I HAVE sat in workers' meetings where one after another would rise and supposedly quote from the pen of Mrs. White, "Just sow the seed and God will give the harvest." As a young man just beginning the ministry I sat there believing. But since those early years I have found that the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy not only press upon the human heart the need for the sowing of the seed, but also the added responsibility of reaping the harvest. Jesus said, "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Luke 14:23). And Mrs. White in referring to this text adds, "There is a work to be done in this line that has not yet been done." Evangelism, p. 436. She also states on pages 442 and 443 of this same book:
There is need of education the training of everyone who shall enter the gospel field, not only to use the scythe arid mow the crop, but to rake it. to gather it, to care for it properly. This mowing has been done everywhere, and amounted to very little because there has been so little earnest work done by personal effort to gather the wheat from the chaff and bind it in bundles for the garner.
Many churches are dying for a lack of a reaping program. And when they die someone will probably say, "Well, at least this city can't say we didn't warn them. We sowed the seed." Sometimes after services in such churches I have gone out into my car and wept. The potential was there to shake a city for Christ but no one seemed to know how to reap. Ministers are taught to preach, sow seed, marry, and bury, but how many are taught how to reap?
Yes, we have some growth. But how. little when compared to what it might be. We have churches where the member ship hasn't grown in 40 years. Some of them have not even built a baptismal pool, the thought being that it is not used enough to warrant the extracost. They are just sowing the seed.
Look What's Happening
We need to open our eyes to what is happening about us. Look at the work of Herbert W. Armstrong. I find his Plain Truth magazine everywhere in my auto mobile insurance office, in my physical therapist's office, in Adventist homes, and in homes everywhere. I saw the Plain Truth magazine in England last summer. I saw it in the homes of the people that we visited in our evangelistic meetings in Belfast, Ireland.
Have you read Armstrong's latest reports about the millions who are reading his magazine? He is now running full-page ads in mass-circulation magazines such as Life, Look, Reader's Digest, The London Sunday Times, et cetera. In the June-July, 1970, issue of the Plain Truth "magazine Mr. Armstrong states, "The Plain Truth magazine is growing in circulation at the rate of 30 percent per year."
Press for Decision
Shouldn't we who are entrusted with the special message that is to prepare a people for the second coming of Christ be doing more? We are rightly thrilled with the prospects of MISSION '72. It sounds gallant to say that we are going to have evangelistic meetings in every church at a certain date. But men must be trained to reap the benefits. People who hear the truth and don't accept, harden to it. Mrs. White says: "If they were impressed and convicted, and did not yield to that conviction, it is harder to make an impression on their minds than it was before, and you cannot reach them again." Ibid., p. 293.
I was once sent into a town where the previous evangelist had drawn large crowds but few were baptized. Now those that had heard the message the year be fore would smile when I would come to their doors, but wouldn't come out to the meetings. Through perseverance and a thorough visitation program twenty-five were finally baptized. But among those only a few were persons who had been to the previous meetings. On the last night of the series the little church was packed and many more were on the verge of decision, but I had to leave them because I had another series of meetings scheduled. As far as I know, none of those people then in the valley of decision were baptized after I left. It taught me a lesson. I've moved from the three-wee"k to the five-week series, and sometimes I wish I had six. With this additional time, we have opportunity to build our attendance and once we have built it we also have time to bind off the interest. Now by the time we close the meetings we have baptized consistently 90 to 95 percent of those that attended.
I've just completed meetings in the little city of Ocala, Florida. The church membership according to the books was about 130. The going was difficult. The-Adventist attendance averaged about thirty per night and the non-Adventist a little more. As I write, 69 have been baptized with another baptism planned next week. You can see that every name counted. Every spark of interest was cultivated. Almost every soul that heard the message made a decision and was baptized. Everyone responding to an altar call was visited and watched over until he united with the church.
Mrs. White says:
If he neglects this work, the visiting of the people in their homes, he is an unfaithful shepherd, and the rebuke of God is upon him. His work is not half done. If he had given personal labor, there would have been a large work done and many souls gathered. No excuse will God accept for thus neglecting the most essential part of the ministry, which is the proper binding off of the work. Ibid., p. 440.
It's So Wonderful
Our people want to win souls. They want to see Pentecost again. There's our little church of 50 members in Terrace, British Columbia, in the far north of Canada. While there the Holy Spirit fell upon us, and the Lord gave us 59 baptisms. We were all thrilled. I'll never forget that last night of the meetings. As I was leaving my eyes spotted a man sitting off in the corner. I walked over to him and dis covered that he was an elder in the church. He was holding his head in his hands and sobbing his heart out. And through those I choking sobs, cheeks wet with tears, came words that stirred my heart so deeply that I have never forgotten them. He said, "All of my life I've wanted to see something like this happen. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. It's so wonderful. It's so wonderful."
