The Soul-Winner’s Secret - Brengle, Samuel Logan

Chapter 1 – The Personal Experience Of The Soul Winner

Every soul-winner is in the secret of the Lord, and has had a definite personal experience of salvation and the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which brings him into close fellowship and tender friendship and sympathy with the Saviour. The Psalmist prayed, “Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create within me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then, ” said he, “will I teach transgressors Thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. ” (Psalm 51:10- 42. ) He saw that before he could be a soul-winner, before he could teach transgressors the way of the Lord and convert sinners, he must have his own sins blotted out; he must have a clean heart and a right spirit; he must be a partaker of the Holy Ghost and of God’s joy. In short, he must have a definite, constant, joyful experience of God’s salvation in his own soul in order to save others. It was no “hope-I-am-saved” experience he wanted; or was it a conclusion carefully reasoned out and arrived at by logical processes; nor an experience based upon a strict performance of a set round of duties and attendance upon sacraments, but a mighty transformation and cleansing of his whole spiritual nature and a glorious new creation wrought within him by the Holy Ghost.

I. It must be a definite experience It must be a definite experience that tallies with the Word of God. Only this can give that power and assurance to a man which will enable him to lead and win other men. You must have knowledge before imparting knowledge. You must have fire to kindle fire. You must have life to reproduce life. You must know Jesus and be on friendly terms with Him to be able to introduce others to Him. You must be one with Jesus, and be “bound up in the bundle of life” with Him if you would bring others into that life.

Peter had repented under the preaching of John the Baptist, had forsaken all to follow Jesus, and had waited with prayer and unquenchable desire until he had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire, and had been anointed with power from on high, before he became the fearless, mighty preacher who won 3,000 converts in a day.

Paul was mightily converted on the road to Damascus, and heard the voice of Jesus tell him what to do, and was baptized with the Holy Ghost under the teaching of Ananias before he became the apostle of quenchless zeal who turned the world upside down. Luther was definitely converted and justified by faith on the stairway of St. Peter’s at Rome before he became the invincible reformer who could stand before popes and emperors and set captive nations free. George Fox, Wesley, Finney, Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, William Taylor, James Caughey, Moody and General Booth, each and all had a definite personal experience that made them apostles of fire, prophets of God and saviours of men.

They did not guess that they were saved, nor “hope” so. but they knew “whom they believed. and that they had passed from darkness into light and from the power of Satan unto God. This experience was not evolution, but a revolution. No evolutionist ever has been or ever will be a great soul-winner. It is not by growth that men become such, but by revelation. It is not until God bursts through the veil and reveals Himself in their hearts through faith in His dear Son. and gives a consciousness of personal acceptance with Him, and sheds abroad His love in the heart, destroying unbelief, burning away sin, consuming selfishness, and filling the soul with the passion that filled the heart of Jesus, that men become soul-winners.

The experience that makes a man a soul-winner is two-fold. First, he must know his sins forgiven; he must have recognized himself a sinner, out of friendly relation with God, and careless of God’s claim, heedless of God’s feelings, selfishly seeking his own way in spite of divine love and compassion, and heedless of the awful consequences of separating himself from God and this must have led to repentance toward God, by which I mean sorrow for and an utter turning away from sin, followed by a confiding trust in Jesus Christ as his Saviour. He must have so believed

as to bring a restful consciousness that for Christ’s sake his sins have been forgiven and that he has been adopted into God’s family and made one of His dear children. This consciousness results from what Paul calls “the witness of the Spirit, ” and enables the soul to cry out in deep filial confidence and affection, “Abba Father. Second: He must be sanctified; he must know that his heart is cleansed, that pride and self-will and carnal ambition and strife and sensitiveness and suspicion and unbelief and every unholy temper are destroyed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost — personal Pentecost — and the incoming of a great love for, and loyalty to, Jesus Christ, before he can be largely used to win souls.

II. It must be a constant experience. People who frequently meet defeat and fail of victory in their own souls will not be largely successful in winning men to Jesus. The very consciousness of defeat makes them uncertain in their exhortation, doubtful and wavering in their testimony, and weak in their faith, and this will not be likely to produce conviction and beget faith in their hearers Dr. Asa Mahan lived in the enjoyment of full salvation for over fifty years, and only once felt a slight uprising of temper. Finney, Wesley, Fletcher and Bramwell, like Enoch, walked with God, and so walked “in the power of the Spirit” constantly, and were soul-winners all their lives, even to old age.

III. It must be a joyful experience. The joy of the Lord is your strength, ” said Nehemiah. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, ” prayed David. I feel it my duty to be as happy as the Lord wants me to be, ” wrote McCheyne, the gifted and deeply spiritual young Scotch preacher, who was wonderfully successful in winning Souls. Oh, my soul is very happy! Bless God! I feel He is with me, ” cried Caughey, while preaching his sermon on “The Striving of the Spirit” No wonder he won souls. Whitefield and Bramwell, two of the greatest soul-winners the world ever saw, were at times in almost an ecstasy of joy, especially when preaching, and this was as it should be.

John Bunyan tells us how he wrote the “Pilgrim’s Progress” in his filthy Bedford dungeon. He says, “So I was led home to prison, and I sat me down and wrote and wrote because joy did make me write. ” Hallelujah! God wants His people to be full of joy. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. said Jesus. (John 15:11. ) And again He said, “Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. ” (John 16:24. ) “And these things write we unto you that your joy might be full, ” wrote John. (1 John 1:4) “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, ” wrote Paul, and again he writes, “The Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. “Joy in the Holy Ghost” is an oceanic current that flows unbroken through the holy, believing soul, though surrounded by seas of trouble and compassed about by infirmities and afflictions and sorrows. We have thought of Jesus as “the Man of Sorrows” until we overlook His fullness of exultant joy. (Luke 10:21; John 15: 11) Joy can be cultivated and should be, as is faith or any other fruit of the Spirit.

(1) By appropriating by faith the words that were spoken and written for the express purpose of giving us fullness of joy. Now the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in believing, ” Wrote Paul to the Romans. It is by believing.

(2) By meditating on these words and holding them in our minds and hearts until we have gotten all the sweetness out of them as we would hold honey in our mouths.

(3) By exercise, even as faith or love or patience is exercised. This we do by rejoicing in the Lord and praising God for His goodness and mercy, and shouting when the joy wells up in our souls under the pressure of the Holy Spirit. Many people quench the Spirit of joy and praise, and so gradually lose it. But let them repent, confess, pray and believe and then begin to praise God again and He will see to it that they have something to praise Him for, and their joy will convict sinners and prove a mighty means of winning them to Jesus.

Who can estimate the power there must have been in the joy that filled the heart of Peter and surged through the souls and beamed on the faces and flashed from the eyes of the one hundred and twenty fire-baptized disciples, while he preached that Pentecostal sermon which won three thousand bigoted enemies to the cross of a crucified Christ? O Lord, still “make Thy ministers a flame of fire, ” and flood the world with Thy mighty joy!

Chapter 2 – Obedience
I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ” said Paul, and in that saying he reveals the secret of his wonderful success as a soul-winner. The soul-winner is a man sent by God, and will have visions and revelations and secret orders that, if affectionately heeded and heartily and courageously obeyed, will surely lead to success.

He is preeminently “a worker together with God, ” and a soldier of Jesus Christ, and as such must obey. It is his business to take orders and carry them out. Before I formed thee I knew thee, and before thou camest forth I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nation, ” said the Lord to Jeremiah, and when Jeremiah interrupted and said, “Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot speak, for I am a child, ” the Lord said to him, “Say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, ” saith the Lord; “thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise and speak unto them all that I shall command thee. Be not dismayed at their faces lest I confound thee before them. ” “If they had stood in My counsel and had caused My people to hear My words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings, ” said the Lord of the false prophets. (Jeremiah 23:22. ) “Not what is proper, but what is right must be my fearless and constant inquiry. Jesus, still lead on! was the motto of Joseph Parker, one of London’s mightiest preachers.

The soul-winner must get his message from God and speak what and when He commands. He is a servant of God, a friend of Jesus, a prophet of the Most High, an ambassador of heaven to the sons of men, and he must needs speak heaven’s words and represent heaven’s court and King and not seek his own will, but seek the will of Him that sent him. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. He must not trim his course to suit men, nor stop to ask what this man or that shall do, but he must attend strictly to his Lord and steadfastly follow Jesus. Paul tells us that Jesus was “obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:8), and again and again he calls himself “a servant of Jesus Christ.

First: This obedience must be prompt. In spite of the appeals and encouragements of Joshua and Caleb, the children of Israel refused to go over into Canaan, but afterwards, seeing their sin in refusing to obey promptly, they essayed to go over in spite of the warnings of Moses not now to attempt it, and met with bitter defeat. Promptness would have saved them forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Once the soul-winner knows the Master’s will, he must not delay to fulfill it. If he is in doubt he can take time to assure himself as to what that will is. God would not have him run before he is sure he is sent, nor go before he has his message, nor falter and possibly fall because of uncertainty.

But once he has received his orders and got his message, let him remember that “the King’s business requires haste; ” let him “strike while the iron is hot; ” act and speak when the Spirit moves, and not, like covetous Balaam, dilly-dally to see if God will not change His mind and His orders. Dewey’s matchless victory at Manila was won, and the geographical boundaries of the nations changed, by the promptness with which he carried out his orders to destroy the Spanish fleet.

I have noticed that if I speak when the Spirit moves me, I can usually introduce the subject of religion and God’s claims to any individual or company of men with happy results, but if I delay, the opportunity slips by, not to return again, or if it does return, it does so with increased difficulties. Second: This obedience must be exact. Saul lost his kingdom and his life because his obedience was only partial. (See 1 Sam. 15. ) So also did the prophet who warned the wicked King Jeroboam. (See 1 Kings, 13. ) “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it, ” said Mary to the servants at the marriage of Cana, and when they obeyed Him Jesus wrought His first miracle. And so He will work miracles today through His chosen people, if they will do whatever He saith. The soul-winner must beware of quenching the blessed Spirit, and then he will find that it is not himself but the Spirit that speaks in him, so that he can say with Jesus, “The words that I speak, I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works, ” for does not Jesus say, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do? Third: This obedience must be courageous. “Be not afraid of their faces, ” said the Lord to Jeremiah.

And again He said to Ezekiel, “And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak My words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. He was not to say that which would please the people, but that which God gave him to say, and that without fear of consequences. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandments of the Lord, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

No wonder God cast him off and gave his crown and kingdom to another! God says, “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee: yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.

Let the soul-winner recognize that he is on picket duty for heaven, and let him throw himself on heaven’s protection and rest in the assurance of his Heavenly Father’s care, and the utmost sympathy and support of Jesus, and do his duty courageously, saying with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Again and again I have comforted myself with the assurance of good King Jehoshaphat, “Deal courageously and the Lord shall be with the good, ” and encouraged myself with the bold declaration of Peter to the enraged and outwitted Sanhedrin,

We ought to obey God rather than men, ” and measured myself by the self-forgetful words of Nehemiah, “Should such a man as I flee, and who is there that being as I am would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in. ” (Neh. 6:11. ) And of Paul “Neither count I my life dear unto myself. so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. ” And of the three Hebrew children: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king; but if not, O, king, be it known unto thee that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. That is the kind of stuff out of which God makes soul-winners. Do you ask, how can a man get such a spirit of courageous obedience? I answer by dying – dying to your selfish interests, dying to the love of praise, the fear of censure, the hope of reward in this world, and by a daredevil faith in the reward that God will give in the world to come; by a steadfast looking unto and following of Jesus, and a constant comparison of time with eternity. I read the other day that it was only dead men who were living preachers. Fourth: The obedience must be glad.

The command is, “Serve the Lord with gladness. ” “I delight to do thy will, O God, ” wrote the Psalmist. There was no grudging about his obedience; it was his joy. It is a love service God wants, and that is always a joy service. My meat and My drink is to do the will of Him that sent Me, ” said Jesus, and Paul declares, “If I do this thing willingly, I have a reward. It is a glad love service God calls us to, and once we are wholly His and the Comforter abides in us, we shall not find it irksome to obey, and by obedience we shall both save ourselves and others to whom the Lord may send us.

Chapter 3 – Prayer

Prayer is the way of approach to God, and the soul-winner keeps it open by constant use. It is the channel by which all spiritual blessings and power are received, and therefore the life of the soul- winner must be one of ceaseless prayer. “Pray without ceasing, ” wrote Paul. It is the breath of the soul, and other things being equal, it is the secret of power.

It is written of Jesus, “And it came to pass in those days that He went out into. a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And this was followed by mighty works. What an amazing statement is this: “Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them; ” and this: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you; ” and this: “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you! And yet, amazing as they are, there they stand in “the Scripture of truth, ” a challenge to every child of God who is jealous for God’s glory, who longs for the triumph of righteousness and who seeks the salvation of souls. The soul-winner must pray in secret; he must get alone with God and pour his heart into his Heavenly Father’s ear with intercessions and pleadings and arguments, if he would have good success. There is no substitute for much wide-awake, expectant, secret waiting upon God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the gift of wisdom, strength, courage, hope, faith, discernment of times and spirits, and a glowing, burning, comprehensive message from Him to the people.

If men fail at this point, they will in due time fail at every point Jesus said: “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Here, then, is the secret of success closet communion and counselings and conversations with God, who is our Father, and who can and will no more turn away from us when we come in the spirit of an obedient and affectionate child, than can the sunlight when we throw open the windows and doors and stand in its beams I say it reverently.

He cannot turn away from us, but will surely reward us, and that openly, because He said He would, and He cannot lie. Prayer must be definite. Once, when Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimeus sat by the wayside begging, and when he heard Jesus was passing by, he began to cry out and say: “Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me, ” but that prayer was not definite – it was altogether too general. Jesus knew what Bartimeus wanted, but He desired Bartimeus to state exactly what he desired, and said to him: “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? Then the blind man prayed a definite prayer. Lord, that I might receive my sight, ” and the definite prayer then received a definite answer, for Jesus said unto him: “Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole, ” and immediately he received his sight.

We should be as definite when we go to God, in asking him for what we want, as we are when we go to the store. The salesman is prepared to sell us anything and everything in the store, but he in reality sells us nothing until we tell him what we want, and so it is with our Heavenly Father. Our prayers must be bold Paul said: “We have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, and was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, ” and adds: “Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of need. ” Of course this boldness must be coupled with humility, but the greater the humility, the greater the boldness, if mixed with faith.

I have often been amused and amazed at the boldness with which children come to their parents for the things they need and the things they want, and how gladly does the true parent respond to the child’s request, especially if it expresses a genuine need! And Jesus said: “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to them that ask Him?

The devil stands mocking and teasing the praying souls to drive him from his knees and from his Father’s face, but let him rather come boldly in the name of Jesus and wait patiently for the things he desires, and he shall have an abundant reward. It is not our Heavenly Father’s will to disappoint His trusting children, but rather to give them their utmost desire, yea, “exceeding abundantly above all they ask or think, ” for His heart is all love toward them; therefore let them not be timid and wavering, but steadfast and bold as His dear children.

Prayer must be importunate, persevering. Jesus teaches this very clearly in His parable of the importunate friend “Which of you, ” said Jesus, “shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and shall say unto him; ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him and he from within shall say, ‘Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth; ” and then Jesus adds: “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened unto him; ” by which Jesus means to teach that we are to hold on in prayer till we get an answer.

If the answer is delayed, our own hearts will be searched, the purity of our motives will be proved, and our faith will be purified, tried, developed and strengthened for future and greater triumph. Jesus prayed three times that the cup of death in the garden of Gethsemane might pass from Him. It was not death on the Cross, but death in the garden He feared and the apostle tells us, in Hebrews 5:7, that He was heard. Daniel abstained from all pleasant food for three weeks at one time, and prayed until God appeared unto him and said: “O man, greatly beloved, fear not; peace be unto thee; be strong; yea, be strong; ” and added, “I will show thee that which is noted in the Scriptures of truth, ” and then told him all that he desired to know.

And Elijah, after his victory over the priests of Baal, sent his servant seven times to look for the cloud that should bring rain, while he bowed his face between his knees, and poured out his heart to God in prayer until the cloud appeared that should bring the floods of rain. Muller sometimes prayed every day, and often several times a day, and that for months and years for some things he wanted, before the answer came, but come it did in due time. Though the answer be delayed, it is not God’s purpose to deny us without letting us know the reason why. Prayer must be for the glory of God and according to His will.

If we ask things simply to gratify our own desires, God cannot grant them. James said of certain ones, Ye ask …. but ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts, ” but John said, “This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. ; and if we know that He heareth us…. we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him” Jesus said, “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you. ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. We are to ask according, to the things revealed as His will in His Word, and according to the principles laid down therein; therefore we should study His Word constantly and hide it in our own hearts, and see to it that we hide ourselves in His heart and thus be filled with the truth; we shall then not ask amiss, and being filled with the Spirit, we shall not be denied. Prayer must be mixed with faith – must be believing prayer. “Whatsoever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive and ye shall have.

