Pull in your nets

I have been asked by many good men, “Why is it we don’t have any results? We work hard, pray hard, and preach hard. Yet success doesn’t come.” 

I’ll tell you why. It is because they spend all their time mending their nets. No wonder they never catch anything. It’s critical to hold inquiry meetings, and pull the net in to see if you’ve caught anything. If you are always mending and setting the net, you won’t catch many fish. 

Who ever heard of a man going out to fish, setting his net, letting it stop there, and never pulling it in? Everybody would laugh at the man’s foolishness. 

A minister in England came to me one day and said, “I wish you’d tell me why we ministers don’t succeed better than we do.” 

I explained the idea of pulling in the net and said, “You ought to pull in your nets. There are many ministers in Manchester who can preach much better than I can, but I pull in the net.” Many people have objections to inquiry meetings, but I impressed upon him the importance of them. 

The minister said, “I’ve never pulled in my net, but I’ll try next Sunday.” 

He did so, and eight persons, anxious inquirers, joined him in his study to have their questions about salvation answered. 

The next Sunday he came to see me and said he had never had such a Sunday in his life. He came face to face with a marvelous blessing. 

The next time he drew the net, forty inquired about the gospel. 

When he came to see me later, he said to me, “Moody, I’ve had eight hundred conversions this last year! It was such a huge mistake that I didn’t begin to pull in the net earlier.” 

If you want to catch men, just pull in the net. If you only catch one, it will be something. It may be a little child, but I’ve known a little child to convert a whole family. 

You don’t know what’s in that little boy in the inquiry room. He may become another Martin Luther, a reformer who will make the world tremble. You can never tell. 

God uses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty. God’s promise is as good as a bank note. And here is one of Christ’s promissory notes: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. 

Will you grab hold of the promise, trust it, and follow Him now? If a man preaches the gospel, and preaches it faithfully, he ought to expect results then and there. I believe it is the privilege of God’s children to reap the fruit of their labor 365 days a year.

Source: The Overcoming Life by Dwight Lyman Moody