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- D.L. Moody - Popular Excuses to Avoid
Salvation
"Popular Excuses to Avoid Salvation" by D.L. Moody
 Some people are always making excuses for not doing their duty, and
especially for not coming to Christ. If I asked you to come to
Christ, you would be ready to give some excuse for not accepting the
invitation. I never saw an unsaved man in my life but had some
excuse - never! and if you don't have one ready, Satan will be right
by you to help you to make one. He is good at that sort of thing.
That has been his occupation the last six thousand years - helping
men to make excuses.
"And they all with one consent began to make excuse." (Luke 14:18)
Just bear in mind, these men were invited to a feast, and not to
funeral. They were not invited to go to prison. They were not
invited to a hospital, or to a madhouse; but they were invited to
feast. Now, when a man prepares a feast, there is a great rush to
see who will get the best seats; but when God prepares His feast,
the chairs would all be empty, if His disciples did not go out to
compel people to come in. No sooner did the King send out His
invitations than the excuses began to rain in. "And they all, with
one consent, began to make excuse."
All at it, and always at it. Did you ever stop to think, my friends,
what would take place if God should take every man at his own word
who wants to be excused? If He were to say, "I will excuse you" and
with the next breath take them all out of the world? If every one in
this audience should be taken at his word, who makes excuses in this
respect, and if God should say, "Cut him down, let him cumber the
ground no longer, hew him down," (Luke 13:7) there would be a very
terrible state of things in London. If every man in London, and
every woman who wanted to be excused, and is saying so, - if God
should take them at their word, and say, "I will excuse you," oh! my
friends, there would be a great many shops not opened tomorrow.
The public-houses [bars], for instance, would be closed; for I never
saw a publican [bar-keeper] in my life, but what wanted to be
excused. He knows he cannot go on with his hellish traffic, if he
accepts this invitation. He would have to stop that at once. Many of
your cabmen [taxi drivers] do not want to come to the feast, because
they would have to stop their business on the Sabbath. There would
be a great many of your princely merchants that would be gone. They
do not want to accept the invitation, because they think, if they
do, they cannot make money so fast. They are carrying on some
business which would then have to be stopped, because they accepted
this invitation. There would be a very sad state of things taking
place. Those that were left would have to be busy burying the dead.
It would be a very solemn time, if God should take men at their
word, and just excuse them. You let some terrible disease lay hold
of a man, and half his excuses are gone at once.
Every kind of excuse is given; but that man does not live who can
give a good excuse.
Let any man get an invitation from Queen Victoria to go down to
Windsor Castle, to some banquet; and there is not a man but would
consider it a great honor to receive such an invitation. But only
think of the invitation that I bring tonight! It comes from the King
of kings. The marriage supper of the Lamb is going to take place,
and God wants every man in this assembly to be present. I cannot
speak for the rest of you; but if I know my own heart, I would be
rather torn limb from limb - I would rather have my heart torn out
of me - than be absent from that marriage supper. I have missed a
good many appointments in my time, but, by the grace of God, I mean
to make sure of keeping that one.
These men all began to say, "I pray thee have me excused." Let us
take up that first man's excuse. What was it? He had bought some
ground, and he must needs go and see it. Why did he not, if he were
a good business man, go and look at the ground before he bought it?
It was not going to make the ground any better for him to go and
look at it. He had not made a partial bargain and might withdraw. He
was not afraid that some one might step in ahead of him and get the
ground from him, and so he would lose it: it was not anything of
this kind; but he had bought the ground, and must needs go and see
it. It is a strange time to go and see ground, just at supper time.
I think the ground would have looked all the better after he had
been to the feast. But the fact is, my friends, he did not believe
it was a feast; and that is the trouble to-day. Men do not believe
the Gospel is a feast.
The second man is approached by the messenger, who says, "My lord
has made a great feast, and he wants to have you come to it." "Take
back to your lord the message, that I cannot be there. I have bought
five yoke of oxen [for plowing], and I have got to go and prove
[test] them." Why did not he prove his oxen before he bought them?
That is the time to prove oxen; but now he has bought them, let them
stand in the stall. The trade is already closed; the bargain is
already made; the oxen are bought. They are his, and now he can go
and prove them at any time. A queer time to prove oxen, at supper
time! He had better have proved them in the morning, and so have
been ready to go to the feast in the evening.
The third man had married a wife, and therefore he could not come.
