A friend of mine went to teach in Natchez before the war. That man thought that repentance was coming down some day to strike him like lightning. “Nothing, sir, but just to pull for the shore.” I went the other night. You can tell. He didn’t want to embarrass him, however, and almost had decided to come back at a more convenient time. The dying man sprang up from his cot, and said, “What do you say? come! Those who are working for salvation are like men on a treadmill, going round and round and round; toiling and toiling and toiling; but nothing comes of it all. He had a son. Very often a man will hear a hundred good things in a sermon, but there may be one thing that strikes him as a little out of place, and he will go home and sit down at the table and talk right out before his children and magnify that one wrong thing, and not say a word about the hundred good things that were said. Do you belong to that class? They all understood what fast horses were—they knew a good deal more about fast horses than they knew about the kingdom of God. Moody's Stories-D L Moody. There were already about twenty rollicking boys hitched on, when one little fellow dropped off behind. If his heart is in lands, it won’t be long before he’s talking about real estate, improvements, houses, and so on. A man was taken into one of our insane asylums a few years ago from one of the Western cities. Like Martha and Mary, they had a brother, but he was a member of the University of Edinburgh. With her dying breath, she said: There is a woman over there who is deceitful, terribly so. The guide smiled, and replied: “I think we shall get above the storm soon.” Death and judgment were a constant source of fear to me till I realized the fact that neither shall ever have any hold on a child of God. I really believe that when he got into his cell, he believed that he had to reap what he sowed. The devil will come to you to-morrow morning and say it was all feeling; that you only imagined you were accepted by God. “Mr. The very man he had been talking against was the very man God used to convert him. If the minister of a church cannot unite the people, if those that were dissatisfied will not fall in, it would be better for that minister to retire. He did not want his farm divided by the railroad, so the case went into court, where commissioners were appointed to pay the damages and to allow the road to be built. One of them had a Christian mother, and he seemed to have some conscience left. The boy sat down between Mr. Spurgeon and the elder who was with him, and said: So he got them over the water, and led them into the green pastures on the other side. Some men, noticing this, took a boat and came upon her from the sea and shot her. He said he had an old cow, and when he wanted a good supply of milk, he fed the cow; he did not scold her. And neither of them can recollect. They were going to have a great celebration at the opening of a saloon and billiard hall in Chicago, in the northern part of the city, where I lived. That is what the godless call “getting on splendidly.” They rent the pews, pay the minister, and meet all the running expenses. You find Him to be the very Savior and friend you need. Cut the cord! Where will you be, on the left or the right hand of God? “Oh, sir, I cannot get a room in this hotel; they are quite full! So we, if we want to rise nearer heaven, must just throw out some of the sand, and cast aside every weight. Then going to a precipice at some distance, he looked down, and there, upon the rocks and briars, he saw the mangled form of his loved child. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, I lie here and see my old schoolmates driving along in their carriages, and Satan says: ‘If God is so good, why does He keep you here all these years? As a certain deacon passed on his way to church, he followed and said: Come!” He began to be angry with himself: “What a fool I was for ever going to that meeting at all!” When he got up he took the little hymn book, found the hymn, and read it over. After the doctor had made an examination, he said, “I am sorry to tell you you cannot live out the night.” The folly of covetousness is well shown in the following extract: “Look up your books,” he said, “and see if it is not so.” He found that instead of being bound for a religious gathering, he was on his way to a horse-race. But when he had it, he hardly knew what to do with it. One dark night, a train was thrown off the track, and several were killed. I don’t care how black and vile your heart may be, only accept the invitation of Jesus Christ, and He will make you fit to sit down with the rest at that feast. It is the want of Christ that sinks people into despair. The minister wanted him to leave the Bible with him; he didn’t want the rest of his congregation to see it. The letters said: Father, what seed are you sowing in your family? I don’t want to talk about theaters. Some time ago, in an inquiry meeting, I said to a young miss who said that she could not love God, that it was very hard for her to love Him: A man will say, “Wife, did I read that chapter?” Where will you be a hundred years hence?” No one saw the act; but God saw it, and this retribution followed it. They are always telling what they don’t believe. There would be just as much reason in that as in the way that people talk about the Bible. There is one passage of Scripture which has always been a great comfort to me. You know there are some people who mock at religious meetings, and say that religion drives people mad. He was the architect for one or two companies; and he used to do all his planning in that way. “Then go higher; you haven’t got high enough.’ “Why has he wings on his feet?” “Why don’t you go?” Bishop Ryle has very well likened faith to a root whose flower is assurance. The general said that he had heard of such things in other generations, but he didn’t know that it would ever happen in his generation. He used this text, but the devil put this thought into his mind: It was full of statues of gods. Nothing can satisfy the longings of the soul but the Word of the living God. Settle it now, my friends, once for all. No mention was made of her mother, or of what had occurred; but no sooner was she taken to the house than she ran first into one room, then into another, into the parlor, the dining-room, and all over the house, and then away into a little room where her mother used to go to pray alone. During his time as a preacher, evangelist, and Christian educator, Massachusetts native Dwight L. Moody had a gift for powerfully communicating the love of God. A sculptor once showed a visitor his studio. Put down ‘Jesus’ to head the list, then ‘heaven,’ then ‘River of Life,’ then ‘Crown of Glory’,” and went on until the column was filled, and then just drew a line and showed the heavenly and the earthly things in contrast. I never saw that audience again. He called another, and another, and there they stood looking up at the shepherd. The moment we receive Christ we should receive Him as a friend. If we are willing, every one of us may be sealed for the day of redemption. A man’s sleigh was standing near by, and the boy began to eye the man. That is right. Suppose I meet a man who is sowing seed, and say, The young man said: “No; but my father and grandfather and myself were brought up infidels, and for the last two or three years this thought has been haunting me, ‘Where shall I spend eternity?’ And the thought of it follows me day and night.” Let us look at—. “Yes,” he said, “and a curious thing happened that night; this hymn recalled it to my mind. His mother said, The men who have studied the Bible for fifty years have never got down to the depths of it yet. And so it is with us. As the party were climbing up the mountain, and before they had reached the summit, a storm came on. He declared he would never go to another of the meetings; but the next night he came again. I began to be quite interested in the struggle; I knew if she did not break his will, he would some day break her heart. She said: Moody’s Stories Being a Second Volume of Anecdotes, Incidents and Illustrations. The boat appeared to be leaving the crew to perish. In the British Navy there is said to be a scarlet thread running through every line of cordage, and though a rope be cut into inch pieces it can be recognized as belonging to the government. Did you ever hear such stuff? She confessed that she tried to starve the child; but it lingered on. The servants called her Lady Pendulum. He offers peace and joy and comfort that the world knows not of. And the young man proves to be weak-kneed; he cannot stand the scoffs and the sneers and the jeers of his companions; and so he becomes untrue to his principles, and gives them up. My dear friends, there is not one commandment that has been given us which has not been for our highest and best interest. Suppose I should send my little boy, five years old, to school to-morrow morning, and when he came home in the afternoon, say to him: Have I to read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both sides? We must study the Bible thoroughly, and hunt it through, as it were, for some great truth. “Well,” I said, “that is the reason why you have no peace.” Once, before his conversion, he so outraged an Italian shoe salesmen with a prank, that the man chased him with a sharp knife, clearly intending to kill him. She then went the length and breadth of the city trying to get men to sign a petition for his pardon. “Well,” replied the gentleman, “I have been sitting under your preaching for five years, and when you said that a thing in the Bible was not authentic, I cut it out.” Your names must be sent on beforehand, and entered in its book, else you won’t get in; but get your names inscribed on its pages, and then you won’t be disappointed. Some years ago, in one of the mining districts of England, a young man attended one of our meetings and refused to go from the place till he had found peace in the Savior. After I had talked with her a good while about her soul she said: come!” But after a while the captain and sixteen men were taken off, and the vessel went down. But let the wax be warmed up and an impression is made. I heard once of a man who went to England from the Continent, and brought letters with him to eminent physicians from the Emperor. And thus people indorse God’s promises, by marking some as bad and others as doubtful; whereas we ought to take all of them as good, for He has never once broken His word, and all that He says He will do, will be done in the fullness of time. "Gospels