The D.L.Moody Series 
 
 SHORT 
 
 TALKS 
 
 D. L. MOODY 
 
JAN 27 iOin 
 
 BV 3797 .M7 S5 1900 ~ 
 Moody, Dwight Lyman, 1837- [ 
 
 Short talks 
 
Short Talks 
 
 by. 
 
 D. L. Moody 
 
 
 VHA or uix 
 
 Chicago : New York : Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
Copyrighted 1900 by 
 
 The Bible Institute Colportage Assoclacioa 
 
 of Chicago 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Blessing of Sins Forgiven 5 
 
 The Fifth Chapter of Mark 10 
 
 The Gift of Power 18 
 
 Nothing too Hard for God 21 
 
 Steps in the Downfall of Israel 28 
 
 The Seven ''Walks'' of Ephesians 36 
 
 The Unknown Companion 48 
 
 Fellowship With God 53 
 
 No Room in the Inn 58 
 
 Regeneration 76 
 
 The Precious Blood 86 
 
 Emblems of the Holy Spirit 94 
 
The Red Libr&.ry 
 
 A New Series of reprints of many valuable works by- 
 well known writers, bound uniformly in a good, sub- 
 stantial binding, at a very low price. 
 
 l6mo. Cloth, each, net, 30 cts: 
 
 Work^ by D. L. Moody 
 
 Weighed and Wanting Short Talks by D. L. 
 Men of the Bible Moody 
 
 TjiKi« r.1,0,.0 «♦/.,.., Pleasure and Profit in 
 
 Bible Characters ^.^^^ g^^^y 
 
 Select Sermons Sowing and Reaping 
 
 Moody's Anecdotes Heaven 
 
 The Overcoming Life Moody's Stories 
 
 The Way to God To the Work ! 
 
 Thoughts for the Quiet Sovereign Grace 
 
 Hour Prevailing Prayer 
 
 Moody's Latest Sermons Secret Power 
 
 Workj^ by C. H. Spurgeon 
 
 All of Grace 
 According to Promise 
 John Ploughman's Talks 
 John Ploughman's Pictures 
 
 Select Poems for the Silent Hour 
 
 Good Tidings. Sermons on the Birth of Christ 
 
 Recitation Poems 
 
 The Way of Life 
 
 Tales of Adventure from the Old Book. By 
 
 Thomas Champness 
 Resurrection 
 
 The True Estimate of Life. G. Campbell Morgan 
 Up from Sin. L. G. Broughton 
 The Revival of a Dead Church. L. G. Broughton 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Compa^ny 
 
 Chicago New York Toronto 
 
 Publtsehrs of Evangelical Literature 
 
THE BLESSING OF SINS FORGIVEN. 
 
 No greater blessing can come to a man this side 
 of heaven than the blessing of having his sins 
 forgiven. "Blessed is he whose transgression is 
 forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm xxxii. i). 
 
 Now, there are two ways of covering sin, and 
 only two waj'-s — God's way and man's way. For 
 6,000 years man has been trying to cover his sin, and 
 he has made poor work of it. Adam tried it in Eden, 
 and Cairi tried it outside of Eden, and they have 
 been trying it right along down all these years. 
 Yon will find that all classes, high and low, kings on 
 the throne, priests behind the altar, prophets, peas- 
 ants, rich and poor, have tried to hide their sins, and 
 thej^ have made poor work of it. No man has ever 
 yet succeeded in covering his sin. 
 
 Not onty that, but Scripture says: ''He that cov- 
 ereth his sin shall not prosper." I have no doubt 
 that the reason so many men have a stormy voyage 
 in life is because there is some accursed sin in their 
 lives. I am not talking for outsiders any more than 
 I am for church members. I beUeve that if the 
 latter have sins that they are not willing to con- 
 fess they will not prosper. Some secret sin is hin- 
 dering their growth. Where do the defaulting presi- 
 dents of banks, and other offenders, come from? 
 Many of them out of the churches. They have sat 
 under the ministr}^ and have heard men, over and 
 over again, preaching against sin, but it has not 
 
 struck home. These foi-get they have sins to con- 
 es) 
 
6 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 fess as well as the ungodly and the people outside 
 of the church. 
 
 God wants honesty and uprightness. A man 
 that you can trust will get along anywhere, but a 
 man that has to be watched will never prosper. 
 There can never be a healthy soul as long as there 
 is sin in it. Sin is a foreign substance, it does not 
 belong in the soul, just as a bullet is a foreign ele- 
 ment, and the body will not be healthy with a bullet 
 in it. God does not want the wicked to flourish, 
 for He says: "The way of the transgressor is hard." 
 God wants it to be hard, for if a man prospered in his 
 wickedness he would never come to God. 
 
 When a man is ready and willing to confess his 
 -sins and turn from them, God covers them. When 
 God covers sin it can never be found in time or eter- 
 nity. It is a great privilege for a man to be forgiven, 
 and not have a cloud between him and heaven, 
 between him and the smiling face of his Father. 
 ''Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's 
 3lect? God that justifieth? Who is he that con- 
 denmeth? Christ that died?" The Bible says in 
 one place that the sins shall not be mentioned; in 
 another place, that they shall not be remembered. 
 
 There are four expressions in the Bible about how 
 God covers sin: First — He casts them into the 
 depths of the sea. Second — He casts our sins 
 behind His back. Third — He blots them out as a 
 thick cloud. Fourth — He removes them as far as 
 the east is from the west. 
 
 INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. 
 He will cast them into the depths of the sea. 
 Dr. Gordon, of Boston, was preaching on that 
 
The Blessing of Sins Forgiven. 7 
 
 text, and he forgot to put in ''the depths." He just 
 said that God would cast them into the sea. When 
 he got home, his little boy, four years old, spoke up 
 and said: 
 
 "Father, whj^ didn't 3'ou tell the people that sins 
 were heavy like lead, and sank out of sight in the 
 water? They might think they were like corks, 
 floating around on top where they could be seen." 
 
 God has covered that point. He has cast them 
 into the depths of the sea. Let the devil go down 
 there and get them if he can. It is a safe place to 
 have them, in the depths of the sea. There are 
 some parts of the sea which they never have been 
 able to fathom. Bunj^an says: 'Thank God, it is 
 a sea, not a river. If it was a river, it might dry up, 
 and they might find them in the bed of the river, but 
 the sea never dries up." 
 
 BEHIND GOD'S BACK. 
 
 Secondlj^ out of love to my soul. He has taken all 
 my sins and cast them behind His back. 
 
 Not behind my back. The smallest devil in hell 
 could find them before I got to bed to-night, and 
 haunt me, if they w^ere behind my back, but thej? 
 can't get behind the Almighty, behind God's back. 
 
 BLOTTED OUT AS A CLOUD. 
 
 The third expression is, 'I will blot them out like 
 a thick cloud." 
 
 You see a cloud to-night, and you get up early 
 in the morning, and it is gone. Can you find the 
 cloud? Never. There may be other clouds, but 
 that cloud will never appear in the history of the 
 
8 Short Talks bj^ D. L. Moody. 
 
 universe. God says He will blot sin out like a thick 
 cloud. 
 
 REMOVED AS FAR AS EAST AND WEST. 
 
 And the fourth expression, I like that best. 
 
 I wish some one would figure it up for me, and tell 
 me how far the east is from the w^est. I don't know 
 much about astronomy, but astronomers tell us 
 that light travels at the rate of 188,000 miles a sec- 
 ond, — I can't take that in, — and that the light of 
 some planets has been traveling for nearlj^ 6,000 
 3^ears, and hasn't got here yet; and some one has just 
 discovered that that is just the fringe on the gar- 
 ments of our God. How much farther the east is 
 from the west than the planets are from the world 
 I can't tell. Think of it! God takes our sins and 
 puts them away as far as from the east to the west. 
 
 Don't cover your sins; don't hide them. You 
 cannot dig a grave so deep but that they will have a 
 resurrection some time. God will touch some secret 
 spring of your conscience, and say: "Son, remem- 
 ber," and tramp, tramp, tramp, they will all come 
 back, every one of them! 
 
 I have been twice in the jaws of death. Once I 
 had gone down in the river the second time, and 
 was going down the third time when I was rescued, 
 and quicker than a flash everything I had said and 
 done came before me! How a whole life can be 
 crowded into a second of time, I do not know. 
 Again, in Chicago, just in the jaws of death I was 
 saved, and again my whole life came before me like 
 a flash, from my earliest childhood up. Everything I 
 had said, everj^thing I had heard, and everything I 
 had done, all came back. 
 
The Blessing of Sins Forgiven. 9 
 
 Some years ago I met a man, aged ^^ years, in 
 Chicago, who, twelve years previously had fled 
 from Canada because of a crime he had committed. 
 For twelve years he had been trying to cover up his 
 sin, but it pursued him night and day. Finally he 
 asked me to advise him. I told him to make restitu- 
 tion of the money he had stolen, and to make an 
 honest confession. 
 
 You should have seen the tears of joy run down 
 that man's face when he found that he could be for- 
 given and have his sin put away. What a terrible 
 time he had been having those twelve years! He 
 had been trying to cover his sin in man's wsly. 
 
 If you want your sins blotted out completelj^, 3'ou 
 must make a clean breast of them all. "If we con- 
 fess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
 sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
 The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth 
 from all sin." 
 
 I read of an ex-prisoner who had secured a position 
 as night watcliman in a store. 
 
 One of his prison associates came to him, and 
 attempted to persuade the man to leave the doors 
 open, so that he could rob the store. The watch- 
 man refused, and his former companion threatened 
 to tell his employers about his past life. The watch- 
 man laughed in his teni2Dter's face and replied : 
 
 "Go and tell them. I have nothing to fear, for 
 they knew all of my past life before they hired me." 
 
 0, man, woman, confess your sins to God! Then 
 you shall know what it is to have heaven in your 
 soul. Blessed — happy — is the man whose trans- 
 gression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 
 
THE FIFTH CHAPTER OF MARK, 
 
 In the 5th chapter of Mark — 1 call that the high- 
 water mark of that Gospel — there are three persons 
 that were verj" far gone in the sight of man. One 
 was possessed of devils, another was possessed of an 
 incurable disease, and the other was dead. You 
 couldn't get three harder cases than that anywhere, 
 could you? If we had them with lis now, we would 
 put the first in a madhouse, the second in a hospital 
 for incurables, and the third one in the grave; but 
 Christ was a match for the whole three. Don't 
 think anj^ man or woman is a hard case, and God 
 can't save him. Don't \.ei Satan make j^ou believe 
 that there is Siny one beyond the reach of God, 
 that cannot be saved. It is a lie from hell. He can 
 save unto the uttermost. 
 
 DEVILS. 
 
 Take that demoniac possessed with devils. They 
 didn't have insane hospitals then, but the^^ had 
 tried to take him, they had tried to chain him. Like 
 Samson, he would break the fetters; they couldn't 
 keep him. He tore his clothes off himself, and had 
 his dwelling-place among the tombs. That is 
 where every sinner lives — among the dead. He was 
 a terror to all the women in that country. Their 
 hearts jumped up into their mouths ever}" time the}" 
 passed by the graveyard. This man came howling 
 out of the tombs; wh}^, it would make their blood run 
 cold. Little children were afraid if they heard his 
 
 (10) 
 
The Fifth Chapter of Mark. ii 
 
 cry in Ihe divstance. But Christ came that way, 
 and to show how the man was under the very power 
 of the devil, he said: 
 
 "Art Thou come hither to torment us before the 
 time?" 
 
 That shows a man is under the power of the devil, 
 when he thinks that Christ has come to torment him. 
 Sinners have a false idea of Christ; they think He is 
 their enemy. But He is their best friend. The 
 Son of God left the bosom of the Father not to torment 
 men, but to save them. He came to snap the fetters 
 and set every captive man free. He went out of His 
 way, probably, over into that coast just to save 
 that man. 
 
 I get a good deal of comfort out of the fact that 
 when He told those devils to come out, they had to 
 move out. He has powxr over devils. When He 
 said: "All power on earth is given unto Me," I 
 believe He meant what He said. He came to destroy 
 the works of the devil, and He will do it if we will 
 let Him. 
 
 Did you ever notice that the devils prayed, and 
 He answered their praj^er? They wanted to go into 
 the herd of swine, and He let them go. And the 
 citizens of that country prayed that He would depart 
 out of their coasts, and He answered their pra^^er. 
 But this man, when he was clothed and in his right 
 mind, prayed that he might go with Christ; he 
 wanted to be near Him — it shows he had really 
 become a Christian. "No," Christ says, "j^ou go 
 home and tell your friends what great things the 
 Lord has done for 3'Ou." He did not answer his 
 prayer. 
 
li Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 Christmas Evans, that Welsh preacher, pictures 
 the man coming home. The little children out 
 plaj^ing — his own children — catch sight of him, and 
 thej^ run into the house and cry: 
 
 "0, mother, mother, father is coming! He will 
 kill every one of us." 
 
 The mother slips to the door and shuts it, and puts 
 a bar and a chain across it, and says: 
 
 "Mary, come away from the window! Don't let 
 him see you." 
 
 And Mary says: "Mother, I don't believe it is 
 father after all. He is clothed like other people, and 
 he is walking in the footpath." 
 
 Before, w^hen he came home', he w^ould come in a 
 bee line over ditches and hedges, rush into the house, 
 and knock his wife down, and kick the children. 
 They couldn't believe it was he, such a wonderful 
 change had come over him. The devils had gone 
 out, and Chrivst had come in. 
 
 When he gets to the house he fnids the door bolted 
 and barred and chained and fastened, and he knocks 
 gently. 
 
 "Mary, Mary, let me in! I haven't come to hurt 
 you. I have come to tell you w^hat great things 
 Jesus of Nazareth has done for me. I have come to 
 tell you how He cast the devils out of me." 
 
 With fear and trembling the wife opens the door, 
 and she can hardh" believe her eyes. His voice is 
 as sweet as it was the daj^ he married her; how it 
 just thrills her soul! That face is lit up with the light 
 of another w^orld. She leaps into his arms, they 
 embrace each other, and then he sits down and 
 begins to tell what the Lord has done for him, be- 
 
The Fifth Chapter of Mark. 13 
 
 cause the Lord told him to go home and tell his 
 friends. And I see the little children creep up around 
 him, a little timid, a little afraid lest they maj^ get 
 a rap over the head, as they often did; but by and 
 by the}^ gather around him, and he has them up on 
 his knees, and they look up into his face. They 
 have their father back again! 
 
 Do you know, we have men that are possessed with 
 devils as much as they were in the days of Christ on 
 earth? They are legion; the intellectual devil, the 
 whiskey devil, and the devils of lust and passion. 
 These infernal devils. He can cast them out. Let 
 us pray Him to do it. Let us believe He can and 
 will do it. 
 
 DISEASE. 
 
 But go a little farther, and here is this woman who 
 has been twelve years suffering untold misery. If 
 they had had patent medicines in those days, she 
 would have tried all the different kinds on the mar- 
 ket. She had probably been up to Damascus and 
 been treated by the leading physicians there, gone 
 up to Jerusalem, and been treated b}^ the physi- 
 cians there, and she "suffered many things of many 
 physicians." They had got all her money, and 
 hadn't done her any godd. That was a hopeless 
 case, wasn't it? An issue of blood for twelve years. 
 But some one told her of Jesus of Nazareth, how 
 He had power to raise the dead, how He had power 
 to cleanse the leper, and how He had power to make 
 the blind see and the deaf to hear, and perhaps He 
 
14 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 could heal her. Faith rose up in her soul, but she 
 asked: "What will He charge me?" Her friend 
 said He wouldn't charge anything; all she had to do 
 was to go and speak to Him. 
 
 I can see her getting down an old faded sunbonnet 
 — she hadn't had a new bonnet for a long time — the 
 doctors got all her mone3\ Her children S3.y: 
 
 "Now, mother, I hope you are not going to run 
 after any doctor. You have been twelve j^ears 
 running after them, and you have grown worse a^ll 
 the while." 
 
 "I am going to Jesus," she sa3'S. "I understand 
 He is about a mile or two away, and I am going to 
 see if He can heal me." 
 
 "Don't be carried away with that deceiver. He 
 can't help you." 
 
 But she had faith, and I see her elbowing her wa3^ 
 through the crowd, pushing up towards Him. A 
 great able-bodied man pushes her back, and says: 
 
 "Don't 3^ou know other people want to get near 
 Him as well as j^ourself?" 
 
 She pays no attention to am^thing that he says, 
 but she just thinks to herself — 
 
 "If I can just touch the fringe of His garment, I 
 will be made whole." 
 
 There wasn't a thing that the Son of God found 
 on this earth that pleased Him as faith did. As 
 some one has said, "faith could lead Him anywhere, 
 could get anything out of Him." He alwa\^s cashes 
 that at sight, not forty daj^s after sight. This 
 woman had faith, and when she got near enough, 
 she reached out her bon\^ arm from under her thread- 
 bare shawl, and touched the fringe of His garment. 
 
The Fifth Chapter of ]\Iark 15 
 
 »nd in a moment vshe was made whole, healed of all 
 her disease! 
 
 And Jesus turned around and said, "Who touched 
 me?" 
 
 I can imagine one sa3^s, "Lord, that is a strange 
 question. Look at the crowds that have been 
 thronging 3"ou." 
 
 Do 3^ou know there were people in those da^^s, just 
 as there are now, who couldn't tell the difference 
 between the touch of the crowd and the touch of 
 faith? Do 3^ou know there are some in this audience 
 who don't know anything about what is going on 
 here, while others are reaching out the hand of faith 
 and appropriating the blessings of God, and their 
 souls are being healed? And this woman, she fell 
 on her face and confessed all. Jesus knew who 
 had touched Llim; He knew the hand of faith that 
 had been upon Him, but He wanted her testimony 
 there. Man, reach out the hand of faith and touch 
 that Son of God now, and 3^ou,r soul shall be healed. 
 He is able. No incurable cases, if j^ou pleasel 
 No one be\^ond His reach and beyond His power! 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 But now Jesus passes on to the house of Jairus. 
 When the\^ drew near the house, some servants came 
 out and said: 
 
 "Don't trouble the Master. It is all over. The 
 maid is dead." 
 
 It looked as if the Son of God was too late, didn't 
 it? My dear friend. He has never been too late yet; 
 He is aiwaj^s on time. He got there just at the 
 appointed time. I haven't any doubt but away 
 
i6 Short Talks by D. L. IVIoody. 
 
 back in the secret councils of eternity it was planned 
 He should get to Jairus' house just at that hour. 
 
 When He told them she wasn't dead, they laughed 
 Him to scorn. Man, death canH exist where Christ 
 is; do you know that? I remember a good man^^ 
 3^ears ago, when a young man, I was called sud- 
 denly to officiate at a funeral in Chicago. There 
 were going to be quite a few business men at the 
 funeral, and they were not Christians, and I said to 
 myself. Now will be my opportunity to get hold of 
 those men. I took my Bible, and read through the 
 four Gospels hunting for one of Christ's funeral 
 sermons. It never dawned on me until that day 
 that He never preached a funeral sermon while here 
 on earth. He broke up every funeral He ever 
 attended. The dead men would leap right up out of 
 their graves at His word. He will smash up the 
 undertaking business when He comes back. Death 
 can't exist where He is. I used to think death 
 dragged Him into the grave, but He went into the 
 grave after death and robbed the grave of its victim. 
 That is what He went into the grave for — to over- 
 throw death. Death hadn't any power over Him. 
 "If any man keep My sajangs, he shall never see 
 death" Never! 
 
 He went into that room where death was, and it fled 
 before Him. He spoke to that child and said, 
 "Maid, arise," and she arose. 
 
 Man, are j^ou dead? He can quicken you. He 
 will impart life to 3^ou to-night if you v/ill let Him. 
 Bring your death to Him, and get life. Bring 3^our 
 darkness to Him, and get light. Bring your trouble 
 to Him, and get peace. Bring j^our sorrow to Him, 
 
 b 
 
The Fifth Chapter of Mark. 17 
 
 and get jo3^ There isn't a thing that your soul 
 needs but that it is all in Christ. Bring on your 
 men possessed of devils, bring on your incurables, 
 bring on your dead. The Son of Man is able to cast 
 cut devils, and heal the sick, and raise the dead. 
 Oh, what a Savior we have, and what power He has} 
 
THE GIFT OF POWER. 
 
 The late Dr. Gordon, of Boston, once said at 
 Northfield that as j^ou walk up the thoroughfares of: 
 (••ur great cities you often see the sign, 
 
 "This store to let, with or without power." 
 
 Back in the building there is an engnie, and if a 
 man wants to manufacture he can hitch on to the 
 power; if not, he can hire the store without power. 
 
 Dr. Gordon thought it would be a good thing to 
 ask a man who wants to join the church if he wants 
 to be a member "with or without power." If he said 
 "tvithont power," we could honestly sa}^ we have 
 plenty of that kind alread3\ 
 
 What the church needs to-day is more members 
 with power. "Herein is nw Father glorified, that 
 ye bring forth much fruit." I have no sympathy 
 with the idea of toiling all night and catching noth- 
 ing. And yet nine-tenths of Christian workers, 
 not to speak of church members in general, never 
 think of looking to the Holy Ghost for this power. 
 
 There is a difference between strength and power. 
 Goliath had strength; David had power. 
 
 There is a difference between influence and poiver. 
 The high priests and the Pharisees had influence; 
 Peter and the apostles after Pentecost had power. 
 
 There is a difference between the indicelling of the 
 Holy Ghost and His filling one ivith poiver. Everj^ 
 true child of God, who has been cleansed by the 
 blood of Christ, is a temple or dwelling-place of the 
 
 (18) 
 
The Gift of Power. 19 
 
 Holy Ghost. But yet he may not have fuUness of 
 power. 
 
