A Life Enlistment
When a man, after starting to be a Christian, looks back, it is only a
question of time until he goes back.--BILLY SUNDAY.
Professor William James, the philosopher, contended that there was a
scientific value to the stories of Christian conversions; that these
properly belonged among the data of religion, to be weighed by the
man of science. Harold Begbie's notable book, "Twice-Born Men," was
recognized by Professor James as a contribution to the science of
religion; for it was simply a collection of the stories of men whose
lives had been transformed by the gospel which the Salvation Army
had carried to them. A whole library of such books as "Twice-Born
Men" could be written concerning the converts of Billy Sunday. His
converts not only "right-about-face" but they keep marching in the new
direction. Their enlistment is for life.
This point is one of the most critical in the whole realm of the
discussion of revivals. Times without number it has been charged that
the converts of evangelists lose their religion as quickly as they got
it. A perfectly fair question to ask concerning these Billy Sunday
campaigns is, "Are they temporary attacks of religious hysteria, mere
effervescent moods of spiritual exaltation, which are dissipated by the
first contact with life's realities?"
Here is opportunity for the acid test. Billy Sunday has been conducting
revival meetings long enough to enable an investigator to go back over
his trail and trace his results. After years have passed, are there
still evidences of the presence and work of the evangelist? To this
only one answer can be made. The most skeptical and antagonistic person
cannot fail to find hundreds and thousands of Billy Sunday converts in
the churches of the towns where the evangelist has conducted meetings
during the past twenty years.
Not all of the converts have held fast; we cannot forget that one
of the Twelve was a complete renegade, and that the others were for
a time weak in the faith. Alas, this condition is true of Christian
converts, however made. The terrible record revealed in each year's
church statistics, of members who are missing--entirely lost to the
knowledge of the Church--is enough to restrain every pastor from making
uncharitable remarks upon the recruits won by an evangelist. The fact
to be stressed at this present moment is that Billy Sunday converts are
to be found in all departments of church work, in the ministry itself,
and on the foreign field.
One reason for the conservation of the results of the Sunday campaigns
is that all the powers of the evangelist and his organization are
exerted to lead those who have confessed Christ in the tabernacles to
become members of the church of their choice, at the earliest possible
date. Sunday says candidly that converts cannot expect to grow in
grace and usefulness outside the organized Church of Christ. Thus
it comes about that before a Sunday campaign closes, and for months
afterwards, the church papers report wholesale accessions to the local
congregations of all denominations. Three thousand new church members
were added in a single Sunday in the city of Scranton.
What these campaigns mean in the way of rehabilitating individual
churches is illustrated by what a Scranton pastor said to me toward
the close of the Sunday campaign: "You know my church burned down a
short time ago. We have been planning to rebuild. Now, however, we
shall have to rebuild to twice the size of our old church, and we have
enough new members already to make sure that our financial problem will
be a simple one." In other words, the coming of the evangelist had
turned into a triumph and a new starting point for this congregation
what might have otherwise been a time of discouragement and temporary
defeat.
For a moment the reader should take the viewpoint of the pastors who
have been struggling along faithfully, year after year, at best getting
but a few score of new members each year. Then Billy Sunday appears.
The entire atmosphere and outlook of the church is transformed within
a few days. Optimism reigns. Lax church members become Christian
workers, and enthusiasm for the kingdom pervades the entire membership.
The churches of the community find themselves bound together in a new
solidarity of fellowship and service.
Then, to crown all, into the church membership come literally
hundreds of men and women, mostly young, and all burning with the
convert's ardent zeal to do service for the Master. Can anybody but
a pastor conceive the thrill that must have come to the minister of
a Wilkes-Barre church which added one thousand new members to its
existing roll, as a result of the Billy Sunday campaign in that city?
Six months after the Sunday meetings in Scranton I visited Carbondale,
a small town sixteen miles distant from Scranton, and talked with
two of the resident pastors. There are four Protestant churches in
Carbondale, which have already received a thousand new members within
five months. All these converts are either the direct result of
Billy Sunday's preaching, or else the converts of converts. Out of a
Protestant population of nine thousand persons, the Carbondale churches
have received one-ninth into their membership within six months. These
bare figures do not express the greater total of Christian service and
enthusiasm which permeates the community as an abiding legacy of the
Billy Sunday campaign. These converts consider that they have been
saved to serve.
