MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 10:5
THE USE AND THE NEGLECT OF OPPORTUNITIES
I. Man has opportunities given to him which it is a mark of wisdom to embrace.
1. He has the literal and temporal summer. When the harvest is ripe the reaper must take down his sickle and toil at the ingathering of the grain if he would have bread to eat in the days of winter. The fisherman must spread his net in the season when the fish are abundant and watch his opportunity to catch the passing shoal. The merchant must take advantage of the flood-tide of commercial prosperity to make money so that he may not be brought to bankruptcy in times of depression. These things cannot be done at any time, but the opportune time must be laid hold of and improved.
2. He has a mental summer. Youth is the season usually given to man to develop his mental faculties and lay up stores of knowledge for use in after life. Those who embrace this season and industriously improve it, that “gather” in this “summer,” are “wise sons,” and reap an abundant reward in the time of manhood and old age.
3. He has an opportunity given to lay the foundation of a godly character. The season of youth is most favourable for this work. The youthful mind is more susceptible of moral impressions than those of a man who has grown to manhood without yielding to their influence. The young tree can be easily trained to grow in the desired direction, but it is impossible to bend the trunk when it has acquired any degree of strength. So it is comparatively easy to form habits of godly thought and action when we are young, although by the power of God’s grace it is not impossible at any time. He who subjects his will to the Great Teacher in his early days will enjoy an abundant blessing in old age from this “gathering in summer.”
II. He who neglects thus to improve his opportunities is—
1. Likened to a man who sleeps through the season of harvest. He sets one blessing of God in opposition to the other. Toil and rest are both Divine ordinances, and both are good and blessed in their season. Sleep is felt to be an incalculable boon at the end of each day of toil. The rest of the Sabbath is a priceless gift of God, and is needed to renew both body and mind after the six days’ labour. Longer seasons of rest are good and needful at certain periods of life, and it is a sin against God not to use the ordinary opportunities of rest which are given to all, or ought to be, or to refuse to make use of extraordinary opportunities when they are given to us by the providence of God. But this is quite a different thing from making life a time of indolence—from neglecting to do work either belonging to the body, mind, or spirit; which, if done at all, can only be done in the given opportunity, or cannot be done so well at any other time.
2. Such a sleeping in harvest brings shame—
(1) To the man himself. He is accused by his own conscience. Conscience will recognise the authority of God’s institutions, and the lazy man will be brought to feel that he is out of harmony with the Divine ordinations which govern the world. A time will come in his experience when he will feel the want of the material good, or of the knowledge, or of the favour of God, which he would have possessed if he had used his opportunities, and his poverty in one or all of these respects will make him ashamed when he compares himself with those who “gathered in summer.”
(2) It brings shame upon others. No man can suffer alone for his own sin. Those related to him suffer also in proportion to the nearness of their relationship and to the affection which they bear to him. The son who fritters away the season of youthful opportunity disgraces his parents. By-and-by he becomes a father, and his children partake of his shame. The whole subject reminds us that bare admission into the Divine family is not the end, but the beginning of a Divine life. There must be a “gathering” ever going on. “And beside this” (see Proverbs 10:1-4), “giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Look at the large harvest of opportunity in labouring for God. The great and diversified machinery of religious societies, needing direction and energy; the mass of fellow sinners around us, claiming our sympathy and helpfulness. “While we have time, let us do good” (Galatians 6:10). How high is the privilege of gathering with Christ in such a harvest! (Matthew 12:30). How great the shame of doing nothing, where there is so much to be done! What a harvest also is the present “accepted time” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Mark the abundance of the means of grace, the living verdure of the gospel. Can I bear the thought of that desponding cry of eternal remorse—“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved?” (Jeremiah 8:20).—Bridges.
The opportunity is in all matters carefully to be observed. He gathereth in summer who, redeeming the time, maketh his best advantage of the season; for the summer is that fit season wherein the fruits are got into the barn for the whole year following. He that thus in due season provideth for his body or soul, is worthily called a son of understanding, or a wise man; for he hath not only prudently foreseen what is best to be done, but wisely took the occasioned offered unto his best advantage. On the contrary side, he sleepeth in harvest who fondly letteth slip the most convenient means or opportunity of doing or receiving good. Such a one is a son of confusion, that is to say, one that shall be ashamed or confounded, by reason of the want or misery whereunto he shall fall through his own folly.—Muffett.
The use of the word “son” in both clauses implies that the work of the vine-dresser and the plough had been done by the father. All that the son is called to do is to enter into the labours of others, and reap where they have sown.—Plumptre.
As the former verse commendeth labour and pains and therein diligence, so this commendeth the diligence of watchfulness, in taking opportunity and not omitting it. For there may be much labouring, but there will be little benefit, unless there be a gathering in summer. The taking of pains may show a mind to gather, but the unseasonableness of the pains will not show the wisdom of the mind.—Jermin.
I. God affords opportunities for good. In this view we may regard the whole period of life.
1. You are blessed with a season of gospel grace while many are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, upon you hath the light shined.
2. You have a season of civil and religious liberty. What advantage do we possess above many of our ancestors who suffered for conscience sake! They laboured, and we have entered into their labours.
3. Who has not experienced a day of trouble?
4. Where is the person who does not know what we mean by a season of conviction?
II. I would enforce upon you the necessity of diligence to improve your reaping season.
1. Consider how much you have to accomplish. The salvation of the soul is a great—an arduous concern. Religion is a race, and you must run; it is a warfare, and you must fight. The blessings of the gospel are free, but they are to be sought, and gained.
2. Consider the worth of the blessings which demand your attention.… Is it not desirable to be redeemed from the curse of the law; to be justified freely from every charge brought against us at the bar of God; to be delivered from the tyranny and rage of vicious appetites and passions? Great is the happiness of the good here; but who can describe the exalted glory and joy that await them hereafter?
3. Remember that your labour will not be in vain in the Lord. The husbandman has many uncertainties to contend with, but probability stimulates him; how much more should actual certainty encourage you.
4. Remember that your season for action is limited and short. Harvest does not last long. Your time is uncertain as well as short.
5. Reflect upon the consequences of negligence. Is a man blamed for sleeping in harvest? Does every one reproach him as a fool? You act a part more absurd and fatal, who neglect this great salvation. Having made no provision for eternity, your ruin is unavoidable. It will also be insupportable.—Jay.