Chapter 10 I'm going to read in Jeremiah chapter 4 first a lot
here in the book of Jeremiah. And tell you what, Jeremiah had
a very difficult job. His job was to try to get the
the nation of Israel, the children of Israel, to turn back
to God and to understand that God had so much for them if they
were just willing to turn back to Him.
And yet over and over and over we see that all the way through
the time in the wilderness and all the way through the time as
they came into the land that God had promised them.
And over and over and over the blessings that God promised to
the children of Israel that they could have if they would just
follow Him. And yet they turned away from.
Him so many times. And God told them over and over
and over again, here's the curse that's going to come upon you if
you don't follow my way, if you don't live for me, if you don't
do it my way. They knew what was going to
happen, and still they turned away from God.
And it's very easy for us to look at them and say, how
foolish can you be? God told you what you could have
when you live for Him. He told you what's going to
happen if you don't. And still you chose not to.
And yet here we find ourselves in the same situation many
times. We read all the way through the
New Testament of all the things that God promised for those who
love him and follow Him and and serve Him.
And all the things are going to come and upon and happen to
those who don't live for Him and who don't serve Him.
And yet we choose often not to choose his way.
And in Jeremiah chapter 4, the Bible says this in verse #1 If
thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord.
Return unto me, and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out
of my sight, then shalt thou not remove, and thou shalt swear.
The Lord liveth in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness.
And the nation shall bless themselves in him, and in him
shall they glory. For thus saith the Lord to the
men of Judah. And Jerusalem, break up your
fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
Hosea chapter 10. Hosea chapter 10, verse #12
right along the same lines. He says this Sow to yourselves
in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for
it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness
upon you. So you fallow ground, we don't
really call it that much anymore.
I suppose maybe if you're a farmer and you live in that, in
that reality or in that profession, I guess you would
probably call it fallow ground. But it's land that's allowed to
lie idle and waste. During a growing season, it's
land that that that usually would have something planted in
it that usually would be producing, that usually would be
giving forth good fruit. And yet it's just sitting there
getting harder by the day, not plowed up.
It's allowing thorns and weeds to take over.
I grew up in the northwest corner of Indiana, not too far
from Chicago. But our property was nestled in
between cornfields and bean fields.
And, and almost every year the farmers would get out there and
they would plant and we, we would help them from time to
time if they were baling hay and those kind of things.
We, you know, but, but, but we were used to it.
We knew what was going to happen.
But every so often, every few years, those farmers would leave
one of those fields. To just sit and it has to have
that, it needs that because it, it has to, you know, the ground
has to get some of those nutrients back into it and
things like that. But the, the ground up there in
Indiana where we grew up was good ground, but they would
allow that field to sit. And as you, you just watch it,
the weeds would grow up and the ground would get hard.
And, and as I mean, we had some pretty, pretty harsh summers as
well. And, you know, we were not far
from Lake MI, so we had a lot of the, the, the heat, the lake
effect, you know, the, the humidity and all of that kind of
stuff that came and, but, but you just watch that ground get.
Harder and harder and harder. It would get dry and cracked in
a lot of places depending on how rough the summer was.
And you just think, wow, what a, what a what a wasted
opportunity. You had a you had opportunity to
plant in this entire field, and yet it just sat there empty,
doing absolutely nothing. Become the following season that
farmer would get out there with his plow and he would get that
thing down deep into the soil and just drive back and forth
and you would see as the as the rotors just turned over that
dirt and what was a really light brown, dusty cracked earth would
turn into this deep dark brown dirt that was very good for
planting and they would go through and they would plant the
things in it again and. Few weeks, few months later,
you'd see the corn start to shoot up, the beans start to
shoot up, and the next thing you know they had a full harvest
again in that field. But that's what the Bible is
talking about. Your fallow ground is ground
that could be productive. It's ground that for whatever
reason has not been broken up. It's not been tilled and plowed
and prepared for planting. And the prophets here, Jeremiah
and Hosea, both speaking the word of the Lord, are commanding
the people to break up that land spiritually and to plow the
plowable land that they have. Jeremiah is saying that this
uncultivated land needs to be cultivated and the Christian
life needs to be planted in order to grow.
He's saying that you have been long uncultivated in
righteousness. Let true repentance break up
your your fruitless and hardened hearts.
And so many Christians say that they want to grow in Christ.
And, and I think that that most Christians mean it when they say
that. I don't think that that you're
lying when you say you want to be a good Christian.
I don't think you're lying when you say you want to grow
spiritually in your life. But we don't make plans for it.
A farmer that sees a a field that needs to be plowed is not
going to have a plowed field by just thinking, boy, it sure
would be nice to have a field that's plowed over there.
