how great th how [Applause] [Music] great tonight I want to turn you to turn with me to a very familiar passage of scripture to all of you and uh that is found in Romans the first chapter and the 17th verse and then I want us to turn over to Galatians the 6th chapter where in the book of Galatians the Apostle Paul is explaining what he meant in the 17th verse of the first chapter and this was the verse That Shook all of Europe a little over 500 years ago when it was discovered and it was
revealed to him in a powerful way to Martin Luther it was my privilege to speak in the 5 500th anniversary uh of the celebration of Martin Luther uh just a few years ago and I preached in Wittenberg and what a privilege that was for me and here's the sixth chapter of the second chap first chapter of Romans the 17th verse and therein is the righteousness of God revealed from Faith to Faith as it is written the just shall live by faith the just shall live by faith not by our own goodness not by our own
works but by faith by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of Works lest any man should boast then we turn over to Galatians the 6th chapter what a marvelous chapter this fifth chapter is and the sixth chapter and the sixth chapter has something I want to speak on and I've never before preached a sermon on this text be beginning with verse seven be not deceived God is Not mocked for whatsoever a man sth that shall he also reap for he that sth to his
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that sth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting love life I want to speak tonight on sewing and reaping I noticed as we came in the Lush Farmland that's here in this Red River Valley I guess there's nothing quite like it in the United States I used to come to Fargo quite often stop here at Fargo mad you couldn't get to Winnipeg without stopping on Northwest Airlines here in a DC3 back in the 40s we used to go back and forth to Winnipeg a lot
and we stopped here a lot and I would see this country and off marveled at its lushness and congratulate you and your grandparents and parents that came here and settled here because this has become one of the great areas of the entire United States Time Magazine two years ago said that there are three movies that are dealing with Farms one was country with Jessica Lang places in the heart with Sally Field then there was the river in the same year we've been reading a great deal about the farm problems in America I don't think they
affect the Red River Valley but they do affect other parts of America I was born and rid on a farm and I've read about families that have been losing their family farms and I was read on a family farm and I remember the days back in the 20s and the 30s back during the Depression when my father would look for rain and we would pray for rain and we raised wheat and Bar barley and grain we didn't have sugar beets but we did raise other things that would be familiar to you then my father had
a what he called A Truck Farm where he raised vegetables and then we had dairy cattle and we milk and every morning from the time I was about 7 or 8 I had to get up at 3:00 and go milk cows and when I was in high school I milked 20 cows every morning before I went to school and milk those same 20 when I came home from school and so I knew a little bit about farmw work and Jesus is talking all the scriptures talk a great deal about farms and farming now today we've
read a great deal about the suffering and the starvation in places like AF uh Ethiopia and Africa Africa can't grow enough food 25 of its 50 countries are on the edge of famine and we have been doing what we can as an organization to try to help in supplying food for them Jesus the scripture says that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and and our neighbor is Africa our neighbor is Latin America our neighbor is Korea where all the riots are taking place at the moment the whole world has become a neighborhood without
becoming a Brotherhood and that's one of the great problems but we have a responsibility not only to the person that lives next door to us not only to the people in our own congregation not only to the people where we work but to the people all over the world that have need whatever their needs may be it may be a moral need it may be a physical need or a spiritual need now the newspapers a couple years ago were full of articles on biotechnology and we were told that we were on the verge of producing
Mega Cows as big as elephants who would yield a barrel of milk I can't imagine my father ever having a cow that big I can't imagine a cow that big giving that much milk but that's what we're told and we're developing grains that would make it possible we're told for United States Farmers to produce 10 10 times as much cereal grains as we're now producing now I believe that there in the Bible there are five laws in sewing and reaping first you must sew to reap in China 2,000 years old seed were taken from an
ancient tomb and they're sprouting today and growing tomatoes even though they were swn 2,000 years ago but it wasn't until they were swn that they could produce a crop for reaping we have to seow to reap now in Hosea it says seow to yourselves in righteousness think of it sow in goodness seow in righteousness reap in Mercy if you so in righteousness living a good life putting your faith and your confidence in Christ you are going to reap the mercy of God and the grace of God and salvation for it is time the scripture says
