains for ever. It does not matter what your position here may be, if at the end you enter into rest. Equally little does it matter what joys or wealth you have here, if after all you are driven from the Lord’s presence. May you be led to believe in Jesus. There lies safety. May you rest in his precious blood. There is pardon; there is salvation. May God grant it, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

(a) nunc dimittis: Latin for Now you depart.