What can we learn from the farmer who waits for the early and latter rain (James 5:7)?

The farmer expects no crop until the seed has time to sprout and gradually grows and God designs this long waiting time as a picture of the long patience He has in dealing with us, so as to bring forth eventually the fruit that He seeks. And we too are to have the same patient character. It is God who sends the rain, whether early or latter, at the time of proper need, to bring it fruition the work of His grace. We cannot either hasten or delay it, so it is our wisdom to act in both faith and patience. It is this that leads to a true stablishing of the heart in sound, dependable characters and we are exhorted to this, for the coming of the Lord has drawn near.

My dear H-, I was very pleased to get your letter, and hear of the work of the Lord. For surely all real blessing must be His work, although carried on through human channels; and, alas! often spoiled because too much partaking of the channel. With regard to work I feel more and more the need of patience, and, as James says, "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain." He does not only plow and sow, but waits for the "early and latter rain." It would seem to indicate the absolute need of the Spirit's work between whiles, making good the plowing and the sowing, and so on. The intelligent husbandman knows what he is waiting for. With us, we are often able to discern that the plowing, sowing, and waiting have already been done, and we have only to reap. Other men have laboured, and we enter into their labours. Hasty work bears its character, and very unsatisfactory it always is. The souls themselves are damaged, and never seem to get over it; they carry the marks of it to the end of their days. They are also a great trial to other believers, and no testimony in the gospel; for they never had much plowing up themselves, and consequently make light of that very necessary part of good husbandry. If the preachers had more faith, I believe they would preach shorter and wait longer for the Spirit's work in the soul. Many things may tend to make us hurry souls to confession, but we lose by it in the end. For what do we hurry? The person to decision! What sort of decision? Intellectual! Not but what there may be a real work of God, but beyond that is only intellectual. This damages the soul seriously; and if you knew their subsequent history, you would find that either they continue to be satisfied with a semi-intellectual belief, or they get into darkness through having said more than they subsequently found to be true. Thus preachers are often responsible for very unsatisfactory conversions. This is the result of my own experience and observation as one who has cared for souls somewhat actively for about thirty years. Of course I cannot expect my younger brethren to see as I do, as they have not had the same experience; but I believe it is the experience of all old labourers who are accustomed to see their own work years after. For years I have always exhorted souls to confess to God first, and to man afterwards. I don't think any real soul would say more to God than was true; but in confessing to man they unconsciously say too much, and are unhappy afterwards, or else careless. In all this I see a need of faith in God, and a discerning that only that which is a work of His Spirit is any good. Everything else withers away in time. Young preachers are often much used in blessing which appears, but in this I see the goodness of God, leading them to such places where the Spirit is about to work, and perhaps has already begun. The plowing, the sowing, and waiting have already been done by others, so the newcomer has only the reaping to do. This shows results which the plowing, sowing, and waiting do not. The older servants can be set to that job as having some experience, for they know results come at the end, and not so much at the beginning. Thus we learn to keep the judgment-seat in view, and to talk very soberly about conversions. At the best I think we are poor judges. I dare say you know many old professors of whom you would have to say, I doubt if they were ever converted. I quite agree with you in the desire to be more spiritual; and then we read, "He that is spiritual discerneth all things."

Thus we need patience, that neither self-will nor weariness of the conflict should take possession of our souls; but in the confidence that the time God wills is best (for it is that which divine wisdom and His love for us have ordained) let us fix our affections on the Lord and on things above, because we wait for Him with desire of heart, with broken will, and unwavering faith, leaving His return to the decision of God. In fact we cannot retard it, but the heart has entire confidence in His love, assured that the Lord waits for us with greater love than we for Him, calm in confidence, patient in the wilderness journey. How sweet to wait for Christ - for the fulness of joy with Him! Thanks be to God, He says, "it is at hand."

Moreover, James draws two practical consequences from this expectation of the Lord. First, then we ought not to resist evil; the Just One did not resist. We must wait with patience, as the husbandman waits for the precious fruits of the earth, until he have received the early and the latter rain, the means which God uses to bring the fruit of harvest to perfection. The Christian should stablish his heart by this expectation, while passing through the troubles of this life, and the persecutions of the world, which is ever the adversary of the Lord.

142 Next, he warns the disciples against walking in a complaining and quarrelsome spirit, one toward another. If we are waiting for the Lord, the spirit is calm and contented, it does not get irritated with its persecutors; moreover, we bear with patience the ills of the desert, and resist evil as Christ resisted, suffering, and bearing wrongs and committing Himself to God. We are contented and quiet, with a happy and kindly spirit, for kindness flows easily from a happy heart. The Lord's coming will put everything right, and our happiness is found elsewhere. This is what Paul says in Philippians 4:5: "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand." Let us repeat it. How real, how mighty and practical, was this expectation of the Lord! What power it had over the heart! "The Judge standeth before the door."

