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'An Independent Baptist Church' D. L.
Moody “I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.” Occasionally there emerges a man of whom it may be said, "After God made him, He broke the mold." If anyone ever appeared to be less qualified and the most unlikely to be a great evangelist and preacher, it was Dwight L. Moody. He only completed the 6th grade in school, and then quit. He was very unseemly in appearance (he was short and heavy, weighing over 300 lbs.), a very common place man without attractive looks or charisma; he was very unpolished in grammar as words would rush from his beard in fast, short sentences; and his pronunciation was poor. Charles Spurgeon said, after hearing Moody preach, "He is the only man I ever heard who said, 'Mesopotamia' in ONE syllable"; His sermons lasted only about 1/2 hour and were very simple in expressing God's love for the sinner, and God used this man's desire to see people saved to win many people to the Lord. Of Moody, one is compelled to confess: "He was an evangelist sent from God, for no man could have done the ministry he accomplished, except God was with him." God does not need looks or great talents and abilities in a person to use that person to accomplish great things. I wonder what person listening to this today feels they have no great talents or abilities, but is willing to surrender to the Lord and let Him do great things through us? Dwight Moody was born on February 5, 1837 on a small New England farm. He was only 4 when his father, an alcoholic, died at age 41. Twins were born one month later to the family. His mother, Betsy, was now 36 years old and a widow, with 9 children at home. Times were very difficult, and when the bank foreclosed on their home, the bankers came and even took the food from the pantry. What was Betsy to do? Would the family have to be split up? She was a praying woman, and she prayed God would help them. Somehow, the family managed, as the older boys went to work on area farms to help support the family, and people from the community helped them in many ways. Betsy would keep the kids in bed to keep warm, because they could not afford heating, and she would get them up just in time to get ready for school. She would often feed them their breakfast in bed to keep them warm. Mrs. Moody read to her family from God's Word and a book of devotions every day. One Sunday, she gathered them all together and went to church....quite a task for a single mother! Oh, mothers here today, don't ever stop praying for your children! Keep taking them to church faithfully. God will see you through the trials, and He could do great things through your boys and girls, and your persistent effort could save them from a lot of heartache and misery! On his seventeenth birthday, Dwight went to Boston to get a job with his uncle in a shoe store. One of the conditions was that he attend church each week. Dwight was soon very homesick, and found church quite boring. However, in the shoe business he soon excelled, and had a goal of making $100, 000, In Sunday school, his teacher was Edward Kimball. One day, Mr. Kimball gave Dwight a Bible and told him that the lesson was in John. As Dwight fumbled through the Old Testament for John, the class mates began to laugh and snicker, but the teacher quickly took the Bible, and found the place and gave it to Dwight. From then on, Dwight had the highest respect for his Sunday School teacher. It was because of this that he listened to his teacher later on about trusting Christ as Savior. Sunday School teacher, do your students KNOW you really love them and care about them? Remember, those boys and girls really don't care how much you KNOW, until they know how much you CARE! A short time later, on a Saturday, Mr. Kimball was burdened to go talk to Dwight about his soul. He went to the shoe store where Dwight worked and found him in the back room wrapping some shoes. He told this teenager, "Dwight, I want to tell you how much Christ loves you." Moody knelt down and that Sunday School teacher led him to the Lord. Later Dwight told how he felt. "I was in a new world. The birds sang sweeter, the sun shone brighter. I'd never known such peace." Sunday School teacher, Youth worker, do you care enough about your students to go visit them to make sure they are saved? Have you done so? Edward Kimball may have never won another soul to Christ, but on that day, Saturday, April 21, 1855 - like an Andrew bringing a Simon Peter to Christ - Edward Kimball opened a door of soul-winning evangelism that will never be closed until Christ comes back again to this earth! Oh, Sunday School teacher, this is potential in every young boy or girl that is won to Christ! Dwight Moody was excited with his new life in Christ. He
felt he should immediately join the church he attended. As he stood before
the membership committee of the church, they questioned him about his knowledge
of Spiritual matters. Well, he had just been saved and did not know much