Sure would be nice to have a lot of good stuff growing up in
there that I could harvest. Sure, would be nice if the
harvest would just walk into the barn, right?
But it doesn't happen that way. The farmer can't just wish that
these things would happen, or hope that they're that those
things will happen, or want those things to happen.
He's actually got to get out there and do the work of plowing
in that field if it's going to be land that's useful.
And yet so many Christians live their lives the same way.
They have fallow ground that's either unusable or ground that
is being unused. Turn over to Matthew, chapter
13. So many reasons why that ground
is hard and unused or even sometimes unusable, but the
command is there. Jeremiah said break up your
fallow ground and sow not among thorns.
Hosea said sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy,
break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till
he come and reign righteousness upon you.
But the Lord Jesus spoke of thorny soil in Matthew chapter
13. And verse #22.
He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth
the Word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of
riches choked the Word, and He becometh unfruitful.
I went back and read some of the old preachers and what they had
to say about that, and Vance Havner said, I'm convinced that
much of our preaching and teaching in the church today
amounts to cultivating briar patches.
The word of God is sown in the hearts unprepared to receive it,
and the ground is never broken unto repentance.
God does not rain righteousness upon us, because the ground has
never been made ready for his showers of blessing.
Charles Finney. Fallow ground is ground which
has once been tilled, but which now lies waste, and needs to be
broken up and mellowed before it is suited to receive grain.
To break up fallow ground is to break up your hearts, to prepare
your minds to bring forth fruit unto God.
Spurgeon. If a man will not sow wheat, he
shall not have a crop, for the weeds will spring up in an
increase to the fallow field shall become a wilderness of
thorns. And Breyers Vance Havner again,
if people's hearts are not plowed up in conviction, and the
thorns and weeds exterminated by confession and cleansing, we are
really cultivating human briar patches with just enough wheat
here and there to make them appear religious.
Jeremiah lamented that there had been no blessing because the
people had the face of a woman of the street and they could not
blush. He said that back.
If you go back in Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse #1 they say
if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become
another man, shall he? Return unto her again.
Shall not that land be greatly polluted?
But thou has played the harlot with many lovers.
Yet return again to me, say at the Lord.
Now listen, we don't like to think of ourselves that way, but
that's exactly what's happening. That's exactly what you're doing
when you are giving your love to other things besides Jesus
Christ. Oh, we don't like to think about
it like that, but he's telling Israel very plainly.
Oh, you have you talk about all these other things when it comes
to the physical, he said. But you, you, you're, you're
condemning these other people for doing these things in a, in
a physical way and, and going off and putting your wife away
and marrying somebody else and all of these different things.
But you've done the exact same thing to.
Me is what God is saying. Thou has played the harlot with
many lovers because you've gone after other things instead of
seeking after the Lord. Verse 2 Lift up thine eyes unto
the high places, and see where thou has not been lying with in
the ways. In in the ways hast thou sat for
them as as the Arabian in the wilderness.
And thou has polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy
wickedness. Therefore the showers have been
withholding, and there has been no letter rain.
And thou hadst the horse forehead.
Thou refuses to be ashamed. Wilt thou not from this time cry
unto me, my father? Art thou the guide of my youth,
or thou art the guide of my youth?
Will he reserve his anger forever?
Will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou has spoken and done
evil things as thou couldest. The Lord said also unto me, in
the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which
backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up upon every high
mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the
harlot. That's the way it is in America.
We used to blush when we were ashamed.
Now we're ashamed if we blush. Always see that happening so
many times. Today, though, much preaching is
wasted on church members because they're stubborn and they're
worldly and and they live in in conscious sin.
Worldliness and rebellion and bad attitudes and carnality are
rampant in many of our churches today.
And what a shame if it's rampant in a church like this.
We've got to be so careful to make sure that we don't allow
those things in. And if they come in, we've got
to get them out. Somebody said this, we feed them
cream puffs when they need bitter medicine first.
They need surgery, not sunbaths. Christians are are are many
times told about their position in Christ.
And it's it's a wonderful position that we have knowing
Christ, we have that grace, we have the the mercy.
But very little is said about the condition of a Christian's
life in daily living and consecration.
And I don't want to be a pastor that's guilty of telling you the
love of Christ and not reminding you that Christ is coming and
that you need to be prepared. For when he does, Vance Havner
again said, I suppose that if wheat is sown in a briar patch,
a little would spring up, but you'd still have a briar patch.
We're cultivating church members with a little religion here and
there, but we are not raising wheat.
We are cultivating briars. That's what happens when you
have just a little bit of wheat in a briar patch and you go out
there and you try to throw some miracle grow on the wheat.
It might help the wheat a little bit, but you're just cultivating
the briars. You've got to get the briars out
if you want to have wheat that's useful.
