NO. 2632<\/b><\/p>\n
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD\u2019S-DAY, JULY 23RD, 1899, <\/b><\/p>\n
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,<\/i><\/p>\n
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.<\/b><\/p>\n
ON LORD\u2019S-DAY EVENING, MAY 14TH, 1882.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.\u201d \u2014Hosea 8:7.<\/i><\/p>\n
Prudent men look before them to see the result of their actions. Their eyes look right on, beyond the present, to the future. They look before they leap. It is only the foolish man who goes blindly on, till at last he stumbles and has a desperate and probably fatal fall. Brethren, I hope that I am addressing those who have enough wit and. wisdom to look at the consequences of, what they are doing. This is how I wish to live,\u2014 not merely doing what may give me to-days temporary pleasure, but asking myself what will be the result of those actions by-and-by. How will they appear to me when I come to be old? What aspect will they wear when my eyes are failing me in death? What will be the result in that life after death,\u2014 that endless future which is so sure to come to me, let me live as I may? I say that I hope I am speaking to those who do look a little ahead, and are not, \u201clike dumb driven cattle,\u201d satisfied if there be grass enough within the reach of their mouths, but who look before them to see the consequences on the morrow, and especially on that last great day for which all other days were made,\u201d the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.\u201d We are all sowing, brethren; we cannot help it. You, sisters, too, are sowing; perhaps but a little garden plot, or possibly a broader acreage in public life; but you are all sowing. And every day there is a sowing; no man goes forth in the morning without a seed-basket. What may be in it, is not so easily told. There may be nought in it but the wind; there may be darnel in it; there may be in it curses which shall grow up to plague himself and others; but it is certain that we do not move an inch along the furrows of life without scattering some kind of seed. He that does least is seeding his idleness; and, like the thistle that stands still, and offers its downy seed to be carried by every wandering wind, so does the sluggard; he does mischief by doing nothing.<\/p>\n
As we are all sowing, the great question we have to consider is,\u201d what will the harvest be\u2019?\u201d Every wise man will ask himself that question. I mar have sown very little in my small plot, or, I may have walked far, and scattered the seed broadcast over the wider field committed to my charge; but what have I sown, and what shall I reap? What sheaves shall I gather into the garner? Sheaves of fire that shall burn into my soul for ever, or sheaves of glory that I shall bring with rejoicing in the last great day? Brethren, if it be rightly examined, this matter of the harvest from our sowing will be found to be full of very rich encouragement to those who are seeking to serve God. If thou hast believed in Christ, and received eternal life by faith in him, and if now thou art trying to labor for him, thou art sowing blessed seed; and if it come not up to-day, or to-morrow, yet grace ensures a crop, and thou shalt have precious sheaves which thou shalt gather in one of these days. Therefore, be thou encouraged to labor on. The husbandman waits for the precious fruits of the earth through the long and dreary winter; through the chequered days of spring, through March winds and April showers, he waits, until at last the golden harvest rewards him for all his toil. Labour on, then, beloved, \u201csteadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.\u201d That which you sow, you shall also reap; your Lord has told you so. Therefore, be not dismayed by the long waiting; but\u2014 <\/p>\n
Sow and faint not, Till the seed a harvest bear.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
But, while this truth is full of encouragement to God\u2019s people, it ought to be a very strong and powerful check to those who are living in sin. As you sow, you will have to reap. Those \u201cwild oats\u201d about which you laugh now, are easily sown, but they will make hard and sorrowful reaping. That act of iniquity, that indulgence in lust, that lie, that blasphemy, that revolt against God in string conscience and refusing to yield to Christ,\u2014 all these will produce a harvest in due season. It is easy to toss these pigeons up into the air, but they will all come home to roost. At night-fall, you shall see every one of them; and they will have grown greater than when you set them flying, and they will be bearers of messages of misery to the rash hand that sent them flying abroad. It is a dreadful thing to be so living that you would not wish the result of your actions to come home to you; and if any of you are so living, I pray God, the Holy Spirit, now to give me something to say which shall, like a strong hand, lay hold of your bridle, and compel you to stand. still, and race no longer in the downward course to hell.<\/p>\n