meetings were conducted during the week in a room formerly used for a saloon, but which had been made over unto a mission hall, and here Dwight L. Moody received the practice and training in preaching that were of such incalculable value in later years. The burden had gone, there was joy; but just as she was leaving me at the door she said: In Colorado the superintendent of some works told me of a miner that was promoted, who came to the superintendent, and said: How many times the Good Shepherd has come down here and taken a little lamb to the hill-tops of glory, and then the father and mother begin to look up and follow. In the eighth chapter of Romans Paul says: “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Some years ago a child of mine had scarlet fever. Then I found there was a bar, and then I found a night-lock. “Have you got some one who can write a plain hand?” I admire Him, and I want to be a Christian, but I don’t want to give up the theaters.” The closest tie on earth is a mother’s love for her child. You cannot touch me; I died in that man, and I go free. They went in the direction in which the air was moving, and reached the shaft. that I should receive my death wound from that side whence I expected no harm, and be safe in the part where I looked for most danger.”. The man waved his hat, and went off as fast as he could. This being true, D. L. Moody was an evangelist in the truest sense of the word. “I don’t believe it.” But the boy was ashamed of his father, who had on his old working clothes, and spurned him, and said: It will take bitter toil to uproot them. Repeatedly stressing that the spiritual issue was one of choice and of yielding one’s will to Another, Kirk emphasized that this choice led to a life of faith. The story of evangelist, teacher and urban ministry pioneer, Dwight Lyman (D.L.) “What are you thinking about, my son?” replied the agitated father. Although God forgave the sins of Jacob and David, and the other Old Testament saints, yet there were certain consequences of their sins which those saints had to suffer after they were forgiven. Probably not a day had passed in all those years without acute suffering. She told him to go and pick it up. If we go against His laws, we suffer. One day she could not have bought five dollars’ worth of anything; the next day she could go and buy a thousand dollar’s worth of whatever she wanted. Doctor Gordon of Boston used to say that as you passed along Washington street of that city, or Broadway, New York, you might see stores with the card in the window, “To rent, with or without power,” and any one could rent the store, and by paying something extra could have power furnished from the engine in the rear. The doctor said, “You have come to the wrong physician, but I will tell you of One who can cure you”; and he told him of Christ, and read to him the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, “With His stripes we are healed.” “Why do you ask that question?” I would sooner go out into the street and eat dirt than do some of the things I used to do before I became a Christian.” So there is a scarlet thread running all through the Bible—the whole book points to Christ. He could not tell how many plans he had prepared while the minister was preaching. Time rolled on, and that young man became a slave to drink, and his life became such a burden to him that he put a revolver to his head and blew his brains out. When they came back, the crew were short of water, and being near an English port, they wanted to get water; but they were afraid that they would be taken prisoners if they went into that port. The doctor spent the day with him, read to him out of the Bible, and tried to get him to lay hold of the promises. I remember blaming my mother for sending me to church on the Sabbath. No, she hadn’t. I asked her if there was any one with whom she had had trouble and whom she could not forgive. Some of the older people can remember when our Civil War broke out. As he was going up with a load of books, his little boy came in, and was very anxious to help his father. “No; what news?” If his heart is in money, he will soon have you deep in talk about mines, speculation, stocks, bank rate, and so on. When tea-time came she took him in and gave him his supper, and then took him out and kept him there until bed-time. That is the way I used to feel when I was a boy. “Can you read?” Running to a little hill, he looked around and shouted again. When he came back, he applied for them again. One suggested that they should go to the woods; but the objection was made that there they would be in danger from hawks; another mentioned the cities, but boys would stone them there, and drive them away or kill them. “Well, you’ve got dirty again.” A friend of mine said he had a beautiful canary bird; he thought it was the sweetest singer they had ever had. I tried, but I couldn’t make them. When you come to its gates, the guardian angels will refer to the book of life to see if your name is there. There is a legend that the Apostle John was much distressed over the fall of a young convert. He met her at the station, and took her to a nice place to stay. “I’se clean; mamma washed me!” he cried. There is an old fable that a doe that had but one eye used to graze near the sea; and