WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN A SOUL?
By A. C. Dixon
IT is certainly more than inducing a person to unite with the church. . . . The real convert has become a partaker of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4. He has been "born from above." John 3:3. There will be conviction of sin. Sinai must strike with its lightning before Calvary will glow with its light. . . . The patient must realize that he is sick before he will take the physician's medicine. Every one must see his guilt before he will cry for pardon. Unless there is real penitence, there will not be perseverance. Be greatly encouraged, therefore, in trying to win a soul to Christ when you find that he is burdened with a sense of guilt. Do not try easily to dispel it. I heard of a dilettanti preacher delivering a sermon on the new birth. After the sermon, a man came up and said that he was greatly troubled, for he was certain that he had not been born again. "O," said the preacher, "I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. I did not so intend it." "But," said the anxious inquirer, "I have not been born again, and you said that one must be." "Do not be troubled about that," continued the preacher, "do your duty, be honest and upright as you have been, and you will be all right." Now that preacher was guilty of murder. Not the murder of the body, but, what is infinitely worse, the murder of the soul. Why did he not point to the Lamb of God and thus let the burdened heart find rest by believing in Him who bore the guilt and washes away the stain of sin? Trouble on account of sin, however, is not enough. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." John 1:12. There must be acceptance of Jesus Christ. Even turning from sin is not sufficient. God did not tell the bitten Israelites simply to look away from the bite of the serpent, but to look to the serpent of brass uplifted in the camp. Reformation is simply turning from sin; regeneration is turning from sin to Christ. Not to reform is to remain deformed; to be born again by faith in the uplifted Jesus is to take into our hearts the life that will sooner or later make us absolutely like Him. When a man confesses that he has sinned, and is sorry for it, and tells you that he has accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour, you may then rejoice that you have won a soul for heaven.—A. C. Dixon.