The 5th Law of the Harvest

And I submit to you that the four-fold law of the harvest is not just about the earth literally, sowing into the earth and reaping fruit and reaping things from the earth.

It's not only about that, it is about your life and mine. We will reap certain things if we sow certain things. God is not mocked for whatever one sows that he will also reap. That's Galatians 6 verse 7 and this is destined for victory. Hello and thanks for stopping by for another great week of teaching from Pastor Paul Sheppard. The law of seed time and harvest has been around since the days of Noah and according to scripture that will continue for as long as the earth remains. Over the years Pastor Paul has spoken at length about four laws of the harvest.

He reviews those today and he also introduces a fifth. Stay right here or download the podcast on demand at pastorpaul.net, at Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now here's Pastor Paul with today's destined for victory message, the fifth law of the harvest.

To begin let me just rehearse the basics, the foundational idea of the law of the harvest. Go with me to Genesis chapter 8. The eighth chapter of Genesis. Now if you don't know where Genesis is, you haven't been in your Bible, all you got to do is start at the beginning and you're there. Genesis chapter 8. And what I want to do is read three verses in your hearing beginning at verse 20. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake. Although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done."

By the way, just pause right there. This is after the great flood. And so after the great flood, God has said, okay, I'm never going to do that again. I am giving you some new principles and promises to rely on. I'm never again going to destroy every living thing as I have done. Look at verse 22. Here's where I want to present the law of the harvest. While the earth remains, God said, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, that's the law of the harvest. God said, after the great flood of Noah's day, God said, I'll never again do this.

And as the earth remains, until I'm done with all of mankind and with life on earth as we know it, until that happens, he said, seed time and harvest will always remain. There will always be this principle of you reaping what you sow. That's the beginning of the law of the harvest. So the fourfold law that I've talked about for years is this, four sentences. Number one, you reap if you sow. And I'm going to get back into that because I realize a lot of you have never heard me present even the fourfold law of the harvest. So when I'm done with this message, I will double back and cover some things about the fourfold law of the harvest because they'll be important to help us as we get through these unprecedented times we're living in in today's world. The first of the fourfold laws is you reap if you sow.

I'll get to that later. Secondly, you reap what you sow. So number one, you reap if you sow. Number two, you reap what you sow. Number three, you reap after you sow. And number four, you reap more than you sow. And so we need to understand that this law has been in effect ever since God talked about it in Genesis chapter 8 in the day of Noah. This law of seed time and harvest has been in effect. And I submit to you that the fourfold law of the harvest is not just about the earth literally sowing into the earth and reaping fruit and reaping things from the earth. It's not only about that.

It is about your life and mine. We will reap certain things if we sow certain things. We will reap what we sow. We will reap after we sow. And we will reap more than we sow. That's the fourfold law of the harvest.

And again, I'm going to double back to that in the next message. But in this message, I want to offer to you the fact that there is a fifth law of the harvest and I've never really expounded it. Perhaps I've mentioned it kind of in passing, but right now I feel that it's time to expose it as a legitimate fifth principle and law of the harvest. And here's the way I've worded it.

If you're taking notes, jot this down. When you sow God's way, you can reap more than you ask or even think. When you sow God's way, you can reap more than you ask or even think. I've come to tell you that as I preach this message, we're in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic throughout the world in 2020. If you hear this message much later, I want to put that timestamp so that you'll know when I presented this. But what I'm going to share will apply to your life no matter when you hear it.

But right now, as I preach, we are in an unprecedented pandemic throughout the world. I am so frustrated because I am a man who loves to vacation. I work hard so I can play hard and I take four. My wife and I typically have taken four breaks every year and a couple of those breaks at least we find somewhere in the world to travel and we enjoy ourselves. One of the things I love to do is cruise. So one of those breaks every year has been a cruise here in 2020 for the first time since I can remember I'm not getting on any boat going anywhere because that Rona is all over the world. Places that I enjoy, Rona is there waiting on me and I am not trying to experience this coronavirus, COVID-19 they call it.

I am not trying to do that and so I'm heartbroken because I've been home. The last trip I took that had a little bit of the vacation feel was really a working vacation. I went to St. Kitts in January of 2020 and preached a revival.

Several of our members went with my wife and me and we all met up on the beautiful island of St. Kitts and I preached at night and they hung out in vacation during the day. And so that was the last trip I had that had a little bit of fun in it. And shortly after that by March Rona had shown up and we all learned about Rona and they shut us down and my second quarter vacation has not happened. Here we are in the third quarter that's not going to happen.

