No Successful Defiance

A. Gal. 6:7-8, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he
will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who
sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”
Mockery is serious business, and to mock God by defying the moral law of the universe is the most serious business of all. Many earthly parents allow themselves to be mocked. At the Mall, It’s not uncommon to see children openly defy their parents, knowing that they can do whatever they please and their parents will do no more than issue threats. These children have learned by experience that no real punishment will be handed out.
1. But our Heavenly Father is not so easily mocked. To believe that one can disregard Him and somehow evade the consequences is not the mark of a very intelligent person. The rule is both simple and unavoidable: whatever we “sow,” that is what we will “reap.”
(A) The laws of moral cause and effect operate over the long term, and their
power is not always obvious to us in the short term. But we should not be
fooled by the sometimes confusing evidence of our immediate circumstances.
There is an old Dutch proverb that says, “God does not pay weekly, but He
pays at the end.”
(1) Eventually, things do come full circle, and so Paul warns us: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked.” No one is exempt from the law of sowing and reaping. The harvest that we are reaping right now, is the harvest that we have already planted and cultivated. Some one once said, “Many a have and have?not of today, are the did and did?not of yesterday.”
2. We are looking toward an even greater harvest: Our final one. A harvest that we have created by our own choices. The same natural laws that have always governed the universe, and will govern the declaration of our final destiny as well. No one can successfully defy these laws. Not even God Himself is at liberty to set them aside.
(1) God’s judgment is the reaping that comes from sowing and is evidence of the love of God, not proof of His wrath. The penalty of an evil harvest is not God’s punishment; It is the consequence of defying the moral order, which in love, God maintains as the only environment in which maturity of Christian growth, fellowship and communion with God can be achieved.
(2) Acts 20:32.

Spur - 10/27/02 pm