My text naturally divides itself into two parts; and, at first sight, they do not seem to be very closely connected; but I think that I shall be able to show that they are. From the first part of the text, we may learn that some sowings will have a horrible harvest<\/i>: \u201cThey have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.\u201d Then the rest of the text will teach us that some sowings must end in failure<\/i>. They are such poor windy things, that they shall never come to anything that is good. If a blade shall come up, yet \u201cit hath no stalk.\u201d And, if it should seem to come to a stalk, \u201cthe bud shall yield no meal.\u201d It shall be like the devil\u2019s meal,\u2014 all bran; there shall be no good flour in it. Or, if it should yield meal, \u201cif so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.\u201d The old proverb says, \u201cThere\u2019s many a slip \u2019twixt the cup and the lip,\u201d and these sowers find it to be so with their sowing. Strangers come in, and steal away the fruit out of the very mouth that hoped to be fed by it, so that no good result comes of the sowing as far as he is concerned.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
I. <\/b>The first part of our text teaches us that some sowings will, Produce A Horrible Haarvest.<\/p>\n
Some have a horrible harvest even in this world; as, for example, the sowing of oppression, which leads to revolt and revenge<\/i>. I do not know a better instance of this than France affords. Some two hundred years ago, or even less than that, the owners of the land in that country treated the peasantry worse than they treated their cattle. Poor and almost naked men might have been seen dragging the plough over the soil themselves, because they were reduced to such poverty, by excessive rents, that they could. not afford to keep animals to do the hard work. Kings, and princes, and the great ones of the land cared for nothing but their own pleasures, and those pleasures were often of the most vicious kind. Read the firsts chapters of Carlyle\u2019s French Revolution<\/i>, and see in what a state France was; yet, for a time, everything seemed to go on favourably for the oppressors. If the peasantry revolted, they were put down with an iron hand. The righty rulers thought that their empire would never come to an end; and as for the Grand Monarch himself,\u2014 was there ever such another mortal as he thought himself to be, and as his courtiers spoke of him? Might not his kingdom last for ever,\u2014 at least, in the hands of his successors? Yet, one after another, those kings and nobles sowed the wind, and, at the end of the last century, they reaped. the whirlwind. Having themselves defied all law and justice, they had taught the people to do the same; and when the masses once rose in rebellion, and got the upper hand, you know how they worked the terrible guillotine, and how the streets, not only of Paris, but of many another city and town, were deluged with blood, and the oppressors were made to realize that their cruelty and oppression had come home to them at last. It is always so, sooner or later, according to the rule of God\u2019s righteous government. Men may stretch the cord for a long while, but at length it snaps, and woe be to those that are holding it when it gives way! The people may be, for a time, trodden down beneath the tyrant\u2019s hoof; but, in the long run, the tyrant gets the worst of it. France has more than once furnished an awful instance of the retribution that comes upon those who do not regard the dignity of man, and who treat him as if he were merely a beast, or something worse; they have sown the wind, and they have reaped the whirlwind.<\/p>\n
Now take another view of the picture presented by our text. We have lately had, over in Ireland, a terrible proof that the justification of outrage leads on to murder<\/i>. Certain persons say, \u201cWe never meant to urge our countrymen to commit the crime of murder, and we are shocked at the Phoenix Park tragedy. We wash our hands in innocency, for we are clear of guilt in this matter. We denounce it, we have no part in it; we abhor it.\u201d So they say; but what led up to that awful deed of blood? When men have used expressions in which they have not condemned, but have almost justified outrage and murder in other cases, what could come of it but that their disciples should go a little beyond what their masters may have intended? You cannot scatter fire, and then when, at last, the city burns, say, \u201cOh, we never meant it to spread like that! We only intended to burn down that cottage, or that wretched shanty; but we never thought of burning down the city. We are as innocent of the crime as newborn babes; we never meant to do anything of the kind.