THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE-Where Can Rest be Found?

 

If I wanted to find a person who had rest I would not go among the very wealthy. The man that we read of in the twelfth chapter of Luke, thought he was going to get rest by multiplying his goods, but he was disappointed. “Soul, take thine ease.” I venture to say that there is not a person in this wide world who has tried to find rest in that way and found it.

Money cannot buy it. Many a millionaire would gladly give millions if he could purchase it as he does his stocks and shares. God has made the soul a little too large for this world. Roll the whole world in, and still there is room. There is care in getting wealth, and more care in keeping it.

Nor would I go among the pleasure seekers. They have a few hours’ enjoyment, but the next day there is enough sorrow to counterbalance it. They may drink the cup of pleasure to-day, but the cup of pain comes on to-morrow.

To find rest I would never go among the politicians, or among the so-called great. Congress is the last place on earth that I would go. In the Lower House they want to go to the Senate; in the Senate they want to go to the Cabinet; and then they want to go to the White House; and rest has never been found there. Nor would I go among the halls of learning. “Much study is a weariness to the flesh.” I would not go among the upper ten, the “bon-ton,” for they are constantly chasing after fashion. Have you not noticed their troubled faces on our streets? And the face is index to the soul. They have no hopeful look. Their worship of pleasure is slavery. Solomon tried pleasure, and found bitter disappointment, and down the ages has come the bitter cry, “All is vanity.”

Now, there is no rest in sin. The wicked know nothing about it. The Scriptures tell us the wicked “are like the troubled sea that cannot rest.” You have, perhaps been on the sea when there is a calm, when the water is as clear as crystal, and it seemed as if the sea were at rest. But if you looked you would see that the waves came in, and that the calm was only on the surface. Man, like the sea, has no rest. He has had no rest since Adam fell, and there is none for him until he returns to God again, and the light of Christ shines into his heart.

Rest cannot be found in the world, and thank God the world cannot take it from the believing heart! Sin is the cause of all this unrest. It brought toil and labor and misery into the world.

Now for something positive. I would go successfully to someone who has heard the sweet voice of Jesus, and has laid his burden down at the cross. There is rest, sweet rest. Thousands could certify to this blessed fact. They could say, and truthfully:

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Come unto me and rest.

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down,

Thy head upon my breast.”

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary and worn and sad.

I found in Him a resting-place,

And He hath made me glad.

Among all his writings St. Augustine has nothing sweeter than this: “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our heart is restless till it rests in Thee.”

Do you know that for four thousand years no prophet or priest or patriarch ever stood up and uttered a text like this? It would be blasphemy for Moses to have uttered a text like it. Do you think he had rest when he was teasing the Lord to let him go into the Promised Land? Do you think Elijah could have uttered such a text as this, when, under the juniper-tree, he prayed that he might die? And this is one of the strongest proofs that Jesus Christ was not only man, but God. He was God-Man, and this is Heaven’s proclamation, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest”. He brought it down from heaven with Him.

Now, if this text was not true, don’t you think it would have been found out by this time? I believe it as much as I believe in my existence. Why? Because I not only find it in the Book, but in my own experience. The “I wills” of Christ have never been broken, and never can be.

I thank God for the word “give” in that passage. He doesn’t sell it. Some of us are so poor that we could not buy it if it was for sale. Thank God, we can get it for nothing.

I like to have a text like this, because it takes us all in. “Come unto me all ye that labor.” That doesn’t mean a select few—refined ladies and cultured men. It doesn’t mean good people only. It applies to saint and sinner. Hospitals are for the sick, not for healthy people. Do you think that Christ would shut the door in anyone’s face, and say, “I did not mean all; I only meant certain ones”? If you cannot come as a saint, come as a sinner. Only come!

A lady told me once that she was so hard-hearted she couldn’t come.

“Well,” I said, “my good woman, it doesn’t say all ye soft-hearted people come. Black hearts, vile hearts, hard hearts, soft hearts, all hearts come. Who can soften your hard heart but Himself?”

The harder the heart, the more need you have to come. If my watch stops I don’t take it to a drug store or to a blacksmith’s shop, but to the watchmaker’s, to have it repaired. So if the heart gets out of order take it to its keeper, Christ, to have it set right. If you can prove that you are a sinner, you are entitled to the promise. Get all the benefit you can out of it.

Now, there are a good many believers who think this text applies only to sinners; It is just the thing for them too. What do we see to-day? The Church, Christian people, all loaded down with cares and troubles. “Come unto me all ye that labor.” All! I believe that includes the Christian whose heart is burdened with some great sorrow. The Lord wants you to come.

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE-REST.