to see seek the Lord till he come and re righteousness upon you has righteousness reigned upon you because unless you are clothed in the cloth of the righteousness of God you'll never enter Heaven and that suit of clothes or that dress of righteousness was provided by the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for you we have a cross on all all of our churches whatever our denomination may be we agree on one thing that the cross is the central fact of Christianity and it's on the cross that Christ hung for our sins and
died for us and provided for us a righteousness that you cannot provide for yourself in Psalm 1265 it says they that se in tears shall reap in Joy our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross in tears as it were so that we might have the joy of salvation now if you want to become a lawyer or a doctor or a scientist or a professor you have to spend years of study you st you sow study and you reap professionally there was a hillbilly from the south who felt lost at Times Square New York so
he asked a young fellow with a long bid how is the how do you get to carneg Hall and snapping his fingers the bearded man replied practice man practice and to be a great musician like pavara you have to practice passionately and perpetually you reap Excellence if you sow effort but you have to sow in order to reap have you been sewing in Good Deeds have you been sewing in Repentance have you been sewing in faith have you been sewing in Bible reading and prayer and churchgoing Faithfully have you been sewing so you can reap
the grace and the mercy of God or have you been sewing the Wild Oats that so many people seow or been sewing things for your own lust and your own pleasures and you're going to reap someday that which you have SED and then the second thing if you sow you will reap every person is a s and a reaper now the Bible teaches that Satan is a deceiver and in Galatians 6 it says be not deceived many of you are already deceived he that Seth to his flesh that is lust drugs wrong kinds of sex
too much drink shall of the flesh reap corruption drug deaths that we read about constantly of prominent people AIDS which is sweeping the country of which there's no cure that we know of today we hope to find one but we haven't found one yet I talked to the Surgeon General on the phone a few weeks ago and he told me on the phone some of the things we're now reading about in the newspaper what is happening is a result of AIDS and we don't hear anymore about uh herpes simplex too which hasn't stopped it affects
millions of Americans right now and too is a killer ultimately and then there are the other diseases that go along with that sort of thing in Proverbs 6 it says a wicked man Seth Discord therefore shall his Calamity come suddenly suddenly shall he be broken without remedy the Bible warns that if we continue that kind of life we will be broken we'll we're going to reap what we sow Henry Wadsworth Long Fellow and he is the Reaper and the flowers says though the Mills of God grind slowly yet they grind exceedingly small you remember Cain
became jealous of his brother Abel and he killed his brother in a fit of jealousy and rage and became the first murderer and that was the first war and that took place in Paradise many people say oh if we only change society if we make the world better if we spend more money if everybody had everything they wanted it would they would we would produce a new man this is what uh Marx taught this is what lenen strongly believed he had great ideals he believed that they would ultimately produce a new man but we've lived
long enough now to know that it has not produced a new man the only person that can produce a new man is the one that said you must be born again it doesn't mean really born again it means born from above born by the spirit of God just as you were born into the physical world and from your mother's womb you must be born into the spiritual world and so in one sense it's being born the second time Samson you remember Samson fell by the lust of his eyes and the Philistines put his eyes out
hmon erected Gallas to hang morai on in the Book of Esther only himself to be hanged on the same Galls he sold and he reaped and Esther came to the throne and saved the Jewish people from destruction Daniel's accusers were thrown into the lion's den into which they had thrown him you will reap what you sow and in history we could have we have many illustrations mactinus who built a false bridge to drown Constantine but was drowned him himself as a result Bon sent scores of Christians to Sea in a ship and had them burned
alive he himself was defeated by the Visigoths and fled to a cottage where he was burned alive Alexander I 6 was poisoned by the wine he had prepared for another yes you'll reap what you sow the third thing is you will reap what you sow whatsoever a man Seth that shall he also reap in numbers 3 to it says be sure your sin will find you out be sure your sin and we're all Sinners I'm a sinner you're a sinner the Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and sin
means the breaking of God's law the breaking of the Ten Commandments and the Bible says if you break those Commandments in one place you're guilty of all and we're all Sinners and we've broken all the Commandments we all need the mercy and the grace and the love of God be sure your sin will find you out every sin that has ever been committed is going to be found out either in this life or at the Judgment somewhere sometime every little sin that you committed and every big sin will find you out because you remember the
