What It Takes To Win A Soul By Charles Spurgeon
What It Takes To Win A Soul?
3 Aspects What Soul Saving Is Not
#1 Not Stealing Members From Other Church
It is instructive to describe what it is not. We do not consider stealing members from existing churches and training them to recite our distinctive Confessions to be soul-winning. We want to bring souls to Christ rather than convert them to our church. The only thing I’ll say about sheep thieves overseas is that they aren’t “brethren” or at least don’t behave like brothers. They must obey their Master or perish. We think it’s a waste of time to build our own house out of the rubble of our neighbors’ palaces. We’d much rather quarry for ourselves.
“What is the Free Church compared with the Christian good of the people of Scotland?” remarked Dr. Chalmers, when told that such and such an endeavor would not benefit the specific interests of the Free Church of Scotland, but would promote the common religion of the nation. What is a church, or all churches together, if they oppose the moral and spiritual welfare of the country, or obstruct the spread of Christ’s kingdom? Not only for the sake of the churches but also because God benefits mankind through them.
There is selfishness in our desire to advance our own party. May grace save us from this evil spirit! The kingdom’s expansion is preferred over a clan’s expansion. To convert a Paedobaptist brother to a Baptist would be a great honor to us. To convert a believer in salvation by free will to salvation by grace would be a great joy to us. But, at the same time, our grand object is not the revision of opinions, but the regeneration of nature.
We want to lead men to Christ, not our own particular Christian viewpoints. We must first gather the sheep to the great Shepherd; then we may secure them for our varied folds. Pharisees should make proselytes; ministers of Christ should beget men unto God.
#2 Not Adding Names To Our Membership
Secondly, we do not consider adding names to our church roll in a haste to demonstrate good growth at the end of the year to be soul-winning. It’s simple to accomplish, and some brethren do that with great skill. But if it’s the end product of a minister’s labor, the outcome is dismal.
If care is not taken, we may do more harm than good at this point. Bringing unconverted people into the church weakens and degrades it, therefore an apparent gain may be a loss.
In fact, statistics may do great benefit provided they are accurate and used properly. However, it is not at all bad for workers to be encouraged by having some account of results placed before them. Not knowing our numerical state is wrong. I would be sad if the habit of adding, subtracting, and calculating the net result were abandoned.
Not always, but strangely frequently, those who oppose the procedure are brethren whom poor reports should shame. “Our church is looking up.” I heard recently, in a report of a church whose preacher was well-known for reducing his flock to nothing. “Everybody knows that the church is on its back, and it cannot do anything else but look up,” he said when questioned about the comment.
A church’s pastors typically claim that numbers are deceptive and that you cannot tabulate the activity of the Spirit and measure a church’s prosperity by figures. In fact, if the figures are honest and all factors are considered, you can calculate with great accuracy that not much is being done. If there is a clear decrease among a growing population, you can calculate that the people’s prayers and the minister’s preaching are not of the most powerful type.
But rushing to join the church is harmful to both the church and the supposed converts. I remember very well several young men, who were of good moral character, and religiously hopeful; but instead of searching their hearts, and aiming at their real conversion, the pastor never gave them any rest till he had persuaded them to make a profession. He thought that they would be under more bonds to holy things if they professed religion, and he felt quite safe in pressing them, for “they were so hopeful.” He imagined that to discourage them by vigilant examination might drive them away, and so, to secure them, he made them hypocrites. These young men are, at the present time, much further off from the Church of God than they would have been if they had been affronted by being kept in their proper places, and warned that they were not converted to God. It is a serious injury to a person to receive him into the number of the faithful unless there is good reason to believe that he is really regenerate.
I’m convinced it is because I’ve observed it. People I know who are the most severe offenders were previously churchgoers who professed faith was encouraged by well-meaning but misguided pressure. Don’t think that increasing the number of baptisms and the size of your church will guarantee soul winning.
