Part 4

"I don't believe in roots; they are of no account. My trees look just as well as his."

But when the sun blazes upon the trees, they all wither and die.

There are a lot of people running around who haven't got any roots. A good many live on negations. They are always telling what they _don't_ believe. I want a man to tell me what he _does_ believe, not what he does not believe. And I like to meet a positive man. We just want to know what men do believe. We don't want trees that haven't any roots, for they will dry up when the sun blazes on them. There are a good many persons that are going on without any foundation; they have no faith.

The Path of Obedience

Whatsoever He tells you to do, do. But be sure He says it. Don't take your ideas. Go and live right at home, go and treat your wife and children right, pay your debts, and do some things of that kind.

A colored man said he had seen a sign; he said it read, "G. P. C," and he understood it to mean, "Go preach Christ."

Another man got up, and said. "No, that ain't it; it is 'Go pick cotton.'"

If it is preach the gospel, go preach the gospel; and if it is pick cotton, then pick cotton.

Calling a Man a Liar

You cannot offer a man a greater insult than to tell him he is a liar. Unbelief is telling God He is a liar.

Suppose a man said, "Mr. Moody, I have no faith in you whatever." Don't you think it would grieve me? There is not anything that would wound a man much more than to be told that you do not have any faith in him.

A great many men say, "Oh, I have profound reverence and respect for God."

Yes, profound respect, but not faith. Why, it is a downright insult!

Suppose a man says, "Mr. Moody, I have profound respect for you, profound admiration for you, but I do not believe a word you say."

I wouldn't give much for his respect or admiration; I wouldn't give much for his friendship. God wants us to put our faith in Him. How it would wound a mother's feelings to hear her children say, "I do love mamma so much, but I don't believe what she says." How it would grieve that mother. And that is about the way a great many of God's professed children talk. Some men seem to think it is a great misfortune that they do not have faith. Bear in mind it is not a misfortune, but it is the damning sin of the world.

Bending His Will

A mother told me up in Minnesota that she had a little child who took a book and threw it out of the window. She told him to go and pick it up. The little boy said, "I won't."

She said, "What?"

He said again, "I won't."

She said: "You must. Go and pick up that book."

He said he couldn't do it. She took him out, and she held him right to it. Dinner-time came, and he hadn't picked up the book. She took him to dinner, and after it was over she took him out again. They sat there until tea-time. When tea-time came she took him in and gave him his supper, and then took him out and kept him there until bed-time. The next morning she went out again and kept him there until dinner-time. He found he was in for a life job, and he picked the book up.

She said she never had any trouble with the child afterward. Mothers, if you don't make your boy obey when he is young, he will break your heart.

How To Find the Thirsty

When preaching in Chicago, Dr. Monro Gibson once asked in the inquiry meeting, "Now, how can we find out who is thirsty? I was just thinking how we could find out. If a boy should come down the aisle, bringing a good pail full of clear water and a dipper, we would soon find out who was thirsty. The thirsty men and women would reach out for water; but if he should walk down the aisle with an empty bucket, we wouldn't find out. People would look in and see that there was no water, and say nothing. So," said he, "I think that is the reason we are not more blessed in our ministry; we are carrying around empty buckets, and the people see that we have not anything in them, and they don't come forward."

Making Parables

Stewart Robertson met Marshall, the great politician, and Marshall said:

"Why don't you preach in parables like your Master?"

Robertson said: "I would if I knew enough. I wish you would make me a few."

He never could get to see him from that day until one day he met him on a corner, and he said:

"Marshall, where are those parables?"

"I knew you would be after me, but I give it up. I tried, but I couldn't make them. I didn't know it was so hard."

People say, "Oh, any one can make up a sermon." But if you think so, just try it!

A Father's Mistake

The story is told that a man once said he would not talk to his son about religion; the boy should make his own choice when he grew up, unprejudiced by him.

The boy broke his arm, and when the doctor was setting it, he cursed and swore the whole time. The father was quite grieved and shocked.

"Ah," said the doctor, "you were afraid to prejudice the boy in the right way, but the devil had no such prejudice. He has led your son the other way."

The idea that a father is to let his children run wild! Nature alone never brings forth anything but weeds.

A Rum-Seller's Son Blows His Brains Out

Look at that rum-seller. When we talk to him he laughs at us. He tells you there is no hell, no future--there is no retribution. I've got one man in my mind now who ruined nearly all the sons in his neighborhood. Mothers and fathers went to him and begged him not to sell their children liquor. He told them it was his business to sell liquor, and he was going to sell liquor to every one who came. The saloon was a blot upon the place as dark as hell.

