February 29

Mr. Moody didn't have a selection today so I chose his How to use this devotional selection again:

“So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” (Nehemiah 8:8)

We must study the Bible thoroughly, and hunt it through, as it were, for some great truth.

If a friend were to see me searching about a building, and were to come up and say, “Moody, what are you looking for? have you lost something?” and I answered, “No, I haven’t lost anything; I'm not looking for anything in particular,” I fancy he would just let me go on by myself, and think me very foolish. But if I were to say, “Yes, I have lost a dollar,” why, I might expect him to help me to find it.

Read the Bible as if you were seeking for something of value. It is a good deal better to take a single chapter, and spend a month on it, than to read the Bible at random for a month.

February 28

“Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” (Luke 13:24)

Who are we to strive with? Not with the gate-keeper. The gate-keeper stands with the gate wide open, and he says, “Come in, come in!” All the striving is with the flesh; it is with this old carnal nature of ours.

February 27

“My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”  (1 Corinthians 2:4)

Many people think that we need new measures, that we need new churches, that we need new organs, and that we need new choirs, and all these new things. But what the Church of God needs to-day is the old power that the apostles had: if we have that in our churches, there will be new life. Then we will have new ministers—the same old ministers renewed with power, filled with the Spirit.

I remember when in Chicago many were toiling in the work, and it seemed as though the car of salvation didn’t move on, when a minister began to cry out from the very depths of his heart, “Oh, God, put new ministers in every pulpit.” The next Monday I heard two or three men say, “We had a new minister last Sunday—the same old minister, but he had got new power.” I firmly believe that is what we want to-day all over the land. We want new ministers in the pulpit and new people in the pews. We want people quickened by the Spirit of God.

February 26

“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

What makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it is all the time receiving, but never giving out anything. Why is it that many Christians are cold? Because they are all the time receiving, never giving out.

February 25

“There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both.” (Luke 7:41-42)

Very few people think they are lost. You seldom meet a bankrupt sinner. Most of them think they can pay about seventy-five cents on the dollar; some ninety-nine per cent—they just come short a little, and they think the Almighty will make it up somehow. Don’t let Satan make you think you are too good that you don't need the grace of God. We are a bad lot, all of us, with nothing to pay.

February 24

“And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.”  (Genesis 14:12)

For awhile Lot did make money very fast in Sodom, and became a very successful man. If you had gone into Sodom a little while before destruction came, you would have found that Lot owned some of the best corner lots in town, and that Mrs. Lot moved in what they called the bonton society or upper ten; and you would have found that she was at the theatre two or three nights in the week. If they had progressive euchre, she could play as well as anybody; and her daughters could dance as well as any other Sodomite.

We find Lot sitting in the gates, he is getting on amazingly well. He may have been one of the principal men in the city; Judge Lot, or the Honorable Mr. Lot of Sodom. They might have elected him Mayor of Sodom. He was getting on amazingly well; wonderfully prosperous.

But by and by there comes a war. If you go into Sodom, you must take Sodom’s judgment when it comes; and it is bound to come. The battle turned against those five cities of the plain, and they took Lot and his wife and all that they had.

February 23

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

There can be no true peace, there can be no true hope, there can be no true comfort, where there is uncertainty. I am not fit for God’s service, I cannot go out and work for God, if I am in doubt about my own salvation.

February 22

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  (John 20:24-25)

I often think that Thomas was the most unhappy man in Jerusalem during the week that followed. It would have been far more reasonable for him to have believed those who saw Jesus, rather than to have doubted their word. But unbelief is the most unreasonable thing in the world.

February 21

“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38)

When a boy upon a farm in New England, we had a well, and I used to have to pump the water from that well upon wash-day, and to water the cattle; and many a time I had to pump and pump and pump until my arm got tired.

But they have a better way now. They don’t dig down a few feet and brick up the hole and put the pump in, but they go down through the clay and the sand and the rock, on down until they strike what they call a lower stream, and then it becomes an artesian well, which needs no labor, as the water rises spontaneously from the depths beneath.

I think God wants each of His children to be a sort of artesian well; not to keep pumping, but to flow right out. Why, haven’t you seen ministers in the pulpit just pumping, pumping, pumping? I have, many a time, and I have had to do it, too. I know how it is. They stand in the pulpit and talk and talk and talk, and the people go to sleep, they can’t arouse them. What is the trouble? Why, the living water is not there; they are just pumping when there is no water in the well.

February 20

“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9)

Think of that! It may shock some of us to think that our prayers are an abomination to God, yet if any are living in known sin, this is what God’s Word says about them. If we are not willing to turn from sin and obey God’s law, we have no right to expect that He will answer our prayers.

Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin, and unforgiven sin is the darkest, foulest thing on this sin-cursed earth. You cannot find a case in the Bible where a man has been honest in dealing with sin, but God has been honest with him and blessed him. The prayer of the humble and the contrite heart is a delight to God. There is no sound that goes up from this sin-cursed earth so sweet to His ear as the prayer of the man who is walking uprightly.

February 19

“Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.” (Deuteronomy 11:26-28)

Take the two Sauls. They lived about one thousand years apart. One started out well and ended poorly, and the other started out poorly and ended well.

The first Saul got a kingdom and a crowns he had a lovely family, (no father ever had a better son than Saul had in Jonathan); he had the friendship of Samuel, the best prophet there was on the face of the earth; and yet he lost the friendship of Samuel, lost his crown, his kingdom and his life, all through an act of disobedience.

Now take the Saul of the New Testament. When God called him he was obedient to the heavenly vision, and he was given a heavenly kingdom.

One act of obedience, one act of disobedience. The act of obedience gained all, and the act of disobedience lost everything. I believe the wretchedness and misery and woe in this country to-day comes from disobedience to God. If they won't obey God as a nation, let us begin individually. Let us make up our minds that we will do it, cost us what it will; and we will have peace and joy.

February 18

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 Peter 1:23)

We hear nowadays so much about “culture.” Culture’s all right when you have something to cultivate. If I should plant a watch, I shouldn’t get any little watches, would I? Why? Because the seed of life is not there. But let me plant some peas or potatoes, and I will get a crop.

Don’t let any man or woman rest short of being horn of the Spirit of God. Don't cultivate a dead and corrupt thing, first make sure that you have that divine nature, then cultivate it.

February 17

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Nobody knows what is in the human heart but Christ. We do not know our own hearts; none of us have any idea how bad they are. Some bitter things have been written against me, but I know a good many more things about myself that are bad than any other man.

There is nothing good in the old Adam nature. We have got a heart in rebellion against God by nature, and we do not even love God unless we are born of the Spirit. This is a truth that men do not at all like, but I have noticed that the medicine that we do not like in often the medicine that will do us good. If we do not think we are as bad as the description, we must just take a closer look at ourselves.

February 16

“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25)

When a young man, I was called upon suddenly, in Chicago, to preach a funeral sermon. A good many Chicago business men were to be there, and I said to myself, “Now, it will be a good chance for me to preach the gospel to those men, and I will get one of Christ’s funeral sermons.”

I hunted all through the four Gospels trying to find one of Christ's funeral sermons, but I couldn't find any. I found He broke up every funeral He ever attended! He never preached a funeral sermon in the world. Death couldn’t exist where He was. When the dead heard His voice they sprang to life.