970
THE KING’S BUSINESS
was wrong, and the nation had to reap what it sowed, and tonight nearly half a million men lie in soldiers’ graves. Look at the nations that forgot God. Where is Nineveh? Where is Babylon? Where is Jerusalem? Those nations went on sowing to the flesh and they had to reap it. The reaping time came; it always comes. A man may think God is winking a t’sin nowadays, and is not going to punish sin because He does not execute His judgment speedily. ■“Be' riot; 'deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever k. man soweth, that shall he also' reap.” Look at the life of David. It seems to me there is not a person in the whole Bible who makes me hate sin like David, yet men laugh at that, sin of David and seem to think that David went unpunished. It seems to me there is not a man in the whole Word of God who was punished as David was. You know he fell into grievous sin—he not only committed adultery, but murder—and he went on for months,' apparently unpun ished, and the skeptics who knew it laughed and said, “Ah, God does not punish sin; God don’t punish him.” And for months it seemed as though God was not'going to punish him, but at last Nathan came and drew a picture for him and then skid, “Thou art the man.” And xthe prophet told him that the Lord had put away his sin, but, “nevertheless, the sword shall never depart from thine house.” David had committed adultery, and his eldest son committed adul tery with David’s own daughter. (Absalom, his favorite son, murdered and slew another of David’s sons. A h! be not deceived, God is not mocked. David had to reap what he sowed. Not only so, but David rebelled against God, and we find Absalom driving David from his throne; and look at him as he leaves the city and goes weeping up Mount Olivet—he knew what it was for. CERTAIN PUNISHMENT Bear in mind that God is going to punish sin wherever he finds it. If he finds it in you and me, He is going to punish us if we do not turn from it and plead for mercy. The idea that God is not going to punish
text into three points, although I am not going to speak at length on each of the points. : , ■ (1) When a man sows lie must reap . Every man that sows in the natural world expects to reap. You will see farmers out in their fields in a few days sowing, and they will all expect to reap. Not a man that goes out to sow but expects a harvest. It is just as true in the spiritual world— if we sow we must also reap. (2) A , M 'f t M U ST'R EA P M pRfi,"THAN ''HE sows. :When .men* sow. they.-expectf to" reap more than they sow. If a man sows a bushel of wheat, he expects to reap many bushels. Just so it is in the. spiritual world, we must reap far more than we sow. ( 3 ) We MUST REAP JUST WHAT WE SOW- “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.” _In the natural world men always expect to reap the same as they sow. If they sow wheat, they expect to reap wheat: If they sow oats they do not expect to gather water melons; if they plant an apple tree, they do not look for peaches on it; if they plant a grape vine they expect to get grapes, not pumpkins. Men expect at harvest time just what they have sowed at sowing time, and let me say right here that ignorance as to the character of the seed we sow will make, no difference in the reaping. It won’t do for a man to say, “I did not know but what it was wheat I was sowing when I sowed tares.” That makes no difference; he sowed tares and he will reap tares. You’ve got to know. If I go out and sow tares and think it is wheat, I have got to gather tares all the same; that is a universal law. If a man learns the carpenter’s trade, he don’t expect to be a watchmaker, he expects to be a carpenter. The man who goes to col lege and studies hard expects to reap for those long years of toil and labor. MUST REAP IN KIND It is just the same in the spiritual world. Whatsoever a man or a nation sows, that man and that nation must reap. This nation planted slavery in this land, with an open Bible before it. They knew it
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