Moody Asks a Few Questions.
Let me ask you a question. Do you think that those gamblers, thieves, harlots, and drunkards who are trampling the ten commandments under their feet, they who have never given any respect to God's Word or to His instructions--do you think they will be swept into the kingdom of heaven, against their will? Do you think those antedeluvians who were so sinful that God could not let them live on the earth would be swept into Paradise and Noah left to wade through the deluge? Do you think that these people, too corrupt for earth, would go there? As I have said before, an unregenerated man in heaven would make a hell of it. An unregenerated man couldn't stay there. Why, some of you cannot wait an hour here to listen to the Word of God. Before the hour expires you want to go out. Some of you just wish it was over so that you could go and get a drink in some of those saloons. I tell you, from the very depths of my heart, I believe heaven would be a hell to an unregenerated man. "I don't want to be here," he would say. My friends, heaven is a prepared place for prepared people, and no one will ever see the kingdom of God without being born of God.
The Drunken Father and his Praying Child.
I remember when out in Kansas, while holding a meeting, I saw a little boy who came up to the window crying. I went to him and said: "My little boy, what is your trouble?" "Why, Mr. Moody, my mother's dead, and my father drinks, and they don't love me, and the Lord won't have anything to do with me because I am a poor drunkard's boy." "You have got a wrong idea, my boy, Jesus will love you and save you and your father too," and I told him a story of a little boy in an Eastern city. The boy said his father would never allow the canting hypocrites of Christians to come into his house, and would never allow his child to go to Sunday-school. A kind-hearted man got his little boy and brought him to Christ. When Christ gets into a man's heart he cannot help but pray. This father had been drinking one day and coming home he heard that boy praying. He went to him and said: "I don't want you to pray any more. You've been along with some of those Christians. If I catch you praying again I'll flog you." But the boy was filled with God and he couldn't help praying. The door of communication was opened between him and Christ, and his father caught him praying again. He went to him. "Didn't I tell you never to pray again? If I catch you at it once more you leave my house." He thought he would stop him. One day the old tempter came upon the boy, and he did something wrong and got flogged. When he got over his mad fit he forgot the threats of his father and went to pray. His father had been drinking more than usual, and coming in found the boy offering a prayer. He caught the boy with a push and said, "Didn't I tell you never to pray again? Leave this house. Get your things packed up and go." The little fellow hadn't many things to get together--a drunkard's boy never has, and went up to his mothers room. "Good-by, mother." "Where are you going?" "I don't know where I'll go, but father says I cannot stay here any longer; I've been praying again," he said. The mother knew it wouldn't do to try to keep the boy when her husband had ordered him away, so she drew him to her bosom and kissed him, and bid him good-by. He went to his brothers and sisters and kissed them good-by. When he came to the door his father was there and the little fellow reached out his hand--"Good-by, father; as long as I live I will pray for you," and left the house. He hadn't been gone many minutes when the father rushed after him. "My boy, if that is religion, if it can drive you away from father and mother and home; I want it." Yes, may be some little boy here to-night has got a drinking father and mother. Lift your voice to heaven, and the news will be carried up to heaven, "He prays."
GOLD.
-- The drunkard, the open blasphemer, the worst sinners, are precisely the ones that need Jesus most. The well don't need Him at all.
-- There is many a gem in these billiard halls that only needs the way pointed out to fill their souls with the love of Christ.
LIBERTY.
Old Samba and "Massa."
A friend of mine said he was down in Natchez before the war, and he and a friend of his went out riding one Saturday--they were teaching school through the week--and they drove out back from Natchez. It was a beautiful day, and they saw an old slave coming up, and they thought they would have a little fun. They had just come to a place where there was a fork in the road, and there was a sign-post which read, "40 miles to Liberty." One of the young men said to the old darkey driver, "Samba, how old are you?" "I don't know, massa. I guess I'se about eighty." "Can you read?" "No, sah; we don't read in dis country. It's agin the law." "Can you tell what is on that sign-post?" "Yes, sah; it says 40 miles to Liberty." "Well, now," said my friend, "why don't you follow that road and get your liberty. It says there, 'only 40 miles to Liberty.' Now, why don't you take that road and go there?" The old man's countenance changed, and he said, "Oh, young massa, that is all a sham. If the post pointed out the road to the liberty that God gives, we might try it. There could be no sham in that." My friend said he had never heard anything more eloquent from the lips of a preacher. God wants all his sons to have liberty.