06 THE PLEADING MOOD

06 THE PLEADING MOOD And there follows the pleading mood of the Spirit -- 2 Corinthians 5:20. Paul had it when he said, "We beseech you." Now Paul did not always beseech folks. There were times when the lightning leaped from his eyes and his words were like dynamite, but he said that day, "We beseech you."

There is a time when you can beseech folks. A preacher is not going to beseech sinners until sinners are convicted or he will get ahead of the Holy Spirit. Finney never made a call to the inquiry room as long as sinners could look at him. The minister who is under God and leads the revival and preaches to sinners will get up to Sinai’s thunderings, and that comes with judgment to the sinner’s heart and he breaks down and his will breaks down, and then he can say, "I beseech you." You gain by doing so. You go when God sends you with a tremolo stop in your voice and tears all over your soul and pleading in your heart, and the sinner will respect you. An old woman went out in a meeting to deal with a skeptical man and said, "Oh, doctor, won’t you come to the altar? If it does not do you any harm it cannot possibly do you any good." He came and was saved. The preacher went to him and wanted to know what he had said that had brought him to Christ. The man said, "You said nothing, but when that old woman came back and said what she did not want to say, there was something back of her words to which I paid attention and I saw God in her. I heard God pleading with me through her, and I came."

There are times when He makes you a pleader for Him. I think you have had acquaintance enough with me to see there are not many times when that comes my way, but sometimes I break up myself and what you think is iron seems to turn to the softest kind of material and I am just tender.

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