Recently I have heard men and women of God talking about the earnestness in their hearts to see true revival; a revival not conjured up by man, but a true move of God's Spirit sweeping across our land and ushering many souls into the Kingdom of God. I have felt the earnestness in my heart also, as God is sharing His burden with individuals who seek His face and calling them to pray fervently for revival for our nation.

At Mt. Zion Church of the Holy Spirit, we have been gathering on Tuesday nights to pray for the body of Christ because we know true revival must start in our own hearts. We have been praying that God would give His body such a fresh hunger for Him, and with this fresh hunger, He would probe deep into our hearts and reveal those things that hinder Him from drawing near to His people in the way that He desires. We are praying for the weary, that God would lift all weariness and heaviness and rekindle a fresh fire in the hearts of those who feel oppressed in spirit. We are praying for the complacent, that God would convict us of any complacency and renew a thirst in our hearts for the living God. We have seen God answer these prayers, gently placing His finger on things that have lain dormant in our hearts, and as we have repented with sincere hearts, we have tasted in a small part the fresh bread of His presence and how God truly wants to pour Himself out upon His people.

Recently God has really been speaking to my heart from Hosea 10:12, which is a revival Scripture. Hosea 10:12 — “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 rain righteousness upon you.” Through this Scripture God is speaking to His church body, "It is time to set your hearts to seek the Lord, allowing the Spirit of God to reveal and plow up the fallow areas of your hearts. I desire to sow My word deep into your hearts and bring forth an abundant harvest for My glory and honor."

Hearing this word from the Lord, let us ask a question: What is fallow ground? Fallow ground is soil that has hardened to the point that it cannot receive seed. Fallow ground is ground that has become very dry, rigid and hard. What we need to understand is that fallow ground lies on the surface, and if you plow deep enough, underneath there is rich, fertile soil that has the capability of producing a rich and bountiful harvest. Through this Scripture the Lord is instructing the body of Christ that those areas in our hearts that have become callous, it is time to plow it up so He can sow the seed of His word into rich, fertile soil that will produce good fruit in our lives.

WHAT IS THIS FALLOW GROUND THAT CAUSES THE SEED OF GOD'S WORD TO BE UNFRUITFUL IN OUR HEARTS?

In Matthew 13, Jesus gives us a parable of a sower who went out to sow seed. He talks about the different types of ground the sower planted his seed in, and was likening that ground to the heart. In verse 18, He begins to explain the parable and how it relates to the heart. Matthew 13:18, 19 — “Here ye therefore the parable of the sower. When one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in the heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.”

Here, Jesus is saying that there are ears that hear His word, but the heart truly does not understand His word. Meditating on this, God began to speak to my heart about passiveness, that sometimes when we become too familiar with church services, too familiar with His presence, too familiar with sitting and hearing sermons preached, a passiveness can slip into our hearts. When this happens, we can go through the motions of the church service, but God truly does not have our attention. When passiveness has gotten into our hearts, we can hear the word, even understand it with our minds, but the depth of the word is not penetrating our hearts.

The deceitful thing about passiveness is that it is so subtle; passiveness can be slipping into our hearts and we do not even recognize it. Passiveness can be bringing a callousness to our hearts and we do not even see that it is happening. How we can recognize it is by understanding that passiveness has everything to do with focus. One of the evidences that we are becoming passive is that we have come to the place where we sit in services, but we are allowing our minds to be distracted by other things. For example, we sit in a service, yet, our minds are continually focused on our problems; we are thinking more about our problems than staying focused on Christ.

When we become passive, our hearts become calloused and our soil becomes fallow. Matthew 13:19 — “then cometh the wicked one.” Mark 4:15 says it this way, “Satan cometh…” This tells me that Satan is looking for a passive heart because he desires to steal the depth of God’s word from our hearts. How does he do this? In Matthew 13:19, the word “cometh” in the Greek language means “to come,” but just as much so, it means “to bring; to bring something.”

When our hearts have become passive Satan will bring a false peace to assure us that since we are hearing the word with our ears, it is bearing fruit in our hearts. This is the danger of having a passive heart; Satan can so easily persuade us that the seed of God’s word is falling on good soil, but in reality, it is falling on fallow ground.

FAMILIARITY IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT BREEDS TRADITION!

When we become too familiar with God and the things of God, and a passiveness comes in, church becomes a repetitive ceremony without any life. Why? Tradition kills the power of God’s word! Matthew 15:6 — “…thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.” The word “effect” means powerful. Jesus is saying tradition renders God’s word powerless in our hearts! This is why people can year after year sit through sermon after sermon and not be changed! This is why individuals, service after service, can walk up to the pastor after the service is over, shake his hand and say, “that was a good sermon”, but leave unchanged! It is because sitting in a pew and listening to good sermons has just become a tradition.

WHAT IS THE REMEDY FOR PASSIVENESS?

Revelation 3:15 —“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” Here Jesus is speaking to the church of Laodicea because they have become lukewarm. He tells them that He would rather have them cold or hot rather than being lukewarm. In our hearts we know that Jesus is really speaking to them that He wants them hot, that He wishes their hearts were aflame for Him. When I think of a lukewarm Christian, I think of one that has become passive. What is the remedy for passiveness? Being on fire for God! Being at that place where God so consumes our affections and focus! When I come to church, which is His house where the body of believers meet together, He so consumes my focus! When I shut my eyes and lift my hands to worship, He so consumes my focus! When I hear His word being preached, He so consumes my focus! Wherever I am at in the will of God, Christ so consumes my focus!