\u201d Yes; but you cannot say to fire, \u201cThus far shalt thou go, and no further;\u201d and in like manner, if you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. There is a whole province of Holland protected from the sea by a dyke, and there is a man who wants to let in a little water to the other side for a certain purpose; he says he is only going to let a little stream run through, so he takes his pickaxe, and he worlds away till he has made a passage through the dyke, and then, of course, the whole dyke is swept away, and the province gets drowned. The foolish fellow says, \u201cGod forbid that I should have the blame of this catastrophe! I never meant to do anything of the sort.\u201d Of course, he did not; he intended something far less than that, but his action naturally produced the result that followed, and therefore, he is rightly regarded as responsible for it. Beware, I pray you, of trifling with the eternal principles of justice, and of right and wrong. Beware of ever sanctioning what you consider to be only a little evil; for, if you do, the greater evil is sure to follow at its heels. It is like the boy that the burglar takes and pushes through a little window, that he may open the door, and let in those who commit robbery and murder. So, if any of us begin to advocate principles which sap and undermine the foundations of law and order, we cannot tell to what mischief our talk will lead; it is well for us always to be careful not to sow the wind, lest we should, by-and-by, reap the whirlwind.<\/p>\n
Passing from those great instances which prove the rule, I want you next to notice that there are many persons who fall into this same fault. Take, for instance, the teacher of error<\/i>. He is, perhaps, in other respects, an excellent minister, but he is unsound on one important point. Just so; and, before long, his unsoundness on one point will lead to unsoundness all round. It is like a single speck of decay in fruit; it is very apt to cause the whole to go rotten. Have you never heard the story, which was told by Augustine, concerning a young man who had been, at one time, a professed believer in God, but who had given up all trust in him? It occurred to him, when he was very much tried by the buzzing and biting of flies, that God could not have created such troublesome little creatures. They were such a nuisance to him that he concluded that the devil had made them; and, having once gone the length of believing that the devil made flies, he thought it highly probable that Satan created some other nuisances, and be went on till at last he came actually to believe that the devil made everything, and he did not believe in God at all. \u201cAh!\u201d remarks Augustine, as he relates the story, \u201che that erreth about a fly soon erreth about all things.\u201d Look at the progress of Romanism in our own country. When the most of us were boys, we used to hear our fathers talking of a Mr. Pusey and of baptismal regeneration; and it was thought then to be a wonderful thing if a man wore a cross down his back; all England was stirred about the matter, and everybody was horrified; but look at the so-called \u201cpriests\u201d now; they have gone all the length of Rome. \u201cWhere?\u201d you ask. Well, where are they not? They seem to be everywhere now, swarming over the land; and they have brought back rank Popery into what used to be called \u201cthe Protestant Church of England.\u201d How has that come to pass? Well, first of all, there was a little of it tolerated, and then a little more of it was wanted, and. gradually more was sucked. down until now I believe that many of the Ritualists would be prepared to receive the Pope and. all his cardinals, red hats and all. I really cannot see why they should not; for, if they did, they could scarcely be more Popish than they are already. Only go a little way in the course of error, and it is like sliding down an inclined plane; there is no knowing where you will stop. Go to the top of St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, and throw a stone down from that height. You say that you only mean to throw it a yard. Ah! but it will never rest until it gets to the ground, and perhaps it will kill someone before it reaches the earth. So, when once you start in the way of error, there is no possibility of stopping unless divine grace shall interpose to save you from the consequences of the first false step. You sow the wind, and you reap the whirlwind. A little error leads to more, and that to still more, until the very idea of God is given up. I therefore love to meet a man who is stiffbacked in his orthodoxy; and, in this age of laxness and looseness, I am prepared to clap my hands even when I see a little bigotry. I like a man to believe something, to stick to it, to know that it is true, and not to be ashamed to avow it in the teeth of his fellow-men, let them oppose as they will; for there must be something true, and, oh! that God\u2019s gracious Spirit may teach us what it is; and when we once know it, may we hold it fast, come life or come death; for if we do not, we shall sow the wind, and resp the whirlwind.<\/p>\n
