How to Bring Men to Christ

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

Torrey preached to vast crowds, but he believed that the most important evangelism happens one person at a time. His handbook How to Bring Men to Christ, written in his Chicago years, is a manual for what was then called personal work: sitting down with one individual, Bible open, and helping him to Christ. He wrote it for ordinary Christians, not for ministers, because he believed that every believer is called to this work. In How to Succeed in the Christian Life he put it bluntly: Jesus said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men, and anyone who is not fishing is not following.

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. MATTHEW 4:19

The conditions of success

The book opens with five conditions which, Torrey said, are few and simple and within anyone’s reach.

The worker must himself be thoroughly converted, turned from sin and worldliness with his whole heart, with Christ as Lord of his thoughts and actions.

He must have a love for souls. Without it, his words will be mechanical. How is it to be had? Torrey’s answer is practical. Confess the lack and ask God for it. Keep close company with Christ, who loved the lost. And think. “Feelings are the outcome of thoughts,” he wrote; dwell long enough on the peril of a person without Christ and on what Christ paid to save him, and longing for his salvation will follow.

That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. ROMANS 9:2–3

He must have a working knowledge of the Bible, for the Word is the sword of the Spirit. He must know how to show a person his need of a Saviour, show him Christ, show him how to receive Christ, and meet his difficulties.

He must pray much: that God will lead him to the right person, show him what to say, give power to the words, and carry on the work afterwards. Torrey thought this the thing the average worker in a hurried age most needed to hear. By praying more, he wrote, we will not work any less, and we will accomplish vastly more.

Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. ACTS 8:29

And he must be endued with the power of the Holy Spirit, the subject to which the book’s last chapter returns.

How to begin

Torrey knew that the hardest moment is the first one. In a meeting it is easy to ask someone whether he is a Christian. With a stranger it takes more care, though often, he said, a courteous and direct question is best. He told of passing a man on a crowded Chicago street, feeling an impulse to speak to him, asking God whether it was from Him, and then turning back, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder and asking, “My friend, are you a Christian?” The man said it was a strange question. Torrey replied that he did not ask it of every stranger, but God had put it into his heart. The man, it turned out, was an Amherst graduate ruined by drink, whose cousin, a minister, had been pressing the same question on him. He later accepted Christ.

Every kind of person

The bulk of the book is a series of chapters on different kinds of people: the indifferent, the anxious who do not know how to be saved, those with difficulties, those with false hopes, those who lack assurance, backsliders, sceptics, the complaining, those who want to put off a decision, and the wilful. For each, Torrey supplied Scripture passages and advice on how to use them.

This part of the book can look mechanical today, like a filing system of texts. But it rests on a sound conviction: that people differ, that the Word of God has something fitted to each, and that a worker who has taken the trouble to know his Bible will be ready. His counsel for honest sceptics, for example, includes John 7:17: let a man set out to do God’s will, and he will come to know whether the teaching is of God.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. JOHN 7:17

Hints worth keeping

The chapter of hints near the end is full of wisdom. Deal with people one at a time and, where possible, alone, for few will open their hearts in company. Have the person read the verse himself, so that truth enters through the eye as well as the ear. Often use a single passage and drive it home. Keep to the main point — Christ — and do not be drawn into side issues such as denominations or theories of future punishment until the first question is settled.

Be courteous. “It is quite possible to be at once perfectly frank and perfectly courteous,” Torrey wrote; the gentler the manner, the deeper the words go. Be in earnest, and let the passages you use first master you. “A few passages that have mastered us are better than many passages that we have mastered from some text book.” Never lose your temper. And he added, with real humility for the author of a handbook, that genuine earnestness will go further than any skill learned in a training class or from a book such as his.

Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. ACTS 20:31

Weighing it

How to Bring Men to Christ still repays reading. Its insistence that every Christian can and should speak of Christ is right, and its practical advice is better than much that has been written since.

Two cautions. The first is that Torrey’s confidence can make evangelism sound like a technique with a guaranteed outcome, and his sharp remark in How to Succeed in the Christian Life that anyone not fishing is not following could make a shy believer despair. Most Christians will not stop strangers in the street. All can pray, love, speak of Christ to those God puts in their path, and be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. 1 PETER 3:15

The second is that pressing a person to a decision, which Torrey did with great skill, can produce professions that are not real. His own chapter on false hopes shows he knew it. The worker’s job is to point to Christ faithfully and leave the new birth to the Spirit.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask God today to give you a genuine love for those without Christ, and spend a few minutes thinking of one person’s need and Christ’s cost.

2. Choose three passages of Scripture that show someone how to be saved, and let them master you before you use them.

3. Pray each morning this week that God will lead you to one person, and show you what to say.

4. When a conversation turns to faith, keep it to the main point — Christ — and leave side issues for later.

5. Practise being at once perfectly frank and perfectly courteous in speaking of Christ.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You came to seek and to save that which was lost, and You call me to follow You as a fisher of men.

Give me love for souls, a working knowledge of Your Word, and the power of Your Spirit.

Lead me to the people You have prepared, and give me words that are frank and gentle, earnest and kind.

And when I have spoken, carry on the work that I cannot finish, for Your glory. Amen.