in order to be safe, she kept her blind eye toward the water, from which side she expected no danger, while with the good eye she watched the country. “You know, John, you are never absent from market.” He go to these meetings? An old minister once invited a young brother to preach for him. “Hope so! I took my Bible and told him all about Christ, and he accepted Him. We just want to know what men do believe. Well, tell a boy of twelve years that he mustn’t climb a tree, and he will get up that tree some way. When the meeting broke up, just a little of the prejudice had worn away. Then it thought, “It is only a tick at a time,” and went on. Ten thousand times no! One night there came up a terrible gale. The first took him into a storehouse, and showed him his sacks; but they were mildewed and worthless. Still he keeps eyeing the Bible, and saying, “I’d like to have that Bible; but I’d like to give you something for it. His pen flew very fast. He had no hope for the future. “Is it hard for you to love your mother? She asked the Lord to have mercy on her afflicted child. There was an architect in Chicago who was converted. This woman one day got a letter, and when she opened it she found it was not for her at all; it was meant for another woman that had the same name; and she had her eyes opened to the fact that if she should find some promise in the Bible directed to her name, she would not know whether it meant her or some one else that bore her name. “Is that a genuine invitation?” There are two who are bidding for your soul and mine—the Lord Jesus and Satan. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children good-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never heard of a poor backslider going down on his knees and saying: I have a very quick temper. Pastor Kirk emphasized the sinfulness of man and man’s inability to save himself. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things you don’t.”. At last he was wounded, and was put into the hospital, but got worse, and was gradually sinking. The druggist took down one bottle after another, in any one of which there might be what would be rank poison for my child; but he stirred them together and mixed them up, and made just the medicine which my child needed. How can you throw this place open to ruin the young men of Chicago?” An old divine said that when a good farmer sees a weed in his field he has it pulled up. The Persians had an annual festival when they slew all the serpents and venomous creatures they could find; but they allowed them to swarm as fast and freely as ever until the festival came round once more. Of course, he would go down! “Put it down,” said I; “many a man thinks more of tobacco than he does of God. He didn’t have a perfect one in his flock. And when he was hanged, she begged the governor to let her have the body of her son, that she might bury it. There are a lot of people running around who haven’t got any roots. My wife went to work, and took Bible stories and put those blessed truths in a light that the boy could comprehend, and soon his feeling for the Sabbath was the other way. When I was in Dublin some years ago I got up to go to an early meeting, and found the servants had not opened the front door; so I pulled back a bolt, but I could not get the door open. Said the young man, “So I am, but I am not ashamed of my Lord.” The boy was in the high school, and was a very bright scholar. “Oh, no,” was the response; “she was a total wreck. “Oh, that was my washerwoman.” David Maas. A little child gives a good illustration of faith. Have you ever seen anything in the sermons against the theaters?” It does not matter, for if God has decreed you are going to die, you will; if He hasn’t, you will get better. She said: “You must. The first game of chance; the first betting transaction; the first false entry in the books; the first quarter-dollar taken from the cash-box or the till; the first night spent in evil company—either of these may prove the turning-point; either of these may represent a wrong start. “What nonsense!” he said to himself; “the idea of a rational man being disturbed by that hymn.” To make a long story short, that man rose in a meeting of young converts, and told the story that I have now told you. “Mr. Updated: Sun, 09/11/2016 - 16:39 By admin. I never heard of one doing this. Remember, salvation is a free gift, and it is a free gift for us. “O Lord, I thank Thee for going out of Thy way to find me.” He trusted his father. I wouldn’t give much for his respect or admiration; I wouldn’t give much for his friendship. Finally an old man with beautiful white hair got up to speak, and his face literally shone. “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” When Christ has the first place in your heart you are going to get victory. There is a great revival in politics just now. And when they were compelled to tell her what had happened, she cried out: I said, “Suppose we write upon that board some of the earthly treasures? But you know the word “whosoever” includes every one in the wide world. A mere knowledge of the historical events of Christ’s life, or a simple intellectual assent to His teachings and His mission, will be of no help in a man’s life unless he adds to them a trustful surrender to the Lord’s loving