We're going to read a few verses in Jeremiah chapter 4. Now let's see whose math and Bible knowledge is great. Where do you find Jeremiah chapter 4? Immediately after Jeremiah chapter 3. I didn't know I knew that much. And I say that because chapter 3 forms the backdrop. Chapter 3 is a very graphic chapter. It's written in language that is very, very, very stern. It describes Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel as guilty of whoredom and adultery. Of course, it's not dealing with the physical crime. It's dealing with apostasy, idolatry, and turning away from the Lord. And in chapter 3, the prophet his instructor of the Lord. And to sum up the first half of the chapter, what he's saying is Judah saw the sin of Israel, the northern kingdom, in all its viciousness and wickedness. It saw the awful results of that sin in that God moved against the northern kingdom and led them into captivity. But notwithstanding that, Judah continued unabated in her own treacherous way of worldliness and wickedness and departure from the Lord. Having set that stage in chapter 3, the prophet issues the Lord's call to repent. And he attaches a promise of restoration to it. The Lord said, Go and proclaim these words. Verse 12 of chapter 3, toward the north and say, Return thou, backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity." Etc. And then he gave the assurance. You find in verse 18, In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel. They'll come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers. Then again, toward the end of verse 23, truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. So in summary, in chapter 3, you have the chapter starting with this awful description of unfaithfulness on the part of the northern kingdom, the hard-headedness and hard-heartedness of the people in the southern kingdom who were not warned at all by what they saw, but continued on in their own foolish career. Now then, with the promise and the wooing of the Lord in their ears, we come to chapter 4. If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return unto me. And if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove. And thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness. And the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall they glory. For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. Take away the four skins of your hearts. Ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My fury come forth like fire and burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings." We'll finish at the end of verse 4. You'll see how, in the light of what I've said, chapter 4 just runs on. If you're willing to return... Now this is a message to a people who have failed God. Now, I'm not wanting to push everybody into a guilt trip. But let us be honest. At our best, we are unprofitable servants. The Lord Jesus taught us to say that when you've done all. Now, we have not done all. But when you've done all, you can still say, we are unprofitable servants. What are we to say then about ourselves when we realize that far from doing all, we have neglected much of what ought to have been done? What are we to say that when we look at ourselves as a church, figure out where we are with God, where we are in the work of God, where we are in promoting the cause of Christ, When we find that out, what are we to say to excuse our prayerlessness, our coldness, our deadness, our carelessness, our alienation from God in many ways as far as heart connection is concerned? Very often our alienation from each other. What are we to say about hardness of heart towards sinners? What are we to say about bigness of heart towards selfishness and self-indulgence? Surely we need to say, if ever we needed to return... Now this presupposes that we once had a different kind of experience. But isn't that true? Can't we individually say, yes, Lord, that's been true. We have had experience with God. Thank God for that. As a church, we have had experiences with God. Thank God for that. But he says, if you want to return, then what are you to do? Return. In other words, get out of our minds all the stupidity and the nonsense that pseudo-Calvinism, and I say this as a convinced Calvinist, that pseudo-Calvinism heaps upon God that sinners don't come because God didn't predestinate it. Churches stay cold and dead and backslidden because God in His sovereignty hasn't done this or that or the other thing. When God in His sovereignty actually speaks to His people and He says, if you want to return, number one, you can return. And the only one that stops you is you. And the only thing that stops you is your love of something other than the Lord. So if you want to return, return. Now, that sounds very simple. But I want you to notice this very particularly. He's not saying return to the memory of a past blessing. He's not saying return to a certain experience. He says, you return to Me. That's the whole thing in repentance. I don't want to give you a theological disquisition. I always like to get that word in now and again. On repentance, out of Christ, Sinners, and this is the nature of sin, sinners are essentially self-centered. Did you ever ask yourself why the good works of man that the Bible even admits are good works, good in some sort of a sense, for the Lord commands them, why they don't count with God? Why does it not count with God that somebody gives to the poor and feeds the hungry? Is that not something that they should do? Is it not a good thing? So why does it not count with God? Ultimately, although the Lord certainly commends that over starving the hungry and stealing from the poor, as many of the rich have done through history, another story that we will not go into tonight. The fundamental reason is this, that all the good that man ever does terminates upon man. It never can go any further. It terminates upon man. In other words, it is still man-centered. That is the essential nature of sin. It is man-centered. So when a sinner first repents, there is a new disposition introduced by regenerating grace into his will whereby he becomes God-centered. That is the