But the man had a father's heart. He had a son. He didn't worship God, but he worshiped that boy. He didn't remember that whatsoever a man soweth so shall he reap. My friends, they generally reap what they sow. It may not come immediately, but the retribution will surely come. If you ruin other men's sons, some other man will ruin yours. Bear in mind God is a God of equity; God is a God of justice. He is not going to allow you to ruin others and escape yourself. If we go against His laws, we suffer.

Time rolled on, and that young man became a slave to drink, and his life became such a burden to him that he put a revolver to his head and blew his brains out. The father lived a few years, but his life was as bitter as gall, and then went down to his grave in sorrow. Ah, my friends, it is hard to kick against the pricks.

Mrs. Moody Teaching Her Child

There was a time when our little boy did not like to go to church, and would get up in the morning and say to his mother:

"What day is to-morrow?"

"Tuesday."

"Next day?"

"Wednesday."

"Next day?"

"Thursday"; and so on, till he came to the answer, "Sunday."

"Dear me," he said.

I said to the mother, "We cannot have our boy grow up to hate Sunday in this way; that will never do. That is the way I used to feel when I was a boy. I used to look upon Sunday with a certain amount of dread. Very few kind words were associated with the day. I don't know that the minister even noticed me, unless it was when I was asleep in the gallery, and he had some one wake me up. This kind of thing won't do. We must make the Sunday the most attractive day of the week; not a day to be dreaded, but a day of pleasure."

Well, the mother took the work up with this boy. Bless those mothers in their work with the children! Sometimes I feel as if I would rather be the mother of John Wesley or Martin Luther or John Knox than have all the glories in the world. Those mothers who are faithful with the children God has given them will not go unrewarded.

My wife went to work, and took Bible stories and put those blessed truths in a light that the boy could comprehend, and soon his feeling for the Sabbath was the other way.

"What day's to-morrow?" he would ask.

"Sunday."

"I am glad."

If we make Bible truths interesting, and break them up in some shape so that these children can get at them, then they will begin to enjoy them.

Missed At Last!

In one of the tenement houses in New York City a doctor was sent for. He came, and found a young man very sick. When he got to the bedside the young man said:

"Doctor, I don't want you to deceive me; I want to know the worst. Is this illness to prove serious?"

After the doctor had made an examination, he said, "I am sorry to tell you you cannot live out the night."

The young man looked up and said, "Well, then, I have missed it at last!"

"Missed what?"

"I have missed eternal life. I always intended to become a Christian some day, but I thought I had plenty of time, and put it off."

The doctor, who was himself a Christian man, said: "It is not too late. Call on God for mercy."

"No; I have always had a great contempt for a man who repents when he is dying; he is a miserable coward. If I were not sick, I would not have a thought about my soul, and I am not going to insult God now."

The doctor spent the day with him, read to him out of the Bible, and tried to get him to lay hold of the promises. The young man said he would not call on God, and in that state of mind he passed away. Just as he was dying the doctor saw his lips moving. He reached down, and all he could hear was the faint whisper:

"_I have missed it at last!_"

Dear friend, make sure that you do not miss eternal life at last.

Choose Now

A teacher had been relating to his class the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and he asked:

"Now, which would you rather be, boys, the rich man or Lazarus?"

One boy answered, "I would rather be the rich man while I live, and Lazarus when I die."

That cannot be.

The Mansion Made Ready

Once when I was traveling to a city there was a lady in the car with me. After I had reached the hotel where I was to stay, and had got comfortable quarters, she came, and said:

"Oh, sir, I cannot get a room in this hotel; they are quite full! How ever did you manage to get a room?"

"Easily enough," I replied; "I just telegraphed on before that I was coming, to have a room ready for me."

And it is somewhat similar in regard to gaining admission to heaven. Your names must be sent on beforehand, and entered in its book, else you won't get in; but get your names inscribed on its pages, and then you won't be disappointed. God will have a mansion ready for you when you ascend to your heavenly home. When you come to its gates, the guardian angels will refer to the book of life to see if your name is there. If so, pass in; but if not, admittance will be inexorably refused.

The Promise For All

Every one of God's proclamations is connected with that word "whosoever"--"whosoever believeth," "whosoever will." I think it was Richard Baxter said he thanked God for that "whosoever." He would a good deal rather have that word "whosoever" than Richard Baxter; for if it was Richard Baxter, he should have thought it was some other Richard Baxter who had lived and died before him; but "whosoever" he knew included him.

I heard of a woman once that thought there was no promise in the Bible for her; she thought the promises were for some one else, not for her. There are a good many of these people in the world. They think it is too good to be true that they can be saved for nothing. This woman one day got a letter, and when she opened it she found it was not for her at all; it was meant for another woman that had the same name; and she had her eyes opened to the fact that if she should find some promise in the Bible directed to her name, she would not know whether it meant her or some one else that bore her name. But you know the word "whosoever" includes every one in the wide world.

