What Will The Harvest Be?

Life is a seed-time. Of all men it may be said, “they have sown.”

Prudent men put the question, “What will the harvest be?”

The hope of harvest is the joyful encouragement of the righteous.

The certainty of harvest should be a solemn warning to the godless.

It is well to follow worldly lives to their issues that we may avoid them. Here we see what evil seed will produce.

I. THE RESULT OF CERTAIN SOWINGS WILL BE TERRIBLE. “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

The sowing was careless, or mischievous, or changeable; and the harvest was of the same reckless, ruthless, mingled character, only terribly intensified. Wind grew into whirlwind.

1. Vicious men sow their wild oats, and we need not say what they reap. The debauched, drunken, and profligate are around us, bearing already in their own persons the first-fruits of the fearful harvest of transgression.

2. Oppressors in a nation are sure to be repaid with revolt, bloodshed, etc., as may be seen in the French Revolution, and many other dreadful historical incidents. Wars bring an awful harvest of poverty and death. Oh, that our nation would cease to be so eager for the fray!

3. Immoral theories go far beyond their original intent. The speculation was an airy nothing, but the outcome is a whirlwind, breaking down all that is built up.

4. Heresies in the church also lead to unexpected evils. Apparently trifling errors grow to grievous evils. The use of a symbol develops into idolatry. A little laxity increases into absolute immorality. Small disputes lead on to heart-burnings and divisions.

5. Tolerance of sin in a family is a fruitful source of overwhelming evil. See the case of Eli. Mind it is not your own.

6. Toleration of sin in yourself. Occasional indulgence becomes habit, and habit is as the Simoom of the desert, before which life expires, and hope is swept away. Even allowable acts may grow into dangerous excess.

   • Let no man think that he can measure, much less limit, the consequences of sin as to himself, his family, the church, or the world. When once the winds are up, who can still them?

II. THE RESULT OF SOME SOWINGS IS MANIFEST FAILURE. “It has no stalk.”

The seed feebly tries to grow, but it comes to nothing.

1. Self-conceit vainly endeavors to produce a reputation.

2. Self-righteousness strives unsuccessfully to obtain salvation.

3. Human wisdom idly struggles to make a new gospel.

4. Mere idlers and talkers affect to be useful, but it is a delusion. What appears to be accomplished soon vanishes away. Great talk, but “no stalk.”

5. He who spends his life without faith in Christ, and obedience to his will, may dream of a happy future, but he will be deceived: “it has no stalk.”

   • Wherefore do men live for folly, and dote on vanity?

III. THE RESULT OF MANY SOWINGS IS UNSATISFACTORY. “The bud shall yield no meal.”

“The devil’s meal is all bran,” so they say, and it is true.

1. The man lived for pleasure, and found satiety.

2. He lived for fame, and gathered vanity.

3. He lived for self, and found misery.

4. He lived by his own works and religiousness, but reaped no peace of mind, and no real salvation.

IV. THE RESULT OF MANY SOWINGS IS PERSONAL DISAPPOINTMENT. “If so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”

1. The man spends his life as a common toiler, who earns much for his master, but nothing for himself, and this is a poor result if there be no higher object in life.

2. He invents, devises, and commences, but another gains the profit.

3. He heaps up riches, and knows not who shall gather them. His heirs forget him, and strangers swallow up his savings without gratitude.

   • Without God, nothing is wise, or strong, or worth the doing.
   • Only to live unto God is a wise sowing.

May the Lord destroy utterly all our sowings to the flesh, lest we reap corruption! Galatians 6:8.

May the Lord Jesus supply us with good seed, and bless us in the sowing! Oh, for a consecrated life!

Incidents

An Eastern apologue tells us of Abdallah, to whom an evil spirit came at first as a fly, sipping an atom of syrup. He did not drive away the creature, and to his surprise it increased to the size of a locust. Being further indulged, the creature went on growing, and made such rapid increase that it became an enormous monster, devoured his substance, and in the end murdered him, leaving in the garden, where it slew its victim, a footprint six cubits long. Thus does sin grow upon men, until it becomes a giant habit, and slays them.

Augustine tells us of a young man who thought that the devil had made flies, and such like tiny things. By the influence of this apparently insignificant error, he was led on, step by step, until in the end he ascribed everything to Satan, and ceased to believe in God. Thus does error sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. Scrupulous correctness of faith is as much a duty as careful practice in morals.

David Hume, the historian, philosopher, and skeptic, spent his life in traducing the Word of God. In his last moments he joked with those around him; but the intervals were filled up with sadness. He wrote, “I am affrighted and confounded with the forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I, and what? I begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed in the deepest darkness.”—New Cyclopædia of Anecdote.

The history of the Rev. Caleb Colton, M.A., the author of “Lacon,” may serve as a striking illustration of the truth of our text. He was a clergyman at Tiverton, popular and clever, but very fond of field-sports. One day, however, a friend suddenly expired while uttering most impious language. The awe-struck minister abjured dogs and guns, and vowed to live henceforth for his sacred calling. For months his preaching was earnest, but at the end of that time he resumed the sporting life. He had, moreover, acquired a love for gambling. A presentation to the vicarage of Kew and Petersham brought him to London, and while numbers were reading with delight his “Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words; addressed to those who think,” the wretched author was sitting far into the night among swindlers. His passion for play involving him in financial difficulties, he was forced to abscond, and his living was declared void. After leading a vagabond life, he perished by his own hand at Fontainebleau, in 1832.