Billy Graham at Moody Bible Institute Centennial

I've already preached them and they preach well thank you when I hear a shot I don't duck anymore because I've been told to expect one any time nowadays but I want to take an old obscure sermon that moody preached and I don't know where it's found but I think it was in one of Wilbur Smith's books on moody that this sermon was found and I made notes from it and made my own little outline and preached it one time years ago in North Carolina and before I read it I want to say that I'm the most unworthy person to be here in fact one of the times that I'm nervous and perspiration in the palms of my hand is right now I remember the first sermon I've ever preached was in North Florida and I had prepared for sermon outlines and each one I thought could last 45 minutes and I was asked if this little Baptist Church on a cold February night and there were 36 people present and I got up and I preached all four sermons in eight minutes and I could possibly do the same today because on the hundredth anniversary of the man in evangelism that I have admired the most and patterned a great deal of our Vangelis t'k work after I could never believe that I would have that great honor and that great privilege and I feel terribly honored and humbled to be invited here today yes it was five years ago that dr. Sweeting wrote to me and asked me I'd never had anybody write me that long ahead and I accepted I expect if he'd waited a little while longer he might not have invited but being that far back he invited me and secondly I accepted because I considered it one of the greatest privileges of my entire life is to be invited to this service here the last time that I preached it founders week I can remember at the moody church and I remember what I preached on I preached on hell I never got an invitation back not because of that but I think that they thought that I had taken too much material from our Atari because he preached on hell a great deal Moody did not preach on hell much but our Atari did and I believe that it needs to be resized again today because people today do not have an understanding of what eternity is and there's a heaven and a hell and what men decide about Christ is where they're going to go and this text is found in Deuteronomy the 32nd chapter and the 31st verse for their rock is not our rock for their rock is not our rock and then switching over to the 7th chapter of Matthew beginning with verse 12 apartment 4 verse 21 these words not everyone that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not preached in your name have we not cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works and then will I profess unto them I know you not depart from me ye that work iniquity therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon the house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock and every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon the house and it fell and great was the fall thereof there have been only a relatively few men in the history of the church that has had such a profound impact as Dwight l moody directly he touched thousands in his day indirectly through all the things that he started he's touched millions his example in his single-minded zeal to preach the gospel have influenced my own life tremendously as a matter of fact the little town that I live in is Montreat North Carolina that town was founded by dl moody he sent two people down from Northfield to find a conference center in the south that would be suitable for conferences and they founded that little Valley which was called the mountain retreat Association it became Presbyterian and Wilbur Chapman lived there and that's where we live and Moody had a part in that there have been few institutions in the history of the church which if so broadly touched the world for Christ as the Moody Bible Institute during these past hundred years it has been my privilege now to preach the gospel in 62 countries on every continent and virtually everywhere we've gone we found alumni of the Moody Bible Institute proclaiming the gospel and working for the gospel in all those places toward the end of his life moody said I've started some streams which will flow into eternity and look at the streams he started certainly the work of the Moody Bible Institute has produced results in abundance which will flow on into eternity it is an eloquent testimony to your commitment to world evangelization that one out of every 15 Protestant missionaries from North America are graduates of the Moody Bible Institute over 70 percent of the pilots serving on the mission field are graduates of Moody's aviation program which is just across the mountain from where my son lives who is in full-time Christian work and he has his airplane and he flies it over there to get it fixed from time to time and every four minutes somewhere in the world of moody trained missionary pilot is taking off every day a half-million people see one of your science films and millions read the books in the literature and hundreds of thousands read the Moody Monthly and listen to the radio programs produced in moody many of the greatest mission area and evangelistic outreach is of this generation were founded by people who studied at Moody and I could go on and on for God has greatly blessed and used this institution during a hundred years several members of my own team are graduates of moody in thinking about what I should say today I thought of this rather obscure passage that I'd preached years ago not knowing quite where I found it for their rock is not our Rock and Jesus I'm sure had this passage in mind when he spoke the words of the second text from Matthew that I read and as we think of the last hundred years of the Moody Bible Institute we cannot help but ask why why why has God blessed it and used it so greatly and how could it apply to your life here today I think part of the answer lies in the board of trustees through these years and the six presidents that Moody has had it's quite remarkable that there's only been six presidents in ten in a hundred years DL moody R Atari James Gray will Houghton William Culbertson and George sweetie God has used the Moody Bible Institute because it is always sought to build its ministry upon the rock of God's truth it is sought above all to be faithful to the Word of God and God has rewarded that faithfulness and in an age which we've seen powerful ways of secularization engulf most educational