Why not take his wife along with him? A young bride likes to go to a
feast - no one better. He might have taken her: and if she was not
willing, then let her stay at home. You smile, you laugh at this,
but you can see plainly what these excuses were. They were simply
falsehoods, just manufactured to ease their consciences.
That boy down in the audience sees how absurd these excuses were;
for the fact was, they did not want to go to the feast; and it would
have been a good deal more honest for them to have said; "I don't
want to go to your lord's feast, and I will not go."
Now, I would just like to take up some of the popular excuses of the
present day. I do not doubt but there are hundreds of you who say
to-night, "If I could accept that invitation, Mr. Moody, I would
like to be a Christian; but, sir, I have tried, and I find it is a
very hard thing." Well, now let us look at that excuse. Do you mean
to say that God is a hard Master? Do you say it is a hard thing to
serve God? and do you say that Satan is an easy master, and that it
is easier to serve him than God? Is it honest, - is it true? If it
is, then I must confess that I have not read my Bible right; because
I read it this way: - "The way of the transgressor is hard." (Prov.
13:15)
If you doubt it, young men, look at the convicts in that prison;
right in the bloom of manhood; right in the prime of life. He has
been there for ten years, and must remain there for ten years more,
- twenty years taken out of his life, and the thought that when he
comes out of that miserable cell, be comes out a branded convict! Do
you think that man will tell you "the way of the transgressor has
been easy"?
Go and ask the poor drunkard, - the man who is bound hand and foot,
and is a slave to the infernal cup, and is hastening on to a
drunkard's grave and to a drunkard's hell, - ask him if he has found
the way of the transgressor easy, and the devil an easy master. Go
ask the libertine - go ask that gambler - go ask the most abandoned
man you have got in London, - ask them all, if they have found the
devil an easy master.
Suppose we were to take the most faithful follower of the devil, and
put him into the witness-stand, and let him testify; do you think
the most faithful follower of the devil would tell you that he is an
easy master? Why, there is not a young man here but knows in his
heart the devil is a hard master.
The best way to settle this question is to find out by the testimony
of those that have served both masters. I do not think any man has a
right to judge until he has served both masters. If I heard a man
condemn a master, I should be very apt to ask if he had served him;
and if he had not, he could not very well testify. I am speaking to
many to-night who have served both masters. Many of you have served
Christ; and many of you, before you were brought into the fold of
Christ, served the devil. I would like to ask the young men here
to-night that are Christ's, - that have served Christ, - I would
like to ask you, who have been brought into the kingdom of God and
found Christ, - is Jesus a hard Master? [Loud cries of No.] I
thought you would say no. I knew you would. I never heard a man say,
"I have served Christ for five years, or more, and found Him a very
hard Master." You never will say that.
One of the greatest lies that has come out of the pit of hell is,
that Christ is a hard Master. It is a lie, and has been so from the
foundation of the world. Oh, young man, I beg of you, do not believe
the devil when he says that God is a hard Master. It is false, my
friends; and to-night let me brand that excuse as one of the devil's
own lies, that lie has been retailing up and down the earth for six
thousand years.
Look how poor Adam suffered, because he believed the devil's lies!
Look at poor Judas! Did he find the devil an easy master? See him
throwing down the thirty pieces of silver! (Matt. 27:5) Why, he got
so tired of the devil's service that he hanged himself twenty-four
hours after he entered it.
Then there is another very popular excuse. I can imagine a good many
would say; "Well, Mr. Moody, the fact is, I want to be saved." Of
course you do! You would not be coming here at this time - at some
inconvenience, many of you - if you did not want to be saved. But
you say, "The fact is, Mr. Moody, I don't know that I am elected. If
I thought I was elected I would come. I know that I cannot come
unless I am elected and I really want to come very much, but I don't
know that I am one of the elect." Now, I have heard that till I have
got sick and tired of it. I want to say to every unconverted man in
this hall to-night that you have no more to do with the doctrine of
election than you have with the government of China. I am not saying
this in haste; I weigh well my words. I say that no unconverted man
has anything to do with the doctrine of election. You have to do
with the word whosoever. Now, the invitation is, "Whosoever will,
let him come to this feast." (Rev. 22:17)
To-night, my friends, let me say that you are invited, every one of
you; and if you don't come, it will be because you won't, not
because God does not want you, or has not given you the power to
come. With the invitation there comes the power. Christ said to the
withered man, "Stretch out thy hand." (Mark 3:5) The man might have
said that he had not the power; but with the invitation there came
the power. And so it is here.