” Oh, what a victory I got one morning over the devil, when he tried to shake my faith and confidence! I laid hold of that promise and wrestled through to the solid rock of believing prayer, and had one of the most glorious soul-saving days in my life! The man whose faith is constantly wavering shall receive nothing from the Lord. (James 1: 6- 7. ) Finally, prayer must be in the name of Jesus. Whatsoever ye will ask in My name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son, ” said Jesus. The Blood, the Blood is all my plea, ” and with that plea the vilest sinner may come, while the child of God may approach with unabashed boldness into the presence of his Heavenly Father and claim all the resources of Heaven in his warfare against sin, in his effort to save sinners and build up the kingdom of God.

Chapter 4 – Zeal

It is said that Sheridan went to battle with all the fury of a madman, and recklessly exposed himself to the shot and shell of the enemy. He told General Horace Porter that he never went into a battle from which he cared to come back alive unless he came as a victor. This desperation made him an irresistible inspiration to his own troops, and enabled him to hurl them like thunderbolts against his foes. If he became so desperate in killing men, how much more desperate, if possible, should we become in our effort and desire to save them! It was written of Jesus, “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up, ” and so it can be of every great soul-winner.

Not until a man can say with Paul, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself; ” and “I am ready to die for the name of the Lord Jesus, ” can he hope to be largely used in winning souls. He that is anxious about his dinner and eager to get to bed at a reasonable hour and concerned about his salary, and over solicitous about his health, and querulous about his reputation, and the respectability and financial condition of his appointment, and afraid of weariness and painfulness and headache and heartache, and a sore throat, may make a very respectable field officer or parson, but not a great soul-winner. There are various kinds of zeal which should be avoided as deadly evils. First: Partial zeal like that of Jehu. (2 Kings 10:15-31. ) God set him to destroy the wicked house of Ahab and the worship of Baal, and he did so with fury, “but Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the God of Israel with all his heart, for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam which made Israel to sin, ” and in due time God had to cut off his house as well. This kind of zeal is frequently seen in those who violently attack one sort of sin, while probably they themselves are secretly indulging in some other sin. Such people are usually not only intolerant of the sin, but also of the sinner, while true zeal makes one infinitely tender and patient towards the sinner, while absolutely uncompromising with his sin. Second: Party zeal like that of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In these days it takes the form of excessive sectarian and denominational zeal, and makes bigots of men. Zeal for the particular church or organization to which one belongs is right within certain limits. We are converted through the instrumentality of a certain religious organization, and we become children of its household, or we are led into it by the Holy Spirit through a blessed, divine affinity with its members, methods, spirit and doctrine, and we should in that case be loyal and true to its leaders who are over us in the Lord and who watch for our souls, and follow them as they follow Christ.

We should also be loyal to the principles of the organization so far as they harmonize with the word of God, and we should seek in all true ways, by prayer and supplication and ceaselessly zealous work to build up this organization in holiness and righteousness, and this we can do with all our might, if we do it in the Holy Spirit, and can be assured that God is well pleased with us. But we must at the same time beware of a party spirit that would despise other work and workers or tear them down that we may rise on their ruins. Such zeal is from beneath and not from above. It is contrary to that love which “seeketh not her own, ” and looketh not upon her own things, but “also upon the things of others, ” and will come back, boomerang-like, upon our own pates, and bring ruin upon ourselves.

For the love of God is broader Than the measure of man’s mind, And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind. And true zeal makes men like that. Third: The zeal of ignorance. Paul said of his kinsmen, the Jews, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved, for I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, for they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God (Romans 10:1-3. ) True zeal is from above. Its source is in the mountains of the Lord’s holiness, and its springing fountains in the deep cool valleys of humility. It is born of the Holy Sprit and springs from a knowledge of “the truth as it is in Jesus. This knowledge is twofold: First: It is the knowledge of the dread condition of the sinner without Christ – his slavery to Satan; the inherited depravity of his nature; his bondage to sin, his love of it; his enmity toward God, of which he is probably not aware; his guilt; his helplessness and his ignorance of the way back to his Heavenly Father’s house and happiness, and his awful danger, if he neglects the offer of salvation and life in Jesus Christ. Second:

It is the knowledge of the unspeakable gift of God, of the possibilities of grace for the vilest sinner, of the Father’s pitying, yearning love, of sins forgiven, guilt removed, adoption into the Father’s family, illumination, consolation, guidance, keeping, depravity destroyed, cleansing through the Blood, sanctification by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, of salvation, from the uttermost to the uttermost; of unbroken fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ through the eternal Spirit, of a life of blessed service and fruit-bearing and of a faith and hope that bear the spirit up over sorrows and trials and losses and pain and sickness, enabling it at last to cry out in supreme victory and holy triumph: “O Death, where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. True zeal makes one faithful to Jesus and the souls for whom He died. It led Paul during his three years’ appointment at Ephesus “to warn everyone night and day with tears to serve the Lord with all humility, ” to keep back no truth that was profitable for the people, but to show them and teach them “publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. ” (Acts 20. )

He was not content simply to get sinners to accept Jesus as their Saviour, but taught them that “Christ in you is the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, whereunto I labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. ” (Col. 27:29. ) Paul was jealous for the perfection in love and loyalty of all his converts, and his zeal led him to seek with all his might to lead them all into this blessed experience. And as was Paul, so also was Baxter, who labored indefatigably in spite of lifelong sickness, and at times almost in intolerable pain, for the perfection of his people. And so also was Wesley and Fox and General and Mrs. Booth, and so will be every soul-winner who is full of the zeal of God. True zeal is sacrificial.

Jesus, consumed with zeal for the glory of God in the saving and sanctifying of men, “was led as a lamb to the slaughter. Isaiah, who foresaw the humiliation and sacrificial life and death of Jesus, said by inspiration, “I gave my back to the smiters and my cheek to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. And again Isaiah said, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. The Lord hath laid on Him the the iniquity of us all. ” (Isa. 53. ) He poured out His soul unto death for us, He gave His life a ransom for Men. Bless His name! And the gift of His Spirit kindles and sustains this same sacrificial zeal in the hearts of all true soul-winners. Enlarge, inflame and fill my heart with boundless charity divine, So shall all my strength exert. And love them with a zeal like Thine; And lead them to Thy open side. The sheep for whom their Shepherd died. “

Chapter 5 – Spiritual Leadership

The soul-winner must have the power of spiritual leadership, and spiritual leadership is a thing of the Spirit, and not of birth, or rank, or title, or education, or circumstances. Here is the secret of the power of humble Salvation Army officers from the lowly walks of life. Joseph was a youthful prisoner in an Egyptian dungeon, but he walked with God, and was “a prosperous man, ” for God was with him, and one day he reached his rightful place next to Pharaoh’s throne (Gen. 39 and 40. ) Paul was a prisoner under Roman guards on board ship, hastening to Caesar’s judgment bar; but one day God’s winds made the sea to boil, and winds and waves smote the ship, and when men’s hearts failed them for fear, Paul, by right of spiritual kingship, became the master of all on board. (Acts 27. ) I knew a Lieutenant, a quiet, modest, thoughtful, prayerful, faithful, humble, holy lad, of moderate ability, stationed with an Ensign, at whose feet the Ensign and his wife sat for spiritual counsel, though the Lieutenant knew it not.

They hung on his God-wise words, and remembered his example, and treasured his spirit, and talked to me about his saintliness and Christlikeness long after he, as Captain, had left them for a corps by himself. They commanded the corps, but he held spiritual supremacy because he walked with God. and God was with him and in him. Spiritual leadership is not won nor established by promotion, but by many prayers, tears and confessions of sin and heart-searchings and humblings before God, and self-surrender and a courageous sacrifice of every idol and a bold and deathless, and uncompromising and uncomplaining embrace of the Cross and an eternal, unfaltering looking unto Jesus crucified. It is not gained by seeking great things for our selves (Jer. 45:5), but rather, like Paul, by counting those things that were gain, loss for Christ. Hear him: “What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ.

Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. (Phil. 3:7, 8. ) That is a great price, but it must be unflinchingly paid by him who would be not merely a nominal, but a real spiritual leader of men – a leader whose power is recognized by three worlds and felt in heaven, earth and hell. Moses gained this spiritual leadership among Pharaoh’s palace halls and Sinai’s solitudes and fastnesses, when he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. ” Spiritual leaders are not made by man, nor any combination of men. Neither conferences, nor synods, nor councils can make them, but only God. Spiritual power is the outcome of spiritual life, and all life, from that of the moss and lichen on the wall to that of the archangel before the Throne, is from God.

God Who took the boy David, trained to feed harmless, patient sheep, and put courage into his heart, and nerved his arm to fight the lion and the bear and the giant, and gave him skill to lead Israel’s armies, so that the women sang: “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands, ” while the elders, after the death of Saul, came to him, saying, “In time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said to thee, thou shalt be a captain over Israel? ” God. And why did God single them out and distinguish them, and give them this power above other men? Because God was to them the supreme Fact.

They believed God, sought God, feared and trusted and obeyed God. Read the Psalms and see how God fills the whole heaven of David’s thought, desire and affection, and you will cease to wonder at his leadership. It was based on spiritual life, power and fellowship with God. This spiritual leadership, once attained, can be maintained. Witness Moses, Elijah, Paul, Fox, Wesley, Finney and General Booth, and ten thousand leaders in humbler spheres who still bear “fruit in old age, ” and continue “fat and flourishing; ” like a white-haired old saint of eighty years, on whom I called, who, after I had prayed, burst into prayer, and said: “O Father, I testify to Thee, and the angels, and these young brothers, that old age is not a time of dotage and second childhood but the springtime of eternal youth. I hear comparatively young men complaining and expressing. fear that when they get old they will be set aside and superseded by younger and more virile men without a tithe of their experience, forgetting that it is not long service and experience that makes spiritual leaders, but vigorous spiritual life, and that if set aside, it will be because they have not kept step with God, but have neglected the divine life, the Holy Ghost in them, Neither conferences. nor synods, nor councils, nor commanders, can make a man acceptable to the people, however long his service and varied his experience, if he has lost the spirit of prayer and faith and fiery-hearted love, and the sweet simplicity and trustfulness and self-sacrifice of his youth, and is now living on past victories and revelations and blessings. But fresh anointings of the Spirit and present-day experiences will make him acceptable, though his eye be dim and. his back bent, and his voice husky with age.

It was with Finney, and Whitefield and Wesley, and so it may be with you, O my brother! There have been ministers who in their prime fought holiness and refused the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or who, having received the baptism, neglected and lost it, who filled big pulpits and drew fat salaries, but whose influence gradually waned and whose old age was full of complainings and disappointments and bitterness and jealousies, and whose sun went down behind clouds, if not into a starless night, because they neglected God And I know men – old men – full of God, who were persecuted in their prime for Jesus’ sake, but who had salt in themselves and kept sweet and delighted themselves in the Lord, whose bow abides in strength, whose sun is shining in fullness of splendor, and who are filling the world with divine messages that men are eager to hear. Know this: that not long service and experience will save you from becoming a back number, but God in you will. God is always up to date. It is God men want. What service had they performed, and what experience had Moses, and David, and Daniel, and Paul, when God set them up as leaders? None. But they were in touch with God; they were pliable to His will, teachable, trustful, obedient, courageous and uncomplaining.

They were full of God. And know this, you who fear the time is coming when your services will no longer be appreciated or wanted, and you will be thrust into a corner, that a man full of God cannot be thrust aside. If he is put into a desert place, then all the countryside and Jerusalem will flock to the desert place, as they did to Jesus and John the Baptist; and if he is thrust into a corner, then the world will stop and bend its ear to his corner to hear his latest message from God.

And so they thought to silence Madam Guyon in the Bastile, and John Bunyan in the filthy Bedford jail. But who can silence the thunder of God’s power, or hush His “still small voice, ” when He chooses a man to speak through him? Their silent prisons but become public telephone stations, connected with the skies. The other day, in one of our great cities, died an old man, long since past three score years and ten, a minister, who at the age of forty-seven, broke down so utterly in health from overwork, that for five years he never read a chapter from a book, not even from the Bible, but he held fast his faith in both God and man, kept his love all aglow, and at last died full of years and was mourned by hundreds in all parts of the globe who had been saved, sanctified, inspired and qualified for service by his words and life, and the agencies he set in motion for the sanctification of the church and the salvation of the world.

And, by odds, his greatest work was accomplished after he had passed three score years. God was with him. But while this spiritual power and leadership may be maintained, yet it is a subtle thing that may be lost forevermore. When Saul was little in his own sight, he was made king, but, when lifted up he became disobedient, his kingdom was rent from him and given to another. And is it not this we are warned against in the words: “Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown? ” The bishopric of Judas was given to another. The one talent was taken from the “wicked and slothful servant, ” and given to him that had ten. I know a Christian worker surrounded by a number of other bright, earnest, teachable, spiritually ambitious young workers, who looked to him for direction and guidance.

He invited them to his home for an evening, and when they waited for soul food, coffee and cake were brought out; and when they expected prayer and counsel the chessboard was produced, and the opportunity of the evening slipped away, and the strong bonds that united them in God were relaxed and weakened, if not in one or two cases broken, and while his official and titular leadership was recognized his commanding spiritual leadership was gone, alas! I fear forever.

As electric wires, in order to carry the subtle current, must be insulated, so must men who hold spiritual leadership and who would transmit to their fellows’ spiritual power and life. But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life…. Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and ever. Amen” (Jude 20:25. )

Chapter 5 – Spiritual Leadership

They commanded the corps, but he held spiritual supremacy because he walked with God. and God was with him and in him. Spiritual leadership is not won nor established by promotion, but by many prayers, tears and confessions of sin and heart-searchings and humblings before God, and self-surrender and a courageous sacrifice of every idol and a bold and deathless, and uncompromising and uncomplaining embrace of the Cross and an eternal, unfaltering looking unto Jesus crucified.

It is not gained by seeking great things for our selves (Jer. 45:5), but rather, like Paul, by counting those things that were gain, loss for Christ. Hear him: “What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. (Phil. 3:7, 8. ) That is a great price, but it must be unflinchingly paid by him who would be not merely a nominal, but a real spiritual leader of men – a leader whose power is recognized by three worlds and felt in heaven, earth and hell.

Moses gained this spiritual leadership among Pharaoh’s palace halls and Sinai’s solitudes and fastnesses, when he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. ” Spiritual leaders are not made by man, nor any combination of men. Neither conferences, nor synods, nor councils can make them, but only God. Spiritual power is the outcome of spiritual life, and all life, from that of the moss and lichen on the wall to that of the archangel before the Throne, is from God.

Therefore let those who aspire to this leadership pay the price, and seek it from God. Who made Elijah and John the Baptist – hairy, uncouth men of the wilderness and desert – prophets who awed kings and swayed nations? God. Who took Moses from the universities of Egypt and the palaces of Pharaoh and after drilling him among flocks of sheep on the back side of the desert for forty years, made him the meek, but unconquerable leader of two millions of slaves, and the lawgiver and fountainhead of jurisprudence for all time? God. Who took the baby Samuel and put into his mouth prophetic words to the aged priest Eli, and made him spiritual leader of Israel? God Who took the boy David, trained to feed harmless, patient sheep, and put courage into his heart, and nerved his arm to fight the lion and the bear and the giant, and gave him skill to lead Israel’s armies, so that the women sang: “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands, ” while the elders, after the death of Saul, came to him, saying, “In time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said to thee, thou shalt be a captain over Israel? ” God.

And why did God single them out and distinguish them, and give them this power above other men? Because God was to them the supreme Fact. They believed God, sought God, feared and trusted and obeyed God. Read the Psalms and see how God fills the whole heaven of David’s thought, desire and affection, and you will cease to wonder at his leadership. It was based on spiritual life, power and fellowship with God.

This spiritual leadership, once attained, can be maintained. Witness Moses, Elijah, Paul, Fox, Wesley, Finney and General Booth, and ten thousand leaders in humbler spheres who still bear “fruit in old age, ” and continue “fat and flourishing; ” like a white-haired old saint of eighty years, on whom I called, who, after I had prayed, burst into prayer, and said: “O Father, I testify to Thee, and the angels, and these young brothers, that old age is not a time of dotage and second childhood but the springtime of eternal youth. ” I hear comparatively young men complaining and expressing. fear that when they get old they will be set aside and superseded by younger and more virile men without a tithe of their experience, forgetting that it is not long service and experience that makes spiritual leaders, but vigorous spiritual life, and that if set aside, it will be because they have not kept step with God, but have neglected the divine life, the Holy Ghost in them, Neither conferences. nor synods, nor councils, nor commanders, can make a man acceptable to the people, however long his service and varied his experience, if he has lost the spirit of prayer and faith and fiery-hearted love, and the sweet simplicity and trustfulness and self-sacrifice of his youth, and is now living on past victories and revelations and blessings. But fresh anointings of the Spirit and present-day experiences will make him acceptable, though his eye be dim and. his back bent, and his voice husky with age. It was with Finney, and Whitefield and Wesley, and so it may be with you, O my brother! There have been ministers who in their prime fought holiness and refused the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or who, having received the baptism, neglected and lost it, who filled big pulpits and drew fat salaries, but whose influence gradually waned and whose old age was full of complainings and disappointments and bitterness and jealousies, and whose sun went down behind clouds, if not into a starless night, because they neglected God And I know men – old men – full of God, who were persecuted in their prime for Jesus’ sake, but who had salt in themselves and kept sweet and delighted themselves in the Lord, whose bow abides in strength, whose sun is shining in fullness of splendor, and who are filling the world with divine messages that men are eager to hear. Know this: that not long service and experience will save you from becoming a back number, but God in you will.