institutions Moody Bible Institute has been willing to go against the trend and remain faithful to its original vision it said with Moses forbear rock is not our rock these words were spoken by Moses in his farewell address to the people of Israel he had been their leader for forty years and he had been with them day and night he'd shared their burdens lifted their vision ate when they turned away from God from time to time he'd been their king their president their judge their father all wrapped in one now he's an old man getting ready to depart for heaven and the people are going to go into the Promised Land only two people will go in with them that it started Joshua and Caleb and now with his long white hair and his long white beard he reminds them of God's faithfulness of the past and then he warns them of nations round about who did not believe in a Living God and he warned the people within Israel who had strayed from God's path and he warned the judgment would come he said their rock their foundation these nations round about you bare rocks their foundations are not your ways the places in ways they look for stability and security are not yours the way they live and the goals they have are not yours you have a different rock a different set of values a different set of ethics a different message let's look at some of the rocks which people build their lives today in Moses time as in the times of Jesus and today people build our lives on different rocks some of them look very attractive and stable but they're not Jesus parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount warned that those foundations will wash away when the storms of life come the foundations will be destroyed what are some of these rocks well first there's materialism they're people today that think if they only had more money more income and by the way being debt-free a hundred years I wish that the Board of Trustees of Moody Bible Institute had been running this country and I'll bet President Reagan wishes it too in Deuteronomy 32 we read that Joshua had wax fact and he was covered with fatness he forsook God which made him and he lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation many people are under the impression that more money if I can just live on a higher standard of living I'll be happy I have been we have been in places where the average income was $300 a year in Bangladesh a hundred and fifty dollars a year and we've seen people who lived under those conditions found a happiness and a peace and a joy in Christ that people that live on Millionaire's Row would give anything in the world to find some of the most miserable people I've ever met a wealthy people film stars and so forth go to Beverly Hills they have more psychiatrists in Beverly Hills than any other place in the whole world and yet it has the highest standard of living in America many people are under the impression if they could just get more that would take care of their longings and needs just a few weeks ago a poll was taken in the country asking people if your office had a copy machine that would copy money and it wouldn't look counterfeit would you use it 20% of the American people said yes Jesus said you cannot serve God and Mammon man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possess if he said a famous man said not long ago I'm worth millions and I can tell you money is not where it's at Adolf Berle in his study of power points out that riches make people solitary lonely and afraid and one of the great things about Dwight L Moody was he never had a love for money he had a number of wealthy friends both here in Chicago in Philadelphia in New York and London and moody could have been a wealthy man but r8r I said about him money had no charms boy he loved to gather money for God's work he refused to accumulate money for himself he would have loved the way the collection was taken today because moody didn't mind asking people for money now Hudson Taylor did George Mueller did some of these other great men did but Moody would look him right in the eye and say look here you've promised five thousand dollars make it ten if he said ten he said make it twenty he had asked people for a half million dollars he didn't mind that God had given him that gift of faith to believe somebody said well George Mueller lived a faith and he never asked people for money moody said you show me a man with ten thousand dollars for God and I've got faith enough to ask him for it but he never let any stick to his fingers a biographer wrote that millions pass through his hands but he never kept it for himself and the love of money has been the ruination of many a Christian believer and then secondly people are building their lives on the rock of selfish pleasure were associated society looking for new kinds of new thrills sex and violence fill out television screens billions of dollars of drugs are used by old and young alike to take trips that often destroy the mind in the body John Belushi was born and reared out here at Wheaton and before his tragic death at 33 he's quoted as having asked his psychoanalyst why is it that I give so much pleasure to the world through Saturday Night Live and all the films I've acted in yet I have so little pleasure myself sexual deviation has become a new way of life as it was in ancient Greece and Rome and it's being presented to us as an alternate lifestyle and what a price we're already beginning to pay for it maybe the biggest problem and the greatest plague that our nation has ever known our world seems to be on a wild roller coaster slide frantically seeking new pleasures but King Solomon tried them all he tried education he tried money he tried the whole works and at the end he said I've said to my heart go to now I will prove thee with mirth therefore enjoy pleasure and behold this also was vanity at the end of each one of those he said it's all vanity remember now die create on the days of thy youth I've learned that none none of these things satisfied only God satisfies only Christ can give us the lasting happiness and true pleasure in thy presence is fullness of joy that thy right their pleasures forevermore when troubles come or you stare death in the face the rock of pleasure turns out to be saying someone asked me at one of the universities I spend a great deal of time at universities and we have questions and answer periods and they asked me they said at your age I guess they thought I was a real old man they said at your age what is the