(1834-1892)
PASSION
FOR SOULS
Part 2
Sometimes I have been blest of God to the salva-
tion of my hearer, but that hearer was first brought
here by yonder friend, and so we become sharers in
the joy. Communion in service and success welds the
saints together and is one of the best securities for
mutual love.
And moreover, when new converts are brought
into the church, the fact that they are brought in by
instrumentality tends to make their fusion with the
church an easy matter. It is in this case much the
same as with our families.
If God had been pleased to create each of us as in-
dividual men and women, and drop us down some-
where on the earth, and leave us to find our way to
somebody’s house and unite with his family, I daresay
we should have had to wander long before we should
have been welcomed. But now we come as little ones
to those who rejoice to see us; and they sing, “Wel-
come, welcome, little stranger!” We become at once
part of the family because we have parents and broth-
ers and sisters, and these make no debate about our
introduction and consider it no trouble to receive us,
though I fear we have never duly rewarded them for
their pains.
So is it in the church––if God had converted all
men one by one, by His Spirit, without instrumentali-
ty, they would have been separate grains of sand, hard
to unite into a building, and there would have been
much difficulty in forming them into one body.
But now we are born into the church, and the
pastor and others look upon those converted under
their instrumentality as their own children, whom
they love in the Lord. And the church, having shared
in the common service by which they are converted,
feels, “These belong to us, these are our reward.” And
so they are taken cordially into the Christian family.
This is no small benefit, for it is at once the joy and
the strength of the church to be made one by vital
forces, by holy sympathies and fellowships.
We have spiritual fathers among us whom we love
in the Lord, and spiritual children whose welfare is
our deepest concern, and brethren and sisters to
whom we have been helpful, or who have been helpful
to us, whom we cannot but commune with in heart.
As a common desire to defend their country welds all
the regiments of an army into one, so the common
desire to save souls makes all true believers akin to
each other.
c. For the good of the individual
But this passion is most of all for the good of the
individual possessing it. I will not try this morning to
sum up in the short time allotted to me the immense
benefits which come to a man through his laboring
for the conversion of others, but I will venture this
assertion, that no man or woman in the church of
God is in a healthy state if he or she is not laboring to
save some.
Those who are laid aside by suffering are taking
their part in the economy of the household of Christ.
But with that exception, he that doth not work nei-
ther shall he eat (2Th 3:10), he that doth not water
others is not watered himself (Pro 11:25), and he who
cares not for the souls of others may well stand in
jeopardy about his own.
To long for the conversion of others makes us
Godlike. Do we desire man’s welfare? God does so.
Would we fain snatch them from the burning? God is
daily performing this deed of grace. Can we say that
we “have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth”
(Eze 18:32)? Jehovah has declared the like with an
oath. Do we weep over sinners? Did not Jehovah’s Son
weep over them? Do we lay out ourselves for their
conversion? Did He not die that they might live? Ye
are made Godlike when this passion glows within your
spirit.
This is a vent for your love to God as well as your
love to men. Loving the Creator, we pity His fallen
creatures, and feel a benevolent love towards the work
of His hands. If we love God, we feel as He does, that
judgment is His strange work, and we cannot bear
that those whom He has created should be cast away
forever. Loving God makes us sorrow that all men do
not love Him too. It frets us that the world lieth in the
wicked one, at enmity to its own Creator, at war with
Him Who alone can bless it. O beloved, you do not
love the Lord at all unless you love the souls of others.
Trying to bring others to Christ does us good by
renewing in us our old feelings and reviving our first
love. When I see an inquirer penitent for sin, I recol-
lect the time when I felt as he is feeling. And when I
hear the seeker for the first time say, “I do believe in
Jesus,” I recollect the birthday of my own soul, when
the bells of my heart rang out their merriest peals
because Jesus Christ had come to dwell within me.
Soul-winning keeps the heart lively and preserves our
warm youth to us. It is a mighty refresher to decaying
love.
