CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 13:12. Latter clause, “a desire accomplished is a tree of life.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 13:12
DEFERRED AND ACCOMPLISHED HOPE
I. Two things are necessary to constitute hope.
1. There is the desire for the real or supposed good. The man conceives there is in the distance that which he esteems a good, and he desires to possess it. No man desires what he deems is an evil. The fact that he desires it shows that he regards it as a good.
2. There is expectation. A man may desire a good thing without hoping for it because he may feel that it is impossible to have his desire fulfilled. He has no expectation of its accomplishment, consequently he has no hope. Hope includes some amount of expectation, some foundation for the hope. A man who knows that his disease is incurable may desire to recover his health, but as he has no reason to expect recovery he does not hope for it. Sometimes, also, hope is founded on the promise of some person who is presumed to be both able and willing to perform it.
II. The constant postponement of the attainment of the desired and expected good produces mental sickness. Sickness of body enfeebles its powers, so does sickness of soul. A man derives strength to work when he possesses hope of enjoying some good thing in the future. Hope is a kind of spiritual food, by feeding upon which a man renews his energy. But the constant postponement of its realisation renders the hope less and less strong, and has the same effect upon the mind as insufficient food has upon the body, it enfeebles its resolution and lessens its courage. If a hungry man finds each day that his portion of food grows less, he will soon be conscious of loss of flesh and strength, and if the process goes on for many months he will lose all power of action and probably his very life. The same thing takes place in a man’s spirit when hope is indefinitely “deferred.”
III. The accomplishment of the desire and expectation renews mental health and strength. “It is a tree of life.” The fruit of the tree of life in Paradise was designed to lengthen man’s life, to perpetuate his youth by constantly renewing his bodily vigour. It is said of the tree of life in the Paradise yet to come that “its leaves are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). So the realisation of hope renews the life of the spirit, quickens all its powers, perpetuates its youth. And if the hope has been so long deferred as to induce “heart sickness,” its “coming” brings healing with it. Bodily health is restored by the operation of something from without. It is not usually brought about by that which is within us, but by the coming to us of that which is without. A man desires something which he has not—something outside of himself—either a material or a spiritual good; and if he comes to possess it, it is to the soul what healing medicine is to the body. And as those who eat of the tree of life in the heavenly world are “children of the resurrection,” and sons of undying youth, so realised hope makes the spirit conscious of new life, because it brings joy, and when a man is filled with joy he feels young, however many years he has lived. And renewed youth brings renewed activity. It lifts up the hands which hang down, and restores the feeble knees, and gives a man a new start in the race of life. Applying the words to the revelation of the New Testament, to the “hope of the Gospel” (Colossians 1:23), we remark—
1. That the Christian must be the subject of deferred hope. He must wait for the realisation of his desires and expectations. The “adoption of the body” (Romans 8:23) must be waited for. A glorified body would be out of place in an unglorified world. This hope must be deferred until his Lord’s expectations with regard to this world are fulfilled. The Son of God is waiting until the Father shall give the word that “time shall be no longer”—until the times of restitution of all things (Acts 3:21). He is “at the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool” (Hebrews 10:13). When that expectation is fulfilled, the desire of the Christian with regard to his resurrection body will be fulfilled also. He must also wait until after death for perfect victory over sin and its consequence, for the full revelation of what it is to be one of the sons of God. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” “When this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ” (1 John 3:2; 1 Corinthians 15:54).
2. That even the deferred hope of the Christian is a tree of life. It is an eater that yields meat. It bears fruit
(1) It gives birth to patience, and there is no grace that the human spirit needs more. According to apostolic teaching it is needful to “let patience have her perfect work,” if the Christian is to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing (James 1:4). It is the evidence of a great mind to be able to wait. The Eternal is a “God of patience” (Romans 15:5). He can wait, because He is infinitely great.
(2) It brings forth joy. Paul says, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2).
(3) It sanctifies the soul. “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself (1 John 3:3).
(4) It gives sympathy with God in relation to unregenerate humanity. God defers the realisation of the Christian’s hope, because He is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). While we wait the Divine desire grows in us also, that “all should come to repentance.”
