Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
The present seed-sowing, decisive of the future harvest
And I suppose, that nature is full of spiritual instruction, in all its subdivisions and departments, if we had but an eye to see it. And for anything I know, it may be as much the purpose and design of God, to teach us by all the objects and operations in His world and in His works round about us, as it was the object and design of God to teach us by the furniture and all the preparations of the Hebrew sanctuary. Our Lord frequently adverted to the harvest.
I. And first, then, for the sentiment and doctrine, which the text contains. I think that the text necessarily carries out our thoughts to the future life. If we sow to the Spirit, we shall “of the Spirit reap life everlasting;” which can, as it seems to me, have no reference to the existing economy of things, where every object around us is transient and perishing and passes away. And if “sowing to the Spirit,” leading to a harvest of “life everlasting,” directs our view to the future world, then “sowing to the flesh,” involving in it “corruption,” must also necessarily relate to the future life; the two being parallel to each other, both must have reference to the result of good and evil actions in the world to come. What is “sowing to the flesh?” By “the flesh” understand, not the body as in contradistinction to the mind; but understand depravity as in opposition to holiness. They will “reap corruption.” That which is defiled, that which is worthless, that which is filthy, that which is abominable--corrupted in body, corrupted in mind, corrupted in associates--all the corrupt deeds of the guilty past, of the unforgiven, unrenovated, human population, concentrated, amassed for them. A harvest of corruption. Let me turn, therefore, to the other question, respecting “sowing to the Spirit.” And the “sowing to the Spirit,” again, here, is the same thing with bringing forth “the fruits of the Spirit,” of which we read in the foregoing chapter. But of the principle, of the fact, of the truth, we have the deepest certainty--that as we “sow to the Spirit,” we shall “reap life everlasting.” And this notwithstanding the time, be it what it may, longer or shorter, more or less, which may intervene between the period of the sowing and the period of the reaping. In the ease of the natural harvest, as you are aware, there is a considerable period intervening. But I think that time has respect purely and exclusively to man, and not to God at all. Neither does it matter how entirely the sowing of the seed may have been forgotten. It does not appear that the memory of the husbandman has any influence whatever upon the seed sown. There it is; it takes root, germinates, buds, comes to perfection, whether he remembers and thinks of it or does not. Now we know nothing of man’s memory. We cannot explain what man’s memory is; we do not know how it was created, or in what manner it acts; we can give no explanation of the diversities of memory--why is it that one man’s memory retains clearly all things, and another man’s memory is like a sieve which lets all things through; we cannot tell how this is, or why this is. But in the future life memory may be a perfected capacity; so that, as I have intimated, all things may be as fresh and vivid, as powerful and direct upon the spirit, as if no time had intervened whatever. Therefore, though there maybe a non-recollection now, an utter forgetfulness of what kind and manner of seed we may have sown for the last seven years, or the last twenty years, this is no proof whatever against the principle of the text--that the seed has been sown, and that the harvest will be reaped, and that when the harvest is reaped, either for good or for evil, we may have brought powerfully to our recollection the seed that has been sown. Neither is it of any consequence, that we cannot understand the nature of the connection between the process of the sowing of the seed and the coming of the harvest. If you saw a man casting seed into the soil, and were not perfectly acquainted with the probable result--if you or I were not acquainted with the fact, that the seed-time always precedes the harvest, we should think the man was throwing the seed away; we should ask--“What is he doing? he is casting his bread into the ground.” But we know what he is doing. Yet we do not understand any one of the principles, which bring to pass the harvest in connection with the seed sowing; we only know the fact. And exactly in the same manner, though I cannot explain what is the nature of the thing, or what are the manifold causes which are at work and in operation so as eventually to evolve a harvest of glory or of corruption, yet as I see the close connection subsisting in the one case in nature, why should I doubt an equally close or a stronger connection in morals, when I have reason on my side and God’s Word declares it? And I think, the principle to which I have now adverted, which is the resurrection of character, the re-appearance of our moral actions, stands in close connection with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. I believe, as I have said, from Scripture, that there is to be a resurrection of man’s body; but that is comparatively a mere small matter. Suppose it be a resurrection of the body in glory; well, let the body in glory stand by itself, alone in its glory, what is it?--(I mean, without its mind, and without its character and these transactions.) What is it? A statue, that shines and glitters; that is all. A statue; nothing but a statue., You must have the mind; not the mere intellect--you must have the moral state and condition; you must have the virtues, with which the mind is endued and ingrained; you must have the achievements, if there are any--or the softer and milder emanations of moral beauty, if there is nothing that is great and grand.
II. Now I have to state, secondly and more briefly, the evidence and authority by which it is sustained. And I might remark, it is God’s ordinance--God’s constitution. It is His arrangement and His pleasure; and we can even see wisdom and reason in it. The connection between seed time and harvest is of Divine constitution. All that we see in the processes of nature round about us, from the one period to the other, is of Divine arrangement and according to the will of heaven, The elements work, all the agencies and causes are in action, under the presidency and direction of the unerring and infinite Mind. The connection by man cannot be destroyed. God’s ordinance by God will be carried into effect. So it is in morals. It is certain; it is irresistible; it will be triumphant. The sower to the flesh shall reap his corruption; the sower to the Spirit shall reap life everlasting. Secondly, this is plainly revealed to us in Scripture. We have it in various other forms, besides that of the passage which is now before us. There is the parable of the talents. And, thirdly, I observe, that it is sustained by the justice and fidelity of God. Without this, there is no explanation of the exceeding mysteries of the Divine providence. Hereafter good is to have its day--justice its day. It is the day of God. Now, he says, “they call the proud happy;” now they say that those who blaspheme God are in honour; then--hereafter--“shall ye discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.” There are various kinds and degrees of vice and virtue, According to the kind and according to the degree, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Not only according to the quality and the degree, but the quantity. And I think the text implies the principle of reproduction. The seed produces itself over and over again. And the principle of multiplication is seen in a vicious action or in a vicious principle. It existed and was manifested in you; it may be copied--re-produced--in your sons and in your daughters; and it may go on from them illimitably. Or it went forth from you and took root in society; and it went on, and reproduced itself in its own unslightliness and enormity over and over again. Or take the other view of it. There is a virtue and an excellency in you; it reproduces itself; it is seen in your family, it shines in your sons and your daughters; it is copied; it reproduces itself in your circle; it goes on to posterity; no man can tell where it goes, any more than a man can tell what will be the result and produce of a handful of corn planted upon the top of the mountains. And this principle of reproduction I hold to be one of the greatest importance, and consolatory in the highest degree to good men. It is what is intended in Scripture by “the dead yet speaking;” because their thoughts and their actions go on. Especially note the influence of it in the compositions of wise and holy men--such men as Owen, and Howe, and Baxter, and Jeremy Taylor, and Bishop Hall; view their thoughts, their character, their writings, re-produced over and over again, till nobody knows to what extent they scatter the principles of truth. And on the other hand, the principle is terrific in respect to vice. Take up such a writer as Hobbes, Voltaire, Hume, Lord Byron; think of the mischief done by such men, the evil which comes over and over again--the seeds of pestilential doctrine, the mischief of bad and malign passions, over and over again. Yes; reproduction--multiplication--again and again. A harvest of evil, a harvest of corruption--a harvest of good, a harvest of glory--in the life that is for ever and ever. So it will be.