 In the third chapter of John, Nicodemus went to 
 Jesus by night to get Hght, and I have no doubt he 
 got it; but he did not receive it in abundance, or he 
 would not have stayed in the Sanhedrin three j^-ears, 
 listening to all the mean, cutting things they said of 
 Jesus. It took the death of Christ to bring him out 
 manfully and boldly. 
 
 In the seventh chapter of John we find a different 
 character. That last day of the feast Christ stood 
 in the temple, crjang, "If any man thirst let him 
 come unto me and drink, and out of his belly shall 
 flow rivers of living water." 
 
 A man like that would not have stayed in the 
 Sanhedrin three years; he would have smashed up 
 every Sanhedrin on earth. Four walls cannot 
 contain the influence of a man who is full of the 
 Holy Ghost and power. ''Rivers of living water!'' 
 Think of the rivers that flow^ed from C. H. Spurgeon 
 and George Muller! 
 
 Let us pray for this power. The disciples were told 
 to wait because the Spirit was not yet given, bui we 
 have not to wait now, because the Holy Spirit is here. 
 
 THE NEED OF POWER. 
 
 The power of the Holy Ghost is the one thing that 
 can save the Church and save our country. We 
 need more preaching in this power, not in the power 
 of human eloquence and mental gifts. We need 
 more singing in power, the way that the Levites 
 were singing when the Shekinah came and filled the 
 temple of Solomon. Many a church has lost power 
 
20 Short Talks by D. L. Mood}^ 
 
 because of an ungodly choir, or a choir that sings in. 
 an unknown tongue. Fathers and mothers need 
 power to live right and teach their children the waj^s 
 of righteousness. 
 
 I wish we were all dead in earnest. What does a 
 hiuigr}^ man Avant? Mone3^? No. Fame? No 
 Good clothes? No; he wants food. What does a 
 thirsty man want? Stocks and bonds? No; he 
 wants water. When we really hunger and thirst 
 for Holy Ghost power, nothing else will satisfy us. 
 
 God has commanded us to be filled with the Holy 
 Ghost. We have His promise that He will pour 
 water on him that is thirst3\ Claim that promise 
 now in faith, fulfill the conditions laid down in the 
 Word, and God will not disappoint you, 
 
NOTHING TOO HARD FOR GOD. 
 
 ''Ah, Lord God! behold Thou hast made the 
 heaven and the earth by Thy great power and by 
 Thy stretched out arm; there is nothing too hard for 
 Thee" (Jeremiah xxxii: 17). 
 
 Jeremiah had chmbed to a very high mountain 
 peak, ahhough he was in a dungeon at the time that 
 he made this praj^er. Very often when we are cast 
 down, and are in our lowest position in the sight of 
 the world, God lifts us to the verj^ heights of glory. 
 
 I used to think that I should like to have lived in 
 the days of some of those Old Testament prophets. 
 I have a great admiration for the men who stood up 
 boldly for God in those dark days. But I long ago 
 got over wishing to have lived in their day. When 
 a prophet makes his appearance on the horizon j^ou 
 may know that the world is about as bad as it can be. 
 
 When Moses, that prince of preachers, appeared 
 in Egypt, Israel's condition seemed, humanlj^ speak- 
 ing, to be hopeless. There was not one star to re- 
 lieve the midnight darkness. Israel had settled 
 down apparently to the idea that they were to be 
 bond slaves forever. The promises to Abraham 
 and Isaac and Jacob must have died out of their 
 memory, and their hopes must have perished. It 
 was at this time that Moses appeared. 
 
 Again when the star was fading away in Shiloh, 
 and Eli's family drifted away from God, Samuel 
 appeared. Later still, when it looked as though 
 the whole nation had forgotten God, when Ahab 
 and all the roj^al court had gone after Baal, Elijah 
 appeared. 
 
 So it was in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. It 
 
 (21) 
 
22 Short Talks b^^ D. L. Moody. 
 
 was as dark as midnight. Here was this weeping 
 prophet. The people jeered and sneered at him, and 
 ridiculed his tears and his pra3^ers, and at last the3^ 
 cast him into a prison; and if God had not been with 
 him the}" would have slain him. They called him a 
 pessimist. Nebuchadnezzar had already brought 
 up his mighty legions from Babylon and had laid 
 siege to the city. In a little while the nation was to 
 go back into bondage on account of their sins and 
 iniquities. Undoubtedly if thej^ had listened to 
 this weej^ing prophet, as he declared the warnings 
 of God, the qWn and the nation would have been 
 spared, for in all ages when man repents and turns 
 from his sins God hears his cry and turns his cap- 
 tivit}^ But the people would not hear the word of 
 God, and cast Jeremiah into prison, and in prison 
 he makes this wonderful praj^er. He had a wonder- 
 ful vision of God's marvelous power. 
 
 The first time I went across the continent to Cali- 
 fornia, I thought what a vast country this is! After- 
 wards when I crossed the Atlantic and saw that 
 mighty ocean, I thought what a wonderful God I 
 have. Yet this planet is a mere ball thrown from 
 the hand of its Creator. This earth is one of the 
 smallest of the planets, and a million of them could 
 be thrown into the sun and there w^ould still be room 
 for three hundred thousand more. Yet we are told 
 that there are eighty million other suns in the uni- 
 verse. The mind cannot take it all in. There 
 is nothing in heaven, earth, or hell, too hard for 
 our God, and it is a good thing for us to start out 
 with this thought that God is able to do above all 
 that we dare think or ask. 
 
Nothing too Hard for God. 23 
 
 It jDlea^ed God to have Jeremiah bring forth this 
 argument in praj^er, for we read in verse twenty- 
 seven: *'Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all 
 flesh: is there anything too hard for Me?" 
 
 How searching are God's questions! Those He 
 put to Job are perfectly overwhelming. It is worth 
 going to prison to hear God speak as He spoke to 
 Jeremiah. 
 
 Some of 3^ou are in fields of labor which you think 
 are very peculiar and hard. You are \n a worldly 
 church, where j^our testimon3^ seems smothered b3^ 
 false doctrines and creeds. New Yorkers say that 
 theirs is the hardest city on this continent to reach. 
 Many of the middle class have gone over to New 
 Jerse}^ to live, leaving- the very rich and the very 
 poor behind. In one part of the city there are a 
 quarter of a million Jews, and there are so many 
 foreigners and so much whiske^^ that the obstacles 
 seem* insurmountable. But let us fall back on 
 Jeremiah's words: 
 
 "There is nothing too hard for God." 
 
 Think of it! Do j^ou suppose that New York 
 is as dark as Babylon was when Daniel went there? 
 And yet God used that man to illuminate the whole 
 city, and lead that great monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, 
 unto the God of the Hebrews. Think of the obstacles 
 he had to encounter! A despised Hebrew captive, 
 and yet he felt there was nothing too hard for God, 
 and God stood by him, and for twenty-five hundred 
 3^ears his light has been shining, and is brighter 
 to-day than ever. 
 
 Boston people say that theirs is the most difficult 
 cit^^ on this continent to work in, that there is more 
 
24 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 unbelief, more skepticism and other "isms" there 
 than in any other city. Fall back on Jeremiah'sword: 
 
 ''There is nothing too hard for God." 
 
 Is Boston as hard as Egj^pt when Joseph was 
 taken there? The whole land was lit up bj?- that 
 man because he believed that nothing was too hard 
 for his God, and he let God use him. 
 
 In Chicago, too, they will tell you that that is the 
 most difficult city on this continent to reach. Ninety- 
 one per cent of the population is either foreign or of 
 foreign descent. There are forty thousand Bohe- 
 mians, and sixty thousand Italians, and one hundred 
 thousand Germans, in separate quarters of the cit3\ 
 Almost everj^ tongue under heaven is spoken there. 
 The theatres are open on the Sabbath, every barge 
 and train is chartered for Sabbath excursions, 
 and nearly every band of music is out. People say 
 that it is beyond the reach of men. So it is, but it is 
 not bej^ond the reach of our God. 
 
 Do 3^ou think Chicago is as dark as Samaria in 
 the days of Elijah, when Ahab and his court had 
 gone after Baal, and people were banished from the 
 country or put to death because they loved God? 
 The seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to 
 Baal were hidden away somewhere, but God can 
 use His people, and how bright the light when it 
 shines out in the darkness. These men shine out 
 because they believed that nothing was too hard for 
 God. 
 
 I is a great mistake to be looking at obstacles 
 when we have such a God to look at. How many 
 people in New York and Boston are spending whole 
 nights and days in visiting the abandoned and the 
 
Nothing too Hard for God. 25 
 
 outcast? Perhaps there has never been a day when 
 so much work was done in these dark cities as during 
 the past twenty years. Our God is just the same as 
 He was in the days of Jeremiah, and if we call upon 
 Him in faith I believe that these dark waves will go 
 rolling back into the pit whence they came. 
 
 Look at Israel in the time of Saul. The people 
 forgot God, but David came along, and believed 
 that nothing was too hard for God, and, meeting the 
 uncircumcised Philistine, slew him. No army 
 could stand before Israel when there was no strange 
 God among them, but sin brought the people into 
 weakness and bondage. The same thing will hap- 
 pen to LIS if we allow sin to come into our lives. Let 
 us keep ourselves unspotted from the world and look 
 to God to do things which man cannot do. AVho 
 would have thought that God could have fed three 
 million people in that desert — homeless, shelterless, 
 shoeless. But God gave them bread from heaven, 
 and water from the rock, feeding them and clothing 
 them and bringnig them safely through the desert. 
 Our God is the same to-day. He constantly refers to 
 that scene, so as to remind us of His power. There 
 is no such thing as a hard field if we are right with 
 God. 
 
 Look at Jerusalem in the days of the apostles. 
 The Captain of their salvation, the Prince of Life, 
 had been slain by an ignominious death, and had 
 been put into the grave. He had risen, but no one 
 of prominence in the city believed it. A few unknown 
 men and women, who professed to be His disciples, 
 believed it, but there were no scholars or men of 
 letters among them. But those few men believed 
 
26 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 that nothing was too hard for God, and they prayed, 
 and shook the city to its foundations. The fires of 
 Pentecost are still burning, and they came in answer 
 to praj^er. 
 
 Some think that their husbands are too far gone 
 in unbelief to be reached, or that their brotliers are 
 too steeped in infidelity to be brought back. I 
 believe that it is dishonoring to God to talk in ^'^ai 
 wsiy. Look at Saul of Tarsus, present at the killing 
 of Stephen and going off with letters to Damascus. 
 One ray of light from God smites him, and the per- 
 secutor of Christ becomes the champion of the cross 
 and one of the grandest preachers that this world 
 has ever seen. These men who have spoken bitterly 
 against Christ and Christianity may become mighty 
 instruments in God's hands for doing His work if we 
 will only have faith to believe that our God is able to 
 bring about the reformation. 
 
 People say they have sinned, and get discouraged; 
 that their life is so dark and gloom}^ Did j^ou ever 
 think how dark it must have been before God created 
 light? But God said, "Let there be light." Cannot 
 He drive away the darkness, and the fog, and the 
 mist that has gathered round your path? Do not be 
 talking about the difficulties in your life when you 
 have such a God to call upon. He says, "Call unto 
 Me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great 
 things, and difficult, which thou knowest not." 
 
 It is a great thing for a mighty God to permit 
 sinful men like you and me to call upon Him. When 
 men get great we cannot get a chance to call upon 
 them, but it is not so with our God. He commands 
 us to call. Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, filled Jeru- 
 
Nothing too Hard for God. 27 
 
 salem with blood, and is supposed to have had Isaiah 
 sawn asunder. Manasseh was taken a prisoner to 
 Babylon, and there, in his fetters of brass, he called 
 upon his father's God, and God turned his captivit}-, 
 brought him back to Jerusalem, and put him on the 
 throne. If God will hear a wicked Manasseh and 
 answer his prayer, will He not save every man and 
 woman to-day who calls upon Him? 
 
 But perhaps your jirayers do not seem to be 
 answered. There is a reason for it. Jeremiah's 
 pra3^ers were answered because he was right with 
 God, but I believe that a great many of our prayers 
 weary God. Mark that. They are a burden and 
 an abomination unto Him, for "if I regard iniquit}^ 
 in my heart the Lord will not hear me." If there is 
 some cursed sin in your life, and j^ou are living in 
 willful disobedience to God, you cannot expect Him 
 to hear and answer your pra3^er. 
 
 If there is anything in your life which you know 
 to be wrong, do not sleep until j^ou have the thing 
 settled with God. Then you will get the greatest 
 blessing j^ou have ever had on earth. God delights 
 to give gifts to the sons of men. "He that spared 
 not His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, 
 how shall He not with Him also freely give us all 
 things?" Mark, God gave His Son without our 
 asking, and now with Him will He not freeh^ give us 
 all things? Let us expect God to hccir and answer 
 our pra3^ers because we have turned awa^^ from 
 everything that is contrar^^ to His will, and because 
 we believe that nothing is too hard for our God. 
 
STEPS IN THE DOWNFALL OF ISRAEL. 
 
 "And the children of Israel dwelt among the 
 Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, 
 and Hivites, and Jebusites: and the^^ took their 
 daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters 
 to their sons, and served their gods. And the chil- 
 dren of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and 
 forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and 
 the groves. Therefore the anger of the Lord was 
 hot against Israel and he sold them" (Judges 
 iii: 5-8). 
 
 In this passage we have the six steps in the down- 
 fall of Israel : 
 
 I. They failed to drive out the idolaters as God told 
 them. 
 
 God covenanted with Abram. centuries before, 
 that He would give to his seed all the land of Canaan , 
 "from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the 
 river Euphrates" (Genesis xv: i8). Moses in his 
 last address to the children of Israel had recalled 
 this wonderful heritage in the words found in Deu- 
 teronomy^ xi: 22-24: "For if ye shall diligently keep 
 all these commandments which I command you, to 
 do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all 
 His ways, and to cleave unto Him; then will the 
 Lord drive out all these nations from before you, 
 and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier 
 than yourselves. Every place whereon the soles of 
 your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilder- 
 
 (28? 
 
steps in the Downfall of Israel. 29 
 
 ness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Eu- 
 phrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast 
 be." After Moses' death the Lord appeared to 
 Joshua and renewed the promise: "Every place that 
 the sole of your foot shall tread upon, thai have I 
 given unto 3^ou, as I said unto Moses" (Joshua i: 3). 
 
 One would think that such a bright promise would 
 have stirred the ambition of the nation to obey God, 
 but we read in the second chapter of Judges that one 
 after another of the tribes of Israel neglected to drive 
 out the idolatrous races w^ho dwelt in the land. For 
 four hundred years they never took Jerusalem. 
 Mount Lebanon in the north was held for centuries. 
 Remnants lived all up and down the land. Then 
 God sent an angel to warn them, but in spite of every- 
 thing they wandered farther and farther away from 
 Him until finalty He withdrew His aid and left those 
 nations to be "as thorns in their sides" (Judges ii: 3), 
 and "to prove Israel by them, to know whether they 
 would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, 
 which He commanded their fathers by the hand of 
 Moses" (Judges iii: 4), 
 
 BESETTING SINS, 
 
 They failed to drive out their enemies. I believe 
 the reason so many Christians have such a stormy 
 passage, and the Christian life is not what they 
 expected it to be when they became Christians, is 
 that they don't drive out every foe and every enemy. 
 In other words, they are not more than half con- 
 verted. They don't get control of their temper. 
 The god of pleasure seems to have a grip upon them. 
 
30 Short Talks bj- D. L. Moody. 
 
 Lust and covetousness and selfishness come in, and 
 they don't get Tictor3\ Nine-tenths of the battle 
 is won, it seems to me, if we start right. 
 
 In the forty-first Psalm and the eleventh verse are 
 these words: "By this I know that thou favorest 
 me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me." 
 Now I believe that we all have some besetting sin, 
 and what we want is to get victory over that besetting 
 sin, whatever it is. "By this we know that God 
 favors us, that our enemy doth not triumph over us." 
 
 Is there some habit marring your Christian life, 
 hindering your visefulness, checking j^our progress 
 in divine life? Then make up your mind that you 
 are going to get victory over it. It may look like a 
 small enemj^, but it will become stronger and stronger 
 if not checked. You remember God told Saul to go 
 and utterly destroy Amalek. He did not fully obey 
 but spared some, and in the thirty-first chapter of 
 Samuel we read that it was an Amalekite who 
 boasted that he had slain Saul and strij^ped him of 
 his crown. Some one has said that it would be 
 easier to find a man that hadTnot done am- one sin 
 than to find a man who had done it only once. Sin 
 multiplies. The tendency to sin gathers force with 
 every new commission. So the battle goes on in 
 every one of us. We must either overcome sin, or 
 it will overcome us ; we must decide. 
 
 Have you complete^ forsaken j^our sins, or is 
 there some enemy that you allow to remain alive? 
 
 2. They dwelt among the heathen. 
 
 What was God's call to Abraham? "Get thee 
 fmt" What was His word by Isaiah? "Go ye out 
 
steps in the Downfall of Israel. 31 
 
 . . touch no luiclean thing." And for us the 
 -:ormnand is, "Conic out ... he separate." 
 
 Dwelling among the enemies of God was the 
 cause of Lot's trouhles. How manj^ Christian 
 parents follow his example! Thej^ mo^x into some 
 cit^y for the sake of the associations, it ma}^ he, 
 when they know its influence will hlast religion 
 and piet}^ Their children get contaminated, and 
 their religious life sapped, and then when their hoy 
 goes astra^^ and prefers the saloon or the gamhling- 
 den or the hrothel to his own home, the parents can- 
 not understand it! Be separate! Choose carefully 
 your companions, and do not, like these Israelites of 
 old, settle down among the enemies of God. 
 
 May God help us who are joarents to pray con- 
 tinually for our children, that God will preserve 
 them from the corrupting influences of those 
 amongst whom they are thrown. But it is folly to 
 pray for our children if we follow Lot's example, and 
 run right into the devil's camp. 
 
 3. Then they mtermarried tvith God's enemies. 
 
 That was an easy step to take after the other two. 
 
 Now from the v^ery beginning of the history of the 
 chosen people we see that intermarriage with the 
 heathen always brought disaster. Think how it 
 was with Abraham and Hagar; Esau and his 
 heathen wives; Solomon and his wives. What 
 overthrew the house of Saul? AVhat overthrew the 
 house of David? What overthrew the house of 
 Jehoshaphat? Intermarrying with the heathen; 
 they did what God told them not to do. When 
 Jehoshaphat was right in the zenith of his power, 
 
32 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 he went down to Samaria and formed an affinity witli 
 Ahab, and from that time his star began to decime, 
 and it was not long before the house of Ahab had 
 destroj^ed all the house of Judah. 
 
 1 believe this is the door by which more woe and 
 unhappiness enters into our homes nowadays than 
 almost any other. Many a Christian woman agrees 
 to go to the theatre with her husband if he will go to 
 church with her on Sundaj^. She thinks she will 
 convert him in that way; but my experience is that 
 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the wife loses 
 her assurance, loses her testimonj^, and is dragged 
 down to her husband's level. I met one lady who 
 married a rich man's son although she knew he was 
 addicted to drink; but she thought she could save 
 him. Such mixed marriages always mean mixed 
 principles. God has drawn the line against them. 
 How can Christian men and women expect God's 
 blessing when they go in the face of His commands 
 and join themselves in marriage with some ungodly 
 person? 
 
 4. They served the heathen gods. 
 
 Instead of raising the heathen and converting 
 them to the knowledge of the true God, they were 
 themselves dragged down into idolatrj^. If there 
 is one rotten apple in a barrel it will not be long before 
 the whole barrel is rotten. 
 
 The Bible would lose half its personal interest for 
 us if idolatry had ceased to be a temptation. But 
 though we do not worship images of wood and stone 
 in America, we have our idols that are just as bad. 
 John's words, "Little children, keep yourselves from 
 
Stepss un the Downfall of Israel. 33 
 
 idoLs/* were addressed to Christians. Any thing 
 that we love more than we love God is an idol. With 
 some it is the idol of money; with others the idol of 
 dress, fashions; with others the idol of pleasure. 
 Man doesn't need to be commanded to worship, 
 because there is not a nation so low or so high in the 
 -scale of civilization but worships some kind of a god. 
 What man needs is to have his worship directed 
 aright; to be directed to worship the true God in 
 spirit and truth, and not let his heart run away after 
 other gods. 
 
 5. They forgot their own God. 
 
 Man's heart must be occupied with something. 
 There is an old adage that says: "If the bushel is 
 not filled with wheat, the devil will fill it with chaff." 
 But there is not room in the heart for two thrones. 
 If Satan is enthroned, there is no room for Christ. 
 
 It is a solemn thing to think that Christ does not 
 remain as an uninvited guest. He must be invited. 
 He will stand at the door knocking, but will not 
 force an entrance. And so here, when the3^ began 
 to worship heathen gods, they naturally forgot God. 
 All thoughts of Him were crowded out of their hearts 
 by the new affinities they had formed. They forgot 
 how He had delivered them out of the land of Egypt; 
 how He had brought them through the Red Sea on 
 foot; how He had supplied their wants for forty 
 years in the wilderness; how He had led them into the 
 promised land. His altars were now neglected, 
 while the children of Israel crowded to the groves of 
 Baal. 
 
 Did you ever notice how often in Scripture, Moses 
 
34 Short Talks by D. L. IMoody. 
 
 and Joshua and Nehemiah and other leaders called 
 back to memory God's past dealings with Israel, 
 using these as a warning and as a lever to induce 
 them to trust Him still? But just as to-day young 
 people scoff at the counsel of their parents and have 
 to learn b}^ bitter experience what their elders can 
 tell them, so warnings from history were often lost 
 upon the Israelites. 
 