God is always up to date. It is God men want. What service had they performed, and what experience had Moses, and David, and Daniel, and Paul, when God set them up as leaders? None. But they were in touch with God; they were pliable to His will, teachable, trustful, obedient, courageous and uncomplaining. They were full of God. And know this, you who fear the time is coming when your services will no longer be appreciated or wanted, and you will be thrust into a corner, that a man full of God cannot be thrust aside. If he is put into a desert place, then all the countryside and Jerusalem will flock to the desert place, as they did to Jesus and John the Baptist; and if he is thrust into a corner, then the world will stop and bend its ear to his corner to hear his latest message from God.

They thrust Paul into prison, but he spoke and wrote words of life and power that burn with unquenchable fire of the Holy Ghost, and are doing more to direct the thought, inspire the faith and inflame the affections of men today than ever before. The Jews and Romans thought they had done with him when they cut off his head as that of a dog, but, after two millenniums his influence still increases, and forever will. And so they thought to silence Madam Guyon in the Bastile, and John Bunyan in the filthy Bedford jail. But who can silence the thunder of God’s power, or hush His “still small voice, ” when He chooses a man to speak through him? Their silent prisons but become public telephone stations, connected with the skies.

The other day, in one of our great cities, died an old man, long since past three score years and ten, a minister, who at the age of forty-seven, broke down so utterly in health from overwork, that for five years he never read a chapter from a book, not even from the Bible, but he held fast his faith in both God and man, kept his love all aglow, and at last died full of years and was mourned by hundreds in all parts of the globe who had been saved, sanctified, inspired and qualified for service by his words and life, and the agencies he set in motion for the sanctification of the church and the salvation of the world. And, by odds, his greatest work was accomplished after he had passed three score years. God was with him. But while this spiritual power and leadership may be maintained, yet it is a subtle thing that may be lost forevermore. When Saul was little in his own sight, he was made king, but, when lifted up he became disobedient, his kingdom was rent from him and given to another. And is it not this we are warned against in the words: “Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown? ” The bishopric of Judas was given to another.

The one talent was taken from the “wicked and slothful servant, ” and given to him that had ten. I know a Christian worker surrounded by a number of other bright, earnest, teachable, spiritually ambitious young workers, who looked to him for direction and guidance. He invited them to his home for an evening, and when they waited for soul food, coffee and cake were brought out; and when they expected prayer and counsel the chessboard was produced, and the opportunity of the evening slipped away, and the strong bonds that united them in God were relaxed and weakened, if not in one or two cases broken, and while his official and titular leadership was recognized his commanding spiritual leadership was gone, alas! I fear forever.

Chapter 6 – Redeeming

The Time “See that ye walk circumspect, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. ” (Eph. 5:15, 16. ) The soul-winner must value time. Diamonds and gold nuggets are not so precious as minutes. One morning, about five o’clock, John Wesley lost ten minutes through the tardiness of his coachman, and mourned for them more than over lost treasure. Dr. Johnson tells us that “Whenever Melanchthon made an appointment, he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspense. ” A lady told me that she was sure she got a position as a teacher once by being sharp on time. Another young lady, better fitted for the position, arrived a bit late, and remarked, “I thought it wouldn’t make any difference if I were a few minutes late. She was politely informed that her services were not wanted, as a teacher had been secured. Eternity is made up of moments, and “lost time is lost eternity. “Believe me, ” said Gladstone, “when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and that the waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings. And yet thoughtless idlers try to “kill time, ” and thus destroy their most valuable possession. What is life but a glad, present consciousness of God and self and duty, and a hearty obedience thereto? But he that kills time seeks to forget, and would be far better dead.

The future is nothing but a coming present, ” wrote Jean Paul Richter, “and the present which thou despisest was once a future which thou desiredst” Said a heathen philosopher, “Every man’s life lies within the present, for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain. “

If you would redeem the time, begin the moment your eyes open in the morning. Let no idle, foolish, hurtful thoughts be harbored for an instant, but begin at once to pray and praise God and to meditate on His glories, His goodness and faithfulness and truth, and your heart will soon burn within you and bubble over with joy. Bounce out of your bed at once and get the start of your work and push it, else it will get the start and push you. For if you in the morning, throw minutes away, you can’t pick them up in the course of the day.

You may hurry and scurry, and flurry and worry, You’ve lost them forever, Forever and aye. Said a chief divisional officer to me the other day, “There is much in the habit of work. If a man forms the habit he naturally turns to it. I find it so with myself. I squander less time now than I used to do. The difference between wise men and fools, rich men and poor men, saints and sinners, saved men and damned men, does not usually result so much from difference of circumstances, and the start they had in life as the difference in their use of time. One redeemed it for the purpose he had in view; the other squandered it.

One was a miser of the minutes; the other was a spendthrift of the days and months and years. The one was ever up and doing, packing into every hour some search for truth, some prayer to God, some communion with Jesus, some service to man, some counsel to a saint, some warning or entreaty to a sinner; the other was ever neglecting the opportunity of the present, but full of vague purposes and dreams for an ever-receding will-o’-the-wisp-like future.

The one plods his way patiently and surely to “glory and honor, and peace, and immortality, and eternal life; ” the other drifts dreamily, but certainly into the regions of “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, ” and finally lands in hell (See Rom. 2:6-10). To redeem time one does not want feverish hurry, but a prompt, steady, quiet use of the minutes. It was said of John Wesley that he was always in haste, but never in a hurry. “Make haste slowly, ” is a wise old adage.

To save time the soul-winner will find it profitable to go to bed promptly after his meeting at night, and to get up promptly on waking in the morning. Men who have accomplished anything in the world have usually gone to work early in the day.

The Rev. Albert Barnes wrote sixteen volumes in less than an equal number of years, devoting to them only the hours before breakfast. If you would save time, have a Bible, a notebook and a pencil always at hand. Never go on to the street or take a journey without at least a Testament with you, and some other useful book if possible. And don’t forget to use them. The Gospel of St. Matthew can be read through in two hours. This may not be the most profitable way to read it, and yet it will pay to read it right through at one sitting, that we may see the life of Jesus as a whole as we would the life of any man. Paul’s first letter to Timothy can be read in twenty minutes, while Jude can be read in three minutes easily. Then don’t throw away these minutes.

Mrs. General Booth had to snatch time from household duties and the care of small children to prepare her marvelous addresses that stirred England, and helped so much in making and molding the Army. The minister who sits about smoking and reading novels, and The Salvation Army officer who whiles away the minutes idly thrumming on his guitar and reading the daily papers will not succeed at soul-saving work. Again, the soul-winner can redeem time by being “instant in season, out of season, ” in dealing with men about the things of God. Uncle John Vassar, an eccentric but marvelously successful soul-winner, once saw two ladies in the parlor of a Boston hotel, and immediately inquired if they were at peace with God, and kindly and earnestly preached Jesus to them, and urged them to make ready for death and judgment by accepting Him as Saviour and Lord. A few moments later the husband of one of them came in and found them in tears.

He inquired for the reason, when his wife said, “A strange little man has just been talking to us about religion and urging us to get right with God. ” “Well, ” said the man, “if I had been here I should have told him to go about his business. ” “My dear, ” replied me wife, “if you had been here, you would have thought he was about his business. That blessed young saint of God, James Brainerd Taylor, met a traveler at a watering trough one day, and during the five minutes their horses were drinking he so preached Jesus to the stranger that he was saved and afterwards became a missionary to Africa They met no more and the stranger was ever wondering who the angel of mercy was that pointed him to Jesus. One day in Africa he received a box of books, and on opening a small volume of memoirs, he saw the picture of the saintly and sainted young man who was about his Father’s business and redeemed the time at that watering trough by preaching Jesus and saving a soul, instead of idly gossiping about the weather. It takes no more time to ask a man about his soul than about his health, but it will require more love and prayer and holy tact and soul-wakefulness to do it with profit, and these the soul-winner must have. With many much time is lost for want of system.

Things are done at haphazard, duties are performed at random, and after one thing is done time is wasted in deciding what to do next. It is well, then, to have a program for every day, or, better still, for every hour and minute, as our General does when he goes on a tour. For months ahead the General will have a program for every hour of the day, and whether he succeeds or not in perfectly carrying it out in all its details, he at least works to it, saves anxious worry, loses no time and accomplishes a well-nigh incredible amount of business. Of course in this busy world, full of surprises and unexpected calls, any program must be flexible and not like cast iron, and in times of emergency the soul-winner must be prepared to cast it to the winds and follow according to his best judgment where the Spirit leads, singing with all his heart:

I would the precious time redeem, And longer live for this alone To spend and to be spent for them, Who have not yet the Saviour known, And turn them to a pardoning God And quench the brands in Jesus’ Blood.

My talents, gifts and graces, Lord, Into Thy blessed hands receive. And let me live to preach Thy Word, And let me to Thy glory live; My every sacred moment spend In publishing the sinner’s Friend. Finally, if you would redeem the time, keep a conscience void of offense, keep your soul at white- heat with love for Jesus and the dying world. Have faith in God. ” Expect victory. Nothing saps a man’s energies, dulls his faculties and takes from him all incentive to holy and high effort like doubt and discouragement. It is your duty to expect victory. Hallelujah! After the defeat at Ai, Joshua in a fit of discouragement stopped all efforts and fell flat on his face and stayed there till God came by and said, “Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them; for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen and dissembled also.

Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies…. neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing among you. Up, sanctify the people and say, “Sanctify yourselves, ” (Joshua 7:10-13. ) God wanted Joshua to be up and doing, and if he could not whip the enemy, then he was to clean out his own camp and not be discouraged. Trust God, and trust man, and where men cannot be trusted, then love them and pray for them, and you will surely redeem the time and win souls to God.

Chapter 7 – The Studies Of The Soul-Winner

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. – Paul to Timothy. ” (2 Tim. 2:15. ) “Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. ” (1 Tim. 4:13,15). No man or woman need hope to be a permanently successful soul-winner who is not a diligent student of the truth, of the will and ways of God, of men and of methods. A man cannot successfully build a house, or write a poem, or govern a city, or manage a store, or even shoe a horse or make a mousetrap without thoughtful study. A doctor must think and study, and that diligently and continuously, if he would understand the delicate human organism and the subtle diseases to which it is subject and the various remedies by which these diseases are to be antagonized. A lawyer must be a diligent student if he would win cases before judges and juries in the face of self-interest and skillful opponents.

How much more then should the soul-winner study in order that he may understand the diseases of the soul, the ramifications of evil, the deceitfulness of the human heart and the application of the great remedy God has provided to meet all the needs of the soul; or, to change the figure, how must he study to win his case at the bar of man’s conscience, when the man’s own deceitful heart is the opposing counsel, assisted by that old adversary, the devil, who for six thousand years has been deceiving the children of men and leading them down to hell! Oh, that every man who sets himself to be a soul-winner might fully recognize the tremendous

odds against which he fights and set himself by much believing prayer and joyous diligent study to show himself a man “approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed! Thank God no one called of Him need be discouraged or dismayed. Only let him not bury his talent in a napkin, nor spend his time in idle dreaming, but let him stir up the gift that is in him and faithfully give a little time each day to those studies that will enlighten the mind and fit him for the work God has called him to, and he shall surely be blessed of God and find himself “furnished unto every good work.

” 1. The first thing and the last to be studied is the Bible. The doctor may know all about law and art, history and theology, but if he is unacquainted with his medical books he is a failure as a doctor. The lawyer may have devoured libraries, traveled the wide world over and become a walking encyclopedia and dictionary, but if he is unacquainted with his law books, as a lawyer he is a failure. So the worker for souls may read ten thousand books, may be able to quote poetry by the mile, may be acquainted with all the facts of science and history, and may even be a profound theologian, but unless he is a diligent student of the Bible, he will not permanently succeed as a soul-winner. He must become full of the thoughts of God. He must eat the Word and digest it and turn it into spiritual blood and bone and muscle and nerve and sinew, until he becomes, as someone has said, “A living Bible, eighteen inches wide by six feet long, bound in human skin” Finney used to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and read his Bible until 8. During one of his revival services in Boston he said: “I gave myself to a great deal of prayer. After my evening services I would retire as early as I could, but rose at 4 o’clock in the morning because I could sleep no longer, and immediately went to the study and engaged in prayer. And so deeply was my mind exercised, and so absorbed in prayer, that I frequently continued from the time I arose at 4 o’clock, till called to breakfast at 8 o’clock My days were spent as far as I could get time, in searching the Scriptures I read nothing else all that winter but my Bible, and a great deal of it seemed new to me. Again the Lord took me, as it were, from Genesis to Revelation. He let me

see the connection of things, the promises, the threatenings, the prophecies and the fulfillment; and indeed the whole Scripture seemed to me all ablaze with light. and not only light, but it seemed as if God’s Word was instinct with the very life of God. This diligent attention to the Word of God is a command He said to Joshua, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night” The object of this earnest study was, “That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein, ” and the result, “for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success. David’s “blessed man” is not one who simply refuses to keep company with the ungodly and abstains from their ways, “but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law doth he meditates day and night. ” (Ps. 1:2. ) And the difference between him and the ungodly is the difference between a fruitful tree planted by the river and “the chaff which the wind driveth away. Jesus declared the importance of the Word when He told the devil that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Mrs. General Booth read her Bible through a number of times before she was twelve years old. No wonder God made her a “mother of nations. She was full of truth, and she could never open her mouth without saying something that was calculated to expose shams and falsehoods, overthrow the devil’s kingdom of lies and build up God’s kingdom of righteousness and truth in the hearts of men. Whitefield read the Bible through many times on his knees with Henry’s notes.

Again and again the writer has read his Bible through on his knees, and it is ever new and as David said, “sweeter also than honey or the honeycomb. And like Job he can say “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. Wesley in his old age called himself “A man of one book. It is from this armory that the soul- winner is to draw his weapons with which he fights all hell. It is here that he is to study the mind and heart of God, the truth about Jesus Christ, sin and the way of escape from it, and the facts about heaven and hell, a Judgment Day and eternity. Here he is to find a law for the lawless, warnings for the careless, promises for the penitent, encouragement for the distressed, balm for the wounded, healing for the sick, life for the dead.

He is to “preach the Word, ” for it is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work” And in preaching it, if he preaches as they did of old, “with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, ” he will find it living and active and “sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and quick to discern th e thoughts and intents of the heart. ” I have sometimes read or quoted the Word of God to people, and it fitted their case so pat that it smote them like a lightning bolt. “Is not My Word like a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? But the soul-winner must not study it simply that he may preach it, but that he may himself live by it, be furnished, strengthened, enlightened, corrected and made wise by it. It must pass through his own soul and become a part of his own spiritual life before he can preach it with power and apply it effectually to the saving of men. And in order to do this he must be filled with the Holy Ghost. In fact, it is only as he is filled with the Spirit that he will be able to get much benefit from the Word of God or have much love for it. The Bible is a sealed book to unspiritual people, but when the Comforter comes it is unsealed and its wondrous meaning made clear. I read recently of a lad, who could not read, receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Then he got his unsaved sister to read the Bible to him and he explained it to her. Hallelujah! The Holy Ghost in him enabled him to understand what the Holy Ghost in holy men of old enabled them to write. Only the Holy Ghost can help men to understand His Book. An old colored lady loved her Bible very much. A friend who found her reading it frequently, gave her a commentary to assist her in getting at its meaning. A few days later seeing her, he asked, “Well, Auntie, how do you like that book I gave you? ” She replied, “Oh, dat be a very good book, but de Bible do throw a lot o’ light on dat ‘er book. ” The Bereans show us the way to read the Bible (Acts 17:11).
1. They received the Word with all readiness.
2. They searched the Scriptures. It was not with them just a hasty, careless, thoughtless reading; they searched as men would search for hidden treasure.
3. They did this daily. Personally for years I have given the best hour of the day to the Bible, until I want it more than I want my food. It should be read early in the day, before other things crowd in What is read should be remembered. In eating it is not the amount we eat, but the amount we digest that does us good, and just so is it in reading and studying. It is not the amount we read, but what we remember and make our own that does us good. 2. Besides the Bible, the soul-winner ought to lay out a course of reading for himself, and stick to it, reading a few pages each day.

Ten pages a day will mean from ten to fifteen books a year. Every Salvation Army officer ought to read the General’s “Letters, ” “Holiness Readings, ” the “F. O. , ” and Mrs. Booth’s works. “Books that Bless, ” by the Chief, will prove invaluable. “Holy Living and Dying, ” by Taylor; Law’s “Call, ” “Saint’s Rest, ” by Baxter; Edwards’ “Life of Brainerd, ” Wesley’s works, “Life of Fletcher, ” “Life of Bramwell, ” “Pilgrim’s Progress, ” “Half Hours with St. Paul, ” by Daniel Steele; “Holiness and Power, ” by Rev. A M. Hills, and Finney’s and Caughey’s works will make a library that can be read again and again with untold profit by soul-winners. Not too much time should be spent over newspapers.

