I was in a city in Europe, and a young minister came to me and said, “Moody, what makes the difference be-tween your preaching and mine? Either you are right, and I am wrong, or you are wrong, and I am right.” Said I, “I don’t know what the difference is, for you have heard me, and I have never heard you preach.
What is the difference?” Said he, “You make a great deal of the death of Christ, and I don’t make anything out of it. I don’t think it has anything to do with it.
I preach the life.” Said I, “What do you do with this: ‘He hath borne our sins in His own body on the tree?’” Said he, “I never preached that.” Said I, “What do you do with this: ‘He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities, and with His stripes we are healed?”’ Said he, “I never preached that.”
“Well,” said I again, “What do you do with this: ‘Without the shedding of blood there is no remission?’” Said he, “I never preached that.” I asked him, “What do you preach?” “Well,” he says, “I preach a moral essay.” Said I, “My friend, if you take the atoning blood out of the Bible, it is all a myth to me.” Said he, “I think the whole thing is a sham.” “Then,” said I, “I advise you to get out of the ministry very quick.
I would not preach a sham. If the Bible is untrue, let us stop preaching, and come out at once like men, and fight against it; but if these things are true, and Jesus Christ left heaven and came into this world to shed His blood and thereby save sinners, then let us lay hold of it and preach it in season and out of season.”
In the seminary at Princeton, last year, when the students were ready to graduate, the old man, their instructor stood up before them, and said, “Young men, make much of the blood. Young men, make much of the blood!”
And I have learned this, that a minister who makes much of the blood, of the atonement, of substitution, and holds Christ up as the sinner’s only hope, God blesses his preaching. And if the Apostles did not preach that, what did they preach?—MOODY.
