Lessons from the Life of Dwight Moody- Humility, Prayer, and Dependence

In his entire life, he was immersed in what God wanted him to do and was, you don't want to say obsessed. Obsessed is the wrong word, but he was completely focused on it. I was compelled when I read through his letters to his family and friends and stuff like that, how easy the Christian language came to him, how easy it was for him just to talk in terms of having faith in God, of what to do in this situation. And he would just weave it into his everyday conversations. It isn't exactly the difference, again, going back to Martin Luther. I mean, Luther was trained. I mean, he was a scholar in his own right. Moody wasn't, but he was immersed in it in a way that I think a lot of us aren't. We're back on Thinking Christian, and that was Dr. James Spencer in a conversation about a praying people and the life of D.L. Moody and the prayer life of D.L. Moody. Here's more on that conversation. You know, how easy it was for him just to talk in terms of having faith in God, of what to do in this situation, and he would just weave it into his everyday conversations. It isn't exactly the difference, again, going back to Martin Luther. I mean, Luther was trained. I mean, he was a scholar in his own right. Moody wasn't, but he was immersed in it in a way that I think a lot of us aren't. Yeah, he, he, he knew his English Bible. Yeah. And he, you know, read that thing cover to cover all the time and that marked him. But yes, he was, you know, my favorite in terms of his writing was early days. He's writing back to his mom, I think it is. And he's trying to write in this letter some way the psalmist says. And he spells psalmist, S-A-I-M-E-S-T, samist. And then says is S-A-I-S. So, you know, nobody, and the funny thing is, the impact he has in England. Now, you, you know, you can get it in the United States because there isn't this aristocracy kind of thing. Right. The fact that he can go over to England and, you know, numbers of the aristocracy are moved by him. Yeah. Lord Shaftesbury, numbers of Overton, multiples of these guys who were sophisticated and well-educated. Even Spurgeon. I mean, Spurgeon as a young man is reading Pilgrim's Progress. Moody as a young man is, you know, pulling pranks at school. You know, creating phony meetings for temperance. I'll say, you know, Shaftesbury is the guy that I was really, I read through a lot of his stuff today on Moody. And one of the things I found interesting is, you know, he's almost lamenting Moody coming over in the sense that he's just like, You know, we're planning on like having a preacher's college. We're, we're sitting here. We're trying to figure out how do we train up the next generation of preachers? What does this look like to formalize this thing? And now here comes this guy. Yeah. Look at this guy. Like, you know, I mean, basically just lays into it and is like, he's doing this wrong. He's doing this wrong. He doesn't do any of this. He doesn't do any of that. But at the end of the day, he's like, and yet the clergy, the laity, the, the brick, you know, everybody is recognizing the power that this guy is bringing to the pulpit, even though he's doing every single thing wrong. We would never teach anyone to do any single thing he's doing. Yeah. And you just read that and you're like, this is amazing. You know, it's this, it's this guy who, who actually has it down to a science or is trying to, and just Can't figure Moody out. And I think the way he phrased it, you know, he just said, you know, God sometimes uses the foolish things. And I don't think he was calling Moody a fool, but the, the point was, look, he's completely unadorned. He isn't doing anything that we think should get done. This is just the power of God working through the guy. Well, that, and the other thing is Moody. I mean, if you made the mistake of introducing him as Reverend Moody, he would hop on you. No, I'm not. I'm a, I'm plain old Mr. Moody, a Sunday school teacher from Chicago. There were no errors about him. He, he, he just, he wouldn't tolerate that stuff. He was no respecter of persons. And he took that very seriously. And again, it's one thing if people are disrespecting you because they're trying to climb their way up. This guy, he has no agenda. There's no agenda at all. It's not, it's not a power agenda. He starts stuff and then he gets out of the way. You know, and the other thing he does, and you know, I used to say this all the time at Moody. You probably heard me. Moody would do, he'd say, find the thing that needs to be done that nobody else wants to do and do that. That was the Sunday school. He tried to do regular ministry and he was bringing these kids to church and it was a disaster. So, hey, nobody cares to go to the service. 