You Will Reap What You Have Sown

You Will Reap What You Have Sown

By Rev. Johnny Lee Clary

Rev. Johnny Lee Clary is one of the leading advocates for racial unity in the United States and has appeared on countless television and radio shows such as The Billy Graham Radio show, Fox News, Morris Cerullo, Oprah, Morton Downey Jr., Rolanda Watts, Geraldo, Sally Jesse Raphael, Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, Queen Latifah, Montel Williams, Phil Donahue, A&E Investigative Reports, ABC World News Tonight, Bertrice Berry, The Today Show, A Current Affair, The 700 Club, and Kenneth Copeland's TV show. He has also been a regular guest on TBN's Praise The Lord show and has been featured in America's top newspapers and magazines, including a seven page feature story in Charisma magazine in April 1999, Moody Magazine, Guidepost Magazine (Sept. 1998), Kenneth Copeland's Believer's Voice of Victory magazine, as well as appearances on TV programs in Australia, England, Holland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Wales.

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7 KJV)

Have you ever heard of a farmer planting seeds of corn but harvesting watermelons where he planted the corn seeds? I haven’t either. The law of planting and harvesting dictates that you will harvest according to the kind of seeds that you plant. The same goes for God’s law. If you plant seeds of love, kindness, and encouragement, you will reap the harvest of love, kindness and encouragement. However if you plant seeds of hate, meanness, and discouragement, that is what you will reap for yourself.

We have one life to live while on this earth, and we need to make the best of it. I have always viewed our life here in earth as sort of a place of preparation for our eternal home in heaven. We have only a few short years here on earth, to prepare to live for eternity. The few short years we have on earth are like seconds compared to the time length of eternity which is endless. The Bible says "And there will be NO MORE death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever." Rev. 21:3-4

So in other words, whatever evil is here on earth, will not be in heaven. Therefore if one has evil in their life, they best get rid of it while here on earth because if they die with it, they can’t enter into heaven.


Take the story of Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll. He was a famous gangster of the 1920’s and 30’s and was perhaps one of the most viscous gangsters that ever lived. He was an enforcer for gangster Dutch Shultz until he crossed Shultz and launched out on his own, taking murder contracts from other mob leaders. Shultz, whose real name was Arthur Flegenheimer ran a section of New York City, specializing in bootlegging and the numbers racket where he made a fortune. Coll was paid as were the other mobsters who worked for Shultz on a flat salary rate instead of the customary percentage of the take from any operations in which they were involved. Coll told Shultz that he wanted in as a full partner but Shultz told him "I don't take in nobody as partners with me. You're an ambitious punk, but you take a salary or nothing. Take it or leave it." Coll replied "Okay I'm leaving it." Coll then formed his own gang. In addition to this, Coll had been arrested and Shultz personally paid the bond money to bail him out. Coll failed to show up for court and Shultz had to forfeit the bail money. Shultz wanted Coll to pay him back the money he lost, and Coll refused and an all out shooting war between the Shultz and Coll gangs escalated.

On July 28, 1931, Coll tried to kidnap one of Shultz’s men to hold him for ransom. This resulted in a deadly shootout in which Coll killed a 5 year old child named Michael Vengali, and seriously wounded several other little kids. The mayor of New York City Jimmy Walker, called Coll, “Mad Dog,” which Shultz readily agreed. The entire city launched a manhunt for this homicidal killer.


Vinnie “Mad Dog” Coll

Coll made a huge mistake when he accepted a murder contract from Godfather Salvatore Maranzano, New York City’s Boss of Bosses, who hired him to kill rival mob boss Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. Luciano had previously helped Maranzano win the infamous Castellammarese War in New York and gain control of organized crime by rubbing out Joe “The Boss” Masseria. Maranzano knew Luciano had a huge following and wanted control of the crime families.


Charlie “Lucky” Luciano

Maranzano paid Coll $25,000 in advance and agreed to pay $25,000 more on completion of the job. On September 10, 1931, Maranzano invited Luciano to visit his office. The plan was that Coll would turn up and kill Luciano. However, Luciano had received a tip-off about this plan so he arrived with a squad of his own hit men which included the boss of the mob’s Murder, Inc., Ben “Bugsy” Siegel who stabbed and shot Maranzano to death, and threw him out a window. Coll finally arrived to kill Luciano, only to find Maranzano dead and come face to face with Bugsy Siegel and Luciano, who chased Coll as they shot back and forth at each other, unsuccessfully hitting their intended targets. Coll escaped within an inch of his life.


