Zoom SCT service June 14th 2020
On Sunday 14th June 2020 we hosted the SCT Ecumenical Service here at SYMC. We had quite a number of folk join us on our Zoom live service. We had to mute ourselves to sing to the hymns, because of the slight delay between all of our computers, and so John Castle very bravely not only played the piano for us, but also led us in singing. It does feel somewhat strange singing to yourself in your own home, looking at a computer screen!
We heard the story of the Greatest Grace Teacher You have never Heard of! Henry Moorhouse.
Henry Moorhouse was born into a Methodist family in Ardwick, Manchester in September 1840. At the age of 12 years he started work in a shipping house where he fell into bad company. He found himself in jail on more than one occasion and eventually joined the army. With this, his life deteriorated rapidly and at great cost, his father bought him out of the army.
His life then became one of drinking, violence and gambling. He was so desperately unhappy that he carried a loaded pistol around with him, not to defend himself – rather to shoot himself if a moment of utter despair came.
One night in December 1861, at the age of 21 years, passing alongside Hyde Street, he was struck by the sound of singing coming from a little room. He was told there was lots of drink and fun in there, and so he went in. The place was so crowded that he had to stand on the stairs. He had been fooled into going into a gospel meeting!
After the singing there was a Bible reading – the parable of the Prodigal son from Luke 15 and then a sermon. Henry Moorhouse saw himself in the story told of a rebellious, reckless youth who was far from home. The name ‘Jesus’ pierced his heart.
He rushed home and for the next three weeks he struggled. He tried to hide from God but he knew he couldn’t. Now he found he could not intoxicate himself although he would drink all day.
He went to see a young Christian in the engine room of John Rylands and Sons’ Warehouse. Together they looked at some verses in the Bible, especially Romans 10:9
‘If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’
He cried out – ‘I see it! I am saved!’ God had spoken to him on a staircase but he was converted in an engine room!
He devoured the Bible and spent hours studying it. He became a man of prayer. In 1870 he married and had a daughter called Minnie. She was born paralysed but he said ‘My heavenly Father knows what was best for me. He has given me one little paralysed girl; and she has done more to soften my heart for other poor little children and their sorrows than a crowd of healthy ones could ever have done’.
Henry became prosperous in business and also did some auctioneering. One evening a man named ‘the hatless preacher’ stood before him and cried aloud ‘Thou oughtest to have thy Bible in thy hand, out amongst the people and not that hammer for the devil’ and departed. It was like a thunderbolt falling on Henry. He at once dropped the auctioneers hammer and went out and began full time, itinerant, evangelistic ministry without a salary or promise of support.
His favourite text was John 3:16 and it is that verse which is on his gravestone
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
The best known evangelist of the day was the American Dwight-Lyman Moody better known as DL Moody. Moorhouse went to see Moody preach when he came to England and introduced himself and offered to preach for Moody in America. Moody politely agreed but when Moorhouse did in fact go to America and telegrammed Moody, Moody agreed to allow him to preach but only when he was away himself. Upon his return Moody asked his wife how the young preacher had done.
‘Oh, he is a better preacher than you are’ said his wife, ‘he is telling sinners that God loves them’.
‘That’s not right’ said Moody, ‘God doesn’t love sinners’
‘Well,’ she replied, ‘you go and hear him. He has been preaching all week and has only one verse for a text, it is John 3:16’.
Moody went and heard Moorhouse preach on that one verse and said it was on that night that he first clearly understood the gospel and God’s great love. He saw that souls were being wonderfully saved.
He confided in a friend:
‘I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out; I could not keep back the tears. I just drank it in. So did the crowded congregation. I tell you there is one thing that draws above everything else in the world and that is love. I have preached a different gospel since and I have had more power with God and men since then.’
Moody and Moorhouse became great friends and Moorhouse became known as ‘The man who moved the man who moved millions’.
At the age of 40 years Henry Moorhouse died and his last words were reported as:
‘If it were the Lord’s will to raise me up again, I should like to preach more on the text, “God so loved the world”’.
After the story of Henry Moorhouse, we had a time of sharing which scriptures which we held dear, those that gave meaning to our lives, those which have turned our lives around completely, those which have reassured us of God’s love. So many people courageously shared their favourite scripture. What a wonderful testimony to the Power of God’s Word. The Bible speaks to us all as individuals and in our own circumstances, just as He had spoken to Henry Moorhouse
God’s word is as live today as we are, and in this time of trouble with civil unrest and disease, take time to read your Bibles, stopping and pondering on what God wants to say to you from your reading, letting the reading soak into your heart. Maybe start with the scripture that Henry Moorhouse taught from:
John 3:16
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
Keg