The Jews were a nation of farmers and the scriptures often turn for illustrations to their occupations, scenes in which farmers and shepherds were commonplace. The prophet Hosea describes the Jews as a nation of backsliders. He accuses them of idolatry and threatens them with God’s judgement. In this talk I will deal with the issue of revival. There are two elements of revival: revival within the Christian church and revival of ungodly unbelievers. In this chapter I address solely the question of revival in the Church. Fallow ground is ground which has once been tilled, but which now lies waste, needing to be broken up before it is suitable to receive the grain.

    What do we mean by breaking up the fallow ground?To break up the fallow ground is to break up your heart, to prepare your life afresh to bear fruit in God’s kingdom. In the bible, the word "ground" is often used as an analogy for the human heart and mind, and the word "seed" to mean the Word of God. To break up your fallow ground means therefore to prepare your heart to receive God’s word. Sometimes your heart becomes hardened and blocked up, consequently it is unable to bear any fruit in your Christian life. It thus needs preparation and cleaning up to make it fit again for God’s purposes. It is this softening and preparation of the heart afresh that the prophet calls breaking up the fallow ground.

    How is the fallow ground to be broken up?It is not achieved by "feelings". People make the mistake of thinking that, by feelings alone, they can make headway in their spiritual life. But this is not how the mind works in such matters. No-one can bring about such an attitude of mind, merely by trying to arouse their feelings. You must begin by looking at your heart. Many people never pay attention to their heart and never know whether they are growing in their spiritual life or are backsliding. Therefore, if you are serious about your Christian life, you need to take time to examine the state of your heart. Do not be in a hurry about this - to begin set aside a date and a time when you will be free from interruption. When you get to that situation, examine thoroughly the state of your heart and see where you are. Are you walking with God every day or with the Devil? Are you under the dominion of Satan or the Lord Jesus Christ? To find the answer to these questions, you must set to work to consider your sins. You must examine yourself in all honesty. And by this I do not mean look within and examine the state of your feelings. Consideration of your sins requires careful and unhurried self-examination.

    Self-examination consists in looking at your life, considering your actions, calling up the past and learning its true character. Look back over your past history since becoming a Christian. Take each of your individual sins one by one and look at them. I do not mean that you should cast a glance at your past Christian life, see that it is full of sins, and then go to God making a sort of overall general confession and ask for his pardon. That is not the way. You must take them up one by one. Get hold of a pen and paper and as each sin comes to mind write it down. Go over them as carefully as a merchant goes over his books. Whenever a sin comes to mind, write it on the list. General confession of sin will never do. Your sins were committed one by one and they ought to be reviewed and repented of one by one. Now make a start, as an act of your will, and commence with what are commonly known as Sins of Omission.

Ingratitude
    Take this sin and write down under that heading all the instances you can remember where you have received blessings from God for which you have never expressed gratitude. How many cases can you remember? Some remarkable provision, some wonderful turn of events that saved you from a calamity. Write down the instances of God’s goodness when your were in sin, before your conversion, for which you have never been half thankful enough. Think also of the numerous blessings you have received since. Go on your knees and confess them one by one to God and ask forgiveness. Once you begin the process, other sins will begin to come to your mind. Put these down. Go over this list several times and see how many blessings and mercies you have received from God for which you have never thanked him.

Lack of love for God
    Think how upset and alarmed you would be if you discovered a waning of affection for you in your wife and children; if you saw their hearts, minds and time being taken up with affection for someone else! In such an event you would surely be overwhelmed with jealousy. Now remember that God calls himself a jealous God. So, have you given your heartfelt attention to other loves and infinitely offended Him?

Neglect of the Bible
    Make a note of how your reading of the Bible has been infrequent, pleasureless and downright inattentive; to the extent that you have read whole chapters and then forgotten what you have read. If so, it is no wonder that your life goes in a randomless way and your Christianity is a miserable failure.

Unbelief
    Recall the instances where you have virtually charged the God of truth with lying, by your unbelief of his express promises and declarations. God has promised to give the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him. Now, have you believed this? Have you expected Him to answer? Have you not virtually said in your heart, when you prayed for the Holy Spirit: "I do not believe that I shall receive" If you have not believed nor expected to receive the blessing which God has expressly promised, you have charged Him with lying.

Neglect of Prayer
    Think of the times when you have neglected private prayer and gathered prayer meetings. Or of the times you have prayed in a way that grieved God more than if you had omitted it altogether.

