John 3:16
Dwight L. Moody had the words, "God is love," written
above his pulpit. When he first began preaching, his zeal
for God and his hatred for sin kept him from feeling the
full force of these words. Then he preached that God was
angry with the wicked and stood behind them with a drawn
sword, ready to cut down sinners if they did not repent. In
a measure, this is true. God loves the sinner, but He hates
the sin. Unless we depart from sin, we shall perish with it;
but God would have his love come first always.
A young Englishman taught Moody to preach the love of God.
When Moody first visited England, he met Harry Moorehouse.
The people called him "the boy preacher." One day Moorehouse
told Moody that he would like to go with him to Chicago and
preach in his church. Moody said he looked at the beardless
young fellow and decided he was too young to preach; so he
did not let him know what boat he sailed on. But not long
after, he received a letter stating that Moorehouse had
arrived in the United States and that he would come out to
Chicago and preach for him if he wished. Moody wrote him a
very cold answer, telling him that if he came west, to call
on him.
In a few days he received another letter, telling him that
Moorehouse would arrive in Chicago on Thursday. Moody did
not know what to do. He had to be in another city over
Friday and Saturday. But, finally, after thinking it over a
long time and seeing no way out of the difficulty, he told
his church officers that a young preacher from England was
to arrive on Thursday and they had better invite him to
speak the two evenings he was away. They too, were afraid
that the young stranger might spoil the interest; but Moody
said, "Well, try him."
When he returned, about the first question he asked his wife
was how the young preacher got on. His wife said: "He has
preached both nights from John 3:16. I think you will like
him. He preaches a bit differently from the way you do."
"How is that?" Moody asked. "He tells the people that God
loves them," replied his wife. Moody said: "He is wrong; but
I will ask him to speak again tonight so I can hear him
myself." "I think you will agree with him after you hear
him," Mrs. Moody said.
Moody went down to the church, and he noticed everybody had
Bibles. "My friends," began Moorehouse, "if you will turn to
the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse you will
find my text." He preached seven sermons from that one text!
The last night Moorehouse went into the pulpit, every eye
was upon him, wondering what text he would preach from. He
began: "Friends, I have been hunting all day for a new text,
but I can not find one so good as the old one; so we will go
back to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse."
Moody said he could never forget the closing words of that
night's sermon: "My friends, for a whole week I have been
trying to tell you how much God loves you; but I can not do
it with this poor, stammering tongue. If I could borrow
Jacob's ladder, climb up to heaven and ask Gabriel, who
stands in the presence of God, to tell me how much God loves
sinners, all he could say would be, 'God so loved the world,
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'"
Moody was convinced, and changed his manner of preaching.
Now he preached that God was behind the sinner with love
instead of a sword, and that, in rejecting God, the sinner
was running away from the God of love.
By Sherman A. Nagel, Signs of the Times, February 12, 1924. Dale Galusha <http://www.pacificpress.com/signs>