“Weak Things Used to Confound thè Mighty” By D. L. M o o d y
(Note.—Just as we are going to press, February 5th, the birthday of D. L. Moody, is being remembered in many lands ; so it was thought wise to give as our sermon this month one of Mr. Moody’s. There are many volumes of Mr. Moody’s sermons printed, but they seldom contain accurate reports of what he said. Most of those who have prepared his sermons for publication have thought it was wise to change Mr. Moody’s own style to a style that they regarded as more scholarly, and the result usually has been that the sermons, as they have appeared in print, have lacked the strength of Mr. Moody’s own utterances. It is true he did not talk the language of the schools, and that sometimes he was even ungrammatical, but we know of no erudite preacher of our own day who had the real force of expression that Mr. Moody pos sessed. He used short words but telling words. His style for the most part was characterized by a singularly pure Anglo-Saxon diction and is almost matchless in that respect. We have tried to give the present sermon just as Mr. Moody preached it. It will be noticed that while he uses the language of the common people, he did not descend into the slang of the streets and slums, as so many evangelists think they must do today. His utterances were none the less forceful on that account. The sermon as here given was preached in the New York Hippodrome in February, 1876, thirty-nine years ago, but the message is one greatly needed today.— E ditors .)
WANT to call your at tention to the 27th to the 29th verses of the chapter I read (1 Cor. 1) : “But God hath
all the glory. I always dread going to a new place; it takes a week or a fortnight to get down to solid work. The people are thinking of the choir, or they are thinking of the ministers and saying, “What a crowd of min isters ! Surely there is going to be a great work now with such a big choir and such a big congregation and so many ministers!” But we should remember that “it is not by might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit,” and we must get our eyes ofif of all these things. There will be no work and no blessing until this is done. We do not come to you with any new Gospel. It is the old, old Gospel, the old story often told, and what we need and what we want is the old power, the power of the Holy Ghost. And if we have any thing less than that, it will all come to naught and the whole work be like a morning cloud that soon passes away. Now I can tell you at the very start before the meetings go
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence.” There is just one sentence here I would like you to especially note, “But God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty,” and then you will note that in the 29th verse he tells us why He has chosen the weak things,’ “that no flesh should glory in His presence.” If we are to have success in this city of New York, we must be ready to give God
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