 

Some years ago a gentleman came to me and asked me which I thought was the most precious promise of all those that Christ left. I took some time to look them over, but I gave it up. I found that I could not answer the question. It is like a man with a large family of children, he cannot tell which he likes best; he loves them all. But if not the best, this is one of the sweetest promises of all: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

There are a good many people who think the promises are not going to be fulfilled. There are some that you do see fulfilled, and you cannot help but believe they are true. Now, remember that all promises are not given without conditions. Some are given with, and others without, conditions attached to them. For instance, it says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Now, I need not pray as long as I am cherishing some known sin. He will not hear me, much less answer me. The Lord says in the eighty-fourth Psalm, “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” If I am not walking uprightly, I have no claims under the promise. Again, some of the promises were made to certain individuals or nations. For instance, God said that He would make Abraham’s seed to multiply as the stars of heaven: but that is not a promise for you or me. Some promises were made to the Jews, and do not apply to the Gentiles.

Then there are promises without conditions. He promised Adam and Eve that the world should have a Savior, and there was no power on earth or perdition that could keep Christ from coming at the appointed time. When Christ left the world, He said He would send us the Holy Ghost. He had only been gone ten days when the Holy Ghost came. And so you can run right through the Scriptures, and you will find that some of the promises are with, and some without, conditions; and if we don’t comply with the conditions we cannot expect them to be fulfilled.

I believe it will be the experience of every man and woman on the face of the earth, I believe that everyone will be obliged to testify in the evening of life, that if they have complied with the condition, the Lord has fulfilled His word to the letter. Joshua, the old Hebrew hero, was an illustration. After having tested God forty years in the Egyptian brick kilns, forty years in the desert, and thirty years in the Promised Land, his dying testimony was: “Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord promised.” I believe you could heave the ocean easier than break one of God’s promises. So when we come to a promise like the one we have before us now, I want you to bear in mind that there is no discount upon it. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest.”

Perhaps you say: “I hope Mr. Moody is not going to preach on this old text.” Yes: I am. When I take up an album, it does not interest me if all the photographs are new; but if I know any of the faces. I stop at once. So with these old, well-known texts. They have quenched our thirst before, but the water is still bubbling up—we cannot drink it dry.

If you probe the human heart, you will find a want, and that want is rest. The world's cry today is, “Where can rest be found?” Why are theaters and places of amusement crowded at night? What is the secret of Sunday driving, of the saloons and brothels? Some think they will get it in pleasure, others think they will get it in wealth, and others in the literature. They are seeking and finding no rest.

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE-HUMILITY.

 

“Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.”—Matthew 11:29.

There is no harder lesson to learn than the lesson of humility. It is not taught in the schools of men, only in the school of Christ. It is the rarest of all the gifts. Very rarely do we find a man or woman who is following closely the footsteps of the Master in meekness and in humility. I believe that it is the hardest lesson that Jesus Christ had to teach His disciples while He was here on earth. It almost looked at first as though He had failed to teach it to the twelve men who had been with Him almost constantly for three years.

I believe that if we are humble enough, we shall be sure to get a great blessing. After all, I think that more depends upon us than upon the Lord, because He is always ready to give a blessing and give it freely, but we are not always in a position to receive it. He always blesses the humble, and, if we can get down in the dust before Him, no one will go away disappointed. It was Mary at the feet of Jesus, who had chosen the “better part.”

Did you ever notice the reason Christ gave for learning of Him? He might have said: “Learn of me because I am the most advanced thinker of the age. I have performed miracles that no man else has performed. I have shown my supernatural power in a thousand ways.” But no: the reason He gave was that He was “meek, and lowly in heart.”

We read of the three men in Scripture whose faces shone, and all three were noted for their meekness and humility. We are told that the face of Christ shone at His transfiguration; Moses, after he had been in the mount for forty days, came down from his communion with God with a shining face; and when Stephen stood before the Sanhedrim on the day of his death, his face was lighted up with glory. If our faces are to shine, we must get into the valley of humility; we must go down in the dust before God.

Bunyan says that it is hard to get down into the valley of humiliation, the descent into it is steep and rugged; but that it is very fruitful, fertile, and beautiful once we get there. I think that no one will dispute that; almost every man, even the ungodly, admires meekness.

Someone asked Augustine what was the first of the religious graces, and he said, “Humility.” They asked him what was the second, and he replied, “Humility.” They asked him the third, and he said, “Humility.” I think that if we are humble, we have all the graces.

Some years ago, I saw what is called a sensitive plant. I happened to breathe on it, and suddenly it drooped its head; I touched it, and it withered away. Humility is as sensitive as that; it cannot safely be brought out on exhibition. A man who is flattering himself that he is humble and walking close to the Master is self-deceived. It consists not in thinking meanly of us, but in not thinking of ourselves at all. Moses wits not that his face shone. If humility speaks of itself, it is gone.

Someone has said that the grass is an illustration of this lowly grace. It was created for the lowest service. Cut it, and it springs up again. The cattle feed upon it, and yet how beautiful it is.