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I'll just go there myself and do it. Well, I remember interviewing David Powell before he passed. David Powell, for those of you who don't know, was D.L. Moody's great grandson. And so I don't think he ever knew Moody directly, but he was really steeped in who D.L. was and was actually the one who started the D.L. Moody Center's digital archive project. But anyway, when I asked him, I said, where do you think D.L. Moody would be today? He just said he would go wherever he saw the Spirit moving. And I love that answer. It's like, you know, he's not, he's not still going to maybe be doing, pounding out evangelism. He's not going to be necessarily publishing books. He's, you know, he would have gone wherever he felt he could make the biggest impact in the kingdom. And that is always where the Spirit is moving. And so it was a simple answer, but I loved it. Well, he was also strategic in this sense. You and I have been to North. You've been to Northfield a way lot more than I have. But I mean, unless you're an urban wonk, there's no way anybody would want to live in Chicago instead of Northfield. It's like, would you rather live in a postcard or live in a, you know? Right, right. A jungle. And Moody wasn't in Chicago for, he didn't even, I don't even think he really liked it very much. Right, he wasn't there for an extremely long time, even though that's sort of where everybody locates him. And that's where, that's, you know, but he said, water runs downhill and the big hills in our country are the cities. So we have to target the cities. So there was a strategicness. So, you know, yes, he would go where the Spirit was moving, but it wasn't insignificant that he chose Chicago either. He didn't choose New York. He didn't choose Boston. Right. Donald Miller wrote a great book called Chicago City of the Century. The city in America in the late 19th century was Chicago. Chicago was about 100 people in 1837. By 1899, it's 1.9 million. And it's the fifth largest city in the world. No place is growing like Chicago. That was the place to be. And so that's where he pitched his tent. Well, I found it interesting. I was doing some research on that early American history is that Boston was having a hard time holding on to the immigrants that were coming over because they're all headed west and many of them to Chicago. And so what you end up with is you end up Boston being basically a sieve, right? It's still a big city. It's not, you know, a slouch or anything like that, but it's not growing in the way that Chicago was growing. It was more like a way stop on the way to a destination as opposed to a destination itself, which is odd to think about. But I mean, yeah, it makes sense that he would leave Boston and not because he was uncomfortable there, but because the growth in Chicago, I mean, he did have business interests at that point. He was still trying to pursue, you know, his careers as a shoe salesman and was doing quite a bit.

good job at that. So I mean, going to greener pastures where things are growing and expanding exponentially made a lot of sense. The fact that he got caught up in the Civil War, I think, is quite fascinating. You know, it doesn't seem, and maybe I'm wrong about this, maybe you can correct me, but it doesn't seem like he moved towards Chicago to get involved with the Civil War. It feels like he moved towards Chicago for other reasons and then ended up getting involved in the Civil War. Am I correct about that? Yeah, I think he moved to Chicago because Chicago was the place for a young man to make his fortune. Boston was established. New York was tougher, but Chicago was, you know, just those population figures I gave you. If a population is growing like that, how much business opportunity is there? It's extraordinary. So it was like a gold rush to go to Chicago. Every young man and his brother with a business idea, that was the place to go. So he goes there, and then the Civil War breaks out while he's there. Now it is fair to say, number one, he was a Republican that predates the Civil War. Number two, he was involved in abolitionist stuff. There's that famous story of him being part of that group that's protesting the return of an African-American who was a fugitive slave. In Boston, correct? Yeah. And he went to hear Garrison and those guys speak, so he heard all the famous abolitionists. He was a staunch abolitionist, a pro-Lincoln guy. So that's where his sympathy lies, but yeah, the Civil War, Chicago was accidental to his involvement in the Civil War. Yeah, that's kind of, that was, that's good. That was my way of my reading of it, is that he wasn't really attempting that. You know, the YMCA was probably a little more intentional because he was involved there in Boston and then in Chicago. But yeah, the Civil War just seems like such an odd blip on his trajectory, but obviously really formative and important. But yeah, I never really felt like he intentionally chose that, you know, in the sense that he's going to move toward it. Well, his connection with the Civil War comes through the Y because the U.S. Christian Commission, which he served with, was an extension of the YMCA. So when the war broke out, the Y said, these guys are going to need what we would call chaplains. And so he volunteered. And again, I think that's a case of Moody being strategic. You know, I need to be where people are and where they're going to be concerned about their souls. And besides that, these people need physical help. Who's going to carry the wounded? Who's going to, you know, who's going to do all this kind of, bury the dead? He did a lot of