Turn in your Bibles to the book
of Galatians 6. Galatians 6 and verse 14. Paul writing to the Galatians
says, "...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." I've entitled this message, Will You
Be Seduced from the Cross? Will You Be Seduced from the
Cross? The great whore that we read
about in Revelation chapter 17 is used by the Spirit of God
as a symbol or picture of all false, godless religion in the
world. As a matter of fact, she is symbolically
that same strange woman that we read about in Proverbs 7. Turn back over to Proverbs 7. Because in Proverbs 7, we have
one who is described as a simple one. that Solomon observes as
an individual without understanding. But he writes and he says, My
son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee, Keep
my commandments and live, and my law as the apple of thine
eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write
them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto wisdom, Thou
art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman." He's talking
here, as the spiritual message of this text is, about the Word
and Gospel of God. He says that they may keep thee
from the strange woman. from the stranger which flattereth
with her words. For at the window of my house
I looked through my casement and beheld among the simple ones,
I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding."
This is, without a doubt, a moral lesson on the surface. But more importantly, it is a
spiritual lesson. He says, "...I observed this
young man passing through the street near her corner, and he
went the way to her house." in the twilight, in the evening,
in the black and dark night. And behold, there met him a woman
with the attire of an harlot and subtle of heart. She is loud
and stubborn, her feet abide not in her house, Now is she
without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner. So she caught him, and kissed
him, and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace offerings
with me. This day have I paid my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet
thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee."
You remember what our Lord said about the Pharisees. He said,
you cross land and sea to make one proselyte. You are so enthusiastic
and zealous and evangelical in a sense, and you do so. And when you do, you make that
one proselyte twofold more the child of hell than yourself. Here she is. I have decked my
bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine
linen of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of
love until the morning. Let us solace ourselves with
love. for the good man is not at home,
he is gone a long journey, he hath taken a bag of money with
him and will come home at the day appointed. With her much
fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of
her lips she forced him, he goeth after her straightway, as an
ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of
the stocks, till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird
hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life."
In other words, he is so allured, drawn, and all the time he does
not realize, as it says here, it is for his life. His life is at stake. And with every sinner, our soul
is at stake. "...Hearken unto me now, therefore,
O children, and attend to the words of my mouth, let not thine
heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her path. For she hath cast down many wounded,
yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell
going down to the chambers of death. Now, as I said, these
two women, they are symbolically the same and representing this
harlot religion. that would lure every soul away
from the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have had it on my mind
this week, perhaps, that of all the days of the year, maybe of
all the so-called holy days above every other, more than any other
on this day, Easter, as men call it, she struts her stuff. Now, what so many people do not
realize is that as far as the Bible is concerned, As far as
the word of truth speaks, there is no command, no example, and
not even the slightest encouragement to recognize one day apart from
others and regard the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And what has
happened over the course of the centuries is this, that all the
so-called pagan holidays or holy days, they have been embraced
by Catholicism and every other ism, and now molded into what
is called in our day, Christianity, when in truth, Easter is simply
nothing more than the worship of the Queen of Heaven who is
called Astart or Ishtar. If you want to find out more
about that, you can take Mr. Hislop's old book, called the
two Babylons, wherein he traces all these connections back to
find that it is nothing more than idolatry carried on in the
name of God. But here she is, especially on
this day, strutting all her stuff going about to present herself
with everything that appeals to our natural fallen flesh. And like this strange woman in
Proverbs 7, she parades herself and all that is about her, and
seeks to allure and draw away and lead astray. She is the great
seductress. She has something that is appealing
to all. She has something for your children. She has something to appeal to
your emotion. She has something to appeal to
your traditions and your superstitions. She is so much this false religion
pictured in this woman. She is so much like the sirens
in Greek mythology. You remember the sirens? They
were supposedly women in mythological forms that were on this island
whose songs and whose words and whose singings would lure the
sailors toward their island only to be crashed upon the rocks
and destroyed. Her message, her words, flattering
words as they are described in Proverbs 7. Words that appeal
to us, words that seduce us, rather than being the words of
truth. Always alluring to the flesh,
