A Changed Man

I want to take some time before we go to our time of prayer to read you friends the personal testimony of C.T. Studd regarding his father's conversion. Edward Studd was a multi-millionaire British businessman who lived in the 1800s and he owned Champion Racehorses in London and was famous for his racehorses. Anyway, this was a man who was consumed with the world and the enjoyments of the world and let me pick up C.T. Studd's testimony about his father's conversion who got saved under the preaching of D.L. Moody.

Listen to C.T. Studd's words. My father was a man of the world, loving all sorts of worldly things. He'd made a fortune in India and had come back to England to spend it.

He was very fond of sports of all kinds. He would go into regular training that he might go fox hunting but above all else he was an enthusiast on horse racing. He was passionately fond of horses to begin with and when he saw fine horses he would buy them and train them and then he would race them.

He had a large place in the country where he made a race course and he won the biggest steeplechase in London three times. At last he got hold of a horse better than anyone he'd ever had and so certain was he of winning the race that he wrote to a friend in London and said if you are a wise man you will come to the race tomorrow and put every penny you have on my horse. Well unknown to my father this man had been converted.

Mr. Moody had come to England and had been preaching. Nobody believed very much at that time in a man getting up to preach the gospel unless he had two things the title of reverend and a white tie around his neck. The papers could not understand such a preacher as Mr. Moody who had neither and of course they printed column after column against him but they could not help saying that he could get more people to his meetings than half a dozen archbishops and that more were converted than by 20 ordinary ministers.

Of course they did not put the right construction on things. They said that Mr. Sanky had come over to sell organs and Mr. Moody to sell his hymn books. My father read the papers day after day and these things tickled him immensely.

I remember one evening he threw the paper down and said well anyhow when this man comes to London I am going to hear him. There must be some good about the man or he would never be so abused so much by the papers. Well father went up to London the next day according to promise and met his friend.

This man had been over to Ireland when Mr. Moody was there and as he was about to leave Dublin had missed his train. God was even in debt missing a train. It was Saturday night and the man had to remain over Sunday.

As he was looking about the streets that evening he saw the big bills advertising Moody and Sanky and he thought I will just go and hear those Americans. He went and God met him and he went again and God converted him. He was a new man and yet when my father wrote that letter he never said anything about it.

When they met and drove along in a carriage father talked nothing but horses and told this man that if he were a wise man he would put every penny he had on that horse. After father had finished his business he came back to this friend and said how much money have you put on my horse? Nothing. My father said you were the biggest fool I've ever saw.

Didn't I tell you what a good horse he was? But though you are a fool come along with me to dinner. After dinner my father said now where shall we go to amuse ourselves? His friend said anywhere. My father said well you are the guest you shall choose where we shall go.

Well we will go and hear Moody. My father said oh no this isn't Sunday. We will go to the theater or concert but this man said you promised to go wherever I chose.

So my father had to go. They found the building was full and there were no seats in the hall except special ones. This man knew he would never get my father there again so he worked himself in through the crowd until he came across one of the committee.

He said to him look here I have brought a wealthy sporting gentleman here but I will never get him here again if we do not get a seat. The man took them in and put them right straight in front of Mr. Moody. My father never took his eyes off of Mr. Moody until he finished his address.

After the meeting my father said I will come and hear this man again. He just told me everything I had ever done. My father kept going until he was soundly converted.

That afternoon my father had been full of a thing that takes possession of a man's heart and head more than anything else. That passion for horse racing and in the evening he was a changed man. It was the same skin but a new man altogether inside.

When we boys came home from college we didn't understand what had come over him but father kept continually telling us that he was born again. We just thought he was born upside down because he was always asking us about our souls and we didn't like it. Of course he took us to hear Mr. Moody and we were impressed a good deal but not converted.

When my father was converted of course he could not go on living the same life as before. He could not go to balls and car parties and all that sort of thing. His conscience told him so and he said to Mr. Moody I want to be straight with you.

If I become a Christian will I have to give up racing and shooting and hunting and theaters and balls? Well Mr. Moody said Mr. Stud you have children and people you love and now you are a saved man yourself and you want to get them saved. God will give you some souls and as soon as ever you have won a soul you won't care about any of the other things. Sure enough we found to our astonishment that father didn't care for any of those things any longer.

He only cared about one thing and that was saving souls. He took us to hear Mr. Moody and other men and when Mr. Moody left England my father opened his country house and held meetings there in the evenings. He asked ministers and businessmen from London to come down and speak to the people about their souls.

The people would come from miles to attend the meetings and many were converted. Well friends the story goes on to say that he was at these meetings where the young C.T. Stud was converted himself and if anyone's familiar with the mission work in China and later Africa where God used C.T. Stud it would doubly add to the power of that story. C.T. Stud wrote only one life will soon be passed only what's done for Christ will last and that's what happened to Edward Stud.

He became in his son's word a changed man and that's what happens to you when Christ gets a hold of you friend. All the things you held dear before become as dust and dung in this world. This world's but an empty bubble.

What we need are some changed men. Men are so hungry for Christ and thirsty for souls and consumed with the gospel. Men like these.

The Apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitfield, Knox, Edwards, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody each shared a common denominator a fire in their belly. They were each so eaten up with the gospel and thirsty for Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost. They could not stand idly by while others perished.

They saw nothing but eternity. Worshipped a holy God and served a risen Christ. Living not for earth nor its gains but living only for heaven and its rewards.

When they preached they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation. They preached hell and its fire and Christ and him crucified. Not one of them feared king, queen, or pope and not one of them sought the compliments of men.

Let us go now to a time of prayer.