Brokenness, the Path to Gloryနမူနာ

Dwight L. Moody, John Wesley, and Charles G. Finney

In 1871, Dwight L. Moody preached every Sunday to a crowd of over a thousand people. He served on committees, started churches, and preached in the slums of Chicago. He was so zealous that people called him “Crazy Moody”. But his ministry lacked the demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power. Two ladies started praying for him to be anointed with God’s power. That irritated Moody because he thought he was doing great. But soon, he realized he was lacking something and began to cry out for God’s power. He didn’t want to live if he couldn’t have it. Then, the city of Chicago burned – including Moody’s house and the YMCA where he preached. He lost everything he had and ended up in a small room in New York. Here he totally surrendered himself to Jesus Christ. After being broken, Moody said, “The sermons were not different. I did not present any new truth. And yet now hundreds were converted”. At one service in England, the meeting hall was so full that Moody himself could not get in, and there were twenty to thirty thousand people standing outside the hall. He brought the entire crowd outside and preached from an open buggy. More than ten thousand people came forward to give their lives to Jesus Christ.

Galatians 6:14: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

John Wesley was broken by being an abysmal failure as a missionary to the American Indians in Georgia. He went back to England totally discouraged, and there he totally surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. He traveled over 225,000 miles on horseback and preached over forty thousand sermons of two to three hours in length. Through John Wesley, God literally turned eighteenth-century England upside-down for Jesus Christ.

Matthew 10:38-39: “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

After God shattered Charles G. Finney’s pride, the great lawyer became one of the greatest revivalists in American history. Sometimes the power of God was so great in his meetings that entire audiences would fall on their knees in prayer and confession of sin. From 1857 to 1859, according to the book, “Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians”, some six hundred thousand souls were brought to Christ in what Dr. Lyman Beecher called “the greatest work of God and the greatest revival of religion that the world has ever seen.” So great was Finney’s power to burn the need for holy living into people’s hearts, that of these six hundred thousand folks, actual records show that some 85% of them remained committed to Jesus Christ years later.”

Galatians 2:20; “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

These are only a small sample of men and women of God through the centuries who had to be broken by God so that the sweet aroma of His presence could show forth through them. Do you want to be used by God much more than you have already experienced?