The cross of Christ is presented as the central and crucial truth of the Christian faith, embodying God's wisdom and power in a way that appears paradoxical to the world. The sermon explores the paradox of the cross, where God chooses the foolish, weak, and despised to shame the wise and strong, demonstrating that human wisdom and power are insufficient for salvation. It further explains the principle of the cross as God's method of working, which contrasts with human methods and is applied practically to address strife within the church and guide effective service for Christ. Ultimately, the cross is the answer to disunity and the source of true effectiveness in ministry, urging believers to glory only in the cross of Jesus Christ.
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oh Jesus, praise him, is the very leader, for a change in the world. He or not, don't know what we have done for me.
Thank you. But if there is no way Let us triumph and triumph.
Let us make it, let it be, let it be, let it be. and kings and kings.
There is a place where there is a place where you are in Jesus' voice, for there is a place where you are in Christ. Now shall we both together and clear? Our God and Father, we draw near into thy presence tonight, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And as we do so, we would desire to come before thee with, becoming of brethren and glad to fear. For we realize that we are coming into thy presence, and thou art the living God, and we are but the creatures of time. And yet we find peace that we can draw near to thee with, confidence in our hearts because our Lord Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and because he has opened up the way of access into thy presence and our heart invited us to draw near through him and we would have been left our hearts and voices to thee this evening in glad songs of praise and thanksgiving as we think of him praise him praise him Jesus, our Blessed Redeemer, would indeed be the fitting note of praise from all our lips this evening as we remember all that he has done for us through thy grace.
We thank thee, our Father, for the favour, circumstances of life which we enjoy. We thank thee for this land in which we dwell, where we have liberty to meet together in this way. We thank thee for these privileges. enjoyed for so many generations, and we pray that we might in thy will, we won't continue to us. But we would remember in our prayers that there are others this evening who are not so favored, and our thoughts would go to them tonight. Those who live and serve thee, in lands where the powers could be, are not spent on the spread of thy impart. Some in bonds, some in inflection, some in prison tonight, because of their faith in Christ.
And we pray that their faith might indeed be strengthened, and that the Lord's presence might be very real to them, even now. And we remember that our others tonight, our Father, who do not enjoy the health and strength which we enjoy, some lay the silence after this. We pray thy healing hand to be laid upon them, some passing through times of adversity and affliction. We pray that thou wilt sustain thy people in their different needs. And for ourselves tonight, enabled in health and strength, to be before thee in this way, we thank thee for thy holy word open before us.
And we pray that thou wilt lift our minds away from the things which are temporal and material. The cares that have been upon our minds today help us to lay them aside. And grant that as we are together, in thy presence tonight, we might be enabled through thy spirit to turn our minds to the things which are unseen and eternal. We thank thee that the presence of thy servant with us tonight, and we pray that thou bless his ministry as he ministers to thy people. Grant that he might be blessed in his own soul tonight as he preaches thy work. and grant that we all might have the autumn year, the understanding heart, the submissive wills, to bow to thy truth.
Grant, we pray thee, that we might be instructed in divine service tonight, and also in our holy faith, that our coming together might be for our upbuilding and edification. Here is saying our Father, draw near and grant thy presence to be with us this night, and during the other nights in thy will, as thy servant opens up thy will. We pray that this might indeed be a season of spiritual expression, a time of visitation from thyself. Grant our Father that this weekend, these meetings in thy will, might leave its mark upon our spirits, that we might be the better Christians as a result of these special meetings.
So here is our Father, Speak to us this night as thou dost see me in thee, and give us grace, we pray thee, so to adjust ourselves in the same thy way. We seek all thanks now, and present thy self with us, as we ask these things, and render thee our thanks in the worthy name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. After we further join in bringing together hymn number two, hymn number two, break down the bread of my dear Lord to me, as well as break the loaves beside the sea, beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord, my spirit thanks for thee, O living one, hymn number two.
Thank you. There comes a friend of mine, here comes a I shall displace the Lord's desire of me.
Me, I have taken away, I give you all, my presence, calling away. pride. Let's have the prayer of Christ so much to me, that is within my heart my word daily. Oh, shall we give a child to our children's queen, and with our children's glory, and with our children we all have gone by thee.
Kind my hand of God, let thy name be, thy name be. Oh, he will be crying, but my life can take will be.
But now this went away, my God will ever be. Well, we very happy indeed to have Mr.
