"The Laws Of The Harvest"
Galatians 6:7-9
'Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. '
The pastor of our church recently gave a sermon of the "laws of the harvest," and this bible study expands upon that teaching. In researching this topic, I began to feel that the bible was veritable "farmer's almanac." The scriptures have a liberal sprinkling of references to planting, reaping, sowing, and harvesting that are used to illustrate biblical principles. Everything we do or say, every choice we make in life, results in an action or reaction by ourselves, others, or circumstances. Even the absence of making a choice will have future repercussions. This subject often conjures up negative thoughts. In fact, what we sow may be good, and the harvest that we bring in will be an abundance of good. For the sake of convenience, and not because there is any formula, I have grouped the scriptures that relate to the harvest into four principles or laws:
You reap what you sow
This is the centerpiece of the laws of the harvest. Because man has free will, life is a series of choices that culminate in either good or bad, and the final disposition is often not apparent for years to come. Take for example the married man who chooses to have a secret affair with another woman. God gave us the commandment not to commit adultery, yet the temptation proves to be too great. He may "get away with it" for months or even years, but eventually the darkness will be exposed to light. Sowing the seeds of pleasure would result in animosity from his children, crush the trust that existed between him and his wife, not to mention possible financial ruin if the revelation leads to divorce. How about the father or mother who spend their waking hours striving to make a name for themselves at their work, climbing the ladder of success. Years later, when they have "made it," they are ready to spend some quality time with their children. Instead, they are faced with a dysfunctional family that doesn't relate well to each other, and are bitter about the lost years. As we are told in the sixth chapter of Matthew, beginning at verse 19: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Sow the good seed so that when the harvest comes in you may reap a rich reward.
2 Corinthians 9:6 " He who sow sparingly will reap sparingly."
The book of Revelation tells us that when the day of judgment comes, we will have give an accounting of every thing we have said and done. Indeed, our reward in heaven (not our salvation) will be determined by how we spent our time, treasure, and talents here on this earth. God accomplishes his work through ordinary people like you and me. We need to be actively seeking where He is at work, to be sensitive to His promptings of how he wants us to help Him accomplish His work. To fail to listen to God's promptings can have grave consequences, as we are told in Zechariah 7:13, "When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the LORD Almighty. "
You reap more than you sow
I like to think of this as the law of the harvest with the greatest potential for relating to the good that we can do. My son recently asked me a question, and meant to ask, "How many seeds are in apple?" What he said instead is far more profound: "How many apples are in a seed?" This reminded me of the awesome responsibility we all have to share the gospel with everyone we know. Assume you were to bring just two people to know the Lord this month, and they in turn brought two persons each to know the Lord the following month. If this progression were to keep up, by the end of the year, there would be 4,096 new Christians by the end of the year!
The story of Job serves as an excellent example of reaping more than we sow. In this book, Job loses everything he has - his livestock, his children,
and his health. Despite these tragedies, Job refuses to curse the Lord for these calamities. God rewarded Job's faithfulness by giving him back his health, seven more sons, three more daughters, and twice as many livestock as he had before.
Hosea 8:7 "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
Proverbs 13:3 "The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
There is also the down-side to this law of reaping more than you sow. Every night, someone gets into a car who has been drinking too much alcohol, and ends up killing another person or an entire family. Not only have lives been destroyed, but the drunk driver (who frequently is the sole survivor) finds themselves in jail for years, a probable financial burden, and a memory that will haunt them for a lifetime.
Scripture abounds with examples of reaping more than you sow. Think of what happened to Samson in chapter 16 of the book of Judges. Samson foolishly told his Philistine wife, Delilah, that the source of his strength was his hair. Delilah proceeded to cut off his hair, and invited the Philistine men to come take him away to prison, where his eyes were gouged out, and he was forced to grind grain.
You reap what others have sown
Exodus 20:5
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me
We recently had a men's summit at our church, during which a young man stood up and told the group about his addiction to pornography. He said that it all started when he was about ten years old and found his father's stash of Playboy magazines hidden in the attic. From that initial exposure, he developed an addiction to other, more explicit magazines, and later, to xxx films. This in turn led to an inability to have a normal loving relationship with his wife, because he expected her to do the kinds of unnatural things that the women in those films had done. He has since renounced his addition to porn, but still struggles with it mentally. The seeds of the father's lust for other women viewed in magazines led to a harvest of unfulfilled, inappropriate desires by his son that nearly cost him his marriage.
Science also provides evidence of this law. It has been demonstrated that the children of alcoholic parents are significantly more likely to become alcoholics than the rest of the population. This has both a psychological as well as a genetic basis. Research has shown that it takes several generations to remove this genetic tendency from a person's gene pool. This does not in any way excuse Christians from an abuse of alcohol. If we ask our Father in heaven to keep us free from the iniquity of our parents, He is faithful, and will answer our prayers.
John 4:35-38
"Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'?
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for
eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
Thus the saying `One sows and another reaps' is true.
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the
hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
We see from this passage in the Gospel of John that like the other laws of the harvest, this too need not always carry a negative connotation. We are being encouraged to sow the seeds of the gospel so that others may reap the harvest of eternal life. How exciting it can be to be a part of this important mission.! How thankful we are that someone else took the time to sow the seeds of the gospel in our lives, that we may reap the benefits of eternal life! When was the last time you shared the good news with a friend or neighbor?
You reap some time after you sow
James 5:7-8:
Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near.
Deuteronomy 32:35
It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.
Genesis 8:22
"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
Every Spring I plant tomato plants in my back yard, then wait nearly three months to reap the harvest of juicy, ripe tomatoes. During the growing season, I don't stand by idle, but water the plants, uproot the weeds, and kill the slugs that come to eat the fruit of the vine before it is fully ripe. This is not unlike the parable that Jesus told of the sower of the seeds. In order for a god crop to come in, we need to be faithful in our task, lest the enemy comes in with spiritual weeds and slugs to destroy the crop that might have been.
Someone once said, "Too many believers are sowing wild oats throughout the week and then going to church on Sunday and praying for a crop failure." Folks are always hoping that the way they live their life will never catch up with them, but it does. During the late 60's, lots of people took LSD, a drug that produced wild hallucinations. Years later, these same people were having babies with deformities. The harvest came in.
I pray for each of you, to sow that which is pleasing to the Lord, that in due season your harvest may be a bountiful crop, and that you may reap the benefits of a crop sown by another. I hope that this message was a blessing to you.
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