III. The danger of our being deceived. “Be not deceived.” What is the danger? Why, the heart is very deceitful, “deceitful above all things;” and there may be reasoning, very acceptable but very delusive, that men may indulge in sin and yet escape any punishment--that they may not serve God and yet arrive in heaven. I find Scripture, in several emphatic places, giving this caution--the caution “not to be deceived” in connection with the indulgence of sin. If this be true, what importance attaches itself to our dally life! You rise in the morning, and go through the day; you are sowing seed of some kind or other. You rise without God, live without Christ, go up and down among men unjust, a thundercloud, hating, angry, backbiting; what are you sowing? You rise in the morning; your first thoughts consecrated to God; you come into your family, meek, gentle, bland; among men, just, upright, good, generous; what seed are you sowing? See; the harvest you shall reap in the world to come. (J. Stratten, M. A.)
Christian liberality
The metaphor of seedtime and harvest, although capable of an almost universal application, is primarily applicable to the principle of Christian liberality, and the earnestness of St. Paul’s admonition finds its probable explanation in an allusion in 1Co_16:1 : “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given Order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.” He had at his former visit urged them to contribute to the support of their suffering brethren of Judea; but Gallic avarice was proverbial. And is it not reasonable to suppose that the messenger who had brought the apostle word of their defection from the faith, reported also unfavourably of their liberality? Hence his strong statement concerning sowing and reaping; hence his earnest exhortation to support their teachers, to do good unto all men. And surely, brethren, the money test is one of the truest tests by which the genuineness of a man’s religion can be tried. It was the money test which our Lord applied to the rich young ruler, and from which he shrank; it was the money test which proved too much for Achan and Gehazi in the Old Testament, for the Apostle Judas, and for Ananiss and Sapphira in the New. And the money test has not, I believe, lost its practical value now. The love of money is the root of as much evil in England as it was in Gallatia or Judea; it is equally now as then a lust of the flesh which needs greatly to be crucified. Show me a liberal and large-hearted man--one whose delight it is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked; a generous, ungrudging, cheerful giver. His creed may possibly be defective, his knowledge limited; yet surely it may be said of such an one, that he is not far from the kingdom of heaven; for is it not promised that “if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.” But let a man be close and miserly in his habits--more ready to hoard than to give--one that knoweth to do good, but doeth it not--then, however accurate his creed, however strict and orthodox his profession, he lacks surely the vitality of grace; he has a name to live, but is dead. All separation between knowledge and action is ruinous and enfeebling, and faith in Christ as dying for us is worth little, unless there be also faith in Christ as living in us … There is no alternative between sowing to the spirit and sowing to the flesh. No middle course is possible. The policy of inaction, whilst the great contest between good and evil is raging around us, is nothing else than the policy of selfishness, and many a life, which drifts along in amiable, aimless inactivity, is just as truly a sowing to the flesh as is the life of the most abandoned. According to the context, the man who soweth to his flesh is he who spends upon himself that which he ought to spend upon others--the niggardly Galatian who neglects his Christian teacher, or the poor saints at Jerusalem, that he may hoard or squander his gains--the professing Christian of every age who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God. It is in such things that self-deception is so easy. The profligate, the drunkard, or the murderer cannot doubt for a moment how he is sowing: his works of the flesh are manifest. But the man of Christian profession may conceal his selfishness beneath such a veil of devout behaviour as to deceive others, and perhaps himself. Hence the warning of the apostle--“Be not deceived; God is not mocked.” If Christ would have His followers count the cost of becoming His disciples, He would have all men count the cost of serving sin, whether in its grosser or in its more polished form; He would have no man cheat himself into believing that a life of self-indulgence, however amiable and engaging it may be, can issue in aught but ruin. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
The danger of self-deception
Man is both deceitful and deceived; and being so, it is difficult to undeceive him. We have also to do with a deceitful enemy. Moreover, everything around us is deceitful. Riches are so. Favour is deceitful. The heart also is deceitful. Sin also is said to be deceitful; and there is therefore great need of the caution in the text--“Be not deceived.”
I. Consider some of the instances in which we are liable to be deceived. Men in general have mistaken apprehensions of the character of God. We are also much deceived about our fellow-creatures. We call the proud happy, and regard the poor as miserable: we despise those whom God honours, and applaud those whom He condemns. But, above all, we are in danger of being deceived about ourselves.
1. Those are certainly deceived who entertain lessening apprehensions of the evil of sin, saying of this and the other transgression of God’s holy law, as Lot did of Zoar, “Is it not a little one? and my soul shall live.”
