All right, before the holiday season came, I had done several messages on the basics of Christianity. So far, at least, we've already established my memory isn't the greatest, but so far, I remember covering the seven baptisms. We covered a little bit on, or quite a bit extensively on believer's baptism. We covered the spiritual church, what it was, who it was, why it was there. as compared to the local church, which is what we're in right now, what that was, who that is comprised of, and why the local church is here. We talked about seven major judgments that you see throughout the Bible. There's obviously many more that you could count. the major ones. We kind of focused in on the judgment seat of Christ. We spoke about the crowns, the rewards that you could receive at the judgment seat of Christ, that you could gain or lose, depending on your life and how you lived as a Christian. We talked about the resurrections and how the resurrection changes everything, focusing on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how knowing about the resurrection gives us strength, gives us faith. how that gives us a better perspective of forgiveness. And because of all that, in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are free. One of the things we talked about is just a general timeline, a prophetical timeline of what was happening and what's going to be happening in the future. We're at the place right now where we're getting to the end of the church age, looking for the rapture of the church. That is the next major event. We don't know when that will happen. I was really hoping it would happen last year. Maybe 2024, amen? And then, of course, the Judgment Seat of Christ, Marriage Supper of the Lamb, Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, going off into the millennium and the Great White Throne Judgment. Today, I would like to kind of continue with that theme of just Christian basics. So this morning, we'll be looking at a simple but a critical principle in the Christian life. Well, the principle actually applies whether you're lost or saved, quite frankly. But we'll take a look at that. So open your Bibles, if you will, to Matthew, chapter 13. Matthew, chapter 13, to get started here this morning. In Matthew, chapter 13, the Bible says this. It says, the same day when Jesus went out of the house and sat by the seaside, starting in verse 1, and great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside. And the fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth. And forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns. and the thorn sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer here this morning. Father in heaven, we thank you once again for a chance to be here on a Sunday morning. You are a great God. You are a great Savior. It is a blessing to be saved. I do pray that each and every individual that's here this morning that's old enough to understand these things has already trusted You as their Savior. If not, Father, I pray that You would work in their heart, help them to see that there are only two places that men and women go when they die. One is an eternity in hell, the other is an eternity in heaven with You. And Father, I pray that they would be able to grasp the fact that Every one of us is a sinner, and the only thing that sends us to hell is our sins. If we could manage to get through this life without sinning, we wouldn't have to worry about hell. But Father, we all know that that is not the case. So you sent your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us, to pay for our sins. I pray that if there's anybody here this morning who has not trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, that today they would receive him. And they, too, would have their sins forgiven and washed away. Just ask you now to bless the rest of the message here this morning. Pray that you'd set me aside and that the words of your book would minister to the hearts of your people. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. In Matthew chapter 13, obviously, we're talking about the sower going out and sowing in the field. And that brings to mind the title and the the message here this morning, which is simply this, sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping. That is one of those basic Christian principles that is fundamental to the Christian faith. Sowing, of course, is an old-fashioned word for planting, planting seed in the ground. Reaping, of course, is harvesting. It is going out after you've planted a garden and bringing in the fruits of your labor. Sowing and reaping. Reaping is, you could say, If you're a financial wizard, return on your investment. All right? And there's some principles that you need to know about sowing and reaping, and that's what I wanted to cover this morning. And the first principle that you need to know, ladies and gentlemen, is found in Galatians 6-7. The Bible says this. It says, be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Now, as you think about this whole process of reaping and sowing, or sowing and reaping, I suppose that would be the correct order. The reality is this, folks. Many people across our land, across the globe, don't believe in God at all. They think