======================================================================== WHAT TO SOW FOR YOUR REHOBOTH by Gbile Akanni ======================================================================== Summary: Gbile Akanni teaches that sowing righteousness and godly seeds in the midst of life's challenges is essential to entering and flourishing in God's 'Rehoboth'—a place of fruitfulness and divine blessing. Duration: 1:26:35 Topics: "Sowing and Reaping", "Kingdom of God", "Righteousness" Scripture References: Genesis 26:12-14,22,24, Hosea 10:12-15, Proverbs 22:8, Galatians 6:7, Matthew 13:24-30,37-39 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this insightful teaching, Gbile Akanni explores the biblical principle of sowing and reaping as it relates to entering God's 'Rehoboth'—a place of divine blessing and fruitfulness. Drawing from Genesis, Hosea, Galatians, and Jesus’ parables, he emphasizes sowing righteousness and mercy rather than wickedness. Akanni challenges believers to evaluate what seeds they are planting in their lives to ensure they reap God's abundant blessings. This sermon offers practical spiritual guidance for thriving amid life's challenges. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Living Seed Media brings to you God's Word, which is his comprehensive equipment for changing lives. May the Lord impart your heart as you encounter his Word. For further enquiry or counsel, contact Peace House, PO Box 971, Goko, Benue State, Nigeria. Telephone numbers 0703 03636 59 0703 76811 98 Email address lsmedia at livingseed.org Or visit our website at www.livingseed.org Let us sit back and listen as the servant of God brings forth the Word of Life. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for the opportunity you have given to us to gather together as your children, as your servants, as your disciples from different parts of our countries and nations. We are grateful to you, Lord, that you are declaring to us a rebel God. And we are looking, O God, at all that you are showing us, the path that you have set for us to take into rebel God, and what you want us to do with this rebel God. We ask that your Spirit will give us light. We are desiring this morning that you speak clearly to our hearts, and let your Word come to us with simplicity, let it mix with faith in our hearts. There are many of your children that have come to this rebel world because it must be a rebel world to them. It must be a place of deliverance, a place where their personal narrowness will be taken away, where every inhibition of their lives, every struggle against their emancipation into your purpose, when it will be released. Lord, we are trusting, O God, that even those that are bound by the kingdom of darkness, by the chains of hell, the chains of sin, let there be a breaking forth. Let there be a release, O God. Let this rebel God be fed in every house, in every life, in every family, and in every nation. Lord, every denomination that has gathered, all church leaders that have thrown themselves into this meeting this year, Lord, let them experience and outburst a room to be fruitful and to multiply. Thank you, Lord, for hearing our prayer. In Jesus Christ's name, we are prayed. Amen. We are looking at rebels abiding, abounding, and abundant fruitfulness. And as we begin to look at that, the first issue that I thought we would spend time to deal with this morning is what to sow for your rebels. What to sow, what seed you must plant for your rebel God and in your own rebel God. And we will take our text, again from Genesis chapter 26, and we will read verse 12, verse 13, and verse 14. And then we'll read verse 22 and go a little further on to verse 24. I think we will stop as such, just to help us to focus on the issues we want to raise this morning. Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an underfoot, and the Lord blessed him. And the man was great, and went forth, and grew until he became very great. For he had possession of flocks, and possession of heads, and great stock of servants, and the Philistines, and with him. Verse 22. And he removed from them, and did another word, for that they strove not. And he called the name of it Rehoboth. For he said, for now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And he went on from thence to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father. Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham's sake. May the Lord bless his word to our hearts, even as we look at issues. What to sow for your Rehoboth? What seed to plant in your Rehoboth? That's what we are going to be looking at now. Now, as the Lord began to help us this morning, and we have noted that it is almost a principle that every man that God is planning to take to a Rehoboth, their path must cross through famines. And I think famine is to bring them forth on a different pedestal of life, which is not natural. That while others are drying out, while others are shrinking because of famine, because of difficulty, this man is sowing, even in the midst of famine, and he is waxing great. And you will notice that from the passage that we read, Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him. Now that means that what makes Isaac to go forward, to grow, to wax great, until he became very great, was something that the Bible noted there, and the Lord blessed him. The Lord blessed him. But this morning, while we are looking at that dimension, we need to now look at what to sow for your Rehoboth to become your daily reality. What to sow for you to come into that Rehoboth that God has planned and proposed for your life at a time like this. Now, when the Bible said that Isaac sowed in that land, we noted yesterday that the Bible did not particularly describe what was the seed that he sowed. It didn't tell us that he planted a unicorn or something. But as we went on studying the Word of God, it is clear to us that the kingdom of God itself, the kingdom of God, the kingdom life, does not develop anywhere except by the sowing of the seed. The kingdom of God requires that seed has to be sown. And so there are so many, many parables the Lord Jesus Christ gave in his teachings that describes the kingdom of God as a sower that went out to sow. So sowing is a very, very fundamental principle in becoming what God wants you to be in your lifetime. Sowing is a fundamental principle for the kingdom of God to multiply anywhere. And so if God is saying we shall be fruitful in the land, and if our fruitfulness by the grace of God is going to be the kind that will benefit and increase the kingdom of God, then we need to look at what do we sow. There are several angles in which I would like to deal with this, and I pray that the Lord will permit us to go as quickly as we can as the Lord will lead us. Now, let me first do a general panoramic analysis of what to sow, how to sow, before we come now to deal with your own particular sowing, what you need to sow for your own reverence. Now, the first passage that I would like us to refer to is Hosea, Hosea chapter 10. I want us to quickly all go to