greatest surprise in your life I said the greatest surprise of life to me at my age is the brevity of life how quick it's all over and then there's the rock of false religious 'ti Jesus said this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips but their heart afar from me there are many people that think that they can do good do good and good works are going to save them we're saved by grace through faith and that not of yourselves it's the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast so many famous people especially in the jet-set socialites give charity balls and charity events and one of the most prominent of these ladies said to me certainly God will count this toward me getting into heaven and I replied no ma'am you could give a million of these affairs and it wouldn't get you one glimpse into heaven and she looked at me very startled she said well what is the gospel all about then I said the gospel is all about Jesus Christ dying on the cross and shedding his blood and rising from the dead and repenting of our sins and receiving him as Savior and I said there's nothing you can do about it you could give all the charity balls and give all your money but that's not going to save your soul a few months ago when that volcano blew the top in Colombia and the waves of mud and Gulf whole towns killing 22,000 people those who were saved were those who were able to lodge themselves on the high rocks until they could be rescued and as the mud flows of modern society threatened to devour us we need in the words of the old song to flee to the rock that is higher than I their warning signals all about us today anybody that's ever been briefed by the Pentagon anybody that's been briefed in the Soviet Union and seen them put before you all the weapons that we have and they have that could destroy the world 18 times over remember the words of President Kennedy nearly a quarter of a century ago he said each day the crisis multiplies each day their solution grows more difficult each day we draw near over our maximum danger and time has not been our friend President Kennedy was speaking prophetically time has not been our friend there's a little glimmer of hope at the moment in the world a little sigh of relief when mr. Gorbachev and mr. Reagan met and talked and seemed to get along in their private sessions there's a little glimmer of hope out of Geneva but when we know what man's heart is I'm not so sure that the Soviet Union and the United States will ever go to war but what about those 15 other little countries that have got the atomic bomb one of them with their backs to the wall could start a chain reaction that could destroy a great deal of the human race they're not going to destroy the whole human race in an atomic war because God has another plan and God's plan is that when man stands that imma gettin ready to destroy himself Christ is going to come back he's the king of kings and Lord of lords but whether we like it and not we're engaged in warfare right now there's a terrorist war that we do not know how to handle I was talking day before yesterday to Bill Webster whose chat head of the FBI and he wanted to see me then and I said well I have to be gone a couple weeks but as soon as I come back I'll come to Washington to see you and I knew what he wanted to talk about because it already called about it if there was ever a time that we needed to flee to the rock that is higher than I it is now and the history of the Moody Bible Institute points us to the rocks that will stand and on which we should build our lives what are the rocks that we should build throughout its century of ministry the Moody Bible Institute has built its foundation on different rocks from the rocks of the world and pointed its students to build their lives on different rocks their rock is not our rock what are these rocks a rock of unchanging strength like Gibraltar or the Dome of the rock in Jerusalem by El Capitan at Yosemite first as the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ in ephesians 2:20 paul said and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Cornerstone 1st Corinthians 3:11 the Apostle Paul said for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid in Jesus Christ across the decades Moody Bible Institute has sought to exalt Christ Moody Bible Institute 2nd President was our atari one of Moody's close associates a brilliant graduate of Yale he did postgraduate studies in Germany where he found himself surrounded by higher critics who scorned the Bible and its teachings it was a time of tremendous struggle for him but eventually he gave His life without reserve to Christ in addition to being the second president of the Moody Bible Institute Tory conducted huge evangelistic campaigns around the world in the first decade of this Saint and whether in Sydney London Glasgow Belfast Toronto last week I had the privilege of preaching the funeral service of dr. oz well J Smith and he was converted unto r8r he was preaching at Massey Hall in Toronto and I thought about this text isaiah 32 - the favorite text of our atari and a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land and tori with thunder time after time that man that great rock in a weary land is the lord jesus christ that was the rock that deal moody had established it is the rock that all succeeding leaders of this institution have continued to build on i have been thrilled at the progress of this institution under the leadership of dr. george sweetie how he too had an evangelistic background and he has kept a steady course and built on that rock all of these things that moody stood for and i thank god today that moody is still there and making progress and moody would be thrilled today there have been many storms that it battered but the institutions stand stronger than ever because it stands on the rock secondly there's the rock of the Bible the Word of God we are living in a period when there's a great discussion going on once again just like it did in the latter part of the last century in the early part of this century and we thought perhaps the battle was over but no it's flared up again in the newspapers in the magazines whether the Word of God is infallible DL moody had a simple childlike faith in the Bible as the inspired infallible Word of God he was not a student of psychology he was not a student of the sciences many of the words that we take for granted today even in theology he would not have had the slightest idea of what they meant