about the Bible at all, so the committee refused to admit him as a member of the
church until he had studied and learned more. One year later, he applied
again and was accepted. Moody later said he was not bitter towards that
committee, because, as he said, "They were just trying to make sure I was
saved." In 1856, he decided to move to Chicago to work for another uncle in a shoe store. He noticed there were lots of other boys away from home who were homesick just as he was, so he rented 4 pews in the church and invited lonely, homesick boys like himself to fill those pews. He later offered his help in the Sunday school and was told there was no class for him to teach, for they already had more teachers than students! But if he wanted, he could start his own class, but he would have to round up his own students. He did just that, and recruited 18 ragged and dirty boys as his students the next Sunday, doubling the attendance of the entire Sunday School! "That was the happiest day of my life," said Moody. "I had found out what my mission was." I might ask everyone here today, "What is your purpose for coming to Church?" Has God given a 'mission' for your life? In 1858, he started his own Sunday School in a an abandoned freight car, and then moved to an old vacant saloon. He would arrive on Sunday morning to clean up the beer bottles and do janitor work so it could be used for church that morning.. Moody loved children, and he would use prizes, free pony rides, and picnics to entice the boys and girls from the area to come to Sunday School. He promised one group of roughians if they would attend Sunday School for a certain period of weeks, he would buy them all knew suits. He later took a picture of the boys before and after, now with their new clothes, and the captain read, "IT DOES PAY TO LIVE FOR CHRIST". While making a visit in a home, Moody persuaded the wife to get rid of her husband's whiskey. In fact, Moody emptied the jug in the street. When he returned that afternoon to take the children to church, he found himself confronting several irate men who threatened to beat him up. "See here now, my men," said Moody, "if youare going to whip me for pouring out the whiskey, you might at least give me time to say my prayers." The men thought this would just add more fun to the event, so Moody knelt down to pray. He prayed as they had never heard a man pray before, and the longer he prayed, the more their hearts were softened. When he arose from his knees, he found the men giving him their hands and saying that he was not such a bad fellow after all! As the children came to Moody's Sunday School, soon many of the parents followed, and the church grew to tremendous size! There is a lesson here - if we win the boys and girls to Christ, soon their mothers and fathers will come too! At age 23, young Moody decided to abandon secular work, and go into the Lord's work full-time. He never reached his goal of earning 100,000 dollars, but he laid much more aside in heaven in God's bank account! Here is the incident that prompted this 23 year old to go exclusively into the Lord's work - A dying Sunday school teacher had to return east due to his health and was greatly concerned about the salvation of the girls in his class. Moody rented a carriage for him and he went with the man to visit each girl's home. At each home, the dying Sunday School teacher, with tears in his eyes, begged each girl to trust Jesus as Savior. At the close of 10 days of visiting, , Moody and the teacher saw the last child yield to Christ. The entire class, now born again, met at the railroad station to see the dying teacher off the next day. Moody would never be the same! He called the experience "the most memorable I have ever known," because it increased his personal concern for lost souls. Teacher, Christian...... if people see our concern for lost souls, it will encourage them to try to win others to Christ too! Moody's reputation around Chicago soon began to grow. People would make fun of him, and mock his gimmicks to gets boys and girls to Sunday school. He was nicknamed "Crazy Moody". Later on, Newspapers would even print stories and jokes about him. Christian, if you are to serve Christ, people will mock and ridicule you. This event of the dying Sunday School teacher witnessing to his students made Moody vow to not let a day go past without talking to someone about the Savior every day, even if it meant getting out of bed at times. One night, about 10 o'clock, Moody realized he had not talked to anyone that day, so he got out of bed and went out onto the street and noticed a man standing by a lamppost, and asked him, "Are you a Christian?" The man flew into a violent rage and threatened to knock Moody into the gutter. This man later went to an elder in the church and complained that Moody was doing more harm then good, so the elder begged Dwight to temper his zeal down a little. 