The showers fall upon the mountain peaks, and very often leave them barren because they rush down into the meadows and valleys and make the lowly places fertile. If a man is proud and lifted up, rivers of grace may flow over him and yet leave him barren and unfruitful, while they bring blessing to the man who has been brought low by the grace of God.

A man can counterfeit love, he can counterfeit faith, he can counterfeit hope and all the other graces, but it is exceedingly difficult to counterfeit humility. You soon detect mock humility. They have a saying in the East among the Arabs, that as the tares and the wheat grow, they show which God has blessed. The ears that God has blessed bow their heads and acknowledge every grain, and the more fruitful they are the lower their heads are bowed. The tares which God has sent as a curse, lift up their heads erect, high above the wheat, but they are only fruitful of evil. I have a pear tree on my farm which is very beautiful; it appears to be one of the most beautiful trees in my area. Every branch seems to be reaching up to the light and stands almost like a wax candle, but I never get any fruit from it. I have another tree, which was so full of fruit last year that the branches almost touched the ground. If we only get down low enough, my friends, God will use every one of us to His glory.

“As the lark that soars the highest builds her nest the lowest; as the nightingale that sings so sweetly, sings in the shade when all things rest; as the branches that are most laden with fruit, bend lowest; as the ship most laden, sinks deepest in the water;—so the holiest Christians are the humblest.”

The London Times some years ago told the story of a petition that was being circulated for signatures. It was a time of great excitement, and this petition was intended to have great influence in the House of Lords, but there was one word left out. Instead of reading, “We humbly beseech thee,” it read, “We beseech thee.” So it was ruled out. My friends, if we want to make an appeal to the God of Heaven, we must humble ourselves; and if we do humble ourselves before the Lord, we shall not be disappointed.

As I have been studying some Bible characters that illustrate humility, I have been ashamed of myself. If you have any regard for me, pray that I may have humility. When I put my life aside the life of some of these men, I say, Shame on the Christianity of the present day. If you want to get a good idea of yourself, look at some of the Bible characters that have been clothed with meekness and humility, and see what a contrast is your position before God and man.

One of the meekest characters in history was John the Baptist. You remember when they sent a deputation to him and asked if he was Elias, or this prophet, or that prophet, he said, “No.” Now he might have said some very flattering things of himself. He might have said:

“I am the son of the old priest, Zacharias. Haven’t you heard of my fame as a preacher? I have baptized more people probably than any man living. The world has never seen a preacher like myself.”

I honestly believe that in the present day most men standing in his position would do that. On the railroad train, some time ago, I heard a man talking so loudly that all the people in the car could hear him. He said that he had baptized more people than any man in his denomination. He told me how many thousand miles he had traveled, how many sermons he had preached, how many open-air services he had held, and this and that until I was so ashamed that I had to hide my head. This is the age of boasting. It is the day of the great “I.”

My attention was recently called to the fact that in all the Psalms you cannot find any place where David refers to his victory over the giant, Goliath. If it had been in the present day, there would have been a volume written about it at once; I don’t know how many poems there would be telling of the great things that this man had done. He would have been in demand as a lecturer and would have added a title to his name: G. G. K.,—Great Giant Killer. That is how it is today: great evangelists, great preachers, great theologians, great bishops.

“John,” they asked, “who are you?”

“I am nobody. I am to be heard, not to be seen. I am only a voice.”

He hadn’t a word to say about himself. I once heard a little bird faintly singing close by me,—at last, it got clear out of sight, and then its notes were still sweeter. The higher it flew the sweeter sounded its notes. If we can only get ourselves out of sight and learn of Him who was meek and lowly in heart, we shall be lifted up into heavenly places.

Mark tells us, in the first chapter and seventh verse, that John came and preached saying, “There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.” Think of that; and bear in mind that Christ was looked upon as a deceiver, a village carpenter, and yet here is John, the son of the old priest, who had a much higher position in the sight of men than that of Jesus. Great crowds were coming to hear him, and even Herod attended his meetings.

When his disciples came and told John that Christ was beginning to draw crowds, he nobly answered: “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoiced greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

It is easy to read that, but it is hard for us to live in the power of it. It is very hard for us to be ready to decrease, to grow smaller and smaller, that Christ may increase. The morning star fades away when the sun rises.

“He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly and speak of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all, and what He hath seen and heard, that He testified; and no man receives His testimony. He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For He whom God hath sent speak the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.”

