At the beginning of his reign and for many years, Asa was a very fine king. He was upright, and he turned the Jews around and persuaded them to worship God by the kind of high-quality leadership he gave to them. His leadership was moral, focused on God, and good. The prophet Azariah, the son of Oded, came out to meet him, to encourage him to continue his ways.
Verse 2 shows reciprocity, a principle that we must understand. The Bible shows clearly that God deals with us as we deal with Him, and if we are seeking Him and applying His way, He will respond in far greater measure to us in blessing. Nobody out-gives God. The principle of reciprocity, part of the much broader principle of "whatever one sows, one reaps," brings it down to a finer point and makes it very personal. We need to realize that this principle is at work in our relationship with God.
God asks the questions to impress them on their minds, allowing Adam and Eve to convict themselves with thoughtful and honest answers. Honest, yes, and very revealing. Both cast a measure of blame away from themselves. They plainly believe that they are not to blame and should not bear full responsibility for their transgressions.
Thus began mankind's practice of self-justification in defense of sin. But neither Satan nor anyone else made them sin. Nobody twisted their arms. Notice how the sin of self-justification intensifies the original sin. By attempting to dodge responsibility, claiming that circumstances made them sin, they compounded their sin by lying.
Adam's sin is particularly egregious, blaming God's gift to him, Eve, whom he had held in such high regard just moments before. In a somewhat roundabout manner, he is blaming God, essentially saying, “God, if you hadn't given me this woman, I wouldn't have sinned!”
Similarly, Eve says, “If You hadn't allowed that Serpent into the Garden, I wouldn't have sinned.” Today, we might say that it is in our genes to sin; that we grew up in a bad neighborhood; that our parents failed to teach us; or that our father or mother was a drug addict or alcoholic. Some of those circumstances may be true, but they do not make us sin.
God is teaching us that, regarding sin, circumstances offer us little assistance when under God's judgment. Should a situation that invites sin arise, it is our responsibility to exercise faith and control ourselves, remaining in alignment with God's righteousness. When he told his audience that he had done something wrong, comedian Flip Wilson claimed, “The Devil made me do it!” and everybody laughed. But that, too, is simply a backhanded way of blaming God, as He created the angelic being who became the Devil.
We can reach a couple of brief conclusions from our evaluation of Adam and Eve's experience:
First, if we do not honestly and fully accept responsibility for our sins before God, we will surely reap their grim effects. Sin's fruit, regardless of the circumstances in which it is committed, is always the same. When sin occurs in the course of history makes no difference. Adam's and Eve's sins occurred at the outset of mankind's history, and they are still affecting us. Not every sin has this level of power, but the potential exists. Besides the death of the sinner, like leaven, sin's effect is to spread from its initial point of origin.
Second, as shown by Adam's and Eve's excuses, self-justification tends to blind us to God's goodness, His gifts, because it intensifies what originally occurred. In our haste to absolve ourselves, we forget things that God has provided us: life itself, a mind that can gather information, the ability to reason, the ability to remember, and a spirit that, not only makes us human, but confers the potential to be like God. Adam's blaming of God for His gift of Eve reveals his horrendous ingratitudefor what he had been given.
Strong's #2325: therizo (pronounced ther-id'-zo)
from 2330 (in the sense of the crop); to harvest:--reap.
Thayer's Greek Lexicon:
́
theridō
1) to reap, harvest
2) proverbial expression for sowing and reaping
3) cut off, destroy
3a) as crops are cut down with a sickle
Part of Speech: verb
Relation: from G2330 (in the sense of the crop)
Citing in TDNT: 3:132, 332
Usage:
This word is used 21 times:
Matthew 6:26: "for they sow not,neither do they reap, nor gatherinto"
Matthew 25:24: "that thou art a hardman, reaping where thou hast notsown,"
Matthew 25:26: "servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowednot, and"
Luke 12:24: "they neither sow norreap; which neither havestorehouse"
Luke 19:21: "that thou laidst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow."
Luke 19:22: "that I laid not down, andreaping that I did not sow:"
John 4:36: "And he that reapethreceiveth wages, and gathereth fruitunto"
John 4:36: "both he that soweth andhe that reapeth may rejoicetogether."
John 4:37: "One soweth, andanother reapeth."
