3001. A Vision of the Field

A Sermon Published On Thursday, August 16, 1906.

For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. {Eze 36:9}

1. These words were addressed to the mountains of Palestine. Albeit that they are now waste and barren, they are yet to be as fruitful and luxuriant as in the days of Israel’s grandeur. God will turn to them, and the vines shall then crown the summits, and there shall be harvests again on the mountain tops.

2. The mountains of Israel were a soil of glass, in which you could see reflected, at a single glimpse, the condition and character of the people. While the Israelites were obedient to God, the mountains dripped with new wine, and the little hills seemed to melt with fertility. Honey dripped from the rock, and oil appeared to be distilled from the very flint. When the people sinned so that God gave them over to their enemies, irrigation being neglected, and the culture of the soil no longer profitable, the mountains immediately became as blank and barren as though they were a howling wilderness. And then, again, when the people repented, and turned to God, the soil began to cover the mountains, carried up there by the industry of the people, the sides of the hills were terraced, the waste places began to blossom, and the vines were once more filled with clusters. So you could read the history of the people in the appearance of their hills.

3. I intend to take the hills of Israel as a representation of our own state, — the state of our own heart. As they really did reflect the condition of the people of old, the metaphor becomes particularly attractive. I shall divide the subject like this; firstly, man’s heart, by nature is like a waste field; secondly, there is no hope for that field unless God shall turn to it in mercy; thirdly, when he does turn to it, he will have to till it; for, lastly, not until after tillage can it be sown with any hope of success.

4. I. MAN’S HEART, BY NATURE, IS LIKE A WASTE FIELD.

5. A waste field produces no harvest. Reaper, you shall never fill your arms with sheaves, the axle of the wagon shall never creak beneath the load of harvest, and the labourers shall never dance with the maidens at the harvest home. Let the field lie waste, and the fruit it will yield in a whole century will not be sufficient to feed a single individual.

6. Such is man, we say, by nature. He produces no fruit for God. Leave him alone, and he will live for himself. Perhaps he will be a respectable sinner, and, if so, he will selfishly spend all his life in trying to provide for himself alone, or for his family, which is only a part of himself. He will go through the world from his birth to his sepulchre without a thought of God. He will never do anything for God. His heart will never beat with love for him. He may sometimes, out of sheer selfishness, go with others to worship; but he will not worship God, whatever difference he may show to the outward form. His heart will be in complete alienation from the God who made him. He will live and he will die a strange monstrosity in the world, — a creature that has lived without love for his Creator.

7. Perhaps, however, he will be a disreputable sinner. He will live in sin, find his comfort in drunkenness, perhaps in lust, possibly in dishonesty; but anyway, he will produce nothing that God can accept. I think I see the great God coming to look at the man, even as a farmer might come to look at his fallow field. What can God see? Is there a prayer? Yes, he says a few forms of prayer; but they are dead, lifeless things, and God cannot accept them. Does he see any praise? Perhaps a shrivelled hymn growing up in the corner of the field; but since there is no heart in it, it rots and dies, and God abhors it. He looks through the whole field. There is no thought for God, no consecration of time to God, no desire to honour God, no longing to produce in the world fresh glory for God, no effort to raise up to him new voices that shall praise his name. He lives for himself, or for his fellow men; and having so lived, he so dies. Now you know that there are a great many people who say to themselves, “Well, if we do good to our neighbour, if we are kind to others, that is enough”; and they expect to have some reward for this. But, notice that, every servant expects his master to pay his wages; surely then, if you serve your fellow men, they ought to reward you. Let them give you a statue, or let them emblazon your name on one of the rolls of fame. Let them sound your exploits down to future generations. Still, let your debtor and creditor account be fair. If you have not done anything distinctly and affirmedly in the service of God, there is no remuneration that you can reasonably expect God to give you. What have you produced for him? Nothing whatever; and we say it sincerely, for we know how sadly true it is, the natural heart of man never does and never can produce so much as one single grain that God can receive as being for his honour and glory. As for the natural children of men in all their generations, — 

   Like brutes they live, like brutes they die;

   Like grass they flourish, till thy breath

   Blasts them in everlasting death.

