Galatians chapter 6. This morning we'll be looking
at verses 7 through 10. Galatians chapter 6, verses 7
through 10. The Scripture says, 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. As we have therefore opportunity,
let us do good unto all, especially them who are of the household
of faith." Title of the message this morning, Sowing and Reaping. Sowing and Reaping. And last week we looked at verse
6 concerning the grace and privilege of giving. The grace and privilege
of giving to the ministry of the gospel. It reads, verse 6,
let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that
teacheth in all good things." This has to do with what Paul
was speaking about in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 concerning the cheerful
giver. He gives only in accordance with
the increase that God increases in his heart. So whatever God
blesses you in the messages, that's the increase. You know, men are looking at
their bank accounts and they say, well, I've got an increase
of $5, so I'm going to go ahead and put 10% of that in there
because that's just an increase. Forget that. Don't get that way. God says give generously and
give faithfully and give out of a heart to give. We're not
under the law, we're not under the dispensation of the law,
we're under the dispensation of grace. And whatever God increases
in our hearts, that's what we should get if it blesses our
hearts. Now, all the attitudes of grace
have been given to the believer in Christ, and God has purposed
that these gifts produce good works. He that worketh in you
both to will and do of his good pleasure. Good works are always
the result of salvation. There is no other evidence that
can be manifest than this. It's a man's life. It's a man's
life. You just can't see it in my heart.
But friends, you should look at my life. And know this, somebody
else is looking at yours. Somebody's watching. Somebody's
watching us. They're always watching. I know
that they're watching probably for deceitful reasons. They're
probably trying to find something about you. And if they look long
enough and hard enough, I'm sure they're going to find sin. You
look in my life, if you want to find it, you'll find it quickly. You won't have to wait very long.
But if you will notice the pattern of a man's life, not just specific
actions, but a pattern of a man's life, that determines evidence
of grace. He that endureth to the end,
well, I've done a lot of things in my past, I don't care. He
endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. See, none of
us look to our good works, but good works are a necessity. They are of necessity just as
faith, hope, and love are of necessity. And God works them
in us and works them through us, and yes, they will be worked
out of us. We who have been saved by grace
through the sacrifice of Christ do not live according to the
flesh. In Romans chapter 8, look at
verse 2. It says, "...for the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh."
Is that not evident? Is that not clear? If they that
are of the flesh, they that are lost, they do always mind this
flesh. That's all they care about. Me. How is this affecting me? What
is it that I get out of this? What do I want to do? Not what
does God desire for me, not what does God require of me, but what
do I require of God? You see, that's living after
the flesh. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against
God. In other words, the carnal mind
hates God. You hate God. If you're lost, you hate God.
There's just no way around it. Your mind is set on this. It is enmity. For it is not subject
unto the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then, they
that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you're not in
the flesh. Praise God for that. You are
not in the flesh. What does that mean? I don't
walk after the flesh. I walk after the Spirit. I walk
after the fruit of the Spirit. But you are in the Spirit. If
so, be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of you." These are plain
things. To live after the flesh is to
be carnally minded. It is to live after the law.
It is to live after the works of the flesh and trying to be
justified by the works of the flesh. But friends, the law and
all the fleshly works that we can produce will never soothe
the conscience. Never. Man knows. There is a God, and
he knows that God will punish sin. Now, all men know this by
nature, and yet they hate this. They despise this and love their
sin rather than love God. But all of us who are in the
Spirit of Christ, we live by faith. We don't live by law.
