Former Southern Baptist Convention President Tom Elliff challenged ministers and their wives attending a luncheon Nov. 15 to seek revival in their hearts, in their homes and in their world.
Elliff, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, Del City, Okla., spoke during the annual luncheon that falls alongside the Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference, held this year at First Baptist Church, Montgomery.
“You can’t do everything, but you can do and we have to do what we can,” Elliff told the more than 350 in attendance.
Preaching from Hosea 10:12, Elliff said there is a condition to be feared, a command to follow a choice to be faced.
The condition to be feared is a heart like fallow ground, he said, noting signs of this would include a heart that is hardened, is impervious to the Word, depicts a once fruitful life that is now barren, shows stubbornness and resistance rather than eagerness and hunger, would require a major work of God’s Spirit and is an indicator that your greatest days of usefulness and fellowship of God are over unless this trend is broken.
The choice is all about the time. “You can go on like you are and become increasingly cold and hard and useless. That doesn’t require much,” Elliff said. “Or you can choose to submit to exhortation of God. It is time now to seek the Lord until He comes.
Brokenness necessary
“If you refuse to break up the fallow ground of your heart, your walk with God can only get worse,” Elliff said. “It can never get better.”
Roger Willmore, pastor of First Baptist Church, Boaz, noted that the luncheon was organized by leaders of the Alabama Baptist Conservatives and was supplemented by Kingdom Family Conferences and LifeWay Christian Resources.
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