Moody Church

Moody Church

Sunday, December 19, 2021

It was our privilege to worship with the congregation at The Moody Church last Sunday in Chicago. It was named after D.L. Moody. From their website:

“Our story began with a man who wanted to share the joy of the gospel with the needy and humble. D.L. Moody started his ministry in Chicago in 1856. A shoe salesman by trade, he found the call of the God to be deafening in comparison to the riches of the world. Leaving behind a life of luxury, Moody established a Sunday school for poor children in an area of Chicago known as “Little Hell.” Filling the small space with more than 500 people each Sunday, his ministry quickly outgrew its facilities as more and more children and their families flocked to hear Moody’s powerful preaching. In 1864, Moody and his congregation opened the Illinois Street Church.”

That church building burned down during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Moody then involved himself in international and local evangelism, and the expansion of city ministry. He died in 1899.

It was when I attended a conference in this sanctuary many years ago, early in my time here in Milford, that I sensed the presence of God more clearly than any other time in my life. I don’t know the speaker, nor the message. But I clearly remember the experience. I don’t speak easily of such things, knowing that subjective experiences can be variously interpreted. But have you ever felt the weight of the hand of God pressing down upon you? Yes, a sense of His presence. But more than that. God’s hand, or maybe even God’s thumb, pressing so hard that you think it might leave God’s fingerprint. And that’s what I think God was doing, impressing, with something of the fear of the Lord, and something of my helplessness to argue with Him.

And so, this past Sunday, looking down from the balcony at the seat I had occupied all those years ago, I remembered, and felt again, something of the heavy hand of God. We sing, “O Love that will not Let me Go,” but there is also something else there - that God will not let us go - He’s got us; He owns us. We are His, and there is no where to run or hide. He’s got us, for our good, and for His glory.