Alas for them! To you, great God, they render no prayer nor praise, no heart-felt love nor reverent adoration. They pass through this world as though there was no God.

8. Worse than this, the field that has never been ploughed or sown does produce something. There is an activity about human nature that will not let us live without doing. Unless you should shut yourselves up in a cell like a monk, or live on the top of a pillar, like Simeon Stylites, {a} you cannot very well pass through life utterly inert, without any purpose of mind, without any movement of the limbs, without any stir of the passions; and I suppose that even Simeon Stylites did exert some influence, for he led other people to be as great fools as himself. And even monks do some mischief by losing the interest on talents for which they ought to have rendered a good account, and spending their time in laziness which they ought to have employed in useful service. “None of us lives to himself.” Is there no wheat growing on that soil? no barley? no rye? Very well, then, there will be darner, and cockle, and twitch, and all kinds of weeds. So it is with the unrenewed heart. It produces harsh thoughts of God, enmity against the Most High. It is prolific with evil imaginations, wrong desires, and bitter envyings. As these ripen, they produce bad words, — idle, or, it may be, lascivious words, and perhaps atheistic, blasphemous words; and as these ripen, they come to actions, and the man becomes an offender in his deeds, perhaps against man, certainly against God. He lives to produce sour grapes. The apples of Gomorrah hang plentifully on him.

9. I know I am describing some present here. There are many such people to be found in all our assemblies. They have done no good in their lives. Measuring their lives by the standard of God, they have done nothing. On the other hand, they have been guilty of much evil, they have produced the fruit of sin. Nor is this the worst of it. The bad farmer, who lets his fields all run to weeds, does mischief to the neighbouring farm. Here comes the wind, willing to waft seed — good seed if it can find it, — into other soil. It will take the down of the flower seed, and bear it into a garden where it will be wanted; or, if it must, it will carry the seeds of the thistle; and so, when it comes sweeping by the farmer’s neglected field, it does damage to all the fields in the neighbourhood.

10. It is so with the sinner. “One sinner destroys much good.” Is he a father? His children grow up to be as ungodly as himself. Is he a master? Then his men, like him, break the Sabbath, and neglect the ways of God. Is he a workman? Then his fellow workmen, who are younger than himself, take encouragement from his bad example; they are led into sin while they blindly follow in his wake. Whatever position of life you put him into, he does mischief; the more eminent he is, the more eminently mischievous he is. I do not allude now to those who are grave offenders against the laws of society. I mean those good, decent people who have no fear of God before their eyes. I do think they do very much mischief, for the devil’s cause gets respectable through having them on its side. Those who persistently live in violation of divine law, and who do not bend their necks to the yoke of Christ, may be very amiable, very moral, and very excellent. If so, in a certain sense, the more is the pity, because they get an increase of power to do evil, for others say, “If such good men as these can live without religion, and live despising it, why should we not?” So a bad cause, which would be hissed off the stage if there were no one but rascals to side with it, still walks respectably in the light of day because of these people who back it up. May God deliver you, my dear hearers, from being like a field that does mischief to others! Beware, you upas tree, {b} lest your poisonous influence should receive the reward of hell fire! Beware, you encumbrance to the ground, standing there, and sucking nutriment out of the soil, and cursing the other trees of the vineyard, lest the sharp axe should soon cut you to the core, and lay you level with the ground.

11. A barren field resembles the heart of man in that all the good influences that fall on it are wasted. Sunshine comes there; it produces no harvest on the fallow land. Here are the precious drops of dew glistening in the morning; but they cannot produce an ear of grain. And here fall the sweet smiling showers of rain, that make the freshly-mown fields all fragrant, but this field gets no good from it. It is even so with you who are still in a state of nature. You have the blessings of providence, but they do not make you grateful. You have even the blessings of the outward means of grace, but they arouse in you no longings towards God. Surely, my dear friends, if this has been the case with you for long, you must be close to being cursed.

