SKILL IN SOUL-SAVING

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1862

SKILL IN SOUL-SAVING.

A PROUD, passionate sinner, once moved into the neighborhood of a devoted minister, and began a career of sin which grieved the good and increased the corruption of the wicked. His avowed purpose to insult any clergyman who should presume to address him, kept the minister from calling on him at once, but did not prevent him from prayerfully watching for an opportunity.

This came sooner than he expected. The blaspheming sinner was struck down by severe sickness.

“I will see him,” said the minister.

“If you do he will insult you,” said the friend who had informed him of the man’s sickness.

“I will see him, nevertheless, and look to God for guidance and blessing,” replied the minister.

Accordingly, he called and was shown into a parlor, where he found the sick man lying on an old sofa. With great kindness he asked after his health, and received curt, almost uncivil replies. Then, without saying one word of his own respecting religion, he opened his Bible and said:

“If you please, I will read to you.”

Without waiting for a reply, he proceeded to read the words of Jesus in the fifteenth chapter of Luke, after which he offered a short, simple prayer, bade the man farewell and left.

The next day he called again, read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, prayed and left as before. This was repeated several days. Kindness, appropriate selections from the Word of God, prayer, in which the minister carefully classed himself with the sick man as needing mercy, and secret prayer for God’s blessing, were the only weapons employed. Now mark the result!

After two weeks the sick man broke down, grasped the minister’s hands, wept, confessed himself a sinner, and said he was a wonder to himself.

“It is of God,” replied the minister; “I have not spoken a word. God has spoken. He has done this.”

“Yes,” said the man, “I see it now. If you had spoken a single word of your own to me when you first came or for some time after, I would not have borne it. Weak as I was, I should have tried to turn you out of my house. I was astonished at your daring to come to me. You took me by surprise. I could not be angry when you asked with such kind voice after my health. You read me those beautiful words. I knew they were not your own words, but God’s own words, and I was silent. You shut the book, and I thought you would begin to reproach me, and tell me what a sinful wretch I was, and then would be my time to speak; but I looked up and saw you on your knees, and heard you praying for me, and then, without another word, you were gone.”

It is enough to add that this Anakin among sinners was soon after converted, and after a few weeks of beautiful devotedness to Jesus, passed through the gates of the grave, crying victory through the blood of the Lamb.

That this sinner was pulled out of the burning by the skill as well as by the fidelity of the minister, is placed beyond all doubt by the testimony of the man himself. Faithfulness alone would not have succeeded, but faithfulness joined to skill did the work. Let the worker for souls study this fact carefully, as illustrating the philosophy of soul-saving. Perhaps it may give him light on the cause of his own lack of success. He has, it may be a desire to do good; he labors with sinners patiently—he utters truth in their ears, he depends on the Spirit for success, but he has no evidence of his success. Why? He lacks skill, tact, wisdom. He is not wise to win souls. He needs to study human nature more closely. Give him skill in addition to his present qualities, and he would “slay his thousands” for the Lord.

Look well to this point, dear fellow-laborer for Christ, and may the Holy Ghost make you “wise to win souls!”