“Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honored.”—Proverbs 27:18.
In Solomon’s day every man sat under his own vine and fig tree, and there was peace throughout the whole country. Then, God’s law about dividing out the land among the people so that every man had his own plot was rightly observed, and each one had a fig tree of his own to which he gave his personal attention; and in due time, having waited upon the fig tree and kept it, he ate the fruit thereof. Solomon says in another place, “In all labor there is profit;” and it is well when men feel that it is so, for then they will be inclined to labor. A man would not long keep a fruitless fig tree. If he was quite sure that no fruit would be the result of his toil he would leave the tree to itself, or else he would say “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?”
There were some men in Solomon’s day who for divers reasons became servants to others—as there still are and always must be —and they looked for some return from their service; and the wise man here tells them that just as “whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof, so he that waiteth on his master shall be honored.” It is a commonplace truth that those who are faithful servants ought to be honored; I wish in these times this matter was more often thought of, and that men did honor those who are faithful to them. There are some people who permit others to minister to their comfort, but it never occurs to them to provide for the comfort of their servants. They will allow a man to spend most of his life in increasing their business, and yet when he is getting old, he is discharged and left to perish by starvation so far as they are concerned. I notice this kind of thing frequently with very much regret, and I am not always able to make exceptions on behalf of Christian masters. Far from it sometimes; they seem only to recollect their business and to forget that they are Christians, and they act as cruelly as did that Amalekite in David’a day, who left his servant to die because he was sick. I pray that the time may come when there shall be so good an understanding between all men that Solomon’s words shall be true: “he that waiteth on his master shall be honored.” I am sorry that they are not always true in that sense now, but I am going to leave that literal meaning of the words and apply the text to those who wait upon the Lord Jesus, having made him to be their Master; for most certainly as surely as he who keeps the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof, even much more certainly shall those who wait upon our great Master in heaven find a sweet return from their service, for they shall be honored by him. Very simple will my talk be, and you beloved, who are his servants, do not want anything else I am sure.
I. The first observation is that our Lord Jesus Christ is our Master.
He said to his disciples after he had washed their feet, “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” Is it so with you, dear friends? Let conscience answer the question. Is Jesus Christ really Master and Lord to each one of us? It is a wonderful way in which he does master us if we are indeed his servants. I can never forget how in my own case it came to pass that I, who had been bought with his precious blood and therefore belonged to him, had yet lived forgetful of his claims. He passed by and looked on me, and that very look made me go out to weep bitterly. But he did more; he laid his hand on me—it was a pierced hand—and from that day I had a twist in my understanding and my judgment; those who knew me saw that something extraordinary had happened to me which had altogether changed me. From that time I thought very little of men, and very much of One whom until then I had despised; many of my former pursuits ceased to have the slightest charm for me and I had for my one pursuit the desire to do everything to his honor and glory. From that twist I have never been able to escape and I have never wanted to do so; from that mystic influence which he cast over me I have never come forth; and what is more I trust I never shall. I know that I am describing many of you as well as myself. Oh! did he not master you from head to foot! If you are really converted it was not the conversion of the feelings only, or the intellect only; it was the subjugation of everything within you to that sweet power of his. You were quite broken down; you had no strength to stand up against him any longer; and the joy of it was that you had not any wish to do so. When he was about to fix the chains of his love upon you, you held out your hands saying, “Here Lord, bind my wrists;” you put forth your feet crying, “Place the fetters here also.” You asked him to cast a chain around your heart; you made a covenant with him and agreed to be bound all over, for that part of you which was unbound you reckoned to be enslaved, and only that which he did bind you considered to be free. When he had so mastered us we longed to lie forever at his feet and weep ourselves away; or, we wished to sit forever at his feet and listen to his wondrous words and learn his blessed teaching; yet we also wanted to run about the world on his errands; it mattered not to us where he might send us, we would not make any choice of our sphere of service if he would but employ us; that would be all we would ask. We wanted then to have a dozen lives and to spend them all for him. Ay, we remember singing—
Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing My great
Redeemer’a praise!
We said—and we meant it—
Had I ten thousand hearts, dear Lord, I’d give
them all to Thee;
and we did give ourselves up wholly to our Lord. We could not help doing so. We were carried right away as when a mountain torrent comes, removes the earth from the young tree that is growing by the river side, and gradually undermines it until the tree falls into the stream and the current sweeps it on and on and never lets it rest again, but bears it right down to the sea. So was it with us that blessed day when first we knew that we could call Christ “Master and Lord.”
Brethren, our Lord Jesus Christ has so completely mastered us that now, to-day, he is our sole Master. It is not always a thing to ennoble a man when he is able to call another person his master; but we feel that the more fully we are mastered by Christ the better will it be for us; and the more absolutely we can become his servants, the more noble and honored shall we be. In many passages of Scripture where our translation uses the term “servant”, the true word is “slave”; and I think the time has come when we had better speak of it as it ought to be, that we may learn the full force of the expression. We do not mean that there is any cruel slavery of Christ’s people to himself; but we do mean that just as much as the slave completely belonged to his master to do his master’s bidding, to live or die at his master’s will, so have we given ourselves up unto Christ; he has become our sole Master. There are others who struggle for the mastery over us, but no man can serve two masters. He may serve two rival powers—one struggling against the other for a while—but they cannot both be masters; only one can be supreme within the spirit. In this way Christ has become so completely the believer’s Master that sin shall not have dominion over him, and he shall not be any longer under the domination of Satan. Christ is the Master of all his people, whatever happens to them. We may wander like sheep but Christ is still our Shepherd, and he will bring the straying sheep back—for they are still his property even when they are wandering away from him.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”