The Art of Soul Winning by J.W. Mahood
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J.W. Mahood >> The Art of Soul Winning
THE
ART OF SOUL-WINNING.
(SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR PERSONAL WORKERS.)
BY
J.W. MAHOOD, EVANGELIST,
Author of "The Missing Wheel Found," and joint-author of "The Young
People's History of Methodism."
"_And he brought him to Jesus._"
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE.
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS.
1901
PREFACE.
Never was there such great need for a mighty, Pentecostal revival in all
our Churches; and the key to such a revival is earnest personal work.
But the membership of the Churches are not prepared to enter upon this
work. Multitudes know nothing of a personal Pentecost. Many are utterly
indifferent. They do not realize their opportunity and responsibility
before God. If they did, the revival would come at once.
With the hope that many professing Christians may be awakened to duty,
and hear God's call to personal work in soul-winning, this little volume
is written.
Let the pastor see that a copy is put into every home one month previous
to the time set for special revival-meetings. Let him secure a pledge
from the people to read the study for each day, commit the memory
verses, and meditate upon the Scripture suggested.
Once each week, either at a special meeting appointed for this purpose,
at the week-night prayer-meeting, or at the young people's devotional
meeting Sunday evening, let the studies for the week be reviewed and the
memory verses recited. Short talks may also be given on each topic by
persons previously selected.
When the entire Church membership shall begin to think and speak upon
these vital themes; when the spirit of grace and supplication shall take
the place of formality and worldly desire; when the Holy Ghost of
Pentecost shall come upon the waiting, praying Church, then the times of
refreshing will be sure to come from the presence of the Lord, and the
perishing multitudes will be saved.
Sioux City, Iowa.
CONTENTS.
FIRST WEEK--THE SOUL-WINNER'S MOTIVE.
"THE LOVE OF CHRIST."
PAGE
STUDY I Foreword and Appeal 9
STUDY II The Lord's Command 12
STUDY III By Personal Effort 15
STUDY IV Trophies of Personal Effort 18
STUDY V The Worth of a Soul 21
STUDY VI The Death of a Soul 24
STUDY VII The Supreme Motive 27
SECOND WEEK--THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE.
"YIELD YOURSELVES TO GOD."
STUDY VIII A Definite Experience 33
STUDY IX A Complete Surrender 36
STUDY X The Spirit's Witness 39
STUDY XI Every Weight 42
STUDY XII Prayer 45
STUDY XIII Faith 48
STUDY XIV Self-Sacrifice 51
THIRD WEEK--THE SOUL-WINNER'S EQUIPMENT.
"COMPLETELY FURNISHED."
PAGE
STUDY XV Knowledge of the Scripture 57
STUDY XVI Tact 60
STUDY XVII Earnestness 63
STUDY XVIII Perseverance 66
STUDY XIX Tenderness 69
STUDY XX Burden for Souls 72
STUDY XXI A Personal Pentecost 75
FOURTH WEEK--THE SOUL-WINNER'S METHODS.
"BY ALL MEANS."
STUDY XXII Direct Approach 81
STUDY XXIII Correspondence 85
STUDY XXIV Tracts and Books 88
STUDY XXV The Prayer List 91
STUDY XXVI Work Among Students 93
STUDY XXVII Meeting Objections 96
STUDY XXVIII No Effort in Vain 100
THE SOUL-WINNER'S MOTIVE.
"FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST."
STUDY I.
FOREWORD AND APPEAL.
Memory Verse: "And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of
the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars
for ever and ever."--(Dan. xii, 3.)
Scripture for Meditation: Matt. vi, 19-23; Rev. iii, 14-22.
Fred B---- was a medical student. He was stricken, with that dreaded
scourge, consumption. The physicians advised a trip to the mountains.
During the first few months among the Rockies he improved rapidly, and
hope and ambition flamed anew; but it was only a brief respite from
suffering before the final collapse. Lying in a Denver hospital, he was
visited by some consecrated young people, who sang and prayed with him.
He yielded himself to Christ, and the peace of God filled his heart.
They brought him home to a little Iowa city to die. The day after his
arrival the pastor was summoned to his bedside, when the young man
related the circumstances of his conversion. The pastor said, "Then you
are not afraid to die?" "No," said he, "_not afraid, but not ready_."
