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Anecdotes
& Illustrations
By Dwight L. Moody
Anecdotes and illustrations as found in "Anecdotes and Illustrations of D. L. Moody Related By Him In His Revival Work" compiled by J. B. McClure. Published in 1881. |
-His is a loving, tender hand, full of sympathy
and compassion.
-Take your stand on the Rock of Ages. Let
death, let the judgment come: the victory is Christ's
and yours through Him.
-The only man who ever
suffered before Christ was that servant who had his ear cut off. But most
likely in a moment afterward
he had it on, and very likely it was a better ear than ever, because whatever
the Lord does He does it well. No mm ever lost his life with Him.
- A great many people wonder why it was that
Christ did not come at once to Martha and Mary, whom He loved, whenever
He heard of their affliction. It was to try them, and it is the same with
His dealings
toward us. If He seems not to come to us in our affliction, it is only
to test us.
- -When the Spirit came to Moses, the plagues
came upon Egypt, and he had power to destroy men's lives; when the Spirit came
upon Elijah, fire came down from heaven; when the Spirit came upon Gideon, no
man could stand before him; and when it came upon Joshua, he moved around the
city of Jericho and the whole city fell into his hands; but when the Spirit came
upon
the Son of Man, He gave His life; He healed the broken-hearted.
-No matter how low down you are; no matter
what your disposition has been; you may be low in your thoughts, words, and
actions;
you may be selfish; your heart may be overflowing with corruption and
wickedness; yet Jesus will have compassion upon you. He will speak comforting
words to you;
not treat you coldly or spurn you, as perhaps those of earth would, but
will speak tender words, and words of love and affection and kindness. Just
come at
once. He is a faithful
friend - a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
-There
cannot be any peace where there is uncertainty.
-There is no, knowledge like that of a man
who knows he is saved, who can look up and see his "title clear to mansions
in the skies."
-I believe hundreds of Christian people are
being deceived by Satan now on this point, that they have not got the assurance
of
salvation just because they are not willing to take God at His word.
-"But," a man said to me, "no one has come back,
and we don't know what is in the future. It is
all dark, and how can we be sure?" Thank God! Christ came down from heaven, and
I would rather have Him, coming as he does right from the bosom of the Father,
than any one else. We
can rely on what Christ says, and He says, "He that believeth on Me shall not
perish, but have
everlasting life." Not that we are going to have it when we die, but right
here to-day.
-Now, I find a great many people who want
some evidence that they have accepted the Son of God. My friends, if
you want any
evidence, take God's word for it. You can't find better evidence than
that. You know that when the Angel Gabriel came down and told Zachariah he
should
have
a son he wanted a further token than the angel's word. He asked Gabriel
for it and he answered, "I am
Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Lord." He had never been doubted,
and he thundered out this to Zachariah. But he wanted a further token,
and Gabriel said, "You shall have a token: you shall be dumb till your
son shall be given you."
-When we know our
Bible: then his that God can use us.
-When we find a man meditating on the words of
God, my friends, that man is full of boldness
and is successful.
-When a man is filled with the Word of God you
cannot keep him still, If a man has got the Word,
he must speak or die.
-Let us have one day exclusively to study and
read the Word of God. If we can't take time during the week, we will have Sunday
uninterrupted.
-Now, as old Dr. Bonner, of Glasgow, said,
Lord didn't sell Joshua how to use the sword, but He told him how he should
meditate
on the Lord day and night, and then he would have good success."
-One thing I have noticed in studying the
Word of God, and that is, when a man is filled with the Spirit he deals largely
with
the Word of God, whereas the man who is filled with his own Ideas refers
rarely to the Word of God. He gets along without it, and you seldom see it
mentioned
in his
discourses.
-Now I am no prophet, nor the
son of a prophet, but one thing I can predict; that every one of our
new converts that goes to
studying his Bible, and loves this book above every other book, is
sure to hold out. The world will have no charm for him; he will get
the world under his feet,
because in this book he will find something better than the world can
give him.