Here is another instance of the same truth,\u2014 an ill example at home<\/i>. I will confine it to that one point, though it is of general application. You probably know a man who is very lax in the management of his family. He professes to be a Christian himself, perhaps; but his sons and daughters are allowed to plunge into every frivolity and every vanity ; ay, and they may even go into open sin, and all that they will hear will be some gentle word like that which fell from the lips of soft-hearted. Eli when he de but hint that his sons were not doing well when they were doing much that was terribly ill. The man even hears that such-and-such a vice has been committed by his son, yet he scarcely upbraids him; he is so easy-tempered. that he says nothing, though he sorrows within his own heart. Peradventure, his own exapmple and the example of his wife are not such as could be desired. Family prayer is neglected, and holy living is not known in the house. He gets prematurely old, his son has died very soon,\u2014 he has drunk himself to death, or destroyed himself by vice. His daughters, too, are uuhappy in their marriages. The whole family has virtually gone to ruin as to any connection with the Christian Church. What shall I say of the old gentleman? He will not say it himself, but I must say it for him; he sowed the wind, and he has reaped the whirlwind. The father\u2019s character is usually seen in his sons. It has been said that ministers\u2019 sons often turn out badly; if it is so,and I am not sure that it is,\u2014 it must be because the ministers have not kept their own vineyards, for the rule still holds good, \u201cTrain up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.\u201d Generally, though not always, if he does depart from it, it is because there has been some fatal neglect in his training; and there are some Christian parents who are acting thus. They are so indulgent, not only to their children, but to themselves also, that they do not like to give themselves the trouble that ought to be taken in all such cases. They are sowing the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind.<\/p>\n
Let me give another illustration of the truth of the text, with reference to persons who fall into evil habits<\/i>. At first, those evil habits are under restraint. They admit that they drink, but they say that they cannot be called \u201cdrunkards.\u201d They may, now and then, take more than is good for them; but, still, it is not very often. That is the beginning of the evil; but, by-and-by, where are they? They have sown the wind, and they reap the whirlwind. Did you never hear the story of the Persian prince, who dreamed that he was drinking from a cup, and a fly came and tried to sip from it? He drove it away; but, as he kept on drinking from his cup, it came back again, and it had grown as large as a bird. He drove the creature away, but it returned as large as an eagle,\u2014 the largest kind of bird. He tried to chase that away, but it soon came back in the form of a man, who grinned at him most horribly. He strove to get that man away, but soon he was back in the form of a giant, who trod on him, and crushed him to death. That is just the picture of the growth of an evil habit; at first, you say, \u201cIs it not a little one?\u201d But it grows, and increases, till it becomes unconquerable. That parable illustrates our text; if you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. You cannot live in sin, you cannot do wrong of any kind, or in any form, but it will come back to you, not merely as wind, as you sowed it, but as a whirlwind, as a horrible tempest, as a rushing tornado, carrying everything before it.<\/p>\n
I will not tarry to give more illustrations of this solemn truth, because I want to leave a few minutes for the consideration of the second part of the subject. Only I pray that God may write on the memory and heart of any of you who are living as you should not live, the great fact that, as surely as you so live, \u201cThat which a man soweth, that shall he also reap;\u201d and he will reap even worse than he sows, for if he sows the wind, he will reap the whirlwind.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
