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How do you take your Christianity,,..”With”.... or “Without”....the Cross?

You and I are living in a day when the Bible has been replaced with the thoughts and ideas of men. The Cross, though it holds the answer to all of the world’s problems, is deliberately passed by in preference of drugs, alcohol, and illicit sex as a temporary “fix” and “escape” from a world collapsing in on itself due to the weight of its un-repented sin and rejection of Jesus Christ. We are living in a day of world-wide crime, gangs, bullying, vengeance, hatred and jealousy. We are living in a day of “wars and rumors of wars,” - and aids, and abortion, and increased suicides. Lawlessness, chaos, anarchy, murder and terrorism are all as common in today’s world as water and air. And right into the midst of all of this you and I are asked (commanded) to step in and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ by taking up the Cross and following Him. Our selfish “wants and desires” are the very things that make peace something that escapes us and the greatest need of every man is to have peace within his heart. The only place that exists where man can find that peace - is at the Cross. The only place where man can find forgiveness for his sins - is at the Cross. And the one place where most of mankind has never gone to - is the Cross. The Bible promises that for all who go to the Cross with a contrite and repenting heart “the Lord will bless them with peace” (Psalm 29:11).

What about you? Have you gone to the Cross and asked Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Saviour? Have you given Him complete control of every area in your life? Or are you waiting for a “convenient season?” (Acts 24:25) Are you simply spending all of your days with the “multitudes in the valley of decision:” (Joel 3:14). Indecision carries with it eternal consequences. Just a little bit West of Mt. Zion near the Jaffa of Jerusalem there is a small terrace on the top of a water-shed that is so level that when it rains the water seems at at loss as to which way to go. A gentle wind carries some of it over the West side of the terrace and that water descends into the Valley of Roses and then down to the beautiful plain of Sharon where the fragrant cups of the lilies and roses of Sharon spring up. But part of the rain water flows off the other side of the terrace where it descends through the dark valley of Tephet and into the bitter waters of the Dead Sea. This terrace is known as, “The Terrace Of Indecision.” Procrastination or “indecision” (as it regards your eternal salvation) is spiritual suicide. The power, the love, and the call of the Cross flows freely in all directions. It flows to the young, to the old, to the black, to the white, to the rich, to the poor....it flows - to YOU!

Moral courage is needed if we are to take the Cross with us where ever we may go and take it with us we must. Why? Because Christianity without the Cross is nothing! It is meaningless. It is ineffectual, ineffective, inapposite, inapt, inconsequential, inert, insipid. Christianity with the Cross is everything because the Cross is invincible, its power is incalculable, infinite, indescribable, its perfection is ineffable, incontrovertible, its effectiveness is indomitable, invaluable, incomparable, its love is inestimable, its call is inescapable, its peace is indispensable, its accomplishment is infallible. Moral courage is needed if we are to take the Cross with us because to the majority of the world the Cross is an “offense.” It has led men, politicians, governments and entire countries to endeavor to be rid of it, and to deny it. The Cross is truth when it says there is no other way to God. All of God’s plans for mankind have the mark of the Cross on them. The Cross is the pivot around which mans quest for true peace, hope, and happiness revolves. The only way that exists for a man to have peace with God is by way of the Cross, through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).

Why, over the past few decades, has the preaching of the Cross become such an obscure topic from so may pulpits. In addition to it not being “politically correct” a big part of the problem is the ministers themselves. In 1961 a survey was taken in seminaries across the country concerning the beliefs of our “Future Ministers.” These were the results; Of all the ministers in training FIFTY SIX PERCENT of them rejected the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. SEVENTY ONE PERCENT rejected that there was life after death. FIFTY FOUR PERCENT rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and an astounding NINETY EIGHT PERCENT of these “future ministers” did not believe that there would be a personal return of Jesus Christ to this earth. Do you grasp the significance of what I just said? These are the preachers who are now scattered throughout this country, and throughout the world for that matter, who are preaching a pack of LIES! One such minister, who actually doubted the authenticity of the Bible itself, was called one day by a church to become its pastor. After he had been with the church for two years he went one day to visit one of the church members who had a terminal illness and as he sat down in a chair beside the mans bed he asked him if he would like him to read from the Bible and pray for him. “Yes I would” the man said, and he handed his Bible to the pastor. When the pastor opened it he was shocked at what he saw. Many of the pages had been torn away, some of the chapters were missing, and a number of verses had actually been “cut out.” It was a horribly mangled Bible. The pastor asked the man “Don’t you have a better Bible than this?”, and this is what the dying man told him; he said “Preacher, when you came to our church I believed the entire Bible, but when you told us that certain sections were not true, I removed them. When you said that some of the stories were fiction and you referred to them as fables, I tore them out.” And then he said, “You know preacher, I think if I had another year under your teaching I wouldn’t have anything left of that Bible except the two covers.”

“The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). On a hill far away stood an old rugged Cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. But I love that old Cross, where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain!

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