(Vv. 7, 8). God is not indifferent to the wrongs of His poor people, nor to the rejection of Christ by the world. At present God does not generally show by any public intervention His care for His people. When He does intervene, it will be in judgment on the world. At present He is acting in grace, not willing that any should perish. For His public intervention we must await the coming of the Lord. To this time the Apostle refers when he says, “Be patient therefore, brethren, to the coming of the Lord.” In view of all that the Lord's people may have to suffer, these two things are pressed upon them: present patience and the immediate coming of the Lord. When the Lord comes, it will be manifest that God has not been indifferent to the sufferings and wrongs of His people. When He comes, tribulation will overtake those who have troubled them, and those who have been troubled will be brought into “rest” (2 Thessalonians. 1:6-10). In the meantime, God's people are called to exercise patience, like the husbandman who has to labour with “long patience”, waiting for the precious fruit of the earth. When He comes, His people will reap in heavenly blessings the precious fruit of their long patience. In view of the precious fruits we are going to receive, and the imminent coming of the Lord, the Apostle says, “Stablish your hearts.”

But he turns to others who are the sufferers, and to whom the word is an exhortation to patience until He comes who will set all things right. In all that which seems for themselves so vain, in the labor barren to themselves, and which yields nothing except to the hand of the oppressor, he would have them yet consider themselves as laborers for God, as husbandmen waiting for the precious fruit of the earth, which must receive the early and the latter rain before it can be harvested. Harvest there will yet be of another sort than they may now deem. They are to be patient, stablishing their hearts, for indeed the coming of the Lord has drawn nigh. They are to avoid the fretfulness which so easily results from just these things which call for patience. Those that are brethren in a common faith may even thus easily murmur against one another. It may be in view of the better lot that some may seem to have; but the Judge of all standeth before the doors, and for suffering and patience they may take as examples the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord; most blessed, surely, to have been such, yet they are the very types of those persecuted and wronged for that very speaking; and in the endurance which is thus called for, have they not seen the blessing? Did they not know of the endurance of Job; and in his case was not the end of the Lord seen, that indeed the Lord, spite of all that might seem contradictory to it, is "full of compassion, and pitiful"?

This prophecy was made over two thousand six hundred years ago. God had told the people plainly that pious conduct on their part would bring prosperity and safety. Israel, unlike Egypt, which was watered by the foot, that is, dependent on the river Nile and irrigation, was watered by the rain of heaven. If God gave bountifully the early and latter rain, prosperity was secured. If He withheld the rain, barrenness and sterility would be the consequence. Deuteronomy 11:10-17 brings this clearly before us.

If you turn to Deuteronomy 11:13-17, you will get light on the problem. There God promised the people that if they honoured Him, and kept His laws, He would give them a bountiful supply of early and latter rains, the early rains falling in autumn, the latter rains in spring. In a land dependent peculiarly on its rainfall, this was a necessity for its very existence. But if the people failed to obey God, turned aside from His laws and worshipped other gods, then the rain would be withdrawn. We read:

Before their entrance into the land, Jehovah by His servant Moses impressed upon the people that in the land itself they should render to Him their constant love and obedience lest the land, fertile though it was, should be stricken with famine (Deut. 11:1-17). In that picturesque passage, Moses described the land before them as a good land of plenty where they should "eat and be full"; Jehovah would in its season supply the indispensable rain, the "early" rain to prepare the soil for autumn sowings, and the "latter" or spring rain to swell the corn for ripening and harvest.

"Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord is at hand." He addresses in these words the believers, the suffering remnant amongst the unbelieving masses which attended the synagogue. They are to be patient and suffer in patience, without resisting. The coming of the Lord, which is mentioned twice in these verses, is His visible and glorious manifestation, the same which our Lord speaks of in Matthew 24:30-31. The first Epistle to the Thessalonians, which contains that unique revelation of the coming of the Lord for His saints, the resurrection of the holy dead and the sudden transformation of the living saints, to be caught up together in clouds to meet Him in the air (1 Thess. 4:13-18) had not yet been given. The mystery "we shall not all sleep but be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Corinth. 15:51-52), was then unknown. And let us note here, that this is one of the mysteries nowhere made known in the Old Testament.

James exhorts his suffering brethren to be like the husbandman who has to wait between the sowing time and the harvest. But here is another wrong interpretation. The latter rain of which James speaks has been foolishly interpreted as meaning a spiritual latter rain, another Pentecost. This is one of the star arguments of present day Pentecostalism with its supposed revival of apostolic gifts. The former and latter rain of which James speaks has no such meaning; it is purely the rainfall in nature. In Palestine there are two distinct rainy seasons, one in the spring, the other in the fall. (See Deut. 11:14.)