Reaping As They Sowed

Although God forgave the sins of Jacob and David, and the other Old Testament saints, yet there were certain consequences of their sins which those saints had to suffer after they were forgiven.

If a man gets drunk and goes out and breaks his leg, so that it must be amputated, God will forgive him if he asks it, but he will have to hop around on one leg all his life. A man may sow thistle-seed with grain-seed in a moment of pique against his master, and the master may forgive him, but the man will have to reap the thistles with the grain.

Small Beginnings

An obscure man preached one Sunday to a few persons in a Methodist chapel in the South of England. A boy of fifteen years of age was in the audience, driven into the chapel by a snowstorm. The man took as his text the words, "Look unto me and be ye saved," and as he stumbled along as best he could, the light of heaven flashed into that boy's heart. He went out of the chapel saved, and soon became known as C. H. Spurgeon, the boy-preacher.

The parsonage at Epworth, England, caught fire one night, and all the inmates were rescued except one son. The boy came to a window, and was brought safely to the ground by two farm-hands, one standing on the shoulder of the other. The boy was John Wesley. If you would realize the responsibility of that incident, if you would measure the consequences of that rescue, ask the millions of Methodists who look back to John Wesley as the founder of their denomination.

Saying and Doing

A man was once conversing with a Brahmin priest, and he asked:

"Could _you_ say, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life?'"

"Yes," replied the priest, "I could say that."

"_But could you make any one believe it?_"

Christ proved His superiority right there. His character and His actions were back of His words. He exhibited His divine power to silence His enemies.

Climb Higher

I remember being in a meeting after the Civil War had been going on for about six months. The army of the North had been defeated at Bull Run; in fact, we had nothing but defeat, and it looked as though the Republic was going to pieces; so we were much cast down and discouraged. At this meeting every speaker for a while seemed as if he had hung his harp upon the willow; it was one of the gloomiest meetings I ever attended. Finally an old man with beautiful white hair got up to speak, and his face literally shone.

"Young men," he said, "you do not talk like sons of the King. Though it is dark just here, remember it is light somewhere else." Then he went on to say that if it were dark all over the world, it was light up around the Throne.

He told us he had come from the East, where a friend had described to him how he had been up a mountain to spend the night and see the sun rise. As the party were climbing up the mountain, and before they had reached the summit, a storm came on. This friend said to the guide:

"I will give this up; take me back."

The guide smiled, and replied: "I think we shall get above the storm soon."

On they went; and it was not long before they got up to where it was as calm as any summer evening. Down in the valley a terrible storm raged; they could hear the thunder rolling, and see the lightning's flash; but all was serene on the mountain top.

"And so, my young friends," continued the old man, "though all is dark around you, come a little higher, and the darkness will flee away."

Often when I have been inclined to get discouraged, I have thought of what he said. If you are down in the valley amidst the thick fog and the darkness, get a little higher; get nearer to Christ, and know more of Him.

The Greatest Miracle

Jesus said, "The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do because I go to the Father."

I used to stumble over that. I didn't understand it. I thought what greater work could any man do than Christ had done? How could any one raise a dead man who had been laid away in the sepulchre for days, and who had already begun to turn back to dust; how with a word could he call him forth?

But the longer I live the more I am convinced it is a greater thing to influence a man's will; a man whose will is set against God; to have that will broken and brought into subjection to God's will--or, in other words, it is a greater thing to have power over a living, sinning, God-hating man, than to quicken the dead. He who could create a world could speak a dead soul into life; but I think the greatest miracle this world has ever seen was the miracle at Pentecost. Here were men who surrounded the apostles, full of prejudice, full of malice, full of bitterness, their hands, as it were, dripping with the blood of the Son of God, and yet an unlettered man, a man whom they detested, a man whom they hated, stands up and preaches the Gospel, and three thousand of them are immediately convicted and converted, and become disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Different Kinds of Murder

One young man at college, an only son, whose mother wrote to him remonstrating against his gambling and drinking habits, took the letters out of the post-office, and when he found that they were from her, he tore them up without reading them. She said:

"I thought I would die when I found I had lost my hold on that son."

If a boy kills his mother by his conduct, you can't call it anything else than _murder_, and he is as truly guilty of breaking the sixth commandment as if he drove a dagger to her heart.

"It Is Not For You!"

Commenting on the text: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power," Spurgeon said:

"If I were introduced into a room where a large number of parcels were stored up, and I was told that there was something good for me, I should begin to look for that which had my name upon it, and when I came upon a parcel and I saw in pretty big letters, '_It is not for you_,' I should leave it alone. Here, then, is a casket of knowledge marked, '_It is not for you_ to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power.' Cease to meddle with matters which are concealed, and be satisfied to know the things which are clearly revealed."