 It seems to me that this nation is just doing the 
 same thing that Israel did. When worldliness 
 comes in godliness goes out. They are tearing 
 down God's altar; they are breaking down the Sab- 
 bath; and the time has come for us to call a halt alj 
 through the church of God. Every man and 
 woman that believes in God ought to take a high 
 stand — a firm stand — now. 
 
 6. The sixth step was — God sold them into 
 bondage. 
 
 Six times in the book of Judges do we find that the 
 children of Israel did evil in God's sight, and six 
 times were they given over to their enemies to be 
 chastised. God set a blessing or a curse before 
 them, and they had to reap the fruit of their con- 
 duct. When thej^ obeyed they were blessed; and 
 when they turned aside, judgment came upon them. 
 And there has never been disloj^alty to Christ that 
 has not brought retribution. 
 
 I believe that the deepest w^ound that the Son of 
 God received while on earth was from Judas. The 
 Roman soldier's spear did not cut as deep as the kiss 
 of Judas. He professed to be a friend, and yet he 
 betrayed his Lord and Master. We should not 
 
StejDs in the Downfall of Israel. 35 
 
 profess one thing and do the opposite. No Christian 
 has ever bought the friendship of the world without 
 disloyalty to Christ. Are we His friends? Then 
 let us not show anj^ quarter to His enemies, but let 
 us stand up against them and fight them, knowing 
 that we shall come off more than conquerors through 
 Him who loved us. 
 
 DELIVERANCE. 
 
 Thank God the story does not end there. The 
 Bible tells us of one more step, for we read that 
 ''when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the 
 Lord raised up a deliverer [margin, "a savior"] to 
 deliver them." God never turns a deaf ear to the 
 cry of a contrite heart, and there is a Deliverer for 
 you and me, no matter under what bondage we 
 have fallen. 
 
THE SEVEN "WALKS" OF EPHESIANS. 
 
 I. The walk of obedience (Ephesians ii: 1-2). 
 
 "Without faith/' we read, "it is impossible to please 
 God/' and without obedience it is impossible to 
 please Hnn. You know that when you were a child 
 and were disobedient to your parents you not only 
 made them unhapp3^, but were imhappy j^ourself. 
 There will be no peace in any soul until it is willing 
 to obey the voice of God. I believe that the great 
 reason there is so much trouble in this world is 
 because we are living in disobedience to God's laws, 
 God's commands, and God's AVord. Luther said, 
 "I would rather obey than work miracles/' 
 
 Now, if we look around us, we see that our life is 
 bounded by laws which bring suffering if we disobey 
 them. We must obey the laws of digestion, or we 
 shall become sick. A farmer must obey the laws 01 
 nature, or he will not have a good crop. If the laws 
 of shipbuilding are neglected the ship will become a 
 wreck. So it is in the intellectual and in the spiritual 
 world. God has set laws which must be obej^ed, or 
 else we must suffer the penalty. 
 
 We are obeying something or other all the time — 
 either our own carnal nature or God. The essence 
 of sin is obedience to our own lusts and desires, and 
 disobedience to God. Did you ever notice that 
 everything but man obeys God? In the beginning 
 God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 
 He said, "Let the sea bring forth abundantly," and 
 the sea instantl}^ obeyed and brought forth abund- 
 antly. He said, "Let the earth bring forth grass/' 
 and the earth instantly obeyed. When Christ was 
 
The Seven ''Walks" of Ephesians. 37 
 
 on earth He cursed the fig tree, and it instantly 
 withered away. He spoke to the sea, and the sea 
 instantlj^ obeyed Him and was calm. He rebuked 
 the wind, and the wind ceased immediately. But 
 He spoke to man, and man would not obey. That 
 is where all the trouble, and all the wretchedness, 
 and misery, and woe came, and there will never be 
 peace in your soul and mine until we are willing to 
 obey God. What God wants is prompt, literal, and 
 cheerful obedience, and nothing short of that will 
 please Him. As some one has put it, ''Do as God 
 commands, and do all God commands." Partial 
 obedience is not enough. If the doctor's prescription 
 were changed only a little it might mean death. 
 
 God cannot trust a man unless he is obedient. 
 Before Abraham was called to found a new dispensa- 
 tion he had to learn to obey, though he did not know 
 where it would lead him (Heb. xi: 8). Over fifty 
 times it is said of Moses that he did "as the Lord 
 commanded him." This is the secret of God's con- 
 fidence in Moses. Even Christ learned obedience 
 in the things that He sufff red, and being made per- 
 fect, became the author of eternal salvation to all 
 hat obey him (Heb. v: 8-9). 
 
 Remember, also, that blessing comes by obedi- 
 ence. As old Matthew Henry said, "If you live by 
 the Gospel prccejDts, you can count on the Gospel 
 promises." Not until Naaman had obeyed to the 
 letter was his leprous flesh renewed. And we are 
 told of the New Testament lepers that "as thej^ went," 
 in obedience to Christ's words, "they were cleansed." 
 The reason that men are not saved is just because 
 tliey will not obc}- the voice of God. 
 
38 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 II. Walk worthy of the. vocation wherewith ye are 
 called (Eph. iv: i). 
 
 More depends upon my walk than upon my talk. 
 Don't forget that. Talk is very cheap nowadays. 
 "We talk cream, and live skim milk." It is a good 
 thing to live better than you talk. Some people 
 talk like angels, and live like devJs. Some people, 
 when they are away from home, are angelic, and j^et 
 they are like snapping-turtles at home. No one can 
 get on with them. They snap at mother, brothers, 
 and sisters, and if married, snap at their husbands. 
 Every one around them has to walk very carefully 
 for fear of offending them, they are so touchy. 
 
 We are called to a ver^^ high calling: "walk worthy 
 of the vocation." Called to be sons and daughters 
 of God, remember that! Paul was called suddenly 
 to represent Jesus Christ, and from that time what a 
 different man he was! When Lincoln was called to 
 be President of the United States it was a very high 
 call, and he walked differently from what he did 
 before. When General Grant was called to the head 
 of the American army, and afterwards to the Wliite 
 House, he walked worthy of the positions which he 
 held. I heard one person say that it would be im- 
 possible for Grant to do it, but he did do it. But 
 your call and mine is very much higher than Lin- 
 coln's, much higher than Grant's, much higher than 
 that of any king or potentate, for we are called to 
 represent the ''King of Kings, and Lord of Lords," 
 Therefore let us walk worthy of our vocation. 
 
The Seven ''Walks" of Ephesians. 39 
 
 III. Walk in love (Ephesians v: 2). 
 
 Jucle saj's, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." 
 I believe that if the disciples of Jesus Christ would 
 keep themselves in the love of God for thirty days 
 their number would double in no time. If this 
 world is ever to be conquered, it will be conquered by 
 love, and there is no way to preach love like living it 
 in our actions. If w^e are full of love, we will be full 
 of forgiveness; w^e will be clothed w4th humilit}^ 
 ''Keep yourselves in the love of God." 
 
 The first thing that the Spirit of God does when 
 He begins to deal with persons after they are willing 
 to turn from their sins, is to shed abroad the love of 
 God in their hearts. You will find that it will be the 
 same kind of love in all. I remember in '6j going to 
 London, almost a stranger. I found the Christians 
 there had the same kind of spirit and the same kind 
 of love as in New York or Chicago. If I should go 
 to China, or Africa, or the islands of the sea, I should 
 find that every one born of the Spirit would have the 
 same spirit of love. In the early church nothing 
 astonished the pagans so much as the life of love 
 lived by the Christians. "Behold, how they love 
 one another," they said; "they love each other with- 
 out knowing each other." If you have not that 
 spirit of love you have not really the Christ of the 
 Bible in your heart, because God is love, and when 
 we are born of God w^e get God's Spirit. When we 
 have that Spirit, it will be natural for us to love, just 
 as it is the nature of the dove to be gentle. "If any 
 man have not the Spirit of Chricbt,he is none of His." 
 
 Spurgeon once went into he country to visit a 
 
40 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 friend who had built a new barn, and on the barn 
 was a cupola upon which they had put a weather 
 vane with this text of Scripture on it: "God is love." 
 
 Spurgeon said to the man: ''What do you mean 
 by putting that text of Scripture on the weather 
 vane? Do you mean that God's love is as change- 
 able as the wind?" 
 
 ''Oh, no/' was the reply; "I mean to say that God 
 is love whichever way the wind blows." 
 
 I pity any man's religion that is affected by the 
 climate: it is only skin deep. A man got up in one of 
 our meetings some time ago and said that he had 
 once been a Christian for about six months, but he 
 spoke in prayer meeting and an old deacon got up and 
 threw cold water on him, and then he gave the whole 
 thing up. I said, "If a bucket of water took it out of 
 you, your Christianity was not very deep." True 
 religion will strike deeper than that. It will take a 
 good many bvickets of water to take it out of you if 
 you are filled with love. 
 
 Andrew Murray has said that most Christians are 
 ready to pray for the Holy Ghost for power in service, 
 but that we seldom pray for Him as the Spirit of love. 
 We have almost forgotten that love is the first fruit- 
 age of the Spirit's indwelling. Love is the fulfilling 
 of the law. When sin entered, it broke the bands 
 of love, and we find the spirit of hatred leading Cain 
 to murder his brother. Oh, for a baptism of love, 
 uniting us altogether in one Spirit! 
 
 The love of God taking possession of our hearts — 
 that is what we want. Are you walking in love? 
 If not, make up your mind that you will do it from 
 now on. Move into the thirteenth chapter of First 
 
The Seven "Walks" of Ephesians. 41 
 
 Corinthians. Many people take an occasional 
 iourney into that chapter, but few live there. Then 
 you will be long-suffering and kind, free from envy 
 and pride and selfishness and bad temper, thinking 
 no evil. May God fill us all with love! ^ 
 
 IV. Walk circumspectly (Ephesians v: 15). 
 
 The eyes of the world are upon us. They don't 
 read the Bible, but they read you and me, and we 
 talk more by our walk than in any other way. We 
 are "living epistles, known and read of all men." 
 I can walk a lie. I can walk dishonestly. I can 
 walk crookedly, and make other people stumble over 
 me. I said to some one the other day: 
 
 "That man must have been in the army or in a 
 military school." 
 
 He said, "Yes; how did you know?" 
 
 I said, "By the way he walks." 
 
 There are some people that you can tell have been 
 with Jesus Christ by their walk. 
 
 An old divine, trying to illustrate this passage in 
 Ephesians, "walking circumspectly," describes a cat 
 walking on a brick wall covered with sharp pieces of 
 glass. The cat goes along, putting his feet down 
 very cautiously, so as not to cut his feet. Let us 
 keep in mind that the eyes of the world are upon our 
 acts, and let our w alk be very circumspect. 
 
 A young man in our Bible Institute in Chicago 
 got onto the grip car, and before the conductor came 
 around to take the fare, he had reached the Institute, 
 and jumped off without paying his fare. In think- 
 ing over that act, he said: 
 
 "That was not walking circumspectly; that was not 
 
42 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 just right. I had myride.and I ought topay that fare." 
 
 He remembered the face of the conductor, and he 
 went to the car barns and paid him the five cents. 
 
 "AVell/' the conductor said, "you are a fool not to 
 keep it." 
 
 "No," the 3'oung man said, "I am not. I got the 
 ride, and I ought to have paid for it." 
 
 ''But it was my business to collect it." 
 
 "No, it w^as my business to hand it to you." 
 
 The conductor said, "I think you must belong to 
 that Bible Institute." 
 
 I have not heard.anything said of the Institute that 
 pleased me so much as that one thing. 
 
 Not long after that the gripman came to the Insti- 
 tute, and asked the student to come to see him. 
 A cottage meeting was started in his house; and not 
 only the conductor, but a number of others around 
 there were converted as a result of that one act. 
 
 Walk circumspectly, because 3^ou don't know who 
 will be influenced by your words and actions. I 
 have heard of a canary that was taught to sing, 
 "Home, Sweet Home," by being placed in a room, 
 when young, with a musical box that plaj^ed only 
 that tune. Moses' face shone after he had been in 
 the mount with God forty dsijs. They took 
 knowledge of the disciples "that the3^ had been with 
 Jesus." And it is oaid of Lord Peterborough after 
 spending a night with Fenelon, the great French 
 preacher, he was so impressed with his holy char- 
 acter that he said to him on leaving: 
 
 "If I staj^ here any longer, I shall become a Chris- 
 tian in spite of nwself." 
 
 Many a person who is engaged in active Christian 
 
The Seven "AValks" of Ephesians. 43 
 
 work, or who takes a leading part in the prayer 
 meeting, is so faulty in his daily walk as to be a 
 stumbling-block to others. Sometimes the last 
 people to be favorabl}^ impressed by professing 
 Christians are those who know them in their home 
 life. This is all wrong. Test yourselves, there- 
 fore, and see if you indulge in any questionable 
 habit, anything in your example and influence that 
 is likely to lead astray those who read your conduct. 
 
 V. Walk not as other Gentiles ivalk (Ephesians 
 iv: 17). 
 
 God expects a difference when we become His. 
 The world expects a difference, and the church of 
 God expects a difference between one that professes 
 to be a child of light and one that is a child of dark- 
 ness; and if there is not a difference in your life 
 since you have become a Christian, then I am afraid 
 that you have not become a real one. 
 
 The course of this world is away from God; there- 
 fore I must go against the current of the world, if 
 I'm a child of God. What we want to-day is separa- 
 tion. The church will have a convincing testimony 
 and will become a power in the world when it is 
 separated from the world; but as long as it is hand 
 and glove with the world, it cannot have power. 
 I believe that when we are told not to be unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers, it means just what 
 it saj^s: and if I live just as the Gentiles, the ungodly, 
 live, I shall have trouble. 
 
 It is said of Lot, "His righteous soul was vexed." 
 Of course it was. Righteousness can never be at 
 peace with unrighteousness. And if I walk as other 
 
44 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 Gentiles walk, as the world walks, I will be con- 
 stantly getting into trouble, because I will go in the 
 course of the world. 
 
 You say, "I will walk as I please." 
 
 You can do it. You can take a course away from 
 God, but it will bring you into bondage and darkness. 
 
 VI. Walk as children of light (Ephesians v: 8). 
 
 Put off the ways of darkness. Put off the works 
 of darkness. 
 
 Now the question arises, "How am I going to get 
 light. 
 
 "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.'' 
 "The entrance of Thy word giveth light." Are you 
 in the dark? Let the Word of God into your heart, 
 and it will dispel the darkness. "Thy Word is a 
 lamp unto my feet," and if you want light, just take 
 the Word. It is the privilege of every one of us to 
 walk in an unclouded sun all our days, if we will. 
 1 don't believe that it is the will of God that anj' 
 child of His shall be in the dark. We are children 
 of the day, children of the light; we have been born, 
 of His Spirit, and He brings light and peace. I 
 believe that nothing is going to light up the dark 
 places of the world like the old Book. Men talk 
 about the light of nature, but we do not find that 
 civilization has made any progress where the light of 
 Christ and the Bible has not come. 
 
 Let me give you a passage from H. L. Hastings: 
 
 "A friend of mine visited the Fiji Islands in 1 844, 
 and what do 3^ou suppose an infidel was worth there 
 then? You could buy a man for a musket, or if yovi 
 paid money, for seven dollars, and after you had 
 
The Seven ''Walks" of Ephesians. 45 
 
 bought him j^ou could feed him, starve him, work 
 him, whip him, or eat him — they generally ate 
 them, unless they were so full of tobacco they could 
 not stomach them! But if you go there to-day you 
 could not bu}?" a man for seven dollars nor for seven 
 million dollars. There are no men there for sale 
 now. AVhat has made this difference in the price of 
 humanity? The twelve hundred Christian chapels 
 scattered over that island tell the story. The people 
 have learned to read that Book which says, 'Ye were 
 not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and 
 gold, but with the precious blood of Christ'; and since 
 they learned that lesson, no man is for sale there." 
 
 Vn. Let us walk in good works (Ephesians ii: 10). 
 
 Now, I do not believe that you will find a day pass 
 in 3^our life but that 3'ou can do some good deed if 
 you will. Some one has described this world as two 
 great mountains: one is a mountain of sorrow, and 
 trouble, and darkness, and gloom, and disappoint- 
 ment; the other is a mountain of peace, and of jo^^ 
 and of gladness; and if we can take a little from that 
 mountain of darkness and put it over on that mount- 
 ain of joy, and each one do a little, that mountain of 
 darkness is going to grow smaller and smaller, and 
 the other is going to grow larger and larger. 
 
 I learned a motto in England which I am going to 
 pass on to you: "For our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, 
 do all the good you can, to all the people you can, 
 by all the means you can, in all the places you can, 
 as long as ever you can." Keep that in mind, and 
 pass it on to others. 
 
 You know that very often one little act of kindness 
 
46 Short Talks bj^ D. L. Moody. 
 
 will live a good deal longer than a most magnificent 
 sermon. There is a preacher in Edinburgh, but I 
 never think of him as a preacher, although he is one 
 of the finest preachers in Scotland. Just one act is 
 associated with that man that I will carry in remem- 
 brance to the grave. There is a hospital for little 
 children in Edinburgh, and that great minister, with 
 a large parish and a large congregation, goes one 
 afternoon every week and sits down and talks with 
 those little children — a good many of them there for 
 life; they are incurable. 
 
 One da3^ he found a little bo}^ only six years old 
 who had been brought over from Fife. The little 
 fellow was in great distress, because the doctors 
 were coming to take off his leg. Think how you 
 would feel, if you had a little brother six years old, 
 and he was taken off to the hospital, and the doctor 
 said that he was coming forty-eight hours afterwards 
 to take off his leg! Well, that minister tried to com- 
 fort the bo3^ and said: 
 
 "Your father will come to be with you." 
 
 "No," he said, "m\^ father is dead; he cannot be 
 here." 
 
 "Well, your mother will come." 
 
 "Mj^ mother is over in Fife. She is sick, and can- 
 not come." 
 
 The minister himself could not come, so he said: 
 
 "Well, you know the matron here is a mother, 
 she has got a great big heart." 
 
 The little chin began to quiver as the boy said: 
 "Perhaps Jesus will be with me." 
 
 "Yes," said the minister, "He will be with j^ou, and 
 D will this good woman." 
 
The Seven ''Walks" of Ephesians. 47 
 
 The minister went around after the time of the 
 operation, but the cot was empty; Christ had taken 
 the boy to Himself. Think of a leading minister 
 just going every week into a children's hospital, 
 doing a thing like that! 
 
 Let us all walk the walk of good works. Find 
 something to do, and do it every day, and you will 
 never backslide, and you won't be asking, "Have I 
 got to give up this and that?" Christ will give you 
 something better than anything you give up. Oh, 
 may God baptize us all with the spirit of love and the 
 spirit of work I 
 
THE UNKNOWN COMPANION 
 
 "And behold, two of them went that same day to a 
 village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem 
 about three-score furlongs" (Luke xxiv: 13). 
 
 In the account of the two disciples going to 
 Emmaus you wdll notice that they w^ere very sorrow- 
 ful. They ought to have been the happiest mortals 
 on earth. It w^as the dawn of a new dispensation; 
 it was the first day, you might say, of a new world. 
 Here we have the first sermon that w^as preached 
 after the resurrection, and it was preached by the 
 Lord Himself. He found these two disciples very 
 sorrowful; their hopes had all died. They were 
 going back to their home seven or eight miles away. 
 There was great danger, they thought, in Jerusalem. 
 The head of their company had been crucified, and 
 there was a storm rising against His disciples. 
 Over and over again He had told them, before He 
 left them, that on the third day He would rise; and 
 this was the third day, and instead of their having 
 faith to believe that He had risen, when the report 
 came from the very foremost of the disciples, those 
 that stood nearest to Christ, that loved Him perhajDs 
 the most, they were so full of unbelief that they 
 doubted the word of the disciples that had brought 
 the message, and they are going back into the 
 country with their hearts crushed, bleeding, broken, 
 and very sad. 
 
 There has always been a great discussion as to 
 who the two were. One we know — Cleopas — who 
 was the uncle of Christ. Some have thought that 
 Luke himself was the other, and different ones have 
 
 (48) 
 
The Unknown Companion. 49 
 
 been selected as the second. Now, I am incHned 
 to think that instead of being two men these two were 
 a man and his wife. I think it wovdd be interesting 
 to reaHze that a woman was one of the disciples that 
 went to Emmaus. 
 
 In the twent3^-fifth verse of the nineteenth chapter 
 of John we read: 
 
 "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, 
 and His mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleopas, 
 and Mary Magdalene." 
 
 We know, then, that Mary, Cleopas' wife, was 
 there at the cross, and it wasn't likely that her hus- 
 band would go off into the country seven or eight 
 miles awa}^ when there was so bitter a feeling in the 
 city, and leave his wife in peril. It doesn't say that 
 these were two men, they were two disciples — and if 
 it was Cleopas and his wife they were uncle and 
 aunt of Jesus Christ. 
 
 As they went, and were sad, Christ came along 
 and walked with them. Some one has said that we 
 do not suf[icientl3^ realize that if anj^ two of us make 
 Jesus the subject of our conversation He Himself 
 will be of our company. Where two or three are 
 gathered together in His name He is in the midst. 
 
 People have often wondered how it could be that 
 Cleopas, one of His disciples, should not have known 
 Him. That is not so strange. You remember that 
 Jehovah appeared to Abraham as a way-faring 
 man; to Jacob as a wrestler; to Joshua as a soldier 
 with a drawn sword; so that He may have appeared 
 to these disciples in a way that they should not know 
 Him until He had gone from them. 
 
 They were so taken up with their sorrow that they 
 
50 Short Talks bj- D. L. Mooch\ 
 
 had forgotten all the sweet promises He had left of 
 what He would do after His resurrection. That 
 seemed to be hid from them. 
 
