Nicholson, Boyd: Fairview Halifax Conference-1980-05 ~ The Cross

So now some of those old hymn writers had a great grasp of the meaning of the cross. I'd like to read with you from First Corinthians chapter one, some well-known verses. First Corinthians chapter one. beginning to read at verse seventeen. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. 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. Marvelous words, written so long ago, but still living and vital in the day in which we live. All the confusion of men's thinking today as they grope in the darkness after God or in their flight away from God. Some great truths from the Bible have been denied, but it seems that there are three great truths that never seem to suffer at the hands of men, or at least in general, they have not come under such attack. The first is Christ came into the world. The second is that Christ lived in the world, and the third is that Christ died for the world. These three great truths seem to stand more or less insulated from the attacks of men. The fact of the death of Christ is recognized from the humble cottage to the mansions of men, every day it is acknowledged. Men and women reach up and tear off the calendar sheet. At least there is a tantamount acknowledgement of the fact that Jesus lived. The problems come, however, when men go beyond this thought to the next obvious thought in natural progression, why did he die, and what was involved in that question, men become very confused. And in fact, there is still to this very day a stigma about the death of the cross. It's always been the preaching of the cross that has brought forth the slander of the enemies of God. It's always been the preaching of the cross that has brought out the armory of hell to attack the preachers of such a message. It has always been the preaching of the cross that has brought out the scorn and the persecution and the sword, and many have been slain for preaching the cross of Christ. When we say the cross, what do we mean? Well, it's obvious to any intelligent reader that it means much more than the wooden frame upon which the Lord Jesus Christ died. When the Bible refers to the cross in almost every occasion, it is referring to all that was involved in the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ to meet the claims of the holiness of God and the needs of the sinfulness of men. We sometimes sing, on a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, and that is precisely where most people like to leave it, on a hill far away. But when we bring the cross, that is all that is involved in the death of Christ, in his sufferings and his work for sinners, when we bring the cross before men and the claims of that cross upon their lives, then we get a reaction of some kind or another. We learn, of course, that the cross has many lessons to teach us. And just for a few minutes this evening, as the Lord will help us, I would like to suggest to you some things that the cross is. I would suggest that the cross is a beam that measure. It is a beam that measures, and it measures many things. It measures the depravity of the human heart. Luke twenty three verse thirty three says, there... They crucified him. This surely was the most depraved act that ever took place on planet Earth. Angels never had a visitor like this. Compassion was the beating of his heart. Love was his banner. Tenderness, mercy, and grace were all that he had for the sons of men. And he came into the world and was a benediction wherever he went. He gave sight to the blind. He brought joy to the mourner. He comforted the sorrowing. He healed the sick, he raised the dead, he gave hope to the despairing, and joy and peace to those who needed it. I love Luke four and eighteen. It's a scripture that never ceases to thrill me. As he stood up in Nazareth that day, in one simple statement, he acknowledged that he was, in fact, the fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures. And in that statement, he gave us a clue to the heart of God, that God cared for the sons of men when he said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the giving of sight to the blind, and the deliverance of those that are crushed by calamities. The cross, oh, how the enemy hates the preaching of it, and will do anything to divert us and to distract us from it. And I might say, this is not unusual to those who preach the cross. Just before I got up, I wondered what diversion and what distraction would hit us tonight. For almost every time we preach the cross, or we preach the subject of hell, or we preach the subject of the blood, those three subjects, almost without exception, something happens to divert our minds away. I suggest the enemy does not want us to think about the cross. But the cross is a beam that measures the depravity of the human heart. For there they crucified him, the Bible says, and sitting down they watched him there. How could they do this? Could you sit and watch a dog dying in the street? But they watched the Son of God in all his anguish, bleeding and dying upon a cross. It measures the depravity of the human heart. He was love, and they hated him. He was light, and they sought to extinguish the light of his life. And he was life, and they sought to put him to death. Yet only blessing had come from the hands of the one who was nailed to the tree. And when we turn our eyes to Calvary and see that lonely sufferer bleeding and dying, it is a testimony to the depravity of the human heart. It is a beam that measures. But it measures also the distance that exists between God in his holiness and man in his sinful condition. If indeed it took God to send his son and that blessed son to come and die upon that cross alone, to bridge the gap between man and his sin and God in his holiness, how great that distance must be. Isaiah chapter fifty nine and verse two refers to that distance. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he will not hear. If you are in the meeting tonight and you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have never been born again through faith in him, be aware of this truth. As you sit in the meeting right now, with a Bible on your knee, perhaps having sung the hymns, if you are not saved, you are so far away from God that nothing but the cross can bridge that gap. Nothing. The cross is a beam that measures the far distance between the holiness of God and the depravity of the human heart. The cross is a beam that measures the desire of God for his creature. If you ever doubt that God loves you, read the record of the cross. I remember one time traveling home because of the death of a friend, and I was asked to take the funeral. It was a bitter winter's day. I got home early in the morning, and it was some years ago, and our youngest son was in junior school. It was about a mile from the house, and it was open countryside, exposed at least. The wind and the snow was howling across that way, and so I got in the car, ran down to school, and picked him up and brought him home for lunch. After lunch, I took him back. As I was going down the last part of the road to school, open playing fields on one side, a shopping center on the other, and the wind just whistling across that long hill as I was going down, I saw an old man, an older man, laboring against the wind and carrying two suitcases. He looked exhausted and frozen. I dropped Bill off at school and turned around. By the time I got up to the corner where I was turning left, this man had just reached the corner. He looked so exhausted, so cold. I wound the window down and I said to him, where are you going, sir? For an answer, he opened the back door and threw his two suitcases in the back seat. He threw himself in, gasping. Oh, thank you, he said. I'm just so cold and so exhausted. He says, I'm going to Welland, fourteen miles to the south. I was getting ready for a funeral. I didn't have time to take him all the way, and I explained that to him, but I said there are, there are four corners up there where there are four restaurants where the truck drivers all pull in, and I'll drive you there up to one of the restaurants. You can sit in the warmth of the restaurant and meet some of the drivers, and I'm sure someone will take you the rest of the way. So as I turned around to drive him halfway there, I started to give him a little word in the gospel, tell him about the Lord Jesus. He was sitting in the back seat. He said, would you do something for me, mister? Well, I thought I wasn't doing too bad up to that point, but he was obviously in need. I said, well, I will if I can. Would you pray for me? Well, I said, sure, I'll pray for you right now. I pulled over, it was a country road, bowed over the steering wheel, and I prayed for this man. His name was Peter. I had no idea, and I didn't know a thing about him, only that much. His name was Peter. I prayed for him that his needs may be met in Christ. When I finished my prayer, lifted my head, his head was down on the seat, and he was sobbing. Lifted his head and looked at me. He said, you know, mister, I'm sixty five years of age. Never in all my life has anyone ever prayed for me until today. I didn't think anybody cared about anybody in this old world. Oh, I said, let me tell you about someone who cares for you. I pulled out my little Bible, and I opened to the story of the cross, and I read him that story of how he was taken, crowned with thorns and stripped and humiliated, fastened at last to the cross and left abandoned in the dark to cry out, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he sobbed as he heard the story. He says, I never knew till now that God loved me. And I had the joy of pointing that dear man to Christ, sitting there on the side of the road. My friend, if you ever doubt that God cares about you, look away to Calvary's middle tree. There upon that middle cross, God's lovely son, bleeding and dying at the hands of men. But when man had done his worst, God pulled the veil of darkness around that scene. Then, echoing out of eternity, we hear the words from the prophet Zechariah. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is mine equal. Smite the shepherd. And God, in some mysterious way we cannot understand, plunged the sword of justice into that sinless yet sin-bearing soul of his own dear son. The cross measures God's great desire for his creatures. The cross is also a balance that weighs. It is a beam that measures the depravity of man, the distance between God and his creature, and the desire of God for his sinful creature. But it is also a balance that weighs certain things. The cross weighs the worth of man and finds him sadly wanting. We read in Romans three verse ten, there is none righteous, no, not one. If you ever think that somehow or another, by your goodness, by your inherent nice way of living, the way that you have been brought up, what you've been born into, that somehow it is pleasing God. Let me disabuse you of that folly immediately. The cross reminds us, if it took that much to save us, there is no other worth that God will look at. I was out in Seattle, Washington some time ago, and there was a man in his eighties, I think his eightieth year. He was the unsaved husband of a woman who was a believer, and I've been there for the