PLOW YOUR HARD HEART
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
-[Hosea]
-There is an old, traditional proverb that says: IF YOU LIVE IN A GRAVEYARD TOO LONG YOU STOP CRYING WHEN SOMEONE DIES.
~That sounds creeps, but what it’s trying to convey is that if you are constantly bombarded with something, you become desensitized to it. It literally means that if you are constantly exposed to death, then eventually you become desensitized and it doesn’t bother you anymore, it doesn’t move you anymore.
-Another thought or illustration might be the trope that is given on TV shows that if you expose yourself to tiny amounts of poison then you build an immunity to it and when exposed to the poison it has no affect on you. That’s TV and I don’t know if that can actually happen in real life, and I’m not about to test that theory out, and I would suggest you don’t either.
-But what these sayings and illustrations are describing for us is that if we allow ourselves to be constantly and consistently exposed to that which is bad for us, we become so immune and desensitized to the bad that it doesn’t even phase us anymore. It may or may not be true for death or poison, but I guarantee you it is true with sin.
-The biblical description of this desensitization is having a hard heart. When the heart is openly exposed to sin without any sort of spiritual guard around the heart, the heart becomes more and more desensitized to sin to a point where it doesn’t even phase us anymore and we’re blinded to the sin that then expresses itself in our life. Imagine a blue-collar worker who constantly works with his hands—his hands become calloused to the rough work. Whereas when he first started the job his hands would hurt from the work, eventually they are toughened and they no longer ache at the exposure to that work.
-The heart becomes hardened and callous to sin with constant unguarded exposure, and it’s not just that it no longer moves us, we then have no problem joining in some of it because we are no longer sensitive to its seriousness. And why this is important to us today is that this hardness of heart not only refers to unbelievers, but it is also used of God’s people—even in the New Testament it is said that the disciples had hard hearts.
-And I believe this is where much of the church is today—even me. The Israelites faced the same thing, and God spoke to them through the prophets to warn them that their hearts needed to change. And God used Hosea to warn His people, and the prophet used a certain picture / metaphor for the need to do something about that hard heart. I want us to consider that picture and consider what we need to do to change the hardness of heart that I am sure we all have so that we are able to effectively do the work God has set before us.
11 Ephraim was a well-trained heifer who loved to thresh grain; I myself put a fine yoke on her neck. I will harness Ephraim. Let Judah plow! Let Jacob break up the unplowed ground for himself!
12 Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap unfailing love. Break up the unplowed ground for yourselves, for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers deliverance on you.
13 But you have plowed wickedness; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your chariots; you have relied on your many warriors.
-[pray]
-The Jews were very much an agricultural society and it was common for God to use pictures and illustrations from that familiar area to give them spiritual truths. I want to take that picture and apply it to us today.
1) The need to plow our hearts
1) The need to plow our hearts
-Here God wants them to picture that it hasn’t rained for months in the land, and the ground where they would plant their crops has become rock solid. They can’t just throw seed on that ground and expect it to produce fruit because it can’t get into the ground to grow. The Israelites were not producing spiritual fruit because their hearts were as solid as the drought-ridden land. Imagine it hadn’t rained in Alabama for a few months—that Alabama red clay would be harder than your cement driveway or paved street.
-And God through Hosea is saying that is the heart of His people. In v. 11 God says that this people was specially chosen by God to do His work on the earth. Ephraim represents the northern kingdom and Judah represents the southern kingdom. They were God’s chosen people who were to sow and reap righteousness, and when they did they would see God’s unfailing love and faithfulness. But instead of sowing that which was good and God-pleasing, according to v. 13 they plowed wickedness and reaped injustice, eating the fruit of deception, trusting in their own ways and doing their own thing.
-They were a bunch of idolatrous people who followed the gods of the heathens, and that is then the worldview that informed their lifestyle. And it was this sin that hardened their heart toward God and His Word. They were completely opened to the sins of the pagans, and completely closed to the things of God. They had exposed themselves to the wickedness of the world, and it desensitized them to the sin that they committed.
-And just as God’s chosen people Israel had allowed their hearts to be so hardened to the things of God due to idolatry and sin, the church in our day is in the same exact boat. You cannot help but think of the parable that Jesus spoke because this is exactly what He was talking about.
3 He told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.
4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.
5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil. They sprang up quickly because the soil was not deep.
6 But when the sun came up, they were scorched, and because they did not have sufficient root, they withered.
7 Other seeds fell among the thorns, and they grew up and choked them.
8 But other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.
9 The one who has ears had better listen!”
-And then Jesus gave the explanation:
18 “So listen to the parable of the sower:
19 When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches what was sown in his heart; this is the seed sown along the path.
20 The seed sown on rocky ground is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
21 But he has no root in himself and does not endure; when trouble or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away.