It would probably not be wise to discard them altogether, but better do that than let them rob you of the time that should be spent in deep study and earnest prayer. I once heard the General say, “I have not read a newspaper for ten days. ” All useful knowledge may prove valuable to the soul-winner, and he should seek information everywhere. It is well to carry a notebook and constantly make notes. Gladstone made notes on the margins of books he read. The soul-winner should study not only books, but men and methods. John Wesley became a supreme master in practical and experimental theology and a matchless soul-winner largely through his study of men. He examined thousands of people – men, women and children, with reference to their religious experience, and especially their experiences of sanctification, until he became acquainted with the human heart and the workings of the Holy Spirit as few men have ever done.

I know of no better and surer method of acquainting one’s self with the human heart and the way the Holy Spirit works with men to save than by this close, personal, private conversation and inquiry about the religious experiences of the Christians around us. This is the scientific method applied to the study of the human heart, the Christian life and religious experience, and it can be carried on wherever you can find a human being to talk with you. “He that winneth souls is wise.

Chapter 8 – Health

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper, and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. (3 John 2) The soul-winner must take the best care he knows how of his body, yet without everlastingly coddling and petting and pitying himself. This is his sacred duty. The body is the instrument through which the mind and the soul work in this world. A good body is as essential to the soul- winner as is a good instrument to the musician, or a stanch boat to the strong rower, and should be no more despised and neglected than is his gun by the huntsman or his axe by the woodsman.

Know ye not, ” said St. Paul, “that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? and “if any man defile” (margin “destroy”) “the temple of God, him will God destroy. As the most skillful musician is dependent upon his instrument for the richness and sweetness of the music he makes, so men, in every walk of life, are in a large measure limited by and dependent upon the quality of the body through which their mental and spiritual powers must work. Most men who have made a mark in the world, though there are some striking exceptions, have had a splendid basis of physical force and power. When Moses died on Mount Nebo at 120 years of age, “his eyes were not dimmed nor his natural force abated, ” and that notwithstanding the fact that for forty years he had had the tremendous task of of organizing, legislating for, judging and ruling a great nation of slaves just delivered from 400 years of bondage and wandering like sheep in a mountainous wilderness. Paul must have had a robust constitution and fairly good health to have endured the stonings and whippings, imprisonments and shipwrecks, hungerings and thirstings, fighting with fierce beasts and contentions with yet fiercer men, besides the care of all the churches which fell to his lot daily. John Wesley was a little man, weighing only about 120 pounds, but his health was superb, and seems to have been due not so much to natural vigor of constitution, though, doubtless he had that, as to the regular habits and healthful plan of living which he adopted. He was one of nineteen children, and his father was a poor clergyman. For several years he had nothing to eat but bread, which may have accounted for his small size, but which he himself said probably laid the foundations of good health which he afterward enjoyed. It must have been whole-wheat bread, however, and not the white, starchy stuff of modern bakers. In after years he always ate sparingly, and only ate a few articles of food at any one meal. He lived much out of doors, preached almost daily and sometimes several times a day in the open air. At the age of 73 he makes this remarkable entry in his journal: “I am 73 years old and far abler to preach than I was at three and twenty. What natural means has God used to produce so wonderful an effect?

“1. Continual exercise and change of air by traveling about 4,000 miles a year. (It is well to remember that he did his traveling on horseback and in a buggy through winter’s storms and summer’s heat. )

“2. Constant rising at four o’clock.

3. The ability, if ever I want, of sleeping immediately.

4. The never losing a night’s sleep in my life. ” (He mentions several all nights of prayer in his journal, however. )

“5. Two violent fevers and two deep consumptions. These, it is true, were rough medicines, but they were of admirable service, causing my flesh to come again as the flesh of a little child.

May I add, lastly, evenness of temper? I feel, I grieve, but by the grace of God I fret at nothing, but still the help that is done upon the earth God doeth it Himself; and this He doeth in answer to many prayers. ” A similar entry was made in his journal in 1782. He says: “I have entered into my eightieth year, but, blessed be God! my time is not ‘labor and sorrow. ‘ I find no more pain or bodily infirmity than at five and twenty. And beside the reason given above he adds: “This I will impute, first, to the power of God, fitting me for what He calls me to do, and, second, to my constant preaching, particularly in the morning. ” The morning sermon was preached at five o’clock in the summer and six o’clock in the winter.

Young people are usually prodigal of their health and strength, and nature will allow them to make large drafts upon these treasures, but keeps strict account, and will surely require interest and principal in due time. It is a rather remarkable fact that often those who have had poor health in youth so learn to take care of themselves and obey the laws of health and not impose upon their bodies, that they outlast and outwork many who started out with a greater physical capital. Those who desire good health, long life and a cheerful old age should live simply and regularly; they should seek enough sleep and at the same time be careful not to take too much sleep. Mr. Wesley could get along with six hours’ sleep at night, though he had the happy faculty of taking naps through the day, even sleeping on horseback. Napoleon frequently got along with three hours’ sleep, but General Grant said that when in the midst of his heaviest campaigns he required nine hours. I have heard General Booth say that he needed eight hours at least. Women usually need at least an hour more of sleep than men.

No rule can be laid down to fit every case, however, so that the soul-winner who is a conscientious man must find out for himself what is best for himself, make his own rule and keep it religiously as unto the Lord. There is a danger of lying in bed too long as well as too short a time. The Duke of Wellington said: “When you find that you want to turn over, you ought to turn out. ” Lying in bed relaxes the whole system, and if indulged in to excess tends to a general weakening of the system. George Mueller, the great philanthropist of Bristol Orphanage fame, found the nerves of his head weak and painful, and thought to strengthen them by taking a nap after dinner each day, but instead of getting stronger they got weaker, and he suffered increasing pain.

He finally decided that the relaxation of sleep produced the weakness, and substituted a cold bath for his head, and found immediate and increasing benefit from it. Sleep should be taken in a room that is as well ventilated in winter as in summer. All good physicians and hygienists insist upon this, and also that one should not sleep in any garment worn during the day. Benjamin Franklin declared that he had made a great discovery. He discovered that the sun came up in the morning. He thought that it would be a great financial saving to the world if people

could only be brought to recognize this fact, and instead of turning night into day by artificial light, should go to bed early and get up with the sun. No doubt there would be many dollars saved and also much nervous energy. We have fallen on evil days, however, and it is not likely we shall ever get back to the habits of our forefathers and go to bed with the birds. The soul- winner, though, ought conscientiously to go to bed as quickly as possible after meeting. This can be done, unless he foolishly prefers to sit up and indulge in small talk and late suppers, in which case, if he does not destroy his health, he will at least greatly injure it and cripple his soul- saving power. Exercise is also very necessary for health. A Salvation Army officer who does the regulation amount of visiting, WAR CRY selling and open-air meetings will get a great deal of exercise in the walking done, and if he throws back his shoulders and breathes deeply, will require very little additional exercise.

But as the human body, like a chain, is not stronger than at its weakest point, a little general systematic exercise is useful to keep every organ of the body in good health and vigor. Caughey went to England, and in six years saw 20,000 sinners saved and 10,000 Christians seeking holiness, then broke down, and for thirty years or more was an invalid. This may have been God’s will for him, but I can hardly believe it is His will, generally speaking, for soul-winners, and am persuaded that if Caughey had obeyed the injunction, “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, ” and had religiously taken one day in seven for relaxation, refreshment and rest, he need not have spent those thirty years in retirement. Work is absolutely necessary for health, but so also is rest. The heart of man works for ninety years and in some instances even longer, but it rests one half the time. Experience has proved that to rest more than one-seventh of the time is not well, as in that case the man rusts out, and to rest less than one-seventh results in wearing out.

The man who never relaxes, however religious he may be, is likely to become morose, irritable, impatient and a source of anxiety and perplexity to his dearest friends; or become melancholy

and full of gloom, get into the dumps, and doubt his call to preach. There is a legend that when the Apostle John was nearly 100 years of age, he was visited by a man who was anxious to see the beloved disciple of the Lord. The man found the old apostle playing with some little children, rebuked the aged saint and told him it ill fitted an apostle of the Lord, at his age, to be indulging in childish games. The old man replied in substance: “A bow that is never unstrung will lose its power; unloose the string and it retains its vigor; so I relieve the tension of my soul by indulging in innocent games with the little ones. The emotions, the sympathies, and every power of mind and soul, and all the nervous energies of the body have heavy drafts made upon them in soul-saving work, and the mighty tension of the soul and body at their highest point of efficiency must be entirely relaxed periodically in order to maintain this efficiency. In other words, there must be rest. I have found that when I get very tired and am least fit to do anything, that I then feel an imperative necessity for doing something, and then it is that I must put on the brakes and rest by sheer force of will, if need be.

A friend of mine who is an unusually successful soul-winner, has a very sensible wife, who, when she finds him nervous and worn, insists upon his going to bed for a whole day and vegetating. The next day he finds his nervous force restored and is ready for any amount of hard work. Sir Isaac Holden, the noted English Methodist, was a very delicate little man, but by careful attention to the laws of diet, ventilation of room, etc. , lived to be ninety years of age. Mr. Stead says of him:

“It was his way when ill to nurse his strength by keeping silent. ” Few people realize the waste of physical force there is in constant small talk. Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God, ” said Paul. Eating and drinking do not seem to have anything to do with soul-saving, but nevertheless they have. Three- fourths of the diseases that Americans are afflicted with, ” said a recent writer, “can be traced to improper eating and drinking. ” “The fewer the sweetmeats, the sweeter the temper. If you doubt it and have a bad temper, my friend, let me implore you to try it, ” wrote a wise hygienist.

The old man replied in substance: “A bow that is never unstrung will lose its power; unloose the string and it retains its vigor; so I relieve the tension of my soul by indulging in innocent games with the little ones. The emotions, the sympathies, and every power of mind and soul, and all the nervous energies of the body have heavy drafts made upon them in soul-saving work, and the mighty tension of the soul and body at their highest point of efficiency must be entirely relaxed periodically in order to maintain this efficiency. In other words, there must be rest. I have found that when I get very tired and am least fit to do anything, that I then feel an imperative necessity for doing something, and then it is that I must put on the brakes and rest by sheer force of will, if need be. A friend of mine who is an unusually successful soul-winner, has a very sensible wife, who, when she finds him nervous and worn, insists upon his going to bed for a whole day and vegetating. The next day he finds his nervous force restored and is ready for any amount of hard work. Sir Isaac Holden, the noted English Methodist, was a very delicate little man, but by careful attention to the laws of diet, ventilation of room, etc. , lived to be ninety years of age.

Mr. Stead says of him: “It was his way when ill to nurse his strength by keeping silent. ” Few people realize the waste of physical force there is in constant small talk. “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God, ” said Paul. Eating and drinking do not seem to have anything to do with soul-saving, but nevertheless they have. “Three- fourths of the diseases that Americans are afflicted with, ” said a recent writer, “can be traced to improper eating and drinking. ” “The fewer the sweetmeats, the sweeter the temper. If you doubt it and have a bad temper, my friend, let me implore you to try it, ” wrote a wise hygienist.

Here are some short rules for one who wants good health: Don’t worry. Paul says: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. ” “Never despair. Lost hope is a fatal disease. One of the fruits of the Spirit is hope. Work like a man, but don’t worry yourself to death. Court the fresh air day and night Don’t overeat. Don’t starve. “Let your moderation be known unto all men. ” “Feed a cold, and you will have to starve a fever. Don’t forget that “Cleanliness is next to godliness. ” Finally. If you have poor health and a broken constitution, don’t despair. Baxter, one of the mightiest men of God that ever lived, the St. Paul and the General Booth of his day, was a lifelong invalid and suffered almost intolerable things, but he praised God for it, for he declared it kept him alive to eternal things, weaned him from the world and led him constantly to “preach as a dying man to dying men. David Brainerd, the fragrance of whose holy life and apostolic labors and self-denial have filled and inspired the church for almost two centuries, died of consumption before he was thirty years of age. But few men in health and strength have been so used of God as he was in his weakness.

Personally I have suffered much from broken health, exhausted nerves and sleepless nights, and at one time feared that my work was done, but by prayer and care I have been so far restored to health and strength that I can work six days in the week with all my might, sleep like a kitten,digest my food fairly well, am full of the joy of the Lord, am happy as a lark and am altogether glad that I am alive. Hallelujah!

Chapter 9 – The Renewing Of Power

Though our outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Paul. To do God’s work we must have God’s power. Therefore Jesus said: “Tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. ” (Luke 24:49. ) And again He said: “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you. (Acts 1:8) The soul-winner receives this power when he is sanctified wholly and filled with the Spirit, and he need never lose it. But while the Holy Spirit abides with the believer, there yet seems to be need for frequent renewals of the power He bestows.

And, thank God, He he made ample provision to meet this need. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, ” said Isaiah. “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord, ” cries David. Years ago President Asa Mahan wrote as follows of his old friend: “The extraordinary power which attended the preaching of President Finney during the early years of his ministry was chiefly owing to a special baptism of the Spirit which he received not long after his conversion; hence it was that when through him the ‘violated law spake out its thunders, ‘ it did seem as if we had in truth ‘come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words.

But when he spoke of Christ, then indeed did his ‘doctrine drop as the rain, and his speech distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb and as the showers upon the mown grass. The reason also why he is bringing forth such wondrous fruit in his old age is that while his whole ministry has been under the power of the Spirit, his former baptisms have been renewed with increasing power and frequency during a few years past. The need for these frequent renewings and anointings does not necessarily arise from backsliding. Sometimes the soul feels the need of a renewal of its power when confronted by great opposition, danger and powerful foes. The apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost, and had not only won their great Pentecostal victory, but many others as well, when suddenly a stubborn wall of opposition arose before them.

They were arrested by the rulers, thrust into prison, brought before the high priest, sharply questioned by what power and name they were working their miracles, and then when no ground for punishment could be found, they were threatened and commanded to preach no more in the name of Jesus. When they were let go they went to their own people, told them what had happened, and began a sweet, childlike, heaven storming prayer meeting, told the Lord the story, too, and cried to Him to show forth His power, and then a wonderful thing happened; Pentecost was repeated; “the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness, and with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great peace was upon them all. ” They waited before the Lord and their strength was renewed, their power reinforced from heaven. their past victories put into the shade and “a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

” Sometimes the need for this renewal of strength arises after great victories. For victory is usually secured as the result of great spiritual and mental activity, and often physical activity as well, and it is but natural that there should be a reaction; the pendulum, if left alone, swings to the other extreme.

Depression may follow, the powers of soul and mind relax, joyful emotions subside, and the inexperienced soul-winner may at this point get into great perplexity, and suffer from fierce temptation; and strain himself to keep up his accustomed spiritual activity, crying out with David, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? ” And again. “My flesh and my heart faileth, ” and imagine himself to be backsliding. But what is needed now is not so much anxious wrestling with God as quiet waiting upon God for a renewal of power, saying to his soul, “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance, and my God, ” and though heart and flesh do fail, “yet God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever. ” At such times the strength of the soul is to sit still in quietness and confidence. (Is. 30:7, 15) I once heard a wise old evangelist, one of the mightiest this country has produced, say that while at home after a season of rest, the Spirit of God would come upon him, leading him to earnest prayer and travail for the salvation of men.

This was God’s way of preparing him for a campaign, and for victory, and away he would go for battle and siege, to rescue the souls of men, and never did he fail to win. But after a while there seemed to be an abatement of power, when he would return home for another season of rest and quiet, waiting upon God for the renewal of his strength. And thus he continued till he was past eighty, still bringing forth fruit in old age. Again, there is sometimes need of a renewal of power owing to weakness and infirmity of the flesh. Paul must have received a great addition of power when, instead of removing his “thorn, ” Jesus said to him, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. And such was the uplift that Paul got at that time that ever afterward he took “pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake, ” glorying in them, since through them the power of Christ rested upon him, and in weakness he was made strong. Spiritual power is not necessarily dependent upon physical energy, and however much he may be afflicted with infirmities there are mighty endurements of power for the soul-winner if he intelligently and with quiet and persistent faith seeks them from on high.

There will be times of loneliness and spiritual agony such as Jesus suffered in the Garden, or Elijah when he felt that all the prophets were slain, and there was none true to God in Israel but himself. Or again, when there is widespread barrenness and desolation, when revivals have ceased, and worldliness sweeps in like a flood, and there is apparently no vision, and God seems silent, and the devil mocks and taunts, then the soul-winner will need to have his spiritual strength renewed. And he may fully expect such a renewal. The angels are all round about him, and the heavens are bending over him, and Jesus has lost none of His tender interest and sympathy for him. An angel came and strengthened Jesus in His agony (Luke 22:43), and an angel strengthened Elijah for his long and lonely journey, and an angel came to Daniel and said, “O man, greatly beloved, fear not; peace be unto thee; be strong, yea, be strong. ” And not only an angel, but the Lord Himself will surely empower His trusting workers.

