There is a saying, what goes around comes
around, that if somebody does you wrong, like
throwing a boomerang, it will come back to
them.
A lot of people believe that to be
true, friends.
But there have been many instances in my
life where I've been wronged by someone, and
they got clean away with it.
I've never seen a payback come to them.
But there is a law of nature that
holds true every single time, and that's the
law of the harvest.
It cannot be altered.
If you have some farmland and you plant
soybeans, then you will reap a harvest of
soybeans, because the law of the harvest states,
you reap what you sow.
You can't plant soybeans and reap a crop
of corn.
This is the law of the harvest, and
the natural world has seen in nature.
I have a lemon tree outside my window.
I can't plant an apple tree there and
grow lemons.
What you sow, you reap.
This is the law of the harvest in
nature, in the natural world.
There's also a harvest in the spiritual world
as well, friends, in the law of God,
and it works the same way.
In Galatians 6, 7, we read, Be not
deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap.
And it's true, friends, as sure as I'm
speaking to you now, that truth is a
living reality in scripture, for God's word is
true, and God is true to his word.
You will reap what you sow in the
spiritual realm.
I can take a walk through my Bible
and see instance after instance of the proof
of this text.
Galatians 6, 8 says, 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.
Now that's my introduction to my message today,
friends, and it's entitled Sin's Harvest, and my
text can be found in the book of
Hosea.
You can turn in your Bibles there now,
friends.
We will be in chapter 8 and verse
7.
And may God's spirit attend the reading of
his holy word.
The backdrop to this verse in Hosea is
a sad one.
Destruction is threatened to Israel and Judah because
of their multiplied sins.
They have sinned grievously against God.
We see in verse 1 of chapter 8,
Set the trumpet to the mouth, he shall
come as an eagle against the house of
the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant
and trespassed against my law.
God says the temple will be destroyed because
his people are misusing it because their worship
to God has become a sham, as has
their religion.
And then we see this striking verse of
scripture in verse 7 of chapter 8, which
is our text today, friends, and its truth
rings out all throughout my Bible.
For they have sown the wind, and they
shall reap the whirlwind.
In this case, the law of the harvest
is turned upon their heads in a more
dreadful outcome as they will reap far worse
than they have sowed.
They sowed the wind, but they will reap
the whirlwind.
There are few things in life more terrifying
than being in a tornado.
I used to live in what is known
as Tornado Alley, that section of mid-America
where it draws tornadoes like magnets because of
its geography.
I lived in the mid-south, in Tennessee,
and every spring we had tornadoes roar over
our heads or pass around us or come
down upon us.
When my daughter was a newborn, a savage
tornado came barreling into our neighborhood one evening,
and it seems that's the time most tornadoes
seem to hit, at night, when you can't
see them coming.
Anyhow, that year was a bad outbreak for
tornadoes, and one came through our neighborhood.
It sounded like a freight train coming fast
down the track.
My wife and I huddled in the hallway
with our little baby in our arms, and
we were praying out loud for God's protection
over us.
Things were so bad.
My next-door neighbor, who was a pilot
in the Vietnam War, said the next day
he'd never been so scared in his entire
life.
He felt he was going to die worse
than in combat.
Well, we all survived, but our homes and
neighborhood was pretty tore up.
But that's the destructive fury of what a
whirlwind is like.
So when God says in his word, they
have sown the wind, and they shall reap
the whirlwind.
That's a vivid picture of the sinner in
hell, with the outpoured wrath of God upon
them, like a roaring, smoking furnace.
There are three realities of our text today,
which I will bring before you now, friends.
Number one, sin has a harvest.
Number two, sin is known to God.
Number three, sin reaps more than it sows.
Let's look at these one by one.
Sin has a harvest.
God's word says so.
In Galatians, it states this clearly.
Be not deceived.
God is not mocked.
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.
You live without God in the world, and
you will live without God in eternity.
That is why there exists a heaven and
a hell.
Shew not the judge of all the earth
do right.
If you live a godless life here, you
will exist in a godless eternity.
A Christless life ends up in a Christless
death that leads to a Christless grave and
a Christless eternity.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall
of his flesh reap corruption.
So says God in his word.
Sin has a harvest.
It is a law of God that cannot
be altered.
Number two, sin is known to God.
Look at verse two in chapter seven of
Hosea.
And they consider not in their hearts that
I remember all their wickedness.
Now their own doings have beset them about.
They are before my face.
Sin is known to God.
We can hide it from our friends, and
we can even sometimes hide it from our
family.
But we cannot hide it from a holy
God.
God keeps a record book on every single
sin we do, either sins of commission or
sins of omission.
They're written down in a book on us,
which will be read out loud before humankind
at a future judgment.
If you die outside of Christ, Revelation 20
12 declares a solemn scene of the grand
size.
And I saw the dead, small and great,
stand before God.
And the books were opened, and another book
was opened, which is the book of life.
And the dead were judged out of those
things which were written in the books according
to their works.
Believe me, friend, when I say sin is
known to God.
Lastly, sin reaps more than it sows.
For they've sown the wind, and they shall
reap the whirlwind.
I don't believe King David knew the whirlwind
of trouble that was to befall his family
when he stood on his balcony, sowing the
wind of lust and murder as he beheld
the lovely naked Bathsheba in her bath.
I've seen it time and time again in
the lives of friends who have committed adultery,
and their homes and family are wrecked and
ruined to such a degree.
The aftermath of their sinful choices is like
a whirlwind, destroyed everything once dear to them.
The law of the harvest is the sad
reality in the spiritual realm that sin reaps
more than it sows.
We've looked at sin's harvest today, friends, and
I don't know about you, but it looks
pretty ugly to me.
It makes you want to stay as close
to Christ as white on rice.
Let us pray.