Hosea, Hosea chapter 10, and we're going to be reading from verse 12, and I'll take it as far as verse 15. Hosea chapter 10 from verse 12 to verse 15. Now, sow to yourselves in righteousness and live in mercy. Break up your final ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and lay righteousness upon you. You have ploughed wickedness, and you have lived iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, because thou didst trust in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men. Therefore, shall two moths arise among your people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled. As Shaman spoiled Beth-Abel in the day of Batu, the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children. So shall Bethel do unto you, because of your great wickedness in the morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off. Now, that looked like a passage that you would not want me to start this matter with. And yet, we need to understand that the issue of what to sow is very critical in arriving at our reward by the grace of God. And what was attracting me to this passage was the fact that we saw God saying, sow to yourself in righteousness. But I know some other versions simply say, sow to yourself righteousness. Sow for yourselves righteousness. Live in mercy. Break up your final ground. For it is time to seek the law, till it comes and lays righteousness on you. You have ploughed wickedness. You have lead iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, because you trusted in your own way, in the multitude of your mighty men. Therefore, tumult shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be plundered, as Shaman plundered Beth-Abel in the day of Batu, a mother dashed in pieces upon her children. Those who shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness, and done the king of Israel, shall be cut off utterly. So, what I'm noting there is that that scripture that says sow for yourselves righteousness, live in mercy, break up your final ground, for it is time to seek the law, till it comes and lays righteousness on you. Now, we know that Bible verse itself has brought the issue of what to sow, what to plant, has brought it into a very critical dimension that we cannot ignore at this point. What is it? I know that for many of us, the understanding whenever they say sow, sow, sow, is the narrow application of that word onto sowing things like money. So, when anybody stand up and talk about sowing and reaping, sowing and reaping is only talking about how much you will give in the short service, how much you will give for a project. And so many of us think that sowing is all about money, or it's all about things. But actually, what God is demanding that we must sow in order for us to come to the realm of the increase that God is talking about has to do with our lives. It has to do with who you are. It has to do with the personality of your life. So, he says, sow for yourselves righteousness. And, permit me to note that when he uses the word sow for yourselves, what it means is that you, if you are open to reap in rebels, if you are open to have a portion in a fruitful kind of lifestyle that God is holding out to me and you, it becomes important that you yourself he says, sow for yourselves righteousness. Sow for yourselves righteousness. And reap in mercy. Now, before I come to dealing with that, you know that statistics, you have ploughed wickedness and you have reaped iniquity. If you quickly look at Proverbs 22 verse 8, Proverbs 22 verse 8, again, quickly brought that out again. He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity and the road of his anger shall fail. So again, we are saying that it is possible to be sowing iniquity. To be sowing iniquity, to be planting seeds in your own life. So the first grant, where God is asking you to consider the sow for yourselves righteousness. But now the word of God says, he that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity. Now, when we read Galatians chapter 6 yesterday, and I again want to refer you to Galatians chapter 6, because all these passages were pointing at one matter here. Now, in Galatians chapter 6, and verse 7, he said, be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. So, first and foremost we are noting that what you sow for yourself, or what you sow into yourself, into your life, is what determines what you are going to reap in the coming days. So, when our brother says, God has made room for us, we shall be fruitful in the land, that is only because we are going to sow. That is because we are going to plant. That is because we are putting seeds that we are expecting to have an harvest, a reaping of it. So, but the scripture now pointed out that it is not only guinea corn, or cassava, or maize, or anything like that that people sow. Actually, all of that, they are just very, very, they are the very little things. What majority of people are sowing, and all of you are sowing, I want you to know that every day, whatever you do with your life, is a seed, and you are only planning to reap a future with it. And so, when the Bible said, He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, which means it is possible that somebody is only sowing, is only investing, is only planting, is only plowing iniquity to his own flesh. It means it is possible that someone, all that you are doing, all that you are putting into your life, is iniquity, seed, self-pleasure, things that the flesh likes to do. Now, but you may think that you are just enjoying. May I first inform you that you are sowing. Every time you put your life into immorality, you are sowing. Every time you invest your heart, your mind, and your thoughts in the things of the flesh, the Bible says you are sowing. You are plowing. Every time you do something dubious, whether you are doing it in your direct business, or you are doing it in your studies, or you are doing it in your career, or you are doing it in politics, anywhere you are doing, and what you are plowing is iniquity. What you are plowing into your life is unrighteousness. May I quickly say that you are sowing. You are sowing. And if you are ever planning to come into a rubber box, the first thing that was touching me was that rubber box, for Isaac, was something glorious, something very, very exciting, because of what you sow. But permit me to tell you that a rubber box is neither negative or positive. What will determine the outcome of a rubber box is what you sow. And that's why I am bonding this morning to deal with what to sow. Because if a rubber box simply means room to be fruitful, room to be fruitful, how I pray that there will be no rubber box for a wicked man. Because when his own rubber box comes, and what he is going to be getting, what is going to be coming back to him, is the kind of thing he has planted. It will be so terrible, just like you are seeing what we have raised in Osea. In Osea, see how it says, you have ploughed wickedness, and you have lived iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies. You know when they say you have eaten