 section four of talks to farmers by Charles H. Spurgeon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Lauren Randall. The corn of wheat dying to bring forth fruit. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateeth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. John 12, 23-25 Certain Greeks desired to see Jesus. These were Gentiles, and it was remarkable that they should, just at this time, have sought an interview with our Lord. I suppose that the words, We would see Jesus, did not merely mean that they would like to look at him, for that they could have done in the public streets. But they would see him as we speak of seeing a person with whom we wish to hold a conversation. They desired to be introduced to him, and to have a few words of instruction from him. These Greeks were the advanced guard of that great multitude that no man can number, of all nations and people and tongues, who are yet to come to Christ. The Saviour would naturally fill a measure of joy at the sight of them. But he did not say much about it, for his mind was absorbed just then with thoughts of his great sacrifice and its results. Yet he took so much notice of the coming of these Gentiles to him, that he gave a colour to the words which are here recorded by his servant John. I notice that the Saviour here displays his broad humanity, and announces himself as the Son of Man. He had done so before, but here with new intent. He says, The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified. Not as the Son of David, does he here speak of himself, but as the Son of Man. No longer does he make prominent the Jewish side of his mission. Though as a preacher he was not sent to serve the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but as the dying Saviour he speaks of himself as one of the race. Not the Son of Abraham, or of David, but the Son of Man, as much brother to the Gentile as to the Jew. Let us never forget the broad humanity of the Lord Jesus. In him all kindreds of the earth are joined in one. For he is not ashamed to bear the nature of our universal manhood, black and white, prince and pauper, sage and savage. All see in his veins the one blood by which all men are constituted one family. As the Son of Man, Jesus is near akin to every man that lives. Now too, that the Greeks were come, our Lord speaks somewhat of his glory as approaching. The hour is come, saith he, that the Son of Man should be glorified. He does not say that the Son of Man should be crucified, though that was true, and the crucifixion must come before the glorification. But the sight of those first fruits, from among the Gentiles, makes him dwell upon his glory. Though he remembers his death, he speaks rather of the glory which would grow out of his great sacrifice. Remember, brethren, that Christ is glorified in the souls that he saves. As a physician wins honor by those he heals, so the physician of souls gets glory out of those who come to him. When these devout Greeks came, saying, Sirs, we would see Jesus. Though a mere desire to see him is only as a green blade, yet he rejoiced in it as the pledge of the harvest, and he saw in it the dawn of the glory of his cross. I think, too, that the coming of these Greeks somewhat led the Saviour to use the metaphor of the buried corn. We are informed that wheat was largely mixed up with Grecian mysteries, but that is of small importance. It is more to the point that our Saviour was then undergoing the process which would burst the Jewish pusk in which, if I may use such terms, his human life had been enveloped. I mean this. After time our Lord said that he was not sent saved to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and when the Syrophoenician woman pleaded for her daughter, he reminded her of the restricted character of his commission as a prophet among men. When he sent out the seventy, he bade them not to go into the cities of the Samaritans, but to seek after the house of Israel only. Now, however, that blessed corn of wheat is breaking through its outer integument. Even before it is put into the ground to die, the divine corn of wheat begins to show its living power, and the true Christ is being manifested. The Christ of God, though assuredly the son of David, was on the Father's side. Neither Jew nor Gentile, but simply man. And the great sympathies of his heart were with all mankind. He regarded all whom he had chosen as his own brethren without distinction of sex or nation or the period of the world's history in which they should live. And at the sight of these Greeks the true Christ came forth and manifested himself to the world as he had not done before. Hence, perhaps, the peculiar metaphor which we have now to explain. In our text, dear friends, we have two things upon which I will speak briefly, as I am helped of the Spirit. First, we have profound doctrinal teaching. And secondly, we have practical moral principle. First, we have profound doctrinal teaching. Our Savior suggested to his thoughtful disciples a number of what might be called doctrinal paradoxes. First, that glorious as he was, he was yet to be glorified. The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Jesus was always glorious. It was a glorious thing for the human person of the Son of Man to be personally one with the Godhead. Our Lord Jesus had also great glory all the while he was on earth, in the perfection of his moral character. The gracious end for which he came here was real glory to him. His condescending to be the Savior of men was a great glorification of his loving character. His way of going about his work, the way in which he consecrated himself to his Father, and was always about his Father's business, the way in which he put aside Satan with his blandishments, and would not be bribed by all the kingdoms of the world. All this was his glory. I should not speak incorrectly if I were to say that Christ was really as to his moral nature never more glorious than when throughout his life on earth he was obscure, despised, rejected, and yet the faithful servants of God and the ardent lover of the sons of men. The apostle says, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, in which he refers not only to the transfiguration in which there were special glimpses of the divine glory, but to our Lord's tabernacling among men in the common walks of life. Saintly spiritual minds beheld the glory of his life, the glory of grace and truth, such as never before had been seen in any of the sons of men. But though he was thus, to all intents and purposes, already glorious, Jesus had yet to be glorified. Something more was to be added to his personal honor. Remember then that when you have the clearest conceptions of your Lord there is still a glory to be added to all that you can see even with a word of God in your hands. Glorious as the living son of man had been there was a further glory to come upon him through his death, his resurrection, and his entrance within the veil. He was a glorious Christ and yet he had to be glorified. A second paradox is this, that his glory was to come to him through shame. He says the hour is come that the son of man should be glorified, and then he speaks of his death. The greatest fullness of our Lord's glory arises out of his emptying himself, and becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. It is his highest reputation that he made himself of no reputation. His crown derives new luster from his cross. His ever-living is rendered more honorable by the fact of his dying unto sin once. Those blessed cheeks would never have been as fair as they are in the eyes of his chosen if they had not once been spat upon. Those dear eyes had never had so overpowering a glance if they had not once been dimmed in the agonies of death for sinners. His hands are as gold rings set forth with barrel, but their brightest adornments are the prints of the cruel nails. As the son of God his glory was all his own by nature, but as son of man his present splendor is due to the cross and to the ignominy which surrounded it when he bore our sins in his own body. We must never forget this, and if ever we are tempted to merge the crucified Saviour in the coming King, we should feel rebuked by the fact that thus we should rob our Lord of his highest honour. Whenever you hear men speak lightly of the atonement, stand up for it at once. For out of this comes the main glory of your Lord and Master. They say, let him come down from the cross and we will believe on him. If he did so what would remain to be believed? It is on the cross, it is from the cross, it is through the cross that Jesus mounts to his throne, and the son of man has a special honour in heaven today because he was slain and has redeemed us to God by his blood. The next paradox is this. Jesus must be alone or abide alone. Notice the text as I read it. Accept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. And so gets alone, it abideth alone. The son of man must be alone in the grave or he will be alone in heaven. He must fall into the ground like the corn of wheat and be there in the loneliness of death or else he will abide alone. This is a paradox readily enough explained. Our Lord Jesus Christ as the son of man, unless he had trodden the wine-press alone, unless beneath the olives of Gethsemane, he had wrestled on the ground, and as it were sunk into the ground until he died. If he had not been there alone, and if on the cross he had not cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, so that he felt quite deserted and alone like the buried corn of wheat could not have saved us? If he had not actually died