I would like for you to open
your Bibles this morning to the book of Galatians. I'm going
to speak to you from Galatians, the 6th chapter, the 14th verse,
and the title of this message is, My Greatest Glory. Paul said
in Galatians 6.14, But God forbade 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. God forbid." Now, that's a phrase
that Paul often uses, and when he uses it, he does it to especially
emphasize a particular strong point, God forbid. In fact, Paul
is the only New Testament writer, I believe, who uses that phrase. God forbid, and here in our text,
he says, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid. He's emphasizing
especially a very important point. Let's go back and look at a few
passages where Paul uses this phrase, God forbid. First of
all, he uses it in Romans 3, verse 4. Now, this is what it
says, Romans 3, 4. Shall the unbelief of Israel
make the faith of God without effect? God forbid. Now, Israel was a nation filled
with rebellion and unbelief. You know that. You watch Israel
from Egypt all the way to Canaan, and it is said of them finally,
after forty years of murmuring and rebellion and unbelief, it
is finally said that they could not enter in, that is, into the
promised land, because of unbelief. Now what Paul is asking is this.
Does the unbelief of Israel, does the rebellion of Israel,
make the purpose of God, the faith of God, the program of
God, without effect? Does that mean God's going to
fail in what he set out to do? God forbid. God forbid that we
should even think such a thing. And then again in Romans chapter
3 verse He says, is God unrighteous to judge sinners? Is God unrighteous
if the Lord God judges our sins and calls us to account for our
transgressions? Is he unrighteous? Is he unjust? And Paul replies to that, God
forbid that you should even think such a thing. David said, when
the Lord judges me, he's just, and when the Lord condemns me,
he's And every believer knows that. We don't deserve to be
saved. God is not obligated to show
mercy to any man. God, rather, in his righteousness
and justice, is obligated to deal with us according to our
sins, because the wages of sin is death. And so Paul's asking
this. Is God unrighteous to judge sinners? Is God unrighteous and unjust
to condemn rebels? God forbid. Now watch this in
Romans 3, again in the same chapter of Romans. He uses this phrase
three times in one chapter. In Romans 3, 31, he says, Do
we make void the law? Do we make void the law through
faith? If we say that a man is not saved
by keeping the law, if we say that a man is not saved by good
deeds and good works, If we say that a man is not saved by his
own obedience, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, does that
mean that we just scrapped the law? That the law is no longer
in effect? We're preaching salvation by
grace through faith. Does that discourage holiness?
Does that discourage honesty? Does that discourage obedience? Does that do away with God's
commandment? Paul asks, God forbid. By faith,
we establish the law. By faith, we honor the law. By
faith, we look to Him who came into the world to honor the law,
the Lord Jesus Christ. God didn't save us without the
law to live like outlaws. God didn't save us by grace to
live in disgrace. He said we establish the law.
Do we make void? I hear people say, well, if you
preach salvation by faith alone, people will just go out and live
anyway. That's the very thing these heathens are asking right
here. That's the very thing that these rebels are asking right
here. They're saying, well, you preach salvation by faith? Does
that make void the law? Does that repeal the law? Does
that scrap the law of God? The apostles said, God forbid
that you should even think such a thing. Now watch this in Romans
6.1. Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? What's he talking about here?
He says, God forbid that you should think such a thing or
even ask such a question. Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Now, a diamond, if you go to
a jewelry store to buy a diamond, they'll display it, they'll put
it on display. And they'll put that diamond on a dark black
or dark green or dark blue velvet cloth because a diamond sparkles
and shines and looks more brilliant against a black background. Even
so, the grace and mercy and love of God are glorified more When
God saves sinners, where sin doth abound, grace doth much
more abound. God gets great glory from saving
great sinners. The glory of God is seen in the
salvation of Saul of Tarsus, the black summer, the persecutor. God's great glory is seen in
the salvation of the thief on the cross, the outcast. God's
great glory is seen in the salvation of great sinners, and somebody
says, okay If God's grace is glorified in my sins, then I'll
just keep on sinning. Shall we continue to sin that
grace may be glorified? Shall we continue to sin that
grace may be glorified and grace may be honored? God forbid. You see, and in that same vein,
in that same vein, here we have our text. Shall we continue in
sin that grace may abound? Do we make void the law through
faith? Paul says, God forbid. Is God's purpose frustrated because
some people don't believe? God forbid. And now in our text,
Paul uses the phrase again. In Galatians 6.14, he says, God
forbid. Horror, the same horrible thought
that I should glory in anything except the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now everybody's going to glory
in something. That's right. You are, and I
am, and everybody else is going to glory in something or someone. What is it to glory? What are
we talking about? Gloring in something. Well, we're talking
about either worshiping that object or person. We're talking
about boasting in it. We're talking about to make it
the chief object of your delight. That's what it's to rejoice in
it. That's what we mean by glorying. And some people glory in their
beauty. Some people glory in their nationality. Some people
glory in their education. Some people glory in their gifts. Some people glory in their strength. They're just people glorying
a lot of things. But Paul said, God forbid, in the same vein
that he pushed aside these other things, these other foolish questions,
he said it's utter, absolute foolishness to think that I could
glory in, rejoice in, worship find delight in anything but
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, you say, could he have
gloated in something else? My friend, listen to me. And
we're talking about the Apostle Paul. We're talking about Paul
who was known from Rome down to Judea. We're talking about
Paul who was known by rulers and jail keepers. We're talking
about the man who was known in hell, the Apostle Paul. That's
right. Known in hell, that's right.