3 Months later Moody was awakened by a knock at the door. It was the man he had witnessed to. "I want to talk to you about my soul," he said. He apologized for the way he had treated Moody and said that he had no peace ever since that night when Moody witnessed to him. Moody led the man to Christ and he became a zealous worker in the Sunday School! On November 25, 1860, President-Elect, Abraham Lincoln visited Moody's Sunday School and gave a few remarks. In 1862, he married his wife, Emma, when he was 25 and she was 19. The 3 Moody Children were Emma (1864), William (1869), and Paul Dwight (1879). You could not find a husband and a wife more opposite than Dwight and Emma Moody. She was fragile and sickly; he was bursting with energy and rarely knew what it was to be ill. She suffered with asthma and headaches most of her life. Dwight was the extrovert; Emma preferred to be in the background. She was well-educated, while her husband functioned with perhaps a 6th grade education. She was 'polished' in the best British fashion; Dwight had yet to be 'polished'! Emma was a great help-meet to Dwight Moody, and took care of most of the daily affairs so he could serve the Lord. She handled the finances, and the children received most of their Bible training from her. Oh, how this man and woman loved each other. Among Moody's last words were: Mamma, you have been a good wife to me!" Moody never ceased to wonder two things - How God was able to use him despite what he considered his handicaps, and the miracle of having won the love of a woman he considered so completely his superior, with such a different temperament and background. With the advent of the Civil War, Moody found himself doing personal work among the soldiers. He went among the dying asking, "Are you a Christian?" He would make several trips back home to check on the Sunday School during that time. In 1867, primarily due to his wife's asthma, the couple went to England. He had also always wanted to meet Charles Spurgeon and George Mueller. On this trip while they sat in a public park in Dublin, Evangelist Henry Varley remarked, "The world has yet to see what God will do with a man who is fully consecrated to him." That saying spoke to Moody's heart, and he determined to be just that man! Three incidents prepared Moody for his world famous evangelistic crusades. First was Henry Moorehouse, the converted English ex-prize fighter, challenging Dwight to teach the people what the Bible says, not your own words about the Bible, and emphasize God's love for sinners. Moody's preaching was much more effective after that. Moorehouse would tell the listeners to bring their Bibles so they could check up on the preacher! Moody called this experience of stressing God's love to sinners was his '2nd conversion', because up to then, he had preached God's hatred for sinners and His terrible wrath; but now he saw that his message was 'God is Love'. "This heart of mine began to thaw out", he said, "and I stopped trying to frighten men into the kingdom of God, but instead woo them with God's love. Later on, Moody would preach a sermon on hell in most of his campaigns, but he did so lovingly. R.W. Dale said that Moody was the only man he ever heard who had a right to preach on hell, because Moody could not preach it without shedding tears. A second event occurred in 1870 while attending a YMCA convention in Indianapolis. Moody asked for a volunteer to sing, and Ira Sankey stood and began to sing, "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood." Moody was so impressed by his beautiful voice he went up to Sankey immediately after the service. Moody's direct approach was, "You must quit your job and come to Chicago and help me. I've been looking for you for 8 years!" Sankey reasoned that he had a wife and small children, and already had a good job at the post office. A few months later, at God's leading, however, Sankey did leave that job to go help Moody, and would be his song leader in the great revivals and crusades. From then on it was, "Sankey will sing; Moody will preach." A third incident was the Great Chicago fire of 1871 and the ensuing filling of the Holy Spirit. On Sunday evening, October 8, 1871, as the service was coming to a close, the fire trucks became louder and louder. At the Invitation, Moody asked the congregation to evaluate their relationship to Christ and return next week to make their decisions for him. That crowd never re-gathered, because that was the night of the Great Chicago Fire, which was started by a cow kicking over a lantern! A great portion of the city od Chicago was destroyed and over 270 people were killed. Moody later said that was one of biggest regrets in life, not having given an invitation that night! In the years that followed, Moody always gave an invitation after every service! A few months later, another event occurred that changed Moody's life. An aunt of his had been praying that Dwight would have the power of the Holy Spirit in his preaching. 