2. Those are deceived who think that the wrath of God against sin is represented in too strong a light.
3. Those who amuse themselves with the hope of a death-bed repentance, are in danger of being deceived.
4. Those who flatter themselves with the idea of safety, while they continually expose themselves to danger, are under great deception.
5. Those are awfully deceived who think their state to be good when it is really otherwise. Many imagine that they are justified and pardoned when they are in a state of wrath and condemnation.
II. Consider the evil and danger of self-deception.
1. It leaves us in a state of painful uncertainty. Those who are under the power of it will still be in suspense, and never attain to full satisfaction: they will be continually fluctuating between hope and fear, neither enjoying the pleasures of sin nor the contentments of piety.
2. Remember, God cannot be deceived. He knoweth them that are His, and them that are not so.
3. Those who are deceived will one day be undeceived, and that perhaps when it will be too late.
4. Self-deception discourages from the use of means. Those who fancy themselves safe and right, though they have the greatest need of a Saviour, are not likely to apply to Him.
5. Present deception will aggravate future misery. None sink so deep in hell as hypocrites and self-deceivers.
Hence we may learn--
1. The necessity of self-examination.
2. The advantage of a soul-searching ministry.
3. When we have examined ourselves, and have been tried by others to the utmost, still there is a need to prostrate ourselves before the throne, and to pray with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts!” (Psa_139:23-24). (B. Beddome, M. A.)
The reward of the work
“Whatsoever”--both in kind and in degree. The law runs through all creation, from the natural up to the supernatural life--from the world of sensation to the world of spirits--from this earthly existence to life eternal. The what and the how much are proportionate. The wheat-seed comes not up as barley, and the scanty sowing sends not forth an abundant harvest. The acorn comes not up as the sycamore, nor does the orange seed produce the fig-tree. Each has its own crop. What we put into the earth, that we know will come back to us after many days. Or rise into the world of man. Here the same law obtains. What man labours for, that he for the most part achieves. What man labours for, that he achieves, and in proportion to his labour. The years given to intellectual study do not produce the athletic champion of his country. These form the student. The keen politician does not find his meed in the peace and retirement of a learned leisure. Each man works to an end; and the appropriate end for which he works, that he obtains. He gets his own reward, and not another’s. Now let us go a step further. We have found this great law of God pervading physical and intellectual life--does it extend into the spiritual life? The text gives us the answer--“God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” The law of the natural harvest, of the intellectual harvest, of the spiritual harvest, is one; and that law is the law, so universal, so all-encircling, that the heathen in their blindness supposed it a Deity--Retribution.
I. The life of the flesh. There is a gross sowing to the flesh in the indulgence of the carnal desires of the flesh in their coarsest form. Not only is there retribution here, but retribution in its most evident form. The man who lives for the purpose of indulging his passions does so with effect. He makes a science of sinning. The whole powers of his mind are bent upon compassing his desires, and by the great law of life, he succeeds beyond other men. Occasions of evil, by an inscrutable mystery, present themselves to him beyond others. Success attends his efforts in evil, as we see in the luck which attends the incipient gamester. He has good fortunes (as another nation terms such offences) in his iniquity. He reaps the meed of the care, and thought, and time, and money he has expended upon his favourite faults. But this very harvest is--corruption. The very success is ruin. Linked as cause and effect with the fortunate perpetration of sin comes the destruction of all the aspiring part of man. And what is the condition of things when this fearful degeneracy has budded and flowered and brought forth its fruit in the world to come? What a sight will it be in the sunlight of the new creation to behold the haggard, scowling, bloated features of the victim of past sin; how fearful will it be to fix our eyes upon those hardened and deformed lineaments in which weakness and brutality, coarseness and emaciate sickliness in marvellous combination, alike have their part and portion. But what will this be to the state of their souls? The measure of iniquity has been fulfilled; not one unit from the full sum of absolute degradation is wanting,--the natural powers have been perverted--the spiritual ones are lost, gone for ever, or only exist in the increased responsibility which attends them, and nought remains but the full measure of the fruits of sin--the pain of the loss of God’s presence--the agony of the undying worm, inextinguishable despair, and absolute hatred of God.
II. The life of the Spirit. He that sows to the Spirit shall also reap, both in degree and in kind. In degree he will reap in proportion. He that soweth sparingly, shall reap sparingly; and he that soweth plentifully shall reap plentifully. A scanty obedience will produce a scanty reward: scanty, both here and hereafter; scanty in the graces and comforts accorded by the blessed Spirit of God as the consolation of our pilgrimage here below; scanty, alas! also in the jewels of our eternal crown. A plentiful sowing on the other hand will produce its proportionate harvest. For everything done for Christ we shall have our own reward; and in the degree that we work for Him so shall that reward be. The same law of retribution will run through the apportionment of every seat in heaven. Everything in the way of faithful obedience done here below will determine and establish its own peculiar glory and bliss in the world to come. (Bishop A. P. Forbes.)
Sowing and reaping
I.God is not to be trifled with.
1. Either by the notion that there will be no rewards and punishments.
2. Or by the idea that a bare profession will suffice to save us.
3. Or by the fancy that we shall escape in the crowd.
4. Or by the superstitious supposition that certain rites will set all straight at last, whatever our lives may be.
5. Or by a reliance upon an orthodox creed, a supposed conversion, a presumptuous faith, and a little almsgiving.
II. The laws of His government cannot be set aside.
1. It is so in nature. Law is inexorable. Gravitation crushes the man who opposes it.
2. It is so in providence. Evil results surely follow social wrong.
3. Conscience tells us it must be so. Sin must be punished.
4. The Word of God is very clear upon this point.
5. To alter laws would disarrange the universe, and remove the foundation of the hopes of the righteous.
III. Evil sowing wilt bring evil reaping.
1. This is seen in the present result of certain sins. Sins of lust bring disease into the bodily frame. Sins of idolatry have led men to cruel and degrading practices. Sins of temper have caused murders, wars, strifes, and misery. Sins of appetite, especially drunkenness, cause want, misery, delirium, etc.
2. This is seen in the minds becoming more and more corrupt, and less able to see the evil of sin, or to resist temptation.
