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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Thom Mayer

Soil of the Heart

Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we are so grateful for another Sabbath, another chance to turn our thoughts towards you and put aside the cares of the weak.

And Lord, as we look at the things here that you've laid on my heart, things that we should be about and how we should be spreading the gospel and be workers for you.

And so Lord, I just pray that the message here is a message from you, Lord.

Let it not be my mere opinions, but a message from you.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

So I've titled this presentation here, soil of the heart.

Because really, at the heart of the matter, it's a matter of the heart, right?

I start by asking the question, why are you here?

Right, that's why we gather, we come together to worship, right?

And here really, tonight, you've come to learn how to be better soldiers, right?

Actually, in fact, you're going to learn how to be better farmers.

A two-edged blade that cuts to the heart.

We sing the song, I have my hands on the gospel plow.

So the question is, what are you plowing?

I gave you the answer, What are we plowing?

And we're going to look at this analogy of farming and how it relates to our spiritual walk.

And the first thing the farmer does is he plows the field, right?

You have a field that is your field of influence.

All the people that you come into contact with, right?

And then you have your own field, you have your own, the own, your own soil of the heart, and it is your free will, that's our God-given gift of free will, it's your free will to let who or what into your garden.

So the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 4, 3, to break up the fallow ground and sow not amongst the thorns.

Some versions say break up the fallow ground of the heart, and so not amongst the thorns.

So there's a preparation, right, before we get to that act of planting.

There's a beautiful quote in Christ's Abject Lessons where she talks about the sowers of the seed, us, and she says, the sowers of the seed have a work to do in preparing hearts to receive the gospel.

In ministry of the Word, there is too much sermonizing and too little of real heart-to-heart work.

We're really good about talking about the Gospel, right?

There is a need of personal labor for the souls of the lost.

In Christ-like sympathy, we should come close to men individually and seek to awaken their interest in the great things of eternal life.

Their hearts may be as hard as the beaten highway, And apparently it may be a useless effort to present the Savior to them.

But while logic may fail to move, an argument be powerless to convince.

How many of you felt like you'd been in an argument?

When argument's powerless to convince, The love of Christ revealed in personal ministry may soften the stony heart so that the seeds of truth can take root.

Because oftentimes you think, oh man, yeah, I want to share the gospel.

But when you think about this analogy, there's a science to the gospel, right?

Just like there's a science when it comes to farming.

Is this the seed I want to start with here, right?

These are the questions that we should ask.

And really, the plow, the gospel, is the central theme of the Bible.

And look at what the central theme of the Bible is, it's to what?

Restore the restoration of God's image in the souls of men.

So Our act of sharing the gospel is to restore God's image in the souls of men, amen?

What a beautiful thing, because that's what's gonna end the war, right?

So, When I heard this quote, I just recently, just a few years ago, heard this quote.

We have come to a time when every member of the church should take hold of the medical missionary work.

Yeah, and you all just heard it right now, right?

So we're all—I heard this in a sermon by Rico Hill, who runs the Beehive Ministry, and man, it was a powerful sermon.

It was just this little church in Arizona, and a friend of mine said, hey, this guy's preaching over here, you gotta come listen to this.

So I went and man, it was a powerful sermon and he brought this point out and at the end, he gave this call and everybody came to the front.

And how hard is it to be a medical missionary?

But more importantly still is the art of preparing food so that it is both healthful and appetizing, this art should be regarded as the most valuable of all arts because it is so closely connected with life.

For in order to make good blood, the system requires good food.

The foundation of which keeps people in health is the medical missionary work of good cooking.

So if you're the cook at your house, you're a medical missionary.

And since then, I've really taken this to heart.

I've said, man, I want to be a medical missionary.

So I started carrying around this little bag right here.

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Soil of the Heart

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