Psalm 97:11 Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Where are the fields that we may well say are sown by God's grace with happiness for us? Here is one field — the field of His Word. Ah! you may almost see the happiness here. Every promise of God has a secret meaning beyond what we as yet have learnt, and that hidden sense is full of happiness for the children of God. So it is with providence. Every event which can occur is sown with light for the faithful. It does not so appear; far rather the fields just now are very unpleasant to look upon; the water stands deep in those broad furrows; you cannot imagine there will ever be a harvest in a land so flooded with trouble, but wait a while. There is not a dying child or aa ailing wife, there is not a dishonoured bill, there is not a wrecked vessel, there is not a burnt house, there is not a single diseased bullock but what you shall see at the last, and perhaps before then, to have been full of real blessedness for you. There is not only mercy in God's dealings with His people in the gross, but in the detail. All the providence of God, far-reaching as it is, and extending from our cradle to our tomb, is full of the Divine intent that His children shall be blessed, and blessed they shall be. There is one little field called "God's Acre," which to some appears to be sown with much darkness, but is really sown with light — that sleeping place, the cemetery, where your loved ones lie beneath the sod. Yes, but they shall rise again, and so light is sown for you, even in the mouldering bones of your beloved children and friends. You would not have it otherwise, would you? Would you lose that seed? Imagine for a moment that it should never come up again from the sepulchre! Would not that grieve you beyond measure? It is your comfort to feel that these dry bones shall live, and all the band of those you loved so dearly who have gone from you for a while are not lost, but gone before. "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy." And what a happy meeting, what joyous greetings, what blessed reunions, when they meet to part no more! In that "God's Acre," then, in the many burials we have attended, light is sown for the righteous. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.WEB: Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. |
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