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March 15 - March 19, 2019
You better not begin to preach until you are quite sure God has called you to the work.
Believe what you say you believe, or you will never persuade anybody else to believe it.
I would rather hear you say, “Young as I am, what I have to say comes from God, and God’s Word says so-and-so and so-and-so. There it is, and you must believe what God says or you will be lost.”
God uses the faith of His ministers to breed faith in other people.
You must have great faith in the Word of God and in the power of that message to save people if you are to be winners of souls to those who hear it.
“Do you expect the Lord is going to bless you and save souls every time you open your mouth?” “No, sir.” “Well, then,” I said, “that’s why you don’t see souls saved. If you believed, the Lord would give the blessing.”
I like to go to the pulpit feeling that I am going to deliver God’s Word in His name. It can’t return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11). I have asked His blessing upon it, and He is bound to give it.
His purposes will be accomplished, whether my message is a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death to those who hear it, to the one we are the savour of death unto death and to the other the savour of life unto life (2 Corinthians 2:16).
Open your mouth with a full expectation, a firm belief, and according to your faith so shall it be given to you (Matthew 9:29).
if a man is to succeed in his ministry and win many souls, he must be characterized by thorough earnestness.
The Lord Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem, and you will have to weep over sinners if they are to be saved through you,
Another qualification that is essential to soul winning is great simplicity of heart.
When they select a text, they never explain its true meaning. Instead, they go ‘round about to find something the Holy Spirit never intended to convey by it. When they get hold of one of their precious new thoughts – oh, my! What a fuss they make over it.
By simplicity of heart, I mean that a man clearly goes into the ministry for the glory of God, the winning of souls, and nothing else.
If a man seeks to serve himself, to get honor for himself, rather than seeking to serve God and honor Him alone, the Lord Jehovah won’t use that man
A man who is to be used by God must believe what he does is for the glory of God and have no other motive.
” I would rather hear it said, “That man said something in his sermon that made many people think less of him and more of God. He voiced some distasteful sentiments and did nothing but drive at us with the Word of the Lord all the while he preached. All he cared about was bringing us to repentance and faith in Christ.” That is the kind of man whom the Lord delights to bless.
You must never have an eye for the glory of God and the fat sheep for yourself. It must never be God’s glory and your own honor and esteem among men. That won’t do, not even if you preach to please God and an attractive woman. It must be God’s glory alone, nothing less and nothing else, not even a good looking woman.
With true simplicity of heart, he must seek to please God, whether men and women are pleased or not.
Lastly, there must be a complete surrender of yourself to God. What I mean by this is that from this time forward, you should wish to think God’s thoughts and not your own thoughts. You should determine to preach nothing of your own invention but only from God’s Word.
resolve not even to deliver that truth in your own way but only in God’s way.
your desire should be not to write anything except what is entirely according to the Lord’s mind.
Yield yourself unreservedly to the mind and will of God in this way and, eventually, when you get out into the ministry, you’ll be compelled to use a peculiar expression at times or to offer an odd prayer, which at the time may seem a bit strange even to you.
it will all make sense to you afterwards, when someone comes to tell you that he never understood the truth until you put it in such an unusual way.
thoroughly prepare for your work in the pulpit by ...
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I encourage you to feel ready to say anything God gives you to say, irrespective of all the consequences and regardless of what the “hypers,” or their counterpart “lowpers,” or anybody else will think or do.
we must have an evident sincerity about us.
It must be quite clear to your hearers that you have a firm belief in the truths you are preaching. Otherwise, you will never make them believe.
As soon as a man lets his work become a matter of mere form or routine, it sinks into a performance in which the preacher is simply an actor.
I implore you to speak from your hearts or else don’t speak at all.
If a man is to be a soul winner, there must be in him intensity of emotion as well as sincerity of heart.
So it isn’t the bigness of the words you use but the force with which you deliver them that decides the outcome of what you say.
the next which is necessary for a man to be a soul winner is that he should have an evident love to his hearers.
You must have a real desire for the good of the people if you are to have much influence over them.
You must love people and willingly mix with them if you hope to be of service to them.
mingle with them in perfect love and sympathy. By sympathy I mean feeling you would do anything in your power to bring them to Christ.
The next qualification, manward, for soul winning is evident unselfishness.
The less you think of yourself, the more people will think of you. And the more you think of yourself, the less people will think of you. If you have any trace of selfishness about you, pray to get rid of it at once.
Another thing wanted in a soul winner is holiness of character.
A Christian minister must be very careful, not only to be innocent of actual wrong-doing, but also not to be a cause of offense to weaker members of the flock.
When people see we not only preach about holiness but strive to be holy men, they will be drawn toward holy things by our character as well as by our preaching.
If we are to be soul winners, there must be a seriousness of manner about us.
Most of us, however, are far more inclined to laughter which works good like medicine,
You deeply impressed me while you were preaching, and I thought about giving my heart to Christ. I wanted to speak to you about my soul on the way home, but the moment you got out of church you cracked a joke. In fact, all the way back, you made such fun of serious subjects that I couldn’t say anything about what I felt. It left me thoroughly disgusted with religion and all who professed it.
Finally, if we are to be much-used of God as soul winners, there must be a great deal of tenderness in our hearts.
If the Lord has sent you to preach the gospel, why should you make apologies?
When you preach, speak out straightforward but be very tender about it. If something unpleasant needs to be addressed, take care that you put it in the kindest possible way.
there’s a way of doing such things so that the person reproved feels positively grateful to you.
God the Holy Spirit can convert a soul by any text of Scripture apart from your paraphrase, your comment, or your explanation. However, certain Scripture passages, as you know, are the best to present to the minds of unsaved sinners.
sermons most likely to be blessed with conversion of the hearers are sermons distinctly aimed at the conversion of the hearers.