to the degree. that everyone will be deceived
by them, believe this word, who receive not the love of the truth,
and deluded everyone except," if you notice in Revelation 17,
everyone, except those whose names are
written in the Lamb's Book of Life." And it is the responsibility of a
gospel preacher to warn men and women about everything that is
not taught in Holy Scripture, and especially those things that
are contrary to Holy Scripture, all these superstitions, all
these traditions and such in religion, and the one way then
we can know that they are not of God. is that they absolutely
distract from the true worship of God. They distract from the
word and message of the gospel. And so I find myself just like
the Apostle Paul who said to the Corinthians, He said, "...but
I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety." In other words, here was this woman in Proverbs
7 who is very subtle of heart, very deceiving, and by that she
allures this young man, leads him down this path that in the
end is the pathway to hell. Did you see that? He doesn't
know. that this has to do with his
life. He doesn't realize. He's void
of understanding. He's described as the simple
one, just like every one of us by natural birth. He doesn't
understand that this is a life or death matter. Oh, it's just
this, or it's just that, or it's something else. No, it is life
or death. and the way that God is worshiped. I don't know how we'll ever get
by this. He says, those that worship God
must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Not by getting up before
day when it's cold and walking out before three wooden crosses
on a hill or something like that. Not by all of these things that
stir the emotions of men and women who are naturally religious,
but religious without God. Not by doing all these other
things, but he says, by the Spirit of God leading us, enabling us
to worship God through the truth. Those who worship God. I don't care what they claim,
I don't care what they feel, I don't care what people think
about them. The only people who worship God
in this world, they worship Him spiritually, not by things external,
but spiritually by the enablement of the Holy Spirit through the
word of truth." Truth. Now look back in Galatians 6
at what Paul says. He says, but God forbid. And he's putting against this
everything imaginable, both from circumcision and every other
thing that is man-made and man-presented to God. He said, but God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now what does it mean here to
glory in something. Well, it simply means to make
your boast in, or to have your joy in, or to be able to rejoice
in. It has to do with having confidence
in, or relying in, or depending in, or trusting in. He said,
God forbid that I should glory, or trust in, or in any way be
fascinated with anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. But maybe more importantly, we
ought to ask ourselves, and evidently few in this world ever have,
what does He mean by the cross? If you notice here, it is singular,
it is definite, and it is set apart from every other thing
in this world. He says, God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know about you,
but over the last few days, I've seen a lot of crosses. As a matter
of fact, I passed three standing in a field coming out to the
service this morning. There are lots and lots of crosses. But he was not talking about
that instrument of wood. And not only that, he was not
talking about the symbol of the cross. How is it that men take
and hold up as the symbol of Christianity the symbol of the
cross, when God had already said under the law, thou shalt not
make unto me any graven image? That's just another form of idolatry,
whether it's a symbol of a cross, whether it's a symbol of a fish,
or whatever it is. He said it's all a graven image,
and we don't worship Him through man-made graven images. We worship Him in truth, spiritually. And He was not talking about
some gesture made with the hand. He's not even talking about the
believer's cross of self-denial. When He speaks to His people,
He says, if any man would follow Me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow Me. He's not talking about any
of those things. But what is meant here and everywhere
else in the Scripture in concern with this, what is he talking
about the cross? What does the Spirit of God mean
by giving us such a statement? God forbid that I should glory
save the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what he's talking
about here and elsewhere, he's talking about the doctrine of
a crucified Christ. Now, there have been a few people
in this world, comparatively, that actually saw the Lord Jesus
Christ. As a matter of fact, that's the
requirement of an apostle. If he had seen the Lord Jesus
Christ, And that's why on the road to Damascus, not only did
God save this man Saul of Tarsha, but Christ revealed Himself to
this man Saul of Tarsha because he was to be an apostle. But what about everybody else? I haven't seen Jesus. I heard
a man tell me one time that he had seen Jesus, and when he described
Him, I knew right away that he had. What about us? How will we ever? How will God
save these people whose names in His everlasting covenant of
grace that He has written in that Lamb's Book of Life, how
will they ever know Christ? How will they ever come to believe
on Him? It's through this doctrine or
this message and gospel of a crucified Christ. That's what he's talking
about when he speaks of the cross. In other words, Paul is saying
that as an apostle and preacher of Christ, he did not preach
man's works or man's rituals or even circumcision or any of
these things. He preached the crucified Christ. And he didn't do like some people
do, try to separate the person of Christ from the work of Christ. You see, that's exactly what's
involved here. You can't separate the truth.