The same is true in our lives. The the unconvinced heart is
like fallow ground. It's, it's, it's ground that's
capable of improvement, but it's fallow.
It's until then, because of that, it's unfruitful.
If we're going to farm, we have to break up the fallow ground.
And if we're going to be spiritual Christians that God
can use, we have to break up the fallow ground as well.
So the question this morning is this, do you have fallow ground
in your life that needs to be broken up spiritually in order
for you to grow? I guess maybe a better question
would even be this. Do you want to grow spiritually?
I said that I think probably if I were to ask you in this room
who wants to grow spiritually, you would all raise your hand
because I think you do. I think you do.
But do you really? You are as spiritual right now
as you want to be. Oh, no, no.
I'm so far. From who I want to be, I'm so
far from what I could be. If you really wanted to be
spiritual, you would be. You are as right with God right
now as you want to be. What you need is to ask God to
give you a heart, to be more spiritual and to be more like
Him. He's not something He's going to
keep from us. The title of my message is
simply the command from the lips of Jeremiah and others.
Break up your fallow ground. Break up your fallow ground.
Let's pray. And I give you a few thoughts to
consider this morning about how we can do that.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness.
And again, we thank you for the opportunity.
We have some to spend time together this morning around
Your Word. I pray that it'd be a profitable
time for us and that you'd speak to our hearts.
God, may we have hearts that are willing to be plowed up by the
Word of God so that we can be useful in your service.
Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.
I want to give you 3 thoughts this morning.
And this is not a fancy message at all.
It's not alliterated points in the the really the outline
doesn't, doesn't, doesn't flow all that well, I don't think.
But I want you to think about a few things.
Turn over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 #1 is this.
We only have one God to account to for all of eternity.
One day we're going to be standing on the brink of
eternity, and the choice and what we'll do with Christ must
be made before we leave this life.
Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse #10 says, For we must all
appear before the judgement seat of Christ.
I believe the people that Jeremiah referred to as sowing
among thorns are those perhaps who are trying to do everything
they can. To earn God's favor on their
own, they read the the Bible, they go to church, they they
take some time to pray here and there, they give to the
ministries of the church, they get baptized, they they help
people in need and they're genuinely nice people.
They do all these things to try one day to hopefully have an
opportunity to get to heaven. And then hopefully they've done
enough good that God's going to say, come on into heaven when
you stand before him. But it's all in vain because
they're throwing seed down on hard ground.
I'm not saying that those things are bad, but they're not the way
of salvation. John chapter 14 and verse 6.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, but Jesus did not say, no
man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
And baptism. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. And baptism, no man cometh unto
the Father, but by me. And good works, nobody cometh
unto the Father but by me. And following this religion or
that religion, He didn't say that nobody cometh unto the
Father but by me. It's only.
Through Jesus Christ that you can enter heaven.
Amen. That's Jesus Christ plus
nothing, or you have nothing. You are nothing.
You have no hope of ever entering heaven when you die.
Turn over to Ephesians chapter 2.
Many of you probably know these verses, but the count on Jesus
Christ plus anything else is to say that Jesus Christ death on
the cross was not enough to take you to heaven, that we need His
death plus everything else we can do.
I have no power on my own. No number of good things I can
do can get me to heaven. Ephesians chapter 2 verse #8
makes that very plain. For by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God. And he says very plainly in
verse #9 not of works, lest any man should boast.
Most people that I share those verses with, even when they find
out that that goes against what they've heard or believed their
entire life, they find out then do they find it to be such a
huge relief that the burden is not on them to earn their way to
heaven? There is nothing that you have
to do because there is nothing that you can do to earn your way
to heaven. Jesus Christ has a burden on Him
to follow through with what He said He was going to do.
He said He's offering us the gift of eternal life.
He said He's the one that has the power over death and hell.
He said His blood has the power to take us to heaven and forgive
our sins. The the burden is on Him.
It's not on us. Now, should we try to be good
people? Absolutely.
But it's not on whether we're good or bad or whether we're
great or or terrible. As far as how we're going to get
to heaven. It's all on Him to do what He
said He was going to do. It's on us to just believe that
He is going to do it because He said that He would.
First John, chapter 5 and verse #13 by the way, it's not a
burden for him at all. The burden's on Him.
But it's easy for him to carry it.
He can handle it. He's done it all already.
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of
the Son of God. The Bible says in first John
chapter 5 and verse 13 that you may know that you have eternal
life. We can know that we have eternal
life and the only way is if we do it his way.
Turn over to second Peter chapter 3.
I will say this to those who are still hardening their hearts
against the gospel. Maybe you have been convicted,
and maybe you. Are close to making a decision
for Christ. Maybe you know that you need to
be saved and your ground is so hard that you just won't let the
word of God plow into it. Break up your fallow ground,
because opportunities are. Fleeting, and we cannot afford
to let another day pass without complete surrender to the will
of God. First Peter, sorry.