Let us now turn the light upon ourselves. Have we been decreasing of late? Do we think less of ourselves and of our position than we did a year ago? Are we seeking to obtain some position of dignity? Are we wanting to hold on to some title, and are we offended because we are not treated with the courtesy that we think is due us? Some time ago I heard a man in the pulpit say that he should take offense if he was not addressed by his title. My dear friend, are you going to take that position that you must have a title, and that you must have every letter addressed with that title, or will you be offended? John did not want any title, and when we are right with God, we shall not be caring about titles. In one of his early epistles, Paul calls himself the “least of all the apostles.” Later on, he claims to be “less than the least of all saints,” and again, just before his death, humbly declares that he is the “chief of sinners.” Notice how he seems to have grown smaller and smaller in his own estimation. So it was with John. And I do hope and pray that as the days go by, we may feel like hiding ourselves, and letting God have all the honor and glory.

“When I look back upon my own religious experience,” says Andrew Murray, “or round upon the Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work for Christ—alas! how much proof there is that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus.”

See what Christ says about John. “He was a burning and shining light.” Christ gave him the honor that belonged to him. If you take a humble position, Christ will see it. If you want God to help you, then take a low position.

I am afraid that if we had been in John’s place, many of us would have said: “What did Christ say,—I am a burning and shining light?” Then we would have had that recommendation put in the newspapers, and would have sent them to our friends, with that part marked in blue pencil. Sometimes I get a letter just full of clippings from the newspapers, stating that this man is more eloquent than Gough, etc. And the man wants me to get him some church. Do you think that a man who has such eloquence would be looking for a church? No, they would all be looking for him.

My dear friends, isn’t it humiliating? Sometimes I think it is a wonder that any man is converted these days. Let another praise you. Don’t be around praising yourself. If we want God to lift us up, let us get down. The lower we get, the higher God will lift us. It is Christ’s eulogy of John, “Greater than any man born of woman.”

There is a story told of Carey, the great missionary, that he was invited by the Governor-general of India to go to a dinner party at which were some military officers belonging to the aristocracy, and who looked down upon missionaries with scorn and contempt.

One of these officers said at the table: “I believe that Carey was a shoemaker, wasn’t he, before he took up the profession of a missionary?”

Mr. Carey spoke up and said: “Oh no, I was only a cobbler. I could mend shoes, and wasn’t ashamed of it.”

The one prominent virtue of Christ, next to His obedience, is His humility; and even His obedience grew out of His humility. Being in the form of God, He counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. In His lowly birth, His submission to His earthly parents, His seclusion during thirty years, His consorting with the poor and despised, His entire submission and dependence upon His Father, this virtue that was consummated in His death on the cross, shines out.

One day Jesus was on His way to Capernaum, and was talking about His coming death and suffering, and His resurrection and He heard quite a heated discussion going on behind Him. When He came into the house at Capernaum, He turned to His disciples and said:

“What was all that discussion about?”

I see John look at James, and Peter at Andrew, —and they all looked ashamed. “Who shall be the greater?” That discussion has wrecked party after party, one society after another—“Who shall be the greatest?”

The way Christ took to teach them humility was by putting a little child in their midst and saying: “If you want to be great, take that little child for an example, and he who wants to be the greatest, let him be a servant of all.”

To me, one of the saddest things in all the life of Jesus Christ was the fact that just before His crucifixion, His disciples should have been striving to see who should be the greatest, that night He instituted the Supper, and they ate the Passover together. It was His last night on earth, and they never saw Him so sorrowful before. He knew Judas was going to sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. He knew that Peter would deny Him. And yet, in addition to this, when going into the very shadow of the cross, there arose this strife as to who should be the greatest. He took a towel and girded Himself like a slave, and He took a basin of water and stooped and washed their feet. That was another object lesson of humility. He said, “Ye call me Lord, and ye do well. If you want to be great in my Kingdom, be a servant of all. If you serve, you shall be great.”

When the Holy Ghost came, and those men were filled, from that time on mark the difference: Matthew takes up his pen to write, and he keeps Matthew out of sight. He tells what Peter and Andrew did, but he calls himself Matthew “the publican.” He tells how they left all to follow Christ but does not mention the feast he gave. Jerome says that Mark’s gospel is to be regarded as memoirs of Peter’s discourses and to have been published by his authority. Yet here we constantly find that damaging things are mentioned about Peter, and things to his credit are not referred to. Mark’s gospel omits all allusion to Peter’s faith in venturing on the sea but goes into detail about the story of his fall and denial of our Lord. Peter put himself down and lifted others up.

If the Gospel of Luke had been written today, it would be signed by the great Dr. Luke, and you would have his photograph as a frontispiece. But you can’t find Luke’s name; he keeps out of sight. He wrote two books, and his name is not to be found in either. John covers himself always under the expression—“the disciple whom Jesus loved.” None of the four men whom history and tradition assert to be the authors of the gospels, lay claim to the authorship in their writings. Dear man of God, I would that I had the same spirit, that I could just get out of sight,—hide myself.

My dear friends, I believe our only hope is to be filled with the Spirit of Christ. May God fill us, so that we shall be filled with meekness and humility. Let us take the hymn, “O, to be nothing, nothing,” and make it the language of our hearts. It breathes the spirit of Him who said: “The Son can do nothing of Himself!”

