IMPLEMENTS
N.T.Meek
This may be a rather obscure scripture, dear brethren, but in speaking one is assured of a sympathetic atmosphere. I was thinking of how the Spirit would facilitate the use of our energy to make it more resultful. This scripture contemplates the people of God in the land, which land was to be worked. And so it is; our inheritance is to be worked, what God has placed in the inheritance for our enjoyment is to be worked so that there is fruit, fruit for Himself and sustenance for us. I do not think that God ever intended that the tilling of the land, the land, was to be a mournful process. In fact the number of feasts that they had in the old economy was quite outstanding. God seems to suggest that the land would do well, it would repay very well any energy that was spent upon it. He had said to Adam "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Gen 3: 19) but you do not exactly get that impression when you think of the land where God was settling them, the land that was to be worked, the land that was to fill baskets with first fruits, the land that was to provide sustenance, blessing and enjoyment. You do not get the impression that to till the land was to be an unhappy occupation. And neither is it, dear brethren, if we transfer it to our own day. It is not intended to be an unhappy one. There is such a thing as the call of the land in a natural sense; persons get taken up with it. And so it is, I think, in a spiritual sense, that if you work in the area of the truth, the truth of God, if you think of the inheritance and what is available for you, what is described for you, if you think of your blessings, if you think of the features that God has in His mind for you, then you will find that as you work it the power of it and the pull of it increases.
But the difficulty in these verses was that there was no smith and the ploughshare and the other implements would get blunt. Then if the iron is blunt, as another scripture says (see Eccles 10: 10), you have to apply more strength, and then it may become exhausting. Now the Spirit takes the place of the smith, I suggest. The Spirit would facilitate us, would provide help for us in working the land, working the truth. Here they had to go to a Philistine; that is a poor thing if you have to go to the mind of a man to understand the Scriptures. Of course, you are thankful for learned men who can tell you what words mean in Greek and that kind of thing, but generally speaking, concordances and bible commentaries are not too much to be trusted as regards the truth. The great power to work the land easily lies in the Spirit of God; I am sure it is so. After all, He indited the Scriptures and He knows more about the land than anybody. He knows, so to speak, where the soil is loam and where it is clay or marl or chalk. He knows all about it, He knows the different areas; He will teach you, not only how deeply to set the plough, but also how to maintain an edge. The smith here is not forging, he is sharpening, he is the sharpening smith. It is one aspect of the smith, a particular aspect, and I would suggest to the brethren that it represents the Spirit who provides keenness so that the work is facilitated. Dear brethren, there is help. We may feel that we do not make too much progress in divine things, but there is help available. A smith is available, if one may say so reverently, to facilitate any turning over of the truth that you may engage in.
You think of the plough, and it refers to turning over the truth. Do you ever do that? It is intended that you should, it is intended that you should know how to use all these tools (I think there are six) and the plough is for turning over the truth. Elisha was a ploughman. You wonder about that setting where he was found ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, you wonder how sharp the plough was if twelve yoke of oxen were needed. But the Spirit is the great help. If you want to understand the truth you want to get underneath its surface. Someone remarked earlier as to a sign, what may be a pointer, what may have some significance. You want to get underneath what is on the surface. Anyone can read the printed page but can you turn the truth over? Can you see what is below the surface? Some of us can plough a little bit with a very shallow plough, but some can plough deeply. You need a very sharp plough to plough deeply, I would think. If you are going to set it down twelve inches, eighteen inches, if you are going to turn up the deep things, you will certainly need the Spirit of God to sharpen that plough. Think of how deeply the Lord set the plough in John 6. Who of us understands much about John 6? I suppose no one would set the plough or could plough so deeply as the blessed Lord Himself. We are reading John's gospel at home; sometimes we have four or five readings on one chapter and we often find we have not reached very far, certainly not exhausted it. You set it to the depth you can manage and yet you are conscious that there is always more. The Lord said in that chapter when some went away, "Does this offend you? ... It is the Spirit which quickens" (vv 61, 63). The Spirit makes the thing possible, He gives you the power, He gives you the understanding of it. It would be a worth while prayer to ask the Spirit to sharpen our spiritual perception, to deepen our apprehension, of what is in the truth of God.