he would as man have been alone forever, not without the Eternal Father and the Divine Spirit, not without the company of angels. But there had not been another man to keep him company. Our Lord Jesus cannot bear to be alone. A head without its members is a ghastly sight. Put it as you may. Know ye not that the church is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Without his people Jesus would have been a shepherd without sheep. Surely it is not a very honorable office to be a shepherd without a flock. He would have been a husband without his spouse. But he loves his bride so well that for this purpose did he leave his father and become one flesh with her whom he had chosen. He clave to her and died for her. And had he not done so he would have been a bridegroom without a bride. This could never be. His heart is not of the kind that can enjoy a selfish happiness which is shared by none. If you have read Solomon's song where the heart of the bridegroom is revealed you will have seen that he desires the company of his love, his dove, his undefiled. His delights were with the sons of men. Simon's stylites on the top of a pillar is not Jesus Christ. The hermit in his cave may mean well, but he finds no warrant for his solitude in him whose cross he professes to venerate. Jesus was the friend of men, not avoiding them, but seeking the lost. It was truly said of him, this man receiveth sinners and aetheth with them. He draws all men unto him, and for this cause he was lifted up from the earth. Yet must this great attractive man have been alone in heaven if he had not been alone in Gethsemane. Alone before Pilate, alone when mocked by soldiers, and alone upon the cross, if this precious grain of wheat had not descended into the dread loneliness of death it had remained alone, but since he died that he bringeth forth much fruit. This brings us to the fourth paradox. Christ must die to give life. Except a corn of wheat fallen to the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. Jesus must die to give life to others. Persons who do not think confound dying with non-existence and living with existence. Very, very different things. The soul that sineth it shall die, it shall never go out of existence, but it shall die by being severed from God who is its life. There are many men who exist and yet have not true life and shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them. The grain of wheat, when it is put into the ground, dies. Do we mean that it ceases to be? Not at all. What is death? It is the resolution of anything possessing life into its primary elements. With us it is the body parting from the soul. With the grain of wheat it is the dissolving of the elements which made up the corn. Our Divine Lord, when put into the earth, did not see corruption, but his soul was parted from his body for a while, and thus he died, and unless he had it literally and actually died he could not have given life to any of us. Beloved friends, this teaches us where the vital point of Christianity lies. Christ's death is the life of his teaching. See here, if Christ's preaching had been the essential point or if his example had been the vital point, he could have brought forth fruit and multiplied Christians by his preaching and by his example. But he declares that, except he shall die he shall not bring forth fruit. Am I told that this was because his death would be the completion of his example and the seal of his preaching? I admit that it was so, but I came to conceive that if our Lord had rather continued to live on, if he had been here constantly going up and down the world preaching and living as he did, and if he had wrought miracles as he did, and put forth that mysterious, attractive power which was always with him, he might have produced a marvelous number of disciples. If his teaching and living had been the way in which spiritual life could have been bestowed without an atonement, why did not the Savior prolong his life on earth? But the fact is that no man among us can know anything about spiritual life except through the atonement. There is no way by which we can come to a knowledge of God except through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, by which we have access to the Father. If, as some tell us, the ethical part of Christianity is much more to be thought of than its peculiar doctrines, then why did Jesus die at all? The ethical might have been brought out better by a long life of holiness. We might have lived on till now if he had chosen and still have preached and still have set an example among the sons of men. But he assures us that only by death could he have brought forth fruit. What, not with all that holy living? No. What, not by that matchless teaching? No. Not one among us could have been saved from eternal death except an expiation had been wrought by Jesus' sacrifice. Not one of us could have been quickened into spiritual life except Christ himself had died and risen from the dead. Brethren, all the spiritual life that there is in the world is the result of Christ's death. We live under a dispensation which shadows forth this truth to us. Life first came into the world by a creation that was lost in the garden. Since then the Father of our race is Noah, and life by Noah came to us by a typical death, burial, and resurrection. Noah went in unto the ark, and was shut in, and so buried in that ark Noah went among the dead, himself enveloped in the rain and in the ark, and he came out into a new world rising again, as it were, when the waters were asswaged. That is the way of life today. We are dead with Christ. We are buried with Christ. We are risen with Christ. And there is no real spiritual life in this world except that which has come to us by the process of death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. Do you know anything about this, dear friends? For if you do not, you know not the life of God. You know the theory. But do you know the experimental power of this within your own spirit? Whenever we hear the doctrine of the atonement attacked, let us stand up for it. Let us tell the world that while we value the life of Christ even more than they do, we know that it is not the example of Christ that saves anybody, but his death for our sakes. If the blessed Christ had lived here all these nineteen hundred years without sin, teaching all his marvelous precepts with his own sublime and simple eloquence, yet he had not produced one single atom of spiritual life among all the sons of men. Without dying he brings forth no fruit. If you want life, my dear hearer, you will not get it as an unregenerate man by attempting to imitate the example of Christ. You may get good of a certain sort that way, but you will never obtain spiritual life and eternal salvation by that method. You must believe on Jesus as dying for you. You have to understand that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all sin. When you have learned that truth, you shall study his life with advantage. But unless you recognize that the grain of wheat is cast into the ground and made to die, you will never realize any fruit from it in your own soul, or see fruit in the souls of others. One other blessed lesson of deep divinity is to be learned from our text. It is this. Since Jesus Christ did really fall into the ground and die, we may expect much of the result of it. If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Some have a little Christ, and they expect to see little things come of him. I have met with good people who appear to think that Jesus Christ died for the sound people who worship at Zohar Chapel, and perhaps for a few more who go to Ebenezer in a neighboring town, and they hope that one day a chosen few, a scanty company indeed they are, and they do their best by mutual quarreling to make them fewer, will glorify God for the salvation of a very small remnant. I will not blame these dear brethren, but I do wish that their hearts were enlarged. We do not yet know all the fruit that is to come out of our Lord Jesus. May there not come a day when the millions of London shall worship God with one consent. I look for a day when the knowledge of the glory of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. When King shall fall down before the Son of God, and all nations shall call him blessed. It is too much to expect, says one. Missions make very slow progress. I know all that, but missions are not the seed. All that we look for is to come out of that corn of wheat which fell into the ground and died. This is to bring forth much fruit. When I think of my master's blessed person as perfect Son of God and Son of Man, when I think of the infinite glory which he laid aside, and of the unutterable pangs he bore, I ask whether angels can compute the value of the sacrifice he offered. God only knows the love of God that was manifested in the death of his Son. And do you think that there will be all this planning and working and sacrifice of infinite love, and then an insignificant result? It is not like God that it should be so. The travail of the Son of God shall not bring forth a scanty good. The result shall be commensurate with the means, and the effect shall be parallel with the cause. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever, hallelujah. I, as the groanings of the cross, must have astounded angels. So shall the results of the cross amaze the seraphim, and make them admire the excess of glory which has arisen from the shameful death of their Lord. O beloved, great things are to come out of our Jesus yet. Courage, you that are dispirited, be brave, you soldiers of the cross. Victory awaits your banner. Wait patiently. Work hopefully. Suffer joyfully for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor among the nations. Thus have I spoken upon profound divinity. I close with a few words upon practical instruction. Learn now that what is true of Christ is in measure true of every child of God. Accept a corn of wheat, fall into the ground, and die. It abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. This is so far applicable to us as the next verse indicates. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateeth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. First we must die if we are to live. There is no spiritual life for you, for me, for any man, except by dying into it. Have you a fine spun righteousness of your own? It must die. Have you any faith in yourself? It must die. The sentence of death must be in yourself, and then you shall enter into life. The withering power of the Spirit of God must be experienced before his quickening influence can be known. The grass withereth, the flower fadeeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. You must be slain by the sword of the Spirit before you can be made alive by the breath of the Spirit. Next we must surrender everything to keep it. He that loveth his life shall lose it. Brother, you can never have spiritual life, hope, joy, peace, heaven, except by giving everything up into God's hands. You shall have everything in Christ when you are willing to have nothing of your own. You must ground your weapons of rebellion. You must drop the plumes of your pride. You must give up into God's hand all that you are and all that you have. And if you do not thus lose everything in will, you shall lose everything in fact. Indeed, you have lost it already. A full surrender of everything to God is the only way to keep it. Some of God's people find this literally true. I have known a mother keep back her child from God and the child has died. Wealthy people have worshiped their wealth and as they were God's people he has broken their idols into shivers. You must lose your all if you would keep it and renounce your most precious thing if you would have it preserved to you. Next, we must lose self in order to find self. He that hateeth his life shall keep it unto life eternal. You must entirely give up living for yourself and then you yourself shall live. The man who lives for himself does not live. He loses the essence, the pleasure, the crown of existence. But if you live for others and for God you will find the life of life. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. There is no way of finding yourself in personal joy like losing yourself in the joy of others. Once more, if you wish to be the means of life to others, you must in your measure die yourself. Oh, say you, will it actually come to death? Well, it may not, but you should be prepared for it if it should. Who have most largely blessed the present age? I will tell you. I believe we owe our gospel liberties mainly to the poor men and women who died at the stake for the faith. Call them lawlords, anabaptists, or what you will. The men who died for it gave life to the holy cause. Some of all ranks did this, from bishops downward to poor boys. Many of them could not preach from the pulpit, but they preached grander sermons from the faggots than all the reformers could thunder from their rostrums. They fell into the ground and died, and the much fruit abides to this day. The self-sacrificing death of her saints was the life and increase of the church. If we wish to achieve a great purpose, establish a great truth, and raise up a great agency for good, it must be by the surrender of ourselves. Ye of our very lives to the one all absorbing purpose. Not else can we succeed. There is no giving out to others without taking so much out of yourself. He who serves God and finds that it is easy work will find it hard work to give in his account at the last. A sermon that costs nothing is worth nothing. If it did not come from the heart, it will not go to the heart. Take it as a rule that wear and tear must go on even to exhaustion. If we are to be largely useful, death precedes growth. The Savior of others cannot save himself. We must not therefore grudge the lives of those who die under the evil climate of Africa if they die for Christ. Nor must we murmur if here and there God's best servants are cut down by brain exhaustion. It is the law of divine husbandry that by death cometh increase. And you, dear friend, must not say, oh, I cannot longer teach in the Sunday school. I work so hard all the week that I, I, I, shall I finish the sentence for you? You work so hard for yourself all the week that you cannot work for God one day in the week. Is that it? No, not quite so, but I am so fagged. Very true, but think of your Lord. He knew what weariness was for you, and yet he wearied not in well-doing. You will never come to sweat of blood as he did. Come, dear friend, will you be a corn of wheat laid up on the shelf alone? Will you be like that wheat in the mummy's hand, unfruitful and forgotten? Or would you grow? I hear you say, sew me somewhere. I will try to do so. Let me drop you into the Sunday school field, or into the track lending acre, or into the street preaching parcel of land. But if I make any great exertion, it will half kill me. Yes, and if it shall quite kill, you will then prove the text. If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Those who have killed themselves of late in our Lord's service are not so numerous that we need be distressed by the fear that an enormous sacrifice of life is likely to occur. Little cause is there just now to repress fanaticism, but far more reason to denounce self-seeking. Oh, my brethren, let us rise to a condition of consecration, more worthy of our Lord and of His glorious cause, and henceforth may we be eager to be as the buried, hidden, dying, yet fruit-bearing wheat for the glory of our Lord. Thus have I merely glanced at the text. Another day may it be our privilege to dive into its depths. End of Chapter 4 The Corn of Wheat Dying to Bring Fourth Fruit Recording by Lauren Randall Section 5 of Talks to Farmers by Charles H. Spurgeon This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Lauren Randall The Plowman Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Isaiah 28, 24. Unless they are cultivated, field yield us nothing but briars and thistles. In this we may see ourselves. Unless the great husbandman shall till us by his grace, we shall produce nothing that is good, but everything that is evil. If one of these days I shall hear that a country has been discovered, where wheat grows without the work of the farmer, I may then, perhaps, hope to find one of our race who will bring forth holiness without the grace of God. Hitherto, all land on which the foot of man has trodden, has needed labor and care, and even so among men, the need of gracious tillage is universal. Jesus says to all of us, Ye must be born again. Unless God the Holy Spirit breaks up the heart with the plow of the law, and sows it with the seed of the gospel, not a single ear of holiness will any of us produce, even though we may be children of godly parents, and may be regarded as excellent moral people by those with whom we live. Yes, and the plow is needed not only to produce that which is good, but to destroy that which is evil. There are diseases which, in the course of ages, wear themselves out, and do not appear again among men, and there may be forms of vice which under changed circumstances do not so much abound as they used to do, but human nature will always remain the same, and therefore there will always be plentiful crops of the weeds of sin in man's fields. And nothing can keep these under but spiritual husbandry, carried on by the spirit of God. You cannot destroy weeds by exhortations, nor can you tear out the roots of sin from the soul by moral suasion. Something sharper and more effectual must be brought to bear upon them. God must put his own right hand to the plow, or the hemlock of sin will never give place to the corn of holiness. Good is never spontaneous in unrenewed humanity, and evil is never cut up till the plow share of Almighty Grace is driven through it. The text leads our thoughts in this direction, and gives us practical guidance through asking the simple question, doth the plowmen plow all day to sow? This question may be answered in the affirmative. Yes, in the proper season he does plow all day to sow. And secondly, this text may more properly be answered in the negative. No, the plowmen does not plow every day to sow, he has other work to do according to the season. First, our text may be answered in the affirmative. Yes, the plowmen does plow all day to sow. When it is plowing time, he keeps on at it till his work is done. If it requires one day, or two days, or twenty days to finish his fields, he continues at his task while the weather permits. The perseverance of the plowman is instructive, and it teaches us a double lesson. When the Lord comes to plow the heart of man, he plows all day, and herein is his patience. And secondly, sow off the Lord's servants to labor all day with men's hearts, and herein is our perseverance. Doth the plowman plow all day? So doth God plow the heart of man, and herein is his patience. The team was in the field in the case of some of us very early in the morning, for our first recollections have to do with conscience and the furrows of pain which it made in our youthful mind. When we were little children we woken the night under a sense of sin. Our father's teaching and