Bibles this morning to the book
of 1st Corinthians chapter 2 I'll be reading two verses 1st Corinthians
chapter 2 verse 1 and 2 and Speaking to you on the subject Jesus Christ
and him crucified Jesus Christ and him Crucified now, let's
look at the text in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 1 and 2 listen
carefully And Paul is writing, and he says, And I, brethren,
when I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or
wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony that is the gospel
of God. For I determined, I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now listen to that last phrase
one more time. I determined not to know anything
among you, anything, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Now,
here's a couple of other verses that I want to share with you.
In 1 Corinthians 1, 23, Paul said, but we preach Christ crucified. Now, this is the same man, the
man who said, I'm not one whit behind the chiefest apostle.
And yet I be nothing. But he was recognized as one
of the chief apostles. And he said, I am determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And then in summing up his ministry,
he said, We preach Christ crucified. Now listen to another scripture.
In Galatians 3.14, the same apostle, he says, But God forbid, but
God forbid, that I should glory save in the cross, save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the reason I'm emphasizing
this, I hope you're picking up what I'm saying. I am determined
to know nothing, nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. And we sum up our ministry, and
this is our message, we preach Christ crucified. And then when
he's talking about boasting or glorying, he says, I glory in
nothing, absolutely nothing, not my national prominence or
my gifts or my experience or my knowledge or my heritage. I glory in nothing except the
cross of Jesus Christ. Now, here's the question. Do
these verses mean that every time Paul preached, every time
he preached, that he only talked about and only preached about
the agony, the suffering, the bloodshedding, and the death
of Jesus Christ on that cross of wood, on Calvary's cross.
Is that what these verses mean? Is that what Paul said, every
time I get up and preach, every time I open my mouth, I say,
the cross, the cross, the cross. Is that what he means? Certainly
not. Certainly not. The apostle said
in Acts 20, now listen to his own words, speaking to the elders,
the leaders of the churches from different areas. He said, brethren,
I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. He said, I kept back nothing
profitable unto you. Now, my friends, the true minister
of Christ, the true servant of God, knows that all Scripture
is God-breathed, that all Scripture is given by inspiration, and
that all Scripture the Prophets, the writings of Moses, the Psalms,
the Gospels, the Epistles, all Scripture is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for instruction, for correction, all Scripture.
And our Lord Jesus Christ said, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of God, by every word of God. And my friends,
the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. Don't forget that. The best commentary, you say,
where can I get a good commentary? Well, if you've got a Bible,
you've got one in your hands. The best commentary on the Bible
is the Bible. No Scripture is of any private
interpretation. That is, no single verse stands
alone. It's got to stand upon the rest
of the Word of God. Scripture is interpreted by Scripture. Scripture is interpreted in the
light of Scripture. That's what it's saying. Then
whatever God says in Genesis, He's saying the same thing in
Revelation. Whatever God says in the Psalms, He's saying the
same thing in the book of Galatians or the book of Thessalonians
or whatever. The Scripture is the best interpretation of Scripture. Well, what's Paul talking about?
Let's get back on the track. Paul said, we preach Christ crucified. He said to that ancient, powerful
city of Corinth, I am determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Well, what's he talking about? What's he saying? What's he saying?
Well, this is what he's saying. Paul is saying that all scriptural
truth and all scriptural teaching, all scriptural teaching is understood,
entered into, and experienced in the light of the cross. In
other words, he's saying this, if a person understands the redemptive
work of Christ on the cross, if a person enters into, by faith,
the sufferings and agony and the redemptive work of Christ,
the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross, if he can enter
into that, if he can understand it, the Bible will open to him
all of its richest treasure and richest truth. If a person, get
it again, if a person understands, if he can camp at Calvary, and
he can enter into what took place on Golgotha's hill, what took
place, what God was doing in the person of his son on Calvary's
cross, if you can camp there, if you can sit down and watch
him there, and you can enter into and understand something
of what brought him to that place, and what he's accomplishing and
why he's there, and what he accomplished in his death, the whole Bible,
from Genesis to Malachi, Matthew to Revelation, will open to you
in its richest treasures and proof. Here, let me give you
a scripture, 1 John 5, 20. John said, And we know that the
Son of God hath come, the Son of God hath come to this earth,
incarnate, God in human flesh. and lived here and what he said
and what he did. He has come and has given us
an understanding that we may know him that is true, and we're
in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ, and this
is the true God, and this is eternal life. I'm saying that
the cross, the person and work of Christ, the redemptive work
on the cross, is the key to the Scriptures. That's what we're
saying. Now, if that be true, then this
is true. If a person does not understand
what took place at Calvary, if he does not enter into the redemptive
work on Calvary in his suffering, in his substitutionary work,
in his sin offering, if he does not, by some experience, by faith,
enter into and understand that that's not an example that Christ
is setting there, that he's not dying as a failure, a reformer,
or a martyr. He's dying for a purpose. His
sacrifice is unto God and before God and on the count of the righteousness
of God, to enable God to be just and justifier of them that believe. Now, if he can't enter into that,
listen to me, if he can't enter into the redemptive work of Christ
in his obedience and suffering on the cross, the Bible for all
practical purposes is a closed book. Now, you can drive a nail
there. You can camp there. You can consider
that and work on that the rest of your days. If a person can
come to Calvary, and our Lord said in lamentation through the
prophet Jeremiah, is it nothing to you? All ye that pass by,
what is it to you? What is it to you? Is there any
suffering like the sufferings that have been laid upon me by
my Father? What is it to you? What is it
to you? Listen to this scripture. In
Luke 24, 44 through 46, our Lord was sitting down with His disciples.
