Harry Foster
HOW much easier it is to reap than to sow! The singers of Psalm 126 who so enthusiastically celebrated the miraculous release from captivity of God's people did well to wonder at the Lord's grace and to be glad about the great things that He had done for them. It was a reaping time. Even the onlookers from the nations could appreciate with what rejoicing God's people sang of His delivering power. The psalm, however, reminds us that such reaping was only possible because there had been a sowing, and a very costly sowing at that. So the song ends on a note of realism. In the midst of their effervescent excitement at the great deeds of God, they needed to be reminded of the travail which had made it all possible. To use the words of the Lord Jesus: "Others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labours".
Who was it that foretold this release from captivity? Who was the man whose glowing words told how the ransomed of the Lord should return and come with singing to Zion, how a way should be made in the wilderness, and how the Lord would shepherd His captive people back to the land, carrying the infants in His arms and tenderly watching over the expectant mothers as He did so? Who was it that called the Lord's remembrancers to take no rest and give Him no rest till He established Jerusalem and made it again a praise in the earth? It was Isaiah, the prophet who had first had the bitter experience of informing Hezekiah that everything would be carried captive to Babylon and nothing left. So far as we know, the latter part of Isaiah's life was lived under the shadow of Manasseh's cruel persecution and quite possibly he was the man "sawn asunder" for his faith (Hebrews 11:37). His was the painful task of sowing, a task which was later taken up by Jeremiah, the man whose soul travail was fully rewarded by Cyrus's release of the captives. He was certainly a man who "sowed in tears" and moreover who sowed in faith without ever knowing the joys of harvest.
Contemporary with Jeremiah there was Ezekiel, another of the suffering servants of God, who sowed for a day yet to come, a day which he did not himself witness. His beloved wife, the "desire of his eyes", was taken away with a stroke as part of his ministry to rebellious Israel, and he was not even allowed to weep but made to bear his sorrow without even the relief of tears. Among the captives, too, there was Daniel. Daniel of the lions' den! Daniel, who mourned for three whole weeks, and whose fasting, confession and agonising in prayer brought the promise of the re-building of Jerusalem. He was surely a man who sowed in faith. It is true that he did live to see the day of the return to the land, but he had no personal share in that return of the captivity which left the Israelites with their mouth filled with laughter and their tongue with singing. The day came when the Lord did great things for His people and made them very glad; but their harvest joys were the direct result of the costly and painful work of sowing which had been done by others.
It is always like this. So it was that the Lord Jesus called His disciples to the world harvest with a reminder that they were about to reap where they had not sown. "Others have laboured," He affirmed. One wonders just whom He had in mind. Perhaps He was expressing some appreciation of the spade-work for the gospel which had been done by John the Baptist. John was to go out in total eclipse. He was to be left to languish in prison and then, apparently, to be abandoned to the headman's axe without any token of divine concern. No harvest joys for John: only the painfulness of sowing. Yet the very first labours of the disciples brought an immediate harvest, and they came back to Jesus jubilant at the sensational results of their service (Luke 10:17). The cause was not far to seek. They were only harvesting what others had sown. For this reason they needed not to modify their[1/2] joy, but to adjust their minds in humility about the success. This seems to be one of the immediate applications of Christ's use of the true saying: "One soweth and another reapeth" (John 4:37). We are so apt to become conceited if God uses us, as though some credit were due to us for what has happened. In actual fact, though, it is usually true that we are only reaping where others have sown, that this is by far the easier part of the whole operation and that in any case -- as Paul reminds us -- it is God who gives the increase.
Another implication of Christ's use of the old adage is to inspire us to fresh endeavour. The very fact that others have sown should get us busy in the work of reaping. The Lord Jesus admitted of no delay, but rather urged His disciples to get on with their part in the great scheme of harvesting (John 4:35). It would be a poor state of affairs if no one had been ready to pay the price of sowing, but what shall we say of the sad possibility that when others had so sown, the reapers should be tardy in getting to their appointed task?
Pentecost was a great reaping time. The early Church resounded with the joy of the harvest. But now we must ask: If they reaped with joy, who was it who sowed with tears? The answer is clear enough. Go to the garden of Gethsemane and see the Saviour weeping tears and dropping sweat as it were of blood. Go to the cross of Calvary and hear His heart-rending cry of abandonment by His God. And as we do this, we realise that it was He Himself who was the precious Seed of this sowing. He had already explained to His disciples that it would be like this, telling them that He would be the 'grain of wheat', falling into the ground and so bearing much fruit (John 12:24). So it was that although at Calvary He went on His way weeping to sow the precious seed, He came again rejoicing at Pentecost, bringing His sheaves with Him.
This brings us to the realisation that men may both sow and reap. The apostle to the Gentiles had to do this, for he was a true pioneer. "I planted," he reminded the Corinthians; but he could also claim that he had also reaped: "Are ye not my work in the Lord?" (1 Corinthians 9:1). This, however, does not minimise the need for travail, but rather confirms it, for Paul literally wept many tears over the Corinthian believers. At one stage of his labours in that city, he seems to have become so disheartened that he was ready to go away and leave most of the harvest still not gathered in. At least this is the obvious explanation of the night vision when the Lord appeared to him, saying: "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee ...: for I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:9). It may be that this reference to the as-yet hidden 'much people' can be attributed to that mysterious truth of predestination. Even if that is true, it still emphasises the Lord's call for Paul to keep on with the work of reaping. May it be, though, that what the Lord Jesus meant was that Paul's sowing there had not been in vain? He saw the seed working in men's hearts; He knew that patient persistence would ensure a harvest, and sought to encourage the man who had sowed in tears not to give up prematurely before the full harvest had been gathered in. Luke informs us that as a result of this divine vision Paul stayed on in Corinth for a further year and six months -- which was quite a long time for Paul.