And then it says "his hoe". Now the hoe is not a deep implement. I do not know much about these things but the hoe, as I understand it, does two things; one thing it deals with is weeds. Perhaps Paul used the hoe very skilfully when he wrote the Philippian epistle. He said "I exhort Euodia, and exhort Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord", chap 4: 2. You almost feel that the weed had gone, a growth that may have been developing there which would have been a blot on the fair inheritance. Paul was very skilful. It is a great thing to be able to cut cleanly, in that sense, with a sharp hoe. So one thing it does, I think, is to remove the weeds that tend to grow. They should never be there really; foreign thoughts that we may introduce, a skilful person with a sharp hoe can deal with them quickly. Another thing the hoe does is to keep the top surface of the land open, it produces what is called the tilth; that means that when, the rain comes the moisture goes through easily. Sometimes you see soil and the top surface has become baked hard, and when the rain comes, if there is any slope it will tend to run off; but with an open top surface the rain will run in and feed the roots. The hoe is surface cultivation, but it is much more easily done if the hoe is sharp. What I am trying to say, dear brethren, is that whatever activity you may engage in, and I trust you engage in something (I speak to myself, I trust I engage in some activity), whatever activity you engage in, you will find your work is much more rewarding if you rely on the Spirit. You can call on the Spirit's help as you are going to a reading, or are sitting in a reading and someone asks a question. Have you not known what it is to call on the Spirit's help? I am not saying that you need to leave it till then; I think it is a constant matter to have to do with the Spirit so that one's perception is kept sharp and one's service is effective.
And then it says "and his axe", That is quite a drastic implement, is it not? John the baptist used an axe and he used it well. But then we are to use an axe. It is the truth applied to oneself. "The axe is applied to the root of the trees", Matt 3: 10. I think it relates to feeling the edge of the word. Now the Lord speaks to us from time to time. Ministry is generally gentle, gracious, attracting us; it usually has that character, that element is in it, it speaks of Himself. If you think of the Lord, it must always have that element in it that is attractive. But then sometimes you are made to feel the meaning of the scripture, the edge of it. We used to speak a lot at one time, probably we used to overdo it, about the edge of the word, but the expression itself is quite a good one. The word of scripture and the word of ministry are meant to be effective. You read the scripture sometimes and the meaning of it comes home to you. I regard that as like the axe; not exactly that it cuts you down, but you are made to feel both the weight and the edge of it. An axe has weight, it is not like a hoe. An axe head has weight and it has an edge, and it is always much more effective if it is sharp and if the word is in the Spirit. Is it not so, dear brethren? One could take up the scripture, maybe one has done it, tried to take up a scripture and wield it with all one's might and main, and all one has done is to bruise the brethren. It is never intended that that should be. So one thinks largely of the axe as suggesting the meaning of the scripture brought home, the weight of it and the meaning of it brought to bear upon one. And if I am to do that, if I read the scripture, and if I come across a piece of scripture, I want the meaning of it to come home to me. It is all very well to say, Yes, that refers to Israel in a day to come. Well, that is good, there are lots of very interesting scriptures that refer to Israel in a day to come, but often you find if you think about it that it also has a bearing towards yourself, because it says that those things were written for our instruction.
And then it says "his sickle". The sickle is used for gathering in the crop, is it not? It is quite a skilled thing, I think, to gather in the crop without damaging it. Now, if you have ever used a scythe (the nearest I have ever got literally to using a sickle is to use a little scythe, a hand-scythe, for cutting the long grass), you will find it requires skill. If it is not sharp all you do is to bruise the crop. It needs to be sharp. Who was good at using the sickle in the scripture? You young people now, you think about it, who would you say was good at using the sickle? O, you say, the angel in Revelation. Yes, that is right. How clean a cut, dear brethren, in God's judgment! Now think of someone in the Old Testament. Persons in the Old Testament who I think must have been good at using the sickle were the men of Bethlehem in the book of Ruth. The reapers surely got the harvest in. Such was the state there dear brethren, and there was a servant over the reapers. And I think that servant, amongst other things, would ensure that the sickles were sharp, so the crop came in with the greatest facility. You are always working against time when you are harvesting, you have always an eye on the weather, because the aim is to gather it all in. A lot of expenditure might go into a person's life, a lot of preparatory work might be done, and it would be a sad thing if it was all going to be spoilt at the time of harvest. So in the wielding of the sickle we are getting nearer to the actual fruit. The sheaf of barley that was brought in needed to be gathered, it needed the application of the sickle; if it was to be a successful operation that sickle would need to be sharp. Sometimes you feel that you spend a lot of labour and you hardly gather anything. Might it be that the sickle is not sharp, you did not have to do enough with the Spirit? You did not ask Him. How skilful divine operations are! If the sickle is sharp you will be able to get a larger crop in a given time, you will find that you have embraced a larger crop, you have more thoughts, you have gathered more fruit. You can see the benefit, dear brethren, therefore, of having to do constantly with, and having recourse to, the blessed Spirit. The precious crop has grown, maybe of wheat or of barley, it has come up, there has been labour it has been watched, been cared for; it needs to 'be gathered, and gathered skilfully. Sometimes the final operations in a process become the most critical because the crop, the value of the crop is there, and all the labour that has already been expended on it.
