WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO

Usually when a man comes to a shoe store, he is looking to buy something. One of the greatest transactions that was ever made in a shoe store occurred on day when a man came to make sure the clerk had the opportunity to receive a gift.

Edward Kimball was a faithful Sunday School teacher who was somewhat timid. For a year a young man had attended his class each Sunday morning. Most of the class members were students at Harvard, but this boy was fresh off the farm and was not an accomplished student. Now at the age of eighteen, Dwight was beginning to get interested in the Bible.

Mr. Kimball felt that God wanted him to present the gospel to Dwight, but as he approached the store, he decided to wait for another opportunity. He was halfway down the block before he was able to build up his courage to go back to the shoe store and talk to the young star-salesman. As he found him in the back, wrapping shoes, Mr. Kimball said: "I want to tell you how much Christ loved you."

Unbenownst to Mr. Kimball, Dwight had recently become earnest in a desire to improve himself, even signing this resolution in blood. Thus, God brought the Sunday School teacher to talk to him at just the right time. God used the testimony of the gospel contained in His Holy Word.

Dwight listened to the good news of God's love that was so great that Jesus, the God-man, died on the cross to pay for Dwight's sins, and then rose again from the dead to offer him the gift of eternal life. Dwight bowed his head and said yes to God. He later told of his feelings that day: "I was in a new world. The birds sang sweeter. The sun shone brighter. I'd never known such peace."

Later, after moving to Chicago to be a salesman, young Dwight became a Sunday School teacher himself. He organized a Sunday School, recruiting both the students and the teachers. God so blessed his efforts that Dwight Moody left the business world to work full time for the Lord.

By the time his life work was over, he had made such an impact on both America and England that he was described as: "the greatest evangelist of the nineteenth century."

All this because God chose to reach a shoe salesman through the witness of a timid Sunday School teacher, Edward Kimball.