Oh to be nothing, nothing!

Only to lie at His feet,

A broken and emptied vessel,

For the Master’s use made meet.

Emptied, that He might fill me

As forth to His service I go;

Broken, that so unhindered,

His life through me might flow.

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE-Are Your Children Safe?

 

The text which I have selected has a special application to Christian people and to parents. This command of the Scripture was given to Noah not only for his own safety, but for his household, and the question which I put to each father and mother is this: “Are your children in the ark of God?” You may scoff at it, but it is a very important question. Are all your children in? Are all your grandchildren in? Don’t rest day or night until you get your children in. I believe my children have fifty temptations where I had one. I am one of those who believe that in the great cities there is a snare set upon the corner of every street for our sons and daughters, and I don’t believe it is our business to spend our time in accumulating bonds and stocks. Have I done all I can to get my children in? That is it.

Now, let me ask another question: What would have been Noah’s feelings if, when God called him into the ark, his children would not have gone with him? If he had lived such a false life that his children had no faith in his word, what would have been his feelings? He would have said: “There is my poor boy on the mountain. Would to God I had died in his place! I would rather have perished than had him perish.” David cried over his son: “Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee!” Noah loved his children, and they had confidence in him.

Someone sent me a paper a number of years ago, containing an article that was marked. Its title was: “Are all the children in?” An old wife lay dying. She was nearly one hundred years of age, and the husband who had taken the journey with her, sat by her side. She was just breathing faintly, but suddenly she revived, opened her eyes, and said:

“Why! it is dark.”

“Yes, Janet, it is dark.”

“Is it night?”

“Oh, yes! it is midnight.”

“Are all the children in?”

There was that old mother living life over again. Her youngest child had been in the grave for twenty years, but she was traveling back into the old days, and she fell asleep in Christ asking, “Are all the children in?”

Dear friend, are they all in? Put the question to yourself now. Is John in? Is James in? Or is he immersed in business and pleasure? Is he living a double and dishonest life? Say! Where is your boy, mother? Where is your son, your daughter? Is it well with your children? Can you say it is?

After being superintendent of a Sunday school in Chicago for a number of years, a school of over a thousand members, children that came from godless homes, having mothers and fathers working against me, taking the children off on excursions on Sunday, and doing all they could to break up the work I was trying to do, I used to think that if I should ever stand before an audience I would speak to no one but parents; that would be my chief business. It is an old saying—“Get the lamb, and you will get the sheep.” I gave that up years ago. Give me the sheep, and then I will have someone to nurse the lamb; but get a lamb and convert him, and if he has a godless father and mother, you will have little chance with that child. What we want is godly homes. The home was established long before the Church.

I have no sympathy with the idea that our children have to grow up before they are converted. Once I saw a lady with three daughters at her side, and I stepped up to her and asked her if she was a Christian.

“Yes, sir.”

Then I asked the oldest daughter if she was a Christian. The chin began to quiver, and the tears came into her eyes, and she said,

“I wish I was.”

The mother looked very angrily at me and said, “I don’t want you to speak to my children on that subject. They don’t understand.” And in great rage she took them all away from me. One daughter was fourteen years old, one twelve, and the other ten, but they were not old enough to be talked to about religion. Let them drift into the world and plunge into worldly amusements, and then see how hard it is to reach them. Many a mother is mourning today because her boy has gone beyond her reach and will not allow her to pray with him. She may pray for him, but he will not let her pray or talk with him. In those early days when his mind was tender and young, she might have led him to Christ. Bring them in. “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” Is there a prayerless father reading this? May God let the arrow go down into your soul! Make up your mind that, God helping you, you will get the children in. God’s order is to the father first, but if he isn’t true to his duty, then the mother should be true, and save the children from the wreck. Now is the time to do it while you have them under your roof. Exert your parental influence over them.

I never speak to my parents but I think of two fathers, one of whom lived on the banks of the Mississippi, the other in New York. The first one devoted all his time to amassing wealth. He had a son to whom he was much attached, and one day the boy was brought home badly injured. The father was informed that the boy could live for a short time, and he broke the news to his son as gently as possible.

“You say I cannot live, father? O! then pray for my soul,” said the boy.

In all those years that father had never said a prayer for that boy, and he told him he couldn’t. Shortly after, the boy died. That father has said since that he would give all that he possessed if he could call that boy back only to offer one short prayer for him.

The other father had a boy who had been sick for some time, and he came home one day and found his wife weeping. She said:

“I cannot help but believe that this is going to prove fatal.”

The man started, and said: “If you think so, I wish you would tell him.”

But the mother could not tell her boy. The father went to the sick room, and he saw that death was feeling for the cords of life, and he said:

“My son, do you know you are not going to live?”

The little fellow looked up and said: “No; is this death that I feel stealing over me? Will I die today?”

