Breaking up our fallow ground. Hosea 10:12.

(Preached at a harvest thanksgiving service in Garvagh FPC)

I heard this text preached upon for the first time 46 years ago in the month of October in a little mission hall, in Foundry Street in Belfast. Dr. Paisley was the preacher. I was saved just 6 months. I had missed the Monday evening meeting but was there on Tuesday when Dr P preached on this text. It was a challenge to Christians just before the evangelistic preaching began. What a meeting it turned out to be! The night before quite a number of young people had responded to the call for dedication and I was most sorry I had missed the meeting. This night the emphasis was upon yielding to the Holy Spirit to be filled with His grace and power. I will never forget the presence of God and the brokenness at the end of the service and the power of God coming down. Those were the "beginning of days" in Ulster. Our text calls upon us to bring the whole of our being under cultivation for God. The Christian should seek to bring the whole of their being under cultivation in order that our body, soul and spirit might yield a great harvest for God. Production level in the church is very low and the labour has been left to a few. In the world, people are utilising allotments and flower beds are giving way to vegetable patches! Likewise we must turn from an emphasis on the decorative to the essential. 
All too many believers are like the derelict cottage overgrown with weeds but with a rose blossoming in the midst of the chaos showing what it once was like.