Asked to fix a period after which he would expect a reaction from the
Sunday meetings, a critic would probably say about one year. On this
point we learn that when the evangelist visited the city of Scranton,
which is within an hour's ride of Wilkes-Barre, he found that the
influence of the meetings which he had held a year previously in
Wilkes-Barre were perhaps the most potent single factor in preparing
the people of Scranton for his coming. Night after night Wilkes-Barre
sent delegations of scores and hundreds over to the Scranton
Tabernacle. Investigators from afar who came to look into the Scranton
meetings were advised to go to the neighboring city to ascertain what
were the effects of the campaign after a year. The result was always
convincing.
When the evangelist was in Pittsburgh, McKeesport, where he had been
six years before, sent many delegations to hear him and on one occasion
fifteen hundred persons made the journey from McKeesport to Pittsburgh
to testify to the lasting benefits which their city had received from
the evangelist's visit.
Usually some organization of the "trail-hitters" is effected after the
evangelist's departure. These are bands for personal Christian work.
The most remarkable of them all is reported from Wichita, Kansas, where
the aftermath of the Sunday meetings has become so formidable as to
suggest a new and general method of Christian service by laymen.
The Sunday converts organized themselves into "Gospel Teams," who
announce that they are ready to go anywhere and conduct religious
meetings, especially for men. They offer to pay their own expenses,
although frequently the communities inviting them refuse to permit
this. Sometimes these Gospel Teams travel by automobiles or street cars
and sometimes they make long railway journeys.
The men have so multiplied themselves that there are now more than
three hundred Gospel Teams in this work and they have formed "The
National Federation of Gospel Teams" of which Claude Stanley of Wichita
is president and West Goodwin of Cherryvale, Kansas, is secretary.
Up to date, the tremendous total of eleven thousand conversions is
reported by these unsalaried, self-supporting gospel workers, who
joyously acclaim Billy Sunday as their leader. They represent his
teachings and his spirit in action.
The most celebrated of these gospel teams is "The Business Men's Team"
of Wichita, an interdenominational group. It comprises such men as
Henry Allen, the editor of the Wichita _Beacon_ and one of the foremost
public men of the state; the president of the Inter-urban Railway; the
president of the Kansas Mutual Bank, and other eminent business men.
This team has visited eleven states in its work, all without a penny of
cost to the Church, and with results exceeding those achieved by many
great and expensive organizations.
The Billy Sunday converts not only stick but they multiply themselves
and become effective servants of the Church and the kingdom.
Nobody is left to conjecture as to the sort of counsel that Mr. Sunday
gives his converts. Every man, woman and child who "hits the trail" is
handed a leaflet, telling him how to make a success of the Christian
life.
A trumpet call to Christian service by every confessed disciple of
Jesus Christ is sounded by the evangelist. The following is an appeal
of this sort:
"SHARP-SHOOTERS"
The twentieth century has witnessed two apparently contradictory facts:
The decline of the Church and the growth of religious hunger in the
masses. The world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
passed through a period of questioning and doubts, during which
everything in heaven and earth was put into a crucible and melted down
into constituent elements. During that period many laymen and preachers
lost their moorings.
The definite challenging note was lost out of the life of the ministry.
The preacher today is oftentimes a human interrogation point, preaching
to empty pews. The hurrying, busy crowd in the street is saying to
the preacher and the Church, "When you have something definite to say
about the issues of life, heaven, hell and salvation, we will listen;
till then we have no time for you." I believe we are on the eve of
a great national revival. The mission of the Church is to carry the
gospel of Christ to the world.
I believe that lack of efficient personal work is one of the curses
of the Church today. The people of the Church are like squirrels in a
cage. Lots of activity, but accomplishing nothing. It doesn't require a
Christian life to sell oyster soup or run a bazaar or a rummage sale.
Last year many churches reported no new members on confession of faith.
Why these meager results with this tremendous expenditure of energy
and money? Why are so few people coming into the kingdom? I will tell
you what is the matter--there is not a definite effort put forth to
persuade a definite person to receive a definite Saviour at a definite
time, and that definite time is now.
I tell you the Church of the future must have personal work and prayer.
The trouble with some churches is that they think the preacher is a
sort of ecclesiastical locomotive, who will snort and puff and pull the
whole bunch through to glory.
A politician will work harder to get a vote than the Church of God will
work to have men brought to Christ. Watch some of the preachers go down
the aisles. They drag along as if they had grindstones tied to their
feet.
No political campaign is won by any stump speaker or any spell-binder
on the platform. It is won by a man-to-man canvass.
The Value of Personal Work
The children of this generation are wiser than the children of light.
You can learn something from the world about how to do things. Personal
work is the simplest and most effective form of work we can engage in.
Andrew wins Peter. Peter wins three thousand at Pentecost. A man went
into a boot and shoe store and talked to the clerk about Jesus Christ.
