I am happy to have this privilege to study Gods word with you. I am praying day by day that the Lord is going to richly bless each person that is involved in Revelation Seminars, when somebody is saved. Sometimes we realize it more if it is somebody in our own family that has been lost. But everybody in the world is part of Gods family. Our heavenly Father feels pain when souls are lost. It is our precious privilege to give an invitation to people that are lost. Probation is not closed yet and we can still invite people to be saved.

So it is a wonderful privilege to be involved in evangelism of all kinds and especially Revelation Seminars where we can study the Bible together. If you worked in evangelism your whole life and you only won one person, it would still be well worth it. One person that is saved will live longer than everybody that has lived down here in this world, in this life. Just think about it. That person will be your friend throughout eternity if you were instrumental in his salvation.

I want to study something from the Bible with you that to me is a scary subject. I did not think it was so scary when I was a young person. I read about it and thought, well, that is just the way it is. And it is the way it is and it is something that cannot be changed. There are some things in this world that cannot be changed. That is the way it is and you cannot change it.

Here is a quick example. The law of gravity, you cannot change it. That is the way it is--period. I want to study something with you that is just as sure as the law of gravity. It is the way it is and you cannot change it. Therefore, you need to cooperate with it. We cooperate with the law of gravity. If we do not cooperate with the law of gravity, we die or are maimed or crippled.

So what I want to study with you this morning is just like the law of gravity. You can choose to cooperate with this law and have some wonderful things happen to you. Or you can reap a bitter harvest. It is up to you. And so, to start studying this subject, let us read two texts of Scripture; one in the New Testament and one in the Old Testament. I have found that the Bible has a lot to say about this subject.

So turn first of all to the book of Galatians, the letter to the Galatians, the sixth chapter and Paul states this law in unequivocal terms. Notice what it says in Galatians 6:7-10. I call it the harvest principle. This is what Paul says. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 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. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all."

But in addition to doing good to all notice the qualifications: "Especially to those who are of the household of faith." This is the harvest principle. Paul says, "Whatever you sow, you are going to reap--period. The thing that is scary about it is, have all of us sown, planted some bad spiritual seeds in our life? Yes, we have. Are we all going to reap some consequences for that? Yes, we are.

However, if your life is just about over, you could still do some more planting. If you plant some good seeds, according to this Scripture, you are going to get good results. What do you want to plant?

I promised you that we would read one text in the New Testament and one in the Old Testament. So we will look at the one in the Old Testament first, then we will look at what Jesus said about it. Look in the book of Hosea. He talks about this same subject. Hosea the tenth chapter, verses twelve and thirteen. Hosea 10:12, 13. "Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground (untilled ground), For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and reigns righteousness on you. You have plowed wickedness; You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, Because you trusted in your own way, in the multitude of your mighty men."

So if you tell lies, what is going to happen? You are going to reap the fruit of that. What kind of seed are you planting? Let us look at what Jesus said about it. Luke the eighth chapter. This is the kind of seed you want to be planting in your mind and in your heart every day. Luke 8:11. "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God." If you are studying the Bible every day, you are planting in your mind spiritual seed, thoughts, and that is going to bear fruit. It is going to affect the way you think and it is going to affect the way you talk. It is going to affect the way you live. The result of that is that there are going to be consequences that you are going to reap.

We are just going to look at three things about the harvest principle. The first one we have already seen in Galatians. The first thing about the harvest principle is, you always reap the same kind of seed that you sow. If you sow something that is bitter, you are going to reap something that is bitter. If you sow something that is evil, you are going to reap something that is evil.

Now that does not mean that God cannot save you. You study the lives of people like David who did a lot of awful things and God saved him. But in spite of the fact that God saved him, did he reap the consequences in this life for the seeds he sowed? Yes, he did.