“Yes, my son, you cannot live the day out.”

And the little fellow smiled and said: “Well, father, I shall be with Jesus tonight, shan’t I?”

“Yes, you will spend the night with the Lord,” and the father broke down and wept.

The little fellow saw the tears and said: “Don’t weep for me. I will go to Jesus and tell Him that ever since I can remember you have prayed for me.”

I have three children, and if God should take them from me, I would rather have them take such a message home to Him than have the wealth of the whole world. Oh! would to God I could say something to stir you, fathers and mothers, to get your children into the ark.

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE-Judgment.

 

The time is coming again when God will deal in judgment with the world. It is but a little while; we know not when, but it is sure to come. God’s word has gone forth that this world shall be rolled together like a scroll and shall be on fire. What then will become of your soul? It is a loving call, “Now come, thou and all thy house, into the ark.” Twenty-four hours before the rain began to fall, Noah’s ark, if it had been sold at auction, would not have brought as much as it would be worth for kindling wood. But twenty-four hours after the rain began to fall, Noah’s ark was worth more than the world. There was not then a man living but would have given all he was worth for a seat in the ark. You may turn away and laugh.

“I believe in Christ!” you say, “I would rather be without Him than have Him.”

But bear in mind, the time is coming when Christ will be worth more to you than ten thousand worlds like this. Bear in mind that He is offered to you now. This is a day of grace; it is a day of mercy. You will find if you read your Bible carefully, that God always precedes judgment with grace. Grace is a forerunner of judgment. He called these men in the days of Noah in love. They would have been saved if they had repented in those one hundred and twenty years. When Christ came to plead with the people in Jerusalem, it was their day of grace; but they mocked and laughed at Him. He said: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Forty years afterward, thousands of the people begged that their lives might be spared; and eleven hundred thousand perished in that city.

In 1857 a revival swept over this country in the east and on to the western cities, clear over to the Pacific coast. It was God calling the nation to Himself. Half a million people united with the Church at that time. Then the war broke out. We were baptized with the Holy Ghost in 1857, and in 1861 we were baptized in blood. It was a call of mercy, preceding judgment.

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE- Moving in.

 

But I can imagine one beautiful morning, not a cloud to be seen, Noah has got his communication. He has heard the voice that he heard one hundred and twenty years before—the same old voice. Perhaps there had been silence for one hundred and twenty years. But the voice rang through his soul once again, “Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark.”

The word “come” occurs about nineteen hundred times in the Bible, it is said, and this is the first time. It meant salvation. You can see Noah and all his family moving into the ark. They are bringing household furniture.

Some of his neighbors say, “Noah, what is your hurry? You will have plenty of time to get into that old ark. What is your hurry? There are no windows, and you cannot look out to see when the storm is coming.” But he heard the voice and obeyed.

Some of his relatives might have said, “What are you going to do with the old homestead?”

Noah says, “I don’t want it. The storm is coming.” He tells them the day of grace is closing, that worldly wealth is of no value, and that the ark is the only place of safety. We must bear in mind that these railroads that we think so much of, will soon go down; they only run for time, not for eternity. The heavens will be on fire, and then what will property, honor, and position in society be worth?

The first thing that alarms them is that they rise one morning, and lo! the heavens are filled with the fowls of the air. They are flying into the ark, two by two. They come from the desert; they come from the mountains; they come from all parts of the world. They are going into the ark. It must have been a strange sight. I can hear the people cry, “Great God! what is the meaning of this?” And they look down on the earth; and, with great alarm and surprise, they see little insects creeping up two by two, coming from all parts of the world. Then behold! They've come cattle and beasts, two by two. The neighbors cry out, “What does this mean?” They run to their statesmen and wise men, who have told them there was no sign of a coming storm, and ask them why it is that those birds, animals, and creeping things go toward the ark, as if guided by some unseen hand.

“Well,” the statesmen and wise men say, “We cannot explain it, but give yourselves no trouble; God is not going to destroy the world. Business was never better than it is now. Do you think if God were going to destroy the world, He would let us go on so prosperously as He has? There is no sign of a coming storm. What has made these creeping insects and these wild beasts of the forest go into the ark, we do not know. We cannot understand it; it is very strange. But there is no sign of anything going to happen. The stars are bright, and the sun shines as bright as ever it did. Everything moves on as it has been moving for all time past. You can hear the children playing in the street. You can hear the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the land, and all is merry as ever.”

I imagine the alarm passed away, and they fell into their regular courses. Noah comes out and says: “The door is going to be shut. Come in. God is going to destroy the world. See the animals, how they have come up. The communication has come to them directly from heaven.” But the people only mocked on.

Do you know, when the hundred and twenty years were up, God gave the world seven days’ grace? Did you ever notice that? If there had been a cry during those seven days, I believe it would have been heard. But there was none.