Second Peter chapter 3 and verse #9 The Bible says the Lord is
not slack concerning His promise, as some men count
slackness, but His long-suffering to us.
Word not willing that any man should perish, but that all
should come to repentance. Simply hearing the truth is not
enough. If the heart is hard, it's not
going to receive it. If the heart is preoccupied, the
truth will soon be forgotten or even ignored.
The heart must be soft enough to receive the truth of the Word of
God. We have to allow the plow to
break up that fallow ground. That Word of God is so simple in
the Gospel, and we've been talking about this on Wednesday
nights, but we're all sinners. Our sin is what is condemning us
to hell. But Jesus Christ died on the
cross to pay for that sin. His death on the cross was not
so that we can learn how to live.
It was not so that we can learn how to love or any of those
things. It was to pay your sin debt and
to pay mine. If you die and go to hell, you
die and go to hell with your sins already paid for.
He's already done everything that needs to be done for you to
have eternal life. He's already done everything
that needs to be done for your sins to be forgiven.
He's already done everything that needs to be done for Jesus
Christ to be your savior. You just need to let Him and
He'll do it. Somebody said this.
Longfellow could take a worthless sheet of paper, write
a poem on it, and make it worth $6000.
That's a genius. Rockefeller could sign his name
to a piece of paper and make it worth $1,000,000.
That's capital. Uncle Sam can take can take a
piece of paper, stamp an eagle on it, and make it worth $20.
That's money. An artist can take a $2.00 piece
of canvas, paint a picture on it, and make it worth $1000.
That's art. But God can take a sinful life,
wash it in the blood of Christ, put his Spirit in it, and make
it a blessing to humanity that salvation.
That's what Jesus Christ has to offer us.
And if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, I beg of
you today to let the Word of God be planted in your soul.
And at the end of the service, I can take a Bible and show you
how you can know for sure that you're on your way to heaven,
that Jesus Christ is your Savior, that your sins are
forgiven. He wants to do that for you, but
you have to let that seed be planted in that ground.
Break up the follow ground. We only have one God to account
for, to account to for all of eternity.
But I want you to see this as well #2 and if you will turn
over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, we looked at the first part
of this verse, but I want to look at the second part when I
say this. We only have one life for all
eternity. We only have one God to account
to for all of eternity, but we only have life, one life for all
of eternity. If we're saved, then we're going
to give an account of the use of our life and for our usefulness
to God. Second Corinthians chapter 5 and
verse #10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of
Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in His
body according to that He had done, whether it be good or bad.
And I'm afraid that the majority of Christians are going to be so
ashamed of how they live their life when they stand before God.
Most Christians have a little corner of the property that they
allow God to plow and use, but the rest of it they keep for
themselves. God, you can, you can have that
little corner. That's the, that's the corner
that that sticks out where everybody can see it.
That's the corner that that everybody drives past.
And you can have that one, you can plow that one.
Let everybody see that there's something growing up in there.
But all the rest of this is mine.
You don't touch this. We allow just enough to be
cultivated so it looks like we're willing to be used, and it
looks like we may be a good Christian, and it looks like we
belong to Jesus Christ and yet we're nowhere near as useful as
God intended for us to be. And I wonder how many Christians
are sitting in this room this morning that have unplowed
places in their life that they just have not given over to God
yet. Or maybe it's something that you
had plowed. Before and God was using and
you've taking it back for yourself and now you just let it
sit there. No plow is going to touch that.
God can't touch that. That's mine.
That belongs to me when you. Lose your desire to live for the
Lord. Your ground has become hard.
When you lose the desire to be at church, your ground is hard.
When you lose your desire to pray and your desire to read the
Bible, your ground is hard. And I know sometimes there are
things that that come in our lives that that are difficult
circumstances that sometimes make it hard to pray, that
sometimes make it hard to concentrate on reading our
Bible, that sometimes make it hard to sit in church and things
like that. But when you lose your desire
for those things, your ground is hard.
When you lose your desire to be out here on Saturday, we have
outreach and we have visitation. We have opportunities to go
share the gospel with the lost and dying world.
And when you lose the desire to do those things, your ground is
hard. Oh, you could come up with all
the excuses you want to come up with why you can't do this, why
you can't do that, why you can't be here, why you can't be there.
But I'll tell you the main reason why is your ground is
hard and it needs to be plowed up.
You need to give God access to it and let him cultivate that
thing. Let him grow it into something.
You'd be surprised at what will grow up in your life if you
allow God to plow that ground. Oh, I'm too shy or, oh, I've got
this going on or oh, this is, this is so important to me.
You just don't understand. These things are so important.
No, I'll tell you, what's important is the work of God.
