Too Anxious to Reap

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 7, 1871

Too Anxious to Reap.

An over-anxiety to see the result of their labor is a prevailing weakness of the professional ministry of our day. They seem to forget that sowing is the peculiar business of Christ's ministers; and though a Paul may plant and an Apollos may water, God must give the increase. Any increase gathered in any other way is not legitimate fruit—it is, to say the least, premature and unripe. "Sow thy seed in the morning, and in the evening withhold not thy hand"—no part of the day set apart for reaping. Men are too anxious to manifest great results of their labors—too anxious to number their host and thereby measure their strength and importance; so much so that they do not scruple to "gather where they have not strewn," and place the gatherings to their own credit. Better be patient, content in the humble calling of a sower, foregoing the praises and titles of men, bestowed upon those apparently the most successful. If the sower labors faithfully, and sows only the pure seed, it is none of his business about the result. He is not even responsible for the kind of ground it falls upon—whether by the wayside, in stony places, among thorns, or upon good ground—his reward is the same. Paul no doubt did his duty just as faithfully and acceptably when he preached without apparent result to the idle and curious Athenians as when he gathered a promising church at Corinth. God has only given the seed of the word into the hands of his ministers; he has never intrusted them with the sickle. "The harvest is the end of the world," when God will "send forth his reapers."—The Nazarene.