“Last night, fourteen souls were under conviction, fifteen were justified, and eight received full sanctification.” No more public boasting, counting of unhatched chicks or displaying of dubious riches. Leave aside the nonsense of certifying in a minute what will take a lifetime of examination. Expect the best, but be calm. Enquiry rooms are fine, but idle boastings offend the Holy Spirit and produce unending evil.
#3 Not About Creating Excitement To Church Goer
Every big movement will be accompanied by excitement. We could wonder if the movement was sincere and effective if it was as calm as a drawing-room Bible reading. You can’t blow up huge rocks or wage a war while everyone is quiet as a mouse. It is natural for friction and stir to occur as a carriage moves down a road on a dry day. So, when the Spirit of God moves and stirs men’s minds, there will be visible indications, but we must never confuse these with the movement itself. If people think the purpose of a carriage rolling is to generate dust, they can take a broom and raise as much dust as fifty coaches, but they will cause more harm than good. But, like dust, excitement is accidental and should not be targeted. The woman swept her house in order to find her money, not to create a cloud.
Do you want sensation and “effect.”? Although tears and outcries may occur, packed after-meetings and confusions of all types may be tolerated as signs of real emotion; pray do not arrange their occurrence.
Converts born in ecstasy frequently perish when the ecstasy ends. They’re like insects born on a hot day and dying at dusk. Some converts live in the fire like salamanders but die at a tolerable temperature. I’m not a fan of religion that causes or produces a hothead. Give me the godliness of Calvary, not Vesuvius. Extreme enthusiasm for Christ is consistent with sound sense and reason; screaming, ranting, and fanaticism result from another devotion. We would prepare men for the communion chamber, not Bedlam’s padded room. Having in mind the whims of certain zealous revivalists, I cannot say less, and I might say much more.
3 Aspects About What It Means To Win Souls For Christ
What is true soul-winning for God? What are the processes by which a soul is led to God and to salvation?
#1 Teach The Truth Of God
I take it that one of its main operations consists in instructing a man that he may know the truth of God. All mental effort begins with gospel instruction. “I am with you always, even to the end of the world,” Jesus said. Teaching starts and ends the task.
“Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live,” says Isaiah. It is ours, then, to give men something worth their hearing; in fact, to instruct them. We are sent to evangelize or to preach the gospel to every creature. That is not done unless we teach them the great truths of revelation.
Preach The Gospel
The gospel is good news. To listen to some preachers, you would imagine that the gospel was a pinch of sacred snuff to make them wake up, or a bottle of ardent spirits to excite their brains. It is nothing of the kind. It is news, there is information in it, there is an instruction in it concerning matters which men need to know, and statements in it calculated to bless those who hear it. It is not a magical incantation, or a charm, whose force consists in a collection of sounds. It is a revelation of facts and truths which require knowledge and belief. The gospel is a reasonable system, and it appeals to men’s understanding. It is a matter for thought and consideration, and it appeals to the conscience and the reflecting powers.
So, if we don’t educate men about anything, we can only yell “Believe! Believe! Believe!” But what are they to believe? Every exhortation needs a corresponding instruction, otherwise, it means nothing. “Escape!” From what? This requires for its answer the doctrine of the punishment of sin. “Fly!” But whither? Then must you preach Christ, and His wounds; yea, and the clear doctrine of atonement by sacrifice. “Repent!” Of what? Here you must answer such questions as What is sin? What is the evil of sin? What are the consequences of sin? “Be converted!” But what is it to be converted? By what power can we be converted? What from? What to? The field of instruction is wide if men are to be made to know the truth which saves. “That the soul is without knowledge, it is not good,” and it is ours as the Lord’s instruments to make men so to know the truth that they may believe it, and feel its power. We are not to try and save men in the dark, but in the power of the Holy Ghost, we are to seek to turn them from darkness to light.