the fruit of lies, which means he has planted lies. Which means he has infested lies. He has died in lies. He has been dubious. And the Bible says, he is going to eat the fruit of lies. Because you trusted in your own way. Just self-trust in your own way of doing things, without trusting the Lord, is a sin. You are sowing your life with self-trust. You are not trusting the Lord, you are trusting your own way. And you trust in the multitude of things that you think you have, the mighty men that you thought are your own. Therefore, because it is a seed you are planting, too much shall rise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be plundered. And God gave an illustration of some people that came to a negative level. Those that came to a season when they reap the wrong thing that they sow. So this morning, permit me to quickly ask, what do I sow? For this level that God is declaring. What do I sow? What do I plant? For this level that God is bringing me into. Before I will get to that still, I want you to look at one more thing. In the parable that Judas gave, this is in Matthew chapter 13, another thought came, which I want to share with you quickly before I go ahead. I'm just giving you, like I said, I'm taking you to look at panoramic view of sowing. What to sow? I say it's not only sowing of money, that the Bible means when it talks about sowing. So that if you have a narrow-minded, that anytime they say sowing and reaping, and seed faith and all of that, that our friends and brothers have emphasized over the years, and it looks as if that's all about the gospel. I want you to know that that is not all about the gospel. So you can sow, and it says sow righteousness, sow to yourself righteousness, and live in mercy. Now let's look at another consideration of sowing that Jesus Christ spoke about. In Matthew chapter 13, and actually the whole of Matthew chapter 13 is dealing with the kingdom, and Jesus gave several parables about sowing. In fact, the first parable he spoke about, he said the whole is, so I went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and all of that. But that is not the parable I want to use to quickly illustrate this. I may come back on it as we are going to be concluding by God's grace. But the parable I want to illustrate with is the parable of the tares in verse 24. Please go to Matthew chapter 13 and verse 24. I would like to read a bit of that and read the interpretation of it that Jesus gave. Another parable put it forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blame was sprung up and brought forth, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said to him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then has it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy has done this. The servants said unto him, Without them, that we go and gather them up? But he said, No, lest there, while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together unto the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, bind them in bundles to bond them, but gather the wheat unto my barn. Now go to verse 37. Go to the verse 37. Now, And he answered and said unto them, He that sowed the good seed is the son of man. That's the next dimension I wanted to see about what to sow. Now, He that sowed the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels. Did you see how Jesus was very, very analytical about that parable and I can't add to it. It's just good. It's just good. But there are issues I quickly want to note there. Now, He said the field is the world. Brothers and sisters, are we in the world right now? Yes, we are. We are. But now I wanted to see. The Bible said, He who sowed the good seed is the son of man. We are talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. But now we are noting, He said, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom, which means it is possible that when we talk about sowing, the good seed could be a person like yourself, like myself. It means that when we are talking about Isaac sowed in the land, it is not outrageous for us to understand that he sowed himself. He sowed himself. He sowed his life into the land. Because the Bible says, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tears are the children of the wicked one. And all of you listening to me now, you wonder why wickedness increased in our land. You wonder why recklessness increased in our time. You wonder why a wrong philosophy seems to have taken over and it looks as if the kingdom of God is now kept in a narrow place. Do you know why? Somebody sowed into the world. Somebody sowed tears into the world, and the tears that were sown were not given. It is men, it is women that allowed their lives to be sowed into the kingdom of darkness. So there are colleagues of yourselves, your inmates, your classmates, they have affected the world so negatively because they sowed themselves. They sowed themselves onto wickedness. They sowed themselves onto fashion design that has affected all our youth today. They sowed their lives to pursue the themes of darkness. They did not just do it ordinarily, they sowed themselves. And the Bible said the devil that sowed the tears, he was aiming at making sure that the world, because you see, if the kingdom of God is going to overrun the land, it means that the children of the kingdom must be sown as seeds into the land. If the kingdom of God is going to expand in your nation, it's not going to expand just by talking, it's going to expand because the children of the kingdom are going to be sown into that land. The children of the kingdom are going to be invested in the purpose of God. Whenever you see evil taking over a nation, whenever you see recklessness, reckless backsliding, like we are seeing now in several of the countries, and in several nations, some of which used to be Christian nations before, but now they have become godless. How do you think it happened? It is the enemy that sowed tears, but these tears are human beings, men and women that sowed themselves out to pursue the things of darkness. So when the Lord Jesus said that is water are a woman, then I realized that when God is saying He is bringing us into the world, and God is bringing us to possess the land, and God is saying we are going to be fruitful in the land, it means then that the kind of seed that has to be sown, and that's what I'm getting into right now, and I pray that the Holy Ghost will give us understanding of it in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, let me begin by noting that the Word of God has said it clear, and I think you understand, that that which a man soweth, that shall he reap, and that whatever you can reap cannot be different with the kind of seed that you sow into the land. So, let's take it step by step as the Lord permits us here. The first thing we saw from Matthew 13, from Genesis 26, and from Hosea chapter 10, is that what we are talking about sowing has to do with life. Not about things, but the first thing that was sown is life. It's the life that has to be planted for us to get the kind