309. Tilled and Sown
Ezekiel 36:9 For, behold, I am for you and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown.
This promise sounds like good news/bad news: you will be tilled is the bad news; you will be sown is the good news. No one likes to be plowed over, but everyone knows that hard ground must be plowed before anything can be planted and grown. This is bad news that turns out to be good in the end. We don’t like the tilling while we are going through it, but God sees a hard and stony heart that must be broken up like fallow ground.
In Jesus’ parable the seed sown on the hard pathway or the stony ground does not sprout or grow very well. The good soil is the plowed ground, where seeds may sprout, grow and yield fruit a hundredfold. This is the “honest and good” heart. We resist the breaking up of the hard heart, and we won’t do it ourselves; therefore, God, the Holy Spirit, must do the plowing and breaking. He uses the experiences of life to soften the heart and make it receptive to the seed of the gospel. He applies the Law with its discipline and threats to soften a hard heart to receive the life-giving Word. We may harden the heart, like Pharaoh, but after a while (and we don’t know how long a “while” is) God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. When we suffer the pains of sin’s consequences with patience, without complaining or blaming, then the tilling work of the Spirit is succeeding. However, God graciously allows us to resist, complain, and blame without yielding to repentance and faith. Then we have to go through it again and the process takes longer.
We thank God that He promises to till, because the heart needs the seed of faith to grow and produce beautiful fruit. “The Sower went out to sow” the Word of God. We thank God that He promises to sow us into fruit-producers. The Lord never stops tilling and sowing because He says, “I am for you, and I will turn unto you.” God is doing a beautiful work in your life through tilling and sowing, like He promises.