One of the most searching verses in the Bible is Galatians 6:7, “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.” It is a verse of universal application and has been verified in tears and blood by untold thousands. Nor is the Christian exempt. Indeed, whilst the truth is of universal application it is specially written to warn saints, for the Scripture goes on to say, “For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
Christians, who sow to the flesh, will assuredly reap corruption; those who sow to the Spirit, will reap life everlasting.
There are a few startling examples in the Scriptures of sowing and reaping to which we may well pay heed.
Jacob deceived his blind old father. Attired in skins of goats, put on his hand and upon the smooth of the neck, he impersonated his brother Esau, and robbed him of his birthright.
Did God forget? Years rolled by. Jacob is the father of an army of stalwart sons. They are jealous of their young brother Joseph. They sell him as a slave into Egypt. “They took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood” (Gen. 37:31), and declared to their old father that an evil beast had devoured his son. Jacob deceived his father. His sons deceived him.
The King of Egypt, fearful of the growing numbers of the children of Israel, ordered their male children to be cast into the river, thus to destroy the race. The Egyptian nation further afflicted the Israelites with grievous burdens, their lives were made bitter with hard bondage. When blow after blow fell upon the guilty nation did they realise that God was requiting them? Their bodies, their possessions, came under the awful government of Divine wrath. Last of all Pharaoh, who had ordered the death of the male children, found his own eldest slain by the hand of God in his own palace. Every Egyptian house had one dead, and there was “a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more” (Ex. 11:6). What a sowing! What a reaping! Pharaoh did not escape, nor the guilty nation.
What must have been the feelings of that wicked warrior, Adoni-bezek, when he said, “Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God has requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there be died” (Judges 1:7). Note, when Adoni-bezek went through the ordeal of having his thumbs and his great toes cut off, thereby being greatly crippled, he ascribed what had happened to him to God, “God has requited me.” The boomerang, that he had often flung at others, had hit himself. This is ever so.
David’s adultery has been the butt of the godless and the sceptic. They forget to mention Psalm 51 that psalm of penitential confession showing that David was immeasurably superior to his critics. Alas! David added to his sin the crime of practical murder, when he gave orders for Uriah, the Hittite, the wronged husband, to be put in the forefront of the battle. Was there no reaping from this sad episode?—though he indeed got forgiveness, confessing his sin, as set forth in Psalm 51.
Did not the prophet Nathan with accusing finger say to David, “Thou art the man,” as he narrated the parable of the rich man with flocks and herds robbing his poor neighbour of his one little ewe lamb, whereby to entertain his guests? Did he not tell him he should have to restore fourfold, because he had done this thing?
Listen! “The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bare to David” (2 Sam. 12:15), and it died. His son, Amnon, forced his sister, Tamar, and was murdered by another son, Absalom. Absalom, the murderer, brought back in unrighteousness, rose in rebellion against his father, went into his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel, and was himself slain by the hand of Joab, the very man who sought his return unrighteously. Surely David in God’s government reaped what he had sown.*
{*A fourth son, Adonijah, was slain on the orders of Solomon after David’s death, after seeking the kingship, thus making a four-fold retribution on David. - Ed.}
Haman, the satrap of Persia, filled with rage against Mordecai, made a gallows, fifty cubits high, on which to hang the man he blindly hated. When his iniquity came to light, Harbonah, one of the king’s chamberlain’s told Ahasuerus of the erection of this gallows, and what use it was intended for. The king promptly ordered Haman himself to be hanged thereon. We read, “So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified” (Esther 7:10).
The last instance we would adduce is that of Judas, the traitor. What a privilege was his to company with the Lord during the three and a half years of His public ministry. Yet for a paltry thirty pieces of silver he betrayed his Lord with a kiss. What was the sequel? His betrayal put our Lord on the tree. We read, “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree” (Gal. 3:13). Judas hanged himself on a tree—did it by his own act, driven by an intolerable urge of remorse. He sowed, he reaped, a warning beacon for all time.
Finally there is a striking verse in Revelation 13:10, “He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword.” This verse is prophetic of what will happen to the great persecuting power of the last days, especially the head of the great Roman Empire. It will be found that he who leads into captivity, will himself go into captivity, that he who kills will himself be killed.
How good is it, if we sow to the Spirit and of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Our Lord says, “Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).