Preaching and Preachers

Preaching andPreachersthat I would not ask him to stay behind, so I just greeted him as usualand he went out. His face revealed that he had been crying copiously,and he could scarcely look at me. The following evening I was walkingto the prayer-meeting in the church, and, going over a railway bridge,I saw this same man coming to meet me. He came across the road tome and said, 'You know, doctor, if you had asked me to stay behindlast night I would have done so.' 'Well,' I said, 'I am asking you now,come with me now.' 'Oh no,' he replied, 'but if you had asked me lastnight I would have done so.' 'My dear friend,' I said, 'if what happenedto you last night does not last for twenty-four hours I am notinterested in it. If you are not as ready to come with me now as youwere last night you have not got the right, the true thing. Whateveraffected you last night was only temporary and passing, you still do notsee your real need of Christ.'That is the kind of thing that may happen even when an appeal isnot made. But when an appeal is made it is greatly exaggerated and soyou get spurious conversions. As I have reminded you even JohnWesley, the great Arminian, did not make appeals to people to 'comeforward'. What you find so often in his Journals is something like this:'Preached at such and such a place. Many seemed to be deeplyaffected, but God alone knows how deeply.' Surely that is verysignificant and important. He had spiritual understanding and knewthat many factors can affect us. What he was concerned aboutwas not immediate visible results but the work of the Holy Spirit inregeneration. A knowledge of the human heart, of psychology, shouldteach us to avoid anything that increases the possibility of spuriousresults.Another argument-the seventh-is that by doing this you areencouraging people to think that their act of going forward somehowsaves them. This is something that must be done there and then, andit is this act that really saves them. That was the case with the manwho felt that he was now 'on the boat' because he had gone forwardthough he had no understanding.But, as I have already suggested, is not this practice based ulti-276