Dwight (D.L.) Moody was born 1837 in Northfield, Massachusetts, a middle child among eight siblings. When his alcoholic father died when Dwight was four, his mother struggled to make ends meet. Dwight was sent away to work for his room and board.

When Moody turned 17, he moved to Boston to work in his uncle’s shoe store. A year later, during a crusade in a wheat field, an evangelist laid out a challenge, “the world has yet to see what God can do with a man, wholly sold out to Him.” Moody said to himself, “I will be that man.” Moody’s conversion sparked the start of his career as an evangelist, though he had to overcome many hurdles from his lack of education and poor reading skills to his 300 pounds on a barely five-foot frame. His Sunday school teacher remarked:

I can truly say, and in saying it I magnify the infinite grace of God as bestowed upon him, that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his …I have seldom met an applicant for membership more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of Gospel truth, still less to fill any extended sphere of public usefulness.

Moody moved to Chicago in 1856, and began to minister to the sailors in Chicago’s port, the gamblers and thieves in the saloons. His work led starting a Sunday School. As a result of his tireless labor, within a year the average attendance at his school was 650, while 60 volunteers from various churches served as teachers. It became so well known that the just-elected President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday school meeting on November 25, 1860.

After the Civil War started, Moody served with the U.S. Christian Commission of the YMCA, and paid nine visits to the battle-front, being present among the Union soldiers after the conflicts of Shiloh, Pittsburgh Landing, and Murfreesboro, and ultimately entered Richmond with the army of General Grant.

The growing Sunday school congregation needed a permanent home, so Moody started a church in Chicago. In October 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed his church, his home, and the dwellings of most of his members. His family had to flee for their lives, and, as Mr. Moody said, he saved nothing but his reputation and his Bible. His church was rebuilt within three months at a near-by location as the Chicago Avenue Church.

It was while on a trip to England in Spring of 1872 that he became well known as an evangelist. He preached almost a hundred times in England, Scotland and Ireland. On several occasions he filled stadiums and in the Botanic Gardens Palace, his meeting had between 25,000 to 30,000 people. This large turnout continued throughout 1874 and 1875, with crowds of thousands at all of his meetings. The famous London Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon invited him to speak and promoted him as well. When he returned to the United States, crowds of 12,000 to 20,000 were just as common as in England. President Grant and some of his cabinet attended a meeting in January 1876. His evangelistic meetings were held from Boston to New York, throughout New England and as far as San Francisco, and other West coast towns from Vancouver to San Diego.

He preached his last sermon on November 16, 1899 in Kansas City, KS. Becoming ill, he returned home by train to Northfield, where he suffered congestive heart failure. Ten years after his death, the Chicago Avenue Church was renamed The Moody Church in his honor, and the Chicago Bible Institute was likewise renamed Moody Bible Institute.

Stand in the Gap 2007
Washington, D.C.
October 6, 2007