Cross and Gospel 3

and save us. The miracles, and many of the miracles we see today are not true miracles. As much as we appreciate, and I believe in miracles, but they cannot save us.

The wisdom and the knowledge of the scriptures, as high as I elevate the scriptures and as important as it is, the scriptures cannot save us. There is only one thing that can save us, and that's the work that Jesus did on the cross of Calvary. And that is what we need to preach.

You see, in verse 21 it says that it is through the foolishness of the messiah preached that he's chosen to save those who believe. Now we've been told today that preaching is preaching is dead. There is no more place for preaching.

And as our brother from Kentucky said, just the presence of the young folk here disprove that theory. Sound bites, and video shows, and smoke machines, and rock music cannot save. There is only one thing that can bring us to the point of salvation, and that is the preaching of the gospel.

The preaching of the gospel. And those who are part of this church can praise God that you still have a pastor who preaches. And I don't know how long he preaches if he's just long-winded like me, and it goes over an hour.

Sometimes we get impatient. Praise God for preachers who can still preach an hour, and for people who can listen for 45 minutes. In most churches people can't listen for more than 15 minutes.

And so as one preacher says, the preachers preach sermonettes, and that produces Christianettes. We need to preach the word, Paul says to Timothy. Chapter 2, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 1, And I, brethren, when I came to you did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. There is no other message. It's the old, old story, but it's ever new.

When you read the book of Acts, you read in almost every chapter what the apostles preached. What did they preach? They preached Jesus. The next chapter says they preached Christ.

That was the message. It was Jesus. And I've forgotten, I think it's over 20 times that the book of Acts speaks about the fact that they preached Jesus Christ to them.

That was the message. And that is the message today. In fact, I've just written an article which will come out this week on the fact that we have grown tired of Jesus, because we have not actually met the real Jesus.

Because when you meet the real Jesus, you can never get tired of Him. He's ever beautiful. He's ever wonderful.

He's ever glorious. The depths of His majesty and His beauty are infinite. And as you peel back layer after layer of Him, you discover greater depths and greater magnificence and greater beauty.

Oh, that God may just reveal to us again Jesus as He is revealed to us in the scriptures. Jesus says you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life. But it is they that speak of me.

And you know, we're fascinated by the Old Testament stories of the conquests of David and the wisdom of Solomon. And we miss the fact that in fact all of the scriptures are just preaching one message, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and Him crucified and buried and rose again. Unfortunately, the cross does not just apply to Jesus.

The cross applies to you and me also. And that is the particular part of the message we don't like. I know many churches have removed the symbol of the cross from their buildings, because it is an offense.

And I think it's an offense not just because of the blood and the gore and the awesomeness of that day when the precious Son of God was nailed to that Roman cross. But it is also an offense because it calls for the death of everyone who would follow Him. Matthew chapter 16.

Please turn with me. I'm going to speed up a little bit. I have 10 minutes.

I'm going to try and finish in time. Matthew chapter 16, verse 24. Then Jesus said, Matthew 16, 24, Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gained the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Now when it speaks here about saving your life for your soul, whoever desires to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

He's not speaking of finding your life in the way that Rick Warren speaks about finding yourself. That's the way he applies the scripture. The scripture has got nothing to do about finding yourself.

You heard about the hippie who spent 20 years trying to find himself. He eventually did when he got a haircut. The context is clear.

He's not speaking about finding yourself in that hippie era terminology. He's speaking about finding eternal life. And the only way to find eternal life is to die to this life.

And Jesus explains this over and over. In fact, these words appear five times in the Gospels. And elsewhere, Jesus speaks about the fact that unless a grain of seed fall into the ground, it will remain alone.

It can only bear fruit and it can only be changed into something different, into a plant that has life when it dies in the ground. And the only way we will find eternal life is if we are prepared to die to self and to this life. And as we take up our cross and follow Jesus.

But you see, we don't like that message. And us preachers don't like that message because that doesn't get us a lot of people to follow us. And if I tell you that if you're an unbeliever and you've not made a commitment to Jesus Christ, and I tell you, well, friend, the only way you can get saved is if you give up everything.

Lose your life. That's the only way. You say, well, brother, I don't like that message.

I'd rather go down the street to the preacher down there who says, just come and bring whatever you are and whoever you are and I'll just help you to be better. And on top of it, you'll get rich and you'll become powerful and you'll have influence and you'll reach your full potential. Who do you think people are going to follow? But remember that Jesus in fact spoke the same words to a rich young man who came to him one day.

He was a ruler. He was a man of the scriptures, the old Testament. And you know, I think that most preachers today, if that rich young man came and said, pastor, God has laid it on my heart to join your church.

We would say, well, welcome brother. And we see the dollar signs and we see his Lexus outside and we figure out, well, you know, this is an extra so many dollars in the bag at the end of the day. He's a man of stature and of influence.

He can, he can bring in some other people. Brother, come and sit up here. You know what Jesus did? He made it almost impossible for that young man to follow him.

He said, go and sell everything. Not like they tell you today, go and sell it and give it to me. So just get rid of it, sell it and give it away.

And it wasn't that Jesus was not caring. The book of Mark says that Jesus loved that young man. There was something in that young man.

There was potential. There was hope. There was something in that young man that Jesus loved.

And Jesus said, if I can only snatch this man for the kingdom, but you know what? He was not prepared to take a shortcut. He was not prepared to make it easy for that young man. He said to him, there's only one way and that is die.

Repent, turn away, turn to me. Now this passage here in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus speaks in a particular context. The context is that he said to his disciples, who do men say that I am? You know the story.

Peter says, you're the Christ. And Peter was rejoicing when he got that revelation, not just because he got the revelation, because here was the hope of Israel, the one who would deliver them from the Romans and set up the kingdom of David again. Peter said, this is a wonderful day.

And Jesus says, I've got to go to the cross. And Peter says, don't do it, Lord. Don't let them use you.

Far be it from you, Lord, to go to the cross. What does Jesus say? Get behind me, Satan. You see, because this is the other gospel.

Lord, you can set up your kingdom without the cross. Pastor, you can build your church without the message of the cross. Just preach Jesus as the king, as the Messiah, as the one who's going to set up his kingdom.

Don't preach him as the crucified one. And it's in that context that Jesus says, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross. When Satan came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of the ministry of the Lord Jesus, you remember there were three temptations.

What were those temptations about? They were offers to bypass the cross. That was all they were about. Jesus didn't need bread to eat.

He knew he'd come to the end of his fast, the end of the 40 days, he was going to eat within a day or so. At that stage, he wasn't hungry anyway. His body had lost its desire to eat anyway.

But Satan knew that if Jesus could change those stones into bread, men would follow him because he fed them. In fact, later on in the ministry of Jesus, this happened. You remember he said, you haven't followed me because of my words, you're following me because of the bread I gave you.

And so the temptation was for him to build his kingdom on the needs of the people. And that is the kingdom that is being built in the churches today is based on the needs of the people. And one of the techniques that is used is for you to go out into the community and to survey the community and say, what do you need? How can we as a church help you in your needs? And Jesus said, that's not the way.

The second temptation was for him to jump from the temple. It was a time of the feast. There were many Jews there.

And in modern language, it was a temptation for him to build his kingdom on advertising and marketing techniques, the spectacular. Just prove yourself. The third temptation, just fall down and worship me, was a temptation to compromise.

Satan said, you'll still get what you gain. The ends justify the means. You're still going to get the kingdom.

I'll give you all of these kingdoms. Just compromise. And pastors and preachers are being tempted right now just to bow to Satan and to his systems.

God give us grace that we may say there is only one message that can save, and that's the message of the cross of Calvary. At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, there is nothing else that can save. There is no other message that can save, and there is no other way that I can get back to God except through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Praise God.