12. Yet the waste field does produce something pleasant to the eye, something worth looking at; for have you not seen the gorgeous poppy, and the finest specimens of the buttercups growing in the field that was never ploughed and sown? And the dog-rose is over there, and the foxglove, and the forget-me-not, all springing up, and flourishing where there should have been furrows for wheat. And so a man may have a handsome appearance, and make a fair show in the flesh, although he does not live near to God. In his character and reputation, there may be many a gaudy flower, — indeed, as red and as conspicuous as the poppy. He may shine among men, and men may talk much about him. But, as the Lord lives, if the Lord’s plough has never gone over him, the bright blushing weed is still only a weed; a bane and a pest, not a boon or a balm, as the farmer knows very well. Let those of you who are in such a state see an apt emblem of yourselves every time you pass a piece of waste ground, and say, “That is just what we are, and what we shall be to the end of our lives, unless the grace of God shall intervene to retrieve us from endless ruin.”

13. II. THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THIS FIELD, UNLESS GOD SHALL TURN TO IT IN MERCY.

14. Even so, unless the Lord shall turn to men, no good will ever come from them. The text says, “I am for you, and I will turn to you.” Man by himself never does turn to God, and that for obvious reasons. We are sure he never can, for he is “dead in trespasses and sins.” We are certain he never will, for by nature he hates anything like a new birth; and if he could make himself a new creature, he would not, for Christ has expressly said, “You will not come to me that you might have life.” Man is unwilling to give up sin: he loves it too well; unwilling to be made holy, for he has no taste for spiritual things. God, then, must come to man; for how can man, being naturally dead, and naturally unwilling, ever come to God? Experience tells us that he will not. When did you ever find a man, who had come to God, who would say that he came by his own natural inclination. All the saints on earth will tell you that it was almighty grace that made them willing in the day of God’s power. If there is any man who ever came to God by himself, I can only say that I know I am not that man.

   Jesus sought me when a stranger,

   Wandering from the fold of God.

If any unconverted person here will tell me that he can turn to God when he likes, I ask him why he does not turn now. What measure of damnation must be his due, when, according to his own confession, he has a power which he will not use! Sinner, do not talk vainly about what you can do. Man, you can burn in hell, and you can outfit yourself for the flames, but this is about all you can do for yourself. You have destroyed yourself. For that inglorious deed, your will was free, and your agency free likewise. But only in God is your help found. For this, be sure, you have neither might nor skill. If ever you are saved, it must be by another power than your own, and by another faculty than what dwells in my puny, wicked heart. God must do it. If you wait until your waste field ploughs itself, or produces a harvest, you may wait until doomsday; and if I wait until my hearers save their own souls, and turn to God themselves, with full purpose of heart, I may wait until these hairs are grey, or until these bones are carried to the tomb; and even then they will not have saved themselves. If you have turned to God, my dear hearers, you know that the Lord has done it, so give to him the glory. If you have not been converted, God help you to cry to him instantly and earnestly, “Turn us, and we shall be turned.” Look to him who is exalted on high to “give repentance and remission of sins.” Seek him, and you shall live. Oh, that you could now see your wretched plight, that you could feel your imminent peril, that you could believe in the sovereign operations of God’s grace! Then I would venture to prophesy that salvation had come to your house today, — indeed, to your very heart.

15. III. WHEN THE FIELD IS TO BE PUT UNDER CULTIVATION, IT MUST BE TILLED.

16. So, when God turns to any man in his mercy, there has to be an operation, a tillage, performed on his heart. The farmer, unless he is a fool, would never think of sowing his grain on a field that remains just as it was when it lay fallow. He ploughs it first. Although we are to scatter the seed everywhere, on the wayside as well as on the good ground, God never does. Common calling is addressed to every man, but effectual calling comes only to prepared men, to those whom God makes “willing in the day of his power.”

17. Now, what is the plough needed for? Why, it is needed, first of all, to break up the soil, and make it crumble. It has gotten hard; perhaps it is a heavy clay, and then it is all stuck together by the rain, and all baked and caked together by the sun that shines on it. Or perhaps it is a light soil. Well, this may not need much ploughing; but, still, it will cake over, as we all see even in our little gardens. After the rain has gone, the sun comes, the whole garden cakes over, and there will be no place for the seeds to thrust in their tender roots. The grain will not sink down into the earth unless the soil is broken up; and the more thoroughly pulverised it becomes, the finer you get it, the more hope there is that the seed will take good root.