Lack of Love towards Sinners
    When you consider your unbelieving friends and relatives, recall how little compassion you have felt for them. You have stood by and watched them heading towards Hell, and it seems as if you didn’t care if they did go. How many days have there been, when you have failed to have their Christless eternity on your heart? If your soul is not agonised for such people, why are you such a hypocrite as to pretend to be a Christian?

Lack of Self-Denial and Concern for the Poor
    Think how much you have spent on enjoying the luxuries of life. Do you ever deny yourself and go without, in order that the poor and suffering might instead receive?

Neglect of Family Duties
    Think of how you have lived within your family. How have you prayed and what example have you been? What direct efforts do you regularly make for your family’s spiritual welfare? What duties have you neglected?

Neglect of Watchfulness over your Own Life
    Think how often you have turned a blind eye to your own conduct in the world. How often have you compromised your integrity with a careless word or action in society? How have such actions grieved a holy God?

Neglect of Watching over Your Brethren
    How often have you abdicated your responsibility to watch over them before the Lord? How little do you know or care about their souls? And yet as a Christian you are commanded by Scripture to watch over them. What have you done to familiarise yourself with their spiritual state? Go over the list and whenever you recall such neglect, write it down. How many times have you seen other Christians growing cold in their walk with Christ and have not spoken to them about it? You have seen them falling into sin and have let them go on. And yet you pretend to love them: what a hypocrite! Would you stand by and let your wife or children be disgraced and do nothing about it? No, you would not. What do you think of yourself, then; you pretend to love Christians and to love Christ and yet you still say nothing to them?

Neglect of Self-Denial
    Many professing Christians are prepared to do almost anything in pursuit of their faith, provided it does not require self-denial on their part. They are simply not willing to deny themselves any inconvenience or discomfort for the sake of serving Jesus. Nor will they suffer any criticism or reproach for the name of Christ. In the same vein, they will not deny themselves the luxuries of life, thereby diverting resources for evangelistic purposes to save a world from Hell. These people are so far removed from understanding that self-denial is a condition of discipleship, that they do not know what self-denial is. Oh, how such people are in real spiritual danger! Often, those who do give generously only give of their surplus wealth. Perhaps that poor widow who put in her mite has exercised more self-denial than they have in giving thousands.

FROM THESE I NOW TURN TO SINS OF COMMISSION

Wordly-Mindedness
    What has been the state of your heart with regard to your wordly possessions? Have you looked at them as being really yours - as if you had the right to dispose of them as your own, according to your own will? If you have, write that down. Have you loved possessions, and sought to acquire more than you need, to satisfy your greed? Have you sought to lay aside riches for your family? In each case you have sinned and must repent.

Pride
    Think back over all the instances you can remember in which you have detected pride in your attitudes and thoughts. Vanity is a particular form of pride. How many times have you been concerned about your dress and your appearance? How many times have you spent more time preparing yourself before Church than you have in preparing your heart to worship God? You have gone caring more about how you appeared to men than how your soul appeared in the sight of a heart-searching God. You have, in fact, set yourself up to be worshipped by them, rather than prepared to worship God yourself. You sought to divide the worship of God’s house, to draw off the attention of the people to look at your pretty appearance. It is no use pretending now that you do not care about having people look at you. Be honest about it. Would you take that time and effort to look good if every person in the congregation were blind?

Envy
    Recall the instances where you have been envious of those whom you perceive to have more than you, whether in terms of abilities, looks or wealth. Has it annoyed you when these people have been the subject of praise? You have preferred to hear them criticised when they have failed in some endeavour. Again, be honest with yourself. If you have harboured this spirit from Hell, repent deeply before God.

A Critical Spirit
    Bring to mind instances when you have taken a critical attitude towards others, in a manner devoid of Christian love and charity. Think not only of your attitude of mind, but also of the occasions when you have said and done things to others with a bitter spirit. Do not omit those times when you failed to put the best construction on any ambiguous conduct you observed in others.

Slander
    This covers the times you have spoken behind people’s backs of the faults, real or supposed, of your minister, members of your Church and others, without good reason. This is slander. You need not lie to be guilty of slander; to tell the truth with the intent to hurt another person is slander.

Lying
    Take note of what lying is. It is any kind of designed deception. If the deception is unintended it is not lying. But if you intend to make an impression contrary to the naked truth, you lie. Put down all the lies that you remember. Do not call them by any soft name, God calls them LIES and charges you with LYING, and so you had better charge yourself correctly. How many falsehoods are perpetrated every day in business, and in social activities, by words, looks and actions designed to make an impression on others for selfish reasons that are contrary to the truth!

