The consequences of evil-doing.
The New Testament teaching is, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." It is precisely as the present verses. "They that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same." So does the testimony of the ages warn evil-doers. This rule is inevitable; it is just; it is natural; it is admonitory.
I. THIS ORDER IS INEVITABLE. He who has ordained the laws of nature, fixed, calm, indestructible, has also ordained that the doer of evil shall reap the fruit of his ill-doing. An inevitable Nemesis follows the steps of every offender against Divine laws. Sooner or later judgment is passed. No skilfulness can evade the omnipotent rule. "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished." Minutely did our Lord lay down the same teaching: "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." One may as well try to throw off the law of gravitation. It holds us all fast in its firm grip. So does this Divine law framed by the same hand.
II. THIS LAW IS JUST. The wise and holy Ruler of all—"the Creator of all worlds, the Judge of all men"—will do right, does do right in the administrations of his holy laws. He is not vindictive. His anger is holy anger; his wrath is as truly just as his love is tender. He has laid the foundations of human life in righteousness. He is just; for he rendereth to every man according to his deeds. Without doubt he takes note of all the circumstances in which every one is placed, and neither accuses the guiltless nor excuses the guilty. Men find in their own acts the cause of their sufferings, and the justification of the righteous judgment of God. In every breast the most painful conviction will be the assurance of the perfect righteousness of the Divine ways, and the justice of every Divine infliction. The inward reflection of the Divine judgment of condemnation is the most painful of all judgments.
III. THE OPERATION OF THIS LAW IS PERFECTLY NATURAL. Consequences follow causes with the same regularity of law in the moral as in the material world. A wrong thought gives a wrong bias to the mind, and leaves it so much the more liable to be influenced in a wrong direction; so of every word or deed of evil. Each wrong act is a seed cast into the ground, and it bears its fruit after its own kind to him Who sows it, Of evil, good cannot spring up. So every man by his wrong-doing treasures up for himself wrath against the day of wrath. He receives his reward in his character, in the condition of mind and life to which he is reduced by evil or elevated by goodness.
IV. THIS LAW IS ADMONITORY TO ALL. There is no escape by mere law from the ill consequences of any bad act. The inevitable consequences which follow all wrongdoing should warn men off from forbidden paths. "By the blast of God they perish" is the warning threat against the sowers of wickedness and them that "plough iniquity." Though men rage as the fierce lions, their roaring is broken; they perish, and their seed is scattered abroad.—R.G.