We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself
for us. That's what I'm living for. I'm
living for that. Because he loved us. Because he died for us. And we live by faith that he
has blotted out our transgressions as a thick cloud. I like that,
a thick cloud, because it's not thin. You can't see through it. When he blotted them out, there's
a thick blot of ink on there and you just can't read through
it. It's gone. The debt is gone. And as we live
in this present world, we continually live by faith and come to Christ
by faith. For the just shall live by faith. faith. Therefore, we give. Therefore, we work. Therefore,
we love. Therefore, we are gentle, kind,
meek, because he was. Because he has put his character
in us by indwelling us with his Holy Spirit. We live by faith
and not by law. We live by the gospel of God's
grace. So now in verse 7 in our text,
Paul says this, Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Paul is talking
to those who would pretend Those who would profess faith
in Christ rather than having true faith in Christ. Paul is
saying, now you may deceive everyone else, but you will not deceive
God. You will not deceive God. Believer in Christ, I know That
is very troubling when we see people come and have a great
profession of faith and live in the gospel with us. We seem
to rejoice with us. They seem to love it. They adore
it. We rejoice in watching. Sometimes
people are so wonderfully exuberant. And then we what? Watch them
go away. That's that's sad. That breaks our hearts. It troubles
us. It troubles us when we see that
they that once were faithful are unfaithful. They that once
seemed to produce fruit lack any evidence of grace and deny
God by their wicked works. Don't be deceived. If it walks like a duck, quacks
like a duck, and swims like a duck, it's not a horse. You can just
mark it down. That's just sensible. And I'll
tell you what, if he doesn't walk by the Spirit, if he doesn't
walk by faith, if he's not faithful to love the gospel and love God's
people, friends, it is not a Christian. He is not a Christian. To those who are deceived, their
minds are corrupt and defiled. And therefore, they think by
deceiving others, they deceive God. By deceiving others, they deceive
God. Those who are deceived cannot
and will not confess that they're deceived, otherwise they wouldn't
be deceived. To be deceived is to not know you're deceived. They're not doing this because
they think that they're trying to deceive anybody. I think they're
doing it because they really feel they're saved. I think they're
really sincere in their faith that is in themselves. I really
think they're sincere. Jesus said many in that day shall
say unto me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils
and in thy name notice how they how they give praise to their
works even before the Lord of Glory and done many wonderful
works. Is that not? I said, Lord, didn't
we do many wonderful things for you? They were deceived. Jesus said, I never knew. Depart
from me, you that work. What? Iniquity. All of their preaching. All of
their so-called wondrous works were nothing but deception. They
were full of sin. God is not mocked. And to illustrate this, everyone here this morning, if
God is not mocked, if God is not going to be deceived, then
I say examine yourselves. Stop and examine ourselves. Let
us examine not our neighbor, but ourselves. And ask and pour
out our soul that God would search us and know us. Isn't that what
David asked? He said, search me and know me
and try me and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead
me in the path, in the way of everlasting life. I pray that I'm not deceived." And you know what? That's what
even those who, when we get to glory, do you notice the surprise
of the sheep? Lord, when have we done anything
like that for you? You see, they still don't know.
They're still wondering if they've been deceived. I say it's something
that's wonderful about it. The only one who seems to doubt
their salvation are Christians. Everyone else seems to be pretty
dead gum sure. I don't want to be deceived, because God's not. And I pray
that he would open our hearts to see what is truly in us. And
I'll tell you, if you look at your life and don't see any evidences
of grace, Pour out to God and seek mercy. Let us be aware of this truth
that God is not mocked, He is not deceived. I tell you, I would
rather deal with an honest atheist than a religious man who mocks
God by his so-called good works. Let us be assured that God will
never be mocked He will never be ridiculed by the unrighteous works of men.
And they may fool us, but they will never fool him. Never fool
God. Now, to illustrate this, the
Apostle Paul uses a simple proverb. Go back to your text. Look at
this. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. And here's the proverb. For whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. In other words, it's very simple. It's not a complicated thing.
Girls, I'm not talking about a sewing machine. We don't use that word sew. We
use plant. You plant a seed. That's what
it is. You're sowing a seed. They used
to take the seed and they would throw it out. That's sowing the
seed. Now then, even the children understand
that whatever seed you plant, That's exactly what you'll get.
Is that not simple? That's fine. You plant tomatoes,
you get tomatoes. That's what he's saying. It's
very simple. Everyone here knows that and
understands that. You don't plant corn and expect
strawberries. I mean, you plant the corn, you
go, man, I can't wait to eat those strawberries. What, are
you crazy? You're not going to get strawberries. You're going to get corn. You're
planted corn. You're going to get corn. Just
a simple thing for us to understand. And yet, this is exactly what
lost religious men do with all their religious works and labor.
plant all of their goodness into the ground, their so-called good
works, they plant them into the ground expecting that God is
going to accept their works. The problem is they are sowing
corrupt seed. If you sow corrupt seed, you
will not get good fruit. You will get corrupt fruit. Is
that simple? If you follow after the lust
of your flesh and do what you desire to do, you will inherit
whatever that seed is to be. The scripture says, that the
wages of sin is death. And if you sow to your flesh,
you will get death. That's just simple. Men who look to their self-perceived
obedience by some self-made law or ritual, are deceived to expect
to be accepted by a holy God because their flesh can only
yield corrupt seed. It's the only thing we have in
our bag. It's the only type of seed we
can sow by nature is a corrupt vile seed. That's it. This nature of Adam was born
and is full of the seeds of sin. A man that is born of woman,
Job says, is a few days and full of trouble. Is that not true? Scripture says man drinketh iniquity
like water. How smoothly does water go down? That's how smooth it is for us
to sin. It is so easy. It just glides
out of us. The natural heart is corrupt. The Scripture says in Psalm 53,
the fool has said in his heart, No, God! That word, those words,
there is no, is in italics and it's not there. God. They are corrupt and have done
abominable iniquity, none do it good. Jesus says that the heart of
a man is corrupt and it's out of the heart that evil thoughts,
adultery, murder, fornication, all of that comes from the heart.
