Harvest Laws for Holy Living - 6 - The Law of Productivity

I want to begin the message this morning by testifying, attesting to the personal blessings I have received as I’ve studied for, prepared this series of messages on Harvest Laws for Holy Living. God has certainly spoken to my own heart as I trust He has to yours as well.

As your pastor, I too, want to be open, pliable, willing to be molded by the truth of God’s Word. Is that your desire?

Today, we come to the fourth of the seven Laws of the Harvest. It is not only one of the most important of the laws, but one of the most obvious as well. In fact, if it we’re for this law, there would be no harvest, and yet, this law seems to be the least emphasized.

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

  1. The Law of Productivity

No fact is more significant and sobering than this one. When we sow good, we bountifully receive from the hand of God who is debtor to no man; for the harvest is always greater than the seed planted. If this were not the case, no farmer would ever plant a thing. If he only got back what germinated in the ground, he would be on the losing end and spend his life in utter futility.

Reaping more than we sow is fundamental to the laws of the harvest and this is not just true for the agricultural world, it is true for nearly every aspect of life: for the physical and the spiritual, for believers and unbelievers alike.

This law works in reverse as well. When we sow evil, we will generally reap more than we sowed as well.

Of course, there are some exceptions due to the fact we live in a sin cursed world with natural and economic disasters. A farmer may sow bountifully and have his crop destroyed by drought or a tornado, or he may reap a good crop and not be able to reap a reward from it because of economic factors in his country.

And what is true of the farmer in the agricultural realm is equally true for us in the spiritual realm, whether saved or unsaved. And this law, like to others, has both positive as well as negative implica- tions. If we sow good, we’ll reap a greater harvest of good in return. But if we sow wrong, we’ll reap greater wrong.

  1. This law is indicated in the Scripture

Two specific passages set forth this law in clear language. cf. Prov. 22:8

“Vanity” here is carries the meaning of “calamity” or “trouble.” It describes “sorrow, distress, mis- fortune, emptiness.” Note Ps. 55:3 (“iniquity”); 90:10 (“sorrow”); Hab. 3:7 (“affliction”).

Proverbs 22:8 is telling us that when a person sows iniquity or wrong, they will reap trouble, adverse circumstances in the form of sorrow, suffering, sadness.

The second passage that establishes this law is Hosea 8:7. Notice that it’s not “sow wind, reap wind;” but “sow wind; reap the whirlwind.”

The phrase “they sow the wind” alludes to the futility of Israel’s human solutions and strategies by which she was seeking to handle life and her problems, specifically, her idolatrous worship by which she was seeking to design God according to her own wishes. This she was doing in place of knowing and trusting in the Word and the true and living God (4:6).

“Wind” represents that which lacks substance and is, like all efforts of the flesh, futile, worthless, and of no assistance (cf. Prov. 11:28-29).

“Whirlwind” represents the harvest in kind which comes from sowing the wind. But it also represents the concept of “more.” The futility (wind) which she had planted like seed would yield a crop of destruction (represented by the whirlwind). “Whirlwind” is a Hebrew intensive form and means “a violent whirlwind/tornado.” God’s warning here is that you do not just reap in kind, but you may reap much more. All her efforts directed toward self-preservation would be self-destructive. The idea then is “sow wind (your sin, self-centered ways), reap a tornado (your consequences).”

It’s no different for you, me today, beloved. Not only is this law is indicated in the Scripture, but

  1. This law is illustrated in the saints
  1. This law is illustrated in the life of Jacob

The story is a familiar one. Rebekah had overheard her husband Isaac telling his oldest son Esau that if he would go out and get some venison and prepare a tasty meal, he would bless him. But scheming Rebekah wanted her second son Jacob to have that blessing, so she told Jacob to follow her instructions so that the blessing would be his.

He must hurriedly kill 2 goats, and she would prepare the meal. Since Esau had hairy arms, and Jacob didn’t, Jacob must disguise himself. So, together they covered his arms with animal hair in order to deceive Issac, who had great difficulty seeing at his old age.

Well, the deception worked, and when it was discovered, it was too late for Isaac to go back on his word. That day, Rebekah, Jacob planted a crop that would eventually come to a bitter harvest in far greater abundance than was originally sown.

The result was that Jacob was forced to leave home, as Esau threatened to kill Jacob after Isaac died. So, Rebekah sent him away to live with her brother Laban in far away Haran...reassuring him that it would be just for “a few days, until thy brother’s fury turn away” (Gen. 27:44). Little did Rebekah realize that her harvest would be that she would never see her favorite son again, for she died before he returned many years later...and it was nobody’s fault but her own.

As we follow Jacob, we see the whirlwind he reaped. Because he schemed, deceived his brother, father, he would be schemed against, deceived even more severely. Note the sad series of events:

Jacob’s scheme against his father Isaac reaped a far more hurtful scheme against Jacob himself. He was deceived, in sorrow for many, many years as a result. Jacob used a goat to deceive his father, and Jacob’s sons used one to deceive him. Jacob had put on a coat to trick Isaac, and he was deceived in turn about Joseph’s’ coat of many colors.

Finally, when famine forced Jacob down into Egypt, and he was reunited with Joseph, note his words to Pharaoh. cf. Gen. 47:7-9.

Jacob reaped long, hard the fourth law of the harvest.

Secondly, note as well that

  1. This law is illustrated in the life of David

David’s life illustrates this law with great clarity, conviction. So important is this truth that most of the book of II Samuel is devoted to emphasizing it. In the first half of the book, God blessed everything David did. But in chaps. 11, 12, David sinned with Bathsheba, and from that point on everything falls apart, as David had nothing but trouble from that point on.

