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By Pastor Glenn Pease
CONTENTS
1. THE BEAUTY OF THE CROSS
Based on John 12:20‑33
2. THE NECESSITY OF THE CROSS
Based on John 12:23‑36
3. THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS
Based on I Cor. 1:18‑31
4. THE CRUELTY OF THE CROSS Based on John 19:1‑16
5. THE PEACE OF THE CROSS Based
on Matt. 5:9
6. THE BURDEN OF THE CROSS
Based on Matt. 5:10‑12
7. CHRISTMAS AND THE CROSS based on Hebrews 12:1‑2
8. CHRISTMAS AND THE CROSS
Based on Gal. 4:1f
9. REMEMBER THE CROSS Based on
10. A TERRIFYING VICTORY Based
on Matt. 27:39‑51
11. TO HELL AND BACK Based on
Matt. 27:45‑54
12. THREE HOURS IN HELL Based
on Matt. 27:45‑56
13. GOOD FRIDAY STUDY Based on
Matt. 27:45f
14. GOOD FRIDAY MESSAGE Based
on Mark 15:21‑32
1. THE BEAUTY OF THE
CROSS Based on John 12:20‑33
Luther Burbank took an interest in the common field
daisy that was an outcast weed despised by the farmers in the East. He crossed it
with the Japanese daisy and an English daisy and produced the Shasta daisy, a
flower whose beautiful bloom has grown as much as two feet in diameter, and
which will last up to six weeks when cut. Burbank went on to transform other
despised and worthless plants into plants of beauty and usefulness. He said,
"It is my theory that there are no outcasts in nature; everything has a
use, and everything in nature is beautiful if we are eager to ennoble it. Every
weed is a possible beautiful flower."
His theory has been demonstrated as fact in many
cases. A group of women in Pasadena years ago inaugurated the first weed show
in history. It was an instant hit. People were astonished at the beauty in
weeds. The word weed implies ugliness and uselessness, but as someone said,
"Beauty is where you find it." Queen Anne's lace, for example, is a
common weed in New England, but in California it is raised as a choice flower.
The Kansas Gay Feather, which is a mere weed in the Midwest, is a garden flower
in New England. The same thing is both ugly and beautiful depending upon the
perspective from which it is seen.
This is also the paradox of the cross. We could as
easily consider the ugliness of the cross as the beauty of it. One is as real
as the other. At one time in history the cross was the most gruesome object of
horror that could be imagined. Cicero the Roman said, "The cross speaks of
that which is so shameful, so horrible, that it should not be mentioned in
polite society." It was so horrible to die on the cross that no Roman
citizen was allowed to be crucified no matter how guilty they were. This fate
was reserved for only the worst kinds of killers, renegades, and robbers. Even
Scripture says, "Cursed is every man who is hanged on a tree."
No one could have ever dreamed that the cross would
someday become a universal decoration and design for jewelry. You can buy a
cross made of every precious metal and with diamonds or any other precious
stone. This would have sounded as incredible to the ancients as the idea would
sound to us of wearing a hangman's noose as a silver pin, or hanging a picture
in your living room of a gas chamber. It would be ugly and morbid. Weeds being
transformed into flowers is amazing, but nothing can compare with the wonder of
the cross being transformed from a symbol of horror and death to a symbol of
beauty and life. Jesus converted everything He touched, and one of the most
radical conversions of all was the conversion of the cross.
From Calvary on the cross became a symbol treasured
and loved, and Paul could say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the
cross of Christ." You have heard the phrase ugly as sin. If sin is the
ugliest thing is the world, then that which forgives it and cleanses it has to
be the most beautiful thing in the world, and that is the blood of the cross.
Jesus so transformed the cross that it became the central theme of Christian
preaching and song. The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is even the
theme of the saints as they sing in heaven.
Be the cross our theme and story
All through time and into glory.
In our text Jesus says some things that explain why
the cross became a symbol of beauty. First of all we see in the cross‑
I. THE BEAUTY OF ITS PURPOSE.
When Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
the whole city was in an uproar. The Pharisees were so amazed they said to one
another in verse 19, "Look the whole world has gone after Him." Then
to illustrate the truth of their impression John tells of some Greeks who wanted
to see Jesus. They were Gentiles who had become converts to Judaism, and to the
one true God, for verse 20 says that they came to Jerusalem to worship at the
feast. This is the last public event in the life of Christ that John records
before the cross. When Philip and Andrew told Jesus some Greeks wanted to see
Him, He answered and said, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be
glorified."