that they can actually, you know, that God somehow or another can be fooled or that God can be dismissed, ignored altogether. They feel like they can somehow or another in their mind, they think I can get away with it. That is very unfortunate. Some Christians even make that mistake. Some Christians make the mistake of thinking somehow or another that you can get away with living your life the way that you want to live it. and that in the end there's no real consequences. Well, folks, that is not the case. When I look at Galatians 6-7, the first thing that I'm told about sowing and reaping is this. It says, you know, be not deceived, and then it says, God is not mocked. God is not mocked. Now you may think that's a very basic Christian principle, and I hope you do, but the reality is God is not mocked. That is, don't think that you're gonna get away with ignoring this principle of reaping and sowing. Right? Because God is not mocked. Notice the word whatsoever. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. That is both good and both bad, whatsoever. You will, in one way, form, fashion, or another, get what is coming to you. Now the beauty of it, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to eternity in heaven or hell, the beauty of it is the Lord Jesus Christ who recognized there was no way that you could make it to heaven on your own. If he gave you what was coming to you, If you actually reaped what you had sown when it comes to your sin, there would be no hope. Right? If you look back and just think about how many times you've sinned just this last week, that is more than enough to send you to a sinner's hell. If you think about how much you sinned last year in 2023, you begin to get kind of depressed. If you begin to think about how much you've sinned over the course of your whole lifetime, It becomes downright frightening. And God looked at that, and he saw that that particular case, that scenario for you and I was hopeless. There was no way we could ever make up for that. There was no way we could ever atone for our own sins. So he came down on the earth. He died on the cross. He shed his blood. We sang that song, when I see the blood, I shall pass over you. Well, that's what the Lord Jesus Christ That's what he did when he took the nation of Israel out of the land of Egypt. The death angel went through, and if the house had blood on the doorposts, the Lord passed over that house and didn't bring punishment and judgment upon that house. Well, that was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you remember, they put the blood at the top of the doorpost and on the two sides. And the blood on the top of that doorpost dripped down, and it made a cross. a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Lord knew we could never escape a sinner's hell on our own. And so the Lord had mercy on us. And the Lord came and died and took that punishment for us. He looked at the father and said, Father, I will pay for their sins. And he took it upon himself to come down to this earth and die in our place. And when a person realizes that, and they say, you know, Lord, I know what I deserve. If I was to reap What I've sown, there would be no hope. But you died for me. You love me. And you know what? I'm thankful for that. And I'm trusting you as my savior. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the greatest gift you could ever be given. You don't have to reap for what you've sown. I hope that all of you have received the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. But the reality is, in this earth, there's a lot of people who haven't. And there's a lot of people who look at what the Lord Jesus Christ did, and folks, they mock what God has done for them. I don't know if you've caught wind of this, or if you kept up with it. It was one of those big viral things on the internet last year, and a lot of things came out on it. But in Brazil, they have this big carnival every year. And it's touted as a great, beautiful thing. Again, it's massive. It goes on all across the country, different carnivals. But it is huge. And they have this celebration. It is known for its spectacular colors and supposedly the beauty and on and on and on, all those worldly things that attract people. In the midst of that, there was also this one skit that went through the middle of that carnival that showed the devil mocking the Lord Jesus Christ. He went on, and depending on how you read some of this, supposedly the devil won the victory over Jesus Christ. Others say, no, this was just an image of him on his way to the cross and what he faced. That's a carnival that people are going to. Well, and when that carnival was going on in 2023 in February, the funny thing happened over the course of that weekend. It began to rain and flood in Brazil. And the floods came, and it just wiped out a lot of Brazil. There was a lot of damage. And this thing kind of went viral. And there was a lot of people that got on the internet. And they started showing pictures of this carnival. And they started showing pictures of some of the flooding in Brazil. And basically, the message was basically this, Galatians 6, right? Be not deceived. God is not mocked. As in, here, when they're having this big