Moody's Stories: Being a Second Volume of Anecdotes, Incidents, and IllustrationsMoody, Dwight Lyman
Religion
Moody's Stories: Being a Second Volume of Anecdotes, Incidents, and Illustrations
Moody, Dwight Lyman
Homiletical illustrations
"If you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in
continual thirst, nor suffering himself to drink half a draught for
fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and
strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet
always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late
to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running
greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always
studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you
should see him grow gray in these anxious labors, and at last end a
thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such
a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish
enough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this
character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd
disquiets of the covetous man."
I have read of a millionaire in France, who was a miser. In order to
make sure of his wealth, he dug a cave in his wine cellar so large and
deep that he could go down into it with a ladder. The entrance had a
door with a spring lock. After a time, he was missing. Search was
made, but they could find no trace of him. At last his house was sold,
and the purchaser discovered this door in the cellar. He opened it,
went down, and found the miser lying dead on the ground, in the midst
of his riches. The door must have shut accidentally after him, and he
perished miserably.
What is Needed
Nine-tenths, at least, of our church members never think of speaking
for Christ. If they see a man, perhaps a near relative, going right
down to ruin, going rapidly, they never think of speaking to him about
his sinful course and of seeking to win him to Christ. Now certainly
there must be something wrong. And yet when you talk with them you
find they have faith, and you cannot say they are not children of God;
but they have not the power, the liberty, the love that real disciples
of Christ should have.
A great many think that we need new measures, new churches, new
organs, new choirs, and all these new things. That is not what the
Church of God needs to-day. It is the old power that the apostles had.
If we have that in our churches, there will be new life.
I remember when in Chicago many were toiling in the work, and it
seemed as though the car of salvation didn't move on, when a minister
began to cry out from the very depths of his heart:
"Oh, God, put new ministers in every pulpit."
Next Monday I heard two or three men stand up and say, "We had a new
minister last Sunday--the same old minister, but he had got new
power," and I firmly believe that is what we want to-day all over
America--new ministers in the pulpit and new people in the pews. We
want people quickened by the Spirit of God.
Neglecting Church
A minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, and said:
"You know, John, you are never absent from market."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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