The Qualifications for Soul
Winning
1. Shake off the vipers that are in the Church, formalism, pride,
and self-importance, etc.
2. It is the only happy life to live for the salvation of souls.
3. We must be willing to do little things for Christ.
4. Must be of good courage.
5. Must be cheerful.
God had no children too weak, but a great many too strong to
make use of. God stands in no need of our strength or wisdom,
but of our ignorance, of our weakness; let us but give these to
Him, and He can make use of us in winning souls.
"And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the
stars for ever and ever." Daniel 12:3.
Now we all want to shine; the mother wishes it for her boy,
when she sends him to school, the father for his lad, when he
goes off to college; and here God tells us who are to shine -
not statesmen, or warriors, or such like, that shine but for a
season - but such as will shine for ever and ever; those,
namely, who win souls to Christ; the little boy even who
persuades one to come to Christ.
Speaking of this, Paul counts up five things (1 Cor. 1:27-9) that
God makes use of - the weak things, the foolish things, the
base things, the despised things, and the things which are not,
and for this purpose, that no flesh might glory in his sight - all
five being just such as we should despise. He can and will use
us, just when we are willing to be humble for Christ's sake, and
so for six thousand years God has been teaching men; so with
an ass's jawbone Samson slew his thousands (Judges 15:15), so
at the blowing of rams' horns the walls of Jericho fell (Joshua
6:20). Let God work in His own way, and with His own
instruments; let us all rejoice that He should, and let us too
get into the position in which God can use us.
There is much mourning to-day over false "isms," infidelity, and
the like, but sum them all up, and I do not fear them one half
so much as that dead and cold formalism that has crept into
the Church of God. The unbelieving world, and these skeptics
holding out their false lights, are watching you and me: when
Jacob put away his idols, he could go up to Bethel and get
strength and the blessing - so will it be with the Church of
God. A viper fixes upon the hand of the shipwrecked Paul;
immediately he is judged by the barbarians some criminal unfit
to live; but he shakes it off into the fire, and suffers no harm,
and now they are ready to worship him, and ready too to hear
and receive his message: the Church of God must shake off the
vipers that have fastened on hand and heart too, ere men will
hear. Where one ungodly man reads this Bible, a hundred read you
and me: and if they find nothing in us, they set the whole thing
aside as a myth.
Again, a man who has found out what his true work is, winning
souls to Christ, and does it, such is the happiest man. Not the
richest are this - least of all those who have just got
converted for themselves, and into the Church - lost what
pleasure the world could give, and found none other. Job's
captivity turned away when he began praying for his friends;
and so will all who thus work for others shine not in heaven
alone and hereafter, but here as well, and now.
But you say "I haven't got the ability." Well, God doesn't call
you to do Dr. Bonar's work, or Dr. Duff's work, else He had
given you their ability, their talent. The word is, "To every man
his work." I have a work to do, laid out for me in the secret
counsels of eternity; no other can do it. If I neglect it, it is
not true that some other will do it; it will remain undone. And
if, for the work laid upon us, we feel we have not the ability or
talent necessary, then we have a throne of grace; and God
never sends, unless that He is willing to give the strength and
wisdom. The instruments He often uses may seem all unlikely,
yet when did they fail? - when once? and why not? Because He
had fitted them out as well.
He sent Moses to Egypt to deliver His people - not an eloquent,
but a stuttering man. He refuses a while, at last he went; and
no man once sent by God ever did break down.
So was Elisha a most unlikely man to be a successor to the
great prophet Elijah. Men would have chosen some famous man,
some professor in the school of the prophets. God took one
from the plough; but He gave him what was needed. Elisha had
but to keep by his master to the end; and he received even a
double portion of the Spirit. And if we want to get it, we too
must keep by the Lord, nor ever lose sight of Him, should He,
as Elijah Elisha, in one way or another try our faith.
And further, we must be ready to do little things for God; many
are willing to do the great things. I dare say hundreds would
have been ready to occupy this pulpit to-day. How many of
them would be as willing to teach a dirty class in the ragged
school?
I remember, one afternoon I was preaching, observing a young
lady from the house I was staying at, in the audience. I had
heard she taught in the Sabbath-school, which I knew was at
the same hour; and so I asked her, after service, how she came
to be there? "Oh," said she, "my class is but five little boys,
and I thought it did not matter for them." And yet among
these there might have been, who knows, a Luther or a Knox,
the beginning of a stream of blessing, that would have gone on
widening and ever widening; and besides, one soul is worth all
the kingdoms of the earth.
Away in America, a young lady was sent to a boarding-school,
and was there led to Christ; not only so, but taught that she
ought to work for Him, By-and-by she goes home, and now she
seeks, in one way and another, to work for Him, but without
finding how. She asks for a class in her church Sunday-school,
but the superintendent is obliged to tell her that he has already
more than enough of teachers. One day, going along the street,
she sees a little boy struck by his companion, and crying
bitterly. She goes up and speaks to him; asks him what the
trouble is? The boy thinks she is mocking him, and replies
sullenly. She speaks kindly, tries to persuade him to school. He
does not want to learn. She coaxes him to come and hear her
and the rest singing there; and so next Sunday he comes with
her. She gets a corner in the school of well-dressed scholars
for herself and her charge. He sits and listens, full of wonder.
