As I said we had a meeting last night of some of the officers of our church. We discussed the confusion caused by the fact that the evangelists who had left said we were missing God by not getting everyone in the assembling to go out and save souls.

As we contemplated the problem we all came to the conclusion that the spirit so common in evangelical churches that stresses "we are saved to save others," the constant guilt-producing emphasis on the need to "go out and compel them to come in," "the king's business requires haste," is not of God. It is a spirit of proselyting.

The more we talked about the power and prevalence of this spirit, how it corrupts certain texts such that the fruit Jesus mentioned is the fruit of "getting souls saved" and what Paul meant when He said "that I may win Christ" actually means "that I may win some to Christ," how Sunday after Sunday the message of salvation is preached to saved people in case there is one person who is not saved, while the rest of the believers are not fed the meat of the Word, we began to feel we are dealing with something that is not of God but of Satan.

So we joined together in prayer and bound this ungodly spirit of proselyting that prevents spiritual growth, that brings guilt to church people who want to obey the pastor and yet do not have the grace to go door to door and "compel them to come in."

Hopefully this confusion will leave our assembling altogether and never be heard of again.

How can we ever find rest in Jesus and hear His voice when we feel we are not doing God's will because we are not saving souls from Hell?

But there is more to it than this. The unscriptural concept that our first job after getting saved is to save others actually works against growth in righteousness, and we think this is precisely what Satan is after.

I personally have numerous opportunities to talk to people about the Lord. During recent heart problems I spoke to several doctors and nurses, as well as patients in the ward, about the things of God.

"Did you take them through the four steps of salvation? Did you bring them to ‘closure'?" (Lord I hate these Bible school terms. They smell like something the cat dragged in.) "Did they "make a decision for Christ?"

No, I just talked to them as a friend, and in every case the conversation turned to the Lord.

In one instance a dermatologist was blasting me with carbon dioxide. I said, "This is going to turn black and I have to preach tonight."

The doctor then wanted to know all about the church and about Pentecost. The same thing happened recently in a carburetor shop. I got to talking to one of the mechanics about Aimee Semple McPherson and her miracles. This particular mechanic was a minister in the Jehovah Witnesses. He was fascinated with the account of Mrs. McPherson (who wouldn't be?).

To be continued.