The Old Gospel Preached with New Spiritual Power – Dwight Lyman Moody

When I was preaching at Farwell Hall, Chicago, I never worked harder to prepare my sermons than I did then. I preached and preached; but it was beating against the air. A good woman used to say, “Mr. Moody, you don’t seem to have power in your preaching.” Oh, my desire was that I might have a fresh anointing! I requested this woman and a few others to come and pray with me every Friday at four o’clock. Oh, how piteously I prayed that God might fill the empty vessel! After the fire in Chicago, I was in New York, and going into the Bank on Wall Street, it seemed as if I felt a strange and mighty power coming over me. I went up to the hotel, and there in my room I wept before God, and cried, “Oh, my God, stay Thy hand!” He gave me such fulness that it seemed more than I could contain. May God forgive me if I should seem to speak in a boastful way; but I do not know that I have preached a sermon since but God has given me some soul. I seem a wonder to you, but I am a greater wonder to myself. These are the same sermons I preached in Chicago word for word. They are not new sermons; it is not a new gospel; but the old gospel with the Holy Ghost of power.

(D. L. Moody.)