It was Jesus that cheered Paul in the chief captain’s castle (Acts 23:11), and John on the lonely Isle of Patmos (Rev. 1:17), and so He still cheers and strengthens His servants and warriors. Bless His name! These renewals of power are not always necessarily of an extraordinary character. There are sometimes great uplifts of physical strength without any apparent cause, but ordinarily a man’s physical strength is renewed by rest and the timely eating of proper food. And so there may be times when the Spirit of God falls upon the soul-winner, giving him great uplifts and visions and courage. But ordinarily power comes by the use of the simple means of much regular prayer and patient, diligent searching of God’s Word and a daily listening to God’s voice It is renewed like fire, not by the fall of lightning from Heaven, but by the addition of new fuel; like physical strength, not by some hypodermic injection of fresh blood, but by proper food.

David calls upon his soul to bless God “who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. ” (Ps. 103:5) This will require time and attention on our part, but it will be time well spent. It is by appropriate food, then, that the soul is strengthened. Jesus told us what that food was when He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matt 4:4) And does not this correspond to Paul’s statement that though the outward man was perishing, yet “the inward man is renewed day by day? and with that passage that says, “The Lord revealed Himself unto Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord? It is the Lord that renews our strength, but He does it not in some mysterious way, but by means of His Word, which we read and meditate upon and appropriate by faith. Through it we see Jesus and come to know our Lord. Bless His name! My own strength is usually renewed by the opening up of some new truth, or the powerful

application of some promises, or portion of the Word of God to my soul, which I am enabled to make my own by a definite and bold, affectionate and daredevil act of faith in secret prayer.

Chapter 10 – An Undivided Heart

Unite my heart. – David.
He who thinks to succeed in this infinite business of saving souls with a heart that is divided as yet knows nothing as he ought to know concerning the matter. That a man may by personal magnetism, grace of manners, power or persuasiveness of speech, and a certain skill in playing upon the emotions and self-interest of the people, create an excitement that fairly simulates a revival; and yet have a divided heart, I admit; but that he can bring men to a thorough repentance and renunciation of sin, a hearty embrace of the Cross, an affectionate surrender to Jesus as a personal Saviour and Master who requires deep humility and meekness and tender love as the marks of His disciples is hard to be proved. As certainly as like begets like, so certainly will the soul-winner put the mark of his own spirit and consecration upon the people he influences; if he is himself not more than half won to the cause of his lowly Master, he will not more than half win others. His task is the mightiest to which men were ever set. The physical scientist manipulates and changes dead matter, the newspaper man seeks principally to amuse or interest people for the passing hour; the lawyer and politician simply seek to change and mold the opinions of men; but the soul-winner is dealing with fundamentals. His object is not merely to change the opinions and conduct, but to change character; to work a moral revolution in the affections, the dispositions, the wills of men; to turn them from temporal things which they see, to eternal things, which they do not see, from all vices to virtues, from utter selfishness to utter self-sacrifice, and often in spite of all present self-interest, and in the face of the combined opposition of the world, the flesh and the devil.

His object is not alone to save them from the guilt and penalty of sin, but from the pollution and the power and the love of sin. Nor is it merely to save men from sin, which is rather a negative work, but to save them into all goodness and love and holiness through a vital and eternal union with Jesus – a union that gives perpetual vigor and energy and fruitfulness in righteousness to all the powers of the soul, filling it with grace and truth.

This is no little work, and can never be the work of a man with a divided heart. It is like turning Niagara Falls back upon its source, or causing the sun and the moon to stand still on Ajalon; it can only be done by God’s power, and that power is only fully bestowed upon, and only works freely in and through those whose hearts are perfect toward Him. The soul-winner, then, must once and for all, abandon himself to the Lord and to the Lord’s work, and, having put his hand to the plow, must not look back, if he would succeed in this mighty business. He must love his Lord and love his work, and stick to it through all difficulties, perplexities and discouragements, and not be given to change, for there is no discharge in this war. Here it is that many fail; they have not a single eye. They make provisions for retreat. They are double-minded, like an officer I knew, who dabbled in photography till it divided his life and heart, and got him out of the work; like a minister of whom I heard the other day, who reads another man’s sermons to his people, while he studies law, saying that when he gets a poor appointment he will fall back on the law and leave the ministry, forgetting Paul’s words to Timothy: “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please Him that hath chosen him to be a soldier. ” (2 Tim. 2:4) By and by such men leave the work God sets them to do, because, as they say, they have not been treated well, when the fact is, their minds being divided, they cease to work well; they no longer give themselves wholly to it, and the people feel a lack of interest and power, hungering souls that look for bread receive a stone, poor sinners, on the road to hell, and possibly on the brink of ruin, go from their cold and heartless services unawakened and unsaved. They lost their grip first on God and then on the crowd, and their superiors, perplexed to know what to do with them, and where to place them, since the people no longer want them, are blamed.

But blame others as they will, the blame still lies with themselves. No great work has ever been accomplished without abandonment to it. Michael Angelo said his work was his wife and the statues he made were his children. Edison is so wedded to his work that all other things are forgotten and set aside in the pursuit of his marvelous inventions. Demosthenes, the greatest of ancient orators, if not the greatest of all time, was hissed off the platform at his first appearance. His figure was unprepossessing, and his voice weak and harsh, but he determined to be heard. He devoted himself to his studies, shaved one side of his head lest he should be led into society, and practiced elocution by day and by night. To perfect his enunciation he filled his mouth half-full of pebbles and practiced while climbing a hill; and that he might successfully contend against the thunders of the Athenian mob, he went to the seashore and strengthened his voice by practicing it against the thunder of the waves. Lord Beaconsfield stood for parliament five times, and at last won his seat. When he first attempted to speak he was laughed from the floor but he sat down saying, “You will listen to me yet; ” and they did, when, as prime minister of England, he arbitrated the destinies of Europe and crowned Victoria Empress of India. How long did it take you to prepare that address? ” was asked of a great speaker. “All my lifetime in general, and fifteen minutes in particular, ” he replied. When Benjamin Franklin, as a poor boy, opened a printing-shop, a prosperous competitor said he would drive him out of town. Franklin showed him a piece of black bread from which he dined, and a pail of water from which he drank, and asked if he thought a man who could live on fare like that and work sixteen hours a day could be driven out of town!

Who knows the name of that competitor? and who has not heard of Franklin? If men engaged in secular pursuits are thus given up to their work and consumed with their purpose, how much more should the soul-winner be, he who is fighting for righteousness and holiness, for the kingdom of love upon earth, rescuing souls from the power of sin and the danger of eternal burnings? If God has set you to win souls, O my brother, make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Cut the bridge down behind you.

Remember Paul’s words to Timothy: “Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Let your eye be single, make no plan for retreat, allow no thought of it. Remember Paul’s “Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel. Like Jesus, set your face steadfastly toward your Jerusalem, your cross, your kingdom, your glory, when, having turned many to righteousness, you “shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. ” (Dan. 12:3) You may be ignorant and illiterate, your abilities may be very limited, you may have a stammering tongue, and be utterly lacking in culture, but you can have an undivided a perfect heart toward God and the work He has set you to do, and this is more than all culture and all education, all gifts and graces of person and brain. If God has bestowed any of these upon you, see to it that they are sanctified, and that your trust is not in them. But if He has denied them to you, He yet hath called you to the fellowship of His Son, and to His service. Be not dismayed; it is not the perfect head, but the perfect heart which God blesses. For has He not said, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him?

At this point none need fail, and yet, what an awful thing! – some will fail, and after having, as they say, prophesied in His name, and in His name cast out devils, and in His name done many wondrous works, shall hear Him profess, “I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity. “Let nothing now my heart divide, Since with Thee I am crucified, And live to God in Thee.

Dead to the world and all its toys, Its idle pomps and fading joys. Jesus, my glory be. “

Chapter 11 – Finance

The soul-winner, to be successful, must not be over anxious about finance, but must laugh at the devil and all his fears, and count God faithful and trust Him to supply all his needs. He should again and again read over the last part of the sixth chapter of St.

Matthew, beginning with verse 19. What could be stronger and more positive than the assurance of Jesus that his needs shall be supplied? When I was a little fellow I never worried my head or heart about my next pair of shoes, or where my breakfast was to come from. My father was dead, so my mother did all that worrying, and I played and trusted her and had a good time. Well, now, Jesus says we are to take no thought (by that He means no anxious thought see Revised Version) what we shall eat or what we shall put on.

“Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? And if God gives you life, which is the greater, will He not give you meat to sustain life? And if He allows you still to live in your body for a season, will He not give you raiment to protect your body? “Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Jesus would have me trust my Heavenly Father as I did my mother.

Then I call be a child again, bless the Lord! and all I have to do is to pray and obey and trust the Lord, and have a good time before the Lord, and He will supply my needs and the needs of my little ones whom He has given me. Yes, that is what He means, for He says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. And this freedom from worrying anxiety is the privilege and duty of all soul-winners, from the carefree worker who has only to get bread for his own mouth to him who has a large family to feed and clothe, or the man with a thousand-fold financial responsibility like Moses, or George Mueller, or Hudson Taylor, or our God-honored and beloved General. Faith – simple faith, unmixed faith in God’s promise – can no more exist in the same heart with worry than can fire and water, or light and darkness, consort together; one extinguishes the other.

Faith in the plain, unmistakable promise of God, begotten by the Holy Ghost, so links the soul-winner to Jesus, so yokes them up and unites them in partnership together, that the burden and care is the Lord’s, since “the cattle on a thousand hills and the silver and the gold are His; ” and He would have His child trust Him, walk the waves with Him, never doubt Him, shout the victory through Him and triumph over all fear and all the power of the enemy in Him. I do declare that according to the Word of God this is His will for the soul- winner, and this secret every true soul-winner must and does know. Hallelujah! God does not send the soul-winner to a warfare at his own charges, but according to Paul, “will supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. ” God’s commissary department is abundantly full and runs on schedule time, but the worried and anxious unbeliever wants Him to run ahead of schedule time.

No, no! He may in order to test and strengthen faith, not provide the second suit until the first one is ready to be laid aside, and sometimes after supper he may allow you to go to bed not knowing where the breakfast is to come from, but it will come at breakfast time. “He knoweth that ye have need of these things, ” so trust Him, as does the sparrow. The wee thing tucks its tiny head under its little wing and sleeps, not knowing where it will find its breakfast, and when the day dawns it chirps its merry note of praise, and God opens His great hand and feeds it. The eyes of all wait upon Thee and Thou givest them their meat in due season.

Thou openest Thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. ” said the Psalmist (Ps. 145:15, 16), and “Ye are of more value than many sparrows, ” said Jesus. O my anxious brother, trust Him! He will not fail you. In this, as in all other things, the assurance holds good, that there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it. ” (1 Cor. 10:13) Hallelujah! I have proved this in times past, and I may have to prove it again, but “God is faithful. ” Glory! Glory! Glory! And the devil is a liar and always will be. Finney’s clothes got threadbare, but he was so intent on getting souls saved that he didn’t notice it until someone came along and measured him for a new suit. I had an almost similar experience once. God knew when the old suit needed replacing by a new one, and He sent it along on time.

Who can read Muller’s “Life of Trust, ” without seeing God’s hand in the supply of all our needs? And if the experiences of the officers of The Salvation Army were written, it would make a book equally interesting, showing the unfailing faithfulness of God in supplying daily need. Oh, that soul-winners would not lose their simplicity and forget these mercies and past faithfulness, which are certain pledges of future ones! Many a man loses his love for souls and his power to win them by allowing covetousness or financial anxiety to crowd childlike trust out of his heart. “Who is there among you that would shut the door for nought? neither do ye kindle a fire upon mine altars for nought, ” cried the Lord to the backslidden, covetous prophets of old. They would do nothing until they knew they should be well paid for it. It was not souls, but money they worked for. Contrast with this Paul’s unselfish, disinterested devotion. He says: “I have coveted no man’s silver or gold or apparel; yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive. ” And again he says: “I seek not yours but you.

” He even goes so far as to say when they gave him anything, “Not that I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. It was not the benefit that he derived from receiving, so much as the benefit they would derive from giving that rejoiced his heart. In writing to the Philippians, who had sent him a donation, he gives us a bit of his inner experience. He says, “I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again, wherein ye were also careful but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect o f want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and how to abound; everywhere and in all things have I learned the secret” (R. V. ) “both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. And in writing to Timothy, he says: “A bishop must not be greedy of filthy lucre, ” and Peter says we are to “feed the flock of God not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind. In all this I do not contend that God would not have the soul-winner amply supported and relieved of financial burden and care by the people for whom he gives his life. God says: “The laborer is worthy of his hire; ” and He forbade the muzzling of the ox that trod out the corn; and by the tithing system, which all Christians ought to adopt, every Jew was to assist in the support of the ministry.

But what I do contend for is, that the soul-winner must not be anxious about his bread, but must beware of covetousness, must seek to save souls, and if they do not support him as he would wish, must still love them unto death and seek their salvation, and cheerfully and triumphantly trust the God who fed Elijah and rained manna from heaven for forty years to feed a million Israelites to find a way to feed him. I maintain against all devils and all unbelief, that God will not disappoint him, but will “feed him with the finest of the wheat and satisfy him as with marrow and fatness. “

Chapter 12 – Saving Truth

All truth is precious, but not all truth is adapted to secure the immediate conversion and sanctification of men, any more than all medicine is adapted to cure heart-disease or rheumatism. There are certain truths which, preached in the power of the Holy Ghost, are as much adapted to convert and sanctify souls as food to satisfy hunger, or fire to melt ice; while there are other truths, equally Biblical, that will no more secure such results than will the truths of the multiplication table comfort a brokenhearted mother while mourning for her lost children, or those of astronomy quiet a guilty conscience roused from the slumber of sin. Some time since I read the amazing and humbling statement that “there were over 3,000 churches in two of the leading denominations of this country that did not report a single member added by profession of faith last year. Well may the writer add, “Think of more than 3,000 ministers in two denominations world-renowned for their schools and culture, preaching a whole year, and aided by deacons and Sabbath-school teachers and Christian parents and church members and prayer meetings and Sabbath schools and Christian Endeavor Societies, and helps and helpers innumerable, and all without one conversion! ” Why this stupendous failure? It cannot be that truth was not preached and taught in the Sunday schools and prayer meetings. These preachers and teachers and parents were orthodox, cultured, and skilled in Biblical lore.

No doubt they preached and taught truth from one end of the year to the other, but it was not the truth – the truth that saves, the truth that first smites the conscience, lays bare the secrets of the heart, and arouses the slumbering soul until, self- convicted, it feels that every man it meets is acquainted with its guilt, and every wind and every footfall is an accusing voice, and no cover can hide from God’s searching eye, and when conviction has wrought its purpose, and penitence is complete, whispers of forgiveness and peace, and offers mercy and salvation full and free through the bleeding Lamb of God, “before the world’s foundation slain. Such truth preached faithfully and constantly in these pulpits and churches – not timidly and feebly, like powder and shot buried by a child’s hand, but rather with power, like thunderbolts from the cannon’s mouth – might have set the nation in a blaze of revival fire. The fact is there are different kinds or grades of truth for different classes of people, just as there are different medicines for various diseases, and food for different ages and constitutions. Jesus declares this when He says, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. ” (John 16:12. ) The soul-winner must recognize this fact, and seek rightly to divide the word of truth.

The Christian needs a different kind and application of truth from that needed by the sinner or backslider, and the sanctified man can receive the strong meat of God’s Word, while babes in Christ must be fed on milk. (1 Cor. 3:1, 2; Heb. 5:12, 14. ) With the sinner, the principal attack should be made on the conscience and the will; he may be moral, and more or less amiable in his family and social relations, and honorable among his business associates, but be sure that under this is secret selfishness and heart sin. He seeks his own way, is disobedient to the light, careless to the dying love of Jesus, and in reality, if not in profession, he is an enemy to God, and must be convinced of these facts, and faithfully and lovingly and firmly warned of his utter ruin if he does not repent. Repentance, deep, thorough and heartfelt, that leads to a confession and an utter, eternal renunciation of all sin and a complete amendment of life and a making right as far as possible of all past wrong, must be presented as the “strait gate” through which alone he can enter the highway to heaven.

We must insist on an immediate and unconditional surrender to all the light God gives, and offer him mercy and tender love through Jesus Christ only if he yields. The motives that lead to repentance are drawn from eternity, and there is a whole armory of truth with which the sinner can and must be bombarded to bring him to terms, such as the certainty that what he sows he shall reap; that his sins will surely find him out; that death will speedily overtake him; and that if, refusing mercy, he presumes on the goodness of God, and continues in selfishness and sin, hell shall be his portion forever; while a life of peace and joy here, a happy deathbed, and eternal glory can be offered him as the alternative, on condition of obedient faith. About the same kind of truth is necessary for the backslider, except that the proportions may have to be varied. If he is stubborn, thunder the law at him until he hoists the white flag and sues for mercy. If he is sorry he has backslidden, but fears it is vain to try again, then he should be encouraged in every possible way to look up and trust, and the infinite love and pity of God revealed in Jesus should be pressed upon his attention, and he should be urged to cast himself upon God’s mercy.

