Dwight L. Moody

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    George Whitefield  ---- 1714 - 1770
    William Carey      ----   
1761 - 1834
    Adoniram Judson    ----
1788 - 1850
    Charles Finney     ----   
1791 - 1875
    D.L. Moody         ----    
1837 - 1899
    Hudson Taylor      ----   
1832 - 1905
    John Hyde          ----     
1865 - 1911
    C.T. Studd         ----      
1860 - 1931
    Billy Sunday       ----     
1862 - 1935
    J. Frank Norris    ----    
1877 - 1952
    Jack Hyles         ----      
1926 - present



                                                     Dwight L. Moody


  Born February 5, 1837, Dwight L. Moody grew up in a home without a father. He had passed away when the boy was only four years old. Some neighbours told his mother that it would be impossible to raise seven boys and that they would probably end up in jail. When Moody preached her funeral years later he reminded his hometown friends, "If everyone had a mother like my mother, there would be no need for jails."
  Mrs Moody was always cheerful but cried herself to sleep every night for the first year after her husband died. Her sorrow drove her to raise her boys for God. When her husband died, the creditors took everything thy could find, including their firewood! Although destitute, Mrs Moody had a heart of gold and would often share what little food they had with beggars. Little Dwight never forgot the compassion his mother showed for the poor and unloved.
  The boys were so poor that they were taught to carry their shoes and socks to church to save them from wear. Although unsaved, Dwight would recruit other children to go with him.
  At the age of 17, he could hardly read or write. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts. His life's goal was to make 100,000 and become rich. After landing a job selling shoes, he found a Sunday School to attend. The teacher, Edward Kimball, gave him a Bible and began to pray for Moody's salvation.
  Although very nervous, Mr. Kimball went to visit moody at the shoe store where he worked. After getting up enough courage, he entered the store and began to share the plan of salvation with Moody. That day was the beginning of revival that covered two continents and had a harvest of over one million souls! Since that day, soul winners have been challenged to never underestimate the value of a single soul winning opportunity! The person you win may become another D. L. Moody!
  Moody recalls later how his life was changed:
  "Before my conversion I worked to be saved, now I work because I am saved. I remember the first morning after I trusted Christ. I think the sun shone a great deal brighter than it had before and as I walked in Boston Common and heard the birds singing in the trees, I thought that they were all singing a song to me."
  Moving to Chicago at age of 19, he began attending church services. In that time it was common for churches to "charge" people who attended their church by the bench or pew. Soon moody had so many visitors attending the services that he had to rent four pews! His business had him travelling around Chicago and the condition of  the children in the slums began to convict Moody to do something. Joining another Sunday school, he applied as a teacher but was told there were no openings he volunteered to recruit his own pupils and rounded up 18 dirty, poor children off the streets.
  Two years later in 1858, he started his own Sunday School in a vacant bar. The mayor of Chicago, hearing of his plans, and understanding the problems the city faced with this children, let him use a large building free charge. He brought some of the children on horse-drown carts.
  In Moody's Sunday School, the children could attend any class they wanted so the best teachers would have the most children.
  Moody tried to help these children from off the streets who knew little but poverty, fighting, and ignorance. He would give some of the older children responsibilities such as keeping order in the Sunday School. These were known as "Moody's bodyguards."
  Needless to say, they had few"tough edges" in carrying out this responsibility. One day a new boy came to Sunday School and took his seat with his cap still on. Moody had tried to teach the children that this was not mannerly. Upon seeing this, one of the "bodyguards" walked up to him and without warning planted a stunning blow between the eyes and sent him to the floor with this knock-out punch.
  "I'll teach you to enter Moody's Sunday School with your hat on!" he told the stunned visitor. Well, these bodyguards had a little to learn concerning proper manners too! But, they did know something about loyalty and the Lord began to change their lives.
  One "scholar" as they called their students, moved to another part of the city. He continued to come to Sunday School from this long distance even though it required several hours walking, often through snow. Someone asked him why he went so far when there were other Sunday Schools nearer his home. He replied, "That may be good for others, but not for me, because they live a fellow over there."
  When students would miss Sunday School for several weeks, Moody would go get them. He was nicknamed "Crazy Moody" because of the great length she would go to get children to return to his Sunday School.
  It was during this time that D.L. Moody became a personal soul winner. Up to this time he was bringing children to Sunday School, but not winning souls out in the streets and homes. God opened his eyes through a certain event. Moody tells in his own words what happened"
