THE HAND ON THE PLOW
By D. M. PANTON, B. A.
"The field is the world" (Matt.
13: 38); and our Lord isolates a
single man, plowing, as a photograph of every
Christian disciple in active service in the whole field of the world.
The world is to be plowed with the furrows of God;
every believer starts with his hand on the plow; the
furrow is to hold the seed, and to produce the harvest; and the far-off goal
of the plowing is the [millennial] Kingdom.
It is a glorious summons to us all to plow. Our
Master is worthy of the very best we can give: the perishing, dying world is
calling for our pity and our help*: our uttermost devoted to God brings the
fullest joy, and beyond are the 'many cities'
of wider service in the coming Kingdom. The simplest believer of
either sex is set to plow somewhere in the field, and
can plow the richest furrow.
[* Second Advent truth, cannot bring
initial
salvation [i.e., 'eternal life'] to the
lost. Eternal salvation is found by faith alone in the Person of
Jesus Christ, (John 3: 16; Acts 4: 11, 12; Eph.
2: 8, 9.)]
THE HAND
Exactly
what the hand is which is placed on the plow the
man's words have already shown. "I will
follow thee, Lord" (Luke 9: 61):
it is the direct, personal prayer to Christ of a saved soul; he has
believed Jesus to be the Lord; and in that vital prayer he has acknowledged all
that the Lord is - the Son of God
demanding our discipleship; and he has devoted himself simply to following
Jesus Christ. Instantly he becomes an engaged plowman
in the service of God. A whole world of activity opens before him; his
task is to dig open the soil of the
human heart to the Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the World, and then to
plant it with the Word of God. A straight, rich furrow imagination
can see lying between him and the far horizon: that hand has gripped the
highest.
INDECISION
But
now some additional words in the man's prayer reveal a sudden danger. A plowman's double duty is to have his hand on the plow and his gaze fixed on some object ahead by which he
can drive a straight furrow.* "But first
suffer me," this man says, "to bid
farewell to them that are at my house." Un-inflamed by the red-hot earnestness of
Christ, and the terribly imperative nature, the awful urgency, of the summons
to plow for God, he
suggests postponing his service; and hopes that Christ will agree. To
"follow Christ", as this man had not
only resolved to do, but had told the
Lord he would do, is as great in its
cost as it is magnificent in its opportunity: it means the severance of
old and strong ties; exposure to hatred and possible violence; a lonely
walk. Therefore the home behind, to which he wishes to bid
farewell, is full of danger. The farewell at home has been, in countless
cases, a farewell to Jesus.
[* The
concentration required a recent competition shows. 'All the morning
these fields were the centre of interest. Friends and relations gathered
on the headland opposite the plowman of their choice.
Every man worked his grim earnest. He looked at his rean,
to his crop, and, satisfied or not, to his initial entry. One man saw
that his furrows were not packed closely enough, another that his gathering
widened slightly, and another that his slitting might not work out
evenly. The face of the field changed; pale, dry soil gave place to moist
red earth. The teams moved up and down, brasses flashed in the sunlight,
steel hames glittered against the fresh black polish
of the collars. Here eight white hocks were moving in unison, there a
pair of white faces showed up across the reddening field. The rise and
fall of the land was emphasised by the curving line of the furrows.']
THE FACE
So
the Lord introduces a new feature into the photograph: the plowman's
hand is on the plow, but his face is turned back; and
the Lord's comment in his interviewer's words is this: "No man, having put his hand to the plow,
and looking back, is fit for the
Kingdom of God." Looking back means that the plowman's eyes are off the plow;
and therefore either that he is not plowing, or else
that he is plowing anyhow - with certain disaster
ahead: ground chopped by a blind plow cannot be
sown. Our Lord Himself, in this very chapter, had extraordinarily
illustrated His own words. "When the days were well nigh come that he should be received
up, He steadfastly set his face to go to
THE BACKWARD LOOK
It
is most significant that this man, though looking back, still has his hand on
the plow: it is a disciple still in
the active service of Christ, and to all appearances a devoted servant
of God. What does the backward look mean experimentally? Have we
not all felt moments when every fibre of our being called us back? The furrow we are driving is so narrow; the
Christless philosophies of the world are so comforting and wide - aye, and so
remunerative; the ground we plow is so hard and
stony; the Christian service is so solemn, and the refusing of fleshly and
worldly desires so stern. But
there can be no martyr's crown without martyrdom: we can never win the 'well done' unless we unremittingly do well.
"If he" - my 'righteous
one,' a truly saved soul -
"shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him"
(Hebrews 10: 38). "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, - this
man had said, 'I will follow thee, Lord'
- "shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will" - the
flawless furrow - "of my father which is in heaven" (Matt. 7: 21).
BUT
One
little word which the man uses is charged with infinite meaning; an ominous, treacherous word, that can undermine the best
resolves and ruin the fairest prospects. "I
will follow thee, Lord; but".
I will follow thee, Lord; but - not yet. I will follow thee,
Lord; but - my employment will be endangered. I will follow thee, Lord; but - Christians expect me to be too strict. I will follow thee,
Lord; but - I cannot accept the whole Christian creed. I will follow
thee, Lord; but - I cannot obey all thy commands. The dangers lurking in the backward
look Bishop J. C. Ryle
has stated in tragic words; "I can certainly
testify, after sixteen years' ministry, that by far the most hopeless deathbeds
I have attended have been those of backsliders. I have seen such persons go out of the world
without hope, on whom every truth and doctrine and argument
appeared alike thrown away. They seem to have lost the power of feeling,
and could only lie still, and despair." God will flash upon a
soul its magnificent duty, a privilege that angels must envy: a sermon will
pass like a spasm of thunder over a soul: that soul goes home, it sees the
frowns, it hears the sobs, it listens to the entreaties - and then it
turns its back upon the golden furrow to the Kingdom. For
merely looking back God's lightning’s turned
THE KINGDOM
Our
Lord finally states the consequence of the backward look for the Christian
disciple. "No man, having put his hand to
the plow, and looking back, IS FIT FOR THE KINGDOM
OF GOD." The
OUR RESOLVE
It
is of the richest significance that the Gospel urgently so far exceeds any
urgency under the Law that our Lord forbids the very thing Elijah allows.
"Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother
and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go" (1Kings 19: 20). Ours is rather the golden
resolve of Paul. "One thing I do, forgetting
the things which are behind" - with not one backward look -
"and stretching forward to the things which are
before, I press on toward the goal unto THE PRIZE of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3: 13).
Bishop Hannington
died a martyr's death, and all martyr's will be in the
Kingdom (Rev. 20: 4). "How I dread my ordination!" he wrote, in his
early years. "I would willingly draw back;
but when I am tempted to do so, I hear ringing in my ears - 'No man, having put his hand to the plow,
and looking back, is fit for the
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