 When Christ drew near, "He said unto them. What 
 manner of communications are these that ye have 
 one to another, as ye w^alk, and are sad? " Then 
 He began to unfold to them the Scriptures. Now, 
 do you know, if they had gone to the Scriptures in 
 the time of their trouble, as they ought to have 
 done, thej^ would have lost sight of their trouble? 
 He took them right to the Word of God, where thej^ 
 could get comfort. 
 
 There are four things I want to call 3'our atten- 
 tion to: 
 
 1. Their minds were opened that thej^ should 
 understand the Scriptures. 
 
 2. He caused their hearts to burn within them. 
 When God opens up the mind, and we receive the 
 Word, then the heart begins to burn; and there isn't 
 anything that will cause the heart to burn with joy 
 and gladness like the Word of the living God. 
 
 3. He opened their ej^es, that they should know 
 Him. 
 
 4. He revealed Himself unto them. 
 
 LET US PICTURE THAT SCENE. 
 
 This man and his wife are going back from Jeru- 
 salem to their home in Emmaus. On the way a 
 stranger joins them, and begins to talk with them. 
 As they draw near the town the daj^ is far spent, and 
 the evening is coming on. And when they get to 
 their home the stranger has made His company so 
 precious, and His word so sweet, that they ask Him 
 
The Unknown Companion. 51 
 
 to spend the night. And that is another proof to me 
 that it was a man and wife, because "the^^ con- 
 strained Him." A man and wife could constrain 
 a person to stay over night, but two mere friends 
 would hardly do so. It would be just like a man and 
 wife to saj^: "Come in^, we wish you would. We 
 have plent}^ of room." So they ail went in together. 
 I can imagine this woman preparing the evening 
 meal, and as the two men sit there talking together, 
 every once in a while the woman stops and listens. 
 She can't help it. Oh, those words were so sweet! 
 I wish every word the Son of God uttered on that 
 occasion had been put on record. What an exper- 
 ience it must have been to hear Christ tell the mean- 
 ing of the sacrifice of Isaac, and the brazen serpent 
 and the ceremonies of the great day of atonement; 
 to hear Him expound the fifty-third of Isaiah, and 
 the twentj^-second Psalm, and the other passages 
 in Moses and the prophets concerning Himselfl 
 What an unfolding of Scripture, and how their 
 hearts were thrilled as they learned those blessed 
 truths! Some people say that we have outgrown 
 the Old Testament, that the New Testament is all 
 we need. But Christ used it; it was all He had. 
 He set His seal upon y.i. It is recorded that He 
 made quotations from at least twenty-two of the 
 thirty-nine books. He referred to them constantl}^, 
 and said that they must be fulfilled. Saphir has 
 vsaid that the gospel narrative is like a high table- 
 land, but we cannot be spared the ascent from Gene- 
 sis to Malachi. The one theme of the Old Testament 
 is the Messiah, and until you realize that, 3'ou have 
 not found the key to its treasures. 
 
52 Short Talks by D. L. ]\Ioody. 
 
 At last the evening meal is prepared, and they sit 
 down and begin. I can just imagine Cleopas turn- 
 ing to the stranger and saying: 
 
 "Will you ask a blessing?" 
 
 Then He raised those pierced and wounded hands, 
 and perhaps that is the way .He revealed Himself to 
 them. They saw the prints in the palms of His 
 hands, the wounds that had been made at Calvary. 
 And He is gone. Some one has said that now, as at 
 Emmaus, Jesus loves to make Himself know^n in the 
 breaking of the bread. 
 
 I do not believe they touched a morsel of supper, 
 their hearts wxre so full, but they said: 
 
 "We must go back to Jerusalem and take the 
 news." 
 
 They went back much quicker than they came 
 out, their hearts leaping within them for joy. They 
 found the disciples and brought the glad tidings: 
 
 "He is risen! We have seen Him, and He has 
 talked to us." 
 
 To their d^^ing day how they must have told over 
 and over how they saw Him on that journe3^! 
 
 Oh, that Christ might come, and cause our hearts 
 to burn within us. Let us pray that He may open 
 our eyes and our understanding, and that He may 
 just give us a fresh vision of Himself 1 
 
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. 
 
 No man has a real desire to walk with God until 
 he has been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and 
 so has been brought into fellowship with God. If 
 we have turned away from the sanctuary and have 
 neglected the statutes of God, and find our intel- 
 lectual and spiritual food outside of the Bible and 
 good literature, and are seeking satisfaction in the 
 amusements of the world, we are certainly not in 
 fellowship with God. 
 
 We read in the eighth Psalm that ''no good thing 
 will He withhold from them that walk uprightly," 
 If God is withholding His good things from us, let 
 us pause and find out what is keeping us from 
 enjo3^ing the blessing of God, why it is that we 
 have lost power and have not had success in our 
 Christian life. A good many people say that the 
 Christian life has not been what they expected it 
 would be when they started out. Others say that 
 it has been a great many times better. Now, what 
 is the trouble? 
 
 I believe that we are living in a glorious daj^; but 
 there is a tendency among some peojDle to get away 
 from the old gospel. They say that we must give 
 up preaching repentance and the atonement, and 
 there is where a great many get off the track. If 
 we give up the old doctrine of repentance, what are 
 we to put in its place? If a man steals and wants 
 to get right again, he must rej^ent and be converted 
 just as much now as he had to j^ears ago. If a man 
 is to become a child of God, and Jesus Christ is to 
 set up His kingdom in that man's heart, it must 
 
 (53) 
 
54 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 be done just as it was done five hundred years ago. 
 If it is a fact that Jesus Christ died for sinners, then 
 we don't want to change the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment or any other teaching of God's AVord. A 
 man who has broken away from the great funda- 
 mental doctrines is like a blasted tree in the desert: 
 there is no life and no power in him. 
 
 SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD. 
 
 In the sixth chapter of Jeremiah and the sixteenth 
 verse we read, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in 
 the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where 
 is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall 
 find rest for your souls." If a man is going to walk 
 with God he must walk in the old paths, for God has 
 not changed one whit. He is unchangeable. 
 What we nesd is to go back to the old gospel, for 
 "it is the power of God unto salvation unto every 
 one that believeth." 
 
 Now, if we want to walk with God we nuist not 
 try to bring Him around to our terms; we must go 
 over to His terms. Here are some of them: 
 
 In II Corinthians vi: 14, we read: "Be not une- 
 qually yoked together with unbelievers: for whatf el- 
 lowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? 
 and what communion hath light with darkness? 
 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what 
 part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And 
 what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? 
 . . Wherefore come out from among 
 them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch 
 not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And 
 I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
 sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 
 
Fellowship With God. 55 
 
 I do not believe that there is anj^ doctrine more 
 needed to-day in the Christian church in America 
 than the doctrine of separation. AVe have lost 
 power because the line between the church and the 
 world has been almost obliterated. A good many 
 people profess Christianity, but their profession 
 does not mean much; the result is that the world 
 does not know what Christians realty believe. For 
 every unconverted man that reads the Bible, a 
 hundred read you and me; and if they see us hand- 
 in-glove with the imgodly they are not going to 
 have any confidence in our professions. 
 
 "Be not unequally yoked together with unbe- 
 lievers." How does that strike Christians who are 
 joined to the Odd Fellows and Free Masons? How 
 is it with matrimon}^? How many ministers would 
 marry a godly woman to an ungodly man? Why 
 not take a stand and say you will not be a party to 
 it? The courts are filled with divorce cases because 
 Christian men and women have been yoked with 
 unbelievers. Look at the mothers whose children 
 have been unequally yoked with infidels and men 
 of the world! My friends, if we want the power of 
 God we must obey God's word, cost us what it may. 
 
 How is it about your life? Are you hand-in-glove 
 with the world? If you are, how can you expect 
 God to fill you with the Holy Spirit? I believe that 
 the cause of Christ is suffering more from this one 
 thing than am^ other ten things put together. 
 God cannot give us power, because we are allied 
 with the ungodl3^ The mirth that satisfies the 
 world will not satisfy the true child of God, and 
 yet how many of us are just looking to the vv'orld 
 
56 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 for our pleasure. If we walk with God, we will not 
 be asking. What is the harm of this and that? the 
 question will be. What is the good'^ If a thing does 
 not help us we will give it up for something better. 
 
 SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 Right here I want to say that I don't see how any 
 Christian man or woman can touch the Sunday 
 newspapers. You may go to church regularly, 
 but I do not believe that Gabriel himself could hold 
 an audience that has been reading the Sunday 
 newspaper before they came to church. The time 
 has come when the natioii should rise up and cry 
 aloud to God to stop this iniquitous thing. It is 
 doing more harm to-day than anj^ other one thing 
 in literature. You can get along without it one 
 day in the week, and I believe j^ou are dishonoring 
 God by having anything to do with it. If persons 
 would rather read the Sunday newspaper than the 
 Bible, if the3^ cannot get along without the opera 
 and the theatre, God have mercy upon them. A 
 lady told me that she made a bargain with her hus- 
 band that if he would go to church every Sunday 
 with her, she would go to the theatre with him, but 
 she lost all her influence over her husband by her 
 compromise. A man or a woman never lets down 
 the standard without losing more than they gain. 
 
 Keep the standard high and let God have the 
 first place, and then He will withhold no good thing 
 from you. Let the world call j^ou a bigot — I would 
 not give much for Christianity if the world had 
 nothing to say against it. "Woe unto you when 
 all men speak well of 3^ou." If the world has noth- 
 
Fellowship With God. 57 
 
 ing to say against you, Jesus Christ will probably' 
 have nothing to say for you. 
 
 If 3^ou want powxr, my friends, keep as far from 
 conformity with the world as you can. "Be ye 
 separate." If the kingdom of God is to be extended, 
 we must have separated men and women, not 
 card-playing, theatre-going, dancing Christians. 
 That kind of Christians will never accomplish 
 much for God in this world. ''Be ye separate." 
 
 Jesus taught His disciples that they must be in 
 the world but not of it. A Christian in the woild is 
 one thing, and the world in a Christian is, quite a 
 another thing. A ship in the water is all right, but 
 when the water gets into the ship, it is quite a differ- 
 ent thing. The churches are full of men and women 
 who have no power at all. Where did they lose it? 
 It was when they formed an alliance with the world. 
 
 Some people say that if you take that ground, 
 you will stand alone, but I would rather be alone 
 with God than to be with the whole world without 
 God. A man who is with God is always in the 
 majority. I do not believe a man ever got a thing 
 by the sacrifice of principle that did not bring ruin. 
 
 My friends, if you want power with God, and 
 with men, keep as separate from the world as you 
 can. We have but a little while to live in this 
 world, and our position ought to be that of men and 
 women sent into the world to represent Christ to 
 mankind. If we are Christians, we have been re- 
 deemed from this world. Our home is in heaven, 
 and we are only here as our Lord's representatives. 
 "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself 
 also so to walk even as He walked." 
 
NO ROOM IN THE INN. 
 
 I want to call your attention to a verse that you 
 will find in the 2nd chapter of Luke, a part of the 
 7th verse: 
 
 "And they laid Him in a manger, because there 
 was no room for Him in the inn." 
 
 I want, if I can, to show that the human heart is 
 very much like that inn at Bethlehem — no room 
 for Christ. Every true child of God for four thou- 
 sand years had been looking out into the mist of the 
 future, and had been listening that they might hear 
 the sound of His footfall. Away back in Eden, 
 when man fell, the promise came that the seed of 
 the woman should bruise the serjDent's head; and 
 from the time that Cain was born they were looking 
 for that child. Most Bible students agree that 
 when Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the 
 Lord," when Cain was born, she thought that he 
 was the promised One. For four thousand years 
 they had been watching and praj^ing and waiting 
 for the coming of the j^romised One, and 3^et the 
 very first sound that falls upon our ear when He 
 arrives upon earth is that there is no room for Him. 
 
 Mark how He might have come, with all the 
 pomp and all the glory of that upper world. It 
 would have been a great condescension for Him to 
 have been born in a palace, rocked in a golden 
 cradle, and fed with a golden spoon, and to have 
 had the angels come down to be His nurses. But 
 He gave up all the glory of that world, and was 
 born of a poor w^oman, and His cradle was a manger, 
 the lowest position that He could take on earth. 
 
 (58) 
 
No Room in the Inn. 59 
 
 Then, for a moment, just think what He had 
 come for. He had come to bless, not to curse; to 
 Hft up, not to cast down; to seek and save that 
 which was lost; to give sight to the blind; to open 
 prison doors and set captives free; to reveal the 
 Father's love; to give rest to the weary; to be a 
 blessing to the whole world; and yet we find that 
 there is no room for Him. 
 
 I was in Chicago in the '50s when the Prince of 
 Wales came to this country, and I remember how 
 anxious that Western city was to get him out 
 there. When the news came that he had accepted 
 the invitation and was coming, they thought there 
 wasn't anj^thing in that city good enough for him. 
 The best hotel was at his disposal, the freedom of 
 the city was offered him, business was suspended, 
 and every band of music within a hundred miles 
 was brought into Chicago. When his train came 
 near the citj^ every bell was rung, cannons were 
 booming, bands were playing, and there was 
 intense excitement. The pajDers Avere discussing 
 for dsijs, what he was coming for, and after he had 
 gone, what the object of his visit was. I don't 
 know that he ever told anyone what he came for. 
 Some thought that he had come to look into the^ 
 republican form of government. Some thought 
 he had come for his health. Some thought he had 
 come to look into our institutions. Some thought 
 he had come to go out to the jDrairies, as he did, and 
 have a buffalo hunt. He came cind went. I don't 
 know that Chicago was made any better by his 
 coming; I don't know tha*^ an}^ one was made any 
 better by his coming; I don't know that he accom- 
 
6o Short Talks by D. L. Mood^^ 
 
 plished much on his mission. But I do know that 
 when the Prince of Heaven came into this world 
 He came on no secret venture. He proclaimed 
 what He came for, namelj^, to bless the world; and 
 yet there was no city that gave Him the freedom of 
 it; there were no bells rung, there was no shout of 
 welcome from the sons of men when He arrived. 
 In fact. He was the most unpopular man that had 
 ever come into the world. During all the six thou- 
 sand 3"ears from Adam to the present time there 
 never has been one that has come into the world 
 that w^as thought so little of as the Son of Man. 
 Only think what He w^anted to do for men and 
 women on the face of the earth — what God had sent 
 Him to do! 
 
 I can imagine some of you saying, "li it had been 
 known w^ho He was, it would have been altogether 
 different." But when those three wise men from 
 the East w^ho came to Jerusalem and w^anted to 
 know where He who was King of the Jews was born, 
 and when it was found that. He was born in Beth- 
 lehem, Herod sent down to Bethlehem and ordered 
 that all the little children under two years of age 
 should be put to death that he might destro}^ that 
 child. He drew the sw^ord, and it was never 
 sheathed until it pierced the heart of the Son of 
 God on Calvary. 
 
 AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 
 
 Do you tell me He was a welcome guest anywhere 
 during the time He was on earth, in any city or 
 town He visited? If you will read His life carefully. 
 
No Room in the Inn. 6 1 
 
 you will find no town or village wanted Him. After 
 He had been baptized bj?- John and was on the way 
 back to Nazareth He performed a miracle. You 
 would have thought that little town would have 
 been highlj^ honored to have such a townsman. 
 He was greater than Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Elisha, 
 or Elijah, or Moses, or Abraham, the great patriarch. 
 He was far greater than anyone that ever came into 
 the world, and no little town in the history of this 
 world could have been exalted like Nazareth if it 
 had given Him a welcome. But we read that He 
 went into the sj^nagogue, as was His custom, on the 
 Sabbath day, and found the place where it was 
 written in Isaiah, and began to read, "The Spirit 
 of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed 
 me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me 
 to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to 
 th captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, 
 to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach 
 the acceptable year of the Lord." Then He closed 
 the book. The next sentence was, "And the day of 
 vengeance of our God." They might have been 
 angry if He had read that, but He didn't. He 
 will come back b}^ and by, and take up the Book, 
 and commence to read where He left off. The day 
 of vengeance is coming. Then Lie began to teach 
 them at Nazareth. Never in the history of the 
 world would a town have heard a better sermon 
 than they would have heard in Nazareth if they had 
 let Him go on and preach. At first the}^ were awed 
 by His manner, and by the wisdom that fell from 
 His lips. I see one man touch another, and he says: 
 "Isn't this the son of Joseph? Isn't this the 
 
62 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 carpenter vS son? "Where has He got all this wisdom?" 
 He had been anointed from on high. He had 
 received the unction of the Hoh^ Ghost to preach. 
 Some men were anointed to destroj^. Samson was 
 anointed to kill, and 3^011 will find all through his- 
 tory men who were anointed for certain kinds of 
 work. Christ was anointed to preach the gospel to 
 the poor, and they were very poor at that time; 
 and oh, what a sermon they would have heard! 
 But when He recalled the acts of God with the 
 Gentiles they thought it reflected on their nation, 
 and they began to gnash their teeth. The^^ got so 
 angry that the3^ hurried Him out of the synagogue, 
 and if He hadn't taken Himself out of their hands 
 miraculoush^ they would have taken the law into 
 their own hands and hurled Him into perdition. 
 Nazareth didn't have any room for Him. You never 
 hear of Nazareth being proud of owning such a 
 citizen. You do not hear of their sending a deputa- 
 tion afterwards to have Him come back and visit 
 their town. 
 
 I have often tried to realize the feelings the Son ot 
 God must have had as He left Nazareth to go down 
 into Capernaum among strangers, to think that He 
 had been cast out of His own town! In all the after 
 years when people crowded about Him the3' would 
 say that He was not welcome in His own town 
 where He had been brought up, that the\^ wouldn't 
 allow Him to stay in the town, but had cast liim 
 out. That is the waj^ He commenced His ministry. 
 
 He went down to Capernaum, and for a time He 
 was very popular. He was heard bj^ immense 
 crowds. He cast out devils, and there wasn't any 
 
No Room in the Inn, 63 
 
 r;nc in the town that wanted to be blessed that He 
 wasn't ready to bless. It wasn't long before His 
 fame spread all over the countr}", and the}^ came 
 up from Jerusalem and the towns of Judea into 
 that little town of Capernaum, and for a little while 
 He was quite popular, and crowds surged up around 
 him. But b}^ and by it got too hot for Him in 
 Capernaum. They w^ould come up from Jerusalem 
 and from other places, and stir up the citizens of 
 Capernaum against Him. You will find Him going 
 from town to town healing the sick, raising the 
 dead, and casting out devils, and no man for three 
 years ever did such a work on earth, and at the end 
 there was no man so unpopular. You read of His 
 going up to the annual feast at Jerusalem; 3^ou never 
 read of Jerusalem giving Him a welcome. Although 
 He had wrought many miracles, and man^^ para- 
 bles had fallen from His lips, although the most 
 wonderful sermons that were ever preached on this 
 earth were preached by Him, there was hardly 
 anj^one speaking a kind word for Him. Almost 
 a universal hiss was going up against Him. 
 
 In one place you read that He looked towards 
 heaven and sighed. I can imagine as He looked 
 around Plim and saw death and woe and misery, 
 while so few^ people w^ere willing to let Him bless 
 them, and then looked to that world where all knew 
 -Him and honored Him and loved Him, where He 
 had never been mistrusted, or called a blasphemer, 
 or imposter — that was common all around Him 
 when He w^as on earth — I can just imagine how, as 
 He looked toward that world, He sighed, and longed 
 to get back. 
 
64 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 In another place it says He had been lifting up 
 the standard verj^ high, and many of His disciples 
 "went back, and walked no more with Him." It is 
 one of the sad scenes in His life. In another place it 
 says: "Every man went to his own house, and Jesus 
 went to the Mount of Olives." He didn't have any 
 house to go to. He that was once rich became poor 
 for your sake and mine. He that ^.leated all things 
 had emptied Himself and become one of the poorest 
 of the land. On an occasion like that He uttered 
 the words: "The foxes have, holes, and the birds 
 of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not 
 where to lay His head." His cradle was a borrowed 
 one. The onty time that He ever rode on a beast it 
 was a borrowed beast. His grave was a borrowed 
 one. He hadn't an inch of ground that He could 
 call His own. When He went to the Mount of 
 Olives, the ground was His bed, the sod was His 
 pillow. I can see Him with His locks wet with the 
 dew of the night. 
 
 I often think if I had been living in those days 
 I would like to have had a home in Jerusalem, I 
 would have liked that very night to have asked 
 Him to nw home. But I presume my house would 
 have been closed against Him like the others in the 
 city of Jerusalem. 
 
 NO ROOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 Nearly nineteen hundred 3'ears have roiled 
 away; the Son of God has been in glory these nine- 
 teen hundred years, and probably there is no part 
 of this w^orld where His gospel has been preached 
 more faithfully than right here in America. Prob- 
 
No Room in the Inn, 65 
 
 ably there has been no part of the world where 
 Christ's character has been held up, and Christ has 
 been pictured to the people and preached to the 
 people, as He has in this country. And what do 
 we see to-day? I would like to ask if you think 
 human nature has changed one bit? Isn't it the 
 same to-day? No room for the Son of God! Plenty 
 of room for everything else, but no room for Jesus 
 Christ personall3\ 
 
 I am not talking about religion. Almost every- 
 body has some sort of religion, almost everybody 
 goes to some sort of a church, and they will talk 
 churches, and ministers, and elders, and deacons, 
 and bishops and Pope; but when it comes to the 
 personal Christ, there are verj^ few that want the 
 Son of God, there are very few that will make room 
 for Him to-da}^ Don't think that I am exaggerat- 
 ing; I believe I am telling the truth. I believe the 
 cry goes up from the earth to-day, ''There is no room 
 for the Son of God." I believe the heart of many a 
 man and woman in this hall to-day is like that inn 
 at Bethlehem, no room for Jesus Christ. 
 