3. This is seen when the man becomes evidently obnoxious to God and man, so as to need restraint, and invite punishment.
4. This is seen when the sinner becomes himself disappointed in the result of his conduct. His malice eats his heart; his greed devours his soul; his infidelity destroys his comfort; his raging passions agitate his spirit.
5. This is seen when the impenitent is confirmed in evil, and eternally punished with remorse. Hell will be the harvest of a man’s own sin. Conscience is the worm which gnaws him.
IV. Good sowing will bring good reaping. The rule holds good both ways. Let us, therefore, inquire as to this good sowing.
1. In what power is it to be done?
2. In what manner and spirit shall we set about it?
3. What are its seeds?
(1) Towards God, we sow in the Spirit, faith, and obedience.
(2) Towards men, love, truth, justice, kindness, forbearance.
(3) Towards self, control of appetite, purity, etc.
4. What is the reaping of the Spirit? Life everlasting, dwelling within us and abiding there for ever.
Conclusion:
1. Let us sow good seed always.
2. Let us sow it plentifully, that we may reap in proportion.
3. Let us begin to sow it at once. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
No loss from sowing good seed
Doth any think he shall lose by his charity? No worldling, when he sows his seed, thinks he shall lose his seed; he hopes for increase at harvest. Darest thou trust the ground, and not God? Sure, God is a better paymaster than the earth; grace doth give a larger recompense than nature. Below, thou mayest receive forty grains for one; but in heaven (by the promise of Christ) a hundred-fold: a measure heapen, and shaken, and thrust together, and yet running over. “Blessed is he that considereth the poor”; there is the seeding: “The Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble” (Psa_41:1); there is the harvest. Is that all? No; Mat_25:35 : “Ye fed him when I was hungry, and gave Me drink when thirsty”--comforted Me in misery; there is the sowing. Venite, beati. “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you”; there is the harvest. (Thomas Adams.)
Christian diligence
Thedays and hours of this present state, which often flit by so little heeded, are of immense consequence to us all. They contain the seeds, the concentrated germs, of an endless future life. As the seed enwraps the plant that shall be, so the thought, the word, the act of time, enwraps the expansion of the man in eternity. Now, what does the Christian sow? and what shall he reap? In the answer to this question, comes in a deep and most important truth, to which I will beg your earnest attention. When the husbandman has sown, and tended the seed, and waited the appointed months till the harvest come, what,--of what kind, is his reward? It is not a bestowal of something different, and from without, as a recompense for his labours; but the fruit and expansion of those labours themselves; that which he has sown, the same does he reap, not, it is true, as it was sown, but enriched with God’s abundant blessing, increased thirty and sixty and an hundred fold, still, however, the same; the very thing which he deposited, so unpromising itself, in ground so unpromising, does he now gather into his bosom, a full and rich reward, satisfying him and gladdening him, and filling his heart with praise. Again then, what does the Christian sow? for that also, not a reward or recompense external to and separate from that, shall he reap; that same, but blessed and expanded and glorified, and become his exceeding great reward. The Christian, brethren, sows to the Spirit, not to the flesh. Let us try to give a plain practical interpretation to these words. The sowing being interpreted to mean the thoughts, words, and acts of this present life--the Christian thinks, speaks, and acts with reference to the Spirit--to his higher, his Divine part; to that part of him which being dwelt in by God’s Holy Spirit, aims at God’s glory; loves Him, serves Him, converges to Him in its desires and motions. His Spirit, the abode of the Divine witness within him--the highest part, which aspires after God and His glory--this deserves especial culture of its own, but not exclusive culture. It must reign in him, not by sitting on a height apart, not by dignified slumber only broken on solemn occasions, but by watchful and constant rule, by claiming fur itself and for God the subordinate thoughts and plans and desires. And it is among these that the Christian’s sowing for eternity will most commonly and most busily take place. Educate for God by drawing forth, and as you draw them forth, balancing with love and with wisdom those mental and bodily capacities, and the several parts of that spiritual character, which God has entrusted to your care. But do not educate for self and for the world, for the display of person and of attainment; for this is sowing to the flesh, and the harvest shall be accordingly. (Dean Alford.)
Men reap as they sow
Humanactions draw after them consequences corresponding with the nature of those actions. I shall begin with offering a few familiar illustrations of this principle as witnessed in the common affairs of life, in the hope that I shall thus be able to show more clearly and usefully its bearing on the higher interest of the soul and eternity. I remark then--
1. The assertion of our text is literally true. Whenever the husbandman goes forth and sows his prepared acres, or the reaper gathers in the harvest, or the passer-by surveys the crop as he looks abroad upon the fields, waving with the ripening grain, and fruits of various kind, a voice continually sounds in the ears of each, “Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap.” It is the voice of nature repeating the voice of revelation.
2. We see the principle of our text illustrated in the culture of the mind. Here it holds true that whatsoever a man soweth, that he also reaps.
3. The same truth is illustrated in all the various occupations and pursuits of life. The lawyer, who sets his mark high in his profession and pursues his object with earnest, persevering application, is sure to acquire a reputation and an influence corresponding with his efforts. The physician, who gives himself to his calling, and is judicious and thorough in his practice, draws around him, if not suddenly, yet certainly, the confidence and patronage of the community, and in the end reaps the rewards of his diligence and skill, while the pretender and the quack are of ephemeral reputation, and soon pass away and are forgotten. The master mechanic and the merchant, and men of business of every name, know well how universally applicable to their respective callings is the principle we are considering. They know that success depends on diligence, industry, perseverance, and that to expect to rise to eminence or to wealth without corresponding efforts, would be as vain as to expect to reap a harvest without the previous labours of sowing and cultivation.