18. In similar ways human hearts must be broken. “A broken and a contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise.” The more thoroughly pulverised the heart becomes, the better. Hence, there needs to be the sharp plough of the law driven right through the heart, to break up its crust, and split the clods; and then must come that blessed plough of the cross, which is the best plough that ever went across a field yet, —— that blessed plough of the cross, which, as it goes over it, turns up the soil, even the very heart of it, and makes the sinner feel his sin, and hate it too, because of the love of God which is shed abroad by Christ Jesus the Lord. So you must be tilled, then, so that, the heart may be broken, for the seed will never get into an unbroken heart.

19. And the plough is also needed to destroy the weeds, for they must be killed. We cannot have them growing. To spare the weeds would be to kill the wheat. The plough comes, and cuts some weeds in two; it turns over others, and throws the heavy clods over them, and leaves them to lie there, and be buried; it turns the roots of others up to the sun, and the sun, by the brightness of its shining, scorches them, and they die. Some soils need cross-ploughing; they need to be ploughed this way and the other way, and then they need someone to go through the furrows afterwards, and pull up the weeds, or else they will not be all rooted out of the soil. And I am afraid that many of us, who have been ploughed, have various weeds left in us yet. The field must not only be ploughed, but the weeds must be killed; and so it must be with you, my dear hearers. If the Lord really saves you, he must kill your drunkenness, he must kill your swearing, he must kill your whoredom, he must kill your lying, he must kill your dishonesty. These must all go; every single weed must be torn up; there is no hope for you while there is a weed living.

20. True, I do not mean those weeds which still exist even in the regenerate; but even they must be doomed now. John Wellman, a member of the society of Friends, tells a strange story about himself. One night, after he had been reading the Scripture, as he lay awake, he heard a voice saying, “John Wellman is dead”; and, being a Quaker, he was greatly struck with it, and wondered how it was that he could be dead. He asked his wife what his name was, and she said, “John Wellman”; whereupon he perceived that he must be alive. At last, he understood it to mean that he was dead to the world; that he was henceforth no longer what he formerly had been, but a new creature in Christ Jesus; and it will be a blessed thing for you, my dear hearers, when the same thing may be said of you in the same sense, “He is dead.” There is a man I used to know, — I wish I did not still know him so well. I used to meet him every day, some years ago; but we parted company. He would not go with me to Christ, so I went without him. I became a new man, and he is dead. Oh, how often I wish he were buried, for I have to drag his dead body around with me, and, as it putrefies in my nostrils, I have to cry, “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” That rascally old man bears my name; and once he was identical with myself. I could gladly wish he were buried. In the same way, may it come to pass with you that you may die to the flesh, so that henceforth you may live in the spirit to God! And though the old man is still prone to corruption, what a blessed stroke is what takes the life out of him, so that he can no longer rule over you, but the new man reigns supreme!

21. Ploughmen tell us that, when they are ploughing, if the plough jumps, the work is done badly. They must plough it all alike, from end to end, from headland to headland. If the plough jumps, it has gone over some weeds or roots, and not torn them up. I would always like to preach so that my plough may never jump. I sometimes say a harsh word because I do not want my plough to jump; I want to tear up all the roots, and not leave one in the ground. If one sin is tolerated, or one malicious desire is sparred, the life of God is not completely reigning in us. May the Lord make a clean sweep of the weeds, and burn them all!

22. Well, now, notice that, in this tilling there are different soils. There is the light soil and the heavy soil; and so there are different kinds of constitutions. There are some men who are naturally tender and sensitive. Many, too, of our sisters are like Lydia; they soon receive the Word. There are others who are like the heavy clay soil; and you know that the farmer does not plough both soils the same, or else he would make a sad mess of it; and so, God does not deal with all men in the same way. Some have, as it were, first a little ploughing, and then the seed is put in, and all is done; but some have to be ploughed and cross-ploughed; and then there is the scarifier {c} and the clod-crusher, and I do not know what else, which have to be rolled over them before they are good for anything; and perhaps, after all, they produce very little fruit. Different constitutions need different modes of action. Let this comfort some of you who have not been so much alarmed as others have been. Different soils must have different methods. Christ does not deal with all men precisely in the same way in his heavenly tillage.