that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's no wonder that he was burnt out pretty quickly after the Civil War, you know, going into his early ministry after he and Emma got married there. It's no wonder that he was burnt out. I mean, you just think about the fatigue that people have had post-COVID, right? And I mean, we basically just stayed in our houses. The Civil War was a different sort of exhaustion, I'm quite sure. And so for this guy just to, I mean, he squeezed a lot of life into 66 years, right? Like he, you know, and it's like after the Civil War, he just had to feel beyond fatigued. Yeah, well, the total casualties for the United States in World War II were about 400,000. Civil War, there's 800,000. The total population of the United States was about 29 million. So if we did it per capita, it'd be somewhere around, I'm going to lose the number, 3, 4, 5 million dead. Can you imagine the United States being involved in a war with 3, 4, 5 million people dead? We haven't even included the wounded yet. Right. The state of Alabama, for years, its largest expenditure was artificial limbs. No kidding. No kidding. Wow. And when you look at what happened to the infrastructure in the South. Yeah. Oh, just, yeah, totally brutalized. Brutal. And Moody was at Shiloh. And Shiloh was no joke. Shiloh was one of the early bloody battles. And he saw it. Yeah. And I'm not sure, maybe the Pacific in World War II, but the degree of death, the amount of casualties is just stunning. Yeah. Just stunning. I mean, Pickett's charge is 12,000 guys start across the field, 6,000 come back. I mean, that's just stunning. What's there, 2,500 at D-Day? Right. Right. And yeah, it was just, it had to have been a brutal time. And his, his ministry being involved in that, for one, but then going back out into what had to have been a very divided country post-Civil War. I mean, there was just no easy time of this guy's life. Right. You know, I mean, you think, like, when does this guy ever find peace? Right. Like, you know, not peace in Jesus, but just, you know, a day of rest where something crazy isn't going on. They really seem to be few and far between. He was a very, he was involved in a very tumultuous time period in the United States. I think at the end of the Civil War, he's close to what we would call a nervous breakdown, both he and his wife. And so a lot of people don't know, but he made a trip in 1867 to England. Not as a preaching trip, but a getaway trip. And I think that had significant impact on how his ministry took shape in the future. First place he goes is to hear Spurgeon. Right. And Spurgeon cleans his schedule out for a couple of days to spend time with Moody. And then he's hanging out with the Plymouth Brethren, and that's where he gets introduced to premillennialism. He goes to see George Mueller, the Mildmay conferences, which, you know, are kind of like Northfield. There's a lot of stuff that's happened in 1867, 1868 with Moody in terms of observing, just resting and observing. Yeah. And I think that's a critical period. Yeah, I tend to agree. And what I love about his story is, you know, even when he comes back from that trip, I mean, I think he's got some more energy to him. Right. But I recall, I think it was Major Whittle, who was one of Moody's buddies, was writing, he was trying to construct Farwell Hall, if I recall. And he basically said, you know, Moody's just throwing himself all into Farwell Hall and he's killing himself. Like, you know, so he's back from this trip and he's just back into everything, you know, that he was doing. And he's just burning himself out again. And then he has that experience with, what was it, the Methodist women praying that he'd be filled with the Holy Spirit. And eventually, you know, has to find that empowerment for mission. Yeah, that's the New York experience. And, you know, was it a Pentecostal experience? Yada, yada, yada. I think he reflected, I think his view of the Holy Spirit reflected what was already in England. It's called a Keswick movement. And really, they talk about higher living. And so when they talk about Holy Spirit baptism, they're talking about a filling that provides what Moody would call power for service. So when he talks about the Methodist women, what he says is, my ministry became much more fruitful after this experience. But it's not, it's not something that's important for him. It's something that's important in terms of, for lack of a better term, energizing his ministry activity. And when you mix that with what he learned in 1867 in England, then I think, I think what spins out is fairly predictable. He does precisely what he saw. And, you know, what did he learn from Spurgeon? Well, Spurgeon used to walk around. There's, I forget, one or two days a week, he'd take his Bible and he's filled his pocket with money. And he'd bang doors. And if they didn't know the Lord, he'd share the gospel. And if they didn't have anything to eat, he gave them money. And it was that simple. And I think that's the way Moody operated. Yeah. I know that was a big influence on him. I mean, Spurgeon, we have letters and stuff from,