All through His ministry He had been saying that the
hour has not yet come. He said to His mother at the wedding of Cana, "Mine
hour has not yet come." He said to His brethren, "My time is not yet
come." And again we read, "No man laid hands on Him, because His hour
was not yet come." And once more, "No man took Him, because His hour
was not yet come." Now all of the sudden when some Greeks want to see Him
Jesus announces that the hour has come. The countdown in God's timetable of
salvation is about to be completed, and zero hour has arrived. The central hour
of all history was approaching, and when it was over the most crucial act for
time and eternity would be completed, and God's purpose fulfilled. The beauty
of the cross is the beauty of a finished project, plan, and purpose.
Marie Zwiller painted the picture, "The First
Night Outside Paradise." Adam and Eve have been driven from Eden, and they
are looking back at it. An angel with a flaming sword guards the gate. They are
not looking at the angel, however, for above him illuminating the sky is the
bright outline of a cross. Their eyes are lifted, and they are gazing
wonderingly at that. The cross was in God's plan from the beginning. There was
only one bridge that could span the gulf between paradise lost and paradise
regained, and that was the cross. No one could get past the angel's flaming sword
until God solved the sin problem through an atonement for all men. When the
Greeks came to Jesus they were ready to receive Him as their Lord, and Jesus
knew their hearts. He knew that His hour had come to fulfill the purpose of God
for all men, both Jews and Gentiles. No longer would He be limited to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. He says in verse 32, when I am lifted up I will
draw all men to myself."
From the perspective of the divine plan and purpose
the cross was the beautiful fulfillment. Jesus demonstrated the reality of the
completed work by saying to the thief, "This day thou shalt be with me in
paradise." The hour had come for opening the gate of paradise where man
could again enter the presence of God. On the cross Jesus reconciled God and
man, and made it possible for man to be forgiven and cleansed of all sin. What
could be more beautiful than the gate to paradise? The cross was that gate.
This was the hour of glorification for Jesus. Others
were horrified at the cross, but Jesus was glorified. It was for this purpose
that He came into the world, and in fulfilling that purpose in deep humiliation
God exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow. The cross was the hour of man's redemption and Christ's
coronation. The life of Christ is beautiful, but the death of Christ is even
more beautiful when we see it's purpose.
Christ does not save men by His life,
Though that was holy, sinless, pure,
Not even by His tender love,
Though that forever shall endure;
He does not save them by His words,
Though they shall never pass away;
Nor by His vast creative power
That holds the elements in sway;
He does not save them by His works,
Though He was ever doing good‑
The awful need was greater still,
It took His death, His cross, His blood!
Author unknown
Napoleon once took a map, and pointing to the
British Isles, remarked, "Were it not for that red spot I would have conquered
the world." The devil can take the chart of history and point to the hour
of the cross, and say the same: "Were it not for that red spot I would
have conquered the world." Jesus came to satisfy His Father, to redeem
man, and to defeat the devil, and He did it all on the cross. That is why it is
a symbol of beauty. In verse 24 Jesus gives us another basis for the beauty of
the cross, for there we see‑
II. THE BEAUTY OF ITS PRODUCTIVENESS.
Jesus says that a grain of wheat must fall into the
earth and die or it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Death is
a means to productiveness in nature. Jesus uses an illustration from nature,
for the Greeks would understand this. Proof from the Old Testament would not be
as valuable with them as with the Jews. The Greek mystery religions made much
of the reproductive cycle of nature, and so Jesus was using a very contemporary
and relevant illustration.
Jesus is saying that abundance in nature requires
death. A seed must be mortified to be multiplied. You can preserve a seed by
putting it in a box and not planting it, but it will abide alone and produce
nothing. It must be buried and perish as an individual seed if it is to grow
into a beautiful fruit bearing plant. Jesus, the Creator of all nature, built
right into creation the law of self‑sacrifice and death as a means to
glorification.