 I would venture to say if it could be put to a 
 popular vote to ask Christ to come back to this 
 earth from which we have cast Him out, there 
 isn't a state in this republic w^ould vote to have Him 
 back. Not only that, but I don't believe there is 
 one county in all the twenty-seven hundred counties 
 in this republic that would vote to have the Son of 
 God come back. I don't believe there is a town or 
 a precinct or a hamlet that would really vote to 
 have Him come back. Perhaps you doubt that 
 statement — you don't believe it. T want to say 1 
 
66 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 believe it emphaticalty. Not but what they would 
 vote to have churches and church-fairs and all 
 that, but I am talking now about a personal Christ.^ 
 That makes all the difference in the world. 
 
 The human familj^ is all divided up into sects and 
 parties and societies, but I don't believe 3-ou will 
 find a society that would vote to have Christ come 
 back and reign in person, and have the will of God 
 done in the earth as it is in Heaven. It is one 
 thing to make that praj^er, "Thy Kingdom come. 
 Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven," and 
 quite another thing to desire it above everything 
 else and do all we can to advance the Kingdom of 
 God and bring about that state of things. Do you 
 tell le that there is a society of all the societies j^ou 
 knc / that would vote to have Him come back? Do 
 you hink the Free Masons would want Him as one 
 of i: eir members? I believed He would be black- 
 balled by every lodge in the country. Do j^ou 
 thini the Odd Fellows would want Him? What 
 polii cal party would vote to have Him? Do you 
 thin : your bon ton society would want Him? 1 
 thin i He would break up some of these progressive 
 euclij*e parties, don't 3^ou? I think He would 
 break up some of the rotten things that are going 
 on in political parties, don't you? You think that 
 the world wants Christ yet? It is one thing to be 
 religious and talk pious on Sunday, but it is quite 
 another thing to live out the principles on Monday 
 and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. We 
 have a lot of Sundaj^ religion, but it doesn't amount 
 to much. If your religion doesn't carry you right 
 through seven daj^s of the week I wouldn't give a 
 
No Kooiii in the Inn. 67 
 
 snap of im' fniger for 3^our piet}^; and if you are 
 very religious during Lent and then serve Baal 
 during the rest of Jhe year, I wouldn't give much for 
 your Lent services. There is a class of people who 
 try to serve Jehovah on Sunday morning, but Baal 
 the rest of the time. You can't do it. 
 
 All the whiskey men, all the saloons, would vote 
 solid against Him, and no man who is dishonest in 
 his business w^ould want Him to come back — he 
 wouldn't want Him to look over his ledger and see 
 how his business is going on. No man or woman 
 that is leading an impure life would want Him. 
 
 The fact is, there isn't room down here for the 
 Son of God. He made the world, but the world 
 hasn't room for Him. When He made your heart 
 and mine He made room for Himself, but other 
 things have come in and taken His place. 
 
 Have you ever had the feeling in your life that no 
 one wanted you? I had it for about forty-eight 
 hours once, and 1. shall never forget those two 
 dark days and nights as long as I live. Oh, the 
 sadness, the loneliness! And I cannot help feel 
 that my Master must have been very lonely down 
 here, to be called an imposter, a deceiver, possessed 
 with devils, influenced and controlled by the lord of 
 filth. How keenly He must have felt it. He who 
 knew no sin! You know what His reward was: 
 Gethsemane, Golgotha and the grave. When He 
 had finished His three years' ministry, although 
 He had blessed everj^body that would take a bless- 
 ing from Him, His disciples were only a little hand- 
 ful, Jerusalem didn't have room for Plim. People 
 say that if we could have truth and righteousness 
 
68 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 embodied the world would fall down and worship 
 truth. Don't you believe it! Truth was embodied 
 in Jesus Christ, and the world slew Him. That 
 reveals the human heart. 
 
 THE HOME AT BETHANY. 
 
 When the darkness was gathering around His 
 path, and you could hear the mutterings of the 
 storm that was going to sweep Him up to Calvary, 
 there is one star that shines out over the eastern 
 slope of Olivet that is very bright in my estimation. 
 I can imagine one afternoon He stood in the outer 
 court of the temple — for He was never admitted into 
 the inner court — they never allowed Him in the 
 place where the priests were, although it was His 
 own temple — and a woman came in to worship. 
 She saw the crowd, made inquiries as to who the 
 speaker was, and was told that He was the prophet 
 of Galilee. She says: 
 
 'T have heard a great deal of that prophet, but I 
 never heard any good about Him. I am told He is 
 a deceiver and an imposter. I think I will go and 
 hear Him myself." 
 
 I can see that woman. She gets just as near to the 
 speaker as she can, and stands there listening. 
 That afternoon Christ, perhaps, uttered something 
 like this: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give j^ou rest. Take my 
 yoke upon 3^ou and learn of Me, for I am meek and 
 lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your 
 souls; for M^^ yoke is easy and My burden is light." 
 
 "Ah," said that woman, ^'that is what I want. I 
 have sought rest, and have never been able to find it. 
 I have sought it in the law, I have sought it in the 
 
No Room in the Inn. 69 
 
 prophets, I have sought it here in the temple service; 
 but m.y heart is so sad and lonely. Mother is gone, 
 father is dead, and I want comfort. That man 
 speaks of giving comfort; I never heard anything 
 like that before. He doesn't speak like one of the 
 rabbis. He doesn't teach like one of the Sad- 
 ducees or Pharisees. I have never heard anything 
 so sweet." 
 
 It may be that her prejudice and unbelief began 
 to wear awsij, and she said: 
 
 "I have a good mind to ask Him out to my home. 
 But," she says,"If I do, Mary, my sister, will be very 
 angry. Lazarus doesn't believe in Him; he will be 
 angry if I should ask Him. And then I will lose so 
 many of my old friends; they will cut my acquaint- 
 ance. I don't know of any of my Jerusalem friends 
 here that believe in Him; they all think He is an 
 imposter. It will never do to ask Him to my home. 
 I will lose a good many of my life-long friends. I 
 cannot afford to do it." 
 
 Perhaps the greatest struggle of her life went on 
 there for fifteen or twenty minutes, but when He 
 got through teaching, and the crowd began to dis- 
 perse, she said: 
 
 ^1 will ask him." 
 
 She went and asked Him out to Bethany. Now 
 listen: Christ has never refused an invitation 
 during all these nineteen hundred years. I don't 
 care how dark the home is; it may be the home of the 
 vilest drunkard; it may be as dark as midnight; but 
 ask Him to your home, and see how quicklj^ He will 
 accept the invitation. When Martha asked Him 
 out to Bethany' He accepted the invitation. 
 
70 Short Talks by D. L. Mood3^ 
 
 I can just imagine the first night when she got 
 home and told her brother and sister what she had 
 ^one, there was a good deal of opposition. The first 
 time He entered that home, I see Mary looking at 
 Him in a ver^^ suspicious manner. Lazarus, per- 
 haps, doesn't speak to Him. But He hadn't been 
 there a great while before He won His way into their 
 hearts, and all three became His disciples. There 
 was a dark cloud hanging over that home in Beth- 
 an3^ Martha and Mary and Lazarus didn't see it, 
 but the Son of God saw it. He knew what was 
 going to happen; He knew the hour was coming 
 when they were going to need Him a good deal 
 more, perhaps, than they did just then. 
 
 From that time on, when Christ was tired and 
 weary with His work in Jerusalem, He would 
 leave the temple, go out the eastern gate, cross 
 over the brook Kedron, past Gethsemane where 
 He suffered, climb Mount Olivet and go over beyond 
 Bethphage, and down its eastern slope to that 
 town of Bethan}^ Martha alwaj^s had a room 
 ready for Him. The3^ loved to have Him come; 
 He received a warm welcome. He always comes 
 where He is wanted. 
 
 My dear friends, I want to ask you a question: 
 Wasn't it the best day's work that Martha ever did 
 when she received Christ into her home, when she 
 made room in her heart for Him? Can you do a 
 better thing while you are on earth than to make 
 room for the Son of God? He has gone up on high 
 to make room for everj" one that will believe on Him. 
 John caught sight of the eternal city. He gives 
 us a description of the home Christ has gone to 
 
No Room in the Inn. 71 
 
 prepare: "Let not j^oiir heart be troubled; ye 
 believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's 
 house are many mansions: if it were not so I would 
 have told j^ou. I go to prepare a place for you. 
 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
 again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I 
 am, there ye may be also." Don't let us become so 
 engrossed with the world that we forget Him who 
 has gone to make room for us in another and better 
 and brighter world. Don't let the world come in 
 and crowd that blessed Master out. 
 
 Mother, do you remember when that little child of 
 yours died? Didn't you get a good deal of comfort 
 out of the fact that the Son of God would take care 
 of your child — that He had made room up there 
 among the angels and archangels for your child? 
 And will you let this world crowd Him out of your 
 heart? Won't you make room for Him down here? 
 
 A few years ago I was reading of a good mother. 
 A neighbor called on her one morning, and she 
 was weeping bitterly. The neighbor said: 
 
 ''What is the trouble?'' 
 
 She answered, ''You know I have only one 
 child, and that child is fourteen years old to-day. 
 Ever since she was born I have given my time to 
 her. I have left society. Every night I have 
 taken care ot her, and there never has been one 
 night since that child was born that I haven't been 
 up some part of the night with her. An:l after 
 toiling and working for fourteen years" — the child 
 was idiotic — "that child doesn't know me from you. 
 If she would give me one look of recognition, I would 
 be paid for all I have ever done. It is so hard to 
 
72 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 think that that child doesn't know me to-day from 
 you." 
 
 How many of us have received one blessing after 
 another from the Lord of Glory, and we never have 
 once looked up and said, "Thank you. Lord Jesus; 
 I will make room in my heart for you. You love me 
 and I love you. I will serve you." 
 
 Be wise; make room for the Son of God. He 
 comes knocking at the door of your heart, and 
 while He knocks just open the door of your hearts 
 and say: 
 
 "Yes, Thou art welcome, 0, Son of God, into 
 this heart of mine." 
 
 I remember one of the first times I ever spoke out 
 of Chicago. It was in the state of Indiana. A 
 gentleman met me at the train, and took me to his 
 house. He said his wife was busy preparing for 
 the meetings; there were to be quite a number of 
 Sabbath school teachers there, and she was to 
 entertain them, and she would like to be excused; 
 and he had an engagement, and he wanted to be 
 excused too. I asked him if he hadn't any children 
 that I might go out and play with them. 
 
 "I have one, but she is not here," he said; and 
 presently he said, "Mr. Moody, my only child is in 
 heaven; I am glad she is there." 
 
 "How is that? Was anything wrong with her 
 while she was living?" 
 
 "0, no," lie said, and he went across the room, 
 took up one of those old-fashioned daguerreotypes, 
 opened it, and handed it to me. It was a picture of 
 his little girl. The curls lay back upon her neck, 
 and she was a beautiful child. 
 
No Room in the Inn. 73 
 
 "How old was she when God took her?" I asked. 
 
 "She was seven years of age." 
 
 "And you are glad that only child of yours is 
 gone." 
 
 Yes; I think I can honestly say I am glad; yes, 
 sir." 
 
 "Would you tell me why?" 
 
 "When that child was alive I worshipped her. 
 She was the idol of my heart. I had no place for 
 God in any of my plans, everything centered in 
 that child. Every night that I could get away from 
 business early I would take her out riding. Sun- 
 days I used to take her out riding and walking. I 
 gave up my time to that child on Sunday. We 
 never went to church; we didn't care for church. 
 
 "One day I came home from business and found 
 the child sick. She never had been sick. I thought 
 she would soon be wxll, but before I knew it my 
 child was dead. I accused God of being unjust. 
 While others had large families of children, and 
 God had spared them all. He had come into mj^ 
 home and taken my only child. I cursed, and was 
 very bitter. The third day I buried the child. 
 Up to that time I had eaten nothing; I hadn't shed a 
 tear — my grief was too great. When I came back to 
 my home it was as dark as the grave where I had 
 laid my child. I walked up and down my room 
 cursing. All at once I thought I heard her little 
 feet coming towards me. The second thought 
 came: No, they are silent in the grave — I shall never 
 hear them again. Then I thought I heard her 
 voice, and the second thought came: No, that has 
 been silenced by death — I will never hear that voice 
 
74 Short Talks b^- D. L. Mood3^ 
 
 again. Mj^ anguish was so great that I threw 
 myself on the bed and began to weep. While I lay 
 there weeping I fell asleep. I suppose it was a dream, 
 but it alwaj^s seemed like a vision. I dreamed 1 was 
 crossing a barren field, and suddenly came to a 
 river. It looked so dark and cold that I drew back. 
 But I happened to look across the river, and saw the 
 most beautiful land that my eyes had ever rested 
 upon. It was far better than this world, and I stood 
 there gazing upon that land in my dream. I 
 dreamed that death and sickness and sorrow had 
 never entered there. Presently", what was mj^ joy 
 and delight to see beings there, and they all seemed 
 so good and so happy! As I stood there gazing 
 upon them, wishing that I was there, that I could 
 get into that land where death could not come, 
 what was my joj^ and delight to see my own darling 
 child! When she caught sight of me, she left the 
 company and came running down to the banks of 
 the river, and she beckoned with her little hand, 
 and said: 
 
 " 'Father, come over the river. It is beautiful 
 here. Come right this way, father!' 
 
 "In my dream I wxnt down to the river's edge and 
 thought I would cross it, but when I got there I 
 found that it was too deep. I couldn't ford it; I 
 couldn't swim. I tried to find a bridge or ferry, but 
 I could find none. And that little voice sounded 
 sweeter than when on earth, and she kept sajang: 
 
 " 'Father, come right this way, it is beautiful 
 here.' 
 
 ''AH at once I heard a voice; it sounded as if it 
 came from heaven, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and 
 
No Room ill the Inn. 75 
 
 the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.* 
 The voice woke me from my sleep. I thought it 
 was God calHng me. I knelt that very hour by my 
 bed, and gave myself to Jesus Christ; now my wife 
 has been converted; I am superintendent of the 
 Sabbath School; eight children in that school have 
 been converted, and I no longer look upon my child 
 as sleeping in the grave where I laid her, but it seems 
 to me as if I see her in that world of light beckoning 
 me to a better world. Every night as I lie down 
 it seems to me as if my child is calling me. Every 
 morning when I get up it seems to me as if my 
 child is saying, ^ Come, father, right this way.' 
 I expect to spend eternity with her." 
 
 Am I not speaking to many to-day whose fathers 
 and mothers have gone before them, and if they 
 could speak, wouldn't they saj^, "Come this way, 
 my son; come this way, my daughter?" Am I not 
 speaking to parents whose loved ones have gone 
 before, and who want to make room for you up 
 there? Thank God, nineteen hundred years ago 
 the Son of God crossed the stream, and to-day lie 
 is calling j^ou. Oh, man, woman, won't you make 
 room for Him? 
 
REGENERATION. 
 
 I was twenty years old before I ever heard a ser- 
 mon on regeneration. I was always told to be 
 good, but you might as well tell a black man to be 
 a white man as to tell him to be good without telling 
 him how. You might tell a slave to be free, but 
 that would not make him free, if you didn't help 
 him. Christ not only tells us to be free, but He 
 frees us. In the third chapter of Genesis we read 
 how man lost life. In the third chapter of John we 
 find how he gets it back again. 
 
 We are a bad lot, the whole of us, by nature. It 
 is astonishing how the devil does blind us and 
 makes us think we are so naturally good. 
 
 Suppose that your sins could all be stamped on 
 your forehead, do you not think there would be a 
 stampede? Take the best man there is here, the 
 natural man that never has been born from above, 
 never has been born of the Spirit, and suppose that 
 everything in his heart could be brought to light. 
 Suppose a photographer could take a photograph 
 of the heart, do you think they would find anyone 
 who would be willing to have such a photograph 
 taken? Ladies crimp their hair and put on their 
 best clothes; and men dress up and go to the barber's 
 to get shaved, and then they go and have their 
 pictures taken; and if the photographer flatters 
 them and makes them look ten years younger, they 
 say, "You are the first man to do me justice," and 
 they order ten dozen photographs and send them to 
 all their friends. That isn't a real photograph. 
 Suppose he took a photograph of your heart, 
 
 (76) 
 
Regeneration. 77 
 
 would you send those around? Not much; you 
 would break the plate and abuse the artist. Don't 
 talk to me about people being naturally good and 
 angelic. We are naturally bad^ the whole of us. 
 The first man born of woman was a murderer. 
 Sin leaped into the world full grown, and the whole 
 race has been bad all the way down. Man is 
 naturally bad. 
 
 Man has lost the image of God. Take just one 
 description that Christ gives of the human heart: 
 "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, 
 adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, 
 blasphemies; these are the things which defile the 
 man." Now, I want to ask you how in the world 
 can you get a pure stream when you have such an 
 impure fountain? The trouble with people is that 
 they are trying to make that stream good while the 
 fountain is bad. It isn't patching up the old man 
 that is needed, but it is hewing down that tree and 
 putting a new graft in. It is an entire change — a 
 new creation. 
 
 I have heard of reform, reform, until I am tired 
 and sick of the whole thing. It is regeneration by 
 the power of the Holy Ghost that we need. It isn't 
 this trying to make men believe that they have just 
 come a little short of the glory of God, and if they 
 just apply a little whitewash on the outside, they 
 will be all right. You may whitewash a pest-house 
 but it will be a pest-house still. 
 
 I heard an Englishman tell of a man who bought 
 a farm. There was a well on the farm, and they told 
 him there was poison in the well. He said, "AIJ 
 right, I will fix it/' and went and painted the pump. 
 
78 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 thinking he was going to make the well all right by 
 painting the pump. There are a lot of people who 
 think the3^ are going to make the well all right by 
 painting the pump. What 3^011 want is to go to the 
 source. Make the fountain good, and the stream 
 will be good. Let the heart be right, and the life 
 will be right, the hand will be right, the foot will be 
 right. The seat of trouble is the heart, and what 
 man needs is a new heart, a new creation. 
 
 The new birth isn't good resolutions, or good 
 intentions, or turning oyer a new leaf, or making 
 promises, or making vows. That isn't the new 
 birth at all. 
 
 Perhaps some of you say, "What is it?" 
 
 Well, listen: "He came unto His own, and His 
 own received Him not; but as many as received 
 Him, to them gave He power to become the sons 
 of God, even to them that believe on His name: 
 which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
 
 When I was born of my mother, I got a nature 
 from mj^ mother, and I got a life from her; but in 
 Boston seventeen years afterward, I was born from 
 above; I got Hfe from God; a new life, distinct and 
 separate from the natural life. I got a life that is 
 as everlasting as God's life; a life that there is no 
 end to; eternal life. How did I get it? 63^ receiv- 
 ing the Word of God into my heart. Christ says, 
 'The words that I speak unto 37'ou, the3^ are spirit, 
 and the3^ are life." There is life in His word. You 
 take the Word of God into 3^our heart, and there is 
 the germ, there is the life. If I should take my 
 watch and plant it, I wouldn't get an3^ little watches, 
 
Regeneration. 79 
 
 would I? Why? Because the germ of life isn't 
 there. If I should plant a bushel of gravel, I 
 wouldn't get any more gravel, would I? But let 
 me plant a bushel of corn at the proper time, let me 
 get the seed and put it into the ground in the month 
 of Ma}^ and let the dews of heaven come upon the 
 land, and the rain and the sun, and out of the death 
 of that corn will come a new life. "The words that 
 I speak unto 3^ou, they are spirit and thej^ are life." 
 Then the Bible speaks, in another place, of "the 
 incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God." 
 
 Culture is all right in its place, but to talk about 
 culture before a man is born of God, before he has 
 received this incorruptible seed into his heart, is the 
 height of madness. Suppose I commence the first 
 day of Ma3^ and plow an acre of groundcrosswise, 
 and the next daj^ I plow it lengthwise, and every 
 da}^ in the week except Sunday I plow that acre of 
 land. I begin the first day of Ma}^ and plow 
 all through Maj^ and June and July. Once in 
 a while I put a cultivator in and cultivate it, and I 
 harrow it, and brush it, and roll it. I have been 
 harrowing, brushing, rolling and cultivating for 
 months, and you come along and say: 
 
 "Mood}^ what are you doing?" 
 
 "Doing! I am cultivating this acre of land." 
 
 "Well, I should say so! I was around here last 
 Maj^ and you were plowing that acre of land. 
 Been at it ever since?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What are you going to put in it?" 
 
 "Well, I am not going to put anything in it, but 
 I beheve in a high state of culture." 
 
8o vShort Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 You would say I was a first-class lunatic! But 
 that is what is going on all the while in spiritual 
 ftiings. 
 
 Put the seed in, and then pray God that the dew 
 of heaven imiy rest upon it, and j^ou will have some 
 results. There isn't a sower that goes forth and 
 sows that kind of seed, but there are results. 
 
 To become a partaker of the divine nature is the 
 greatest blessing that can come to any man this 
 side of heaven. God has been very, very good to 
 me. 1 can't tell you how good He has been these 
 forty odd years. It has just been blessing upon 
 blessing. He has just piled them up, oh, so high! 
 I can't begin to tell you the goodness of God. But 
 there is one blessing that just towers high above 
 them all. You go to Washington and you will 
 find there is one monument high above every- 
 thing else^ — George Washington's monument. And 
 there is one blessing that came to me one night — 
 I remember the night — it was in a shoe store in 
 Boston. I never go to Boston that I don't go 
 around and take a look at that place where God 
 met me and God imparted to me a new nature. 
 Old things passed away that night; a new life 
 dawned upon me; and that is the greatest blessing 
 that has ever come to me this side of heaven. I 
 got God's nature, a new nature, distinct and 
 separate from the old nature. All the infidels that 
 I have had come to me during these forty years and 
 trj^ to take it out of me, they might as well try to 
 move Gibraltar. Don't I know there came a mar- 
 velous change that night that has transformed my 
 life? I would doubt my existence as quick as I 
 
Regeneration. 8i 
 
 would doubt that fact. If you are not sure that 
 you have become a partaker of the divine nature 
 don't eat, drink or sleep until you get that new 
 nature. 
 
