Cruelty to Christ – Dwight Lyman Moody

Some time ago a father had a son who had broken his mother’s heart. After her death he went on from bad to worse. One night he was going out to spend it in vice, and the old man went to the door as the young one was going out, and said, “My son, I want to ask a favour of you tonight. You have not spent one night with me since your mother was buried, and I have been so lonesome without her and without you, and now I want to have you spend tonight with me; I want to have a talk with you about the future.” The young man said, “No, father, I do not want to stay; it is gloomy here at home.” He said, “Won’t you stay for my sake?” and the son said he would not. At last, the old man said, “If I cannot persuade you to stay, if you are determined to go down to ruin, and to break my heart, as you have your mother’s — for these grey hairs cannot stand it much longer — you shall not go without my making one more effort to save you;” and the old man threw open the door, and laid himself upon the threshold, and said, “If you go out tonight you must go over this old body of mine;” and what did he do? Why, that young man leaped over the father, and on to ruin he went. Did you ever think that God has given His Son? Yes, He has laid Him, as it were, right across your path that you might not go down to hell; and if there is a soul in this assembly that goes to hell, you must go over the murdered body of God’s Son.

(D. L. Moody.)