Everything else is going to be burned up someday.
You got all the, the hobbies and the things that you like to do
and the things that you want to do and you put those in front of
serving the Lord and living for the Lord.
You're going to be sorry one day when you stand before God and he
says, how come you weren't there to go out and knock on those
doors? How come you weren't there to to
help give out the Bibles? How come you weren't there to go
out and reach these college kids on the campus?
How come you weren't there to go help bring young people in
through a bus ministry? How come?
Well, I you just got to understand.
I really enjoy hunting. I really enjoyed fishing, I
really enjoyed politics. I really enjoyed Fill in the
Blank with whatever it is that you're using as your excuse to
not be here, giving out the gospel when you have the
opportunity. To do it, your ground is hard
and you need to allow God to plow it up.
When you stop fighting against sin in your life, your ground is
hard. We're all going to fight sin.
That's part of what we face when we still have the old flesh
living with us. But you ought to be fighting it.
You ought to be daily crucifying your flesh.
You ought to be daily coming to God and begging Him to help you
with the thing that you are struggling with, whether it's
anger or bitterness or lust or greed or whatever it happens to
be. There's so many things that we
face every single day in our lives that come up as, as things
that try to keep us from being everything that we can be for,
for God. We fight it for a while, but
then we get tired of fighting and we finally just say, you
know what? I'm tired of dealing with it.
I'm tired of fighting it. I'm just going to give into it.
Nobody knows about it anyway. I'll tell you this My my job is
your pastor is to study my people.
And I, and I don't say this in a, in a, in a prideful way at
all. I hope it doesn't come across
that way, but to know my people, that's, that's the one of my
jobs as the pastor. And I can look around and see
what you used to be and what you are capable of and know that
there's a good handful of you whose ground has been hard and
uncultivated. What you're capable of and what
you're doing is far from what God wants to do in your life.
And it's time that we cultivate that ground.
It's time that we give God access to it.
Let him have it. If you only understood what God
could do with that ground over what you think you can do with
it for yourself. I know you and I know what you
have been and what you are capable of and I.
Understand that some of you are capable of so much more than
what you're allowing God access to in your life.
But I'll be honest with you, there's a lot of it that nobody
knows but you. There's a lot of it that it
looks good on the outside to everybody else, but it's ground
that's uncultivated and you know it, and you're the only one.
You and God are the only one that know it.
And maybe maybe the things that are visible to everybody else,
that the fields that are visible to everybody else look good and
they look like they're flourishing and they look like
they're producing. But you've got a plot there in
the center that only you can see from the top that you're not
allowing God to have access to. Are you going to let God have
that? That's the part that nobody else
is going to know but God does. That's the part that one day
it's going to be brought to light and it's not, listen,
every one of us are going to have things that we're
embarrassed about or ashamed about when we stand before God.
It's not like I'm going to stand there and say, wow, I had no
idea. I can't believe you were that
horrible of a person. It's not we're going to do that.
It's not that we're going to be ashamed because everybody else
knows about it. It's just that we're going to be
so ashamed that the one who died on the cross to pay for those
sins, that God who commended his love toward us in that.
While we were yet. Sinners died for us and we're
going to have to hang our heads in shame before him and say, I
can't believe I lived my life that way.
I can't believe I didn't give you access to those things.
I can't believe I didn't allow you to have that so you could
use it. That's that's why we're going to
be ashamed when we stand before God, not because, oh, everybody
else is going to find out about it and that's going to be part
of it. But how ashamed we're going to
be to think that the God who gave me everything, including
the eternal life that I'm about to enjoy.
And I sinned against him over and over and over.
And he had so much that he wanted to allow to grow up in my
life and so much that he wanted to cultivate spiritually, and I
just wouldn't. Let him have it.
Because it was mine. Because nobody else could see
it. You're going to stand before God
someday, and you're going to give account for that.
Turn over to Jeremiah chapter 2 and I'll say this.
Maybe you're the only one that knows that your heart is hard,
but maybe you're the only one that knows that your heart is
hardening. You might have had some areas
that have been soft, some things that you allowed God to do, but
the more you get away from Him, the more you backslide, the more
you allow your heart to be pulled in different directions.
This ground that used to be fertile, this ground that used
to be useful in God's service is hardening right now.
Maybe you had a prayer life that used to be yielding fruit.
Maybe your time in God's Word used to be something that
yielded fruit. Maybe you used to be one of
those that served the Lord with every ounce of energy that you
had. But for whatever reason, you
backed off. And now that ground may not be
absolutely useless and unusable, but it's getting to the place
where it's unused, and you need to allow God access to it again.
Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse #19 says Thine own wickedness shall
correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee.
Know therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that
thou has forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in
thee, saith the Lord. God of hosts says this in verse
#32 Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me. Days without number.