as Tory said he was a profound and practical student of one book and that was worth studying more than all the other books in the world together and that book was the Bible moody used to rise at 4 o'clock in the morning to study the Bible he said if I'm going to get in any study I've got to get up before the other folks get out and most of us merely play at Bible study moody took it seriously how many of us cut off the TV to study the Word of God it was largely because of his tremendous knowledge of the Bible and his practical application of the Bible that moody drew such immense crowds people hungry for the Word of God I found that in my small way throughout the world in Eastern Europe especially we've been to all those countries in Eastern Europe except Bulgaria and we're going there probably next year and here in October we saw twenty and thirty thousand people a night in Romania jamming the streets with their tape recorders and everything to hear the word of God and they're hungry for Bibles they don't want books about the Bible they want the Bible and I find in our generation that people are hungry for God's Word they're not interested in what we have to say about so many other things and in moody's day as in our day there have been massive attacks on the authority and inspiration of the Bible as the infallible Word of God but beyond question one of the Moody Bible Institute secrets is that it is never wavered in its conviction that the Bible is the inspired Word of the Living God and the Bible alone is God's infallible Word Moody's great assistant IRA Sankey once said one of the reasons for Moody's phenomenal success in bringing souls to God was that he believed absolutely implicitly and the message that he preached his faith was the faith of a little child no doubts ever dimmed his faith in the Word of God to him it was the truth and the whole truth God has promised my word shall not return unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing were unto eyes Senate during the years when radical theology seem to be predominant in this country the Moody Bible Institute stood like a Rock of Gibraltar on the Word of God it became a light house to which Christians looked throughout the world guidance and leadership thirdly there's the rock of Prayer Moody was a man of Prayer not compass not to impress others but it flowed from AK loose and intimate daily walk with Christ when also Smith prayed and he was a great man of Prayer he paced back and forth I do that a lot and I wondered if I ever sacrilegious or wrong there's no certain position in the Bible where you to be when you pray I find myself praying all the time instant in season out of season my subconscious is praying now Lord helped me to say the right thing to these people because there's some people here today I believe and I felt it since a little while ago there's some people here that do not really know Christ you know about him you may be a professing believer but deep in your heart you're not sure and there's some people here today that need to rededicate their lives to Christ and rededicate yourself to the principles for which this institution stands and the rocks upon which it stands as one of Moody's friends said concerning him out of a very intimate acquaintance with him I wish to testify that he was a far greater prayer than he was a preacher time after time he confronted problems it seemingly had no solution he didn't know where to turn he turned to God in prayer and God answered his prayer my first time to visit the Moody Bible Institute was in 1940 when I came to school at Wheaton I came here my mother had wanted me to come to the Moody Bible Institute and I could sense and feel God's presence in those halls just walking through the hall and in 1943 I came here I was pastor of a little Church in Western Springs and I came in here to steal one of your men and over a period of two years I was successful George Beverly Shea came with me not for more money I don't know why he came except God sent him and then about a few weeks later came George became clip barrows and TW Wilson and Grady Wilson were already with me so we've been together all these years and God is honored and blessed it in part of it came from the Moody Bible Institute the Bible says call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not now I do not mean that God's going to honor your stealing don't get me wrong I didn't mean steal I meant to borrow is there a failure in your prayer life there's a failure in my prayer life I sent it all the time there's a failure in my study of the word of God someone asked me at a seminary if I had it to do over again what would I change I said I would study more and pray more and preach less because I believe that has been one of the great failures and mistakes of my life if I I'll have to wait till the judgment seat of Christ to find out but I'm sure that that's true someone has said if there's any tears in heaven it'll be over the fact that we prayed so little someone else has said that heaven is filled with answers to prayer for which no one ever bothered to ask Moody Bible Institute has been built on the rock of Prayer and fourthly then there's the rock of the Spirit filled life moody had been filled with the Holy Spirit and his life shuted if ever a man had the fruit of the Spirit produced in his life by the Holy Spirit it was Moody some years ago I heard of one great per German who said concerning another both of them are now in heaven I wouldn't tell it this one preacher said that other clergyman is a fine preacher when he gets in the pulpit but in his personal life he has everything but love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faithfulness meekness and temperance and if we don't have that we don't have anything you can be a great preacher and not produce the fruit of the Spirit or the Holy Spirit producing it through you and in you and you're nothing but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal our lives must match our the Apostle Paul said if we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit Moody lived in the spirit he walked in the spirit fifthly then there's been the rock of a missionary vision moody had a consuming passion soon after his conversion to win people to Christ he made a resolution that he would never spend 24 hours without speaking to someone about their faith in Christ Moody's personal commitment to winning people not only here at home but throughout the world has been one of the rocks