One time the sons of Seba were going to cast the demons out
of a fellow. And then when the demons, when they spoke to the
demons, the demons, you know what they said to the sons of
Seba? They said, Paul, we know, and Jesus Christ we know. But
who are you? And they jumped on him and beat
him up, and they fled, just escaping with their lives. The demons
from hell said, we know this fellow Paul. Could he have gloried
in something else? Well, he could have gloried in
his heritage. The Apostle Paul was high-born
religiously. He said, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. He could place his lineage right
back to Abraham without any difficulty at all. He was Saul of Tarsus.
Well, he could have gloried in his morality. Some folks do. The Apostle Paul says concerning
the law, I was blameless. But that was before the Holy
Spirit opened his eyes to his sin. That was before the Spirit
of God ever revealed Christ to him. That was before he ever
came to a true knowledge of the law. He thought he was all right.
He thought he was blameless. He had a moral life. Well, he
could have gloried in his education. Apostle Paul was educated in
one of the top schools of his day. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel.
He was a great and unusual scholar. In fact, one of the rulers before
whom he preached accused him of losing his mind from studying
too much. Not a whole lot of us would lose
our minds that way, would you? From studying too much? But Paul
could have gloried in his education. He could have gloried in his
apostleship. high office. There are a lot of folks that
glory in that. They glory in the fact they're a doctor, a
preacher, a rabbi, a bishop, or elder, or something of that
nature. They've got a high office in
the church, and they glory in it. It's so much they've gone
to their head. They're proud of themselves.
Paul was an apostle. an apostle of Christ, chosen
by the Lord, taught the gospel by the Son of God. He had seen
the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet he said, I'm nothing.
Spurgeon once preached a sermon on a nothing talks about another
nothing. He was going to talk about the apostle Paul. He said,
I'm not one whip behind the chief apostle, but I am nothing. He could have gloried in his
revelations. One time he went to the third heaven and he saw
things that wasn't lawful for man to utter. He could have gloried
in his guilt. He says, I speak with tongues
more than all of you folks, all of you. He could speak in languages
more than anybody in his day, any believer. Paul could have
gloried in his sufferings. I find a lot of people doing
that. They go around telling about how they went to jail for
Jesus, or how they suffered for the Lord. Paul never, Paul didn't
glory in that. He suffered, I suppose, more
than any man other than Christ our Lord, finally gave his life
as a martyr for Jesus Christ, but in every glory and in his
sufferings, with one sweep of his hand, he pushed everything
aside. He said, I count it all but done
that I may win Christ and be found in him. God forbid, as
he pushes aside his apostleship and gifts and education and revelations
and sufferings and all of his heritage and morality, God forbid
that I should glorify anything except the cross of Jesus Christ.
Now, two questions. Number one, what is the cross
in which Paul's glory? What is the cross? Now, you listen
carefully to me. You don't leave me. Brother Mews
used to say, don't bat an eye and move a hand. What is the
cross in which Paul's glory? Well, you know without my telling
you, that the Apostle Paul set no store in a material cross. That wasn't what he was talking
about. Whether it's on a steeple on top of a church, or whether
it's on the front of the pulpit, or whether somebody's wearing
it around her neck, or whether it's in somebody's pocket so
they can feel the cross and feel religious, or a sign that some
baseball player makes before he stands up to bat in the ballpark. These things are nothing but
superstition. There's much superstition as
witchcraft. There's much superstition as
broken mirrors, salt, spills, horseshoes, or rabbit foot. And
I wish religion today would totally abandon the use of material causes
in any shape, form, or fashion and start preaching the true
cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He wasn't
talking about a wooden cross. I pass a church coming up here
to the television station. They've got three crosses up
on the side of the hill. That looks real religious to
a man who knows nothing about the grace of God. That looked
real religious to a person who knows nothing about the true
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. What was Paul talking about?
