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The Soul Winner’s Reward
An Address at a Prayer Meeting at The Metropolitan Tabernacle
by C. H. Spurgeon
On my way to this meeting, I saw a notice posted at the police station offering a large
Reward
to anyone who can identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of a great crime. No doubt the authorities know that a huge reward is the only hope of motivating the companions of the murderer. The common informant feels so threatened and hated that few can be persuaded to help, even when piles of money are offered. It is a poor attempt at best.
It is far more pleasant to remember that there is a reward for bringing people to mercy, and that the reward is far greater than that which is offered for bringing them to justice. Furthermore, it is much more within our reach, and that is something worth noting. We cannot all hunt down criminals, but we may all rescue the perishing. We thank God that murderers and burglars are comparatively few, but sinners who need to be sought out and saved crowd around us everywhere. There is room for all of you here; no one needs to think they cannot qualify for the rewards that love gives to all who do her service.
When some hear the word Reward, they prick up their ears, and mutter “legalism.” Yet the reward we are talking about is not due us because of our works, but because grace freely gives it. And it is enjoyed, not with the proud conceit of thinking we have earned it, but with the grateful delight of a humble spirit.
Other friends will whisper, “Is not offering a reward a low and self-serving motive?” We reply that it is as self-serving as Moses, who “was looking to the reward.” In this matter, everything depends on what the reward is. If that happens to be the joy of doing good, the comfort of having glorified God, and the happiness of pleasing the Lord Jesus, then the desire to be allowed to try to save others from going down to hell is something given by grace from the Lord. Even if we did not succeed, yet the Lord would say, as he did about David’s desire to build a temple, “You did well that it was in your heart.”
Even if the souls we are trying to save refuse to believe, if they all despise and reject and ridicule us, yet it will be a divine work at least to have made the attempt. If the cloud gives no rain, at least it has screened off the fierce heat of the sun. Everything is not lost even if the purpose is not accomplished. Perhaps we will learn to join the Savior in his tears, and cry, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” What an exalted honor to be allowed to stand on the same platform with Jesus, and weep with him. We are better off having mourned for lost sinners, even if they are not.
But, thank God, our work for the Lord has been effective. I believe that most of you who have really tried, in the power of the Holy Spirit, by scriptural teaching and by prayer, to bring others to Jesus, have been successful. I may be speaking to a few who have not succeeded. If so, I would recommend they seriously study their motive, their spirit, their work, and their prayer, and then begin again. Perhaps they will work wiser, humbler, in more faith, and with more trust in the power of the Holy Spirit.
They must act like farmers do after a poor harvest, they must plow again in hope. They should not become discouraged, they should rise to the challenge. We should be anxious to discover the reasons for the failure, if there are any, and we should be ready to learn from our co-workers in the field. We must firmly set our faces to the task. We must be determined to save some by any means possible. Whatever happens we will leave no stone unturned to bring about the salvation of those around us.
How can we stand to leave this world without having sheaves to bring before the Lord with rejoicing? I believe that most of us who are gathered here to pray have been successful beyond our expectations. God has blessed us, not beyond our desires, but still, beyond our hopes.
I have often been surprised at God’s mercy to me. I could cry over some inadequate sermons of mine when I get home; yet some have won dozens to the cross. Even more wonderful, words I have spoken in ordinary conversation, mere chance sentences, as people call them, have nevertheless been like winged arrows from God, piercing people’s hearts, and bringing them to Jesus. I have often thrown up my hands in astonishment, and said, “How can God bless such weak efforts, how can he use such an ineffective tool as me?” This is the feeling of most who are addicted to the happy art of fishing for lost souls: the desire for success provides a motive so pure that even an angel’s heart would be moved. Indeed, it compares to the motive that controlled the Savior “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”
“Then Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘Does Job fear God for no reason?’” If the question could have been answered in the affirmative, if it could have been proven that that perfect and honest man found no reward in living a holy life, then Satan would have protested against such abuse and injustice on God’s part and urged people to reject such an unprofitable business. In fact, there is a reward for the righteous, and there is compensation of infinite value in the royal pursuit of living by God’s grace. When we work to lead people to God, we are pursuing a business far more profitable than diving for pearls or searching for diamonds. No pursuit of mortals can be compared with the work of soul winning. I know what I am talking about when I urge you to think of it like people think of being the highest leaders of the nation or sitting on a throne. It is a royal business; those who pursue it successfully are true royalty.
The harvest of godly service is still in the future, and “we wait for it with patience.” But we receive the firstfruits of our wages, refreshing reminders of what is laid up for us in heaven, for the work itself is part of the reward. Many hunt and shoot merely for the love of the sport; surely, in an infinitely higher way, we may hunt for people’s souls to gratify our inclination to do good.
To some of us, seeing people sink to hell and making no effort to see them saved, would be unendurable misery. We consider ourselves rewarded when we find a way to use our burning desire to help others. It is stressful and exhausting to be kept from those holy activities that aim at rescuing people from the flames. We have deep feelings of affection for others and feel that, to some degree, their sin is our sin, their danger our danger.
If another lose the way,
My feet also go astray;
If another downward go,
In my heart is also woe.
Therefore, it is reassuring to proclaim the gospel so that we may save ourselves from the discouraging misery of hearing in our hearts the echoes of the crashing of ruined souls.
