If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter
5 and verse 11 will be our text tonight. Galatians 5 verse 11. And the title of the message
tonight is, The Offense of the Cross. The offense of the cross. And leading up to this verse
here, we ended our study last time Verse 7, we talked about
the race, the Christian race. And in verse 8, Paul says this,
This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence in you through
the Lord that ye will none otherwise be minded, but he that troubles
you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be." Paul here is
saying that the doctrine that these people were espousing,
these Judaizers, that faith and works for the salvation of the
soul, these things that these men espoused, Paul declares to
us that this is not of God. This message is not of the Lord. It's not of Him that called you.
Don't listen to it. He said, a little leaven leaveneth
the whole lump. What He means by that is a little
heresy in the matter of salvation destroys the whole message. Just
as you take a little leaven, put it in some bread, it rises
and makes the whole thing rise. If you take a little error, if
you take a little work, and you mix it in with grace, then you've
destroyed the whole matter of grace. You've destroyed the whole
purpose of grace. In other words, if I say you
need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that faith is the grace
of God, and the only thing you need to do is lift your little
finger. That's it. If you just lift your finger
and then believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, what have I done? I've destroyed the whole thing.
It's either all of grace or it's all of works. It cannot be mixed. And so Paul says this is not
of the Lord. But in verse 10, Paul says, I have confidence
in you through the Lord. In other words, he believed that
there were some there in the church of Galatia that believed.
He believed that there were some that didn't take hold to this
teaching. He said, you who believe, I have
confidence in you. I have confidence in you that
you will not turn from the gospel, but those that believe this other
gospel, I would that they would be cut off from you, that they
would be out of your presence." We must be aware. We must be
aware of the dangers of this so-called tolerance of gospels,
my friend. The tolerance in our day is a
catchphrase, isn't it? Everybody needs to be tolerant
of other people. We just need to be tolerant of
other religions. My friend, the gospel is never
tolerant of any other religion. It's never tolerant of it. There
is only one gospel and we cannot allow any such false teachers
and false gospels to infiltrate the church. We must stand fast
in the truth and reject any religion that mixes works and grace, or
as in our day, will and grace. We confess that they are truly
false teachers and false Gospels and worshippers of a false Christ. That's what we must confess.
We must confess this. This is our confession. Let us
hold fast. I have confidence in you. I have
confidence that you'll hold fast to this. And in verse 11 of our
text, Paul says this, And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision,
why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. Paul takes an opportunity here.
He takes an opportunity to defend his name, his character. You
see, these Judaizers were using his name. They were using His
name to perpetuate their gospel. They were saying that Paul also
agrees with this idea of circumcision. And the illustration that they're
no doubt using was going to be found in Acts, I believe it's
Acts 16, where Paul had Timothy circumcised. If you remember,
Timothy had a father who was a Greek and his mother was a
Jew. And so in order for Timothy to be heard by Jews, he would
have to be circumcised. So Paul took him and had him
circumcised so that he would have audience with these Jews.
And so they took that as Paul saying that he believed circumcision
as necessary for salvation. But that's not true. That wasn't
true. He says, if I preach circumcision,
he said, then let me ask you this, why am I suffering persecution?
If that stands to reason, if your argument is so good, why
do the Jews hate me? You see, if I taught circumcision,
if I just would get along with them, they wouldn't persecute
me. Why am I persecuted? And Paul says this, if I preach
with these guys, then is the offense of the cross ceased.
See, there's no offense. They wouldn't be mad at me if
I would just preach what they preach. If we all just get along. They would love me and they would
hear me, but because I preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
they are offended. And this is what I want to look
at tonight. The offense of the cross. Paul says, if I get along
with them, then is the offense of the cross ceased. We want
to look at what the offense of the cross is here. And I want
to do this by asking two questions tonight and making two statements.
Two questions and two statements. First of all, the question is,
what is the offense of the cross? What is so offensive about this
message? What is so offensive about this
message? Second of all, I want to ask,
how do people show their offense? How is it that people manifest
their offense to this gospel, and then I want to make a statement
to those who stand against the cross, and I want to make a statement
to us who stand for the cross? First of all, my first question,
what is the offense of the cross? Have you ever asked yourself,
why are men so offended with the message of the cross? We preach a gospel, we preach
a message, not like none other in any religion in the world.