ILLUSTRATION
Perhaps in all history there is not a more salient instance of hoping against hope deferred than that of Columbus. Years and years were wasted in irksome solicitation; years spent, not indeed in the drowsy and monotonous attendance of ante-chambers, but, as his foremost biographer narrates, amid scenes of peril and adventure, from the pursuit of which he was several times summoned to attend royal conferences and anon dismissed abruptly. “Whenever the court had an interval of leisure and repose (from the exigencies of the Moorish war), there would again be manifested a disposition to consider his proposal, but the hurry and tempest would again return, and the question be again swept away.” … He came to look upon these indefinite postponements as a mere courtly mode of evading his importunity, and after the rebuff in the summer of 1490, he is said to have renounced all further confidence in vague promises, which had so often led to chagrin; and, giving up all hopes of countenance from the throne, he turned his back upon Seville, indignant at the thought of having been beguiled out of so many years of waning existence. But it is impossible not to admire the great constancy of purpose and loftiness of spirit displayed by Columbus ever since he had conceived the sublime idea of the discovery. When he applied again to the court after the surrender of Grenada, in 1492, more than eighteen years had elapsed since the announcement of the design, the greatest part of which had been consumed in applications to various sovereigns, poverty, neglect, ridicule, contumely, and the heart-sickness of hope deferred, all that hitherto had come of it. Five years later, when preparations were afoot for his third voyage, we read that, “so wearied and disheartened did he become by the impediments thrown in his way,” that he thought of abandoning his discoveries altogether.—Jacox.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
In his analysis of “the immediate emotions,” Dr. Thomas Brown adverts to that weariness of mind which one would so gladly exchange for weariness of body, and which he takes to be more difficult to bear with good humour than many profound griefs, because it involves the uneasiness of hope that is renewed every moment, to be every moment disappointed. He supposes a day’s journey along one continuous avenue, where the uniformity of similar trees at similar distances is of itself most wearisome; but what we should feel with far more fretfulness would be the constant disappointment of our expectation, that the last tree that we beheld in the distance would be the last that should rise upon us; when “tree after tree, as if in mockery of our very patience itself, would still continue to present the same dismal continuity of line.” Lord Bolingbroke, a professed expert in its power to weary and wear out, called suspense the only insupportable misfortune of life.—Jacox.
The rule, as expressed in the first clause, is universal, but in the second clause it is applied to a particular case.… The second member is a dividing word. The accomplishment of the desire is “a tree of life.” This belongs only to the hope of the holy. Many, after waiting long and expecting eagerly, discover, when at last they reach their object, that it is a withered branch and not a living tree. When a human heart has been set on perishable things, after the sickness of deferred expectation comes the sorer sickness of satiated possession. If the world be made the portion of the immortal Spirit, to want it is one sickness, to have it is another. The one is a hungry mouth empty, the other is a hungry mouth filled with chaff. The clog of disappointed possession is a more nauseous sickness than the aching of disappointed desire. There is no peace to the wicked. They are always either desiring or possessing; but to desire and to possess a perishable portion are only two different kinds of misery to men. They are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. You stand on the shore, and gaze on the restless waters. A wave is hastening on, struggling and panting, and making with all its might for the shore. It seems as if all it wanted was to reach the land. It reaches the land, and disappears in a hiss of discontent. Gathering its strength at a distance, it tries again, and again, with the same result. It is never satisfied, it never rests. In the constitution of the world, under the government of the Most Holy, when a soul’s desire is set on unworthy objects, the accomplishment of the desire does not satisfy the soul. Arnot.
Aquinas noteth that hope in itself causeth joy, it is by accident that it causeth sorrow. Inasmuch as it is a present apprehension of good to come, it breedeth delight, but as it wanteth the presence of that good, it bringeth trouble. It is therefore the delay of hope that afflicteth. And indeed a lingering hope breedeth in the heart as it were a lingering consumption. It is a long child-bearing travail of a weak mind, for hope having conceived comfort is still in labour, until it be brought forth. So it is with the servants of God with respect to heaven. They having begun in hope their journey thitherward, it makes them even sick at heart to think how long it is until they can get there. Wherefore, St. Gregory saith, the punishments of the innocent are the desires of the righteous. For all having lost heaven by sin, even the just are punished with the deferred hope of recovering it.—Jermin.
