The Offense of the Cross

Today, you can walk into just about any church in this country and hear a nice little sermon on how God loves you. In many of these churches, you will be handed a nice little bubblegum Jesus that you can accept, chew on for a while, and swallow if you want to, and that church will gladly accept you into its membership so you can be as dead as they are. Everybody preaches nice little sermons today that don't upset anybody.

The problem is they don't save anybody either. Back in the times of Christ, if a criminal was sentenced by the Romans to die on a cross, it was considered a scandalous way to die, for the cross itself was considered a scandal, an open shame, and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of the cross as an offense to a sinful man, but we don't preach it that way today. No, we don't preach the offense of the cross anymore because we don't want to offend anyone, but we better get back to preaching what's in our Bible, friends, and draw a line in the sand and be honest with folks and tell them this is the truth Jesus declared, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish, and we need to tell folks that He is a risen Lord, and if you want Him, you better take Him on His terms with all His rights and claims on you.

If you want to be a follower of Him, a crucified Savior has crucified followers, and when you start doing that, friend, they will start coming after you because you'll have a fight on your hands. This was the case with the Apostle Paul who was whipped and stoned and imprisoned and eventually beheaded for the sake of the gospel. Listen to Paul's words from his epistle to the Galatians, and I, brethren, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then this is the offense of the cross ceased, and that's the problem in our country today, friends.

The offense of the cross has ceased to be preached in our pulpits, but the cross of Christ will always be an offense to man. A sinful man will not surrender to it or bow to it, rather he will cry. We will not have this man reign over us, but they will gladly take your little bubblegum Jesus and chew on Him a while because they can have heaven and hang on to their sins as well, but the Bible declares in Romans as it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

