1 Corinthians 1:18-24: "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness;
but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world?
hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God,
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock,
and unto the Greeks foolishness;
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God,
and the wisdom of God."
("I like to read the Scripture first, and then pray.
I like to begin the message by quoting the Old Rugged Cross" -- Dr. Harold L. White)
""On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff'ring and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary.
In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then He'll call me some day to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I'll share.
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown." -- George Bennard
The Cross is so very special and enduring to all of us who love the Lord Jesus Christ.
But we must remember that is not so much the cross that we honor -- it is Jesus who died on it.
We do not exalt the cross beams or those rugged bloodsoaked pieces of timber
that stood on Golgotha minute centuries ago.
It is because of Jesus who died on it that we honor it so very much.
And we should honor it.
We must always remember what took place on that cross 2000 years ago.
It is amazing that Jesus never asked us to remember His birth.
He never asked us to remember His resurrection, but when He instituted the Lords Supper,
He told us to remember His death.
Paul said in Galatians 6:14 that he was going to glory in the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine someone finding glory in the electric chair, or glory in the gallows.
Yet Paul said he was going to glory in the Cross.
We understand why Paul gloried in the Cross when we remember
just what the old rugged Cross really means to you and to me.
It is in the Cross that the power of salvation comes.
Paul speaks of the message of the Cross being the power of God in 1 Corinthians 1:18.
The word message literally should be translated "word."
The word of the Cross is the power of God.
This word is not what we say about the Cross, it is rather what the Cross says to us.
The word of the Cross is God's first and last word of salvation.
It is God's first word because Jesus was slain before the foundation of this world.
But it is also God's last word of salvation, for this is where God has finally and forever
provided a way for us to be saved and to go to heaven.
It is God's plan of salvation.
Anyone that is going to be saved must come to the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no other plan of salvation.
The only highway that goes to heaven goes right through Calvary.
No one can bypass the Cross if they want to go to heaven.
You cannot go around the Cross if you want eternal life.
Hebrews 9: 22 says, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission."
That is why many people hate the Cross so much.
It leaves no room for human merit, human achievement, or human works.
It is all of grace.
There is no other way of salvation.
No one just living a good life and doing good can earn their way into heaven.
Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way which seems right to a man,
but its end is the way of death."
The Cross is not the best way to heaven, it is the only way to heaven.
It is God's way of going to heaven.
Not only is a Jew lost without Jesus, a Gentile is lost without Jesus.
One of my own children, my own mother, my own life is lost without Jesus.
If you are going to go to heaven, you will have to go by the way of the cross.
It is God's plan of salvation.
"I must needs go home
By the way of the Cross.
There's no other way but this.
I shall ne'er get sight
Of the Gates of Light,
If the way of the cross I miss."
The way of the cross is the only way to heaven.
It is God's unique and only plan.
Paul says that the Cross and Christ crucified is the power of God,
both to the Jews into the Greeks. (1 Corinthians 1:23)
The Bible divides all the people of the world into two basic groups.
Spiritually, the Bible says, there are the wheat and there are the tares.
There are the sheep and there are the goats.
But nationally and ethically the Bible says that are Jews and Greeks.
You are either a Jew or a Gentile.
It doesn't matter what color you are, or what language you speak,
or in what country you were born; you are either a Jew or a Gentile.
Now when the Scripture speaks of Jews and Greeks,
it is simply the biblical way of speaking of everybody.
The cross is not the Gentile way to be saved, or the Western way to be saved,
or even the Baptists way to be saved; the cross is everybody's way to be saved.
God did not just so loved the Baptists, or just so loved the West, or just loved America;
God so loved this world that He gave his only Son to die on an old rugged Cross. (John 3:16)
That is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:24 that Jesus is both the power and the wisdom of God.
Think about that.
All people in the world have the same universal need.
People need to know what is right and they need to do what is right.
They need the wisdom to know what to do, then they need the power to do it.
Christ offers both.
In other words, Jesus is all that you need.
Jesus is all the Gentile needs.
Jesus is all that the Jew needs.
Jesus is all that the world really needs.
The Cross is God's universal salvation plan.
Stubbornly, Paul said he was going to preach Christ crucified.
That's interesting.
Why wasn't he going to preach Christ incarnate, Christ virgin-born?
Why not preach Christ risen.
There are three things that separate Jesus Christ from every other man who ever lived,
and that is the cradle, the Cross, and the crown: His virgin birth, His substitutionary death,
and His resurrection from the dead.
Without the cradle, the Cross would have been useless.
If Jesus had not been born of a virgin, He could not have taken my sins upon Himself
because He would have had sin within Him.
And without the resurrection, the Cross would have been meaningless.