It doesn't come from the outside. It doesn't come from our environment.
It comes from our heart outside. Every man wants to change his
environment and expects that it changes his heart. No, it
won't change your heart. You can reform all you want to.
You can clean up your life all you want to. But that does not
change the fact that your seed is corrupt. Now, I'll tell you this, you
may have the best looking corrupt seed out of anybody. You take
your seeds and you look out and say, look at my seed. It looks
a lot better than your seed. Does it really matter? Because
they're both going to produce the same thing. A corrupt tree. A corrupt fruit. Death. Death. They'll both yield the
same things. A man's heart is corrupt, and
therefore his mind and his will is corrupt, and all that he does
is mixed with sin. And no matter how commendable
it looks among men, it is still sin. I cannot tell you how many times
I have heard of the great things that Mother Teresa had done in
her life. I tell you it was sin. And all I've done in my flesh
is just as corrupt and wicked as her works, because we both did it out of
a heart of unbelief. We both did it out of our flesh,
out of our own power. And we will reap exactly what
we sow. The message of God's grace in
Christ alone must be believed, and whosoever believeth not shall
be damned. You see, the incorruptible seed
must be planted. the word of God which liveth
and abideth forever, it must be planted of God in our hearts. And that alone will reap righteousness. That alone will produce good
fruit. It is the seed of the gospel
of God's grace. It's always my experience with
self-righteous men to blame God for sin. You see, they don't
believe in the election of God or the sovereignty of God, because
somehow God would have to have ordained that sin be allowed
into this world. Absolutely. All things are God. Yet God is not accused of sin.
You can't accuse God of sin. God is just and holy, and though
He has allowed sin into His creation, He has done it for His own glory
and the good of His people. And yet they still try to blame
God for their sins. Listen to me very carefully.
If you go to hell, it will be because of your sin. You will not blame God for your
sin. You will suffer exactly what
you sowed. Is that not clear? Plain. You sow to the flesh, you'll
reap death. But he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." The fleshly nature, it believes
that man by works, if he sows to good works, That he somehow
is sowing to the Spirit of God. That somehow he is adding to
the righteousness of Christ. He's adding to his holiness. He's adding to these things. But every child of God soweth
to the Spirit of God, not his works, but rather the works of
Christ. When we pray, do we not pray
back the promises of God? and not what our prayers are
made of, God's promises? Do we not stand on Christ alone? Is our prayers not accepted?
Our prayers are accepted only because of Christ alone. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. I stand on that. That's it. That's where all my faith rests,
is in the sovereign mercy of God through Jesus Christ, my
Lord. Believers in Christ, so to the
Spirit, only those fruits that God has given us in the inner
man. You see, I've not added any fruits of the Spirit, have
you? Has anybody added any fruit to the Spirit? Those that are
mentioned, love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance, faith,
gentleness. Those things are things that God has to give us. Those things aren't things we
can do ourselves. And truly, they're perfect. They
don't need to be added to or taken from. They're perfect. And so when we are yielding these
fruits of the Spirit by the Spirit, we are yielding them back to
God only for his praise. Why do we give? Why do we serve? Why do we worship? For the glory
of God. The only reason we are here is
for the worship of God. We desire to worship God. We
desire to glorify God and serve him. Why do we do that? Why is it that we serve God?
Why is it that we desire such things? Because the Spirit of
God has planted the seed of the Word of God in our hearts, and
that will always yield perfect fruit. Perfect. And what does perfect fruit mean?
yield everlasting life. A lot of people want everlasting
life, but they want it in this body. What fools, what fools to desire
life in this body, in this corrupt nature, this corrupt flesh. You see, we seek a kingdom, a
city of God. not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens, waiting for us. Waiting for us. Our hope rests
in Christ. And so we do these things out
of a heart of gratitude. I read this the other day. I
thought it was good, considering sowing to the Spirit. Since I mentioned this matter
of giving, it says there are three types of givers, a grudging
giver, a duty giver and a thanksgiver. And you can put that in any one
of the fruits of the spirit, any one of our good works. Do we do it grudgingly? The grudging giver says I have
to. The duty giver says I ought to. But the thanksgiver says, I want
to. This is what God's people want
to do. The fruit of the spirit is not
a new law. It's not something that we take
on us and have a list of things that we are to do. No, you're
free to do any of them. You're free to do anything good.
He says, when we are given the opportunity to do good, let us
do good to all men. You mean, yes, even whoever it
is. Especially those who are of the
household of faith. We should begin to do well here. We should begin to love and serve
one another. Forgive one another. And I pray
that God would bless this to your heart. Let's be dismissed
in prayer.