At length, the last day had come, the last hour, the last minute, ay! the last second. God Almighty came down and shut the door of that ark. No angel, no man, but God Himself shut that door, and when once the master of the house has risen and shut to the door, the doom of the world is sealed; and the doom of that old world was forever sealed. The sun had gone down upon the glory of that old world for the last time. You can hear away off in the distance the mutterings of the storm. You can hear the thunder rolling. The lightning begins to flash, and the old-world reels. The storm bursts upon them, and that old ark of Noah’s would have been worth more than the whole world to them.

I want to say to any scoffer who reads this, that you can laugh at the Bible, you can scoff at your mother’s God, you can laugh at ministers and Christians, but the hour is coming when one promise in that old Book will be worth more to you than ten thousand worlds like this.

The windows of heaven are opened and the fountains of the great deep are broken up. The waters come bubbling up, and the sea bursts its bounds and leaps over its walls. The rivers begin to swell. The people living in the lowlands flee to the mountains and highlands. They flee up the hillsides. And there is a wail going up:

“Noah! Noah! Noah! Let us in.”

They leave their homes and come to the ark now. They pound on the ark. Hear them cry:

“Noah! Let us in. Noah! Have mercy on us.”

“I am your nephew.”

“I am your niece.”

“I am your uncle.”

Ah, there is a voice inside, saying: “I would like to let you in; but God has shut the door, and I cannot open it!”

God shut that door! When the door is shut, there is no hope. Their cry for mercy was too late; their day of grace was closed. Their last hour had come. God had pleaded with them; God had invited them to come in, but they had mocked at the invitation. They scoffed and ridiculed the idea of a deluge. Now it is too late.

God did not permit anyone to survive to tell us how they perished. When Job lost his family, there came a messenger to him: but there came no messenger from the antediluvians; not even Noah himself could see the world perish. If he could, he would have seen men and women and children dashing against that ark; the waves rising higher and higher, while those outsides were perishing, dying in unbelief. Some think to escape by climbing the trees and think the storm will soon go down; but it rains on, day and night, for forty days and forty nights, and they have swept away as the waves dash against them. The statesmen and astronomers and great men call for mercy, but it is too late. They had disobeyed the God of mercy. He had called, and they refused. He had pleaded with them, but they had laughed and mocked. But now the time has come for judgment instead of mercy.

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE- “How the Message was Received.”

 

How the Message was Received.

For one hundred- and twenty years God strove with those antediluvians. He never smites without warning, and they had their warning. Every time Noah drove a nail into the ark it was a warning to them. Every sound of the hammer echoed, “I believe in God.” If they had repented and cried as they did at Nineveh, I believe God would have heard their cry and spared them. But there was no cry for mercy. I have no doubt that they ridiculed the idea that God was going to destroy the world. I have no doubt that there were atheists who said there was not any God anyhow. I got hold of one of them some time ago. I said,

“How do you account for the formation of the world?”

“Oh! force and matter work together, and by chance, the world was created.”

I said, “It is a singular thing that your tongue isn’t on the top of your head if force and matter just threw it together in that manner.”

If I should take out my watch and say that force and matter worked together, and out came the watch, you would say I was a lunatic of the first order. Wouldn’t you? And yet they say that this old world was made by chance! “It threw itself together!”

I met a man in Scotland, and he took the ground that there was no God. I asked him,

“How do you account for creation, for all these rocks?” (They have a great many rocks in Scotland.)

“Why!” he said, “any schoolboy could account for that.”

“Well, how was the first rock made?”

“Out of sand.”

“How was the first sand made?”

“Out of rock.”

You see he had it all arranged so nicely. Sand and rock, rock and sand. I have no doubt that Noah had these men to contend with.

Then there was a class called agnostics, and there are a good many of their grandchildren alive today. Then there was another class who said they believed there was a God; they couldn’t make themselves believe that the world happened by chance, but God was too merciful to punish sin. He was so full of compassion and love that He couldn’t punish sin. The drunkard, the harlot, the gambler, the murderer, the thief, and the libertine would all share alike with the saints in the end. Supposing the governor of your state was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to have a man suffer, could not bear to see a man put in jail, and he should go and set all the prisoners free. How long would he be governor? You would have him out of office before the sunset. These very men that talk about God’s mercy, would be the first to raise a cry against a governor who would not have a man put in prison when he had done wrong.

Then another class took the ground that God could not destroy the world anyway. They might have a great flood which would rise up to the meadowlands and lowlands, but all it would be necessary to do would be to go up on the hills and mountains. That would be a hundred times better than Noah’s ark. Or if it should come to that, they could build rafts, which would be a good deal better than that ark. They had never seen such an ugly-looking thing. It was about five hundred feet long, about eighty feet wide, and fifty feet high. It had three stories and only one small window.