Soul winning is a service that brings great benefit to the individual who is dedicated to it. People who have been on the lookout for souls, prayed for them, planned on how to speak to them, spoken with much trembling, and tried to make a difference, have been educating themselves through their efforts. Having been disappointed, they have cried to God more zealously, and have tried again. They have looked in their Bible for the promise to meet the situation of the one under conviction, they have pointed to the trait in God’s character that seems most likely to encourage trembling faith; and by doing so they have been benefiting themselves. When they have gone over the old, old story of the cross with that weeping, stricken soul, and have finally been able to grip the hand of one who can say, “I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me,” they have received a reward in the process because they have mirrored the same experience.
It has reminded them of their own lost condition. It has demonstrated the struggles that the Spirit had in bringing them to repentance. It has reminded them of that precious moment when they first looked to Jesus, and it has strengthened their confidence that Christ will save others. When we see Jesus save someone else and see the marvelous change that passes over the face of the one saved, our own faith is greatly strengthened.
Skeptics and those who try to “improve” the gospel have little to do with converts; but those who work for conversions believe in conversions. Those who see the process of the new birth see a miracle taking place, and know that, “This is the finger of God.” Seeking to bring another to the dear Redeemer’s feet is the happiest, most rewarding way a person can spend themselves. If it ended there, you might thank God that he ever called you to such a comforting, strengthening, elevating, encouraging service as converting others from their evil ways.
Another compensation is found in the gratitude and affection of those you bring to Christ. This is an excellent gift—the happiness of rejoicing in another’s joy, the pleasure of hearing that you have led a soul to Jesus. Measure the sweetness of this reward by its bitter opposite. A minister of God has brought many to Jesus, and all things have gone well in the church until aging or changing trends have thrown the good man into the shade. The minister’s own spiritual children have been eager to force him out. “The most unkindest cut of all” comes from those who owed their souls to him. “I could have handled it, but the ones who turned against me were ones I brought to the Savior.”
The pain is not unknown to me. I can never forget a certain family, in which the Lord gave me the great joy of bringing four employers and several of their employees to Jesus’ feet. Snatched from the extreme carelessness of worldliness, these who had previously known nothing of the grace of God became joyful maintainers of the faith. After a while, they came to accept certain opinions differing from ours, and from that moment some of them had nothing but harsh words for me and my preaching. I had done my best to teach them all the truth I knew, and if they had found out more than I had discovered, they might at least have remembered where they learned the first principles of the faith. It has been years now, and I have never shared as much as this before, but I feel the wound very much. I only mention these sharp stabs to show how very sweet it is to have those around you whom you have brought to the Savior.
A mother greatly delights in her children because an intense love comes with natural relationships. But there is an even deeper love connected with spiritual kinship, a love that lasts through life and will continue in eternity; because in heaven each of the Lord’s servants will say, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.” They neither marry nor are given in marriage in the city of our God, but fatherhood and motherhood, brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ will remain.
Those sweet and blessed bonds that grace has formed continue forever, and spiritual relationships are rather developed than dissolved by moving to the better land. If you are eager for real joy, the kind you think about and dream about, I am persuaded that no joy of growing rich, no joy of increasing in knowledge, no joy of influence over your fellow-creatures, no joy of any other kind, can ever be compared with the overwhelming pleasure of saving a soul from death, and helping to restore our lost brothers and sisters to our great Father’s house. Talk about a million-dollar reward! It is nothing at all, one might easily spend that amount. But one cannot exhaust the indescribable delights that come from the gratitude of souls converted from the error of their ways.
But the richest reward is in pleasing God and causing the Redeemer to see the “anguish of his soul” and being satisfied. For Jesus to have his reward is something deserving from the eternal Father, but it is marvelous that we should be used by the Father to give to Christ the result of his sufferings. This is a wonder of wonders! Oh my soul, this is an honor too great for you, a happiness too deep to express in words! Listen, dear friends, and tell me—what would you give to bring the greatest pleasure to the heart of our most precious Savior? Remember the grief you cost him, and the pains that shot through him in order for him to deliver you from your sin and its consequences. Do you not earnestly desire to make him glad?
When you bring others to Jesus’ feet, you give him joy, and no small joy either. Is this not a wonderful text, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents”? (Luke 15:10 NKJV). What does that mean? Does it mean that the angels have joy? That is the way we generally read it, but it is not the intent of the verse. It says, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God.” That is, joy in the heart of God, around whose throne the angels stand. It is a joy that angels delight to see, but what is it? Is God capable of greater joy than his own immeasurable happiness?
What wondrous language! The infinite happiness of God is all the more remarkably displayed, even if it cannot be increased. Can we be the tools that accomplish this? Can we do anything that will make the ever-blessed God glad? Yes, for we are told that the great Father rejoices beyond measure when his prodigal child who was dead is alive again and the lost one is found.
If I could say this as I ought to, it would make every Christian cry out, “Then I will work harder to bring souls to the Savior.” It would make those of us who have brought many to Jesus “ready in season and out of season” to bring more to him. It is a great pleasure to do a kindness to an earthly friend, but to do something distinctly for Jesus, something that will be the very most pleasing to him, is a tremendous delight. To build a meetinghouse and give it outright to the cause of God is a good work, if it is done with a right and proper motive. But one living stone, built on the sure foundation by our serving as the instrument in God’s hands, will give the Master more pleasure than if we built a vast structure with natural stones that might only take up space.
Then go, dear friends, and seek to bring your children and your neighbors, your friends and your relatives, to the Savior’s feet. Nothing will give him so much pleasure as seeing them turn to himself and live. I call on you, by your love to Jesus, to become “fishers of men.”
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