1. He is not ignorant of what you do. You cannot escape His eye.

2. He is not careless of what you do. He has given orders and means to have them obeyed. While then you give nothing, and think it wise, you will one day find out your mistake. Any attempt to deceive or mock man may succeed. Poor Isaac, through his blindness, gave the blessing to the son he did not intend to have it. But God was not deceived though the plan was ‘successful' as man calls it. All his life after Jacob had to feel the sad issues of that evil deed.

3. Any attempt to deceive God and disobey Him, will recoil on the one who attempts it. He means, in the coming day, to show His displeasure towards the disobedient and the covetous. He is gracious; wonderfully so to His elect. But He is the Righteous Governor also; and the coming day is the one in which He means to prove it to all the universe. He regards not faces. He will bring every work into judgment, whether good or bad. All will be uncovered in the day to come. God loves realities; and all shams will at last be stripped bare.

Here is a man who has taken his seat in the train. But he has no ticket. Well, but see! He moves on the journey just as well as the others. Now is he not clever, to get the ride and yet to keep the price? Wait! Wait till the train has stopped. It has arrived in London. 'All tickets ready!' The collector comes, and receives the tickets of the others. 'Where is yours?' He has none to show. He is seized on as a culprit by justice, and must suffer its penalty. What is become of his cleverness now? Much worse will it be with him who attempts to cheat God. He is only cheating himself. Tickets are not examined now. But they will be. The train will stop at last. And then will come the fulfillment of the principle of the verse before us.

"WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAPEAT

There shall, in the coming day, be a rendering to each believer or unbeliever according to his works. The award to each will be (1) impartial, and (2) strict. It will take effect on each as naturally, and as certainly as harvest comes after sowing. Every one is sowing now, and must sow, whether he likes it or not. Every one must reap at last as he has sown, whether he is pleased with his crop or not.

You know how impartial in this matter God as the Governor is now. The crop is always such as the seed. Sow thistles, and their thorns and chaff will be found at last. Sow wheat, and its golden ears will appear at last. But suppose an emperor to sow nettles; would not God, in consideration of the greatness of his crown and dignity, give him a field of barley? You would laugh at any who would say so.

But here is a man who is very poor. He has sown nettles in his little garden patch. Will not God have pity upon so poor, ragged, hungry a man? Won't he in compassion give him a harvest of wheat? Not He! He regards not faces. Let the wicked man sow wheat, and wheat he shall reap. Let the elect man sow darnel, and darnel shall be his crop. It is so in nature. Not one of us doubts that. But Paul, or the Holy Spirit by him, asserts, that just as certain, just as impartial will God's award be in the day to come. Sow sparingly, and you shall reap sparingly. Sow bounteously, and bounteously shall you reap.

Now if nature in this time is so strict and impartial, so much more will the Most High be in the day that is to manifest His righteous judgment.

Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. The beginning of the award is seen here. The payment of interest on the principal begins here: but the full payment is to be in the day to come, "the day of judgment" (or justice).

"For he that sows unto his own flesh out of the flesh shall reap corruption: but he that sows unto the Spirit out of the Spirit shall reap life everlasting." (v.8)

'There are two kinds of seeds' says the former verse. 'There are two fields, with two different kinds of soil,' says this. And believers are sowing in one or other of these fields. But mark the accuracy of Scripture. It says, 'He who sows unto his own flesh.' For else those disposed to evade this lesson of bounty would refuse to bestow food, clothing, shelter, or money, on the poor. For in thus aiding their bodies, would he not be 'sowing to the flesh'? And that is here forbidden.

What the apostle then is dissuading the Christian from is unnecessary expenditure on ourselves. How many believers use their money almost wholly for themselves, in purchase of the things of this life, on dress, jewels, music, the garden, the table, the equipage, etc.

God is asking for money for His service, and for the poor, especially of the church. But most prefer to spend it for things which will not profit them in a day to come. How many Christians live almost like the world herein! Hence they have nothing to give for others. This expenditure then is 'sowing to the flesh.'

What will be the resulting crop, when they appear before Christ? "Corruption" That is the fruit of the field in which have they sown. But what is the sense of this?

There are two replies.

1. '''Corruption' - because the flesh is a prey to corruption, and with it all fleshly desires and practices come to nothing."

But that cannot be the sense. For it makes both the sowers to be on a level. It says ­'Death and the grave end all the affairs, and expenditure, and enjoyments of this life.' But the same result also awaits the most diligent sower in the field of the spirit.

2., The other sense is given by Barnes. "If the punishment [of sensuality] does not follow in this life, it will be sure to overtake the sensualist in the world to come. There he shall reap ruin final and everlasting."

There are two or three flaws which set this comment aside. (1) Paul is not speaking of unbelievers but of believers. (2) He is not rebuking acts openly sinful, as drunkenness or debauchery; but of expenditure approved by decent men of the world. (3) He is describing then not the perdition of the lost, but the unwelcome harvest of the offending disciple.

The meaning of the passage is to be seen by comparing it with a former one. In the previous chapter he had warned us - 'That the issue of the works of the flesh would be, that the doers should not have part in the coming kingdom of God:' (v. 19-21). What shall become of such in that day of recompense? If they do not enter the kingdom where will they be?

And the answer is - 'Among the dead!' their souls in Hades, their bodies in corruption; (while the sowers to the spirit are reaping the commencement of eternal life in the kingdom of the Christ, and reigning with Him, during the thousand years;) they will be excluded.

The same truth is seen in Rom. 8. "Therefore, brethren [because the flesh is under sentence of death] we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you are about to die; but if through the Spirit you put to death the works of the flesh, you shall live:" (v. 12, 13). Now here it is certain, that there is a threatening of another death than that which befalls alike those living after the flesh, and those living after the Spirit. And the life promised by those living after the Spirit is one not to be enjoyed by those living after the flesh.