In nature He made it clear that death and abundant
life are not incompatible, but in fact, death is a necessary means to life. To
plant a seed is to glorify it by opening up to it all the potential God
implanted in it. The same principle applied to Christ and the cross. Had He not
died His potential as a Savior of all men could never have been realized. He
could have been a great Jewish leader, prophet, and teacher, but not a
universal Redeemer, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of
sin. St. Augustine said, "The death of Christ was the death of the most
fertile grain of wheat." The great Sower sowed the most productive seed
when He sowed Himself, and laid down His life. This was the seed that brought
forth again the beauty of Eden. The cross was not the termination of His life,
but the germination of His life.
Faithful cross! Above all others,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be.
Author unknown
The cross became the most productive tree ever. It
is the very tree of life, and all of the fruits of the Spirit, and all of the
fruits of Christianity in history are offshoots from the cross. The beauty of
the cross is the beauty of its productiveness. Plato, the Greek philosopher,
said, "The beautiful consists in utility and the power to produce some
good." Who can think of anything that has produced more good than the
cross of Christ? It is the basis for the salvation of every human being who has
ever lived, or who ever will. On the basis of the philosophy of the Greeks; on
the basis of the principle of nature, and on the basis of the historical
effects of Calvary, we can say that nothing has ever been more beautiful than
the cross of Christ.
If a grain of wheat insists on remaining what it is,
it will be a grain of wheat and nothing more. If Jesus had insisted on
remaining the Jewish Messiah, He would have been that and nothing more. But He
chose to follow the principle of the sacrifice of the lower for the production
of the higher, and the fruit of this sacrifice we read about in Rev. 7:9‑10,
"...behold, a great multitude which no man can number, from every nation,
from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before
the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying
out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne,
and to the Lamb." Jesus saw these Greeks as the beginning of that
innumerable multitude, and He knew the hour for His planting had come. Jesus
saw the beauty of the productiveness of the cross, and so He approached it with
joy. Jesus does not stop with reference to His own cross, however, for He spoke
of the beauty in its purpose; in its productiveness, and then goes on to speak
of‑
III. THE BEAUTY OF ITS PRINCIPLE.
Just as the principle of life through self‑sacrifice
applies to all seeds in nature, so the principle of bearing the cross as a
means to abundant life applies to all men. In verse 25 Jesus says, "He who
loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it
for eternal life." The world says that self‑preservation is the law
of life, but Jesus says we must go beyond this law into the higher law where
self‑sacrifice is the way to life. People who seek only to preserve their
life and refuse to risk it, or invest it in the lives of others, abide alone
like a seed in a box. They reason, "The wider one's sympathies the bigger
target does one offer to the arrows of fate." If you fall in love, your
chances of being hurt are greater. If you have children they are greater yet.
The more you get involved with people, the more you open yourself up to wounds
and heartache. The way to escape all of this is to live for self alone. Love
your life only, and no other, and then your problems will be few, and your
burdens light. This is the logic that leads to loss of life is what Jesus is
saying. The way to abundant life is in following the principle of the cross,
which is self‑sacrifice.
Many people feel it is such a waste for missionaries
to bury themselves in pagan lands, and give up so many of the good things of
life, but from the perspective of Christ it is beautiful. The world says
survival at any cost, but Jesus says sacrifice at any cost. He said, "Take
up the cross and follow Me." It is the way to life. Walter C. Smith wrote,
But all through life I see a cross,
Where sons of God yield up their breath;
There is no gain except by loss,
There is no life except by death.
This principle is one that Jesus repeats more than
any other: Twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, and once in Mark, and here. The
beauty of this principle of the cross is that it will lead to our lives being
purposeful and productive, as was that of Christ. On a lesser scale each of us,
like Christ, can fulfill God's purpose in history, and be productive of fruit
that will last for eternity. To become a part of the beauty of the cross we
must abandon the principle of self and safety first, and follow Christ in
sacrificing ourselves for others.
H. R. Mackintosh rebukes the modern Christian with
words we know are true. He writes, "I feel that the great reason why we
fail to understand Calvary is not merely that we are not profound enough, it is
that we are not good enough. It is because we are such strangers to sacrifice
that God's sacrifice leaves us bewildered. It is because we love so little that
His love is mysterious. We have never forgiven anybody at such a cost as His.
We have never taken the initiative in putting a quarrel right with His kind of
unreserved willingness to suffer. It is our unlikeness to God that hangs as an
obscuring screen impeding our view, and we see the atonement so often through
the frosted glass of our own lovelessness."