of life result that we are looking for. And for Isaac, we are told that Isaac sowed in the land, and the Lord blessed him, and he received a hundredfold that same year. And when they were describing what he received, it was very touching to me that the Word of God was describing that. They said, Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him. And the man was great, and went forward and grew until he became very great. You see, as of verse 13, we have not yet been talking about the dimensions, the physical parameters of what they would say he had. But I want to say to you that those things that they said, because he had possession of floods, possession of hares, and great store of servants, and he produced everything, I was wondering, so what did he sow that produced floods? What did he sow that produced hares? What did he sow that produced great store of servants that the Sergeant Philistines envied him? The first thing I'm noting is that all of those from verse 14, they are only the things that follow a man. Jesus said, You seek first the kingdom of God, and all these other things that you want shall be added unto you. It occurs to me as if what we are reading in verse 14 was only a follow, a follow come. But what God did to this man is that as he sowed his life in that land, God expanded him. God expanded his life. God expanded his incapacity. God did something to him. When you sow your life, what you will reap is life. When you invest your life, what God will multiply is your life, not first your things. There are many people that have things but they have a narrow life. There are many things that people that have properties, but they don't have life. The Lord Jesus said, The life of a man does not consist, does not depend, is not defined, is not defined, is not analyzed by the abundance of things he has. There are people that have things but they have no life. There are people that you think have properties, but they are only themselves possessed. Because the life that God came to offer, they have not got it. The abundant life that Jesus said, I have come to give, and they may have it abundantly, they don't have that life. So the first thing I want to note there, is that Isaac sowed in that land, and I want to suggest to you that he sowed his life. He invested his life. And according to Osea chapter 10, he plowed, he sowed for yourself righteousness. He sowed righteousness. Not just that he sowed in righteousness. Even though that you cannot sow righteousness in wickedness. You will sow righteousness in righteousness. That's why whether you take it from King James, or the old King James, or the new King James, or any other version, it's okay. The question we are raising is this. Are you sowing righteousness so that you can reap? You can reap in mercy. Are you sowing righteousness? Are you investing your life into righteousness? Are you deliberately pursuing righteousness so that the result, what Lehovah will bring to you, will be a harvest in mercy? If you look at verse 12 of Osea, it's again very touching to me, he said, it is time to seek the Lord, break up your fallow ground, till it comes and rains. You would have thought that whenever they talk about raining, that it rains. You think that it just rains of what? Of water. You think that rain just means water. But look at verse 8, till it comes and rains righteousness upon you. When you sow yourself, when you sow for yourself righteousness, you will reap in mercy. When you break the fallow ground, because you don't want to sow among thorns, because it is time to seek the Lord, till it comes and rains righteousness upon you. Which means God is willing to rain righteousness, righteousness upon your life. And if God will get more people like you and myself, who can be sown, who can be planted, who can be the good seed into this generation, then we will see the kingdom of God overwhelming the land. Then we will see ourselves having room to multiply, having room to increase, having room to raise the kind of men and women that God is looking for in this generation. Now, I still want to go pressing that a little further. All I've said now is that when they say, I seek sowed in the land, from checking other scriptures and going from that Genesis, coming to Osea, and coming to the parable that Jesus gave in Matthew 13, and if we take it a bit further and we go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, you will again discover that the purpose of God in bringing us to revival is to find men and women, like yourself, like myself, that He can sow into the land, that He can sow into nations, such that when it begins to rain, He will rain righteousness upon us. Now, because when you plant a seed, if it has not rained upon that seed, can it grow? Can it bring any result? So, take note now, that when you sow righteousness, the rain that God will rain upon that seed is what is righteousness. Brothers, I'm sensing that God is speaking about Hierophant. It's such a very wonderful thing that God wants to do in this day. God wants to rain righteousness upon your life because you are sowing to yourself righteousness. God wants to rain righteousness upon our nations because He is beginning to sow us, is beginning to plant us, children of the kingdom, into the land so that it can rain righteousness. How terrible it is that you sow tears and then rain came on your tears. Rain fell upon the tongues and tissues. Of course, what will fill the whole of your field? It will be tongues. It will be tissues. It will become a forest. A forest of wickedness. The reason why God has been with hoping rain is I said, what do I want to rain upon? What do I want to multiply in this man's life? What do I want to multiply in this nation? What do I want to multiply in their political place? Have I got righteousness that I can rain righteousness upon this day? I want to ask you, what did you sow? First, not iniquity. If you sow iniquity, according to the Proverbs that were read, Proverbs says, those who sowed iniquity, chapter 22 verse 8, he that soweth iniquity shall live vanity. And I put to you, if all that you have been doing in your life, every time you take a little time off to go and live in sin, every time you take time off to invest time, to invest your heart in things that are of the flesh, in things that are of the kingdom of darkness, what you are planning for is a vanity in the future. But what is touching my heart is that do you know that all of you you are sowing, you are burying your life, you are investing your life into something. Whether it is for righteousness, for the kingdom of God, or for the flesh, or for the kingdom of the devil, is a different matter, but you are sowing. Do you know that what you are today is what you sowed ten years ago? And that everything that you are today, including all that you have become, if I tell you the truth, you are also sowing it for the future and perhaps for eternity. And I'm asking you, what are you planning to reap? And if you sow lives, are you getting ready to reap the fruit of lives? If you plough wickedness, are