23. A farmer has a large variety of implements. Go into the shed of a man who is a prominent farmer, and what a number of implements you may see! I mentioned some of them just now, but there are far more than I can talk about. So it is with our Heavenly Father; he has all kinds of implements. Sometimes it is a providential trial. One man loses a child; another has to bury his father; and over there one has had to follow his wife to the grave. Some have temporal losses; business becomes bad; perhaps they are out of work and half starving; others are stretched on a bed of sickness, and others are brought near to the grave. These circumstances are all so many different kinds of ploughs with which God ploughs the soil of our hearts.

24. The labourers, whom the Lord employs, are not all the same because of the diversity of their gifts. Ministers are some of one kind, and some of another; even the same minister is not always engaged in the same kind of operation. There are some Sundays when I know some of you find me a terrible scarifier, for I have the terrors of the Lord in my conscience, and there is very little comfort in the solemn warnings I am constrained to utter. But if, sometimes, I come down on you like a clod-crusher, it is necessary, that, with true grace and good hope, I may at other times drill in the seed, and nourish your hearts with the very essence of the gospel. The faithful evangelist has to become all things to all men to accomplish his Master’s work. But you must be tilled, for there is no sowing the ground until it has been first worked up.

25. And, you know, the farmer has his proper time for ploughing. Some soils will do better at one time, and some at another. There are some soils that break up best after a shower of rain, and some that do best when they are driest. So there are some hearts, and I think almost all hearts — that are best ploughed after a shower of heavenly love has fallen on them. They are in a grateful frame of mind for mercies received, and then the story of a dying Saviour comes to them as just the thing that will touch the strings of their hearts. Anyway, dear friends, I would like to pass the question around, Have you been tilled? Has your heart been tilled? Has the soil of your heart been turned up? Have the secret things of your heart been discovered and brought to light, just as the plough turns up the ants’ nest? Have you been brought to know your own corruptions? Are there straight furrows right through you, so that you can cry out, “Oh God, you have broken me in pieces, be pleased to come to my help?” Then I am glad for it. You are ready to despair concerning yourself, but I am not ready to despair for you. You tremble, but I am encouraged. I rejoice, not that you are made sorry, but that you sorrow to repentance in a godly manner. God has broken your heart, and I know that he will bind it up. If he has ploughed you, he will sow you, as he said to the mountains of Israel, “I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.”

26. IV. UNLESS GOD HAS TILLED THE HEART, IT CANNOT BE SOWN WITH ANY HOPE OF SUCCESS.

27. After ploughing, there comes the sowing. When the heart is ready, God sows it, — sows it with the best of wheat. The wise farmer does not sow inferior grain; but, as Isaiah says, he casts in “the principal wheat.” The seed which God sows is living seed. If a farmer were to sow boiled seed that has lost its vitality, what would be the good of it? but he sows living seed; and so the truth which Jesus Christ preaches, and tells us to scatter, is living wheat, — living seed; and when that drops into the soil, God watches over it. The worm may come, and the crow may come; but none of these shall get the seed, — 

   “For grace insures the crop,” — 

and up it shall spring, — “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full kernel in the ear.” It shall grow, for God has prepared the soil for it.

28. Now, I want to scatter a handful of the good seed of the kingdom. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Trust Jesus, and you are saved. There, — I saw a handful of that seed go on the wayside; and another handful went on some of you who are choked with thorns; but if there is a broken heart here, the seed has fallen on good ground, for that broken heart says, “What! if I trust Christ, shall I be saved?” Yes, you will be saved in a moment, every sin forgiven you in a moment, for Jesus Christ took your place and stead, and suffered all the punishment of your sins; and therefore God, having been just in punishing Christ instead of you, can let you go free, and yet be as just as though he had sent you to hell. If you trust Christ, the merit of his suffering and the virtue of his righteousness shall be yours now. You shall go your way rejoicing, because you have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Will you believe or not, sinner? May God give them the grace to trust Christ! Trust him now. And if you do, then I shall know that God has ploughed you, that God has prepared you, before he told me to drop in the seed. Let those of us who know the power of prayer drag the harrow across the field, for when the seed is once in, it needs harrowing. So let us preach the Word, and so let us pray that the seed may take root, spring up, grow, and produce a hundredfold. So sinners shall be saved, and so God shall be glorified.