If we expect to see the beauty of the cross and be a
part of that beauty, we must obey the principle of the cross, and be willing to
bear the burden of the cross, and be buried for the glory of Christ. In verse
26 Jesus says we must follow Him in obedience to the principle of the cross if
we hope to reign with Him in the beauty of His kingdom. By a life of self‑sacrificing
service each of us can magnify the beauty of the cross by continuing to fulfill
its purpose, by extending its productiveness, and by demonstrating the truth of
its principle.
If you have never come to the cross, and asked Jesus
to be your Lord and Savior, I urge you to do so. Stop being a seed in a box‑dead
and unproductive. Die to self; yield to Christ, and blossom into life abundant.
For those of us who have come to the cross, but who are still holding back and
are stunted in our growth and fruitfulness, let us also come again to the cross
and see it in all its beauty and potential, and commit ourselves anew to the
way of the cross.
Out of my shameful failure and loss
Jesus I come.
Into the glorious gain of thy cross
Jesus I come to thee.
A little girl once spoke to her mother and asked,
"Why are you so ugly mother?" The mother said, "Come here my
darling and I will tell you." It was time for the secret to be told, and
so she explained why her face had terribly disfiguring scars. She told her that
a fire had broken out in the home when the girl was only a baby. The mother was
at a neighbor's house, and when she rushed home she plunged into the flames to
get to the child. She saved the child, but not without great cost to her own
body. The scars she bore were the result. After the child heard this story she
was overwhelmed with love, and in tears she cried out, "Mother, you are
the most beautiful person in the world." Ugliness can become beautiful
when you can see it from the right perspective. When we see the sacrifice of
the cross and what it did for us as sinners, then we see the beauty of the
cross.
2. THE NECESSITY OF THE CROSS
Based on John 12:23‑36
Over
fifteen hundred years ago, on Good Friday, Ambrose the Bishop of Milan ascended
to his pulpit in the Cathedral of Milan and said to his congregation, "I
find it impossible to speak to you today.
The events of Good Friday are too great for human words." Centuries later the great English poet John
Milton sat down to write a poem on the cross and the atonement. After 8 introductory lines he stopped, and
he wrote this note which is included in his collected works: "This subject the author finding to be above
the years when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished."
Here
was a great preacher and a great poet who could not finish their works on the
cross. Fortunately, for us and all
mankind, sermons and poems and the works of men on the cross are not a
necessity. What was a necessity was for
Jesus to finish His work on the cross.
Infinite and eternal loss would be ours if Jesus had stopped short of
the cross. No words were ever more
essential than the words Jesus spoke from the cross when He said, "It is
finished." The cross is the
greatest of all necessities. The worst
that can happen if we are deprived of all other necessities is death, but
because of the cross we still have eternal life. But deprive us of the cross and all is lost. The cross is no luxury. It is the greatest of necessities.
It you
buy a cross at the jewelry counter, you pay a luxury tax on it. Such a cross is not The Cross. Crosses you can buy are luxuries, and they
are irrelevant to life, death, sin, and salvation. The symbol of the cross often has no relationship to the cross of
Christ. Some years ago controversy
broke out in Russia over the new fashion of wearing a cross on a chain around
the neck. Provda said that an
investigation discovered that the fashion had been started by two 20 year old
girls who were clerks in a store in Moscow.
Neither was a religious believer, and both were members of the Young
Communist League. They just found that
people were eager to follow a fad, and that there was profit in it. The cross was nothing to them but a luxury
completely unrelated to the necessary cross of Christ.
In the
little village of Chabham near London and accountant erected a 270 dollar cross
in the local pet cemetery for his Great Dane.
Here again the cross was totally a luxury, and of no necessity. A man asked another why his church had a
cross on it, and he replied, "Well, I don't know of a better way to
decorate the top of a church. Do
you?" When it costs so little to
be a Christian there is a tendency to think of the cross only as a luxury and a
ornament. People let the necessity of
it fade from their minds, and they do not realize that they could better do
without air and food than without the cross.
