He That Winneth Souls

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

Spurgeon measured his ministry by one standard, and it was not the size of his congregation or the sales of his sermons. It was the number of people brought to Christ. He wanted the same standard applied to every Christian. Winning souls was not, in his view, the specialist task of preachers and missionaries. It was the business of the whole church, and of every believer in it.

The one great aim

In a reading for an evening in December, in the collection now published as Evening by Evening, Spurgeon reflects on Paul’s words, that I might by all means save some. He notes that Paul did not set out to educate the lost or to refine them, but to save them. He saw men sinking and did not talk of improving their manners. Saving souls was his consuming passion, his ambition and his calling. Then Spurgeon turns to the reader. Have we lived to win souls at that rate? If not, why not? “Jesus died for sinners, cannot we live for them?”

I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 1 CORINTHIANS 9:22

He warns in the same passage that Christian work can drift towards lesser aims. A church can teach people, entertain them, reform their habits and improve their circumstances, and never bring one of them to Christ. All of that has value; much of it Spurgeon himself did. But of what use will it be at the last day, he asks, to have taught and moralised people if they stand before God unsaved?

Heaven and hell are in earnest

His motives were not complicated. He believed that people without Christ were lost, that judgement was real, and that the gospel was their only hope. In another evening reading, on the words In the evening withhold not thy hand, he urges himself and his readers to spend the spare hours of the day telling others about Jesus. Jesus gave both His hands to the nails; how can I keep back one of mine from His work? And then a line that sums up his urgency: “heaven and hell are in earnest, let me be so.”

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:11

This is uncomfortable for modern readers, and it should be. Many Christians say they believe in eternal judgement but live as if nobody they know is in any danger. Spurgeon thought that inconsistency was one of the great scandals of the church. He did not mean that we should frighten people into the kingdom. His own preaching was full of tenderness. But he believed that love tells the truth about danger.

And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. JUDE 1:23

Motive and manner

Spurgeon’s soul-winning was never mechanical. He had no single method, and he distrusted anything that looked like a technique for producing conversions. He believed that only the Spirit could give life, as chapter fourteen has shown, and that the soul-winner’s part was to be faithful, loving and persistent, and to leave the results with God. He was glad to see others winning souls by methods different from his own, and in Talks to the Farmer he warns against the spirit of the disciples who forbade a man casting out demons because he did not follow with them.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. PSALM 126:6

What he did insist on was earnestness. We have already seen him in Compel Them to Come In pleading with many tears. He could not understand a Christian who believed the gospel and felt no burden for the lost. And he expected that burden to find practical expression: in prayer, in personal conversation, in Sunday-school teaching, in giving away good books, in visiting the sick and the poor.

Every member a worker

The Tabernacle under Spurgeon was an extraordinary hive of activity, and much of it was evangelistic. Members ran Sunday schools and ragged schools, mission halls in poor districts, and meetings for working men and for the poor. Many of the men trained in his Pastors’ College went out to plant new congregations in London and far beyond it. The Colportage Association sent men into villages with Bibles and Christian books to sell and to talk about Christ. Spurgeon did not think of these as the church’s optional extras. He thought of them as the church being the church.

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. MARK 16:15

He applied the same standard to his own writing. In the opening pages of All of Grace he says that he will be greatly disappointed if the book does not lead many to the Lord Jesus, and he adds a prayer that some of its readers might themselves become great winners of souls. Every book, every sermon, every institution was meant to multiply the work.

To the last hour

In the evening reading on Ecclesiastes 11:6, Spurgeon speaks of the evening of life as well as the evening of the day. Some are spared to a long old age, he says; if that is his lot, he wants to use whatever gifts remain to serve his Lord to the last. “By his grace I will die in harness, and lay down my charge only when I lay down my body.” He was granted no long old age. He died at fifty-seven. But he died in harness.

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. DANIEL 12:3

A word of balance

It is fair to say that Spurgeon’s urgency, taken without his tenderness, can become harsh, and that some who have imitated his language of hell and judgement have not imitated his tears. It is also fair to say that the church has sometimes set evangelism against care for the poor, as if one must choose. Spurgeon did not. The next chapter shows how the same Tabernacle that preached for souls built an orphanage and almshouses. But he never let works of mercy replace the gospel, and he never let doctrine excuse silence.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask honestly whether your Christian activity is aimed at people being saved, or at something lesser. What would change if it were aimed at the highest thing?

2. Write down the names of three people you know who do not know Christ. Pray for each by name every day this month.

3. Look for one opportunity this week to speak naturally about what Christ means to you.

4. Consider giving away a good Christian book — All of Grace was written for exactly this purpose — to someone who might read it.

5. If you have grown older, ask Spurgeon’s question of yourself: what gifts remain that could still be used in harness?

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You died for sinners, and I have hardly lived for them.

Forgive me for believing in heaven and hell and yet behaving as if nobody I know were in danger. Give me earnestness, and give me tenderness.

Use my words, my prayers, my home and my hands to bring others to You. Keep me from mistaking busyness for fruitfulness.

And let me serve You to the last hour, and lay down my work only when I lay down my body. Amen.