And then, I suppose there was a large class who took the ground that Noah must be wrong because he was in such a minority. That is a great argument now, you know. Noah was greatly in the minority. But he went on working.

If they had saloons then, and I don’t doubt but that they had, for we read that there was “violence in the land,” and wherever you have alcohol you have violence. We read also that Noah planted a vineyard and fell into the sin of intemperance. He was a righteous man, and if he did that, what must the others have done? Well, if they had saloons, no doubt they sang ribald songs about Noah and his ark, and if they had theaters, they likely acted it out, and mothers took their children to see it.

And if they had the press in those days, every now and then there would appear a skit about “Noah and his folly.” Reporters would come and interview him, and if they had an Associated Press, every few days a dispatch would be sent out telling how the work on the ark was progressing.

And perhaps they had excursions and offered as an inducement that people could go through the ark. And if Noah happened to be around, they would nudge each other and say:

“That’s Noah. Don’t you think there is a strange look in his eye?”

As a Scotchman would say, they thought him a little daft. Thank God a man can afford to be mad. A mad man thinks everyone else is mad but himself A drunkard does not call himself mad when he is drinking up all his means. Those men who stand and deal out death and damnation to men are not called mad, but a man is called mad when he gets into the ark and is saved for time and eternity. And I expect if the word crank was in use, they would call Noah “an old crank.”

And so all manner of sport was made of Noah and his ark. And the businessmen went on buying and selling, while Noah went on preaching and toiling. They perhaps had some astronomers, and they were gazing up at the stars, and saying, “Don’t you be concerned. There is no sign of a coming storm in the heavens. We are very wise men, and if there was a storm coming, we should read it in the heavens.” And they had geologists digging away, and they said, “There is no sign in the earth.” Even the carpenters who helped build the ark might have made fun of him, but they were like lots of people in the present day, who will help build a church, and perhaps give money for its support, but will never enter it themselves.

Well, things went on as usual. Little lambs skipped on the hillsides each spring. Men sought after wealth, and if they had leased, I expect they ran for longer periods than ours do. We think ninety-nine years is a long time, but I don’t doubt that theirs ran for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. And when they came to sign a lease, they would say with a twinkle in their eyes:

“Why, this old Noah says the world is coming to an end in one hundred and twenty years, and it’s twenty years since he started the story. But I guess I will sign the lease and risk it.”

Someone has said that Noah must have been deaf, or he could not have stood the jeers and sneers of his countrymen. But if he was deaf to the voice of men, he heard the voice of God when He told him to build the ark.

I can imagine one hundred years have rolled away, and the work on the ark ceases. Men say, “What has he stopped working for?” He has gone on a preaching tour, to tell the people of the coming storm—that God is going to sweep every man from the face of the earth unless he is in the ark. But he cannot get a man to believe him except for his own family. Some of the old men have passed away, and they died saying: “Noah is wrong.” Poor Noah! He must have had a hard time of it. I don’t think I should have had the grace to work for one hundred and twenty years without a convert. But he just toiled on, believing the word of God.

And now the hundred and twenty years are up. In the spring of the year, Noah did not plant anything, for he knew the flood was coming, and the people say: “Every year before he has planted, but this year he thinks the world is going to be destroyed, and he hasn’t planted anything.”

THE OVERCOMING LIFE--By D. L. MOODY--PART III. RESULTS OF TRUE REPENTANCE- “COME THOU AND ALL THY HOUSE INTO THE ARK.”

 

I want to call your attention to a text that you will find in the seventh chapter of Genesis, the first verse. When God speaks, you and I can afford to listen. It is not man speaking now, but it is God. “The Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark.”

Perhaps some skeptic is reading this, and perhaps some church member will join him and say,

“I hope Mr. Moody is not going to preach about the ark. I thought that was given up by all intelligent people.”

But I want to say that I haven’t given it up. When I do, I am going to give up the whole Bible. There is hardly any portion of the Old Testament Scripture but that the Son of God set His seal to it when He was down here in the world.

Men say, “I don’t believe in the story of the flood.”

Christ connected His own return to this world with that flood: “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”

I believe the story of the flood just as much as I do the third chapter of John. I pity any man that is picking the old Book to pieces. The moment that we give up any one of these things, we touch the deity of the Son of God. I have noticed that when a man does begin to pick the Bible to pieces, it doesn’t take him long to tear it all to pieces. What is the use of being five years about what you can do in five minutes?

A Solemn Message.

One hundred and twenty years before God spake the words of my text, Noah had received the most awful communication that ever came from heaven to earth. No man up to that time, and I think no man since, has ever received such communication. God said that on account of the wickedness of the world He was going to destroy the world by water. We can have no idea of the extent and character of that antediluvian wickedness. The Bible piles one expression on another, in an effort to emphasize it. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at His heart. . . . The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” Men lived five hundred years and more then, and they had time to mature in their sins.