Whoever
heard of listing the necessities of life and putting the cross at the top of
the list? Yet, that is where it
belongs. Without the cross there is no
salvation, and without salvation life is worse than meaningless. There would be no hope, but only the guarantee
that no matter how bad things are, they will be worse. We would have to face a holy God with
nothing but the filthy rags of our own righteousness, and be cast into eternal
darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Unfinished sermons and unfinished poems on
the cross need not disturb us, but we desperately need a finished plan of
salvation. We need an atonement for our
sin, and so we need the cross. That is
why it is such a joy to see Jesus committing Himself to finishing His work on
the cross. He tells us in this passage
that the cross is a necessity for 3 reasons, each of which is vital to our
salvation. We want to look at these
reasons. First of all the cross is a
necessity for‑
I. THE MAGNIFYING OF THE FATHER.
The work
of Christ was to glorify the Father, and there was no way to do this but by
means of the cross. No one wants to
die, however, and no one wants to die at 33, and still less does anyone want to
die at 33 on a cross. Jesus was no
exception. If there was any way to
accomplish God's will and save man without the cross, Jesus wanted to take
it. John does not tell us of Jesus in
Gethsemane where He prayed, "If it be possible let this cup pass from
me." John, however, shows us that
the agony and struggle of Gethsemane was not just momentary, but that Jesus had
wrestled with this issue for days as He approached the cross.
Verse
27 says that Jesus was troubled, and the thought entered His mind of escaping
the cross. Jesus was not forced to go
to the cross. It was His free and
voluntary decision. He was free to ask
God to save Him at any time. Even on
the cross 12 legions of angels were prepared to rescue Him if He requested
it. If Jesus had no alternative but to
go to the cross He was not free. But He
did have an alternative, and He could have avoided the cross. He could have prayed for His Father to save
Him from that hour, and His prayer would have been heard.
We
tend to think that the cross was automatic, and that Jesus was carried by a
stream of fate to the cross. This is
not so. The cross was not a necessity
in the sense that it could not be avoided, but rather in the sense that there
was no other way for God to triumph over sin and Satan, and thereby be
glorified. It was not easy for Jesus to
go to the cross, and His soul was deeply troubled. He held the destiny of every human being in His decision. His Father was counting on Him, but He was
repulsed by the cross and the bearing of the sin of the world. Let no one say it is a sign of a lack of
faith to be troubled in a crisis. Jesus
knew of the fruit of the cross, and yet He could not avoid being troubled. No one ever faced such a decision before. He could be the saved or the Savior. He could have avoided the cross and been the
only man to be saved, or He could go to the cross and be the Savior of all
men. Jesus had to give up His salvation
or ours. Our salvation depended upon
Him not being saved from the cross. It
is thrilling, therefore, to read verse 28 where Jesus yields to the Father's
will and says, "Father, glorify thy name."
And
then for the third time in the life of Christ God speaks from heaven and says
that He has glorified it and will glorify it again. God had already glorified His name in the miracles and works of
Jesus, and in His victory over Satan in temptation. He did it also in the casting out of demons, and now He is about
to glorify it again in the victory of the cross. God only spoke three times directly in the life of Christ. It was at His baptism, which symbolized His
humanity and death; then at His transfiguration symbolic of His deity and
resurrection, and now here as He came to the point where death and resurrection
are no longer to be in realm of the symbolic, but are to become historical
facts. No event in history could match
the cross in bringing glory to God.
John
Milton said, "The cross is the key that unlocks the gate of
glory." The heavens still declare
the glory of God as they did to the Old Testament saints, but the cross speaks
louder than the heavens. The heavens
in all their wonder glorify God by telling us of His power, wisdom, and love of
order and beauty, but only the cross tells of us His love for us as sinners. The cross was as necessary as God's
love. Let us never get confused and think that the cross is a basis for God's
love. God does not love us because
Jesus died for us, but Jesus died for us because God loves us. God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son. The cross did not
purchase God's love, but it was an expression of His love. Had God not loved us before the cross there
would never have been a cross.
'Twas not to make Jehovah's love toward His people
flame,
That Jesus from the throne above a suffering man
became.
'Twas not the death which He endured nor all the
pangs he bore,
That God's eternal love procured for God was love
before. Author Unknown.
