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The Bible everywhere describes men as reaping what they sow, and as receiving again, not the bare seed sown, but the harvest of their actions. And, when we test this common and pervading metaphor by our experience, we find it true. Our actions are fertile, and we do have to eat the fruit they yield. Every time we take a decisive and deliberate step, we set forces in motion which soon slip from our control. But it is we who have set them going, and we are held responsible for whatever effects they produce. If you throw a stone into the air, you may mean no harm, or only a little harm; but you may do a great injury. And when the harm is done, you cannot turn lightly away and say, "It was none of my doing." It was your doing, even if it went beyond your intention, and you have to pay the penalty of it; you have to eat she fruit of your deed. If in the charm of bright social intercourse, or to relieve the gloom of depression, you take too much wine, you may have had no distinctly bad motive for it; your motive may have been nothing more than a friendly wish to share and promote the hilarity of the hour, or to free yourself from the disabling effects of a transient incapacity for a task you felt bound to do: but if that indulgence should excite a growing craving for similar indulgences, as in some natures it will, and you sink into a sot, and your health flies, and your business goes to rack, and your domestic peace is broken up, you cannot plead, "I did not do it." You did do it, and the world fairly holds you responsible for all that has come of it. Or, to take a still sadder and more perilous instance, if, out of mere thoughtless hospitality, you press a man to drink with you, and he sets out by your prompting on the perilous and slippery path which leads him to a madhouse or to a dishonoured grave, you cannot escape the consequences of your own act; you have to bear all the misery of witnessing his downfall, and of the heartrending fear that, but for you, he might never have fallen. Do you not see, then, how the results of our bad, and even of our thoughtless, actions accumulate upon us, multiplying sometimes in a geometrical ratio, and landing us in the most awful responsibilities? And can you doubt that, in like manner, the results of our good deeds multiply and accumulate? If a man cultivate any faculty, that of learning languages, for example, or of written composition, or of public speaking, who can say whereunto it will grow, what nutriment it will meet from the most unexpected quarters, how one opportunity will open the door for another, and one success pave the way for a dozen more? If you once brace yourself for a good deed which involves thought and labour and self-sacrifice, do not all similar deeds become easier to you? Does not even one good deed induce your neighbours to ask your help in other good deeds, and thus furnish you with ever new opportunities of service? Does not your example stimulate and encourage them in the good works they have in hand, or now and then even rouse the indolent and indifferent to interest and activity? Do not those who benefit by your kindness at least sometimes remember and imitate it? Have you yourselves never been constrained to help a neighbour by a recollection of how, when you once needed similar help, some good man or woman came to your assistance? A good deed shines, we are told, "like a candle in this naughty world." And how many solitary and forlorn wayfarers, stumbling in the dark, may even one such candle, shining through a cottage casement, serve to guide, to stimulate, to console! We do get according to our deeds, then, and, through the mercy of God, we get, in addition, all the fruit our deeds bring forth. And if, in the world to come, the consequences of our deeds, even to the last, should more largely come upon us, we cannot deny that this, too, will be just. But in the future at all events, and far more largely than in the present, the law of retribution will work, the consequences of our actions will come home to us, according to the infinite wisdom and compassion of God. Then, if not now, God will deal with us, not according to the outward form and appearance of our conduct, but according to those inward springs of thought, will, emotion, purpose, of which our life is at best but a poor and inadequate outcome, a pale and distorted reflection. He will search the inmost fibres of our hearts in order that He may mete out to us the recompense we deserve, the discipline we require; in order that, to the last fibre of our hearts, we may be satisfied with the justice and the love of His award.

(Samuel Cox, D. D.)

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KJV: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

WEB: Don't be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.