FISHING VERSUS WINNING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 26, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 21.

FISHING VERSUS WINNING.

John G. Woolley does not believe that the words of Jesus, “I will make you fishers of men,” refer to anything more than change of employment, not to methods; and he is right. The Lord by that did not mean that man should use fisherman’s methods, but rather that they should seek to save men; and yet political workers in the church use the expression to justify unchristian methods. Here is a part of what Mr. Woolley says in the Voice: we do not believe in his seeming hope in politics, but he utters a lot of Gospel truth:—

Nothing could be more insidiously demoralizing to a Christian disciple than to think of “the work of God” as fishing and of himself as a fisherman. For if a man adopts an occupation or a name, as fairly descriptive of his work, or of himself, he will inevitably—however innocently or unconsciously—conform more or less to its associated characteristics.

It is impossible to think seriously of the parable of the good fisherman. “The shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” But not the fisherman, not he! His fundamental idea is to take the fish’s life for the fisherman.

The shepherd knoweth his sheep. Not so the fisherman. He banks on “luck,” and “all’s fish that comes to his net.”

The sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and follow him. Not so the fisherman. His art is to deceive the fish and haul him out to certain death, and string him, and take him home to fry.

And, above all, “the sin which doth so easily beset” a fisher of fish is lying about what he has caught. There is something about the business that makes a man oblivious to weights and measures.

And I reckon that not a little of the present terrible and terribly just reproach of the church is due to the process, long continued, of adjusting the traits and the language of a superstitious, selfish, cruel, demoralizing sport to the ministry of souls.

Of course I do not intend to disparage the work of fishermen in general. It is for the most part honorable, useful, necessary; but at its best is antipodal to the work of “winning souls.”

In the one case, you “slip up” and throw in your baited hook, or push out and “cast the net.” In the other, you simply lift up Christ and trust Him to draw all men unto Him.

I believe thoroughly in evangelistic effort, but my hope is in the Word of God, and not “the net.” Souls of men can not be taken with a net. We have tried that and have “had luck,” such as it was. But the effect upon us has been bad. We have had our imagination excited; we have lost the habit of discrimination; we have grown ambitious for quantity rather than quality; we have filled the church with unprofitable and unusable material, until she sinks, and will go to the bottom unless we heave the bulk of her cargo overboard—back into the sea.

We have fished with a vengeance! and just look at our fish!—sunfish, weakfish, bluefish, codfish, dogfish, devilfish, eels, suckers, bloaters, flounders, wall-eyed pike, bullheads. And on election day, the only time in the year when every fish counts, we never land, but “lie to” and pray God to save all the fish in the sea, while our own cargo rots under our noses.

That will look bad in print, I know, but I shall be acquitted by those who take the trouble to think about it. We have filled the church with the bodies of men whose souls are not saved or even bettered by their church-membership. And they would be better men if they were back in the world, soul and body together—and the church would be better. And a wilfully unclean Christian professor is a spoiled fish—as certainly as a pickerel long dead upon the sand.

Let us stop fishing and “preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.” This country—this world—has got to be saved, and it will be, but a church that votes for homicide—“and prosperity”—every four years will never save it.

I do not mean to belittle the crisis of last November. I do not mean to denounce all men who voted against Jesus then. To their own Maker they must stand or fall. I know how hard it is to face sure defeat and vote upon the losing side. I know it will cost to cleanse the church, and that while we do it the wicked will flourish like a bay tree, and sin run rampant worse than ever in some places. But if we really want to win souls, let us look straight into God’s face, and say with him of old in like perplexity, “O our God, wilt Thou not judge them! for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon Thee.”