My new associate in evangelism is a man in his forties who never trained for the ministry but who has been very active in his local church as an elder. Even though he has been a very successful businessman, through the years there has been a deep longing in his heart to win souls. We just ended our first campaign together. He had given lots of Bible studies before, but he had never learned how to bring an individual to a decision. During our meetings, as we worked side by side, he had the thrill of seeing his first interests baptized. He said to me, "It's the best Christmas present I've ever had."
A short time ago I had a young intern with me for a little more than a year. After college he had been put out in an | isolated district for about a year and hadn't won a soul. He was discouraged and thinking of giving up the ministry. I had only met him once before. He couldn't sing and his grammar wasn't very good because he had grown up as a fisherman where word pronunciation wasn't too important. But I saw in him a willingness to learn and to work. It was thrilling to see him grow into an effective soul winner.
After accepting a call to evangelism in the Florida Conference, I suggested to my former conference president that their best man for evangelism was this intern. They gave him a chance on his own. He was sent into an area where there were only two Seventh-day Adventists. I was in Belfast, Ireland, at the time associated with Pastor George Knowles in a field school of evangelism. We prayed earnestly that the Holy Spirit would bless this young man's first effort. What a happy day it was when we received the report that he had baptized 18 souls. This kind of results in a place where there were only two Seventh-day Adventists previously!
Don't Let the Fire Go Out
The greatest need of the young men in our colleges who are training for the ministry, and those in the seminary, is to learn the science of soul winning. Still some graduate without knowing the first thing about bringing a soul to decision. Unfortunately for some, the fire for soul winning goes out during the six long years of study. Because of this a few leave the ministry.
Not long ago I was holding meetings in northern Canada. The Holy Spirit was poured out and the church membership was doubled. Coming to those meetings was a prosperous young Seventh-day Adventist, owner of a $1 million logging operation. One day he flew me up to Stewart in his $50,000 plane to show me a new mill site. As we skimmed over the vast forests and glacier mountains, he told me of his conversion. He had wanted to be a minister, but the college days dragged on with no soul winning and the fire grew weaker and weaker until by the time he graduated he was so discouraged that he went back to the logging business. He's never quite forgotten that call to the minis try. If only someone had helped him to be come a great soul winner.
A few months ago, after I had told some of the thrilling soul-winning experiences that God had just given us, a fine-looking young man came up to me and said, "I just left the ministry. I got so discouraged. I tried to win souls but there was no fruit for my labors. Nobody ever taught me how to bring them to decision."
A young intern associated with us in one of our series had just a few weeks previously held a series on his own, but without any baptisms. He was very discouraged. One day as we were out making calls together he said to me, "You know, before you came with these meetings I was seriously thinking of giving up the minis try. But now I see that souls can be won."
More Than Seed Sowing
I took my stand for this message after I left the army. I was on fire to win souls. But all through college no one taught me how. I got discouraged and went back to my father's fifteen-thousand-acre cattle ranch in Montana. But the call to the minis try haunted my soul, and after a few months I returned to school. Still no one taught me how to win souls. I went on to the Seminary where the experience was the same. I had the privilege of working in a field school of evangelism with one of our best evangelists. But I never had the opportunity of visiting in homes with him.
For my internship I accepted a call to Montana. They moved me into a dark county where I was to try to raise up a church. I was determined to win souls. Either that or go back to my father's ranch. I hung up a sign on an old building. The going was rough. The weather dropped to 40 degrees below zero. The wind and snow blew. Some nights I had to close the hall door and go home without a meeting because no one showed up. Some people who came asked me Bible questions that I couldn't answer and I would work late into the night searching for the answers and preparing my first series of lectures. There were many trying, lone some moments. My wife wept often. But finally nine souls were ready for baptism. I kept preaching. Soon seventeen more were baptized. We decided we had to have a church. One of the men coming to the meetings donated four lots. We didn't have any money but we did have faith to believe that the Lord wanted the work to go forward. We started to build a church without knowing where the money was coming from, and our faith was rewarded. We did the labor ourselves and dedicated the church debt free with forty-two charter members.
It was a touching experience to return to that little church in Selby, Montana, two summers ago for the first time in ten years. There sitting on the church steps and watering the lawn were dear old Brother and Sister Myers. They had been part of those first nine baptisms. Mrs. Myers had been a Jehovah's Witness and her husband had belonged to the Dunkard Church. They were a part of the joy of bringing in the harvest.
If I had no souls to report at the end of the year I would pack my bags tonight and go back to my father's cattle ranch. To leave the ranch in the first place was not easy. Only the call of God holds me in the ministry. Just this past summer my old father rode with me through the pastures and the herds of cattle and said, "Dale, the ranch is still here for you." Dad is getting older; I am getting older. I am getting impatient. We must reap the harvest now. The servant of the Lord says:
If we have the interest that John Knox had when he pleaded before God for Scotland, we shall have success. He cried, "Give me Scotland, Lord, or I die." And when we take hold of the work and wrestle with God, saying, "I must have souls; I will never give up the struggle," we shall find that God will look upon our efforts with favor. Ibid., p. 294.
