Law 3: We Reap in a Different Season than We Sow “Too many believers are sowing wild oats throughout the week and then going to church on Sunday and praying for a crop failure.” They hope their life-style won’t catch up with them, but of course, it always does. As seen from Galatians 6:7, God will not be mocked by man. No man can turn up his nose at God’s laws and get away with it. Sooner or later his choices will return to haunt him. What we sow, we reap, but the thing that is so deceptive is that we reap in a different season. Let’s first look at the fact of this third law of the harvest from several standpoints. The Foundation for this Law The Creative Purpose of God Genesis 8:22 reads: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” The harvest never comes immediately after planting for, while the earth abides, there is seedtime and harvest, cold and win¬ter, etc. There are seasons to life and the harvest never comes immediately. Rome was not built in a day. Plants don’t grow overnight. Athletes don’t become strong or proficient in a week. Children aren’t born overnight. Wisdom isn’t gained overnight, and so it goes throughout all of life. “In Due Time” or “Season” (1) Negatively Deuteronomy 32:35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. (2) Positively 1 Samuel 1:20 Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.” Psalm 145:15 Psalm 104:27 Galatians 6:9 The Necessity of Time and Growth in All Things The following passage reminds us there is a time for everything which teaches us we can’t rush the laws of God nor should we try to ignore them. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 While the original creation was created with apparent age and maturity, Scrip¬ture and life itself teach us that for everything else, time is needed for growth and maturity in the biological, zoological, social, spiritu¬al, mental, athletic, and economical areas of life (compare: Gen. 1:28; 3:18; 2 Kgs. 19:29; Ps. 104:19; 147:9; Phil. 3:11-14; Heb. 5:11-14; 1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 2:11-14, 18). Applications of this Law Without question we reap what we sow, but the prin¬ciple mankind doesn’t want to face is we reap in a different season. There are several important factors here: (1) Because we do not see the immediate results, we often think we have gotten away with some¬thing or can, but we never do. Ecc. 8:11-12 (2) We live in a self-oriented society that says “do your own thing,” or “to thine own self be true.” This is a society that is therefore given over to instant gratifica¬tion. We have instant every¬thing: instant tea, instant oatmeal, quick rice, TV dinners, and microwave cooking. We can jump into an automobile and ei¬ther whiz across town in minutes, across most states in a few hours, or board a plane and 12 hours later be in Europe. (3) We watch a TV program and see family conflicts or national conflicts resolved in one hour, or at the most in a mini-series, four hours, but in reality, these things often require months and even years to resolve or change. The younger generation today has the mentality of wanting and expecting to have all the material blessings and advantag¬es their parents have. The difference is the parents often had to wait years to accumulate what they have. Young people are not willing to save, do without, and wait. We want what we want when we want it which is usually right now, or preferably, yesterday. So, because we are accustomed to immediate grati¬fica¬tion, we are too often unwilling to wait for the results of biblical sowing—sowing what is good and waiting on the Lord and His timing. So we take matters into our own hands. We run ahead of the Lord. We employ our own strategies and methods: • We light our own firebrands to light our path (Isa. 50:11) • Build our own cisterns, but they are broken and hold no water (Jer. 2:13) • We lean on the arm of the flesh, our own ability, rather than lean on the arm of the Lord (Jer. 17:5-7) We don’t want to wait on the Lord! We want to reap without sowing! But the Psalmist, in his determination to wait patiently on the Lord, wrote: Psalm 130:5-6 Unfortunately, because many Christians today tend to operate more on emotional sentiment rather than on biblical content, they have little or no faith and fail to sow for a later reaping or fail to have the perspective of laying up treasures in heaven. The Psalmist knew that envy, fretting over the prosperity of others, was really a matter of faith and seeing life from an eternal perspective. So he wrote: Psalm 37:7-9 In the context of the Lord’s exhortation for us to lay up heavenly treasure, we would do well to remember His words of rebuke to disciples, “oh men of little faith” (Matt. 6:30). The Law of the Harvest says, “We sow in one season; we reap in another.” No harvest comes the moment the seed is planted, but it must wait for God’s appointed time. This should be both a warning against sowing evil (Psalms. 9:16: “The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands”), and an encourage¬ment for sowing good seed (1 Cor. 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord”). In Faith and Patience, Sow What Is Good James 5:7-8 1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Pray to the Lord of Harvest and Don’t Faint Luke 10:2 Luke 18:1 John 4:35-38 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. 36 And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. 37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.’ 38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. Please note, we reap only what has been sown, but there are others who have sown. Wait Patiently on the Lord Who Will Reward Your Labor Psalm 27:13-14 Psalm 37:7-11 Psalm 147:10-11 Proverbs 20:22 Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee. Compare also Isaiah 40:27-31; 49:22-23; and Lamentations 3:25-26. Those who wait in true faith are renewed in strength so that they can continue to serve the Lord while looking for his saving work rather than take matters into their own hands. There will come a time when all that God has promised will be realized and fulfilled. In the mean time, the believer survives by means of his integrity and uprightness (biblical character) as he trusts and rests in God’s grace and power.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 15:10:27 +0000
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