Because if Jesus had not been raised from the dead, it would have been proof positive
that He was a liar and not the Lord, and not the Son of God.
But without the Cross the cradle would have been useless.
In the cradle Jesus, the Son of God was born.
At the tomb Jesus was raised as King of kings.
But at the cross Jesus became the Saviour of the world.
I not only need a risen Lord, I need a crucified Saviour.
It is the Christ on the Cross that is the power of God to all who are being saved.
That is why the preaching of the Cross and preaching Christ crucified must be an absolute priority.
First Corinthians 1:21 tells us that it pleases God to save those who believe
through the foolishness of preaching.
Now, it is not foolish preaching that pleases God, and I'm certain there is enough
foolish preaching going around.
But it is the foolishness of the message being preached.
It is the foolishness of preaching a crucified Saviour that God uses to save all
who will come to Him.
Paul could have easily compromised the message.
Paul could have said that the message of the Cross is a stumbling block to the Jews
and it is foolishness to the Greek, so one should alter it, change it, make it more acceptable,
tone it down, polish it so that people will listen.
But Paul knew that it was an unchangeable message because only in Christ crucified
do we have Jesus Christ, the power and wisdom of God.
Every preacher worth his salt had better be a preacher of the Cross.
Someone once asked Charles Haddon Spurgeon, "All of your sermon sound exactly the same.
Why is that?"
Spurgeon responded, "Because I just take a text, anywhere in the Bible,
and then make a beeline straight to the Cross."
Of course this is not to say that all we should preach is the Cross, and neither did Paul say that.
But the foundation and the center of all our preaching should be Christ crucified.
Billy Graham tells of an incident that happened early in his ministry.
After he preached once to a great crowd, there was very little response to his message.
As he was leaving the platform and old man came up to him, put his arm around him and said,
"Billy, you didn't preach the cross tonight.
Your message was good, but you didn't preach the Cross."
Billy Graham said that he went to his room and wept and said,
"Oh God, so help me, there will never be a sermon that I preach again unless
the Cross is central."
There is power indeed in the wonderer-working power in the Cross of salvation.
The Cross not only saves some, it separates everyone.
The Cross is the great divide.
People don't mind religion.
They don't mind the church.
They really don't mind the Bible.
But if you want to divide a group of people, you place the Cross before them
and watch them scurry to one side or the other.
In 1 Corinthians 1:18 Paul speaks of those who are perishing and those who are being saved.
Some people look upon the Cross as foolishness, but others look upon it as the power of God.
Now there are some people who are perishing.
The word perishing literally means "to be cut loose."
There are some people who come to the Cross, and are repelled by it,
and then they drift away from God.
Then there are others who come to the Cross and are drawn by it.
They come into fellowship with God.
The Cross determines whether or not you are perishing, or being saved.
It is your response to the Cross that determines whether you are lost or saved.
Your response to the Cross determines whether you are headed for hell or heaven.
There are three different attitudes that people take toward the Cross.
For some, the Cross is a stumbling block.
For some, the Cross is foolishness.
But for others the Cross is the power of God.
To the Jews, the Cross was a stumbling block.
We get the word "scandal" from that Greek word.
The cross was a scandal of the Jews.
It was repulsive to them.
It was disgusting to speak of a crucified Saviour.
To the Greeks it was foolishness
to the Greeks the Cross was moronic -- it was a joke.
Yet to others, it was indeed the power of God unto salvation.
The Jews required a sign.
They were looking for wonders.
The Jews were looking for a political Messiah.
They were searching for someone who would come storming up on a white charger,
with their sword drawn, ready to restore the lost glory and kingdom of Israel
as it was in the days of David and Solomon.
As they studied the Old Testament, they read all about the coming kingdom,
and they were looking for a Messiah who would come and set up an earthly throne and kingdom.
Even the disciples, after the resurrection of Jesus, asked Him,
"Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6)
the Jews were continuously looking for signs, wonders, and miracles of the coming Messiah.
Over and over Jesus spoke to these Jews about their need for a sign.
In John 4:48 Jesus said, "Unless you people see signs and wonders,
you will by no means believe."
Again in Luke 11:29) Jesus said, "This is an evil generation.
It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the Prophet."
Jesus said that this was to be the only sign.
What did He mean?
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights,
Jesus' sign was to be the crucified Saviour on a cross, in a tomb for three days,
and then raised from the dead.
God gave the Jews a sign, the sign of the Cross.
It was the only sign they ever needed to be saved, yet instead of rejoicing they stumbled over it.
Have you ever been looking for something, only to find that all the time it was there.
So it was for the Jews a stumbling block.
It was just what they were looking for all the time, and yet they rejected it.
I told this story before about a man whose house was flooded.
And the waters of the flood had surrounded his house.
