Sowing and Reaping [Annotated, Updated]: Whatever a man sows that shall he also reap. – Galatians 6:7

by Dwight L. Moody

What has become of the monarchies and empires of the world? What brought ruin on Babylon? Her king and people would not obey God, and ruin came upon them.

Look at the history of this country. Despite an open Bible, our forefathers allowed slavery, but judgment came at last. There was hardly a family in the North or in the South that did not have to mourn over someone taken from them.

The laws of the spiritual world have been largely identified as the same laws that exist in the natural world. Indeed, it is claimed that the spiritual existed first, that the natural came after, and that when God proceeded to frame the universe, He followed the pattern that He already laid down. Basically, God sent the higher laws downward so that the natural world became an incarnation, a visible representation, a working model of the supernatural. In the spiritual world, the same wheels work – without the iron.

shall reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7).

Sow yourselves unto righteousness, reap yourselves unto mercy (Hosea 10:12).

God supplies the needs that He has created. He feeds the ravens. He clothes the lilies. He will feed with His Spirit the craving spirits of His children.[1]

Life is to be regarded as a seedtime. Everyone has a field to sow, to cultivate, and finally, to reap. We are cultivating the seed for the coming harvest by our habits, by our interaction with friends and companions, and by exposing ourselves to good or bad influences. We cannot see the seed as it grows and develops, but time will reveal it.

full-grown harvest is potentially contained in the seed, so the full results of sin or holiness are potentially contained in the sinful or holy deed.

The seed always has potential. Never discount the seed.

When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death (James 1:15).

Rambling pleasure seekers who are carried along by every impulse, and all those whose powers of mental discipline are so enfeebled that they have become slaves of every propensity, live in the perpetual harvest of criminal gratification.

The father sows, and he reaps in his daughter’s life.

What i sow now, my kids will reap.

A sculptor once showed a visitor his studio. It was full of statues of gods. One was rather interesting. The face was concealed by hair, and there were wings on each foot. “What is his name?” asked the visitor. “Opportunity,” was the reply. “Why is his face hidden?” “Because people seldom know him when he comes to them.” “Why does he have wings on his feet?” “Because he is soon gone, and once he is gone, he can never be overtaken.”

We can learn from this that there is no such thing as a wasted moment on earth. When we realize that every thought, word, and action has an eternal influence and will come back to us in the same way as the seed returns in the harvest, we must understand the responsibility of each thought, word, and action, however unimportant they may seem at the moment.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).

“Adversity hath slain her thousand, but prosperity her ten thousand.”[1]

We ought to watch on every side, too. Many people have fallen at the very point where they thought they were the safest.

So it is with the harvest of our actions. Few people, if any, would indulge in sin unless they expected pleasure out of it.

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 kind of moral tyrant, as He is so often regarded. He does not sit on a throne attaching penalties to particular actions as they come up for judgment.

It must be accepted and dealt with. Though others may have to reap with you, no one can reap for you.

While we were in the flesh, the affections of the sins which were by the law worked in our members to bring forth fruit unto death (Romans 7:5).

Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Galatians 5:19-21).

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 (Hosea 8:7).

Every desire and every action that does not have God as its end and object is seed sown to the flesh.

No matter how polite, refined, and respectable the seed may be and no matter how closely it resembles the good seed, its true nature will come out and the contamination of corruption will be upon it.

Before you covet the enjoyment that someone else possesses, you must first calculate the cost at which it was obtained.

“There are in every person two impulses: good and evil. He who yields his evil impulses to God offers the best sacrifice.”

Delay does not necessarily mean denial.

Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not (Galatians 6:9).

The idea that something will never be brought to light because it is done in the dark is fatal.

There are some people who mock at religious meetings and say that religion drives people insane. It is sin that drives people crazy. It is the lack of Christ that sinks people into despair.

He got his brother’s birthright blessing by this lie, but he paid ten thousand times more for it than it was worth.

You'll never get into heaven with a lie. There is still room in heaven for a Jacob.

When Jacob had grown to be an old man, he lived in continual suspicion that his sons were deceiving him. The sin of deceiving his own father bore fruit.

for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

Follow him to Padanaram. He was there twenty years, and during that time his wages were changed ten times. He worked seven years for the lovely Rachel, and then was tricked into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah. Jacob had obtained the blessing of the firstborn son by deception, but Laban sarcastically reminded him, It must not be so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn (Genesis 29:26). Jacob learned that Laban could drive as sharp a bargain as he could.

He turned Jacob a surplanter, into Israel the father of the 12 tribes.

“Sow a thought and reap an act. Sow an act and reap a habit. Sow a habit and reap a character. Sow a character and reap a destiny.”

Such a powerful saying.

Those things that will help to develop character must be selected for him,

Father, mother, neighbor – are your tracks true? Are they straight? Can you turn to anyone walking behind you and say, “Follow me as I follow Christ”? Are you leading the little ones safely to the Good Shepherd? Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

The best time to sow the good seed is before Satan has scattered the tares.

If you are slave to some sinful habit, you must either slay that habit or it will slay you.

“The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.”

If you think you can give a loose rein to your passions and lusts and yet have eternal life, you are being deceived.

Your eternity depends upon your choice in spiritual things.

“While you are in Rome, do as the Romans do,”

“The grace of God gives a new heart, but not a new body.”

It was to Christians that Paul said, Do not deceive yourselves; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7).

Paul’s thorn in the flesh was not removed, even after the most earnest and repeated prayer. It lost its sting, however, and became a means of grace (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

If a man has not given up his drunkenness, his profanity, his immorality, and his covetousness, heaven would be hell to him.

Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people.

If you sow to the flesh, a good harvest will be impossible.

Good seed and bad seed cannot both succeed if allowed to grow together. One prospers at the expense of the other, and the likelihood is that the bad seed will get the upper hand. Weeds always seem to grow and spread more rapidly than good seed.