Who is there that has worked long in the Lord’s vineyard that has not at times felt discouraged? We naturally like to see the fruit of our labors, and we feel discouraged if we see it not. The Sunday school worker has his especial discouragements. With the evangelist, though he may not see them again, he knows that when God begins to work, He will surely carry it on to perfection.
The Sunday school worker has no such source of hope. If he thinks he sees signs of fruit, and fondly hopes to see it to be real and abiding, all his hopes may be scattered to the wind by unmistakable conduct or demeanor. There sits before him the one whom he hoped had been melted into contrition, as callous as ever—yea, he seems to be even harder and more indifferent than he was before. The heart of the teacher is pained and disappointed.
Our only hope is in God. The work is His, not ours. We are to sow the Seed, and if there is any increase, it is God who must give it. But He encourages us to go on.
Here is a blessed promise to cheer us on: “We shall reap if we faint not.” Let us hold fast to this. It is our God who gives it us: He who knows all our discouragements, and who knows we should be liable to be weary and faint-hearted, has provided for us this word of encouragement.
It is a fact, too, that many a wandering sinner is called by God’s grace years afterward by some word learned in the Sunday school. We feel convinced that many a case of this sort will be revealed by-and-by, when all things are to be made known. Yet now we see it not, but have to labor on in faith—faith in the Word of our God—that we shall reap if we faint not.
Let us take fresh courage, then, remembering that everything here is against our work. We are attacking the kingdom of Satan, and are seeking to snatch the poor slaves from his dominion and power. He will not sit quietly by and see his kingdom assailed. As we know, he catches away the seed, or chokes it, and we have no hope of success, except as we remember that greater is He that is for us, than all that can be against us. And the work is not ours, but our God’s, and He, and He alone, can give the increase.
But there is another word in our passage: “in due season” —we shall reap in due season. And when is that? When the Lord pleases. He is all gracious, but He is sovereign, and He will work when He pleases.
The word to sinners is now, and we, if we could, would have all our scholars converted now. But God has His “due season.” A wave of blessing comes, and hundreds are converted. At another time it is one here, and another there, taken up by God in His grace, and translated from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
How good it is to remember that we are His workmen, and that He is carrying on all His plans quietly, but so effectually that none can stay His hand. I am putting in the Seed that He is going to bless. I am impatient, and want to see it grow; and get weary and faint-hearted because I cannot see the fruit produced. He bids me go on, and not be weary in well doing; for I shall reap in His time if I faint not. If I faint and give up, God will still go on with His work, but another will reap instead of me.
O for the patient plodding in the path He has set each one, obeying His Word, not to look back; and if I never see one bit of fruit, still to go on, encouraged by that gracious Word, that I shall surely reap if I faint not, and it will be in the due season He Himself appoints.