We could call II Samuel the book that moves from triumph to tragedy...from fame to failure...from success to sorrow!! Because of one man’s sin, a chain reaction of events resulted that would cause heartache, hardship, harm for dozens of people in Israel as well in David’s own family...not to mention that it caused God’s enemies to blaspheme God’s character. How true the words of Rom. 14:7...None of us live unto ourselves, and none of us die to ourselves either.

And it all began with such a seemingly innocent and insignificant factor. David was simply not where he was supposed to be...on the front lines of the battle with this troops. But as sin often is, one thing grew and led to another until it finally enslaves its victim.

Susan Wesley, mother of John, Charles, once wrote these words to her son John: Would you judge the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure? Take this rule: Now note, whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.

When Bathsheba informed David that she was expecting his child, he faced a crucial decision... unfortunately, he made the wrong one. Instead of choosing to repent, stop the downward slide, he decided rather to sin more and more.

Ironically, a son later born as a result of that adulterous affair, Solomon, would later write these words in Prov. 28:13, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Oh, how little we realize the seriousness, awefulness of our sin! cf. II Sam. 11:27.

Man excuses sin, but God hates it and always calls it what it really is!!

Man calls sin an accident—God calls it an abomination.

Man calls sin a blunder—God calls it blindness.

Man calls sin a chance—God calls it a choice.

Man calls sin a carelessness—God calls it a catastrophe.

Man calls sin a defect—God calls it a defilement.

Man calls sin an error—God calls it enmity.

Man calls sin fascination—God calls it fatality.

Man calls sin infirmity—God calls it iniquity.

Man calls sin luxury—God calls it leprosy.

Man calls sin liberty—God calls it lawlessness.

Man calls sin a mistake—God calls it madness.

Man calls sin a reasonable—God calls it rebellion.

Man calls sin a trifle—God calls it a tragedy.

Man calls sin a weakness—God calls it wickedness.

Well, the Lord gave David space to repent of this tragic chain of events, and when he failed to confess his sins, God sent Nathan the prophet to put the finger on the king. cf. II Sam. 12:7.

David now realized the heinousness of his sin, his need for repentance. Ps. 51 was written in response.

Beloved in the Lord, please remember that there is a vast difference between being sorry for our sin and being sorry that we got caught. So often we want to blame anybody but ourselves for our sin, to get us off the hook.

That attitude reminds of the little girl who took a scissors and cut large chunks of her long hair. Later, she walked into the room where her mother was. She horrifyingly said, “O, you’ve cut your hair!”

The astonished child replied, “But how did you know, Mommy? I hid it very carefully in the waste- basket.”

Are we any less foolish when we seek to conceal or excuse our sin? Contemplate the words of Heb. 4:13.

Let us take careful note of the charges Nathan leveled against David, and the consequences he reaped because of his sin, because it is Nathan’s indictments and judgments against David that tell the story of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind...sowing iniquity and reaping trouble.

The indictment: You killed Uriah (2 Sam. 12:9).

The judgment: The sword will never depart from your house (12:10).

The indictment: You took his wife (12:9).

The judgment: Your wives will be taken before your eyes (12:11).

The indictment: You did this secretly (12:12).

The judgment: Your wives will be defiled openly before all Israel (12:11-12).

The indictment: You gave occasion to the enemies to blaspheme the Lord (12:14).

The judgment: Your child also born to you shall surely die (12:14).

David could do nothing to avoid reaping the consequences of the fourth law of the harvest...nor can we!

After Nathan told the king the parable of the man, the sheep, David handed down his decision: the man must restore the victim four-fold...and he did! Four of David’s own sons: Shimea, Ammon, Absolam, Adonijah all died tragic, premature deaths without mercy.

Mark it down: we all reap more than we sow!

Though we don’t have time to read the entire passage, Lev. 26 recounts how Israel discovered the truth of the fourth law of the harvest as well. God told them that if they wholly followed the Lord, He would bless them abundantly, but if they disobeyed Him, they would consequently experience terror, tragedy of vast proportions.

Their crops would fail; they would lose military battles. But that was to be only the beginning, for the Lord would simply use these preliminary factors to try to wake Israel up to their need to repent. If they failed to do so, they would be sowing more rebellion, and the harvest would be far more severe.

In this case, God didn’t operated on the basis of addition, but of multiplication. One unit of discipline would be increased 49 times. Two more seven-fold increases are later listed, so that by the fifth cycle, they would have reaped 2,401 units of discipline.

Under each cycle, they sowed a sin which reaped a seven-fold greater increase. Those of us who think they can keep on sinning, falling back into the same sinful ruts, and think nothing of it, had better wake up, wise up, don’t you think?

Let me say by way of conclusion that God’s Word emphasizes the positive blessings that accompany this law as well. Though David did sin against the Lord, as a whole, he walked with the Lord and sowed what was good. When confronted with his sin by Nathan, he quickly confessed. This made him a man after God’s own heart. cf. 1 Kings 15:4, 5.

Most of David’s life was sowing good, not evil, and as a result, God continued to bless him and many of the kings of Judah for many years, by His awesome mercy, grace.

God’s people reaped countless blessings because of David’s righteousness. In fact, he was the standard of righteousness in Judah. Each subsequent Judean king was compared, not with Saul or Solomon, but with David.

If we sow cycles of carnal living, we sow cycles of calamitous living. By contrast, sowing righteous- ness reaps an abundant crop of blessings. We can’t lose when we walk in the ways of the Lord.

How is it with you today?