An Appeal To The Moody Church For Prayer

November 1921: An Appeal to The Moody Church for Prayer issued by the Board of Elders

During more than a half century past God has been pleased to give to The Moody Church a world-wide testimony, through which thousands have been pointed to the Lamb of God and multitudes have been saved.

Christ has been exalted, the Bible believed from cover to cover, the Gospel preached in its fullness, discipline maintained in the Church, and all things have been done “decently and in order” as unto the Lord, even though on the human side we have been conscious again and again of weakness and failure.

Through all these years the vital importance of prayer has been recognized and pressed home to our people. Knowing that we have no merit or power of our own, we have been constantly driven back upon God. He alone has been our help through calm and through storm, in prosperity and in adversity, through periods of steady growth and in the hour of inward turmoil and crisis. Not once has He ever failed us, and He will not fail us now. “Hitherto hath Jehovah helped us,” and He who hath begun the good work will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

But He will continue His gracious favor only to the extent that we on our part fulfill the conditions of unceasing prayer and faith and the humbling of ourselves before Him. Let us therefore give renewed diligence to the Word and to prayer. If the family altar has been broken down, let it be restored. If private prayer has been neglected, let it be renewed. If the public means of grace are being crowded out, let this be remedied. Let us beware lest Satan lulls us to sleep and we be soon found in a lukewarm, or fruitless, or back-slidden state.

Let us pray for all our former pastors, and for our present acting pastor; also that God may be pleased to send us soon a man after His own heart to be a shepherd to our people. Let us pray for the Executive Committee, for the Ministering Staff of the Church, for the Sunday School, for all our children and young people, for our Gospel missions, for our work at Cedar Lake, for our choir, our ushers, and our midweek meeting, for every department of service in the Church, for our members on foreign fields, and for EVERY member of our entire Church, whether at home or abroad.

Let us pray one for another, putting utterly away from our minds “all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking,” and loving one another out of pure hearts fervently. Let us cease from man, and behold only the Lord. Let us see NO MAN ANY MORE, not even ourselves or our leaders, but JESUS ONLY FROM THIS DAY ON. Let Jehovah, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, be henceforth OUR Shepherd, rather than man; our ears hearing HIS voice, our feet following HIM ALONE.

Thus shall He revive us again and souls will be saved and the Church edified and built up. Thus shall we be saved from all our fightings within and our fears without. The devil is no match for a saint or a church upon their knees. Let a mighty spirit of prevailing prayer take possession of us, and we will see in the days just ahead “great and mighty things” which we know not. “GOD IS FAITHFUL.”