"There is a wicked, Christ-denying, unbelieving slander abroad in the land. I hear it everywhere I go. It disgusts me, and I believe it nauseates God. It is the lament of powerless preachers. It is the alibi of dry-eyed Christian workers, without passion, without burden, without tears. It is the prattle of premillennial Bible teachers who never have revivals and who rarely win a soul. That slander is this: "Well, it is getting harder to win souls all the time." Or stated another way: "We can't have great revivals now like Finney and Moody and Torrey and Chapman and Billy Sunday had."
"That is a doctrine of the Devil. It minimizes the power of the Gospel. It pictures God as old and weak, unable to cope with the increasing wickedness of the world. It ties the hands of preachers. It makes prayer seem useless. It closes the door of faith. It belittles the love and grace of God. It would make the gates of Hell prevail against the churches."
"I say again, it is a doctrine of Satan, a lie, an alibi that the enemy of souls puts in the prating mouths of those who do not pay the price to win sinners."
"The trouble is not with the harvest but with the reapers. Men are lost but they can be saved. Hearts are hard but they can be broken with the Gospel. Sinners are blinded, sinners are enslaved by Satan, sinners are even dead in trespasses and sins, but Christ has opened blind eyes and released the captives and raised the dead before. Sinners always were lost, always were hardened and blinded and enslaved. The basic facts about sinful men have never changed, and the basic facts about the power of the Gospel have never changed. Around the world, in all ages and all lands, the harvest has been white and the laborers few. The harvest is white today."
