MINISTERIAL reflections at the end of another year might well center in a simple interrogation: "How many people did I bring face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ during 1961?"
Whether we are administrators, teachers, writers, evangelists, pastors, Bible instructors, or lay leaders, this is a question of the first magnitude. A man may not see much tangible evidence, either because his ministry is peripatetic, and therefore he does not have the same congregation for measurement of results, or because he may minister through his pen, in a classroom, or in some administrative office. Nevertheless, every man ordained to advance the gospel—and we know of no other kind of ordination—is a custodian of the souls of men.
We are all both watchmen "unto the house of Israel" and God's spokesmen "to warn the wicked from his wicked way" (Eze. 3:17, 18). Our real business is epitomized by Paul thus: "Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ" (Col. 1:28, R.S.V.).
Every branch of Christianity in time becomes cluttered with machinery, and the machine can become a purely mechanical, impersonal, deadly thing. The one sure way to suffuse the mechanics of our work with thrill and with life-giving and life-perpetuating power is to see in every man a soul for whom Christ died, and to see ourselves as Christ's witnesses. It is not enough to be a bookkeeper, a secretary, a treasurer, an editor, a chairman of this or that. We become men whose chief business is to confront men with Jesus Christ.
Someone rushed without knocking into my office one day, and I was on my knees praying with someone who had consulted me about great spiritual and domestic problems. Afterward the colleague who blundered into the room said to me: "You have time in your busy schedule for that?" I said: "If I didn't, I could not regard myself as a minister of the gospel." Two years later the man I counseled with said to me: "Pastor, I think that heart-to-heart talk and that prayer in your office saved my home from going on the rocks and brought me back to God!" I realized anew that every man can help souls and in that sense be a soul winner, if he wants it that way. "It is better to help our friends to recover lost grace than lost money," said Thomas Aquinas.
There is a word of challenge to all, and especially to those engaged directly in ministerial service in this passage:
To the minister of the gospel God has given the work of guiding to Christ those who have wandered from the narrow way. He is to be wise and earnest in his efforts. At the end of each year he should be able to look back and see souls saved as the result of his labors.—Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 17.
This fading year will provide infinite satisfaction to the man who can look back to some men, women, youth, and children set upon the heavenward road through his ministry. Statesmen and scientists are afire with the desire to send a man to the moon. We should be on fire to set men on the road to the kingdom of God. The drudgery of traveling from place to place, the tedium of discussing, pleading, and praying with wayward men, disappears in the consciousness of souls redeemed.
The conversion of souls to God is the greatest, the noblest work in which human beings can have a part.—Testimonies, vol. 7, p. 52.
The greatest work, the noblest effort, in which men can engage, is to point sinners to the Lamb of God.—Gospel Workers, p. 18.
This question of interesting ourselves in the salvation of men is really the center of every devotional service for our Master.
The purest and most elevated devotion to God is that which is manifested in the most earnest desires and efforts to win souls to Christ.—Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 187.
In this context, better than the words effort, labor, energy, is the word passion, meaning "love on fire." Unworthy passion degenerates into hatred, jealousy, sin; fire-filled spiritual passion is that indescribable something seen in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. There was about Him what has been called an inflammatory touch, which reined men up sharply and brought them face to face with eternal realities. There was about Him both light and heat, xvhereas most of us have light enough but no heat. He was so full of divine passion that He could say: "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up," or, " 'Zeal for thy house will consume me' " (John 2:17, R.S.V.).
The visual image of zeal as Coleridge calls it, is a boiling pot. The root of the word is in the Greek xeo—to boil. Could there be a more vivid word to describe the boiling over with heat of the passions and emotions of the Son of God. . . . The one thing that Jesus could not endure was ease in Zion.—Charles L. Goodell, Cyclopedia of Evangelism, pp. 21, 22.
One of the tragedies of Christendom is its waning spirit of evangelism. There is a growing indifference to the condition of men's souls, and this shows itself in spineless preaching. Preachers who have little or no faith in the Word are less and less concerned about human destiny. The blazing sun of preaching that brings sinners face to face with God is sinking into night, and, as others have trenchantly said, "Moonlight preaching ripens no harvest."
To be sure, we face a new age, and every form of spiritual shepherding and soulsaving are more difficult than ever before. But God prepares men for every age, and such men are always utterly dedicated, unselfish, unsparing, like the Master who emptied Himself.
We must be more decidedly in earnest. . . . Mark how all through the word of God there is manifest the spirit of urgency, of imploring men and women to come to Christ.— Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 65.
It was said of John Wesley that "he was out of breath pursuing souls." When men are consumed with that kind of passion they can look back at the end of each year and see souls brought to the Lord Jesus Christ.
H. W. Lowe