4. Apply this principle to another case: the acquisition and use of property. The moral law of accumulation is but little understood. We are not our own masters, but God’s stewards. So long as we plan and toil on this principle, we act in accordance with the will of God and for our own best and highest interests. We are sowing our seed well, and we shall reap a plentiful harvest both here and hereafter. But when the law here referred to is transgressed, and the just limits of accumulation are disregarded; when a man comes to feel that he is his own master, and gives himself up to the getting and laying up money for his own selfish purposes, to gratify his worldliness and love of gain, or to heap up treasures for his children, he just as surely sows to the flesh, and of the flesh shall reap corruption, as that he is a living man.
5. The truth of the maxim declared in our text is also strikingly illustrated in the training of families. The family state, the first ordained of God in Paradise was expressly appointed, as He tells us in His Word, “that He might seek a godly seed,” in other words, to spread and perpetuate truth and piety in the world, and no institution can be conceived more wisely adapted to this end. There is no so hopeful a vineyard for cultivation as a young, rising family. The soil is rich and mellow, as yet unoccupied by noxious plants, and ready to receive whatever seed may be cast into it.
6. The principle of our text holds true in regard to the attainment and growth of personal religion, Every man, while life lasts, may be regarded as entrusted with the care of a moral vineyard, which he is required to cultivate, and the harvest he reaps is sure to correspond with the seed he sows in it. A part of this vineyard, if I may so speak, lies in his own bosom. It is his mind, his heart, his conscience, his affections, his character.
7. The principle we are considering will be fully illustrated in the retributions of eternity. Men are now forming the characters in which they are to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. (J. Hawes, D. D.)
It is impossible for a man continuously and successfully to practise a fraud.
I. Upon his own immortality.
II. Upon his neighbour.
III. Upon his God. (Samuel P. Jones.)
The double harvest
I.Our present life is a moral trial for another to come.
II. Human life has one or other of two great characters, and will issue in one or other of two great results.
III. We are liable to delusions with respect to these great verities. (J. B. Geden, D. D.)
The principle of the spiritual harvest
I. The principle.
1. There are two kinds of good possible to man; the one enjoyed by our animal being, the other by our spirits. There are two kinds of harvest, and the labour which procures the one has no tendency to produce the other.
2. Everything has its price, and the price buys that and nothing else: the soldier pays his price for glory and gets it: the recluse does not.
3. The mistake men make is that they sow for earth and expect to win spiritual blessings, and vice versa. Christian men complain that the unprincipled get on in life, and that the saints are kept back. But the saints must pay the price: “they have as their reward something better for which they do pay. No man can have two harvests for one sowing.
II. The application of the principle.
1. Sowing to the flesh includes
(1) open riot, whose harvest is disappointment and remorse.
(2) Worldliness whose harvest being with earth perishes.
2. Sowing to the spirit, which is “well doing,” the harvest of which is
(1) Life eternal; here and hereafter.
(2) Not arbitrary but natural: the seed sown contains the harvest. (F. W. Robertson.)
Man’s seed time and harvest
I. A caution which is--
1. Dissuasive--“Be not deceived” (Eph_5:6). To prevent the deceivings of sin (Heb_3:13.) The pretexts for sin are--
(1) Predestination.
(2) God saw it and might have prevented it.
(3) Ignorance.
(4) Good deeds outweigh it.
(5) God is merciful.
(6) Christ died for it.
(7) I shall repent of it.
2. Persuasive--God is not mocked (2Ch_6:30; Act_1:24). Hypocrisy and gold can cozen men, but not God.
II. The reason. “Whatsoever,” be it good or evil, blessing or cursing, truth or hypocrisy, “a man,” Jew, Turk, heathen or Christian, prince or subject, rich or poor, “soweth,” etc.
1. To begin with the wicked. They shall reap what they have sown.
(1) “In kind (Oba_1:15; Eze_35:15).
(2) In proportion (Jam_2:13; Hos_10:13).
2. The godly. They sow
(1) in faith, and have eternal life (Joh_5:24).
(2) In obedience, and have a sense of God’s love (Joh_15:10).
(3) In tears, and reap in joy (Psa_126:5; Mat_5:4).
(4) In charity, and have heaven’s abundance (Mat_10:42; 2Co_9:6; Mat_25:35) (Thomas Adams.)
Sowing and Reaping
I. The solemnity of the apostle’s warning.
1. The nature of self-deception. It is sad to be deceived in
(1) a friend;
(2) our state of health;
(3) our means--but these are not beyond remedy--but
(4) to be deceived about the soul’s condition is irreparable.
2. Its cause.
(1) Living upon the memories of the past.
(2) Zeal for the ordinances of religion.
(3) Taking safety for granted.
3. Its futility. While you deceive yourselves God is not mocked.
II. The importance of the apostle’s statement.
1. Flesh includes all desires whether sensual or refined that does not lead us to God: the Spirit those desires which spring from His inspiration and find in Him their response and their joy.
2. The underlying principle here is that we have largely the making and marring of our own future.
3. The marring is when by sowing to the flesh in, e.g., pride, covetousness, ungodliness, a man reaps corruption, i.e., desolation and decay; the making when by sowing to the Spirit we reap everlasting life, something that shall not pass away. (W. M. Punshon, LL. D.)
I. A man expects to reap that which he sows.
II. He expects to reap a crop of the same kind that he has sown.
III. He expects to reap more than he sows.
IV. Ignorance of the kind of seed sown well make no difference to the crop. (D. L. Moody.)
I. Righteousness and sin always yield their harvests: the moral results of our actions are determined by definite and irresistible laws.
II. Yet in the lower provinces of life there is a good deal of sowing that is followed by no reaping.
1. In business;
2. Politics;
3. Science;
4. Home and society.
III. The disappointments in these lower provinces make us cynical, but God permits them in order to warn us against sowing too much seed where it may be blighted.
IV. God is the only master who always gives His servants the wages they work for. Serve Him--
1. In business, and whether you make money or not, you will increase your treasure in heaven.
2. In the service of the public, and whether you have your reward or not you will have honorable distinction in the kingdom of God.