you also getting ready to reap corruption and to reap confusion and to reap all the things that we were reading about in that passage? If you sow righteousness, God is coming to lay righteousness upon you. When God begins to lay righteousness upon us, upon our lives, upon our lands, you cannot predict what heaven is promising to produce among us. I will read that to you before we close. But before I come to read that, because it will be my concluding portion before we pray together, I want to now ask you, if you are not sowing iniquity, if you are not sowing to the flesh so as to come and reap corruption, what you must first answer is, what am I planting into my life? And what am I investing my life for? What seed have you become? Are you the good seed of the kingdom? Or you are the tares that the devil is also throwing into our system? Sometime when you look at the political situation of our countries, sometime you look and say, ah, it's never been bad like this. Ah, there was a time when things were better than this. And I say, yes, that's true. But what some of you don't know is that there came a point when the enemy sowed tares into our political space. When some of the seeds that were cast into that space, they look innocent at the beginning, just like every seed always appear innocent. But if you know the power of a seed, a seed may be single today, but when you plant it, it's going to multiply. So we have now got multiplication of liars. We have got multiplication of wicked men. We have got multiplication of people who can embezzle and it will not affect them. They don't think twice. We have now got people in our system who can sit down in broad daylight to change figures just to benefit themselves. How did they become the dominant crop in our political space, in our schools, in our educational system, in our civil service? How did they become like that? They were seeds that were sown into the system. And if there's anything going to be a hope for a revival, a restoration, then another seed has to be cast. Another seed must be sown in righteousness so that the level board we are hoping for, the level board that God is announcing to us, we might actually be fruitful and multiply in the land until God will give us the entire space to the praise of His own glory. Now, if you are not going to sow iniquity, if you are not going to plant wickedness, if you are not going to plow with lice, if you are not going to plow with the fruit of lice, if you are not going to begin to put trust in your own way, what is it that you need to sow? What do we plant? And this is the critical point I am coming to now. What do we plant? What do we sow? First, we said, it is life. From the scriptures we have read, it is clear to us that God wants to cast in the good seed. And this good seed, the Bible called them the children of the kingdom. So, what is the seed that God is planting and wanting us to plow with? It must be the seed of life, the seed of His life. And, scriptures made it clear to us. For example, in 1 John 3 verse 9, the Bible talks about the seed of God abides in Him. Which means that the life, the kind of life that God wants to multiply on the face of the earth has to be sown. And that life is Christ's life. It's Christ's life. And so the first thing I want to ask now, is that the kind of thing that God is demanding that we must sow into this space, into this level that God is giving to us, is not first about green corn, is not about rice, is not about yam, is not about cassava. Even though all those things will come behind, because we are going to have all of that in abundance by the grace of God. But the first thing is a life, a life that pleases God. Christ's life. Christ's life. So, can you imagine how Jesus Christ understood it so much? Before He would go to the cross, that was His consideration. In John chapter 12, I suppose, John 12, let me quickly ask you to read it. I'm reading several scriptures because again today, this morning, I'm just laying a foundation for you to understand what must we sow for this level earth. What must we plant for this level earth. And look at how Jesus understood it and He did it. In chapter 12 and verse 23 and 24. And Jesus answered them saying, the hour has come, that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that lost his life shall lose it. And he that hated his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my Father honor. Now, what does that imply? The Lord Jesus Christ recognized that He Himself is that seed that will reproduce the kind of men and women that must re-crop the earth. And He said, unless the corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone. This was His consideration if you read it very well, that made Him to accept going to the cross. This was the last statement He made. And by the time we come to the end of that chapter, I saw Jesus Christ say, let us go. Let us go. Let me go and face the cross. Let me go and face the cross. Let me go and plant this seed. So when Jesus was talking about the corn of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, He wasn't talking about wheat somewhere. He was talking about Himself. He was talking about His life. Jesus planted His life so that that kind of life can multiply. He said, if the corn of wheat abides alone, it will abide alone. But if it falls down and dies, it produces, it brings forth much fruit. So I saw that for the kingdom of God to be established on the face of the earth, and for men of righteousness, and for the seeds of the kingdom to be produced, Jesus, first and foremost, sold His life. He invested His life. It is life that you plant that produces life. Just as when you plant yam, yam only produces yam for you. But we are looking at God now saying, I did sold in that land. And as our brother began to speak this morning, and he began to remind us that when they talk about Abraham, Abraham, Abraham, we are not talking about Abraham in terms of one person like that. We are talking of him as being the father of the faith into which the Jews enter, and also all of us who are now children of God by faith, we are called the children of Abraham. Now, so when we are talking of Isaac, we are talking about Jesus who sold in this land, who planted His own life, that you and myself can have that life. So, permit me to first say now, if you do not yet have Christ's life, if the life you have is the natural life, the one that you were naturally born with and you have not received Christ's life, permit me to say to you, whatever you are trying to sow, if it is that kind of life that is not regenerated, it is only going to, again, continue to increase the crop of wickedness in the land. So, the first thing we are talking about, what to sow? Jesus sold His own life. Jesus allowed this corn of wheat to fall to the ground and die in order to bring forth many fruits. The Bible said, in order to bring many souls to glory, Jesus, Jesus tasted death for every man. So, we saw that what He sold, what He planted, that is producing the kingdom, that is multiplying the children of God