He won the clerk to Christ. Do you know who that young man was? It
was Dwight L. Moody, and he went out and won multitudes to Christ.
The name of the man who won him was Kimball, and Kimball will get as
much reward as Moody. Kimball worked to win Moody and Moody worked and
won the multitude. Andrew wins Peter and Peter wins three thousand at
Pentecost. That is the way God works today. Charles G. Finney, after
learning the name of any man or woman, would invariably ask: "Are you
a Christian?" There isn't any one here who hasn't drag enough to win
somebody to Christ.
Personal work is a difficult form of work; more difficult than
preaching, singing, attending conventions, giving your goods to feed
the poor. The devil will let you have an easy time until God asks you
to do personal work. It is all right while you sing in the choir, but
just as soon as you get out and work for God the devil will be on your
back and you will see all the flimsy excuses you can offer for not
working for the Lord. If you want to play into the hands of the devil
begin to offer your excuses.
There are many people who want to win somebody for Jesus and they are
waiting to be told how to do it. I believe there are hundreds and
thousands of people who are willing to work and who know something
must be done, but they are waiting for help; I mean men and women of
ordinary ability. Many people are sick and tired and disgusted with
just professing religion; they are tired of trotting to church and
trotting home again. They sit in a pew and listen to a sermon; they are
tired of that, not speaking to anybody and not engaging in personal
work; they are getting tired of it and the church is dying because of
it. A lot should wake up and go to the rescue and win souls for Jesus
Christ.
I want to say to the deacons, stewards, vestrymen, prudential
committees, that they should work, and the place to begin is at your
own home. Sit down and write the names of five or ten friends, and
many of them members of your own church, and two or three of those not
members of any church; yet you mingle with these people in the club,
in business, in your home in a friendly way. You meet them every week,
some of them every day, and you never speak to them on the subject of
religion; you never bring it to their attention at all; you should
be up and doing something for God and God's truth. There are always
opportunities for a Christian to work for God. There is always a chance
to speak to some one about God. Where you find one that won't care,
you'll find one thousand that will.
My Father's Business
Be out and out for God. Have a heart-to-heart talk with some people and
win them to Christ. The first recorded words of Jesus are these: "Wist
ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
The trouble is we are too lackadaisical in religion, indifferent and
dead and lifeless. That is the spirit of the committees today in the
Church. I think the multitude in the Church will have to get converted
themselves before they can lead any one else to Christ. It is my firm
conviction, after many years of experience in the work, that half the
people in the Church have never been converted, have never been born
again. I take up a bottle of water, uncork it and take a drink. That
is experimental. One sip of water can convince me more of its power to
slake thirst than 40,000 books written on the subject. You know quinine
is bitter because you have experimented; you know fire will burn
because you have experimented; you know ice will freeze; it is cold;
you have experimented.
A man must experience religion to know God. All you know of God is what
you read in some book or what you heard somebody else talk about; you
haven't lived so that you could learn first-handed, so most of your
religion is second-handed. There is too much second-hand stuff in the
Church. It is your privilege to know and to have salvation. Jesus said
to Peter: "When you are converted strengthen your brethren." You are
not in a position to help anybody else unless you have been helped
yourself.
So many church members know nothing about the Bible. A preacher will
take a text from the Bible and get as far from it as the East is from
the West. A young preacher just out of the seminary said: "Must I
confine myself in my preaching to the Bible?" Just like a shrimp who
would say, "Must I confine my roaming to the Atlantic Ocean?" Imagine
a little minnow saying: "Must I confine myself to the Atlantic Ocean?"
"Must I confine myself to the Bible?" Just as if his intellect would
exhaust it in two or three sermons.
We have cut loose from the Bible, and any man who is living contrary
to the Bible is a sinner, whether he feels like a sinner or not. Every
man who is living contrary to the laws is a criminal, whether he feels
like it or not. A man who breaks the law of God is a sinner, and is on
the road to hell, whether he feels like it or like a saint. Jesus came
into the world to reveal God to man, and man reveals him to man. The
only revelation we have of Jesus is through the Bible. You have got to
know Jesus to know God; that's how I get through there. There is no
revelation for God to make of himself greater than he has made through
Jesus Christ. It is not possible for the human intellect to have a
greater conception of God. Every man needs Christ. Jesus is the Saviour
that he needs and he has got to know the Bible to show what it is that
makes Jesus the Saviour. He needs a Saviour and now is the time to
accept the Saviour and be saved. That's what the Bible says. Whatever
the Bible says, write "finish" after it and stop.