tapes back in Watergate days and what they did to a president God has tapes far more sophisticated not only does he record all of our actions but all of our thoughts all of our words all of our intents are recorded today they have sophisticated listening devices in which I was told that a man can sit on a mountain across from where I live I live in the mountains of North Carolina and he can listen to what we're saying in our living room on the glass and he'd be 2 or 3 miles away we are told
that conversations in Washington can be listened to by complicated devices by ships that may be 15 or 20 miles out to sea now if man can develop instruments like that what about God or our uplinks to the satellites then the down links instantaneously within a matter of a hundredth of a second it can come back to your screen and maybe coming from India or Japan or some other place now what about God he doesn't miss anything in your life from the day you were born till the day you die it's all there and it's all
recorded and you may deny it at the Judgment say God it just didn't happen that way he's got it all that he has every moral choice you faced and he has the road that you took you'll reap what you sow whatsoever man Seth that shall they also reap be sure your sin will find you out I read about a little boy down in North Carolina where I come from we have we think the finest watermelons in the world in fact there's a place in South Carolina that they call the watermelon capital of the world it's
a little tiny town and you can go down to Florida from where we live and every little bit you come to something and they say the greatest in the world the longest hot dog in the world biggest hamburger in the world everything's the biggest in the world well this little boy his father was going to town one day and he saw his boy looking hungrily at those watermelons that were not yet quite ripe and he said Son don't you touch those watermelons I'm going on the town so he went to town and the little boy
began to look at the Watermelons and it began to FL uh thump them and he found one one that he knew was right so he pulled it went down into the woods put it in some cool water and let it cool a little bit and then he split it open with a rock and he ate that watermelon and it tasted so good but he didn't know what to do with the rine and the seed so he dug a hole and he buried it and forgot about it and about 3 four weeks later his father was
crossing the fence after chasing a cow and he saw little watermelon sprouts everywhere and so he dug down in there and he found out what had happened and he went to talk to his son and he gave his son a little reprimand because he knew what his son had done he deceived him be sure your sin will find you out watermelon sprouts will come up I heard about a man who stole an alarm clock in the store shoplifting and the alarm went off just as he was paying the cashier something else be sure your sin
will find you out in job 4 it says they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same you're going to reap everything that you sow you'll reap I read in Time Magazine review of a book entitled Wild Oats and some people live by the philosophy that you sew your Wild Oats all week then go to church on Sunday morning and pray for a crop failure it's not going to be that way the crop is going going to come in and how many of us go to church and we really don't know Christ I did
I was really a presbyterian and I was baptized I was confirmed in the church and I thought everything was all right I thought the minister was a little bit boring I didn't particularly like going to church but I went because my parents told me to go and if you knew my father you know you'd go if he told you but I really didn't have Christ in my heart I didn't didn't have Assurance I didn't know that if I died I'd go to heaven I wasn't sure of that I wasn't certain that my sins had been
forgiven so one day when they had an Evangelistic meeting I went forward and received Christ into my heart and recommitted my life to Christ and I remember the things that I promised those Elders when I met with them at the time of Confirmation and I said Lord I'm going to recommit my life to you I'm going to surrender to you I'm not sure where I stand but I want to be sure and that simple decision changed my entire life but life doesn't always work that way in Proverbs 28 it says he that cover his sin
shall not Prosper but whosoever confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy God is willing to have mercy upon you he's willing to bestow his grace upon you he's willing to forgive you if you're willing to repent of your sin and receive him you see the Bible says says that sin is no respect of persons in James 1 it says every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished brings forth death and that death is not only
natural death when your body dies but you can be dead right now where you're sitting spiritually dead you're dead toward God that's the reason people can't find peace and joy and happiness today they search for it they want it but they can't find it you can't find it in drugs you can't find it in an extramarital affair you can't find it any other place oh you can have a temporary time you can get drunk and go out with some girl and have a good time for a while but it soon wears off it's gone I
had a bishop we've had a number of Bishops but one Bishop in particular who came forward in our meeting an Anglican Bishop in England and later I saw him privately and I said Bishop why did you have to come forward he said you know I've been to the university I've gotten my degrees and I've been to the theological school and all the rest and he said i' I'm now in my 50s and I'm a bishop but he said I am not sure where I stand before God and I just wanted to make sure do you
