The World’s Need

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. MATTHEW 9:36

If aggressive Christianity was Catherine Booth’s method, the love of God for the lost was its engine. She said it herself, in the address printed as The World’s Need: “Real Christianity is, in its very nature and essence, aggressive.” She did not mean that Christians are by nature combative. She meant that God never gives His light and grace to anyone without holding them responsible for passing it on. Every talent in the parables is given for the good of others. A Christianity that keeps its light to itself is not a quieter kind of Christianity. It is a contradiction.

Called three ways

She set out the call to work for souls under several heads, and they are worth following. We are called, first, by the Word — not only by the direct commands, but by the whole tenor of the New Testament. And the call, she said, is sobering, because “Jesus Christ has nobody else to represent Him here but us Christians.” The people of the world who are in darkness have no one else to show them the way.

We are called, secondly, by the Spirit. Here she made one of her most perceptive observations. “The very first aspiration … of a newly-born soul is after some other soul,” she said. Ask any real convert what they did after they were saved, and they will tell you they could not sleep until they had written to a brother, or spoken to a friend. And the same longing is often the last thing to leave a dying saint, whose final prayer is not for money or family comfort but for some prodigal still outside. If Christians obeyed that prompting all their lives, she thought, it would never die. It dies because it is disobeyed. Backsliding, she found, very often began exactly there: in the small refusals to speak when the Spirit said speak.

The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. PSALM 69:9

Her counsel was blunt. Never mind the consequences; obey. Never mind if it chokes you. “I had better die in obedience than live in disobedience.”

What He has done for us

We are called, thirdly, by what Christ has done for us, and here she told a story she had read somewhere. A nobleman, a backslider, stopped at a country inn and found over the mantelpiece a painting of the crucifixion, with words beneath it: “I suffered this for thee — what hast thou done for Me?” He went out to the stables to shake off the question and could not. At last it brought him to his knees. She turned the question on her hearers, especially the several hundred who had come forward in her meetings to give themselves afresh to Christ. What was it going to come to? Would it evaporate in sighs and wishes?

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. LUKE 19:10

The worth of a soul

And we are called, lastly, by the wants of the world. Here her language rose. She marvelled that Christ shed His blood for every human soul, and that beneath all the vileness and ruin of the fall He saw a being made in God’s image and capable of eternal glory, and gave Himself for it. There was not one soul, she said, so mean or vile or base that it could not be rescued. She had no patience with anyone who talked lightly of whole generations being lost.

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? MATTHEW 16:26

When people came to her with fastidious objections to the Army’s methods, she said, her answer was always the same: “My friend, all I know is — souls are dying, dying.” If your own homes were being emptied by cholera, you would not be particular about the roughness of the measures used to stop it.

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 JOHN 2:2

Begin at home

She was practical about where to begin. Begin nearest home, she said; she had little faith in those who went abroad after others while their own were perishing at their firesides. “Begin at home, but do not end there.” And begin as you are. Never mind how you tremble; your trembling may do more good than bravery. Never mind the tears. “I wish Christians would weep the Gospel into people,” she said. Speak naturally, as you would to a friend about his health or his debts. Go to the closet until you are filled with the Spirit, and then go and let it out on people. She quoted Finney’s phrase for the same thing: letting his heart out on the people.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 PETER 3:9

Weighing it

Two things should be said. First, her insistence that Christ died for every soul, and her impatience with those who seemed to limit His mercy, reflect the Wesleyan tradition she belonged to, and some of her remarks were aimed at Calvinists. Christians still differ over how to state the extent of the atonement. But on the point that mattered most to her — that the gospel is to be freely offered to every creature, and that no one is beyond the reach of grace — the great traditions of the church have agreed with her.

Second, the language of responsibility can crush. A tender conscience that hears that souls are lost for want of its witness may be driven not to love but to anxious, exhausting guilt. She herself knew the answer. She reminded her hearers that they were only the instruments God had chosen, and that He would give the strength to push the plough if they would put their hand to it. The salvation of the world does not rest on our shoulders. But He has chosen to use our hands.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Recall the first longings you had after your conversion for someone else to know Christ. Are they still alive? If not, when did you first disobey them?

2. Take her nobleman’s question personally: He suffered this for you; what have you done for Him? Answer it honestly, without excuses.

3. Choose one person near home and one beyond your usual circle, and begin to pray for them daily and look for a way to speak.

4. The next time the Spirit prompts you to speak or write to someone about their soul, obey at once, even if it chokes you.

5. If you are weighed down by guilt about the lost, bring that burden to Christ. Ask Him to replace anxiety with love.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You saw the crowds and were moved with compassion. I see them and am moved to look away.

You suffered all this for me. What have I done for You? Forgive the years of silence and the promptings I refused.

Give me Your estimate of the worth of a soul. Let me see beneath the ruin the image You died to restore.

Begin with me at home, and do not let me end there. Send me to someone this week, and go with me. Amen.