May God be pleased to bless us
together this morning as we consider his word. Let's turn to the prophecy
of Hosea chapter 10 and we'll read verse 12. Hosea's prophecy
chapter 10 and reading verse 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." Hosea had a message. He was a prophet of the Lord.
And most of the prophecies, in fact probably all of the prophecies
which we read were not written when Israel were on the mountaintop,
but rather the reverse. They were down in the valley
and they were pursuing their own way. They were really walking
in darkness. The Prophets were given those
special messages to bring to them in order to make them aware
of the situation which they were in and also to direct them to
the right way and how they should turn to the Lord and how they
should seek after Him. They might then receive the blessing. And so that is really precisely
the situation that we find here in this prophecy of Hosea. And the words which we read here
this morning in this 10th chapter speak to us about the need really
to be favoured with those living desires to earnestly seek the
Lord for the blessing. Indeed, in the middle of this
verse, it says, for it is time to seek the Lord. And we, I suppose,
may think, well, that's a pretty obvious statement and it's something
we need. Well, of course we need it and
of course it is an obvious statement. But sometimes I believe we need
to be reminded of such a truth as this. It is time for all of
us to seek the Lord every day. It is time to seek the Lord. We should never think we don't
need such a word of admonition, because the devil is very active
to turn us away from the things of God. Just like Israel of old,
they were absorbed by the situation which they lived in, and they
were relatively content with it. And they did not see the
necessity, therefore, of turning to the Lord. They were relatively
satisfied and content with their sinful life. And that's really
why we have such prophecies telling us the situation which existed
in those days. And it wasn't just in those days.
It's continued and it is so today. we truly live in a situation
where this exists, and how we therefore need the Spirit of
God to come mightily and powerfully upon us individually, as a church
and people, indeed as a nation, that there may be times of blessing. Because the Prophet here describes
it in this way, he says, Sow to yourselves in righteousness,
reap in mercy, break up your fellow ground, for it is time
to seek the Lord, till he come and reign righteousness upon
you." It wasn't a situation which was just a series of facts and
nothing to look forward to. There was a true desire, a true
concern, that the Lord would come, till he come and reign
righteousness upon you. What that really means in a nutshell
is when the Lord comes to reveal Christ to us. And again, we're
thankful when that first occurs, but there will be a desire that
may continue. We may have fresh views of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He may be precious to us, again
and again. So that's just a very brief outline
of this verse here. But he comes and says, sow to
yourselves in righteousness. It's put that way. Not to sow
to ourselves according to our flesh. That's the alternative. To sow to ourselves to seek after
those things which will just advance our flesh, just advance
the things of our natural life. So often we find our hearts are
set upon those trivialities of time. So easily we become absorbed
by things which do not profit. And we need the Lord to come
and to alert us to our situation which does sometimes follow such
a course. So here we have a word of encouragement,
a word of admonition, sow to yourselves in righteousness.
That means to sow to ourselves the word, the truth of God and
His righteousness and not to the flesh. To sow to ourselves
those spiritual things. Now I know of course we don't
have any natural ability to produce the blessing ourselves, but we
have words of encouragement in the Word of God that we are to
turn unto the Lord and he will turn unto us. And therefore we
need that faith to believe the Lord will look upon us as we
come to him as we seek unto him. Sow to yourselves. It means sowing
the good seed. The good seed of the Word of
God as it may come as we may perhaps consider it as the Word
of Truth, the Word of God. To read it that it may, we may
find therein that good seed which may come into and fall into good
grounds. Sow to yourselves. in righteousness,
not unrighteousness. We need to leave behind then
the things which are of the flesh. We need to be concerned and pray
that we may be separated from all those things which are enumerated
and fall into that category. The pride of life, the lust of
the flesh, the pride of our eyes. Yes, they all follow in that
way which will not profit our souls. They will only bring profit
naturally. And my friends, that will only
last for a short time and then fade away. We are living, as
it were, in an eternal state because we have an eternal soul. And our great concern must be
for the state of our soul, not the state of our flesh. How stands
the case, my soul, with thee? For heaven Are thy credentials
clear? Is Jesus Christ thy only plea? Is he thy great forerunner there? Have to come down, do we not,
to these things which are essential? And so we have these words, remember,
Hosea was speaking to a people that had wandered far off. And
my friends, today, We find there is a wandering far off. We find
there is not the liveliness, there is not the spirituality
of which perhaps there was in years past. Perhaps there was
in our life in years past. And we need therefore to listen
to a word like this, sow to yourselves in righteousness. Seek after
spiritual things pure things, godly things, holy things, not
evil things, wicked things, earthly things. What a vast difference
there is. And we have, and we will have,
that internal tussle between our nature, our old nature and
the new nature, that spiritual nature, that nature which we
would have received from that new birth. There is that struggle,
there is that battle, and here we have an encouragement then
this morning, to sow to yourselves in righteousness. Well mate,
sink into our hearts and maybe that's sowing. Sowing the good
seed, not the bad seed. The good seed, the pure seed.