We're talking about the cross of Christ. We're talking about
Christ crucified. Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
1. You see, the reason men and women
put wooden crosses by their buildings, and why they have all the pageantry
of Easter and everything else associated about it, is because
of their unwillingness to preach the cross. Now listen to what
Paul says here, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 17. He says,
for Christ sent me not to baptize. That's not my first order of
business. He says, "...but to preach the
gospel, and not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ
should be made of none effect." In other words, there is a way
to preach about the cross and cloak it in the wisdom of men
and the history and things like that, and never get down to actually
preaching the message of the cross. He says, for the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Oh, we'd rather have a lot of
other things. Let's light candles, let's go out for a sunrise service,
let's do all these things, because really this preaching of the
cross is really foolishness. But it's foolishness to them
that are perishing. He says, "...but unto us which
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? Hath 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 to save them that believe." Nobody will be saved
by going out, standing in the cold and shivering like I used
to do at a sunrise service or any of these other things. Nobody
will be saved by somebody standing up and we'll all kind of have
a pity party over Jesus having been slain. Nobody will be saved
by simply confessing the fact that a man rose from the dead.
No, he said it's through the foolishness of this preaching
to save them that believe, for the Jews require a sign and the
Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ We preach Christ crucified unto
the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness,
but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
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." He said, we preach Christ crucified. We don't ever
get beyond that. We don't ever find that to diminish.
We don't ever find that that no longer satisfies us or gives
us hope. We preach Christ crucified. We preach the cross. And what
is plainly declared and manifest in this cross or the preaching
of the cross through this gospel of a crucified Christ, what is
declared in that? Well, the cross reveals, shows,
demonstrates, however way you want to put it, truly what we
are, what we are. Now, the cross says a lot about
God, but it says also something about what we are. What did that
woman use for that fellow? Flattering words. Oh, I do think,
fella, you're about the best-looking guy I've ever seen. I've never
seen such muscle. I've never seen such charm. I've
never seen such a hunk. And that's exactly what preachers
do. People go to be told how good
they are, and how valuable they are, how strong their will is.
They're so powerful that God can't do anything without them,
that God can't do anything in spite of them. They're so strong
and everything. They're so wealthy. God doesn't
have anything less, they give it. But the cross reveals the
desperate state of every fallen son of Adam and the absolute
bankruptcy of man, all of which made God becoming a man and enduring
the shame and suffering of the cross necessary if there ever
to be saved. I don't spend a lot of time telling
you how bad you are. I try not to spend a lot of time
beating you up. Because I know this, if God ever
reveals to your heart how awful you are, and that's the only
way you'll ever know it, when He brings you to believe what
He says about you. You know, you and I are not what
we are based on what we think we are, or what Mama said we
are, or what preacher so-and-so says we are. We are what God
says we are. And we'll never know that until
He reveals that to us, and He reveals that to us in the light
of the cross. We're such sinners, so lost,
so desperately hopeless, that the only way we could ever be
saved is for God Himself to take on a human body and come into
this world and die in our place. That's the cross. It shows that
all the imagined works of men, and the worth of men, and the
will of men, and the ways of men, they're all useless, godless
vanity. The cross stains the pride of
man, shuts up the boasting of man, leaves him hopeless without
Christ, says that it's not of works lest any man should boast. Every boasting is excluded, and
not only that, all the feelings and the emotions and the religiosity
of men and women. There are men and women that
walk out of buildings this morning that are lost and just maybe
today or tomorrow go out into a godless eternity, but they'll
leave this morning when in that atmosphere they'll feel like
that they've got really near to God, but they don't know the
truth. You can't believe on Him of whom
you've not heard. And you can admit that Christ
rose from the dead all you want to. So what? What does that mean? What are the ramifications of
it? Yes, He died on the cross. Why? Who put Him there? Who's He dying
for? What does His death accomplish?