 And when you get that new nature, it is easy to 
 serve God. His j^oke is easy. His burden is light. 
 It is a joy and delight. God isn't a hard master. 
 
 Oh, man, woman, you may be deceived about 
 ten thousand things, but do not be deceived on this 
 one thing! Make sure you have the divine nature, 
 that you have been born from above, that you have 
 been born of God, that you have a life that has come 
 from God distinct and separate from the natural 
 life, the carnal life; a new life, a new creation. 
 
 In India the swan is considered a sacred bird. 
 They have a legend there that one day an old crane 
 was out on the beach looking for snails, and down 
 came a big white swan. The crane stretched out 
 its great long neck, and said to the swan: 
 
 "Where do j^ou come from?" 
 
 The swan said he came down from heaven. 
 
 "Heaven!" said the crane, "I never heard of that 
 place. Is it far away?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Is it a good country?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Is it better than this?" 
 
 "Oh, far better"; and the swan went on expatiat- 
 ing about heaven, about its lakes and its rivers 
 and its fountains and its climate. 
 
 The old crane stood there listening, and when the 
 swan got through, said: 
 
 "Have they any snails there?" 
 
82 Short Talks by D. L. Mooch^ 
 
 The swan drew itself up and said, "No, vile 
 things! They wouldn't have them in heaven." 
 
 "Well, then," said the crane, 'Voi-i can have your 
 heaven. I don't want it, I want snails." 
 
 Don't you see a might3^ truth wrapped up in that 
 legend? I have had mothers come to me cind sa3", 
 "Mr. Moodj^, isn't it strange that my boy doesn't 
 like spiritual things? Isn't it strange that he 
 would rather have low earthly things than spiritual 
 things?" Strange? No! The natural man likes 
 natural things, of course. The worldly man likes 
 worldly things. A¥h\^ shouldn't he? And the 
 spiritual man likes spiritual things. Did you 
 ever see a young man that has a beautiful mother, 
 a lovely home, a godl3^ father, and loving brothers 
 and sisters, and the home a little paradise on earth, 
 and he will turn his back on that home and go 
 down to Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and 
 get into what you call the slums, and he will go 
 down, down, until he gets to a miserable old saloon 
 where he is willing to clean out spittoons for drink. 
 Tell him his mother wants him, is pra3^ing for 
 him, and will give him a warm welcome, tell him 
 how his father will receive him, tell him there is 
 going to be rejoicing in his home if he will come 
 back, tell him how his brothers and sisters long to 
 have him come back, and he will turn and say: 
 
 "No, I want whiskey- !" 
 
 He has the old nature. He wants snails. 
 
 Tell him that he is going to lose his soul, tell him 
 he is making shipwreck of his life — in fact he has 
 made shipwreck of his life — tell him about the glories 
 of heaven, and he will say: 
 
Regeneration. 83 
 
 "You can have . heaven with all its glory. 
 You may have my mother; I will crush her under 
 my heal. I despise Christianity." 
 
 He has the old carnal nature. But if he gets 
 God's nature, he gets out from those surroundings 
 pretty quickly. You can't keep him there, I 
 have seen men down in the slums converted, 
 changed, and the next night they would have a 
 new paper collar, and in the course of a week they 
 are out of that crowd. What men want is to be 
 born from above, born again, born of the Spirit; 
 and then they will live for heaven. And you will 
 never get a man or woman that will live for heaven 
 until the}^ are born from above, until they get the 
 divine life. 
 
 How solemn these w^ords are : "Except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,'' 
 much less inherit it. If this thing be true, it is a 
 most solemn thing, and you and I cannot afford 
 to be deceived. Let us put the question here to our- 
 selves: Have I really been born of the Spirit? 
 
 I just as much believe that a man has got to be 
 born from above before he wants to go to heaven, 
 as I believe that I exist. Take an unregenerated 
 man, and put him under the shadow of the tree of 
 life, and it would be hell to him. Take the carnal 
 man, the natural man, and put him in the crj^stal 
 pavements of heaven, and it would be hell to him. 
 Man has got to have a divine nature before he will 
 want to go to heaven. If he has this low nature, 
 he doesn't want to go there. He would be out of 
 his element, he would be out of his atmosphere, if 
 he got there. 
 
84 Short Talks by D. L. Mood}^ 
 
 Make sure that 3^ou are in the Kingdom, that 3^011 
 have been born into it. We have a law in this 
 country that no man can be president of the United 
 States unless he was born here. I never heard any 
 foreigner complain of that law. I want to know if 
 the God of Heaven hasn't a right to say who shall 
 come into His Kingdom, and hasn't He a right to 
 say how they shall enter it? I think He has. 
 
 This is an awful'^?- solemn question. Put it now 
 to yourselves: "Have I been born again? Have I 
 received the gift of God, which is eternal life?" If 
 you haven't, let this truth sink into 3^our soul, that 
 you will never see the Kingdom of God. You may 
 see the kingdoms of this world, but the Kingdom of 
 God you will never see. You may cross the At- 
 lantic, and 3^ou may go to London and see the 
 Prince of Wales, 3^ou may go to German}^ and see 
 the Crown Prince of German}^ 3^ou ma^^ go to Italy, 
 you may go to other nations; but the Prince of 
 Peace you will never see. Your uncircumcised 
 e3^e shall never rest upon him, except j^ou are born 
 again. You may go to London and go into the 
 tower of London and see the crown of England, but 
 the crown of glory j^our eyes shall never rest upon. 
 You ma3^ go across this continent, and you may see 
 those trees that have been growing out there on the 
 Pacific Coast, some of them were perhaps growing 
 when Moses was on earth, but there is one tree that 
 your e3-es shall never rest upon, the Tree of Life 
 that grows in the midst of the paradise of God. 
 You ma3^ see the beautiful cities of the earth; you 
 may see old Rome, and London, and Paris, and 
 New York in all their glory, but the city which 
 
Regeneration. 85 
 
 hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, 
 your uncircuiTicised eye shall never rest upon. 
 You may see the beautiful rivers of earth; you maj^ 
 see the great Mississippi; j^ou may see the Amazon 
 and other mighty rivers; but the river that bursts 
 from the throne of God, your eye shall never rest 
 upon except you are born again. 
 
 Mother, perhaps j^ou have not a hope in Jesus 
 Christ, That little child that left you a few months 
 ago lived long enough to twine itself around your 
 heart, then death came and took that little child 
 into a brighter and better world: you will nevei^ 
 see that child again except you are born of God. 
 
 Oh, how solemn, how awfully solemn these 
 thoughts are! If any of you have loved ones that 
 have a glorious hope of immortality, and they are 
 beckoning you to a better and brighter world, oh 
 man, woman, be wise, be wise to-night; make sure 
 you get into the Kingdom of God. Make sure 
 nowl 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 
 
 In I Peter i: l8, we read: ''Forasmuch as ye 
 know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
 things, as silver and gold, from your vain conver- 
 sation, received by tradition from your fathers, 
 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot." 
 
 Peter was an old man when he wrote those words. 
 I suppose the blood of Jesus grew more precious to 
 him as the years went by. 
 
 IT REDEEMS. 
 
 Now, why is it precious? First, because it 
 redeems us. Not only from the hands of the devil, 
 but from the hands of the law. It redeems me from 
 the curse of the law; it brings me out from under 
 the law. The law condemns me, but Christ has 
 satisfied the claims of the law. He tasted death for 
 every man, and He has made it possible for everv 
 man to be saved. Paul sa3^s, God gave Him up 
 freelv for us all, and what we want to do is to take 
 Him. 
 
 Silver and gold could not redeem our souls. 
 Our life had been forfeited. Death had come into 
 the world by sin, and nothing but blood could atone 
 for the soul. If gold and silver could have redeemed 
 us, do 3'ou not think that God would have created 
 millions of worlds full of gold? It would have been 
 an easy matter for Him. But we are not redeemed 
 by such corruptible things, but by the precious 
 blood of Christ, Redemption means "bu^ang 
 
 (86) 
 
The Precious Blood. • 87 
 
 back"; we had sold ourselves for naught, and Christ 
 redeemed us and bought us back. 
 
 A friend in Ireland once met a little Irish boj^ 
 who had caught a sparrow. The poor little bird 
 was trembling in his hand, and seemed very anxious 
 to escape. The gentleman begged the boy to let it 
 go, as the bird could not do him any good; but the 
 boy said he would not, for he had chased it three 
 hours before he could catch it. He tried to reason it 
 out with the boj^, but it vain. At last he offered 
 to buy the bird. The boy agreed to the price, and 
 it was paid. Then the gentleman took the poor 
 little thing, and held it out on his hand. The boy 
 had been holding it very fast, for the boj^ was 
 stronger than the bird, just as Satan is stronger 
 than we; and there it sat for a time scarcely able to 
 realize the fact that it had got liberty; but in a little 
 it flew away chirping, as if to say to the gentleman: 
 "Thank you! thank you! you have redeemed me." 
 That is what redemption is — buying back and 
 setting free. Christ came to break the fetters of 
 sin, to open the prison doors and set the sinner free. 
 
 IT BLOTS OUT SIN. 
 
 It is precious, because it h ots out sin. Thank 
 God for that! You see a cloud, and it is gone soon 
 into vapor and disappears; can it ever be found in 
 the history of the world? Never. There may be 
 other clouds, but that cloud will never appear again. 
 A child writes on his slate, and then rubs the 
 writing out. Where is it gone? It can not be found. 
 Can any of your modern philosophers find it? 
 And so does the blood of Jesus Christ blot out 
 
S8 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 sin. There was a woman in Ireland thej^ were 
 telling about when I was over there, that had a 
 little class in school; and she asked if there was 
 anything that God couldn't do. And one little 
 child said, "Yes, He can't see my sins through the 
 blood of Jesus Christ." That is what He cannot 
 do. The blood just blots out. 
 
 I believe that when we get to heaven we will find 
 men whom we have known to be thieves and drunk- 
 ards and murderers, men as black and vile as any 
 men that ever trod this earth, as pure as the Son of 
 God, because the blood of Jesus Christ has made 
 them clean. And so any man or woman in this 
 wide world who is steeped in the blackest kind of 
 sin, can be as white as a lily by the blood of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 IT BRINGS US NIGH. 
 
 Another thing: the blood brings us nigh. 
 
 "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were 
 far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ" 
 (Ephesians ii: 13). 
 
 It not only brings us near to God, but brings us 
 near to one another. I can go to any community 
 where I am an entire stranger, and preach this 
 doctrine of atonement, and get better acquainted 
 in twenty- four hours than I could iM talked about 
 old Socrates and Plato for twentj^-four 3^ ears. 
 The blood brings us nigh; we realize that we are 
 "blood relatives." The tie is stronger than any 
 natural tie. If a church got divided and I wanted 
 to bring them together, what I would do would be 
 to preach Christ. Hold up the cross, and j^ou will 
 
The Precious Blood. 89 
 
 get the true behevers around it in a Uttle while; 
 but go to preaching science and botany and astron- 
 omy and metaphj^sics, and you will get them all 
 quarreling. The cross is the drawing power. 
 The cross is the center. Bring people nigh to it 
 and you bring them nigh to each other. 
 
 Let some one die, and see how quickly the family 
 will come together. So we gather around the 
 cross where Christ died for me and for you. That 
 brings us nigh; I am a blood relative of yours. 
 
 IT MAKES PEACE. 
 
 The blood is precious because it makes peace, 
 ''Having made peace through the blood of the 
 cross" (Colossians i: 20). 
 
 You can look for peace the world over, and you 
 will never find it until you get to the cross. You 
 haven't got to make it; it is already made. Did 
 you ever think, when Christ died, He made out His 
 will? Perhaps you thought you had never been 
 mentioned in any will. Well, you have, if you are 
 a child of God. When Christ was on the cross. 
 He made out His wdll. He willed His spirit back 
 to His Father; He willed His body to Joseph of 
 Arimathea; He willed His mother to John the son 
 of Zebedee; and then to His disciples He said, "Peace 
 I leave with you; My peace I give unto you." Joy 
 and peace were His legacies. Prett}^ good legacies, 
 weren't the}^? You can have them if you will. 
 
 The}^ say now-a-daj^s that they can't make a will 
 that is so sure that some keen lawyer can't smash 
 it all to pieces; but I challenge any man to break 
 Christ's will. He rose to execute His own will. 
 
90 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 Neither man or devil can break it. He made peace 
 by His blood on the cross. 
 
 I want to say very emphatically that I do not 
 believe there is a man or a woman on this earth 
 who knows what peace of conscience and peace of 
 mind and peace of soul are who doesn't know the 
 doctrine of the atonement. I do not believe there 
 is a spot where peace can be found except under 
 the shadow of the cross. The billows may come 
 surging and rolling up against us, but if we find 
 refuge and shelter under the cross of Jesus Christ 
 we have peace. 
 
 Do you want peace? Is your soul tossed on the 
 waves of trouble and sorrow and persecution? If 
 you do, my friends, just get hold of this doctrine. 
 
 During the last days of the civil war, when many 
 men were deserting from the South, Secretary 
 Stanton sent out a notice from the War Depart- 
 ment that no more refugees be taken into the Union 
 army. A Southern soldier hadn't seen that, and 
 he came into the Union lines and they read the 
 order to him. He didn't know what to do. If he 
 went back into the Southern arni}^ he would be 
 shot as a deserter, and the Northern army wouldn't 
 have him. So he went into the woods between the 
 armies and staj^ed until he got starved out. He 
 saw an officer going by, and he rushed out of the 
 woods and told this officer that if he didn't help him 
 he would have to take his life. The officer asked 
 what was the trouble. He told him. The officer 
 said: 
 
 "Haven't j^ou heard the news?" 
 
 "No, what news?" 
 
The Precious Blood. 91 
 
 "Why, the war is over. Lee has surrendered. 
 Peace is declared. Go to the first town, and get all 
 the food you want." 
 
 The man waved his hat and went to the town as 
 quick as he could. 
 
 I want to say that peace is declared, the war is 
 over. Be ye reconciled to God, and the whole thing 
 is settled. The trouble is on your side. The blood 
 is on the mercy seat, and as long as it is there the 
 vilest sinner can enter and be saved for time and 
 eternity. 
 
 IT JUSTIFIES. 
 
 It is precious, because it justifies me. ''Being 
 now justified by His blood we shall be saved from 
 wrath through Him" (Romans v: 9). 
 
 I haven't been able to climb up to the height of 
 that word "justified." Do you know what it means? 
 It is better than pardon. Justification means that 
 there isn't a charge against you. Your sins are 
 completely wiped out; they are not to be remembered; 
 they are not to be mentioned. Think of it! God 
 says He puts them out of His memory. In other 
 words, I have been running up an account down at 
 the grocery store for some j^ears, and I haven't any 
 money to pay. I go down there, and the store- 
 keeper says: 
 
 "Mr. Mood}^, I have good news for you. A friend 
 of yours came here to-day and paid the whole l^ill; 
 it is all settled." 
 
 That is justification. "Who shall lay anything 
 to the charge of God's elect? God thtit justifieth?" 
 He won't do it; He would be a strange judge if He 
 justified a nmn and then brought a charge against 
 
92 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 him. "Who is he that condemneth? Christ that 
 died, yea, rather that is risen again?" Thank 
 God for the precious blood which justifies me. No 
 wonder when that truth dawned on Martin Luther, 
 he rose and he shook all Europe. 
 
 IT CLEANSES. 
 
 It is precious because it cleanses me. "li we walk 
 in the light, as He is in the lig ht, We have fellowship 
 one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His 
 Son cleanseth us from all sin" (I John i: 7). 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. 
 Think of it. Not a part of our sin, but ALL. We 
 Christians ought to be the happiest people in the 
 world. 
 
 IT GIVES BOLDNESS. 
 
 And it is precious because it is going to give me 
 boldjiess in the day of judgment. Isn t that good? 
 
 Do you know I pity these people who live all 
 their life-time under the bondage of death. If I am 
 behind the blood of the Son of God, judgment is 
 already passed; it is behind me; it is not before me. 
 Know ye not that ye shall judge the world? People 
 live in constant dread of the great white throne 
 judgment. When that comes, I am going to be 
 with Christ on the throne, I am not going to be 
 judged! That day is passed to the true child of 
 God. "He was wounded for our transgressions. 
 He was bruised for our iniquities," and is God going 
 to demand pajanent twice? I am going to have 
 boldness in the day of judgment. 
 
The Precious Blood. 93 
 
 There is a story of a man who was going to be 
 tried for his hfe, and if found guilty there was no 
 hope for him unless the king would intercede. 
 They went to the king, and he finally consented 
 to give a pardon, but he said: 
 
 "Let it be secret, and if the man isn't condemned, 
 do not say anything about it; if he is condemned, he 
 can use the pardon." 
 
 The man went into court with the pardon in his 
 pocket, and he was quite cheerful about his trial. 
 It went against him, and when the judge pro- 
 nounced the sentence upon him, he took pains to 
 say that he and the whole court were shocked to 
 think that a man could be on trial for his life and 
 be so unconcerned. 
 
 When the judge got through, the man stepped up 
 and laid the king's pardon on the judge's desk, and 
 walked out bold as a lion. 
 
 You have a charge against me. What do I care? 
 God has justified me. He comes and says, "Moody, 
 you are a saved man." Yes, saved by grace, saved 
 for time and for eternity. 
 
EMBLEMS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.— L FIRE. 
 
 The "best definition I can find of "emlDlems of the 
 Holy Spirit" is: God's chosen illustrations from 
 natural things to help us to understand the work of 
 the Holy Spirit, whereby, through the phj^sical 
 senses, we may get a clear grasp of important 
 spiritual truth. 
 
 The first emblem of which I want to speak is fire. 
 There are three things that this holy fire does — it 
 searches, it purifies, it illuminates. 
 
 I. FIRE SEARCHES. 
 
 Some 3^ears ago, at the beginning of one of the 
 Northfield conferences, a minister preached on the 
 text, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
 Ghost is come upon 3^ou." Through the whole 
 audience there was hardly a man that did not rise 
 to show that he wanted to receive that power. A 
 week later some of them were in a wretched state. 
 They found that they were not readj^ to receive the 
 power, and we had to turn to the one hundred and 
 thirty-ninth Psalm, last two verses. What a day 
 it was! I believe that great good was done when 
 we got on our faces and made this praj^er from 
 our hearts: ''Search me, God, and know vny 
 heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if 
 there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the 
 way everlasting." There is no use talking to others 
 until we are right ourselves. "Search me, God" 
 — not my neighbor, not my friend, but me. If the 
 Holy Ghost searches us, it will be a heart work. 
 
 (94; 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 95 
 
 This is precisel}^ whcit God's hoh^ fire does; it 
 searches. When I was going through the land of 
 Goshen in Egj^pt, a few j^ears ago, as I came near 
 the cit3^ of Alexandria, I saw the strangest sight I. 
 had ever seen. The heavens were lit njD with a new 
 kind of light, and there seemed to be flash after 
 flash. I couldn't understand it. I had heard that 
 the Khedive had died, and that a new Khedive was 
 coming into power. I found later that England 
 had sent over some war vessels, and the moment 
 that darkness came on they had turned their search- 
 lights upon that cit^^ It was almost as light as 
 at noondaj^ Everj^ street was lit up, and I do 
 not suppose that ten men could have met in any 
 part of Alexandria without being discovered by 
 that searchlight. Now I am anxious that God 
 maj^ tiirn His searchlight upon us, and see if there 
 be any evil weiy in us; and when we get right our- 
 selves there is no trouble about reaching other 
 peoi:)le. 
 
 2. FIRE PURIFIES. 
 
 "I indeed baptize 3^ou with water unto re- 
 pentance," said John the Baptist, ''but He shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire." Until the fire came the disciples were 
 not qualified to work for God. They were all 
 the time making blunders. The two sons of 
 Zebedee, afterwards noted for their meekness 
 and humility, wanted to call down fire from 
 heaven and consume a town in Samaria that 
 had refused Christ the common hospitality of that 
 day. Christ came not to destroy life but to give 
 
q6 Short Talks by D. L. Mood3\ 
 
 life. The disciples never did a thing or said a thing 
 that was worth recording until the fire of Pentecost 
 came and took the dross out of them. 
 
 There are some things that water cannot do. It 
 may cleanse the outside, but fire searches not only 
 the outside but the inside; it is penetrating. Take 
 a lump of quartz, filled with beautiful pieces of gold, 
 which you can see sparkle. If dust gets on it and 
 covers up the gold, 3^ou can wash the dust oft'. 
 But there is one thing j^ou cannot do with water — 
 you cannot get the gold away from the dross. 
 There is onl}^ one \v3.j to do that — put it into the 
 fire and melt it. Then the pure gold will come out, 
 and the dross may be thrown awa\". What we need 
 is to have the fire kindled that shall burn up all the 
 dross and let the pure gold shine forth. 
 
