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SOWING AND REAPING


BY


D. L. MOODY.


_'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'_

Gal. vi: 7.


Chicago: New York: Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

Publishers of Evangelical Literature



_Copyright 1896 by_

_Fleming H. Revell Company._



CONTENTS


Chap.


I. Sowing and Reaping

II. Be Not Deceived: God Is Not Mocked

III. When a Man Sows, He Expects to Reap

IV. A Man Reaps the Same Kind as He Sows

V. A Man Reaps More than He Sows

VI. Ignorance of the Seed Makes No Difference

VII. Forgiveness and Retribution

VIII. Warning



SOWING AND REAPING



SOWING AND REAPING.


CHAPTER I.


"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." Galatians vi: 7, 8.

I think this passage contains truths that no infidel or sceptic will
dare to deny. There are some passages in the Word of God that need
no other proof than that which we can easily find in our daily
experience. This is one of them. If the Bible were to be blotted out
of existence, the words I have quoted would be abundantly verified
by what is constantly happening around us. We have only to take up
the daily papers to see them being fulfilled before our eyes.

I remember giving out this text once when a man stood right up in
the audience and said:

"I don't believe it."

I said, "My friend, that doesn't change the fact. Truth is truth
whether you believe it or not, and a lie is a lie whether you
believe it or not."

He didn't want to believe it. When the meeting broke up, an officer
was at the door to arrest him. He was tried and sent to the
penitentiary for twelve months for stealing. I really believe that
when he got into his cell, he believed that he had to reap what he
sowed.

We might as well try to blot the sun out of the heavens as to blot
this truth out of the Word of God. It is heaven's eternal decree.
The law has been enforced for six thousand years. Did not God make
Adam reap even before he left Eden? Had not Cain to reap outside of
Eden? A king on the throne, like David, or a priest behind the
altar, like Eli; priest and prophet, preacher and hearer, every man
must reap what he sows. I believed it ten years ago, but I believe
it a hundred times more to-day.

My text applies to the individual, whether he be saint or sinner or
hypocrite who thinks he is a saint; it applies to the family; it
applies to society; it applies to nations. I say the law that the
result of actions must be reaped is _as true for nations as for
individuals;_ indeed, some one has said that as nations have no
future existence, the present world is the only place to punish them
as nations. See how God has dealt with them. See if they have not
reaped what they sowed. Take Amalek: "Remember what Amalek did unto
thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met
thee, by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were
feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared
not God." What was to be the result of this attack? Was it to go
unpunished? God ordained that Amalek should reap as they sowed, and
the nation was all but wiped out of existence under King Saul.

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. What has become of Greece and all her power?
She once ruled the world. What has become of Rome and all her
greatness? When their cup of iniquity was full, it was dashed to the
ground. What has become of the Jews? They rejected salvation,
persecuted God's messengers, and crucified their Redeemer; and we
find that eleven hundred thousand of them perished at one time. Look
at the history of this country. With an open Bible, our forefathers
planted slavery; but judgment came at last. There was not a family
North or South that had not to mourn over some one taken from them.
Take the case of France. It is said that a century ago men were
spending millions every year in France in the publication and
distribution of infidel literature. What has been the harvest? Has
France not reaped? Mark the result: "The Bible was suppressed. God
was denied. Hell broke loose. Half the children born in Paris were
bastards. More than a million of persons were beheaded, shot,
drowned, outraged, and done to death between September, 1792, and
December, 1795. Since that time France has had thirteen revolutions
in eighty years; and in the republic there has been an overturn on
an average once in nine months. One-third of the births in Paris are
illegitimate; ten thousand new-born infants have been fished out at
the outlet of the city sewers in a single year; the native
population of France is decreasing; the percentage of suicides is
greater in Paris than in any city in Christendom; and since the
French Revolution there have been enough French men and women
slaughtered in the streets of Paris in the various insurrections, to
average more than two thousand five hundred each year!"

The principle was not new in Scripture or in history when Paul
enunciated it in his letter to the Galatians. Paul clothes it in
language derived from the farm, but in other dress the Law of Sowing
and Reaping may be seen in the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law of
Retribution or Retaliation, the Law of Compensation. It is not to my
purpose to enter now into a philosophical discussion of the law as
it appears under any of these names. We see that it exists. It is
beyond reasonable dispute. Whatever else sceptics may carp at and
criticise in the Bible, they must acknowledge the truth of this. It
does not depend upon revelation for its support; philosophers are
agreed upon it as much as they are agreed upon any thing.


The Supremacy of Law.

The objection may be made, however, that while its application may
be admitted in the physical world, it is not so certain in the
spiritual sphere. It is just here that modern research steps in. 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 went upon lines already laid
down. In short, that God projected 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