Life Bible Study: Four Reasons Why Bad Things Happen to Good People #4
To Removal Our Self-Sufficiency
From the desk of Rev Zheng 15 September 2024
Many great servants of God were not spared from great suffering. Dwight L. Moody, the 19c great American evangelist and revivalist, was one of them.
When Moody was 18 years old, he attended a revival camp under the encouragement of his Sunday School teacher. There he experienced the regeneration of the Spirit. In the following decade, his spirituality and ministry grew like a whirlwind. Every Sunday, riding a horse, Moody would go around the streets and bring loitering children to his Sunday School class. People called him ‘crazy Moody’. But his class soon grew from 18 children to 1000!
During the Civil War (1861-65), Moody shuttled between military camps and evangelised to the soldiers. He won many soldiers for Christ and at the same time kindled a patriotic flame for America and God’s Kingdom. After the war, he raised funds and built the first YMCA building in America, the Moody Church, wrote and unified Sunday School textbooks, and travelled to preach at various places 3 or 4 days a week.
As Moody’s achievement got higher, Moody began to feel that he was crushed in the mill of ministry. He worried about the funds needed, and he was physically burnt out in the endless travelling. But what consumed him most was the spiritual dryness in his soul. He began to cry out to God for strength. God answered his prayer; but in the least expected way.
1871, the infamous Great Chicago Fire burnt down many buildings, including the YMCA building, the Church building and his house. All that Moody built so far was reduced to ashes that night. Moody had nothing left of himself. But under the preservation of the Holy Spirit, Moody did not fall into self-pity; instead, he began an honest soul-searching process: “I found many things in my heart that should not be there…I had great ambition. I was not preaching for Christ but for my ambition…”
After four painful months of wrestling with God, Moody bowed before God and acknowledged his self-sufficiency in the past. Soon after, he experienced the anointing of the Holy Spirit, of which he said, “I seldom share about it because it is indescribable.” Now he was being used by God! He set up a school to equip women to serve God, which was renamed the Moody Bible Institute years later. He set up the Moody Press. These works are still being used by God today.
Brothers and sisters, if you encounter great difficulties in the course of serving God, do not despair. Perhaps God is telling you to remove your self-sufficiency and depend on Him entirely, to do His work according to His plan, His way and His timing. Remember the secret of Moody, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength. ” (Php 4:13)
0 Comments