The
cross magnified the Father and glorified Him in revealing His great love for
man. A Mohammedan tradition pictures
God at creation taking a piece of clay from which He intended to create
man. He broke it in two and tossed one
piece upward and said, "These to heaven and I care not." Then throwing the other piece downward He
added, "These to hell, and I care not." Such is not the God of Scripture, for the cross glorifies God and
exalts Him as a God who cares for all men.
He had provided a way to heaven for all men. To glory in the cross with the Apostle Paul is to glorify God and
magnify His love, for the glory of God is the glory of the cross. Studdert‑Kennedy wrote,
God, the God I love and worship, reigns in sorrow on
the Tree,
Broken, bleeding, but unconquered, very God of God
to me.
All that showy pomp of splendor, all that sheen of
angel wings,
Was not borrowed from the baubles that surround our
earthly kings‑
For thy glory is the glory of Love's loss,
And thou hast no other splendor but the splendor of
the Cross.
The cross
was a necessity for the magnifying of the Father, and secondly it was a
necessity for‑
II. THE MASTERING OF THE DEVIL.
In verse
31 Jesus says, "Now is the judgment of this world, and now shall the
prince of this world be cast out."
The greatest revolution in history was about to take place. The most powerful person to ever rule over
man was about to be overthrown, and His rule of oppression was about to give
way to freedom. His process of decay
and death was to be reversed, and a process of life and growth was to be
restored. Men were to be called back
from their revolt against God to fellowship with God. Such a revolution and change of power could only be accomplished
by the ultimate weapon, and that weapon was the cross.
The cross was the only battering ram
that could smash through the gates of hell and liberate those in bondage. The cross was the only weapon that could
sweep the devil from his throne. The
cross was Satan's Waterloo. It meant
the end of his universal sway over men.
The cross penetrated the kingdom of darkness and left a gaping hole
through which men could escape into the kingdom of life. It was not Jesus who was the outcast on the
cross. Jesus was the out‑caster,
and on the cross He gained the mastery over the prince of this world. In Heb. 2:14‑15 we read of Jesus,
"...he likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might
destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all
those who through fear of death were subject to life long bondage."
Note
that it was through death that Jesus conquered death and liberated those in
bondage. Paul also says that the cross
was the means whereby Jesus gained the mastery over the whole of the armies of
evil. In Col. 2:14‑15 he writes
of Christ: "Having canceled the
bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing
it to the cross. He disarmed the
principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over
them in it." The greatest
advantage the devil and his forces had over men was man's bondage to sin. Man was under an un‑payable debt to
God. It was un‑payable by sinful
men, for the wages of sin is death, and so all men faced the judgment of
death. We tend to think that judgment
is always in the future. But Jesus said
the hour of the cross was the hour of the world's judgment. There will be future judgment, but when it
comes it will only be a completion of the judgment begun at the cross.
The
whole world was judged at the cross, for Jesus died for the sin of the whole
world. All men have been judged guilty
as sinners and condemned to death. This
sentence was carried out at the cross where Jesus bore the condemnation of all
men, and so the whole world was judged at the cross. In so doing Jesus destroyed the devil's greatest weapon against
man and disarmed the devil. Now there
is no condemnation to those who are in Christ.
We are free from the bondage of sin and the fear of death. God will not demand double payment for sin
from those who accept Jesus as their substitute on the cross. We have already been judged, and Jesus paid
the penalty, and we are now free. None
can be tried twice for the same crime.
All
men can be free in Christ. They can now
renounce the devil and trample them under their feet in the name of Christ, for
his power was broken at the cross.
Satan got man cast out of paradise and into bondage to his authority. Jesus reversed that at the cross. He cast Satan out and opened the gate to
paradise again. Without the cross man
would still be under bondage to the devil and death. The cross alone sets us free.
The cross was a necessity for the magnifying of the Father, and for the
mastering of the devil. The third
reason for the necessity of the cross is that it was needed for‑
III. THE MAGNETIZING OF THE SON.
Death
terminates the work of all others.
Death is a period for them, but for Jesus it was only a comma after
which the most important part of the sentence continued. Jesus had a following before the cross, but
it was nothing compared to the following He gained after He was lifted up. Jesus knew that the cross was to be His
drawing power. He knew it would make
Him the most powerful and unique magnet in history. He would not draw metal but men unto Himself. He said if He was lifted up He would draw
all men to Himself. Verse 33 says that
He said this to show by what death He was to die. In other words, the cross was an absolute necessity if Jesus was
to become magnetized, and become one who could attract all men to Himself.