Grace of God
When you go to revival meetings or special evangelistic services, you should bring out the principles of the gospel and emphasize the concepts of grace. In particular, teach gospel principles that apply to today’s situation and God’s grace. Some enthusiasts appear to believe that a preacher should violate his regular theological lectures while speaking to unconverted people because preaching the full counsel of God is expected to result in no conversions. To save souls, we must suppress the truth and offer half-truths, they believe. We must communicate the truth to God’s people. We must entice sinners to faith by emphasizing one aspect of the truth while concealing the rest until a more suitable time. According to them, we can preach election to God’s people, but we must preach universal salvation to the unsaved. We have not so learned about Christ. He who sent us to win souls does not allow us to make up lies or hide the truth. Such dubious tactics are unnecessary.
Don’t Preach Half Truth
“God has blessed half-statements and wild assertions.” others may say. Doubtful. God does not bless lies; He may bless truth mixed with error, but the sermon would have been much more blessed if it had been more in line with His own Word.
I cannot say that the Lord blesses evangelistic Jesuitism, which I call the suppression of truth. Withholding the idea of man’s total depravity has caused severe harm to many people who have listened to certain types of preaching. These people do not receive genuine healing because they are unaware of the sickness they are afflicted with. They are never completely dressed since nothing is done to remove their clothing.
In many ministries, the revelation of man’s separation from God, as well as the confession of the selfishness and depravity of such a situation, are not enough to probe the heart and arouse the conscience. Men must be told that unless divine grace brings them out of their enmity with God, they will perish eternally.
They must be reminded of God’s sovereignty, that He is not obligated to bring them out of this state, that He would be right and just if He left them in this state, that they have no merit to plead before Him, and no claims upon Him, but that if they are to be saved, they must submit to divine grace. The preacher’s job is to help hopeless sinners look up to Him who alone can save them.
Trying to redeem mankind by simple claptrap, excitement, or oratorical show is as stupid as hoping to hold an angel with bird-lime or entice a star with song. The best attraction is the gospel in its purity. The truth, as it is in Jesus, is the weapon with which the Lord conquers men. The gospel is an arrow that can pierce the toughest heart and a balm that can cure the deepest wound. Preach it and nothing else for the rest of your life. Rely on the old, old gospel. You don’t need any other nets to catch men. Your Master’s are powerful enough for the big fishes and fine enough for the tiny ones. Spread these nets only, and you need not dread His Word, “I will make you fishers of men.”
#2 Impress The Hearer
Secondly, to win a soul, it is necessary, not only to instruct our hearer, and make him know the truth but to impress him so that he may feel it.
Emotion To Be Touched
A purely instructional ministry, which should always appeal to the understanding, and should leave the emotions untouched, would certainly be a limping ministry. “The legs of the lame are not equal,” says Solomon; and the unequal legs of some ministries cripple them. We have seen such one limping about with a long doctrinal leg, but a very short emotional leg. Horrible! I despise hearing the Lord’s terrors preached by persons whose hard faces, harsh tones, and cold spirits show theological desiccation that has dried up all human tenderness. The people sit and listen, valuing him for being “sound”, and become sound themselves; and I need not add, sound asleep, or their life is spent sniffing out heresy and accusing sincere persons of a word. Never be baptized into this spirit!
Whatever I think or do not believe, the order to love my neighbor as myself remains binding on me, and God forbid that any ideas or beliefs could so contract my soul and harden my heart as to cause me to forget this commandment of love!
The first commandment is to love God, but this does not negate the second commandment. We seek our neighbor’s conversion because we love him, and we proclaim God’s loving gospel to him because we desire his everlasting good.
A sinner has both a heart and a head, and we must appeal to both. A sinner’s emotions must be aroused to be converted. You can’t expect much from him unless he feels sorrow for sin and delight in receiving the Word.
The Truth must color the soul. The Word must be like a powerful wind rushing through the heart and swaying the whole man, like a summer breeze rippling ripe corn. Religion without feeling is a dead religion.