We preach a message and follow a master who commands of us to
love all men. Is that offensive to you to be
loved? Is that offensive for somebody to come along to you
and love you? Is that offensive to you? No,
it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. We preach a
message of great mercy, a message of great grace, a message that
God has sent to His creatures. We preach a message that whosoever
believeth on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved
and inherit eternal life. This is a message of glory and
grace. Why would anybody be offended
at that? But they are. I tell you what, if you were standing
in the middle of a railroad track and you had your foot stuck,
would you be offended if I come and helped you get your foot
out of that track before the train ran over you? No! You would be glad! If your house
was on fire, would you kick and spit at the firefighter that's
trying to put it out? No. If you were drowning and
somebody threw you a rope, would you be offended at the rope,
which is your only lifeline to the shore? No. But my friends, this is the utter
madness of humanity. That they are offended at the
only message that can save their souls. They're offended. They're offended at it. Men by nature are offended at
the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Why then is this
message so offensive to the world? The message that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. I love that message. That message
brings me joy, brings me happiness. It brings me contentment, but
why is the world against it? I have three reasons tonight
why the world is offended at the cross. Reason number one
is this, the cross of Christ is offensive to the wisdom of
men. The wisdom of men. Second of
all, the cross of Christ is offensive to the ability of men. And third,
the cross of Christ is offensive to the merit of men. First of
all, the offensiveness to the wisdom of men. Turn to 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, starting
at verse 17. You know this very well. Paul says this, "...for Christ
sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Now where
you see gospel, my friend, you might as well put the cross of
Christ, because that's the gospel. The gospel. To preach the gospel,
not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be
made of none effect. Let me give you an idea of the
wisdom of this world. The wisdom of this world reasons
like this. God made man in His own image. God made man in His own image.
Well, if God made man in His image, Then God gave man the
ability to seek Him, the desire to seek after God, gave him the
wisdom to seek after God, so men by nature have a natural
affection to seek out God. That's their wisdom. That's what
they think. The natural man thinks that every
man seeks after God. The world and its religion says
it doesn't matter how you seek after God, and it doesn't even
matter who you call God. Because every man has the innate
desire, they say, to seek after God. And it doesn't matter as
long as you're sincere in your search. The wisdom of this world
says as long as you're sincere, as long as you sincerely seek
Him, as long as you diligently study Him out, that's okay, you'll
find God. You see, nobody's offended at
this type of religion, is it? Is anybody offended at that?
My friends, we could speak that and people would come by the
droves. We would fill the building with
people. If we were to go to the Southern
Baptists, I'd call them tomorrow and I'd say, well, you know,
I was wrong. I think that, you know, Armenians and Calvinists
and those who believe in free will can live right alongside
somebody who believes in grace. If I called them tomorrow and
told them that, they would send 10,000 people and send me a bunch
of money. They'd send me a bunch of money
to build this building and they'd send a lot of seminary students
over here. If we would just bow down to
their wisdom, to their way of thinking, That's the way the
world thinks. Well, you believe in Jesus, I
believe in Jesus, we can all just get along then. This is the wisdom of the world,
but my friend, we who preach the cross of Christ, as it is
declared in Scripture, it will always always be offensive to
this type of wisdom. It will always be offensive to
this type of wisdom. Christ sent us not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ, and if
we don't do that, the cross of Christ is of none effect. It
doesn't matter. If men are preaching by the wisdom
of this world, by words of wisdom, Paul says their gospel is of
none effect. None effect. To this world, this
method of preaching, my friends, is the most foolish thing in
all the world. What we are doing tonight is
absolutely and utterly foolish to them. They say, surely we
are more educated than this. Surely we have more wisdom than
this. We can come up with a better way to entertain folks and keep
them interested in coming. Surely we can win souls to Christ
by music or plays or movies. I think my friend called and
he said they were going to show the passion of the Christ at
some church and they were offering free popcorn and hot dogs and
Cokes. They were trying to get people
in. They were trying to get people in by these other means and methods.
But the cross of Christ, the message of the cross, is clear
in its wisdom. What is the wisdom of the cross?
The wisdom of the cross is that the preaching of the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation. That's the wisdom of the cross.
The method is clear. And my friends, anyone who opposes
the method of Scripture as God has revealed it, the method of
preaching, God says they're perishing. You know that? Look at that in
verse 18. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish. Foolishness. Foolishness. Well, preacher, you don't mean
that those who think that preaching is outdated, that there's some
other means, that just some guy thinks that, hey, there's a better
means than preaching, surely you don't think he's lost. I
sure do. Why? How could I be so bold? How could I be so arrogant? The
Scripture declares it. If a man thinks preaching is
foolishness, he's perishing. He's perishing. It's lost. We say that because
the Scripture says that. We that believe, we know that
this is the method that God has determined to use to save sinners.
