Al Capone. Back in the Roaring 20s, hearing that name could send shivers down your spine! Capone was Chicago’s most infamous prohibition-era crime boss. He was best known for his violence and ruthlessness in eliminating his rivals. Besides taking down seven rival gang members in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, he was not above killing on a more personal nature.
When he found out two of his own bodyguards were part of an assassination plot against him, he threw a banquet in their honor, and while delivering a glowing testimonial to them, Capone suddenly pulled out a club and beat both men to death.
But life has a way of catching up to people, and after being sent to Alcatraz for tax evasion and eventually released, the seeds had been sown. Though he was only in his late forties, he looked old beyond his years. His brain was eaten by syphilis, his face scarred from earlier wars, and his body was ravaged by time on the Rock. They say his detractors had called him Scarface and his victims called him Sir. He had been public enemy number one, but now, in his last days, it’s said that almost every morning, he shuffled out his back door to go fishing. All day, he would sit in the same old lawn chair under the Florida sun, next to the same fishing hole, holding the same rod, dangling the same hook.
But, time and syphilis had done its work – although he spent day after day fishing, the swimming pool that contained nothing but chlorine yielded up zero fish. Capone died in 1947 at the ripe old age of 48! Galatians 6 warns us: “Don’t be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life.” That word “mock” in the Greek is to “turn one’s nose at God and treat with contempt.” Robert Louis Stevenson sagely remarked: “Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
A man with no self-control is like a car without brakes — out-of-control and unrestrained. Each choice we make brings with it a consequence. If we make wise, God-honoring decisions, then we will have positive consequences, but sinful choices lead to negative consequences. Not rocket science here!
But I also submit to you that not only do we reap what we sow, we will reap more than we sow! If a farmer plants a kernel of corn, that one kernel has the potential to produce a stalk with several ears that contain a bonanza of more kernels. If the stalk produces just two ears of corn, that would be approximately 1,600 kernels – 1,599 more than he started with!
Hosea 8:7 tells us that there are those who have sown the wind (in evil) and will reap the whirlwind (in disaster). Just as the whirlwind is much greater than the wind, so the consequences of our actions end up being greater than the deed itself – think 1,599!
Years ago, our government schools said God was no longer welcome – but the devil was welcomed with open arms! How’s that working out for us? Many are now mad about the very new world they helped to create! They sowed the seeds of abolishing religious and moral standards and we are now reaping the whirlwind of an “anything goes” society!
Are we surprised that sowing division on every front has brought whirlwinds of conflict and strife? Are we surprised that sowing greed has brought dust-devils of selfishness, greed and poverty, or that sowing dishonesty has brought in storms of distrust across the land?! Someone once remarked, “If you wait long enough, you reap what you sow – that holds for men, that holds for towns, that holds for a whole country.”
So – what to do? Plato (428-347 BC) long ago remarked – “Your silence gives consent.” If you don’t like what’s being reaped, you need to sow different seeds; then you need to take a stand for integrity, justice, and honesty! Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” but I think Elie Wiesel says it best with this: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” We can do this – just stand up for the good and find your voice!
Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychiurch.org
The Dwelling Place City Church | Contributed
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