So the first thing we want to study is the principle that whatever you sow or plant, you are going to reap the same thing. I want to appeal especially to the young people because when you are young, that is when you are planting lots of seeds, developing habits. When you are my age, you have already had some bitter harvests from some seed that you planted in the past that you wish you had not done, but you did it and now you are reaping the consequences--and I say this reverently--even the God of heaven does not prevent you from reaping consequences.

I have worked with people that are in prison that have accepted Jesus as their Saviour and I believe that they will be saved. But they still reap consequences for what they did. Whatever kind of seed that we plant, we are going to reap consequences. One of the ways that we are planting seed every day is by the way we talk. When we talk, we are planting ideas in another persons or persons mind. Whatever we say is planting seed and it is going to come back. The very same thing!

If I plant bitter words in my home, bitterness is going to come back to me. This is a principle that never fails. You do not ever plant corn and get tomatoes. No, you do not do that. When you plant corn, you get corn. Whatever you plant, you are going to get the same thing. I would like to read an interesting statement to you for your meditation. It is from the pen of Ellen White and it is from Manuscript Releases, vol. 20, 186. It is a very interesting statement about this principle, that whatever you plant you are going to get the same thing back.

This is of special interest to young people because when you are young, you want to plant the right things so you have good results later in life. All of us are right now reaping the results, the consequences of various things we did in the past. If you are over thirty, surely you are old enough to recognize that. You are reaping consequences right now of various decisions of things that you made in the past.

That is why it is so important to understand this concept when you are young, when there is still time, when you are still doing your planting, so you can plant so you get the right kind of results. What do you want to plant? This is what it says: "God is leading out a people, fitting them for translation." Do you want to be one of those people? When Jesus comes there will be a people that are still alive in the world and they are going to be taken to heaven just like Enoch and just like Elijah were. That is what she is talking about.

"God is leading out a people." He is preparing a people so that when Jesus comes again, there will be a people alive in the world that are ready to meet Him. Then she asks this question. "Are we who are acting a part in this work standing as sentinels for God? Are we uniting our forces? Are we willing to become servants of all?" Am I willing to be a servant of all?

The apostles learned this lesson. It took them a long time to learn it. Remember James and John came and they wanted to be first? The story is in Matthew 20:21-27. Actually they had it planned better than that, they had their mother speak for them. She said to Jesus, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, the one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom." Jesus said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about drink, and be baptized with the baptism that lam baptized with?" And they said, "We are able." And Jesus said, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father" which is in heaven.

Then it says, "And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brothers." Why were they moved with indignation? That is where they wanted to sit, too. But Jesus called them unto Him and He said, You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them and those that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be like this among you. But whoever among you wishes to be great, let him be your servant. And whoever among you wishes to be first, let him be your bond-servant (slave), even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto (He came not to be served, but to serve) and to give His life a ransom for many."

The people that are ready to be translated when Jesus comes will be people who are servants. If they are leaders in Gods work, they will be servants of all. That is where we get the word, deacon, by the way. The work deacon means servant. Jesus said, He that wants to be great among you, let him be a deaconos, that is a deacon, a servant. And he that would be first among you, let him be a doulos, that is a bond-servant, a slave. That is a lower level of servant.

The greater you are in Gods kingdom, the lower you are as a servant. You are a servant of all. So much so that we see the extreme example of this in the life of Jesus, Who was a servant of servants. Are we imitating that pattern? If you want to reap those kinds of consequences in your character, then you have to plant that kind of seed. In your mind you must understand that you are a servant to all men but especially to Gods people.

Then she says this, "Fellow laborers, are we sowing the seed which we will reap unto eternal life? The harvest is ours, to reap that which we have sown." We are going to reap the same thing that we planted. It works every time in the natural world, does it not? And it works every time in the spiritual world, too. The spiritual world follows the same law as in the natural world. We reap what we planted, whether it was good or bad.