Cheating
    Write down all the occasions that come to mind where you have treated someone in a way that you would not have wished to be treated. That is cheating. God has laid down a clear command on this: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." That is the rule. And if you have not done so, you are a cheat.

Hypocrisy
    In relation to God, write down the occasions when you have prayed for things you did not really want. The rule of thumb in this is that, after you had finished praying, you could not recall the subjects of your prayers. In addition, how many times have you confessed sins you had no real intention of giving up?

Robbing God
    Think of the many occasions you have mis-spent your time, squandering the hours God gave you to serve Him and save souls. Think of the times you have mis-applied your talents and mental abilities. And what of the money you have spent on entertaining your fleshly desires and on things you did not need. Recall its misuse on things that did not contribute to your health, comfort or usefulness. Perhaps some of God’s money has been squandered on cigarettes or alcohol.

Bad Temper
    Perhaps you have abused your wife, your children, your family, and your employees or work colleagues. Write it all down.

Hindering Others From Being Useful
    Perhaps you have weakened their influence by insinuations against them. You have not only robbed God of your own talents, but tied the hands of someone else. Perhaps you have taken their time needlessly; perhaps you have destroyed Christian confidence in them. You have thereby played into the hands of Satan, not only proving your own idleness but also preventing others from working. If you have committed an offence against an individual and that individual is accessible to you, go and confess it immediately and get it out of the way. If the person is not easily reachable, sit down and write them a letter confessing your injury towards them. If you have defrauded anybody, pay them back, with interest.

    Go to work on all of this NOW. Do not put it off!If you put it off it will only make matters worse. Confess to God the sins you have committed against God and to man the sins committed against man. Do not try to get off the hook by inventing stumbling blocks. In breaking up your fallow ground you must remove every obstruction. Even if small matters are left unattended, you will wonder why your Christian walk still remains powerless. It will be because your proud and carnal mind has covered up something that God requires you to confess and remove. Break up ALL the ground and turn it over. Do not balk at the apparent size of the problem - drive the plough deep so that the ground will be fit to receive the seed and bear fruit "an hundredfold".

    When you have gone over your whole history THOROUGHLY in this way, go over it a second time with the same earnest approach. You will find that some things you put down the first time will suggest other sins of which you have been guilty, perhaps related to them. Then go over it a third time, and you will recollect other things connected with these. Unless you review your sins in this way, considering them one by one, you will have no proper idea of their true extent. You should go over the list as solemnly as if you were preparing yourself for The Final Judgement.

    As you review your catalogue of sins, resolve to undertake a complete change of heart for the future.Whenever you find anything wrong henceforth, resolve at once, with God’s help, not to sin in that area any more. Examination of yourself will be of no use unless you change your attitude of heart and future behaviour. If you find, as you proceed in this review of your sins, that you experience no change in your relationship with Christ, it is likely that you have not been faithful and thorough in examining your sins. You cannot expect God to work a miracle to enable you to break up your fallow ground. It has to be done by an effort of the will on your part. You will discover, as you progress, that you cannot look at your sins for long without experiencing deep feelings about them in relation to God.

    You will never have the Spirit of God dwelling in you until you have unravelled this whole question of personal sin and spread out your sins before God. Allow time for a deep work of repentance and full confession, and you will have as much of the spirit of prayer as you can bear. The reason why so few Christians know anything about the spirit of prayer is because they never take the pains to examine themselves properly, and so never know what it is to have their hearts all broken up in this way.

    The reason why so much preaching is wasted is because Church members will not break up their fallow ground. A preacher can wear himself out, and do very little good, when there are so many "stony-ground" hearers, who have never had their fallow ground broken up.

    Professing Christians should never expect God to work in their midst just by starting out of their slumbers and blustering about, talking to sinners. They must get their fallow ground broken up. You may get some sort of temporary enthusiasm without this breaking up, but it will not last. More importantly, it will not have any effect on sinners unless you heart is broken up.

    And now, finally, will you break up your fallow ground? Will you set your will to the task I have outlined and persevere until you are thoroughly awake? If you do not do this, I can go no further with you in your hardened state. If you do not set about this work immediately, I shall take it for granted that you have no intention of being revived, that you have forsaken your minister and intend him to carry on the battle alone. If you do not do this, I charge you with having forsaken Christ, with refusing to repent and with having forsaken your first love.