And then it says "and the forks". I did have recourse to Dr Strong and his concordance. It seems to be a fork with three prongs that is spoken of here and the reading might be 'the hay fork'. Now the hay is also a crop, it is a crop for living creatures. Even in this day and age they still feed hay to the cattle. That hay needs to be turned over in the sun; that is one use for a hay fork. There is nothing like sweet hay: you get contented cattle if you feed them on the best hay. That hay has been out there and it has taken up the moisture and it has now been harvested and turned over in the sun. The farmers speak of contented cattle when the hay is sweet, when it was good hay the year before. It all involves skill. Who had to do with hay in the scriptures? Sometimes I wish these addresses were like a school class and you could ask somebody! At school a teacher never asks those who he thinks will know. You try and ask those on the back row because you find that the more difficult ones usually get to the back of the class. I am not saying anything about you dear sisters. Pardon me, you probably know a lot more than I do, but who had to do with something like hay in the Scriptures? Start at Genesis if I give you a clue, did anyone there say anything about hay? I do not think so actually, but there was a sister there who said something about provender, was there not? Do you know her name? I think she may have gathered it. She says "There is straw, and also much provender with us; also room to lodge", Gen 24: 25. You know who it is now, do you not? It is good to think about the Scriptures; as we said at the commencement, this is a somewhat obscure passage. But if you begin to think about a scripture for a while, and then think of other scriptures, you find that the thing begins to come together. And Rebecca said "There is straw, and also much provender with us". O, that is good, is it not? "Also room to lodge". Those camels that had made the long journey across the wilderness found provender. In some sense, dear brethren, we are like the living creatures. After all, there should be some element of an ox with us patient, steady; there should be some element of a camel too that can go through the wilderness and be independent of what is around, because we have the Spirit within. So these implements that handle this provender need to be kept in the best shape. In one sense, I suppose, I am the implement myself. It is a question of whether the Spirit is sufficient. And, dear brethren, the Spirit is sufficient for entry into the truth. How sad it is that all around, alas, things have come down to the mind of man to sharpen this and to sharpen that.
Then it says, "to set the goads". Now who set the goads? Who was able by the Spirit to set the goads? Well, you have thought about Paul at once, have you not? As soon as you heard the word "goads" he was the first one you thought about. Perhaps Stephen was one who knew how to set goads. And Paul was made to feel their keenness. They were not intended to damage him, it was the truth coming into his conscience, some divine impress, something coming in that actually affects you and you cannot remove it. The Lord said to Paul "It is hard for thee to kick against goads", Acts 26: 14. At one time certain ones of Cilicia and other places disputed with Stephen (see Acts 6: 9). Paul came from that area and I have often wondered whether those early pricks that he had, began when he realised that someone had something that he had not. Although he knew the law, he saw in the spirit of Stephen something that he had never had and this remained with him. How skilful you would need to be to set goads. They are just intended to urge you onward, to keep you going. Dear brethren, I would not willingly damage the saints, I trust not. One is conscious as one looks back on one's own history, of times when one may have been almost prepared to damage the saints because I thought something drastic was needed. One would not like to do that, but one would like to urge the saints on, not to hurt them. I think Stephen was one who knew how to set goads in that sense. What a beautiful spirit he exhibited, did he not? Perhaps the greatest goad that he ever set for Paul was the way that he died.
There have been hunters, men of the world, unchristian men, who have given up hunting as a result of seeing the look of a dying animal. Have you ever thought of Stephen's face? What an impression it must have made upon Paul! Now you cannot, dear brethren, exactly work up to these things, but it is possible, I think, by the Spirit to set, in that sense, goads, so that the saints are kept moving on.
Well, these things are just submitted to the brethren as food for thought. The overall impression one has is that if we are going to work the inheritance we need the Spirit's help. You want to be clear of the mere mind of man, but the Spirit will make your service and your work effectual, firstly in yourself, and then it may extend to others. May each of us be helped in our measure, for the Lord's Name's sake.
DORKING
24 June 1978