Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you, (10:12).
When God brought His people into the Promised Land, agriculture would become an essential component of their livelihood, and thus God provided very specific instructions on how to properly care for the land. Obedience to His Precepts would ensure not only a successful harvest, but His people’s security as well.
“You shall therefore follow My statutes and keep My judgments so as to carry them out, so that you may live securely on the land. 19 Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it,” (Leviticus 25:18-19).
But rather than following God, the people got busy reaping, conveniently leaving behind His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping; reaping everything for themselves and the gods they had come to love.
Israel is a luxuriant vine;
He produces fruit for himself.
The more his fruit,
The more altars he made;
The richer his land,
The better he made the sacred pillars, (10:1).
And they stayed busy giving lip service, reaping the poisonous harvest they themselves had sown.
They speak mere words,
With worthless oaths they make covenants;
And judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. (10:4).
For everything planted without God’s Prescribed preparation would end up like a stick on the water; uprooted, with no possibility of bearing fruit that would thrive or survive.
The thing itself will be carried to Assyria
As tribute to King Jareb;
Ephraim will be seized with shame
And Israel will be ashamed of its own counsel.
7 Samaria will be cut off with her king
Like a stick on the surface of the water, (10:6-7).
And the outgrowth would be thorns, thistles, and the ultimate destruction of everything they had sown and built for themselves.
Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;
Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars;
Then they will say to the mountains,
“Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!” (10:8).
However, like a trained animal, God’s people did love to thresh; and this was no commendation. For threshing, or trampling and separating the grain needed for livelihood, only came after the hard work of breaking up the ground in order to prepare a healthy soil to receive the sown seed that would produce a fruitful harvest.
God’s people had trained themselves, through their lack of knowledge, to satisfy their lust with the corrupted crop of the pagans, completely rejecting the heart preparation of His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping.
Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh,
But I will come over her fair neck with a yoke;
I will harness Ephraim,
Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself. (10:11).
Ultimately God’s promise will be fulfilled as He will do the work required, harnessing His people by His discipline to give them a perfectly prepared heart to know Him and follow His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping.
For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not overthrow them, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.7 I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart, (Jeremiah 24:6-7).
And once again, we see His faithfulness patiently demonstrated in His grace, mercy, and love as He sends His prophet to show His people the way through His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping.
Consider His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping
There are several agricultural analogies in this chapter: a vine bearing fruit; poisonous weeds in the field; thorns and thistles; threshing, harnessing, plowing; and sowing and reaping; all pointing to His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping.
His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping is repeated throughout His Word, and it is not complicated: we Reap what we Sow.
According to what I have seen, those who plow wrongdoing
And those who sow trouble harvest it, (Job 4:8).
One who sows injustice will reap disaster,
And the rod of his fury will perish, (Proverbs 22:8).
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit, (Galatians 6:7-8).
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace, (James 3:18).
How do we respond to His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping?
God has told us exactly what we are to do if we desire to reap that which is in accordance with His righteousness and kindness. We must diligently prepare our hearts to Sow with a desire for His righteousness. And we can only do this through humility and brokenness as we seek Him in faith and trust His perfect provision.
Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you, (10:12).
Oh, let us never forget. We cannot fool God and we will always Reap what we Sow; Sow to the flesh and Reap destruction or Sow to the Spirit and Reap Eternal Life.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit, (Galatians 6:7-8).
God had faithfully sent His prophets as His Sowers to Sow His Word in the hearts of His people. But they had failed to follow His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping, and the soil of their heart was left woefully unprepared to receive the seed of His Word, let alone any harvest.
Consider what is involved in the process of Sowing:
“Sowing is a process of planting seeds into the soil. During this agricultural process, proper precautions should be taken, including the appropriate depth, proper distance maintained, and soil should be clean, healthy and free from disease and other pathogens including fungus. All these precautions are essential for seed germination – the process of seeds developing into new plants,” BYJU’S.com.
Successful Sowing and Reaping is dependent upon the soil (our heart) being properly prepared. This was depicted in the parable Jesus taught, and later explained, in the Sower and the Soils.
Oh, let us learn well the lessons from the Sower and the four Soils: 1) soil beside the road; 2) soil that is rocky; 3) soil laden with thorns; 4) soil that is properly prepared; that we would commit to prepare our hearts in humility and faith as we follow His Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping.
“The sower sows the word,” (Mark 4:14).
1) Some couldn’t be bothered at all so that the seed of His Word got no closer to their hearts than as if it had been left to lie on the side of the road.
“These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them,” (Mark 4:15).
Lord, Jesus, please create in us a hunger for Your Word, that our hearts would always be close to Your heart, that we would be prepared and ready to receive the seed of Your Word.
2) There were those who seemingly wanted the seed of His Word, or at least the promise of health, wealth, and prosperity. But in their failure to break up the rocky ground, dashed expectations proved to be their undoing.
“And in a similar way these are the ones sown with seed on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and yet they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution occurs because of the word, immediately they fall away,” (Mark 4:16-17).
Lord, Jesus, please lead us to break up the fallow ground of our hearts to break free from false expectations, softened and prepared to receive the seed of Your Word, that it would take firm root in our lives.
3) Others perhaps had done some preliminary preparation, but then had left the soil unattended, allowing the thorns of worry and desires for the wealth of the world to fester and choke out the seed of His Word.
“And others are the ones sown with seed among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful,” (Mark 4:18-19).
Lord Jesus, please strengthen our commitment to seek You, that we would never leave our hearts unattended and thus subject to becoming captured by worries or wealth, that we would continually prepare the soil of hearts through humility and brokenness as we Sow with a consuming desire for Your Righteousness above all else.
4) And there were those whose hearts had been thoroughly prepared to bear fruit for His glory.
“And those are the ones sown with seed on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much,” (Mark 4:20).
Lord, we so desire to be that good soil, that we would follow Your Prescribed Precept for Sowing and Reaping that we would be thoroughly prepared to bear much fruit as we depend on You to produce a harvest of faith that brings You all the glory.
Lord, please empower us by Your Spirit to daily prepare our hearts through humility and brokenness that we would fervently seek You and Your righteousness. Please enable us by Your Holy Spirit to bear fruit in keeping with Your faithful lovingkindness, as we wait in faith for that day when we will live in Your Glorious Presence under the rain of Your righteousness forever.
Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you, (10:12).