John 4:38: "I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor:"
1 Corinthians 9:11: "is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?"
2 Corinthians 9:6: "this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reapalso sparingly; and he which soweth"
2 Corinthians 9:6: "and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."
Galatians 6:7: "a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Galatians 6:8: "shall of the flesh reapcorruption; but he that soweth to"
Galatians 6:8: "shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
Galatians 6:9: "for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
James 5:4: "and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears"
Revelation 14:15: "thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come"
Revelation 14:15: "time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the"
Revelation 14:16: "and the earth was reaped."
He that soweth to his flesh.--The seed sown is a man's actions here on earth. If the object of those actions is merely self-indulgence, they are, as it were, sown in a field the owner of which is the flesh (i.e., the lower, carnal self). The flesh alone benefits by them, and for it alone are they garnered up.
Shall of the flesh reap corruption.--If such has been a man's conduct, he must look to the flesh for his reward, and all the reward it can give him will be a share in its own corruption. The flesh perishes, and so shall the fruit of his actions perish, and "leave not a wrack behind."
He that soweth to the Spirit . . .--On the other hand, where all the actions are like seed deposited in the field of which the owner and lord is the Spirit, that same Spirit will reward them in the world to come with the gift of everlasting life.
Verse 8. - For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption(o%ti o( spei/rwn ei) th\n sa/rka e(autou = e)k th = sarko\ qeri/sei fqora/n); for he that soweth unto his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption. "Fort" the causal force of the particle ὅτι, properly "because," is here greatly attenuated, being employed to introduce a sentence commending to acceptance the foregoing one, simply by a detailed exposition of particulars illustrating its meaning. This is the case also in 1 Thessalonians 2:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Ephesians 2:18; Philippians 4:16. In regard to the connection of this first half of the eighth verse with the preceding context, we must take note of the sternly monitory tone which marks ver. 7. This shows that in the sentence, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," the apostle has more immediately in view the terrible harvest to be reaped by those who acted as if they thought that God might be overreached. We may infer from this that this first clause of ver. 8 is mainly the thought which up to here the writer had it on his mind to inculcate - the "corruption" which a man would reap from a life of self-indulgence. But, after completing the statement of this thought, his tone forthwith changes; the frown clearing away from his countenance, he adds, to the threatening admonition of the first clause, the cheering promise of the second, while a more genial tone marks his further remarks on the subject in vers. 9 and 10. The second limb of the verse thus appears introduced in the same way as the second does in Romans 8:13; and in both cases with the conjunction δέ. "Sowing unto his own flesh." Many critics render, "into his own flesh," as if, with a shifting of the image, which is certainly not uncommon with St. Paul, the flesh were now the ground into which the seed is cast. This relation, however, to the verb "sow" (see Alford and Ellicott) is in the New Testament expressed differently, by ἐν, in, or by ἐπί, upon; while εἰς in Matthew 13:22 denotes "among." It is more obvious to take εἰς as "unto," "denoting the immediate object of the action, that to which it tends, that in which it terminates" (Webster and Wilkinson, 'Commentary'). This way of construing suits better in the phrase, εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα, which follows. Applying the image of sowing generally, the apostle in ver. 7 speaks of the quality of the sowing (not precisely the quality of the seed) as determining the quality of the harvest; and here, of one kind of sowing being "unto the flesh," the other "unto the Spirit." "He that soweth unto his own flesh;" that is, he whose general action in life is referred to his own personal gratification in his lower nature - to his own profit, pleasure, honour. The addition of ἑαυτοῦ ("his own") has a marked reference to the topic which led to this general statement: the apostle has in his view a man's gratifying his own merely worldly inclinations, to the disregard of the well-being, even the physical well-being, of other men. To sow unto the flesh of our brethren, in one sense, namely, for the promotion of theirphysical well-being, would bear a different aspect from sowing unto oar own flesh. "Shall from the flesh reap corruption." This by some commentators has been interpreted thus: In the harvest of That Day, nought will be found with him of all those things on which his heart has been set - nought save, at the best, mere rottenness, disappointment, and illusion. This would be analogous to the moral with which our Lord pointed his parable of the rich fool, to whom God said, "Whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" "So is he," added Christ, "that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:20, 21). The word φθορά, corruption, involves at least as much as this; but this view alone would furnish an inadequate antitheten to "eternal life," as also it gives less force to the word itself than it appears from