Now what I'm saying is this, now get me, the cross is the
key to the Scriptures. The cross is the key to the Scriptures.
And if a man doesn't enter into the meaning of the cross, the
Bible is a closed book, and if he can, by the Spirit's revelation,
enter into the happenings of Golgotha's hill, the Bible will
open up. And I'll show you that, listen,
in Luke 24. Our Lord speaking to His disciples, and He said
to them, These are the words which I spake unto you while
I was yet with you, that all things might be fulfilled which
are written in the books of Moses, that's the first five books of
the Bible, in the prophets, that's all the major and minor prophets,
and in the Psalms, concerning me, concerning me. And then, what's this next statement
now? And then he opened their understanding that they might
understand the Scriptures, and he said, Thus it is written,
and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to die, and to rise
from the dead the third day. Our Lord Jesus Christ is sitting
talking to his disciples and opening their understanding,
giving them the key to the Scriptures. And he said, the key is that
Christ must suffer and die and rise again, and that's what Moses
is writing about, that's what David's writing about, that's
what Jeremiah's writing about. I said, and I'll say it again,
if a man understands and enters by faith into the sufferings
of Christ, into the person and work of Christ on the cross,
the whole of Scripture in God's due time will open to him in
its truth and in its beauty, not to embrace the cross, not
to enter into the work of Calvary in its redemptive glory, is to
close the book once and for all, because the cross is the key
to the Scripture. And this is what Paul is saying
when he declares to the church at Corinth, or to whomever, to
whom it may concern, I preach Christ crucified. I'm determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, Him crucified."
Now, you may not think I can do it, but I'm going to give
you eight things to enforce in this message what Paul is saying.
Now, let's go back. Let's go back to the beginning.
God's eternal purpose. Now, listen to me. You say, well,
how can you preach the whole Bible just preaching the cross? And how do you preach the whole
Bible when you preach the cross? All right, listen to me. God's
eternal purpose. You know this, and I know this.
What is God's eternal purpose? What did God purpose and plan
from the beginning? To have a new heaven and a new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. All that God is doing and has
done is to accomplish that which He will do. He'll have a new
heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. No sin,
no evil, no disease, no darkness, no death. Everything perfect. And that new heaven and new earth
will be populated by a people, as he said to Abraham, as the
stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore. And they'll
be saved out of Adam's race, sinners like you and me. But
they'll be washed in the blood of his son, and redeemed by the
sacrifice of his son. Now those people given to Christ,
redeemed by the blood of Christ, will never inhabit that new heaven
and new earth, and it'll never be populated to the glory of
God. And they'll not have a song of praise and adoration if there
be no cross. So I'm saying you can't preach
a new heaven and a new earth if you don't preach the cross.