There is no other method. There is no other means to save
sinners but by the preaching of the Gospel. Go down to verse
21. It says, for after that in wisdom,
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. Remember I said that the wisdom
of this world thinks it can know God by learning, by diligent,
sincere study. Men think that they can naturally
know God. But God says no man can know
Him by the wisdom of this world. No man can know Him by the wisdom
of this world. This world wisdom believes that
men can, by their learning, know God. That if a man dedicates
himself to the study, determines to know Him, and sincerely and
diligently seeks Him, he'll know God. But this is not the message
of the cross. This is not the gospel of grace.
God's Word says that by worldly wisdom, you cannot know God. Jesus said, "...No man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and no man knoweth the Son save the
Father, and to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him." Do you
realize tonight if you know God, it is by divine revelation? You
have been given the knowledge to know God. We did not have
that capacity to understand Him, nor did we seek Him. Scripture
says, no man seeketh after God. Isn't that plain that no man
seeks after God? Oh, my friends, tell that to
the world and they'll be offended. They're offended by it. This is offensive to the religious,
educated man who looks to the cross and sees nothing of value. He sees nothing of worth there.
Why do you think most false religions spend little time talking about
the cross? Why do you think they spend so
much time talking about themselves? That's because that's what they
love. They love themselves. They don't love the cross. My
friend, I spend so much time on the cross because this is
the only message. This is the only message God
gives His men. I came not to baptize, I came
not to educate, I came not to do all the peripheral things.
I came to preach Christ and Him crucified. And God reveals to
us down in verse 29 why it is He chose the method of preaching
to save men, that no flesh should glory in His presence. The natural
man hates that. The natural man hates that God
does everything for His own glory. Man likes to share in that glory.
Just a little bit. He says, I just need to do a
little bit. No. No, you don't. God will receive
all the glory for salvation. This is the message of the cross.
This is the message of the cross and men hate this. Men hate to
know that salvation is only of Him. of His grace and of His
mercy and of His will that we are in Christ, and that God must make Christ
and Him crucified our only wisdom. This is offensive to their natural
wisdom. Second of all, the cross is offensive
to the ability of man. Here's the worldly wisdom. Men
believe that they can, by their own sovereign will, come to Christ. That's the natural man's way
of thinking. He believes that he is the master
of his own destiny. Man believes that God must bow
to his will, and that he has all the ability necessary to
choose Christ whenever he wills, and God must reward him according
to his sovereign choice. That's the wisdom of man. That's
what men think. My friends, if we were to preach
a weak, effeminate Jesus Christ, who died and loved all men equally,
and died for every man on the face of the earth, and stands
at the door and knocks on the hearts of men, begging them to
open the door to them if they will just exercise their free
will." If we said something like that, we could fill stadiums. We could fill stadiums. The religion of this world is
not offended at a Jesus who is begging people to allow him to save them. Nobody's offended at that Jesus. They look at him like some little
wet kitty cat outside the door. Oh, look at him. He's so pathetic. You see, that plays on men's
emotions, that plays on their heart. Look at Jesus, oh, He
died for you and He just wants you to open the door, please,
please. No, my friends, this is not the
message of the cross. That's not offensive to no one.
That Jesus is not offensive to anybody. But this is not the
message of the cross. This is not what the Word of
God has said. According to the Word of Jesus
Christ, in John chapter 6 and verse 44, He said, No man can
come unto Me except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.