everywhere, all over the world, is His life. Now, if it is His life that you sow, I mean that He sold, that became the life we carry, if you have become born again, or you have met Christ, or you have said bye-bye to sin, it is only that kind of life that can be sowed forevermore. So, for me to say now, if you are here in Amist, and the only life you carry is the natural life, you've not experienced the new life, you've not experienced Christ's life. Christ has not come into you without contradiction. Even if we ask you to sow something, it will be an abomination. It is that kind of seed that was cast into the earth that became tears. It is that kind of seed that was being planted here and there, that spoiled our schools. Imagine that in our schools, you now have teachers who are womanizers, but they are not only treating teacher as their colleague or theirs. They are running after girls. They are violating girls. They are disverting girls that they are like their daughters. What kind of seed are those people? They are the tears because the life they carry is the life of the flesh. There are fathers that they have violated their daughters directly. And so, when people begin to talk about human rights, child rights, the rights of the women, and all those rights that they are talking about, which UN is rolling up and down with, they don't know that it is not human rights that is the problem. They also know that it is the seed. It is the tear. It is the kind of life that is being planted. And if we don't change the seed, you cannot change the farm. If you don't re-crop the seed that you are planting, you can't change the result that you are going to be getting. And so, as God is challenging us that we are close to Rehoboth, the first thing is that this Rehoboth, it is Christ's life in you that was the soul. It is Christ in you that God wants to multiply. It is Christ in you that God is saying we are getting room now to be fruitful and to multiply in the land. It is this life. Those of you that are hearing me and your teachers can you imagine that how did the exam malpractice multiply in Nigeria, for example? Is this student that initiated it? Please think about it. Is this student that just woke up and said we will do exam malpractice and they subsided? Even if it came to the heart of a student and the teacher said you don't do that here, that child will never do it again. But you know the matter, the teachers themselves who are tears into educational system, who are not ready to work hard but they want to get results, they are collecting bribes from parents and they are not teaching the children so they decided to compromise exams. It is this kind of tears that enters our system. They are not only in primary school. They are not only in secondary schools. They are not in universities. If a new student wants to write projects, he has a letter that says no, no, no, no, no, bring money, I'll give you what to write. How did we have such kind of people in the system? The devil saw them as tears. If we are going to re-crop our educational system, it is not it is not curriculum that is wrong. It is the tears that have been sown and the tears are the ones to be replaced. Now question I'm asking you is this. Will you want to come to a level where God will lay righteousness upon you? Where God is going to show us that we can actually multiply in the land. We can actually take over. It is that you'll be ready to be sown. But if it is your life that God needs to sow, we need to check what is the health of the seeds. What is the health of the seeds? Is the seeds of your life, is it the incorruptible or the one that is corrupted? What is the life inside of you sir? If you are a liar and you have not been delivered from lying, if we get into politics, what will you do then? You will only sow lies. You'll be mixing people up and down just for self-advantage. And that's why we are more subsided. But God is saying, a rebel God has come. A rebel God knows we shall be fruitful and multiply in the land. But what do we sow? It has to be life. And what kind of life? Christ's life. Regenerated life. The new creation life. The life that has been delivered from the power of the flesh. The life that is being sown to the spirit, not to the flesh. The life that is invested in that which is right. The life that sows righteousness. Right standing with God. Now friends, as I press this to a point where I can begin to ask you to honestly evaluate and ask yourself now permit me to say if you are 20 years today say you are 20 years old let me say to you frankly 20 years of your life is gone what did you sow it into? And what did you sow in 20 years? 20 years. When you were 13, you started dealing. And you have invested your heart onto devising methodology of how to steal. Now you are 30 years. Your normal tendency is how to twist records in order to get something for yourself that is off records. How will you waste 30 years of your life sowing the wrong seed? And even though interpreters say you are making it you are making it. No, no, no, no. You are going to reap vanity before you die. Are you the one who is sowing to yourself immorality? And everywhere you went it is immorality that you have sown into the system. And you are hoping that if you don't repent today that you will not repeat. No, if I will say God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap. Do you know that today is a seed for tomorrow? Do you know that what you are doing today is only a seed that you are planting for tomorrow's harvest? And so let's ask, what kind of seed are you planting? What kind of man, what kind of woman are you? Is this the kind of life that God wants to bring to a rebel boss? As a rebel boss, it can be positive if we get positive seeds. But it can be terrible if the seed that is going to come to a room is wrong seeds. And so this morning, being the first of the messages that we are going to take, I want to put it to you now. What kind of life are you sowing? What is it to sow? And I want to submit to you that from scriptures, we saw that it is not first about money. It's not about planting unicorn. It's life. Your life first. And if it is life that is to be sown, and as we look at that parable of Jesus Christ, it means then that it is not only God that is sowing seeds. The devil is also sowing seeds. And the seed the devil is sowing are human beings. Human beings whose life is the life of the flesh. Is this sowing seeds? How are we getting now the situation where they are talking about transgender and gender issues and the world is now battling with whether you are a man and you want to become a woman after you have been born a man? How did you come about that? How did you come about that, my brother? How did you come to a situation where it is looking as if it is correct for a man to marry a man? How did you come into that? It was the enemy that sowed tears into our system. It is a pestilence that has been sown and said, let's plant seeds into that system and see whether we can get an inroad into the marriage institution. And if you keep quiet, that