Deep Ploughing versus Top-soil Skimming

The constant activity that comes with Backyard Bible Clubs has kept me away from the blogosphere here lately, but things will be getting back in the groove here now. I appreciated this excerpt from a sermon by C.H. Spurgeon which was highlighted by the pyromaniacs blog recently. As a Baptist preacher, there are certain assumptions that are placed on you, not the least of which is that you be someone who gears his sermons to crescendo at the "invitation." This is the place on a Sunday morning where you invite people to respond to your sermon by placing their faith in Christ. I have never been much of an "invitation man" myself because of the reasons outlined below by Spurgeon. I have always been more apt to invite people to meet with me in their homes or at a coffee shop, wherever, and to discuss the stirrings of their heart with me there. That way I have a better opportunity to hear what their new found "faith" consists of, and to either affirm them in it, or steer them in the right direction.

I once had a church planter friend tell me of how he had 11 baptisms scheduled for the upcoming Sunday. I told him that was great and encouraging to hear. He then added, much to my dismay: "Well, we'll see if they show up, you know how that is."

No. Sorry. I don't know how that is. When I schedule a baptism, it is not based upon a 3 minute interview after my sermon with someone who is on an emotional high. I have sat down with them for a good hour, poking and probing and making sure that they know what it is that they are saying and making sure I don't give them the false hope that comes with false conversions.

Many have said estimated that about half of those who attend churches are unbelievers, and any pastor knows that is true. I tremble to think of the judgment that will fall on the shepherds who falsely lead these goats to believe that they are sheep because they rely on "Top-soil Skimming" to puff up their membership rolls.

Spurgeon said:

"Though I rejoice in sudden conversions, I entertain grave suspicions of those suddenly happy people who seem never to have sorrowed over their sin. I am afraid that those who come by their religion so very lightly often lose it quite as lightly. Saul of Tarsus was converted on a sudden, but no man ever went through a greater horror of darkness than he did before Ananias came to him with the words of comfort.

I like deep ploughing. Top-soil skimming is poor work; the tearing of the soil under surface is greatly needed. After all, the most lasting Christians appear to be those who have seen their inward disease to be very deeply seated and loathsome, and after awhile have been led to see the glory of the healing hand of the Lord Jesus as he stretches it out in the gospel.

I am afraid that in much modern religion there is a want of depth on all points; they neither deeply tremble nor greatly rejoice, they neither much despair nor much believe. Oh, beware of pious veneering! Beware of the religion which consists in putting on a thin slice of godliness over a mass of carnality. We must have thorough going work within; the grace which reaches the core, and affects the innermost spirit is the only grace worth having.

To put all in one word, a want of the Holy Ghost is the great cause of religious instability. Beware of mistaking excitement for the Holy Ghost, or your own resolutions for the deep workings of the Spirit of God in the soul. All that ever nature paints God will burn off with hot irons. All that nature ever spins he will unravel and cast away with the rags. Ye must be born from above, ye must have a new nature wrought in you by the finger of God himself, for of all his saints it is written, "Ye are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus."

Oh, but, everywhere I fear there is a want of the Holy Spirit! there is much getting up of a tawdry morality, barely skin deep, much crying "Peace, peace," where there is no peace, and very little deep heart-searching anxiety to be throughly purged from sin. Well-known and well-remembered truths are believed without an accompanying impression of their weight; hopes are flimsily formed, and confidences ill founded, and it is this which makes deceivers so plentiful, and fair shows after the flesh so common.