our mother's prayers made deep and painful impressions upon us. And though we did not then yield our hearts to God, we were greatly stirred, and all indifference to religion was made impossible. When we were boys at school, the reading of a chapter in the Word of God, or the death of a playmate, or in a dress at a Bible class, or a solemn sermon, so affected us that we were uneasy for weeks. The strivings of the Spirit of God within urged us to think of higher and better things. Though we quenched the Spirit, though we stifled conviction, yet we bore the marks of the plowshare, furrows were made in the soul, and certain foul weeds of evil were cut up by the roots, although no seat of grace was at yet sown in our hearts. Some have continued in this state for many years, plowed but not sown. But, blessed by God, it was not so with others of us, for we had not left boyhood before the good seat of the gospel fell upon our heart. Alas, there are many who do not thus yield to grace, and with them the plowman plows all day to sow. I have seen the young man coming to London in his youth yielding to its temptations, drinking in its poisoned sweets, violating his conscience, and yet continuing unhappy in it all, fearful, unrestful, stirred about even as the soil is agitated by the plow. In how many cases has this kind of work gone on for years and all to no avail? Ah, and I have known the man come to middle life, and still he has not received the good seat. Neither has the ground of his hard heart been thoroughly broken up. He has gone on in business without God. Day after day he has risen and gone to bed again with no more religion than his horses. And yet all this while there have been ringing in his ears warnings of judgment to come, and chidings of conscience, so that he has not been at peace. After a powerful sermon he has not enjoyed his meals or been able to sleep, for he has asked himself, what shall I do in the end thereof? The plowman has plowed all day till the evening shadows have lengthened and the day has faded to a close. What a mercy it is when the furrows are at last made ready and the good seat is cast in, to be received, nurtured, and multiplied a hundredfold. It is mournful to remember that we have seen this plowing continue till the sun has touched the horizon, and the night dews have begun to fall. Even then the long-suffering God has followed up his work plowing, plowing, plowing, plowing, till darkness ended all. Do I address any aged ones whose lease must soon run out? I would affectionately beseech them to consider their position. What? Three score years old and yet unsaved? Forty years did God suffer the manners of Israel in the wilderness. But he has borne with you for sixty years. Seventy years old and yet unregenerated? Ah, my friend, you will have but little time in which to serve your Savior before you go to heaven, but will you go there at all? Is it not growing dreadfully likely that you will die in your sins and perish forever? How happy are those who are brought to Christ in early life, but still remember. While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. It is late, it is very late, but is not too late. The plowmen plows all day, and the Lord waits that he may be gracious unto you. I have seen many aged persons converted, and therefore I would encourage other old folks to believe in Jesus. I once read a sermon in which a minister asserted that he had seldom known any converted who were over forty years of age if they had been hearers of the gospel all their lives. There is certain much need to caution those who are guilty of delay, but there must be no manufacturing of facts. Whatever that minister might think or even observe, my own observation leads me to believe that about as many people are converted to God at one age as at another, taking into consideration the fact that the young are much more numerous than the old. It is a dreadful thing to have remained an unbeliever all these years, but yet the grace of God does not stop short at a certain age. Those who enter the vineyard at the eleventh hour shall have their penny, and grace shall be glorified in the old as well as in the young. Come along, old friend, Jesus Christ invites you to come to him even now. Though you have stood out so long, you have been a sadly tough piece of ground and the plowmen has plowed all day. But if at last the sods are turned and the heart is lying in ridges, there is hope of you yet. Doth the plowmen plow all day? I answer yes. However long the day may be, God in mercy plows still. He is long suffering and full of tenderness and mercy and grace. Do not spurn such patience, but yield to the Lord who has acted toward you with so much gentle love. The text, however, not only sets forth patience on God's part, but it teaches perseverance on our part. Doth the plowmen plow all day? Yes, he does. Then, if I am seeking Christ, ought I to be discouraged, because I do not immediately find him? The promise is, he that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. There may be reasons why the door is not opened at our first knock. What then? Doth the plowmen plow all day? Then will I knock all day? It may be at the first seeking, I may not find. What then? Doth the plowmen plow all day? Then will I seek all day? It may happen that at my first asking, I shall not receive. What then? Doth the plowmen plow all day? Then will I ask all day? Friends, if you have begun to seek the Lord, the short way is, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Do that at once. In the name of God, do it at once, and you are saved at once. May the Spirit of God bring you to faith in Jesus, and you are at once in the Kingdom of Christ. But if per adventure in seeking the Lord, you are ignorant of this, or do not see your way, never give up seeking. Get to the foot of the cross, lay hold of it, and cry. If I perish, I will perish here, Lord. I come to thee in Jesus Christ for mercy. And if thou art not pleased to look at me immediately and forgive my sins, I will cry to thee till thou dust. When God's Holy Spirit brings a man to downright earnest prayer, which will not take a denial, he is not far from peace. Careless indifference and shilly shallying with God hold men in bondage. They find peace when their hearts are roused to strong resolve to seek until they find. I like to see men search the scriptures till they learn the way of salvation, and hear the Gospel till their souls live by it. If they are resolved to drive the plow through doubts and fears and difficulties till they come to salvation, they shall soon come to it by the grace of God. The same is true in seeking the salvation of others. Doth the plowmen plow all day? Yes, when it is plowing time. Then so will I work on and on and on. I will pray and preach, or pray and teach, however long the day may be that God shall appoint me, for, tis all my business here below the precious Gospel seed to sow. Brother, worker, are you getting a little weary? Never mind, rouse yourself and plow on for the love of Jesus and dying men. Our day of work has in it only the appointed hours, and while they last, let us fulfill our task. Plowing is hard work, but as there will be no harvest without it, let us just put forth all our strength and never flag to we have performed our Lord's will, and by His Holy Spirit wrought conviction in men's souls. Some soils are very stiff and cling together, and the labor is heartbreaking. Others are like the unreclaimed waste, full of roots and tangled bramble. They need a steam plow, and we must pray the Lord to make us such, for we cannot leave them untilled, and therefore we must put forth more strength that the labor may be done. I heard some time ago of a minister who called to see a poor man who was dying, but he was not able to gain admittance. He called the next morning and some idle excuse was made so that he could not see him. He called again the next morning, but he was still refused. He went on till he called 20 times in vain, but on the 21st occasion he was permitted to see the sufferer, and by God's grace he saved a soul from death. Why do you tell your child a thing 20 times, asked someone of a mother? Because, she said, I find 19 times is not enough. Now, when a soul is to be plowed, it may so happen that hundreds of furrows will not do it. What then? Why, plow all day till the work is done. Whether you are ministers, missionaries, teachers, or private soul winners, never grow weary, for your work is noble, and the reward of it is infinite. The grace of God is seen in our being permitted to engage in such holy service. It is greatly magnified in sustaining us in it, and it will be pre-eminently conspicuous in enabling us to hold out till we can say, I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. We prize that which costs us labor and service, and we shall set all the higher value upon the saved ones when the Lord grants them to our efforts. It is good for us to learn the value of our sheaves by going forth weeping to the sowing. When you think of the plowmen's plowing all day, be moved to plod on in earnest efforts to win souls, seek. With cries and trees, tears to save, and snatch them from the fiery wave. Doth the plowmen plow all day for a little bit of oats or barley, and will not you plow all day for souls that shall live forever if saved, to adore the grace of God, or shall live forever, if unsaved in outer darkness and woe, oh by the terrors of the wrath to come and the glory that is to be revealed, gird up your loins and plow all day. I would beg all the members of our churches to keep their hands on the gospel plow