You can't preach a redeemed people who forever shall sing the praises
of Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own precious
blood. You can't even talk about a new
heaven and a new earth populated by a people perfectly conformed
to the image of God's Son unless God's Son comes down here in
obedience and suffering and conforms them to His image. That's what
I'm saying. So if you preach God's eternal
sovereignty and God's eternal purpose and God's eternal plan,
and as Jonathan Edwards wrote about the grand design of God
in redemption, you've got to come to Calvary, because that's
where it's accomplished. You see, God put all of His redemptive
work in the hands of His Son. He hath put all things, the Scripture
said, in His hands, in the hands of Christ. All right, secondly,
now stay with me. Paul said, I preach Christ crucified. I'm determined to know nothing
but Christ crucified. And I say, when you preach Christ
crucified, you preach the whole Bible, because what meaning can
you possibly give to the Old Testament types, sacrifices,
ceremonies without the cross. Come with me back to the Garden
of Eden. Outside of that garden, two boys come before God to worship
God and to bring their offering. Abel brought a sacrifice which
God accepted. God had respect to Abel and his
offering. What was it? It was a lamb slain
and its blood put on the altar. What possible meaning can you
give to the death of that lamb, to the blood on the altar, and
to God accepting it as a covering and atonement for able sins without
the cross of Christ? An animal can't die in the place
of a man. An animal can't suffer for man's
sin. An animal is not even identified
with man. I don't know that an animal is
a sinner to you. So it's got to point somewhere else, and
Abel's sacrifice points directly to that cross outside the city
walls of Jerusalem. And Abel's sacrifice means nothing.
The seed of woman, where God promised in Genesis 3, 15, that
woman's seed would bruise the serpent's head. Who is the serpent? Well, you know, that's Satan.
And what is his head? His government, his control,
his power. Well, how's the seed of woman?
You know who that is? Christ. In what way can he bruise
the serpent's head, conquer his power, subdue his kingdom, unless
he dies and puts away sin and defeats him in sacrifice? It means nothing. Go on down
through the Old Testament. What about the Passover lamb
in Egypt? Without the cross, it means nothing. It's nothing
but a slaughterhouse. It's nothing but cutting a bunch
of lambs' throats and having a good meal of mutton before
the evening. That's all it means without the
cross. What does the blazing serpent lifted up in the wilderness
mean? Except the Son of Man be lifted up. It means nothing. You see that those people in
the wilderness were sinners. They were murmuring against God.
And God told Moses to make a serpent in the likeness of the fiery
serpents that had bitten the people and lift it up on a pole. And whosoever looketh would live.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up." It means nothing without the
cross. Well, what about the smitten rock from which Moses attained
water for the people? The rock was smitten, and it
gave forth water. Our Lord Jesus was smitten of
God and afflicted, and He gives forth a cleansing, sanctifying,
flowing stream of His righteousness for us. And then when God would
give them water the second time from the rock, he told Moses,
don't you smite the rock now, speak to it. And Moses smote
it anyway and God killed him. That's exactly right. He told
him he wouldn't enter the promised land because he had not sanctified
God before the people. He had spoiled that type. That
rock's Christ who smitten once. And you don't crucify Christ
over and over again. Christ is crucified once, and
by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified,
and you can't preach that smitten rock unless you preach Christ.
What about the priesthood? What about the old priest once
a year who'd go into the Holy of Holies and put the blood on
the mercy seat, covering over the table of stone, the Ten Commandments? What does that mean? Well, it
means nothing without the cross. The priest means nothing without
the sacrifice of Christ. How much Scripture is devoted
to blood sacrifice? Now, you just go through the
Scripture. Sacrifices, offerings, all of them are fulfilled in
Christ crucified. And that's the reason Paul said,
we preach Christ crucified. I've determined to know nothing
but Christ and Him crucified. And you take that one key, and
it'll open every verse of Scripture. And then thirdly, listen, the
early writings of the apostles. All of them were devoted to and
had to do with the incarnation of Christ. The angel appeared
to Mary and said, Mary, you're going to have a son. She said,
how can these things be? I don't know a man. He said,
that holy thing born in thee shall be the Son of God. And
then that angel went to Joseph and said, don't be afraid to
take Mary to be your wife because that holy thing born of her is
called the Son of God. And then the angel appeared to
the shepherds on the Judean hillsides and said, Glory to God, we bring
you good tidings of great joy unto you is born the Savior in
the city of Bethlehem, Christ the Lord. In other words, Jesus
Christ, God's Son, the divine God, came down here to this earth
and took a human body and walked on this earth. Why? For what
purpose? What purpose could it possibly
serve? for God to become a man. Well,
there's one purpose it serves. In order to redeem us, he had
to do two things. And to do these two things, he
had to have a human body. These two things could not be
done without a human body. These two things could not be
done without God becoming a man. You see, and here are the two
things. The law of God wasn't given to God. God gave it to
man. And he said, keep it and live.
Break it and die. And that has not changed since
God gave it. It's still so. And if you choose
to live under the law, if you choose to be judged by the law,
if you choose to meet God on the foundation of the law, that's
the orders that come from the throne. Do it and live. Break
it and die. And to offend in one point is
to be guilty of the whole thing. So, in order for God to redeem
us, we've got to keep that law. We've got to keep it in the flesh.