He was talking about, in a word, the great atonement for sinners,
which Christ accomplished on Calvary. That's the cross he
was talking about, the cross. He talks about preaching the
cross. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
He's not talking about preaching a piece of gold or silver around
your neck, preaching something that dangles from the end of
your Bible or something you wear on your lapel or something that
you have on top of your shirt. He's talking about the atonement
for sinners. He's talking about the suffering
and satisfaction and substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what his glory is. The Apostle Paul wasn't glowing
in a cross any more than he would glory in a hangman's noose. A
cross is where criminals died. Would you glory in an electric
chair? Would you glory in a gas chamber? Would you glory in a
hangman's noose? Well, why would you glory in
a block of wood on which a man was nailed by Roman soldiers?
We're not glowing in the wood. We're glowing in what the person
who died there accomplished. We're glowing in him. Christ
is our glory. That's what Paul's talking about.
God forbid that I should glow with faith in the cross, in the
atonement, in the suffering, satisfaction, and substitutionary
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was wounded for my transgression.
He was bruised for my iniquity. The chastisement of my peace
was laid on Him, and by His stripes I'm healed. That's what I'm glorying
in. His love for me. His grace that
took Him to the tree. His blood that was shed there
for my sins. His death as it purchased my
redemption. I glory in that blessed atonement. Jesus paid it all. All the debt
I owe. Sin left a crimson stain. He
washed it white as snow. What is the cause that Paul's
glory in it? God forbid that I should glory
in anything. in this world, or any woman,
except the cross, that is, the atonement, the substitutionary
work, the satisfaction, the sin offering, which Christ my Lord
accomplished by his death on Calvary. And then Paul means
this. He means that glorious gospel which springs out of the
cross, which comes from Calvary's hills, the preaching of the cross. Paul didn't go around preaching
a cross. He preached a one who died on
the cross. Christ who died on the cross.
That was the place where Christ suffered. The preaching of the
cross is this. It's the preaching of God incarnate. If Christ had not come into the
world in human flesh, he wouldn't have had a body to die on the
cross. You've got to preach God incarnate if you preach the cross. When our Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world through the virgin's womb and laid in Bethlehem's
manger, he laid there under the very shadow of that tree. He
was here on a mission. He came for a purpose. He came
to die. He came for an appointed hour
and an appointed death for an appointed people. And he accomplished
that on Calvary's cross. So if we preach the cross, we
preach God incarnate. Secondly, we preach the grace
of God for the guilty. For God so loved the world, he
gave his only begotten son. God gave his son. God sent his
son into the world. In the fullness of time, God
sent his son to Lord Jesus Christ, made of a woman, made under the
law. It was on purpose. His death was no accident. Our
Lord Jesus Christ suffered on that tree on purpose. If you'll
go back through the Old Testament, my friend, you'll read not only
was there tribe from which Christ came, prophesied the tribe of
Judah, but the family, Jesse, through the lineage of David.
It was prophesied how he would be born, laid in a manger, a
virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son. It was prophesied
how he would die, his beard would be plucked out. They'd cast lots
for his garment, how he would be buried in a rich man's tomb,
and how he would rise again. It's all in the Old Testament.
The very words that Christ spoke on Calvary's cross are in Psalm
22, right there in Psalm 22. It tells about his betrayal for
30 pieces of silver, the purchase of the potter's field in which
they buried Judas' body. It's all right there in the Word
of God. So when we preach the cross, we're preaching God incarnate,
we're preaching the grace of God, the eternal grace of God.
For the guilty, God planned it, God purposed it. Actually, Christ
was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. His
death was foreordained and appointed by God the Father. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. So when we preach the cross,
we preach the purpose of God. The grace of God, the mercy of
God. We preach an effectual ransom. When Paul looked back to the
cross, he didn't look on the death of Christ as a down payment,
or an installment payment for you and I to finish the rest
of the payments that are due. He looked on it as a completed
work. As our Lord Jesus Christ said from the cross, it's finished.
The work is done. Redemption is complete. I've
found a ransom. It's a full ransom. It's a sufficient
ransom. It's an effectual ransom. It's
a complete ransom. And that led Paul to say in Romans
8, three questions, four questions to be exact. He said, if God
be for me, who can be against me? Who can lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who
is he that condemns me? Christ has died, yea rather is
risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh
intercession for us, who can separate me from the love of
Christ. I tell you, when we preach the cross, we preach not only
God incarnate and the grace of God for the guilty and mercy
for the miserable, but we preach an effectual ransom. We preach
a redemption that redeems. We preach a salvation that saves.
