September 14

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. (Proverbs 23:26)

I remember hearing a story about an Indian who wanted to come to the Lord. He brought his blanket, but the Lord wouldn’t have it. He brought his gun, his dog, his bow and arrow, but the Lord wouldn’t have them. At last he brought himself, and the Lord took him. The Lord wanted himself.

What the Lord wants is not what you have got, but yourself, and you cannot do a thing to please God until you surrender yourself to Him.

September 13

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them. (Psalms 119:165)

The study of God’s Word will secure peace. Take those Christians who are rooted and grounded in the Word of God, and you will find they have great peace; but it is these who don’t study their Bible, who are easily offended when some little trouble comes, or some little persecution. Just a little breath of opposition, and their peace is all gone.

September 12

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. (Proverbs 3:27)

After the Chicago fire I came to New York for money, and I heard there was a rich man in Fall River who was very liberal. So I went to him. He gave me a check for a large amount, and then got into his carriage and drove with me to the houses of other rich men in the city, and they all gave me checks. When he left me at the train I grasped his hand and said:

"If you ever come to Chicago, call on me, and I will return your favor."

He said: "Mr. Moody, don’t wait for me; do it to the first man that comes along."

I never forgot that remark; it had the ring of the true good Samaritan.

September 11

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

Many a man would be willing to enter into the kingdom of God, if he could do it without giving up sin. People sometimes wonder why Jesus Christ, who lived six hundred years before Mohammed, has got fewer disciples than Mohammed to-day. There is no difficulty in explaining that. A man may become a disciple of Mohammed, and continue to live in the foulest, blackest, deepest sin; but a man cannot be a disciple of Christ without giving up sin.

September 10

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4:25)

We have got nowadays so that we divide lies into white lies and black lies, society lies, business lies, and so on. The Word of God knows no such letting-down of the standard. A lie is a lie, no matter what are the circumstances under which it is uttered, or by whom. I have heard that in Siam they sew up the mouth of a confirmed liar. I am afraid if that was the custom in this land, a good many would suffer.

Parents should begin with their children while they are young and teach them to be strictly truthful at all times. There is a proverb: "A lie has no legs." It requires other lies to support it. Tell one lie and you are forced to tell others to back it up.

September 9

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

At the battle of Inkerman a soldier was just able to crawl to his tent after he was struck down. When found, he was lying upon his face, his open Bible before him, his hand glued fast to the page by his life-blood which covered it. When his hand was lifted, the letters of the printed page were clearly traced upon it, and with the ever-living promise in and on his hand, they laid him in a so1dier’s grave. The words were:

“I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

I want a religion that can comfort even in death, that can unite me with my loved ones. Oh, what gloom and darkness would settle upon this world if it was not for the glorious doctrine of the resurrection! Thank God, the glorious morning will soon break. For a little while God asks us to be on the watch-tower, faithful to Him and waiting for the summons. Soon our Lord will come to receive His own, whether they be living or dead.

September 8

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3)

The only way to get into the kingdom of God is to be "born" into it. The law of this country requires that the President should be born in the country. When foreigners come to our shores they have no right to complain against such a law, which forbids them from ever becoming presidents. Now, has not God a right to make a law that all those who become heirs of eternal life must be "born" into His kingdom?

An unregenerated man would rather be in hell than in heaven. Take a man whose heart is full of corruption and wickedness, and place him in heaven among the pure, the holy and the redeemed; and he would not want to stay there.

Certainly, if we are to be happy in heaven we must begin to make a heaven here on earth. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. If men were taken to heaven just as they are by nature, without having their hearts regenerated, there would be another rebellion in heaven. Heaven is filled with a company of those who have been TWICE BORN.

September 7

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

I have very little sympathy with any man who has been redeemed by the precious blood of the Son of God, and who has not got the spirit of work. If we are children of God we ought not to have a lazy drop of blood in our veins. If a man tells me that he has been saved, and does not desire to work for the honor of God, I doubt his salvation.

Laziness belongs to the old creation, not to the new. In all my experience I never knew a lazy man to be converted—never. I have more hope for the salvation of drunkards, and thieves, and harlots than of a lazy man.

September 6

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

I saw an advertisement which read like this: “If you want people to respect you, wear good clothes.” That is the world’s idea of getting the world’s respect. Why! A leper may put on good clothes, but he is a leper still. Mere profession doesn’t transform a man. It is the new nature spoken of in Corinthians, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

September 5

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12)

I used to stumble over that verse, but the longer I live the more I am convinced it is a greater thing to influence a man whose will set against God, to have that will broken and brought into subjection to God’s will—or, in other words, it is a greater thing to have power over a living, sinning, God-hating man, than to quicken the dead. He who could create a world could speak a dead man into life; but I think the greatest miracle this world has ever seen was the miracle at Pentecost.

The men who surrounded the apostles were full of prejudice, full of malice, full of bitterness, their hands, as it were, dripping with the blood of the Son of God; and yet an unlettered man, a man whom they detested and hated, stood up and preached the gospel, and three thousand of them were immediately convicted and converted, and became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

September 4

And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:42-43)

When a prominent man dies, we are anxious to get his last words and acts. The last act of the Son of God was to save a sinner. That was a part of the glory of His death. He commenced His ministry by saving sinners, and ended it by saving this poor thief.

September 3

Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counselor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. (Mark 15:43)

I consider this one of the sublimest, grandest acts that any man ever did. In the darkness and gloom, His disciples having all forsaken Him, Judas having sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, the chief apostle Peter having denied Him with a curse, swearing that he never knew Him, the chief priests having found Him guilty of blasphemy, the council having condemned Him to death, and when there was a hiss going up to heaven from over all Jerusalem, Joseph went right against the current, right against the influence of all his friends, and begged the body of Jesus.

Blessed act! Doubtless he upbraided himself for not having been more bold in his defense of Christ when He was tried, and before He was condemned to be crucified. The Scripture says he was an honorable man, an honorable counselor, a rich man, and yet we have only the record of that one thing—the one act of begging the body of Jesus. But what he did for the Son of God, out of pure love for Him, will live forever; that one act rises up above everything else that Joseph of Arimathea ever did.

September 2

Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee. (Matthew 9:2)

That was more than his friends expected; they only thought of his body being made whole. So let us bring our friends to Christ, and we shall get more than we expect. The Lord met this man’s deepest need first. It may be his sins had brought on the palsy, so the Lord forgave the man’s sin first of all.

September 1

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My word: in this adulterous and sinful generation; him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:38)

I do not believe there is any false religion in the world that men are not proud of. The only religion of which I have ever heard, that men were ashamed of, is the religion of Jesus Christ. I preached two weeks in Salt Lake City, and I did not find a Mormon that was not proud of his religion.

When within forty miles of Salt Lake City, the engineer came into the car and wanted to know if I wouldn’t like to ride on the engine. I went with him, and in that forty mile ride he talked Mormonism to me the whole time, and tried to convert me so that I would not preach against the Mormons. But how many, many times I have found men ashamed of the religion of Jesus Christ, the only religion that gives men the power over their affections and lusts and sins!