-What can botanists tell you of the lily of
the valley? You must study this book for that. What can geologists tell you
of the
Rock of Ages, or mere astronomers about the Bright Morning Star? In
those pages we find all knowledge unto salvation; here we read of the ruin
of man by nature,
redemption by the blood, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost These three
things run all through
and through them.
-The most solemn truth
in the gospel is that the only thing Christ left down here is His blood.
-A man who covers up the cross though he may be
an intellectual man, and draw large crowds will have no ilk there, and his church
will be but a gilded sepulcher.
-There is either of two things we must do. One
is to send back the message to heaven that we don't want the blood 9t Christ
to cleanse us of our sin, or else accept it.
-Into every house where the blood was not sprinkled,
the destroying angel came. But wherever the blood was on doorpost and lintel,
whether they had worked much, or whether they had worked none, God passed them
over.
-A man who has not realized what the blood
has done for him has not the token of salvation. It is told of Julian,
the apostate,
that while he was fighting he received an arrow in his side. He pulled
it out, and, taking a handful of blood threw it into the air and cried, "Galilean,
Galilean, thou hast conquered."
-Look at that Roman soldier as he pushed his spear
into the very heart of the God-man. What a hellish deed! But what was the next
thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! Oh! thank God, the blood covers
sin. There was the blood covering that spear-the very point of it. The very crowning
act of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of wickedness
was the
crowning act of grace.
-It is said that old Dr. Alexander, of Princeton
College, when a young student used to start out to preach, always gave
them a piece of advice. The old man would stand with his gray locks and
his venerable
face and say: "Young man, make much of the blood in your ministry? Now,
I have traveled considerable during the past few years, and never met
a minister
who
made much of the blood and much of the atonement but God had blessed
his ministry, and souls were
born into the
light by it.
-There was
never a sermon which you have listened to but in it Christ was seeking
for you. I contend
that a man cannot but find
in every page of this book that Jesus Christ is seeking him through
His blessed Word. This is what the Bible is for to seek out the lost.
-No man in the world should be so happy as
a man of God. It is one continual source of gladness.
He can l3ok up and say, "God is my Father, Christ is my Saviour, and
the Church is my mother."
-It is the greatest
pleasure of living to win souls to Christ.
-I believe in what John Wesley used to say, "All
at it, and always at it," and
that is what the
Church wants to-day.
-If we were all of us doing the work that God
has got for us to do, don't you see how the work of
the Lord would advance?
-There is no man living that can do the work
that God has got for me to do. No one can do it but myself. And if the work
ain't
done we will have to answer for it when we stand before God's
bar.
-What makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it
is all the time receiving, never giving out anything. Why is it that many
Christians
are cold? Because they are all the time receiving, never giving
out anything.
-If Christ comes into our
hearts we are not ashamed.
-I wish we had a few more women like the woman
of Samaria, willing to confess what the Lord Jesus Christ had done for their
souls.
-Believing and confessing go together; and
you cannot be be saved without you take them both. "With the mouth confession is
made unto salvation." If you ever see the kingdom of heaven you have to
'take this way.
-Satan puts straws across our path and magnifies
it and makes us believe it is a mountain, but all the devil's mountains are mountains
of smoke; when you come up to them they are not there.
-I do not know anything that would wake up Chicago
better than for every man and woman here who loves Him to begin to talk about
Him to theft friends, and just to tell them what He has done for you. You have
got a circle of friends. Go and tell them of Him.
-I can't help thinking of the old woman who
started out when the war commenced with a poker in her hand. When asked
what! she was
going to do with it she said: "I can't do much with it, but I can show what side
I'm on." My friends, even if you can't do much, show to which
side you
belong.
-I may say with truth that there is only
about one in ten who professes Christianity who will turn round and
glorify God with
a loud voice. Nine out of ten are still born Christians. You never
hear of them. If you press them hard with the question whether they are Christians
they might
say, "Well, I hope so." We never see it in their actions; we never
see it in their lives. They might belong to the church you go to, but
you never
see them
at the prayer-meetings or taking any interest in the church affairs.
