SPRINGFIELD – Missouri Baptists should fear the possibility of letting their hearts become hardened and fallow, making them insensitive to the working of God’s Word and Spirit. This was the warning that longtime minister Tom Elliff, who formerly served as president of the International Mission Board, delivered to Missouri Baptists during their annual meeting at Crossway Baptist Church, Springfield, Oct. 24.
“It ought to scare you to death … to think that you could have a heart like fallow ground,” Elliff said, preaching from Hosea 10:12, which reads, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”
Christians who let their hearts become like “fallow ground” are hardened to God. They are “impervious to the seed of the Word of God.” They are resistant and asleep to the positive spiritual changes that God is calling them to pursue.
Citing the 17th-century English preacher John Bunyan, Elliff said such Christians are like painted flowers without fragrance, like painted fires without warmth and like painted trees without fruit. They’re “just one step away from the judgment of God.”
As such, Elliff called Missouri Baptists to “break up the fallow ground” of their hearts. He told them to spend time with God until He softens their hearts and exposes their sins, until they are transformed by the work of God’s Spirit in their lives.
“If you choose to refuse the work of God’s Spirit in your life, your greatest days of service to the Lord are over,” he said. The time is now to make a choice. “It’s time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.”