Suppose I walked up the street to-night, and I stepped up to the
door of this Camberwell Hall to go in, and a man stopped me, and I
said to him, "Why not let me in?" "Where's your ticket? " "I have
got none." "But no one is admitted without a ticket." "Then I cannot
go in, I suppose?" "No; it is for a certain class - those that have
got tickets." I go along farther - up to the Exeter Hall and there
is an anniversary meeting of some society. I step in, and a
policeman pushes me back. I say, "I want to go in"; and he says,
"You cannot go in here unless you have got a ticket. None but
members can be admitted to-night." I do not happen to be a member of
the society, and I cannot go in. I go an along a little farther, and
come to another meeting; and there, perhaps, they are Quakers. The
policeman stops me, and says, "Nobody admitted but Quakers." I am
not a Quaker, and cannot go in. Farther on I find a soldiers'
meeting. I cannot go in because I am not a soldier, and none but
soldiers are admitted. But I go farther on, for I find written up in
great big letters, "Whosoever will, let him come in." In I go: that
means me. Now God has headed His invitation with whosoever, in great
burning letters; and if you will go in, God will receive you
to-night. He wants you to come this hour - this very minute.
"Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." I have
an idea that the Lord Jesus Christ saw how men were going to stumble
over that doctrine of election; for, after He had been back in
heaven for thirty or forty years, and John was in the Spirit on the
Lord's Day, in the Isle of Patmos, Jesus came to him and said,
"John, write this," and he wrote. Again He said; "John, before you
close the book, put in this - The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."
(Rev. 22:17) That for ever has settled in my mind, the doctrine of
election.
Another excuse is: "I can't understand the Bible." Men are giving
that as the reason why they do not accept the invitation to be at
the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now, I want to say I never met a
skeptic or infidel who had read the Bible through. I heard a man say
the other day to another man, " Have you read such a book?" "Yes."
"What is your opinion of it?" "Well, I only read it through once,
and I would not like to give my opinion without reading it more
carefully." But men can give their opinion about God's Book without
reading it. They read a chapter here and there, and say, "Oh, the
Book is so dark and mysterious!" and because they cannot understand
it by reading a few chapters, they condemn the whole of it. The Word
of God tells us plainly that the natural man cannot understand
spiritual things. It is a spiritual book, and speaks of spiritual
things; and a man must be born of the Spirit before he can
understand the Bible. What seems very dark and mysterious to you now
will all be light and clear when ye are born of the Spirit.
You say, "If that is so, how am I to understand how to be saved?" I
will tell you. When God puts salvation before a sinner, He puts it
so plain that a man who runs can read, and a wayfaring man, though a
fool, need not err therein. There are a great many things in the
Book which are dark and mysterious; but when it comes to the plan of
salvation, God has put it so plain that that little girl ten years
old can understand it, if she will.
You understand what it is to come. "Come unto me, all ye that labour."
(Matt. 11:28) You know what it is to take a gift. "He came unto His
own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to
them gave He power to become the sons of God." (John 1:11-12) "The
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." (Rom.
6:23) You know what it is to believe in a man. Well, "believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31) You know
what it is to put trust and confidence in a man. Now, put your trust
and confidence in the living God, and you are saved. You are saved
by casting yourself unreservedly upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
When God puts salvation before a man, He puts it so plain and simple
that if he is willing to come as a little child, he can come.
Suppose I should send my little boy, five years old, to school
to-morrow morning, and when he came home I should say, "Can you
read, write, spell? Do you understand all about arithmetic,
geometry, algebra?" The little fellow would look, at me, and say,
"Why, Papa, why do you talk that way? I have been trying all day to
learn the A B C." Supposing I replied "If you have not finished your
education you need not go to the school any more," - what would you
say? You would say; "Moody has gone mad." Well, there is about as
much sense in that as in the way that infidels talk about the Bible.
They take it up, read a chapter, and say "Oh, it is so dark and
mysterious, we cannot understand it."
