Good morning everyone. I'm glad you're here and I'm
glad I'm here. About turning in your Bibles
to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And we'll read verses 17 through
31 and then we'll pick up a statement out of chapter 2, just one verse. When we get to it, I'll give
you the verse number. Our subject this morning, our
title, whatever you want to call it, is Christ and Him Crucified. And I read something that Brother
Mahan wrote many years ago, an outline of one of his television
messages. They were on the same station
for like 30 years. And he was talking about the
cross of Christ. He said, today's religion has
crosses everywhere, steeples, windows, you know, houses, whatever. But that's not the cross we're
talking about. We're talking about a living
Savior and Redeemer. And to compare Him to a piece
of wood or glass or, you know, if some famous painter painted
it, so what? If he doesn't know God in Jesus
Christ, he'll perish in hell. He might be the best portrait
painter of any person in the world. You cannot look to physical things
to understand who God is. You might as well go home and
look in the mirror, thinking you'll be transformed if you
do it enough hours per day. But I tell you, it's not helped
me a bit. I'm still pretty homely. Let's bow and pray and ask God
to do what we cannot do for ourselves. Lord, we beg mercy upon us this
morning As we gather in this place, thank you for the privilege of
having a place to worship with other believers. This is your doing. It is not
ours. Lord, we need your presence.
We do not deserve it. We do not ask it because of something
we've done for you. We ask it to be of absolutely
free grace and mercy, without human merit, that you visit us
in this place this morning. Let every person here Listen
carefully to what we're about to read and to say. And Lord, people do not have to walk an
aisle to declare that God has found
them and that Christ is now precious to them. We do not pressure people to
make such statements of that sort, especially in public. But
one thing is for certain that we have learned, if you have
indeed set our souls free, it'll leak out on you. We can't hide
that. We beg for your blessing. to
the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Alright, if you turn to that
passage, if you haven't already, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we begin
at verse 17. 1 Corinthians 1, 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
this is Paul the Apostle writing this letter to the church in
Corinth. I've already lost my verse, let's
see, 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, the very
idea of a man claiming to be God coming into this world and
living for 33 years and dying on a cross and ascending back
to glory. The preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness. And unto us who are saved, it
is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God the world by wisdom knew not God, It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching. And that foolishness of preaching
is both in regard to the method and the message. And the message
is Christ and Him crucified. Please God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require
a sign, and the Greeks or the Gentiles seek after wisdom. But
we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and
unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called,
divinely called of God, both Jews and Greeks, Christ becomes
to them the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God
is stronger than men. You see your calling, brethren,
now that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called, But God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. God has chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty,
and base things of the world and things which are despised,
which are not to bring to nothing things that are. All to this
end that no flesh, should glory in God's presence. But of Him,
of God are you in Christ Jesus. We cannot put ourselves there.
It is the grace of God and the grace of God alone. Of Him are
you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. that according as it is written,
he that glories, let him glory in the Lord." Well, religion
has learned a whole lot since Paul wrote these words. They've
devised every method under the sun to increase their attendance
into thousands and thousands and even tens of thousands. And
yet, there's no gospel in that place. What's that character
in Texas? If you went and preached the
gospel in that pulpit for any period of time, I don't think
you'd get five minutes in before they'd boot you out the door.
But that crowd would disperse if that's the message that they're
going to hear if they come to that place. Now jump down in chapter 2 to
the second verse. Paul reminds the Corinthian church,
believers, I determined not to know anything among you except
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is the whole of the gospel
message. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So what does the cross mean? It means there is but one atonement
for sin and Christ has paid for that atonement. Christ is our
atonement. Secondly, it means the sacrifice
and sin offering that is so prominent throughout the Old Testament.
but is unheard of in the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
yet Christ is the one sacrifice for sin, and He's the only one
that has offered up this sacrifice on Calvary's tree. Thirdly, this
cross means salvation's work is finished. And when somebody
tells you, if you will do this, God will save you, you're looking
at a liar, whether he knows it or not. He may firmly believe
it with all of his heart, but it isn't true. It simply is not
true. Our Lord came into this world
to complete and finish the work of salvation, and He did it. He doesn't try. He doesn't hope
to. He does what He came to do. God
does as He pleases in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of men, and none can say unto Him, what are you doing? Nobody can question that. If
God says that about Himself, that's who He is. And He doesn't
change with the wind. He doesn't wear one garment today
that says one thing and then tomorrow something else that
says another thing. There's no contradiction in God
whatsoever. Alright, let me try to make this statement before we
start. I know we've already begun, but not before I start pursuing
It's called preaching, I just don't know if that's what it
is or not. Somewhere I wrote this down, there are three warnings.
Number one, beware of any religion if the central theme is not Christ
and Him crucified. Now let me ask you, You ride
by churches no matter which direction you go from here, and so do I.
