Blinded by the Cross

Please bow your heads as I pray. Heavenly Father, I come before you by the blood of your dear son Jesus of Nazareth, who shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins. I pray that you grant the grace of saving faith to someone here to where you awaken them to their lost condition.

And that your spirit will come and disturb folks. That they will see where they're going. That they're going straight to a devil's hell.

That you will open their ears so they can hear your voice. That you open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan onto God. That they may receive forgiveness of sins through a revealed Christ.

That they may look unto you and be saved. That they'll be blinded by the cross and turn from their wicked ways and turn to a bleeding and dying Christ who loved me and gave himself for me. Make someone here feel your love for a world of guilty sinners and change their heart by your grace so they can believe on Jesus your son.

So they can be saved by Jesus. So they can be changed by Jesus. So they can live for Jesus.

So they can fall head over heels in love with Jesus. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

I want you to pay attention to this message today friends because it may be the most important one you'll ever hear. Because it concerns your eternal soul. Yes, I said your eternal soul.

You have a soul within your body that will one day through death take you out of this world and take you into another world. Either the glory of God's heaven or the miseries of a devil's hell. I'm not going to sugarcoat things for you today friends like some preachers do by telling you what you want to hear so that you'll like them.

I don't care if you like me or not. It doesn't matter a hill of beans what you think of me. I died a long time ago.

But it does matter to me what a risen Christ thinks of me. And I must preach Christ and him crucified. The title of my message today friends is blinded by the cross.

And I'm going to give you the undiluted gospel of the cross. Like we say in the south, I'm going to give you the oil straight from the can because I care about your soul. Turn with me friends in your Bibles to the book of Acts.

We will be in chapter 22 and we'll be taking a look at verses 6 through 9. This striking passage of scripture is the apostle Paul's own testimony of his conversion. So it's pretty important I think we better pay attention to it. Here now is the word of God.

And it came to pass that as I made my journey and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell onto the ground and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

I will stop there friends. Paul was blinded by the cross that day. It literally turned him upside down and knocked him off his horse that day.

He was stopped dead in his tracks and he heard God's voice and he saw God's son Jesus. And he made an about face from the direction he was going in to turn and go in a different direction altogether and go smack dab straight to Christ Jesus. Listen to me friend, if God's going to save you, it will be a work of grace because if you really saved, it's because God gave you saving faith.

You don't find salvation in a decision you make. You must find Christ. You were saved when you receive a revealed Christ and the spirit of God works regeneration on the heart and you experience change.

All men come into this world with a poison in their blood because of Adam's sin. You were born with a rune nature and a bent toward sin. Men go through life in a pursuit of this world and give little thought to where they will spend eternity.

It's like they're in a boat, casually going down the stream, tasting life's pleasures as they come and go, carelessly drifting along, consumed with the journey of this world and ignorant of the fact that at the end of the stream is a dangerous precipice with a vast chasm that will plunge you into outer darkness. Your trouble is you've never heard a preacher warn you before of your great danger of dying in your sins. They just sugarcoated the gospel for you.

You've never had a God called preacher address you and be honest with your soul and cry at the top of his voice warning to you, fire, fire, flee from the wrath to come. Don't go to hell friend. Repent before it's too late because men are failed to be warned.

It's because men are burnt up, but I didn't come here today to make you happy or to make you laugh, but to warn you. This is a solemn warning. You must get your sins washed into blood and you must be born from above or you're just going to go on to hell.

Notice two things here in our text. Paul was blinded by the cross. It changed his life's direction and he heard God's voice where his traveling companions did not.

If you get saved from this message today, friend, it won't be because you heard my pitiful crackling voice, but because you were blinded by the cross and you heard his voice. Let me tell you about Jesus. Jesus came down here so we can go up there.

I know you've heard about all the good things Jesus did when he was here. Jesus came into the world doing good. Jesus healed the sick.

Jesus fed the hungry. Jesus gave sight to the blind. Jesus gave rest to the weary.

Jesus even raised the dead to life. Yet what happened? Men cried away with him and nailed him to a cross. They placed a crown of thorns on Jesus' head and they crucified Jesus.

Between two criminals there up on Calvary's hill, the son of man was crucified. Roman soldiers drove nails into Jesus' hands and feet. There Jesus hung on that cross.

It's a bloody spectacle for all to see. Look at that man on the cross, friend. Look at that blessed man on the cross hanging there with his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him and believe on him.

Look at that bloodstained savior from sin as he wrestles under the weight of sin. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Look at that blessed man on the cross, friend, as he squirms in agony and pain.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. The cross is the place where wicked men sought to get rid of him, but by his death it becomes the place where his saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing their sinners and own them as their Savior and Lord.

Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Don't go to hell, friend. Hell is a region of demons, of outer darkness.

It is a bottomless pit because it's a prison that holds hundreds and hundreds of millions of the souls of the damned where they cry day and night in the smoke and torments of burnings. But the only way a sinner will get into God's holy heaven is for that sinner to be justified by Christ's blood. Listen, friend, I know I am a sinner and I need a substitute for sin, and so do you, friend, so do you.

The only way this poor preacher will get into God's holy heaven is when Christ's life is laid down and applied to me. Do you understand that? Let me explain it to you this way. There's a story I heard years ago, and it helped me understand how to get to Jesus.

And if you want to be saved, friend, you must get to Jesus and believe on him. I'm almost done with my sermon, so sit up and pay attention to the story about how a person gets to go to heaven. It's the story about a man traveling through the city of St. Louis, and it is a Sunday, and he is a Christian, so he parks his car at a downtown church and goes inside to worship.

Once he's in there, he realizes he's the only white person in an all-black church, so he takes his seat on the back row. Up on the platform is the well-dressed elderly pastor who's speaking on a subject that Sunday morning. His subject is heaven.

He begins a sermon by saying, Some folks call heaven paradise. Other folks call it Abraham's bosom. I like to think of heaven this way.

Here is Jesus, just returned from his earthly ministry. He stands there at the pearly gates, and old Gabriel comes to greet him. Hello, Jesus.

Sure is good to see you, Jesus. We sure missed you up here, Jesus. Sure is good to have you home, Jesus.

But wait, who's that with you? Is that that thief from the cross? Oh, no, sir. We can't have no thieves up here. He's not welcome here, Jesus replied.

Never you mind, Gabriel. Never you mind. And just then, Jesus put his arm around the thief and declared, He's with me.

If you get saved, friend, it's because you were blinded by the cross, and that man on the cross was revealed to you as the only remedy for sin. But you must get to him and believe on him, so that when you stand at the judgment, even though your sins condemn you as a guilty sinner, you will hear the voice of the Savior say, He's with me. She's with me.

Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.