Frequently the difference between success and failure in an evangelistic campaign lies in the right use of the appeal. Every Seventh-day Adventist preacher possesses sufficient knowledge of the Bible to enlighten the average hearer. Generally he is able to convince his audience that the truth he preaches is founded upon the Bible. But frequently at the end of his campaign he is chagrined to find that while many acknowledge the truth, few are willing to follow it. The conference employing him is also disappointed at the outcome. Perhaps he had large audiences that had led the brethren to hope for large returns in souls.
This lack of results cannot always be accounted for by neglect of prayer or spiritual indifference; for some very earnest, consecrated workers are confronted by the experience of seeing their efforts unfruitful. Nor can it be accounted for by lack of preparation or faulty educational advantages. Some brilliant preachers, with a good education and a painstaking preparation, face the same barren results.
No matter how thoroughly the preacher instructs his hearers, if he is not able to move them to favorable action, he has failed to benefit them. In fact, he may actually have done them damage; for the more light that is shed upon the pathway of a person who refuses or fails to follow it, the greater his condemnation. We are wont to console ourselves with the thought that we have warned our hearers, and therefore the blood is upon the garments of those who fail to heed the warning. But Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. The thought of warning men was not uppermost in His mind, but the desire to save them was the passion of His soul.
A sign post or a clanging bell can give a- warning, but it takes awarm, throbbing, living heart to make an appeal to men. If a person rushes into a burning building, and warns the people within that their lives are in danger, he is to be commended. But if no one is saved from the flames, no one is rescued, it would certainly be a heartbreaking experience, even though he had done his full duty in warning. So with the evangelist who earnestly warns people to flee from the wrath to come, and yet rescues no one from the flames of the great day,—he certainly sees a very unsatisfactory and distressing outcome of his endeavors.
No one feels disturbed because a father or a mother makes a frantic appeal to a son or a daughter who may be standing in the window of a burning building. We should be surprised indeed and should doubt their love for their children, if they looked on calmly, unperturbed. Yet some people seem to feel that no one should get excited about the eternal loss of their loved ones or of their friends and neighbors. Everything must be done by cold, calculating facts and figures, with as little persuasion as possible.
Christ never took such an attitude toward this question, but was so mightily moved in working for the lost that with tears and Strong crying He strove to rescue the perishing. And Paul, the greatest of evangelists, speaking of his zeal for the conversion of his "kinsmen according to the flesh," said that he had "great heaviness and continual sorrow" in his heart (Rom. 9:2), so deeply moved was he for their salvation. The mighty appeals made by Christ and by Paul to the hearts of men would, it seems, almost melt a stone. In fact, Paul appealed so powerfully to kings and rulers living in the depths of the sordid vices of old Rome, that he made them tremble.
Never should we work for any one merely with the thought of warning him of impending doom. Our attitude toward every person should be to strive to save a soul from death. The warning to flee from the wrath to come is given solely for the purpose of trying to save those who hear it. If we make the saving of souls the supreme purpose of all our missionary endeavors, we shall not feel satisfied unless this result is obtained. Too often, when results are not forthcoming, we fall back upon the statement, "Well, I have done my duty, I have given them the warning." Those who take this attitude may think they have done all within their power, but to the heart of Christ the outcome is tragedy.
Perhaps the evangelist has not appealed strongly enough to his hearers to move them. The primary purpose of every sermon should be to move men, and no sermon that does not move men is a success. I do not mean that the sermon should lift them up and carry them away on a flight of emotion, but it must move them forward into paths of duty. And it is through the appeal that men are most likely to move.
The appeal is not an appendage to the sermon, not an afterthought, but it is the objective toward which the whole service tends. The singing, the prayer, the sermon, are all planned with the thought of the appeal in mind. The singing creates a favorable atmosphere for the appeal. The prayer creates power for the appeal. The sermon gives the basis for the appeal, and presents the reasons for moving in a certain direction. The appeal itself moves the hearer to act, and leads him to assume a responsibility for the truth placed before him.
The appeal changes the listener's attitude from that of a bystander to one who is vitally involved in the proceedings. When a crowd is pressing forward, getting too near the on-coming procession, the police say, "Get back!
Step back!" You stand still, wonder. ing what the crowd is going to do about it. Then the policeman steps up to you, and says, "This means you," and suddenly you wake up to the fact that it is not a question of what the crowd will do about this, but you must do something, you must move.
That is what the appeal does for the individual listener in a meeting. In the appeal in a certain sense you say to him, "This means you." He becomes suddenly aware that the question you have been discussing was not simply for his information and pleasure, but he is expected to do something about it. You are appealing to him to make some move, identify himself in some way with the right side of the problem in a definite way. He no longer wonders what the crowd are thinking, or how they were affected by the subject; but he goes away after the appeal with the thought in mind, "This vitally concerns me. I must do something about it."
At another time I shall endeavor to write about the nature of appeals, the kind of appeals, and the after meetings that follow the appeals.
Palo Alto, Calif.