{a} Stylites or Pillar Saints: are a type of Christian ascetic who in the early days of the Byzantine Empire stood on pillars preaching, fasting and praying. They believed that the mortification of their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls. The first stylite was probably Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed on a pillar in Syria in 423 AD and remained there until his death 37 years later. See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylites"
{b} Upas: A fabulous tree alleged to have existed in Java, at some distance from Batavia, with properties so poisonous as to destroy all animal and vegetable life to a distance of fifteen or sixteen miles around it. OED.
{c} Scarify: To break up or loosen (ground) with a scarifier. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ec 11:6-12:14}

11:6. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand: for you do not know which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be equally good.

It is our business to sow the good seed of the kingdom, to sow it broadcast, to sow it at all times: “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand.”

The result of our sowing does not rest with us, but with the great Lord of the harvest. Some of the seed may fall by the wayside, some among thorns, some on a rock, or on rocky ground with only a thin layer of earth; but if God has called us to be sowers, and we really sow gospel seed, some of it will fall into good ground, and produce a crop, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or even a hundredfold.

7. Truly the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun:

And since it is so pleasant for the natural eyes to behold the natural sun, how much more pleasant is it for the spiritual eye to behold the Sun of righteousness! Sweet as the light of the sun is, the light of the Sun of righteousness is far sweeter.

8, 9. But if a man lives many years, and rejoices in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, oh young man, in your youth; and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes: but know, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

No one in his sense supposes that Solomon exhorted young men to walk according to their own heart and according to the sight of their eyes. This is a common way of speaking; as we may say to a man who is going to excess in drink, “Well, drink your full, and be drunk; but you will have to suffer for it. It will certainly exact a penalty from you eventually.” No one would be so foolish as to say that we had exhorted the man to drunkenness. On the contrary, we did, as it were, warn him not to continue in his evil course by reminding him of the penalty which would assuredly follow. So, here, Solomon seems to say, “Do this if you wish; do it if you dare; but remember that there is a judgment day coming, and that God will judge you for all these things, and according to these things he will measure out your doom.”

10. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.

There is no doubt that, if we were holy, we should be happy; so, if we advise men to put away sorrow from their heart, we must remind them that they cannot do it except by putting away sin. The roots of evil must be completely cleared away; or else to cut down the shoots, and leave the roots, may only be to strengthen the evil in the long run. The removal of sorrow can only be accomplished by going deeper, and clearing the heart of sin; and this can only be accomplished by God’s grace.

12:1. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days do not come, nor the years draw near, when you shall say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

Do not give God the dregs of life. Do not offer in sacrifice to him anything that is worn out. Remember that, among the first-fruits which the Jews were to bring to the priest to be offered on God’s altar, there were to be “green ears of grain, dried by the fire, even grain beaten out from full ears.” The Lord delights to have the hearts of his people while they are still children. The Lord says, through Hosea the prophet, “I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms”; as if, while they were very little, God had taught them to take their first steps in walking. There is also that passage in the prophecy of Jeremiah, “I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went after me in the wilderness.” God delights in those early evidences of love in the morning of life, while the dew is on everything, and there is a sparkling freshness all around. I pray that you who are young will remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, are not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

As they do in old age, when troubles seem to multiply, and the brightness of life seems to have gone.

3, 4. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows are darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the street, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

This is a wonderfully vivid description of the failure of our natural powers. “The keepers of the house shall tremble”; these are our arms, which are the guardians of the house of our body. We naturally thrust out our hands and arms to protect ourselves if we are likely to fall, so they are “the keepers of the house.” “The strong men shall bow themselves,” that is, our legs and knees begin to shake. “The grinders cease because they are few.” Our teeth gradually decay, and at last fall from their places. They are like the first falling stones of a decaying wall, tottering to show how the rest will soon follow. “Those that look out of the windows are darkened.” The eyes begin to lose their keenness of sight; and fresh windows — double windows — are sometimes needed to assist the failing sight. “The doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low.” The voice fails. Then there comes sleeplessness, so that the first little bird that chirps in the morning wakes up the aged man; and as for music, his ears sometimes fail to catch the sweetest melody, and his own voice is unable to attune itself as it once did: “All the daughters of music shall be brought low.”

