Your Influence

[Sam]

It was a Saturday afternoon on July 1, 1885 when a Boston Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimble, who wanted to be sure all the students in his class personally knew the Lord, felt the tugging of the Spirit to share his faith with a young 17 year old shoe salesman he knew. At first Kimble vacillated, unsure if he should talk to the man. But he finally mustered his courage and went into the shoe store. There Kimble found the salesman in the back room stocking shoes, and he began to share his faith with him. As a result, the young shoe salesman prayed and received Jesus Christ that day. That shoe salesman's name was Dwight Moody (better known as D.L. Moody), and he became the greatest evangelist of his generation. The faithful Sunday school teacher had no idea that this act of faithful evangelistic witness would reap such a rich harvest for heaven. It has been estimated that during his lifetime, Moody traveled more than a million miles (before the days of commercial air travel!) and spoke to more than 100 million people.

But the story doesn't end there. Several years later a pastor of a small church by the name of Frederick Meyer (better known as F.B. Meyer) heard Moody preach in England. Meyer was so deeply stirred by Moody's preaching that he himself embarked on a far-reaching evangelistic ministry. Once when Meyer was preaching on a college campus, a student named John Wilbur Chapman (better known as Wilbur Chapman) accepted Christ as a result of his presentation of the gospel. Chapman became a great evangelist in the generation succeeding Moody's. During Chapman's ministry in Chicago, Illinois (USA), a baseball player with the "Chicago White Stockings" had a Sunday off (as did all professional ballplayers in those days) and was standing in front of a bar on State Street. A gospel wagon from the Pacific Garden Mission came by, playing hymns and inviting people to the afternoon service down the street. This ballplayer, Billy Sunday, recognized the hymns from his childhood, attended that service and received Christ as his personal Savior. Sunday played baseball for two more years, then left professional sports to minister in the YMCA in Chicago. Sometime later, Chapman was passing through town and invited Sunday to join his crusade team as an advance man, to help organize pastors and set up evangelistic meetings. Sunday enthusiastically agreed. After two years, Chapman left the evangelistic ministry to become the pastor of one of the leading churches in America. Although Sunday felt stranded, he refocused on national crusade evangelism and soon began scheduling his own crusades.Chapman later became involved in the YMCA and employed a baseball player to help him prepare to conduct an evangelistic crusade. That ballplayer, who later became a powerful evangelist himself, was William Sunday (better known as Billy Sunday).

In 1924 a group of businessmen invited Billy Sunday to hold an evangelistic campaign in Charlotte, North Carolina, which resulted in many people coming to Christ. A group of local men were so enthusiastic afterward that they planned another evangelistic campaign. When they asked him to return later, he could not so In 1934, a lesser known evangelist named Mordecai Hamm came to Charlotte to hold a crusade. Hamm's crusade went well, even though it did not have many converts. On one of the last nights under the big tent one tall, young, lanky, farm boy walked up the aisle to receive Christ. The boy's friend's called him Billy Frank. We know him today as Billy Graham.

Talk about a chain of events! And it all started with an ordinary Christian named Edward Kimble, who reached D.L. Moody, who touched F.B. Meyer, who reached J. Wilbur Chapman, who helps Billy Sunday, who reached a group of men, who invited Mordecai Ham, who reached Billy Graham. Look at what God has done over these many years because of the faithfulness of one person.



Another story:

Years ago a preacher resigned his church in failure and he said to his deacons, "Only one convert this year, and that was just wee Bobby Moffat, just a little boy." The deacons said, "Pastor, we hate to see you go, but we have had a bad year. It's been a failure as far as the year is concerned: we've only had one convert. That is wee Bobby Moffat." The pastor did resign. What the pastor did not know and what the deacons did not know was that wee Bobby Moffat was to grow up to become one of the greatest missionaries the world has ever seen. Robert Moffat, was called Bobby in his youth. It was 1807, when Bobby was just 12. He was in Scotland, at church, and that Sunday morning, a strange thing happened. After the offering, little Bobby Moffat stepped into the offering plate. He stepped right into it! Of course, when one of the church ushers saw this, he yelled, “Boy! What do you think you’re doing?” Bobby replied, “I’m giving my whole self to Jesus!” That’s what this 12-year-old boy said to that usher. Eight years later, when Bobby (now called Robert) was 20 years old, he was accepted by the London Missionary Society to be a missionary to Africa. The next year, in 1816, Robert Moffat turned 21 and headed down to Cape Town, Africa, where he met his wife, Mary Smith. For more than 50 years, Robert and Mary Moffat partnered to serve Jesus Christ together on this earth.

At the time they met and married in Cape Town, Africa, no one went north of Cape Town because the region 100 miles north of Cape Town was known as “the dark continent.” But Robert and Mary Moffat went. They went into Botswana, where they became missionaries. They took Jesus to those people, the Swana people. The Swana people had driven the “sand people” into the Kalahari. Driven from their land, they became bushmen. Robert Moffat ministered to both the bushmen and the Swana people, telling them about Jesus. He translated the whole of the Old and New Testaments into the language of those people. Then he took Christian classics, like Pilgrim’s Progress, and translated them so that the people could read these great works, and he led the people to Jesus.

Twenty years later, in 1835, Robert Moffat was back in Glasgow, Scotland, and he was tired--broken in body and weary in soul. He and Mary had worked very hard and wanted some help. They wanted people to go back with them to work in that dark continent, and as he spoke to them from this little Scottish church in Glasgow, he was describing for them the region of Botswana. He told them how he could stand on top of this hill and look out to see the campfires of a thousand villages, villages of people who knew not Christ, and he said, “Come with me. Help me take Jesus to all of these people.”

He was disappointed that night because no one accepted his invitation. But, what he didn’t know was that a young man there was convicted by the Holy Spirit that night. The young man was David Livingston, who went on to marry Robert and Mary’s daughter--an incredible tale of its own! Afterwards, David Livingston went to Africa, leading thousands of people to Christ. In Glasgow, he had received his medical doctorate and a degree in theology. He went to Africa as an explorer, looking for the headwaters of the Nile River. He went as a civil rights leader, fighting the slave trade. He went as a missionary and an evangelist, taking Jesus to the people, faithful through his years. In 1873, David Livingston died. His last diary entry stated: “My Jesus, my King, my life, my all. I dedicate my whole life to thee.” If I remember correctly, Dr. Livingston was buried with honors in England, but his heart was removed from his body and was buried in Africa because that was where his heart really was.


Recently

Recently at the Hamilton Dream Center, 108 children had dinner and attended Super Kids Church. Many had come on the bus. Some do not have parents who go to church. There were also teenagers (I don't know how many) in the youth meeting in a separate service.

Only eternity will reveal how many people will be ultimately influenced for Christ or what an influence we will have on society through our efforts in Saturday outreach, Sunday Children's Church, and Wednesday nights with youth and children or in any other way we support our local church and any other way we touch people just through our daily lives.