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.
THREE KINDS OF CHURCH SERVICES.
There ought to be three kinds of services in all churches: one for worship—to offer praise, and to wait on the Lord in prayer; another for teaching; and at these services there needn’t be a word to the unconverted, (although some men never close any meeting without presenting the Gospel), but let them be for the church people; and a third for preaching the Gospel. Sunday morning is the best time for teaching, but Sunday night is the best night in the whole week, of the regular church services, to preach the simple Gospel of the Son of God. When you have preached that, and have felt the power of the unseen world, and there are souls trembling in the balance, don’t say, as I have heard good ministers say: “If there are any in this, place concerned—at all concerned—about their souls, I will be in the pastor’s study on Friday night, and will be glad to see them.” By that time the chances are the impression will be all wiped out. Deal with them that night before the devil snatches away the good seed. Wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, there should be an expectation of immediate results, and if this were the case the Church of Christ would be in a constant state of grace.