The spiritual business that is the closest to the heart of God is that business of weeping and travailing for lost souls. Just as a mother cannot give birth to her child until the pains of travail are upon her, neither will the saints win the lost until there is much weeping. The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart some months ago. He said, "I cannot answer prayer in your altar until I first answer prayer in your prayer closet." I hear much despair in the church because most converts are shallow and have little change of lifestyle. It is apparent to me that the level of change in our converts is the direct results of the level of prayer by the leaders and soul winners themselves.
Infallible truth says, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" (Psalm 126:5-6). There is no such thing as compassion for a lost soul that does not cause great sorrow in the heart. It is painful to bear a lost person on your heart and to stand between them and the fires of hell. Almost no one preaches about a literal Hell, where the lost will be tormented for eternity. Neither do we weep over those on the way to that horrible place. God has ordained that every born again saint never forget from what he was saved.
Apostle Jude said, "And some have compassion making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garments spotted by the flesh" (Jude 1:22-24). When we see souls on their way to hell and want to "make a difference," then we will "fear" for them and for ourselves if we have no compassion on their souls to pull them out of the fire. It is an awesome reality that the business of soul winning is on our shoulders. This is the reality that drove those like Hudson Taylor to inland China, where the millions were perishing. Unless we come to understand that we are responsible for the unsaved before our God, nothing will change.
Untold millions will spend eternity in hell because nobody will weep for their souls. The whole business of the Holy Spirit in conviction of sin awaits the travail and great compassion of God's saints, "We are labourers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building" (I Corinthians 3:9). There is no backup plan for the harvest of souls, but "ye are God's husbandry" (the keepers of His vineyard of souls). The prophet of God, Ezekiel, warned us of our responsibility to the wicked, "When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul" (Ezekiel 33:8-9).
"Pulling them out of the fire" has got to be one of the greatest statements ever voiced by the Holy Ghost to Christ's church. Any approach to "travailing of prayer" that does not grasp this promise-filled statement will fail to win. We, the Spirit-filled saints of Almighty God, have been promised and warned that we are the gate watchers of hell. We can pull souls back from the precipice of fire and at least give them one last choice. No, we cannot decide for them, but we can guarantee that they will hear the call and invitation from the mighty Spirit of the "Lover of souls" that "waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth" (James 5:7). He patiently waits, but we must be the harvesters of the fruit.
Nothing describes my Heavenly Father and His Son better than these words, "Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain" (James 5:7b). In one verse of Scripture we are called the husbandry. In this verse He is called the Husbandman. Souls are His business and our business. "We will reap if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9) and bear the pain of travail and great weeping. That's our fellowship of His suffering.