So he got up on top of his roof, and said, "God, I want You to deliver me from this flood.
I'm just going to trust You to do it."
Soon someone came by in a rowboat, and offered to take the stranded man to safety.
He said, "Oh no, that's all right. Don't worry about me. God will take care of me."
The flood waters kept coming up and up until they were almost at his waist.
About that time a helicopter flew over his head and the man inside the helicopter said,
"Take hold of the rope and we will pull you up."
The man responded, "Oh no, don't worry about me.
God will take care of me and deliver me."
The helicopter left, and soon after that the flood waters rose, and the man drowned.
The next scene was in heaven.
The man was still wringing wet as he walked up to the throne room of God,
and said, "I don't understand it, God.
I asked You to deliver me and You let me drown.
Why didn't You save me?"
The Lord answered, "I sent you a rowboat and a helicopter.
What else did you want?"
God has done the same for us.
God sent us a sign.
It was the sign of the Cross.
What more could anyone want?
To some the Cross is a stumbling block, but to others the Cross is a laughingstock.
Some people reject the Cross, but others just ridicule it.
The Jews sought for wonders, but the Greeks sought for wisdom.
The Greeks were known for their great philosophers and their knowledge.
They had come to the point where they literally deified wisdom.
They worship the shrine of science and knowledge.
Doesn't that sound familiar to us today?
There are people today who would say, "If you can't put it into a test tube
or in a mathematical equation, we will not believe it."
But you can't put the Cross in a crucible, and you can't put faith in a formula.
The great philosopher, Pascal, said, "The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of."
The Greeks could not rationalize the fact of God coming down in a human body
and dying on a cross.
There are viewpoint was, "If we can understand it, we will not accept it."
Anything they couldn't understand they just laughed off.
There are people like that in this world.
They laugh at Jesus.
They laugh at the Cross.
They make fun of Bible believing Christians who dare to believe the word of God
and who witness and who share their faith.
But the Cross is no laughing matter.
A person can laugh his way into hell, but he can't laugh his way out.
Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Heaven is full of wise men.
Hell is full of wise guys.
God is too wise to let man come to Him by his own wisdom.
Man cannot solve his problems because he will not recognize their source, which is sin.
Furthermore, he will not recognize the solution, which is salvation.
God is so wise that He is not going to let man come to Him by his own wisdom.
In fact, we are told in 1 Corinthians 3:19 that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."
Think about that, a world full of wisdom is just a thimble full of foolishness to God.
In Jeremiah 8:9 the prophet Jeremiah said, "The wise men are ashamed.
They are dismayed and taken.
Behold they have rejected the Word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?"
I read of a young man who made a zero on a test in school.
He went to see the professor and said, "I do not believe I deserve this grade."
The professor looked at it and say it, "I don't either, but it was the lowest grade I could give."
I would say that Is the way that God feels about our wisdom.
It doesn't even deserve a zero on the scale of God.
A PhD may be a Doctor of Philosophy to us, but to God, he is just a phenomenal dud.
The things of God are hidden from the wise and the prudent,
but they have been revealed unto babes. (Matthew 11:25)
If a person is going to come to God for salvation, he or she will have to, as a little child.
(Matthew 18:3)
There is only one way you can understand the Cross.
There is only one way you can receive salvation, and that is in humility and in faith.
I read of a pastor who was touring Italy.
A friend sent to him, "There is a blessing you will receive if you will go
to such and such a place and see a painting of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ."
The pastor said, "What is it like?"
The man said, "Never mind what it is like.
I want you to see it.
You need to see it, so promise me that you will."
The pastor said, "I will. "
He went to the village where this painting was, and he came to the chapel where it was displayed.
The caretaker asked, "Have you come to see the painting?"
The pastor said, "Why, yes I have."
The caretaker asked him to follow him which he did.
The pastor was not prepared for what he was about to see in the painting.
He was looking for a beautiful masterpiece of art.
There was Jesus painted on the Cross, and was being crucified.
But it seemed as if it was all out of proportion.
It didn't make sense.
It didn't seem to be a work of art at all.
It seemed almost grotesque.
It seemed as though it was top-heavy.
The pastor questioned the caretaker by saying, "I don't understand this painting."
The caretaker replied, "Come closer."
And he did.
Then the caretaker said, "Get lower."
And he did.
He said, "Come closer." "Get lower." "Come closer." "Get lower."
Finally, the pastor said that he found himself kneeling at the foot of the cross.
When he looked up, he saw the perspective from which the painting had been made,
and he realized that it didn't make sense until you kneeled at the cross.
It is only when you lay aside your ambitions, and crucify your prejudice,
and give up your intellectual approach, and humble your pride,
that you can look up to the Cross and truly understand it.
It is either foolishness to you or it is the power of God.
