Haggai 2:17

How destructive hail is to the standing crops, beating out the precious grain onto the ground! How grateful we should be when the corn is spared such a terrible ruin! Let us offer thanksgiving to the Lord. Even more to be dreaded are those mysterious destroyers—smut, bunt, rust, and mildew.

These turn the ear into a mass of soot, or render it putrid, or dry up the grain, and all in a manner so beyond all human control that the farmer is compelled to cry, “This is the finger of God.” Innumerable minute fungi cause the mischief, and if it were not for the goodness of God, the rider on the black horse would soon scatter famine over the land.

Infinite mercy spares the food of humanity, but in view of the active agents that are ready to destroy the harvest, we are very wisely taught to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. The curse is abroad; we have constant need of the blessing. When blight and mildew come, they are chastisements from heaven, and people must learn to bear the rod, and him who has appointed it.

Spiritually, mildew is no uncommon evil. When our work is most promising, this blight appears. We hoped for many conversions, and behold, a general apathy, an abounding worldliness, or a cruel hardness of heart! There may be no open sin in those for whom we are laboring, but there is a deficiency of sincerity and decision sadly disappointing our desires.

From this, we learn our dependence upon the Lord and the need for prayer that no blight may fall upon our work. Spiritual pride or sloth will soon bring upon us the dreadful evil, and only the Lord of the harvest can remove it. Mildew may even attack our own hearts and shrivel our prayers and religious exercises. May it please the great Husbandman to avert so serious a calamity. Shine, blessed Sun of Righteousness, and drive the blights away.