Well, we can't keep it. Well, that's the reason Christ
took the flesh and became a man as our representative. By one
man's disobedience, we were made sinners. By another man's obedience,
we were made righteous. By one's disobedience, we fell.
By one's obedience, we were restored. Both were men. Both were in the
flesh. Both were under the law. One
of them broke it and fell. One of them perfectly fulfilled
it and restored us. In Christ we live. In Adam we
die. And in order to do that, he had
to become a man. Now, what's the second thing?
The justice of God says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Now, that hasn't changed. That's still so. God will punish
sin. God will by no means clear the
guilty. That's always been so. It's so
now. It's so now. God cannot overlook
sin. We've got to be punished. Our
sins have got to be punished. The soul that sinned not ought
to, might, Shall, underscore it, surely die. That's so. Those two things haven't changed.
Do this and live. That's the holy, perfect, infinite,
immaculate law of God, immutable. The soul that's in it shall die.
It shall, it will, no question about it. So Christ took the
flesh, human body. God can't die. And all the men
in all the world could die and not satisfy God's justice. So
God came who can satisfy in the body of a man who can suffer,
and he died. You see what I'm saying? And
you can't preach the law of God. You can't preach the justice
of God. You can't preach the incarnation
of Jesus Christ without preaching the cross. This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the
world. Why? To save sinners, comma,
of whom I am the chief. All right, the resurrection of
Christ. How do you preach that without preaching His death,
His cross? He became the firstfruits of
them that slept. But there's no resurrection if
there's no death. Christ died and then He arose again. How
do you know the Father is pleased with the sacrifice of Christ?
How do you know the Father has accepted on our behalf what Christ
accomplished? Threefold. God raised Him from
the dead. God took Him to glory. And God
set Him down on His right hand. That's the threefold evidence
that God has accepted. But all of this is the result
of his death. You have to die to be buried,
and you have to die to rise again in Christ. And you can't preach
the resurrection without starting at the cross. God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross. And then in the next place, listen
to this. Faith looks to the crucified Savior. Let me read you John
3, 14 again. Now listen to it. As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him believeth on whom? On
the lifted up Savior. Now you can believe on the babe
in Bethlehem's manger and do you no good. You can believe
on even a healing Christ, even a good moral person. But he said,
now look, As Moses lifted up the serpent, those people were
looking to a serpent on a pole who was hanging there under the
judgment of God in their place. And whosoever believeth on Christ
as the uplifted Savior, the Son of Man must be lifted. And he
said, And if I be lifted up, crucified, I'll draw all men
to me, to a lamb, to a sacrifice, to a sin offering, to a crucified
Savior. My faith looks to thee. Thy Lamb
of Calvary. I hope you get this. This is
so important. My faith looks to Thee, Thy Lamb
of Calvary. E'er since by faith I saw the
stream, His flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme,
And will be till I die. The object of faith, and faith's
got to have an object. There's no such thing as salvation
by a generality of faith. It's a faith that's pinpointed
and zeroed in on a reason. And that reason is, I once was
lost, but now I'm found, and by God's grace I'm heaven-bound.
My only hope, my only plea, is when He died. And when He died,
and when He died, He died for me. That's so important. And then in the next place, how
do you account for the two ordinances God gave the church? You know
what they are? Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
How do you preach them? How do you observe them? How
do you talk about them? Only in the light of the cross.
Baptism pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The
Lord's table is the broken bread and the wine, which is the shed
blood of Jesus Christ. If you preach the ordinances,
you have to preach the cross. Then what's this? The fruit of
the Spirit in a believer's life is based on Christ crucified.
He said, Love one another as I have loved you, and greater
love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends. And as Christ laid down his life for us, the Scripture
says we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Peace,
therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
How do we have peace with God? Justified by the cross. Humility,
that this mind in being you, which was also in Christ, who
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation, became obedient unto death, Even the death of
the cross. Forgiveness. Forgive one another
as Christ, as God for Christ's sake forgave you. Giving. Paul
told us to give as Christ who was rich for our sakes became
poor. Then the second coming. How do
you preach it without the cross? I come and my reward is with
me. What reward? The reward he purchased
at Calvary. He said, I go to prepare a place
for you, and if I come again, and if I go and prepare a place,
I'll come again and receive you unto myself. What he has accomplished,
he'd bring it with him in his return. And that accomplishment
was Calvary. You get the title of the message,
Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. If you want it on tape, it'll
have another message on the back I'll be bringing next week entitled,
Moses Prayer. Write to me, the tape costs two
dollars. If you want it, we'll send it to you. Until next week,
God bless you. Here's my prayer.