Bishop
Simpson never understood the prophecy which pictures the church of Christ
established on a mountain with all the nations flowing into it. How can the flowing be uphill? Then one day he went to the workshop of a
friend where he saw him picking up steel filings with a magnet. As his friend passed the magnet over the top
of the dust the filings were attracted upward and kissed the magnet. Then he understood how the cross on Mt.
Calvary was the magnet drawing all the nations to it.
Alexander Maclaren said, "You demagnetize Christianity, as all
history shows, if you strike out the death on the cross for a world's
sin." Exalt Christ and Him
crucified, however, and you attract men with a power that is unmatched. Let us be wise and learn where the drawing
power is. We cannot bring men into the
kingdom by pushing and pulling. Debate
and argument will not budge most men.
The magnetic and attractive power of the cross is the key power of
Christianity. Point to the cross if you
will see men drawn to Christ. His
teachings may leave men cold, and His miracles may not persuade, but His cross
will draw all men.
Listen
to the testimony of Goethe in his Confessions Of A Beautiful Soul: "I leaned on a little table beside me,
and I hid my tear stained face in my hands, and who could ever express even in
the dimmest way the experience that came to me then? A secret influence drew my soul to the cross where Jesus once
expired. It was an inward leaning‑I
cannot give it any other name‑and inward leaning like that which draws
the heart to its beloved in its absence.
As my soul drew near to Him who became mine and died upon the Cross, in
that moment I knew what Faith meant; and in that moment my spirit received a
wholly new power of uplifting."
Not by
might nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord. Silently and inwardly the
cross draws men upward to God. The Holy Spirit can use the cross to convict and
convince when nothing else will be effective. Jesus knew that the cross was
necessary if He were to become the magnetic pole of history. He knew that only
the cross could make him the center of attraction and thereby draw men to
receive the benefits which He purchased for them by His death. Way back in John
3:14‑15 Jesus said to Nicodemus "As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in
him may have eternal life."
The
serpent in the Old Testament was lifted up on a pole so that all who looked at
it lives who were bitten by the serpents attacking the people of Israel. If the
sting of death was to be overcome, a look at the serpent on the pole was a
necessity. Jesus says he also must be lifted up like that serpent so that all
who are under the attack of that old serpent the devil may also look and live.
The cross is the antidote for all the poison of sin. It is on the cross that
Jesus is most attractive, for there He becomes the great physician capable of
healing all diseases and forgiving all sin.
High on the Cross the Savior hung,
High in the heavens he reigns;
Here sinners, by the old serpent stung
Look and forget your pains.
Come then to this Physician,
His help he'll freely give;
He makes no hard condition,
Tis only‑look and live.
Author unknown
Look to
the cross and you will be attracted to Christ, for the Cross magnetized Him,
and gave Him unsurpassed drawing power. As the beauty of the flower attracts
all who have the capacity to appreciated beauty, so the cross attracts all who,
by God's grace, have the capacity to appreciate the beauty of sacrificial love,
and the beauty of victory over all that is evil.
Let us
keep ever near the cross, for a magnet can pass on the power of attraction. If
you touch a needle with a magnet it can take on the power of attraction. Christ
is the master magnet, but if we keep near the cross and the Christ of the cross
we too can have drawing power to bring others to Christ. May God keep us, by
His Spirit, even near the cross, for it is a necessity for the magnifying of
the Father; the mastering of the devil, and the magnetizing of the Son.
3. THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE
CROSS Based on I Cor. 1:18‑31
The mayor
and other dignitaries were looking into the vast pit dug for the new hospital
to be built. The town half‑wit
came up and gazed into the pit, and asked the mayor what he was going to do
with this big hole. The mayor decided
to humor him and said, "We are going to round up all the fools in town and
pile them in there." The half‑wit
thought a moment and then said, "Whose gonna be left to cover um
up?"
Even a
half‑wit knows that in some sense all men are fools, but I have to confess
I never really realized to what degree this is true until I studied what the
Bible says about fools and foolishness.
The subject is so vast, and the evidence is so overwhelming that only a
fool would deny that all men are fools.
This does not sound very nice, however, and so it is wise for us to see
there is a positive side to being a fool.
