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Jude 1:22 And of some have compassion, making a difference: 23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
In Cincinnati Sam Jones was asked by the ministers to hold a special meeting for them after they saw the results of his evangelistic work there. His subject was "The Best Way to Secure Practical Results." We read in his wife's book, The Life and Sayings of Sam P. Jones, on pages 187-189:
He said: "Here in Cincinnati you have things in shape to begin a vigorous piano coversfare on sin, and the preacher who wants to delay had better surrender. You have things here now so that you can convert fifty thoBlipnd people in the next ten months. It is well enough to preach Christ and Him crucified, Christ's love and Christ's mercy, but you want to stop that now and tell these wicked old sinners that they have got to repent, that they have got to reform. They have listened to your preaching Christ, Sunday after Sunday, until they have listened unmoved. One time when I was raking some folks over the coals, a good old brother came to me and said:
" 'Brother Jones, you ought to preach a little more to us about Christ, and not raise so much noise about other things.'
"I told the brethren that I would not bring Christ down there among such a lot of cutthroats as they were. You want to talk to these old sinners about their sins and convince them that they are doing wrong. No man is lost in a gospel sense, until you make him feel he is lost. Some of us little preachers believe in that good old text, 'you must be born again.' If there is any one sermon that he preaches in every occasion it is that. Why, it's too much for most of you. If I had as much sense as Bishop Fowler here, I might try it. Jesus only spoke of the subject once, and that was at mid-night, when He had but one man to listen to Him. Whatever hurts the soul and keeps it away from God -- that's the proper subject of a sermon. Take the preachers of this town. They talk to their congregations about drunkenness, and tell them that a drunkard can not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and right down before them are a lot of distillers and brewers and whiskey-sellers and men who rent their property for improper purposes.
"You want to talk right to those fellows. If I had one of those in my congregation I would make him give up his evil ways, or I would make him get out of my church. Some time ago I was in a town and I got on this subject. I said I felt satisfied that of the whiskey-dealers in that place one-fourth were church members. Well, that made a great deal of trouble, and at last some one made a count and found that of seventy-four in the town sixty-one were members of churches; thirteen Methodists, twelve Presbyterians, seventeen Baptists, and so on. No, brethren, don't talk Christ and His love to such reprobates. Tell them how wicked they are and that they have got to mend their ways. Let us stir up these things.
The next thing to religion is fun, and if we can't do anything else we can have some fun. The trouble is that we are fearful. I, myself, never had any fear of tatters and pistols and fists, and I was never afraid of running contrary to public opinion, and, I tell you, it takes more courage, ofttimes, to take a stand against public opinion than to walk up to the mouth of a cannon. Up in Canada, where I have been, if a newspaper assails or misrepresents a preacher that preacher sits right down and writes a column and a half in defense and that newspaper publishes it the next day. If a newspaper assails any of you, you never say a word back. Now, I have seldom had any cause to complain of newspaper men. They have treated me very fairly as a class. Occasionally some one of them gets on his ear, sits down on it, and fans himself with the other, but they have always done well by me as a rule. But there is no doubt but they do give currency to slanders against preachers, and the preachers won't say a word back. Don't do that any more. Stand up for yourselves. Make men respect you as men.
Why, look how they nominate a preacher at our conferences. One brother wants to know if he is cautious, another wants to know if he is conservative, and so on. They always want a man who is quiet and meek, and who will not step on anybody's toes. Well, I feel like getting up there and asking if he is a pusillanimous pup. We don't want men to be meek and quiet. We want preachers to be aggressive and determined -- courageous enough to tell the people what miserable sinners they are. Satan won this country by fighting, and we must win it back from him in the same was, and I wish when you find a man who has raised a row in some church, that instead of crushing him, crucifying him, you will give him your best charge. To me there is no better recommendation for a man than that he has raised the devil. That's what we must do. We must raise the devil."
