Soul winning is the most exalted of all sciences. On this great theme the messenger of the Lord has written:
The highest of all sciences is the science of soul saving. The greatest work to which human beings can aspire is the work of winning men from sin to holiness. For the accomplishment of this work, a broad foundation must be laid. A comprehensive education is needed. , . . Something more is called for than the culture of the intellect. Education is not complete unless the body, the mind, and the heart are equally educated. The character must receive proper discipline for its fullest and highest development."—Ministry of Healing, p. 398.
This means that the minister must study earnestly the greatest of all sciences—soul winning. Many ministers are experts in systematic theology, but have given little study to practical theology, which embraces the science of soul-saving. A medical doctor must study twenty years in different schools before he is qualified to be a licensed physician. But that is not all. He must keep in step with the advance of medical science and take postgraduate studies and refresher courses in order to be a more competent physician and thus prolong for a few years the life of his patients. How much more important it is for a minister to study the science of soul winning, for he is dealing, not with this temporary life of "threescore years and ten," but with eternal life, when mankind will be redeemed from all sickness and death.
A soul winner is duty bound to do research study and work diligently in order to win more people to Christ as the years go by. Here is a challenging statement in Proverbs 10:30: "He that winneth souls is wise." The efficient soul winner has the attribute of being wise. That means he is skilled in the art of soul winning through ever-growing study and constant practical experience.
Today we encounter increasing difficulties in the field of soul winning. Some feel that it is useless to spend time, energy, and money in an attempt to win souls who do not want to be saved. As a result some have become discouraged and have asked to be transferred to some type of denominational work that is not too directly connected with active soul-winning endeavor. This is a natural outgrowth of a lack of study and experience in the science of soulsaving. In some cases this decision is reached because a minister has tried to win souls in his own strength and power.
While in London two years ago I noticed the following motto in front of a Presbyterian church: "Difficulties are only ladders to success for thinking people." To the man who loves souls, difficulties and perplexities in evangelism are only a challenge to climb higher on the ladder of evangelical success.
Why Soul Winning Is a Science
Soulsaving is a science because "in order to lead souls to Jesus there must be a knowledge of human nature and a study of the human mind."—Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 67. The two essentials here stated clearly indicate that the minister must be a fervent student of Christian psychology. He must avail himself of all the means possible to understand the human behavior, and why men decide to follow certain philosophies of life and religious beliefs.
From the book Evangelism we learn that dealing with human minds is "the nicest job that was ever committed to mortal man."—Page 348. By "the nicest" is meant the most delicate, the most challenging, and the most thrilling work. It is a very delicate work to deal with souls for whom Christ died. To understand the maneuvering of the human mind and the behavior of human nature means exacting work and study, and above all, practical experience. A knowledge of this science is of capital importance in soul winning. Romans 12:2 gives us the secret—only when a man's mind is transformed and renewed will he be able to understand and accept the perfect will of God.
The important factor in soul winning, then, is to know by experience how to transform and renew man's mind by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit will make him want to be a child of God. In other words, the man who gives himself to soul winning will become a keen student and observer of human nature and the intricacies of the human mind, and will study to determine how best to bring that mind under the influence of the Spirit of God.
The Problem of Free Moral Agency
Man's mind has been endowed by God with the power of choice. He possesses a free will. Man alone can ultimately decide whom he will follow and obey—the Lamb of God or the satanic serpent. We are told in Ephesians 6:11, 12 that man is constantly assailed by the spirit of darkness. Satan subtly tries to induce him to rebel against the will of God. Simultaneously, the Holy Spirit also is striving with man's mind to woo him to a proper use of his free will, to resist the desires of the carnal mind and evil influences. God will not compel man to obey Him; Satan cannot force man to follow his deceit. It is man alone who has to make the final decision for God or against God.
Let us look again at the mind of man. Inspired by the deceitful suggestions of Satan, man says to himself: "There is no God; therefore, I do not need to obey Him." His conscious mind registers No, but his subconscious mind registers Yes, because every man is born with the innate idea of a Supreme Being. A mental conflict results from this internal contradiction, and man is at war with himself. Man can overcome this conflict and its resulting emotional and nervous disorders and restore peace of mind only as harmony is restored between him and his Creator. In essence, rebellion, which is sin, is breaking a relation with God. Salvation is reconciliation.
Evangelistic Empathy
To save a soul one has to study the spiritual, social, and economic condition of the individual the soul winner seeks to bring to Christ. This spiritual problem of personal salvation is analyzed in Ephesians 2:1-3, 12, R.S.V.: "And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." "Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world."
Man, by nature, is dominated by the spirit of the prince of the power of the air. He is disobedient, alienated from the church, a stranger to the promises of God, and without hope in the world. Here is where the minister must use empathy. In order to understand the other man's thoughts and feelings, and why he acts as he does, the true soul winner must place himself in that man's position and try to look through his eyes. He should consider the will of God for that man which is described in Rev. 18:4, R.S.V.: "Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues." Only by prayerful study can we be led to pursue a plan of action that will bring to men the high standard described in Revelation 14:12, R.S.V.: "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."
It is a marvelous science that teaches us how to take the sinner, indifferent to salvation or prejudiced against truth, and change the attitude of his mind into that of active love for God and obedience to His commandments. Scientific experiments can be demonstrated in the test tube; but the science of soulsaving, which is God's victory over Satan's power to control the mind of man, is daily demonstrated by evangelism.
