The Way to God and How to Find It by Dwight L. Moody (free reads txt) 📖

leading ministers of the Gospel in Ohio wrote me a letter some time ago describing his conversion; it very forcibly illustrates this point of instantaneous decision. He said:

“I was nineteen years old, and was reading law with a Christian lawyer in Vermont. One afternoon when he was away from home, his good wife said to me as I came into the house, ‘I want you to go to class-meeting with me to-night and become a Christian, so that you can conduct family worship while my husband is away.’ ‘Well, I’ll do it,’ I said, without any thought. When I came into the house again she asked me if I was honest in what I had said. I replied, ‘Yes, so far as going to meeting with you is concerned; that is only courteous.’

“I went with her to the class-meeting, as I had often done before. About a dozen persons were present in a little school-house. The leader had spoken to all in the room but myself and two others. He was speaking to the person next me, when the thought occurred to me: he will ask me if I have anything to say. I said to myself: I have decided to be a Christian sometime; why not begin now? In less time than a minute after these thoughts had passed through my mind he said, speaking to me familiarly—for he knew me very well—‘Brother Charles, have you anything to say?’ I replied, with perfect coolness, ‘Yes, sir. I have just decided, within the last thirty seconds, that I will begin a Christian life, and would like to have you pray for me.’

“My coolness staggered him; I think he almost doubted my sincerity. He said very little, but passed on and spoke to the other two. After a few general remarks, he turned to me and said, ‘Brother Charles, will you close the meeting with prayer?’ He knew I had never prayed in public. Up to this moment I had no feeling. It was purely a business transaction. My first thought was: I cannot pray, and I will ask him to excuse me. My second was: I have said I will begin a Christian life; and this is a part of it. So I said, ‘Let us pray.’ And somewhere between the time I started to kneel and the time my knees struck the floor the Lord converted my soul.

“The first words I said were, ‘Glory to God!’ What I said after that I do not know, and it does not matter, for my soul was too full to say much but Glory! From that hour the devil has never dared to challenge my conversion. To Christ be all the praise.”

Many people are waiting, they cannot exactly tell for what, but for some sort of miraculous feeling to come stealing over them—some mysterious kind of faith. I was speaking to a man some years ago, and he always had one answer to give me. For five years I tried to win him to Christ, and every year he said, “It has not ‘struck me’ yet.” “Man, what do you mean? What has not struck you?” “Well,” he said, “I am not going to become a Christian until it strikes me; and it has not struck me yet. I do not see it in the way you see it.” “But don’t you know you are a sinner?” “Yes, I know I am a sinner.” “Well, don’t you know that God wants to have mercy on you—that there is forgiveness with God? He wants you to repent and come to Him.” “Yes, I know that; but—it has not struck me yet.” He always fell back on that. Poor man! he went down to his grave in a state of indecision. Sixty long years God gave him to repent; and all he had to say at the end of those years was that it “had not struck him yet.”

Is any reader waiting for some strange feeling—you do not know what? Nowhere in the Bible is a man told to wait; God is commanding you now to repent.

Do you think God can forgive a man when he does not want to be forgiven? Would he be happy if God forgave him in this state of mind? Why, if a man went into the kingdom of God without repentance, heaven would be hell to him. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. If your boy has done wrong, and will not repent, you cannot forgive him. You would be doing him an injustice. Suppose he goes to your desk, and steals $10, and squanders it. When you come home your servant tells you what your boy has done. You ask if it is true, and he denies it. But at last you have certain proof. Even when he finds he cannot deny it any longer, he will not confess the sin, but says he will do it again the first chance he gets. Would you say to him, “Well, I forgive you,” and leave the matter there? No! Yet people say that God is going to save all men, whether they repent or not—drunkards, thieves, harlots, whoremongers, it makes no difference. “God is so merciful,” they say. Dear friend, do not be deceived by the god of this world. Where there is true repentance and a turning from sin unto God, He will meet and bless you; but He never blesses until there is sincere repentance.

David made a woful mistake in this respect with his rebellious son, Absalom. He could not have done his son a greater injustice than to forgive him when his heart was unchanged. There could be no true reconciliation between them when there was no repentance. But God does not make these mistakes. David got into trouble on account of his error of judgment. His son soon drove his father from the throne.