They don't profess it among their fellows or in their business, and
the result
is that
there are hundreds going on with a half hope, not sure whether their
religion will
stand them or not
-It is our privilege
to know that we are saved.
-We shall draw the world to Christ when we
are filled with religion.
-He that overcometh shall inherit all things.
God has no poor children.
-I hold to the doctrine of sudden conversion
as I do to my life, and I would as quickly give up my life as give up this
doctrine,
unless it can be proved that it is not according to the word of God.
Now, I will admit that light is one thing and birth is another. A soul must
be born before
it can see light A child must be born before it can be taught; it
must be born before it can walk; it
must be born before it can be educated.
-If
you receive Him it will be well; if you reject Him and are lost it
will be terrible.
-Thanks be to God, there is hope to-day; this
very hour you can choose Him and serve Him.
-Now just think a moment and answer the question, "What
shall I do with Jesus who is called
Christ?"
-I believe in my soul that there are more
at this day being lost for want of decision than for any
other thing.
-One of two things you must do; you must either
receive Him or reject Him. You receive Him here and He will receive
you there; you reject Him here and He will reject you there.
-The
mightiest man that ever lived could not deliver himself from his sins. If
a man could have saved himself, Christ would never
have come into the world.
-He came to deliver us from our sinful dispositions,
and create in us pure hearts, and when we have Him with us it will not be hard
for us. Then the service of Christ will be delightful.
-If you are under the power of evil, and
you want to get under the power of God, cry to Him to bring you
over to His service;
cry
to Him to take you into His army. He will hear you; He will come
to you, and, if need be, He will send a legion of angels to help you to fight
your way up
to heaven. God will take you by the right hand and lead you through
this
wilderness, over death, and take you right into His kingdom. That's
what the Son of Man
came to do. He has
never deceived us;
just say here; "Christ is ray deliverer.
-God
will honor our faith.
-There is nothing on this earth that pleases Christ
so much as faith.
-Faith is the foundation of all society. We have
only to look around and see this.
-I believe there is no man in the world so constituted
but he can believe in God's word. He simply tells you to believe in Him, and
He will save you.
-When I was converted twenty years ago I felt
a faith in God; but five years after I had a hundred times more
faith, and five years ago I had more than eve; because I became better acquainted
with Him. I
have read up the Word, and I see that the Lord has done so and
so, and then I have turned to where He has promised to perform it, and when
I see this I have
reason to believe in
Him.
-All you have got to do is to
prove that you are a sinner, and I will prove that you have got
a
Saviour.
-Do you believe the Lord will call a poor
sinner, and then cast him out? No! his word stands
forever, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out."
-If God put Adam out of this earthly Eden on account
of one sin, do you think He will let us into the Paradise above with our tens
of thousands sins upon us.
-The only charge they could bring against Christ
down here was, that He was receiving bad men. They are the very kind of men He
is willing to receive.
-"Lord, you don't really mean that we shall
preach the Gospel to those men that murdered you,
to those men that took your life?" "Yes," says the Lord, "go
and preach the Gospel to those
Jerusalem sinners." I can imagine Him saying: "Go and hunt up
that man that put the cruel crown of thorns upon My brow, and
preach the Gospel
to him.
Tell him
he shall have a crown in
My kingdom without a thorn in it"
-We
must not limit the mighty grace of God.
-Grace means undeserved kindness. It is the gift
of God to man the moment he sees he is
unworthy of God's favor.
-A man does not get grace till he comes
down to the ground, till he sees he needs grace. When a man
stoops to the dust and
acknowledges that he needs mercy, then it is that the Lord
will give him grace.
-If you are ready to partake of grace you
have not to atone for your sins-you have merely to accept of the atonement.
All
that you want to do is to cry, "God have mercy upon me," and you will
receive the blessing.
-"The grace of God hath power to bring salvation
to all men," and if a man is unsaved it is because he wants to work it out; he
wants to receive salvation in some other way than God's way; but we are told
that "he that climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and
a robber."