We must break up the fallow ground and maintain the ground
until Jesus comes. I wonder how many opportunities
have been neglected. As long as we cherish our sin,
we are preventing growth. Hearing truth is not enough,
because if it's not acted upon, it will be choked out.
Breaking up fallow ground requires a lot of work.
Turn over to Isaiah chapter 55. Stumps have to be removed.
I most of you have been to, to, to our house and, you know, for
the different picnics and different things that we do over
there, the whole field that's next to our house, there was all
trees when we moved into that property.
And most of them were only, you know, 3-4 inches around.
Some of them maybe just a little bit bigger than that.
But it was, it was really, they were small enough that it, you
know, having a chainsaw out there didn't really help because
everything was just going to, if I just cut it off at the base,
it didn't help. Everything was just going to
keep growing back. I had to get everything out by
the roots. And So what I had to do with
every single one of those trees that had grown up and it was
thick. There was a lot it took me the
better part of an entire summer and the and the kids help they
they were dragging all the trees and everything to the burn pile.
We burned everything, but we had to dig down below the ground and
chop with an axe below the surface to break that, to break
the roots off completely, because if you don't do it,
they're going to keep coming back And see that's what happens
so often in our lives. We get to the point where we
decide we're going to do something about it.
And so we cut the tree off at the base or we just pluck that
weed and just pull it right off the top, but the root is still
there and it's going to keep coming back and it's going to
keep coming back and it's going to keep coming back.
We've got to ask God and we've got to allow God to get deep
below the soil and work in places where it actually hurts
to let him go in there. Hey, you, you listen, I think
about it like this when I'm, when I, you know, when I get to
the point where I'm like, man, all my pants are fitting tight.
I need to start losing a few pounds and then I start trying
to die and I'm, and I think, man, this is so hard.
I, you know, I, I can't, I can't lose weight.
It's, it's difficult to lose weight.
I, I want to eat. I want, you know this, I want
that. And then I stop and I think, you
know what, I had three, 4-5 months where I just ate
anything. I felt like it, that was easy,
right? That was the easy part.
I allowed myself to get into that spot.
Now it's going to be difficult to get it out.
And that's exactly what happened when you sin, Hey, it's easy to
sin. It's easy to let your
relationship with God go. It's easy to just not really
care about it. And Oh well, what happens
happens. I'm just in this in this
routine. I'm just doing the things that I
always do. Life is just going on.
And then the next thing you know, wow, I can't believe that
I'm this deep in all of these sins.
I, I need to get rid of these gods really convicting my heart.
I've got to do something about it.
I guess I'll just go in tomorrow and clean everything out of my
life. Doesn't work that way.
Those things have gotten in there deep.
You let it grow and they're way too long.
Now you've got to dig below the surface.
It's like an ingrown hair, right?
When you get something like that or an ingrown toenail, you got
to go in there and dig it out and it hurts, right?
There's a, there's a lot of things like if it's worth doing,
it's, it's, it's, it's, it's going to hurt a lot of times,
right? Same thing with.
Exercise. When you start exercising, it
hurts, but you've got to do it if you expect something to come
of it. And the same is true in our
lives. He's saying break up your fellow
ground. You've let it get to the point.
You've backslidden. You let those things grow up in
there. It's not going to be an easy
thing to get it out. There's going to be some things
that are probably going to be exposed that hurt.
There's probably going to be some things that you've allowed
to grow in there that are not easy to pull out because they've
just become a way of life. They've become a fixture.
They've become part of that field that you've just been
allowing to grow there. It's going to take work to get
it out. But it's worth it to get it out
because now the field can be used.
What's been growing in your heart?
Hatred, lust, bitterness. There's so many things that we
allow to grow that we think, well, I can stop this anytime I
want to. It's like an alcoholic.
I can stop drinking if I want to.
I just, I just choose to drink. No, you're addicted to it and
you can't stop it when you want to.
Kind of the same thing is true with our sin.
It's not going to be easy, but it's worth it.
Isaiah chapter 55 and verse number six.
Seek ye of the Lord while he may be found.
Call ye upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have
mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Now that's the wonderful thing about it, but I'll tell you
this, we don't like the first part.
And until you get past that first part, you can never get to
the second part of verse #7 Oh, I'm not wicked.
I've just got a few things in my life that shouldn't be there.
I'm not unrighteous, I've just got a few things.
No, you're wicked before God. You are unrighteous before God.
And we have to see ourselves that way.
We have to see our sin that way before a holy God, or we're
never going to get to the point where we allow Him in to really
uproot the things that need to be uprooted.
And we're never going to have that abundant pardon that He
wants to give us. As long as you see your sin as
not that bad, you will never get it out.