So much so, that Paul in I Cor. 3:18 urges Christians to be fools, and
in 4:10 he says, "We are fools for Christ."
To add
to the paradox of being a Christian fool, Paul in this passage of I Cor. 1:18‑31
glories in Christian folly, and links almost everything of Christian nobility
to foolishness. He writes of the foolishness of the cross; the foolishness of
wisdom, and the foolishness of preaching, and most shocking of all, for it
seems to border on blasphemy, Paul even writes in verse 25 of the foolishness
of God. Then he says in verse 27 that
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And the foolish things are the
Christians.
So what
it comes down to is this: All men are
in some sense fools, but since all are not fools in the same way, we have to
make a distinction between worldly fools and wise fools.The worldly fools are
those who feel so wise they have no need of light from God. These fools say in their hearts that there
is no God. Man is the measure of all
things, and He determines His own destiny.
They say science and human philosophy is all we need to produce a
utopia. We do not need the Bible or God
to create our own heaven.
The wise
fool, in contrast, recognizes that human wisdom is so limited, and so there is
a need for wisdom from above. They are
seen as fools from the point of view of the worldly fool. God, however, sees them as wise, and so the
two perspectives make them wise fools‑
that is people who seem to choose foolishness and
trust in foolishness, but because it is the foolishness of God, they are
wise. So what we have here is a study
in relativity. The worldly wise who
reject God's revelation are, in relation to eternal truth, fools. Those, however, who choose the way of God
are seen as fools, in relation to the way of the world, but in fact, they are
the truly wise. Type one fools seem
wise to men, but are fools to God. Type 2 fools seems fools to men, but are
wise to God. So wisdom and folly are
relative to whose perspective you are seeing them from.
Paul's
whole battle with the Corinthians was to get them to stop being wise before the
world and fools before God, and to reverse that to being fools before the
world, and wise before God. The goal of
the Christian is to become a wise fool.
The Corinthians were missing this mark because they came from a long
tradition of philosophers who had all the answers. As Greeks they were considered a wise people. The result was, the church was in chaos
because of all the pride of worldly wisdom.
Some thought Paul was the best. Others that it was Peter, and still
others that Apollos was number one.
Some said they were all wrong, and we follow Jesus only. The church was divided because, in their
pride, they were deciding what was best.
They were also picking and choosing the gifts they felt were best. In pride Christians can set themselves up as
the judge of what is wise and what is foolish, and in so doing they make their
human judgment, rather than God's revelation, the basis for their value system,
and this is folly.
If human
reason is going to be the standard of judgment, then the whole plan of God is
nothing but foolishness, and nothing is more foolish than the foolishness of
the cross. Just look at the evidence of
its folly.
1. The
innocent dying for the guilty.
2. The folly
of having a way out and not taking it.
3. The folly
of having power to destroy your enemy, but letting them destroy you.
4. The folly
of surrender to a foe you could easily conquer.
5. The folly
of suffering when comfort and pleasure is at your command.
6. The folly
of having the power to do miracles, and yet do nothing.
7. The folly
of having an eloquent defense and yet not opening your mouth.
8. The folly
of going to hell when you never had to leave heaven.
9. The folly
of volunteering for a job that is certain death.
10. The folly of being God and yet letting mere men
push you around.
11. The folly of forgiving those most worthy of
judgment.
We could
go on, but I am sure you get the point.
The cross is pure foolishness from a rational point of view. It is nonsense, and a ridiculous way for God
to go about saving man from the perspective of the worldly wise. An intelligent lost man is scandalized by
the cross. He feels that only fools can
be Christians if they buy into the foolishness of the cross. When Paul gave his testimony and told of the
death and resurrection of Christ, the procurator Festes interrupted him in Acts
26:24 and said to him, "You are out of your mind, Paul! Your great learning is driving you
insane." Paul responds in verse
25, "I am not insane...What I am saying is true and reasonable. So what we have here is the worldly fool
meeting the wise fool, and each fool feels the other is a fool indeed. And the point is, both are right from their
point of view.
The
village screwball met a friend coming down the sidewalk, and he said,
"Tell me which is the other side of the street." The friend said, "The other side is
over there" pointing to the other side.
"That's funny," said the screwball, "That's what I
thought too,
but I was just over there and the lady there said it was over her