The fourth quarter not going anywhere. I have already had six speaking engagements that would have happened this year postponed. If they didn't postpone it I was going to postpone it and tell them I'm not going anywhere preaching for anybody except on this computer that you see me on right now. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Sheppard, Senior Pastor Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Listen to the broadcasts on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net where you'll find a host of great resources at our online store. The first four laws of the harvest apply to everyone equally but the fifth law hinges on your willingness to obey God's specific instructions to you.

Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, the fifth law of the harvest. But the fact of the matter is I'm a hurting brother because I love those breaks and love the vacationing and all that. I'm not getting on a plane.

I don't know. I'm a frequent flyer on a few airlines and they're writing and saying we're flying here, we're flying there and all that. I'm like y'all can send me all the emails you want to. I'm not getting on a plane.

I'm going to be right here in California and sitting in my house where Rona can't come in there and this is just what we got to deal with. But the fact of the matter is I need you to understand these are unprecedented times and then unprecedented times we, the people of God, need to look into the word of God and we need to believe God to get us not only through it, to not only survive the pandemic. I don't know about you but I want to thrive during the pandemic and that's what has me preaching this message.

I sense that God wants to bless us despite what we're having to deal with in terms of this pandemic and so that's why I am presenting this fifth law of the harvest. Now here's what I want you to do. Go with me to Genesis. We're already in Genesis.

We were just looking at chapter eight. Now go with me to chapter 26. Genesis chapter 26 and there I want to read a few verses as well. Genesis chapter 26 and beginning at verse one it says there was a famine in the land besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to him and said do not go down to Egypt live in the land of which I shall tell you dwell in this land and I will be with you and bless you. Skip down to verse 12. Then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundred fold and the Lord blessed him. Look at verse 12 again.

I don't want you to miss it. Then Isaac sowed in that land in the midst of a famine we're talking and reaped in the same year a hundred fold and the Lord blessed him. Anybody interested in reaping not only more than you sow which is one of the natural four laws that I mentioned earlier. Anybody interested in reaping a supernatural harvest of blessings, favor and provision. Anybody interested in God blessing you in uncanny ways at times when you can't figure out and other folk can't figure out how can you be blessed with what we're having to deal with right now. If you like me are interested in being blessed in an uncanny way then stay tuned. If you're not interested in that you can go ahead and sign off and I'll catch you some other time. But I want to preach to some folk who say I know these are tough times.

I know we're dealing with some craziness all around us but if God can bless Isaac in the middle of a famine and give him a hundred fold return on his sowing then I want God to bless me in supernatural ways as well. And if that's you I want you to stick with me as I give you the rest of this message. I want to make a couple of points.

Here's the first one. The fifth law of the harvest requires that we follow the Lord's specific directives for our lives. The fifth law of the harvest requires that we follow the Lord's specific directives for our lives. In other words brothers and sisters obedience to what God says to us is absolutely essential. Here we are in a pandemic and again if you're watching this at another time in your lifetime you might not be in a pandemic but whatever you're going through you need to listen because principles are timeless and they're not just tied to specific events.

Principles are always true. And I want you to understand obedience to what God says in your life is essential. If you want to be blessed especially if you want to be blessed supernaturally if you want to be blessed the way Isaac was blessed then you've got to pay attention to what God's directives for your life are and you've got to make sure to live them out.

Obedience is absolutely essential. Look again at verse two and that makes this point. The Lord appeared to Isaac and said do not go down to Egypt live in the land of which I shall tell you dwell in this land and I will be with you and bless you. Now why does it point out don't go down to Egypt because when you read the context of what was going on there in Genesis chapter 25 and 26 there was this famine in the land and the text is very clear. We're not talking about the famine of decades ago when his dad Abraham lived in a famine. These are days now when we're in a new season a new era of life. There's a probably an 80 year separation between the famine of Abraham's day and the famine mentioned here in Genesis 26 and the writer is clear to point out this is a unique famine just like what we're dealing with here in 2020 this is a unique pandemic.