II. <\/b>Now let us turn to the second part of the subject, which is, that some Sowings Must End In Failure.<\/p>\n
There are some people who do not think that they are doing any hurt, yet they are living an aimless life<\/i>. Go to them, and ask what they are sowing? \u201cNothing,\u201d they answer. They say that they are doing no hurt to anybody, for they are not doing anything at all; but is not that kind of life an injury to themselves, and to others also? If you have no aim in life, no high ambition, no object, no noble purpose, does anything ever come of it? People talk of what they call chance, but I never found any chance of a man\u2019s getting to be holy without intending to be so. I never yet heard of a man doing any great good in the world if he did not mean to do it. I never heard of a man glorifying God by accident, nor of anyone getting to heaven as it were by the throw of the dice,somehow finding himself there, but not knowing how it all happened. No; if you lead an aimless life, what will come of it will be just what the text says: \u201cIt hath no stalk\u201d There will be no up-growing from it; and even if there should be some kind of stalk to the seed that you have sown, yet, when it springs up, \u201cthe be shall yield no meal.\u201d It cannot be any comfort to you, even if things should go pretty well without your intending that they should, for the comfort, after all, lies in the motive and in the intention; and even if your life should somehow turn out to be better than that of other aimless persons, though you never intended it to be so, \u201cif so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.\u201d If you meant it to be nothing, it will be nothing.<\/p>\n
I daresay that I am speaking to a large number of people who do not know what they are living for. You have come into the world, and here you are; and, in due time, you will go out of it; but that is all that can be said of you. You are doing nothing; you have no noble end in view, no glorious purpose to accomplish, no sublime aspiration to realize. Then take it for granted that, if all you sow is the wind; you will reap nothing but wind; only it will come to you in a fiercer form,\u2014 as a whirlwind, for God will say to you, \u201cI made thee for my glory; I sent thee into the world with a purpose; I entrusted. thee with talents; I made thee a steward of my goods, and now thou art accused, unto me of having wasted my goods. Give an account of thy stewardship.\u201d What will you say then? Alas! in that day, the trifler, the idler, the mere butterfly in the garden of the world, will find things going hard. indeed. with him. God save you all from lealing an aimless life!<\/p>\n
But there are some who are sowing the wind in another form; they are leading a selfish life<\/i>. Selfis the beginning and the end of their life. They open a shop simply to make money. They live at home to be comfortable. Perhaps they enlarge themselves a little by talking the wife and the children into the circle of self; still, that is all; they have no care for God, no love for Christ, no wish to help the poor, no thought about eternity. That is a life of sowing the wind, and it will end, sooner or later, in reaping the whirlwind, for no man lives unto himself without earning for himself a fearful reward. Selfishness is often like the serpent that stings itself to death. It is not possible, within the compass of a man\u2019s own soul, that he should satisfy the cravings and desires of that soul. When he loves God, and loves his neighbor,\u2014 he is really most of all blessing himself, for then is he living to true purpose. But when self is everything to a man, he confines his soul within the charnel-house of his own ribs, and his spirit dies within him, and becomes like a stone. In the case of the man who lives only for self, it may be said of his life, in the words of the text, \u201cIt hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal.\u201d He gathers riches, but has no happiness or contentment in them; he is like Solomon, who, with all his possessions, had to cry, \u201cVanity of vanities; all is vanity.\u201d Or if he gets to be rich, and seems to enjoy himself a little, he suddenly dies, and strangers swallow up his estate. All that is left of him is a massive tomb, and the notice in the newspapers that he died worth so many thousands of pounds,\u2014 which is not true, for he never was really worth a farthing all his life; he was a worthless man, whose only value consisted in the money he possessed. O my dear hearers, I do implore you, with all my soul, not to live unto yourselves! If you desire the highest, grandest selfishness that can ever be attained, I charge you, throw selfishness away, remembering our Savior\u2019s words, \u201cHe that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it.\u201d He who casts his life away for the sake of Christ, and for love of the truth, shall be the man who shall really save his life, and find true joy and blessedness; but for anyone to live for self, is to sow the wind, and to reap the whirlwind.<\/p>\n
