After the financial depression the number of applicants for help at The Moody Church rapidly increased until, finally, a stream of people, principally men, was flowing in and out of the church doors from morning till night. Some of the cases of need were most touching and we began to pray much for God to show us how this sudden and special need could be met, and not only the bodily wants of these workless people relieved, but their need of Jesus Christ pointed out to them. Finally we were led to open the church every morning to give sober, …
Address delivered at the 1923 Annual Missionary Rally.
This afternoon I am going to speak on the work of the Holy Spirit of God in the life of the believer. There are two aspects of the work of the Spirit: the work that He does in the unsaved in convincing of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, and the work that He does in the saved person in giving power, direction and efficiency as soul winners. The work of the Spirit in fitting for soul winning work, after all, means making a missionary, whether at home or abroad. The matter …
In the first words of the first verse of Mark 3, Jesus entered into the synagogue, and it is very significant that for this lesson on powerlessness the Lord should take us there. I believe that it is within the sphere of church life that there are to be found the greatest spiritual tragedies, the severest spiritual breakdowns, the most appalling futility and the most desperate need.
God’s problems are not with His enemies—He has no problem with the world because the Lord Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.” He has no problem with the Devil because He stripped …
I was a member of a Christian household, and brought up in a Christian family—nominally so, at least.
My life as a boy was moral and obedient, and I regularly attended church. At fourteen years of age, when I knew “the creed, the Lord’s prayer, and the ten commandments” I was “confirmed in the most holy faith” by a Bishop of my church; and was taught in my Catechism that I had then become “a child of God, a member of Christ, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.” But this I do not now believe, nor have I …
When Rebecca and I were married fifty years ago, we had only a glimmer of what the future would hold. She had graduated from Dallas Bible College, and I had already spent a year teaching at the Briercrest Bible College in Saskatchewan, Canada. We met at a church in Dallas while I was in seminary and later began a courtship by letter. We got married in Dallas and then drove to Canada where I taught for one more year. The details of how God led us from Canada to Chicago, and to The Moody Church, are in and of themselves …
Everything depends on our being right ourselves in Christ. If I want good apples I must have a good apple tree; and if I care for the health of the apple tree, the apple tree will give me good apples. And it is just so with our Christian life and work. If our life with Christ be right, all will come right. There may be the need of instruction and suggestion and help and training in the different departments of the work; all that has value. But in the long run, the greatest essential is to have the full life …
At the beginning of this series of messages it was indicated that there is more than one route that a man can take to Heaven. As we pursue our way through this portion of God’s Word we have seen the awful possibility of a man being saved, but as by fire, and losing everything at the judgment seat of Christ except his salvation. Our concern, however, has been to seek to help one another together to walk on what I have called “The Royal Route,” the route that is worthy of men and women who …
“But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”—Matthew 9:36–38
Volunteers are missionaries in the making. What makes the missionary is the movement of compassion—that is, the compassionate heart of Jesus in your heart, throbbing with the same desires and the same ambitions, and then compelling you through these longings to …
“When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen: immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood.”—Galatians 1:15–16
Oh, what a wondrous landscape the Spirit can paint with one sweep of His matchless brush. Nowhere else can a few words hold the wealth of meaning that they hold in God’s Word.
Paul here tells us in a few words, drawn forth through the Spirit, of the whole method, purpose and result of God’s hand in his life. He …
This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).
Back of this old text is one of the most striking and beautiful visions of the Old Testament. The prophet Ezekiel is standing in the sanctuary which represents the Church of God and the Christian life. On one side stands the golden candlestick with its sevenfold light, the ancient type of the Holy Ghost. It is the only light of the sacred chamber. There are no windows to God’s tabernacle. The light of …