This is something to think about. I will read this slowly so you can write down two types of seed that you can plant. Just draw a line down the middle of your paper and put the bad seeds on the left side and on the right side you can have the good seeds. Here is the bad seed: "If you sow distrust, envy, jealousy, self-love, bitterness of thought and feelings, this harvest you will be sure to reap. This will be a sowing of dragons teeth to reap the same." Is that what you want to reap?

The Bible talks about this very same thing. Turn to Job 4:8. "Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same thing." Proverbs 22:8. "He who sows iniquity will reap sorrow (or trouble)." Do you understand why Ellen White says that we should never, ever speak a word of doubt? Why? If you talk doubt, you are going to become a skeptic. And I have seen people that have become so skeptical that you cannot touch them with faith in Gods word because they have talked doubt for so long that they cannot exercise faith anymore. They are reaping a terrible harvest, right here in this life.

Lets go on reading this quotation. Now let us look at the good seed. This is the kind of seed that you want to plant because if you plant it, you are going to reap it. If this is not your last day in this world, you can still plant some of this so you can have a harvest that you will enjoy reaping. Here it is. "If you manifest kindness, love..

If you plant kindness to somebody else, you are going to reap some kindness. Love is good seed. Love has to do with caring for somebody else and not you. You are trying to do something to make somebody else happy or better off. Love is always directed to somebody else. If it is directed towards you, that is called self-love or selfishness. If you are looking for somebody else that you can help, you are going to reap a blessed harvest that you will enjoy reaping.

God has ordained that great good shall come to every person who works on the basis of Love. That is a divine law. God keeps track of every act or word of love and kindness and He is going to make sure that it all comes back to you. The same thing. What are you planting? What did you plant this last week? You cannot change what you planted last week, but what are you going to plant this next week?

Well, here is another one. "If you manifest kindness, love, and tender thoughtfulness,.., you will reap the same in return." Ellen White in this statement is talking especially to teachers. She says to the teachers, "If you manifest kindness, love and tender thoughtfulness to your students, you will reap the same in return."

But then she goes back to talking about the bad seed. Now this reference talks a lot more about bad seed than good seed, however the good seed is comprehensive. Kindness, love and tender thoughtfulness of others are very comprehensive statements. But she goes on to say, "If teachers are (here are some bad seeds) severe. . ." If I am severe, what is in my future? I am going to reap severity. ". . . critical . . ." If I am critical, what is going to be in my future? Criticism. ". . . overbearing . . ." If I am overbearing on somebody in my house or in my life, where I work, in the church or wherever it is, if I am planting the seed of overbearing, what is going to come back to me? The same thing.

"If teachers are severe, critical, overbearing, not careful of others feelings. . ." Is it my moral responsibility as a Christian to be careful of other peoples feelings in my home, including my children? Do I have an obligation to pay attention to whether or not I am hurting my childrens feelings? I most certainly do. Why? Because Jesus never caused unnecessary pain to a sensitive soul and He is my Example.

Just read the story of Jesus in Simons house and notice how carefully, how delicately, how tactfully He handled a very difficult situation. That is my Example. He was very kind and considerate of Simons feelings even though Simon was in the wrong. Jesus could have with justice given him a very severe rebuke in front of all his company. But He did not do it. Why? Because He was careful of Simons feelings. Jesus pointed out to Simon very tactfully how deep in the wrong he was. Yet He did it so tactfully that Simon was not angry. In fact, as a result of that interview, Simon was converted and became a disciple. He had been a Pharisee. He still had a Pharisees heart when that happened. You can read in Luke 7.

He was converted because Jesus was careful of his feelings. If I am a Christian, I have a moral obligation to be careful of the feelings of the people in my family; to be careful of the feelings of the people I work with; to be careful of the feelings of the people in the church where I attend. If I am not, let me read the whole sentence. "If teachers are severe, critical, overbearing, not careful of others feelings, they will receive the same in return." What are you going to reap? The same thing that you planted; it never fails, every time. It is a divine law..

