Preparing for Revival

I reckon it was about 25 years ago when I took a group of men from my church, who I was discipling at the time, and we went through Charles Finney's Lectures on Revival. I made sure every one of those 14 men had a copy of that book as we studied it, and as we met each week. And I saw something astonishing transpire as I watched God begin to deal with those men as they prepared their hearts to have a personal revival, as they got honest before God.

I think the key work was done in their lives when those men began to break up the fallow ground of their hearts through an examination of their inward and outward lives before God as that group of men came under conviction of sin and one by one did business with God. In the book of Hosea, in chapter 10 and verse 12, we read, So 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. I remember Finney describing what it meant to break up the fallow ground.

I have my old dog-eared copy of that book before me, and I want to read you, friends, some of Finney's words as he speaks about having a personal revival. He wrote, The Jews were a nation of farmers. Scripture, therefore, calmly draws illustrations from that line of work, and from scenes farmers and shepherds would know well.

So when the prophet Hosea addresses Israel as a nation of backsliders, reproving their idolatry and threatening them with the judgments of God, he uses fallow ground as his illustration. Fallow ground is ground once formed, but which now lies waste. It must be broken up again before it is ready to be planted.

And then Charles Finney goes on to describe what it means to break up the fallow ground in regard to our spiritual lives. He continues, To break up the ground is to break up your hearts, to prepare your minds to bring forth fruit to God. The Bible often compares the human mind to ground and the word of God to seed sown in it.

The fruit represents the actions and desires of those who receive it. To break up the fallow ground, then, is to bring the mind into a state where it is fitted to receive the word of God. Sometimes your heart becomes matted down, hardened dry, and fallen to waste.

It will bear no fruit until it is broken up, ready to receive the word of God. It is the softening of the heart, making it feel the truth, which the prophet calls breaking up your fallow ground. Well, I will stop there, friends.

What Finney is saying is that as believers, God can't use us as he desires to, if we've allowed ourselves to grow cold towards the things of eternal worth. When our bank accounts and investment portfolios are of a purely selfish nature, while the world waits to hear the gospel, if we have become hardened and insensitive to the souls of men who perish into the regions of hell, then it is time to turn back to God from our backsliding, and break up the fallow ground of our hearts, and get on our hearts what is on God's heart. People perish all around us, and we won't care about their souls if our hearts are matted over and unbroken over the things that break the heart of God.

Let me ask you, friend, what area of your walk with God has been lying waste? Where do you need to break up the fallow ground of your love relationship with Jesus? I believe God gets serious with those who get serious with him. His word declares so in Malachi, return to me, and I will return to you. Where is the fallow ground of a hardened heart between us and God? Personal revival comes before corporate revival, and corporate revival precedes a national spiritual awakening.

Big things can happen if we are willing to give God the grown-over waste areas of our lives which hinder his work through us. The freshly plowed ground of a heart given back to the lordship of Christ is given proper preeminence to Christ himself. He deserves where proper plowing has been done by the search and spotlight of the Holy Spirit as he shines conviction on areas of our lives that we need to give over wholly to God.

Then the work of God in our lives will abundantly blossom and bear fruit as we walk with our God and on broken fellowship with him. I saw God move in the lives of those men 25 years ago as they became honest with God about the sin areas of their lives. I remember in particular I got a telephone call at midnight from a wife of one of the men begging me to come over to their house immediately as her husband was beside himself.

When I got there I found the man crumpled over an easy chair in their den, his face wet and stained by his tears under conviction of sin. That man was getting serious with God and God was getting serious with that man. After praying with him and counseling him, I left the happy couple as the wife now had her husband back as the spiritual head of the home.

Listen to me, friends. We all need personal revival from time to time in a fresh encounter with a holy God and a risen Christ. Maybe it's time, friend, you got along with God to break up the fallow ground of your heart for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you.

Let us pray.