We preach an atonement that atones. Now that's right. Christ didn't
try to do anything on that cross. He did what he set out to do.
And then when we preach the cross, we preach a certain salvation
for all who believe. He sent his disciples out to
preach the gospel to every creature. And he said, you preach the gospel,
and everybody who believes it and is baptized shall be saved.
And everybody who doesn't believe it will be damned. Now, that's
how clear-cut it is. Believe it and be saved. Reject
it and be damned. over in John 3 36 he that believeth
on the Son hath life he that believeth not the Son the wrath
of God abideth on him in 1 John 5 12 he that hath the Son of
God hath life he that hath not the Son of God hath not life
it's just that clear cut when the old Titanic set sail from
wherever it left from in the United States that there were
a lot of different classes of people on board there were White
people and black people, rich people and poor people, old people,
young people, there were educated people and uneducated people.
There were short people, tall people, fat people, skinny people. But when the list was posted
after it went down, two classes, those who were dead and those
who were alive, those who were saved and those who were lost,
that's all. And my friend, that's what it all boils down to. It
all is in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. Not to the superstitions
of religion, not to the traditions of religion, not even to the
theology of religion, it's Christ a person. A person. And notice
the second question now. What was there about the cross
that caused Paul to glory? He said, God forbid. He was shocked
that anybody would think that he would glory, that he would
boast to him, that he would rejoice in or find delight in anything
once he'd been to Calvary. But the cross. Now, he named
all of his traditions and heritage and customs and pedigree and
all of these things, and then he says, I count them, but don't,
that I may win Christ and be found in him. Now, what is there
about the cross that deserves such acclaim and such glory?
This gospel, this person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'll
give you three things. There is glory in the cross because
of the fact of it. Do you realize what I'm saying?
Most people don't pay much attention to preachers. Well, one reason
is most preachers not say anything. They wait on the music. They
endure the preacher to get to the music. But you know, heathen
religionists have invented many strange and unusual things to
impress men with their religion. They've got great buildings and
giant statues and unusual things. But did you know there's nothing
in the universe as unusual and great and glorious and mysterious
as God Almighty's? coming to the earth in human
flesh and dying on the cross. Now, you stop and think about
that a minute. You know, Paul wrote that. He said, Great is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in human flesh. That's astounding. The angels
are up there trying to look into it. The prophets of old diligently
inquired and searched into it. It's amazing and astounding.
God Almighty, their God or their God. And yet man, bone of our
bone, flesh of our flesh, manifested in the flesh. Let this mind be
in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, yet made himself of no reputation, and
took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross." Think about it. Think about it. The fact of it. You can glow
in the seven or eight wonders of the world, whatever they are,
but none of them are as great a wonder as God becoming a man
and dying for sin. The fact of it demands glory. The fact of it demands our boasting
only in the cross. And then the glory, it's glorious
because of the simplicity of it. That's right. The greatest
mystery in the universe is simple. Now, you can say what you will
and do what you will, but I'm saying over and over again, and
I'm emphasizing it over and over again, salvation is in Christ.
It's not in the complicated ceremonies of religion. It's not in the
vows and promises and dedications and rededications and walking
up and down aisles. It's in Christ. That's right. In Him dwelleth the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you're complete in Him. Christ in you
the hope of glory and I prevail to Christ be formed in you and
Anything you do give offer or tip to do to gain favor with
God is wasted effort Salvation is in Christ Only in Christ God
bested everything in his son his son worked out a perfect
righteousness by obeying the law on behalf of believers and
he accomplished a perfect ransom and Redemption by dying for our
sins on Calvary's cross And then thirdly, there's glory in the
facts of it, there's glory in the simplicity of it, and there's
glory in the suitability of it. It's suitable for the greatest
sinner. I can look out there today and
address the most wicked woman who ever lived. The most vile
sinful man who ever walked and I say to you look to Christ and
live He delights to show mercy. He's plenteous in mercy He is
able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him,
but you got to look to Christ Don't look to me. Don't write
letters to me and ask me my advice. I'm pointing you to Christ You
do business with the Son of God. Don't you let anybody get between
you and Christ? I can't save you myself or anybody
else but Christ can If you can look to him, it's suitable for
the chief of sinners. It's suitable for any sinner,
whosoever will, let him take the water of life. Everyone that
thirsts should come to the cross. It's suitable for the poorest
sinner. He said, come buy wine, milk, without price, without
money. Don't bring anything. Don't try to buy your way to
God. A man's throwing you a curve that insinuates that you can
buy your way into the kingdom of God. God doesn't need your
riches. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the gold
and silver that hadn't been mined. is suitable for any sinner. Look to Christ and be made whole.