D.L. Moody and the Morning That Swallowed Death

On December 22, 1899, the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody lay dying in his Northfield, Massachusetts home. His family gathered close, grief heavy in the room. Then Moody's eyes opened, and his face changed. "Earth recedes," he whispered. "Heaven opens before me."

His son Will, alarmed, leaned in. "Father, you're dreaming."

"No, this is no dream," Moody said, his voice gaining strength. "It is beautiful. If this is death, it is sweet. There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go."

The man who had preached to over a hundred million people across two continents — who had shaken London and Chicago with the gospel — spoke his final testimony not from a pulpit but from a pillow. And his report was stunning: death had no sting. The grave held no terror. What the watching family saw as an ending, Moody experienced as a beginning.

This is precisely what Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians. The perishable puts on the imperishable. The mortal puts on immortality. And when that happens, the ancient taunt rises from every believer's lips: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

Moody did not muster courage to face death. He simply arrived at the threshold and found it had already been defeated. The Almighty had swallowed it up — not in darkness, but in victory. And so Paul's closing charge echoes across every generation: stand firm, be immovable, give yourselves fully to the Lord's work, because in Christ, nothing you do is ever in vain.