If you feel the chill of skepticism stealing over
you, and begin to doubt the gospel’s power, go to
work among the poor and ignorant, or comfort souls
in distress. And when you see the brightness of their
countenances as they obtain joy and peace in believ-
ing, your skepticism will fly like chaff before the wind.
You must believe in the cause when you see the re-
sult. You cannot help believing when the evidence is
before your eyes. Work for Jesus keeps us strong in
faith and intense in love to Him.
Does not this holy instinct draw forth all the fac-
ulties of a man? One strong passion will frequently
bring the whole man into play, like a skillful minstrel
whose hand brings music from every chord. If we love
others, we shall, like Paul, become wise to attract
them, wise to persuade them, wise to convince them,
wise to encourage them. We shall learn the use of
means which had lain rusted by, and discover in our-
selves talents which else had been hidden in the
ground if the strong desire to save men had not
cleared away the soil.
And I will add here that love to souls will in the
end bring to everyone who follows it up the highest
joy beneath the stars. What is that? It is the joy of
knowing that you have been made the spiritual parent
of others. I have tasted of this stream full often, and it
is heaven below. The joy of being saved one’s self has a
measure of selfishness about it, but to know that your
fellow men are saved by your efforts brings a joy pure,
disinterested, and heavenly, of which we may drink
the deepest draughts without injury to our spirits.
Yield yourselves, brethren, to the divine appetite
for doing good, be possessed with it and eaten up by it,
and the best results must follow. Let this be hence-
forth your aim: “That I might by all means save
some.”
2. How does this passion exercise itself?
Differently in different persons and at different
periods, at first it shows itself by tender anxiety. The
moment a man is saved he begins to be anxious about
his wife, his child, or his dearest relative. And that
anxiety leads him at once to pray for them. As soon as
the newly opened eye has enjoyed the sweet light of
the Sun of Righteousness it looks lovingly round on
those who were its companions in darkness, and then
gazes up into heaven with a tearful prayer that they
also may receive their sight.
Hungry ones, while they are eating the first
mouthful at the banquet of free grace, groan within
themselves and say, “Oh that my poor starving chil-
dren could be here to feed on the Savior’s love with
me.” Compassion is natural to the new-born nature.
As common humanity makes us pity the suffering, so
renewed humanity makes us pity the sinful. This, I
say, happens at the very dawn of the new life.
Further on in the heavenly pilgrimage, this pas-
sion manifests itself in the intense joy exhibited when
news reaches us of the conversion of others. I have
often seen, at church meetings and missionary meet-
ings, a hearty and holy joy spread throughout an au-
dience when some new convert, or returned
missionary, or successful minister, has given details of
the wonders of saving grace.
Many a poor girl who could do but little for the
Savior has, nevertheless, shown what she would have
done if she could, by the tears of joy which have
streamed down her cheeks when she has heard that
sinners have been led to Jesus. This is one of the ways
in which those who can personally do little can share
in the joy of the most useful, yea, can have fellowship
with Jesus Himself.
The hallowed instinct of soul-winning also shows
itself in private efforts, sacrifices, prayers, and ago-
nies for the spread of the gospel. Well do I remember
when I first knew the Lord, how restless I felt till I
could do something for others. I did not know that I
could speak to an assembly, and I was very timid as to
conversing upon religious subjects. And therefore I
wrote little notes to different persons setting forth the
way of salvation, and I dropped these written letters
with printed tracts into the post, or slipped them un-
der the doors of houses, or dropped them into areas,
praying that those who read them might be aroused as
to their sins and moved to flee from the wrath to
come.
My heart would have burst if it could not have
found some vent. I wish that all professors kept up
their first zeal and were diligent in doing little things
as well as greater things for Jesus, for often the lesser
agencies turn out to be as effectual as those which
operate upon a larger area.
I hope that all of you young people who have been
lately added to the church are trying some mode of
doing good, suitable for your capacity and position,
that by all means you may save some. A word may
often bless those whom a sermon fails to reach, and a
personal letter may do far more than a printed book.
