Psalm 4:7 You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. 1. The joy in harvest is based on the successful result of labour. Labour is God's law, and obedience to it secures a result corresponding to the means used, and that result is a real blessing in the ratio in which God is recognised and honoured, by obeying Him in the law which He has enjoined. Spiritual blessings are only attained through spiritual means. How few men recognise, in God's ministration of natural plenty, a silent sermon on the passage, "He giveth all things richly to enjoy." A Christian looks upon a plentiful harvest, not simply as a pledge of cheaper bread, but as a mark of God's approval of the industry which wrought for this end. All industrious nations are thriving, though all are not God-fearing nations. 2. Joy in harvest commemorates the termination of solicitude, in reference to a favourable season for ripening and gathering in the crops. Scripture alludes to many of the trials and disappointments of the husbandman. There is a proverbial impatience and murmuring among tillers of the soil. A like impatience is not rare among some Christians. The harvest, as an annual ripening and realising of profit, should suggest annual inquiry into our own scale of personal maturity in the things of God. Has the past year yielded a good spiritual return for mental toil, and thought, and prayer, and the means of grace? 3. The joy of harvest reasonably includes the prospect of an adequate supply for our own and others' necessities. There is danger, as well as misery, m a public deficiency of the necessaries of life. The law and the loaf flourish best together. 4. The joy of an abundant harvest should stimulate us to renewed and enhanced confidence in God. If He thus blesses the labour of the field, doubt not He will bless every believer in his personal calling. (Joseph B. Owen, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.WEB: You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased. |
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