last number of years, and this man would appear perhaps for one meeting, and that was all. He was always prayed for. This time he came out, and God seemed to get a hook into him, and he came back, and he came back, and he came back, and at last he wanted to have a personal conversation, and some friends invited us for lunch, and we sat over the table. He said, you know, I have lived all my life depending on the fact that my grandmother was a good woman, and my mother was a religious woman, and because of that, I hoped that I would be worthy of heaven. I read him a few scriptures, and yet he was a man who lived almost eighty years in that folly and in that deceit. If you think that there's something worthy in you that deserves to get to heaven, the cross is the beam that measures and the balance that weighs the worth of man. No man, nor multitude of men, could ever offer to God what God demanded, only his own beloved Son. What worth that man could offer could ever compare to the cross? The cross is a balance that weighs the works of man and finds them utterly insufficient. Good works, good works will not do. If that's what you're depending on to get to heaven, good works won't move you five eighths of an inch towards heaven or acceptance with God. The Bible says, for when you have done all these things that you have been commanded, say, we are unrighteous, unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do. Even if we did everything that we've been commanded, God says we're still unprofitable because we've only done what was our duty anyway. The cross shows us that the works of man are insufficient. I love Ephesians two eight and nine: for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. What work could ever supersede the cross? The cross weighs the works of man, finds them insufficient. But the cross is a beam that weighs the wealth of man and finds it totally contemptible when offered to God as a means of entry into heaven. Yet it is strange. There are millions living on the earth today, and they think that somehow, by what they give to the church or to the good cause or whatever their charities may be, if they give enough and keep giving enough, that God is keeping the records, that if they at last reach a certain total in their lifetime, when they stand before God and the books are checked, God will say, he's given enough, bring him in. There are many who think that by their giving, that they are putting themselves into the good graces of God. I was preaching in the open air one night, right across from a saloon, and the door swung open and a fellow reeled out. He stood and listened for a minute or two, and then we were singing. Message was over, we stood around and sang for a bit. He staggered over, reeled over the road. He came rolling up to me, his hands away down in a great pocket, and he pulls out twenty five cents. He says, here you are, mister, God bless you. Twenty five cents. But somehow or another, it was inculcated in his mind that he had an obligation to God. Somehow or another, he thought that God needed his quarter, and he was getting rid of a bad conscience for twenty five cents. What an insult. My friend, if it was twenty five million dollars, it would be utterly condemned. God weighs the wealth of a man, but what could compare to the price our Savior paid, the sacred currency of his own precious blood, when he shed that blood to cleanse us from our sins? What payment, what gifts could ever exceed the value of the blood of the cross? I love William Blaine's poetry, and he says of the blood, angels could not for sin atone, for if they each a life had given till empty were the realms of heaven, in all could not have moved one sin or brought the pardoned sinner in, arrayed in garments pure and white to dwell in heaven's unsullied light. Had man but one wrong action done, none but the coeternal sun could for that single sin atone, and then he must be left alone to sink 'neath heaven's angry wave with none to pity, none to save. Or were there worlds for every star that glimmers in the distance far, and myriad souls contained in each, whose number thought could never reach all, burdened with a load of guilt, Christ's precious blood on Calvary spilt for all atonement would have made. Yea, if for demons he had died, he would for them have satisfied God's utmost claim and made them meet to take them, to take their seat, not as before with wing veiled face, but through the riches of his grace to join with heaven's exulting throng and sing for a redemption song. Oh, the value of the blood of Christ that condemns everything that man could ever give or do to make himself acceptable to the God of heaven. But the cross is a barrier. It's a barrier that divides. It's a beam that measures. It's a balance that weighs. It's a barrier that divides. The cross divides the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant had to do with the keeping of the law. In the days of the Old Testament, or the old covenant, God had set out the law. Men thought that by keeping the law, they might be made righteous. That was a great mistake. God did not give the law to make men righteous. God gave the law to show that men were unrighteous and that he was righteous. And the law revealed the sinfulness of man's heart. The old covenant said, without shedding of blood, no remission. The old covenant said, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But then there is a new covenant, and that new agreement with God is this. Someone else has died for you. The Lord Jesus Christ on that middle cross has paid the price of your redemption in full, and now he comes out with an offer of