  "There was a class of young ladies in the school who were without exception the most frivolous set I've ever met. One Sunday the teacher was ill, and I took that class. They laughed in my face, and I felt like opening the door and telling them all to get out and never come back. That week the teacher of that class came into the store where I worked. He was pale and looked very ill. "What is the trouble?' I  asked. 'I have had another hemorrhage of my lungs.' he answered. 'The doctor says I cannot live on Lake Michigan, so I am going to New York State. I suppose I am going home to die.' He seemed greatly troubled, and when I asked him why, he replied, 'Well, I have never led any of my class to Christ. I really believe I have done the girls more harm than good.' I said, 'Suppose you go and tell them how you feel. I will go with you...'
  "He consented, and we started out together. It was one of the best journeys I had on earth. We went to the house of one one the girls and the teacher talked to her about her soul. There was no laughing then! Tears stood in her eyes before long. After he had explained the way of life, he suggested that we have prayer. He asked me to pray. True, I had never done such a thing as to pray to God to convert a young lady there and then. He would go upstairs, and be all out of breath, and he would tell the girls what he had come for. It wasn't long before they broke down and sought salvation.
  "When his strength gave out, I took him to his lodgings. The next day we went out again. At the end of ten days he came to the store with his face literally shining. 'Mr. Moody', he said, 'the last one of my class has yielded herself to Christ!' I tell you we had a time of rejoicing! "He had to leave the next night, so I called the class together that night for prayer meeting and there God kindled a fire in my soul that has never gone out. The height of my ambition had been to be a successful merchant. If I had known that meeting was going to take that ambition out of me, I might not have gone. But, how many times I have thanked God since for that meeting!
  The dying teacher sat in the midst of his class, and talked with them, and read the 14th chapter of John. We tried to sing 'Blest Be The Tie That Binds' after which we knelt to pray. I was just rising from my knees when one of the class began to pray for her dying teacher. Another prayed and another, and before we rose the whole class had prayed. As I went out I said to myself, 'Oh God, let me die rather than lose the blessing I have received tonight!'
  "The next evening I went to the depot to say goodbye to that teacher. Just before the train started, one of the class members came. Before long, without any prearrangement, they were all there. What a meeting that was! We tried to sing, but we brake down. The last we saw of that dying teacher he was standing on the platform of the rear car, his finger pointing upward, telling us to meet him in heaven!"
  At this point of his life(at age of 23) he decided to give up his business. He had done well but decided to live off his savings and serve the Lord full time. As he put it: "I had become disqualified for business; it has become distasteful to me. I had got a taste of another world, and cared no more for making money."
  This Sunday School developed into the largest church in Chicago as it was not long before that parents began to come. Interest was so great that the church not only met Sunday but had services almost every night of the week!
  Humanly speaking, moody seemed to be unprepared to lead this work. He felt uneducated and his first attempts at speaking were awkward . Little by little, he overcame these obstacles. Both opposition and critics tried to stop Moody. One critic, a member of the church Moody attended first in Chicago, told him that his zeal for God was wonderful but warned him not to reach until his grammar improved.
  "You make too many mistakes in grammar," he told Moody. moody humbly responded, "I know I make mistakes...but I'm doing the best I can with what I've got." Then he looked at his critic straight in the eye: "Look here, friend, you've got grammar enough. What are you doing with it for the Master?"
  Moody's success in his Sunday School resulted in invitations to come and speak about it. In addition, people came from long distances to learn the methods he used to Organise his Sunday School.
  In 1876 Moody decided to visit Great Britain to study their methods of Christian work. He was particularly interested to heat Hadden Spurgeon preach and to meet George Mueller who had built several large orphanages near Bristol.
  While visiting Dublin, Ireland, he met Mr. Henry Varley, a well known evangelist. While visiting Dublin, Ireland, he met Mr. Henry Varley, a well known evangelist. As they sat on a seat in a public park, Mr Varley said to him, "The world has yet to see what god will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully consecrated to Him."
  This greatly challenged the heart of D.L.Moody. Moody thought; "He said 'a man'. He did not say 'a great man', nor 'a learned man' nor 'a smart man' --simply 'man'...I will try my utmost to be that man."
  Also in England he met a preacher named Henry Moorehouse who was known as "the boy preacher" because of his boyish looks. Moorehouse asked if he could preach at his church when he visited Chicago. He did preach at Moody's church for seven nights and each message was from John 3:16; about love of God. Up until then moody said he would preach that "...God was behind the sinner with a double edged sword, ready to hew him down...I preach now that God is behind the sinner with love."
  From the time on D.L. Moody preached with tears! Dr.R.W. Dale, a leading "non-conformist" in England remarked that Moody had a right to preach the Gospel to so many people "because he could never speak to a lost person without tears of Christian compassion in his eyes.
