Ignorance of the Seed Makes no Difference.
Now, notice again: Ignorance of the kind of seed makes no
difference. If I think I am sowing good seed and it happens to be
bad, I shall have a bad harvest; therefore, it becomes me to see
what kind of seed I am sowing.
Suppose I meet a man who is sowing seed, and say: "Hello, stranger,
what are you sowing?"
"Seed."
"What kind of seed?"
"I don't know."
"Don't you know whether it is good or bad?"
"No, I can't tell; but it is seed, that is all I want to know, and I
am sowing it."
You would say that he was a first-class lunatic, wouldn't you? But
he wouldn't be half so mad as the man who goes on sowing for time
and eternity, and never asks himself what he is sowing or what the
harvest will be.
Father, what seed are you sowing in your family? Are you setting
your children a good or a bad example? Do you spend your time at the
saloon or the club, until you have become almost a stranger to them?
or are you training them for God and righteousness?
The story is told that a man once said he would not talk to his son
about religion; the boy should make his own choice when he grew up,
unprejudiced by him. The boy broke his arm, and when the doctor was
setting it, he cursed and swore the whole time.
"Ah," said the doctor, "you were afraid to prejudice the boy in the
right way, but the devil had no such prejudice. He has led your son
the other way." The idea that a father is to let his children run
wild! Nature alone never brings forth anything but weeds.
One of Coleridge's friends once objected to prejudicing the minds of
the young by selecting the things they should be taught. The
philosopher-poet invited him to take a look at his garden, and took
him to where a luxuriant growth of ugly and infragrant weeds spread
themselves over beds and walks alike.
"You don't call that a garden!" said his friend.
"What!" said Coleridge, "would you have me prejudice the ground in
favor of roses and lilies?"
Have you never noticed the same thing about the mind and the heart?
Let a child be idle, and Satan will soon lead him into mischief. He
must be looked after. Those things that will help to develop
character must be selected for him, and hurtful things must be kept
out, just as industriously as the farmer cultivates the useful
products of the soil, but wages continual war on weeds and all
unwholesome growths.
A murderer was to suffer the penalty of his crime. Speaking of his
reckless career, he said:
"How could it be otherwise, when I had such bad training? I was
taught these things from my youth. When only four years old my
mother poured whisky down my throat to see how I would act."
On the morning of his execution, the wretched mother bade good-bye
to the son whom her influence had helped to that shameful end.
A father started for his office early one morning, after a light
fall of snow. Turning, he saw his two year-old boy endeavoring to
put his tiny feet in his own great footprints. The little fellow
shouted: "Go on, I'se comin', papa, I'se comin' right in ure
tracks."
He caught the boy in his arms and carried him to his mother, and
started again for his office.
His habit had been to stop on the way at a saloon for a glass of
liquor. As he stood upon the threshold that morning he seemed to
hear a sweet voice say: "Go on, I'se comin', papa, I'se comin' right
in ure tracks."
He stopped, he hesitated, he looked the future squarely in the face.
"I cannot afford to make any tracks I would be ashamed or sorry to
have my boy walk in," he said decidedly, and turned away.
Father, mother, neighbor, are your tracks true? Are they straight?
Can you turn to any walking behind you and say: "Follow me as I
follow Christ?" Are you leading the little ones safe to the Great
Shepherd?
_The best time to sow the good seed_ is before Satan has scattered
the tares. God has given numerous warnings and instructions to do
it. "Seek ye _first_ the Kingdom of God and his righteousness."
"Train up a child in the way he should go." "Provoke not your
children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord." If a farmer neglects to plant in the spring-time, he
can never recover the lost opportunity: no more can you, if you
neglect yours. Youth is a seed-time, and if it is allowed to pass
without good seed being sowed, weeds will spring up and choke the
soil. It will take bitter toil to uproot them.
An old divine said that when a good farmer sees a weed in his field
he has it pulled up. If it is taken early enough, the blank is soon
filled in, and the crop waves over the whole field. But if allowed
to run too late, the bald patch remains. It would have been better
if the weed had never been allowed to get root.
Young man, are you letting some secret sin get the mastery over you,
binding you hand and foot? It is growing. Every sin grows. When I
was speaking to five thousand children in Glasgow some years ago, I
took a spool of thread and said to one of the largest boys:
"Do you believe I can bind you with that thread?"
He laughed at the idea. I wound the thread around him a few times,
and he broke it with a single jerk. Then I wound the thread around
and around, and by and by I said:
"Now get free if you can."
He couldn't move hand or foot. If you are slave to some vile habit,
you must either slay that habit or it will slay you.
My friend, _what kind of seed are you sowing?_ Let your mind sweep
over your record for the past year. Have you been living a double
life? Have you been making a profession without possessing what you
profess? If there is anything you detest it is hypocrisy. Do you
tell me God doesn't detest it also? If it is a right eye that
offends, make up your mind that you will pluck it out; or if it is a
right hand or a right foot, cut it off. Whatever the sin is, make up
your mind that you will gain the victory over it without further
delay.
What kind of seed are you sowing, my friend, good seed or bad seed?