V. The harvest may not be tomorrow or the day after, but in due season we shall reap.
VI. Enough, however, is reaped now to save men from despair. Work done for God is never wasted.
1. Take the social and political improvements of recent years.
2. The advance of the kingdom of God. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
Man’s work and his certain reward
1. A timely caution: God’s omniscience renders it impossible that He should be mocked.
2. A great principle stated: what is true in nature is true in morals.
3. This great principle in its application to man’s probation. The work of man is--
I. That of sowing to the flesh.
1. Pleasure seeking.
2. Money making.
3. Knowledge acquiring. This must reap corruption, because
(1) the corruption of death will put an end to most earthly accomplishments.
(2) That which survives the work of corruption will entail the agonies of spiritual corruption.
II. That of sowing to the spirit.
1. Those who yield their heart a willing sacrifice to God.
2. Who consecrate their substance to God.
3. Who devote all their energies to the service of God, sow to the Spirit;
(1) because they enter into sympathy with the strongest elements, laws, and forces of the spiritual universe: and
(2) in eternity reap in quantity and quality what they have sown here. (S. B.)
Retribution and grace
I. The preacher of justification by faith lays down the principle of retribution.
1. This principle is of universal application.
2. It is applied to man not only as the agent but as the one on whom it is to operate.
3. In virtue of it we can be prophets of our future.
II. The laws of grace and retribution are perfectly harmonious.
1. Salvation is a gift.
2. But we have to take advantage of this gift.
3. This is accomplished by faith.
4. But faith is a continuous act, and involves obedience as well as trust. (S. Pearson, M. A.)
Three dualities
I. A duality of nature.
1. “Flesh,” representing that which connects man with time and sense.
2. “Spirit,” that which connects man with the immutable and the Divine.
II. A duality of procedure.
1. Sowing to the flesh: cultivating the animal powers and propensities.
2. Sowing to the Spirit: cultivating the spiritual powers and propensities.
III. A duality of result.
1. Corruption.
2. Everlasting life. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
True moral culture
I.The spirituality of the work.
1. The spirit requires moral cultivation. In its unregenerate state its ground is fallen; it is a wilderness, full of the germs of evil.
2. The spirit is capable of moral cultivation. Facts show this: what moral changes have taken place in human nature: read the history of Paul.
II. The eternity of the work.
1. The soil is everlasting.
2. The seed is everlasting: we are sowing for eternity.
3. The uniformity of the work.
(1) Of kind. The kind you sow you will reap.
(2) Of amount. If little, reap little. All this is ensured by the laws of causation, habit, memory, retribution. Every deed is a seed sown in our nature, either good or evil, and according to the seed will be the harvest. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
God is not mocked
I could both sigh and smile at the simplicity of a native American, sent by a Spaniard, his master, with a basket of figs, and a letter wherein the figs were mentioned, to carry them both to one of his master’s friends. By the way this messenger eat up the figs, but delivered the letter, whereby his deed was discovered, and he soundly punished. Being sent a second time on the like message, he first took the letter, which he conceived had eyes as well as a tongue, and hid it in the ground, sitting himself on the place where he had put it; and then securely fell to feed on his figs, presuming that that paper which saw nothing, could tell nothing. Then taking it again out of the ground, he delivered it to his master’s friend, whereby his fault was perceived, and he worse beaten than before. Men conceive they can manage their sins with secrecy, but they carry about them a letter, or a book rather, written by God’s finger, their conscience bearing witness to all their actions. But sinners, being often detected and accused, hereby grow wary at last, and to prevent this speaking paper from telling tales, do smother, stifle, and suppress it, when they go about the committing of any wickedness. Yet conscience (though buried for a time in silence) hath afterwards a resurrection, and discovers all, to their greater shame and heavier punishment. (T. Fuller.)
The folly of sowing to the flesh
If you saw a man with a seed basket on his shoulder, who had a field which by proper cultivation would yield a plentiful crop and profit, and there he was with his basket filled with thistles and nettles, and all noxious weeds that he could lay his hand on, and he was sowing that field with these from morning to night and on Sunday too--you would say, “I doubt yon man is spoiling that field, sowing it with that stuff;” and if you saw him sowing still all day long, and on Sunday more than any day, you would say, “I think it is time yon man was stopped, he must be a madman,” and suppose you talked with a person that saw it too, and he said to you, “Do you know what the end will be?” “Why,” you would say, “he is ruining his field, it must be all undone before any crop can be got from it again.” “Ah! but (says the other) do you know these seeds that he is sowing will rise and prove to be a plentiful harvest, and they will touch the clouds, and then afterwards the field is to be cleared of them, and there is to be a fire made of them in which the man himself will be consumed?” “Do you say so?” “That is the truth.” “Why then, surely he must be undeceived; let us try to undeceive him.” Ah, friends, I am afraid that there are many such madmen here to night. (William Dawson.)
Self-deceived
ANeapolitan shepherd came in great anguish to his priest. “Father, have mercy on a miserable sinner! It is the holy season of Lent, and, while I was busy at work, some whey, spurting from the cheese-press, flew into my mouth, and wretched man! I swallowed it. Free my distressed conscience from its agonies by absolving me from my guilt!” “Have you no other sin to confess?” said his spiritual guide. “No; I do not know that I have committed any other.” “There are,” said the priest, “many robberies and murders from time to time committed on your mountains, and I have reason to believe you are one of the persons concerned in them.” “Yes,” he replied, “I am; but thesearenever accounted a crime; it is a thing practised by us all, and there needs no confession on that account.” (Bagley’s Family Biblical Instructor.)
Sowing and reaping
An American minister, towards the close of his sermon, introduced a very powerful and dramatic illustration in allusion to some well-known place where certain blasting was to be carried out. “The rock is tunnelled, and deep under the solid masses over which men walk with such careless security, therearenow laid trains of explosive powder. All seems so safe and firm outwardly, it is hardly possible to imagine that those solid masses will ever be shaken; but the time will come when a tiny spark will fire the whole train, and the mountain will be in a moment rent in the air, and torn to atoms.” “Therearemen,” he said, looking round, “therearemen here who are tunnelled, mined; their time will come, not to-day or tomorrow, not for months or years, perhaps, but it will come in a moment, from an unforseen quarter, a trifling incident, their reputations will be blown to atoms, and what they have sown they will reap. There is no dynamite like men’s lusts and passions.”