Then she says in closing in this paragraph, "A man who wishes to preserve his self-respect and dignity must be careful not to sacrifice the respect and dignity of others." If I want to preserve my self-respect and dignity, what is my moral obligation? To be careful to respect the self-respect and dignity of others; because whatever I plant, I am going to reap.

Well, we spent a lot of time on that but it is good to get the point; to know what kind of seed to plant and what kind of seed not to plant. Let us go to point number two. This is even scarier than point number one, especially when you understand point number one. Point number one is whatever you plant, you are going to reap the same kind. But point number two is, You are going to reap more than you sow! Is that true in the natural world?

When you plant a tomato seed, how many tomato seeds do you get? Hundreds. Every tomato is full of seeds. You can have a whole bucketful from one plant. You get more back than you put in. That is the way it is in spiritual things, too. If you plant, Paul says, to the spirit, you plant a little seed, but that seed is going to grow and you are going to reap eternal life. You are going to have an infinite harvest. You are going to reap more than you sow.

Let us look at a text in the Bible that says that very clearly. Look back to the book of Hosea again. Hosea 8:7 "They sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind." (tornado). I thought about this principle between ten and fifteen years ago, when I found out that the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists was getting involved in a big way in law suits. I thought to myself, Do not these people realize that if you do this to somebody else, what is eventually going to happen? It is going to happen to you. And you can reap more than you sow. It is too bad, We do not like to reap the whirlwind, in fact, nobody likes to. But if you sow the wind, you are going to reap the whirlwind,

I do not enjoy seeing what has been happening the last few days where leaders of churches are suddenly involved in lawsuits. But let me tell you what the problem is. We have sown the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind and I do not know where the whirlwind is going to end, but let me tell you, whirlwinds can be very destructive. You cannot go down to Florida and threaten somebody with destruction that is trying to spread the three angels messages. You cannot sue him to stop him from spreading the three angels messages, take him all the way to the Supreme Court and ruin him and just expect that God will say, Well, that is just too bad and nothing will happen. You are going to reap something if you do that.

I want to tell you, the harvest is just beginning. I want to read to you what Ellen White said about this subject, too. This is in The Review and Herald, October 21, 1890. First of all she quotes from Isaiah 63 and then it says. "But through their own course of rebellion (The children of Israel), the blessing of God toward Israel was turned away from them. That which they had sown in questioning and unbelief, they had to reap. The record says, 'But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. (The Lord fought against His own people!). . ."

And then she makes this most shocking and revealing statement. Now she is not talking about something that happened twenty-five hundred years ago, she is talking about Seventh-day Adventists today. This is what she says. "May the Lord forbid that the history of the Children of Israel in departing from God, in refusing, to walk in the light, in refusing to confess their sins of unbelief and rejection of His messages, should be the experience of the people claiming to believe the truth for this time."

She says, May God forbid that that would happen. Remember that they planted rebellion and the result was that they got rebellion back. It says, The Lord Himself fought against His own people. I want to tell you something. The Bible says there is no counsel, wisdom or device against the Lord. It says that in Proverbs. If you rebel against the Lords messenger, if you rebel against the Spirit of Prophecy, you are going to deal with the Lord. You are going to have a harvest to reap that is going to be bitter.

She said, May the Lord forbid that we would do something like that. But she did not say that it could not be done, because notice what the next sentence says. "For if they do as did the Children of Israel. . ." What did they do? They would not listen to the Spirit of Prophecy. God sent them prophet after prophet after prophet and they would not listen. Jesus said to them, Which of the prophets have you not stoned?

She says, "If they do as did the Children of Israel in the face of warnings and admonitions, the same results will follow in these last days as came upon the Children of Israel." The harvest is just beginning. It is not over yet. And you always reap more than you sow. You say, Well, this person is not working the way we want him to work, we will just take him to court, sue him and shut him down. And God might allow somebody to get shut down. I cannot explain what God will allow and what He will not allow. I do not know the answer to those things. You can read in Sacred History of things that God allowed and you say, Lord, how could you ever allow that to happen? But He did.

