Edward Kimball

God is building a story of Jesus in and through us.

There is a well-known story about Edward Kimball.

who was a just ordinary Sunday school teacher.

One of the young men in his class was 17 years old, who worked in the shoe shop.

... a virtue.

So what I was gonna say is historians like, uh, Matthew L. Harris and Edward Kimball, President Kimball's own son, they've noted that Ezra Taft Benson's presidency, uh, noticeably shifted away from political themes, right? Uh, things that had, had characterized much of his public ministry in the '60s and '70s.

As church president, he rarely ever spoke about the Cold War, communism, partisan politics.

Instead, it was Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, repentance, pride, missionary work, personal conversion.

I'm going to close by describing to you a chain of events that will just wrap this up, I think, nicely.

In 1855, there was a guy named Edward Kimball.

He lived in Illinois.

Edward Kimball was a Sunday school teacher, volunteer physician.

In his class, several young men, one of them, he had the opportunity of leading to Christ.

That 17 year old boy was a young shoe salesman by the name of Dwight Lyman Moody.

D.L. Moody came to faith in Christ because of Edward Kimball's steadfast encouragement and testimony.

That was 1855.

So we don't know Mordecai Ham, but we do know Billy Graham.

How many of you have ever heard of Edward Kimball? Edward Kimball.

Not heard of him either.

Well, Edward Kimball worked in a shoe store, and he had a coworker named Dwight, and Edward was sharing the gospel with Dwight, and he kept sharing with Dwight, and finally Dwight came to Christ.

Dwight went on to become the great evangelist D.L. Moody.

So we haven't heard of Edward Kimball, we haven't heard of Mordecai Ham, but we have heard of Billy Graham, and we have heard of D.L. Moody, right? So here's my question.

Who's your one? Everyone should at least have a one, someone you can point to and say, "By God's grace, I played a role in that person coming to Christ." Every one of us should have one, two, three, four, 10, 20, however many the Lord gives you in your lifetime, but there should be someone you can point to and say, "I played a role in that." Maybe it was just praying.

Maybe it was sowing a seed.

... a virtue.

That's what I was gonna say, is historians like, uh, Matthew L. Harris and Edward Kimball, President Kimball's own son, they've noted that Ezra Taft Benson's presidency, uh, noticeably shifted away from political themes, right? Uh, things that had, had characterized much of his public ministry in the '60s and '70s.

As church president, he rarely ever spoke about the Cold War, communism, partisan politics.

Instead, it was Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, repentance, pride, missionary work, personal conversion.

But I really can't stop there because D.L. Moody was an unbeliever working in a shoe store in Chicago.

And in 1855, a young Sunday school teacher named Edward Kimball was shuffling his feet outside the shoe store, and he was wondering, should I go inside and talk to that kid? Nah.

I

mean, he