When asked why he was not ready, he replied: "I have done nothing for my
Master. I have won no souls for him. Could I have six months more to
live that I might bring some souls to Jesus, and thus not go into his
presence empty-handed, I would be satisfied to die. _I am not afraid to
die, but not ready._" Just then the door of the room opened, and the
dying boy's father, an old, white-haired man who had been absent from
home and had not seen his son since his return, came in. The old man was
not a Christian. Then occurred a pathetic scene. The young man threw his
arms about his father's neck, and drew him down upon his knees at the
bedside, urged him to give himself to God, and then, with shortening
breath, uttered such a prayer of intercession as is seldom heard. The
old man sobbed aloud, yielded to Christ, declared his faith, and the
dying boy had won one soul for his Master. In a few hours he had gone
into the presence of the King; _but not empty-handed_.
O ye to whom God has given the strength and vigor of manhood and
womanhood, and who have pledged your allegiance to the Christ of
Calvary, are you winning any souls for your Master? Or are you going
into his presence _empty-handed_? What if in the judgment-day it shall
be seen that some souls who might have been saved have been lost through
your neglect? What if it shall then be seen that the crown of many stars
which you might have won is given to another? And what, if in the great
day of his appearing you shall be found, having gathered no sheaves and
_empty-handed_?
STUDY II.
THE LORD'S COMMAND.
Memory Verse: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature."--(Mark xvi, 15.)
Scripture for Meditation: Ezek. xxxiii, 1-11.
By the Master's final words to his disciples the obligation is laid upon
every Christian to be a soul-winner. "Ye shall be my witnesses," is the
risen Lord's message to all his followers. No one is excused. "Follow
me," said Christ, "and I will make you fishers of men." And when his
face was set toward Calvary, he said to the Father, "As thou hast sent
me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." By the
mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, God distinctly says that, if we neglect
"to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his
iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand." We are all
_sent_, and if we shrink or excuse ourselves from our great mission we
shall come into condemnation.
The unsaved multitudes know that every Christian should be an ambassador
for Christ, and when we fail to do our duty we are condemned in their
eyes as well as before God. A writer in the _Epworth Era_ says:
"A college professor who was noted among his fellow-teachers for his
habit of addressing young men upon their personal relations to Christ,
was asked by one of his fellow-professors, 'Do they not resent your
appeals as an impertinence?' He replied: 'No! Nothing is of such
interest to any man as his own soul and its condition. He will never
resent words of warning or comfort if they are prompted by genuine
feeling. When I was a young man, I felt as you do. My wife's cousin, a
young fellow not yet of age, lived in our house for six months. My dread
of meddling was such that I never asked him to be present at family
worship, or spoke to him on the subject of religion. He fell into the
company of a wild set, and was rapidly going to the bad. When I reasoned
with him I spoke of Christ. "Do you call yourself a Christian?" he
asked, assuming an astonished look. "I hope so," I replied. "But you are
not. If you were, he must be your Best Friend. Yet I have lived in your
house for six months, and you have never once named his name to me; no,
he is nothing to you!" I have never forgotten the rebuke.'"
STUDY III.
BY PERSONAL EFFORT.
Memory Verse: "And he brought him to Jesus."--(John i, 42.)
Scripture for Meditation: John i, 35-45.
Have you ever noticed that much of the work which the Master and his
disciples did was "personal work?" Some of our Lord's greatest sermons
were preached to one person. The apostles were all won individually.
Turn to your Bible now, and read the account of the visit of Nicodemus
to Christ, and of the meeting with the woman of Samaria at the well. If
you take the time to follow this theme through the Gospels and through
the Acts of the Apostles, you will be sure to see that the work of
winning souls for Christ by personal effort is the work of every
Christian.
And a conviction of this is the greatest need of the Church to-day. It
is the key to the twentieth-century revival. The world would be
evangelized in this generation did each professing Christian win only
one soul each year for Christ; and the great social and labor problems
of the day would be speedily solved were the great Christian Church
actively engaged in leading men and women to Jesus of Nazareth. Mightier
than the influence of great sermons and fine music and splendid ritual
is the influence of a life consecrated to personal effort in seeking the
lost.
