All Right or All Wrong – Dwight Lyman Moody

I remember when in the old country a young man came to me — a minister — and said he wanted to talk with me. He said to me: “Mr. Moody, you are either all right and I am all wrong, or else I am right, and you are all wrong.” “Well, sir,” said I, “You have the advantage of me. You have heard me preach, and you know what doctrines I hold, whereas I have not heard you, and don’t know what you preach.” “Well,” said he, “the difference between your preaching and mine is that you make out that salvation is got by Christ’s death, and I make out that it is attained by His life.” “Now, what do you do with the passages bearing upon the death?” and I quoted the passages, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission,” and “He Himself bore our own sins by His own body on the tree,” and asked him what he did with them, for instance. Never preach them at all.” I quoted a number of passages more, and he gave me the same answer. “Well, what do you preach?” I finally asked. “Moral essays,” he replied. Said I, “Did you ever know anybody to be saved by that kind of thing, did you ever convert anybody by them?” “I never aimed at that kind of conversion; I meant to get men to heaven by culture — by refinement.” “Well,” said I, “If I didn’t preach those texts, and only preached culture, the whole thing would be a sham.” “And it is a sham to me,” was his reply. I tell you the moment a man breaks away from this doctrine of blood, religion becomes a sham, because the whole teaching of this book is of one story, and this is, that Christ came into the world and died for our sins.