As we grow older and are more qualified, we shall
take our share in the more public agencies of the
church. We shall speak for Jesus before the few who
meet at the cottage prayer meeting. We shall pray
with as well as for our families, or we shall enlist in
the Sunday school, or take a tract district. Ultimately,
the Lord may call us to plead His cause before hun-
dreds or thousands, and so beginning with littles our
latter end shall greatly increase.
There is one point in which zeal for the salvation
of others will show itself in all who possess it, namely,
in adapting ourselves to the condition and capacity of
others for their good. Notice this in Paul. He became
all things to all men, if by any means he might save
some. He became a Jew to the Jews. When he met
with them, he did not rail at their ceremonies but en-
deavored to bring out their spiritual meaning. He did
not preach against Judaism but showed them Jesus as
the fulfillment of its types. When he met with a hea-
then, he did not revile the gods but taught him the
true God and salvation by His Son.
He did not carry about with him one sermon for
all places but adapted his speech to his audience.
What a very wonderful address that was which Paul
delivered to the council of philosophers upon Mars’
Hill (Act 17:22-31). It is most courteous throughout
and it is a pity that our translation somewhat destroys
that quality, for it is eminently conspicuous in the
original. The apostle began by saying, “Ye men of Ath-
ens, I perceive that ye are on all points very God-
fearing.” He did not say, “Too superstitious,” as our
version has it (v. 22), that would have needlessly pro-
voked them at the outset. He went on to say, “For as I
passed through the city and observed your sacred
things, I found an altar bearing the inscription, ‘To an
unknown God.’ What, therefore, ye worship without
knowing it, that I announce unto you.” He did not say,
“Whom ye ignorantly worship.” He was far too pru-
dent to use such an expression.
They were a collection of thoughtful men, of cul-
tured minds, and he aimed at winning them by cour-
teously declaring to them the gospel. It was most
adroit7 on his part to refer to that inscription upon
the altar, and equally so to quote from one of their
own poets. If he had been addressing Jews, he would
neither have quoted from a Greek poet nor referred to
a heathen altar; his intense love for his hearers taught
him to merge his own peculiarities in order to secure
their attention.
In the same manner we also sink8 ourselves; and
instead of demanding that others submit to us, we
cheerfully submit to them in all unessential matters,
that we may gain their favorable consideration of the
claims of Jesus.
Mark you there was never a man
more stern for principle than Paul. In things where it was necessary
to take his stand, he was firm as a rock. But in merely
personal and external matters, he was the servant of
all. Adaptation was his forte.
Beloved, if you have to talk to children, be chil-
dren, and do not expect them to be men. Think their
thoughts, feel their feelings, and put truth into their
words. You will never get at their hearts till your heart
is in sympathy with their childhood. If you have to
comfort the aged, enter also into their infirmities, and
do not speak to them as if they were still in the full
vigor of life. Study persons of all ages and be as they
are, that they may be led to be believers as you are.
Are you called to labor among the educated? Then
choose out excellent words and present them apples of
7 adroit – skillful.
8 sink – lower or humble.
gold in baskets of silver (see Pro 25:11). Do you work
among the illiterate? Let your words be as goads,
speak their mother tongue, use great plainness of
speech, so that you may be understood; for what avails
to speak to them in an unknown tongue?
Are you cast among people with strange prejudic-
es? Do not unnecessarily jar with them, but take them
as you find them. Are you seeking the conversion of a
person of slender understanding? Do not inflict upon
him the deeper mysteries, but show him the plain
man’s pathway to heaven in words which he who runs
may read. Are you talking with a friend who is of a
sorrowful spirit? Tell him of your own depressions,
enter into his griefs, and so raise him up as you were
raised. Like the good Samaritan, go where the wound-
ed man lies, and do not expect him to come to you. A
real passion for winning souls reveals the many sides
of our manhood, and uses each one as a reflector of
the divine light of truth.