That remarkable soul-winner, Dr. J.O. Peck, now translated, said: "So
great is my conviction of the value of personal effort, as the result of
a lifework of winning souls, that I can not emphasize the method too
strongly. If it were revealed to me from heaven by the archangel Gabriel
that God had given me the certainty of ten years of life, and that as a
condition of my eternal salvation I must win a thousand souls to Christ
in that time; and if it were further conditioned to this, that I might
preach every day for the ten years, but might not personally appeal to
the unconverted outside the pulpit; or that I might not enter the pulpit
during these ten years, but might exclusively appeal to individuals, I
would not hesitate one moment to make the choice of personal effort as
the sole means to be used in securing the conversion of one thousand
souls necessary to my own salvation."
Dr. Theodore Cuyler once said concerning the three thousand souls he had
received into Church fellowship during his ministry, "I have handled
every stone."
STUDY IV.
TROPHIES OF PERSONAL EFFORT.
Memory Verse: "And he that is wise winneth souls."--(Prov. xi, 30, R.V.)
Scripture for Meditation: 2 Cor. v, 14-21.
Is it not a suggestive fact that nearly all those men who have shone
brightly in the galaxy of martyrs, preachers, and reformers in the
Christian Church through the centuries have been won to Christ by the
personal effort of some consecrated life? Think of some in our own age.
Dwight L. Moody, when a clerk in a store, was visited by his
Sunday-school teacher, who put his hand upon the young man's shoulder
and talked to him about Christ; and Mr. Moody says, "I had not felt I
had a soul till then."
Colonel H.H. Hadley, who has kneeled and prayed with over thirty-five
thousand drunkards, declares that one of the agencies which led him to
Christ was a brief interview with Chaplain (now Bishop) McCabe on a
railway-train in Ohio just after the Civil War.
Lord Shaftesbury, one of the greatest Christian philanthropists of the
nineteenth century, was won for Christ in early boyhood by the effort of
Maria Willis, a servant-girl in his father's home.
The conversion of Diaz, the great Cuban evangelist, was due to the
faithfulness of a consecrated young lady of Brooklyn. She found him in a
hospital at the point of death, procured a Spanish New Testament, read
to him the words of mercy and invitation, pointed him to Christ; and he
went back to his own country, a flaming herald of the gospel.
J. Wilbur Chapman, one of the most successful pastor-evangelists of this
generation, says that while in a revival-meeting, when a boy, his
Sunday-school teacher touched him on the elbow, and said, "Do you not
think you had better stand?" and that one touch, as much as anything
else, pushed him into the kingdom.
Joseph F. Berry, whose name is a household word in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, was led to Christ by two young friends who took the
young printer to his father's barn, and held a prayer-meeting with him,
which resulted in a glorious conversion.
STUDY V.
THE WORTH OF A SOUL.
Memory Verse: "For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his
soul?"--(Matt. xvi, 26.)
Scripture for Meditation: Luke xv, 1-10.
What is a life worth? What is your life worth? What is the life of your
son or daughter or mother or wife worth? What would you take for a life?
But if the life of a dear one be worth so much to you, what must be its
value in God's sight, who sees to what depths a soul may plunge and to
what heights it may rise? It may be a small matter to you that in yonder
saloon is a man dissipated and drunken. But what if he were your father
or brother or husband? It may be a very small matter to you that the boy
whom you met on the street is puffing a cigarette and wears already
upon his face the marks of an evil life. But what if he were your boy or
your brother? Yet, in God's sight, his life is as valuable as if he were
your boy or your brother; and every soul is of infinite worth.
Jesus Christ set a high estimate upon human life when he left his
Father's throne and came into this sin-cursed world to suffer and die
that he might redeem us from death.
The Church of to-day needs a new vision of the worth of a soul. We need
to stand beside Calvary and see the price that was paid there for human
life.
John Keble, the poet-preacher of the English Church, said that the
salvation of one soul is worth more than the framing of the Magna Charta
of a thousand worlds.
It was meditation upon the words of the memory verse of this study that
fired the souls of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier with a holy
enthusiasm to rescue the perishing multitudes. Had their successors and
disciples been, filled with the same enthusiasm, and kept themselves
free from the machinations of politics, they would have long since
evangelized the world, and Jesuitism would not have been "the scandal of
Christianity."
STUDY VI.
THE DEATH OF A SOUL.