Speaking on repentance, Dr. Brooks, of St. Louis, well remarks: “Repentance, strictly speaking, means a ‘change of mind or purpose;’ consequently it is the judgment which the sinner pronounces upon himself, in view of the love of God displayed in the death of Christ, connected with the abandonment of all confidence in himself and with trust in the only Saviour of sinners. Saving repentance and saving faith always go together; and you need not be worried about repentance if you will believe.”

“Some people are no sure that they have ‘repented enough.’ If you mean by this that you must repent in order to incline God to be merciful to you, the sooner you give over such repentance the better. God is already merciful, as He has fully shown at the Cross of Calvary; and it is a grievous dishonor to His heart of love if you think that your tears and anguish will move Him, not knowing that ‘the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.’ It is not your badness, therefore, but His goodness that leads to repentance; hence the true way to repent is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.’”

Another thing. If there is true repentance it will bring forth fruit. If we have done wrong to any one we should never ask God to forgive us, until we are willing to make restitution. If I have done any man a great injustice and can make it good, I need not ask God to forgive me until I am willing to make it good. Suppose I have taken something that does not belong to me. I have no right to expect forgiveness until I make restitution.

I remember preaching in one of our large cities, when a fine-looking man came up to me at the close. He was in great distress of mind. “The fact is,” he said, “I am a defaulter. I have taken money that belonged to my employers. How can I become a Christian without restoring it?” “Have you got the money?” He told me he had not got it all. He had taken about $1,500, and he still had about $900. He said “Could I not take that money and go into business, and make enough to pay them back?” I told him that was a delusion of Satan; that he could not expect to prosper on stolen money; that he should restore all he had, and go and ask his employers to have mercy upon him and forgive him. “But they will put me in prison,” he said: “cannot you give me any help?” “No, you must restore the money before you can expect to get any help from God.” “It is pretty hard,” he said. “Yes. it is hard; but the great mistake was in doing the wrong at first.”

His burden became so heavy that it got to be insupportable. He handed me the money—950 dollars and some cents—and asked me to take it back to his employers. The next evening the two employers and myself met in a side room of the church. I laid the money down, and informed them it was from one of their employes. I told them the story, and said he wanted mercy from them, not justice. The tears trickled down the cheeks of these two men, and they said, “Forgive him! Yes, we will be glad to forgive him.” I went down stairs and brought him up. After he had confessed his guilt and been forgiven, we all got down on our knees and had a blessed prayer-meeting. God met us and blessed us there.

There was a friend of mine who some time ago had come to Christ and wished to consecrate himself and his wealth to God. He had formerly had transactions with the government, and had taken advantage of them. This thing came up when he was converted, and his conscience troubled him. He said, “I want to consecrate my wealth, but it seems as if God will not take it.” He had a terrible struggle; his conscience kept rising up and smiting him. At last he drew a check for $1,500 and sent it to the United States Treasury. He told me he received such a blessing when he had done it. That was bringing forth “fruits meet for repentance.” I believe a great many men are crying to God for light; and they are not getting it because they are not honest.

I was once preaching, and a man came to me who was only thirty-two years old, but whose hair was very grey. He said, “I want you to notice that my hair is grey, and I am only thirty-two years old. For twelve years I have carried a great burden.” “Well,” I said, “what is it?” He looked around as if afraid some one would hear him. “Well,” he answered, “my father died and left my mother with the county newspaper, and left her only that: that was all she had. After he died the paper begun to waste away; and I saw my mother was fast sinking into a state of need. The building and the paper were insured for a thousand dollars, and when I was twenty years old I set fire to the building, and obtained the thousand dollars, and gave it to my mother. For twelve years that sin has been haunting me. I have tried to drown it by indulgence in pleasure and sin; I have cursed God; I have gone into infidelity; I have tried to make out that the Bible is not true; I have done everything I could: but all these years I have been tormented.” I said, “There is a way out of that.” He inquired “How?” I said, “Make restitution. Let us sit down and calculate the interest, and then you pay the Company the money.” It would have done you good to see that man’s face light up when