If these foundation truths of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ are fully, affectionately, and prayerfully presented, and the sinner or backslider grasps and trusts them, he will be converted, accepted by the Lord, and adopted into His family. He must now be fed upon truths different from those he was fed on before. He will have a tender heart, and so it will be most unwise to thunder the law at him, though he should be fully instructed as to the spirituality of the law, and that it is the law by which God wishes us to order our conduct, and for which abundant grace will be given. Nor should he now be asked to surrender since he is saved; but he should be intelligently instructed as to the nature and extent of the consecration that is expected from him, and he should be urged, and wisely and tenderly encouraged to make the consecration, presenting his body a living sacrifice and yielding himself to God, “as those that are alive from the dead.

He should now be instructed as to the fact of inbred sin, which he will soon find stirring within him, and the importance and possibility of having this enemy cast out. Holiness should be presented not so much as a stern demand of a holy God, but rather as his glorious privilege as a child of God. He should be taught that it is an experience in which “perfect love casteth out fear” – a rest of soul, in which, as our bones and sinews are so covered with flesh as to be unperceived, so the fact of duty, while still remaining in force, is yet clothed upon and hidden by love. Therefore, while the necessity of holiness should be presented, and a gentle and constant pressure be brought to bear upon the will, yet the principal effort should be made to remove slavish fear by instructing the understanding, and so drawing out the confidence and affections that the soul which in conversion bowed at the feet of Jesus as its Conqueror, will now intelligently and rapturously yield to Him as its Heavenly Bridegroom and fall so desperately in love with Him by the incoming of the Holy Spirit that it shall cry out with David, “I delight to do Thy will, O God! ” and with Jesus “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me. If the soul-winner does not keep a clear, warm, tender experience of full salvation himself, there is a danger of driving the people to a legal experience instead of leading them into a “perfect- love” experience.

A legal experience is one in which the man braces up to his duty because the law demands it, in which he is prodded and pushed up to it by the terrors of the law rather than led up to it by the sweet wooings and gentle drawings of love. In a holiness meeting, where there are sinners and backsliders, there will be a strong temptation to address them, and as the kind of truth they need differs from that needed by converts, if this is done, confusion is likely to result and an uncertain experience engendered in the hearts of Christians. It will usually be found wisest to leave the sinners and backsliders alone in this meeting, and go straight for the Christians, to get them sanctified. The Lord has been pleased to give me victory along this line, and usually I find also there are some sinners saved in my holiness meetings. Jesus likens a Christian to a sheep. Our duty then in the holiness meeting is not to club them with the law, but rather to feed them with the promises and assurances of the Gospel, and to teach them to discern the voice of the good Shepherd and to remove all fear, that they may gladly follow Him.

The staple diet of all saints should be the promises, seasoned with the commandments to give them a healthy relish.

The promises draw us on in the narrow way, and the commandments hedge us in that we do not lose the way. The promises should be so presented and the fullness there is in the Gospel and in Jesus so be brought to view that the souls of the people will run hard after Him and not need continual beatings to keep them from breaking through the hedge on to the devil’s territory. To discern clearly and apply skillfully the truth needed by the souls we are set to save, requires heavenly wisdom, and well does Paul exhort Timothy, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But our study will be in vain unless we, in lowliness of mind, sit at the feet of Jesus, seek wisdom from God, and submit ourselves in glad, prayerful faith to the Spirit of truth who can and will guide “into all truth. (John 16:13) The Bible, which contains the revealed truth necessary to salvation, will surely puzzle and mystify all who come to it in the big and swelling conceit of worldly wisdom, but it will open its treasure to the plain and humble men who come to it full of the Spirit that moved holy men of old to write it. O Lord, evermore give to Thy people leaders and teachers filled with this Spirit, and clothed with this wisdom!

Chapter 13 – Keeping The Flock

The soul-winner must give much time and thought and prayer and effort to keep and strengthen his converts. He ought to say with Paul, “Now we live if ye stand fast, ” and again like Paul he should pray “night and day exceedingly that we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. ” (1 Thess. 3:8, 10) Paul’s ambition was not simply to get people converted and united with some local corps or church, but to “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. (See Col. 1:28) There is danger of spending far more effort and care in getting people to the penitent-form or the inquiry room, than in keeping them after they are there. After a baby is born it must be intelligently and constantly cared for, or it will very likely die. Soul-winners are not spiritual incubators, but fathers and mothers in Israel, with all the measureless responsibility not only of saving souls, but of keeping them after they are saved. The General once said to a few of us on a New England train, “Look well to the fire in your own souls, for the tendency of fire is to go out. ” And yet a fire will never go out if it is frequently well shaken down and fresh fuel is added. We must look well to the spark of fire kindled in the hearts of our converts, and fan it gently but surely to a flame and help them to care for it, that it may never go out. The saddest thing in all this mighty work of soul-saving is the fact that in so many instances the fire goes out, the light ceases to shine, the salt loses its savor, and the soul that was redeemed and washed with “precious Blood, ” made a partaker of the Holy Ghost, ” and had “tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, ” falls away and returns to its old sins, “like the dog to his vomit” and the “sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Judas backslid from the very face and ministry of Jesus Himself; and on another occasion, after one of His searching sermons, we read that, “from that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. ” (John 6:66)

Paul had to mourn the backsliding of “Demas, who loved this present world. He foresaw and foretold the backsliding of some of the Ephesian local officers (see Acts 20:29-30), and after his mighty victories there, which radiated to all the surrounding nations, he had sorrowfully to write to Timothy, “This thou knowest, that all they that are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. “Offenses must needs come, ” and backslidings will follow, but the soul-winner must strive mightily against this, until, like Paul, he can appeal to his people and say, “I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. (Acts 20:26, 27) He must not only save sinners, but must keep his converts.

I. (a. ) They should be visited. Some time ago I called at a corps in California. The Ensign met me at the train, and on the way to the quarters remarked, “We got one of the worst drunkards in town saved last night, and I have seen him twice this morning and he is doing well. ” Of course he would do well with such love and care as that! If they cannot be visited at once, drop them a note and enclose a suitable tract. A business man of about fifty years of age, together with his wife, got saved in my meetings. I missed him one night, then I wrote him a note telling him I was praying for him, etc. The next night he was present and told how he had been sorely tempted, but that note blessed him and helped him to get the victory. He became a good soldier. In all probability it was that timely little note, written in five minutes and costing only two cents to mail that kept him saved.

(b. ) They should be encouraged to read their Bible daily, together with other good books. The Red- Hot Library is well adapted to young converts. When I was in Boston as Captain I went to the Bible Society and got them to donate me forty little five-cent Testaments, one of which I used to give each convert, after having marked a number of helpful texts and written his name on the fly-leaf. Years afterward I was visiting a corps. A young man asked me if I didn’t remember him. I did not. He pulled out a little, well-worn Testament, pointed to his name and asked if I knew that writing. I did. Said he, “You gave me this Testament years ago when you were Captain in Boston I have kept it and read it ever since, and am to be sworn in as a soldier tonight. “

(c. ) They must be taught to pray and urged to much regular and frequent secret prayer, until they know its sweetness and unspeakable necessity and profit.

(d. ) They must be instructed to keep believing and made to see the difference between sin and temptation.

(e. ) They should be patiently encouraged to work for others, especially for their own people “Andrew findeth his own brother Simon, and he brought him to Jesus, ” the Bible says, and our converts must do likewise.

(f. ) They should be patiently, tenderly, firmly led into the experience of sanctification or perfect love. They must not be allowed to stop at consecration, but must be pressed on into a definite experience of full salvation.

It was at this point that President Mahan says Finney failed during his early ministry. He was unexcelled in getting sinners to a complete renunciation of all sin, to making right of all past disobedience, followed by a complete consecration of all to Jesus. He would start them off for the future with vows to obey God at all points, while nothing was said to them about trusting Jesus to cleanse their hearts at once and fill them with the Holy Spirit. Our vows are only ropes of sand, until the Holy Ghost has come with consuming fire into our hearts, filling them with perfect love. Mahan says: “No individual, I believe, ever disciplined believers so severely and with such intense and tireless perseverance, on that principle as my brother Finney, before he learned the way of the Lord more perfectly.

Appalled at the back slidings which followed his revivals, his most earnest efforts were put forth to induce among believers permanence in the divine life. In accomplishing this, he knew of but one method – absolute and fixed renunciation of sin, consecration to God and purpose of obedience. Not a word about the faith that receives. During his pastorate in New York, for example, he held for weeks in succession special meetings of his church for perfecting this work, and never were a class of poor creatures carried through a severer discipline than were these. Years after, as their pastor informed me, these believers said they had never recovered from the internal weakness and exhaustion which had resulted from the terrible discipline through which Mr. Finney had carried them. When he came to Oberlin and entered upon the duties of his professorship, he felt that God had given him a blessed opportunity to realize in perfection his ideal of a ministry for the churches He had before him a mass of talented and promising theological students, who had implicit confidence in the wisdom of their teachers, and with equal sincerity would follow their instructions.

He, accordingly, for months in succession, gathered together these students at stated seasons, instructed them most carefully in regard to the nature of the renunciation of sin, consecration to Christ, and purpose of obedience required of them. Then, under his teachings and exhortations, they would renew their renunciations, consecrations and purposes of obedience, with all the intensity and fixedness of resolve of which they were capable The result in every case was one and the same – not the new life of joy and peace and power that was expected, but groaning bondage under the law of sin and death At the commencement and during the progress of each meeting, their confessions and renunciations, their solemn consecrations and vows of obedience, were renewed, if possible, with fuller determination than ever before. Each meeting, however, was closed with the same dirge songs: and as they went out, not their songs of joy and gladness were heard, but their groans; ‘They followed, and followed hard after the law of righteousness, but did not attain to the law of righteousness.

Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law; ‘ that is, by self-originated efforts and determinations. ” (Mahan’s Autobiography, pages 246-7) Thank God, Finney learned better, and soul-winners should profit by his example. Converts must utterly renounce sin, make wrong things right and consecrate themselves fully to the Lord to obey Him in all things great and small; but they must understand fully that that is only man’s part, and that they must now wait on their Heavenly Father and believe for him to do His part, which is to cleanse their hearts and fill them with the Holy Ghost. They must continue in glad, believing, wrestling, never-give-in prayer, till the Comforter comes into their hearts in all His cleansing, sanctifying, comforting power. They must “tarry in Jerusalem till they are endued with power from on high. ” They must believe God and receive the Holy Ghost, remembering that God is “more willing to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him than parents are to give good gifts unto their children. ” That is so. Hallelujah! I have proved it.

II. The soul-winner should so organize his work and train his people that he shall have wide- awake, willing workers and local officers to assist him in looking after the converts. It will take patience and tact and prayer to train these workers, but it will abundantly repay all effort. “To every man his work, ” is the inspired plan. Moses had such helpers. (See Ex.18:21-26) Paul depended much on such help. (2 Tim. 2:2; Titus 1:5) But there must not be too many irons in the fire. Everything must be subordinated to this one end of saving men and making them into valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. Paul said: “This one thing I do. Organization must not be overdone, lest the workers become like David in Saul’s armor, lest they become like a mighty engine that has not sufficient power to run itself. Let the machinery be simple and the divine, Holy Ghost power be abundant.

For this there must be much prayer and patient waiting upon God. The power is His and can be had when persistently, believingly, humbly and boldly applied for. Glory to God!

III. Love must abound. In England, France, Germany and other European countries, the populations are practically homogeneous – that is, in England they are all English; in France, French, etc. ; but in this country we are a mixed people, with different ideals, tastes, maxims, prejudices, hereditary instincts, influences and religious training, which make it more difficult for us to combine for religious purposes and work harmoniously together. In order to do this we must be melted or heated by a great common passion, and welded together like two pieces of iron, until there is no longer “Greek or Jew, ” Englishman or Irishman, French or German, American or European, “but Christ is all and in all. ” Love is the only thing that will do this, and love will do it. I heard one of our officers say: “I got saved in an Army meeting where I could not understand a word spoken. But the love of Jesus was there and I understood that. “

In cold weather men of all nations will gather around a stove in which there is a fire, and so they will gather around officers and soldiers who are full of love. Love is “the bond of perfectness, ” according to Paul. It is that which quenches jealousies, destroys envyings, burns up suspicions, begets confidence and holds men together with bonds stronger than death. Let us have it and have it more abundantly.

More love, more love, more love! Without it we are nothing. We may be gifted in speech and song as an angel; we may be shrewd and farseeing and able to accurately forecast the future; we may be encyclopedic in our knowledge; we may have mountain- moving faith; we may be charitably inclined and feed and shelter many poor to the extent of using up all our resources and wearing out our bodies, but if we have not the gentle, holy, humble, longsuffering, self-forgetful, unfailing unsuspicious, self-sacrificing, generous, lowly love of Jesus, we are nothing – we are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. (1 Cor. 13:1- 8) It was this love that enabled Paul to write: “I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not yours, but you …. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. ” (2 Cor. 12:14-15. ) And here is another bit of Paul’s autobiography that ought to be put on the wall of every minister’s study and every officers quarters throughout the land, every word of which is freighted with the love that filled his great heart: “For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain; but even after we had been shamefully entreated at Philippi we were bold in our God to speak unto you the Gospel of God with much contention. For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile; but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness; nor of men sought we glory, neither of you nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ.

But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children; so being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail; for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe; as ye know how we exhorted and comforted, and charged e very one of you, as a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His Kingdom and glory. ” (1 Thess. 2:1-12) And again he says: “I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, …. I am pure from the blood of all men.
For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God …. Therefore, watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears. ” (Acts 20:20, 26, 27, 31) This is the love that will build up our converts, and nothing else will. We must have love, love, love! We must look for love, pray for love, believe for love. We must exercise love ourselves, and inspire all our people to love, and then they will watch over one another, and pray and weep for each other, and bless one another, and be united as one man, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against us.

Oh, that we all as soul-winners may have melting baptisms of holy love that shall make us, like Jesus, patient, gentle, faithful, courageous, tireless, undismayed and utterly unselfish. Then shall our spiritual children abound and be strong, and The Army of the Lord shall become more terrible to evildoers than “an army with banners. If we haven’t this love, God will give it to us in answer to persistent, believing prayer. He surely will. Glory to God!

Chapter 14 – The Soul-Winner And The Children

Not only did Jesus say, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, ” but He gave to Peter the positive command, “Feed My lambs, ” and in that command laid a responsibility upon soul-winners for the children, for “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, ” and in no other field and among no other class can they work with such immediate success, and such far-reaching results. Children are not hard to reach with the Gospel, if the soul-winner will but be simple and use common sense in dealing with them. They are not hardened in sin, their consciences are tender and their hearts open, their minds receptive, their wills pliable, their faith simple; they are keenly alive to the love of Jesus, the glories of heaven, the terrors of hell, and the omnipresence of God. They learn readily to pray in faith about everything, and to cast all their care upon God.

No eyes are so keen as theirs to see the Light that lighteneth every man, and no hands are so ready to do His bidding, and no feet so ready to run in His ways. And yet effort must be put forth ceaselessly to win them and keep them after they are won, for the corruption of their own natures and the evil example and teaching of a hostile world and the wiles of the vigilant and tireless enemy of all souls will soon blind their eyes and harden their hearts and utterly ruin them, if they are not soon won to Jesus and filled with His love. You may feel yourself unfitted for this task, but it is your business to fit yourself for it, if God has called you to be a worker for souls.

The first thing necessary is to believe in the possibility of the conversion of the children; and certainly the plain teachings of Jesus, the examples found in the Bible, and the multitude of examples that anyone can see with his own eyes if he will open them and look, ought to convince the most skeptical of this possibility. Almost from babyhood the Lord spoke to Samuel, and filled his heart and mind with wisdom, so that none of his words fell to the ground (1 Sam. 2:26, and 3:1-21) From a child God ordained Jeremiah a prophet unto the nations, and filled him with His Spirit (Jer. 1:5-10), and if this was possible under the law, how much more gloriously is it possible under the Gospel? Jonathan Edwards, in one of his works, tells of a wee girlie, only five years of age, going to and from her bedroom looking most sad and disconsolate.

Her mother asked her what was the matter, and the little thing replied, “Mamma, when I pray God doesn’t come. The mother tried to comfort her, but her little heart was filled with hunger which only the Comforter Himself could satisfy, and she still continued to go disconsolately to her bedroom. But one glad day she ran from her room, leaped into her mother’s bosom, threw her arms around her neck and cried, “O mamma, mamma, when I pray now, God comes! And up through the years of her childhood and youth and womanhood she lived such a life of Christian humility and grace and truth as was the wonder of all who knew her. Secondly, since they can be won, you must make up your mind that you will win them; you must put from your mind forever the thought that “anything will do for the children.

It will require much prayer, and patience, and love, and tact, and divine wisdom to win them to the Saviour, and to keep them after they are won. They must have “line upon line, precept upon precept.