The Word of God is a pure seed, it is a pure word. Nothing wrong
or sinful in the Word of God. And so may we be found sowing
that to ourselves. Sow to yourselves in righteousness. And the effect will be then,
that there will be that reaping through the mercy of God. As we sow, you know, as a farmer
sows the seed, He doesn't say, well I can forget about it now
and I won't have to worry about it and in a few months time I'll
be up and I'll be able to go and reap it. No, a farmer watches
over that seed he's sown and he looks forward to it growing,
to see that first green shoot coming up and then as it grows
and as it strengthens And then he sees the seed come in the
head of the corn, and he sees it ripen, and he sees the head
fall over, or lean over ready to the harvest. You see, he doesn't
forget. No, he's looking. So we see this
reaping in mercy. Now it is, first of all, in mercy. And we will bow down to our God,
and recognise it is his mercy if there is to be any reaping,
if there is to be any harvest for that seed which is sown.
It will be his goodness and his favour which will only reap in
mercy because it is only his favour that will bring that seed
to grow and to grow up and to sprout forth and to bring forth
seed. It will only be from the Spirit
and mercy of the Lord God to warn us. Sow to yourselves in
righteousness and reap in mercy. Well, there will be that concern.
If we are desiring to sow spiritual things, there will be that desire
to reap spiritual things. And we won't forget about what
we've sown, what we've desired the Lord to do for us. We won't
forget it. We won't ignore it. there'll
be a watching to see how the Lord will appear, what the Lord
will do for us, and how he will remember us for good, how he
will come and bless us indeed. Sow to yourselves in righteousness
and reap in mercy, and then he says, and break up your fallow
ground. Fallow ground is something which
hasn't been ploughed up recently. It's been left. We may have some
fallow ground in our lives. It may have been left. And what
happens to fallow ground? Does it grow beautiful corn?
No. What does it grow? It grows weeds. It grows thistles. Those are
the things which prevail in fallow ground. You only have to look
round, don't you? at fields which have been left. And you can see
all the weeds and that growing up. And the ground becomes hard
and there it is. Not a very healthy situation. And in order for it to be of
any benefit, it has to be ploughed up. So we have this word, break
up your fallow ground. Again, there may be that in our
hearts, in our lives, which are fallow ground. We may have left
it. It may be hard. We just have
weeds. It's a good thing, isn't it,
sometimes to examine our hearts and just to see where we are,
what the true situation is, whether we've got some fallow ground. Jeremiah, he tells us a statement
very similar. He says, for thus saith the Lord
to the men of Judah and Jerusalem. You see, it's the same people
that this Hosea was prophesying to. Break up your fallow ground
and sow not among thorns. There needed to be that ground,
that fallow ground that needed to be ploughed up, to be turned
over, So that the weeds will be buried underneath and we see
then the good ground. Well the statement here is break
up your fellow ground. Well I wonder if we've got fellow
ground in our lives. in our spiritual life. Are we
like that? Fallow ground. We've forsaken it, that's what
it really means. We've forsaken our soul. We've left it. And therefore it's become like
that. Fallow ground. And all there is to see are weeds
growing up. And all we observe are the things
of the world. All we see are the things of
the flesh. There's nothing that brings honour
and glory to God. And it's hard. Perhaps it's like
our hearts. They become hard. They're not feeling. They're
not soft. They're not willing to accept
instruction from the Lord. No, we are hard-hearted. Sad state, is it not? It's just
like Israel were. And that's why the Lord told
them that unless they repented, unless they turned around, they
would go into captivity. And they did not turn around.
