Scripture for Meditation:  Ezek. xxxiii, 1-11.

By the Master’s final words to his disciples the obligation is laid upon every Christian to be a soul-winner.  “Ye shall be my witnesses,” is the risen Lord’s message to all his followers.  No one is excused.  “Follow me,” said Christ, “and I will make you fishers of men.”  And when his face was set toward Calvary, he said to the Father, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”  By the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, God distinctly says that, if we neglect “to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”  We are all sent, and if we shrink or excuse ourselves from our great mission we shall come into condemnation.

The unsaved multitudes know that every Christian should be an ambassador for Christ, and when we fail to do our duty we are condemned in their eyes as well as before God.  A writer in the Epworth Era says: 

“A college professor who was noted among his fellow-teachers for his habit of addressing young men upon their personal relations to Christ, was asked by one of his fellow-professors, ’Do they not resent your appeals as an impertinence?’ He replied:  ’No!  Nothing is of such interest to any man as his own soul and its condition.  He will never resent words of warning or comfort if they are prompted by genuine feeling.  When I was a young man, I felt as you do.  My wife’s cousin, a young fellow not yet of age, lived in our house for six months.  My dread of meddling was such that I never asked him to be present at family worship, or spoke to him on the subject of religion.  He fell into the company of a wild set, and was rapidly going to the bad.  When I reasoned with him I spoke of Christ.  “Do you call yourself a Christian?” he asked, assuming an astonished look.  “I hope so,” I replied.  “But you are not.  If you were, he must be your Best Friend.  Yet I have lived in your house for six months, and you have never once named his name to me; no, he is nothing to you!” I have never forgotten the rebuke.’”

STUDY III.

By personal effort.

Memory Verse:  “And he brought him to Jesus.”—­(John i, 42.)

Scripture for Meditation:  John i, 35-45.

Have you ever noticed that much of the work which the Master and his disciples did was “personal work?” Some of our Lord’s greatest sermons were preached to one person.  The apostles were all won individually.  Turn to your Bible now, and read the account of the visit of Nicodemus to Christ, and of the meeting with the woman of Samaria at the well.  If you take the time to follow this theme through the Gospels and through the Acts of the Apostles, you will be sure to see that the work of winning souls for Christ by personal effort is the work of every Christian.