Reaping.
IT rejoices me to hear that our brother is such a good reaper, and that the wheat was so ready for the barn. Surely we can all be glad with you in your harvest-home at—, especially as the sheaves include some so dear to you.
It is greatly refreshing to the hearts of the saints to see the Lord bringing many to Himself in present joy and peace and everlasting blessing; for no growth in grace, or increase in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, ought to supplant the original delight of the soul, when it was first brought to look on the Saviour and live.
As to instrumentality, the Lord knows how to use all His members; “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? if the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?” When “the unity of the Spirit” is really understood, the effect is wonderful. We may remark one (and not the least either), “that the members should have the same care one of another.” What a remedy this would be for many an outbreak, and many a heartburn; or rather, how would the common interest of each in the whole supply the motive for “growing up into Him in all things, which is the Head,” even Christ. Very often the Lord uses an evangelist of a certain growth, to meet the state of multitudes in the North, South, East, and West, and to bring them upon the same meridian, so to speak. For certain it is, that if the gift puts the man who has it over the heads of people, he had better carry less canvas in his sails, and let others come up within range and reach of him.
Those are most used among us who are bent on knitting souls to Christ in one way or another. First, think of the Lord Himself in this light, coming down to the level of the woman at the well. But then He was perfect in every grace; and it is this which makes it so refreshing to be with our true Boaz in such a barley-field as John 4, and another Ruth of that day.
How touching it is to hear Him let His disciples into the secret of His own thoughts about the Samaritan, when He says, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” And again, what handfuls He lets fall for her, that He may win her confidence and heart, till like a true Ruth she casts herself at His feet, and asks this “near kinsman “to spread His skirt over His handmaid! Very precious it is to take our places with her (as we have long ago), and receive the assurance of His personal love, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter,” and to let our Boaz tell us what a kinsman’s part He has taken by revealing Himself to us at the cross as our Kinsman-Redeemer, and all besides that He has purposed in His glorious resurrection, “to raise up the name of the dead upon His inheritance.”
How suitably does the veil drop upon this picture till the coming day of His renown. He takes the people (so to speak) that were in the gate, and the elders, as witnesses of the plucked off shoe; and she “goes her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man that told me all that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city and came to Him... and said unto the woman, now we believe not because of thy saying; for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”
What remains but the fulfillment of the cry of ten thousand times ten thousand voices― “The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel, and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel; and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem.”
And so He was, for in none of these prophecies, nor in any other expectation, will our Boaz fail in the heavens above, or in the earth death, in their appointed seasons.
Your reference to―has turned me into the barley-field, and to the day when sower and reapers, young men and maidens, shall rejoice together. “For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.” (Zech. 9:1717For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids. (Zechariah 9:17).)