p. 175 | Deep Ploughing by Thomas De Witt Talmage

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 11.

Deep Ploughing.

By Thomas De Witt Talmage

DEEP ploughing for a crop. Deep ploughing for a soul. He who makes light of sin will never amount to anything in the church or in the world. If a man speaks of sin as though it were an inaccuracy or mistake, instead of the loathsome, abominable, consuming and damning things that God hates, that man will never yield a harvest of usefulness.

When I was a boy I ploughed a field with a team of spirited horses. I ploughed it very quickly. Once in a while I passed over some of the sod without turning it, but I did not jerk back the plough with its rattling devices. I thought it made no difference. After a while my father came along and said: “Why, this will never do; this isn’t ploughed deep enough; there, you have missed this and you have missed that.” And he ploughed it over again. The difficulty with a great many people is that they are only scratched with conviction when the subsoil plough of God’s truth ought to be put in up to the beam.

My word is to all the Sabbath-school teachers, to all parents, to all Christian workers.—Plough deep! plough deep! And if in your own personal experience you are apt to take a lenient view of the sinful side of your nature, put down into your soul the ten commandments which reveal the holiness of God, and that sharp and glittering coulter will turn up your soul to the deepest depth. If a man preaches to you that you are only a little out of order by reason of sin, and that you need only a little fixing up, he deceives you! You have suffered an appalling injury by reason of sin. There are quick poisons and slow poisons, but the druggist could give you one drop that would kill the body. And sin is like that drug; so virulent, so poisonous, so fatal that one drop is enough to kill the soul. Deep ploughing for a crop. Deep ploughing for a soul. Broken heart or no religion. Broken soil or no harvest. Why was it that David and the jailer and the publican and Paul made such ado about their sins? Had they lost their senses? No. The ploughshare struck them. Conviction turned up a great many things that were forgotten. As a farmer ploughing sometimes turns up the skeleton of a man or the anatomy of a monster long ages buried, so the ploughshare of conviction turns up the ghostly skeletons of sins long ages entombed.—Dr. Talmage.