On Sudden Conversion
ON SUDDEN CONVERSION
I can see his face now as he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks: "Would to God, we might all be as much moved as that when we know that our friends are spiritually blind as well as lost!" Because he believed this, he preached as he did, and it was this spirit that literally drove him to Kansas City to preach his last sermon, and then turn his face home to die. He believed in instantaneous conversion; he had no patience at all with the man who thought he must grow better to be saved. He once said:
"When Mr. Sankey and myself were in one place in Europe, a man preached a sermon against the pernicious doctrines that we were going to preach, one of which was sudden conversion. He said conversion was a matter of time and growth. Do you know what I do when any man preaches against the doctrines I preach? I go to the Bible and find out what it says, and if I am right I give them more of the same kind. I preached more on sudden conversion in that town than in any town I was in, in my life. I would like to know how long it took the Lord to convert Zaccheus? How long did it take the Lord to convert that woman whom He met at the well of Sychar? How long to convert that adulterous woman in the temple, who was caught in the very act of adultery?
How long to convert that woman who anointed His feet and wiped them with the hairs of her head? Didn't she go with the Word of God ringing in her ears,
'Go in peace?'"
He was a master in the conduct of evangelistic meetings. I well remember, during the recent Armenian massacres, some one interrupted him in one of his services, saying, "Mr. Moody, I want to ask permission to present a petition, and to ask the people to sign it. This petition is to be sent to the President of the United States, asking him to take some action which may help to stop this dreadful slaughter of innocent people."
The man who made the request, was of considerable prominence, and many a leader would have yielded to his entreaty.