Seedtime in the Evening

"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." (Eccl.11.6).

There is wise counsel in the Book of Ecclesiastes for both the youthful Christian and the mature Christian, for the one who is setting out on life's journey and the one who is within sight of its end. "Evening" in Ecclesiastes is the second half of life, the time when youthful vigour and enthusiasm has begun to temper into the more measured pulse and the more dispassionate outlook of mature years. It is in such an evening that the activity of earlier days tends to give place to relaxation of effort; the disappointments and disillusionment that come to everyone in life lead to a cessation of missionary effort and a settling down to enjoy the social fellowship of the Church without further shouldering of its responsibilities. It is in such a time that this exhortation comes with its urgent appeal, "In the evening withhold not thine hand, for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that". There well might be work done in the end of life that shows greater and grander results for the Lord than more spectacular work undertaken in earlier days.

The same thing is true in the life of the Church. The Nineteenth Century was a period unique in the annals of Christianity. During that century were seen the signs of the End as predicted by our Lord in that discourse of his to the disciples which is recorded in the twenty‑fourth chapter of Matthew. The Nineteenth Century was the Watcher's time of realisation. It saw the commencement of the Harvest of the Age. The time came during that century when it could truly be said that at last the gospel of the Kingdom had been preached in all the world for a witness to all nations. Christian missionaries had reached the ends of the earth and all peoples, nations, and languages had received some part of the witness. That in itself was the first sign of the End Time, the first evidence that the days of the Second Advent were commencing. At the same time came the feast of Divine revelation and Bible truths promised by Jesus in his parable of the man taking a far journey. Another evidence of the Second Presence; the servants that sat down to meat and were served by their Master. These things are in the past; they cannot be repeated. The blossoming of the fig tree in Israel's revival dating from 1897; the apostasy from the faith resultant from misapplied science and the influence of the theories of evolution, dating from 1859, when Charles Darwin published his "Origin of Species"; the steady breaking down of the Gentile powers, having its beginning in the Franco‑Prussian war of 1870 and the loss of Papal temporal power at the same time; all these events were signs that the end of this Age and the dawn of the next were at hand. And the message of God for those times concerned all those signs, pointed to them as evidences of what must shortly come to pass. In the power and enthusiasm of those visible happenings a great work was done and a mighty message was proclaimed. But the message was given and it has done its work. The signs have been seen and have receded into the distant years and now these things are a century old. The message that depended on those signs no longer has the force that it did because we live in a new day and a new generation that knows them not. The signs inspired and supported a great work in Christendom but now the signs are finished and the work is done. What comes next?

There are some who say that nothing comes next; that the time for the cessation of all Gospel preaching has come and that the remaining members of the Church on earth have nothing left to do but to "build one another up on their most holy faith", sit down quietly and wait for the Lord to take them away to heaven and bring this wicked world and all its wicked works to an end. It is virtually suggested that Christians who think otherwise, particularly if they still persist in preaching the Gospel, are nearly as bad as the said wicked world. At any rate, they are said to be "spiritually blind", "not continuing in Present Truth", "partakers of milk and not of strong meat" and, generally speaking, in a condition greatly to be deplored. The fact that the active prosecution of the Church's age‑old commission to preach the Gospel is disparaged instead of commended, in the interests of that interpretation, only goes to show how easy it is, when the years have brought their disappointments, to lose sight of the first principles of the Christian faith. The Christian group that loses its missionary zeal signs its own death‑warrant and will shortly die; that fact has been exemplified many times in past centuries and it is exemplified before our eyes today. Christianity is a missionary faith and we cannot enjoy a healthy Church life unless in some fashion we incorporate some kind of missionary endeavour in our activities.

On the other hand we should not necessarily conclude that the precise form of activity in which the message was enshrined during the Nineteenth Century must be continued without change. That is a very common mistake. There is a strong tendency to herald the Kingdom in the same manner and the same terms that were effective in 1916. They are not necessarily so appropriate in 2016. What guidance, then, may we take from the Gospels?

"Or whether they both shall be alike good!" Is it possible that in an "End Time" dispensational sense we may reasonably expect a "morning" and an "evening" sowing—the same seed, yet distinct works, each producing its own results and each, in the end, "alike good"?

It is a fact, at any rate, that our Lord enshrined two distinct thoughts in his final instructions to his disciples respecting their life work—and therefore our life work. According to Luke and Mark he told them to preach repentance and remission of sins among all nations, and to preach the Gospel to the whole creation. (Luke 24.47; Mark 16.15). According to Matthew he also told them to teach all nations, bidding them "observe…whatsoever I have commanded you". (Matt.28.20). There is a world of difference between the words "preach" and "teach", and there is no reason to doubt that all three Evangelists' accounts embody part only of all that Jesus said to them at his departure, and each injunction was actually spoken separately and in its own setting. We might do well, therefore, to examine more closely than we have done heretofore the differences between these several versions of his parting words.

The word "preach" is from the Greek "evangeliso", meaning "I tell good news", or from "kerusso", which means "I proclaim as a herald". "Teach," on the other hand, is from "matheteuo", which denotes the instruction of pupils or learners, the making of disciples. In the Christian way preaching comes first and is followed by teaching. The Apostles at Pentecost first proclaimed good news and went about as heralds, announcing the Kingdom of Heaven, and then settled down to teach their converts. In the individual Christian life it is inevitable that the early years are taken up with declaring the message, telling out the good tidings of redemption that is in Christ Jesus; only when the experiences of the way, and progress in the faith, has brought maturity of knowledge and character, can the believer begin to teach. Preaching belongs to youth and teaching to mature age; preaching is the work of the morning but teaching that of the evening.

