Sowing and Reaping

by Dwight Lyman Moody

The Certainty of the Reaping.

The text bids us look forward to the certainty of the reaping: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

We know what it is to have a failure of the crops, but in the spiritual world no such failure is possible. Wet soil may rot the seed, or frost may nip the early buds, or the weather may prove too wet or too dry to bring the crops to maturity, but none of these things occur to prevent the harvest of one’s actions. The Bible tells us that God will render to every man according to his deeds. “To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil.” How careful we should be of our actions in all departments of our being, physical, moral, intellectual! The deeds we do, the words we speak, the thoughts we harbor, are all recorded, and shall meet their just reward, for God is no respecter of persons.

And it must not be overlooked that the harvest comes as a necessary consequence of the sowing. It has been said that God is not a sort of a moral despot, as He is so frequently regarded. He does not sit on a throne, attaching penalties to particular actions as they come up for judgment. He has laid down certain laws, of which the law of sowing and reaping is one, and punishment is the natural outcome of sin. There is no escape. It must be borne; and though others may have to reap with you, no one can reap for you.

The text teaches, further, that the harvest is one or other of two kinds. There are two, and only two, directions in which the law leads: Sowing to the flesh, and a harvest of corruption—sowing to the Spirit, and a harvest of everlasting life.

Sowing to the Flesh.

“Sowing to the flesh” does not mean simply taking due care of the body. The body was made in the image of God, and the body of a believer is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and we may be sure that due care for the image is well-pleasing to God. The expression refers rather to pandering to the lusts of the body, pampering it, providing gratification for its unlawful desires at the expense of the higher part of a man, indulging the animal propensities which in their excess are sinful. “Sowing to the flesh” is scattering the seeds of selfishness, which always must yield a harvest of corruption.

“When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” And what does Paul say are the works of the flesh? “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.”

I was at the Paris exhibition in 1867, and I noticed there a little oil painting, only about a foot square, and the face was the most hideous I have ever seen. On the paper attached to the painting were the words “Sowing the tares,” and the face looked more like a demon’s than a man’s. As he sowed these tares, up came serpents and reptiles, and they were crawling up on his body, and all around were woods with wolves and animals prowling in them. I have seen that picture many times since. Ah! the reaping time is coming. If you sow to the flesh you must reap the flesh. If you sow to the wind you must reap the whirlwind.

And yet it must not be thought that indulgence in the grosser vices is the only way of sowing to the flesh. Every desire, every action that has not God for its end and object is seed sown to the flesh. If a man is sowing for a harvest of money or ambition, he is sowing to the flesh, and will reap corruption, just as surely as the liar and adulterer. No matter how “polite” and “refined” and “respectable” the seed may be, no matter how closely it resembles the good seed, its true nature will out, the blight of corruption will be upon it.