When Mr. Sankey and I were in London a lady who attended our meetings was brought into the house in her carriage, being unable to walk. At first she was very skeptical; but one day she said to her servant:
"Take me into the inquiry room."
After I had talked with her a good while about her soul she said:
"But you will go back to America, and it will be all over."
"Oh, no," said I, "it is going to last forever."
I couldn't make her believe it. I don't know how many times I talked with her. At last I used the fable of the pendulum in the clock. The pendulum figured up the thousands of times it would have to tick, and got discouraged, and was going to give up. Then it thought, "It is only a tick at a time," and went on. So it is in the Christian life—only one step at a time. That helped this lady very much. She began to see that if she could trust in God for a supply of grace for only one day, she could go right on in the same way from day to day. As soon as she saw this, she came out quite decided. But she never could get done talking about that pendulum. The servants called her Lady Pendulum. She had a pendulum put up in her room to remind her of the illustration, and when I went away from London she gave me a clock—I've got it in my house still.
Dr. Andrew Bonar once said that, although it was a mystery to him how sin should have come into the world, it was still a greater mystery how God should have come here to bear the penalty of it Himself.
I remember being in a city where I noticed that the people resorted to a favorite well in one of the parks. I said to a man one day:
"Does the well never run dry?"
The man was drinking of the water out of the well; and as he stopped drinking, he smacked his lips, and said:
"They have never been able to pump it dry yet. They tried it a few years ago. They put the fire-engines to work, and tried all they could to pump the well dry; but they found there was a river flowing right under the city."
Thank God, the well of salvation can never run dry either!
A party of gentlemen in Scotland wanted to get some eggs from a nest on the side of a precipice, and they tried to persuade a poor boy that lived near to go over and get them, saying they would hold him by a rope. They offered him a good deal of money; but they were strangers to him, and he would not go. They told him they would see that no accident happened to him; they would hold the rope.
At last he said: "I will go if my father will hold the rope."
He trusted his father.
A man will not trust strangers. I want to get acquainted with a man before I put my confidence in him. I have known God for forty years, and I have more confidence in Him now than I ever had before; it increases every year.
When France and England were at war once a French vessel had gone off on a long whaling voyage. 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. Some people in the port saw their signal of distress, and sent word that they need not be afraid, that the war was over, and peace had been declared. But they couldn't make those sailors believe it, and they didn't dare to go into port, although they were out of water. At last they made up their minds that they had better go in and surrender their cargo and their lives to their enemies rather than perish at sea without water; and when they got in, they found out that what had been told them was true, that peace had been declared.
There are a great many people who don't believe the glad tidings that peace has been made by Jesus Christ between God and man, but it is true.
If you go out to your garden and throw down some sawdust, the birds will not take any notice; but if you throw down some crumbs, you will find they will soon sweep down and pick them up.
The true child of God can tell the difference (so to speak) between sawdust and bread. Many so-called Christians are living on the world's sawdust, instead of being nourished by the Bread that cometh down from heaven. Nothing can satisfy the longings of the soul but the Word of the living God.
You know it is always regarded a great event in the family when a child can feed itself. It is propped up at table, and at first perhaps it uses the spoon upside down, but by and by it uses it all right, and mother, or perhaps sister, claps her hands and says:
"Just see, baby's feeding himself!"
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 has to try to feed them, while the Bible is a feast prepared, into which they never venture.
In 1871 I preached a series of sermons on the life of Christ in old Farwell hall, Chicago, for five nights. I took Him from the cradle and followed Him up to the judgment hall, and on that occasion I consider I made as great a blunder as ever I made in my life. It was upon that memorable night in October, and the court-house bell was sounding an alarm of fire, but I paid no attention to it. You know we were accustomed to hear the fire-bell often, and it didn't disturb us much when it sounded. I finished the sermon upon "What Shall I Do with Jesus?" and said to the audience:
"Now, I want you to take the question with you and think it over, and next Sunday I want you to come back and tell me what you are going to do with Him."
What a mistake! It seems now as if Satan was in my mind when I said this. Since then I never have dared give an audience a week to think of their salvation. If they were lost, they might rise up in judgment against me. "Now is the accepted time."
I remember Mr. Sankey singing, and how his voice rang when he came to that pleading verse:
After the meeting we went home. I remember going down La Salle street with a young man, and saw the glare of flames. I said to the young man:
"This means ruin to Chicago."