seed will continue to multiply until it will look as if it is a normal thing. And so how does God intend to do it? We must invest, we must plant, we must sow seeds of righteousness. And when I mean seeds of righteousness, you yourself, your totality of investment must become a correct seed. Your marriage must become a correct seed. Most of the people that have gone into this situation, they came out of broken homes. They came out of a frustrated home, frustrated marriages. If you get down and you call this young man and say, why are you thinking like that? He said, because I hate women, because I don't like what my mother was. That's why he does not want to experience a normal marriage, because somebody sowed tears into his life. How we overcome it is not just by shouting and saying, no, no, no, no, no. It's by bending down now to sow the correct seed. And I'm asking you, will you be that seed? So if I'm asking you now to sow, I'm not, first of all, I'm not asking you to sow things. I'm asking you to sow your life. Some of you are sitting in this meeting, and maybe you are millionaires, or you are billionaires, and you have money, and you are waiting, whether I believe you said, let them bring their money. No, sir! God does not first of all take things. He takes you. So I therefore beseech you by the message of God that you present what? Your bodies. A living sacrifice. That's your reasonable service. God does not take things from a man when he has not taken the man. When you look at the story of Abel and Cain, some of you used to think that why God rejected Cain is because Cain did not bring fat here. No! Does God eat here? Does God eat bulls? God said, oh, the cactus only doesn't hit their mind. If I want to eat it, I will not tell you. What does God look for? He said the broken heart and the contrite spirit are the sacrifices that God delights in. And so my question was, so why did God not take Cain? The Bible said, and God did not accept Cain. And so he did not accept his offering. God accepted Abel and that's why his offering was acceptable. Don't make an offering until your life has been offered. And if you are bringing your life as a seed to be offered, God is checking, is it the kind we want? Is it the kind that we can use to re-crop the earth? Is it the kind we can use to re-crop the educational system? Is it the kind of man who wants to re-crop student worldwide? Is it the kind of man who wants to re-crop women worldwide? I want to ask you, do you have the life that is plentiful? What are we going to sow for this trouble? First, I'm demanding that your life is your life. It's my totality of life that must be sowed in this land, that must be planted. But even if it's land that has to be planted, then we need to check, is it a viable seed? Is it a correct seed? Does it carry the seed of God? Does it carry the seed of the Christian life? Is it the seed of the new Christian? Is it Christ that has formed the base of your life? Or is it the natural life of the flesh? Is it the life that is being generated by the Holy Ghost? That is the first thing I want to put to you this morning. When we come back in the night, we will be going to where do I acquire that kind of seed for my rebels? How do I get it? How does God want me to do it? But one word of caution before I lead you to pray. In that Jeremiah chapter 4, Jeremiah chapter 4, and there is an Osir chapter 10, that were raised, let me quickly ask you to look at that Jeremiah 4, and then Osir, and I will end at that point for you to pray with me. God says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the false kings of your heart, ye men of Judah, and have them to Jerusalem. Let my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings. If God has brought you to Rehoboam, I want to ask you, break up your fallow ground. Many things have lied fallow in your life. You have remained uncultivated for many years. Your stubbornness has rejected all the instruments that God would have used to break you up and put a correct seed in your life. You have been developing yourself in the midst of thorns. Your life has been stramulated in the midst of thorns. What you call enjoyment in life is theseus. When Saul was going in his recklessness, he thought he was doing something. But when Judah encountered him, he said, Saul, Saul, it's a hard thing for you to kick against the Prips. Several of you you think you are progressing, but you are only kicking against the Prips. See how much you have borne out. See how much of your life you have scattered. And some of you, you are listening to me, your marriage is so scattered. You have scattered your children in between several women. And yet God said there's a way over for you. So what will you do? Break up your fallow ground. Break up your fallow ground. The fallowness that you are carrying about is not to your credit. The unbrokenness of your life is not to your credit. There is nothing you can get from a fallow ground except the wilderness of wild cats, wild animals, dangerous things. Dangerous things are investing and overriding your space in life. You must break up that fallow ground. This morning, God is coming with his grace. God is coming with the armor of his word. God is coming with his implements to plow your heart afresh. Don't hide it. And don't say, well, nobody can talk to me. That's the language of a fallow ground. Don't say, well, what I've been doing before I'm doing. That's the language of someone who has remained fallow. You can be fallow and be useful. Fallowness does not lead you to level up. I want to ask you break up your fallow ground. Sow not among thorns. Don't invest your life among thorns. Don't keep doing things that will only end in the midst of thorns. Jesus told us about the seed that fell among thorns. It was chopped. It didn't produce anything. He told us about the seed that fell by the wayside. It was picked up by the devil. It didn't become anything. He told us about the one that fell on stony ground. It couldn't produce anything because it had no ground, no soil, no depth for which to shoot its roots. What are you going to do? Break up your fallow ground. Sow not among thorns. Break up your fallow ground. It is time to seek the Lord. My dear brother, my dear sister, as I conclude, it is time for you to seek the Lord. It is time to reconsider, what am I planting? What is my life all about? You are now 40, 45 years. What have you done with 45 years? What did you plant? What are you hoping to reap? Some of you, you are now almost at retirement. But God is still saying, yes, even though you are green-brained, there is still a level of what you plan for your life. But you can still arrive at it. You will break up your fallow ground. Don't be too old to turn to the Lord today. Don't be too old to say, but what can I do again? There is something to do. Break up that fallow ground and come before the Lord. Come and let's pray together. You don't need to keep plowing wickedness. Instead, you have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lies because you trusted in your