PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Bible Characters
Moody, Dwight Lyman, 1837-1899 · 127,927 words · 195 reading sections
BIBLE CHARACTERS
[Illustration: THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN. From the Painting by Gustave Dore]…
12 wordsSECTION 2DESCRIBED AND ANALYZED IN THE SERMONS AND WRITINGS OF THE FOLLOWING FAMOUS AUTHORS:
Dwight Lyman Moody. T. De Witt Talmage. Joseph Parker.…
9 wordsSECTION 3SUPPLEMENTED BY THE GREATEST POEMS IN PRINT.
[Illustration]…
1 wordsSECTION 4CHICAGO: THOS. W. JACKSON PUBLISHING COMPANY.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1902, by the RHODES & McCLURE PUBLISHING COMPANY in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. All Rights Reserved.…
30 wordsSECTION 5BY THE REV. C. B. GILLETTE, PH. D.
It frequently occurs to the devout Bible student and to the earnest Christian that, if he could have had the personal acquaintance of Jesus, and other Bible characters, it would have helped materially in the cultivation of a religious and spiritual life. One feels that, if he could have been a James, or a John, a Marth…
456 wordsSECTION 6DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY.
Abel 17 Abraham 18 Ahab 21 Barabbas 25 Bartimeus and Zacchæus 27 Belshazzar 32 Caleb 34 Daniel 36 David …
83 wordsSECTION 7T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
Athaliah 177 David 181 Deborah 187 Dorcas 188 Ehud 198 Esau 200 Felix and Drusilla 201 Gallery of Characters 204 Gideon …
73 wordsSECTION 8JOSEPH PARKER.
Abijah 269 Ahab 282 Ahaziah 308 Asa 314 Athaliah 321 Balaam 328 Elah 339 Elijah 342 Elisha …
56 wordsSECTION 9ILLUSTRATIONS
Selected Especially for This Work…
5 wordsSECTION 10FROM THE GREAT ART GALLERIES OF THE WORLD
THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN. From the Painting by Gustave Dore. Opposite Page Frontispiece THE TRIAL OF THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. Genesis, xxii. Opposite Page 16 “THE FIRST MOURNERS.” From the Painting by Bougereau. Opposite Page 17 THE ARRIVAL OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN AT THE I…
213 wordsSECTION 11ABEL.
Abel was the first man who went to Heaven, and he went by way of blood. So we find it in all the worships of God from the earliest times. In the story of Abel and Cain we are told: “In process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel also brought of the f…
256 wordsSECTION 12ABRAHAM.
In the twenty-second chapter of Genesis we find the story of Abraham and his only son, Isaac. Abraham was a follower of God, a man who loved and feared God, and He commanded him to make a blood sacrifice. We read in this chapter that He commanded Abraham to make the sacrifice of his only son. And we read that the next…
805 wordsSECTION 13AHAB.
There is a familiar saying: “Every man has his own price.” Ahab had his, and he sold himself for a garden; Judas sold himself for thirty pieces of silver, and Esau for a mess of pottage. Ahab sold himself just to please a fallen woman. And so we might go on--citing the men who have sold themselves. It is easy for us …
966 wordsSECTION 14Part 14
Well, when Ahab goes down to take possession of that vineyard there is a message that had come from the throne of Heaven. God has been watching him. He notices all of us, and there is not a hellish act that has been, or is going to be, committed but God knows about it. Elijah stood before Ahab as the latter went down t…
421 wordsSECTION 15BARABBAS.
I have often thought what a night Barabbas must have spent just before the day when Christ was crucified. As the sun goes down, he says to himself: “Tomorrow--only tomorrow--and I must die upon the cross! They will hang me up before a crowd of people; they will drive nails through my hands and feet; they will break my…
517 wordsSECTION 16BARTIMEUS AND ZACCHÆUS.
In the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke you will find Christ was going into Jericho, and as He drew near the gates of the city there was a poor blind man who sat by the wayside, begging people to give him a farthing, and crying out: “Have mercy on a poor blind man!” This blind beggar met a man who said to …
997 wordsSECTION 17Part 17
At last the crowd comes to the tree, and it looks as if Christ is going by; but He stops right under the tree. All at once He looks up and sees Zacchæus, and says to him: “Zacchæus, make haste and come down.” I can imagine Zacchæus says to himself: “I wonder who told Him my name. I was never introduced to Him.” But Ch…
371 wordsSECTION 18BELSHAZZAR.