You see, this is only seen in the cross. Look back over in
Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. Look down
at verse 11 at what Paul says to these people, who were about
to be, some of them, seduced by this religion, which had as
a part of it, we'll let you help do something. You can obey Moses'
law, maybe as a part, you know, it's kind of a joint effort,
you and God. No. He says in verse 11 of Galatians
5, and I brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, if I preach something
in man or done by man, He says, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. There will be a lot said about
the cross this morning, but there will be no offense in it. The
offensiveness of the cross lies in the fact that we're such helpless,
godless sinners that Christ had to come into this world to die
in order to save us. That there's nothing we can do,
no other way, but that way that is Christ. If you look back in
Galatians 6 again, in verse 12, he says, "...as many as desire
to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised,
only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of
Christ." This is their seductive message. They tell you something
to do. They tell you something to perform
in your flesh, something you're to keep of the law. They do this
so they themselves don't have to suffer persecution for preaching
the cross. Now, I'll tell you this, I've
stood on both sides of this fence. I've stood as a so-called preacher,
preaching about the cross, preaching somebody called Jesus, and all
the time wondering what such texts as Christ gave us in the
New Testament, what that really meant when He talked about those
who would live godly will suffer persecution, or they'll take
you and bind you and put you in prison, they'll speak evil
things about you, persecute you in every way. I thought, You
know, He must be talking about those in the first century. Until. Until He revealed the cross to
me. And I began to preach Christ crucified. And then I found out
just exactly what He's talking about. Because there's an offensiveness
about the cross. Because you and I want to do
something. Add our little part. Steal our
little bit of glory. We want to do something. without
realizing that everything we try to do simply minimizes what
Christ has done. And then the cross is that which
reveals God's peculiar glory. How does Christ... Christ is
God manifest in the flesh. You know that, don't you? He's
no less than... He's God. But when Christ came
into this world and went to that cross in His death, it says that
He would suffer, all the prophets had said He would suffer and
then enter into His glory. He already possessed glory as
the eternal Son. He already possessed omnipotence
and every other attribute of God. So what is He talking about,
this glory that He prays to the Father in John 17? He says He
speaks of the glory that He had with Him before the world was.
What is that glory? It's God's redemptive glory.
Father, glorify now Your Son. Make manifest. That's what it
is to glorify something. It's to make them manifest for
exactly who and what they are or what they've done. And so
when Christ came and went to that cross, though they mocked
Him there and they said, you saved others, save yourself,
and if you be the Son of God, come down. No, this is His glory. His glory. And not only that,
but nowhere are all the attributes of God and them in a perfect
harmony with each other seen anywhere except in the cross,
in Christ crucified. And everything else is a distorted
view of God. You see, the harlot, she just
seeks to lure him off under the banner of love. It's all going
to be love all the way through. No? Love, yes, God is. But that doesn't even mean He
loves you. It says God is love. Two times in the Scriptures it
says God is love. But that doesn't mean He loves
you or me. But it does say that the love of God is in Christ
Jesus. If you're not in Christ, you
don't have any corner on the market of God's love. I don't
care how many preachers stand up and tell you, like they'll
tell people today, seduce them in this language of love. Oh,
God loves you. He's got a wonderful plan for
your life. He wants to save you. He wants
to help you. He wants to do something for
you if you'll just let Him. He's a God of holy hatred too.
He hates all workers of iniquity. He hated Esau. He's a gracious
God, but He's a just God as well. He's a merciful God, but He's
also righteous in all things. Find a message, find a doctrine
wherein God, in all His sum total of attributes, is in total harmony,
all are in total harmony with each other. You've got Christ
in the gospel. You see, today's gospel, today's
preaching and opinions of men concerning God, they're all riddled
with inconsistencies and contradictions. Only in the cross can we find
out how God is how He says He is, a just God and a Savior. Preachers say things like this
sometimes. They say, He's a just God, but
He's a Savior. That's not what it says. He said,
I'm a just God and at the same time a Savior. You'll never find out how He
can be both at the same time except in this cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In the cross and in Christ crucified
is a display of all the perfections of God and the will of God and
the works of God. Paul said, therein is the righteousness
of God revealed, that is, the justice of God. The power and
the wisdom of God, we just read that in 1 Corinthians 1, that's
what Christ is. The love and mercy and grace
of God, everything, all together. He says, mercy and truth. All right, Lee? Here I am your
friend, but I'm also the judge. You've committed a capital crime.