Memory Verse: "Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from
the error of his way shall save a soul from death."--(James v, 20.)
Scripture for Meditation: Luke xvi, 19-31.
What is death--the death of a soul? What is it to die eternally? In the
passage for meditation our Lord gives us a glimpse into the realms of
death. Surely the Son of God is not trifling here; nor does he speak to
confuse. For a moment the curtain is drawn, and we see what is actually
transpiring in the future world. In these days there is a disposition in
some quarters to make light of the future punishment of the wicked. Some
preachers are dumb upon the awful punishment of sin, or preach only half
a gospel, saying, as Bishop Warren puts it, "You must repent, as it
were; be converted, in a measure; or you will go to hell, so to speak."
But Christ did not speak with any uncertain sound about the future
punishment of the impenitent. He is authority. Take your Bible and read
such passages as Matt. xxv, 41, 46; Matt. viii, 12; Luke xvi, 23; John
v, 29.
In the light of these words, we must see that the death of a soul means
eternal separation from God, from mercy, and from heaven.
And yet how indifferent we are concerning the unsaved multitudes all
about us who are drifting into a hopeless eternity. The Church needs a
vision like that of the little lad in Olive Schreiner's "Story of a
South African Farm," who, waking at midnight, sees multitudes drifting
over the precipice into eternal night, and throws himself on his face on
the floor, crying out in the agony of his burdened heart to God to have
mercy.
Some one tells of a shepherd in the Far West who, on a dark, stormy
night, found three sheep missing. Going to the kennel where the
faithful shepherd-dog lay with her little family, he bade her go to find
the sheep. An hour afterwards she returned with two. When these had been
put in the fold, he said, "One sheep is yet missing. Go!" The faithful
dog took one mute look of despair at her little family, then was off in
the dark and the storm. In two hours she had returned with the lost
sheep, but was torn and bleeding, and, as she staggered toward the
kennel, fell dead at the door. But if a poor, dumb brute, with no
immortal hope, be obedient, even unto death, what shall we say of men
and women who know the destiny of the soul, and whom the King of kings
has bidden seek the lost, yet are disobedient, indifferent, and
thoughtless as to the dying multitudes about them?
STUDY VII.
THE SUPREME MOTIVE.
Memory Verse: "For the love of Christ constraineth us."--(2 Cor. v, 14.)
Scripture for Meditation: 1 Cor. xiii, R.V.
But the supreme motive in all our efforts to win others should be "the
glory of God." Possessed of an undying love for him who first loved us,
we will have an inspiration to seek the lost for whom he gave his life.
And all our efforts shall be, as Paul puts it in his letter to the
Ephesians, "unto the praise of his glory."
"The love of Christ doth me constrain
To seek the wandering souls of men."
Love never faileth. Love knows no impossibility. He who works for wages
and he who works for love live in two different realms. A lot of men
were entombed in a coal-mine, and great crowds gathered to help clear
away the earth and rescue the miners. An old, gray-headed man came
running up, and, seizing a shovel, began working with the strength of
ten men. Some one asked to relieve the old man. "Get out of the way," he
cried; "I have two boys down there."
Love will triumph; and he whose heart throbs with love to Christ will
find real joy in rescuing from sin those who are the purchase of his
blood, _that his name may be glorified_.
Study his life of self-sacrifice. See again his suffering for sinful
men. Linger in Gethsemane, and behold the agony of Calvary. Then your
heart will begin to throb with love to him "who first loved us."
Get a new vision of your crucified, but now risen, Savior, until the
beauty of his matchless life charms your heart and you are ready to say:
"Come, and possess me whole,
Nor hence again remove;
But sup with me, and let the feast
Be everlasting love."
Then you will possess the highest motive that moves human hearts, and
personal work in soul-winning will become a real delight.
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE.
"YIELD YOURSELVES UNTO GOD."
STUDY VIII.
A DEFINITE EXPERIENCE.
Memory Verse: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born
again, he can not see the kingdom of God."--(John iii, 3.)
Scripture for Meditation: John iii, 1-15.
In a prayer-meeting a young lady was asked, "What is the first thing we
must do if we would win others to Christ?" She replied, "_We must live
holy ourselves._" She was right. Just as the telegraph wire must be
insulated, so must the life of him who expects to be the messenger of
God be insulated from the old life of sin before he can hope to carry
the loving messages of the gospel to other souls.