essential element in repentance, much more than the mere fact of sorrow and weeping and praying, is that it's done according to God. It's done after God. It becomes God-centered. Now, if that's true in the initial exercise of repentance, it's true all through the Christian life. Conversion, theologically speaking, does not take place in a moment. Regeneration is an act of God that takes place in an instant. Conversion is the exercise of repentance and faith, and that is an exercise that continues throughout the Christian life in what we call sanctification. So, in that experience, repentance is always God-centered. So the Lord says, if you want to return, then return unto me." And if you return unto me, the promise is that you will be secure in the land of your blessing. In other words, all the things that are yours by virtue of your being in Christ, all the things that are yours by virtue of what Christ has accomplished, you will be in the enjoyment of them. Now what the Lord's looking for here is honesty. Thou shalt swear. Now you've got to understand that this is using the word in its own unique biblical sense. We talk about swearing, we normally mean either somebody who's cursing or somebody who is putting up as a right hand in court. That's not the idea here. This is a word that has to do very closely with worship. It's what we avow concerning God and our relationship with Him in worship. Now, where is the Christian who would not say, the Lord liveth? That's one of the most fundamental things you can say about God, is it not? Is there a Christian anywhere who, if you wakened him up out of the deepest sleep in the middle of the darkest night, could not immediately affirm, the Lord liveth? Sure he could. But he says, if you can say it in genuine worship, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness, And I'm not going into the words there. Time doesn't allow that. We're getting down to basic heart sincerity. In other words, if you can get to the place where what you affirm with your lips is not just dripping words off the end of your tongue, but it has a deep significance in your heart, then you're going to see results. And you notice this. The nation shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall they glory." In other words, when God's people understand, grasp, feel the significance of the truth that they affirm, and when they live in the light of that truth, it's going to have a dramatic effect even on the ungodly around about them. Now, you can wrap up all the church programs of growth and all the theories of soul winning. You can wrap them all up and throw them in the river. If God's people would only get down to reality and understand what they affirm in the most basic of all Christian confessions and let it sink in. The Lord liveth. Do we really believe in a living Christ? Do we really believe in a living Christ? If we believe that, then it's going to affect every part of our lives in business, in the home, in the church, in everything we say and do. If that's the altogether overwhelming reality that informs everything that we are and say and do, then it's going to mark our lives in such a way that even the ungodly are going to be affected. And of course you have seen this. I have no doubt that you have seen it. If you haven't, I pity you. And I hope you will get to see it pretty soon. But over the years I have known people. And there are no great sheikhs in the eyes of the world. There were no great success stories in the eyes of the world. I have known people who, just because of the force of social circumstances under which they were born, left school at twelve years old. All that they knew they had to teach themselves and where they taught themselves was mostly in the Scriptures of truth. I have known men who knew God and who walked in the light of this great affirmation, the Lord liveth and the living God was stamped on their lives in such a remarkable way that nobody could feel deceived. I have a man in mind just when I say that, a very ordinary man. You walked into his presence, you walked into the presence of God. Not that he was God, but he walked with God and God walked with him. When you walked into his home, you walked into a place that had the atmosphere of heaven. When he was out at his little gas station selling gas, it didn't matter who came by, it didn't matter how ungodly the people were, they stood in awe of that man. A quieter spoken, more humble individual you never met in all your life. But the stamp of God was on him. And that's the promise. That's the promise. If you're willing to return, then return. I believe there's not one of us, and I start with me, there's not one of us that doesn't need to come to God tonight and say, Lord, I need to return. All too easy to talk without having, as Aaron pointed out the Sabbath day, without having the heart experience of Christ. I want to have a God-centered life. I want to have a Christ-centered life. I want to have a Christ-centered home. I want to have a Christ-centered ministry. I want to have a Christ-centered church. I want to have Christ-centered relations. I want to have a Christ-centered life in everything. Return unto me. The Lord says, if you will, now that poses a question, will you? Will you? I'd say tonight, whatever makes your, now this is a scriptural allusion, whatever makes your forehead hard against the things of God, whatever makes it The truth cannot penetrate, and the light and love of Christ can't get in. It leaves you cold and hard and distant, thought-finding, bitter, whatever. It drives you from prayer. Bring it to the Lord. Lord, I return. I return. But, verse 3, if that's going to be the case, there must be real repentance. There's no spiritual work that can ever take root and bear fruit without a real work of repentance and cleansing. Break up your fallow ground. And don't sow among thorns. A fallow ground is just ground that's been left waste. Fallow ground is a description of neglect. In the previous chapter, he was not speaking just of neglect. He was speaking of apostasy or backsliding. Backsliding more would be the word than apostasy. He uses that