on which this institution has been born in America the YMCA would have never got off the ground had it not been polluted many of the great of angelical movements of our day came from Moody because of his tremendous vision and when he sat down and talked to the people here in Chicago and some of them had a burden for a Bible School here he joined right in and he said I have a burden for the people of all the world not just America but the whole world and it's difficult for us to envision and grasp what moody started in his conferences at Mount Hermon someone has called him the grandfather of the ecumenical movement with Moody never dreamed which way it was going to go he never saw it come into existence but he started all of these tributaries that have flowed out in different directions certainly he would be proud today of that part of his ministry that stands called the Moody Bible Institute Moody never preached a social gospel sermon in his life but his ministry led to some of the great social movements of our time for example Kerr Hardy I was telling the press about the founder of the British Labour Party was influenced by Moody he went to mr. moody and he said what can I do for God and moody said help the laboring people of Scotland Kerr Hardy became an evangelist all of his life but he also founded the British Labour Party to help the laboring people of that day who were in such dire straits we could go on and on about the great social movements that he began his influence on the royal family of England when Princess Alexandra came to receive Christ as Savior in one of his meetings and she was the Princess of Wales and influenced the royal family down to the present royal family his great passion for souls and his passion for missions gathered momentum toward the end of his life and that was the passion that helped him start the Moody Bible Institute for the first time in the history of the human race you and I have the technology to reach the whole world with the message of Christ Jesus said that one of the signs that would appear before his return would be and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world then shall the end come and it's significant that Jesus began his final commission to his disciples with these words all power is given unto me both in heaven and on earth how dare we disobey the command of our Sovereign Lord to go ye into all the world and teach all nations one of the great missions that Moody held was at Cambridge University it's been my privilege to hold two 8-day missions at Cambridge University one year before last and I sympathized with what he went through especially in the early days of the mission they laughed and sneered and made fun but in the second half of the mission things turned around hundreds of students began to come to hear him other hundreds received Christ and one of his pet out of his mission at Cambridge came the famous Cambridge seven and one of those whom you've heard about many times was CT stud he was captain of the prestigious Cambridge University cricket team and the son of a wealthy man but he cents the claim of Christ on his life and he offered himself for missionary service in China at the age of 25 he inherited a fortune from his father's estate he gave it all away to Christian work at the age of 15 in poor health after missionary service in China and India he felt that God had called him to take the gospel also to Africa and he prepared to leave for Africa and he wrote this quote last June at the mouth of the Congo Dara waited a thousand prospectors traders merchants and gold seekers waiting to rush into the regions as soon as the government opened the door to them for roma declared that this much gold in the Congo if such men stud said here so loudly the call of gold and Abed can it be that the ears of Christ soldiers are deaf to the call of God and the cries of the dying souls of men are gamblers for gold so many and gamblers for God so few today I'm asking you will you rededicate your life on this hundredth anniversary of the Moody Bible Institute to stand on the rock on which Moody stood a hundred years ago not on the sinking sands but on the rocks that we've mentioned here today there's another rock the rock of the second coming of Christ Moody believed it and he preached it and when the Jesus was ascending into heaven and those two men stood in white apparel and the disciples had tears coming down their cheeks because their master and their Lord was leaving they said why are you weeping why do you stand gazing into heaven this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as you've seen him go into heaven and they went out filled with the Holy Spirit after Pentecost and preached the resurrection and the coming again of Christ my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand all other ground all other ground is sinking sand and when he shall come with trumpet sound Oh may I then in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone faultless to stand before the throne on Christ the solid ground I stand all other ground is sinking sand all other ground is sinking sand do you stand on the rock what do you stand on the sand when the storms of life come the disappointments come death comes are you ready are you sure are you certain if you have a doubt in your heart this day that you know Christ you really know it that you have repented of your sins and received him into your heart by faith and you want to make sure and you want to be certain I want you to be sure after the service is over there going to be some people down here that would be glad to talk with you and then I'm going to ask all of us that God has spoken to today and you say I want to rededicate myself to the rocks upon which the Moody Bible Institute was founded or I want to receive Christ into my heart as Lord and Master and Savior I'm away from God and I want to come back to it I want you to stand up where you are as an act of rededication are receiving Christ I'm sure that many of you have done it already this week but you stand because I'm standing and I mean it I want to rededicate my life to these rocks upon which moody built this institution dr. Sweeting is going to lead us in prayer

Channel: Moody Radio

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Keywords: Moody Bible Institute, Moody Radio, Billy Graham, Founders Week

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Length: 41min 35sec (2495 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 23 2012