Bunbury
Sun am
17/07/2011
“The call of the ploughman”
Intro: *** Yesterday at the in-laws I did something I had never done b/4 ….. at least not w/ a machine. I ploughed some ground for my father in-law w/ a rotary hoeing machine. At first I found it quite a task to control & manoeuvre the machine but after a bit of perseverance I got the hang of it. B/4 too long there was a patch of ground all freshly ploughed& rid of the things that prevented the soil from being fruitful.
This pict is one we see in the Bible ….. the ground / soil needing ploughed is the soil of our hearts.
The pict in the W.o.G. id that of ground that had b/co so calloused that it can no longer even sustain life.
Effectively Gods says …… when I look into the hearts of men, that’s what I see!
Fortunately its not a hopeless situation, there is hope for hearts that are getting to the point where they will no longer even sustain life.
When we think about your heart God says that its His plan to make a place that is teaming w/ life & fruitfulness.
Speaking about just such a heart in the parable of the sower Jesus says that its His will for the soil of your heart to be fertile & in such good condition that it would abound in fruitfulness.
Matthew 13:23 ( NKJV ) 23But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
For our hearts but also the hearts of others to b/co like fields that abound w/ fruitfulness there is going to have to be a serious commitment to the ploughing of the soil.
This is something that you personally are going to have to make a commitment to.
I want to preach a sermon t/m on ‘The call of the ploughman’.
Text: Hosea 10:12 ( NKJV ) 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
# 1. The soil we plough.
A. The first field we plough is the soil of our own hearts.
a. The term the Bible uses to speak to soil that won’t bear / produce fruit is ‘fallow’.
i. When the Bible refers to fallow ground it is speaking about the condition of a human heart.
ii. That’s b/c the heart like soil left to itself goes through a process of hardening!
iii. Left to itself ground b/co covered in weeds, b/co compacted & develops all kinds of problems that make it unable to bear fruit – it b/co worse off, not better off.
Hebrews 3:12-13 ( NKJV ) 12Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
iv. This is something that doesn’t just happen in a single day but over a period of time.
b. What hardens our hearts is sin & unbelief.
i. The writer of Hebrews here is speaking to Christian people, people who go to church & believe in God.
ii. Think about it! How do we define unbelief?
iii. To answer that question ….. what is belief? Believing / belief as we all know is not just hearing & agreeing w/ the Word but also doing the Word.
James 1:22 ( NKJV ) 22But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
iv. So if this is true it means that unbelief is to hear the Word & not do it!
c. You can’t be a believer if you haven’t even heard the truth to begin w/.
i. But if you hear the truth continually & don’t do it / obey it you b/co hardened to that truth.
ii. Think about the definition of hardened …….. it lit = to make indurate / stubborn / harsh insensitive.
*** There is a story about a man by the name of Herecles a Greek man who was so fat that he would pass out from eating! His physicians to try to wake him would take skewers & push them into the fat trying to find a nerve & wake him from his unconsciousness.
The problem w/ Herecles was that he had b/co so fat that he had lost much of his sensitivity / feeling.
iii. The other definition of hardened is the thought of ‘unimpressionable’ – just like plasticine can be taken & moulded / impressed into certain shapes & forms your heart can lose this ability.
iv. Through familiarity / unbelief we b/co so unimpressionable that we harden & lose our ability to change.
v. On the day Peter preached his Pentecost sermon the Bible says these words ….
Acts 2:37 ( KJV ) 37Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
vi. A heart that has b/co hardened loses this ability to be pricked & the fallow ground must be broken up!
B. But God also calls us to plough in the soil of other people’s hearts.
a. We need to u/s that you’ll never plough in this field unless you first plough in your own field.
i. In other words you can’t hope to be instrumental in ploughing the ground of other people’s hearts unless you have broken up your own fallow ground.
ii. How can we expect the fallow ground of other hearts to be broken up if it is left to itself?
iii. I wonder how many unploughed fields we walk past every day???
iv. What I’m talking about is people we walk past / talk to / meet / associate w/ ….. but as far as the gospel is concerned they are unploughed!
v. How many unploughed lives do we come into contact w/ every day w/o ever bringing them into contact w/ the ploughshare of prayer / evangelism / testimony or a righteous character?
vi. I wonder how many lives will never be ploughed w/ the hope of bringing forth eternal life simply b/c we are indifferent.
Proverbs 24:30-31 ( NKJV ) 30 I went by the field of the lazy man, And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; 31 And there it was, all overgrown with thorns; Its surface was covered with nettles…….
b. The Bible teaches us that the world is the harvest field in which God plans to harvest a crop.
Matthew 13:38 ( NKJV ) 38The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.
i. Got any fields you’re working on / ploughing in right now? …. Been ploughing any hearts lately w/ your prayers?
ii. Have you got any plans to prepare some soil that would bring forth a rich harvest?