22 The seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth choke the word, so it produces nothing.
23 But as for the seed sown on good soil, this is the person who hears the word and understands. He bears fruit, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.”
-The seed is the Word of God and there is soil in which the seed is able to take root and grow and produce fruit, but then there is soil where the seed is unable to penetrate and it become fruitless. Hosea is saying to Israel: your heart is hard to the Word of God and it has caused you to become spiritually fruitless. Instead of love and righteousness growing, you are producing nothing but the weeds of wickedness and injustice. The Word of God can’t get into your hearts because its harder than Alabama red clay on a 100 degree day after months of no rain.
-And as much as the soil in Jesus’ parable is the hearts of unbelievers, Christians also need to take stock of their own hearts because their hearts can become just as hard. There are people who come to the church service and they are lost but they go through the motions of church and Christianity, but their hearts are hard to the Word of God and the gospel will not penetrate. They think that they are saved, but they’re not because they really couldn’t give two hoots about God and Christ and the Kingdom.
-But then, there are Christians who are truly saved, but they haven’t been in the Word like they should or been praying like they should, and they’re out in the world constantly filling themselves up with the things of the world. Or, they’ve become so bitter and angry they’ve closed themselves off from God’s Word getting in and doing a work. And their hearts are just as hard as the unbelievers so the Word of God cannot penetrate and they don’t grow or mature and they certainly do not bear any spiritual fruit. We have to deal with both within the visible church.
-But God tells everyone to do the same thing. God says in v. 12 of the Hosea passage: BREAK UP THE UNPLOWED GROUND (FALLOW GROUND) FOR YOURSELVES, FOR IT IS TIME TO SEEK THE LORD UNTIL HE COMES AND SHOWERS DELIVERANCE ON YOU. Break up your hard heart. If your heart is so hard that God’s word can’t be planted there, then take a plow and break that hard ground up so that the ground is soft enough to receive seed and give it good ground to grow. Plow your heart to make it ready to receive the Word of God so that it grows and bears fruit.
-And there are some here who listen to what I’m saying and thinking: that’s right pastor, the church in America is in sad shape, and you need to go get them. Or, you’re thinking about that person on the other side of the church and thinking, go get ‘em pastor, they need to plow their heart. But I’m talking about you…and I’m talking about me.
-There are people here who have played footsie with sin for years and the Word of God can’t do anything in you because your heart is hard. There are people here trapped in bitterness and anger because you’ve felt hurt or slighted by someone and refuse to release it, so your heart is hard and the Word of God can bear no fruit in you. There are people here who are worldly and the Word of God can’t get in to mature you and grow you. And God says the same thing to all of you and me today PLOW YOUR HEART. Stop making excuses. Stop blaming other people. You worry about you and PLOW YOUR HEART. But so and so did such and such. It doesn’t matter PLOW YOUR HEART. But, this thing I do is harmless, it won’t hurt me. NO! PLOW YOUR HEART! But, I love a life of comfort and ease. NO! PLOW YOUR HEART!
-This church and God’s kingdom will not move forward if we don’t PLOW OUR HEARTS. But how?
2) The means of plowing our hearts
2) The means of plowing our hearts
-Plowing the heart is not a matter of just trying to come up with the right emotions or feelings. It is not a matter of trying to fake a spiritual experience or go through religious motions. It isn’t buckling down and just trying harder to be moral or ethical. Hosea in v. 10 says to seek the Lord, but if we are to do that we have to get rid of the barrier that we erected between us and God. Hosea’s contemporary, Isaiah, tells us:
1 Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak to deliver you; his ear is not too deaf to hear you.
2 But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God; your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers.
3 For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with sin; your lips speak lies, your tongue utters malicious words.
4 No one is concerned about justice; no one sets forth his case truthfully. They depend on false words and tell lies; they conceive of oppression and give birth to sin.
-The sin that hardened our heart is the barrier that sits between us and God, and only God is able to soften the hard heart. God said through the prophet Ezekiel:
26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.
-And so, we seek the Lord for a new heart first through salvation through Jesus Christ. Believe in Jesus and be made new.
17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come!
-But after you have come to Christ, if you have not guarded your heart, and sin has hardened your heart toward the things of God, you need to confess and repent, and through your confession and repentance God will soften your hearts and make it fertile ground for His Word to flourish within you. The prophet Ezekiel told us:
31 Throw away all your sins you have committed and fashion yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why should you die, O house of Israel?