feel that way you can make sure tonight before you leave here this man in Toronto runs a telephone line Facts of Life Line it plays tapes for teenagers and says that the most often asked for is entitled how to say no to sex J sigle said the marriage ideal of getting married for Keeps and never participating in extramarital Affairs is stronger now among University students than at any time in the last 10 years why because I believe that we are having more home moral teach teaching I believe the fear of disease is great I also
believe that we're in the midst of a spiritual and religious revival in America you may not think so by the headlines and the things that you read but that may be one of the symptoms of a new religious interest in our country and thank God for it and let's hope that it continues and then the fourth thing the ignorance of what you are swing won't keep you from reaping Leviticus 19:19 says Thou shalt not sow thy feet fed with mingled seed the Bible teaches that when The Good Seed of the word of God is sown
the Devil comes along and SWS tears Jesus said you can sow or allow to be SED in your life to the devil and you'll reap hell the devil for thousands of years has been issuing an invitation to hell to all of those who sow to the sins of the flesh to those who permit Satan to sow Tears in their lives come to Christ now give him your life life on the cross Jesus Christ conquered Satan and hell and sin and in 1 John 3:8 it says he that committeth sin is of the devil for this
purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil so that we might live the life after Christ first John 44 says greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world Christ comes to live within you and give gives you a new power to live a life that you never dreamed you could live and he produces within you love and joy and peace and satisfaction and fulfillment that you never knew before and he put you on the right road because Jesus said there are two
roads of Life the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to life Everlasting and then fifthly and lastly you will reap more than you sow Hosea 8:7 says the they have swn the wind and they shall reap the Whirlwind John 4:36 says he receiveth wages that reaps Charles Reed wrote a century ago so an act and you reap a habit so a habit and you reap a character s a character and you reap a destiny Lord mccaulay the great historian once wrote old men reap someone was showing a clergyman through
one of the prisons the other day in the east and they saw an old man sitting there weeping and they asked the warden what is he doing and the warden replied he's reaping and that's where many of us are going we're going to a place where we're going to reap we've been sewing all these weeks and months and years and we think we're getting by with it our conscience no longer bothers us why because the Bible teaches that you can Harden your conscience you can cause it to become dead it no longer speaks it's no
longer an accurate guide for you come to Christ and he'll resensitize your conscience you reap in your latter years often even before you go into eternity currently there are more people over 65 than there are teenagers in the United States did you know that several nursing homes in a survey in People magazine were told that there are very few happy old people very few happy old people unless they Believers unless they really know Christ and I've been to a lot of nursing homes to visit people a lot of these places and it's very sad sometimes
and it's very happy sometimes you meet a True Believer and they're so happy and you meet a non-believer and they're miserable when Carl Marx was old he was terribly unhappy Sigman Freud's later letters have been uncovered and he confessed to being miserable like a dog suffering terrible times of loneliness and distress 100 million people die every year 270 million die every day 10,000 people die every hour 180 die every minute three die every second and you will be one of those statistics one of these days are you ready to meet God the Bible says prepare
to meet God Jesus said the dead shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil un the resurrection of damnation two crowds a philosopher once wrote he who provides for this life but takes no care for eternity is wise for a moment but a fool forever he that Seth to the spirit shall reap life Everlasting what kind of reaping is there going to be when you get older or when you go out into eternity only one solution that is come to Christ you say well Billy
what do I have to do to make sure to make certain many people want to be sure but they don't know what to do first you must repent of sin the word repent means to turn to change to change the direction of your life to change your mind you change your mind about God you change your mind about yourself and your need of God and you go home ready to change the way you treat your wife or your husband or your parents or your children or your neighbors or the people you work with you're ready
for a change second you put your total confidence and your total faith in Christ alone you're not depending on anything else for your future salvation except the cross and the resurrection of Christ for by the grace of God are you saved the word Grace means unmerited favor something I don't deserve Billy Graham doesn't deserve to go to heaven I deserve to go to the Judgment I deserve hell but I'm going to Heaven by the grace of God by Christ who died on the cross and said my God my God why hast Thou forsaken me and
