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I. OUR TEXT MAY BE ANSWERED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. "Yes, the ploughman does plough all day to sow." When it is ploughing time he keeps on at it till his work is ache; if it requires one day, or two days, or twenty days to finish his fields, he continues at his task while the weather permits.

1. So doth God plough 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. It is a dreadful thing to have remained all unbeliever all these years; but yet the grace of God does not stop short at s certain age.

2. The text teaches perseverance on our part. "Doth the ploughman plough all day?" Yes, he does.

(1) Then if I am seeking Christ, ought I to be discouraged because I do not immediately find Him?

(2) The same is true in seeking the salvation of others. Ploughing is hard work; but as there will be no harvest without it let us put forth all our strength, and never flag till 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 labour is heart breaking; others are like the unreclaimed waste, full of roots and tangled bramble; they need a steam plough, 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 labour 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 twenty times in vain, but on the twenty-first 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 twenty times?" asked someone of a mother. "Because," said she, "I find nineteen times is not enough." We prize that which costs us labour 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. Start close to the hedge, and go right down to the bottom of the field. Plough 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 amongst 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 tracts; do it again, fifty-two times in the year — multiply your furrows. We must learn how to continue in well-doing.

II. THE TEXT MAY BE ANSWERED IN THE NEGATIVE. "Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?" No, he does not always plough. After he has ploughed he breaks the clods, sows, reaps, and threshes. In the chapter before us you will see that other works of husbandry are mentioned. The ploughman has many other things to do beside ploughing. There is an advance in what he does.

1. On God's part, there is an advance in what He does. 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 dews 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. But what if the ploughing 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 plough, and to command the clouds that they rain no rain upon the land, and then its end is to be burned.

2. This advance is a lesson to us; for we, too, are to go forward. Don't be making furrows all day; get to your sowing. Let the ministers of Christ follow the rule of advance. Let us go from preaching the law to preaching the Gospel. You cannot get a harvest if you are afraid of disturbing the soil, nor can you save souls if you never warn them of hell fire. Still, we must not plough all day. The preaching of the law is only preparatory to the preaching of the Gospel.

3. Another lesson to those of you who are as yet hearers and nothing more. I want you to go from ploughing to something better, namely, from hearing and fearing to believing.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.

WEB: Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech!