The Lies Satan Puts in Our Minds.

The lies of Satan.

I have found that when things go wrong in my life I am tempted to be either angry at myself or at God.

Angry at God: Why did this have to happen? I thought you loved people. How can you let this pain go on and on. What kind of God are you?

Angry at me: I am just useless. I'm always doing the wrong thing. I don't belong. I have made so many mistakes that I feel awful about myself. Why did I do that when I want to follow Jesus? Why am I so weak? Where is my faith? I thought I was trusting in God?

I remember Joyce Meyer saying, "Ask yourself where your thoughts are coming from."

So, I ask myself. The answer is definitely not God. It could be me alone, but I don't think so. I now think a lot of depressing and sinful thoughts come from Satan.

"And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." Matthew 4:3 When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he spoke to him. Jesus came to earth to live as we must live. Satan speaks to us also.

When Eve was tempted and fell, it was through Satan speaking lies to her. Satan was the one who put the thought of betraying Jesus into Judas' heart.   "During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him..." Johns 13:2  He does the same to us.

Peter said, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

How can we be alert if we don't understand how the devil works? 
I'll write more on this subject in the next blog.

Die Looking Up.

by Dwight L. Moody

A TIMELY CONVERSION. 

A minister in Edinburgh tells a story of the conversion of a young man who was working in one of the mining districts. When the meeting at one of the churches was over on a particular evening, he saw him standing by a pillar in the church, the rest having gone out, all but two or three, and they asked this man if he was not going home. He said, “I have made up my mind that I will not leave this church till I become a Christian”; so they stopped and talked and prayed with him. It was the best thing he could do.

I would like every man here to do the same thing. Make up your minds that you won’t leave till you have settled about your soul for eternity. Well, the next day, while this young man was working in the mine, the coal fell in upon him, and before he died, he had just strength enough left to say to his companions, “It’s a good thing that I settled it last night—a very good thing.”

Young man, I will leave you to answer the question, Was it not a good thing he settled it that night? A young man, who was in the army during the Civil war, told me that when he heard that his brother, from whom he had never been separated, had joined a certain regiment, he went right away and put his name down under his brother’s. They messed together, marched together, and fought shoulder to shoulder.

At last his brother was struck with a Minnie ball, and he fell mortally wounded by his side. He saw too plainly that he must die, and as the battle was raging, and he could do nothing to save him, he put his brother’s knapsack under his head, and made him as comfortable as he could, and bending over him, kissed him, bade him good-bye, and left him to die.

 As he was going away, his brother said, “Charlie, come back, and let me kiss you upon your lips.” “As I bent over him,” said the young soldier who told me the story, “he kissed me on my lips, and said, ‘Take that home to mother, and tell her that I died praying for her’; and as I turned away from him, I could hear him say, ‘This is glory,’ and as he lay weltering in his blood, and I wondered what he meant, I asked him what was glory. He said, ‘Charlie, it’s glorious to die looking up—I see Christ in heaven.’"

DYING LOOKING UP.
If you want to die looking up and seeing Christ, seek the kingdom of God. You may never hear the call again. Do not leave this place without making up your mind to settle the solemn question of eternity at once

Do Not Put Faith in People.

by Dwight L. Moody

FAITH IS AN OUTWARD LOOK. 

We are to have faith in God, and not in man. A great many people place their faith in men, and they pin their faith to other people’s doctrines and creeds. If their church teaches it, they believe it. All the churches in the world can’t save a soul. It is not to have faith in this church or that church, this doctrine or that doctrine, this man or that man, but it is to have faith in the man Christ Jesus at the right hand of God. That is the only faith that will ever save a soul.

PUT NO CONFIDENCE IN MAN. 

Let me call your attention to a few verses where God has warned us not to put faith in man: Jeremiah xvii. 5: “Thus says the Lord; Cursed be the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. 

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” You will find some men have not faith in God; they are like a tree that is withered and blasted. And there is a man perhaps right along next to them who has strong faith in God; “he is like a tree planted by the rivers of water; his leaf also shall not wither.” Why? He trusts in the living God. 

It is a terrible thing for man to put faith in man. Then Psalm cxlvi. 3: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. 

"“Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; ...Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” 

Now here we are told very plainly by God that we are not to put our trust in this man or that man—not to lean upon an arm of flesh. All the ministers in the world and all the potentates in the church put together cannot save one soul. It is thoroughly impossible. 

It is the Lord who can save, and the Lord alone; therefore we want to get our eyes away from man, from the church, and right straight up to the man Christ Jesus. We read in Mark 11:22 whom we are to believe in. Christ says—and how sweet it sounds—“Have faith in God.” I never saw a man or woman in my life that had faith in God who was confounded; I do not care what their troubles or trials were. Have faith in God, and not in man.

Believe You are Saved.

By Dwight L. Moody

PRESENT SALVATION.

Another verse that has been used a great deal during the past two years, and I feel that I rest my own salvation on it, is John 5 v. 24. I trust God will write it on your hearts, and burn it down into your souls. “Truly truly, I say unto you, He that hears My Word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life.”

Thank God for that “has.” I had a few men in the inquiry-room the other night who could not find peace. I said, “Do you believe the Bible?” “Yes, sir.” “I think I will prove you don’t. Turn up John v. 24.” They turned it up. “Read the verse.” “‘He that hears My Word—’” “You believe that?” “Yes, sir.” “‘And believes on Him that sent me—’” “You believe God sent Jesus?” “Yes.” “Well, read on.” “‘Hath everlasting life.’” “You believe you have everlasting life?” “No, we don’t.” “Oh, I thought you believed in the Bible!”

What right have you to cut a verse in two, and say you believe the one half, but not the other? It plainly says, that he who believes “has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” Why, if you believe God’s words, you can say, “I have passed from darkness into light.” Just by resting on that one little word in the present tense we may have “assurance” now. We don’t need to wait till we die, and till the great day of judgment, to find it out.

It is wonderful to know God loves you and you will live with him one day. When I was first a Christian, I was like those men; I couldn't believe I was saved because I didn't feel saved. But my husband convinced me I must not rely on my feelings but believe what the Bible said. It took a long time, but I now believe I am saved and will see God.

This Man Receives Sinners!

by Dwight L. Moody

The kings and princes of this world, when they issue invitations, call round them the rich, the mighty and powerful, the honorable and the wise; but the Lord, when He was on earth, called round Him the vilest of the vile. 

“This man,” they said, “receives sinners, and eats with them.” Luke 15:2 
Publicans, sinners, and prostitutes pressed into the kingdom of God in His days. 

Here in London there is no society that would have such a man as John Bunyan once was in their company; yet the Lord saved him, and welcomed him into His kingdom. Here is some poor miserable drunkard cast out by his father and mother, and deserted by all his friends, but the Lord has received him. I have known some of the most miserable outcasts that were ever seen, cast out and despised by everybody, and yet the Lord has received them. Take Him then at His word to-day, and accept His invitation, “Him that comes to Me I will not cast out.

But you say I must just get rid of my sins first, and then I will come to Him. Why, that’s just like a man dying of the scarlet fever saying, “Oh, I’ll wait till I get rid of the fever before I send for a doctor!” Why, it is just because you are a sinner, and cannot get rid of your sins, that you need a Saviour. If I was dying for want of bread, it would be just as reasonable for me to say, “When I have got rid of this hunger, then I will begin to eat.” It is because I am hungry that I need to eat, and it is because we are sinners that we need Christ. It is because a man is sick that he needs a physician, and Christ is the Physician of the soul.

Don't Listen to Feelings.

THREE YEARS SEEKING JESUS.

by Dwight L. Moody

 One night, when preaching in Philadelphia, right down by the side of the pulpit there was a young lady, whose eyes were riveted on me as if she were drinking in every word. It is precious to preach to people like that; they generally get good, even if the sermon be poor. I got interested in her, and after I had done talking, I went and spoke to her.

“Are you a Christian?” “No, I wish I was; I have been seeking Jesus for three years.” I said, “There must be some mistake.” She looked strangely at me, and said, “Don’t you believe me?” “Well, no doubt you thought you were seeking Jesus; but it don’t take an anxious sinner three years to meet an anxious Saviour.” “What am I to do, then?” “The matter is, you are trying to do something; you must just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, I am sick and tired of the word, ‘Believe, believe, believe!’ I don’t know what it is.” “Well,” I said, “we’ll change the word; take ‘trust.’” “If I say, I’ll trust Him, will He save me?” “No, I don’t say that; you may say a thousand things, but if you do trust Him.” “Well,” she said, “I do trust Him; but,” she added in the same breath, “I don’t feel any better.” “Ah, I’ve got it now! You’ve been looking for feelings for three years, instead of for Jesus. Faith is up above, not down here.

People are always looking for feelings. You are getting up a new translation of the Bible here, and if the men who are translating it would only put in feelings instead of faith, what a rush there would be for that Bible. But if you look from Genesis to Revelation, you cannot find feelings attached to salvation. We must rise above feelings. So I said to this lady, “You cannot control your feelings; if you could, what a time you’d have! I know I would never have the toothache or the headache.

So I said to the lady, “Have no more to do with feelings; but, like Job, say, ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’” She looked at me a few minutes, and then, putting her hand to take mine, she said, “Mr. Moody, I trust the Lord Jesus Christ to save my soul to-night.”

Then she went to the elders and said the same words. As she passed out she met one of the church officers, and, shaking his hand, said again, “I trust the Lord Jesus to save my soul.” Next night she was right before me again. I shall never forget her beaming face; the light of eternity was shining in her eyes! She went into the inquiry-room. I wondered what she was going there for; but when I got there, I found her with her arms round a lady friend, saying, “It’s only to trust Him. I have found it so.” From that night she was one of the best workers in the inquiry-room, and whenever I met a difficult case, I got her to speak to the person, and she was sure to help them.

By Dwight L. Moody

THE USELESSNESS OF TRYING. Man is always trying to do something. This miserable word “try” is keeping thousands out of heaven. When I hear men speak of “trying,” I generally tell them it is the way down to death and hell.

I believe more souls are lost through “trying” than any other way. You have often tried, and as often failed; and as long as you keep trying you will fail. Drop that word, then, and take as your sure foothold for eternity, “trust.” “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” I that is the right kind of trust. Would to God that you would all say, “I will trust Him now, to-night.” Did you ever hear of any one going down to hell trusting in Jesus? I never did.

This very night, if you commit yourself to Him, the battle will be over. You are complaining you don’t feel better. Well, remember, the child must be born before it can be taught. So we cannot learn of God until we receive Him. We must be born—born again—i.e. the new birth, ere we can feel. Christ must be in us the hope of glory. How can He be in us if we don’t receive Him and trust Him.

Dwight L. Moody on Trust.

By Dwight L. Moody

TRUSTING. 

Many get hold of that when they cannot get hold of “believe” or “receive.” You all know what it is to trust. If it were not for trust, there would be a terrible commotion in this building to-night. If you could not trust that the roof was firmly put up, you would get out pretty quick; and if you could not trust these chairs to support you, how long would you sit on them? Why, you wouldn’t have come here at all if you didn’t trust our word that there would be an address.

Now, it is just the same trust that God wants. It is no miraculous trust or faith, but just the same kind, only the object is different. Instead of trusting in these earthly things, or in an arm of flesh, you are asked to trust in the Son of God.

THE DUBLIN MERCHANT. 

In Dublin I was speaking to a lady in the inquiry-room, when I noticed a gentleman walking up and down before the door. I went forward and said, “Are you a Christian?” He was very angry, and turned on his heel and left me.

The following Sunday night I was preaching about “receiving,” and I put the question, “Who’ll receive Him now?” That young man was present, and the question sank into his heart. The next day he called upon me—he was a merchant in that city—and said, “Do you remember me?” “No, I don’t.” “Do you remember the young man who answered you so roughly the other night?” “Yes, I do.” “Well, I’ve come to tell you I am saved.” “How did it happen?” “Why, I was listening to your sermon last night, and when you asked, ‘Who’ll receive Him now?’ God put it into my heart to say, ‘I will’; and He has opened my eyes to see His Son now.” I don’t know why thousands should not do that here to-night. If you are ever to be saved, why not now?

"As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."  Hebrews 3:15

What Do You Give Up For Jesus? Nothing.

By Dwight L. Moody:

Ah, what a mistake some people make! They say, “I’d like to become a Christian if I hadn’t to give up so much.” Just turn round and look at the other side. You don’t have to give up anything—you have simply to receive; and when you have received Christ, everything else vanishes away pretty quick.

Christ fills you, so that you don’t feel these things to be worth a thought. When a bride marries a man, it is generally love that prompts her. If any one is here that really loves a man, is she thinking of how much she will have to give up? No; that wouldn’t be love. Love doesn’t feed upon itself, it feeds upon the person who is loved. So, my friends, it is not by looking at what you will have to give up, but by looking at what you will receive, that you will be enabled to accept the Savior.

You don’t need to trouble yourselves at present about what you have to give up. Receive Him, and all these things will appear utterly insignificant. I used to think of what I would have to give up. I dearly loved many of the pleasures of this earth; but now I’d as soon go out into your streets and eat the dirt as do those things. God doesn’t say, “Give up this and that.” He says, “Here is the Son of my bosom—receive Him.” When you do receive Him, everything else goes. Stop that talk about giving up; let Christ save you, and all these things will go for nothing.

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I gave myself to God when I was nineteen. When I think of things I "gave up" for God I think of how those things were harming me and how I miss none of them. God has slowly changed my heart and my desires. The best thing I ever did in my life was give myself to Him.

Find Sympathy and Love From God.

Dwight L. Moody
From the book, "Wondrous Love."

There is a story told in connection with our war of a mother who received a dispatch that her boy was mortally wounded. She went down to the front, as she knew that those soldiers told to watch the sick and wounded could not watch her boy as she would. So she went to the doctor, and said, “Would you like me to take care of my boy?”

The doctor said, “We have just let him go to sleep, and if you go to him the surprise will be so great it might be dangerous to him. He is in a very critical state. I will break the news to him gradually.” “But,” said the mother, “he may never wake up. I should so dearly like to see him.” Oh, how she longed to see him! and finally the doctor said, “You can see him, but if you wake him up and he dies, it will be your fault.” “Well,” she said, “I will not wake him up if I may only go by his dying cot and see him.”

Well, she went to the side of the cot. Her eyes had longed to see him; and as she gazed upon him she could not keep her hand off that pallid forehead, and she laid it gently there. There was love and sympathy in that hand, and the moment the slumbering boy felt it, he said, “Oh, mother, have you come?” He knew there was sympathy and affection in the touch of that hand. And if you, oh, sinner, will let Jesus reach out His hand and touch your heart, you, too, will find there is sympathy and love in it. That every lost soul here may be saved, and come to the arms of our blessed Saviour, is the prayer of my heart.

You Must be Born Again.

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:5,6

As I said before, when I was born of my parents I received their nature, I received the nature of the flesh; and I cannot serve God in the flesh. “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” And before a man can worship God he must be born of God; he must be born of the Spirit. Then with this new birth, with this new life, he can serve God; then the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.

A man may as well try to fly to the moon as to serve God before he has been born of the Spirit; it is utterly impossible. The natural man is at enmity against God; his natural heart is at war with God; it always has been, and it always will be. And not only that, but you cannot make it better.

God never mends, He creates anew; therefore don’t be trying to patch up that old Adam nature. God says, “It shall never come into my presence.” Therefore God has just set it aside. But He tells us how we are to come into His presence, and how we are to get into His kingdom. This is worthy to be borne in mind. You cannot educate men into it. That is what the world is trying to do. But he that climbs up by some other way than the Lord’s way, the same is a thief and a robber. You had better be born into it in God’s way.

We have a law in America that no man shall be President of the United States that has not been born on American soil. We have a great many Englishmen come to America, and a great many men from all parts of the world, and yet I have never heard one complain of that law. They say America has the right to say who shall be President. I come here to your country, and I do not complain because you have a Queen to reign over you. What right have I to complain? Has not England a right to say who shall rule it, and who shall be its Queen? Foreigners have no right to interfere.

And I would like to ask you this question, Has not God a right to say who shall come into His kingdom, and how we shall come?  A man must have a spiritual nature before he wants to go to heaven... Heaven cannot have any attractions to a man until he is born of the Spirit.

Never Alone.

Dwight L. Moody's Testimony.

For twenty years I have made this a rule. Christ is just as habitually near, as personally present to me as any other person living; and when I have any troubles, trials, and afflictions, I go to Him with them. When I want counsel I go to Him, just as if I could talk face to face with Him.

Twenty years ago God met me one night and took me to His bosom, and I would sooner give up my life to-night than give up Christ, or that I should leave Him, or that He should leave me, and that I should have no one to bear my burdens, or tell my sorrows to. Why, He is worth more than all the world beside; and to-night He will have compassion upon you as He had upon me.

I tried for weeks to find a way to Him, and I just went and laid my burden upon Him, and then He revealed Himself to me, and I have ever since found Him a true and sympathizing friend, just the friend you need. Go right straight to Him. You need not go to this man or that man, to this church or that church. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

From the book, "Wondrous Love."