I've never lived through anything like that we've seen flus different types of flu strains come through and we've had different kinds of diseases come through and for a while everybody's talking about that but y'all know like I do we have never in our lifetime anyway been through anything like this. This one is a brand new one and we are not going to get through this easily because this is something we've never experienced before but the writer after pointing out this is a unique famine he says don't go down to Egypt. Now what you find when you look at the context is there are people running to Egypt because of the famine whenever in biblical times there's a famine it's understandable that many people say I got to get out of this area. If you recall in the book of Ruth the reason why Naomi and her husband and her two sons went down the Moab from Bethlehem was because of a famine and so it's not atypical when people in Bible times had to deal with a famine very often they said well let's go to another region where there's some food and at least we'll work and we'll do what we have to do to be able to make a living and to get through it. Naomi and her family were down there for years in Moab because of a famine so it's not atypical and here in Genesis 26 there are people who are leaving in droves we're going down to Egypt we hear that there's food in Egypt let's go down to Egypt. But God spoke up and said to Isaac I don't care what other folks are doing I don't care what their rationale is for leaving this area he said do not go down to Egypt live in the land of which I shall tell you. Isaac I'm going to tell you where to live it's not going to be Egypt and I want you to go where I tell you to go. Verse three he tells him dwell in this land and I will be with you and bless you.

Brothers and sisters that's the first thing I want to share with you about this fifth law of the harvest. If you want to see God provide for you supernaturally make sure you're paying attention to the specifics of what God has told you. He speaks to us through his word he speaks by the Holy Spirit and he speaks to us through people who have his word in their mouths I'm one of those people sharing his word with you right now and so I need you to know that when God speaks especially in a pandemic especially in a difficult season whatever your difficulty is that's the time to tune in that's the time the expression these days is quite common lean in we talk about leaning in as we hear from other leaders in business at all the whole principle of leaning in. Well I came to tell you you are in a difficult time and you're not going to get out of it by listening to all these voices you got to lean into God and say Lord what are you saying to me that I need to do right now where do you want me to go what do you want me to say what do you want me to be doing in this world because this fifth law of the harvest tells you in no uncertain terms that if you sow God's way you can reap more than you ask or even imagine and to sow in God's way it means you have to be sure to listen and follow his specific directives for your life. As a believer in Christ your faith will sometimes be tested there will be tough times and challenges but when you follow the specific will of God for your life when you sow and where when and how he asked you to sow he will do so exceedingly abundantly more than you could ever ask or think. Pastor Paul Shepherd joins me now from his studio in California. Pastor as a country we find ourselves just a little over a month into the first hundred days of a new administration already there have been lots of changes and we understand that some in our listening audience today are thrilled about what's been done so far others are concerned you got me thinking about a conversation you and I had just days before the election last year and if you would be willing I thought this would be a good time to remind us of what you said to all of us back then would you take just a moment and share some truth with us about where our hopes should be these days. Yeah I'm happy to do that I think the key truths to following Jesus are reminding ourselves that elections don't change what we're called to do and how we're called to live here's one of the things I think we need to keep in mind you know I grew up on the old hymns of the church I grew up in a church where we sang gospel and and had fun songs but we sang hymns and anthems a lot right and so I love the hymn and I'm thinking about it now in answer to your question my hope is built on nothing less but Jesus blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame but holy lean on Jesus name on Christ a solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand and fact of the matter is I think you need to make sure that your hope lies firmly and solely in Jesus Christ it can never be in the White House it can never be in a party it can never be in Congress it can't even be in the decisions made in the Supreme Court it has to remain in Christ all other ground is sinking sand and I think if our listeners put their hope in Jesus Christ then we will continue looking to Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith I'm reminded of Psalm 20 verse 7 some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord our God thanks for those words of wisdom pastor Paul well at a time when there is so much changing in this world it's good to know the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ forever remains a source of hope for all who embrace it and now more than ever many are searching for that hope this is why your prayers and financial support of destined for victory is so critical today as our way of saying thanks for your generous donation we'd like to send you a booklet called your purpose is calling you know God often uses other people to push us into fulfilling our God-given purpose he also uses challenges or crises to help steer us in the right direction in your purpose is calling pastor Paul shares three directives for anyone who's trying to discover his or her purpose that's your purpose is calling our gift to you today by request for your generous gift to destined for victory so call eight five five three three nine five five zero zero or visit pastor paul.net to make a safe and secure donation online you can also mail your gift to destined for victory post office box 1767 Fremont California 94538 once again the address is destined for victory box 1767 Fremont California 94538 Abraham without understanding it got up and left grabbed his kinfolk said come on we going where are we going I don't know but the Lord's gonna show us and they took off walking expecting God to show him where he was supposed to be that's what I'm talking about we've got a walk in extreme obedience that's next time in pastor Paul Shepherd's message the fifth law of the harvest until then remember he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in Christ you are destined for victory.