word. And he describes it as adultery. Now, that's not just a sin of neglect, that's a sin of vicious commission. But here in chapter 4, he's moving on. He said, right, if you've returned from that, among men that's practically unforgivable, but I'll forgive you. But he says there's other things. What about the neglect? See, the reality is, Very few of us fall into big time backsliding just like that. Very few. Now it can happen, but not normally. There's usually a process. There's usually a long grown out period of neglecting necessary things. Of tolerating what you know to be wicked. Coming to terms with sin, stifling conscience, eradicating as best you can the voice of the Holy Ghost. That's follow ground. Now when you leave ground unattended, that's as good a word as any. Think of your life and my life. What are the areas that are unattended? When God created Adam, He put him in a perfect place. And He said, till the ground, tend it. Even in Eden. And that raises theological questions that I'm not going to get into tonight. But even there, in Eden, till the ground. When you're saved, that's what He tells you. Attend to your soul. Attend to your life. Don't leave it unattended. Because if you do, it will be like ground given over to waste. I don't like gardening. I love beautiful gardens, and I love to eat what comes out of good gardens, if they're that kind of a garden. But I don't like gardening. I have no aptitude for it, and I have even less interest. But even I know, even I know, because I remember it with our family garden back in Northern Ireland when, like it or not, under the subjection of a giant of a father who was all of five foot one. But I want to tell you, he had the authority of a Goliath. And he said, get into the garden, you get into the garden. Much more so than my mother said, get into the garden, you get into the garden, whether you liked it or whether you didn't like it. And even I knew, you just let that garden go. The thorns are everywhere. The weeds are everywhere. And that's what happened. So the Lord says, you've got to break up that fallow ground. Now, let me tell you a wee bit of my vast experience of gardening. We didn't have all these implements that you have here. I remember Thoreau Knudsen years ago ceded to me a plot of land out on his land and said, we'll get it going for you and you come out here and you can till this land and you can grow, I don't know what he had and all sorts of stuff that I'd never heard of. I didn't like to talk about my ignorance, but these little machines, I hadn't a clue what on earth am I supposed to do with that thing. When you had a garden in our country, you had a spade. Nothing like you have here is a spade. You normally have a machine to do it, and you have a sort of a shovel, but we have these spades. You get out there, you dig, and it's all brute force and ignorance, as we call it. I'll tell you this one. I remember we first moved into the house that My parents lived in for most of my life when I was with them. I suppose it had been farmland at one time but for years it had never been tilled. I can tell you when you went out there with a spade to start into that and break up that fellow ground. If you were going to be paid for it you'd have earned your money. We weren't paid for it. But I still think I earned my money. It was back breaking labor. It's never easy to get right with God. The way back, whether for an individual or for a church, it's never easy, but it's necessary. Break up your fallow ground. Don't waste your time sowing among thorns. Get the thorns out and then do you're sowing and then the promise is in verse 4 or should I say the next condition is in verse 4 that you circumcised yourselves to the Lord talking about circumcision of heart if you go back to the book of Joshua you'll find that this is a renewal of the covenant getting back to basics what did we enter into when first we came to Christ what engagement Did you make with Christ the night you came to Him? Now, this verse means, pick it up there. Go back to there. That's what the Lord is looking for. And this is the way to blessing. It's the alternative to removal from the land. And therefore you can say in verse 14, as the Lord does say, O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved, or that thou mayest be delivered. So this is the promise of God. If you want to be delivered, if you want the blessing of God, as an individual, now understand I'm not talking about this as a charismatic. I'm not talking about the false gospel that tells you just come and get right with God and all your problems will be made right. I listened to a preacher saying that on the radio just a couple of days ago or a few days ago there. And much of what he was saying was good, but I was seething. This man's lying. It's a lie. It sounds so nice to say, Oh, Jesus is the answer to all the problems of the world. He can solve all the problems of the world. Just give him five minutes. That's all he needs. It sounds so spiritual. And then He said to the people, it's true of you. Just turn to Christ and He'll solve all your problems. He doesn't tell them what He means. He's not going to take all your debts away just like that. He doesn't promise He'll turn to Him and He's going to give you your health back. He doesn't say He's going to make all the ugly people you've got to work with suddenly into angels. He doesn't promise that at all. He will give you grace. And that is a solution, by the way, that you may be able to bear. But I'm not saying this in some charismatic way you'll be delivered. But I am saying that you'll have God's intervention in your life. The fellowship and the power and the blessing of the Lord. Communion with Him. The ministry of His Spirit. Usefulness to God and His Christ. A place in the work of God. That's the promise for us individually. That's the promise for us as a church. Can we settle for less? Will we as individuals or as a church settle for anything less than being used of God? in the ministry of the gospel. I trust not, because if we're in earnest with the Lord, let's be absolutely certain the Lord is in earnest with us.