THE CROP THAT NEVER FAILS
By Uriah Smith
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Gal. 6:7, 8. Couched in these words is a tremendous truth, an overwhelming lesson. Who can measure the length to which the import of the text might be extended, and the area which it might be expanded to cover? Where is there any end to it? These lines are not intended as an attempt to bring out any new thoughts on this much-treated theme, but only to offer a few timely reflections on a subject of unsurpassed importance. But does not the apostle contradict the great volume of facts patent to our eyes in the world around us? for he says that God is not mocked; but is not God mocked always and everywhere?—From the standpoint of human appearances, Yes; but here is the declaration, “God is not mocked.” Then what is mocked? for there is mockery in the world. John Trapp says, “They that would mock God, mock themselves much more.” This reveals the whole secret. By taking a course which, from one point of view, seems like mocking God, we are only mocking ourselves. We mock our own souls, our own eternal interests, the hope and glory of the heavenly world. True, there is no being to whom so much mockery is offered as to God. Men walk on His earth, sustained by His power, supported by His bounty, and yet deny His existence; others acknowledge His existence, but by their lives defy His power. Men come to His house of prayer, and there, amid the rising accents of supplication and praise, and the descending message of His word, think of their farms or merchandise, or follow in fancy their worldly desires. They go hence, and not a word of that which they have asked is remembered with a view to its answer. Many conceive the soul-paralyzing notion that there will be no rewards or punishments hereafter. They imagine that bare profession will suffice to save them. Some flatter themselves that they will somehow escape in the crowd; or they rely on their acceptance of a supposed orthodox creed, or a spurious conversion, or a presumptuous faith, or a little almsgiving, or a few outward acts of religion. Is not all this mocking God? But is He to be trifled with, by supposing that He will be satisfied with any such service as this? “God is not mocked.” And the apostle prefaces this with the warning, “Be not deceived.” God dwells in light unapproachable, far above any danger of pollution or insult from us, the creatures of His will. In all these things we are to consider that God is not the subject of any effectual mockery on our part; but we are mocking ourselves, and tampering with our own best and dearest interests. We are not deceiving God, but exposing ourselves to shame and everlasting contempt. The same principle applies to the laws of God’s government, which can not be set aside. The laws of nature are inexorable, and they can not be trifled with except to our own hurt. A man may try to interfere with the law of gravitation, and he may make a mock of it; but the result is that he will be crushed by it. It is so in providence. Evil results follow social wrongs. Sin must be punished. The word of God is exceedingly clear upon this point. To alter these laws would disarrange the universe; and every infraction of them must be settled with. Think of the great God watching every kind of a hypocrite, as he tries to deceive his fellow men by sham and empty show. He thinks the secret is known only to himself. But does he ever think of One whose eyes run to and fro in the earth, discerning both the evil and the good? Does he think how men would abhor such a character as his own, if they only knew, and then forget how God, who does know every secret thing, must regard him? And could he once open his eyes on the glory of the Lord, and take in the fact that there is one immortal Witness against him, who sees all, and knows all, and remembers all, could he do less than humble himself in dust and ashes before the King, ere He comes in to see the guests? The reason for all these results is given in the text: “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Those who till the literal soil of earth are often uncertain whether they will have a crop or not; whether some calamity may not sweep away the fruitage of their toil, or storm or drought may not blight the labor of the husbandman, or a short season prevent the maturing of the fruit of the earth. But this harvest of which the apostle speaks is subject to no such contingency. The crop never fails; and the harvest will be just what we have sown. We are intrusted with the formation of our own characters. Such as we make ourselves, that we must remain. “He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.” We do not need to irrigate this field nor to enrich the soil to secure this crop. Neither drought nor flood will prevent the harvest. The planets are not more surely fixed in their orbits, nor the earth more sure to revolve on its axis, than it is sure that what we sow that we shall also reap. If we sow good seed, we shall get good seed; if we sow evil seed, the produce will be evil. No arbitrary interference will relieve us of the dire results; and we shall have no one to blame but ourselves, who did the sowing. Nature and providence have no forgiveness; Revelation forgives, but only on conditions. It can be of no possible use to us, here or hereafter, to mock God by attempting to practice deception upon ourselves. We must take God as He reveals himself to us in His word. Christ was full of mercy; His mission was one of love. But nowhere else in the Bible can we find more terrific representations of the hopeless misery of the wicked, in the future life, than those ascribed to Christ, in the first three Gospels. There is a form of modern infidelity that is most dangerous because so attractive. It is that which, while pretending to exalt the beneficence and love of the Deity, degrades them into a reckless infinitude of mercy, and blind obliteration of the work of sin. This is one phase of Universalism; and the scheme is based chiefly on the manifold appearances of God’s kindness in the works of creation. Such kindness is indeed always and everywhere visible, but not alone. Wrath and threatening are invariably mingled with the love. And in the utmost solitudes of nature, the existence of a place of retribution seems to be as legibly declared as the existence of heaven. We may look at the evil appearances, and try to escape their teaching by reasonings about the good that is wrought out of all evil. But it is vain sophistry. The good succeeds to the evil, as the day succeeds to the night; but so also the evil to the good. Ruskin says, “Gerizim and Ebal, birth and death, light and darkness, heaven and hell, divide the existence of man and his futurity.” But there is a good side to this question—the sowing to the Spirit, and reaping everlasting life—as well as an evil side—the sowing to the flesh, and reaping corruption. While they who sow to the flesh reap corruption, which is decay, loss, and death, they who sow to the Spirit reap life everlasting. And this incomprehensible and eternal good is just as sure to those who sow for it as the corruption is sure to those who sow to the flesh. It is not an open question, then, whether we shall sow to-day or not, but the question is whether we shall sow good seed or evil. We are sowing every day; there is no avoiding that; but the question is, What is the seed we are sowing? and what shall the harvest be? To the sowers to the Spirit, the eternal life is just as sure as the corruption is to the sowers to the flesh.43 This is our sowing time. Every day we are casting in the seed. The harvest is to be in eternity. We shall reap in kind as we sow. There is no cessation. As long as probation continues, our life record is going upon the books above. The crop never fails. The harvest is sure to follow. There is to be no evasion, and no deception. God is not mocked into holding us in any other light than that which shows our true colors. Sow to the Spirit, and reap life everlasting. Study what it is to sow to the Spirit. Bring forth His fruits here, and then you shall see and share in His eternal fruits in the kingdom of heaven. U. S.