 Notice also in the Bible that when God called a 
 man to do a higher service He met him in fire, 
 Moses had all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He 
 had been forty years in the schools of the Egj^ptians; 
 he had been forty years back there in the desert; 
 eighty years, and yet that man never did an5^thing 
 good that was worth putting on record! In fact, he 
 made a blunder; he killed an Egj^ptian and had to 
 flee. His life w^as a failure up to the time that God 
 met him at the burning bush. That marked a 
 new epoch in his history, and if you meet the God 
 of the burning bush you will remember how you 
 met Him. From the time that God met Moses at 
 the burning bush, he became one of the greatest 
 powers this world ever had. Isaiah and Job and 
 Jeremiah and Moses, all of them had to fall before 
 God and see their utter unfitness for the work. 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 97 
 
 Have you who have gone into Christian work 
 ever had any such experience? Have you ever 
 passed through the furnace, and been taught by 
 the Spirit of God that all your natural gifts go for 
 naught unless you have the fire of heaven in your 
 soul? You can't go on heavenly missions without 
 heavenly fire. When Isaiah saw the vision of God's 
 glory he said, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because 
 I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst 
 (of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen 
 the King, the Lord of Hosts." Death to self; that is 
 what it means. The first step to a higher service 
 is the end of self. God's way up is down. God 
 Qever yet lifted up a man high that He did not 
 cast him down first; never. Self must be annihil- 
 ated. When we get to the end of our own power, 
 then it is that the power of God is manifested in us. 
 
 People say they haven't strength. The fact is, 
 they think they have too much. People say they 
 haven't wisdom. The fact is, they think they have 
 too much wisdom. Oh, may this fire come upon 
 us., and burn up all our own strength and wisdom, 
 so that we may lean upon God's strength and God's 
 wisdom! 
 
 You ask, "How am I to humble myself and get to 
 the end of myself?" I will tell you. One look at 
 God does the work. Isaiah saw God lifted high on 
 His throne; and what a blessing he has been all 
 these centuries. Why? Because he was purified 
 by the God of heaven and received a divine call. 
 Let this purifying process go on. If there is some- 
 thing wrong in your life, make up your mind you 
 are going to get right, first of all. No man or 
 
98 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 woman is ready to receive the gifts of God until the 
 heart is right. 
 
 3. FIRE ILLUMINATES. 
 
 When God has searched and purified you and 
 made you a vessel fit for His use, the next thing is. 
 He will illuminate you. 
 
 What this country wants is some illuminated 
 Christians — men and w^omen lit up by the Holy 
 Ghost. If we are so lit up by the Spirit of God it 
 will not be necessary for ministers to stir us up to 
 work; they w411 have to hold us in. In Hebrews, 
 the first chapter and the seventh verse, we read, 
 "And of the angels He saith, W^ho maketh His angels 
 spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." A flame 
 of fire! that is w^hat we w^ant — illumination. As 
 the Quakers call it, an "indw^elling light." 
 
 What did the one hundred and twenty disciples 
 get on the day of Pentecost? Ilhimination. The 
 light of heaven flashed in upon them. Remember 
 Stephen's shining face. We see very few illumi- 
 nated Christians now. If every one of us was illu- 
 minated by the Spirit of Go.d, how wx could light up 
 the churches! But to have a lantern without any 
 light, that would be a nuisance. A Christian 
 without light is like that. Manj^ Christians carr^^ 
 along lanterns and say, "I wouldn't give up my 
 religion for yours." The3^ talk about religion. 
 The religion that has no fire is like a painted fire. 
 They are artificial Christians. Do you belong to 
 that class? You can tell. If you can't, your 
 friends can. 
 
 There is a fable of an old lantern in a shed, which 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 99 
 
 began to boast because it had heard its master say- 
 he didn't know what he would ever do without it. 
 But the little candle within spoke up and said: 
 
 "Yes, 3^ou'd be a great comfort if it wasn't for me! 
 You are nothing; Fm the one that gives the light." 
 • We are nothing, but Christ is everything, and 
 what we want is to keep in communion with Him 
 and let Christ dwell in us richly, and shine forth 
 through us. 
 
 I have a match box with a phosphorescent front. 
 It draws in the rays of the sun during the day and 
 then throws them out in the dead hours of the 
 night, so that I can always see it in the dark. Now 
 that is what we ought to be, constantly drawing 
 in the raj^s of the Sun of Righteousness and then 
 giving them out. Some one said to a young con- 
 vert: 
 
 "It is all moonshine being converted." 
 
 He replied, "Thank 3^ou for the compliment. 
 The moon borrows light from the sun, and so I 
 borrow mine from the Sun of Righteousness." 
 
 That is what takes j^lace when we have this 
 illumination. 
 
 When the early Christians had been purified, and 
 at last were ready, they lit up all Jerusalem, and the 
 light spread from Jerusalem to Samaria and to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth, I believe if we could 
 get that fire of Pentecost into the church of God, 
 Christianity would have a mighty power. 
 
 The tabernacle in the Wilderness was lit up all 
 the time. The cloud of the Lord was upon it by 
 day, and the c'oud of fire was on it in the night, in 
 the sight of the house of Israel throughout all their 
 
TOO Short Talks b3^ D. L. Moody. 
 
 journeys. Then when Solomon had fin shed the 
 temple in Jerusalem the Shechinah came in and 
 filled it with the glory of God, and the fire burned 
 there day and night. What do we represent now? 
 Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost. As 
 the Hol3^ Ghost lit up the tabernacle in the desert, 
 and the temple at Jerusalem, so we are to be lit up 
 by the Spirit. Let us ask God to keep this fire burning. 
 
 One verse from Jeremiah: "Then I said, I will 
 not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in 
 His name. But His word was in my heart as a 
 burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary 
 with forbearing, and I could not stay." When we 
 are filled with the Spirit of God and the Word of 
 God, we cannot but speak. We cannot but shine. 
 A lighthouse does not need to make itself shine; it 
 can t help it. You don't have to put up a notice. 
 "This is a lighthouse." The light tells its own 
 story. I pity a person who goes around with a 
 little light saying, "Look at my light; I shine." 
 If you are filled with the Spirit of God you will shine 
 so that no one will need to be told. 
 
 I do not know of anything that America needs 
 more to-day than men and women on fire with the 
 fire of heaven; and I have yet to find a man or 
 woman on fire with the Spirit of God that is a fail- 
 ure. I believe it is utterly impossible. They are 
 never discouraged or disheartened. They rise 
 higher and higher, and it grows better and better 
 all the while. My dear friends, if you haven't 
 this illumination, make up 3^our minds you are 
 goine to have it. Pray: "0 God, illuminate me. 
 Go^d, fill me with Thy Holy Spirit." 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. lOI 
 
 EMBLEMS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.— IL WATER. 
 
 AVater has three characteristics as an emblem of 
 the Spirit — cleansing, fertilizing, and refreshing. 
 
 We read in Ezekiel xxxvi: 25-28: 
 
 "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and 
 ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from 
 all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also 
 will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within 
 3-ou; and I will take away the stony heart out of 
 your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 
 And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you 
 to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judg- 
 ments and do them.'' 
 
 Notice, a work of cleansing, a work of renewing, 
 a work of empowering. In the fourth chapter of 
 John we see how literally that was fulfilled: 
 
 "Jesus answered and said unto her. If thou 
 knewest the gift of God, and who it is saith unto thee. 
 Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, 
 and He would have given thee living water. Who- 
 soever drinketh of the water that I shall give him 
 shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him 
 shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
 everlasting life." 
 
 He gave the woman of Samaria a draught of that 
 water, and it took all the vileness from her; she was 
 cleansed, and became a power from that very hour. 
 If He heard the prayer of that fallen Samaritan 
 woman and gave her that water, will He not hear 
 3^ou if you desire above everything else the water 
 of life? The Lord delights to hear and answer 
 
102 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 prayer. He gave that woman more than she 
 expected. She came to get a pot of water, and, 
 thank God, she got a fountain of Hving water 
 bubbhng up in her hfe! Water rises up to its own 
 level. This water came down from heaven and 
 carried her back to the very presence of God, so that 
 she became from that very hour transformed and 
 changed. 
 
 I.. WATER CLEANSES. 
 
 This work has been going on all these centuries. 
 There is not a person whose heart may not be pure 
 and white and clean if he will let this living water 
 flow into it. The Lord is just as read^^ to hear 
 prayer as ever. I remember during the war, a 
 soldier who cried out, "Oh, for a draught of water 
 from my father's well!" It was in the spring of the 
 year, and the water was mudd3^ The dying 
 soldiers were very thirsty, for the loss of b ood in 
 the hot weather brought on great thirst. That poor 
 fellow, like David when he sighed for the water of 
 Bethlehem, said, "Oh, for a draught of water from 
 my father's well!" I believe when that cr}^ goes up 
 from a thirsty soul, God delghts to give us the 
 living water. 
 
 People ask, "How can I keep impure thoughts 
 out of my mind?" The Bible tells us (Eph. v: 26) 
 that there is no way except to let this living water 
 flow constantl}^ through 3^our mind. We are 
 cleansed "with the washing of water by the Word." 
 Let clean water flow through a pipe that is full of 
 dirt, and it will soon clear the pipe and come out as 
 pure and clean as when it passed into the pipe. 
 
Emblems of the Hoh^ Spirit. 103 
 
 Keep in mind that the word of God will cleanse 
 every one of us if we will let it flow from Christ. I 
 have yet to find a man or woman earnestly reading 
 his Bible daily who became a backslider. It is men 
 and w^omen that neglect this living water, that get 
 away from the living fountain and hew out broken 
 cisterns that can hold no water, that are subjects 
 for Satan to work in and through. ''Wherewithal 
 shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking 
 heed thereto according to Thy Word." 
 
 Live according to the Word of God, and your 
 life will become pure. It is chiefly by the Word 
 that the Spirit of God deals with men. Christian 
 people read Sunday newspapers, made up of all 
 kinds of stuff that isn't fit to go into a home on a 
 week day; they crowd their minds with that, and the 
 Word of God is neglected. "Thy word have I hid 
 in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." 
 An old Scotchilian says, "It is a good thing in a good 
 place for a good purpose." Many people have the 
 Bible in their heads, or in their pockets; but we 
 need to get it down into our hearts. The priests 
 and the Levites had their religion in their heads, 
 but the Samaritan had it in his heart, and he helped 
 that poor wounded Jew. People pray, "Oh, God, 
 make me pure," and then they neglect the onl^^ 
 thing in the world that will make them pure. It is 
 impossible to have a pure life without the Word 
 of God. Sin has driven God out of the hearts of 
 people. What we want is the Spirit of God to come 
 back and drive sin out. God will never use any 
 man or woman who is not clean in heart. God 
 wants purity of heart; and His Spirit will cleanse 
 
104 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. " 
 
 and purify every one who seeks Him above every- 
 thing else. 
 
 2. WATER FERTILIZES. 
 
 There is no use in looking at water or thinking 
 how delicious it would be if we had it; no well can 
 satisfy thirst by looking at it. Turn to the seventh 
 chapter of John: 
 
 "In the last day, that great day of the feast, 
 Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, 
 let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth 
 on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly 
 shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake 
 He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him 
 should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not given, 
 because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" 
 
 A good many people have life, but that is all; 
 they haven't this living water in abundance. They 
 are satisfied with their present attainment, and the 
 water doesn't flow out. They are not fruit-bearing 
 Christians at all; they have very little power. The 
 poor Samaritan woman drank deeper than Nico- 
 demus of the water of life. She turned her whole 
 town upside down — no, right side up. Nicodemus 
 got a pitcher of living water, but this woman got a 
 whole well full. But in the seventh chapter of 
 John's Gospel, we have the highest type. If the 
 church of God in America lived in this seventh 
 chapter it would be revolutionized. 
 
 When I was a boy I used to carrj- water up the 
 hill when the old well at mother's used to get dry. 
 When I went back there to live, I rememberec^ how 
 I used to have to tug the two pails of water, so I 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 105 
 
 found a spring on the mountain side and laid pipes. 
 Now I don't have to carry water to my house; I sit 
 there and let it run. The first few years in my 
 Christian life I was all the time tugging and carry- 
 ing water; but now I have a river that carries me. 
 Christ came that we might have life more abund- 
 antly; and He wants to give us this living water, 
 that it may flow in upon us and through us. God 
 isn't stingy. He doesn't want us to live, as we say, 
 ''at this poor dying rate." Living rate is what we 
 want! If this water is so free and abundant, you 
 can have it, if you will. 
 
 Now I believe it is literally true that rivers can 
 flow forth from us if we are only Spirit-filled. No 
 man or woman is fit for God's service until he has 
 been filled. If I haven't grace enough to keep my 
 temper, the less I try to do for Christ the better. 
 One of the saddest things in the world to-day is to 
 see men and women that haven't an}^ testimony 
 for Christ. A great many sisters cannot lead 
 brothers to Christ because they haven't grace enough 
 to shme, not enough of the living water; it doesn't 
 flow out. If people have to hunt up your Chris- 
 tianity, it doesn't amount to much. I would give 
 more for Elijah than those seven thousand people 
 that never bowed the knee to Baal. What are seven 
 thousand Christians good for if no one can find them 
 except the Almighty? 
 
 We may be the outlet for rivers of living water, 
 and you need not go back to the daj^s of the apostles 
 to prove it. We are apt to think that those were 
 marvelous days, that Pentecost was a miracle never 
 to be repeated. Pentecost was just a specimen da^^ 
 
T06 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 A few years ago a young man was living in a 
 small town in England, and the Lord said to him: 
 
 "Charles, go up to London, and rivers of living 
 water will flow from 3^011." 
 
 Up he went, and for forty years he preached in 
 that great metropolis, and brought thousands to 
 Christ. Every Wednesday sermons were printed 
 and translated into different languages and sent 
 all over the earth. He founde(J an almshouse for 
 the poor. He was editor of The Sword and Troivel. 
 He had an orphan asylum for two hundred and fifty 
 boys, and another for two hundred and fifty girls. 
 I can't begin to tell the streams that flowed forth 
 from that man. He got the secret, as a young 
 man, of being filled with the Spirit of God; and God 
 let living waters flow through him. 
 
 The first time I went to California, I found as I 
 passed through the beautiful Sacramento valley, 
 that some of the ranches, as they call them, were 
 perfectly green; everything seemed so luxuriant, 
 and there seemed an abundance of everything; 
 and just across the fence or line was another ranch 
 where there wasn't a single thing; everything was 
 all dry. 
 
 I said to a gentleman in the car, "What does that 
 mean?" 
 
 He replied: "You must be a stranger in this part 
 of the countr\^. That farm that is so green is 
 irrigated. They bring water down from the moun- 
 tains, and it makes no difference how long we have a 
 dry season, they have abundance of water." 
 
 I have been in some churches and have met a 
 member as dry as a dry brook, with no spiritual 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 107 
 
 life or growth, while right alongside of him has 
 been one who was all the time bringing forth fruit. 
 What is the secret? One was under the fountain 
 and the other was not. 
 
 When Isaiah preached, it was the darkest day 
 that Israel had ever seen, but he could look forward 
 and see a glorious day coming. "For I will pour 
 water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the 
 drj'^ ground: I will pour My spirit upon thy seed, and 
 My blessing upon thine offspring". There is a 
 promise. Water is fertilizing. You can't help 
 but bring forth fruit when there is abundance of the 
 Spirit. You can have all this water you want. 
 It is abundant, and God wants to give it to us. 
 
 3. WATER REFRESHES. 
 
 In the seventh chapter of Revelation, the seven- 
 teenth verse, it says, "For the Lamb which is in the 
 midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead 
 them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall 
 wipe away all tears from their eyes." Man and 
 beast like to get near water. Nearly every large 
 city in the world is built on the banks of some sea 
 or ocean, lake or river; and the City of God is 
 described as being on the banks of a beautiful river. 
 
 "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, 
 c ear as crj^stal, proceeding out of the throne of 
 God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of 
 it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree 
 of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and 
 yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the 
 tree were for the healing of the nations." 
 
 I have seen many beautiful rivers, but I am look- 
 
io8 Short Talks by D. L. Mood3^ 
 
 ing forward to that time when I shall see the river 
 that bursts from the throne of God and flows 
 through the midst of the Paradise of God. 
 
 Did you ever think that the last invitation that 
 was ever sent down into this world from heaven was 
 that we might come and take the water of life freely? 
 The word "come" begins in Genesis and goes clear 
 through to Revelation. Nineteen hundred times we 
 have it in the Bible. The patriarchs took it up, the 
 psalmist took it up, the apostles took it up, and the 
 voice grows louder and louder until it comes into the 
 last book of the Bible and the last chapter, and 
 a.most the last verse. "The Spirit and the Bride 
 say. Come. And let him that heareth say. Come. 
 And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever 
 will, let him take the water of life freely." It seems 
 as if, after the Lord had been in glory about sixty 
 years, He saw some who said that they didn't know 
 that God wanted them to be saved. They msLV 
 have been stumbling over something that Paul had 
 said. And the Lord of Glory came down to earth, 
 and the first man He met was John on the Isle of 
 Patmos. And Christ said: 
 
 "John, I want you to write some messages to the 
 church." 
 
 What a day it must have been for John! He took 
 up his pen and began to write, and he went on 
 writing, writing, and writing. 
 
 "Now, John," the Lord said, "put in one more 
 invitation. Make it so broad that all the world 
 shall feel that they are invited." 
 
 And the last invitation sent down into th's poor 
 thirsty world is: "Let him that is athirst come. 
 
Emblems of the IIol}^ Spirit. 109 
 
 And WHOSOEVER WILL, let him take the water oi 
 life freely!" 
 
 Take it freelj^! May God help you to drink more 
 of this water to-daj^ than you have ever drunk in 
 3"our past life. 
 
 "Blessed are thej'- which do hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness: for thej^ shall be filled." I 
 would rather be filled with the Spirit of God than 
 have anything this world can give; and if that is 
 your desire, your aim/ God will not disappoint you. 
 
 How easy it is to work for God when we are filled 
 with His Spirit! His service is so sweet, so delight- 
 ful; He is not a hard master. People talk about 
 their being overworked and breaking down. It is 
 not so. It is overworry and care that wears people 
 out. This nervous prostration that is overcoming 
 so many men and women of America is all because 
 they haven't this fullness of the Spirit that will 
 just lift them above the turmoils and vexations of 
 earth. 
 
 Now, if you want this fullness, remember that God 
 commands us to be filled, and He won't disappoint 
 us. We cannot fill ourselves, nor can we fill 
 another. May God help us to get our eyes higher 
 than man. Go to the living fountain that flows on 
 and on, and drink to-day until your thirst is 
 quenched. If you want the Holy Spirit above 
 everything else, then nothing else will satisfy you. 
 What does a hungry man want? Bread. What 
 does a thirsty man want? Water. Not fame, not 
 honors, not society, not position. And the thirsty 
 soul wants the living water to quench his thirst. 
 He doesn't want to drink from any stagnant pool. 
 
no Short Talks by D. L. Aloody. 
 
 but he want.s thivS clear, life-giving, sparkling 
 water. I believe God will give every one of us salva- 
 tion, and then He will give us His spirit to work out 
 this salvation. 
 
 EMBLEMS OF THE SPIRIT.— III. RAIN AND 
 DEW. 
 
 Rain and dew are emblems of the Spirit. They 
 are refreshing and they are abundant. The rain 
 falls upon the just and the unjust. It revives the 
 weeds in a garden, as well as the vegetables, and 
 makes them all grow. So the rain of God's Spirit 
 falls on a community, but some go awa^" without 
 receiving any good. They are not willing to 
 receive it. 
 
 How silently the dew comes, and how silentlj^ it 
 passes away. And so with the rain. And the3^ are 
 the same the world over. So it is with the Spirit of 
 God. If I should go to China, or Japan, I would 
 find the same Spirit as in America. 
 
 I have sometimes been in a place where the very 
 air seemed to be charged with the breath of God, 
 like the moisture in the air. I remember one time 
 as I went through the woods near Mount Hermon 
 school I heard bees, and asked what it meant. 
 
 "Oh," said one of the men, "they are after the 
 honey-dtiv." 
 
 "What s that?" I asked. 
 
 He gave me a chestnut leaf, and told me to put 
 my tongue to it. I did so, and the taste was sweet 
 as honey. Upon inquiry I found that all up and 
 down the Connecticut valley what thej^ call "honey- 
 
Eiiiblcins of the Holy Spirit. ~iii 
 
 dew" had fallen, so that there must have been 
 altogether hundreds of tons of honey-dew in this 
 region. Where it came from I don't know. It 
 sometimes seems as if the honey-dew of heaven 
 has fallen for us, and if any one has not tasted its 
 sweetness, it is his own fault. 
 
 Do you suppose that this world would be worth 
 living in if it were not for the dew and the rain? A 
 church that hasn't any of the dew of heaven, any of 
 the rain that comes down in showers, will be as 
 barren as the world would be without the dew and 
 rain. 
 
 There are some mornings where there is no 
 dew, but thank God 3^ou can have the dew of heaven 
 every morning! I never have seen a man or woman 
 who spent fifteen or twent}^ minutes alone with God 
 every day that didn't have the dew all the while. 
 I have never known one to backslide, either. You 
 never get more than one day's journey from Christ 
 if 3^ou come to Him every morning. Shut the 
 world out. Get closeted with God and you wdll 
 learn His secrets. I like to get up at five o'clock in 
 the morning and turn the key and be alone, and let 
 God talk with me. 
 
 Some people saj^: "I cannot concentrate my 
 thoughts. M}^ mind just goes all over the world." 
 
 Well, that is true. There is no bigger tramp on 
 the earth than the human mind. It is astonishing 
 how the mind 1 ravels; and 3^ou ask. How can we 
 bring our thoughts into captivity and have fellow- 
 ship with God, instead of thinking of ourselves and 
 everything under the sun? 
 
 Prayer is important, but there is something else 
 
112 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 as important. When I pray I am talking to God; 
 when I read the Bible God talks to me. We need 
 both. They help us to bring our thoughts into 
 captivity. You will never get much of an uplift 
 if you talk with yourself. I heard of a man who 
 thought so much of himself that he shook hands 
 with himself every morning. What is the best sign 
 that I have good, healthy lungs? It is that I am 
 not conscious of them. But if I have a diseased 
 lung, I think of that lung all the time. The health- 
 iest Christian is the man or woman who thinks of 
 God, not of himself. 
 