carnival and mocking the Lord Jesus Christ, look what happened to their country. And it was some terrible floods. They said 2023 was the worst February as far as rain in Brazil that they've ever had. They said in a 24-hour period around the 19th of February last year, it rained 26.85 inches in one town. That's a lot of rain. The governor, in the process of all this, declared three days of mourning. A lot of the festivals wound up being cancelled because of the rain. They asked tourists not to come because of, you know, obviously logistical problems and roads being washed out and food and water shortages. It was a terrible thing. And this thing went viral on the internet. And again, everybody is showing these pictures and they're flashing up pictures of the carnival and how they were mocking the Lord. Then they were flashing up pictures of flood. And of course, the news got a hold of it and people got a hold of it. And they went out and they did a bunch of fact checks on it. One of the headlines said this, conservative profiles spread fake news blaming carnival for rain in Brazil. I thought it was kind of funny how they chose to quote Donald Trump. Fake news, fake news, fake news. And of course, they did the fact-checking that they supposedly do. The claim was this. A skit depicting the devil's triumph and mockery of Jesus Christ supposedly during the 2023 Carnival Festival caused torrential rain to hit the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil a day after the performance, resulting in multiple deaths and widespread damage to property. That was the claim. And in their investigation, They said the skit by Gavoles de Felizamba, I can't speak Portuguese, by a school, it was put on by a school, by the school performers playing Jesus Christ and the devil occurred last March in 2019, four years before the floods happened. And so their conclusion was false. So some of the pictures that I just showed you were from a carnival that happened in 2019. Some of the flood pictures weren't necessarily from 2023. In fact, there's one of the flood pictures that was shown, and that was a 2011 flood picture. So they concluded that this was false. This was a false claim. There was no merit to it. It's just a bunch of hogwash. Except when you consider they do this every year. And they have floods every year. And did somebody take a picture from 2019? The school was known for making a mockery of the Lord Jesus Christ in this festival. And they did it year after year after year. And somebody on the internet got a little carried away and took a picture from when they did it back in 2019. Some of the pictures were from 2023. And that was the basis of why they said it was false, because that picture didn't cause the flood. The picture in 2019 didn't cause the flood in 2023. Well, you decide. The bottom line to all that, folks, is this. And I know natural disasters happen and all that, but the bottom line is God is not mocked. Amen? God will not be mocked. And I know that God is long-suffering and God is patient and God is all of those things, but the reality is God is not mocked. And when people begin to mock God, make no mistake about it, God takes note. And he may not send the proverbial lightning strike or push this, you know, the button on the computer to drop the piano on your head immediately. But don't think that people are going to get away with it continually. There will be a day of reckoning at one point in time. Amen? All right? At one point in time, there will be a day of reckoning. I tell you what, if you look at the floats, and you look at what they highlight, and what they celebrate, ladies and gentlemen, Proverbs 14.9 says this, fools make a mock of sin. Fools make a mock at sin. You tell me in that parade, what was the major thing that they were focusing on? Jesus Christ or the devil? God, God is not mocked. Back to our principles. Galatians 6, 7 says this. 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 the spirit reap life everlasting. It says that in verse 8. Ladies and gentlemen, the reality is this. God is not mocked. Yes, God has tremendous amount of patience and longsuffering, but trust me, he is watching. He's watching Brazil. He's watching the United States. And he's watching you and me. Amen? When you take a look at this principle of sowing and reaping, listen, you can sow things like fruits of the spirit. We have it up there on the poster. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Or you can sow other things. You and I have one or two choices in this world. We can sow to the flesh, or we can sow to the spirit. We can sow to the spirit things like kindness, forgiveness, patience, charity, sacrifice, praise, worship. And you know what? You'll reap for that. If you sow that crop, guess what you're going to reap? If you sow corn, you reap corn. If you sow kindness, you reap kindness. Or you can sow to the flesh. Things like bitterness, unforgiveness, criticism, superiority, anger, discontentedness, unthankfulness. You could go on and on and on. The reality is the choice is yours to choose what you would sow. Well, let me ask you this question. What have you been sowing recently? See, that's what it all boils down to. What seeds have you been sowing, say, over