So, once again, will it be ifa man lives a self-rihhteous life<\/i>. A selfrighteous man is generally very great at sowing; \u2014 so many prayers,\u2014so many almsgivings,\u2014 so many sermons,\u2014 so many ceremonies. Yes, wind, wind, wind: he is sowing wind; but what will come of it all? This very good religious man \u2014 I forget whether his name is Goodenough, or Too-good, but I believe the families are cousins; \u2014 is, in his own opinion, so very excellent that he does all he ought to do, and perhaps a little more. Yet he is only sowing the wind; and what will he reap from it? Well, if God is very gracious to him, he will soon reap the whirlwind, for he will find, to his confusion, that all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and they shall be like the sere leaves of the forest borne away by the wind. I pray that he may, in this sense, reap the whirlwind very soon; for, if not, he will do so in the next world, when all his pretended good works and all his formal observances of external religion will be nothing but so much whirlwind. to blow in his face, and to fan the flames of hell for ever. O dear friends, shun self-righteousness, and trust alone to the righteousness of Christ! May the Spirit of God lead you to wash in the atoning blood, and then cover you with the spotless righteousness of Jesus Christ! Thus, it will be well with your soul; but all self-righteousness shall end in delusion and confusion for ever and ever. May God grant that none of us may, in this sense, sow the wind!<\/p>\n
The text is pre-eminently true of every man who leads a deceitful life<\/i>. Oh, have I the misery of speaking to one who makes a profession of religion, and who wishes to be thought to be a Christian, and yet who is not really so? It is hard for a true believer to maintain a Christian character, but it is very much harder to keep up that character when there is nothing at the back of it. Oh, how desperately does the man who is a hypocrite have to labor! He has to patch up here, and patch up there,\u2014 daub with untempered mortar here, and whitewash there, and he never has any peace. But, all the while, he is only sowing the wind. There is nothing real in his religion; and what will come of it when that hypocrisy is discovered, when he stands revealed before the bar of God? Will his hypocritical religion do him any good ? No; \u201cit hath no stalk\u201d even now; it cannot yield him even present comfort. If there be a \u201cbud\u201d that looks a little like self-respect, it \u201cshall yield no meal.\u201d I have already quoted the old proverb, \u201cThe devil\u2019s meal is all bran,\u201d and I may add that the hypocrite\u2019s meal is all bran. There is nothing substantial in it. And even if he should seem to die in the odour of sanctity, yet the stranger shall come in, and devour his supposed religiousness, for somebody shall tell the truth about him, and so his fine reputation shall be utterly blasted.<\/p>\n
Now, brothers and sisters, I have come to the end of this discourse; and what should be the practical result of it but that, if we have been sowing anything that we ought not to sow, we should pray God to come and plough it all up. Lord, drive the plough straight through every life that is not according to thy Word! Oh, to have all the evil obliterated,\u2014 every seed of sin crushed. and destroyed! Would God that it might be so with all of us!<\/p>\n
What next? Well, let us then go \u2014 oh, may the Divine Spirit lead us! \u2014 to Jesus Christ, and ask him to give us the good seed. Let us have our hands washed from the evil in which we formerly delighted; and he alone can cleanse us. Then let us take the clean good wheat which he will give us out of his own granary, and let us go and sow it. God help us to sow it right and left, from morn to eve, without weariness, that, at the last, we may gather in a glorious harvest, not to our own glory, but to the praise of him by whose rich, free, and sovereign grace we were enabled to sow to the Spirit, and of the Spirit to reap life everlasting! Amen.<\/p>\n
Before we go, we will sing that very solemn hymn in Mr. Sankey\u2019s book, \u201cWhat Shall the Harvest Be?\u201d It will help to impress the subject upon our memories and hearts. <\/p>\n
Sowing the seed by the dawn-light fair,
Sowing the seed by the noon-day glare;
Sowing the seed by the fading light,
Sowing the seed in the solemn night:
Oh! what shall the harvest be?
