Harvest Laws for Holy Living - 5 - The Law of Postponement

I believe that one of the greatest causes of grief to the heart of God in our generation is what we might call, for lack of a better term, "Sunday Churchianity." This is the idea that a Christian can live a double life, sort of as a double agent: acting worldly, carnally Monday through Saturday...living as if God doesn't exist or is irrelevant, and then coming to church on Sunday thinking they can smooth things over with God and somehow appease His holiness.

Relating that reality to God's laws of the harvest, it would be the idea that such a person can sow wild oats throughout the week and then go to church on Sunday and pray for crop failure.

Some professing Christians have actually convinced themselves that they're getting away with their dis- obedience, rebellion, compromise because they don't seem to be reaping any harmful consequences from their shameful conduct.

Such a person fails to understand God's harvest laws, especially the third such law. There is no such thing as crop failure with God. You, I can scheme, sneak around in a futile attempt to avoid reaping the consequences of our actions, but our puny efforts to do so are as foolish , and doomed to failure as if we tried to sink a battleship with a pea shooter, or attempted to extinguish a raging forest fire with a squirt gun, or tried to stop a herd of stampeding elephants by posting a stop sign.

God's harvest laws abide, are absolute!

So far, in our series of Harvest Laws for Holy Living, we have observed two of these laws:

Now, let's progress to the third law:

  1. The Law of Postponement

Beloved, the harvest never comes immediately after the planting...in agriculture, this is obvious. cf. Gen. 8:22. There is a planting season, producing season, and they're not the same.

Therefore, the Law of Postponement exhorts us that we reap in a different season than when we planted, but the harvest comes anyway.

This law is so true in the spiritual realm...regardless if we have sown good or bad...the harvest always comes in God's time. He appoints the season of reaping.

No man can turn up his nose at God's laws and get away with it. Sooner or later his choices will return to disturb him.

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.

The first thing we notice about this law is that

  1. This law can be beneficial

Let's ponder Ecc. 11:1 for a moment. Solomon seems to be using this verse to teach us a very practical truth. He refers to the ancient practice of sending forth merchant ships laden with cargo that traveled to distant shores selling bread, grain, and it would bring back riches in return.

The principle he illustrates is quite clear: do deeds of kindness, and in some other season, "after many days," they will return to you in keeping with God's harvest laws. cf. Prov. 11:18.

Paul refers to this same principle in Gal. 6:9-10. Are you ever tempted to give up? To quit? Do you sometimes feel like throwing in the towel regarding the Christian life...giving in to your passions, lusts, figuring, what's the use--there doesn't seem to be any results...no response to your ministry or desire to help others.

How easy it is to grow weary in God's will, work, and faint, stop living for the Lord altogether. But we need to realize the practicality of the Law of Postponement: we don't always see the results of walking in the Spirit immediately. It takes time to grow a crop, to produce fruit.

It takes many years for an apple tree to produce apples, but only a few minutes to produce a plastic apple in a factory. If we rush the fruit-bearing process, we can harm the fruit, and it could end up being as artificial as that plastic apple.

Don't despair...don't lose heart...don't give up. Depend on the Lord of the harvest for the harvest. Keep on keeping on for the Lord despite the obstacles or opposition from others. cf. Isa. 40:31.

Thank God that we only have the responsibility to plant faithfully for God's glory, but the Lord is the One Who brings forth the harvest. cf. Ecc. 11:6; I Cor. 3:6ff.

Yes, this law can be beneficial. But note secondly that

  1. This law can be burdensome

We must never forget that though the Lord may delay the harvest, He never cancels it. It is only by the Lord's mercy, long-suffering that He temporarily withholds His discipline or judgment...but come it does!

It is in the season, the span between planting, reaping that many a Christian is lulled into complacency, false security by thinking that if God doesn't deal with them immediately, He won't deal with them at all. But this is where we fail to realize that God is simply waiting for us to get right with Him.

God's Word contains an abundance of illustrations proving this very point.

God had commanded His people to observe the Sabbatical Year in which every 7th year, the land was to go unplowed, unplanted for the entire year. Yet, for 490 years, God's people refused to obey, observe God's command. As far as they were concerned, it appeared as if He wasn't noticing at all. How wrong they were.

Year after year He waited, waited, waited until finally, after almost 500 years had elapsed, judgment came. Note what Jeremiah wrote. cf. 25:11-12; 29:10; II Chron. 36:20-21.

God got His 70 Sabbatical years back in one lump sum. The harvest, though postponed, came at last. You see, God will not be mocked!

Are you here today, plagued by sin or a rebellious heart, thinking that you're getting away with your sin because God didn't judge it instantly or immediately? Then think again. You are not getting away with anything at all. cf. Ecc. 8:11ff. Does this describe you?

God is not on vacation, friends! Don't be deceived into thinking that He's not interested in or involved in the affairs of each of our lives. God sees! God knows! God cares! God will act!

However, sometimes the cup of God's wrath fills up rather quickly if people are ripe for judgment. Up until Dec. 28, 1908, Mesina, Italy, was a flourishing, beautiful city. But on that morning almost 100 years ago, an earthquake devastated that city, and 84,000 people died. Official reports said, "Only a few hours before that devastating earthquake which laid Mesina and the surrounding districts in ruins, the unspeakable wicked and irreligious condition of some of the inhabitants was expressed in a series of violent resolutions which were passed against religious principles. The journal Il Telefono, printed in Mesina, actually published in its Christmas day edition an abominable parody, daring the Almighty to make Himself known by sending an earthquake! And in three days the earthquake came!"

None of us are fooling God! He always evens the score in the day of harvest. We are getting away with nothing whatsoever!!

Then, think of

What is true of nations is also true of individuals. Though the OT Jezebel got her just dues many years after she sowed her seeds of rebellion against the Lord, I'm thinking right now of a Jezebel in the NT. cf. Rev. 2:18ff.

The church at Thyatira was a church that thought it could compromise with sin, Satan, the world and get away with it. The letter John wrote to them shows the depths that sin and compromise can lead to, as well as the disaster to the church that tolerates such actions.

In v. 20, we're introduced to a woman in the church described as Jezebel, no doubt called that because her evil works so closely paralleled her namesake in the OT, the woman who introduced religious paganism to Israel.

In similar fashion, the NT Jezebel married the world to the church and brought paganism in, resulting in idolatry, immorality. Both Jezebels succeeded in corrupting God's people.

But what the church tolerated, Christ didn't tolerate. Now, here's the point. God gave her time to repent, but she refused. His patience finally gave way to His punishment. What she caused the church to do would befall her personally. cf. v. 22-23a. Why did God thus act? The last part of v. 23 contains the answer.

Why the harvest? As a warning to others and as a vindication of God's own holiness.

God has many methods of dealing with our sin. Sometimes He uses discipline, sometimes even death.

Dr. S. D. Gordon, the great preacher of a past generation, lists seven important aspects we should always remember about sin:

Is it any wonder that Solomon warned his own son with the words or Prov. 1:10.

The third law of the harvest needs to be recaptured by our present generation. We need to reemphasize the truth that God always brings a harvest to fruition, whether for our benefit or our as a burden.

May we never forget it!