No man can. The gospel message of the cross
reveals man's inability to come to the only source of salvation,
the only hope for the soul of men, and they cannot come. These men in John chapter 6,
you see, when Jesus said, I came down from heaven, and they mentioned
that He is the bread that came down from heaven, these men started
to murmur and complain. Wait a second, we know you, we
know your father, he's Joseph. How do you say you come down
from heaven? He started complaining and murmuring about this. And
Jesus said, don't murmur among yourselves. Don't worry about it. Don't worry
about it. The reason you don't come to
me is because you can't. The reason you don't believe
Me is because you lack the ability to come to Me." My friends, the
world will murmur against the gospel that declares Jesus Christ
is the only source of salvation, but what hits them worse is to
know that they cannot come. They hate that message. They
despise it. Tell someone he's not able to
come to Christ, who is the only salvation, and this will start
them murmuring. It will start them complaining. You see, they cannot come to
Christ because all men are born dead in their sins. All men are
born dead in sins. They are all devoid of spiritual
life and by no means can they come to Christ. You see, man
does have a will. People misunderstand me a lot
when I start talking about this. Man does have a will. Nobody
denies that. The only thing I deny is that
man's will is free, that man's will is sovereign. The Scriptures
do not declare any such thing. You see, only God has a free
will. Our will is limited to all types
of things like time, circumstance, and ability. Time, circumstance,
and ability. If you were to stand on this
side of the building outside and you say, I am going to will
and determine to jump over this building. I'm just going to do
it. I'm just going to get up enough gunction and I'm just
going to jump as high as I can and I'm going to jump over this
building. You see, I don't hesitate to say you are willing. I don't
hesitate to say that you have real determination. I don't hesitate
to say that you might be sincere. But what I do say is that you
lack the ability to jump over this building. You don't have
enough strength. And so it is with men in the
matter of coming to Christ. It's not a matter of determination
and sincerity. It's a matter of ability. My
friends, all men are born dead in sins. Men may determine to
come, but they by nature lack the strength and ability because
they are dead, and unless God gives them life, they will never
come. And because they're dead, my
friend, they lack true sincerity. True sincerity. You see, a lot
of men are sincere, but they're sincerely wrong. They're sincerely
wrong. In order for this thing to be
right, my friends, we must have life. In order to come to Christ,
we must have the ability to come. And if we don't have the ability,
it's because we're dead, and therefore we lack the will to
come. All men are born spiritually depraved, go away from the womb,
speaking lies. We are all like sheep gone astray
and turned every one to his own way. And we all by nature do
that which is right in our own eyes. And we will not nor cannot
come to Christ by nature for salvation. This, my friend, is
offensive to the natural man. It's offensive. Number three,
the cross of Christ is offensive to the merits of men. The natural
man says that he not only has the ability to know God, he not
only has the ability to come to Christ, and he also believes
that he can merit God's favor. The natural man believes that
he can do this. He believes within himself, he's
sincere about this. He believes that he can merit
enough righteousness to satisfy God. But as we learn early in Scripture,
with the illustration of Cain and Abel bringing their sacrifices
before God, remember, Cain brought the best. He brought the best
of his works. the best of His fruits. And what
was God's declaration to Cain's sacrifice, His offering of the
fruit of His own hands? God rejected it. And so will
God reject every man who comes to Him based on his own merit.
Everyone that comes to God based on their own merit will be rejected. They will be rejected. You see,
because God doesn't demand our best, does He? Is that what God
demands, that you just do your best? Does God demand that you
just do your best and be sincere? No, my friends, what does God
demand? He demands absolute, holy perfection
from each and every one of His creatures. That's what He demands.
The psalmist asked, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord,
or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands
and a pure heart. Does anybody have clean hands
and a pure heart? Has anybody not ever sworn deceitfully? You ever lied? Yes. Yes, we have. Has anybody had
pure hands to not covet? We've all coveted. We've all
sinned, the Scripture says, and missed the mark. We've fallen
short of the glory of God. The Scripture tells us that there
is none righteous. No, not one. And this is our condition. How
then can we render what God demands? The gospel of the cross of Christ
declares to every man that he cannot render to God what is
necessary of himself. We cannot. We cannot. And this, my friends, is offensive
to the natural man. It is offensive. You see, the
law was never given for salvation, but only to bring guilt and to
bring us to the cross of Christ. The message of the cross is that
there is only one that has ever earned the favor of God, and
His name is Jesus Christ. He alone obeyed the law of God
in perfect precision. He alone merited God's favor. He's the only one God said, this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. That's the only
one who's ever said that to. And so if men are to have the
righteousness that God demands, they must come to Him by faith. They must abase themselves and
get rid of what they think and believe in the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They must see His blood as the
only atonement for their sins. Men must bow down and look to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Is there any that need righteousness
here? All my friends. Is there any that need to see
that they are dead and they need and they cannot come to Christ?