the last week, over the last month, over the last couple of years? What seeds have you sown that are in the ground right now, and they are in the process of growing and coming out? Why? Because, well, it's up to us what we sow. Right? If we want to sow to the Spirit, we can sow to the Spirit. But if you want to sow to the flesh, you can sow to the flesh. You see, the reality is everything, everything you say, everything you think, everything you do is a little seed. And every time you do it, that seed gets planted. You've got a garden, and you just continue to plant and plant and plant and plant. And before long, those seeds begin to germinate. Next thing you know, a little rain, a little water, a little sunlight, and then those seeds begin to grow. And the reality is we reap what we sow. We reap what we sow. It's a Christian principle. It's a basic Christian principle. If you're here this morning and and you have been harboring and struggling with anger or bitterness or discontentedness or unthankfulness, well guess what? That seed is growing. And eventually it's going to turn into a plant. And eventually that plant is going to have fruit. And you know as well as I do, when you plant something in the ground and then the plant grows up, you plant one little seed, well, how much fruit do you get off one little seed? Well, it kind of depends on the plant. Some plants produce a lot of fruit. Listen, if you're here this morning, you're harboring those things, may I present to you this? Well, maybe you're planting the wrong seeds. If you find yourself in a mindset of constantly being down, depressed, and I know there's other things that can affect that, and I'm not talking about that this morning. But if you feel like you're much more of an Eeyore than you are a Tigger, something's wrong. Some seeds aren't being planted that should be planted. If you catch yourself yelling at your kids all the time, stop that. Knock it off. You know, I mean, once in a while, the kids need yelled at. I understand. Believe it or not, my mom even yelled at me once in a while. I was perfect as an angel as I was growing up. It's a good thing my brothers aren't here. Bruce, if you're watching, just forget that. But you catch yourself in that mode and coming across in that manner, hey, listen. There's some seeds that are being planted that are going to germinate and grow in you and in the child, quite frankly. Or worse yet, I was reading through and reading about Joseph and how Jacob loved Joseph more than the other children, and how that caused that big division in that family. Oh, this dreamer, this dreamer. Who does he think he is? And there was big division. Why? Because, well, Jacob gave Joseph, you know, a coat of many colors. He didn't give the rest of the other 10 kids a coat of many colors. But no, Joseph was special. If you find yourself at odds with your husband and wife all the time, and that's a regular occurring thing, hey, listen, maybe there's some seeds that have been planted along the way that are now starting to take root. They're starting to grow. It's sowing and reaping. It's a basic Christian principle. How did you get there? It doesn't happen automatically. You don't just go walking down the road, and all of a sudden, boop, a plant pops up. Somebody had to put a seed in the ground, right? So what you and I reap, what you experience, what we have in life, I understand there's circumstances that attack us from the outside, and those things happen. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the things that you planted. Basic Christian principle that we have to watch and be careful of is the principle of sowing and reaping. And we can sow to the spirit, and guess what we reap? Spiritual things. Or we can sow to the flesh, and guess what we reap? Fleshly things. So if you find yourself in that category, and you find yourself in arguments and contention and unthankful, and you find yourself discontented, and you're of the opinion that life is just terrible and everybody's out to get you, may I say this? You're not planting the right seeds. Because when I look at the fruit of the Spirit, that doesn't sound to me like love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. So if that's not growing, we planted the wrong things. On the other hand, if you find yourself harboring things like kindness, forgiveness, compassion, if you strive for those fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, and you find yourself more like Tigger than Eeyore, get you what you've been planting. You've been planting the right seeds. And you're reaping what you have sown. It's a basic Christian principle in the Christian life. You reap what you sow. I understand there's sufferings. I understand there's turmoil. I understand that sometimes there's tribulation the Lord puts us through to grow, and we didn't necessarily sow that crop. That's something different. But in general, overall, you reap what you sow. Amen? Basic Christian principle. So you have to decide what kind of seeds do you want to sow and what kind of plant do you want to grow. Like somebody once said, the dog that you feed the most is the one that's going to win the fight. He said, well, I'm struggling between being in ER on Monday and Tigger on Tuesday and back to ER on Wednesday. Well, the dog that you feed the most, that's the one that's going to win the fight. Hey, feed Tigger. Right? Make ER starve. Hosea puts it like this. Hosea 10 says this. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. Amazing principle, basic, basic Christian principle, you reap what you have sown. It also says in the next verse, you have plowed in wickedness, you have reaped iniquity. Again, the principle applies throughout the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, saved or lost, quite frankly. But the beauty is we get to choose what we want to sow. You reap what you sow. So the first rule of sowing and reaping is this. You reap what you sow. So take a look at your life and where you're at. You like it? You reap what you sow. Okay, if there's changes, try a different crop. Amen? First rule, you reap what you sow. Second thing about reaping and sowing, you reap proportionally. And that is this, it says in 2 Corinthians 9, it says, but this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly. He which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. I know that's in the context of giving and good works, that sort of thing. But primarily, that's in the context of giving money for the poor saints in Jerusalem. And you guys are, like I said earlier, have done very well at that. Praise the Lord for that. But the principle is the same. You know what? If you don't sow a spiritual crop, guess what? You don't reap a spiritual crop. If you sow a big crop, guess what? You reap a big crop. There's a certain proportionality, there you go, that comes with sowing and reaping. It used to be a long time ago when you went to plant corn. You had to take a stick and dig a little hole in there and put a kernel of corn in the ground. You had to bend over and make it work. And as time went on, we got modern, and we got new material and new tools, and you got a seed planter. And you put the corn in the little box there, and you didn't have to bend over. Progress. Yes, progress. You could plant seeds. And then along came Henry Blair. Henry Blair invented the first practical corn planter back in 1834. And of course, they used to pull it behind an ox or a horse or something when they went out to plant. Over the years, that that became, you know, there's some modifications that happened to it, and those seed planters began to evolve, or I should say, upgrade. Had to do a software update. By the late 1800s, early 1900s, a lot of advancements were made, and what they began to realize is that if you, the machines began to become a little more efficient, and they would plant the seed much more consistently at the right depth for growth, the optimal depth. And then it planted in the right pattern so you could go through later and cultivate and do all the necessary things. And that's what happened. And eventually, those farm implements made planting much, much easier. Well, the world's largest corn planter is 214 feet wide. See, reaping and sowing hasn't really changed much. You plant a little, you get a little. You plant a lot, you get a lot. Right? You reap proportionally. So if you're doing something that's wrong, and those seeds are being planted, guess what? The more of them that you plant, the bigger the crop's going to be. If you're doing something right, the more of it you plant, the bigger the crop's going to be. Second law to remember about reaping and sowing is the more you plant, the more you get. Good or bad. That Zell's 214 foot planter is in a farm. It is in South Wales. But they farm 47,000 acres. 47,000 acres. They say that that planter can plant 2,500 acres a day. 2,500 acres a day. So if your farm is 47,000 acres, I did the math just for the curiosity, it takes 18.8 days to plant the farm, even with a planter that big. That's a lot of seed. Can you imagine trying to do 47,000 acres like that? That's about the size of it. So what do I learn from that? Hey, I learned this. If you want a bigger crop for the Lord, you know what? You've got to get out and plant more seeds. You've got to jump in, take a risk. You've got to do something. You've got to be at it all the time. You have to think about it all the time. You have to constantly be planning. Now, the reality is it's not as important how much you plant. What's important, quite frankly, is that you just begin to plant. The Lord will take care of a lot of things along the way. The Lord will bless. You know, the Lord will take what you plant, sometimes He'll multiply it 30-fold, sometimes 60, sometimes 100-fold. But if you don't plant anything, nothing grows. The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 9, it says, And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work, As it is written, he hath dispersed abroad, and he hath given to the poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, that would be Christ, both ministereth bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness. Listen, you don't have to farm 47,000 acres to get a good spiritual crop. Maybe all you have is a little garden in your backyard. You have a couple of five-gallon barrels that you put dirt in, and your whole garden is in a little container that you can move around. Okay, well, you