-When we get full of this grace we want to
see every one blessed-we want to see all the churches blessed, not only all
the churches
here, but in the whole country. That was the trouble with Christ's
disciples. He had hard work to make them understand that His gospel was for
every one, that
it was a stream to flow out to all nations of the earth. They
wanted to confine it to the
Jews, and He had to convince them that it was for every living
being.
-If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
you are free
-There is no sin in the whole catalogue of sins
you can name but Christ will deliver you from it
perfectly.
-We are led on by an unseen power that we have
not got strength to resist, or else we are led on
by the loving Son of God.
-The trouble is, people do not know that Christ
is a Deliverer. They forget that the Son of God came to keep them from sin as
as well as to forgive it.
-You say "I am afraid I cannot hold out.'
Well, Christ will hold out for you. There is no mountain that He will
not climb with
you if you will; He will deliver you from your besetting sin.
-Satan rules all men that are in his kingdom Some
he rules through lust. Some he rules through covetousness. Some he rules through
appetite. Some he rules by their temper, but he rules them. And none will ever
seek to be delivered until they get their eyes open and see that they have been
taken captive.
-'When Christ was on the earth there was a
woman in the temple who was bowed almost to the ground with sin. Satan had
- bound
her for eighteen years; but after all these years of bondage
Christ delivered her. He spoke one word and she was free. She got up and
walked home. How astonished
those at home must have been to see her walking in.
-Praise
is not only speaking to the Lord on our own account, but it
is praising Him for what He
has done for others.
-If we have a praise church we will have people
convened.
I don't care where it is, what part of the
world it's in, if we have a praise church we'll have successful
christianity.
-Every good gift that we have had from the cradle
up has come from God. If a man just stops to think what he has to praise God
for, he will find there is enough to keep him singing praises for
a week.
-We have in our churches a great deal of prayer,
but I think it would be a good thing if we had a praise meeting
occasionally. If we could only get people to praise God for what He has done,
it would be a
good deal better than asking Him continually for something.
-All
should work and ask God's guidance.
-The world knows little of the works wrought by
prayer.
-Let us pray, and as we pray, let us make room
for Jesus in our hearts.
-Unless the Spirit of God is with us, we cannot
expect that our prayers will be answered.
-David was the last one we would have chosen to
fight the giant, but he was chosen of God.
-Every one of our children will be brought into
the ark, if we pray and work earnestly for
them.
-The impression that a praying mother leaves
upon her children is life-long. Perhaps when you are dead and gone your prayer
will
be answered.
-I would rather
go into the kingdom of heaven through the poor house than
go down to hell in a
golden chariot.
-I believe there are more young men who come to
Boston who are lost because they cannot say
no, than for any other reason.
-It ain't necessary to leave the things of this
life when you follow Him. It is not necessary to give up your business, if it's
a legitimate one, in order to accept Christ. But you musn't set your heart on
the old nets by a good deal.
-A great many people want to bring theft faith,
theft works, their good deeds to Him for salvation. Bring your sins, and He will
bear them away into the wilderness of forgetfulness, and you will never see them
again.
-Do you believe that He would send those
men out to preach the gospel to every creature unless he wanted every
creature to be
saved? Do you believe He would tell them to preach it to people without
giving people the power to accept it? Do you believe the God of heaven is
mocking
men by offering them his gospel and not giving them the power to take
hold of it?
Do you believe He will not give men power to accept this salvation as a
gift? Man might do that,
but God never
mocks men. And when he says "Preach the gospel to every creature," every
creature can be
saved if he will.
-Lift your eyes from off these puny Christians-from
off these human ministers, and look to Christ. He is the Saviour of the
world. He came from the throne to this earth: He came from the very bosom
of the
Father. God gave Him up freely for us, and all we have to do is to accept
him as our
Saviour. Look at Him at Gethsemane, sweating as it were great drops of
blood; look at Him on
the cross, crucified between two thieves; hear that piercing cry, "Father, Father,
forgive them,
they know not what they do." And as you look into that face, as you look
into those wounds on His feet or His hands, will you say He has not the
power to
save you? Will you say He has not the
power so redeem you?