Sowing and reaping
One day as Felix Neff was walking in the city of Lausanne, he saw a man whom he took for one of his intimate friends. He ran up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and asked, “What is the state of your soul, my friend? “The stranger turned; Neff perceived his mistake, apologized, and went away. A few years after a stranger came to Neff, saying he was greatly indebted to him. Neff did not recognize the man, and begged him to explain. The stranger replied, “Have you forgotten an unknown person whose shoulder you touched in the street in Lausanne, and asked, ‘What is the state of your soul?’ It was I; your question led me to serious reflection, and now I trust it is well with my soul.”
Deception in spiritual things
There are four subjects which the apostle would have us particularly guard against being deceived in.
I. Be not deceived in the character of the being and perfections of God.
1. He is omnipresent.
2. He is omniscient. There are no secrets on earth to Him--no secrets in hell: hell is naked before Him, and destruction has no covering; much more the hearts of the children of men.
II. Be not deceived regarding your own character as rational and redeemed creatures. You are a probationer for eternity. What infinite importance, then, is stamped on every thought, word, action; they will all spring up again, multiplied a hundredfold at the world’s great harvest.
III. Be not deceived concerning the evil nature and dreadful end of a life of sin. Whenever a man is living according to the principles, appetites, propensities, and passions of his fallen nature, he is sowing to the flesh, and the crop that he must reap is eternal perdition. He can’t have anything else.
IV. Be not deceived concerning the nature and excellency of a life of holiness. “Sowing to the Spirit” is yielding to the illuminating and quickening energies of the Holy Ghost, living according to the light of the Spirit of God within and without us. Surely this is better than sowing to the flesh. A man who is sowing to the flesh has to labour; and sowing to the Spirit is no more laborious than sowing to the flesh, nor yet so much. The exercises of holiness are no greater than the exercises of sin: so that even in that view the saint has no loss. But then there is the harvest to come; and what a difference then. (W. Dawson.)
Deception in matters of religion
It is above all things important that in the great and momentous matters of religion we should not be mistaken or deceived, but should have the most correct, exact, and vivid impressions and opinions; because religion deals with such momentous subjects as God, the soul, eternity; and if in these momentous interests we are deceived, and our conduct in consequence be mistaken, the consequences must be to us lamentably and eternally fatal. No other way of acceptance with God, no other refuge from the wrath to come; nor can we offer acceptable worship and service to the Most High, if our impressions of His character be false and incorrect. For, remember, God cannot be deceived.
I. Consider our liability to deception.
1. Our ignorance.
2. Our natural selfishness. For the most part, men are fearfully inert, awfully indifferent, strangely unconcerned about religion. They won’t take the trouble to ascertain the truth,
3. Our natural warmth. Susceptible of impressions; easily moved--first one way, then another. Like the chameleon, men are ever shifting the hue of their religious character. The misfortune is, that those who try everything, generally hold fast nothing.
II. Some of the ways in which delusion in religion operates.
1. It produces satisfaction in externals, and the deluded sinner rests there.
2. It fills the mind with false, distorted views of religion. Eve actually believed Satan when he gave the lie direct to God! Men will rather receive a pleasing error than embrace a self-denying truth.
3. It substitutes mere animal excitement for practical godliness.
III. The consequences of such deception.
1. Criminality. It is the sinner’s own fault. No excuse for ignorance or apology for error, because he ought to have sought the truth, which whosoever seeks, shall surely find.
2. Eternal ruin. The mistake is final and fatal Repair it while there is time. (T. Raffles, D. D.)
Fallacies in religion
If anything is important, religion is all-important. It may be undervalued in health and prosperity; but in sickness and trouble we feel its necessity. When the ship is overtaken by the storm it must have not only a good anchor, but a strong cable. Here are some of the fallacies with which men deceive themselves.
I. Ample time in the future for attending to the concerns of the soul. What a mistake! You cannot tell what a moment may bring forth. By delay the heart gets harder. The unwillingness of to-day becomes still deeper to-morrow (2Co_6:2; Heb_3:7-8; Heb_3:15; Heb_4:7; Ecc_9:10).
II. If elected, we shall be saved; if not elected, we must be lost. But, observe, election is the result of foreknowledge on God’s part (Rom_8:29). It is our own fault, and only ours, if we are not elected. The gospel has been preached to us, and the offer of salvation extended.
III. It will be all the same a hundred years hence. No: it will not, it cannot be. The present is seed-time; the harvest is to come (Gal_6:7). Our destiny hereafter depends upon our conduct now.
IV. Great men have held that there is no future punishment; So we need not fear. A bold assertion, but no proof. Butler’s argument is unanswerable: that, inasmuch as the visitation of our acts by rewards and punishments takes place in this life, rewards and punishments must be consistent with the attributes of God, and therefore may go on as long as the mind endures. The soul that dies in love with sin and sinful pleasures, may only have that love intensified in the future state. Change of residence brings about no change of moral character.
V. We are to be saved by doing the best we can. Nay; but by taking hold on Christ by the hand of faith, and walking with Him in newness of life. (Alex. Brunton.)
