Thoughts From D.L. Moody

Dear Friends,

Today's "thoughts" come to you from the well-known evangelist of the last half of the 1800's -- D. L. Moody or Dwight L. Moody. Most know (I believe) that "Moody Bible Institute" in Chicago was started by him (in 1886). He was also instrumental in starting the YMCA -- Young Men's Christian Association -- which now goes simply by "The Y" and has distanced itself from it's solid evangelical beginnings.

A man full of life and enthusiasm, I offer you 15 statements from his sermons or books, covering a number of different topics that allow you to peer into his heart. And though spoken between 1860 and 1899 (when he passed away), I do find it interesting how many are still quite relevant today. I offer them to you as a sample of his wit and wisdom. Enjoy.

“Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray for Him to empty us.”

“So few grow, because so few study.”

“A great many people are afraid of the will of God. Yet I believe that one of the sweetest lessons that we can learn in the school of Christ is the surrender of our wills to God, letting Him plan for us and rule our lives… When I came to Jesus Christ, I had a terrible battle to surrender my will, and to take God’s will. When I gave up business, I had another battle for three months. I fought against it. It was a terrible battle. But oh! how many times I have thanked God that I gave up my will and took God’s will… If we make a full surrender, God will give us something better than we have ever known before.”

“If we only lead one soul to Christ, we may set a stream in motion that will flow on when we are dead and gone …”

“Parents would think it a great calamity to have their children born unable to speak; they would mourn over it, and weep; and well they might. But did you ever think of the many children God has that can’t speak? The churches are full of them. They never speak for Christ. 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.”

“Cling to the whole Bible, not a part of it. A man is not going to do much with a small piece of a sword.”

“Many people have the Bible in their heads, or in their pockets; but we need to get it down into our hearts.”

“When I pray, I talk to God, but when I read the Bible, God is talking to me … I believe we should know better how to pray if we knew our Bibles better.”

“There is a scarlet thread running all through the Bible—the whole book points to Christ.”

“Faith makes all things possible … love makes all things easy.”

“A great many think that we need new measures, new churches, new organs, new choirs, and all these new things. That is not what the Church of God needs today. It is the old power that the apostles had. If we only have that in our churches, there will be new life.”

“The Spirit of God doesn’t work where there is division. What we want today is the spirit of unity amongst God’s children, so that the Lord may work… I have never known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.”

“Well, what we need as Christians is to be able to feed ourselves. How many there are who sit helpless and listless, with open mouths, hungry for spiritual things, and the minister must try to feed them, while the Bible is a feast prepared, into which they could, but never venture.”

“There is no class of people exempt from broken hearts. The rich and the poor suffer alike. There was a time when I used to visit the poor that I thought all the broken hearts were to be found among them, but within the last few years I have found there are as many broken hearts among the learned as the unlearned, the cultured as the uncultured, the rich as the poor… And you cannot heal the brokenhearted without the Comforter…”

“I know of nothing that speaks louder for Christ and Christianity than to see a man or woman giving up what they call their rights, for others, and ‘in honor preferring one another.”

As an evangelist who had great influence, and bore much fruit for the kingdom in North America and Great Britain, one of his most endearing qualities was his simple down-to-earth wisdom. I trust you may have seen that through his words.

The Best to You All in the New Year, Pastor Jeff