There are two notable instances of this principle in the recorded lives of great men of God—one in the Old Testament and one in the New. It is almost as if the Holy Spirit has provided in advance for the question that must arise in the minds of those who find their life's work apparently a failure. Here we have two of the mightiest men of faith in the Biblical record, men whose early life and middle age was spent in prominent activity, and who received esteem and honour from those whom they served, ending their lives in relative insignificance and obscurity. One of those men was Samuel the Prophet and the other was Paul the Apostle.

Samuel was dedicated to the service of the Lord from childhood and, as he grew up, rapidly became the leader of the nation in things ecclesiastical and secular. Israel looked to him for guidance and for strength. At the zenith of his power he travelled the country regularly, sitting in judgment annually in three different towns, administering justice and rectifying abuses. His wisdom as an administrator was no less famed than his sanctity as a prophet. He has very truly been called the greatest of the Judges. But the last glimpse we have of the life of Samuel shows him bereft of his power and glory, living in quiet retirement at Ramah, teaching a group of young men, gathered around him to learn of his wisdom and pass it on to the next generation, all that remained of his life's work. Yet there is no indication that Samuel fretted or repined at this apparently ignominious ending to all that he had achieved for Israel. He knew—none better—that he had fulfilled the place for which his Lord had selected him, and carried out the work He had given him to do, and if for the rest of his remaining days he was to labour in a much more modest and unnoticed way than heretofore, he was well content so long as he knew it to be God's will.

The Apostle Paul was in similar case. After a lifetime spent in travelling the length and breadth of the Roman world, the acknowledged leader of the Apostles and of Christians everywhere, he settled down at the end of his days—so far as the Scriptures reveal—to teach, contentedly, in his own hired house in the city of Rome, those who came to him. The last verse of the last chapter of the Book of Acts is wonderfully eloquent. Many years had Paul preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, proclaiming it as a herald, telling it as good news, but now those days were past and done. His mission now was that of a teacher, giving quiet but none the less effective instruction to those who came to his modest lodging to learn of him. Did the stalwart old warrior, hero of a thousand battles, repine at being thus laid aside? We know that he did not; we know that he employed his powers with as keen diligence as ever to the new task his Lord had set him.

And for what purpose? What was the incentive that led Samuel quietly to remain in his house at Ramah, teaching those few young men who had gathered round him? What was in the mind of Paul as he stayed, day by day, in that house somewhere in the back streets of Rome, receiving and discoursing with those who came to him, the while the busy outer world pursued its interests and the millions of the great Roman empire waited for the Gospel? It was, to use words first uttered in another connection, "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord". (Luke 1.17). John the Baptist was a man of the old dispensation, the Jewish Age, and he appeared in the end of that Age to make ready a nucleus who would take up the work of the new dispensation, the Gospel Age, and carry it forward to a glorious conclusion. John himself never entered the Gospel Age; his work finished, he was laid aside to await his destiny. The people he prepared took up the flaming torch and carried it on, passing it in turn to their successors. Paul knew that, and he devoted the last years of his life to teaching those who would guard the interests of the Christian faith in Rome and plant them firmly in the new Roman Age which was to dawn after the persecution in which Paul himself lost his life had ceased.

So it is with us now. We the members of Christ's Church still on earth, are, like John the Baptist, making ready a people prepared for the Lord. Our time on earth, like his, is limited; the end of the Age draws nigh, and with it the closing of the "High Calling of God in Christ Jesus". But when the last members of the Church have been gathered to meet their Lord, and the world is entering into the last stage of trouble that immediately precedes the Kingdom, what of the Truth? Will it be known in the earth? Of course it will! God has never left himself without witness in the earth, and in times of catastrophe and judgment such as that which will then be upon the world He will assuredly have some who know the Truth and the explanation of events and will declare them. Perhaps it is the final mission of the Church on earth, the "final witness" for which so many look, thus to "make ready" such a people, by quiet teaching and instruction in such manner as opportunity affords or opportunity can be made.

Elijah, disheartened at the apparent failure of his life's work, fled to Sinai. "Take me away, O Lord", he pleaded, "for I am not better than my fathers". But the Lord had yet a work for him to do. "Go back!" was the peremptory (absolute) command—and Elijah went back, not to stand before Israel and declare his witness to the one true God in public and spectacular manner as of yore; not to stride into the presence of kings and nobles and denounce them for their apostasy while other men looked on with bated breath; but to make preparations for the continuance of God's work after his own decease! "Go, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel‑meholah to be prophet in thy room." The judgments of God, shortly to come upon Israel, were made sure by the anointing of Hazael the destroyer. The destruction of Israel's apostate worship was ensured by the anointing of Jehu the iconoclast. The continuance of the work of God and the knowledge of God was provided for in the anointing of Elisha; and it is significant that all Elisha's miracles are miracles that picture restitution—Millennial conditions. The healing of poisoned water and food; the increase of meal and oil, the giving of life to the dead!

So it may well be with us. The Lord calls us in our times of discouragement and slackness of effort to "GO BACK"; not necessarily to do the work that produced such good results over fifty years ago, but to do the work that is necessary to these present times. The Lord will not leave himself without witness in the coming years; but to us He surely extends the privilege of making arrangements, like Elijah, for the witness that is to be after our own earthly course is run. "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good."