I Can See Clearly Now, Part 2
They Found the Secret
Chapter 11 The Dynamic Life
Dwight Lyman Moody
“Has there ever been a more enthusiastic, energetic and enterprising soulwinner than Dwight L. Moody?
As soon as the young shoe clerk in Boston came to assurance of faith in the Savior, he began to seek others who likewise should be saved. With little education, but with great earnestness, he sought the wanderer and the wicked that they might
know the forgiveness of God and newness of life in Christ. He was a layman at work, a witness for the Savior in his place of employment and in all of his associations.
By day and by night Moody was a personal worker, and a promoter of mission Sunday schools, especially for the needy and neglected. In the dreadful days of the War between the States he was active in witnessing among the troops and the
prisoners of war, and he served with the Christian Commission in its ministry of mercy to the wounded and dying.
Providentially he was led to the ministry of an evangelist, to present the claims of Christ to large audiences both in America and in the British Isles. He was a dynamo of feverish activity and apparent effectiveness in those early years, yet
deep in his own heart there was a dissatisfaction that increased to the point of desperation. As is so often the case, the Almighty used a humble man to bring Moody to the end of his own resources, and then to realize the riches of God’s glorious power. This elderly man, whose name history has not recorded, was the first to indicate to the rising evangelist that the anointing of God’s Spirit was absent from his ministry. It happened on an occasion when Moody went down from Boston to New York to speak, and while there was invited to address a little
Sunday school. In speaking of the incident, Moody said that it probably influenced him more than any other single experience in his life. As he was getting into the carriage to hurry from the Sunday school to another service, he was touched on
the shoulder by an old man whose white hair was blowing in the wind. With his finger pointing at Moody, he said, “Young man, when you speak again, honor the Holy Ghost.” ” I got into the carriage,” said Moody, “and drove away, but the voice was continually ringing in my ears; yet I did not understand it. It was six months afterwards before God revealed to me the meaning of that message—that I was entirely dependent upon the Holy Spirit. From that day to this, I seldom stand before a great audience where I don’t see that old man, with his outstretched finger, and hear his voice, ‘Honor the Holy Ghost.'”
In Chicago, there were two godly women, Mrs. Sara A. Cooke and her friend, Mrs. Hawxhurst, who attended Moody’s meetings in Farwell Hall, and on whose hearts, there came a great burden that this precious man of God be filled with the Spirit. On more occasions than one, Mr. Moody made reference to them, as he did at a meeting in Glasgow:
“I can myself go back almost twelve years and remember two holy women who used to come to my meetings. It was delightful to see them there, for when I began to preach, I could tell by the expression of their faces they were praying for me.
At the close of the Sabbath evening services, they would say to me, ‘We have been praying for you.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you pray for the people?’ They answered, ‘You need power.’ ‘ I need power,’ I said to myself, ‘why, I thought I had power.’ I had a large Sabbath school, and the largest congregation in Chicago.
There were some conversions at that time, and I was in a sense satisfied. But right along these two godly women kept praying, for me, and their earnest talk about ‘the anointing for special service’ set me thinking. I asked them to come and talk with me, and we got down on our knees. They poured out their hearts, that I might receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost.
And there came a great hunger in my soul. I knew not what it was. I began to cry as never before. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have this power for service. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit.”
Then came the great Chicago fire. On the evening of that memorable night in 1871 when one-third of the city was laid in ashes and thousands were left homeless, Moody had preached in Farwell Hall. With the institutions which he had founded in ruins. Moody went East to appeal for funds, but he said:
“My heart was not in the work of begging. I could not appeal. I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day! —I cannot describe it; I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he didn’t speak for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be as the small dust of the balance.”
The sermons were not different; but the servant was!
The truths were not new; but now they were pungent and penetrating!
A few had been converted before; now converts came by the hundreds!
Before, it had been the earnest energy and tireless drive of the man; now it was the dynamic of the Holy Spirit!
Moody rapidly became famous in his work for the Lord. Two years after his deep spiritual experience in New York City (he was walking on Wall Street at the time that the Holy Ghost came upon him in special power) he and Ira Sankey went to England. After three years of ministry in the United Kingdom, Moody returned to Chicago.
“The announcement was made,” wrote Mrs. Cooke, “that on a certain morning Mr. Moody would speak in Harwell and all the religious elite of the city were there to greet him. The platform was filled with preachers and leaders in the Christian world, but none had a deeper interest than the writer who looked on that scene with trembling solicitude, fearing lest this wonderful popularity and success might have puffed him up in any way. Mr. Moody spoke with more unction than of yore but at the same time in childlike simplicity When the meeting closed, we noted amid all the congratulations such a look of humility, as though he would gladly have slipped away from it all. His childlike spirit was his shield and defense. Truly, he was ‘clothed with humility as with a garment.'”
More and more Moody’s preaching became characterized by the spirit of love. Declared the evangelist:
“The only way any church can get a blessing is to lay aside all difference, all criticism, all coldness and party feeling, and come to the Lord as one man; and when the church lives in the power of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians I am sure that many will be added daily to the flock of God. I would like to have the church read that chapter together on their knees . . . and, as you do so, pray God to apply it with power. Of late my earnest prayer to God has been that He would help me to save more, and I cannot tell you how wonderfully He has answered my prayer. It seems as if you were all much nearer and dearer to me than ever. My heart goes out to you, and I long to see you all coming constantly to God for a fresh supply of love”.
