Deceived Sowers to the Flesh.
I. The first thing which strikes us in the text is the solemnity of the Apostle's warning. He seems to intimate that such is the audacious wickedness of the human heart that it has within it so many latent mazes of iniquity that men might be self-deceived either as to their apprehensions of that which was right before God, or as to their own actual condition in His sight; and he tells them that God is not mocked by this pretended service, that to Him all hearts are open, and that in impartial and discriminating arbitration He will render to every man according to his deeds. If there is but a possibility of this, it behoves us to take earnest warning.
II. Consider the import of the Apostle's statement, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," etc. He who would gather the wheat into the garner must scatter the wheat seed in the furrow. Barley and rye will come each from its own seed, and tares, if an enemy stealthily scatter them while the husbandman and his fellows slumber. It is manifest, then, that the great principle which the Apostle would impress upon us is that we have largely the making or the marring of our own future; that in the thoughts we harbour, and in the words we speak, and in the silent deeds which, beaded on time's string, are told by some recording angel as the story of our life from year to year, we shape our character, and therefore our destiny for ever. They who sow for this world reap in this world, and may outlive their own harvests; they who sow to the Spirit seek for abiding issues, and their harvest has not yet come. There are three special kinds of sowers to the flesh whom the Apostle seems to have had in mind: the proud;the covetous;the ungodly.They are all spiritual sinssins of which human law takes no cognisance, and to which codes of earthly jurisprudence affix no scathing penalty. On this very account, however, they are fraught with immeasurably greater danger. There is the greater need that these spiritual sins should be disclosed in all their enormity and shown in their exceeding sinfulness and in their disastrous wages, in order that men may be left without excuse, if they persist wilfully in believing a lie.
W. M. Punshon, Sermons,p. 253.
I. Note the great law expressed in the text, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." We know that in natural things a man cannot sow wheat and get rye; that he cannot take chaff and cast it over the ground, or drill it in, and expect a crop from that which is not seed at all. Much less, if he were to cast abroad the seeds of what was pernicious and poisonous, if he were to sow thistles and briers and thorns, might he expect that the summer fields would be covered with the promise of a rich harvest with which his barns would be filled. So in the higher sphere sowing to the flesh will bring corruption in the loss of reputation, character, standing, all! And in a higher sphere still we may reap corruption in the extinction of faith, love, Divine hope, and communion with God, by separation from Him leading to complete incapacity and loss of power for this communion of the soul with its Maker, and that is corruption in its darkest and worst sense.
II. "He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." The man will best govern the animal when God governs the man, when the man sows to the Spirit in the sense of sowing to the Divine impulse, suggesting, restraining, preventing grace, it may be, operating upon his nature. Do not let us be weary in welldoing. There is often a good while between the seedtime and the harvest, and there may be a good while between the seedtime and the harvest in a man's doing that which is right; but go on: be not weary; in due season you shall reap, if you faint not. The law is as operative and influential on the one side as on the other, in relation to the good as well as to the evil. Therefore, however you may sometimes feel depressed by long and weary waiting for some result, never let that tempt you to falter or to put forth your hand to some iniquity. Be upright, and true, and loyal to Christ and to God, and if the blessing tarry, wait for it; it will come all in due time. It is a good thing for a man both to hope and quietly to wait for the blessings of God.
T. Binney, Penny Pulpit,New Series, Nos. 487, 488.
Eternal Punishment.
I. The doctrine of eternal punishment ought to be denied, because of its evil fruits. A good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit, and we owe to this doctrine all the slaughter and cruelty done by alternately triumphant sects in the name of God. So dreadful were its deeds that a door of escape was provided from its full horror by the Church of a former time. The doctrine of purgatory and of prayers for the dead was the reaction from its terrors, and it saved religion. Unrelieved by this merciful interposition, eternal punishment would have slain the world.
II. In denying the eternity of hell, do we in truth destroy the doctrine of retribution? Not at all; we establish it, and are enabled to assert it on clear and reasonable grounds. First, we can believe in it. The heart and the conscience alike refuse to believe in everlasting punishment. The imagination cannot conceive it; the reason denies its justice. But the retribution taught by the opposite doctrine that God's punishment is remedial, not final; that it is exacted, but that it ends when it has done its work is conceivable, is allowed by the heart, for its root is love; is agreed to by the conscience, for it is felt to be just; is accepted of the reason, for it is based on law. In our belief, the ground of retribution is this: that God cannot rest till He has wrought evil out of all spirits, and that this work of His is chiefly done by causing us to suffer the natural consequence of sin. The very root, then, of our belief in the non-eternity of punishment involves an awful idea of punishment. For on this ground God will not cease to be a consuming fire to a man till He has destroyed all his evil. Nor can He cease. The imperative in His nature binds Him to root out evil, and God does His duty by us. Does this view destroy, and not rather assert, retribution?
III. We can all understand that. Introduce evil into your life, and you are introducing punishment. God will not rest till He has consumed it. Sow to the flesh, and you shall of the flesh reap corruption; you shall eat the fruits of your own devices, and find in them your hell. And God will take care that you do. He will not spare a single pang, if only He can bring us to His arms at last. Punishment here and in the world to come is no dream, but a dread reality; but it is strictly and justly given, and it comes to a close. One cry of longing repentance changes its quality, one bitter sorrow for wrong, one quick conviction that God is love and wishes our perfection. But to produce that repentance, and till it is produced, God's painful work on our evil is done and will be done. There is but one truth which can enable us to fight against wrong, and to conquer in the end and give us power, faith, and hope in face of all awful revelations. It is the unconquerable goodness of God, the conviction, deep-rooted as the mountains, of His infinite love and justice, the knowledge that the world is redeemed, the victory over evil won, and that, though the work is slow, not one soul shall be lost for ever. For He shall reign till He hath subdued all things to Himself in the willingness of happy obedience and the joy of creative love.
S. A. Brooke, The Unity of God and Man,p. 45.
References: Galatians 6:7; Galatians 6:8. E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. i., p. 96; G. Bladon, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 185; T. Stringer, Ibid.,p. 293; Homilist,2nd series, vol. i., p. 575; Ibid.,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 173; S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 172; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 189. Galatians 6:7-9. E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 155.