They did not repent. No, they ignored the prophecies. spoken to them by God's faithful
prophets, in love to their souls, and they ignored the word of
the Lord. Well, have we got fellow ground
in our spiritual lives? We don't look around, we look
to ourselves. We stand this morning and look
in our heart and to observe there, whether
it's just like that, weedy, nothing of any benefit, nothing very
attractive, and hardness, because we've allowed the things of this
time, this world, to take over our life, and we have to be careful in
an analysis of that situation. As we look into our hearts, we
may think, well, I don't think I am fellow ground. I really
think I'm not doing too badly. Well, is our spiritual life,
is our heart warm? Is our heart soft? Or is it cold? And is it hard? Because we can
easily go through just a form of religion. Millions of people
do just that today. They're just satisfied with doing
something to appease their conscience. You'll find many people go to
church on a Sunday morning and they listen to the preaching
and they sing the hymns Then they go home and they forget
what they've heard. And as far as they're concerned, that's
their duty done for the week, and they think they've pleased
God. In actual fact, of course, there is stench in his nostrils. Because they've only been doing
that to appease their conscience. They have no warmth to God. They
have no soft heart. They are the very opposite. They
are just hypocrites, really, and just pretending to be a true
worshipper of the living and true heart. But here we have
a very straight statement. Break up your fellow ground. If we've got a heart like that,
and my friends, only you can answer to yourselves, only I
can answer to myself, because we don't know what's going on.
in someone else's heart. We may draw a conclusion which
may be totally wrong, may be completely opposite, but it would
be a good thing if we can look personally and look into our
hearts to see whether we are healthy in our soul. This is
really the great and important thing, is it not? To be healthy
in our soul. And therefore, such an admonition
will not go amiss. Break up your fallow ground. Break it up, turn it over. Don't
let it just stay as it is. Don't let it stay barren. Don't be concerned it may be
a fruitful ground, a ground well prepared. You know, when a farmer
sows his seed, he prepares that ground well, doesn't he? If he
doesn't prepare it very well, he's not going to expect much
benefit from it, is he? He's going to plough it, he's
going to harrow it, perhaps he's going to roll it to get it into
a good condition so that then he can sow the seed and then
when the rain comes he can believe there will be that true growth,
that true springing up. And it is the evidence then of
a healthy growth as it springs up. Break up your fallow ground. Because, Hosea says, it is time
to seek the Lord. Time to seek the Lord fervently. Think of those lines. We often
say our prayers, but do we ever pray? It's a great question,
isn't it? We often say our prayers, But
do we ever pray? Here is this statement. For it
is time to seek the Lord. We may have thought we sought
the Lord on many occasions. But have we truly sought Him? Have we earnestly sought His
face? It is time, then, Says the Prophet
here, it is time to seek the Lord. I wonder if that comes home to
any of us this morning. We may have carried on in our
lives. Perhaps in just a lip service,
we haven't really prayed. But now, the word of admonishment
this morning is, it is time now. You see, the blessing is we're
still on praying ground. We're not in a deserved hell. We're still on praying ground. David, a man after God's own
heart, tells us this. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. When Thou saidst, Seek ye my
face, my heart, our innermost being, our soul, my heart said
unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Oh, did we say that this morning?
From our heart. Thy face, Lord, will I seek. He goes on. Hide not thy face
far from thee. Is it a concern in us that the
Lord may have hidden his face? Is it a concern? Do we cry out? Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Again, they would have been conscious. He deserved to have God's anger
come upon him. It would be a good thing if you
and I realised that we deserve to have God's anger to come upon
us. It's the evidence of God's gracious
work in the soul to convict us that we deserve God's anger.
We don't deserve God's mercy. We
don't deserve God's favour. And therefore, here is this continuous
prayer. Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger.
Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of
my salvation." Now this was a real prayer. David was really praying
to his God now. Yes, and he had to realise that
it was just him and God. when my father Malatha saved
me, then the Lord will take me up. We're thankful for prayers
of our parents. My friends, we can't rely on
them. We need the Lord personally. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and
lead me in the plain path, because of mine enemies. David here,
sets before us a very gracious example. He desires to be taught. He doesn't say, well, God, this
is my plan, this is what I need. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and
lead me in a plain path because of my enemies. Deliver me not
over unto the will of my enemies, for false witnesses are risen
up against me in such as breathe out cruelty, I had fainted. Unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, he is telling
us here that God had given him faith to believe. Yes, he was saying it is time
to seek the Lord. Yes, in David's case it was time
to seek the Lord. And so he tells us he has fainted. And my friends, we will faint
unless the Lord gives us that faith to believe that by his
favour and grace we shall see His goodness. We come, do we
not, in true prayer, in faith, believing. Wait on the Lord. Be of good
courage. And He shall strengthen thine
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Yes,
don't give up. Here is the desire. I hope it's
the desire. It's time to seek the Lord. I
want to seek the Lord urgently. And we may then have to wait
upon the Lord. Wait on the Lord. Be of good
courage. And it shall strengthen thine
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Oh, it's a wonderful thing, is
it not, to seek earnestly unto the Lord. In an earlier chapter,
you know, in this prophecy, Hosea encourages us again to seek the
face of the Lord. He says in the 5th chapter and
the 15th verse, I will go and return to my place till they
acknowledge their offence and seek my face. In their affliction
they will seek me early. If the Lord brings an affliction
upon us, It then produces a change, doesn't
it? So often, the Lord brings an
affliction upon us, to bring us as it were to our senses,
to make us seek unto the Lord. When we have natural health and
strength, we sometimes forget, perhaps we often forget, to thank
the Lord for the health and the strength that we have. Well,
what a blessing it is then to seek his face in this time of
affliction. So he says, for it is time to
seek the Lord. Till he come and reign righteousness
upon you. Till he come. Till the Lord comes. What does he do? He reveals Christ. That's the benefit. That's a
blessing. It's time to say to the Lord,
till he come. Till he blesses us. And he reigns,
comes down. The hard parched ground, he reigns
into our heart. Righteousness upon us. Till he come and reign righteousness
upon you. It's a promise, my friends. To
seek and to find. He will reign upon us. He will come. He will pour forth
a blessing. The blessing is Himself. He will
reveal Himself. And it is not unto the world. What is it? His face will I seek. His face. My friends, when the
Lord looks upon us and we view by faith His face. We view Him looking upon us.
We realise He hasn't turned us away. He looks upon us in love
to our soul. We haven't deserved it. We're
wretched sinners of the earth. But the Lord has had compassion
upon us till He comes. Oh, my friends, wait upon the
Lord till He comes. He says till He comes and rain
rushes upon you. He will come and pour out the
blessing. His righteousness is a glorious
thing because it is clean and it is spotless and it is sparkling
and it is a white robe and He puts it on us. He takes away
our sin, all the evil, the blackness, the mountain of sin is removed. We saw His face. He shined upon
us. He smiled upon us. He hasn't
dealt with us as our sins deserve. What's the effect? The effect
is it breaks us down. It breaks down all the hardness
of our heart. Yes, all the natural rebellion. It flees away because our hard
heart is melted. as the Saviour comes and reveals
Himself to us. Psalm 72 tells us, He shall come
down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water
the earth. For He shall deliver the needy
when He crieth, but poor also, and him that hath no helper He
shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the
needy. When the Lord Jesus comes and
reveals himself then to us, oh, we have sought the Lord. Yes,
we have sought Him early for it is time to seek the Lord.
We have heard the admonition. We are seeking the Lord, who
has blessed us with living faith, to seek earnestly. And we have
this promise till he come. My friends, what a blessing for
the church it was in these days. They were carried into captivity.
They did seek the Lord. He did visit them. He did come. He did bless them. They did return
to Jerusalem. They were able to worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness. May it be a blessing for us today.
May we look forward with a gracious anticipation. May we have that
bird in our heart. Oh, that we would see Jesus.
It's a great concern. We desire it above everything
else. Oh, my friends, may it be so. May we desire above everything
else. So we have to say, Jesus is the
one thing needful. I, without him, perish must. That brings us down to the bedrock
of religion. and then to realise He comes,
He will come. And when He comes, He rains righteousness
upon us. Our hard heart is softened. My
friends, when Jesus comes, the hardness is removed and we are
amazed that we have such a hard heart. We can bless God for the
gracious effect that He brings when He reveals Himself unto
us as it is not unto the world. And we rejoice then in what Christ
has done. We see in Him all our salvation. And we see that great sacrifice
that He made on our behalf. And religion becomes personal
to us. The Word is applied with power
by the Holy Spirit. And we have the evidence of the
life within which we couldn't produce ourselves, but we're
thankful to know it was done for us, and we rejoice then in
the Saviour's finished work. It is finished, and by living
faith we can claim that we have a hope in His death as atoned
for all our sins, and therefore it is eternally well with our
soul. Amen.