He Preached John 3:16

Dan Arnold

Henry Moorhouse was a wild young man who by the age of sixteen was a gambler, gang-leader, and thief. But during the Revival of 1859 Henry gave his life to Jesus. He was soon heard preaching the Gospel with all his heart His favorite text was John 3:16. One day in 1867, he met the famed evangelist, D.L. Moody and Henry had the nerve to invite himself to preach in Moody’s church in Chicago.

Sometime later, Moody returned home from a trip and learned that Moorhouse had shown up, started preaching, and was drawing great crowds. “He preached two sermons from John 3:16” Moody’s wife said to him, “and I think you will like him, although he preached a little different from what you do”.

“How is that?” Mr. Moody asked.

“Well, he tells sinners God loves them” his wife replied.

Moody wasn’t too sure about that, but that evening he went to hear Moorhouse preach. The young man stood up in the pulpit and said, “If you will turn to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse, you will find my text”. Moody later recalled, “He preached a most extraordinary sermon from that verse. I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out, and I could not keep back the tears. It was like news from a far country. I just drank it in.”

Night after night, Moorhouse preached from John 3:16 and it had a life-changing effect on D. L. Moody. “I never have forgotten those nights,” Moody said later. “I have preached a different Gospel since, and I have had more power with God and man since then.”

Later, when Moorhouse fell ill and was on his deathbed, he looked up and told his friends, “If it were the Lord’s will to raise me again, I should like to preach from the text, ‘God so loved the world’.

Moorhouse died but God’s truth abideth still in the ministry of D. L. Moody as he continued the work by proclaiming ‘God loved so loved the world’; He preached John 3:16.

(Taken from forward written by Robert Morgan in the book titled Collective Writings and Sermons of Henry Moorhouse: The English Evangelist)

In our generation, John 3:16 may be the best known but the least comprehended verse in the Bible. Best known through bumper stickers and stadium end zone placards, yet seldom used and un-preached in our churches to ‘thaw out’ our cold hard hearts. I have asked mature Christians this question for many years, “Have you ever heard a message on John 3:16 from your church pulpit?” You would be surprised to know that only one person said yes. Yet, in this one verse, all of what is in God’s heart towards this and every generation is poured out. This is the Apostle John’s Magnum Opus verse.  God so loved us that He gave Jesus so that we would not perish but that we would have everlasting life. This is the message God had the Apostle John write and wanted every generation to preach. God gave us John 3:16 as His warm words of love, truth and pardon, to be spoken into the startled ears of rebel sinners condemned to die.

A few weeks ago my mother died. It was expected that I would speak at her funeral and I sought the Lord for the words to honor her. What do you say over the dead body that once was your mother to your grieving family?  What would my mother want me to say to those she deeply loved and are the still living? I decided to tie her great love for us back to its source - God’s love. My message would follow the text “For God so loved that he gave Jesus so that today, my dear mother, though dead, is alive in Heaven.” The morning of the funeral my heart was filled with a great sadness, and as I was pulling my black funeral tie out of the garment bag the Lord spoke this into my spirit, “Today, the news in Heaven that your mother will learn, will give her great honor - that her son preached John 3:16 at her funeral”. You see, nothing so clearly states that a Godly legacy remains when you die than having those that you bore, raised up and invested your life into, continue on without you proclaiming the clear message of the Gospel. Yes, I preached John 3:16 and like news from a far off country, they drank it in.

There are many perfectly suitable verses in the Bible to preach the Gospel from, but none that get right to the heart as quickly as John 3:16.  For we must tell the world that God loves sinners, so much so that He gave Jesus, so that they would not perish, but have everlasting life. The option of perishing remains but the Good News of the Gospel is they don’t have to and neither do you.

So if I should fall ill and on my deathbed be given one last request from God, mine would be summed up in the words of 3 John 1:4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” That God’s truth abideth in them still and that they preached John 3:16 over my body and like news from a far off country, sinners and saints drank it in.

The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.

Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress is Our God

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