and their eyes straight before them. Doth the plowmen plow all day? Let Christians do the same. Start close to the hedge, and go right down to the bottom of the field. Plow as close to the ditch as you can, and leave small headlands. What, though, there are fallen women, thieves, and drunkards in the slums around? Do not neglect any of them, for if you leave a stretch of land to the weeds, they will soon spread among the wheat. When you have gone right to the end of the field once, what shall you do next? Why, just turn round, and make for the place you started from. And when you have thus been up and down, what next? Why, up and down again. And what next? Why, up and down again. You have visited that district with tracks. Do it again, 52 times in the year, multiply your furrows. We must learn how to continue in well-doing. Your eternal destiny is to go on doing good forever and ever. And it is well to go through a rehearsal here. So just plow on, plow on, and look for results as the reward of continued perseverance. Plowing is not done with a skip and a jump. The plowman plows all day. Dash and flash are all very fine in some things, but not in plowing. There the work must be steady, persistent, regular. Certain persons soon give it up. It wears out their gloves, blisters their soft hands, tires their bones, and makes them eat their bread rather more in the sweat of their face than they care for. Those whom the Lord fills with his grace will keep to their plowing year after year and verily I say unto you, they shall have their reward. Dut the plowman plow all day? Then let us do the same, being assured that one day every hill and valley shall be tilled and sown, and every desert and wilderness shall yield a harvest for our Lord. And the angel-reapers shall descend, and the shouts of the harvest home shall fill both earth and heaven. But now, somewhat briefly, the text may be answered in the negative. Dut the plowman plow all day to sow? No, he does not always plow. After he is plowed he breaks the clods, sows, reaps, and threshes. In the chapter before us you will see that other works of husbandry are mentioned. The plowman has many other things to do beside plowing. There is an advance in what he does. This teaches us that there is the like on God's part, and should be the like on ours. First on God's part there is an advance in what he does. Dut the plowman plow all day? No, he goes forward to other matters. It may be that in the case of some of you the Lord has been using certain painful agencies to plow you. You are feeling the terrors of the law, the bitterness of sin, the holiness of God, the weakness of the flesh, and the shadow of the wrath to come. Is this going to last forever? Will it continue till the spirit fails and the soul expires? Listen. Dut the plowman plow all day? No, he is preparing for something else. He plows to sow. Thus dut the Lord deal with you. Therefore be of good courage. There is an ending to the wounding and slaying, and better things are in store for you. You are poor and needy, and you seek water, and there is none in your tongue phaleth for thirst. But the Lord will hear you and deliver you. He will not contend for ever. Neither will he be always wroth. He will turn again, and he will have compassion upon us. He will not always make furrows by his chiding. He will come and cast in the precious corn of consolation, and water it with the do's of heaven, and smile upon it with the sunlight of his grace. And there shall soon be in you, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, and in due season you shall joy as with the joy of harvest. O ye who are sore wounded in the place of dragons, I hear you cry. Duth God always send terror and conviction of sin. Listen to this. If ye be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. And what is the call of God to the willing and obedient but this? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Thou shalt be saved now. Find peace now. If thou wilt have done with thyself and all looking to thine own good works to save thee, and wilt turn to him who paid the ransom for thee upon the tree. The Lord is gentle and tender and full of compassion. He will not always chide. Neither will he keep his anger forever. Many of your doubts and fears come of unbelief or of Satan or of the flesh and are not of God at all. Blame him not for what he does not send and does not wish you to suffer. His mind is for your peace, not for your distress, for thus he speaks. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto me for I have redeemed thee. He has smitten, but he will smile. He has wounded, but he will heal. He has slain, but he will make alive. Therefore turn unto him at once and receive comfort at his hands. The plowman does not plow forever. Else would he reap no harvest, and God is not always heartbreaking. He also draws near on heart healing errands. You see then that the great husbandman advances from painful agencies, and I want you to mark that he goes on to productive work in the hearts of his people. He will take away the furrows. You shall not see them, for the corn will cover them with beauty. As she that was in travail remembers no more her sorrow for joy that a man is born into the world. So shall you, who are under the legal rod, remember no more the misery of conviction, for God will sow you with grace and make your soul, even your poor barren soul, to bring forth fruit unto his praise and glory. Oh, says one, I wish that would come true to me. It will. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? You expect by and by to see plowed fields clothed with springing corn, and you may look to see repentant hearts gladdened with forgiveness. Therefore be of good courage. You shall advance also to a joyful experience. See that plowman? He whistles as he plows. He does not own much of this world's goods, but yet he is merry. He looks forward to the day when he will be on the top of the big wagon, joining in the shout of the harvest home, and so he plows in hope, expecting a crop. And dear soul, God will yet joy and rejoice over you when you believe in Jesus Christ, and you too shall be brimful of joy. Be of good cheer. The better portion is yet to come. Press forward to it. Gospel sorrowing leads on to gospel hoping, believing, rejoicing, and the rejoicing knows no end. God will not chase him all day, but he will lead you on from strength to strength, from glory unto glory, till you shall be like himself. This then is the advance that there is in God's work among men, from painful agencies to productive work and joyful experience. But what if the plowing should never lead to sowing? What if you should be disturbed in conscience, and should go on to resist it all? Then God will make another advance, but it will be to put up the plow and to command the clouds that they rain no rain upon the land. And then its end is to be burned. Oh man, there is nothing more awful than for your soul to be left to go out of cultivation. God himself giving you up. Surely that is hell. He that is unholy will be unholy still. The law of fixity of character will operate eternally, and no hand of the merciful one shall come near to till the soul again. What worse than this can happen? We conclude by saying that this advance is a lesson to us, for we too are to go forward. Dut the plowman plow all day? No, he plows to sow, and in due time he sows. Some churches seem to think that all they have to do is to plow. At least all they attempt is a kind of scratching of the soil, and talking of what they are going to do. It is fine talk, certainly, but dut the plowman plow all day? You may draw up a large program and promise great things, but pray do not stop there. Don't be making furrows all day. Do get to your sowing. I fancy that those who promise most perform the least. Men who do much in the world have no program at first. Their course works itself out by its own inner force by the grace of God. They do not propose, but perform. They do not plow all day to sow, but they are like our Lord's servant in the parable of whom he saith. The sower went forth to sow. Let the ministers of Christ also follow the rule of advance. Let us go from preaching the law to preaching the gospel. Dut the plowman plow all day? He does plow. He would not sow in hope if he had not first prepared the ground. Robbie Flockert, who preached for years in the Edinburgh streets, says, It is in vain to sow with the silk thread of the gospel, unless you use the sharp needle of the law. Some of my brethren do not care to preach eternal wrath and its terrors. This is a cruel mercy, for they ruin souls by hiding from them their ruin. If they must needs try to sow without a needle, I cannot help it, but I do not mean to be so foolish myself. My needle may be old-fashioned, but it is sharp, and when it carries with it the silk and thread of the gospel, I am sure good work is done by it. You cannot get a harvest if you are afraid of disturbing the soil, nor can you save souls if you never warn them of hellfire. We must tell the sinner what God has revealed about sin, righteousness, and judgment to come. Still, brethren, we must not plow all day. No, no, the preaching of the law is only preparatory to the preaching of the gospel. The stress of our business lies in proclaiming glad tidings. We are not followers of John the Baptist, but of Jesus Christ. We are not rugged prophets of woe, but joyful heralds of grace. Be not satisfied with revival services and stirring appeals, but preach the doctrines of grace so as to bring out the full compass of covenant truth. Plowing has had its turn, now for planting