Ecclesiastes 11:1, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days.”
While, in the purity of its precepts, the inspired volume exceeds all other books upon the face of the earth—it excels all other compositions in the variety and richness of the images under which it exhibits our duty and urges the performance of it.
The image under which liberality is here inculcated is well understood in countries where the heat of the climate, uniting with periodical inundations, enables the gardener to proceed in a mode of agriculture unknown to us in the colder regions of the globe. In Egypt, for instance, where the Nile overflows the country periodically to a vast extent, it is common for men to cast their seed, their rice especially, upon the waters, while yet they are at a considerable depth. This might seem to be folly in the extreme, but experience proves, that, instead of losing their seed, they find it again, after many days, rising into an abundant crop.
Such shall be the return which we also shall find to our efforts, if we exert ourselves,
I. For the relief of men’s bodily needs—
Liberality to the poor is strongly insisted on in the Holy Scriptures. It is inculcated,
1. In a way of PRECEPT—
Exceedingly clear and strong were the injunctions which God gave on this subject to his people of old [See Deuteronomy 15:7-11.] So, under the New Testament dispensation, we are enjoined to “labor with our own hands.” And “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up,” for the purpose of relieving others [Ephesians 4:28. 1 Corinthians 16:2.] Nay, so obvious is this duty, that the man who lives not in the practice of it must be an utter stranger to the love of God in his soul [1 John 3:17.] For “if he loves not his brother whom he has seen, then how can he love God whom he has not seen? [1 John 4:20.]
2. In a way of EXAMPLE—
The good Samaritan shows us how we ought to exercise generosity, even towards those who, by reason of particular differences and distinctions, may appear to be most remote from us [Luke 10:33-37.]
The widow, in giving her mite, which was all that she possessed, might be thought to have acted an extravagant part, especially when she gave it for a purpose to which it could bear no proportion, namely, the repairing of the temple. Yet is that commended to us, by our Lord himself, as an example highly to be admired, and universally to be followed [Mark 12:42-43.]
As for the Macedonians, who were proposed as an example to the Corinthians, their generosity exceeded all belief: for when in great affliction, and in a state of deep poverty, they abounded unto the riches of liberality, and of their own selves, without any solicitation on the part of the Apostle, besought him with much entreaty to take upon him the distribution of their alms [2 Corinthians 8:1-4.] Nothing can give us a higher idea of the excellence of charity than this.
3. In a way of ENCOURAGEMENT—
God assures us, that “whatever we give to the poor, we lend unto the Lord; and that he will, in one way or another, repay us [Proverbs 19:17.] He will repay us, even in a way of temporal prosperity: for the giving of the first-fruits of all our increase to the poor is the way, not to empty our barns, but to fill them with plenty, and to make our presses burst out with new wine [Proverbs 3:9-10.]
Still more will he repay us in a way of spiritual prosperity; since, “if we draw out our soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, he will satisfy our souls in drought, and make fat our bones, and make us like a watered garden, or like a spring of water, whose waters fail not [Isaiah 58:10-11.]
Even with eternal rewards will he repay us, “recompensing, at the resurrection of the just,” the smallest services we have rendered his people [Luke 14:14], and not allowing “even a cup of cold water to be left without its appropriate reward [Matthew 10:42.]
I say then, with assured confidence in reference to this matter, “Cast your seed upon the waters; and you shall find it after many days.”
But we may understand our text as encouraging our exertions also,
II. For the advancement of men’s MENTAL improvement—
To this the same image is applied by the prophet Isaiah; who gives us this additional information, that people, previous to their casting of their seed upon the waters, send forth their oxen and their donkeys to tread the ground with their feet, in order the better to prepare the earth for its reception: “Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the donkey [Isaiah 32:20.]
Now this refers to the publication of the Gospel in every place, however untoward the circumstances, or hopeless the appearance. And we can bear witness to the truth of the prophet’s observation: for in many places, and on many hearts, where there has been as little prospect of success as could well be conceived, God has given efficacy to the word of his grace; and the handful of corn sown upon the top of the mountains has sprung up, so that the fruit thereof has shaken like the woods of Lebanon; and those of the city where it has been cast have flourished like the piles of grass upon the earth [Psalm 72:16.]
Charles Simeon