On going home, he tells his mother he has been among the
angels. At first at a loss, she becomes angry, when a question
or two brings out that he has been to a Protestant Sunday-
school; and the father, on coming home, forbids his going back,
on pain of flogging. Next Sunday, however, he goes, and is
flogged, and so again, and yet again, till one Sunday, he begs to
be flogged before going, that he may not be kept thinking of it
all the time. The father relents a little, and promises him a
holiday every Saturday afternoon, if he will not go to Sunday-
school. The lad agrees, sees his teacher, who offers to teach
him then. How many wealthy young folks would give up their
Saturdays to train one poor ragged urchin in the way of
salvation? Some time after, at his work, the lad is on one of
the railway cars. The train starts suddenly; he slips through,
and the wheels pass over his legs; he asks the doctor if he will
live to get home; it is impossible. "Then," says he, "tell father
and mother that I am going to heaven, and want to meet them
there." Will the work she did seem little now to the young lady?
Or is it nothing that even one thus grateful waits her yonder?
Another thing we want is, to be of good courage. Three or four
times this comes out in the first chapter of Joshua; and I have
observed that God never uses a man that is always looking on
the dark side of things: what we do for Him let us do
cheerfully, not because it is our duty - not that we should
sweep away the word but because it is our privilege. What
would my wife or children say if I spoke of loving them because
it was my duty to do so? And my mother - if I go to see her
once a year, and were to say - "Mother, I am come all this way
to discharge what feel to be my duty in visiting you;" might she
not rightly reply - "My son, if this is all that has brought you,
you might have spared coming at all!" and go own in broken-
hearted sorrow to the grave?
A London minister, a friend of mine, lately pointed out a family
of seven, all of whom he was just receiving into the Church.
Their story was this: going to church, he had to pass by a
window, looking up at which one day, he saw a baby looking out;
he smiled - the baby smiled again. Next time he passes he looks
up again, smiles, and the baby smiles back. A third time going
by, he looks up, and seeing the baby, throws it a kiss - which
the baby returns to him. Time after time he has to pass the
window, and now cannot refrain from looking up each time: and
each time there are more faces to receive his smiling greeting;
till by-and-by he sees the whole family grouped at the window
- father, mother, and all. The father conjectures the happy,
smiling stranger must be a minister, and so, next Sunday
morning, after they have received at the window the usual
greeting, two of the children, ready dressed, are sent out to
follow him: they enter his church, hear him preach, and carry
back to their parents the report that they never heard such
preaching; and what preaching could equal that of one who had
so smiled on them? Soon the rest come to the church too, and
are brought in - all by a smile. Let us not go about, hanging our
heads like a bulrush; if Christ gives joy, let us live it! The
whole world is in all matters for the very best thing - you
always want to get the best possible thing for your money; let
us show, then, that our religion is the very best thing: men
with long, gloomy faces are never wise in the winning of souls.
I was preaching in Jacksonville, and, at the house in which I
stayed, my attention was attracted by a little boy, who bore a
different name from the household, and yet was in all things
and in all respects treated as one of themselves; to the other
children he was "brother," and they were "brothers" and
"sisters" to him, and with them he came up to the mother for
the same good-night kiss.
By-and-by I asked the lady of the house who it was. She told
me the father of the boy was a missionary out in India; some
years before, father and mother had come home with their five
children to have them educated. After being home a short time,
the father resolved to return to India; wishing to leave the
mother with the children till their education should be finished.
She wanted to go back with him; he opposed to it, saying it
was hard enough for him to leave them, for her it must be
impossible. Still she wished to go, - she had received and been
some blessing in India, and she would give up even all for Christ.
Ultimately it was arranged that the children should be received
into various families, - treated as part of them, - and that
father and mother together should return. So with the boy the
mother came to this friend's and stayed a few days along with
him. The night before she had leave, sitting with the lady of the
house, she told her how anxious she was that her boy should
receive the impression that his mother had for Christ's sake
cheerfully left him behind, and that for this end she wished to
leave him without a tear at parting. The struggle this would
cost the lady well knew, especially as the boy was of a
peculiarly amiable disposition.
Next morning, passing the door of the mother's room, the lady
overheard a sobbing, struggling prayer for strength to do what
was on her heart to do. In a short time the mother came down
with smiling, cheerful face; and looking so, she took leave of
her boy, to go by rail some miles further on to bid a like
farewell to another of her family. She went with her husband to
India.
A short year after, a still, quiet voice came to her, to come up
to meet her Saviour. And would not a welcome await her there,
who had so loved Him here, and so cheerfully served Him?
"They that be wise shall shine, as the brightness of the
firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the
stars for ever and ever." (Daniel 12:3). The Lord help us as
humbly, devoutly, and cheerfully to abound in His work!

nice and revealing ....soul winning is the ultimate duty for all saved believers,.


am not surprised this is coming from DL moody...as I heard from one "ADE" he has many decorated stars on his garment than anyone else in heaven alongside John welsly