and watering. Reprove may now give place to consolation. We are first to make disciples of men, and then to teach them to observe all things, whatsoever Jesus has commanded us. We must pass on from the rudiments to the higher truths, from laying foundations to further upbuilding. And now another lesson to those of you who are as yet hearers and nothing more. I want you to go from plowing to something better, namely, from hearing and fearing to believing. How many years some of you have been hearing the gospel? Do you mean to continue in that state forever? Will you never believe in him of whom you hear so much? You have been stirred up a good deal. The other night you went home almost brokenhearted. I should think you are plowed enough by this time, and yet you have not received the seed of eternal life. For you have not believed in the Lord Jesus. It is dreadful to be always on the brink of everlasting life, and yet never to be alive. It will be an awful thing to be almost in heaven, and yet forever shut out. It is a wretched thing to rush into a railway station just in time to see the train steaming out. I had much rather be half an hour behind time. To lose a train by half a second is most annoying. Alas, if you go on as you have done for years, you will have your hand on the latch of heaven and yet be shut out. You will be within a hair's breadth of glory and yet be covered with eternal shame. O beware of being so near to the kingdom and yet lost, almost but not altogether saved. God grant that you may not be among those who are plowed and plowed and plowed and yet never sown. It will be of no avail at the last to cry, Lord, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets. We had a seat at the chapel, we attended the services on weeknights as well as on Sundays. We went to prayer meetings, we joined a Bible class, we distributed tracks, we subscribed our guinea to the funds. We gave up every open sin, we used a form of prayer and read a chapter of the Bible every day. All these things may be done and yet there may be no saving faith in the Lord Jesus. Take heed lest your Lord should answer. With all this your heart never came to me, therefore depart from me I never knew you. If Jesus once knows a man he always knows him. He can never say to me I never knew you, for he has known me as his poor dependent, a beggar for years at his door. Some of you have been all that is good except that you never came into contact with Christ, never trusted him, never knew him. Ah, me, how sad your state! Will it be always so? Lastly, I would say to you who are being plowed and are agitated about your souls, go at once to the next stage of believing. Oh, if people did but know how simple a thing believing is, surely they would believe. Alas, they do not know it, and it becomes all the more difficult to them because in itself it is so easy. The difficulty of believing lies and there being no difficulty in it. If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? Oh, yes, you would have done it, and you would have thought it easy too. But when he simply says, Wash and be clean, there is a difficulty with pride and self. If you can truly say that you are willing to abase your pride and do anything which the Lord bids you, then I pray you understand that there is no further preparation required and believe in Jesus at once. May the Holy Spirit make you sick of self and ready to accept the gospel. The word is nigh thee, let it be believed. It is in thy mouth, let it be swallowed down. It is in thy heart, let it be trusted. With your heart, believe in Jesus, and with your mouth make confession of him, and you shall be saved. A main part of faith lies in the giving up of all other confidences. Oh, give up at once every false hope. I tried once to show what faith was by quoting Dr. Watts' lines. A guilty week and helpless worm. On thy kind arms I fall. Be thou my strength and righteousness, my Jesus and my all. I tried to represent faith as falling into Christ's arms, and I thought I made it so plain that the wayfaring man could not air therein. When I had finished preaching, a young man came to me and said, But sir, I cannot fall upon Christ's arms. I replied at once, tumble into them anyhow, faint away into Christ's arms, or die into Christ's arms, so long as you get there. Many talk of what they can do and what they cannot do, and I fear they miss the vital point. Faith is leaving off canning and cannoting, and leaving it all to Christ, for he can do all things, though you can do nothing. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? No, he makes progress and goes from plowing to sowing. Go and do thou likewise. Sow unto the Spirit the precious seed of faith in Christ, and the Lord will give thee a joyous harvest. End of Section 5, The Plowman Recording by Lauren Randall Section 6 of Talks to Farmers by Charles H. Spurgeon This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Lauren Randall Plowing the Rock Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen? Amos 612 These expressions are proverbs taken from the familiar sayings of the East Country. A proverb is generally a sword with two edges, or if I may so say, it has many edges, or is all edge, and hence it may be turned this way and that way, and every part of it will have force and point. A proverb has often many bearings, and you cannot always tell what was the precise meaning of him who uttered it. The connection would abundantly tolerate two senses in this place. An ancient commentator asserts that it has seven meanings, and that any one of them would be consistent with the context. I cannot deny the assertion, and if it be correct, it is only one among many instances of the manifold wisdom of the Word of God. Like those curiously carved Chinese balls in which there is one ball within another, so in many a holy text there is sense within sense, teaching within teaching, and each one worthy of the Spirit of God. The first sense of the text upon which I would say just a word or two is this. The prophet is expostulating with ungodly men upon their pursuit of happiness, where it never can be found. They were endeavoring to grow rich and great and strong by oppression. The prophet says, ye have turned judgment into gall and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock. Justice was bought and sold among them, and the book of the law was made the instrument of fraud. Yet, says the prophet, there is no gain to be gotten in this way, no real prophet, no true happiness, as well may horses run upon a rock and oxen plow the sand. It is labor in vain. If any of you try to content yourselves with this world, any hope to find a heaven in the midst of your business and your family, without looking upward for it, you labor in vain. If you hope to find pleasure in sin and think that it will go well with you if you despise the law of God, you will make a great mistake. You might as well seek for roses in the grottoes of the sea, or look for pearls on the pavements of the city. You will find what your soul requires nowhere, but in God. To seek after happiness in evil deeds is to plow a rock of granite. To labor after true prosperity by dishonest means is as useless as to till the sandy shore. Wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfies not? Young man, you are killing yourself with ambition. You seek your own honor and emolument, and this is a poor, poor object for an immortal soul. And you too, sir, are wearing out your life with care. Your mind and body both fail you in endeavoring to amass riches, as if a man's life consisted in the abundance of the things which he possesses. You are plowing a rock. Your cares will not bring you joy of heart or content of spirit. Your toil will end in failure, and you too who labor to weave a righteousness by your works apart from Christ and fancy that with the diligent use of outward ceremonies you may be able to do the work of the Holy Spirit upon your own heart. You too are plowing thankless rock. The strength of fallen nature exerted at its utmost can never save a soul. Why then plow the rock any longer? Give over the foolish task. So far, I believe, we have not misread the text, but have mentioned a very probable meaning of the words. Still another strikes me, which I think equally suitable, and upon it I shall dwell by God's help. It is this. God will not always send his ministers to call men to repentance. When men's hearts remain obdurate, and they do not and will not repent, then God will not always deal with them in mercy. My spirit shall not always strive with man. There is a time of plowing, but when it is evident that the heart is willfully hardened, then wisdom itself suggests to mercy that she should give over her efforts. Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen? No, there is a limit to the efforts of kindness and in fullness of time the labor ceases, and the rock remains unplowed, henceforth and forever. Taking that sense, we shall speak upon it and remark, first, that ministers labor to break up men's hearts. The wise preacher tries by the power of the Holy Ghost to break up the hard clods of the heart, so that it may receive the heavenly seed. Many truths are used like sharp plowshares to break up the heart. Men must be made to feel that they have sinned and they must be led to repent of sin. They must receive Christ, not with the head only, but with the heart. For with the heart men believe with unto righteousness. There must be a motion. We must cut into the heart with the plowshare of the law. A farmer who is too tender-hearted to tear and harrow the land will never see a harvest. Here is the failing of certain divines. They are afraid of hurting any one's feelings, and so they keep clear of all the truths which are likely to excite fear or grief. They have not a sharp plowshare on their premises and are never likely to have a stack in their rickyard. They angle without hooks for fear of hurting the fish and fire without bullets out of respect to the feelings of the birds. This kind of love is real cruelty to men's souls. It is much the same as if a surgeon should permit a patient to die because he would not pain him with a lancet or by the necessary removal of limb. It is a terrible tenderness which leaves men to sink into hell rather than distress their minds. It is pleasant to prophesy smooth things, but woe unto the man who thus degrades himself. Is this the spirit of Christ? Did he conceal the sinner's peril? Did he cast doubt upon the unquenchable fire and the undying worm? Did he lull souls into slumber by smooth strains of flattery? Nay, but with honest love and anxious concern he warned men of the wrath to come and bade them repent or perish. Let the servant of the Lord Jesus in this thing follow his master and plow deep with a sharp plowshare which will not be balked by the hardest clods. This we must school ourselves to do if we really love the souls of men. Let us prove it by honest speech. The hard heart must be broken where it will still refuse the Savior who was sent to bind up the broken hearted. There are some things which men may or may not have and yet may be saved but those things which go with the plowing of the heart are indispensable. There must be a holy fear and a humble trembling before God. There must be an acknowledgement of guilt and a penitent petition for mercy. There must in a word be a thorough plowing of the soul before we can expect the seed to bring forth fruit. But the text indicates to us that at times ministers labor in vain. Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen? In a short time a plowman fills whether the plow will go or not and so does the minister. He may use the very same words in one place which he has used in another but he fills in the one place great joy and hopefulness in preaching while with another audience he has heavy work and little hope. The plow in the last case seems to jump out of the furrow and a bit of the share is broken off now and then. He says to himself I do not know how it is but I do not get on at this and he finds that his master has sent him to work upon a particularly heavy soil. All laborers for Christ know that this is occasionally the case. You must have found it so in a Sunday school class or in a cottage meeting or in any other gathering where you have tried to teach and preach Jesus. You have said to yourself every now and then now I am plowing a rock before I turned up rich mold which a yoke of oxen might plow with ease and a horse might even run at the work but now the horse may tug and the oxen may weirdly toil till they gall their shoulders but they cannot cut a furrow the rock is stubborn to the last degree. There are such hearers in all congregations they are as iron and yet they are side by side with a fine plot of ground their sister their brother their son their daughter all these have readily felt the power of the gospel but they do not feel it they hear it respectfully and they so far allow it free course that they permit it to go in at one ear and out at the other but they will have nothing more to do with it they would not like to be Sabbath breakers and stop away from worship they therefore do the gospel the questionable compliment of coming where it is preached and then refusing to regard it they are hard hard hard bits of rock the plow does not touch them many on the other hand are equally hard but it is in another way the impression made by the word is not deep or permanent they receive it with joy but they do not retain it they listen with attention but it never comes to practice with them they hear about repentance but they never repent they hear about faith but they never believe they are good judges of what the gospel is and yet they have never accepted it for themselves they will not eat but still they insist that good bread shall be put on the table they are great sticklers for the very things which they personally reject they are moved to feeling they shed tears occasionally but still their hearts are not really broken up by the word they go their way and forget what manner of men they are they are rocky hearted through and through all our attempts to plow them are failures now this is all the worse because certain of these rocky hearted people have been plowed for years and have become harder instead of softer once or twice plowing and a broken share or two and a disappointed plowman or two we might not mind if they would yield at last but these have since their childhood known the gospel and never given way before its power it is a good while since their childhood now with some of them their hair is turning gray and they themselves are getting feeble with years they have been in treated and persuaded times beyond number but labor has been lost upon them in fact they used to fill the word in a certain fashion far more years ago than they do now the sun which softens wax hardens clay and the same gospel which has brought others to tenderness and repentance has exercised a contrary effect upon them and made them more careless about divine things than they were in their youth this is a mournful state of things is it not why are certain men so extremely rocky some are so from a peculiar stolidity of nature there are many people in the world whom you cannot very well move they have a great deal of granite in their constitution and are more nearly related to Mr. obstinate than to Mr. pliable now I do not think badly of these people because one knows what it is to preach to an excitable people and to get them all stirred and to know that in the end they are none the better whereas some of the more stolid and immovable people when they are moved are moved indeed when they do feel they feel intensely and they retain any impression that is made a little chip made in granite by very hard blows will abide there while the lashing of water which is easy enough will leave no trace even for a moment it is a grand thing to get hold of a fine piece of rock and to exercise faith about it the Lord's own hammer has mighty power to break and in the breaking great glory comes to the most high worse still certain men are hard because of their infidelity not heart infidelity all of it but an infidelity which springs out of a desire not to believe which has helped them to discover difficulties these difficulties exist and were meant to exist for there would be no room for faith if everything were as plain as the nose on one's face these persons have gradually come to doubt or to think that they doubt essential truths and this renders them impervious to the gospel of Christ a much more numerous body are orthodox enough but hard-hearted for all that worldliness hardens a man in every way it often dries up all charity to the poor because the man must make money and he thinks that the poor rates are sufficient excuse for neglecting the offices of charity he has no time to think of the next world he must spend all his thoughts upon the present one money is tight and therefore he must hold it tight and when money brings in little interest he finds there in a reason for being the more niggardly he has no time for prayer he must get down to the counting house he has no time for reading his bible his ledger wants him you may knock at his door but his heart is not at home it is in the counting house wherein he lives and moves and has his being his god is his gold his bliss is his business his all in all is himself what is the use of preaching to him as well may horses run upon a rock or oxen drag a plow across a field cheated with iron a mile thick with some too there is a hardness produced by what i might almost call the opposite of stern worldliness namely a general levity they are naturally butterflies flitting about and doing nothing they never think or want to think half a thought exhaust them and they must needs be diverted or their feeble minds will utterly weary they live in a round of amusement to them the world is a stage and all the men and women only players it is of little use to preach to them there is no depth of earth in their superficial nature beneath the sprinkling of shifting worthless sand lies an impenetrable rock of utter stupidity and senselessness i might thus multiply reasons why some are harder than others but it is a well assured fact that they are so and there i leave the matter i shall now ask everybody to judge whether the running of horses upon a rock and the plowing there with oxen shall always be continued i assert that it is unreasonable to expect that god's servants should always continue to labor in vain these people have been preached to taught instructed admonished expostulated with and advised shall this recompensed work be always performed we have given them a fair trial what do reason and prudence say are we bound to persevere till we are worn out by this unsuccessful work we will ask it of men who plow their own farms do they recommend perseverance when failure is certain shall horses run upon the rock shall one plow there with oxen surely not forever i think we shall all agree that labor in vain cannot be continued forever if we consider the plowman he does not want to be much considered but still his master does not overlook him see how weary he grows when the work discourages him he goes