For his God doth instruct him
Chastising with judgment
More literally and with better significance, “And he chastiseth it with judgment; his God doth instruct him.
” This judgment is shown in two ways.
(1) In the choice and adaptation of the mode of threshing. There were four modes in use among the Jews; first there was the wain, a very ponderous and formidable instrument brought out only for the heavier and harder kinds of fruits; then there was the cart, the wheels of which also were for the same purpose; then there was the horse or the ox, whose feet were employed to tread out the corn; and then there was the staff, an instrument corresponding with our flail. Well, says the prophet, fitches, the lighter kinds of seeds, are not threshed with a wain, nor is a cart wheel turned upon the cummin; upon these the farmer, using sound judgment, employs only a staff or flail. Bread corn requires a heavier threshing, and bread corn is therefore bruised. But
(2) he does not go on threshing it forever, nor does he continue so long turning the wheel of his cart upon it, or crushing it with his horses, that it is broken into pieces and spoiled; in the measure of his threshing no less than in its mode does he exercise discretion; in the amount which he inflicts no less than in the form which he selects. “This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” (R. H.Roberts, B. A.)
Tribulation
Though not a parable in form, the passage is intended to be parabolically interpreted by us. The unsown land indicates human nature in its native condition; the fruit of that land after it has been sown indicates human nature taken possession of by the Word and Spirit of God.
I. Just as the corn, after it has grown up from the seed sown, needs the c causing process of threshing, so THE SOUL, AFTER IT HAS APPROPRIATED THE GRACE OF GOD IN SALVATION THROUGH FAITH, NEEDS TO BE DISCIPLINED AND CHASTENED AND PERFECTED BY SUFFERING. It used to be a great puzzle with some of the Old Testament saints why a man of God should be subjected to trial Perhaps their bewilderment arose out of the exceeding dimness which surrounded a future life; but the life and immortality brought to light in the Gospel has made this all clear to us, and the suggestion contained in the figure of the text, whilst it cannot be pressed too strictly, may be taken to remind us that in our first salvation we have not reached our final development. The corn is not grown for itself, it is meant for something beyond; and that beyond can only be attained through bruising. It must be beaten into its future life. Even so our salvation is only a step in the onward, heavenward progress; and into that higher kingdom we must enter through the narrow pass of tribulation. This is Christ’s teaching. “Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He purgeth it.” This is brought out, too, in the words of John the Baptist regarding Christ. “I,” he says, “baptize you with water, but He will baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire.” When first we are separated from the rock of nature and raked out of the pit of corruption, we are like iron ore, having in us a vast deal of dross which must become slag and refuse, and we need the blast furnace not only that this dross may be removed, but that we may be in a condition to run into the mould, and so take the shape which the Master desires, and be prepared for the utilities unto which He destines us. It often happens, too, that the more noble the elements which exist in a man, the more severe is the process required unto the perfecting of their possibilities. Corn wants heavier threshing than cummin, not because it is less valuable but because its superior value gives it a greater power of resistance and makes it worth while to accept the heavier toil.
II. THE DISCIPLINE EXPERIENCED BY THE PEOPLE OF GOD WILL BE CERTAINLY SUCH AS IS BEST ADAPTED TO SECURE THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE ENDS. It is being administered and superintended by One who, whilst He sets much value upon them, is distinguished by the profoundest wisdom. And we may be sure that His wisdom will be applied to the adaptation of the discipline to the character with which He has to deal; the husbandman does not “thresh fitches with a wain, nor is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.” You look at your children and you discriminate; you say that boy has a sensitive, gentle, yielding nature, and I must be careful that I do not handle him too roughly, lest I brush the bloom off and spoil the possible beauty which, by careful training, may be made to blossom in the kingdom of God. And that lad is made of a coarser grain, which is not readily injured, and with a dash of self-will and obstinacy in it, upon which I must lay a firm and strong hand. And so, it may be, you put your arm around the one, and you have a rod for the other; and yet all the while you mean the same by both. He who is wonderful in counsel is also wonderful in working. (R. H. Robert, B. A.)
The, ploughman taught of God
Let us contemplate the method of the Divine teaching. The ploughman teaches us--
I. A LESSON OF PREPARATION. God prepared much for man before He introduced him into Eden. God would not bring His favourite creature man into a dreary, cheerless world, but into one glowing with beauty, impressive in magnificence, overflowing with goodness.