If one teaching of the lesson is not sufficient then they must be taught it again and yet again. Why do you tell Charles the same thing twenty times over? asked the father of John and Charles Wesley of the mother. “Because nineteen times won’t do, ” replied the wise and particular mother. Hear, O Israel, ” said the Lord; “the Lord is one God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and these words which I command you this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand and they shall be for frontlets between thy eyes, and thou shalt write them on the posts of thine house, and upon thy gates. This was the way that the children of the old Israelites were to be taught, and this must be the standard the soul-winner sets for himself and for his people today. The children should be noticed; and I am increasingly convinced that in every meeting where there are children present something should be said that is suitable to them, and the invitation to come to Jesus should include them.

When they do come, they should be dealt with most thoroughly, their little hearts should be probed, their sins searched out and thorough repentance required. Their fears must be tenderly removed by showing them the fullness of God’s love, and the certainty of salvation when they give up sin. Their thought should be turned to Jesus and their faith fixed on Him and grounded in His Word. Give them His sure promises, such as, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ” Above all you must be simple and make things very plain for the children. They do not know the meaning of many big words that you understand quite well, therefore you must take pains to make yourself understood. The other day I was talking to some juniors, and I gave them this text, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. ” I asked them if they knew what the word “Creator” meant, and none of them knew, neither did they know what the word “youth” meant.

So I had to explain that the text meant that they were to remember and think about God and love Him while they were little boys and girls. Again I gave them the text, “Behold how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. ” But none of them knew the meaning of the word “unity. One said that meant home, and that was a pretty good guess, but I had to explain that the text meant that it was good and pleasant for little brothers and sisters, and big ones, too, to live together in peace, without quarreling and fighting, and they understood that.

The following story from a Boston paper will illustrate my meaning further: “The songs which were sung for Dewey by the school children included so many references to Columbia that a teacher in a certain South End public school thought that she would find out how many of her pupils understood what the word Columbia meant. She put the question and received these answers among others: “A ship. ” “A man that came over from Spain and discovered our country. ” “A bisikkel. ” “A captain” But not one pupil in the class (seventh grade) knew that Columbia was another name for the United States of America. You will have to put on your thinking caps, and set your brains to work to make your teaching simple for the children; but love will help you. Some time ago I heard a Junior worker singing lustily to a lot of juniors: Get your baggage on the deck And don’t forget to get your check, etc. , but he didn’t explain that it simply meant that they were to give themselves to Jesus, and throw away their sins, and be sure and get His love in their hearts.

So when he got through I felt sure that there was nothing but a confused rattle of “baggage, deck, check, quick, ” in the ears of the juniors, with no useful or saving idea in their little heads and hearts. If you will pray to God for wisdom and love He will help you to make the deepest spiritual truths plain to the children. Through simplifying my talks God gives me the joy of seeing many juniors seeking Him for salvation, and occasionally I have seen some gloriously sanctified.

Some time ago, in one of my Sunday afternoon meetings, I had apenitent–form full of juniors, with each of whom I dealt personally. I asked one little fellow: “What are you here for, darling?” “To get saved,” said he. “Get saved from what?” I inquired.
“From my sins.”

“And what are your sins?”
“I fight,” and then he broke down and cried.
“And what are you here for?” I asked a little girl.

She too, was there to get saved, and I asked what her sins were. She hesitated a little and then said: “I’m cruel to my sister and brother; ” and then she broke down and cried.

Another little girl swore, and another disobeyed her mother. One little boy told lies, another smoked cigarettes, and another was disobedient to his teacher; and so they told of their sins and broke down and wept and prayed and asked God to forgive them and make them good, and I have hope that most of them got saved. In one of my meetings a little girl of ten got saved and sanctified and lived a holy life for about three years and then died happy, sending me word that the Lord still sanctified her and kept her to the end. But after we have done all, we must remember that they are only lambs, and not sheep; that they are growing children, not grown men and women; that they are in the formative state, tender and inexperienced; that life and the world are full of interest to them; that they have a personality and individuality of their own, and are not always willing to take the simple word of their elders, nor to yield to admonition and instruction, but desire to prove their own powers, and to taste and see all things for themselves.

Therefore, it will be necessary not only to talk much to them about God, but to talk even more to God about them, and to depend upon the mighty, constant co-operation of the Holy Spirit in securing their salvation, and keeping them in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must show all diligence in our efforts until, if possible, we can at least say with Paul to Timothy, that “from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. “

Chapter 15 – The Soul-Winner’s Commission To The Children
“Lovest thou Me? Feed My lambs. ” Rough and ready Peter, that horny-handed old fisherman, thought he was cut out for and best fitted to be a prime minister or secretary of state, a bishop, a colonel, or a commander, and it seems had several disputes with the other disciples as to whether he should not be the greatest among them (Mark 9:34; Luke 9:46). How big must have been his surprise then when he got his commission from Jesus as a Junior worker, and received orders to feed the lambs! What a mighty argument he could have made to prove that he was not fitted for work with the children! To be sure, he had at least one boy of his own (see 1 Peter 5:13), and maybe several others, but then, he was a fisherman, and the care of the children was left to his wife.

In fact, he had no fitness either by nature or training, for that kind of work; all his associates had been with the big, burly men of the sea, and what did he know about talking to children? All his thoughts and desires and ambitions ran in another direction, and was he not too old and set in his ways to change now? But when Jesus, with infinite knowledge and wisdom and tenderness, looked straight into his eyes and asked him that searching question, ‘Lovest thou Me more than these? and then in reply to his answer, “Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee, ” said, “Feed My lambs, ” what could Peter say? So Peter was first commissioned to be a Junior worker. But, ” you say, “did not Jesus mean young converts, when He said, ‘My lambs? and might they not be men and women who were only newly converted? True, it is probable that Jesus meant new converts, but new converts include children, for the children are often converted, too, and did not Jesus say, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven”? So any way we may explain the text, we cannot escape the fact that Peter was commanded to work with and for the children.

And if Peter, why not you and I, my comrade officers? Are we not commanded to look well to the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers? (Acts 20:28) and was there ever a flock in which there were no lambs? If so, it was a flock doomed to speedy extinction. Are we not commanded to do with our might what our hands find to do? And do we not find multitudes of little ones unshepherded, unloved, untaught, and for whose tender little souls no man cares, nor prays, nor weeps before the Lord, and whose little hands are stretched out towards us, saying “Come, and help us? Shall we wait till they are old in sin and hardened in wickedness and fixed in unholy habits and bondslaves of the devil before we work and plan and pray for them and seek their salvation? Is it possible that we have a call to the work of saving souls and yet have no commission for the children? No, no, no! To every worker who says to Jesus, “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee, ” in answer to His question, “Lovest thou Me? ” Jesus says, “Feed My lambs. The worker may feel that he has no fitness, no tact, no skill, no gifts for that kind of work, but the commission lays upon him the responsibility to study and think and watch and pray and love and believe and work himself into fitness; and by beginning with just such poor, feeble, untrained gifts as he has, and making the most of every opportunity, and by being diligent and faithful, by courage and pluck and good cheer and faith, and by seeking God’s blessing day by day, this fitness can surely be attained.

The poor, thick-headed numskull who never dreamed he had any music in his soul or in his fingers till he got converted at The Salvation Army penitent-form, but who set himself to it and patiently thrums away at a guitar or blows at a cornet for six months or a year until he can play fairly well, can with equal diligence and patience and determination and attention, learn to interest and bless and help the children; but he must put his heart and soul into it. I read some time since of a minister who was sure he was called and fitted only to preach big sermons to big folks, but one day he heard a brother minister talk so instructively and entertainingly to the children that he determined to acquire that gift, and by thought and prayer and practice he, too, became a powerful children’s worker. Go thou, my brother, my sister, and do likewise. Do you ask, “How can I become such a worker? “

1. Make up your mind that you ought to do so, and that by God’s grace you will; then, make it a matter of daily prayer and thought and meditation. Above all, seek help from God.

2. Get all the help you can from others. Study their methods, but don’t become a vain imitator of anyone. Be yourself.

3. Study the best books you can find on the subject. There are many bright books that will greatly help you which you can get at Headquarters.

4. Try to put yourself in the place of the child, and ask what would interest you. Make things very plain and simple. Watch for illustrations that the children can understand, and that will interest them.

5. But above all have a heart full of tender love and sympathy for the little ones, and you will be interesting and helpful to them whether you can talk much or not. They will feel your love and respond to it, and so you can point them to Jesus and help them in their first timid steps toward Heaven. In the words of Paul, “Meditate on these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy progress may be manifest unto all. ” (1 Tim. 4:15, R. V. )

Chapter 16 – Deal Gently

But David knew him only as his wayward boy, loved him still, and commanded his warriors to deal gently with him in the coming battle. He would have the rebellion crushed, but the rebel saved; the sin destroyed, but the sinner rescued. How like Jesus that is! Is not that the way Jesus feels toward the most desperate backslider, the most careless sinner? Does not His heart yearn over them with unutterable tenderness? And is not this written for our admonition? Does He not say to us, “Deal gently for my sake”? The battle went against Absalom that day, and hardhearted, willful, stubborn old Joab slew him deliberately in spite of the king’s wish.

And so it often is today. Joab’s tribe has increased, and while Jesus would have the backslider and sinner dealt with gently, Joab rises up and thrusts him through with reproaches and bitter words and sharp looks, slays him utterly, and the heart of Jesus is broken afresh, as was the heart of David. The elder brother, with his ungenerous jealousy and cruel words and hardness of heart, as surely grieved the loving old father as did the prodigal with his riotous living. There are many reasons why we should deal gently. 1. That we may be like Jesus. When Peter denied Jesus and cursed and swore, Jesus loved him

Chapter 16 – Deal Gently

Recently in my regular Bible reading I came to that tender appeal of King David to his generals as they were going forth to fight with Absalom: “Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom” (2 Sam. 18:5), and my heart was touched with its likeness to Jesus. Absalom was in rebellion against David the king, his father, and had driven him forth from his throne, had outraged his father’s marital ties, had sacrificed filial affection and trampled upon filial and civic duty, and was now seeking his father’s life. But David knew him only as his wayward boy, loved him still, and commanded his warriors to deal gently with him in the coming battle. He would have the rebellion crushed, but the rebel saved; the sin destroyed, but the sinner rescued. How like Jesus that is! Is not that the way Jesus feels toward the most desperate backslider, the most careless sinner? Does not His heart yearn over them with unutterable tenderness? And is not this written for our admonition? Does He not say to us, “Deal gently for my sake”? The battle went against Absalom that day, and hardhearted, willful, stubborn old Joab slew him deliberately in spite of the king’s wish. And so it often is today. Joab’s tribe has increased, and while Jesus would have the backslider and sinner dealt with gently, Joab rises up and thrusts him through with reproaches and bitter words and sharp looks, slays him utterly, and the heart of Jesus is broken afresh, as was the heart of David. The elder brother, with his ungenerous jealousy and cruel words and hardness of heart, as surely grieved the loving old father as did the prodigal with his riotous living. There are many reasons why we should deal gently.

1. That we may be like Jesus. When Peter denied Jesus and cursed and swore, Jesus loved him still, and turned and gave him a tender look that broke his heart, and he went out and wept bitterly. And after the resurrection Jesus did not rebuke and reproach Peter, but tenderly asked him, “Lovest thou Me? and then commissioned him to feed His lambs and sheep. Should we, then, who at our best are only “sinners saved by grace, ” despise the example of our Lord and deal roughly with His sheep that have gone astray? Since He has freely forgiven us our ten thousand talents, shall we not forgive our brother a hundred pence? (Matt. 18:23-35)

2. We should deal gently with them lest we ourselves grieve the Spirit and become backsliders. Paul wrote to the brethren in Galatia, saying, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. ” (Gal. 6:1. ) I have noticed that when professing Christians bear hard upon backsliders it is usually only a question of time when they themselves shall backslide. In fact, it is pretty certain that they are already backsliders in heart. In the very act of killing the rebellious Absalom Joab himself rebelled against the expressed wish and command of his king, though he did it under the cloak of loyalty. And so men today who are severe in their dealings with sinners and backsliders under the cloak of zeal for righteousness and loyalty to truth are themselves rebelling against the example and spirit of Jesus, and unless they repent, the world shall surely soon witness their fall.

I have in mind now two prominent religious leaders who were unsparing in their criticisms and judgment against a notorious backslider until their spirit became as surely un-Christlike as was his in spite of their loud profession and fair outward appearance. At last one of them fell through gross immorality and the other was caught in the same snare, and practically followed in the footsteps of the man he had so fiercely condemned. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed” to his way and spirit in dealing with those who are away from Jesus, “lest he fall” We can only save ourselves as we keep the sweet spirit that impels us to “deal gently” for Jesus’ sake.

3. We should deal gently that we may save the backslider. Jesus loves him still, is married to him, seeks him continually and waits to forgive him and cleanse him and restore to him the joy of salvation the moment he returns, and we must not hinder, but help. But we shall not do so unless we deal gently. Harsh dealing would not win us, nor will it win him.

Paul wrote to Timothy, “The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle toward all men, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil. ” (2 Tim. 2:24-26. ) But this gentleness is not inconsistent with great firmness and unswerving loyalty to the truth. In fact, it is only when it is combined with these sturdy virtues that it commends itself to the judgment and conscience of the wrongdoer, and is likely to really win him from the error of his ways. Firmness of manner may unite with great gentleness of spirit. I may be as tender in spirit in warning and commanding my child to beware of the fire, as I am in soothing him after he is burned. While harshness and severity will only harden the wanderer from God on the one hand, a gospel of gush will fill him with indifference or contempt on the other. The soul-winner, then, must not have the hardness and brittleness of glass or cast iron, nor the malleability of wrought iron or putty, but rather the strength and flexibility of finest steel that will bend but never break, that will yield and yet retain its own form.

It is generally true that holy mothers have more influence with and win more willful boys and girls than do the fathers, not because the mothers are more ready to compromise principle and sacrifice truth, but rather because while unwavering in their fidelity to righteousness, they mingle mercy with judgment and a passion of gentle, unfailing love and tenderest solicitude with firmness and loyalty to the claims of God’s perfect and holy law. But how shall one who has not this spirit of perfect gentleness secure it? There is but one way. It is a fruit of the Spirit, and is to be had only down at Jesus’ feet.

Jesus is like a “lamb slain, ” mutely gentle, and yet again He is “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” – firm and strong. He combines the strength of the lion with the gentleness of the lamb.

You, then, that would have His Spirit, confess wherein you have it not. Are you hard, harsh, critical, severe and unrelenting? Tell Him and ask Him to destroy this carnal mind and give you His mind. (Phil. 2:5. ) And as you ask, believe. “All things are possible to him that believeth. To maintain this spirit you must walk in the footsteps of Jesus and feed on His words. Only to those who seek Him day by day with the whole heart, and that with joy, is it given to be like Him in these heavenly tempers and dispositions.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. ” Amen!

Chapter 17 – “So Spake”

“And it came to pass in Iconium that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and SO SPAKE that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. ” (Acts 14:1) Bless God for such preachers and such preaching! How did they do it? What was their secret? I think it is threefold.

1. Their Manner. They must have won the multitude by the sweetness and grace and persuasiveness and earnestness of their manner. They certainly did not offend and shock them by coarse, vulgar, uncouth speech, or by a weak and vacillating, light and foolish, or boisterous and domineering manner. They wanted to win men, and they suited their manner to their purpose. Solomon said, “He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend. This “grace of the lips” is not a thing to be despised. It is rather something to be thought about and prayed over and cultivated. It was said of Jesus, “They wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth, ” and a police captain said of Him. “Never man spake like this Man; ” and doubtless this graciousness was not only in what He said, but also in the way He said it.

His manner was authoritative, yet gentle; strong, yet tender; dignified, yet popular and familiar. You can say to a little child, “Come here, you little rascal. ” in such a sweet manner as to win its confidence and draw it to you; or you can say, “Come here, you darling child, ” in such a rough, coarse way as to fill it with fear and drive it from you. It is largely a matter of manner. Garrick, the great actor, was asked why he could so mightily move men by fiction, while preachers, speaking such awful and momentous truths, left them unmoved. He replied, “They speak truth as though it were fiction, while I speak fiction as though it were truth. ” It was a matter of manner. A woman so far away from Whitefield that she could not hear what he said, was weeping. A bystander asked her why she wept, since she knew not what he said, “Oh, ” said she, “can’t you see the holy wag of his head? ” His manner was matchless. Lawyers pleading before judges and juries, and political speakers seeking to win votes cultivate an ingratiating manner. Why, then, should not men who are seeking to save souls and win men to Jesus Christ seek from God the best manner in which to do this?

2. Their matter. I judge that not only was their manner agreeable and attractive, but their subject- matter was interesting, grave, and unspeakably important. They preached the Word; they reasoned out of the Scriptures; they declared that the prophecies were fulfilled, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of whom Moses and the prophets wrote and spoke, had come, was crucified, was buried, but was risen again, and that through obedient faith in Him men might have their sins forgiven, their hearts purified and their whole being sanctified and filled with God. It was not stale platitudes they preached, or vain babblings about the Seventh Day, about baptisms and feet-washings and incense and vestments, or harsh criticisms of authorities and “powers that be, ” or divers and strange doctrines, but it was “repentance toward God, and faith toward our L

(a) It was a joyful message. It was good news; it was a declaration that God was so interested in men – “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life; for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ” The war-worn, sorrowful old world needs such a joyful message.

