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For centuries the Church has been absolutely riddled with ungodly ideas concerning prosperity. Financially, the Church has been dominated by the world's system and the world's way of doing business - so much so, in fact, that we actually started preaching it as "God's economics" when God didn't have anything to do with it in the first place.

We brought the world's ways over into the Body of Christ instead of taking the things of God over into the world. But all that has begun to change - and it is going to change some more. Big time!

Sowing and Reaping...It's as Old as Dirt
It must change because we've come to the end of 2,000 years since Jesus' birth into this earth. Two-thousand years of gospel has been sown into this world, and now it's harvest time. You and I are the ones who will reap this harvest - a harvest like we have never seen before.

But to bring it in, we need to set our thinking straight. We must dig into God's principles of economics and begin applying them. And the most fundamental principle of God's economics is the principle of sowing and reaping.

To begin our study of sowing and reaping, let's read an early Old Testament account of it in Genesis 8:20-22: "And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

First, I want to point out that what we just read happened only two verses after Noah got off the ark. When Noah and his family left the ark, they were it. There wasn't anyone else. Everything "in whose nostrils was the breath of life" had been wiped out by the Flood (Gen. 7:22).

But God preserved for Himself a seed - Noah and his family, all the foul, beasts and creeping things - and He planted that seed in the earth and declared, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest...shall not cease."

So life on earth began once again from the seed of one man.

The second point I want to make concerning this passage is in verse 22: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

Here, the word seedtime is a compound word. It is defined as the season for planting seeds. But if you analyze this word, particularly in the context of this passage of Scripture, I believe you can conclude that this verse is saying, "As long as there is an earth, there will always be a time of planting - and a time of growing - and a time of harvesting."

That makes sense, doesn't it? From the time you plant a crop until the time you harvest it, there's the growing time. Right?

We could also say it this way: Seedtime plus growing time equals harvest time.

Now I'm purposely introducing this matter of "growing time" because that's what I want us to focus on in just a moment. For now, though, I want to establish in our minds that the primary principle or law of economics in the kingdom of God is this law of sowing and reaping.

We need to realize that the law of sowing and reaping is a kingdom law which, consequently, governs the earth and all natural or material matter.

And if you take this basic, yet all-encompassing law of kingdom economics and apply it to this compressed, narrow band of time in which we now live as people of the end times - a time when 6,000 years' worth of God's promises are about to explode all over this earth - and that's when things really start to get interesting.

Pressed for Time
Have you ever noticed how we seem to be a generation of people who are always in a hurry and forever running out of time?

Here we are with all the technology to do anything and everything faster than the speed of light, but we're always out of time. And I can tell you why.

It's because...we're out of time!

Remember Amos 9:13? "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed…."

My friend, this is a picture and prophecy of that end-time harvest we've all been praying and looking for. But watch carefully what is really happening in this verse. (Again, the key is growing time.)

How much growing time do you think is involved when the farmer is out in the field, walking a couple feet behind the guy driving the plow, poking grape seeds in the ground, and then just a few steps behind him is the fellow who's pulling ripe grapes off a mature vine?

I would say the growing time - the span of time from seed to ripe fruit - is only a matter of seconds. But then, that's not even what this scripture is saying.

This verse is actually saying, the plowman, the planter, the reaper and the winemaker are all catching up to one another and passing each other, to the point that you cannot tell which one is which.

Is it beginning to look just a little impossible to you? Well, in the natural it is. But let's find out more about this principle of growing time, and how supernatural growing time relates to our end-time harvest. Let's focus our study on John 6:5-13, and start by reading verses 5-9:

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?

Before we read the rest of the passage, I want to stop here and examine these verses so we can get a good idea of what's really happening - what Jesus is saying and how His disciples are responding.

When Jesus looked up and saw the multitude coming, He knew good and well what He was about to do. He also knew class was now in session. Jesus asked Philip, "Where are we going to buy bread for all these folks?"

The Bible is clear: Jesus already knew the answer, but He asked anyway, because - as The Amplified Bible says - He wanted to "test" Philip. In other words, Jesus was wanting to get Philip's attention. He wanted to make him think.

Well, how did Philip do?

His response to Jesus was, "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little."

I am satisfied that Philip's answer is the very reason Jesus did what He did. You see, Jesus was - and is - aware of the fact that the way you and I learn is through communication. That's to say, we never really know what we believe until we start hearing our own mouths say it. We may think we have a pretty good handle on some things. But until the pressure gets turned up to the point where words and thoughts start jumping out of our mouths, we never really know what's deep down inside.

How many times have you suddenly found yourself in the middle of a heated argument, saying some things that even shocked you?

"Dear God, why did I say that? Where did it come from?"

Well, out of the abundance of your heart your mouth spoke - just like Jesus said it would. So this tells us there is no question as to what Philip had on his mind (and in his heart) that day. Little. He had little on his mind.

In fact, faced with all those hungry people, little was the biggest thing in Philip's eyes. And by that I mean, all he could see at that moment was the problem - How are we going to feed these folks? Just getting a few crumbs into these people's hands was far bigger than any answer he could imagine.

Well, along came Andrew and he got in on the test, too. Let's see if he does any better (vv. 8-9): "One of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes...."

At the start, Andrew did pretty well. He'd been taking notes in class, and up to this point he had heard the Spirit of God enough to realize the answer.

Andrew's problem, however, came when he allowed his own reasoning to talk him out of the answer. He started out in the right direction, but look where he ended up: "There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?" His image of the supply turned into crumbs, just like Philip's.

Truthfully, I suspect Andrew never realized that he had tapped into the answer to Jesus' question. Yet, I believe he picked up on it from the Spirit of God. Why else would he bring that little boy with a basket of lunch to Jesus?

In the end, both Philip and Andrew allowed the size of the problem and their own reasoning to block their view of the answer, though it was standing beside them the whole time, staring them in the face.

Twice Sown Seed
Up to now we've seen how most folks would think in their natural minds about feeding 20,000 hungry people with five loaves of bread and two fish.

Now let's watch carefully how Jesus handles this situation. Let's pick up with the rest of that passage of Scripture (John 6:10-13):

And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

On that day, heaven has it recorded that a little boy fed 5,000 men and all their families with two small fishes and five loaves of bread.

"Wait, now, Brother Copeland. We just read that Jesus took the bread and fishes and distributed it. Didn't Jesus feed those people?"

Oh, Jesus did the miracle and distributed the food, all right. But it wasn't his seed to sow until that lad walked up and handed Him his lunch.

If we will follow closely what happens to that seed, we will be able to understand the significance of this whole event, and the effect of it on our sowing and reaping today.

Matthew 14 records the same event, and in verse 19 we read how Jesus took the seed - the bread and fish - gave thanks for it, blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples. Before Jesus did all this, however, He told the disciples, "Bring them hither to me" (v. 18).

Why do you suppose Jesus told the disciples to give Him the bread and fish? Couldn't He just as easily have said, "Hold them up and let me bless them?" Why did Jesus want to handle that seed? The reason was, the anointing of increase.

The anointing of increase is literally and figuratively in the hands of the minister, just as it was present in Jesus' hands that day. Throughout the Bible we see the anointing of increase in the hands of God's ministry. That's why God instructed Israel in the Old Testament, and Christians in the New Testament, to bring all their tithes, offerings and goods into the ministry.

God's way is for goods to come into the ministry - for the ministry to receive it, handle it, bless it and distribute it, or sow it - then for it to go out, multiplied in greater number than when it came in. That's the anointing of increase.

The Bible says, "Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown..." (2 Cor. 9:10).

When that boy sowed seed into Jesus' ministry, Jesus received it, applied His Anointing of increase to it, then turned around and sowed it into His disciples and the multitude. But as the anointing of increase in and on Jesus hit that boy's seed, not only did it cause the seed to multiply, it also did something supernatural to the growing time of that seed.

The "plowman overtook the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." We could say, time culminated in Jesus. Optimum results were produced in minimal time. The seed's growing time was compressed to the point that the seed multiplied, grew and produced fruit as fast as the people could eat it. Harvest was produced within moments.

That's not where the story ends, though. We haven't seen the real harvest yet!

God could not fulfill His Word - the law of sowing and reaping - to that young fellow until all 20,000 people had eaten and were full. The reason He couldn't was because the boy's seed was sown a second time by Jesus. And when Jesus sowed it, the boy's seed began multiplying, and multiplying and multiplying.

Everything those people ate that day came from that boy's seed. Then after everyone was full, Jesus told His disciples to "gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."

Was Jesus being tight or stingy? No. Those twelve baskets of leftovers belonged to that boy. They didn't belong to Jesus. Jesus was just making sure He didn't lose any of the boy's harvest.

Notice, however, those baskets of leftovers were only the boy's immediate harvest from having sown directly into Jesus' ministry. The fulfillment of his harvest, the fulfillment of God's obligation to him, was the fruit from seeds multiplied and sown into the lives of 20,000 people.

He fed the multitudes for Jesus and had enough seed to last a lifetime. That's twice sown seed.

My friend, the twice sown seed is where you and I need to learn to exercise our faith and keep our expectancy.

Remember how Philip could only see little, and how Andrew started off right, but talked himself out of it? That kind of thinking will not bring in this end-time harvest we have facing us.

We need to line up our thinking with God's Anointing. We need to expect His Anointing in every situation. After all, God's style is "pressed down, shaken together, and running over." That's the way He does things.

God didn't create a corn cob with kernel of corn on it. He created a corn cob with an abundance of kernels on it, and all creation is designed the same way.

We have moved into an era of exceeding, abundantly beyond what we could ask or think, a time when God now has the opportunity for His people to have more than enough to do all that He wants us to do, instead of the devil stealing everything as fast as it grows in the field.

Think of all the missionaries that have gone to China, Africa, South America and all those places. They preached, shed their tears and gave their lives, and it looked like the devil had the upper hand.

Well, I have news for you. Every seed sown for the last 2,000 years - every word preached, every tear and drop of blood shed - is coming up…. Now! All 2,000 years' worth of gospel seed planted is coming up a hundredfold, and we're the ones to bring it in.

It's loaves and fishes time. It's multiply-the-seed time. The plowman and reaper are passing each other until you cannot tell which is which. Let's get in on God's system of economics and get a net-breaking, boat-sinking load of souls before we leave this place!

Excerpt permission granted by
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka:  Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Author Biography

Kenneth Copeland
Web site: Kenneth Copeland Ministries
 
For the last 50 years Kenneth and Gloria Copeland have been passionately teaching Christians all over the world how to apply the principles of faith found in God’s WORD to their lives.
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