LABOURERS in the Lord’s vineyard sometimes get depressed, because they do not see immediate fruit of their work. To look for fruit, and to expect it, is a divine principle; but nevertheless we have often to wait a long time ere the fruit of the labor appears. Open-air preachers will be encouraged by what I am about to relate, as it is in that branch of service to the Lord that distinct results are usually less apparent, since the hearers move on or disperse when speaking ends.
A few weeks ago, one Sunday evening, at the close of a crowded gospel meeting in a large hall in this city I got into conversation with a lady who was an entire stranger. It was soon apparent that she was a happy believer in the Lord; and on my asking her how long she had known Him, she said: “I found the Lord more than fifteen years ago. I was not converted through your preaching, Doctor, but I have long desired an opportunity to tell you of the conversion of an aunt of mine, who was blessed through your preaching.”
“Pray, tell me about her,” I replied. “Do I know her?”
“No, you have never seen her, and it is not likely that you ever will on earth. Her conversion was very remarkable, and her history very sad. In fact it is an awful tale, but I will tell it you. She lived in the north of Scotland, and when no longer young, married. The day after her marriage, her, husband was called away from home, and was absent a considerable time. During that period she became entangled with another man, and was unfaithful to her husband. At length her sin became known, and, fearing the wrath of her husband, she fled from home, friends, and all surroundings, and came to Edinburgh, desiring to hide herself from the eye of man and of God, and to live, if possible, unknown and unnoticed.
“She had been, however, but a few days in this city, when she passed a place where you were standing, and preaching the gospel, in the open air. She was arrested by the tale of God’s love to the world, and the wondrous news that Jesus had died to save sinners. Deeply convicted of her sins, she was brought to repentance towards God. Faith in the Lord Jesus sprung up, and she was converted on the spot. She there and then received the sense of the Lord’s grace and forgiveness.
“Thereafter she returned to her home, humbled and penitent, to seek her husband’s forgiveness. This, however, he would not accord; he would not receive her, or reinstate her, and completely cast her off. She then came to live in a large town where I resided, and for over twenty-five years has been a consistent Christian, and a lowly, humble follower of the Lord Jesus. Lately her mind has given way, but, in a suitable asylum, she is being kindly cared for in the evening of her days. I thought it would cheer you to hear of this fruit of your labor, though fully twenty-five years have rolled by since my aunt was converted.”
This touching tale of God’s grace to a guilty sinner, I need scarcely say, greatly cheered me. And all the more so when I recall tilt place where she must have heard me preach. The summer of 1876 will be ever remembered by me. We had an unprecedented spell of magnificent summer weather, and every evening, Sunday and week-day, for seven weeks during June and July, I, and other fellow-laborers, carried on an open-air preaching in the Meadows, at which many hundreds nightly stood to hear the tale of the grace of God, yet few conversions were manifested.
The physical strain of this work, superadded to all my other labors at the moment, resulted in a complete physical break-down, and for fully twelve months thereafter, the Lord sent me into retirement, and preaching, I thought, was a thing forever gone by. This, however, was a mistake, for the Lord graciously put His healing hand upon my body, and, after a year or two, so restored my health that I was again enabled to take up the loved work of the gospel, the sweetest service that mortal tongue can render.
How good of the Lord, after a quarter of a century, to let one learn of this striking bit of fruit of the labor that nearly finished me. Truly the reward is well worth all the toil. Everlasting praise to His blessed name, who suffers His servants to preach, and then, “after many days,” shows them the fruit of their labors. Nor was this case a solitary one.
Remarkably enough a Christian young man, the same evening, told me he had, a week before, come across an old gray-headed woman, who had been converted six-and-thirty years ago, by a few words dropped by her bedside, when she was a patient, and I House Physician in the old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. The mention of her name recalled the person and the circumstances at once to my memory. Thirty-six years is long enough to test the reality of most souls. Reader, how long is it since you were converted?
The same evening, about ten minutes later, another brother in Christ stopped me, as I left the hall, to tell me of a conversion he had just come across. It was a young woman, who, twelve years before, had been brought to the Lord through the perusal of a little gospel booklet called, “God says I am saved.” ― the first I ever penned, and the most blessed of God to anxious souls.
These three incidents coming to my ears, all in one evening, were indeed very good cheer. The moral is very simple, and, with all the fervor of my soul, I would say to outdoor preachers, hospital-visitors, tract-writers, and tract-distributors,
GO ON WITH YOUR BLESSED WORK!
Sow the seed. Sow it in tears. Sow it prayerfully. Sow it constantly. The reaping day is sure to come, though you may wait twelve, twenty-five, or thirty-six years for it.
Keep your ears widely open to the Holy Spirit’s solemn injunction, “Be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:5858Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)).
Reader, if you are not yet saved, you had better lose no time in coming to Jesus. Trust Him, and He will save you on the spot. When saved, you too can serve Him, but not till then.
W. T. P. W.