The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Books of the Bible: Volume 29 (of 32): The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and I-II ThessaloniansBarlow, George
Religion
The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Books of the Bible: Volume 29 (of 32): The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and I-II Thessalonians
Barlow, George
Bible -- Commentaries; Bible. Epistles of Paul -- Commentaries
+I. The man who soweth to his flesh.+--It is to spend our lives in
doing these works of the flesh--to lay out our time, our thoughts,
and our care in gratifying the vain, sensual, and selfish
inclinations which the evil state of the heart naturally and
continually puts forth. Broken health, loathsome diseases, ruined
fortunes, disappointed wishes, soured tempers, infamy, and shame are
among those things which usually come from walking after the flesh.
+II. The man who soweth to the Spirit.+--It is to live under the
guidance of God's Holy Spirit, and in every part of our conduct to
bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. He enjoys even at present the
fruit of his labour: inward peace and joy, and a hope full of
immortality.--_Edward Cooper._
_The Principle of the Spiritual Harvest._
+I. The principle is this, "God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap."+--There are two kinds of good
possible to men--one enjoyed by our animal being, the other felt and
appreciated by our spirits. Reap _what_ you have sown. If you sow the
wind, do not complain if your harvest is the whirlwind. If you sow to
the Spirit, be content with a spiritual reward, invisible, within,
more life and higher life.
+II. The two branches of the application of this
principle.+--1. Sowing to the flesh includes those who live in open
riot. 2. Those who live in respectable worldliness. 3. Sowing to the
Spirit, the harvest is life eternal. 4. The reward is not arbitrary
but natural. The thing reaped is the very thing sown, multiplied a
hundredfold. You have sown a seed of life, you reap life
everlasting.--_F. W. Robertson._
Ver. 7. _Sowing and Reaping in their bearing on the Formation of
Individual Character._--There are three plots in which every man is
perpetually engaged in sowing and reaping--in the plot of his
thoughts, in the plot of his words, and in the plot of his deeds. And
there is a storehouse into which the harvests from these three plots
are being secretly but unmistakably garnered--the storehouse of
individual character. The moral condition of the man to-day is the
inevitable result of his thoughts, words, and deeds; his selfhood is
rich or poor according to his sowing and reaping in these respective
fields.
+I. Whatever a man sows in thought that will he also reap in the
formation, tone, and tendency of his intellectual and moral
nature.+--1. _Vain thoughts._ If we indolently sport with vain and
foolish thoughts, they will inevitably produce a crop of the same
kind. The mind will be garnished with flimsy and unprofitable
fancies, inflated with a too conscious self-importance, and the
outcome is heard in "the loud laugh that proclaims the vacant mind,"
and seen in the pompous swagger of the intellectual fop (Prov.
xiii. 16; Ps. xciv. 11).
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