This blessed Book is given to be a lamp to our feet and a light to
our path (Psa. 119:105) to guide the way to those eternal mansions
(John 14:2). It never was given to keep men out of the kingdom of
God. That is the devil's work - trying to make you believe the Word
of God is not true. I tell you the only way we can overcome the
enemy of our souls is by the written Word of God; and the devil
knows that, and so he comes up, and says - "it is full of lies; it
is dark and mysterious; it contradicts itself: don't you believe
it." He knows the moment a man goes to the Word of God and believes
it, he finds liberty to his soul, and gets beyond Satan's reach; he
gets a weapon in his hand with which to conquer the devil; he
overcomes the enemy of his salvation.
The devil does not want you to find that out, and whispers this lie;
and you believe it rather than the Word of God. Young man, your
mother is right: the Bible is true, and you had better accept it.
Keep this in mind : you will never stand up before the bar of God,
and say, the Bible kept you out of the kingdom. It may sound very
well here, now; you may be satisfied to give that for an excuse down
here, to-night; but you will not be satisfied to give it in the
Courts of Heaven; - you will not stand up in the great Judgment Day
and say the Bible kept you out of the kingdom.
Then there is another class. Some people say "I haven't any doubt
about the Word of God; but the fact is, there are some men in the
Church who are hypocrites; therefore I don't purpose to go into the
Church." I am not asking you to come into the Church - not but what
I believe in churches - but I am asking you to the marriage supper
of the Lamb; I am inviting you to this feast; we will talk about the
Church by-and-by.
We want you to come to Christ first; then we will talk to you about
the Church. But you say; "Here are some hypocrites." So there are;
and I can imagine you saying; "Oh yes - there is a man up here in
one of the churches that cheated me out of £5 a few years ago; you
are not going to catch me in the company of such hypocrites," Well,
my friend, if you want to get out of the company of hypocrites, you
had better get out of the world as quick as you can. One of the
twelve apostles turned out to be a hypocrite; and there is no doubt
there will be hypocrites in the Church to the end of time. But "what
is that to thee?" says Christ to Peter: "follow thou Me." We do not
ask you to follow hypocrites, we ask you to follow Christ; we do not
ask you to believe in hypocrites, we ask you to believe in Christ.
Another thing - if you want to get out of the company of hypocrites
you had better make haste and come to Christ. There will be no
hypocrites at the marriage supper of the Lamb; they will all be in
hell, and you will be there with them if you do not make haste and
come to Christ. That excuse would sound strange, would it not? We
very often hear men give it down here, but it would sound very
strange before Jehovah - a man saying, "I know You invited me to be
at the marriage supper of Your Son, but I did not accept it because
I knew, there were some hypocrites that professed the Gospel."
There is another class who say; "I know there are hypocrites. but
they don't have any influence over me." If I could go to the door as
you go out to-night, and take you by the hand and say, "My friend,
why not accept of the invitation to-night?" If you would say, "I
pray to be excused to-night; I have not time. I have got some very
pressing business to-morrow morning to attend to, and I have to go
home to bed as quick as possible, to get my night's rest. You will
have to excuse me." And the mothers here would say, "I have to go
home and put the children to bed; you really must excuse me";- "very
pressing business";- "no time." Thousands of men in London say they
have not time. Thanks be to God! it don't take time: it takes
decision.
But what have you done with all the time God has given you? Your
locks [hair] are turning grey, your eye is growing dim, and that
temple of your body is coming down: what have you done with all
those years? Is it true you have not time? What did you do with the
three hundred and sixty-five days last year? No time? - what have
you done with it all? Have not you had time to accept of this
invitation? Why, men spend fifteen or twenty years to get an
education, that they may go out to earn a living for this frail body
that is soon to be eaten up with worms; or five years to learn a
trade, that they may earn a living; and yet they have not five
minutes to seek their souls' salvation!
You "have no time." Is it true? You know it is a lie; and if you go
out to-night unsaved, it will not be because you have not time, but
because you won't accept the invitation. God says, "Seek first the
kingdom of God." (Matt. 6:33) That is the first thing to do.
Supposing you do not get so much money to-morrow, and get Christ, is
not that worth more than money? Better for a man to be sure of
salvation than to have the wealth of the world rolled to his feet!
But there is another excuse coming up from some one in the gallery.
A man says, "My heart is so hard." Well, that is just the very
reason you ought to come. If you had not a hard heart you would not
need a Savior. Can you soften your heart? Can you break your heart?
