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What did he do? What had been the cost of his choice that night? The Evangelist D.L. Moody sent his congregation home on the evening of October 8, 1871 with the challenge to consider following Jesus as their Savior and return the next Sunday with their decision. Even as fire whistles sounded at the conclusion of Moody’s sermon, the sirens caused little concern to most that evening due to the recent outbreak of fires.
While traveling home, Moody could not miss the illumination of the dark night sky.
The fire burned through the night and into the following two days. It would leave the city of Chicago in ashes taking the lives of three hundred and leaving one hundred thousand without a home. Moody’s congregation did not gather again the following Sunday, since the fires destroyed their church building and claimed the lives of some of those listeners.
Moody grieved as he recalled his delayed call to commitment to salvation. History records on this evangelist tell us that the Great Chicago Fire was a pivotal event in the life of this godly man. He re-evaluated his ministry and the Lord’s call on his life. From this experience, Moody vowed never to send people home for the night until he had called them to make a decision regarding their personal relationship with Jesus first.
In the tragic loss of three hundred people, Moody saw firsthand the truths taught in God’s Word. “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away,” (James 4:14, NASB.) In a moment our life may be over. We have no guarantees for tomorrow. We only hold today loosely in our hands. 2 Corinthians 6:2 says, “Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.” (NASB) A delay in our decision to accept Christ as our Savior could cost us our eternity in heaven.
Moody Bible Institute was started because this man desired a place to train students in the Word of God in order to impact the places the Lord took them to serve him. As a student there in the eighties, I attended the required evangelism class. We were reminded of the Chicago fire and the importance of asking a person to make a decision at that moment. Years later while presenting the need for a Savior to a teenager in my neighborhood, I relearned this lesson from my seven year old son. As he listened to me share the scriptures, my son displayed wisdom beyond his years when he asked this teenager if she was ready to ask Jesus to be her Savior now. She did not make the decision for another year, but I realized it was still important to ask her that day.
*http://www.moodyministries.net and http://www.believersweb.org
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