Be not deceived
--Futility of delayed repentance
If any of you rely upon the hope or the chance or the possibility of a deathbed repentance as an excuse for sin; if any of you are secretly saying to yourselves, I will go on stoning now; I will repent before or when I die,”--I would say to you briefly and most solemnly, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked,” but when you wickedly think thus you are mocking, you are insulting, you are defying God, you are, as it were, insolently bidding God to wait your leisure; you are bidding Him to be content with the ragged and bitter lees of life after you have drained to the dregs what should have been its bright libation. You are flinging to Him, as it were, the shrivelled and withered leaves in which you have yourself cherished a canker in the worthless flower. There is an awful truth, if there be also quaintness, in the language of one who said, “My Lord, heaven is not to be won by short hard work at the last, as some of us take a degree at the university after much irregularity and negligence. I have known,” he says, “many old playfellows of the devil spring up suddenly from their deathbeds, and strike at him treacherously, while he, without returning the blow, only laughed and made grimaces in the corner of the room.” If you rely on deathbed repentance, you are, believe me, relying on a bruised and broken reed, which will break beneath you and run into your hand. I have seen deathbeds not a few, and I know that he who thinks he can make sure of deathbed repentance, or even a mere semblance of it, is hanging his whole weight upon the thread of a gossamer over a deep and dark abyss. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
The law of sowing and reaping
No analogy is more easily understood than this. A certain point of resemblance between the thoughts, wishes, affections, purposes of the mind, and the seed-corn cast into the earth at one season of the year; and another between the gathering of the harvest, and the result in our own minds of the thoughts and affections we have cherished during our life. “Culture” and “cultivation,” e.g.,--terms originally denoting the tillage of the earth, have been transferred, by the hint of analogy, to the soul.
I. Sowing and reaping as an illustration of spiritual law.
1. In reference to labour and reward, we cannot reap without previous sowing; we cannot reap where we have not sown; inferior seed will yield a poor return. And we must patiently wait for our crop till “due season.”
2. In reference to Divine will and operation. God is faithful; He will not fail those who sow in dependence on Him.
II. The application of this law to the personal and the social life.
1. The life for self distinguished from the life for others. The cultivation of the lower mind and nature in us. There are men who hunt after sensualities as if they were digging for hid treasures, or pressing after the discovery of truth that would bless mankind; they cultivate their propensities as if they were talents that ought to be increased by use, and faculties that might be improved by constant exercise. How they are deceived! They reap the quality of their sowing; and it is a harvest of corruption. A soil that has been forced, and whose virtue has been used up, is the image of their souls.
2. The life for self united with the life for others. “Flesh”--the ordinary uninspired life of man; “Spirit”--the inspired life of those who have come under a higher influence. Slavery to custom is life after the flesh, the origin of a thousand corruptions in the whole system of our social life. The ideal of the Christian is the inspired life, sowing to, walking in, being led by the Spirit--the promotion of truth, justice, love, between man and man.
III. The application of this law to the present and the future life.
1. The present life as a sowing incomplete. To follow the inspiration of God, to live the truly elevated and conscientious life is too hard and fatiguing for many; and the few who do persevere are exposed to terrible temptations to doubt of themselves, and to suspect they would have done better to have walked in the beaten track of the world’s use and wont. This life does not afford materials for the complete solution of the problem; it leaves room for a multitude of doubts which only the strongest illumination and faith can overcome.
2. Indications of future completeness. Traits of character so Divine, promises of youth cut off by untimely death, loftinesses of the human spirit, buds not yet unfolded, aspirations only starved here--what of these? Surely their harvest is to come.
3. The hope of future perfection and glory. Life will then be rounded and made whole, moving on from true beginnings to worthy ends. Death is not the end of our being, but rather the moment for putting in the sickle, and reaping that fulness and completeness, that purity and intensity of all intellectual and social joy, that glorious revelation of the truth of the spiritual nature, which is included in the great word “Life Eternal.” (R. Johnson, M. A.)
Sowing and reaping
I. The sowing. That is a description of our life--a description which very few people, old or young, seem to think of. Our present life is our sowing-time for eternity. You may have been in the country in spring, when the frost and snow have disappeared, and preparations are being made for the work of the coming year. The ground has been ploughed and manured and made ready for receiving the seed, and you may have seen sacks of seed-corn standing all over the field, and men walking up and down the furrows, with bags tied round their waist or slung across their breast, throwing out their arms in a peculiar way. Those of you who have been brought up in towns, may have thought they were taking exercise on a cold spring morning, or were amusing themselves. But if you had asked them, “What are you doing?” you would have got the answer, “We are sowing.” If you had stood in their way, or done anything to interrupt them, or put off their time, they would have called out to you, “Keep out of our way, we are sowing; this is seed-time. After a long winter, we must make the most of spring, for all the rest of the year depends on what we make of it. If we lose the spring, we lose the harvest; and so we want to make the most of every hour. We have not a minute to spare.” Or you have seen in the garden, at the same season of the year, the gardener busy at work. Everybody wanted to have him, and so he was hurrying through with his work, in one garden after another, late and early. If you had asked him, “What are you doing, gardener?” he would have said, “I am sowing--pease, and turnips, and lettuce, and carrots, and spinach; or mignonette, and sweet pea, and candytuft, and saponaria, and asters, and marigolds, and wallflower, and stock. If we miss these weeks--if we were not to sow, as we are doing, you would have no vegetables and no flowers. And what would you say to that? All depends on what we are now doing. It is the most important work of the year.” Now, suppose some mischievous boy were to take up a handful of vegetable seeds and to scatter peas and beans and potatoes over the flower-beds; or a handful of flower-seeds, and were to scatter Indian cress, and wallflower, and Virginian stock, and Venus’ looking-glass, and Love-lies-bleeding over the vegetable-beds, the gardener would call to him, “Stop, boy! do you know what you are doing?” “Getting a little fun,” he might say. “Fun is all very good in its own place,” says the gardener, “but you are sowing. It is not as if you were scattering clay, or stones, or bits of wood. These are seeds, and they will grow; they will spring up again; and what a strange sight the garden will be!” Now your life is just like that. It may seem mere amusement to some; but it is a sowing--a scattering of seed.
1. The sowers--who are they? All of you. Every one who lives sows, and sows until he dies.
2. The seed--what is it? Everything that you do. There has never been a day or an hour in which you have not been sowing. You have never done anything else. Your work, your play, your lessons at home or at school during the week or on the Lord’s Day, when you were at your games, when you were reading some story or other book, when you were amusing yourself or other people--it was a seed which you were sowing--sowing, indeed, for this life, but sowing also for the life to come--for eternity. Some of us have the field or garden of our life well filled up--some have it almost full, almost all sown over. Some have only a tenth of the field filled, and some an eighth, and some a fifth,