About one o'clock Farwell hall was burned; soon the church in which I had preached went down, and everything was scattered. I never saw that audience again.
My friends, we don't know what may happen to-morrow, but there is one thing I do know, and that is, if you take the gift of God you are saved. If you have eternal life you need not fear fire, death, or sickness. Let disease or death come, you can shout triumphantly over the grave if you have Christ. My friends, what are you going to do with Him? Will you not decide now?
Some years ago I wanted to teach my boy what faith was and so I put him on a table. He was a little fellow about two years old. I stood back three or four feet, and said.
"Willie, jump."
The little fellow said, "Papa, I'se afraid."
I said: "Willie, I will catch you. Just look right at me, and jump."
The little fellow got all ready to jump, and then looked down again, and said, "I'se afraid."
"Willie, didn't I tell you I would catch you? Will papa deceive you? Now, Willie, look me right in the eye, and jump, and I will catch you."
The little fellow got all ready the third time to jump, but he looked on the floor, and said:
"I'se afraid."
"Didn't I tell you I would catch you?"
"Yes."
At last I said: "Willie, don't take your eyes off me"; and I held the little fellow's eyes, and said, "Now, jump; don't look at the floor;" and he leaped into my arms.
Then he said to me, "Let me jump again."
I put him back, and the moment he got on the table he jumped, and after that, when he was on the table and I was standing five or six feet away I heard him cry, "Papa, I'se coming," and had just time to rush and catch him. He seemed to put too much confidence in me. But you cannot put too much confidence in God.
When President Lincoln signed the proclamation of emancipation, copies of it were sent to all points along the Northern line, where they were posted. Now, supposing a slave should have seen a copy of that proclamation and should have learned its contents. He might have known the fact, he might have assented to its justice, but if he had still continued to serve his old master as a slave his faith in the document would not have amounted to anything.
And so it is with us. 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.
A friend of mine went to teach in Natchez before the war. He and a friend of his went out riding one Saturday in the country. They saw an old slave coming, and they thought they would have a little fun. They had just come to a place where there was a fork in the road, and there was a sign-post which read, "Forty miles to Liberty."
"Sambo, how old are you?"
"I don't know, massa. I guess I'se about eighty."
"Can you read?"
"No, sah; we don't read in dis country. It's agin the law."
"Can you tell what is on that sign-post?"
"Yes, sah; it says forty miles to Liberty."
"Well, now," said my friend, "why don't you follow that road and get your liberty? It says there, only 'forty miles to Liberty.' Now, why don't you take that road and go there?"
The old man's countenance changed, and he said: "That ar's a sham, young massa, but if it pointed up thar," and he raised his trembling hand toward heaven, "to the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, that ar wouldn't be no sham."
The old slave, with all his ignorance, had even then experienced a liberty in his own soul that these young men, with all their boasted education, at that time knew nothing of.
A certain John Bacon, once a famous sculptor, left an inscription to be placed on his tomb in Westminster Abbey:
"What I was as an artist seemed of some importance to me while I lived; but what I was as a believer in Jesus Christ is the only thing of importance to me now."
A Methodist minister, on his way to a camp-meeting, through some mistake took passage on the wrong boat. He found that instead of being bound for a religious gathering, he was on his way to a horse-race. His fellow-passengers were betting and discussing the events, and the whole atmosphere was foreign to his nature. He besought the captain that he would stop his boat and let him off at the first landing, as the surroundings were so distasteful to him.
The story also goes on to relate how, on the same occasion a sporting man, intending to go to the races, by some mistake found himself on the wrong boat, bound for the camp-meeting. The conversation about him was no more intelligible to him than to the man in the first instance, and he, too, besought the captain to stop and let him off the boat.
Now what was true in these two cases is practically true with every one. A true Christian is wretched where there is no fellowship, and an unregenerate man is not at ease where there are only Christians. A man's future will be according to what he is here prepared for. If he is not regenerate, heaven will have no attractions for him. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.
"The highest proof of the infallibility of Scripture," said the late A. J. Gordon, "is the practical one that we have proved it so. As the coin of the realm has always been found to buy the amount of its face-value, so the prophecies and promises of Scripture have yielded their face value to those who have taken the pains to prove them. If they have not always done so, it is probable that they have not yet matured. There are multitudes of Christians who have so far proved the veracity of the Bible that they are ready to trust it without reserve in all that it pledges for the world yet unseen and the life yet unrealized."