I gave my life to God when I was nineteen and it was the best decision I ever made. Moody is right, it is wonderful to go to him constantly with the problems of life or to rejoice with him in the goodness of life. We are never alone in this world as long as we have Jesus.

Grumble, Mumble.

"Do all things without grumbling..."  Philippians 2:14

I laughed when I read this last night because I've become a grumbler. I grumble to God about myself and who I am. I don't like who I am. So I grumble.  I don't like my boring life. So I grumble. 

Synonyms of Grumble: complain, grouse, whine, mutter, bleat, carp, cavil, protest, make a fuss...

God must just love it when I grumble.

There is lots in the Bible on this subject. Here are a few verses:

Jesus answered and said to them, "Do not grumble among yourselves.  John 6:43

But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble?

John 6:61

The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?"  Luke 5:30

Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.  1 Peter 4:9

Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, 'Come near before the LORD, for He has heard your grumblings.'"  Exodus 16:9

“How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.  Numbers 14:27

Obviously, grumbling is wrong. The opposite is giving praise to God, which is what Paul says to do continually, especially in prayer. I will ask God to work on me about this and when I feel like grumbling, I will try to praise instead.

Jesus and the Leper.

The Leper.

Think of that man. Think how much he had suffered. I don’t know how many years he had been away from his wife and children and home; but there he was. He had put on a strange and particular garb, so that anybody coming near him might know that he was unclean. And when he saw any one approaching him he had to raise the warning cry, “Unclean! unclean! unclean!” Aye, and if the wife of his bosom were to come out to tell him that a beloved child was sick and dying, he durst not come near her, he was obliged to fly. He might hear her voice at a distance, but he could not be there to see his child in its last dying moments. He was, as it were, in a living sepulchre; it was worse than death.

There he was, dying by inches, an outcast from everybody and everything, and not a hand put out to relieve him. Oh, what a terrible life! Then think of him coming to Christ, and when Christ saw him, it says He was moved with compassion. He had a heart that beat in sympathy with the poor leper, He had compassion on him, and the man came to Him and said, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou cant make me clean.” He knew there was no one to do it but the Son of God Himself, and was moved with compassion towards him.

Hear the gracious words that fell from His lips—“I will; be thou clean!” and the leprosy fled, and the man was made whole immediately. Look at him now on his way back home to his wife and children and friends! No longer an outcast, no longer a loathsome thing, no longer cursed with that terrible leprous disease, but going back to his friends rejoicing.

Now, my friends, you may say you pity a man who was so badly off, but did it ever strike you that you are a thousand times worse off? The leprosy of the soul is far worse than the leprosy of the body. I would rather a thousand times have the body full of leprosy than go down to hell (death) with the soul full of sin. A good deal better that this right hand of mine were lopped off, that this right foot should decay, and that I should go halt and lame and blind all the days of my life, than be banished from God by the leprosy of sin. Hear the wailing and the agony and the woe that is going up from this earth caused by sin! If there is one poor sin-sick soul filled with leprosy here to-night, if you come to Christ He will have compassion on you, and say, as He did to that man, “I will; be thou clean.

By Dwight L. Moody
From the book, "Wondrous Love and Other Gospel Addresses."

Jesus,Full of Compassion.

Christ's Boundless Compassion.

by Dwight L. Moody

“And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick.”—Matthew 14:14

It is often recorded in Scripture that Jesus was moved by compassion; and we are told in this verse that after the disciples of John had come to Him and told Him that their master had been beheaded, that he had been put to a cruel death, He went out into a desert place, and the multitude followed Him, and that when He saw the multitude He had “compassion” on them, and healed their sick.

If He were here to-night in person, standing in my place, His heart would be moved as He looked down into your faces, because He could also look into your hearts, and could read the burdens and troubles and sorrows you have to bear. They are hidden from my eye, but He knows all about them, and so when the multitude gathered round about Him, He knew how many weary, broken, and aching hearts there were there.

But He is here to-night, although we cannot see Him with the bodily eye, and there is not a sorrow, or trouble, or affliction which any of you are enduring but He knows all about it; and He is the same to-night as He was when here upon earth—the same Jesus, the same Man of compassion.

From the book, "Wondrous Love."

Lord, may we know and believe in your wondrous love and compassion for each one of us. Fill us with your love and may we share your compassion with everyone we meet. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.