SUGGESTIONS.
Do not buy a Bible that you are unwilling to mark and use. An interleaved Bible gives more room for notes.
Be precise and concise: for example, Neh. 13, 18: “A warning from history.”
Never mark anything because you saw it in some one else’s Bible. If it does not come home to you, if you not understand it, do not put it down.
Never pass a nugget by without trying to grasp it. Then mark it down.
[ CHAPTER XV. ]
Personal Work—Three Kinds of Church Services—Church Members—Individual Experience—One Inquirer at a Time—Those who lack Assurance—Backsliders—Not Convicted of Sin—Deeply Convicted—The Divinity of Christ—Can’t Hold Out—No Strength—Feelings—Can’t Believe—Can’t be Saved all at Once—Not Now—Further Suggestions.
PERSONAL dealing is of the most vital importance. No one can tell how many persons have been lost to the Kingdom of God through lack of following up the preaching of the Gospel by personal work. It is deplorable how few church-members are qualified to deal with inquirers, yet that is the very work in which they ought most efficiently to aid the pastor. People are not usually converted under the preaching of the minister. It is in the inquiry-meeting that they are most likely to be brought to Christ. They are perhaps awakened under the minister, but God generally uses some one person to point out the way of salvation and bring the anxious to a decision. Some people can’t see the use of inquiry-meetings, and think they are something new, and that we haven’t any authority for them. But they are no innovation. We read about them all through the Bible. When John the Baptist was preaching he was interrupted. It would be a good thing if people would interrupt the minister now and then in the middle of some metaphysical sermon, and ask what he means. The only way to make sure that people understand what he is talking about is to let them ask questions. I don’t know what some men, who have got the whole address written out, would do if some one should get up and ask: “What must I do to be saved?” Yet such questions would do more good than anything else you could have. They would awake a spirit of inquiry. Some of Christ’s sweetest teachings were called forth by questions.