Can we travail for a drowning child, but not for a perishing soul? It is not hard to weep when we realize that our little one is sinking below the surface for the last time. Anguish is spontaneous then. Nor is it hard to agonize when we see the casket containing all that we love on earth borne out of the home. Ah, no; tears are natural at such a time? But oh, to realize and know that souls, precious, never dying souls, are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How could are our hearts! How little we know of the compassion of Jesus! And yet God can give us this, and the fault is our if we do not have it. Jacob, you remember, travailed until he prevailed. but oh, who is doing it today? Who is really travailing in prayer? How many, even of your most spiritual Christian leaders, are content to spend half an hour a day on their knees and then pride themselves on the time they have given to God!
We expect extraordinary results, and extraordinary results are quite possible; sings and wonder will follow, but only through extraordinary efforts in the spiritual realm. Hence, nothing short of continuous, agonizing pleading for souls, hours upon hours, days and nights of prayer, will ever avail. Therefore, "gird yourselves, and lament ye priests; howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and 'all the inhabitants of the load unto the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord." (Joel 1:13-14) Ah, yes Joel knew the secret. Let us then lay aside everything else and "cry unto the Lord". We read in the biographies of your forefathers, who were most successful in winning souls, that they prayed for hours in private. The question therefore arises, can we get the same results without following their example? If we can, then lets us prove to the world that we have found a better way, but if not, then in God's name let us begin to follow those who through faith an patience obtained the promise. Our forefathers wept and prayed and agonized before the Lord for sinners to be saved, and would not rest until they were slain by the Sword of the Word of God. That was the secret of their mighty success; when things were slack and would not move, they wrestled in prayer till God poured out His Spirit upon the people and sinners were converted.
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Oswald J. Smith (1889 - 1986)
Was a Canadian pastor, author, and missions advocate. He founded The People's Church in Toronto in 1928. Over the course of eighty years he preached more than 12,000 sermons in 80 countries, wrote thirty-five books (with translations into 128 languages), as well as 1,200 poems, of which 100 have been set to music, including "Deeper and Deeper" (first line "Into the heart of Jesus").The great burden of Oswald J. Smith's Christian life was to see the lost come to the Lord. He was well known for the motto: "We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." and "No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once."
Although he was the long-time pastor of the large and influential Peoples Church in Toronto, Ontario, the name of Oswald J. Smith is most often associated with missions. Born in 1889 in Ontario, at the age of sixteen he attended an evangelistic crusade held by R. A. Torrey and Charles Alexander, where he was saved. Two years later he began Bible College, eventually graduating from both college and seminary. His burden for missions showed up early in life. He applied with a foreign missions board, but they turned him down because of concerns about poor health he had suffered throughout his childhood (a problem which he apparently overcame, since he later worked both in the backwoods of Canada and the mountains of Kentucky, then lived into his late nineties).
If he couldn't go as a missionary, he determined to start a church that would send out missionaries. In 1928 Smith started the Peoples Church, originally called the Cosmopolitan Tabernacle. As a young man he had asked God to enable him to give more than he would ordinarily be able to give, and the blessings he experienced helped him institute faith promise missions giving. With this plan, churches have given multiplied millions to send the Gospel throughout the world. He also established mission works to reach the northern parts of Canada, to reach Jews and to distribute tracts. In addition to his pastoral and missions works, he wrote 1200 poems and hymn lyrics, over 200 of which were set to music. His earthly work ended at his homegoing in 1986.