The Cross is in the middle and you are either on one side or the other.
You're either on the hell side of the Cross looking toward heaven,
or you are on the human side looking toward hell.
The Cross either stands between you and heaven, or it stands between you and hell.
The purpose of the Cross is to separate us one from the other.
In 1 Corinthians 1:18 Paul says that the Cross is the power of God,
not to those of us who are saved, but to those of us who are being saved, present tense,
and who are continuously being saved.
The Bible speaks of salvation in three tenses.
The Bible says that I have been saved.
The Bible says that I am being saved.
The Bible says that I will be saved.
I have been saved from the penalty of sin.
When I received Christ into my heart and received His payment for my sin,
I was forgiven once and forever, saved now and forever, never again to be lost.
But I'm not only have been saved from the penalty of sin, I am being saved from the power of sin.
Then, there will come a day when I will be safe from the presence of sin.
I have been saved from the penalty of sin, and that is justification.
I will be saved from the presence of sin, and that is glorification.
But at this very moment I am being saved from the power of sin, and that is sanctification.
That is what Paul is dealing with in verse 18.
Someone has said that salvation is a crisis followed by a process.
That it is a decision followed by a dynamic.
The problem is that we sometimes tend to leave the Cross in the past.
But the Cross should be a part of our everyday lives.
There are some things that still bother me even though I have been
a Christian more than 71 years.
Sin still bothers me.
Satan bothers me.
My selfish carnal self bothers me.
These are three great enemies of every Christian.
You are not only saved from the penalty of sin, you are being saved from the power of sin,
the power of Satan, and the power of self.
The Cross not only represents the power of God in my salvation,
it represents the process of God in my sanctification.
I have heard people say, "I do want to be a Christian. I do want to be saved,
but it is too difficult to live the Christian life."
Listen, it is not difficult to live the Christian life; it is impossible to live the Christian life!
The only way that you can live the Christian life is to let the power
in the person of Jesus Christ living through you.
Now, how do you do that?
You get crucified.
You die to self.
Paul said in Galatians 2: 20: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,
but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Look at the process.
Jesus died for me.
I died with Him.
When I die to me, He lives in me.
When He lives in me, I can live for Him.
So we come to the Cross, not only for salvation, but for sanctification;
not only for pardon, but also for power.
We must get on the Cross daily and die to self.
Paul said, "I die daily." (1 Corinthians 15:31)
It is when I die that I really live.
If you say that is foolishness that just tells me you are perishing.
Remember, it is impossible to live the Christian life.
And remember that God wants to live His life through you.
The victorious Christian life occurs when you crucify self and allow
His resurrection life and power to live in you.
That is sanctification.
That is the process by which we become more and more like Jesus,
and daily experience victory in Jesus over sin, self, and Satan.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a great Christian.
For many years he was a prisoner in Soviet concentration camps.
Like other prisoners, he worked in the fields.
His days were days of back-breaking labor and slow starvation.
One day, he literally gave up living.
He felt that there was no purpose in continuing to fight.
He felt as if his life would make no ultimate difference.
He laid his shovel down, and walked over to a bench and sat down.
He knew the penalty for sitting down would be death.
He knew that at any moment that a guard would probably take his own shovel,
and beat him to death, for he had seen it happen many times.
As he was sitting there waiting for death to surely come, with his head down,
he felt someone hovering over him.
He thought it was a guard.
Slowly, he lifted his eyes, and standing there was an old man with a wrinkle,
utterly expressionless face.
This man had been in the prison many years.
He was hunched over from the back-breaking labor he was forced to do.
This old man and Alexander Solzhenitsyn had never communicated,
not even a word because they were not allowed to talk.
But this old man took a stick, and in the sand at Solzhenitsyn's feet he traced out
the sign of the Cross.
As Solzhenitsyn staggered at that sign his entire perspective shifted.
He knew that even though he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire,
in that moment he also knew that the hope of all mankind was represented
by that simple cross drawn in the sand.
He realize that it truly represented the greatest power in the universe.
He slowly got up, picked up the shovel, and went back to work under the sign of the Cross.
To be a healthy Christian, you must rediscover the power of the Cross in salvation,
and the purpose Cross in separation, and the process of the Cross in sanctification.
When you do this and apply it to your everyday world, you will live the victorious Christian life.
At Calvary
"Years I spent in vanity and pride,
Caring not my Lord was crucified,
Knowing not it was for me He died on Calvary.
By God's Word at last my sin I learned;
Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned,
Till my guilty soul imploring turned to Calvary.
Now I've given to Jesus everything,
Now I gladly own Him as my King,
Now my raptured soul can only sing of Calvary!
Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan!
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary!
Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary."
This sermon was adapted from several sources by Dr. Harold L. White