salvation, that if you will receive him as a living person, as Lord and Savior, his finished work, all that you need to deal with sin and to enter into the presence of God, if you will receive his son, God will count you as though you are perfectly righteous. We're not righteous, we know that. Righteous just simply means right in the sight of God. We are not right in everything we say and do, but those who trust the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him by faith, God counts that faith they have exerted as though it was righteousness, and as it were, he puts upon us a garment of righteousness and makes us acceptable in the very presence of God. That's the new agreement, and it's the cross that stands between the old agreement and the new agreement. Any system that has man-made priests standing before man-made altars, offering man-made sacrifices, is the old covenant, and it can never take away sins. So says the scriptures. Every priest standeth daily, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. The cross stands between, and it divides the Old Testament, the old agreement with the new agreement. And God has made that new agreement, that new covenant available to you and to me. This is the covenant I will make with them in those days, he says. I will write my laws in their hearts, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Sins of the believer. He gathers up the whole file and throws it away, and it doesn't even exist. And Satan may come into the very presence of God and charge the Christian with his sins, and God righteously and holily can say, what sins? I have no record here of any sins. Why not? Because he says there's sins and iniquities. Well, I remember no more. Oh, if you are not in the joy of sins forgiven, if you're being haunted with the memory and remorse of iniquities and transgressions of thought and word and deed, then come to the Savior. Receive him as your Savior tonight. Move out of the old covenant that calls only for judgment. Step into the day of grace. Receive him as your Savior, and in an instant, the sins of a lifetime will be blotted out. It is a barrier that divides the race into two categories. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness, but unto us which are saved. So the cross divides the race into two categories only, not into black and white, not into Scots and Irish, not into Orientals and Occidentals, but only two categories. God has them listed, the saved and the lost, those who are now saved and those who are now perishing. The word perish means literally to miss the reason or the purpose for your existence. If you are not saved, I'm so sorry, for until now, you have not lived one day in the will of God for you. I think that's exceedingly sad. You may live for some great plan, you may have some great ambition, but if you live and die without Christ, you will have missed the reason for your existence, and as it was said to Judas, it will be said to you better that you had never been born. The cross is the great divide that divides the race into two categories, saved and perishing. In this meeting tonight, those two categories exist. The saved, those who are now saved, and those who are now perishing. Thank God you are not eternally perishing yet, not eternally lost. You may yet be saved as long as you live, but the moment you breathe your last, then you will perish forever. And there's an invisible line that runs through this company, and only the eye of God can see it. And you're on one side of the cross or the other. Which side are you on? And this cross of Christ is a barrier that will divide heaven and hell forever. That is the gray divide for all eternity. Did you ever get to the cross by faith? Did you ever come to the one who died upon that cross, was buried, and rose again from the dead, yet bearing still in his body the marks of that torturous death? William Blaine again says of that, the cross shall ever stand between the upper and the nether scene. In heaven, the brightest rays of light, in hell, the darkest shades of night. The cross causes derision in the minds of many. They deride the cross and those who follow it. But the cross causes division in the minds of men, those who follow it and those who don't. And the cross calls for decision, what you will do with the Lord Jesus who died upon that cross for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. What do you think of the Lord Jesus? What do you think of his cross? What do you think of his suffering? What do you think of the value of his blood? What do you think of his love and of his invitation? What do you think of his warning? And what will you do tonight before you step out into the snow? What will you do with the Christ of the cross? If you have never received him, let me call upon you now to decide, because that cross is the great divide for time and eternity. If you will but come to the Savior by faith, because you cannot see him and you cannot touch him, that's why we have to come by faith, believing that he profoundly loves you and has proved it at Calvary, and that tonight he is still inviting men and women, boys and girls, young and old, to come to him by faith. And if you will come, he says that he will give you everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Lord Jesus said, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. May you be wise tonight in the light of the cross and all that it meant to our Savior to die for your sins, come to him and pass out of those who are known as the perishing into those who are known as the saved. Are you saved or are you perishing? Make sure tonight that you are saved. Shall we pray?