This implies a definite experience of conversion. He who would engage in
this most fascinating of all work must have nothing short of an inner
consciousness of sins forgiven and of the presence of Christ in his
life. He must be able to say, like Andrew and like Philip of old, "I
have found him." He must know what it is to have "a new heart" and to
have peace with God.
William Butler, the veteran missionary and soul-winner, now translated,
wrote the author of these studies a letter, in which he said:
"First and foremost, I thank God for a true conversion. When I got
religion, I got it good and thorough. Christ became everything to me.
The law of sin, or temptation to worldly conformity of any kind, was
completely eradicated from my heart; and from that hour to this the law
of Christ has fully satisfied my soul, and made me gloriously free and
independent of the world and its maxims and pleasures. And now, after
fifty-five years' enjoyment of peace with God and humble devotion to his
service, I bless him that I ever gave him my heart and devoted myself to
his work. I am happy. The consoling comforts of the grace of God are
with me by day and by night, and the blessed future is radiant with the
hope of being 'numbered with the saints in glory everlasting.'"
In these days of compromise and doubt we need to have as definite an
experience of salvation as had William Butler. He who would win others
to a new life must himself possess that life, and know it, being able to
say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed."
STUDY IX.
A COMPLETE SURRENDER.
Memory Verse: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service."--(Rom. xii, 1.)
Scripture for Meditation: Rom. vi, 1-13.
John Wesley said, "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but
sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be
clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of hell and set up
the kingdom of heaven upon the earth."
A life surrendered to God will be an invincible life, while the life
only partly surrendered will know nothing but defeat. Someone says that,
in the transfer of property, any reservation implies, also, reserved
rights. If a man sells a ten-acre lot, and keeps a yard square in the
center for himself, he has a right of way across what he has sold to
get to his reservation. And if, in our surrender, we keep back anything,
"that constitutes the devil's territory, and he will trample over all we
call consecrated to get to his own." Therefore a complete surrender of
the life to God is absolutely necessary.
To the rich young man who came to him, Jesus said, "One thing thou
lackest." He demanded an unconditional surrender of every interest of
his life. But the young man was not willing to make the surrender, and
went away sorrowful. Of every man and woman Jesus asks the same
surrender. But many now wander off in the darkness of formality and
doubt because they are not willing. Three things are implied in such a
surrender: (1) An acknowledgment of the Divine ownership and human
stewardship in all temporal affairs; (2) A complete submission of the
will to God; (3) The supremacy of Jesus Christ in the heart and life, so
that the interests of his kingdom are first, always, and everywhere.
There is an old story of a monk who, having been disobedient to the
rules of the monastery, was told he must die. They took him out into the
graveyard, stood him upright in a grave, filled in the earth about his
feet. Then they asked, "Are you dead yet?" He said, "No." The earth was
then filled in about him to his waist, and the question again asked. He
replied, "No." Then they filled in the earth until he was covered, all
but his head, and could scarcely breathe. When asked if he would die, he
replied, "Yes, I will give up; I will die." So may we die to the old
life of self and sin, and live the new life of entire surrender to our
risen Lord!
"If Christ would live and reign in me,
I must die, I must die.
Like him I crucified must be,
I must die, I must die.
So dead that no desire may rise,
To pass for good, or great, or wise,
To any but my Savior's eyes,--
Let me die, let me die."
STUDY X.
THE SPIRIT'S WITNESS.
Memory Verse: "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that
we are children of God."--(Rom. viii, 16, R.V.)
Scripture for Meditation: 1 John v, 1-15.
When the life has been wholly surrendered to God, and Christ, the
crucified and risen Savior, is enthroned in the heart and confessed
before men, then the blessed assurance of our sonship with God will be
clear and joyous. No longer shall we say, "I hope I am a Christian," or,
"I am trying to be a Christian;" but, like Paul, we shall exclaim, "I
know whom I have believed."
The witness of the Spirit will give a holy confidence to the
soul-winner.
"What we have seen and felt,
With confidence we tell."
Much of the timidity and reluctance shown by Christians toward personal
work may be traced to a refusal or neglect to live the surrendered life
and have the clear assurance of acceptance with God.