Don’t Excite With Non-Spiritual Feelings
But, still, we must mind how these emotions are caused. Do not excite the mind with non-spiritual feelings. Some preachers like to include funerals and dying children in their sermons, which makes the congregation cry out of natural sympathy. This may lead to greater things, but what good is it? What good is it to expose a mother’s or widow’s grief? Nobody should have to re-dig graves and relive past scenes of sorrow and misery because our gracious Lord has sent us. Why should He? You can use the deathbed of a leaving Christian or a departing sinner to illustrate the rest of faith or the dread of conscience, but the benefit must come from the truth shown, not the example itself. Natural sadness is useless. In fact, we see it as a diversion from higher ideas, and as a price too high to extract from delicate hearts unless we can compensate for them by grafting enduring spiritual impressions upon the stock of natural attachment.
It was a superb oration full of emotion, one observes. But what does this pathos mean in practice? “Were you not struck to see such a large congregation weeping?” said a young preacher. “Yes,” his wise friend agreed, “but I was more struck with the reflection that they would probably have wept more at a play.” True, and the sobbing in both situations may be worthless. But when I looked at the book, I noticed it was one of those stupid yellow-covered novels that fill our train bookstalls. Her tears, like those caused by simple pulpit tale-telling and death-bed painting, were a waste of moisture.
If our hearers grieve over their sins, let them weep in rivers after Jesus. But if their sorrow is natural, and not spiritual, what good does it do to make them weep? There is some merit in making people happy, as there is enough sadness in the world, but what is the use of causing unnecessary misery? What right do you have to poke everyone with your lancet merely to show off your surgical skills? A smart preacher merely stirs up unpleasant feelings in people’s thoughts to bless their souls. We must keep hammering at men’s hearts until they break; then we must keep preaching Christ crucified until their hearts are bound; and finally, we must keep preaching the gospel until their whole nature is subordinated to the gospel of Christ. The need for the Holy Ghost to operate with and through you will be made clearer as we proceed to the new birth, in which the Holy Spirit acts in a divine style and way.
#3 Regeneration By Holy Spirit
Born Again From Above
I have already insisted upon instruction and impression as most needful to soul-winning, but these are not all,—they are, indeed, only means to the desired end. A far greater work must be done before a man is saved. A wonder of divine grace must be wrought upon the soul, far transcending anything which can be accomplished by the power of man. It is true, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The Holy Ghost must work regeneration in the objects of our love, or they never can become possessors of eternal happiness. They must be quickened into a new life, and they must become new creatures in Christ Jesus. The same force that brings about resurrection and creation must focus all of its attention on them; nothing less will suffice. They must be born again from above.
God Operates Through Methods
At first glance, this appears to rule out human instrumentality entirely; a careful examination of the Scriptures reveals nothing to support such a conclusion and much to the contrary. We certainly find the Lord to be all-in-all there, but there is no sign that the employment of methods is thus unnecessary. Because the Lord operates via methods, His absolute majesty and might are magnified. He is so great that He is not hesitant to honor the instruments He uses by speaking highly of them and imputing enormous power to them. That infallible Word, which constantly balances truth while magnifying the Holy Ghost, does not speak lightly of the persons by whom He operates. God does not believe that His own honor is in jeopardy to where it can only be preserved by condemning the human actor. Two passages in the Epistles have always astonished me when combined.
Paul compares himself both to a father and to a mother in the matter of the new birth: he says of one convert, “Whom I have begotten in my bonds,” and of a whole church he says, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” This is going very far; indeed, much further than modern orthodoxy would permit the most useful minister to venture, and yet it is language sanctioned, yea, dictated, by the Spirit of God Himself; and therefore it is not to be criticized. Such mysterious power doth God infuse into the instrumentality which He ordains that we are called “laborers together with God”; and this is at once the source of our responsibility and the ground of our hope.
4 Incidents about Failures In Soul-winning
During our ministry, we will encounter many failures in soul-winning. I’ve believed I’d trapped several birds, even salted their tails, but they’ve escaped.
