Today is the day of salvation

"Indeed, he says : At the right moment I answered you, the day of salvation I helped you. Now this is the right moment, and now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6: 2).

In 1862 during the Civil War, Evangelist Moody ran in the middle of the battlefield and asked the dying if they were Christians. This image shows the importance he gave to the salvation of these fellow citizens.

In 1871, Moody spoke to a group and told them to think about what he had said for the next week. Even before the meeting ended, the fire alarm was heard. It was the Great Fire of Chicago that burned the third of the city. Never again Moody would postpone a decision for salvation until later. That same year, he met two women in his meetings. He saw them praying and went to meet them ; they told him that they were praying for him.

"Why not pray for people ?" He asked. "Because you need the power of the Holy Spirit." Reporting later on this event, he says : "I thought I had power. I had the biggest church in Chicago. Several were converted. I was satisfied." These women continued to speak to him of a special anointing. They prayed fervently for him.

From that moment he felt that he could not continue without receiving this anointing. Some time later, he said : "In the middle of the street in New York I received such an experience of his love that I ran to a friend's house and asked him to stay alone in a room. I stayed there for several hours. I asked God to stop because I was thinking of dying." Then my sermons were not different, I did not present new truths, but hundreds were converted.

Moody's determination not to go around the bush, preaching the full Gospel in all its greatness, not to procrastinate the salvation of souls, and to see them turn to God today, has brought on his life a special anointing, or, in any case, increased fruit.

Jeremy Sourdril