Satan's Methods Hinder Soul saving
In order to turn man away from the beauty of harmony with the will of God, Satan acts upon the mind of man—the seat of free will and choice. He employs two different methods of blinding and paralyzing men's minds, according to the type of people with whom he has to deal. The first method we find in 2 Corinthians 4:4, R.S.V.: "In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
The reason given why the unbelievers cannot see the light of the gospel is that Satan has blinded their minds, and a blind man cannot see. How does Satan accomplish this? "In the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people. For among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith" (2 Tim. 3:1-8, R.S.V.).
The apostle here enumerates a list of twenty sins with which people's minds are contaminated or blinded. Sin separates from God. Sin disorganizes and distracts the beauties and joys of a clear conscience and a happy life. A man who is dominated by some or all of these twenty sins is so blinded that he will oppose the truth because his mind is corrupt. Even if a semicontaminated mind hears the truth, it will never of itself comprehend, much less accept, the message.
Take a look at a twentieth-century sinner blinded by Satan. He is, consciously or unconsciously, a transgressor of the law of God. He smokes and drinks, and violates with impunity all God's commandments. His home life is unhappy because he has to resort to falsehood in order to conceal his unfaithfulness from his wife. As a result of this kind of living he is a nervous wreck, intolerant, impatient, impure, and his family innocently suffers as a result. Sinners always hide from God, as did Adam and Eve, because sin separates them from God. This sort of man is generally indifferent to religious matters and will go out of his way to avoid religious gatherings. Sin has blinded him to his spiritual needs. What can the soul winner do to influence this perverted mind for good?
On the other hand, there are many people who are morally true and hate sin as far as it is known, whom Satan cannot entice to deliberately sin in order to rebel against the truth. For such he has a second subtle method. Instead of blinding their minds, he paralyzes their minds. We find this in Revelation 14:8 and 17: 2, K.J.V.: "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." "With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication."
Satan has made the inhabitants of this world drunk with the wine of Babylon's "fornication." A person under the influence of wine or alcohol cannot reason intelligently or understand clearly. Let us analyze the meaning of this text—Rev. 17:2—"drunk with the wine of her fornication." What does adulterated wine symbolize? In 1 Corinthians 11:27 and Matthew 26:27-29 we find that pure wine is a symbol of the blood of Christ, which was shed for the salvation of men. This symbol of the blood of Christ, the pure wine, in the Bible sense represents the true saving doctrine of Christ. Satan makes people drink the wine of "fornication." He gets them drunk with an adulterated plan of salvation, and the people believe error is truth, and truth is error. That is the reason why, when evangelists present the truth, so many of the so-called fine, cultured Christian people reject it. They have drunk avidly and long at the fountain of error because it gives them a sense of salvation. It permits them to live as they please, and thus they are unable to see the truth, because they are drunk with false doctrines.
Satan has wrought with deceiving power, bringing in a multiplicity of errors that obscure the truth. Error cannot stand alone, and would soon become extinct if it did not fasten itself like a parasite upon the tree of truth. Error draws its life from the truth of God. The traditions of men, like floating germs, attach themselves to the truth of God, and men regard them as a part of the truth. Through false doctrines, Satan gains a foothold, and captivates the minds of men, causing them to hold theories that have no foundation in truth. Men boldly teach for doctrines the commandments of men; and as traditions pass on from age to age, they acquire a power over the human mind. But age does not make error truth, neither does its burdensome weight cause the plant of truth to become a parasite. The tree of truth bears its own genuine fruit, showing its true origin and nature. The parasite of error also bears its own fruit, and makes manifest that its character is diverse from the plant of heavenly origin. It is through false theories and traditions that Satan gains his power over the human mind.—Evangelism, p. 589. (Italics supplied.)
Take for example a typical Protestant woman, a staunch church member. Although she has been accepting readily of a false doctrine of redemption, her religion offers salvation and heaven without much effort or sacrifice. Eventually, she comes in contact with the truth of God. She would not mind being an Adventist if the church were popular. But the thought of being ostracized by her friends by joining this unpopular church, which observes the so-called Jewish Sabbath, is more than she can bear. Moreover, the question of healthful living and sensible dress does not appeal to her taste and vanity. The Spirit of God keeps pleading with her heart to follow the light she has received. So to ease her conscience she delves into the Bible, not to find the truth, but to prove that truth is error. Now the problem is this: How will the soul winner deal with this mind, paralyzed with the false doctrine of a pseudo salvation? How can she be led to see the truth in its full beauty as it is in Jesus our Lord?
In every soul-winning agency we are in active warfare with Satan, who is powerful and wise, and works with all subtlety and intelligence to deceive whomever he can. Satan even works, if possible, to impress committees with so-called insurmountable difficulties in order to prevent evangelistic plans from being carried out. He impresses workers to suppress the desire to engage in evangelism. He also gets the ministers so engrossed in their minor duties, however necessary they are, that they neglect actively hunting for souls.
We see then that the science of soulsaving embraces a knowledge of human nature and a study of the mind, how to overcome the power of Satan, and to win people for Christ. It means hard constant study, much prayer, and earnest, unrelenting work.
(In next month's MINISTRY we shall seek for a solution with which to counteract the two methods of Satan considered in this article. We must learn how to deal with people whose minds have been blinded by sin.)
