Hosea 8:7 ‘They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind’.
Whirlwinds aren’t a very common sight here in the UK so just to get us in the right frame of mind – just to get the right pictures into our heads – lets just watch a short clip from the film Twister.
Show Clip
Now I know that that is very Hollywood but truth is that whirlwinds and tornado’s and hurricane’s can and do cause massive damage. I did a little bit of research about most destructive hurricane’s and tornado’s.
13 Nov 1970 East Pakistan (hurricane) Killed 500,000 people
1881 Vietnam (hurricane) Killed 300,000 people
3 May 2008 Burma (hurricane) Killed 100,000 people
The worst hurricane to hit the western continent:
10 Oct 1780 Barbados Killed 20,000
These of course are all hurricanes - The worst Tornado’s (difference between a hurricane and a tornado – from what I could find out - is that a hurricane begins it’s life out at sea – tornado inland)
26 Apr 1989 Daulapur - Saturia Bangladesh (T) Killed 1300 people
18 Mar 1925 Tri-States US (T) US quite a hotspot) Killed 695 people
If you want to put that into some sort of context – we all remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005 – the devastation that it left in it’s wake – the official number of those killed was 1,164.
Hurricanes and tornados and whirlwinds, are far more than just a wind – they have an incredible power and intensity.
Sowing and Reaping
Hosea says "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."
Now follow me carefully with this - Sowing and reaping is a well known fundamental, physical principle of life. You always reap more than you sow! If I was to go into my garden and plant a potato into the ground – in a few months time I wouldn’t reap one potato, I would reap lots of potatoes. If I plant a runner bean, then in a few months time I won’t get back one runner bean – I will get back lots of runner beans. That’s the principle – you always reap more than you sow.
But not only do you reap more than what you sow – you will reap more of the same of what you sow. It’s no good me putting a potato in the ground if what I want is a harvest of carrots. If I want a harvest of carrots I need to sow carrots – if I want a harvest of potatoes I need to sow potatoes. That’s how sowing and reaping works – what you put in is what you’re gonna get out again only more so! Yea?
Hosea didn’t say ‘they sow the wind and reap a heat wave’ – he said, ‘they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind’ because what you sow you will also reap only moreso!
There’s a story about Sir Robert Watson Watt, the inventor of the radar who was arrested for speeding. He was reportedly pulled over by a policemen with a radar-gun. And allegedly Robert Watts said to the policeman, "Had I known what you were going to do with it I would never have invented it!" Shortly after he wrote this poem:
Pity Sir Robert Watson Watt
Strange target of his radar plot,
And this, with others I could mention,
A victim of his own invention.
You reap what you sow. And what is true in the physical sense is also true in the spiritual sense.
Everything we do has consequences. The sins that we do have consequences. The good things that we do have consequences. The priorities we have in life have consequences. The choices we make in life have consequences.
"They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind." Just as the whirlwind is much greater than the wind so the consequences of our actions end up being greater than the deed itself. There are many things that start off small but that lead to greater things. Great oaks, for instance, grow from tiny acorns. The giant sequoias tree start off from the smallest of seeds. And, Jesus spoke of seed that fell on good soil and produced a crop that was some 30, 60, and 100 times greater than the original seed.
In the same way, warns Hosea, we will reap a whirlwind if we sow the wind. In other words, we will get much more than we bargained for.
I just want to say three things very quickly this morning:
1. God sees what you sow
As we as a church have been going through the book of Hosea we have seen how far away the people of Israel were from God. God calls them an adulterous nation, and adulterous people. They were heavily involved in idol worship, they were heavily involved in religious prostitution. There was lying, there was cheating, there was deception, there was murder and there was bloodshed. Godliness and morality were at an all time low. People living as they pleased, satisfying their own needs, their own lusts, satisfying their own desires. These were the seeds being sown. And God sees what you sow. Back in Hosea Chapter 7 God tells the people ‘I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before me.’
The Psalmist David says, ‘Lord, you have searched me, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely O Lord’.
And as I was saying last week you might be able to deceive others, you may even be able to deceive yourself – thinking that you are living a perfectly moral, upright, and good life. But God knows the truth about you. And he knew the truth about the people in Hosea’s day. He knew the kind of seeds that they were sowing. ‘They have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law’ he says.
And Hosea says – ‘look, you’re gonna be sorry, because if you sow the wind – you’ll reap the whirlwind’.
2. YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU SOW.
Over and over throughout their history, God is constantly calling the people of Israel back to himself and constantly they keep rejecting him and going their own way. Jesus standing outside of Jerusalem cries out, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.’ The Israelites were a religious lot – but they chose not to sow the seeds of God, not to sow the seeds of the kingdom, but to sow the seed of their sinful, rebellious nature.
And here in Hosea 8:3 the people cry out ‘But God we acknowledge you’ – like it’s some kind of insurance policy – a little bit of protection over their life… We’re going to live our lives as we please, we’re going to do the things we want to do, we’re going to satisfy our own lusts and cravings – but we acknowledge you – so you can’t do anything horrible to us – we’ve paid this weeks insurance premium!
It says, ‘O our God we acknowledge you’ But Israel has rejected what is good’. You know there are a lot of people in the UK today who acknowledge God, but who have rejected what is good. The 2001 National Census discovered that 72% of the population – that’s over 7 people in every 10 – said that their religion was Christianity. Yet 66% have no actual connection with any church, and between 1975 and 2005 the church attending Christians have decreased by 50%.
I was talking to a lady in the week who told me that she believed in God but she didn’t go to church or anything or allow it to affect her life in anyway whatsoever. We live in a country that cries out ‘We acknowledge you O God – but we aren’t going to let that change our lives or alter the way that we live’.
At best - it’s nothing more than religiosity. “My God, we know you!”. But if lives are not changed, if behaviour is not affected, then I tell you, it is sowing a wind which will lead to a whirlwind – and you don’t have to look too far to see the whirlwind of moral, financial, and spiritual decline that sweeping through this nation.
You choose what you will sow and where you will sow it. What seeds are you sowing in your life today? What are you sowing in your children’s lives? What are you teaching them? Are you teaching them? What kind of example are you setting? How are you preparing them to walk with Christ?
What are you sowing in your own spiritual life? Are you reading the Bible? Are you praying? Are you cultivating a relationship with God? Or are you neglecting your spiritual life?
What are you sowing in your relationship with your spouse? Criticism? Neglect? Disapproval? Or are you sowing encouragement, and praise, and attention?
What about your relationships with others? Are you sowing peace, or discord?
What are you filling your mind with? How are you spending your time and money? What kind of seeds are you planting.
“A man reaps what he sows.” We don’t have a choice whether the seeds we plant are going to bear fruit. The only choice we have is what kind of seed we’re going to plant. The choices you are making today, the actions you are taking today, with respect to your family, your marriage, your children, your relationship with God, your time and money – they will one day bear fruit; either good fruit that will bring you joy, or bad fruit that will bring you heartache and sorrow.
But you get to choose the seed that you sow.
Final point:
3. YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.
As I said to start with – if you sow potatoes what you will reap is potatoes. If you sow carrots, what you will reap is carrots. Paul writing to the Galatian Church said, ‘Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.’ ‘(Gal 6:7-8) – You will reap what you sow! But you will also reap far more in abundance than you ever sowed in the first place.
‘They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind’. The whirlwind for Israel came in the form of one of their neighbours - Assyria.
v.13 says "The Lord... will remember their wickedness and punish their sins; they will return to Egypt." Israel were attacked by Assyria and taken into exile - Back to Egypt. They had come full circle. They that were rescued in infancy from Egypt and raised to maturity in the promised land, had thrown it all away. They have returned to the slavery from which they came; squandered their freedom. Because now they were reaping the harvest of the seeds they had sown.
Many people today, when their life collapses around them will blame God. But the reality is that they are reaping the harvest of the seeds that they have sown. If your life today isn’t where it should be – isn’t what it should be, if it isn’t what it could be. Rather than turn and blame God for your position – stop and take a look at the seeds you planted.
If your marriage is based on lies and deceipt, then expect a harvest of trouble and probably divorce ahead.
If your planting seeds of sexual immorality, and your sleeping around – then expect to reap a harvest of sexual disease and unwanted pregnancies.
If your sowing seeds of gossip and discord and hatred, then expect to reap a harvest of conflict in your relationships. Because what you sow you will reap – if you sow the wind you will reap the whirlwind.
God sees what you sow
You choose what you sow
You will reap what you sow
But the scriptures also say that if you sow in righteousness – you will reap in righteousness. And one of the reasons that we are here today is to celebrate the fact that seeds of rightousness were sown in Adams life, and they have grown and they have matured, and now he is here – I would say to reap the harvest – but I think there’s a lot more to come in this young man’s life. And as we see today the results of the seed planted in his life – as he comes and shares his testimony and goes through the water of baptism – he too is now planting seed into other people’s lives. And our prayer this morning is that that seed that is planted will grow and produce an abundant harvest for the Kingdom of God.