know what? Plant what you want to grow in that little barrel. And the reality is the Lord Jesus Christ will multiply that 30, 60, 100-fold. The Lord will take care of the harvest. Your job, your job in this whole thing is just to plant. Now, if you have opportunity and if the Lord gives you the grace and the strength and the ability, hey, plant more. Why? Because the more you plant, the more chance you have of reaping a good harvest. Right? I mean, we have an opportunity here, and you have people coming in for service all the time, and I get a chance to preach the gospel over and over and over and over. And I always try to make sure I hit it. And what is that? Just planning, planning, planning, planning. Hey, it's up to the Lord whether somebody gets saved or not. My job is just to plan. My job is just to, you know, to put the thoughts in and put the Word of God out and hope the Word of God takes effect and works in your lives as far as salvation. as far as encouraging you in your Christian life, as far as making you realize that, hey, what we're doing here is really worthwhile. That's just planting, planting, planting, right? And I know that if we keep doing it enough, right, and this is the fruit of it, it sticks, and things grow, and I look around, and there's fruit, and it's a blessing, and you'll see the same thing in your own life. You begin to work with your children, and you plant, and you plant, and you plant, and you plant, and you know what? Over time, guess what they do? They grow. And you look back after 20, 30 years, and you go, eh, that crop turned out not too shabby. Amen? It's a blessing. And then they married. And then the crop grew even more. But the idea is you reap proportionally. So sow as much as you can. Amen? Final rule, I'm almost done. The final rule that I wanted to go over about reaping and sowing, again, a basic Christian principle, is that you reap in the future. Galatians 6, 9 says this, and let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. In due season we shall reap if we faint not. That is this. Ladies and gentlemen, the work comes first. And you know that's hard, especially for us Americans. Because, I mean, everything we have is instant. Right? Everything we have, instant gratification, we want it now, and if we have to wait too long, and perseverance is something that is just being lost. in character across the nation. But the reality is the laws of reaping and sowing have not changed. You plant. It has to be watered. It has to have time. It has to have sunlight. And over time, the plant begins to grow. It doesn't happen instantly. One of the rules of reaping and sowing is you plant now, but your crop's going to come in later. The dangerous part is it works that way with sin, too. You plant now, and you think, oh, I got away with it. Oh, the Lord doesn't care. Oh, it'll be all right. See, God didn't strike me dead. But the basic Christian rules of sowing and reaping is you reap what you sow. You don't sow it automatically, reap instantaneously. You sow, and then time passes. You say, how much time? Depends on the plant. Some plants come up kind of quickly. Other plants take a while. Some plants come up, and they don't produce fruit for a while. It varies. But the reality is, you have to remember, ladies and gentlemen, You plant now, and then you have to wait to reap in the future. The harvest comes later. What do you gather from that? What do you gain from that? Well, hey, don't quit. Some Christians, they make a mistake of this. They think, well, look at all this planting that I did. It's April. Or I guess in Minnesota, June. This year, it might be July. I don't know. Look at all this planting that I did. It's mid-August. Nothing's happening. And people get discouraged. And they begin to think, well, I'm not getting any benefit out of it. I'm not seeing the benefit from it. I'm not reaping the harvest I thought I was going to reap. And what happens is you get discouraged because of that. And you have a tendency then to kind of fall by the wayside. Or you have a tendency that, well, what's the purpose? Why get up and go plant? I'm not seeing the harvest. Or the other thing that can happen. You remember the story of Joseph back in Egypt and, you know, seven years of plenty and then the seven years of famine. Well, put yourself in the shoes of the typical Egyptian during those first couple of years of plenty. They go out, they plant a few seeds, whoosh. They get this huge bumper crop, more than they've ever had. All of a sudden, they take it and they go, whoa, look at that. Store that. They go out next year, plant a few seeds. Whoa, look at all that. bigger crop than we've ever had. They take that crop. They say, oh, I'll store that. By the time year number three comes along, they're going, oh, this is going to last forever. All I got to do is plant a couple of seeds. Look at how much I'm going to get. Year three comes along. They plant a few. By year four or five, they're going, what do you think we should plant? You know what? It's a lot of work. Let's just plant maybe half of what we planted last year, because after all, we've got more than we can use right now. I bet, I mean, complacency. The Lord blesses. And I bet a bunch of those Egyptians