II. A LESSON OF ACTIVITY. The ploughman has passed the time of deliberation; he has decided, and decision has led to action. There is much truth in Bacon’s complaint, “That some men object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home.” This aphorism applies, alas, to too many alike in the world and the Church. Ulysses could not discover a happier method of making his foes believe in his insanity than by ploughing up the sand by the seashore. How much quick-witted invention degenerates to the same folly! Often within the Church, where heavenly wisdom ought to shine, matters are not much improved. How many are at ease in Zion! How many shirk the ploughing altogether! How many let noxious weeds grow apace! How many miss the time of open-handed sowing, and yet expect to wake up when the song of harvest home fills the air, and to gather their own golden sheaves! There is still a sense in which the children of the world are wiser than the children of light. Many of these count years not wasted to acquire proficiency in mere vanities and trivialities over which angels well may weep.
III. A LESSON OF PRUDENCE. “God giveth him discretion” All toil that is honest, is honourable, but that is the most honourable which employs the greatest variety of our powers. How much of the service offered to pomp, pride vanity, and fashion lacks discretion! This faculty of discretion men are called upon to exercise daily. Prudence or discretion is a good commander-in-chief: it has won battles over the stubbornness of the soil, the inclemency of the climate, the stormy elements. If we thoughtfully and prayerfully take care of our own actions, God will take care of results. We have no right to tempt providence in any part of its wide domains. He who walks in dangerous ways will perish in them, even as Josiah--favourite of God though he was--was wounded unto death, because he pressed further against his enemies than the words of God permitted.
IV. A LESSON OF ORDER. The discreet husbandman ploughs in the proper season in order that the Lord’s plough, the frost may pulverise the soft a thousand times finer than any human implement. And is not order one of the greatest of Heaven’s appointed laws? The Church itself is to be an army with banners, to consist of governors and governed, some to tend, some to serve, some to hear. Evolve your heaven in due order, out of holy desires, pure affection, spiritual principle, full consecration. (F. Standfast.)
The need and measure of afflictive dispensations
I. THE NEED OF TRIAL TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD. To the wicked afflictions may come as present manifestations of Divine displeasure, and most unwelcome earnests of future judgment. And God may cause the very pleasant vices in which they indulged to become whips and scourge them. As for the children of God, however,--the corn, the fitches, and the cummin, it is not so with them. Every providential dealing of their Heavenly Father is linked with the intentions of His grace, and subserves them. The grain is beaten, the corn is bruised, that they may become useful to man, in providing him with food. Even so, afflictions may be for the good of others, as well as for the glory of God.
II. THE WISE AND GRACIOUS MANNER IN WHICH GOD LAYS AFFLICTION ON HIS CHILDREN. The text beautifully exhibits the skilful and tender adaptation of means to their end. (B. P. Buddicom, M. A.)
Threshing
I. WE ALL NEED THRESHING. What is the object of threshing the grain? Is it not to separate it from the straw and the chaff?
1. About the best of men there is still a measure of chaff. There is something superfluous, something which must be removed. Either in spirit, or motive, or lack of zeal, or want of discretion, we are faulty, if before an action we are right, we err in the doing of it, or, if not, we become proud after it is over. If sin be shut out at the front door, it tries the back gate, or climbs in at the window, or comes down the chimney. Those who cannot perceive it in themselves are frequently blinded by its smoke. They are so thoroughly in the water that they do not know that it rains.
2. Threshing is useful in loosening the connection between the good corn and the husk. If it would slip out easily from its husk, the corn would only need to be shaken. But there’s the rub: our soul not only lieth in the dust, but “cleaveth” to it. As the work of threshing is never done till the corn is separated altogether from the husk, so chastening and discipline have never accomplished their design till God’s people give up every form of evil, and abhor all iniquity. Threshing becomes needful for the sake of our usefulness; for the wheat must come out of the husk to be of service. Eminent usefulness usually necessitates eminent affliction.
3. The threshing instrument is a prophecy of our future perfection.
II. GOD’S THRESHING IS DONE WITH GREAT DISCRETION.
1. Reflect that your threshing and mine are in God’s hands. Our chastening is not left to servants, much less to enemies; “we are chastened of the Lord”! How roughly some ministers, some good men and women will go to work with timid, tender souls; yet we need not fear that they will destroy the true-hearted, for, however much they may vex them, the Lord will not leave His chosen in their hands, but will overrule their mistaken severity, and preserve His own from being destroyed thereby. As the Lord has not left us in the power of man, so also He has not left us in the power of the devil. Satan may sift us as wheat, but he shall not thresh us as fitches. He may blow away the chaff from us even with his foul breath, but he shall not have the management of the Lord’s corn. “The Lord preserveth the righteous.”