#1 Fake Convert
I recall one individual, Tom Careless. He was the dread of the village he lived in. Many incendiary fires were blamed on him in the region. He would become drunk for two or three weeks at a period, then scream and rant like a lunatic. He came to hear me; I remember the feeling in the small church as he entered. He sat there and fell in love with me; I believe it was his sole conversion, although he claimed to have been converted. He had, evidently, truly repented, had given up drinking and swearing, and was an excellent guy. I recall seeing him towing a barge with probably a hundred people on board to a location where I was about to preach, and he was gloating in the labor, singing as cheerfully and happily as any of them. If anybody talked against the Lord or His servant, he was quickly struck down. Before I left the region, I was concerned he had little work of grace in him; he looked like a savage Red Indian. I’ve heard he eats uncooked birds in the field. This is not a Christian man’s conduct, nor is it one thing that is attractive and well-known. In fact, he grew worse than before, if that is possible; he was unreachable by any means. That effort of mine didn’t hold up to the test of time; it couldn’t even withstand ordinary temptation after the person who had influenced the man had gone.
When you leave the hamlet or town where you were preaching, it’s highly probable that some people who did well will return. When you go, the dog will return to his vomit, and the cleaned sow will return to her wallowing in the muck. Do not rush to count these alleged converts; do not rush to welcome them into the church; do not be too proud of their excitement if it is not accompanied by a softening and gentleness that shows the Holy Spirit has truly worked inside them.
#2 Lack Mental Furnishings
I recall a different case. I’ll call her Miss Mary Shallow because she lived with many Christian young ladies and professed to be converted. When I spoke with her, she seemed to have everything. I considered asking her to church but gave her a chance first. She left the town where she lived and went to a place where she had no friends, and I never heard of her save that she spent her time dressing up and going to gay clubs. She represents individuals who lack mental furnishings, and if God’s mercy does not fill the void, they quickly return to the world.
#3 Acting Religiously
I’ve met a few like Charlie Clever, unusually clever in everything, especially at counterfeiting religion when they took up with it. They prayed fluently, attempted to preach effectively, and did everything off-hand, as simple as kissing their hands. Do not rush to let such people into the church; they have never tasted sinful shame, heartbreak, or heavenly grace. “All serene!” they exclaim, and they disappear, never to be seen again. They will speak in the language of God’s people and His saints, and they will have a meaningful experience in five minutes. Keep them out of the church if you can. They’re too intelligent and will cause havoc if allowed in.
#4 Hypocrite
I recall one saintly speaker, John Fairspeech. Oh! How cunningly he could act the hypocrite, getting among our young men, and leading them into all manner of sin and iniquity, and yet he would call and see me, and have 30 minutes spiritual conversation! An awful creature who was attempting to enter the Lord’s table, join our groups and lead every good effort. Keep an eye on the weather! And they’ll come to you with money in their hands, like Peter’s fish with silver in its mouth! They are gentlemen and talk gently! Yes, I believe Judas was exactly that sort of man, extremely good at misleading others. We must be careful not to let any of these inside the church if we can.
Win Soul With Discernment
“Here is a splendid haul of fish!” you may think at the end of a service. Wait. “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.” said our Lord.
Don’t count your fish or convert until you’ve tested and tried them. This may delay your job, but it will be sure.
Do your work steadily and well, so that those who come after you may not have to say that it was far more trouble to them to clear the church of those who ought never to have been admitted than it was to you to admit them.
You can put three thousand bricks into God’s spiritual temple in one day if God allows you to, but so far, only Peter has done so.
Don’t paint the wooden wall like a stone; make whatever you construct genuine, substantial, and authentic because only this sort of labor is worth performing.
Let all your God-building be like Paul’s “As a wise master builder, I have built the foundation, and another builds on it. But be careful how you build atop it. No other foundation can be established except Jesus Christ’s.
Every man’s work will be made plain because the day will announce it since it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test every man’s work to see what it is. If a man’s labor lasts, he will be rewarded. If a man’s work is destroyed, he loses but is saved by fire.”
This article is an edited version of the article “What is it to win soul” from Charles Spurgeon’s book “The Soul Winner”. Check out our related posts for more information on this topic, or get a copy of the book from Amazon.