in that terrible moment something happened that none of us really understands God laid on him the sins of us all Jesus became the great sin barer he died for us then he comes into our hearts and he gives us a power to do good works and we go out with a burden for our neighbors a burden for peace in the world for a burden to Help the Hungry to feed the poor to help the poor that's our responsibility as Believers but we don't have the power to do the things we ought to do or to
live the life we ought to do but Jesus Christ gives it to you he rose again and we reap eternal life forgiveness peace Joy love the power of the Holy Spirit comes within eternity in heaven we sang the song a moment ago Amazing Grace do you know the story of that song it was written by a slaver a man by the name of John Newton and John Newton became the slave of a slave in West Africa and one day when he was coming back to England on the slave ship and treating the slaves miserable and
terrible they had a thunderstorm and he fell on his face and he remembered some scriptures that his mother taught him when he was a boy and he received Christ into his heart and it changed his life and he went back to England and became a great friend of those who would to someday lead the fight against slavery in Parliament and did more to help probably than any other person motivate the British people toward outlawing slavery he himself became the minister of an Anglican Church he himself wrote many hymns and that was one of the hymns
he wrote Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound I don't deserve it John Newton said I don't deserve it and when he was an old man and he could barely get up into the pulpit and he was in his middle 80s he held on to the the pulpit and he said I don't know much but he said I do know this that I'm a great Sinner and I have a great Savior and John Newton left his Mark for God after being a terrible sinner you can be forgiven of any sin any failure it may be hypocrisy
whatever it is but tonight you'd like to make sure I'm going to ask you to do something that I've asked Africans by the thousands to do Asians by the thousands Europeans by the thousands Americans by the thousands and I've seen them do it by the thousands I'm going to ask you to get up out of your seat where you're sitting right now and come and stand in front on this beautiful Turf and stand there for a moment or two quietly and say you know I want to be sure about this I want to be sure
my sins are forgiven I want to know I'm going to heaven I want this Supernatural peace and joy and fulfillment that Christ can give me and I want to settle it I would like to rededicate myself to my confirmation vows or to my what my baptism meant whatever the reason whatever your need I'm going to ask you to get up and come and stand and after you've all come and stood there I'm going to have a prayer with you and give you some literature to help you in your Christian Life if you're with friends or
relatives they'll wait or you may be the only one from your area to come but get up and come you know why I ask people to come forward publicly you say can't we sit back here and make that decision every person that Jesus called he called publicly every person you find any person in here that didn't come publicly he said if you're not willing to acknowledge me before men I'll not acknowledge you before my Father which is in heaven there's something about coming forward and standing here I'm not asking you to join anything I'm not
asking you to join a new church or anything like that I'm asking you just simply to say yes Lord Jesus I Surrender myself a fresh and a new to you I'm going to ask that no one leave the stadium now at this holy moment and everyone in an attitude of prayer you get up and come you may be a member of the church you may not be a member of any church I don't know who you are but you need Christ you come right now we're going to wait on you just come and stand here
quietly young and old what whoever you are we're going to wait Catholic or Protestant Protestant Jewish whatever you come and stand here and say yes and make sure of your relationship to Christ and you may be in the choir or you may just be somebody that wanded in but God is speaking to you you come just stand here in front behind those cameras that are around here on right in here we're going to wait on you quickly bring somebody with you [Music] [Music] [Music] glor and and as these many hundreds make their personal decision for
Christ here in Fargo North Dakota you too wherever you are can make that decision call the number on your television screen right now if the line is busy wait a few moments and call [Music] again to [Music] my [Music] soul to [Music] the for God I want to say a word to you that have been watching on television you've been watching from other parts of the country and other parts of other countries and you see people coming here in Fargo Morehead City Fargo North Dakota Morehead City Minnesota and other parts of this great Midwestern area
or Northern Plains area whatever area area we want to call it and you see them coming to make their commitment you can make your commitment where you are in your hotel room or in your bedroom or in your living room or with your family make your surrender to Christ now and say Lord I need you come into my heart forgive my sin give me Assurance of my own faith now it's my prayer and hope that next Sunday you will go to church God bless you there is still time for you to make your decision for
Christ just call the number on your screen and talk with one of our counselors they do want to help you if the lines are busy write the number down and make the call later this could well be one of the most important telephone calls you could ever make
