Morning Dew with Pastor Abraham (LAW 3)

Pastor Abraham

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.

Genesis 8:22 reads: “While the earth remains, 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 winter. 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.

Deuteronomy 32:35 Vengeance is mine, and retribution, in due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.

1 Samuel 1:20 And it came about in due time, after Hannah had conceived, that she gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of the LORD.”

Psalm 145:15. The eyes of all look to Thee, And Thou dost give them their food in due time.

Psalm 104:27. They all wait for Thee, To give them their food in due season.

Galatians 6:9 And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.  A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.  A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.  A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.  A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.  A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.  A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.

While the original creation was created with apparent age and maturity, Scripture and life itself teach us that for everything else, time is needed for growth and maturity in the biological, zoological, social, spiritual, mental, athletic, and economical areas of life

Without question we reap what we sow, but the principle 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 something or can, but we never do.

Ecc. 8:11-12 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.  Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and may lengthen his life, still I know that it will be well for those who fear God, who fear Him openly.

(2) We live in a self-oriented society that says “do your own thing,” This is a society that is therefore given over to instant gratification. We have instant everything: instant tea, instant oatmeal, quick rice, TV dinners, and microwave cooking. We can jump into an automobile and either whiz across town in minutes, across most regions in a few hours, or board a plane and 12 hours later be in abroad.

(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 advantages 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 gratification, 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 I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord More than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.

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 Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.  Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret, it leads only to evildoing.  For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.

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 (Pr. 9:16: “the wicked is snared by the work of his own hands”), and an encouragement for sowing good seed (1 Cor. 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord”).