Feeding the Spiritual Life
Then you need the Holy Spirit. Without him you cannot do anything.
The spirit of God works through clean hands. There are too many dirty
hands, too many dirty people trying to preach a clean gospel. I have
known men that have preached the truth and God has honored the truth,
although their lives were not as they should be. But God honored the
truth and not the people who preached the truth. But if they had been
Christians themselves then God would have honored them more, because he
would have honored them and the truth.
Prayer. Three-fourths of the church members have no family prayer. They
let spiritual life starve. That is the reason the pews are full of
driftwood; that is the reason that religion is but a mirage to many.
Pray God to give you power. Pray God to give you power to carry on his
work after you have become converted. I don't preach a sermon that I
don't pray God for help, and I never finish a sermon that I don't thank
God that I have preached it. Then I say: "Lord, you take care of the
seed I have sown in that sermon." I think the Church needs a baptism of
good, pure "horse sense."
Pure hearts. If I have any iniquity in my heart the Lord will not
come in. We need a wise head. We need horse sense in preaching. We
need horse sense in what we do. I think God is constantly looking for
a company of men and women that are constantly alive. There are too
many dead ones. He needs men and women that are always at it, not only
during the revival; we need to be full of faith; dead in earnest, never
give up, a bulldog tenacity and stick-to-it-iveness for the cause of
God Almighty.
The Dignity of Personal Work
If it is beneath your dignity to do personal work then you are above
your Master. If you are not willing to do what he did, then don't call
him your Lord. The servant is not greater than the owner of the house.
The chauffeur is not greater than the owner of the automobile. The
servant on the railroad is not greater than the owners of the road.
Certainly they are not greater than our Lord Jesus Christ.
It requires an effort to win souls to Christ. There is no harder work
and none brings greater results than winning souls.
You'll need courage. It is hard to do personal work and the devil will
try to oppose you. You'll seek excuses to try to get out of it. Many
people who attend the meetings regularly now will begin to stay at home
when asked to do personal work. It will surprise you to see them lie to
get out of doing personal work.
We need enthusiasm for God. If there is any place on God's earth
that needs a baptism of enthusiasm, it is the church and the
prayer-meetings. It is not popular in some communities and in some
churches to be enthusiastic for God. You'll never accomplish anything
without pure enthusiasm, and don't be afraid of being a religious
enthusiast. Religion is too cold. Formality is choking it in the pews.
There is nothing accomplished in war, politics or religion, without
enthusiasm. Admiral Decatur once gave this toast: "My country: May she
always be right, but right or wrong, my country!" That's enthusiasm.
Perseverance is needed to conquer in this old life. Perseverance is
contagious, not an epidemic. Religion is contagious. Roman soldiers
shortened their swords and added to their kingdom. You shorten the
distance between you and the sinner and you'll add to the kingdom of
God. The trouble is you have been trying to reach them with a ten-foot
pole. Drop your dignity and formality and walk up to them; take them by
the hand. You are too dignified. You sit in your fine homes and see the
town going to hell.
We need carefulness to win souls. The way to win souls is to be careful
what you say. Study the disposition of the person with whom you talk.
We need tact. Personal work is the department of the church efficient
to deal with the individual and not the masses. It is analogous to
the sharpshooter in the army so dreaded by the opposing forces. The
sharpshooter picks out the pivotal individual instead of shooting at
the mass. The preacher shoots with a siege gun at long range. You can
go to the individual and dispose of his difficulties. I shoot out there
two or three hundred feet and you sit right beside people. If I were a
physician and you were sick I'd not prescribe _en masse_, I'd go down
and see you individually. I'd try to find out what was the matter and
prescribe what you needed. All medicine is good for something, but not
for everything.
We need sympathy. One of the noblest traits of the human character is
sympathy. It levels mountains, warms the broken heart and melts the
iceberg. Have sympathy with the sinner. Not with sin, but the fact that
he is one. God hates sin and the devil. He will not compromise. Have
sympathy with the girl who sins, but not with the sin that ruined her.
Get down on the ground where the others are. You are away up there
saved, but you must get down and help the sinner.
Five Classes of People
There are five classes of people and this classification will touch
every man and woman, whether in Scranton, New York or London.
First, those who can not attend church, and you will always find some.
Some are sick, shut in; some have to work in hotels and restaurants;
the maids in your house have to get your meals, the railroad men have
to go out, the furnaces must be kept going in the steel works.
Second, those who can attend and who do not attend church. There are
millions of people that can and don't attend church. Some fellows never
darken the church door until they die, and they carry their old carcass
in to have a large funeral. It is no compliment to any man, and it is
an insult to manhood, and disgrace to the individual, that he never
darkens the church door. But he darkens the door of the grog shop any
day.
