One night, after I had preached on the imminent coming of Christ, a man came up to me and said he was happy to know that we believed in the soon return of Jesus to this earth. He said he had watched events in the Near East, and since the Jews were going back to Palestine, it was evident that the coming of the Lord was near. I replied that I was glad to know that he was interested in the near return of our Lord and that he agreed with what I had presented in the sermon. After a short chat, I invited him to come back and he promised to do so.
One of the brethren, who had been listening to the conversation, was somewhat perplexed because I had not immediately set the man right on his mistaken notion concerning the return of the Jews. I explained my reason and custom to the brother as this: I do not consider it wise to set straight a person's erroneous, notions under circumstances such as obtained that night. The visitor was impressed with the sermon, and was in agreement with what had been said. If I had attempted to tell him he was wrong on that one point, I would have done more harm than good. It was not a propitious time to go into the question exhaustively on that occasion. Had I told the man he was mistaken in his conclusions, an argument would have been started, and he would have gone off intent on finding further arguments to support his notion. He would have started out on a line of reasoning and study contrary to the truth. Such a course would have fostered the wrong spirit within him and left him unsympathetic to further reception of truth.
In this particular case, I took up the subject of the return of the Jews a few nights later when this same man was present. When he heard the discourse and felt the force of the facts presented, he saw the matter in a different light. After' the meeting, he chatted with me again and said that there was a time when he himself believed in the return of the Jews, but that he did not believe so any more. I gathered that he hoped I had not noticed what he had said on the subject a few nights before. Had I commented on his untimely remark at the time he made it, it would have made it harder for him to retract later on. That man is a good Seventh-day Adventist today.
There are times when arguments must be met squarely, but I do not believe it is our duty, or that it is wise, to combat every erroneous idea at the time it is set forth. If it can be worked out, it is far better to take up the subject later when there is time to give it an adequate presentation. We should seek to make it easy for our opponents to come over to our side, rather than making it hard, so far as arguments are concerned. For this reason, I often ignore or seem to ignore certain statements made in conversations, lest I start a person thinking along wrong lines and provoke a spirit of antagonism in him. Then, later, when I take up the subject in a public meeting, I have an undisturbed forty minutes in which to present the truth of the matter. And if I really have the truth and can adequately present it, I should be able to do a much more effective work than could possibly be done in a few minutes of conversation where my questioner has a chance to talk back.