  In 1871 something else happened that multiplied the usefulness of his life. Two ladies in his church would till him after church on Sundays that they were praying for him. He said "Why don't you pray for the people instead?" The ladies replied, "Because you need the filling of the Holy Spirit." He exclaimed, "I need power?! I thought I had the power!" He reminded them that he had the largest church in Chicago and there had been many conversions.
  It was not long however, before God began to deal with him concerning this. Soon after the great Chicago fire occurred and Moody's church building burnt to the ground. He went to New York City to raise funds for the reconstruction of his church but more than his desire to rebuild was the thirst he had for God's Power. He explained what happened while in New York City:
  "I was crying all the time that god would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York-oh, what a day! I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it, it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience he never spoke of for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world it would be as the small dust of the balance."
  God began to use D.L. Moody in revival campaigns in Great Britain. In York the meeting lasted five weeks and meeting places were normally full long before services began and multitude of souls were saved.
  In Glasgow, Scotland, at the closing service at Crystal Palace, the building was so packed with people Moody could not enter. There was a crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 outside who also could not enter. Moody decided to preach on top of the cab to them. In Edinburgh he spoke to as many as 30,000 persons at a time. He held meetings in Great Britain from 1873 to 1875 and England saw revival unlike anything it had been since the days of George Whitefield and John Wesley.
  In Liverpool over 14,000 children attended his children's meeting. Moody said later, "If I had my life to live over, I would give all my time to children."Moody realised that when God saves an adult he saves a soul but when he saves a child, he saves a life as well; a life time that can be dedicated in the Master's service.
  London was a wicked city when D.L. Moody arrived for a campaign. There were 117,000 habitual criminals on the police register and it was a growing at a rate of 30,000 a year. They had 38,000 drunkards appear annually before its magistrates. It was said "Its many beer shops and gin places would, if placed side by side, stretch  from Charing Cross to Portsmouth," a distance of 73 miles.
  For four months Moody laboured in London. He set up six different meeting places and preached an average of twice a day. The 285 services Moody preached at were attended by 2,530,000. For 120 days he spoke to an average of 21,000 people a day, an amazing feat without the help of a microphone! Revival among the Christians in London and the lost took place. One pastor remarked of the London meeting: "Such a movement the world has not seen since the days of Whitefield and Wesley...He has proved the power of elementary truths over the hearts of men more mightily than all the learned profession and eloquent pastors in England could do."
  It was partly because of this meeting that seven young students at "Cambridge Seven" surrendered to go to China as foreign missionaries. C.T. Studd was one of those students.
  Upon arriving in the U.S., Moody and Ira Sankey, his song leader, held great meeting in Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and many other cities, always relying on the power of the Holy Spirit for salvation of souls  and revival among Christians. He spent much time building up two Bible Schools he had started--one in Chicago, and one in Northfield, Massachusetts.
  Moody continued preaching until he died in 1899 at the age of 62, after his last meeting in Kansas City. He couldn't walk. He was very ill. Once they brought him to the pulpit, he was able to speak for over one hour to the 15,000 people there. His last sermon was on "Excuses" and a great number of souls were saved.
  He returned to Northfield, Massachusetts, and died one month later. On his deathbed this account was given:
  "...about 6:00 am he quieted down, and soon fell into a natural sleep. He awoke in about an hour..he was heard speaking in slow and measured words, saying, 'Earth receded; Heaven opens before me. 'His son's first impulse was to try to arouse him from what he thought was a dream. 'No, this is not a dream, Will.'he said.'It is beautiful! It is like a trance! If this is death it is sweet! There is no valley here, God is calling me, and I must go!' Turning to his wife, he said, 'Mama, you have been a good wife to me.' With this he became unconscious..."
  It was said of D.L. Moody that he never preached without tears. Once someone criticised him after hearing him cry during his message. He walked up to Moody and said, "Mr Moody, it is unfair for you to cry during your sermon. For, after all, you are only cheating people into heaven."Moody replied, "Sir, my prayer to God is that I can cheat million souls into heaven before I die."
  God did used D.L. Moody to reach million souls. God used him because D.L. Moody cared and because he cared and because he cared he could not preach to lost men without great commission and tears. The Holy Spirit filled D.L. Moody cared and because he cared he could not preach to lost men without great compassion and tears. The Holy Spirit filled D.L. Moody and the same power Moody had is still available today.
 
 
Home

    George Whitefield  ---- 1714 - 1770
    William Carey      ----   
1761 - 1834
    Adoniram Judson    ----
1788 - 1850
    Charles Finney     ----   
1791 - 1875
    D.L. Moody         ----    
1837 - 1899
    Hudson Taylor      ----   
1832 - 1905
    John Hyde          ----     
1865 - 1911
    C.T. Studd         ----      
1860 - 1931
    Billy Sunday       ----     
1862 - 1935
    J. Frank Norris    ----    
1877 - 1952
    Jack Hyles         ----      
1926 - present