Care for the Salvation of Souls

Care for the Salvation of Souls

As with everything else, this also consists of various components. The aim with all of God’s salvation is to separate the noble from the ignoble. This is sanctification. It is a noble work to grieve over our own children’s sin, but the ignoble clings even to this work.

This grief can consist of four parts: 1) pure love for the child’s salvation; 2) pure love for God and the gospel’s glory and effectual power; 3) grief over the fact that I have acquitted myself so badly; and 4) grief over the loss of my own honor, over the fact that I sink in other people’s eyes. The first three of these characteristics are noble, whereas the fourth must be separated out because it is selfish.

By way of example, the mixture can consist of 15% love for the child’s salvation, 15% love for the honor of God and the gospel’s effectual power, 10% grief over having acquitted myself badly, and 60% honor-seeking. How shamefully wrong it is simply to assume that one’s care for our children’s salvation is completely noble!

The same thing applies to our care for other people’s salvation. This care can be mixed with a zeal to relate that you have won so and so many souls so that you can thereby increase in other people’s eyes with the result that you can get a larger assembly and thereby increase in self-esteem. It can even be mixed with such a simple and vile thing as thinking about a large collection, a larger income, and the resulting greater earthly glory.

“Pursue sanctification!”