But whatever you do, what is going to happen down the line? You are going to reap a consequence, a harvest, and you are going to reap more than you sow. Somebody said, I only sowed one lawsuit and here I got fourteen. Well, that is the way the harvest works. When you start to get on the receiving end of the harvest time whether the seed was good or whether it was bad, you are going to reap more than you sowed. If you sow the wind, you are going to reap the whirlwind.

This is not true just for the General Conference. This is true for every conference. It is true for every independent ministry. It is true for every local church. It is true for every family. It is true for every group of people. The way we treat each other is going to come back. There will be no failure in the crop. We will reap more that we have planted. If this is not the last day of your life, what are you going to do about planting some good seed? Are there tares growing up all over the field of your life and you need to get some good seed planted so that you will have something to reap that you will want to reap?

You are going to reap. I am going to reap. If you are more than thirty years old, you probably have already done some reaping. If you are forty years old, for sure you can see the reaping that you are doing right now from decisions you made earlier. Yes, that includes all that are over forty!

Now the last few minutes I would like to spend with you looking at the third point in the harvest principle. This can be very exciting. We want to end on something that is very encouraging. Jesus came down to this world, a planet that was in rebellion, people that were rebels and enemies against Him and He started to plant seed. It says in Matthew 13:37, "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man."

Jesus started to plant seed and we just read it in Luke 8:11. The good seed is the word of God. Jesus started to plant seed. People started to watch Him. They watched the way He talked and as they watched, they said, I wish I could talk like that. They watched the way He lived and they said, I wish I could live like that. The reason He could talk and He could live like that was because of what was in His heart and in His mind.

People began to take notice. And people began to imitate. And the people that followed Him, His twelve disciples, before He left He told them that they were to bear witness that they were with Him. They were to write these things down. That is why we have the New Testament--some good seed. If that good seed is planted in your heart and in your mind, it is going to grow. When you read the words of Jesus (I say this reverently but it is true), you are actually thinking His thoughts, the thoughts of God after Him.

There is a Chinese proverb that says, You are what you think about all day long. A lot of truth in that. The Bible says, As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. As the word of God is planted in your mind, it changes the way you think. And as it changes the way you think, it changes your heart and your spirit. Then it will change the way you talk. It will change the way you act. Instead of planting all these seeds of bitterness, jealousy, distrust, envy and not being careful of the feelings of others, being harsh and severe and all that, you will start to plant some different seeds.

As you start to plant different seed, you are going to have a different harvest. He that sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. Galatians 6:8. The fruit of the spirit is listed in Galatians 5:22,23. if you sow to the flesh, the works of the flesh are listed in Galatians 5:17-19, of the flesh you are going to reap corruption. But if you sow to the spirit, of the spirit you are going to reap everlasting life.

Here is the exciting news. This is point number three in the harvest principle. In the harvest time every plant, every seed becomes fully mature. Now if you are planting the word of God, if you are planting the spiritual image of Jesus Christ in your mind, in the harvest time you will be a reflection of the character of Christ. Anybody that is around you will actually see Jesus Christ.

Remember what Paul said, "We have the mind of Christ." Ellen White says that the church is to be a continual reincarnation of Jesus Christ. When people see you, they will see Jesus Christ because they will see His spiritual image in you. Is that not exciting! That you and I could come to reflect perfectly the image of Jesus Christ so that when people see us, they have seen Jesus Christ?

Remember what Jesus said to the disciples one time. It is in John 14:8, 9. Philip said, Show us the Father and it satisfies us. And Jesus said, What! Have I been so long time with you, Philip and yet you have not known Me? He that has seen Me has seen the Father. You see, if you saw Jesus, you have seen the Father because He is an exact replica of the Fathers character. The gospel goal is that when people see you, they actually see a reflection of Jesus Christ in you.