kindness. What we need is to pray to God to lift us up out of this low, cold, formal state that we live in, that we may dwell in the atmosphere of God continually, and that the Lord may lift upon us the light of His countenance, and that we may shine in this world, reflecting His grace and glory. I made inquiries, and I found that the man that had everything green, irrigated; he just poured the water right on, and kept everything green, while the fields that were next to his were as dry as Gideon’s fleece without a drop of dew. “Well, I know that man.” I keep turning over the leaves. I think he would turn me out.” Sixty years gone, millions of money, and in a mad-house; and he died there. The first body that came floating toward the shore was, to his great grief and surprise, the body of his own boy! “We don’t want you. At four his father died and his mother gave birth to twins a month later. She was bound to have peace. They can talk about politics, art, and science; they can speak well enough and fast enough about the fashions of the day; but they have no voice for the Son of God. Two of her masts were gone, and if we had stayed mending her only a few minutes, we must have gone down sir.” When preaching in Chicago, Dr. Monro Gibson once asked in the inquiry meeting, “Now, how can we find out who is thirsty? When all had given this answer, he solemnly repeated this text, “The Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not.”. You keep your affections set upon things on the earth instead of on things above, and the result is that the children do not believe there is anything in Christianity. Let me give you a cent for it; though, to be sure, it’s worth about five dollars.” D.L. This list of D.L. A great many men say, “Oh, I have profound reverence and respect for God.” The little fellow got all ready to jump, and then looked down again, and said, “I’se afraid.” His character and His actions were back of His words. I am afraid that door represents every sinner’s heart. And yet when you talk with them you find they have faith, and you cannot say they are not children of God; but they have not the power, the liberty, the love that real disciples of Christ should have. Weary, heavy-laden, There is one mountain that, the wrath of God has swept over—that is, Mount Calvary; and the fire spent its fury upon the bosom of the Son of God. “Next day?” There was a shop-girl in Chicago, a few years ago. “But could you make any one believe it?” There was a very promising young man in my Sunday-school in Chicago. If they were lost, they might rise up in judgment against me. I have got so tired and sick of this splitting hairs over theology. He lost his influence entirely, withdrew from the school, and after a while gave up Christian work altogether. hard fate! Is there any rudeness when Jesus touches the cheek, and the red rose of health whitens into the lily of immortal purity and gladness?”—Talmage. There are a good many things that will separate a man from his wife, but there isn’t a thing in the wide, wide world that will separate a true mother from her own child. They wanted to return home, so they got in and began to row. “Now, don’t think you are going to get out of the devil’s territory without trouble. Have I to take up a book that is a slander on my Lord and Master, who has redeemed me with His blood? Well, the mother took the work up with this boy. An obscure man preached one Sunday to a few persons in a Methodist chapel in the South of England. “Opportunity,” was the reply. At last he came to this conclusion. “What day’s to-morrow?” he would ask. And the first thing he states in the declaration to these Corinthians is this: 'Christ died for our sins according to … Some time after, the Emperor wanted more men, and by some mistake the first man was balloted a second time. Then he sent for the doctor. Why, the South was a good deal stronger than the North supposed. A great many think that we need new measures, new churches, new organs, new choirs, and all these new things. They pulled away hard all night, wondering why they never got to the other side of the bay. I don’t like to take it for nothing.” “The God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has commanded me to come into the presence of the noble King of Egypt.” If you ever get peace and joy you must get it at the foot of the cross. McCheyne, the Scotch preacher, once said to some friends, “Do you think Christ will come to-night?” There is no progress, and there cannot be until you have the motive power within, till the breath of life comes from God, which can alone give you power to work for others. You have looked at the windows of a grand church erected at the cost of many thousands of dollars. “Why do you call it my Bible?” said the minister. His manners were often brash and crude, and he never became an ordained minister. “Yes; but I’d like to have you mention my name.” There was a large family of girls, and we had tickets for the theaters three or four times a week. I thought I wouldn’t go to church any more when I got away from home; but I had got so in the habit of going that I couldn’t stay away. I had never said anything about the theater to those children, but they saw that man going in, and called him a hypocrite. 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