4. The “I Will” of Service.
The next I will be the “I will” of service.
There are a good many Christians who have been quickened and aroused to say, “I want to do some service for Christ.”
Well, Christ says, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
There is no Christian who cannot help to bring someone to the Savior. Christ says, “And I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men unto Me”; and our business is just to lift up Christ.
Our Lord said, “Follow Me, Peter, and I will make you a fisher of men”; and Peter simply obeyed Him, and there, on that day of Pentecost, we see the result. Peter had a good haul on the day of Pentecost. I doubt if he ever caught so many fish in one day as he did men on that day. It would have broken every net they had on board if they had had to drag up three thousand fish.
I read some time ago of a man who took passage in a stagecoach. There were first, second and third-class passengers. But when he looked into the coach, he saw all the passengers sitting together without distinction. He could not understand it till by and by they came to a hill, and the coach stopped, and the driver called out, “First-class passengers keep their seats, second-class passengers get out and walk, third-class passengers get behind and push.” Now in the Church, we have no room for first-class passengers—people who think that salvation means a comfortable ride all the way to heaven. We have no room for second-class passengers—people who are carried most of the time, and who, when they must work out their own salvation, go trudging on giving never thought to help their fellows along.
All church members ought to be third-class passengers—ready to dismount and push altogether and push with a will. That was John Wesley’s definition of a church— “All at it, and always at it.” Every Christian ought to be a worker. He need not be a preacher, he need not be an evangelist, to be useful. He may be useful in business. See what power an employer has if he likes! How he could labor with his employees, and in his business relations! Often a man can be far more useful in a business sphere than he could in another.
There is one reason, and a great reason, why so many do not succeed. I have been asked by a great many good men, “Why is it we don’t have any results? We work hard, pray hard, and preach hard, and yet success does not come.” I will tell you. It is because they spend all their time mending their nets. No wonder they never catch anything.
The great matter is to hold inquiry meetings, and thus pull the net in, and see if you have caught anything. If you are always mending and setting the net, you won’t catch many fish. Whoever heard of a man going out to fish, and setting his net, and then letting it stop there, and never pulling it in? Everybody would laugh at the man’s folly.
A minister in England came to me one day, and said, “I wish you would tell me why we ministers don’t succeed better than we do.”
I brought before him this idea of pulling in the net, and I said, “You ought to pull in your nets. There are many ministers in Manchester who can preach much better than I can, but I pull in the net.”
Many people have objections to inquiry meetings, but I urged upon him the importance of them, and the minister said,
“I never did pull in my net, but I will try next Sunday.”
He did so, and eight people, anxious inquirers, went into his study. The next Sunday he came down to see me and said he had never had such a Sunday in his life. He had met with a marvelous blessing. The next time he drew the net there were forty, and when he came to see me later, he said to me joyfully,
“Moody, I have had eight hundred conversions this last year! It is a great mistake I did not begin earlier to pull in the net.”
So, my friends if you want to catch men, just pull in the net. If you only catch one, it will be something. It may be a little child, but I have known a little child to convert a whole family. You don’t know what is in that little dull-headed boy in the inquiry room; he may become Martin Luther, a reformer that shall make the world tremble—you cannot tell. God uses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty. God’s promise is as good as a banknote— “I promise to pay So-and-So,” and here is one of Christ’s promissory notes— “If you follow Me, I will make you fishers of men.” Will you not lay hold of the promise, and trust it, and follow Him now?
If a man preaches the Gospel and preaches it faithfully, he ought to expect results then and there. I believe it is the privilege of God’s children to reap the fruit of their labor three hundred and sixty-five days in the year.
“Well, but,” say some, “is there not a sowing time as well as harvest?”
Yes, it is true, there is but then, you can sow with one hand, and reap with the other. What would you think of a farmer who went on sowing all year round, and never thought of reaping? I repeat it, we want to sow with one hand, and reap with the other; and if we look for the fruit of our labors, we shall see it. “I, if I am
lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.” We must lift Christ up, and then seek men out, and bring them to Him.
You must use the right kind of bait. A good many don’t do this, and then they wonder if they are not successful. You see them getting up all kinds of entertainments with which to try and catch men. They go the wrong way to work. This perishing world wants Christ, and Him crucified. There’s a void in every man’s bosom that wants to fill up, and if we only approach him with the right kind of bait, we shall catch him. This poor world needs a Savior; and if we are going to be successful in catching men, we must preach Christ crucified—not His life only but His death. And if we are only faithful in doing this, we shall succeed. And why? Because there is His promise: “If you follow Me, I will make you fishers of men.” That promise holds just as good to you and me as it did to His disciples and is as true now as it was in their time.
Think of Paul up yonder. People are going up every day and every hour, men and women who have been brought to Christ through his writings. He set streams in motion that have flowed on for more than a thousand years. I can imagine men going up there, and saying, “Paul, I thank you for writing that letter to the Ephesians; I found Christ in that.” “Paul, I thank you for writing that epistle to the Corinthians.” “Paul, I found Christ in that epistle to the Philippians.” “I thank you, Paul, for that epistle to the Galatians; I found Christ in that.” And so, I suppose, they are going up still, thanking Paul all the while for what he had done. Ah, when Paul was put in prison, he did not fold his hands and sat down in idleness! No, he began to write; and his epistles have come down through the long ages of time and brought thousands on thousands to a knowledge of Christ crucified. Yes, Christ said to Paul, “I will make you a fisher of men if you follow Me,” and he has been fishing for souls ever since. The devil thought he had done a very wise thing when he got Paul into prison, but he was very much mistaken; he overdid it for once. I have no doubt Paul has thanked God ever since for that Philippian goal, and his stripes and imprisonment there. I am sure the world has made more by it than we shall ever know till we get to heaven.