Let us read that in the Bible. 1 John 3:1, 2. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

Turn to one more text on this subject. Look in Revelation the fourteenth chapter, starting with verse fifteen. Revelation 14:15. "Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him which sat on the cloud, 'Thrust in your cycle and reap, for the time has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he that sat on the cloud thrust in his cycle on the earth and the earth was reaped. Then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp cycle. And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp cycle, saying, 'Thrust in your sharp cycle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe."

Notice there are two harvests here and both harvests are fully ripe. There is a wheat harvest. The children of God are likened to a wheat harvest and the children of the devil are likened to the harvest of grapes and both harvests are fully ripe. Let me just explain this to you in a few words. When Jesus comes back again, and that is what is being described here in the last part of Revelation 14, everybody in the world is fully mature. And there are going to be two harvests.

Everybody in the world will be fully mature and there is going to be a reflection in character either of Jesus Christ or the devil himself. It is going to be one way or the other for everybody in the world at harvest time. The question is, which harvest are you going to be in? We are going to go to harvest time and we are going to be the reflection of somebodys character.

Let me read this to you in Christ's Object Lessons, 67, 69. "Christ is seeking to reproduce Himself in the hearts of men." (Your heart and mine) She goes onto explain what it means to receive the spirit of Christ. "As you receive the spirit of Christ--the spirit of unselfish love and labor for others--you will grow and bring forth fruit. (Page 69) Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.

What are we waiting for? Oh, people say, I am waiting for Jesus to come. No that is not the most accurate way to explain it. We are not waiting, He is waiting. He is waiting, she says, with longing desire. He wants to come back and take His people out of this world, take them out away from all the pain and suffering and hardship and sorrow and all the things we are going through down here.

Jesus is waiting with longing desire to take us out of this place. He is waiting for the manifestation of His character in His church. We like to say that we are waiting for Him, but it is more accurate to say that He is waiting for us. At the harvest time every plant becomes fully mature. Every seed, every grape, every kernel of wheat becomes fully ripe. It reflects perfectly the image of what was planted.

We are living now, friends, in this harvest time. We are living in the harvest period of earths history. Jesus is waiting to come. What is He waiting for? Oh, He is trying to reproduce Himself in the hearts of His people to reproduce His character. Is His character going to be reproduced in you? Is His character going to be reproduced in me? It is if we are going to be ready for the harvest and ready to go with Him.

Oh, we are living in a pessimistic age. I meet this all the time. People say, Oh, Pastor John, I will never make it. That is a lack of faith. The Bible says that if you commit your life to Him, He is going to complete the good work that He has started. Philippians 1:6.

The harvest is going to be after its kind. You are going to reap more than you planted. At harvest time every plant becomes fully mature. God is leading out a people. He is fitting them right now, preparing them for translation. He is teaching them to have a servant mind, not the mind of a God or a Lord. He is teaching them what He is like so that our speech, our actions can become changed, so that we will not ruin heaven.

I want to be ready for the harvest time, how about you? I know that I have planted some bad seeds in my past. I am sorry for it and I am reaping consequences for it. You can see that in your life, too. But would you like to say to the Lord today, Lord, help me every day to be planting the good seeds in my life. Whatever you plant in your conduct with others, in your family, your work, the church you go to, or whoever you associate with. Whatever you plant you are going to get it back.

If you are planting the word of God in your mind and in your heart, it is going to bear fruit unto everlasting life. If you want to be part of the harvest to everlasting life, you have to remember day by day to be planting good seed. You have to be sowing to the spirit if you are going to reap everlasting life, if you want to reap that kind of a harvest and if you want to tell the Lord that you want to reap that kind of a harvest and you want help to plant the good seed every day in your life, I would like to invite you to kneel down with me. Let us talk to the Lord about this. Every one of us needs to concentrate on planting some good seeds in our lives.