2. The instruments used for our threshing are chosen also by the great Husbandman. The Eastern farmer has several instruments, and so has our God. No form of threshing is pleasant to the seed which bears it; indeed, each one seems to the sufferer to be peculiarly objectionable.
3. God not only selects the instruments, but He chooses the place. Farmers in the East have large threshing floors upon which they throw the sheaves of corn or barley, and upon these they turn horses and drags; but near the house door I have often noticed in Italy a much smaller circle of hardened clay or cement, and here I have seen the peasants beating out their garden seeds in a more careful manner than would naturally be used towards the greater heaps upon the larger area. Some saints are not afflicted in the common affairs of life, but they have peculiar sorrow in their innermost spirits: they are beaten on the smaller and more private threshing floor; but the process is none the less effectual
4. It is interesting to notice in the text the limit of this threshing. The husbandman is zealous to beat out the seed, but he is careful not to break it in pieces by too severe a process. In the same way the Lord has a measure in all His chastening. The wisdom of the husbandman in limiting his threshing is far exceeded in the wisdom of God by which He sets a limit to our griefs. We see that our God uses discretion in the chastisement of His people; let us use a loving prudence when we have to deal with others in that way. Be gentle as well as firm with your children; and if you have to rebuke your brother do it very tenderly. Do not drive your horses over the tender seed.
III. THE THRESHING WILL NOT LAST FOREVER. The threshing will not last all our days even here. “Bread corn is bruised, but He will not always he threshing it.” Oh, no! “He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever.” “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Threshing is not an operation which the corn requires all the year round; for the most part the flail is idle. Then, we shall soon be gone to another and better world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
How the Lord threshes us
I. IT IS NO COMPLIMENT TO US IF WE ESCAPE GREAT TRIAL.
II. GOD PROPORTIONS OUR TRIALS TO WHAT WE CAN BEAR.
III. GOD KEEPS TRIAL ON US UNTIL WE LET GO. The farmer shouts “whoa!” to his horses as soon as the grain has dropped from the stalk. The farmer comes with his fork and tosses up the straw, and he sees that the straw has let go the grain, and the grain is thoroughly threshed. So God. Smiting rod and turning wheel, but cease as soon as we let go. We hold on to this world with its pleasures, and riches, and emoluments, and our knuckles are so firmly set that it seems as if we could hold on forever. God comes along with some threshing troubles, and beats us loose.
IV. CHRISTIAN SORROW IS GORING TO HAVE A SURE TERMINUS. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
The wisdom of God in discipline
Some men require very little hard usage. A tap will do, a gentle stroke, a touch that hardly amounts to a blow, a ministry that may be wrought out with the tips of the fingers. Other men require flail, and iron instrument, and harrow, and cart wheel and rough treatment: they are differently organised, they are differently constituted. What would be thought of a man who blew up birds’ nests with gunpowder? Who would not say, There is great want of proportion in that man’s method of looking at things; he is expending far too much energy upon the object? So with regard to the Divine discipline. Some men could be almost brought to fulness or fruition by a smile. Of some men God says, Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven; one little step would bring thee right home. God whispers some men into heaven. But what thunder He needs for others! God treats character according to the variety of character. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Chastisement not pleasant
There is no pleasing us in the matter of chastisement. When I was at school, with my uncle for master, it often happened that he would send me out to find a cane for him. It was not a very pleasant task, and I noticed that I never once succeeded in selecting a stick which was liked by the boy who had to feel it. Either it was too thin, or too stout; and in consequence I was threatened by the sufferers with condign punishment if I did not do better next time. I learned from that experience never to expect God’s children to like the particular rod with which they are chastened. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Moral threshing
We all go through, some kind of threshing process. The fact that you may be devoting your life to honourable and noble purposes will not win you any escape. Wilberforce, the Christian emancipator, was in his day derisively called “Doctor Cantwell.” Thomas Babington Macaulay, the advocate of all that was good long before he became the most conspicuous historian of his day, was caricatured in one of the Quarterly Reviews as “Babble-tongue Macaulay.” (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
The higher nature requires the more force
“Bread corn is bruised.” There are more blows given by the sculptor to carve a saint or angel man by the mason to square a paving stone. (F. Standfast.)
Tribulation
Tribulation comes from the word “Tribulum,” and tribulum means a threshing instrument. Whatever the man used who was treating the growth in its latest phases was called a tribulum, and he tribulated the harvest into bread. The seed did not go from the field into the oven; it had to undergo the action of the tribulum. Watch it there: what is that seed now undergoing! Tribulation. This is the bread that came out of much tribulating, tribulation, tearing asunder, shaking, beating. (J. Parker, D. D.)