looked at that and thought, you know what? I just don't need to work as hard. It's year five. It's year six. Man, this thing is going to go on forever. It's always going to be this way. I'm just going to relax. Year six, year seven, they're like, well, you know, maybe a quarter of an acre should do. I mean, after all, if we just plant one or two seeds, we're going to have more than we could ever possibly use. I wonder if any of them fell into that trap. And then what happened? A famine. And on year eight, the first year of the famine, they went out and planted, thinking exactly, they knew exactly what was going to happen. I'll just plant a few seeds. You know what? I'm going to have a bumper crop like last year. What happened? It didn't grow. See, what you have to be careful of, ladies and gentlemen, is you have to be careful that When you begin to plant, and you begin to see a little bit of reaping, and you begin to gain a little fruits from your labor, it's a grand thing, and it's encouraging. But don't let that deceive you into thinking that you can cut back and stop planting. Because you never know whether you're going to be in a year of plenty or in a year of famine. Right? By the end of that whole seven-year period of famine, All the Egyptians lost their corn, lost their money, lost their cattle, lost their land, sold themselves as slaves just to eat. Why? Because they didn't have enough. Ecclesiastes 11.4 says this, he that observeth the wind shall not sow. Oh, it's too windy out. That's what we're saying this week. Oh, it's too cold out to plant. I know we don't plant in January, but go with it for a while. He that observeth the wind shall not sow. Hey, the weather's too bad. I'm not going to go sow today. And he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. That one gets me. You got a whole bumper crop out there ready to go, and you look up, and you go, oh, it might rain today. I don't think I'm going to go harvest. But it's human, it's a human, just human nature. We wanna take it easy. But folks, we have this principle, basic Christian principle of sowing and reaping. And you know what? The Lord hasn't returned yet. And we still have Christian lives to live between now and the time he comes back. And the best thing that you can remember, one of the best things you can remember is this law of sowing and reaping. Okay, continue to sow to the Spirit. Don't fall by the wayside. Don't ever stop. I mean, give it to God. The results are in His hands. You can't control that. But what you can control is whether you stop sowing or not. Amen? Basic Christian principle, sowing and reaping. The principles are this. Folks, you reap what you sow. If you reap to the flesh, you'll sow to the flesh. If you reap to the spirit, you'll sow to the spirit. You reap proportional to what you sow. If you reap a little, if you sow a little, You're not going to have as big of a crop to reap. If you sow a lot, you've got a much better chance of reaping a larger crop. Third rule, third principle when it comes to sowing and reaping in the Christian life is you sow now, but you always have to keep in mind, you know what? We're not going to reap until the future. It's going to take time for this crop to grow. So don't be weary in well-doing. Don't live your Christian life and get to the point that because you don't see the results that you think you should see immediately, you get discouraged and you fall by the wayside. Why? Well, because the plant hasn't had time to grow yet. You say, well, how long does it take? I don't know. I'm not God. I just know this. I know the principle of reaping and sowing is in place. And if you sow, eventually you're going to reap. I don't know how long it's going to take. Maybe it's not until the judgment seat of Christ. But is it such a bad thing to do all your sowing here and all your reaping up there? It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. So, ladies and gentlemen, again, I am finished. Just remember, in your Christian life, there's this principle, sowing and reaping. You can do it for good. You can do it for bad. What kind of crop have you been sowing recently? What kind of crop have you been sowing? Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you again for an opportunity to be here on a Sunday morning. You are a great God. And Lord, we look at this principle of sowing and reaping. And it's a very basic principle. We see illustrations of it in our garden every year. We grow flowers, we grow tomatoes and cucumbers and various things. And some people seem to be better at it than others. Some people say, seem to have a green thumb. But the reality is, Father, when a seed is planted, it's taken care of. It grows into something. So Father, pray that you'd help us to plant the right seeds. Help us to sow to spiritual things and look for a spiritual harvest. I realize that sometimes it takes a while before that harvest comes in. Help us not to get discouraged. Help us not to get discontent and fall by the wayside because we don't see the results as fast as we want to see them. Help us, Father, to remember there's principles with reaping and sowing, and every one of them Every one of them will be followed. I pray these things now in Jesus' name. Amen.