Isaiah 17:11

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but, the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." Isa 17:11

Once more we come to the harvest. What will the harvest be? is the great question which men should put to themselves. Syria and Ephraim entered into an alliance which grew with amazing rapidity. At a certain time, all appeared to be prosperous, plentiful, and satisfactory. Yet all the harvest-heaps were destined to end not in the joy of harvest, but in grief and incurable pain. Do not look at the growing plant alone. Your investment is successful. But if that investment imply injustice, robbery, monopoly, gambling, or trickery, when you go out to reap the harvest you will only thrust your sickle into a field of darkness. In the case before us the seed flourished in the morning, and at eventide there was an appearance of a great return from the seed that had been sown. How foolish are they who look at appearances only! Where things are wrong in their origin they must be wrong in their issue. Between the origin and the issue there may be great fluctuation of fortune, or the good fortune may decidedly preponderate over the bad. But be assured of this: God is not mocked: when the seed that is sown has been bad, it is impossible that the harvest which is to be reaped can be good. Every man must face the results of his own seed-sowing. We cannot claim another man's field when God comes to judgment. The judgment of God is founded upon facts, upon reason, upon justice. When a man sees how ruinous a harvest he has to gather, he will say to his own heart, This is just; this is the outworking of true reason; I sowed the wind, now I am called to reap the whirlwind. "Thou wicked and slothful servant; out of thine own mouth do I condemn thee." The wicked sower must be the disappointed reaper.