TO THE FRONT WHEN ORDERED
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20 NIV
Dwight Lyman Moody, (named Lyman on his mother’s side who was cousin to Lyman Beecher, father to Harriet ‘Beecher’ Stowe, author of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’), is best known as the first of the modern-era world evangelists and founder of the eminent Chicago-based ‘Moody Bible Institute’. His prowess, however, for successful mass conversion preaching was perfected not in comfortable churches or hallowed halls nor on civilian campuses, but on the crimson fields and in the billeted bivouacs of the American Civil War.
Though he could not conscientiously enlist due to his Quaker view on fighting, Moody became a free-lancing Army chaplain. Nine times the tireless messenger of hope went to the front, finding himself under fire in January, 1863, at Murfreesboro (Stones River), Tennessee with Rosecrans in the Federal push to Nashville. Few were those of the Civil War age that lacked a fundamental Christian foundation, but who, hardened by battle and the temptations of camp life, required spiritual attention. Watching as the dying found peace through his pastoral care, Moody took great consolation liberally applying the gospel’s hope.
During one such encounter with a Murfreesboro casualty who sought his spiritual comfort asking for help to die, Moody heard his confession, “I have been fighting Christ all my life. My mother was a praying woman, but I disregarded her prayers.” Recounting biblical promise after promise there seemed to be no change in the noticeably discouraged soldier’s countenance, but Moody persevered. Reading from the passage of Nicodemus’ encounter with Christ “. . . as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” the intense seeker rose on one elbow, “Read it again,” he pleaded. The next morning when Moody returned he found an empty cot. An orderly told him the deceased convert had murmured the enlightened passage many times over, dying restfully.
Such notables as, F. B. Meyer, John R. Mott, C. I. Scofield, and G. Campbell Morgan, honored Moody with amicable eulogies after his December 22, 1899 death. Countless numbers of American Civil War veterans remembered it was his words that brought them into redemption’s army and they memorialized him as a true soldier’s pastor who cared for their souls.
PRAYER
May I Lord, be willing to go where you want me to go whether it is to an obscure out-of-the way place or to the front of the battle and preach but one message, that being Christ and Him crucified, dead, buried, and risen!
LEADERSHIP THOUGHT
Trailblazing leaders go when and to where they are ordered because they are submitted to authority, first, as a committed follower of Christ.
-Dennis L. Kutzner