Spurgeon too, Moody in the archives and those kind of things. And so they did keep up after, even after the trip. Huge influence on him. Well, let's, we've kind of scoped out Moody's early life. Let's talk a little bit about the role of prayer in Moody's life. So let's get into your chapter that we have in A Praying People. Again, this is a book that myself and Ashish Farman edited. He was also a professor at Moody. We had several people write essays on prayer, not specific necessarily to D.L. Moody, but we do have a couple essays in here on D.L. Moody and D.L. Moody's prayer life. And Greg wrote one of them. And so, yeah, talk to us a little bit about the significance of prayer for D.L. Moody and how it really operates within his ministry. Yeah, I think Moody's conception of prayer was, to get back to 1867, I think George Mueller played a significant role in Moody's understanding of prayer. I think the experience with the Methodist women played a critical role. He was also involved with a woman from a Baptist church in Chicago, Mother Phillips, who was a prayer warrior. But I think the place it really started for Moody is as a boy with his mother. His mother is trying to raise this family, trying to keep them together. And she has a Bible. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And I can't remember the text. I think it's Jeremiah about the place of widows in the heart of God. And he would say, my mother, when she couldn't take it anymore, I could hear her praying and weeping to God and just pouring out her soul to God. And I think that marked him. I think that caused him to turn to God when things started to get out of control. And then what he saw with men of prayer. And then as he begins to engage in prayer, then what you see is he develops almost a theology of prayer. But given it's Moody, it's not ethereal. It's practical. So, you know, and that's that. He lays out a practice, adoration, confession. And the two things that struck me, James, as I walked through that is, number one, he has this notion of restitution. Yeah. Which is really, you know, you don't hear that much. You don't hear restitution as part of prayer. And he works off of the, was it Zacchaeus, I think? Yeah, Zacchaeus. And, you know, what does Zacchaeus do? Well, he goes back and pays back the money he stole. That's right. And so this idea that your relationship with God is a function of your making restitution to those whom you have hurt to the extent that you can. And the impact that has on prayer, I think, is really unique and really worth thinking about. The second thing that I found really fascinating is, and I found this comforting. Moody didn't have much time for long prayers. He said, you know, the prayers in the Bible are short. And there's that famous story where he's on the boat, the Spree, and they're sinking, you know, having a prayer meeting. And Moody prays and, okay. And then he starts doing other stuff. And they're like, what are you doing? And he just looked at him and said, I'm all prayed out. You know, and I think, now this is a reflection of his personality as well. I mean, look, the guy did everything fast. But I think there's something to the notion that too often we make prayer something that must be, you know, four hours and on your knees. And if you're not praying four hours, it's no good. I think Moody spent the day praying. And it would be things like, okay, Lord, help me now. Or, you know, give me a soul. Or help me help this family. And kind of a conversational kind of thing. And I think there's something to that. He is right. Most of the prayers in the Bible are very short. The Lord's Prayer isn't long. Right. So I think those things really struck me, James, as I worked it through. Yeah, I mean, I love, you know, prevailing prayer. You hear that title, that part of the title. And you think you're going to read a book about prayer. What you really end up reading about are, you know, what the full title says, prevailing prayer, what hinders it. And then you go through this sort of, the way I think of it, this constellation of practices. And it's like, prayer isn't going to work if you've got these sort of things all around it. And just my sense of his work overall is that what he's trying to get people to do, the way I would sort of phrase it in my own language is, he wants Christians to live life on God's terms as opposed to their own. And a big part of doing that is things like confession and restitution and those kind of things. And so if you're trying to live your life on your own terms and you're trying to pray, you're obviously not going to be praying that God's will be done in your life. You're actively opposing God's will in your life. And so you have to course correct and sort of align these practices in the right configuration if you want those, want your prayer not to be hindered. And so that, you know, that sense of prevailing prayer, what hinders it, I've always loved the title because it's like, you pick it up and you're going, oh, it's a prayer book. It's not a prayer book. It's a book about what hinders prayer. And I think you have to make sort of the logical leaps after that to kind of figure out what he's really doing. But I think what he's doing is really profound. Yeah, and I also think, I think he's right that