The duties of adversity and their reward.
I. THE DUTIES.
1. Submission. We are not required to yield before avoidable troubles; but finding some to be irresistible, we are to learn the wisdom and obligation of bending to them without further demur. The captains were no cowards; they had fought and had lost. Their resistance against the inevitable was a mistake; continued resistance after defeat would have been nothing but folly. Submission is much easier when we remember that the trouble is in accordance with the will of a God who is always wise, fair, and merciful,
2. Industry. Gedaliah advised the people to set to work at their regular avocations. "But ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels," etc. (Jeremiah 40:10). It is difficult for a dispirited, humiliated, poverty striken people to settle down to quiet, earnest work. Nevertheless, their duty and their happiness lie in their doing so:
(a) the fruits of their labour would be a beginning of a return to prosperity and wealth, and
(b) in the very exercise of work they would find a solace and a refreshment.
There is nothing so weak or so injurious as an idle brooding over trouble. Be up. and doing! And though the work is irksome at first, it will prove itself a great healer of distress.
II. THE REWARD.
1. A healthy influence over others. The example of the quiet condition of the remnant of Jews in their native country attracted fugitives to return from the neighbouring countries (Jeremiah 40:11). Their action was a confirmation of the wisdom of their brethren. A man's behaviour under great trial is keenly observed. If he do well then, he may be the means of influencing others as he can never influence them under ordinary circumstances. Thus he may find consolation for his sorrow in the enlargement of his service to his fellow men.
2. The successful issue of industry. The Jews reaped an unusually abundant grape and fruit harvest (Jeremiah 40:12). "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." If we complain and despair under distress, we have no right to expect a happy issue out of it. But patient endurance and diligent attention to duty may make us reasonably expect brighter days in the future. Borne with these accompaniments, trouble often reveals itself as less terrible than our fears. When distress comes, we imagine that it has blighted every tree in the orchard and every grape in the vineyard, and so we neglect what consolation we might have in those fruits of patient industry which might still be given to us. Let us remember that during the sad seventy years, and even just after the horrors of the Chaldean invasion, the Jews could gather "wine and summer fruits very much."