And if you want further proof of what the gospel is, listen to the Apostle Peter declare the following, wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a cheap cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same as made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. Listen friends, people will gladly take a ticket to heaven as long as they can stay in the driver's seat on the way there, but you know what? When you truly get saved, something happens, a self is dethroned, and another is enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ, but as long as people can remain the same and accept your little bubblegum Jesus, keep the lifestyle they love, and cherish and hug their sins, and be tied to their idols, they'll gladly take that free ticket to heaven as an insurance policy against hell, but let a man begin to preach that the gospel is not less holy than the law of God, and that God demands holiness on his followers, and if you want to be saved, you must throw down your shotgun of rebellion at the feet of a sovereign, and turn and repent from your sins, you must surrender your all to his lordship, because he gave his all for you, then you'll have a fight on your hands, then they'll hand you your head, you see friends, God's son didn't come down here to die so you could do as you please, but rather Jesus hung on a bloody cross because of your rotten sins, and he didn't die on that cross so you could go to heaven, and still hang on to your rotten filthy sins, no sir, God will have no rebels in his kingdom, you want heaven, but you want to live like hell down here, and thumb your nose at a thrice holy God, and believe yourself to be saved, the two doctrines that will crucify the flesh more than any other, and the two doctrines that will be hated by a sinful man more than any other are these, repentance, and the lordship of Jesus Christ, now you start preaching those brother preacher, and you'll get your scars, Mordecai Ham had a powerful preaching ministry that was unequal to many in his day, and his main message was a two-pronged message, and those two prongs were a man's duty of repentance, and the necessity of surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ, and what did Mordecai Ham receive for his labors, what did he get for his message, well they say that over 200,000 people came to Christ under his powerful preaching ministry, and he was also pistol whipped in a hotel lobby, he was struck with a chain at the back of his head that left a big scar on his skull, he was manhandled by a band of men who had a bucket of tar, a sack of feathers, and a rope, and their goal was to first take him out to the river, tar him, feather him, and then hang him there from a tree until dead, but the local sheriff found out about it, called in the calvary, and they rescued him before he was hanged, they gave him a police escort out of town, and assigned a sheriff's deputy to him on the train, and this is what the deputy said to him while they were riding on that train out of town, Mr. Ham, you've been calm and quiet through all this uproar of being run out of that Texas town, I want what you have sir, what must I do to be saved, when Mordecai Ham was preaching repentance and the lordship of Christ in the town of Jackson, Tennessee in the early 1920s, one-third of the town got saved under his mighty preaching of a scandalous cross, a cross of offense, strong men were cut asunder with the preached word as they were convicted of their sins, and saw their great danger of dying in their sins and dropping into hell, the gospel that Ham preached was an offense to sinful man, and Mordecai Ham was always in a battle with the devil and sin, and his whole ministry was a one big battlefront, in fact his biography is entitled 50 years on the battlefront, for when Mordecai Ham came to town, there was war, he had a fruitful ministry because he wasn't afraid of man, and he preached that the cross was an offense and a stumbling stone, and he either bowed to it, or were crushed beneath it, a young Billy Graham heard that message in a tent meeting, and was saved under the preaching of Mordecai Ham, but today we hear nice little sermons that don't offend anybody, God loves you, God loves you, just take this little bubblegum Jesus, and chew on them for a while, and you will go to heaven, a hogwash, it's all hogwash, listen friends, the lordship of Christ cannot be ignored by men and women, and still get to heaven when they die, and if you don't repent, you will surely drop into a burning place of torment called hell, that's because God almighty demands as a condition of salvation on the part of the sinner, a repentance towards God, even if some major seminary tells you different, even if your pastor tells you different, and do you know what repentance towards God means friend? It means this, that the love of sin must die, you must repudiate it, you must renounce it, you must forsake it, and turn from it, and cry to God for deliverance from its power, listen friend, you were either dead in sin, or you were either dead to sin, and the other condition that God almighty requires from sinful man is this, a saving faith, and saving faith means a surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord, there is no other way into heaven than that, God requires total submission to Jesus as Lord, and God will accept no one, nobody, no man, no woman, who tries to get to heaven, and denies the Lordship of Christ in his or her life, now you start preaching that brother, and the good deacons will come after you, you will have a war on your hands, because people want heaven, and they want to hug their sins, and run their own life, just the way they like it, and if you preach a rock, or an offense, or a stumbling stone, that gets in the way of what they want, they will crucify you, but if you want heaven, if you consider yourself truly saved, then the Lord Jesus Christ must have rule in your life, as an absolute king, and master, he is a sovereign friend, your life is not your own, your body is not your own, your time is not your own, your money is not your own, he must be a complete master, now that is a rock of offense to many, and many will stumble over it, and many will be crushed by it in the end, but in our churches today, the good pulpit search committee, will find them a pastor, who knows how to grow a church peacefully, they will choose a man who preaches nice comfortable sermons, for comfortable services, and comfort loving people, who don't want to be upset, and they'll get them a man, fresh from seminary, who will tickle their ears, and speak peace, peace to them that have no peace, for there's no peace for the wicked, but listen to me friends, I will preach the true gospel, and the cross, and the offense of it, I will warn you of your danger, of dying in your sins, and going to hell, I will inform you of your duty of repentance, and the utter necessity of a work of regeneration upon the heart, I will warn you that unless you submit wholly to God, and throw down all your weapons of rebellion, turn from your sins, and repent toward God, you will perish, because that's what my master declared, he said, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish, and what they call Christianity today, in most of our churches today friends, is nothing but a sham, a watered down gospel, an easy belief, no soul salvation, but listen to me friends, the cross of Christ is a scandalous cross, it has his blood all over it, because of sin, how can you hang on to your sins, when he died to save you from them, we live in a church day, where the lordship of Jesus Christ is rejected by the majority, we live in a day, where a pastor can tell you that salvation is by faith alone, and that repentance is not necessary in a gospel message, but that's not true friend, because if you preach man's duty of repentance, then you have to preach on sin, and if you preach on sin, you'll be forced to preach about a bloody savior, who hung on a cross for sin, and that's a scandal, that's offensive to sinful man, but I will leave you with this thought friends, the character of a holy god, demands that a day is fast approaching for every sinner, and that day is called death, where a sinner who dies in his sins, will be cut off and sent to hell, and there's a day fast approaching on the horizon, and it speaks about it in my bible, in the 13th chapter of Matthew, let me read it to you, while I close this message, and let it ring in your ears, the son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom, all things that offend, and them which do iniquity.