Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 850
Delivered by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“He that wins souls is wise.”- Proverbs 11:30.
THE text does not say, “he that wins money is wise,” though no doubt he thinks himself wise and perhaps, in a certain groveling sense in these days of competition, he might be so. But such wisdom is of the earth, and ends with the earth. There is another world where the currencies of Europe will not be accepted, nor their past possession be any sign of wealth or wisdom. Solomon, in the text before us, awards no crown for wisdom to crafty statesmen, or even to the ablest of rulers. He issues no diplomas to philosophers, poets, or men of wit. He crowns with laurels only those who win souls.
He does not declare that he who preaches is necessarily wise—and alas, there are multitudes who preach and gain much applause and eminence—who win no souls and who shall find it go hard with them at the last, because in all probability they have run and the Master has never sent them. He does not say that he who talks about winning souls is wise, since to lay down rules for others is a very simple thing, but to carry them out is far more difficult. He who actually, really and truly turns men from the error of their ways to God, and so is made the means of saving them from going down to Hell is a wise man. And that is true of him whatever his style of soul-winning may be. He may be a Paul, deeply logical, profound in doctrine, able to command all candid judgments—and if he thus win souls he is wise.
He may be an Apollos, grandly rhetorical, whose lofty genius soars into the very Heaven of eloquence—and if he wins souls in that way he is wise, but not otherwise. Or he may be a Cephas, rough and rugged, using uncouth metaphor and stern declamation. But if he win souls he is no less wise than his polished brother or his argumentative friend. The great wisdom of soul-winners, according to the text, is proven only by their actual success in really winning souls. To their own Master they are accountable for the ways in which they go to work, not to us.
Do not let us be comparing and contrasting this minister and that. Who are you that judges another man’s servants? Wisdom is justified in all her children. Only children wrangle about incidental methods—men look at sublime results. Do these workers of many sorts and various manners win souls? Then they are wise! And you who criticize them, being yourselves unfruitful, cannot be wise, even though you affect to be their judges! God proclaims soul-winners to be wise, dispute it who dare! This degree from the College of Heaven may surely stand them in good stead—let their fellow mortals say what they will of them. “He that wins souls is wise,” and this can be seen very clearly.
He must be a wise man in even ordinary respects who can, by Divine Grace, achieve so Divine a marvel. Great soul-winners have never been fools. A man whom God qualifies to win souls could probably do anything else which Providence might allot him. Take Martin Luther! Why, Sirs, the man was not only fit to work a Reformation, but he could have ruled a nation or have commanded an army! Think of Whitefield and remember that the thundering eloquence which stirred all England was not associated with a weak judgment, or an absence of brain power—the man was a master orator, and if he had addicted himself to commerce, would have taken a chief place among the merchants. Or had he been a politician, amid admiring senates he would have commanded the listening ear.
He that wins souls is usually a man who could have done anything else if God had called him to it. I know the Lord uses what means He wills, but He always uses means suitable to the end. And if you tell me that David slew Goliath with a sling, I answer it was the best weapon in the world to reach so tall a giant and the very fittest weapon that David could have used, for he had been skilled in it from his youth up. There is always an adaptation in the instruments which God uses to produce the ordained result, and though the glory is not to them, nor the excellence in them—all is to be ascribed to God—yet is there a fitness and preparedness which God sees, even if we do not. It is assuredly true that soul-winners are by no means idiots or simpletons, but such as God makes wise for Himself, though vainglorious wiseacres may dub them fools.
“He that wins souls is wise,” because he has selected a wise object. I think it was Michelangelo who once carved certain magnificent statues in snow. They are gone. The material readily compacted by the frost as readily melted in the heat. Far wiser was he when he fashioned the enduring marble and produced works which will last all down the ages. But even marble itself is consumed and fretted by the tooth of time! And he is wise who selects for his raw material immortal souls, whose existence shall outlast the stars! If God shall bless us to the winning of souls, our work shall remain when the wood and hay and stubble of earth’s art and science shall have gone to the dust from which they sprang.