In the fifth chapter of Daniel we read the history of King Belshazzar. It is very short. Only one chapter tells us all we know about him. One short sight of his career is all we see. He just seems to burst upon the stage and then disappears. We are told that he gave a great feast, and at this feast he had a thousand of…
446 wordsSECTION 19CALEB.
Caleb and Joshua are great favorites of mine. They have got a ring about them. They were not all the time looking for hindrances and obstacles in their way. They got their eyes above them. You remember how those men were sent forward to spy out the land of Canaan. They had been sent out forty days to go over that land…
631 wordsSECTION 20DANIEL.
I want to talk about the life of the prophet, Daniel. The word means “God with him”--not the public with him, not his fellow men, but God. Therefore, he had to report himself to God and hold himself responsible to Him. I do not know just what time Daniel went down to Babylon. I know that in the third year of King Jeho…
933 wordsSECTION 21Part 21
This great kingdom, Daniel told the king, was his own; but he said a destroying kingdom should come, and afterward a third and fourth kingdom, when, at the last, the God of Heaven should set up His kingdom. Daniel lived to see the first kingdom overthrown, when the Medes and Persians came in, and centuries after came …
921 wordsSECTION 22Part 22
Calling out from his throne, he tells how he had dreamed a dream, wherein he saw a tree in the midst of the earth, with branches that reached to Heaven, and the sight thereof to the ends of the earth. The beasts of the field had shelter under it, and the fowls of the air dwelt in the boughs thereof. The tree was very f…
877 wordsSECTION 23Part 23
I see these revelers swearing and rioting when, suddenly, the king turns pale and trembles from head to foot. Above the golden candlesticks, on a bare space on the wall, he sees the writing of the God of Zion. He distinctly sees the terrible fingers. His voice shakes with terror, but he manages to falter out: “Bring in…
840 wordsSECTION 24Part 24
When the mine is all ready, the hundred and twenty princes come to the king and open their business with flattering speech. Naturally, we hear these men saying: “King Darius, live for ever!” They tell him how prosperous the realm is, and how much the people think of him. And then they tell him, in the most plausible wa…
955 wordsSECTION 25Part 25
I can see them now just embrace each other, and together they jump into the chariot and away they go back to the palace to breakfast. I want to say something further about Daniel. I want to refer to how an angel came to him, and, as we read in the twelfth chapter of Daniel, told him he was a man greatly beloved. Anoth…
678 wordsSECTION 26DAVID.
You know how David fell. No man rose so high and fell so far, I think. God took him from the sheepfold and put him upon a throne. He took him from obscurity and made him king of Israel and Judea; gave him lands in abundance, and would have given him more if he had wanted them. He was on the pinnacle of glory, and honor…
464 wordsSECTION 27ELIJAH.
Let us go to Carmel for a few minutes. King Ahab had forsaken the God of Israel, and all the court people and “upper ten” had followed his example. But there was an old prophet out in the mountains, to whom God said: “Go to Ahab, and tell him the heavens shall be shut up and there shall be no rain.” Away he goes to t…
948 wordsSECTION 28Part 28
The prophet of the Lord builds an altar. Mind you, he does not have any thing to do with the altar of Baal. He builds an entirely different one, on the ruins of the altar of the Lord, which had been broken down. “We will not have any one saying there is any trick about this thing,” says the prophet. So they bring twel…
206 wordsSECTION 29GIDEON.
I believe this man Gideon was called an enthusiast in the camp of Israel. The very idea of his going out to meet a hundred thousand men with pitchers and lanterns! How many people would have said: “The man has gone clean mad.” Yes, he was an enthusiast; but the Lord was with him. If we lean upon ourselves we will have…
385 wordsSECTION 30ITTAI.
I will read a few verses in the fifteenth chapter of Second Samuel, beginning at the nineteenth verse: “Then said the king to Ittai, the Gittite: ‘Wherefore goest thou also with us? Return to thy place, and abide with the king; for thou art a stranger, and also an exile. “‘Whereas, thou camest but yesterday, should I…
611 wordsSECTION 31JACOB.
