One Simple Act CAN Change the World

One of my favorite things to do as a pastor is tell stories. I love trying to help people visualize what is actually happening in the Bible's stories. I also try to use stories from different times throughout history to help illustrate the point of each biblical story. Over the years, I have come across some great stories. Today I’d like to share with you one of my favorites. 

            In 1858, a Sunday School teacher in Boston named Edward Kimball taught a Sunday school class for young people at his local church. Mr. Kimball took the charge he had been given very seriously and made it a habit to personally invite each student in his class to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. 

            One day, Mr. Kimball went to check on one of his students who was at work stocking shelves and led him to Christ. That student became one of the greatest evangelists of all time, Dwight L. Moody.  Moody traveled around the world sharing the Gospel and led tens of thousands of people to Christ before founding the DL Moody Bible Institute in 1886. On one occasion, Moody preached a message in a small chapel on the British Isles which was led by Pastor Fredrick Meyer. In his sermon, DL Moody told the story of Mr. Kimball and how he led him to faith in Christ. The story inspired Pastor Meyer so much that he became an evangelist like Moody. 

On one of Meyer's evangelistic trips, he preached in Northfield, Massachusetts, where a man named Wilbur Chapman heard Meyer say something that would change his life and the course of history. Meyer said, “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?” Chapman was so moved by that statement that he gave his life to Christ. On his path to becoming an effective evangelist he met a man named Billy Sunday who helped him set up his evangelistic events in different towns around the country. Billy Sunday watched and learned how to preach while working with Chapman and he went on to become an evangelist who led countless people to Christ. 

After hearing Sunday speak, a group of men from North Carolina began to hold evangelistic crusades in their area. The men invited an evangelist named Mordecai Ham to lead a series of evangelistic events. As large crowds gathered each night, a young 16 year old farm boy began to feel called by God and gave his life to Christ on the last night of the crusade. That man was Billy Graham, the most successful evangelist of all time. 

Billy Graham preached to over 215 million people in 185 countries and had led over 3.2 million people to Christ at last count. Most of you reading this have had some contact with this story and not even realize it. Someone might have heard Billy Graham and shared their faith with someone else, and so on, and so on until the Good News of Jesus was shared with you. All of this was made possible by a Sunday School being faithful to God by doing the best he could where God had him.

 As many times as I have heard this story, I still can't get over how one small act of obedience started a series of events that changed the world forever. Millions of people will be in Heaven because of a Boston Sunday school teacher in 1858. Thank you, Edward Kimball, may God continue to use you and your story to change the world.