people are hindered because they feel like they have to pray a long time. Agreed. Yeah. I've known several people and you'll walk up to them and say, you know, will you pray for me for this? And they will just stop right then and pray. Because, you know, we all say, yeah, I'll pray for you about that. And how many of us actually do it? Right, right. But, you know, I've always thought, well, that's kind of the way, you know, yeah, I'll pray for you right now. I can, I can take 10 seconds and say something to God at this point. Right. I don't have to wait till my designated quiet time where I'm on my knees for four hours. And I think that flows from being right with God. Yeah. Yeah. You get the sense that Moody was just very in touch. And I don't mean that in some sort of weird, ethereal way. Right. But he just sort of viewed the world as God being active and present within it. Yes. And so if you really do start to view the world that way, short little prayers, you know, I mean, you go to like Matthew 6, right? What's Jesus say? Don't pray like the Gentiles piling up words. Right. And so he's not telling the disciples just to be short. He's telling them, listen, I don't, you know, you know me, I know you. There's no reason for you just to throw the, you know, all the pasta at the fridge and see what sticks. You know what sticks. So just throw that, you know. And I think D.L. Moody just really had a good sense of what stuck. That if you're aligned with God's will, if you were actively engaging him on his terms, that prayer got easier. Yeah. What a great lesson for us. Yeah. And it was kind of.

Yeah, very cool, man. Well, anything else? I mean, you know, we're getting to the end here. So if you had to leave the audience with one thing about Mr. Moody, that they should know and really take to heart, right? Like, what would it be? Um, I was thinking about this because I'm writing the conclusion now for this book, and I can't remember where it is. I think it's in Hebrews. So a little verse that says, Elijah was a man just like us. And he prayed and the heavens opened. You know, I'm working with a Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes we turn these people into things people they aren't. Moody was a flawed person. He made mistakes. You know, we don't have time, but you and I have talked significantly about how he handled some of the racial questions of his day. Yeah. And in my world, that was a massive failure, but that puts him in great company. You know, last time I checked, I used to tell students at Moody, the great thing about the Bible is everybody goofs up except Jesus. That's kind of the point, isn't it? Right. So I think there is a, here's a guy that came from nothing, no education, limited skill set, incredibly limited skill set. But he, he, he gave himself to the Lord and he took advantage of opportunities as they came up. And then the other thing is, and, you know, I'll say it again, find the thing that needs to be done that nobody wants to do. Churches are filled with jobs that need to be done and nobody wants to do them because they're not glamorous. Yeah. Many years ago, I got a, I'm an alumnus of Wheaton and I got an alumni magazine talking about a fellow that had died. I don't remember the name, guy's name, but I remember this that for 30 years, he got up on Sunday morning at five o'clock and went in and turned the heat on in the church. So it'd be warm when people got there. And somebody needs to turn the heat on. Yeah. You know, so I would encourage them to just look for the opportunities that are in their life. Look for the things that need to be done. Remember that Moody's a man just like us and you don't have to be perfect or gifted. All you have to do is be willing to give yourself to the Lord. It's a good word, man. Well, I appreciate you being with us today and we'll have you back. We'll, we'll talk some more DL Moody. Like once your book comes out, we'll, we'll have you back, man. And I hope you have a great trip to Germany. Again, we'll get your email in the show notes. And so folks, if you want to hit Germany or you want to do maybe another tour that's forthcoming, please feel free to email Dr. Quiggle. And outside of that, we will catch you on the next episode of thinking Christians. So thanks everybody. Take care. Thank you. Want to take just a second to thank the team at life audio for their partnership with us on the thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Many of us feel hurried. Did you know that being in a hurry is costing us more than we realize? Hi, I'm Jen Fadling, co-host of unhurried living, where my husband, Alan and I help people learn to live and lead from fullness rather than on empty. We provide resources and training to teach you healthy patterns for rest, work, and spiritual connection. With more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of spiritual formation and leadership development, unhurried living seeks to inspire others to rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. Join us each week as we continue to have conversations about leadership, soul care, the power of prayer, and much more. You can find unhurried living at lifeaudio.com and on your favorite podcasting app.