The same thing. What if a what if a farmer was
going through his field and he found a giant rock and he said,
well that's not that bad. I can just kind of go around it.
It's going to be there every single year when he comes back
to plow and it's going to break times on his plow.
It's going to be it's going to cause him a lot of trouble until
he just decides to get that rock out.
To a farmer, a rock is not not that big of a deal.
A rock is a huge deal and it has to be gotten out, and sometimes
with great effort, and only with great effort can it be gotten
out. But it needs to be that
hardness, that hardness that we have in our heart.
That's the point that that he needs us to come to if he's
going to be able to use US. Turn over to Psalm 51.
See, if you're serious about putting the field into
production, it's going to require a lot of hard work,
digging, leveraging horsepower to move the rocks to get to the
to get to the trees at the root and get them completely out of
there. But David says this in Psalm 51
and verse #17 The sacrifices of God are a broken heart, a broken
and a contrite heart. O God, thou wilt not despise.
Maybe some of those things you're going to need help
pulling out of your life. You can't do it on your own.
Maybe you need to come to your pastor and ask for help.
Maybe you need to come to another mature church member and
ask for help in getting those things out of your life.
You know many times they've had experience pulling those rocks
out of their own life. Every field has them.
Every field has rocks till you pull them out.
Instead of being judgmental, you'll probably find that there
are a lot of help. I'm not saying it's going to be
easy. In fact, it's going to be very
difficult, can be quite painful many times, but it's absolutely
necessary for growth. A man dialed a wrong number and
and he got an answering machine and the answering machine said,
I'm not available right now, but I thank you for caring enough to
call me. I'm making some changes in my
life. Please leave a message.
If I don't call you back, you're one of the changes.
That's what it's going to take though.
The changes may not make other people happy, but there's only
one person that we should be trying to make happy.
I want to get to the point in my life where I work for the Lord
and I fight for the Lord, and I'm so busy working in His
service and doing the things that are pleasing to Him that
only every once in a while I lay my sword down and look up for a
smile. And I want Him to be smiling
when I look up because he's the only one that matters.
I don't, I don't. I don't try to be controversial
for the sake of being controversial.
Not even controversial. Confrontational is probably the
right word. I'm not trying to be
confrontational. I'm not trying to stir up
anything in inside of you. I don't like it.
But it's my responsibility to preach the entire counsel of
God. And I really don't care if
you're happy or not if as long as he's happy.
And I don't care if it pleases you or not, as long as he's
pleased. I'm not trying to displease you.
I'm not trying to make you mad. I'm not trying to get you
burning under the collar. I'm not trying to do any of
those things. But there's only one person that
I'm going to stand before, and it's not you, it's God.
And I want to be able to tell him that I did everything that I
could with what He gave me. And I want to be able to tell
Him that I used every opportunity that I had that He
gave me to share the gospel, to be right with him, to live for
him in a way that He wants me to live for him, to have the
relationship with him that He wants to have with me.
Because I want to give you this as the last point.
And very quickly, we never know when these opportunities will
end. He says break up your fallow
ground. It's high time to seek the Lord
till they come and reign righteousness upon you.
He's given us time right now, but you don't know when that
opportunity is going to end. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
3. The saying only one life will
soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will
last is true. You can spend your time and your
energy making money, fulfilling every desire, living for
pleasure, and you'll always come up empty.
Or you can allow the Lord to plow the spots that you've left
untouched for years. You can give Him access to the
darkest corners of your life. You can get rid of all the
things that are keeping your spiritual life from being what
God wants it to be. And when you start seeing that
growth and what could be produced in your life, when you
actually give those things over to God, you'll be thrilled.
You'll be amazed at what God can do with your life if you give
Him access. Ephesians chapter 3 and verse
#20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think, according to the power that
worketh in US. Unto Him be glory in the church
throughout all ages, by Jesus Christ throughout all ages,
world without end. Amen.
That's our motivation, or at least it should be.
When our life produces fruit, it brings praise to the one who
cultivated it. Has has anybody ever walked into
a field that was producing beautiful ears of corn and said,
wow, this corn is so wonderful. I can't believe it planted
itself and grew up like this. Nobody ever says that because
everybody knows that it's not the corn that did it.
When you walk in the field and you say, wow, who planted this
man? They must have been a genius
when it comes to cultivation, and they must have been a genius
when it comes to fertilization and all of the different things
that are necessary. This is wonderful corn.
Who planted this? And that's exactly what happens
in the life of a Christian who is producing fruit.
They don't say, wow, look at that Christian.
He's such a wonderful person. Now, if we're doing it right,
all the glory belongs to him and our life will point others to
Christ because of the fruit that we're producing.