Ben “Bugsy” Siegel

To the surprise of everyone, Coll showed up in court to fight the murder charges of the killing of the 5 year old boy and the wounding of the other kids. He had hired famous defense lawyer Samuel Leibowitz to defend him. Leibowitz destroyed the credibility of the prosecution's main witness, George Brecht, exposing him as a man who made a covert living as a witness at trials. In December 1931, Coll was acquitted, much to the dismay of people who wanted the Mad Dog to pay for killing that little boy.


Mad Dog Coll smiles as he leaves the courthouse after being acquitted in the “Harlem Baby Murders”

Hell’s Kitchen Irish Mob boss Owney “The Killer” Madden, who was a boxing promoter and owner of the famous “Cotton Club” of New York City, decided that Coll was not going to get away with this. Coll had also been extorting other mobsters and was trying to muscle in on Madden’s territory. Madden placed a $50,000 bounty on Coll's head. Two hit men, Leonard Scarnici and Anthony Fabrizzo, accepted Madden's bounty and went after Coll.

On February 1, 1932, both Scarnici and Fabrizzo busted into a Bronx apartment they thought Coll was at. The hit men burst in with their tommy guns chattering away spraying bullets everywhere. Three people were killed and three others were wounded. Mad Dog Coll didn’t show up until 30 minutes after the shooting had ended. Dutch Shultz then got involved and sent Abe “Bo” Weinberg along with Madden’s hit men to help them identify Coll so there would be no more mistaken identities. Weinberg was also assigned to help drive the getaway car. One week later after the slaughter in the Bronx, at 12:30 a.m. on February 8, the hit men found Vincent “Mad Dog Coll” in a phone booth in the London Chemists drug store at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street in New York City, who was on the phone with none other than Owney Madden who was keeping him on the line until the call could be traced by police who were on Madden’s payroll.


Owney “The Killer” Madden

The limo pulled up in front of the drug store and Bo Weinberg waited behind the wheel. Scarnici and Fabrizzo stepped out. One of them waited outside and the other walked inside. After telling the cashier to "Keep cool, now", the killer withdrew a Thompson submachine gun from under his overcoat and went back to the phone booth where Coll was. The triggerman opened fire, spraying the phone booth with the tommy gun, raking up one side of the glass booth and down the other. Coll’s body shook violently back and forth from the impact of the bullets and then slumped over dead. The morgue attendant dug fifteen machine gun bullets out of Coll’s body, but said many others passed clean through him. Cops pulled up just seconds after Coll was killed and gave chase to the killers, but they were able to elude the police and got away.

Coll’s killers also met their fate in a violent way. On November 20, 1932, Anthony Fabrizzo met his end at the gun of none other than Bugsy Siegel during a clumsy attempt at trying to whack Siegel. On June 27, 1935 Leonard Scarnici was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison for the murder of a detective. Before his execution, Scarnici confessed to a total of fourteen murders, including that of Vincent Coll. Bo Weinberg vanished without a trace on September 9, 1935, presumably killed by Dutch Schultz for conspiring against him with Lucky Luciano. Weinberg’s body was never found.

Schultz sent a wreath to Coll's funeral bearing a banner with the message, "From the boys." Dutch would continue to operate his rackets for several more years. However, on October 23, 1935, Schultz was killed at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey on orders from the new National Crime Syndicate, headed by Charlie Luciano.


Dutch Shultz moments after being gunned down at restaurant.

In 1935, Owney Madden, still under police scrutiny for the Coll killing, moved to Arkansas and died in 1965.

Believe it or not, Mad Dog Coll had married right after his trial for the ‘Harlem Baby Murders” as it had become known. Lottie Kreisberger-Coll came screaming to the scene, hissing and spitting and cursing. "Dirty rats, dirty rats," she moaned as cops held her back from the shot-up remains of the only man who had ever been decent to her. She and her husband had been on the very eve of their honeymoon trip, she sobbed. They were going to go to Ireland. Mrs. Mad Dog was a serial bigamist and murderess in her own right – and the only woman Vinnie ever loved. Lottie herself went down for a drive-by where, as usual, the wrong target was hit a mere two years after Vinnie had been rubbed out, served her time and disappeared.


Mrs. Mad Dog, Lottie Kreisberger-Coll

So you see boys and girls, whatever we deal out to others while on this earth, it will come back to us. If you sow wheat, you will reap wheat. If you sow corn, you will reap corn. If you raise cattle, you will reap cattle. If you breed pigs, you will reap pigs. This is the law of reaping and sowing. Pigs do not breed chickens, nor does corn bring forth potatoes. Sow hate and you will reap hate. Sow death like Mad Dog Coll did, and you will reap death. However, sow love like Jesus Christ did and you will reap love. John 3:16 says God sowed the seed of love by giving His only Son that whosever would believe in Him would not perish but have life forever. God sowed the seed and look at the uncountable souls he got back in return!

Think of the love you will get back if you sow the seeds of love!

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Johnny Lee Clary