Is there any that have been abased? Then I point you to the cross
of Christ. Behold the Lamb of God that beareth
away the sin of the world. My friends, anybody who thinks
too highly of themselves will always oppose the cross. Ah,
but those who see themselves as they are, sinners, will abase
themselves and come and stand before God only by way of the
cross. Jesus said, I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And my friends, this is offensive
to the natural man, but not to us, is it? This is not offensive
to us. Well, then how then do these
people show their offense? Well, in old times, they used
to persecute them in very cruel and unusual ways. In the apostles'
times, they would throw them to the lions. In the early medieval
times, they would burn them at the stake. And many times, they
were crucified or starved to death. But what happened to the
church when the church was outwardly persecuted like that? When these
that are offended, when they tortured believers, what happened
to the church? It grew. It did the opposite
of what they thought would happen. So the enemy began to change
means and methods of persecution. And today we don't have any fear
of kings coming in or governors coming in and hauling us into
jail. We live in a good country that has laws, well for now anyway. We live in a country that's free
and we're thankful to be here. But the enemy, my friends, has
not stopped his method of persecution of those who believe in the gospel
of Jesus Christ. We may not be tortured or suffered
at the hands of kings, but my friends, we suffer persecution
mostly at the hands of people that we love the most in this
world. Jesus said this, I came not to
bring peace on the earth, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at
variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's
foes will be those of his own household." Isn't that true that
our persecution comes most from the people that we love the most? You know who I receive most persecution
from is my children. When it's time to go to church,
guess what happens? Guess what happens? All hell
breaks loose. I mean, it just goes off. And we can be loving each other,
but we sit down and say, okay, it's time to read together. And
what happens? Oh, they fall out all over the
place. They're the ones I love the most. My friend, it breaks my heart
when they don't want to come and serve and worship God. Doesn't
it break your heart for your children that don't want to serve?
My friends, we're persecuted for the gospel. We're persecuted
for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't think that worshiping
Christ won't cost you something. My friend, worshiping Christ
costs you everything. Following the cross of Christ
will cost you everything. And we must be willing to give
up everything to worship Christ. We must not be ashamed of the
cross of Christ no matter what. I know some lovely Christians
and their daughters are in false religion and they're worshiping
a false Jesus. And I know their hearts are hurt,
but they must stand against that. They must stand against it. They
must call a spade a spade. They must call a lie a lie. They
must stand and not be ashamed of the cross of Christ. And so
must you and so must I. We must stand no matter what
it costs us in relationship to our family. We must fight against the errors
and heresies of this land by standing for the truth. You know
what? You don't have to offend anybody. The gospel itself will
be offensive enough. Just tell them the truth, my
friends. Tell them the truth in love. And I promise you this,
they'll persecute you. Have you ever been snubbed? That's
persecution. That's persecution. Somebody
starts talking about religion and then you tell them the gospel
and they want to get away. They want to run away. Well,
that hurts, doesn't it? My friend, that's persecution.
But the worst form of persecution that can ever happen in a church
is for false doctrine to creep in. That's the worst. That's
the worst. Why? A little leaven leavens
the whole lump and destroys the whole thing. And my friends,
don't think it can't happen to us. It can. We must always stand
and never be ashamed of the cross. Never. And this leads me to my
last couple of statements. First, a statement to those who
oppose the gospel. To all who hear this message
and oppose the gospel, there have been mighty men that have
stood against this gospel. My friend, there's been some
kings who are very mighty. They've put their armies to the
task and their kingdom to the task of destroying the message
of the cross of Christ. What's happened to them? Where
are they today? Where is their legacy? My friend, they are dead. And here I am today preaching
the cross of Jesus Christ. It is a fool's errand for men
to stand in opposition of this gospel. It is a fool's error. It's like a worm trying to stop
a locomotive. That locomotive is going to run
right over the top of that worm and never knew it was there.
And that's the same with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It will
run over men who oppose it as though it will never take it
off its tracks. The gospel message will progress
regardless of Satan, devils, and men. And no matter how they
oppose it, and no matter how much they hate it, it will accomplish
exactly what God has purposed it to do, and that is to bring
His children to Himself. That's what it's doing today.
And all who oppose it, my friends, it'll run over you. To all those that oppose it,
you will die and it will continue as though you were never there. You ever seen that picture of
that man in front of that tsunami? I saw a picture of a man in India. They took a picture of a man
standing on a beach and he's looking up and there's that tsunami. That's exactly what it's like
to try to stand in front of this gospel, to oppose this gospel. It will run over you. It will
run of you. The Scripture says, kiss the
son lest he be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath
is kindled but a little. To those who oppose it, I declare
unto you, bow down to it or it will run you over. Second of
all, statement to those of us who believe it, never be ashamed of it. Never be ashamed of it no matter
who opposes you. Stand fast in it. Take confidence
that this gospel will accomplish all that God sends it to do. And my friends, we'll be riding
on top of the tsunami rather than underneath it. We'll be
riding on top. And that's the best place to
be. I remember hearing about some people out there that were
doing some scuba diving when that earthquake hit underneath.
And they remember feeling the wave just a little bit. But those who were on the shore
were devastated. My friends, come to Christ. Come to Christ. There's only
hope in Christ. Bow down and drop our arms and
never be ashamed of this gospel. Stand in it. and it'll carry
us all the way home. I pray God will bless this to
our hearts. Let's be dismissed in prayer.