I heard a story about a famous painter, his name was Sir Edwin
Lancier. He was in the Victoria era when
he lived and painted, but he developed his talents very early
and actually at a young age, he had a lot of his paintings
showcased in the Royal Academy, but he was commissioned to do
all kinds of different things. He, he, he gave drawing lessons
to Queen Victoria, to Prince Albert.
I mean, this is the kind of famous guy that he was.
But he was best known for his depictions of the, the natural
life in the Scottish Highlands. And one day he was visiting a,
visiting a family in an old mansion in Scotland.
And one of the servants, as they were carrying the food out,
dropped an entire pitcher of soda water and it hit the ground
and it just splattered all over the wall.
And immediately they went and got rags and water and they
tried to wipe it, but it, it just, it left the stain on the
wall that they just, they couldn't get out.
And so they were trying to figure out what they were going
to do. I'm like, we're going to repaint
the wall that we're going to have to tear some of this out
and redo it. They just didn't know what they
were going to have to do. And so the family already had a
trip that was planned. And so they they left on that
trip. And while they were away, Edwin
Lands here, stayed behind. And he used a piece of charcoal
and he actually incorporated that giant stain into a huge
mural that he painted on the wall.
And when the family came back, they couldn't even remember
exactly where the stain was because there was so much beauty
around it and so much that he had actually been able to do in
incorporating that horrible stain into that canvas or the
wall that became a canvas. And you know, I think God works
much the same way in our lives. The things that we think our
weaknesses and handicaps, if we allow him to come in and do
something with it, can become our greatest strengths and the
very things that that he uses the most to bring glory to
himself. And that's what it's all about
anyway. God's grace can provide the
strength to meet every challenge, to overcome every
weakness, to help us be what he wants us to be.
If you aren't sure that you're on your way to heaven, if you've
never opened your heart up to the Lord to let Him come in and
save you, if you don't have that assurance that Jesus Christ is
your Savior, you need to get that settled today.
But if you do, and you know Christ is your Savior and you
know you're on your way to heaven, then what's holding you
back from living for Him? Won't you allow Him to go in and
break up that fallow ground? Are there areas in your life
that are unusable to God right now because you just haven't
given it over to Him? Are there large areas that you
haven't turned over to Him? Maybe you've given Him this
little corner and it's time that you surrender to be used by God.
Has there been a time when you've surrendered your life to
him? I'm not saying that you have to
say, oh, God's called me to preach.
I'm surrendering my life. That's the way we look at it
most of the time. Or God's calling me to the
mission field. I'm surrendering my life.
Now that ought to be something that we do every day.
There ought to be a moment in your life where you say, God,
this life is not mine. I'm surrendering it to you.
You do with my life what you want to do with my life.
It's yours. You can have it.
And then I take all the fences down around all of those fields
that I've built up for all of these years, and I say, God,
it's all yours. Break up the fallow ground.
Do what you need to do in that field.
It's yours. I want you to plant in it.
I want you to cultivate it. I want you to grow what you want
to grow in there. It's yours.
Have you surrendered your life to the Lord?
Oh, we put that focus on the kids.
Kids, you need to surrender your life to the Lord.
And I agree, they do. But what about the adults?
Have you surrendered your life to Him?
It's a scary thought. Oh, what if God calls me to the
mission field? What if He does?
Oh, what if God calls me to go do this?
What if He does? I've just got the safety of my
job and I've got this and I've got that, and if I surrender to
God and he calls me to go do something else, I just don't
know how, then you haven't. Surrendered.
And if you're not surrendered, then God can't use it.
If you haven't given every aspect over to Him, then you are
not surrendered. You've surrendered parts, but
you're not surrendered. So how about you this morning?
Got areas? Of your life.
That you need to turn over to the Lord.
Let him have things that you've been holding on to that you just
won't give him. I promise you, it's never going
to be valuable land until you give it over to Him.
And let him break up that fallow ground and let him use it in
your life. Let him do what he wants to do
with your life once you come. Submit to the plow this morning
so that God can use you, so that you can see growth in your life
that God so desperately desires for you.
Jeremiah and Hosea both reminded us, break up your fellow ground.
It's time to seek the Lord till He come and reign righteousness
upon you. That's what I want.
You want it, allow Him to do it. Surrender to Him and He will.
Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us and for an opportunity to be in your
word this morning and for the reminder that we have and, and
really the command that we have from your word to just to break
up that fallow ground to allow you to have access to it and use
it in a way that only you can. God, you have to speak to
hearts. You have to do the work.
We cannot do it. I can't do it.
You have to do it or there's conviction.
God, I pray that there would be decisions that are made to give
you access to every aspect of our life and may it be helpful
to us. Thank you again for all you do
for us in Jesus name, Amen. If you would stand at your seats
with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I want to give you
an opportunity to respond to the message this morning as the
piano plays. Invitations open, you come.