The key to all Jacob’s difficulties will be found in the twentieth chapter of Matthew. It is the story of the laborers in the vineyard. The thought is in the second verse. The first men hired agreed to the bargain. The men would not go until the owner of the vineyard had made a bargain with them. He told them that he w…
925 wordsSECTION 32Part 32
What a bitter life! What was Jacob’s dying testimony to Pharaoh? It would take ten thousand Jacobs to get one convert like Pharaoh. “Few and evil,” said Jacob, “have my days been.” He started with a lie in his mouth. He died in exile. He died in Egypt--not in the land which God had promised him. He would not let God ch…
78 wordsSECTION 33JACOB’S SONS.
Look at the sons of Jacob. Look at them when they took away their brother, and after they had delivered him into slavery see them coming back. How much they must have suffered with their secret during those twenty years! What misery they must have endured as they looked, during all those years, at their old father sorr…
196 wordsSECTION 34JOHN THE BAPTIST.
I want to call your attention to John, the forerunner of Christ. On hearing the news of the death of the king Joseph brings Jesus back to Nazareth, and there He remained for thirty years. I once read of the founder of the Russian Empire going down to a Dutch sea port as a stranger and in disguise, that he might learn …
911 wordsSECTION 35Part 35
He came suddenly and unexpectedly upon the world, and it was not long before his voice rang clear through the whole nation, and the whole nation was stirred. He stood between the two dispensations. He was the last prophet the new dispensation was to have. They had had some mighty prophets--wonderful men; but this man w…
920 wordsSECTION 36Part 36
“Oh, no! That preaching is not for us. It is good enough for them, but we do not need to go. We are the seed of Abraham. We belong to Moses, and we are not such bad men. What do you mean by conversion? We do not need to be born again. What do we need to be born again for? We pay our debts. We are good men.” See? That …
932 wordsSECTION 37Part 37
“And they asked him, and said unto him: ‘Why baptize thou, then, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?’ “John answered them, saying: ‘I baptize with water; but there standeth One among you whom ye know not. He it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am unworthy to u…
947 wordsSECTION 38Part 38
One afternoon, as he sat there with his disciples, he said: “Behold the Lamb of God!” And they left him to follow Jesus--two of his own disciples. I tell you that is something which you do not like to do--to make your friends leave you; to preach them away--your own congregation. But now this man begins to ask his disc…
814 wordsSECTION 39JOSHUA.
Joshua was a man who walked by faith, and you will find the key to his character in three words--courage, obedience and faith. Courage, obedience and faith. And he dared to be in the minority. Now, friends, there are very few men at the present time who like to be in the minority. They always want to be in the majori…
943 wordsSECTION 40Part 40
There was faith for you! When those seven men took up the ark God was with them, and the moment the soles of their feet touched the water the waters were cut off, and they passed into the middle of the stream and put down the ark. That ark represented the Almighty. He was in the ark, with the ark right there in the mi…
901 wordsSECTION 41Part 41
It says here, in the eighth chapter: “And all Israel and their elders and officers and their judges stood on this side the ark and on that side, before the priests, the Levites, which bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger as he that was born among them; half of them over against Mount Gerizim a…
876 wordsSECTION 42Part 42
Now, Joshua has overcome them and driven them from the face of the earth, and this brings out one noble trait in his character. When he came to divide up the land, Joshua took the poorest treasure himself, that he might be near the ark. And there, on Mount Ephraim, he died at the ripe old age of one hundred and ten yea…
558 wordsSECTION 43LOT.
One reason why I take up this character is because I believe he is a representative man, and perhaps there is no Bible character that represents so many men of the present day as Lot of Sodom. Where you can find one Abraham, one Daniel or one Joshua you can find a thousand Lots. Lot started out very well. He got rich…
936 wordsSECTION 44Part 44
Perhaps Lot was a judge and had great influence. When the angels got to the gate they might have heard of the Honorable Judge Lot. It sounded pretty well. He might have owned many corner lots. He might have owned many buildings with “Lot” printed all over them, and on account of his property he might have been a very h…
946 wordsSECTION 45Part 45
Mrs. Lot gets out of Sodom, but she looks back, and judgment falls upon her. And I believe that the condition of Lot’s wife is the condition of millions today. They have come out of Sodom, but their hearts are in the world. They ask: “Have I to give up the world? Have I to give up all and follow Christ?” They linger an…
369 wordsSECTION 46MARTHA.