And here I am wanting, as a judge, to deal with you justly. Here I am, as your friend, wanting
to show you mercy. How can mercy and truth kiss
each other? That's what the psalmist said.
Mercy and truth are met together, and righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Where? In Christ crucified. I could do one way, die for you. There I am showing mercy as the
friend, there I am showing justice as the judge. That the problem
would be in my case, in your case, I couldn't satisfy true
justice. But a sinless, harmless, holy,
undefiled one who is none less than God himself, who not only
is a sinless sacrifice for sin, but of such worth and value,
He is able, as that God-appointed sacrifice, to be the sacrifice
for all the sins of all His people of all time. Justice and truth
and righteousness and peace. They kiss each other, they meet,
find themselves friendly to each other. You see, it is the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ. This
is a work done by God's Son. How do we ever imagine we could
add to that? He made it a success. It's a
victorious act of love. It's a total satisfaction of
divine justice against His people. It's a full accomplishing of
His will, a fulfilling of His Word and prophecies, a glorifying
of His Holy Being. The cross is the evidence of
divine love. You see, if He does not actually
save His people, save them fully through the cross, then what
good is his love? If his love doesn't satisfy his
justice, if what he's done can be thwarted or changed by somebody,
what good is it? If you and I are eternal souls,
and we are, we're going to spend eternity somewhere. What is the
most, absolutely the most important thing that we could be talking
about this morning. Not about whether or not we're
going to do this for Easter or that, or whether or not we're
going to have a big lunch for Easter, all this kind of stuff. The most important thing we could
be dealing with is the gospel of the cross. And if you and
I can be seduced from the cross, we will be. If you can leave
the gospel, you will. That's just the way it is. If
God doesn't reveal to us the absolute life or death necessity
of this, we're gone. We'll perish. We'll just live
out our days in the arms of the harlot somewhere. I've just seen
it too many times. I've seen people who come and
who make a profession of faith in Christ, profess to be identified
with this gospel, and then all of a sudden, The harlot. Now she talks about all her ways,
but she's only one way. The way of death. What did the
writer say? There is a way that seems right
to a man. A way. The ways thereof are the
way of death. I love what that old hymn writer
wrote. He said, my hope is built on
nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not
trust the sweetest rain, but wholly, completely lean on Jesus'
name. God will save His people. He'll
keep His people. He'll preserve them. They'll
fall. They'll make lots of mistakes.
They'll have lapses of unbelief. But they'll never perish. He
said, I'll never leave your forsaken. The deception will be so strong
that if it were possible, they would deceive even the elect. But it's not possible. He said,
my sheep hear my voice. And a stranger they will not
follow. They'll follow me. They have flashes in their minds
and hearts of adulterous thoughts. They look around them, they see
all that goes on. It's appealing to the flesh.
But he said, I'll never forsake them. I'll keep them. They'll
be kept by the power of God until that salvation is ready to be
revealed. They'll be presented as a chaste
bride. There's a wonderful moral lesson
in Proverbs 7. There's a greater spiritual lesson
in Mormon. May God keep us. I'll say like
another hymn writer, bind my wandering heart to Thee. God forbid that I should ever
glory, have any hope, any fascination with anything except the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, this day we pray for
faith that we might look to Christ. that we might not yield to the
siren's call of this religious world, that we might be espoused
to the Lord Jesus, that we might worship you in spirit and in
truth among those who worship you in the same way, the only
way you can be worshipped through the crucified Christ. Give us
eyes to see the difference, understanding. Keep us in that simplicity or
singleness as it is that is in Christ. We thank you for this
crucified Christ, who is all our hope, all our salvation,
that we might be brought to trust in Him, because He's the same
One you've entrusted all in. We thank you and pray in His
name, Amen.