Title: Split the Old Land!
Contents
Split the old ground!
Jeremiah 4:1-4
In today's text, God is commanding to “divide the old land.” The old land refers to a state in which the farmed land is left alone, and the old land cannot be cultivated as it is. When farmers look at the old land, it is just frustrating and sad.
The heart of the people right now is like this old land, so God's heart is frustrated and sad.
First of all, if a farmer wants to farm again on this old land, he must first plow the land. Whether you are shoveling, plowing with an oxen in front of you, or using a tractor, you have to plow the ground. God is telling the people of Israel to change their hearts, but it means that they need to be changed anew. This is because the work of the Word can take place and bear fruit.
old ground
Then, if the state of mind of the people of Israel is like an abandoned land, what kind of state of mind does the people of Israel have?
Jesus provided a valuable clue to understand these words. In Matthew 13, the so-called “parable of the sower,” Jesus spoke of four fields in this parable.
One is ‘land along the roadside’, two is ‘stone field’, three is ‘land of thorns’, and four is ‘good land’.
The first three fields are lands that cannot bear fruit even if they sow seeds.
Only good soil can bear fruit 100 times, 60 times, or 30 times when sown.
So, the first three fields need to be good soil for proper farming.
In this way, aged land refers to the previous three fields. Originally, it was good land that had been cultivated well, but it has become these three types of fields that are not properly cultivated because they are not properly cared for. So let's take a look at the three old lands.
First, the roadside land
When a field is like a roadside, it refers to a land full of traffic along the roadside, where people walk, ferrets, and animals.
So the ground was hardened.
So, even if you sow the seeds, the roots do not penetrate into the ground, and eventually germination will not be possible and farming will not be possible.
Jesus said that there are people who have the same heart as this roadside, but he is saying that there are people whose hearts are hardened like the roadside. It means that the hearts of the people of Israel have been hardened.
What does it mean to have a hardened heart?
It means that the heart is firmly closed. His heart was firmly closed toward God.
There are two reasons why people close their hearts toward God. One is when something better than God comes into being.
If you lose your heart to things other than God, your heart will be closed to God.
The other is when you can't believe in God's love. If you doubt how this can happen if God truly loves you, you close your heart toward God.
When your heart is closed toward God in this way, the Word of God will not enter your heart, and this will become a heart like the old ground. We must nurture our hearts so that they do not become like this.
Second, the stone field
To say that a field is a rocky field means that the field is full of stones, but because the field is full of stones and there is not enough soil, even if it sprouts, it cannot take root deeply, so farming cannot be done properly.
Jesus said that there are people who have a heart like a stone field, but He said that the hearts of the people of Israel had become like a stone field.
What does having a stone in your heart mean? It refers to something heavy in our hearts that makes us hard.
These hold our ankles and keep us from running before God.
We can think of the stone of our heart in two main ways.
One is the stones thrown from the outside. To some parents, their children are the stones of their hearts, to others, the husband and wife are the stones, and to others, the business is the stone.
The other are stones that have been inside for a long time. Some people have a bad personality and act as a stone.
For some people, the complex acts as a stone, and these people want me to be someone other than myself.
If there are stones that make our hearts hard like this, we cannot live a strong life of faith.
It is hard to keep the faith consistently, so this becomes another old ground.
We must take a closer look so that these stones do not form in our hearts.
Third, the thorny land
To say that the field is thorny means that the field is full of thorny trees.
Jesus is saying that there are people who have a heart like the ground among thorns, but they have thorns in their hearts, and they keep piercing them, and they say that their hearts have become like thorny ground.
What does it mean to have a thorn in your heart? It refers to the fact that there is a thorn in our heart that annoys and afflicts us so that we could not look at God while paying attention to the thorn.
The thorns that trouble us in our minds can be thought of in two main ways.
One is anxiety, and many people suffer because of worry about the future. pile up.
It becomes a thorn and pierces us.
The other is seduction. Many people are exposed to various temptations. The temptation of lewdness is a typical example, but the world has already become a sea of lewdness.
Still others were seized by the temptation of gambling, others by the temptation of drugs, and still others by the temptation of sin. Behind that sweet temptation there is a thorn that, once captured, pierces the thorn in pain.
If you have thorns in your heart like this, you will not be able to bear fruit even if you live your life of faith, and this will serve as another old ground. We need to take good care so that such a thorn does not settle in our hearts.
split the old ground
God is telling us to plow this old ground, but he says we need to plow our hearts just as farmers plow and plow the hardened ground in spring. It's about becoming a new person. It is a message to change your heart and return to God.
There was a man who worked diligently as a cleaning lady. I hadn't crossed the threshold of a church in over fifty years.
He had an only son who wouldn't hurt to put it in his eye. I went to church well from a young age, and my faith was good enough to take over as president during my high school days. He was a good student at school and studied well. Watching his son grow up tall, he struggled with the arduous job of a janitor, yet he did not know how difficult it was. Occasionally, when my son talked about Jesus, he dismissed it as “the story of people who were full and have their backs” and did not take it to heart.
Then one day, his son was hit by a speeding truck and died instantly. The sky seemed to be falling.
That's right. God is still waiting for people to plow the old ground and return to the Lord today. What about our hearts? Hasn't it already become a dead land? We have to look at our hearts. And we must grind our hearts more carefully. So how do we plow the old soil?
First, you must open your heart.
One of the things we must do the most to cultivate the old ground is to open our hearts to God.
Perhaps if I had to introduce the person who lived with the most open heart toward God, David was a man after God's heart.
David went through many hardships and hardships, but even in his own words, he went through the valley of tears and the valley of death.
I could doubt God's love, I could complain about God, but I could close my heart to God.
However, he always had an open heart toward God. What's the secret? It is a confession of love for God. Psalm 18:1 says: “O LORD, my strength, I love you.” David made this confession every day. This very confession has always opened my heart to God.
Second, the stone must be removed.
Another thing we have to work on to plow the old ground is to get rid of the stones in our hearts.
Also, speaking of David, David had many stones in his heart. External enemies constantly tormented him.
King Saul has been pursuing him for over 10 years. His son Absalom rebelled. It was always difficult because my heart was crushed by these stones. Also, the stone of sin within him tormented him. She violated Bathsheba and killed her husband Uriah. That guilt forced me to bed with tears.
But he did a good job of removing these heavy heart stones. Psalm 55:22 tells the secret. “Cast your burden on the Lord.” It means that he entrusted it to God while carrying the heavy stone. So it is said to have been disintegrated.
Please entrust all the stones of your heart to God.
Third, you need to deal with the thorns.
Another thing we have to work hard to till the old ground is to deal with the thorns that pierce our hearts.
Actually, behind this thorn is Satan. Satan pierces us with this thorn so that our faith is shaken. It pierces us with the thorn of great anxiety and shakes our faith. And it pierces us with the thorn of temptation, leading us to depart from the faith.
Ephesians 6:17 says: “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” It is a command to defeat it with the word of God. If we stand firm in God's Word, we can easily shake off the thorn of anxiety and the thorn of temptation.
May you stand in the Word of God and deal with the thorns well.
Dear all! Without even knowing it, we can turn into the old land. You can become a closed heart toward God like the roadside. Or, it can be a heart full of stones that weigh down the heart like a field of stones. It can also become a heart that pricks thorns like a ground among thorns.
Dear all! The old ground must be plowed. We must renew our minds. It must be good soil. Therefore, it must be able to bear abundant fruit.