-And, if we seek Him through confession and repentance—agreeing with God that our sin is sin and we throw that sin away—we are given this promise:
9 But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.
-If we are to confess and repent and take away the barriers and seek God to plow our hearts out of their hardness, we have to do a thorough examination of our heart and mind and be truthful with what we find. It is no longer time to sugar coat what we do and think or the sinful attitudes we hold. It is no longer time to keep blaming other people for our sinful attitudes or words. It is no longer time to make excuses for why we allow sin and the world to have their way with us. It’s time to get real with some self-examination. As one preacher of old stated it:
Examine thoroughly the state of your hearts, and see where you are: whether you are walking with God every day, or with the devil; whether you are serving God or serving the devil most; whether you are under the dominion of the prince of darkness, or of the Lord Jesus Christ. To do all this, you must set yourself to work to consider your sins. You must examine yourselves.
Self-examination consists in looking at your lives, in considering your actions... and learning its true character. … Take up your individual sins one by one, and look at them. I do not mean that you should just cast a glance at your past life, and see that it has been full of sins, and then go to God and make a sort of general confession, and ask for pardon. That is not the way. You must take them up one by one. Get a pen and paper and write them down as you remember them. Go over them as carefully as a merchant goes over his books and as often as a sin comes before your memory, add it the list. General confessions of sin will never do. Your sins were committed one by one; and as they come to you, review and repent of them one by one. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you your ... sins.
-So, in this self-examination, what do we look for? I can only name a few, but a list that I have adapted from others includes confession and repentance for:
1. Ingratitude. Confess all the times you can remember where you have received favors from God and others for which you have never expressed gratitude or thankfulness.
2. Lack of love to God. Think of how hurt you would be if your own family didn’t love you, and how often we show no love for God whom we are to love with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
3. Neglect of the Bible. It’s not just that you don’t read it, but even if you do read it you do it to check a box and not learn from it.
4. Unbelief. Think about this—when you don’t trust God at His word, what you’re claiming is that He’s a liar, that He won’t fulfill His word or promises.
5. Neglect of prayer. How grieved would you be if your family didn’t talk with you for weeks on end, and yet we won’t talk with God.
6. Neglect of church. We are told not to forsake the assembly, and yet we come up with every excuse to do just that
7. Lack of love for souls. When was the last time you prayed that a soul be saved or shared with someone how they could be saved? As a pastor recently put it: If God came to you today and told you He would grant every prayer you’ve prayed this week, how many people would be saved?
8. Not guarding your heart. How have you left your heart unguarded so all manner of sin can enter in and take residence there?
9. Neglect of self-denial. We are told to take up our cross and deny ourselves, yet how many of us live for our own pleasure and the luxuries of life rather than being willing to suffer for the sake of the Lord.
10. Worldly mindedness. Let’s be honest, do we love the world and the things of the world more than we love God? Where you spend your time and resources will answer that one.
11. Pride. We may not say it our loud, but we think more highly of ourselves (and more often about ourselves) than we do the Lord. How often are you more concerned about how you look to others than how your soul looks to God?
12. Envy. How often do you concern yourself with what others have and you don’t have rather than being grateful for what God provided?
13. Bitterness. How often would rather hold a grudge than forgive from the heart?
14. Slander and gossip. How many times have you spoken behind people's backs of the real or supposed faults of members of the Church or others
15. Lying. How many times have we told anything but the naked truth without any flourishes or exaggerations, on top of outright untruths?
16. Hypocrisy. How often do you pretend to be one way, when in the times you are alone or around close acquaintances you act a completely different way? How often do you put on an act of Christianity, but then lived like the world?
17. Robbing God. Think of the instances in which you have misspent your time, your talents, and your treasures using them on self rather than using what God has given you for His kingdom purposes.
Conclusion
Conclusion
-And I have barely scratched the surface. Church, we are a people of hard hearts and it is time to plow our hard hearts so that God’s Word can have it’s way with us. You wonder why there is so little power in the church. You blame it on weak programs in the church. You blame it on uninspiring sermons. You blame it on this, that, and the other things without even considering that it might be your hard heart that is holding the church back. As one preacher of old put it:
Preaching will do no good to you while your hearts are hardened.... The farmer might just as well sow his grain on the rock. It will bring forth no fruit. This is the reason why there are so many fruitless [people] in the church and [so] little of the power of godliness.
If you go on in this way, the word of God will [actually] continue to harden you, and you will grow worse and worse, just as the rain and snow on an old fallow field makes the turf thicker and the clods stronger.
See why so much preaching is wasted, and worse than wasted. It is because the church will not break up their fallow ground. A preacher may wear out his life and do very little good, while there are so many stony-ground hearers who have never had their fallow ground broken up. They are only half converted and their religion is rather a change of opinion than a change of the feeling of their hearts.
-If you want to see the power of God at work, Christian, come to the altar and begin the work of seeking God, confessing and repenting, plowing that hard ground of a heart you have.
-But you have to begin by believing that Christ died for your sins. Come forward today and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
-Still others of you have waited too long to connect yourself with a church membership. Join this church family and serve God...