Did not God invite the hard-hearted? Did not Christ come to seek and
to save that which was lost? It is just because men's hearts are
hard that they need a Savior. That is no excuse at all. God invites
you, and you won't stand tip and tell the Great King you did not
accept His the invitation because you had a hard heart. He invites
"whosoever"; and you can come along with your hard heart.
In the North there was a minister talking to a man in the inquiry
room. He said, " My heart is so hard, it seems as if it was chained;
and I cannot come." " Ah! " said the minister, "Come to Christ,
chain and all"; and he just came to Christ, and Christ snapped the
fetters, and set him free right there. If you are bound hand and
foot by Satan, that is the work of God to break the fetters; you
cannot break them. Thanks be to God! He can break the fetters and
set the captive souls free to-night. I do not care how hard the
heart is: the Lord can save to the uttermost; He bids you come just
as you are. Oh, this old excuse - "I am so bad!"; Away with it! Paul
said he was the "chief" of sinners; and if the chief has obtained
mercy there is hope for everybody else.
The devil makes us believe that we are good enough without
salvation, if he can; and if he cannot make us believe that, he
says, "You are so bad the Lord won't have you"; and so he tries to
make people believe, because they are so bad, Christ won't have
anything to do with them. God invites you to come just as you are. I
know a great many people want to come, but they are trying to get
better and to get ready to come. Now mark you, my friend, the Lord
invites you to come just as you are; and if you could make yourself
better, you would not be any more acceptable to Him.
Do not put these filthy rags of self-righteousness about you. God
will strip every rag from you when you come to Him, and He will
clothe you with glorious garments. When our [civil] war was going
on, we would sometimes go to the recruiting office and see a man
come in with a silk hat, broadcloth coat, calfskin boots - his suit
might be worth $100; and another man would come in whose clothes
were not worth a pound; but they both had to strip, and put on the
uniform of the country. And so when we go into Christ's vineyard we
must put on the livery of heaven, and be stripped of every rag of
our own. However bad you are, come just as you are, and the Lord
will receive you.
Some say; "I would like to become a Christian; but I have a
prejudice against these special meetings, and against Americans, and
against a layman too. If it was a regular minister, if it was our
regular minister, I would accept the invitation." If that is your
difficulty, I can help you out of that. You can just get up, and go
out of the hall, and run right over to your minister, and have a
talk with him; your minister would be most glad to see and talk and
pray with you. And if you say do not want to be converted in a
special meeting, there are regular meetings in all the churches
throughout London.
But if you say There is a great awakening here in London," and you
do not want to be converted in that way; then jump into a train, and
go to some town where there is no revival. We can find you some
place where there is no revival, and some church where there is not
much of the revival spirit. If you really want to go, don't give
that for an excuse. How wise the devil is! When the Church is cold,
and everything is dead, men say, " Oh, well, if there was only some
life in the Church I might become a Christian, - if we could only
just have a wave from heaven." Then when the wave does come, they
say, " Oh no; we are afraid of excitement, and afraid of these
special meetings. We are afraid there will be something done that
won't be just in accordance with our ideas of propriety." - My
friend, it is God who is working. He prepares the way.
There is another class here who say: "I would like to come, but then
I do not feel." That is, I think, the very worst excuse, and the
most common excuse we have. I wish sometimes the word could be
abolished, - feel! feel! You go into the inquiry room. "Well, Mr.
Moody, I do not feel this and that." Why, supposing my friend, Mr.
Stone [organizer of the meeting] should invite me to go to his house
to-morrow to dinner, and I say to Mr. Stone, "I should like to go
very much, but I don't know that I feel right." "Well", he says,
"what do you mean? Do you mean you don't want to go to my house?"
"Oh no, I want to go." (That is what men say: "Oh yes, we want to be
saved.") "What do you mean, Mr. Moody? Do you mean that you do not
know you will be well to-morrow? Do you think you will be sick?" "I
expect to be well to-morrow, if I live." "Well, what do you mean by
feeling?" "Well, I do not know just how I'll feel. I would like very
much to go to your house to dinner tomorrow, but I don't know that I
will feel just right." "I don't understand you, Mr. Moody - I am not
talking about feeling; I invite you to come to my house to dinner."
"Well, I would like to come very much, but the fact is, I do not
know how I will feel to-morrow."