way. That's a way that's symmetrized in the eyes of a man, but the Bible said, the end of it is destruction. As I stop here this morning and I draw you to pray with me in the next few minutes, can I ask you to arise? If there's anything to sow for evermore and evermore, I want to say it's your life first. And if it is life that God is asking us to invest, to invest, some of you are in the ministry, but you have not invested the right seed. It is through your mouth that false doctrines is multiplied. It is through your mouth that ambition, ambition, people are now coming to ministry because of ambition, and because they saw it in your life, that's the tear that was sown into the kingdom of God. Break off that fallow grant. Let's stand up before God. Let's call on God now. Let's pray. Let's believe in God that this money, oh God, my fallow grant, I cannot let it remain. The seed that I've been carrying about is the seed of the old nature. Lord, please change it for me. Uproot that seed and plant your life in me. Plant Christ's life inside of me. Change that wrong seed. And then Lord, I want to be planted as you sow the children of the kingdom into your fields. Lord, make me one of them that you can plant and sow. Let's pray together. Are you already praying wherever you are? Wherever you are? From one center to another. From one country to another. From one land to another. Some of you, by God's grace, God is wanting to visit your ethnic people. He's looking for a seed to sow. The devil has sown the land with all kinds of things. All the boys that are going as suicide bombers, do you know it is their life they are sowing in the hand of the devil? This moment, will you say, Lord, here am I. First, check the seed inside me. And if it is not your own seed, please Lord, change it. Create in me a new heart, O God. And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, O God. Take not away your spirit from me. Lead me in the way everlasting. Are you praying your prayer? Are you saying to God, Lord, what have I been sowing? You are the one that sowed this cult in the midst of people and people have fought. You are the one who sowed gossip and lives of people have been scattered. Are you the one who introduced evil, no matter how small? And children have learned it from you. Will you say, Lord, give me a new chance. Let me become a ripe seed in my generation. And help me, Lord, to become a recropping of this generation. Christ is the only life that God wants to replant now. The species of life that God is looking for is Christ. Christ and him alone. Christ and him crucified is the life that God is wanting to recrop our generation with. And this rebel must be a rebel to produce him and to multiply his life and to feed the whole earth with it as we keep growing. You know last year we said, what do we feed the earth with? What kind of life? And today again we are talking what seed must we sow for our rebel? Let's pray together. If you are standing before God and your heart is drawn, say, Lord, change that seed. I wasted many years planting my life into what is not useful. This afternoon, this morning, please come and take over from me. Let's pray together. And if you are taking that decision, please again as it is right for you to do, don't keep quiet. It is now. It is time to seek the Lord. So you can step out where you are. You can walk to the altar. You can say, oh God, here am I. I want my life to be planted as you see it. I want you God to prepare me for my rebel birth and for you to reign righteousness upon me. Reign righteousness. I want to live in mercy. I want to live in mercy. Lord, reign righteousness upon my life. Where are you? Where are you? God bless you. If you are stepping out before God today, if you are coming onto the altar, please do so. And all our brothers, all those who stand to assist us, please stand along and assist these people as we pray together. And as they take their decision before the Lord, you give them space to be able to sort some things out with God immediately after. Shall we pray together? Father, thank you. Thank you for another opportunity, oh God, of prayer. And all those that are coming out and kneeling at your feet and saying, look at many years I have sown. I have sown my years as in mere terms. This day, Lord, take that seat and give me a new beginning. Don't let me reap all that I have been sowing for years. Change it for me now. Change it for me now. If at that time you are coming out as I'm praying, please walk out quickly. Get on your knees before the Lord and tell God, Lord, even if I wasted 20 years, I wasted 30 years, I wasted 40 years, Lord, this revival must meet me planting a new seed, planting a different life. Lord, make me part of what you want to do. God bless you. As I pray now, I conclude in prayer. All those that are coming out, please do so quickly because I just want to hand you over to the Lord who is able, who is able to enable you, who is able to perfect what concerns you, is able to start something new with you from this meeting. Holy Spirit, thank you for the response that you are getting. Thank you for drawing people. Some, oh God, are coming directly to the altar. Others are standing because they are just in their own private space. Some, oh God, who are watching us on other platforms, they are just saying, Lord, change this seed. Change my life. Give me a new thing to plant in my generation. I must not be that seed of stairs. I must be the good seed of the kingdom of God to bring a transformation and to fill the land with the right kind of men and women. Lord, I ask, please Holy Spirit, come down. You say, whosoever comes to you, you will know what is cast out. Give us that miracle right now and do a turnaround in every life that is coming to you. Give us opportunity to again rejoice that you are beginning to walk through the land, through the nations and you are raising correct seeds that you can plant afresh and this land will multiply. Holy Spirit, please do it. And everything the devil has done, all that he has tried to do with our lives over the years, Lord, put a stop to it today. Lord, rebuke the enemy on our behalf and take over from now. Jesus, please take into these lives, one by one and give them that your very life, which is the seed for the kingdom. Thank you for hearing our prayer. Thank you because you will do beyond what we can ask of you even now. And as your children of God rise in this prayer and after your hand will rest upon their lives. And for several of us, O God, that have sat in this meeting and were saying, Lord, I have got a seed but I have not sown it. I've just been keeping it to myself as if it did not came. Every seed that is not sown is a seed wasted. Lord, I ask that we not waste further years. Help us, Lord, that at this prayer of ours, our lives must count for your glory. Thank you for hearing our prayer. In Jesus Christ's name, we pray. Amen. ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/gbile-akanni/what-to-sow-for-your-rehoboth/ ========================================================================