5. Also when they shall be afraid of what is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish — 

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetic description that were ever penned. Here we have a true picture of the nervousness which creeps over men in the decline of life. Then there is the flourishing of the almond tree; there are many before me now whose white hair shows that the almond tree is flourishing.

5. And the grasshopper shall be a burden,

Those things that we treated lightly in our youth become a very heavy burden in our later years. A little work wearies, a little care fatigues, and a little trouble frets us as it never used to do.

5. And desire shall fail:

The whole nature becomes more calm, and less ambitious, and less ardent than it used to be.

5, 6. Because man goes to his long home, and the mourners go around the streets: even before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

“The silver cord” is the spinal marrow, which gradually relaxes, for its strength and power are gone. The whole body begins to show symptoms of the paralysis which is creeping on. “The golden bowl” is the skull, which contains the brain, and whoever has seen a skull must see how appropriate the metaphor is. Then, in “the pitcher” and “the wheel” we have a reference to the circulation of the blood, of which Solomon seems to have had at least some inklings. There have been writers who have affirmed that the entire system of anatomy might very well be gathered from these words. They are amazing, not only because of the poetic imagery which is on the surface, but also because of the depth of meaning which lies beneath.

7. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.

So it will happen to us all unless Christ shall come first. The machinery of our being will stand still. The fountain of life will be dry; no longer will the living floods rush through their appointed courses as they used to do. Please remember that we are not merely talking about people in the street, of whom we know nothing, but about ourselves also, for we are mortal, so we must die. Let us believe this, and prepare for it.

8. “Vanity of vanities,” says the preacher; “all is vanity.”

This seems to be the conclusion to which Solomon came by the experiment of his own life, as well as by the teaching of God. This Book of Ecclesiastes begins like this: “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. ‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher, ‘vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’”

9. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yes, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.

That man is not fit to teach who does not give good heed, and set his words in order. He who says whatever first comes into his mind, only gives out chaff which the wind drives away. But he who would scatter his seed broadcast must take care that he has in his seed basket good seed that is worth sowing in the broad furrows of the world’s field.

10. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words:

The Hebrew expression means words of delight, for words that delight the ear may help to win the heart, and so prove to be “acceptable words.”

10, 11. And what was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the Masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.

The true preacher’s words pierce us like the sharp ox goads pierce the cattle, but they are also like nails that are driven into the wood, and clinched so that they cannot come out. There must be something to stir our emotions, and something to retain in our memory. We need the goads, for we are like the ox that is slow at the plough; and we need to have the nails well driven into us for our memory is often like a rotten piece of wood which lets the nail slip out as soon as it has to bear any weight. May the Holy Spirit make all of us, who are preachers, to be wise so as to know how to use the goad and how to drive the nail!

12. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

That is what Solomon said, and he had never seen the British Museum, or the Bodleian {d} and other noted libraries, for, if he had done so, he would have said, with an emphasis, “There is no end,” for the books of his day could scarcely have been one in a thousand, or one in a million, compared with those that are now produced. I should not wonder, however, if the one in a million was quite worth the million. There are many books made that may benefit the printer, and the publisher, and the bookseller, but they are not likely to benefit anyone else.

13. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Reverent walking before the Most High; reconciliation to him so that we can reverently walk and live, and all this proved by a life of obedience to his commandments: “This is the whole duty of man.”

14. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.

Notice that expression, “every secret thing.” It is not merely our public actions that God will judge, otherwise we might be more at our ease; but he takes account of our most private thoughts, words, deeds, and intentions. Who among us can endure that ordeal? Yet we must endure it if we are to stand before him. Oh Lord, prepare us, by your infinite grace, through faith in your dear Son, and by the regenerating work of your gracious Spirit, for this solemn testing time! Amen.

{d} Bodleian: The Oxford University Library; also colloquially called Bodley. OED.