Here is instruction—
I. To hope for nothing but that which is haveable, and may well be had, and whereof we are capable, and that doth belong unto us. For if protraction cause the heart to languish, what will frustration and disappointment? It is one of the threatenings against the wicked in Deuteronomy, that “their sons and their daughters shall be given unto another people, and their eyes should look for them until they fail, and there shall be no might in their hand” (Deuteronomy 28:32). Now what is meant by this is that their expectation deceived should turn them to as much woe as if their eyes had lost their sight. And that was because that they, incurring the curse by their sinful behaviour, did yet presume of a restitution to happiness as though nothing had appertained to them but blessings.
II. Not to limit God or prescribe to Him in what space He shall fulfil His promise. It was a heathenish speech of the King of Israel’s messenger, when he said, in blasphemous manner, that he neither would nor ought to attend on the Lord any longer (2 Kings 6:33). But we need not draw admonitions against this from the infidelity of the wicked, but from the infirmities of the godly, as Abraham and Sarah had much ado to believe that a child should be gotten and conceived of their body after their natural vigour was consumed, and therefore, Hagar was brought in to help the matter.
III. Not to depend on man, nor to repose our hope in flesh and blood. For thereby we shall not only be delayed of our help too long, but defeated of it altogether. For it is a righteous thing with God, that they who will deify creatures with confidence, should be deceived by creatures with confusion. The poor Israelites found and felt this (Lamentations 4:17).
IV. Where we undertake to minister succour, not to grieve the hearts of them that are in affliction by lingering too long before we relieve them. God doth teach us to show beneficence timely and in due season (chap. Proverbs 3:28). This was one testimony of a good conscience that comforted Job in his extremities, that “he had not held the poor from their desire nor caused the eyes of the widow to fail (Job 31:16).—Dod.
Hope’s hours are full of eternity; and how many see we languishing at hope’s hospital, as he at the pool of Bethesda! Hope unfailable (Romans 5:5) is founded upon faith unfeigned. The desire will come to those who patiently wait on God; for waiting is but hope and trust lengthened. We are apt to antedate the promises and set God at a time as they (Jeremiah 8:20) who looked for salvation in summer at furthest. We are short-breathed, short-spirited. But as God seldom comes at our time, so he never fails at His own, and then He is most sweet, because most seasonable.—Trapp.
The fourth verse has said that “the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing.” This verse declares that longing, accompanied by procrastination, enfeebles the heart; but that a bold plunging after the good, and attaining it, is a “tree of life.” This, dimly, is true in worldly affairs. A man who desires some worldly good and wavers, enfeebles his heart, but he who will dash boldly in strengthens it.… The least taste of arrived-at desire in the spiritual world, like the apples of Eden, breeds “life.” The soul will go on after that eternally. Miller.
If Jacob serve the churl Laban seven years longer, if he think he shall have Rachel at the end of it, it will be but as seven days. Thus it is that the hope of better days sweeteneth the present sadness of any outward condition. There is no grief so heavy, but if a man tie heaven at the end of it, it will become light, but put them together, and the one will be swallowed up in the other.—Spencer.
The world dares say no more of its devices than Dum spiro spero (while I breathe, I hope); but the children of God can add by virtue of their living hope, Dum expiro spero (while I expire, I hope).—Leighton.
Hope is the hunger that makes our food acceptable; but hope deferred, like hunger prolonged, brings a kind of torture.… With the child of God “the patience of hope” issues in “the full assurance of hope.” What was it to Abraham, when, after long deferred hope, the answer came? Laughter. What was it when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, and they were like unto them that dream? What was it to old Simeon and the waiting remnant when “the desire of all nations” came? What to the disciples, when, at the manifestation of their risen Lord, their sickening hearts believed not for joy, and wondered?… But what will be the joy at the grand consummation of tope? (Romans 8:23-25).—Bridges.