3rd of 9 REASONS WHY MEN DON'T SHARE THE GOSPEL

3rd of 9 REASONS WHY MEN DON'T SHARE THE GOSPEL

 

This faithful dealing with men for their salvation is much hindered also by our lack of love and compassion for men's souls. We are hard-hearted and cruel towards the miserable; and therefore, as the priest and the Levite did by the wounded man, we look on them, and pass right on by. Oh! What tender heart could endure to look upon a poor, blind, lonely sinner, wounded by sin, and captivated by Satan, and never once opens our mouths for his recovery? What though he is silent, and do not desire your help himself, yet his very misery cries aloud: misery is the most effectual suitor to one that is compassionate. If God had not heard the cry of our miseries before He heard the cry of our prayers, and been moved by His own pity, before He was moved by our insistence, we might have long enough continued the slaves of Satan. Is it not the strongest way of arguing that a poor Lazarus has, to undo his sores, and show them the passengers? All his words will not move them so much as such a pitiful sight. Sadly! What pitiful sights do we daily see! The ignorant, the profane, the neglecters of Christ and their souls; their sores are open and visible to all that know them, and yet do we not pity them! You will pray to God for them, in customary duties, that God would open the eyes and turn the hearts of your ignorant, carnal friends and neighbors. And why do you not endeavor their conversion, if you desire it and pray? And if you do not desire it, why do you ask it? Does not your negligence convince you of hypocrisy in your prayers, and of abusing the high God with your deceitful words? Your neighbors are near you, your friends are in the house with you; you eat, and drink, and work, and walk, and talk with them, and yet you say little or nothing to them. Why do you not pray for them to consider and return, as well as pray that God convert and turn them? Have you as often and as earnestly begged of them to think on their ways, and to reform, as you have taken on you to beg of God that they may so do? What if you should see your neighbor fallen into a pit, and you should immediately fall down on your knees, and pray that God should help him out, but would you not put forth your hand to help, nor at that instant persuade or direct him to help himself, would not any man scorn you to be cruel and hypocritical? What does the Holy Ghost says of men's bodily miseries, I may say much more of the misery of their souls: "If any man seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" 1 John 3:17. Or, what love does he have for his brother's soul? Sure, if you saw your friend in hell, you would persuade him hard to come out of there, if that would do any good; and why do you not now per­suade him to avoid that end? The love of our ignorant forefathers may rise up in judgment against us, and condemn us. They would give all their estates almost, for so many masses, or pardons, to de­liver the souls of their friends from a man-made hell, and we will not so much as persistently admonish and ask them, to save them from the certain flames of hell; though this may be effectual to do them good, and the other will do none.