# 2. The method of our ploughing.
A. The first & most impt ploughing is the ploughing done through repentance.
a. Repentance is basically the revelation that there are things in your life that need to be removed.
i. Think about this in relation to the parable of the sower …… Jesus reveals to us 4 different kinds of soil which are really 4 different kinds of heart.
ii. Firstly – the wayside soil which is unploughed / uncultivated – in this soil the seed doesn’t even get into the soil – it is devoured!
iii. Secondly – the soil that is loaded w/ thorns & the Bible tells us that the thorns choked the seed & it died – think about that! Things that choke god’s word & it dies!!!
iv. Next – there was the stony soil …. So inhibited by rocks that there wasn’t enough soil & nutrients for anything to grow –this is the crowded heart!
b. There are things that get buried in the soil of our hearts that will have to be removed.
i. Like any soil over a period of there are things that fill it / encumber it that have to be removed.
*** While I was ploughing yesterday there were a number of times when the machine grabbed something & took off towing me behind it. Whenever this happened I knew that I had come across a root / rock / piece of wood buried beneath the ground that needed to be removed. As soon as I found one of these I would call out to Coral & she would come over w/ a pitchfork & remove it.
ii. We need to wield the pitchfork of repentance against the encumbrances in the soil of our hearts.
iii. Repentance removes things from the heart that can’t be removed by any other means.
iv. We plough / cleanse & prepare good soil which is ready to produce abundant fruit by digging the plough of repentance into the soil of our hearts again & again.
Matt 3:8 (NLT) Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins & turned to God.
B. We also plough through prayer.
a. More than anything else prayer is the work of ploughing & breaking up soil.
i. The hearts of men / women are hardened to the gospel of Jesus Christ & TBS as a result of that hardness they bring wrath upon th/s.
Romans 2:5 ( NKJV ) 5But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
ii. Through prayer things are being broken …..prayer is the unseen / unheard & in many cases the unknown that tills the soil of unconverted / rebellious hearts.
*** Jim Cymbala praying for his daughter who rebelled & got into drugs. After praying for an extended time for her one morning he came down stairs into his kitchen where his daughter fell to the floor & clutched his leg weeping.
iii. Her heart had been ploughed through prayer & he reaped the harvest after many months….. you can do the same thing!
C. The heart soil is ploughed when we preach.
a. Think about this powerful truth – words have the power to change hearts / lives.
i. Consider one of the most magnificent examples of this truth …..
Jonah 3:4-5 ( NKJV ) 4And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
ii. Here is an entire city filled w/ heathen in rebellion against God!
iii. Their hearts / lifestyle so disgusted God that He came to the conclusion that He would need to annihilate the entire city….
iv. But b/4 He did he sent Jonah into the city to plough their hearts w/ preaching….. this b/ca one of the greatest revivals, simply b/c they were ploughed through preaching.
b. You need to pay close attention to this all impt work.
i. Firstly – the ploughing of your own heart through preaching – every time you come in & hear the preaching there is an impt work taking place in your heart.
ii. It is not something we should approach lightly / flippantly / frivolously!
iii. We need to recognise that if we don’t allow the preaching to plough deep into the soil of our hearts that some things may never be removed rendering you barren / lifeless / dead.
iv. We need to realise that God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to make the hearts of men fruitful.
# 3. The outcome of our ploughing.
A. We plough for a harvest!
a. Unless you can see the long range goal of your ploughing you’ll lose hope / interest.
i. The one things you’ve got to keep in focus day by day is the promise of harvest.
ii. That’s what God promises to us through the prophet Hosea – the promise that if you plough you’ll also reap a harvest.
Vs 12. Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
iii. We plough the ground / soil but God promises to bring the increase from our labours.
1 Corinthians 3:6-7 ( NKJV ) 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
7So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
b. Ploughing can be very unrewarding work.
i. That’s why we have to labour w/ a heart of faith – listen here to what th apostle Paul says to men in the midst of ploughing His fields.
1 Corinthians 9:10 ( NKJV ) 10 ……. he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.
*** 2009 – 2010 Australian wheat harvest produced some 21.7 million tons of wheat. But long b/4 there was a harvest men / women committed to climbing on board tractors in hot dusty conditions & ploughing bare paddocks in the hope of a harvest.
Next time you eat some bread remember you are eating that bread b/c someone first committed th/s to the often thankless work of ploughing in a bare paddock!
B. The harvest God brings in is as a direct result to our ploughing.
a. God knows that the increase of harvest is out of our hands.
i. That’s His business as Paul says ….. but God brings the increase!
ii. But the blessing of increase is directly proportionate to the faith of our ploughing.
iii. What God is interested in is our faith in the labour to which He calls us.
Genesis 26:12 ( NKJV ) 12Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him.
iv. Isaac sowed in that land which means that he first ploughed in a dry / desolate / famine stricken land Isaac went about the business of ploughing / preparing the soil & God blessed him.
v. I wonder what God might bring forth in a dry desolate / spiritually unyielding place if we’ll just plough.
Hosea 10:12 (CEV) Plow your fields, scatter seeds of justice, and harvest faithfulness. Worship Me the Lord, and I will send my saving power down like rain.