to his master with who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the lord revealed why hast thou sent me says he to a people that have ears but hear not they sit as thy people sit and they hear as thy people hear and then they go their way and they forget every word that is spoken and they obey not the voice of the lord see how disappointed the preacher becomes it is always hard work when you appear to get no forwarder although you do your utmost no man whoever he may be likes to be set upon work which appears to be altogether a waste of time and effort to his own mind it seems to have a touch of the ridiculous about it and he fears that he will be despised of his fellows for aiming at the impossible shall it always be the lot of God's ministers to be trifled with will the great husbandman bid his plowmen spill their lives for naught must his preachers continue to cast pearls before swine if the consecrated workers are so bitten by their lord they will persevere in their painful task but their master is considerate of them and I ask you also to consider whether it is reasonable to expect a zealous heart to be forever occupied with the salvation of those who never respond to its anxiety shall the horses always plow upon the rock shall the oxen always labor there again there is the master to be considered the lord is he always to be resisted and provoked many of you have had eternal life set before you as the result of believing in Jesus and you have refused to believe it is a wonder that my lord has not said to me you have done your duty with them never set Christ before them again my son shall not be insulted if you offer a beggar in the street a shilling and he will not have it you cheerfully put it into your purse and go your way you do not entreat him to have his wants relieved but behold our god in mercy begs sinners to come to him and implores them to accept his son in his condescension he even stands like a salesman in the market crying ho everyone that thirsteth come you to the waters and he that hath no money come by wine and milk without money and without price in another place he says of himself all day long have I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gain saying generation if the lord of mercy has been refused so long in the sight of you who reverence him does not some indignation mingle with your pity and while you love sinners and would have them saved do you not feel in your heart that there must be an end to such insulting behavior I ask even the careless to think of the matter in this light and if they do not respect the plowmen yet let them have regard to his master and then again there are so many other people who are needing the gospel and who would receive it if they had it that it would seem to be wise to leave off wearying one selves about those who despise it what did our lord say he said that if the mighty things which had been done in Bethsada and Chorazin had been done in Tyre in Sidon they would have repented what is more wonderful still he says that if he had wrought the same miracles in Sodom and Gomorrah which were wrought in Capernaum they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes does it not occur to us at once to give the word to those who will have it and leave the despisers to perish in their own willfulness does not reason say let us send this medicine where there are sick people who will value it thousands of people are willing to hear the gospel see how they crowd wherever the preacher goes how they tread upon one another in their anxiety to listen to him and if these people who hear him every day will not receive his message in God's name saith he let me go where there is a probability of finding soil that can be plowed shall horses run upon the rock will one plow there with oxen must I work always where nothing comes of it does not reason say let the word go to China to Hindustan or to the utmost parts of the earth where they will receive it for those who have it preached in the corners of their streets despise it I shall not lengthen this argument but shall solemnly put the question again would any of you continue to pursue an object when it has proved to be hopeless do you wonder that when the Lord has sent his servants to speak kind gracious tender words and men have not heard he says to them they are joined unto their idols let them alone there is a boundary to the patience of men and we soon arrive at it and assuredly there is a limit though it is long before we outrun it to the patience of God at length he says it is enough my spirit shall no longer strive with them if the Lord says this can any of us complain is not this the way of wisdom does not prudence itself dictate it any thoughtful mind will say I I a rock cannot be plowed forever fourthly there must be an alteration then and that speedily the oxen shall be taken off from such toil it can be easily done and done soon it can be affected in three ways first the unprofitable hearer can be removed so that he shall no more hear the gospel from the lips of his best approved minister there is a preacher who has some sort of power over him but as he rejects his testimony and remains impenitent the man shall be removed to another town where he shall hear monotonous discourses which will not touch his conscience he shall go where he shall be no longer persuaded and entreated and there he will sleep himself into hell that may be readily enough done perhaps some of you are making arrangements even now for your own removal from the field of hope another way is to take away the plowman he has done his work as best he could and he shall be released from his hopeless task he is weary let him go home the soil would not break up but he could not help that let him have his wage he has broken his plow at the work let him go home and hear his lord say well done he was willing to keep on at the disheartening labor as long as his master bade him but it is evidently useless therefore let him go home for his work is done he has been sore sick let him die and enter into his rest this is by no means improbable or there may happen something else the lord may say that piece of work shall never trouble the plowman anymore I will take it away and he may take it away in this fashion the man who has heard the gospel but rejected it will die I pray my master that he will not suffer any one of you to die in your sins for then we cannot reach you any more or indulge the faintest hope for you no prayer of ours can follow you into eternity there is one name by which you may be saved and that name is sounded in your ears the name of Jesus but if you reject him now even that name will not save you if you do not take Jesus to be your savior he will appear as your judge I pray you do not destroy your own souls by continuing to be obstinate against almighty love God grant that some better thing may happen can nothing else be done this soil is rock can we not sow it without breaking it no without repentance there is no remission of sin but is there not a way of saving men without the grace of God the Lord Jesus did not say so but he said he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned he did not hint at a middle course or hold out a larger hope but he declared he that believeth not shall be damned and so he must be dream not of a backdoor to heaven for the Lord has provided none what then shall the preacher continue his fruitless toil if there is only half a hope left him he is willing to go on and say hear ye deaf and see ye blind and live ye dead he will even so speak this day for his master bids him preach the gospel to every creature but it will be hard work to repeat the word of exhortation for years to those who will not hear it happily there is one other turn which affairs may take there is a God in heaven let us pray to him to put forth his power Jesus is at his side let us invoke his interposition the holy ghost is almighty let us call for his aid brothers who plow and sisters who pray cry to the master for help the horse and the ox evidently fail but there remains one above who is able to work great marvels did he not once speak to the rock and turn the flint into a stream of water let us pray him to do the same now and oh if there is one who fills and mourns that his heart is like a piece of rock I am glad he fills it for he who fills that his heart is a rock gives some evidence that the flint is being transformed oh rock instead of smiting thee as Moses smote the rock in the wilderness and aired therein I would speak to thee oh rock what's thou become like wax oh rock what's thou dissolve into rivers of repentance hearken to God's voice oh rock break with good desire oh rock dissolve with longing after Christ for God is working upon thee now who knows but at this very moment thou shall begin to crumble down does thou fill the power of the word does the sharp plowshare touch thee just now break and break again till by contrition thou art dissolved for then will the good seat of the gospel come to thee and thou shalt receive it into thy bosom and we shall all behold the fruit thereof and so I will fling one more handful of good corn and have done if thou desirous eternal life trust Jesus Christ and thou art saved at once look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth says Christ for I am God and beside me there is none else he that believeth in him hath everlasting life like as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life oh Lord break up the rock and let the seed drop in among its broken substance and get thou a harvest from the dissolved granite at this time for Jesus Christ's sake amen