I can imagine my friend saying, "What has come over Moody? I think
the fellow has gone mad. I asked him to my house to dinner, and he
says he would like to come, but he does not know that he will feel
right; he talked about feeling all the time." Of course you would
say be has gone mad. But that is the way people talk now. You speak
to them about coming to the kingdom of God, and they say; "I do not
know that I feel just right." Away with your feelings. God is above
feeling. We cannot control our feelings? If I could, I would feel
good all the time - never catch me feeling bad at anything! I am
sure if I could control my feelings I never would have any bad
feelings; I would always have good feelings.
Bear in mind, Satan may change our feelings fifty times a day, but
he cannot change the Word of God; and what we want is to build our
hopes of the kingdom of heaven upon the Word of God. When a poor
sinner is coming up out of the pit, and just ready to get his feet
upon the Rock of Ages, the devil sticks out a plank of feeling and
says; "Get on that"; and when he puts his feet on that, down he goes
again.
Take one of these texts - "Verily, I say unto you, he that hearest
my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life, and
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into
life." (John 5:24) My friend, that is worth more than all the
feelings that you can have in a whole lifetime. I would a thousand
times rather stand on that verse than on the best frame of feeling.
I took my stand there twenty years ago. The dark waves of hell have
come dashing up against me; the waves of persecution have surged
around me doubts, fears, and unbelief have assailed me; but I have
been able to stand right there. It is a sure footing for eternity.
It was true eighteen hundred years ago, and it is true to-night.
That Rock is higher than my feeling. What we want is to get our feet
upon the Rock, and then the Lord will put a new song into our
mouths.
There is another class, who say they cannot believe. Not long ago, a
man said to me; "I cannot believe." I said "Who?" "Well, I cannot
believe." I said, "Who"' He stammered and stuttered, and I said; "
Who cannot you believe, - God?" "Oh yes, I believe God. I cannot
believe myself," "Well, you do not want to believe yourself. Your
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jer.
17:9). Put no confidence in the flesh. Don't believe yourself; call
yourself a liar, and let God be true. Believe in God, and say as Job
said; 'Though He slay me I will trust Him.'(Job 13:15)"
Some men seem to talk as if it was a great misfortune that they do
not believe. Bear in mind, it is the damning sin of the world. "When
He, the Comforter, is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on
me." That is the sin of the world - "because they believe not on
me." Why, that is the very root of sin - the very tree, and all the
fruit! This is the tree that brings forth this bad fruit - it is the
tree of unbelief.
I wish I had time to go on with these excuses; for they are as
numerous as the hairs on our heads. But if I could go on and exhaust
them all, the devil would help to make more. You can just take them,
tie them up in one bundle, and mark them lies - the whole of them.
Not one of them is true. If your excuse is a good one, if it will
stand the light of eternity; do not give it up for anything I have
said. Hold it firm, take it to the bar of God, and tell it out to
Him. But if you have an excuse that won't stand the piercing eye of
God, I beg of you, as a friend, give it up - let your excuses go.
Let them go to the four winds of heaven, and accept of the
invitation now. It is a very easy thing for a man to excuse himself
into hell, but he cannot excuse himself out.
Dare you make light of the invitation? Suppose you should just write
out an excuse to the King of Heaven: "While sitting in the
Camberwell Hall, July 10th, 1875, I received a very pressing
invitation from one of Your messengers to be present at the marriage
supper of Your only-begotten Son. I pray Thee have me excused."
Would you come up and sign that? Would you take your pen and put
your name down to that excuse? I can imagine you saying, you would
let your right hand forget its cunning, and your tongue cleave to
the roof of your mouth first. I doubt whether there is a man in this
room who could be made to sign this excuse: but what will you do?
Many of you will get up and go out of this hall, making light of the
preacher, laughing at everything you have heard, paying no attention
to the invitation. I beg of you, do not make light of this
invitation. It is a loving God that invites you; but God is not to
be mocked. Go, play with the forked lightning, trifle with any
pestilence, any disease, rather than with God. God is not to be
trifled with.
Just let me write out another reply "To the King of Heaven. While
sitting in the Camberwell Hall, July 10th, 1875, I received a
pressing invitation from one of Your servants to be present at the
marriage supper of Your only-begotten Son. I hasten to reply, By the
grace of God I will be present." Who will sign that? (Many replies
of "I will!" "I will!") Who will set to their seal to-night that God
is true? Be wise to-night and accept of the invitation. Make up your
mind now: do not go away till the question of eternity is settled.Dwight L. Moody
July 10th, 1875
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