its ordinary use to convey. One essential element of this verbal noun φθορὰ is the notion of decay, or the condition of being impaired, spoilt, wasted away (cf. Colossians 2:20; Romans 8:21), It is used of corruption in our moral nature in 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Peter 2:12, 19; as φθείρω and διαφθείρω are likewise applied in 2 Corinthians 7:2; 1 Timothy 6:5. But the clear presentment of its sense, when connected as it is here with "flesh," is afforded by its antithesis, with respect to the "body" or "flesh," to ἀφθαρσία in 1 Corinthians 15:42, "It is sown in corruption., it is raised in incorruption," and ibid., 1 Corinthians 15:50," Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption;" and by the opposed adjectives "corruptible" and "incorruptible ' (φθαρτός and ἄφθαρτος) in 1 Corinthians 15:53, 54, as well as by the use of διαφθορὰ of the rotting away of a dead body, in Acts 2:27, 31; Acts 13:34-37. That the apostle uses the word "corruption" with a direct reference to "flesh," and therefore as alluding to or rather expressing a certain qualification of the flesh's condition, is shown by his inserting the words, ἐκ τῆς σαρκός, "of the flesh." Strictly speaking those words are not necessary for the completeness of the sentence. To all appearance they are added aetiologically, to make prominent the thought that what is sown unto the flesh may be expected to issue in corruption, because corruption is the natural end of flesh itself. For an analogous reason, "of the Spirit" is inserted in the antithetic statement; the Spirit being essentially not only living, but vivific. The words, then, seem to mean this' "shall from the flesh reap that corruption which the flesh, un-quickened by the Spirit of God [for comp. Romans 8:11], must itself issue in." In endeavouring more exactly to determine the sense of these words, it is well in the first instance to confine our view to the conceptions relative to this subject presented by St. Paul. In reviewing these, we observe that St. Paul never predicates ἀφθαρσία("incorruption," "incorruptible-ness") of the future bodily condition of "those who perish (οἱ ἀπολλύμενοι)." On the contrary, in 1 Corinthians 15:42-54 he clearly restricts this conception of bodily being to the case of those whose body shall be assimilated to that of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, as indeed it is only to them that the entire discourse (vers. 20-58) relates. So again in Philippians 3:21, the "fashioning anew of the body of our humiliation into conformity with the body of his glory" is evidently limited to those whoso end is not "perdition (ἀπώλεια)." Again, in 2 Corinthians 5:1the "house not made with hands, eternal," appears to be an exclusive designation of the resurrection-body of the accepted believer. Once more, in Romans 2:7 the words, "to them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption (ἀφθαρσίαν)," imply that incorruption is an attribute exclusively pertaining to the happiness after which true Christians aspire. All that we meet with elsewhere in St. Paul's writings fits in perfectly with his holding the view that, while "there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust," as he stated to Felix (Acts 24:15) - a resurrection surely he meant in the body - the bodies of the accepted alone wilt be incorruptible, the bodies of the lost being, for all that appears in his teaching, left in some sense subject to corruption. In what way the apostle in his own mind connected this conception, of in-corruption being a quality exclusively pertaining to the future condition of the just. with that of the "eternal destruction (αἰώνιος ὄλεθρος)" awaiting them who know not God (2 Thessalonians 1:9), we shall, perhaps, do wisely in not attempting to determine. We can, it is true, imagineways of conjoining the two notions; 'but it will be best not to positively affirm that this or that that was St. Paul's manner of viewing the subject. Possibly the Spirit had not revealed this to him. if so, he might feel it incumbent upon him to forbear from giving forth definite statements on matters not really disclosed to his view, and, therefore, not intended to form a part of revealed truth. This, however, should not keep us back from accepting what appears to be the only probable view of the sense of the present passage, namely, that they who live a life of selfishness and carnal self-indulgence will reap the final award of having a body with flesh, in some most real and important sense, subject to corruption. The consideration that the apostle is thinking of the awards of the day of judgment, at once meets the objection that corruption is predicable of the Christian's body also. It is obvious to reply that, though the body of a believer is sown in corruption even as the body of an unrighteous man, it is revealed to us that it will be raised in incorruption; which it is nowhere said that the body of him who dies in his sins will be. As applied to objects lying on the other side of the veil which parts the spiritual world from that visible world whence all our images of thought are derived, this term "corruption" must be understood as describing a condition of bodily being, not necessarily identical with, but very conceivably only in some respects analogous to, that which it describes in relation to a corpse in our present state. The resurrection stale, with all that pertains to it, inscrutably blending, as the story, of the forty days commencing with Christ s resurrection exemplifies, spiritual phenomena with corporeal, is one which we are wholly unable to understand or to realize. This may be thought a very superfluous observation. But it is not so. The attempts intellectually to realize the events