 The way to overcome impure thoughts is to fill 
 the mind with better thoughts. You can do that 
 by Bible study and prayer. 
 
 Notice, again, that you find dew only when the 
 sky is clear overhead. If any cloud comes between 
 us and God the dew of heaven ceases to refresh us. 
 If you are in that condition ask God to let the Sun 
 of Righteousness arise and dissipate the clouds. 
 
 There is no dew, either, if there is much wind. 
 Haven't you sat under some men's preaching and 
 felt that it was all wind, no dew? When the Spirit 
 of God falls on a man his words have weight, because 
 he is not speaking his own wisdom, but receives 
 his message from on high. 
 
 In the fourteenth chapter of Hosea we have 
 these words: 
 
 'T will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as 
 the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His 
 branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as 
 the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They 
 that dwell under His shadow shall return; they 
 
EmbleiiLs of the Iloh^ Spirit. 113 
 
 shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the 
 scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. 
 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more 
 with idols? I have heard Him, and observed Him: 
 I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit 
 found." 
 
 Notice the seven-fold result when God became as 
 dew to Israel: (i) blossoming, (2) rooting, (3) spread 
 ing, (4) beauty, (5) fragrance, (6) influence over 
 others, (7, renunciation of idols. 
 
 EMBLEMS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.— IV. WIND. 
 
 The emblem wind has four characteristics that I 
 want to call your attention to. It is independent, 
 reviving, sensible iji its effects, and powerful. 
 
 I. WIND IS INDEPENDENT. 
 
 The wind is independen . God chooses His own 
 instrument. When He works. He will sometimes 
 pass by the very one you expect Him to use, and 
 He will mark out a path for Himself to work in. 
 When the Spirit of God moves, man cannot dictate 
 the time or the manner. 
 
 Christ said to Nicodemus, "The wind bloweth 
 where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, 
 but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it 
 goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit." 
 You cannot understand the workings of the Spirit. 
 See how the Spirit passed by Cambridge and Oxford 
 and breathed upon that drunken, blaspheming 
 tinker in the Bedford jail, and turned him into one 
 
114 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 of the most poUshcd shafts England has ever had. 
 Not a nobleman or duke but looked down on him 
 while he was on earth, 3^et not long ago a duke 
 unveiled a monument to him, and now nearh^ every 
 duke in England would be glad to pay honor to John 
 Bunyan. "The wind' bloweth where it listeth." 
 We cannot tell why. So the Spirit of God is inde- 
 pendent. He works w^here He pleases; we are not 
 to dictate. 
 
 Another thing. You can traffic in fire and in 
 water and in oil, but j^ou can't traffic with the wind. 
 That is independent. No man can control it; no 
 man can measure it; no man can buy it or sell it. 
 Wind goes into the darkest lanes and homes as well 
 as into palaces, and it gives ventilation to all kinds 
 of people in all places. 
 
 2. WIND IS REVIVING. 
 
 The next thought. Wind is reviving. In the 
 thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel we have that 
 wonderful vision of the dry bones. The bodies 
 were formed at the word of the prophet, but not 
 until the breath of God came upon them did they 
 live. 
 
 "Then said He unto me. Prophesy unto the wind, 
 prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind. Thus 
 saith the Lord God; Come from the four w^inds, 
 breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they 
 may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, 
 and the breath came into them, and they lived, and 
 stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." 
 
 It was a prophecy of the reviving of the whole 
 
Emblems of the Holy Si)irit. 115 
 
 house of Israel: "I shall put mj^ Spirit in j-ou, and 
 ye shall live" (v: 14). 
 
 'And when the da}^ of Pentecost was fully come, 
 they were all with one accord in one place. And 
 suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a 
 rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house 
 where the}^ were sitting" (Acts ii: 2). 
 
 I don't know of anything this country needs so 
 much as Pentecostal people. I have heard of 
 reforms until I am tired of it. These settlements in 
 cities too often banish Christ; they don't want 
 Christ. The boast has been made that they are 
 going to lift up these cities without the Son of God. 
 They are cultivating a crab apple tree, and they 
 will have nothing but crab apples when they get 
 through. I have seen it in London, in New York, 
 and in Chicago, and it is a miserable failure. 
 
 My dear friends, don't sneer at revivals. Would 
 to God we had Pentecost repeated in every American 
 city. There isn't a denomination that hasn't 
 sprung out of a revival. I don't know o anything 
 this country needs so much as a revival, and I 
 would put my hand in a red hot furnace quicker 
 than talk against revivals. What will take infidel- 
 ity out of men? The fires of Pentecost, the breath 
 of heaven. 
 
 Wind is good to blow away chaff. Don't be afraid 
 of the wind. "A religion without Christ" — that is 
 the cry of the world to-day. I wouldn't give a snap 
 of my finger for a merely historical Christ who 
 only touches your head. What we want is a per- 
 sonal, ever-living Christ to renovate our hearts and 
 transform our lives. 
 
Il6 Short. Talks by D. L. Aloody. 
 
 3. WIND IS SENSIBLE IN ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 In the North of England thej^ have been digging 
 the coal for a century. They have gone miles and 
 miles away from the shaft, under the sea, and there 
 IS danger of men getting lost. I heard of two old 
 miners who lost their waj^ Their lights went out, 
 and they were in danger of losing their lives. After 
 wandering around for a long time, they sat down, 
 and one of them said: 
 
 "Let us sit perfectly quiet, and see if we cannot 
 feel which wa}^ the air is moving, because it 
 alwa3^s moves towards the shaft." 
 
 There they sat for a long time, when all at once 
 one of them felt a slight touch on his cheek, and he 
 sprang to his feet, and said: 
 
 "I felt it." 
 
 They went in the direction in which the air was 
 moving, and reached the shaft. 
 
 Sometimes there comes a little breath from God 
 that touches our souls. It ma^^ be so gentle and 
 faint that you barely recognize it; but if you do, do 
 not disregard it. Thank God that He has spoken 
 to you, and praise Him for it, and whatever may 
 come do not go in the opposite direction. Give 
 yourself up to be led by it, and you will come out 
 of darkness, out of bondage, out of sorrow, into 
 perpetual light and joy. 
 
 The air is always in motion. Did you ever think 
 what awful death and stagnation would occur if 
 there was no such thing as wind? What misery 
 and gloom would settle down upon this world! We 
 would not live long if the air never moved. If you 
 are in a place where there seems to be death and 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 117 
 
 stagnation, get out as quickly as you can, and get 
 into a place where God will bless you. 
 
 4. WIND IS POWERFUL. 
 
 Then wind is powerful. Sometimes it sleeps, 
 and at other times it travels at the rate of a hundred 
 miles an hour. We cannot tell whence it comes or 
 w^ hither it goes. In Missouri a few years ago after 
 one of those western cyclones, I found a hickory 
 tree about as big as my arm that had been taken by 
 the wind and shot right through a tree as big as my 
 body; 
 
 There is power in the wind, and there is power in 
 the Spirit of God. George Muller said that he was 
 an habitual thief at ten years of age. His father 
 sent him to the Lutheran pastor with his confirma- 
 tion money, and he sto'e eleven- twelfths of it. He 
 and another young man went through Switzer'and, 
 and he w^as treasurer, and he stole his companion's 
 money. He was a confirmed drunkard at sixteen. 
 He was in prison before he was seventeen. For 
 thirteen weeks he lay on his bed with a disease he 
 had contracted in sin. He was given up by ever3^- 
 body as a hopeless case; but the Spirit of God power- 
 fully converted him, and he became one of the most 
 useful men of this century. The idea of people 
 talking against anything that will transform a 
 man like that! The idea of throwing their influence 
 against it! 
 
 My dear friends, let us get back to the old ways. 
 We need these old revivals. May God give them 
 to usl 
 
Ii8 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 EMBLEMS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.— V. THE 
 SEAL. 
 
 I. THE SEAL IMPRESSES. 
 
 A gentleman in Ireland had a seal made for me. 
 "D. L. M." is on one side, and on the other, ''God is 
 love." If I want to stamp "God is love" I would 
 not make much headway if the wax was hard and 
 cold. Many people go to meetings, and it is as 
 hard to make an impression on them as to press 
 a seal on hard wax. But let the wax be warmed 
 up and an impression is made. If we are willing, 
 every one of us may be sealed for the day of redemp- 
 tion. 
 
 "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the 
 Word of Truth, the gospel of your salvation: in 
 whom also after that ye believed, ye Were sealed 
 with that Hoty Spirit of promise " (Eph. i: 13). 
 
 2. THE SEAL SECURES. 
 
 I don't believe that any man or woman has 
 assurance, who has not been sealed by the Holy 
 Ghost for the day of redemption. 
 
 One purpose of sealing is for safety. Every 
 summer the Connecticut river is full of logs that 
 are floated down from the mountains up north. 
 If I should take one of those logs out of the river, 
 I might be put into prison, because every log is 
 stamped with the seal of the owner. So the seal 
 of the Spirit is upon every child of God; they are 
 sealed for the day of redemption. 
 
 "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye 
 
EmbleiUvS of the Holj^ Spirit. 119 
 
 are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. iv: 
 29-30). 
 
 People ask how thej^ grieve the Spirit of God. 
 Bitterness in the heart grieves the Spirit of God, 
 and so does a corrupt communication that proceeds 
 out of your mouth. We must be pure in thought, 
 and in word, and in deed, or we will grieve the 
 Holj^ Spirit. When a man's heart is right, it does 
 not take long for God to impress upon him the seal, 
 which, I believe, is the love of God; He seals us in 
 that wa3^. 
 
 If your heart is full of love you will have all the 
 fruit of the Spirit. Some one has said that all the 
 fruit of the Spirit maj^ be expressed in terms of 
 love as follows: 
 
 Joy is love exulting. 
 Peace is love in repose. 
 Longsuffenng is love untiring. 
 Gentleness is love in society. 
 Goodness is love in action. 
 Faith is love on the battlefield. 
 Meekness is love in school. 
 Temperance is love in training. 
 
 EMBLEMS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.— VL THE 
 DOVE. 
 
 The next emblem of which I want to speak is the 
 dove: gentle, meek, innocent. 
 
 You read of the wrath of the Lamb, but you 
 never read of the wrath of the Spirit. W^e are told 
 in one place that men sought to take the kingdom 
 of heaven by violence, but Christ says that the 
 nieek shall inherit the earth. All the world uses the 
 dove as the emblem of peace and purity. It symbol- 
 
120 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. . 
 
 izes harmlessness. It seldom fights, and is easily 
 frightened. 
 
 I have read a beautiful legend about a conference 
 held by the doves to decide where they should make 
 their abode. One suggested that they should go 
 to the woods; but the objection was made that there 
 they would be in danger from hawks. Another 
 mentioned the cities; but boys wo^dd stone them 
 there, and drive them away or kill them. Presently 
 some dove suggested that they go and hide in the 
 clefts of the rocks, and there they were safe. ''Oh, 
 ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell 
 in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her 
 nest in the side of the hole's mouth" (Jer. xlviii: 28). 
 
 In the next place, the dove stands for meekness, 
 humilit}^. The hardest thing that the devil has 
 ever had to do in this world, in my opinion, is to 
 counterfeit humility. He can counterfeit all the 
 other graces better than humility. A hypocrite 
 is never meek. 
 
 A prominent Edinburgh lawyer gave me this 
 thought: "Humilit3^, the fairest and loveliest 
 flower that grew in Paradise, and the first that 
 died, has rarely flourished since on mortal soil. 
 It is so frail and so delicate a thing that it is gone 
 if it but looks upon itself; and they who venture 
 to show it prove by that single thought they have 
 it not." 
 
 That is the lesson that we get from the emblem 
 of the dove. D:'. Gordon said once that when Noah 
 sent the dove out of the ark it returned because it 
 could not find a resting place; but when Jesus came 
 up out of the Jordan, the dove found a resting 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 121 
 
 place, and it came and rested on the Son of God, 
 Full of meekness, full of gentleness and innocence. 
 That is what we want to be. God calls us to be wise 
 as seri^ents, but harmless as doves. 
 
 EMBLEMS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.-VIL OIL. 
 
 Oil, as an emblem of the Spirit, stands for four 
 things — consecration, comfort, healing, life (I John 
 ii: 20). "But ye have an unction from the Holy 
 One and ye know all things." An unction from the 
 Holy One. Define it? I cannot; but I believe in 
 it. The Spirit of God dwelling in me and making 
 me a son of God is one thing, and the Spirit of God 
 coming upon me and anointing me for service is 
 another thing. This anointing for service, conse- 
 cration, isn't for preachers only. A woman in the 
 home or a girl in college needs it as much as the 
 preacher. The man on Wall street or on the farm 
 needs it as much as the man in the pulpit. On the 
 day of Pentecost the Spirit of God came upon the 
 ivhole church; upon women as well as upon men, 
 upon laymen as well as upon preachers. 
 
 I. OIL STANDS FOR CONSECRATION. 
 
 In the Bible we find that men were anointed for 
 different things. Noah was anointed to build the 
 ark. Moses was anointed to bring the children of 
 Israel out of bondage. Joshua was anointed to 
 lead the army of God. David was anointed to be 
 king. Daniel was anointed to be a statesman — 
 oh, that we had more like him! Ezekiel was 
 anointed to j^rophesy. Paul was anointed to preach 
 
122 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 the gospel. I don't believe that a man or woman is 
 fit for God's service until he has been anointed. 
 Christ Himself didn't begin to work until He had 
 been baptized with the Spirit for service. If He 
 needed to be baptized, do not we need it? I venture 
 to say if I should put that question, "Have ye re- 
 ceived the Holj^ Ghost since ye believed?" you 
 wouldn't know much more about it than those men 
 did in Ephesus. You received the Spirit when you 
 were converted and He came to dwell with you, to 
 make you a son or daughter of God, but you may 
 not have received power for service. How many 
 are after the power without the unction? 
 
 Oil was used to anoint a king. Elisha anointed 
 kings, but Elijah anointed Elisha. Anointing is 
 an inaugurating for higher service. God called 
 Elisha to take Elijah's place, and Elisha wanted to 
 be qualified for his work by receiving a double por- 
 tion of the spirit of Elijah. Only the God of Elijah 
 could equip him. Elijah said, "If you see me when 
 I am taken away from you, j^ou shall have what 
 you ask." Elisha wouldn't lose sight of him after 
 that. I have an idea he locked arms with Elijah 
 and walked along w th him until the whirlwind 
 came and snatched him away. Elisha was dead 
 in earnest, and he received what he wanted. Elisha 
 performed twice as manj^ miracles as Elijah. If 
 you want this anointing, vuy friends, God won't 
 disappoiiit j'Ou. Oh, seek it with all your heart! 
 
 "The anointing which ye have received of Him 
 abideth in you, and ye need not that any man 
 teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you 
 of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as 
 
Emblems of the Holy Spirit. 123 
 
 it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him" (I John 
 ii: 27). 
 
 Notice how Peter was taught on the day of Pente- 
 cost. The Holy Ghost enlightened the whole 
 church. Men couldn't resist the wisdom even of 
 Stephen. The true wisdom for God's work comes 
 from God and not from books. Education is all 
 right as far as it goes, but if that is all you have, 
 you will be a dead failure. What you need for God's 
 work is an anointing of the Spirit. I know of a 
 number of ministers who became discouraged and 
 were going to give up the ministry, but they received 
 this anointing, and one of them has become one of 
 the most useful men in the pulpit to-day. When I 
 first met F. B. Meyer, of London, he was preach- 
 ing in a little Baptist church in York, England, 
 which didn't hold four hundred people and wasn't 
 half filled. But this truth dawned upon him; he 
 surrendered his will and sought this anointing, 
 and to-day he is one of the best read and most 
 widely used men on this earth. He has one of the 
 largest and most flourishing churches in the great 
 city of London. 
 
 In Leviticus, the fourteenth chaj^ter and twent}^- 
 eighth verse, we read: 
 
 "And the priest shall put of the oil that is in his 
 hand upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to 
 be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, 
 and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the 
 place of the blood of the trespass offering. And the 
 rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put 
 upon the head of him that is to be cleansed, tc make 
 an atonement for him before the Lord." 
 
124 Short Talks by D. L. Moody. 
 
 I used to wonder what that could mean., oil 
 upon the ear and upon the thumb and upon the toe 
 of the foot. But it is al! clear now. I believe it is 
 only those that have that consecrated oi' touch 
 their ear that are going to hear the voce of God. 
 It was put upon the hand that the man m ght work 
 for God. It is upon the foot that we may walk with 
 God. There is no real power until we have fellow- 
 ship with God, and we can't have that until we are 
 separated from the world. 
 
 If we receive this consecration it will separate us 
 from the world quicker than anything else. We 
 will not want to ^o where our influence maj^ be 
 crippled or our testimony may be marred. I don't 
 know of anything that the church of God in 
 America needs to-day more than separation from 
 the world. 
 
 I believe that theatre-going destroj's j^our influ- 
 ence, even if j^ou go to so-called good plays. I 
 want to tell you how I had my eyes opened: 
 
 I had an assistant superintendent of a Sabbath 
 school, a very promising j^oung man, who seemed 
 to be very happy in the work. A star actor came 
 to the city, and he went to see him. I knew nothing 
 of it, but the next Sunday when he came into the 
 Sunday School, all over the building they cried out, 
 
 "Hypocrite! h^^pocrite!" 
 
 The perspiration started out of everj^ pore of m^^ 
 body; I thought they were looking at me. I said 
 to the little newsboy's: 
 
 "Whom are j^ou calling a hj-pocrite?" 
 
 They mentioned the assistant s name. I asked 
 the reason, and they said: 
 
Emblems of the Hoh" Spirit. 125 
 
 '''We saw him going into the theatre." 
 I had never said anj^thing about the theatre to 
 those children, but they saw that man going in and 
 called him a hj^pocrite. He lost his influence 
 entirely, withdrew from the ^school, and after a 
 while gave up Christian work altogether. He was 
 just swept along with the tide in Chicago and was 
 lost. Consecration means separation. If you want 
 power, you can have it, but it msiy mean that you 
 must give up a great many things. Any one can 
 go with the world, but it takes strong character to 
 go against the current. A disciple in the world 
 is all right, but the world in a disciple is all wrong. 
 A ship in the water is all right, but water in the 
 j^hip will sink it. It is a good thing to be in the 
 world and not of it. You can have power to lead 
 others to Christ, every one of you, if you are only 
 ready to be consecrated, anointed by the Holy Spirit 
 for service. 
 
 2. OIL STANDS FOR COMFORT AND 
 HEALING. 
 
 ''The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because 
 the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings 
 unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the 
 broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, 
 and the opening of the prison to them that are 
 bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, 
 and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all 
 that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in 
 Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil 
 of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the 
 spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees 
 
126 Short Talks bu D. L. I\Iood3^ 
 
 of righteouvsness, the planting of the Lord, that He 
 migh be glorified" (Isaiah Ixi : 1-3). 
 
 There is healing and coinfort. We need more 
 jo^Tul Christians. We have i:)lenty of long-faced 
 Christians; they retard the cause of Christ. When 
 Christ was on the cross He made His will. He 
 willed His Spirit back to His Father; He willed His 
 mother to John, the son of Zebedee; He willed His 
 body to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus; but 
 to His disciples He left His peace and His joy. 
 Nowadays the keen, sharp lawyers can break any 
 will a man can draw up; but I challenge you to 
 break Christ's will. He arose to execute His own 
 will. We need more Christians who are living wit- 
 nesses of their heritage — Christians with shining 
 faces. Some people alwaj^s have a bill of complaint 
 as long as your arm. 
 
 There is a difference between joy and happiness. 
 Happiness is what happens to your liking. If things 
 go all right we are happ3^, and if the^^ go all wrong 
 we are down in the dumps. Joy goes deeper; it 
 flows right on day and night irrespective of circum- 
 stances. The larks sing in the morning, but any- 
 body can sing in the sunshine. Joy is like the 
 nightingale that sings in the night. 
 
 Can you sing when everything is dark around 
 you? If you have the joj^ of the Lord, 3^ou can. 
 The joy of the Lord will carry us right through the 
 night and keep us in perpetual peace and joy. 
 
 The psalmist prayed, "Restore unto me the joy 
 of Thy salvation." What would be the result? 
 "Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways/ and 
 sinners shall be converted unto thee." Few people 
 
Emiilcms of the Holy Spirit. 127 
 
 have converting power becauvSe they haven't the 
 joy of the Lord. God vseldom uses a man or woman 
 who isn't filled Avith joy to do His work. 
 
 Why do so many workers break down? Not from 
 overwork, but because there has been friction of the 
 machinery; there hasn't been enough of the oilof 
 the Spirit. Great engines have their machinery 
 so arranged that where there is friction there is 
 oil dropping on it all the time. It is a good thing for 
 Christians to have plenty of oil. Many people are 
 full of vinegar instead of oil. I have been in towns 
 where ever^^thing went wrong. There was friction 
 over one thing and another, and there was no 
 blessing. 
 
 In the fort3-fifth psalm and seventh verse, we 
 read: ''Thou lovest righteousness and hatest 
 wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed 
 thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.'' 
 My dear friends, many people are hardening others 
 in their sins by w^orking without this anointing, 
 Sundaj^ school teachers are driving the children 
 away from the Kingdom of God. Ministers that 
 go into the i:)ulpit and do not have the joy of the 
 Lord do ten times more harm than good. Do not 
 rest until a^ou have this anointing. No man can 
 give it to you. It is to come from the Lord. "Ye 
 shall receive an unction from the Holy One." This 
 oil of the Spirit is healing, strengthening, beautify- 
 ing, and, best of all, there is a fragrance of perfume 
 with it like that about the broken alabaster box. 
 Thank God for this blessed anointing for servicel 
 
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