(b) It was an illuminating message. It showed them how to be saved from sin and made acceptable to God. It also threw a flood of light into the grave and beyond, and “brought life and immortality to light. Jesus was “the first fruits of them that slept. It robbed earth of its loneliness, and the tomb of its terrors. It turned the world into a schoolroom and preparation place for the Father’s house of many mansions, and made heaven real.

(c) It was a solemn and searching message. It called men to remember their sins and repent of them, forsake them, and surrender themselves no longer to the pleasures of ease, but to the service of God. They must take sides. If they would be saved, they must follow Christ crucified. “Every road leads two ways. If they would put away sin and follow Jesus, He would lead them to heaven; if they rejected Him they would surely go their own way to damnation, to hell.

3. Their spirit. The manner may be acceptable and the message true, but if the spirit of the speaker be not right there will hardly be a “great multitude” of believers. The cannon may be a masterpiece and the powder and shot perfect, but if there be no fire, the enemy need have no fear. The manner may be uncouth and the message fragmentary and faulty, but if the spirit be right, if it be humble, and on fire of love, believers will be won. Cataline, a Roman citizen, conspired against the State, and Cicero, the matchless Roman orator, delivered a series of orations against him. The people were captivated by the eloquence of Cicero. They went from the Forum praising his oratory, lauding his rhetoric. extolling his gestures and his graceful management of the folds of his toga. Philip, of Macedon, was planning to invade the States of Greece. Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, delivered a series of orations against him, and the Greeks went from his presence saying, “Let us go and fight Philip! ” Doubtless the manner and matter of the two orators were equally above criticism, but they were as far apart as the poles in spirit. One sent the people away talking glibly, prettily about himself; the other sent them away filled with his spirit, fired with a great impulse to die, if needs be, fighting the invader. After all, I imagine it was this right spirit, this white heat of soul, this full-orbed heart-purpose which was the principal. factor in winning that multitude of believers in Iconium that day. These apostles were great believers themselves.

They were full of glad, triumphant, hell-defying and defeating faith. They were not harassed by doubt and uncertainty. They did not preach guesses. They knew whom they believed (2 Tim. 1:12), and because they believed they spoke (2 Cor. 4: 13), and “so spake” that the faith of a multitude of others was kindled from the fire of theirs. This faith had also kindled in their hearts a great love. They believed the love of God in giving His Son for them, and their hearts were in turn filled with love for Him.

They believed the dying love of the Saviour, and their hearts were so constrained with love for Him that they were prepared to die for Him. (Acts 20:24; 21:13) They believed the love of God for all men, until they loved like Him, and felt themselves debtors to all men (Romans 1:14), and were ready to be offered as a sacrifice for the salvation of men. (Phil. 2:17) Oh, it was a bright faith and a burning love that set on fire the spirits of these men! And I think this Christlike spirit molded their manner and made them natural and gentle and strong and true and intense with earnestness, with no simper or whine or affectation of false pathos; no clang of hardness; no sting of bitterness, and no chill of heartless indifference. What school of oratory can touch and train the manner of an actor so that he shall for an instant compare with the untrained, shrinking mother who is suddenly fired with a quenchless impulse to plead for the life of her child? The best teacher of style in public speech is a heart filled to bursting with love to Jesus, and love and hope and fear and faith for men. A love that makes a man feel that men must and shall be won from hell and turned to righteousness and heaven and God. will surely, in due time, make the manner effective. And it will also shape and control, if it does not make the message. It is marvelous the message men get whose hearts are afire. Someone asked why Mr.

Bramwell could say such wonderful things. The reply was, “He lives so near the heart of God and the Throne that he gets secret messages, and brings them down to us. It is pitiable, the flat, insipid, powerless, soulless messages men manufacture when their faith is feeble and their hearts are cold!

Can we not, then, sum up for ourselves the secret of these men in the words of Solomon, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life?

Chapter 18 – Importance And Benefits Of Bible Study

If someone had written a book so small that it could be carried in the pocket, and so cheap that the poorest could buy it, and if this book explained simply how anyone who followed its directions could surely, without any danger to themselves or others, gain the highest possible honors, the greatest riches, the supremest joy, all linked with long life, then I feel sure that everyone would want the book.

If they could not read, they would do their best to learn in order to study it, and if they were too busy by day, I think they would sit up late at night or rise early in the morning to read it and commit it to memory. What they had learned, they would think and talk about through the day. If there were any parts of it that seemed vitally important and yet hard to understand, they would not throw the book away or go to careless critics who took more pleasure in pointing out what they considered errors than in following what they and everybody acknowledged to be true. Instead, they would go for instruction to those who had most closely followed the directions of the book, and most surely gained its prizes. Or, better still, they would go to the author of the book. The Bible is such a book, except that in place of worldly honor and riches and joy, it offers heavenly; instead of long life, it offers eternal life – a life of unutterable blessing and joy, and that without end. God is its author.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:21. ) It can be bought for twenty-five cents; the New Testament can be had for five cents, and it can be carried in the pocket. It is so simple that “the wayfaring man. though a fool, ” need “not err therein. ” Children can understand it, though philosophers are often puzzled by it. Like the cloudy, fiery pillar that went with the Israelites in the wilderness it is light to those who love and obey God, but gloomy darkness and contradictions to those who refuse to obey Him.

It marks an easy, straight path for humble souls, but it is a rough and tangled labyrinth to proud and wayward men. It has no instruction, or blessing, or comfort for those who despise it, but to those who love it it is sweeter than honey, and more priceless than gold and precious stones. It makes plain the way whereby sinners may become holy, and holiness is an experience which, in turn, makes the Bible plain.

It interprets holiness, and holiness interprets it. Of course, there are some things in the Bible hard to be understood, but if we will pay diligent heed the Holy Spirit will make it plain to us as fast as we are able to understand. The General says that he reads the Bible as he eats fish, eating what he can, and laying aside the bones; but as the years go by he often finds that what he once could not understand spiritually has now become quite plain to him. Things in the Bible, which are hard for you to understand today, may become as clear as sunlight in years to come.

In studying the Bible it will be found that experience in spiritual things makes the Book plain to us. A little ten-year-old girl, who had been much afflicted, prayed to the Lord and found help. Some time later, while alone reading her Bible, she found this text: “This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. ” (Ps. 34:6. ) It so fitted her experience that her heart was made glad, and she pointed it out to her mother, and had her mother mark it.

A portion of the Bible ought to be read carefully and prayerfully and lovingly every day. Just as a fire needs fresh fuel, and the body needs new supplies of food every day so the soul that would be strong and holy needs something fresh from the Bible each day. 1. It is through the Word of God that we get faith.

I once heard one of the mightiest men of God I ever knew say that he used to pray and pray for faith, but one day he read this text: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17), and from that day he began to read the Bible, fulfilling its conditions and claiming its promises, and his faith grew wonderfully. Although uneducated in the schools, he became full of the wisdom of God, and won many thousands of souls to Jesus, raised up hundreds of workers, inspired thousands more, and had millions of dollars given to him for the work of God.

I have often heard people insinuate that one rose from the dead to add his testimony to what the Bible says that they might then believe. But Jesus denies this. He says, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. ” (Luke 16:31. ) The Bible is that which brings faith and strengthens it, and not seeing departed spirits, or visions, or raptures of any kind. When Paul and Silas were driven out of Thessalonica they went to the city of Berea and preached Jesus there, and Luke tells us that the people of Berea “were more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so. ” And then he adds: “Therefore many of them believed” (Acts 17:11, 12). Belief always follows an honest searching of the Scriptures. If then, you would have strong faith, feed what faith you have on the Word of God.

2. If we are going astray, the Word of God corrects us. A woman, who was out at service, was always grumbling and complaining in spite of the fact that she was treated most kindly. One day, when her mistress was out, she read these words in her Bible: ‘Do all things without murmurings and disputings; that ye may be blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish” (Phil. 2:14, 15, R V. ), and she felt as though the dear Lord Himself had spoken tender words of rebuke and conviction to her. She humbled herself, apologized to her mistress and corrected her ways. A lady, who had been selfishly seeking her own way instead of God’s way, and offering the Lord a half-hearted service, was convicted by these words: “If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor: will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? ” (Mal. 1:8) She saw herself offering to God what no earthly ruler would accept, and it broke her heart, and led her to a sincere repentance and humble confession and an utter surrender of herself to the Lord, until she felt His love flooding her soul. Truly, “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. ” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17)

3. If we are ignorant, the Word of God instructs us. David says, “Thou through Thy commandments hast made me wiser than my enemies. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts. ” (Ps. 119:98-100) Again he says, “The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple. ” (Ps. 119:129. ) Some time ago, out on the plains of Minnesota, I found a humble young man, who worked on a farm, who seemed to me to be wonderfully wise. I asked him his secret, and he told me that it was constant study of the Word of God and prayer. If he had ten minutes to spare at noon-hour, he did not waste it in foolish talk, or in reading stories or newspapers, but he digged into his Bible. People told him that he would get narrow if he did not read other books, but he found that they were the ones who got narrow, and when they became confused by the assumptions of evolution, spiritualism, the new psychology, Dowieism, and the like, he, although not educated in the schools, had no difficulty in solving all their problems through his knowledge of the Bible.

Like David, he found himself wiser than his enemies, his teachers, and the elders, through God’s Word. Jesus said to certain people who were in error about certain doctrines, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. ” Ignorance of the Scriptures and of the power of God leaves one exposed to all sorts of error and cunning craftiness of men, but when we hide God’s Word in our hearts, and have the genuine experience of holiness, we get filled with His great thoughts and are truly wise, and if we humbly watch and pray we are safeguarded from error.

4. The Bible gives us great and loving thoughts of God, and makes our hearts tender toward Him I have read the Bible through many times, but there are some parts of it that so reveal the love of God in Christ to me that I can never read them without tears.

A friend went into the quarters of two of our Swedish officers, and found them sitting at the tables with open Bibles, weeping. He thought they were in great sorrow, and asked them what was their trouble. They said, “Oh, we are weeping for joy at the goodness of God! See here what we have read: ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Think how good God is, and how He cares for us to number the very hairs of our heads. ” I found a dear young friend weeping one day, but they were tears of joy. “Look here, ” he said. at what the Lord has said to me today: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, and ye shall find rest to your souls. My father died, ” he said, “and my eyes were dry, and my mother died, and I couldn’t shed a tear. My heart was hard, but God has made my heart soft, and now I weep for joy as I read His tender, loving words. Truly God’s Word fills the humble, believing heart with joy. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, ” said Jeremiah. The truth is, that we love the Lord no better than we love His Word. In proportion as the Word is precious to us, so is He Himself precious to us.

5. Do you want to know Jesus better? Read the Bible. The Bible, under the Illumination of the Holy Spirit, reveals Him to us. It is there that we see Him a tender babe, born in a manger, in a stable among the cattle, and hunted for His life by cruel Herod.

It is there that we find Him humbly toiling at the carpenter’s bench, fasting and praying, and tempted by the devil in all points like as we are, doing good, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and of forgiving love, having compassion on the poor and sorrowful and sinful, preaching the Gospel, warning men of the judgment to come, declaring both the love and the wrath, the goodness and the severity of God, and at last laying down His life a sacrifice for our sins. It is there that we see the open grave, the risen Saviour, the ascending, glorified Lord, into whose

hands is given all power in heaven and earth to be used in behalf of His holy ones on earth; to be used for their defense, their guidance, their spiritual education, their deliverance, their support, their warfare, their uttermost salvation, and their final triumph over all the power of the enemy, over all earth and hell. Read the Bible to see and know Jesus.

6. Do you want to pray with more faith and power? Read the Bible. It is there that you will learn God’s will, become acquainted with His mind, and find His promises to encourage your faith.

7. Do you want to speak to the hearts of saints and sinners with more effect? Read the Bible. It is there that you will get truth that is sharper than a two-edged sword, that is like a fire and a hammer. It is there that you will get truth that will comfort mourners, arouse the careless, instruct the ignorant, enlighten the perplexed, lead the blind, encourage the fainthearted, rest the weary, steady the young, renew the old, that will convict and convert and sanctify and fill the heart with perfect assurance.

8. Do you want to hold out faithful to the end, and not make shipwreck of faith? Read the Bible, and “observe to do according to all that is written therein; for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. ” (Josh. 1:8. ) A recent writer has well said, “Of course, it is much easier, and therefore much more agreeable to our spiritual laziness, to go to a convention or revival meeting and claim a filling of the Holy Spirit than it is to peg along day after day, month after month, year after year, digging into the Word of God. But a ‘filling of the Spirit’ that is not maintained by a persistent study of the Word, will soon vanish, ” just as a fire that does not daily receive fresh supplies of coal will go out, or a man that is not properly fed will starve. Oh, the blessings that have been lost because they have not been renewed day by day by a loving study of God’s blessed Word! “Search the Scriptures, ” said Jesus. Do not think you are too young, or too ignorant, or too busy. Do your best, and stick to it, and the Holy Spirit will become your teacher, and you shall become
wise unto everlasting life. (2 Tim. 3:15–17.)

Chapter 19 – King David’s Use Of His Bible
David said, “Princes also did sit and speak against me; but Thy servant did meditate in Thy statutes. Thy testimonies are also my delight and my counsellors. ” (Psalm 119:23, 24) What a picture! Evil men are plotting against him, digging a pit for him, gnashing on him with their teeth, but he sits quietly meditating on God’s statutes. These statutes are his counsellors. He talks over his affairs with them and finds out what they have to say. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joshua are his advisers. To be sure they are dead, but they live more vitally in the truths they spoke and exemplified than they did in their bodies. Paul says in writing to the Romans, “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning; that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. ” (Rom. 15:4. ) David discovered this blessed secret for himself, and although his Bible was much more limited than ours, he made glorious use of it. Here are some of the blessings he got from it:

1. Wisdom and understanding. We are very foolish and shortsighted, but the wisdom and foresight of God are at the disposal of our faith. David says, “Thou, through Thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts.

I have often been amazed and delighted at the keen insight and uncommon common sense of otherwise ignorant and illiterate men and women who have been full of the Holy Ghost, and who were lovers and diligent students of their Bibles. They have more wisdom than their teachers, and easily outwit and confound all their enemies. Paul in writing to Timothy said, “The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ” (2 Tim. 3:15) 2. Joy. “The joy of the Lord is your strength, ” said Nehemiah.

“But how am I to get this joy? ” you ask. By receiving the Lord of joy Himself into your heart, which you do by hearty faith in what He says. Once upon a time my wife said “Yes, ” and because I believed and acted upon my faith, that filled me with joy that has been increasing for years. God has said great things, given us “exceeding great and precious promises. If we believe them and act upon our faith, He will come into our lives and our joy shall be full. (1 John 1:4) Hear David: “I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies as much as in all riches. “I rejoice at Thy Word, as one that findeth great spoil. ” The Word of God was the well of salvation from which David drew water with joy. There is the outer shell of the letter and the inner kernel of spirit and life in the Word of God. Those who have learned the secret of getting at the kernel in a text and hearing the whisper of the voice of Jesus in it, and have caught the flash of the love-light and tender sympathy of His eye through it, will understand David’s joy.

3. Hope. Faith has to do with the present, hope with the future. Many a man fails, not because of the present trouble, but because the future looks dark and his hope fails, and in discouragement he casts away his shield of faith and gives up the fight. Well does Paul name hope as one of the three divine graces. He who wins in the battle of life must “hope to the end. ” During the darkest days of the Revolution, Washington never lost hope. Amid the awful suspense and uncertainties of the Civil War, Lincoln remained confident and hoped on. And so it was with David. He passed through dark hours. Taken from the quiet, sheltered life of a shepherd, he was placed in a palace and made son-in-law to the king, only to be hated and hunted for his life for years, while his wife was given to another. His own people murmured against him and would have stoned him. His own son rebelled against him and sought his life, until in the agony and perplexity of his soul he cried out, “All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me. But then he remembered God’s promises and cried out again, “Remember Thy word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope. My soul fainteth for Thy salvation; but I hope in Thy word, ” and then he questions and assures his soul, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.

” 4. Comfort. The idea of comfort in the Bible is not simply to soothe, but to aid, strengthen, inspire and encourage. And when God comforts us He draws nigh to us and draws us nigh to Himself, and wipes away our tears and assures and strengthens our hearts and fills us with a sense of His presence and almighty sufficiency, until our poor little fears and sorrows vanish and a great calm, a river of joy, and a holy courage take possession of our souls. In youth we start out strong and defiant, asking only a platform on which to display and prove our powers, but sooner or later we each come to that pathetic spot where our heads droop and our hearts fail and we want comfort. It was so with Paul, and he cries out, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulations…. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.

And even our blessed Lord Himself was strengthened by an angel in the days of His flesh. (Matt 22:43) Shall we not follow David in his diligent study of God’s truth, and shall we not thank God for His immeasurable and unspeakable gift, and prize as never before the infinite treasure He has bestowed upon us in His Word?

The Soul-Winner’s Secret - Brengle, Samuel Logan

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