Deep Plowing by Dr. Talmage

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Oct 14, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 11.

Deep Plowing.

By Dr. Talmage

DEEP plowing for a crop. Deep plowing 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 tho it were an inaccuracy, or mistake, instead of the loathsome, abominable, consuming and damning thing that God hates, that man will never yield a harvest of usefulness.

When I was a boy I plowed a field with a team of spirited horses. I plowed it very quickly. Once in a while I passed over some of the sod without turning it, but I did not jerk back the plow 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 plowed deep enough; there, you have missed this, and you have missed that." And he plowed it over again. The difficulty with a great many people is that they are only scratched with conviction when the subsoil plow 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—Plow deep! Plow 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 colter 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 plowing for a crop. Deep plowing 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 plowshare struck them. Conviction turned up a great many things that were forgotten. As a farmer plowing sometimes turns up the skeleton of a man or the anatomy of a monster long ages buried, so the plowshare of conviction turns up the ghostly skeletons of sins long ages entombed.—Dr. Talmage.