D.L. Moody
And how to find it
D.L. Moody (1837–1899) wrote this short book for people seeking God and for new believers finding their footing. What follows are passages from his own words.
If I could only make men understand the real meaning of the words of the apostle John — “God is love” — I would take that single text, and would go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious truth. If you can convince a man that you love him you have won his heart. If we could really make people believe that God loves them, how we should find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven! The trouble is that men think God hates them; and so they are all the time running away from Him.
Nothing speaks to us of the love of God like the cross of Christ. Come with me to Calvary, and look upon the Son of God as He hangs there. Can you hear that piercing cry from His dying lips: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!” and say that He does not love you?
Another thought is this: He loved us long before we ever thought of Him. The idea that He does not love us until we first love Him is not to be found in Scripture. He loved us before we ever thought of loving Him. You loved your children before they knew anything about your love. And so, long before we ever thought of God, we were in His thoughts.
“God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
— Romans 5:8
If the words of this text are true they embody one of the most solemn questions that can come before us. We can afford to be deceived about many things rather than about this one thing. Christ makes it very plain. He says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” — much less inherit it.
Now let me say what Regeneration is not. It is not going to church. It is not turning over a new leaf. Nor will being baptized do you any good if you put that in the place of the New Birth. You cannot be baptized into the Kingdom of God.
In John chapter 3, a Jewish ruler named Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He is a good, religious man — a Pharisee with no scandal to his name. And yet Jesus tells him he must be born again. The new birth is not for the worst sinners only; it is for everyone.
I am so thankful that our Lord spoke of the New Birth to this ruler of the Jews, this doctor of the law, rather than to the woman at the well of Samaria, or to Matthew the publican. If He had reserved His teaching on this great matter for such as these, people would have said: “Oh yes, these publicans and harlots need to be converted: but I am an upright man; I do not need to be converted.”
But “I cannot save myself,” someone says. You certainly cannot; and we do not claim that you can. We tell you it is utterly impossible to make a man better without Christ. There must be a new creation. Regeneration is a new creation; and if it is a new creation it must be the work of God.
I will give you a good definition of repentance: it is “right about face!” It implies that a man who has been walking in one direction has not only faced about, but is actually walking in an exactly contrary direction. “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?”
Repentance is not fear. Many people have confounded the two. You have heard of men at sea during a terrible storm — perhaps they had been very profane men, but when the danger came they suddenly grew quiet and began to cry to God for mercy. Yet when the storm had passed away, they went on swearing the same as before. That was not repentance.
Repentance is not feeling. I find a great many people are waiting for a certain kind of feeling to come. A man may feel very bad because he has got into trouble; but that is not repentance. It is not because he has committed sin, but because he has been caught.
Well then, what is it? A man says, “By the grace of God I will forsake my sin, and do His will” — that is repentance. A turning right about.
Then another class say that they are afraid that they will not hold out. This is a numerous and a very hopeful class. I like to see a man distrust himself. It is a good thing to get such to look to God, and to remember that it is not he who holds God, but that it is God who holds him.
Some want to get hold of Christ; but the thing is to get Christ to take hold of you in answer to prayer.
“My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul.”
God can do what He has done before. He kept Joseph in Egypt; Moses before Pharaoh; Daniel in Babylon; and enabled Elijah to stand before Ahab in that dark day. And I am thankful that these I have mentioned were men of like passions with ourselves. It was God who made them so great. What man wants is to look to God. Real true faith is man’s weakness leaning on God’s strength.
An Irishman said, on one occasion, that “he trembled; but the Rock never did.” We want to get sure footing. Paul says: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”
— Jude 24