He That Winneth Souls Is Wise

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise. PROVERBS 11:30

Finney believed that every Christian is called to win souls, and that it is a skill to be learned. Three of his Lectures on Revivals — Means to be Used with Sinners, To Win Souls Requires Wisdom and A Wise Minister will be Successful — form a small handbook on the subject. “It is the great business on earth of every Christian, to save souls,” he wrote. And because it is a business, it can be done well or badly, wisely or foolishly. Much of what he said is timeless counsel. Some of it needs a careful second look.

Ye are my witnesses

Finney started not with technique but with life. His text for the first of these lectures was God’s word through Isaiah: Ye are my witnesses. Christians, he said, are to testify to certain great truths: the immortality of the soul, the emptiness of worldly things, the satisfying fulness of Christ, the guilt and danger of sinners, the love of Christ, the necessity of holiness and self-denial. And they are to testify chiefly by how they live.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen. ISAIAH 43:10

This was blunt. If you live as if this world were everything, he said, your words about eternity will be disbelieved. If you are irritable, your talk of Christ’s meekness will be laughed at. If you cut corners in business, you testify that religion makes no difference. The carelessness of sinners, Finney concluded, is not surprising when the church’s daily testimony so often contradicts its creed. Every Christian makes an impression, for one side or the other, all day long.

Speaking to the careless

In the second lecture Finney turned to what we would call personal evangelism, and here he was at his most practical. With careless sinners, he said, choose your time. Speak to a man when he is not absorbed in business or roused by some other excitement. Make sure he is sober. Take him when he is in a good temper. Speak to him alone, not in front of others, because most people are too proud to be spoken to freely in company. Use the openings providence gives. Do not put it off. And if you feel a particular concern for someone, act on it while it lasts.

Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. COLOSSIANS 4:6

As for manner: be kind, so that he sees you speak because you love his soul. Be solemn, not flippant. Be respectful; there is no virtue in being coarse. Be plain, and do not hide his real condition from him. Address his conscience, not just his feelings. Keep to the great truths, and do not be drawn into side arguments about denominations. Be patient with real difficulties, but do not argue with mere cavils. Guard your temper. Bring up his particular sins, not sin in general. Be brief. And pray with him before you leave.

The awakened and the convicted

Finney distinguished between people who are merely awakened, stirred a little by the subject of religion, and those who are truly convicted, who see their guilt before God’s law. The awakened need to have the truth pressed further; the convicted need to be led straight to Christ. With the convicted, he said, there is usually some particular point on which the person is resisting God. Find it, and press there. Do not make any compromise on it, and do not divert his attention elsewhere, or you may destroy his convictions.

Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. JAMES 5:19–20

He was fierce with Christians who let an awakened relative live under their roof for weeks without saying a word, on the pretext that the Spirit had begun the work and would finish it.

The wise minister

The third lecture turned to ministers. A right discharge of the ministry, Finney said, requires great wisdom: to wake up the church, set it to work and keep it there; to understand the gospel and divide it rightly; to reach different kinds of hearers; to drive sinners out of their refuges of lies without giving them new ones; to know what measures to use, and when to stop using them. He had hard words for theological education that shut young men up with books and away from ordinary people, and he insisted that a minister who wins souls is well educated in the sense that matters, whatever his Latin.

And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. JOHN 4:36

Where care is needed

It is in this third lecture that Finney’s method shows its weakness most clearly. He argued that the amount of a minister’s success in winning souls, other things being equal, decides the amount of wisdom he has used. He went further: the success of any measure demonstrates its wisdom, with a few exceptions, and when blessing follows a measure the proof is unanswerable.

That is a dangerous rule. Scripture does not measure faithfulness by visible results. Noah preached righteousness for many years and saw his own family saved. Jeremiah was faithful and was thrown into a pit. The Lord Jesus, at the end of His earthly ministry, was abandoned by nearly all. And some who drew great crowds and counted many converts were later shown to have built with wood, hay and stubble.

Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 1 CORINTHIANS 4:2

Finney added his own exceptions, and they are telling. A measure may produce excitement and later look like a mere trick. A revival may be credited to a measure when in fact the prayers of Christians and the preaching of the truth were doing the work, and the measure was a hindrance. Those exceptions swallow much of the rule. Visible success is a poor guide to wisdom unless it is tested over years by the lives of the converts.

There is also a danger in the whole idea of evangelism as a skill that can be mastered. Finney was right that we should learn to speak well. But the wisest words fail without the Spirit, and the clumsiest witness is sometimes greatly used. Paul, who planned his ministry carefully, also said that he came not with excellency of speech, lest faith should stand in the wisdom of men.

Learn, and depend

The balance is to take Finney’s counsel seriously and hold it humbly. Learn how to speak to people about Christ. Choose the time; be kind, plain, patient and brief; pray with them. Live so that your words are believed. And then leave the results to God, who alone gives the increase, and who will judge your faithfulness, not your numbers.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask what your daily life is testifying to about eternity, Christ and sin. What would a watching neighbour conclude?

2. Think of one person you know who does not know Christ. Pray for them, and look for a good time — alone, unhurried — to speak with them.

3. When you speak, try Finney’s rules: kind, solemn, respectful, plain, brief, and ending in prayer.

4. If you lead or preach, ask whether you are measuring your ministry by numbers rather than faithfulness.

5. Read Lecture X, To Win Souls Requires Wisdom, in the Ochorus library, and note three counsels to practise.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You came to seek and to save the lost, and You have made me Your witness. Forgive me for the times my life has spoken against my words.

Give me wisdom to know when and how to speak, and love that makes my words believable.

Keep me from measuring Your work by what I can count. Make me faithful, and give the increase as You will.

And use me, clumsy as I am, to win someone for You. Amen.