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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
Devotional: January 16th

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Jeremiah 4:3—Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

God’s sowing times are often neutralized by the hardness of the soil of our hearts. Caked over by the heavy tread of the passing years, neglected opportunities, and worldly society, even by the beautiful feet of his messengers, they need to be broken up. We sometimes speak of the breaking down of a great convention; but such an experience ought to lead to a breaking up of fallow ground. If this does not accrue from the gracious working of the Holy Spirit, it must be effected by the ploughshare of pain. "Tribulation" is derived from the Latin word for a harrow, tribulum.

In Finney’s Revival Sermons there is a great discourse on this text at the beginning of the book. It was the evangelist’s wont to open a mission by enumerating the ways by which his hearers’ hearts could be laid open to receive the seed of the kingdom. When hearing the Gospel, it is specially necessary to guard our hearers and ourselves against all hardness of heart and contempt of God’s Word and commandment.

Our Lord clearly tells us what the thorns are. He says they are the cares, riches, and pleasures of this life (Luke 8:14). The cares of the poor are as inimical to true religion as the wealth of the rich; and the absorption of the heart in pleasure is as hurtful as either. There is no room on the soil of our nature for more than one absorbing passion. If that be for the glory of Christ, it includes all other desires and pursuits; but if our thoughts are diverted to things or persons apart from Him, there is but little energy left for a strong religious life. O God, fill our hearts with such good crops that there may be no room for thorns!

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