I remember a man telling me he preached for a number of years without any result. He used to say to his wife as they went to church that he knew the people would not believe anything he said; and there was no blessing. At last he saw his error; he asked God to help him, and took courage, and then the blessing came.
"According to your faith it shall be unto you." This man had expected nothing and he got just what he expected. Dear friends, let us expect that God is going to use us. Let us have courage and go forward, looking to God to do great things.
When I was a little boy I tried to catch my shadow. I don't know if you were ever so foolish; but I remember running after it, and trying to get ahead of it. I could not see why the shadow always kept ahead of me. Once I happened to be racing with my face to the sun, and I looked over my head and saw my shadow behind me, and it kept behind me all the way.
It is the same with the Sun of Righteousness. Peace and joy will go with you while you go with your face toward Him, but those who turn their backs on the Sun are in darkness all the time. Turn to the light of God, and the reflection will flash in your heart.
If I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the Bible, I don't know why one of my friends has not a right to cut out another, and another friend to cut out another part, and so on. You would have a queer kind of Bible if everybody cut out what he wanted to! Every adulterer would cut out everything about adultery; every liar would cut out everything about lying; every drunkard would be cutting out what he didn't like.
Once a gentleman took his Bible around to his minister, and said, "That is your Bible."
"Why do you call it my Bible?" said the minister.
"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."
He had about a third of the Bible cut out; all of Job, all of Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and a good deal besides. The minister wanted him to leave the Bible with him; he didn't want the rest of his congregation to see it. But the man said:
"Oh, no! I have the covers left, and I will hold on to them."
And off he went holding on to the covers.
When I was in St. Louis some years ago, there was an old man who had been away off on the mountains of an ungodly life, but in his early manhood he had known Christ. He came into the inquiry-room, literally broken down. About midnight that old man came trembling before God and was saved. He wiped away his tears, and started home.
Next night I saw him in the audience with a terrible look in his face. As soon as I finished preaching, I went to him and said:
"My good friend, you haven't gone back into darkness again?"
Said he: "Oh, Mr. Moody, it has been the most wretched day in my life."
"Why so?"
"Well, this morning as soon as I got my breakfast, I started out. I have a number of children, married, and in this city, and they have families; and I have spent the day going around and telling them what God has done for me. I told them how I had tasted salvation, with the tears trickling down my face; and, Mr. Moody, I hadn't a child that didn't mock me!"
That made me think of Lot down in Sodom. It is an awful thing for a man who has been a backslider to have his children mock him. But it is written: "Thy back-slidings shall reprove thee; know, therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God."
A great many people say, you must hear both sides; but if a man should write me a most slanderous letter about my wife, I don't think I would have to read it; I should tear it up and throw it to the winds. Have I to read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both sides? Have I to take up a book that is a slander on my Lord and Master, who has redeemed me with His blood? Ten thousand times no! I will not touch it.
I well remember how in my native village in New England it used to be customary, as a funeral procession left the church, for the bell to toll as many times as the deceased was years old. How anxiously I would count those strokes of the bell to see how long I might reckon on living! Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty tolls, and I would give a sigh of relief to think I had so many years to live. But at other times there would be only a few years tolled, and then a horror would seize me as I thought that I, too, might soon be claimed as a victim by that dread monster, Death. 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. In his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul has showed, in most direct language, that there is no condemnation for a child of God, but that he is passed from under the power of law, and in the Epistle to the Corinthians he tells us that "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body," "and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."
A story has gone the round of the American press that made a great impression upon me as a father. A father took his little child out into the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot day, lie lay down under a beautiful shady tree. The little child ran about gathering wild flowers and little blades of grass, and coming to its father and saying:
"Pretty! pretty!"
At last the father fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the little child wandered away. When he awoke, his first thought was:
"Where is my child?"
He looked all around, but he could not see him. He shouted at the top of his voice, but all he heard was the echo. Running to a little hill, he looked around and shouted again. No response! 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. He rushed to the spot, took up the lifeless corpse, and hugged it to his bosom, and accused himself of being the murderer of his child. While he was sleeping his child had wandered over the precipice.