Third, those who can and do attend church and who are not moved by the
preaching. There are lots of people who come out of curiosity.
Fourth, those who can go to church and those who do go to church and
are moved by the preaching and convicted but not converted. Every man
that hears the truth is convicted. Talk to those men about Jesus
Christ. Get them to take their stand for righteousness.
Fifth, those who can and do go to church and are convicted by the
preaching and converted. They need strengthening. They are converted
now, but they need the benefit of your experience. You say, "Where
will I find these people to talk to them?" Where won't you find them?
Where can you find a place where they are not? You will only find one
place where they are not and that is in the cemetery. Right in your
neighborhood, right in your block, how many are Christians? Is your
husband a Christian? Are your children Christians? If they are, let
them alone and get after somebody else's husband and children. Don't
sit down and thank God that your husband and children are Christians.
Suppose I were to say: "My family, my George, my Nell, my Paul, my
Helen are Christians!" We are all Christians, let the rest of the world
go to the devil. There is too much of that spirit in the Church today.
Go from house to house. Go to the people in your block, in your place
of business. Have you said anything to the telephone girl when you
called her up? You are quick enough to jump on her when she gives you
the wrong number. Have you said anything to the delivery boy--to the
butcher? Have you asked the milkman? Have you said anything to the
newsboy who throws your paper on the doorstep at night? Have you called
them up at the newspaper office? Have you said anything to the girl
who waits on you at the store; to the servant who brings your dinner
in at home; to the woman who scrubs your floors? Where will you find
them?--where won't you find them?
The Privilege of Personal Work
Personal work is a great privilege. Not that God needs us, but that we
need him. Jesus Christ worked. "I must do the works of Him that sent
me." So must you. He didn't send me to work and you to loaf. Honor the
God that gives you the privilege to do what he wants. Jesus worked.
Please God and see how it will delight your soul. If you'll win a soul
you will have a blessing that the average church member knows nothing
about. They are absolute strangers to the higher Christian life. We
need an aroused church. An anxious church makes anxious sinners.
If all the Methodist preachers would each save a soul a month there
would be 460,000 souls saved in a year. If all the Baptist preachers
would each save a soul a month there would be 426,000 souls saved in a
year. If all the other evangelical preachers would save a soul a month
there would be 1,425,000 souls saved a year. Over 7,000 Protestant
churches recently made report of no accessions on confession of faith.
Christ said to preach the gospel to all the world and that means every
creature in the world.
[Illustration: "MY GOD, I'VE GOT TWO BOYS DOWN THERE!"]
Listen to this: There are 13,000,000 young men in this country between
the ages of sixteen and thirty years; 12,000,000 are not members of
any church, Protestant or Catholic; 5,000,000 of them go to church
occasionally; 7,000,000 never darken a church door from one year's
end to another. They fill the saloons and the houses of ill fame, the
haunts of vice and corruption, and yet most young men have been touched
by some Sunday-school influences; but you don't win them for God and
they go into the world never won for God.
[Illustration: "YOU OLD HYPOCRITE!"]
[Illustration: "IT'S UP TO YOU."]
I want to tell you if you want to solve the problem for the future get
hold of the young men now. Get them for God now. Save your boys and
girls. Save the young man and woman and you launch a life-boat.
At the Iroquois fire in Chicago six hundred people were burned to
death. One young woman about seventeen years of age fought through the
crowd, but her hair was singed from her head, her clothes were burned,
her face blistered. She got on a street car to go to her home in Oak
Park. She was wringing her hands and crying hysterically, and a woman
said to her: "Why, you ought to be thankful you escaped with your life."
"I escaped--but I didn't save anybody; there are hundreds that died. To
think that I escaped and didn't save anybody."
In Pennsylvania there was once a mine explosion, and the people were
rushing there to help. Up came an old miner seventy or eighty years of
age, tired, tottering and exhausted. He threw off his vest, his coat
and hat and picked up a pick and shovel. Some of them stopped him and
said: "What is the matter? You are too old; let some of the younger
ones do that. Stand back."
The old fellow said: "My God, I've got two boys down there!"
So you see it seems to make all the difference when you've got some boy
down there.
Who is wise? You say Andrew Carnegie, the millionaire, is wise, the
mayor, the judge, the governor, the educator, the superintendent of
schools, the principal of the high school, the people who don't worry
or don't live for pleasure, the inventor. But what does the Lord say?
The Lord says, "He who winneth souls is wise."