There was a woman right in the midst of this darkness, when many disciples left Him, who came forward and invited Him to her home--a woman by the name of Martha. I can imagine Martha coming from Bethany, one day, and going into the Temple, in Jerusalem, to worship. The great Galilean Prophet came in, Who spake as neve…
953 wordsSECTION 47Part 47
“Come and see.” And they led the way. Look at that company moving along toward the grave yard. These two sisters are telling about the last words and last acts of Lazarus. Perhaps Lazarus left a loving message for Jesus. You know what that is. When you go to see friends who are mourning, how they will dwell upon the l…
256 wordsSECTION 48MEPHIBOSHETH.
There is a story in the Books of Samuel--away back as far as the time of the kings of Israel--which will help us to understand the Gospel. It is about a man of the name of Mephibosheth. You remember what a hard time David had when Saul was hunting him to kill him--just as men hunt for game. Well, one day David and hi…
953 wordsSECTION 49Part 49
And now I can see poor Mephibosheth looking down at his feet. Maybe his toes turned in, or he was club-footed. And he says to himself: “I am not fit to go to the king. I am a poor cripple. I am not fit to be seen among the tall and handsome servants of the palace in Jerusalem.” “Never mind your lame feet, Mephibosheth…
229 wordsSECTION 50MOSES.
Moses was about to leave the children of Israel in the wilderness. He had led them up to the borders of the Promised Land. For forty long years he had been leading them in that wilderness, and now, as they are about to go over, Moses takes his farewell. He said a great many wise and good things on that memorable occasi…
695 wordsSECTION 51NAAMAN.
Naaman was a successful, valiant and noble man. But he was a leper--and that spoiled him. What a blight that must have cast on his path! It must have haunted him day and night. He was a leper, and there was no physician in Syria who could help him. It was an incurable disease, and I suppose he thought he would have t…
923 wordsSECTION 52Part 52
Keep this in mind: “My ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts.” If you look for the Lord to come in one direction, He will come in another direction. “My ways are not your ways,” thought the leper. No man gets into the kingdom of God until he gives up his thoughts. God never saves a man until he gives up…
962 wordsSECTION 53Part 53
Well, Naaman goes into the water a second time. If some Chicago Christians had been there, they would certainly have asked, sneeringly: “Well, how do you feel now?” He did not see that he was any better, and down he went a third time; but when he looked himself over, he saw just as much leprosy as ever. Down he goes a…
331 wordsSECTION 54PETER.
The first glimpse that we catch of Peter is when Andrew brought him to the Savior. That is John’s account. That is when he became a disciple; but he did not leave every thing then and follow Christ. He waited until he got another call. I think we all can learn a lesson right here--that it is not every one who is calle…
934 wordsSECTION 55Part 55
The next glimpse we catch of Peter is when he takes on the character of a doubter. You will find, if you read it over, that it is our own experience right over again. Peter got to doubting. In the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, beginning at the twenty-second verse, you will find these words: “And straightway Jesus co…
967 wordsSECTION 56Part 56
“And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. “And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering. “And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias. “Who appe…
921 wordsSECTION 57Part 57
There was only one time, I am told, that Edinburgh Castle was ever taken by the enemy, and that was done by climbing on the back rocks. The rocks were so steep the besieged did not believe the enemy could get in that way, but that was just where they got in. I used to think when I had been a Christian ten or twelve ye…
992 wordsSECTION 58Part 58
At last Sunday morning comes--that blessed morning--and the first thing Peter hears is that Christ has risen. And He sent word to Peter--one of the most touching things He did. Just let me read from the sixteenth chapter of Mark and the seventh verse: “But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before…
294 wordsSECTION 59SAUL.
I have been speaking on the Prodigal Son, but now I want to take up another man--a much harder case than the prodigal, because he did not believe he needed a Savior. You need not have talked a great while to that prodigal before you could have convinced him that he needed a Savior. It is easy to reach a prodigal’s hea…
864 wordsSECTION 60Part 60
So this young man comes to Damascus, and he tells the hour of his arrival. He never forgets the hour, for it was then that Christ met him. He says: “I saw in the way a light from Heaven above the brightness of the sun.” He saw the light of Heaven, and a glimpse of that light struck him to the ground. From that light a …
344 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.