And we've often read some of the craziest things on these
billboards that you could imagine. God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life. What do you mean a wonderful
plan? Christ is the plan. Somewhere I heard this expression
or I may have seen it written down, I don't remember. Somebody says, Christ is coming,
look busy. Now that's a real Christ, ain't
it? That's utter foolishness. Well,
what does that translate to mean? We ain't got the same God. Thank
God. They can have that one. I had him once. And he set me free. I'd rather die than go back. Second warning. Beware of the error of the Galatians. Now we don't have time to read
it, but I'll just remind you of what it has to say. When the New Testament church
was begun in Jerusalem, a lot of Jewish people who had heard
and followed Christ, had to flee elsewhere to live, and many of
them went to this place where the Galatian church is. And pretty
soon, the Jewish outfit in Jerusalem sent people to the Galatians
to tell them that they must add Moses to Christ. You must keep
the commandments. Where is that? That's Old Testament
religion. That's religion based on what
we do. And that ain't any good. Thirdly, beware of any hope of
acceptance with God apart from the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Okay, now I'm befuddled a little
bit this morning, if you could call it that. The cross of Christ reveals what? The eternal purpose of God completely
and altogether fulfilled. There's not the tiniest thing
left for us to furnish. The work is finished. We heard about that word that
is finished just a little bit ago. Our Lord is spoken of in
our Bibles as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
That is, before the world was ever made, Christ himself agreed
to come to this world and die for the people that God had given
him to redeem and to save. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. His blood is the blood of the
everlasting covenant. He is the surety of that same
covenant. What is a surety? Well, if you
need to borrow some money and you don't have enough credit
history or enough income or whatever in order to make the loan, someone
else signs with you. And I tried that a time or two
and it backfired on me. Some character that was running
the Spring Lake radio station had just come and he's asking
me to loan him $800. And I said, well I'll go to the bank
with you and we'll see if we can borrow it. They won't loan
you any less than $2,000. I didn't know that. And dummy me gave him the whole
$2,000. And he didn't make the first payment. He left town before
it was even due. It took me a long time to pay
that back, but by the grace of God I did. Now the second thing, the first
one was the eternal purpose of God fulfilled. Secondly, it is
the fulfillment of promises and prophecies and word pictures
from the Old Testament. So that we have the Lord Jesus
is represented in the Old Testament by the Passover lamb. He's represented
by the rock that Moses smoked and made the mistake later on
of striking it again when the Lord simply said, speak to the
rock for water. And that rock is Christ, the
rock of ages as we sing. Or take Moses and his brass serpent
when the children of Israel were bitten with snakes. And he made
a brass serpent and put it up on a pole And if people were
bitten, if they look to that replica of what it is that gives
them the disease that they're going to die from, if they look,
it's healed. And if they don't, they must
die and dead. And there's also the blood of atonement. And that blood is the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. God did not reduce what we owed
Him when Christ took our place. He paid the last penny, or if
you want a Bible word, a farthing. Alright, let's move on. The third category that we speak
of in regard to the revelation of the cross of Christ The third
one of these is God's love for sinners. And I've managed to
talk my wife into printing me some of these verses so that
we will not be here much longer than about 1230 or so. But it's
in 1 John chapter 4. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son
into the world, that we might live through Him. And the word
might does not mean maybe. That we shall live, if we are
in Christ, we must live in Him. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. I want to call your attention
to that word, propitiation. It is a sacrifice that satisfies,
that's just a general definition. But if you look it up in your
Harper dictionary, even though it says concordance in dictionary
or vice versa, it's pretty much just a dictionary. And he has
an excellent, excellent article on that. Now if you'll turn for
a moment in regard to this next scripture that I want you to
look at, It is Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3 verses 24 to
26. Did my paper blow off or did
I just? I don't see it. Let's see. Well,
we'll read it. I'm sorry here it is right in
front of my nose. I'm going to tell you getting
old ain't no fun. Alright, Romans 3, 24 and 26.
The satisfaction of God's law and justice is an absolute requirement
for the Lord to let us go free. Being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. Verse 26, To declare,
I say at this time, God's righteousness, that God might be just, and the
justifier of him who believes in the Lord Jesus. Now we move to number five. It has to do with reconciliation. Being made the friend of God. Whereas before, before we met
Christ in the Gospel, before we were converted, before we
were saved, we could not say that we are reconciled to God. But this reconciliation is by
the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me
just read you this one, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. and several verses. And all things are of God, who
has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, or that is to say, that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. For He has made Christ to be
sin for us, Christ who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him." Now we come, number six, this
precious, precious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. declares
that our sin debt is fully paid. Fully paid. So why do you want to lie to
people and tell them if they'll give a bunch of money God will
make them millionaires or something like that? It would be the worst
thing to happen to any of us and yet we all dream of it. At
least I do. I don't know about you. The sin debt is fully paid. We don't have any work
in that. It is all the work of Christ.