There will be a harvest, and you are bound to reap, whether you want
to or not. Tell me, how do you spend your spare time? Telling vile
stories, polluting the minds of others, while your own mind is also
polluted? Do you read any literature that makes your thoughts
impure? How do you spend the Sabbath? Boating, fishing, hunting, or
on excursions? Do you think ministers are old fogies--that the Bible
belongs to the dark ages? Tell me bow you treat your parents, and I
will tell you how your children will treat you. A man was making
preparations to send his old father to the poorhouse, when his
little child came up and said:
"Papa, when you are old shall I have to take you to the poorhouse?"
Do you never write home to your parents? They clothed you and
educated you, and now do you spend your nights in gambling? You say
to your godless companions that your father crammed religion down
your throat when you were a boy. I have a great contempt for a man
who says that of his father or mother. They may have made a mistake;
but it was of the head, not of the heart. If a telegram was sent to
them that you were down with smallpox, they would take the first
train to come to you. They would willingly take the disease into
their own bodies and die for you. If you scoff and sneer at your
father and mother you will have a hard harvest; you will reap in
agony. It is only a question of time. There is a saying--
"The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small."
The Lord Jesus said, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again."
A man told me when I was last in London that England had the
advantage of America in one respect. I asked how. He said:
"We have more respect for our laws in England than you do in
America. You don't hang half your murderers, but all our murderers
are hanged if they can be proved guilty."
I said: "Neither country hangs its worst murderers. If my son wants
to murder me, I would rather have him kill me outright than to take
five years to do it. A young man who goes home late night after
night, and when his mother remonstrates, curses her gray hairs, and
kills her by inches, is the worst sort of a murderer."
That is being done all over the country. You may not be guilty of a
sin as black and as foul as this, but I tell you, every sin grows,
and if you have sin in your heart you cannot tell where it will land
you. Nothing separates a son from his mother or a man from his wife
like sin. The grace of God binds men together, but sin tears them
apart and separates them.
Come, my friend, what kind of seed are you sowing? What will the
harvest be? Will it be a black harvest, or are you going to have a
joyful harvest? If you think that, when you have sown tares, wheat
will come up, you are greatly mistaken. If you think you can give a
loose rein to your passions and lusts, and yet have eternal life,
you are being deceived. For God says, "He that soweth to his flesh
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
Choose Carefully.
I beg of you to _choose carefully your path_. The farmer is careful
in the choice of seed. He does not want bad seed or inferior seed,
because he knows that such will give a poor crop. He looks for the
best seed he can buy. If you choose to sow to the flesh, you will
have a corrupted harvest. If you commit a sinful deed, it may land
you into a dishonored grave.
Choice is a solemn thing. You can make this moment a turning-point
in your life. Once during the conquest of Peru, Pizzaro's followers
threatened to desert him. They gathered on the shore to embark for
home. Drawing his sword, he traced a line with it in the sand from
east to west. Then turning toward the south he said:
"Friends and comrades, on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the
drenching storm, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There
lies Peru with all its riches; here Panama and its poverty. Choose
each man as becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go south."
So saying, he stepped across the line, and one after another his
comrades followed him, and the destiny of South America was decided.
Napoleon was once offered a position as officer in the Turkish
artillery. He declined it; but had he chosen to accept it, the
history of Europe would have been different.
On your choice in spiritual things depends your eternity. On the one
side there is Christ; on the other, the world. Between them you must
choose. Do not wish to grow both wheat and tares. Oh, choose Christ!
Let there be no half-heartedness. Give Him your whole heart. He died
to redeem you from the curse of sin, and He lives to save you from
the power of sin.
"No man can serve two masters." You can not belong to two kingdoms
at once. Lord Brougham grew to be so fond of Cannes that he sought
to be naturalized as a Frenchman, but found it was impossible to be
both a peer of England and a citizen of a French town; he must
renounce the one to become the other.
Now this is where _the will_ comes in It is easy to follow other
people's lead, to swim with the tide; but it requires character,
moral back-bone, to stand against the current of popular opinion and
practice. During the late war a deserter came into the Federal lines
before Pittsburg. He was asked:
"What did you go into secession for?"
His answer was: "Because they all did."
That reason will account for many a man's action. He will act
according to the saying: "While you are in Rome, do as the Romans
do," neglecting to investigate and determine whether or not the
Romans do right. If they do wrong, a man should stand against a
whole nation, if need be, like another Daniel.
Almighty God set two sides before the children of Israel, and I set
them now before you. Remember, as you choose, that your eternity is
in the balance.
"See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and
evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to
walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, and His statutes,
and His judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply; and the Lord
thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess
it.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt
be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them: I denounce
unto you this day that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not
prolong your days upon the land whither thou passest over Jordan to
go to possess it.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore
CHOOSE LIFE that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest
love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that
thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life and the length of
thy days."
FORGIVENESS AND RETRIBUTION.
"_Thou renderest to every man according to his work_."--Psalms lxii:
12.
"_For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that
every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that
he hath done, whether it be good or bad_."--II Cor. v: 10.