which we are hereafter to witness and to be the subjects of, and the dogmatic affirmations relating to them, made, not merely in past ages, but in the very present, render it necessary that we should distinctly keep this truth in view. The physical theory of that future state, and the eventual history which is to be evolved in it, we not merely do not know, but are absolutely incapable of forecasting. We dare not say one syllable about them beyond what is distinctly told us; and what is told us, we are to remember, is through the very nature of the case no other than images, presented in a dark dim mirror, which shows them so obscurely, that to our intellective perception they seem riddles rather than revelations: Ἄρτι γὰρ βλέπομεν δἰ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, (1 Corinthians 13:12). It is, in fact, not our intellect, but our moral sense, that the revelations of the future state are designed to inform. Next, looking out from the field of purely Pauline doctrine upon the teaching presented in other parts of the New Testament, we are reminded at once of that awful and repeated word of our Lord concerning the "Gehenna of fire" - "where their worm (σκώληξ) dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-48). It is known that, before our Lord appeared upon earth, this conception of Gehenna, the terms of which beyond question were borrowed from the closing verses of Isaiah, had already become current in the eschatological views of the Jews. This is evidenced by Judith 16:17; Ecclus. 7:17. This imagery our Lord adopted, recognizing, it should seem, in this portion of rabbinical teaching a just evolution of ideas which had been presented in the inspired volumes of the Old Testament - a development of them which we may fairly attribute to the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit promised to God's restored people, as e.g, in Ezekiel 36:24-28. We cannot doubt that the "worm" which our Lord spoke of means the worm which preys upon rotting flesh. The image, therefore, exactly accords with the word "corruption" as interpreted above. Whether the apostle glanced at that discourse of Christ, or was even aware of it, is uncertain; but that he both knew of it and even inferred from it in using this word "corruption," is by no means unlikely. One other reference to "corruption" as the future doom of at least certain of the lost, is found in 2 Peter 2:12, which, according to the now approved reading of the Greek text, runs thus: "But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed - shall in their destroying be destroyed [or, 'in their corruption shall even rot away'] (ἐν τῇφθορᾷ αὐτῶν καὶ φθαρήσονται)." Possibly the word φθορά, taken as "corruption," points here to moral corruption; but the verb φθαρήσονταιmay very well point to the miserable doom of rotting away by which they shall judicially perish, moral corruption working physical corruption. But the exact sense is doubtful. With the clause before us we must group Romans 8:13, "If ye live after the flesh, ye are certain to die;" whilst the sentence which follows, "But if by the Spirit ye put to death the doings of the body, ye shall live," answers to the closing sentence of the present verse; as also does "death" as "the wages of sin," balanced against the "eternal life" which is "the gift of God," in Romans 6:25. The contrasted thoughts in Philippians 3:19, 20 likewise closely touch those here presented to us. But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting (ὁ δὲσπείρων εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκ τοῦ Πνεύματος θερίσει ζωὴν αἰώνιον); but he that soweth unto the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life eternal. That is, he that expends thought, time, effort, money, upon the furthering, in himself and in others, of the fruits of the Spirit, shall receive, from that Holy Spirit to whose guidance dwelling within him he resigns himself, that quickening of his whole being, body, soul, and spirit, for an everlasting existence in glory, which it is the proper work of that Divine Agent to effect. For the latter clause, comp. Romans 8:11, "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you [as the guiding, animating influence in your lives], he that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit dwelling within you;" in which passage the aetiologleal clause, "by reason of his Spirit dwelling in you," corresponds exactly with the aetiological clause, "of the Spirit," in the words before us. The two verses which follow show that one specific form of sowing unto the Spirit which the apostle has definitely in view, while enforcing the general idea, is that of Christian beneficence. How closely the practice of Christian beneficence was in the apostle's mind, in conformity with Christ's own teaching (Matthew 25. etc.), connected with the securing of the future blissful immortality, is markedly shown in 1 Timothy 6:18, 19; - not the less so if we adopt the nowapproved reading, ἵνα ἐκιλάβωνται τοῦ ὄντως ζωῆς, "that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed."
Mark 4 describes the different types of ground that God’s Word can be sown into.
1 Peter 1:23 says that God’s Word is an incorruptible seed.
Hosea 10:12
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.
Break up the hardened parts of your heart. What are you reading, listening to, watching? What needs to be uprooted so that your heart will become good ground for the seed of God’s Word?
Haggai 1:6-7
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
Whatever kind of seed you sow is the kind of harvest you will reap. They had sown much and reaped little, because the ground of their heart wasn’t that good.
Because of this, God told them to consider their ways.