Sowing the seed with an aching heart,<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Sowing the seed while the tear-drops start,
Sowing in hope till the reapers come,
Gladly to gather the harvest home:
Oh! what shall the harvest be?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Sown in the darkness, or sown in the light,
Sown in our weakness, or sown in our might,
Gathered in time, or eternity,
Sure, ah, sure, will the harvest be!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
EXPOSITION<\/p>\n
GALATIANS 5:13-26; AND GALATIANS 6:1-10.<\/b><\/p>\n
Remember, beloved brethren, that the Epistle to the Galatians is one in which Paul, with especial clearness, proves the doctrine of justification by faith alone. So much is this the case, that the famous Commentary of Martin Luther upon this Epistle is perhaps the strongest work extant upon the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. But that doctrine was never intended to be separated from the Scriptural teaching concerning the fruit of faith, namely, good works; and, hence, we find, in the close of this very Epistle, the strongest possible declaration that, if men live in sin, they will reap the result of sin; and that only if, by grace, they are brought to walk in holiness, will they win the rewards of grace.<\/p>\n
Galatians 5:13. For, brethren, ye have been culled unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cDo not make licence out of your liberty. Remember that liberty from sin is not liberty to sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
13, 14. But by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.<\/i><\/p>\n
The condensation of the whole law is contained in that one word \u201clove.\u201d In the first table, we are taught to love God; and the commands of the second table teach us to love our neighbor.<\/p>\n
15. But if ye bite and devour one another,<\/i><\/p>\n
Finding fault, slandering, injuring, bearing malice, and so on: \u2014\u201dIf ye bite and devour one another,\u201d <\/p>\n
15. Take heed that pe be not consumed one of another.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cYou will eat one another up; you will, each one, condemn his neighbor.\u201d Paul represents the great Judge coming, and waiting outside the door; and when he hears two men condemning one another, he says to himself, \u201cI will confirm their verdict; they have mutually condemned each other, I will say \u2019Amen\u2019 to it.\u201d What a sad thing it is if professed Christians are found thus condemning one another!<\/p>\n
16. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.<\/i><\/p>\n
Walk under the Spirit\u2019s power, following his guidance. The Spirit never leads a man into sin. He never conducts him into self-indulgence and excess.<\/p>\n
17. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.<\/i><\/p>\n
How often that is the case! Ye would be perfect, but \u201cye cannot do the things that ye would.\u201d We would, if possible, escape from every evil thought; we would not even hear of anything sinful, if we could help it.<\/p>\n
18, 19. But if pe be led of the Spirit, pe are not under the law. Now the works of the mesh are manifest, which are these; Adulttery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,<\/i><\/p>\n
Any kind of sensual indulgence \u2014 whatever it may be \u2014 a lustful glance,the cherishing of an unclean desire,\u2014 the utterance of a foul expression,all this is condemned, as well as the overt acts of adultery and fornication.<\/p>\n
20, 21. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,<\/i><\/p>\n
Is drunkenness actually put by the apostle after murder, as though it were something worse than that terrible crime? Or is it not, oftentimes, the case that drunkenness lies at the bottom of the murder P<\/p>\n
21. Revevellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.<\/i><\/p>\n
Paul never said, nor ever thought of saying, that s man might live in sin, that grace might abound. No, no; these evil things must be given up. Christ has come to save us from every evil work. And this is the salvation that we preach,\u2014 not simply salvation from hell, but salvation from sin, which is the very fire that has kindled the infernal flame. But how different from all this evil is the fruit of the Spirit!<\/p>\n
22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love,<\/i><\/p>\n
Universal love; first, to God; next, to his people; and, then, to all mankind. Have we that fruit of the Spirit? If so, it will make us of a very amiable disposition; it will dethrone selfishness, and set up holy affections within our heart.<\/p>\n
22, 23. Joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:<\/i><\/p>\n
Joy and peace seem to blossom and ripen out of love. Longsuffering, too, is part of the fruit of the Spirit. You will be hourly tried, but the Spirit of God will give you patience to suer long and to endure much. You will also have gentleness. Some people are very hard, stern, severe, quick-tempered, passionate; but the true follower of Christ will be gentle and tender, even as he was.<\/p>\n
23. Against such there is no law.<\/i><\/p>\n
Neither God nor man has ever made a law against these things; the more there is of them, the better will it be for everybody. Oh, that they prevailed all over the world!<\/p>\n