Matthew 13:22 — “He that also received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.” Many Christians live righteous lives, and we are not going to walk in the lusts of our flesh or bow to the deceitfulness of riches, so how does this apply to us today? Sometimes when we have been walking with God for a time, old ambitions can crop back up into our hearts, that we find ourselves embracing things in our hearts that we once surrendered to the Lord in order to embrace His will for our lives. There are many saints who have walked in God’s perfect will for a time, but somewhere down the path they went back to an old ambition they had once given over to the Lord.

Mark 4:19 says it this way: “and the lusts for other things, entering in, choke the word…” When I hear the words, “choke the word,” I can not help but to think of clutter, that things come in and clutter up our lives until it chokes the word sown into our hearts; in other words, we fill our lives and hearts with so many things that God’s word is not bearing fruit like it should. How do we clutter our lives? We can be walking in the perfect will of God and take old ambitions and try to cram them in somewhere. Because we are cluttering up our lives by trying to fulfill both God’s perfect will and our own personal ambitions, this leads to great frustration. We need to simplify our lives again by renewing our focus on Christ’s will and cutting everything else loose that is distracting us from His calling. Philippians 3:13 — “but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” When I accepted God’s call to pastor, there were things that I had to put on the altar-not bad things-but things that would distract me from the call of God. Sometimes even now these things try to rise up again. I catch myself pondering over them, and I have to surrender them again because if I do not, they will take root in my heart. I love being a pastor; I love being in the perfect will of God. I do no want the soil of my heart to become fallow because I have embraced something God told me to surrender.

Matthew 13:20, 21 — “But he that receiveth seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” The first thing I want us to notice about this passage of scripture is the seed is falling on stony ground, that is, the word is falling upon a stony heart, a heart that is hard. You would not know it is a hard heart because there is joy being seen in that person regarding the word. This person comes out of church with a big smile on their face, talking excitedly about the sermon or teaching they just heard. The evidence that the heart is hard is that this person is offended by the word when tribulation occurs. Jesus tells us the reason why they are offended is because the word has not really taken root in their heart. The question we have to ask is, how do we allow God’s word to take root in our hearts? By letting God’s word truly deal with the issues of our hearts. By allowing God, by His word, to plow up those things that are causing our hearts to be hard.

Here is what I really want us to see regarding this truth: there have been believers who for a time, some even a very long time, have yielded their hearts to the word of God, allowing God’s word to work in their hearts. Somewhere down the path, a resentment has set into their hearts, and instead of giving it to the Lord, they allowed it to sit in the heart and it has made their hearts hard again. The heart has become bitter, angry and resentful. A heart that was once pliable to God’s word has become hard and spiteful. We need to know that it is not impossible for someone with a soft heart to become hard in heart again. Beloved, we need to realize that if we have resentment in our heart in any capacity, no matter how we try to justify or excuse it, this resentment is not from the Lord. If we allow it to stay, we have hardened our hearts to His word. God’s word says to love our enemies, to forgive those who have trespassed against us, and if we have wronged someone, to make it right by asking forgiveness. God’s grace is available to help us do these things. If we disobey His word, we are hardening our hearts to His word.

According to Jesus, when we harden our hearts to God’s word, what are the consequences? Matthew 13:21 — “for when persecution or tribulation ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” The Greek word for offended is "skandalizo", and it means “to be entrapped.” Because we have hardened our hearts to the word, when tribulations and persecutions come, we become trapped in our bitterness, in our unbelief, in our fear, in our hopelessness, and in our depression. When tribulations occur, many Christians wonder why they can not get out of the pit of fear and depression. It is because they have hardened their heart to God’s word and it did not take root in their hearts.

What is the solution to a hard heart? Matthew 13:23 —“But he that receiveth seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Meditating upon this scripture in prayer, the Lord asked me this question: “Do you know what good ground is? Good ground is a tender heart.” When a heart is tender toward the Lord the seed of His word can go deep and bear precious fruit.

2 Kings 22:10-12, 18, 19 — “Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or the left…But the king of Judah which sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall ye say to him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, As touching the words which thou hast heard; Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should be a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord.”

These scriptures tell us that Josiah became king over Israel and that he had a desire in his heart to do what was right in God’s sight, to please the Lord, and to order the kingdom in a way that honored God. 2 Kings 22 says that King Josiah sent men to repair God’s temple because it had been neglected by past kings, and in doing so the high priest found the book of the law and read it to King Josiah. Josiah rent his clothes and wept before the Lord because he knew his people were living in disobedience to God’s word. God then sent a prophetess to Josiah to comfort his heart. This is what I want us to see: God told Josiah that he had a tender and humble heart toward the Lord and toward the word of God. Because his heart was tender, God could speak to this man and His word went deep into his heart.

Not long ago in a church prayer meeting, I was praying quietly within myself when I heard someone crying out to the Lord, “Dear Jesus, I yearn for a tender heart! I want my heart to be soft in your hands so you can speak to me and I can hear your word! Oh God, I ask you to protect my heart that it might always be tender and open to your word!” In my spirit I heard the voice of God cry out with an excitement and an intensity, “Yes! This is what I desire! This is what I yearn for! I yearn to have a people who yearn to have a tender heart so I can speak to them and they will hear!” Since that evening this has been a fervent cry from my own heart, to have a heart that is soft and tender before God, not proud or haughty, but humble and meek, so I can hear the gentle voice of our Lord when He wants to speak to me.

Beloved, it is a tender heart that is fertile. It is a tender heart that possesses soft, rich soil that God can plant His seed into and bring an abundance of fruit to His glory. Let us be that people who truly search our hearts and allow God to plow up those fallow places in our hearts so His word can go deep and bring much fruit that will bring Him great glory. John 15:8 — “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” God be praised!