Galatians 6:7-9
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. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
If you get the right seed, you’ll get the right harvest. It’s your heart that determines wether you’re sowing into the flesh or the spirit. What do you have an appetite for?
You’ll get control of the harvest when you get control of the seed.
Everything in life is a seed. Start sowing what you want to reap. When you start treating everything as seed, life can get really exciting.
There comes a time in God's judgment that He literally gives a person over to their sin, and it's their very own sin then that comes back and destroys them. I want you to notice how many times it talks about God giving them over every time man stubbornly stayed in his own sin, verse 24, God finally gave him over to that sin. When he stayed stubbornly in his own sin in verse 26, God finally gave him over. In verse 28, when he didn't see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God finally gave him over to his stubbornness. Now there is a season of grace, or we'd all be dead. But God warns us that his judgment does come. And when it comes, it's kind of like He just holds up his hand and man's own sin comes back on his own head. Many times in the book of Psalms, it talks about how a man plans an evil scheme and then finally he falls into the pit that he's dug. Now, this is really important, there is a line of authority in judgment. The first scripture is Hebrews 12:23, it declares that God to be the Judge of all. However, the Bible tells us in John 5:22, that God has chosen to delegate that authority to carry out the judgment over to Jesus. John 5:22 says, For the father does not judge anyone, but he has given all judgment over to the Son. God is the Judge of all, but in his sovereignty, He has turned that judgment over to Jesus, and then Jesus will turn the judgment over to the Word of God, John 12:48. So it's the impartial, unchanging Word that judges. It's the Word of God that convicts us. It's the Word of God that pronounces sentence. It's the Word of God that either will condemn us or will rescue us. It's either going to be the rock on which we stand that gives us a firm, solid foundation, or else the Word will become the rock that crushes. But it is the Word that's going to stand as our judge. And that's the line of authority; God gave it to Jesus, Jesus gave that authority to the Word and then we, in turn, judge ourselves. In other words, the choice is ours. Now that's how God can be fair. That's how he can be loving. And that's how he can be vengeful all at the same time, because until the time is up His love is going to continue to give us a way of escape out of the sin and out of the consequences. The Word is always there at the same time pronouncing judgment on the rebellious, whatever a man sows, that's what is finally going to come back to either destroy him or to bless him.
A seed is the most potent symbol of life – we all began life as a seed. In Genesis 1:11-12 the whole cycle of nature is found in the multiplication of seeds. Seeds are virtually indestructible – they can lie dormant in the desert sands for years before the rains make them burst forth into life. Under the right conditions they can survive thousands of years, buried in an ancient tomb. But the amazing power and mysterious workings of a seed, is not only true in the natural world, but also in the spiritual.
As our natural lives began as a seed, so too our spiritual lives. 1 Peter 1:23“Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but in incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever.” As our natural lives began as a seed, so too they will end as a seed. 1 Corinthians 15:35-39 - Here Paul likens our body being buried as a seed being sown, that will one day burst forth into new life. (That’s sometimes why a cemetery is called God’s Acre.) The seed therefore is representative of our natural and our spiritual lives.
So then, what we do, what we say, what we are, what we are becoming is likened unto the working of a seed.
A seed can only produce if it is sown.John 12:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; But if it dies, it produces much grain.”Seeds need soil, moisture, heat and light. Given the right conditions any seed will release the life germ within itself. Jesus said, “If a man saves his life he will lose it. But if he loses it for Christ he will find it.” I remember the time I ‘lost’ my life for the sake of Christ. What about you? What part of your life, have you, or are you sowing?
A seed can only produce after its own kind. That’s the unalterable law of Genesis 1:11-12 (What you sow you will reap) Galatians 6:8 is the spiritual counterpart of that. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatever a man sows that shall he also reap.” That’s a basic law of physics: ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ This is why it is vital to sow the right kind of seeds. (It works both positively and negatively.) What words do you sow? We sow with our mouths as well as our hands. It’s the law of reciprocity – you sow you reap. You give you receive. You die you live. Galatians 6:8“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.” You are laying up for yourselves treasure in heaven... Luke 6:38 “Give and it shall be given unto you... 2 Corinthians 9:6 “He who sows sparingly will reap also sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will reap also bountifully.” Luke 10:2 Christ is Lord of the harvest.
A seed will produce if the conditions are right and the time is right.Galatians 6:9 “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”Hebrews 6:10 “For God is not unjust to forget your work and labour of love which you have shown towards His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.” Psalm 126:5-6 “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed (seed for sowing) Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
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