Stolen Goods a Burden

I heard of a boy who stole a cannon-ball from a navy-yard. He watched his opportunity, sneaked into the yard, and secured it. But when he had it, he hardly knew what to do with it. It was heavy, and too large to conceal in his pocket, so he had to put it under his hat. When he got home with it, he dared not show it to his parents, because it would have led at once to his detection.

He said in after years it was the last thing he ever stole.

The story is told that a royal diamond valued at $600,000 was stolen from a window of a jeweler, to whom it had been given to set. A few months afterward a miserable man died a miserable death in a poor lodging-house. In his pocket was found the diamond, and a letter telling how he had not dared to sell it, lest it should lead to his discovery and imprisonment. It never brought him anything but anxiety and pain.

Unlocked By Prayer

God's best gifts, like valuable jewels, are kept under lock and key, and those who want them must, with fervent faith, importunately ask for them; for God is the rewarder of them that _diligently_ seek Him.

The Faithful Promiser

God is always true to what He promises to do. He made promises to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the others, and did He not fulfill them? He will fulfill every word of what He has promised; yet how few take Him at His word!

When I was a young man I was clerk in the establishment of a man in Chicago, whom I observed frequently occupied sorting and marking bills. He explained to me what he had been doing; on some notes he had marked B, on some D, and on others G; those marked B, he told me, were bad, those marked D meant they were doubtful, and those with G on them mean they were _good_; and, said he, you must treat all of them accordingly. And thus people indorse God's promises, by marking some as bad and others as doubtful; whereas we ought to take all of them as _good_, for He has never once broken His word, and all that He says He will do, will be done in the fullness of time.

Throw Out the Ballast

When men go up in a balloon, they carry with them what they call ballast--that is, small bags of sand, and when they want to rise higher they just throw out some of the sand. So we, if we want to rise nearer heaven, must just throw out some of the sand, and cast aside every weight. We won't rise higher till we do so.

A Mother's Love

The closest tie on earth is a mother's love for her child. There are a good many things that will separate a man from his wife, but there isn't a thing in the wide, wide world that will separate a true mother from her own child. I will admit that there are unnatural mothers, that there are mothers that have gone out of their heads, mothers that are so steeped in sin and iniquity that they will turn against their own children, but a true mother will never, never turn against her own child. I have talked with mothers when my blood boiled with indignation against the sons for their treatment of their mothers, and I have said:

"Why don't you cast him off?"

They have said: "Why, Mr. Moody, I love him still. He is my son."

I was once preaching for Dr. G. in St. Louis, and when I got through he said that he wanted to tell me a story. There was a boy who was very bad. He had a very bad father, who seemed to take delight in teaching his son everything that was bad. The father died, and the boy went on from bad to worse until he was arrested for murder.

When he was on trial, it came out that he had murdered five other people, and from one end of the city to the other there was a universal cry going up against him. During his trial they had to guard the court-house, the indignation was so intense.

The white-haired mother got just as near her son as she could, and every witness that went into the court and said anything against him seemed to hurt her more than her son. When the jury brought in a verdict of guilty a great shout went up, but the old mother nearly fainted away; and when the judge pronounced the sentence of death they thought she would faint away.

After it was over she threw her arms around him and kissed him, and there in the court they had to tear him from her embrace. She then went the length and breadth of the city trying to get men to sign a petition for his pardon. And when he was hanged, she begged the governor to let her have the body of her son, that she might bury it. They say that death has torn down everything in this world, everything but a mother's love. That is stronger than death itself. The governor refused to let her have the body, but she cherished the memory of that boy as long as she lived.

A few months later she followed her boy, and when she was dying she sent word to the governor, and begged that her body might be laid close to her son. That is a mother's love! She wasn't ashamed to have her grave pointed out for all time as the grave of the mother of the most noted criminal the State of Vermont ever had.

The prophet takes hold of that very idea. He says: "Can a mother forget her child?" But a mother's love is not to be compared to the love of God.

Restitution

I was preaching in British Columbia some years ago and a young man came to me, and wanted to become a Christian. He had been smuggling opium into the States.

"Well, my friend," I said, "I don't think there is any chance for you to become a Christian until you make restitution." He said, "If I attempt to do that, I will fall into the clutches of the law, and I will go to the penitentiary." "Well," I replied, "you had better do that than go to the judgment-seat of God with that sin upon your soul, and have eternal punishment. The Lord will be very merciful if you set your face to do right."

He went away sorrowful, but came back the next day, and said: "I have a young wife and child, and all the furniture in my house I have bought with money I have got in this dishonest way. If I become a Christian, that furniture will have to go, and my wife will know it."

"Better let your wife know it, and better let your home and furniture go."