24. And they that are Christ\u2019s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.<\/i><\/p>\n
A crucified Christ is the leader of a crucified people. Oh, to have all the affections and lusts of the mesh nailed up! They may not be actually dead; for those who are crucified may still live on for some hours, but they are doomed to die, their life is a very painful one, and it is hastening to a close. A man who is crucified cannot get down from the cross to do what he wills; and, oh! it is a great blessing to have our sinful self thus nailed up. Ah, sir! you may struggle, but you cannot get down; you may strive and cry, but your hands and feet are nailed; you cannot go into active, actual sin. The Lord grant that the nails may hold very fast, that none of the strugglings of our old nature may be able to pull out those nails that have fastened it up to the cross!<\/p>\n
25. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.<\/i><\/p>\n
If that be our real life, let it also be our course of action.<\/p>\n
26. Let us not be desirous of vain glory,\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n
Do not let us want to be accounted as somebody; for, if we do, we prove that we are really nobody. Nobody is anybody till he is willing to be nobody; as long as he wants to be somebody, he is nobody and nothing.<\/p>\n
26. Provoking one another, envying one another.<\/i><\/p>\n
God save us from that and every other form of evil!<\/p>\n
Galatians 6:1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault,\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n
He is a slow traveler; he is not speeding swiftly on the way to heaven, so the fault overtakes him. Had he been quicker of pace, he might have outstripped it; but he is \u201covertaken in a fault.\u201d What then? Turn him out of the church? Have done with him? No. \u201cIf a man be overtaken in a fault,\u201d\u2014 <\/p>\n
1. Ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;<\/i><\/p>\n
Pick him up, help him to run better than he did before.<\/p>\n
1. Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.<\/i><\/p>\n
Paul does not say, \u201cLest thou also fall;\u201d but, \u201cLest thou also be tempted,\u201d \u2014 as much as to say, \u201cYou will be sure to fall if you are tempted;\u201d and that man, who thinks that other people ought to be cast off because they have committed a fault, is so proud in his own heart that he only needs to be tempted, and he would fall, too. This is a very expressive way of putting the matter: \u201cConsidering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. Bear ye one another\u2019s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.<\/i><\/p>\n
Help your brethren. If yon see that they have more to do than they can accomplish, take a share of their labor. If they have a heavier burden than they can bear, try to put your shoulder beneath their load, and so lighten it for them.<\/p>\n
3. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.<\/i><\/p>\n
Paul does not say, \u201cHe deceiveth other people;\u201d no, \u201che deceiveth himself.\u201d As a general rule, other people find him out, they learn what he really is, but \u201che deceiveth himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
4, 5. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden.<\/i><\/p>\n
There is, after all, a burden which we cannot carry for others, and which we cannot shift upon others. There are burdens of care, and sorrow, and trouble, which we can take from other men\u2019s shoulders; but the great burden of responsibility before God, each man must himself carry.<\/p>\n
6. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.<\/i><\/p>\n
Those who are taught, st so receive spiritual things, should maintain those who are their teachers as far as they are able to do so.<\/p>\n
7. Be not deceived; God A not mocked: for whateoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.<\/i><\/p>\n
That is true under the gospel as well as under the law.<\/p>\n
8. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption;<\/i><\/p>\n
That is what always comes to the flesh; it decays and corrupts.<\/p>\n
8. But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.<\/i><\/p>\n
No corruption shall come to that which belongs to the Spirit: \u201cHe that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit resp life everlasting.\u201d<\/p>\n
9, 10. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season are shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are if the household of faith. <\/i><\/p>\n
HYMNS FROM \u201cOUR OWN HYMN BOOK\u201d \u2014 416, 95 (SONG I.), AND 654; AND FROM \u201cSACRED SONGS AND SOLOS\u201d\u2014 42, \u201cWHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE?\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NO. 2632 INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD\u2019S-DAY, JULY 23RD, 1899, DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON LORD\u2019S-DAY EVENING, MAY 14TH, 1882. \u201cFor they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers … Continue reading “\u201cWHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE?\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}