We can't do it and we can't undo it. It's done. It's done. It's finished. From 1 John 1, I read you just
a couple of verses. But if we walk in the light as
He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood
of Jesus Christ. God's Son cleanses us from all
sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Number seven. We'll spend more
time on number seven, I hope. The difference in these divine
things and the carnal things that people speak of having to
do with God and eternal life. The difference between eternal
life and eternal damnation. Oh my, what a difference. What
a difference. You know this, I know you do. When our Lord was crucified,
there was a thief on either side of Him on separate crosses. One of them tried to talk Christ
into letting Him down from the tree. And the other one, though
they both railed on Him when they were first put on those
those crosses. One of them said, Lord, and he didn't look
like a Lord. He's covered from head to toe
in blood. He's being put to death as a
felon. He said, Lord, when you come
into your kingdom, remember me. And what did Christ say to this
fellow? Now this guy is a murderer, he's a thief, no telling what
all. Our Lord simply said, today you shall be with me in paradise,
in eternal glory. If I make it there, I'd like
to see that, fella. That I would. Let me read you
a statement out of John 3. He that believes on the Son has
everlasting life. And he that believes not the
Son shall not see life. But the wrath of God abides on
him. And to correspond with that out
of Hebrews chapter 9, and almost all things are by the law purged
with blood. And without shedding of blood,
there is no remission, no remitting, no putting away of sin. Without
blood. This is not the kind of blood
they use in movies. This is the real thing. Our Lord
died on that cross. Then we look at Mark 16 and verse
16. He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned. And it does
not say, he that is not baptized will be damned, because that's
not true. It's simply not true. Let me
read it to you again. He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned. You don't need any more than
that to be damned, neither do I. Now in 1 Corinthians 1.17 where
we were reading from earlier, I put this statement down beside
the one we just had in Mark 16.16. 1 Corinthians 1.17, This is Paul,
"...for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel,
not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be
made of none effect." You can't add all these trickets to the
cross. You can't decorate a cross. It's
an instrument of death. This religious world has gone
plum I have to use the wrong word, plumb-plumb stupid over
this matter of a physical cross. Can you imagine if God had actually
left that cross where men could find it, where we'd be after
2,000 years? We might as well have it because
people sure do think a whole lot of it. 1 Corinthians 1.17. I may have just read that. And
the way of peace? That ain't right. Let me see. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, "...for
I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified." Paul said, that is my message. That was
my message yesterday, and it's the message tomorrow, and as
long as I live, it will be Christ and Him crucified. No matter
the penalty, no matter what happens to me, that is simply how it
is. Then we come to this statement
out of 1 John 5. He that has the Son has life,
and he that has not the Son has not life. It can't be made any plainer
than that. If you don't have Christ, and
if you do have Him, He had you first. He found you before you found
Him. Let me put it that way. This thing of putting ifs in
front of this simply will not do. It's trying to, what's the
expression? Anyway, it's trying to make ourselves
better than we are by far if we think we can convince God
that we're pretty good people and we deserve to be saved without
Christ dying for us. That is idiocy. That is one more
ignoramus, and the world is full of them. And we used to be members
of the same tribe. 1 John 5.12, He that has the Son
has life, and he that has not the Son of God has not life. Compare that with Galatians 6.14,
But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and
I unto the world." My, my, my, my, my. Now, I've got one more little
statement here I want you to turn to. It's in the book of
Psalms. And it's Psalm 76. I had a statement here someplace
that I wanted to refer to. There we go. Nope, nope, nope. Anyway, Psalm
76, which verse do you think it is? Thank you, Edward. Thank you
very much. What if I move it now into something
else? Alright, everybody found it?
Psalm 76 verse 10. Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee. The remainder of wrath shalt
you restrain. Now who's in charge of this world? God is. Every event that transpires on
this globe today is ordained of God, the good, the bad, and
the ugly. And that wrath, that evil that
the wrath of God is against, the remainder of that wrath Shall God restrain? I'm taking out the vows and these. I just think it's better, I don't
know. You try telling your friends
that everything that happens today is ordained of God, and
they're liable to take your scalp or something, I don't know. We just believe all sorts of
stuff and we're just dead sure that we're right and we're not. Our message is Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. And if that message does not
have that in it and expresses various things about it, maybe
we better change the message. because it is vital and it is
important that this message is continued. The church that Betty and I grew
up in, Once God showed me who He was
and who I am and who Christ is. Let's see. The last funeral I had there
was in the year 2001 and I ain't been invited back. Which is fine. Oh kiddo, where's Johnny?