Prevailing Prayer: What Hinders It?

by Dwight Lyman Moody

“Just at that moment the words came into my mind, from God’s own Word—words that I had not remembered since I was a boy: ‘With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.’ And then I saw, in a flash, that what I had just admitted, as I had done hundreds of times before, to be an impossibility, was the one thing that God had pledged Himself to do, if I would go to Him. All the difficulties came up in my way—my companions, my surroundings of all sorts, and my temptations; but I just looked up and thought, ‘It is possible with God.’

“I went down on my knees there and then, in my room, and began to ask God to do the impossible. As soon as I prayed to Him, with very stammering utterance—I had not prayed for nearly three years—I thought, ‘Now, then, God will help me.’ I took hold of His truth, I don’t know how. It was nine days before I knew how, and before I had any assurance, or peace and rest, to my soul. I got up, there and then, with the hope that God would save me. I took it to be the truth, and I ultimately proved it; for which I praise God.

“I thought the best thing I could do would be to go and get somebody to talk to me about my soul, and tell me how to be saved; for I was a perfect heathen, though I had been brought up so well. I went out and hunted about London; and it shows how little I knew of religious people and places of worship, that I could not find a Wesleyan chapel. My mother and father were Wesleyans, and I thought I would find a place belonging to their denomination; but I could not. I searched an hour and a half; and that night I was in the most utter, abject misery of body and soul any man can think of or conceive.

“I came home to my lodgings and went upstairs, and thought to myself, ‘I will not go to bed till I am saved.’ But I was so ill from drinking—I had not had my usual amount of food in the evening; and the reaction was so tremendous, that I felt I must go to bed (although I dared not), or I should be in a very serious condition in the morning.

“I knew how I should be in the morning, thinking, ‘what a fool I was last night!’ when I would wake up moderately fresh, and go off to drink again, as I had often done. But again I thought, ‘God can do the impossible. He will do that which I cannot do myself.’ And I prayed to the Lord to let me wake up in much the same condition as that in which I went to bed, feeling the weight of my sins and my misery. Then I went to sleep. The first thing in the morning, as soon as I remembered where I was, I thought, ‘Has the conviction left me?’ No; I was more miserable than before, and—it seemed strange, though it was natural—I got up, and thanked the Lord because He had kept me anxious about my soul.

“Have you ever felt like that? Perhaps after some meeting or conversation with some Christian, or reading the Word of God, you have gone to your room miserable and ‘almost persuaded.’

“I went on for eight or nine days seeking the Lord. On the Saturday morning I had to go and tell the clerks. That was hard. I did it with the tears running down my cheeks. A man does not like to cry before other men. Anyway, I told them I wanted to become, and meant to become, a Christian. The Lord helped me with that promise, ‘With God all things are possible.’

“A sceptic dropped his head, and said nothing. Another fellow, with whom I played billiards, said, ‘I wish I had the pluck to say so myself!’ My words were received in a different way from what I thought they would be. But the very man who had told me that I was killing myself with drink, spent an hour and a half trying to get me to drink, saying, that I ‘had the blues, and was out of sorts; and that a glass of brandy or whisky would do me good.’ He tried to get me to drink; and I turned upon him at last, and said, ‘You remember what you said to me; I am trying to get away from drink, and not to touch it again.’ When I think of that I am reminded of the words of God Himself: ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’

“And now the Lord drew me on until the little thread became a cable, by which my soul could swing. He drew me nearer; until I found that He was my Savior. Truly He is ‘able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.’

“I must not forget to tell you that I went down before God in my misery, my helplessness, and my sin, and owned to Him that it was impossible that I should be saved; that it was impossible for me to keep clear of drink; but from that night to this moment, I have never had the slightest desire for drink.