'Auntie Sarah' had prayed for many months for Dwight to receive God's power. He describes what happened when he was in New York about one month later. He had just heard preacher speaking about being filled with the Holy Spirit. The preacher pointed out that while all Christians was born of the spirit, not all Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit. The thought struck Moody, who said, "I never saw that before! The next day Moody was walking down Wall Street in New York, meditating on this truth, when the Holy Spirit's power came upon him and he was filled with the Holy Spirit, "Oh what a day! I cannot describe it....I seldom refer to it.....I can only say that God was revealed to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand....." Friend, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Does your singing or teaching or preaching have God's power? Moody was filled with the Holy Spirit, just as you and I can be if we surrender to him. Now it was not the Pentecostal slaying of the Spirit, for Moody rejected that Charismatic teaching as error. Moody never spoke in tongues, nor did he ever encourage it in his meetings. What Moody experienced was simply the 'Filling of the Holy Spirit' than you and I can experience if simply surrender to the Lord. After that his preaching was never the same. He preached the same sermons, but the results came as never before. People were saved by the crowds. He and Sankey went to England and thousands attended the services, and throngs were saved. They came back to America and the same thing happened here! He traveled across the American continent and through Great Britain in some of the greatest and most successful evangelistic meetings communities have ever known. His tour of the world with Sankey was considered the greatest evangelistic enterprise of the century. Moody would tell his converts, "Now if you want to be a useful, happy Christian," he said, "just get to work and do not go to sleep. Find a good church where you can find something to do. If you want to be a healthy Christian, you have to work!" A man once testified in one of Moody's meetings that he had lived "on the Mount of Transfiguration" for five years. "How many souls did you win to Christ last year?" Moody bluntly asked him. "I don't know that I have won any," the man admitted. "Well," said Moody, "we don't want that kind of Mountaintop experience. When a man gets up so high that he can't reach down and save poor sinners, there is something wrong." Moody once said, "If the minister begins to pick the Bible to pieces, get up and get out! Friend, does your Church stand for the Bible? If not, you'd better get out! My friend, I wonder how many of us need to heed this advice today? Are you doing something for Christ? Do you just 'attend' Church? Or, are you serving Christ in some way at that local church? You will never be happy and content as a Christian until you are serving Christ in someway. If you don't, you will end up negative, critical of others, and faultfinding. He was a humble man. One time, while greeting people as they left the first service, Moody was approached by a man who deliberately insulted him. Moody pushed the man away only to send him tumbling down the stairs to the lower vestible. When Moody went to the platform to start the 2nd service, he said, "Friends, before beginning tonight, I want to confess that I yielded just now to my temper, out in the hall, and I have done wrong....if that man is present here...I want to ask his forgiveness, and God's. Let us pray." He was a man of prayer but one of common sense too. In 1884, a young doctor walked into a Moody meeting to hear the message, but as he sat down, he found that a man was leading in prayer and apparently was never going to finish it. As the young doctor got up to leave, he heard Moody stand to say, "Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer." The doctor was so impressed that he stayed for the rest of the service and then returned for another meeting. As a result the doctor gave his heart to Christ, and his missionary work in Labrador earned him knighthood from King George V.
Two great monuments stand in the indefatigable work and ministry of this gospel warrior – Moody Bible Institute and the famous Moody Church in Chicago. Moody went to be with the Lord in 1899 after almost 63 years of life on this earth. The eulogy was preached by C.I. Scofield. His last words were: "I see earth receding; heaven is approaching. God is calling me. This is my triumph. This is my coronation day. It is glorious. God is calling and I must go. Mama, you have been a good wife......no pain......no valley....it is bliss." And with that, Dwight Moody went home to be with His Lord. R.A. Torrey, one of his closest friends, later wrote his conclusions as to why God used D.L. Moody: (1) He was fully surrendered to God (2) He was a man of prayer (3) He was a student of the Word of God (4) He was a humble man (5) He was completely free from the love of money (6) He had a consuming passion for the lost (7) He had a definite endowment of power from on High. My friend, are you willing to be used of God like D.L. Moody was?
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