Arlen Newton with us tonight. As you know, we've been looking forward to his visit for some time, and we're delighted to see that he's been able to keep his appointment with us tonight. As you know, he has before his mind some studies in the epistle to the Corinthians, and it's some time since we had any studies in the Corinthians epistle, so I'm sure his work will be particularly appropriate for us. You will have noticed the information of the subject in the Shepard Times, tonight the subject being the cross of Christ in November Sunday after noon at three fifteen the mind of Christ Monday evening at seven thirty the servants of Christ Tuesday evening at seven thirty the gospel of Christ and Wednesday evening at seven thirty the body of Christ Mr.
Newt will also be preaching the gospel here on Sunday at six fifteen and a special Young people's rally has been arranged to follow the gospel meeting about half past seven. And so please make these meetings as widely known as possible and encourage your friends to come. I'm sure it will be to their spiritual prophet to attend these meetings. Now, Mr. Newton. Thank you very much. May I take all the pleasure it is to be here. I look forward to this for a long time and its great joy to be sharing with you the things of God.
The series has already been explained to you. May I say that if you find you can only change some of them, that each study will be complete in itself. So you won't feel that because you missed one or two, it's no point in coming to the rest. On the other hand, if you're able to come to all of them, you will see how that they integrate the one with the other and follow the chapters of this letter. Tonight it's the cross of Christ from chapter one. tomorrow night, rather on Sunday afternoon it will be the mind of Christ. I don't go into the further ones than that and only mention that in order that if you feel so inclined you might do a bit of homework before Sunday afternoon by reading through the second chapter of this epistle.
Now let us turn to chapter one and read from verse ten down to verse five with the next chapter. One Corinthians chapter one verse ten. And on each of the occasions I will be reading to you and conducting the studies on the revised and version. If you have your authorites with you, you will be able to see the differences between the two, and that will add to the interest of hell. I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no dissensions among you. but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
For it has been reported to me by various people that there is following about you, my brethren. All I mean is that each one of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I am thankful that I baptized none of you, except Christmas and Gaius, that anyone should say that you are baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of the Father. Beyond that, I do not know that I baptized anyone else.
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be empty of its power. For the word of the cross is holy to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, astounding God to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, thanks the power of God than the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your fault, brethren. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble of us. But God had chosen for this foolish in the world to shame the wise.
God chose what is weak in the world, ashamed and strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let him boast, boast of the Lord. And I thank you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucifying.
And I was with you in weakness and in much nearer trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in our power of God. And so we commence this series where Paul commences his letter with the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ is the dominant factor. It is the central truth of our Christian faith. A few years ago, there was a series of articles running in the Theological Witness entitled Books That Have Helped Me.
One contributor to that series was the late Mr. Edmund Lewis, and he spoke of the great help that he had derived from the writings of P.T. Forsyth. And he mentioned in particular one of this man's books entitled The Cruciality of the Cross. And as I read that article and remember the book, struck me again that this is absolutely true, that the cross is crucial, the cruciality of the cross. It takes a little bit of strength. All before it leads up to it, all the disaster it stems from it. All the offerings, all the feasts, all the prophecies, all the pictures, point it forward and all the fingerprints converge upon the cross of Jesus Christ.
And from it, every saint, every church, and all who are Christ upon earth, and all who are his in glory, look back to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glimpse that we get in Revelation chapter five of the glory shows us in the midst of the throne, in the midst of the four living creatures and the four of twenty-eighths. The lack standing, as though it had been slain, the centrality of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ to this extent. The centrality of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in our own personal experience. And I'm sure that we all enter the words of the Apostle Paul when he says, God forbid, that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is the supremely vital, the essential thing. Now there are three things from this chapter that I want to underline in connection with the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ tonight. I want to talk to you about the paradox of the cross. I want to talk to you about the principle of the cross. And then thirdly, the practical application of the cross in this chapter. First of all, then, the paradox of the cross. Nothing in the whole of human history is so completely alien to the ideas and concepts of men of the cross of our old Jesus Christ. Nothing is so completely contrary to a human method of working than the cross of Christ.
And we see the sharp divergence, on the one hand, the principles by which men govern their lives and their conduct and their affairs. And on the other hand, the way that God governs things, And the symbol of the way that God governs things is the lacrosse. Faced by this paradox, by this contradiction, we say to ourselves, now what is the true norm? What is the standard by which we must judge? It's the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. But many will perish. Nor will human standards agree with it as a principle.
The problem with our standards and our concepts is this, that they have been dislocated by the fall. One of the consequences of the fall was that there was a disturbance in the inmost heart and mind of a man. And the result of this has been a malfunctioning of everything. Let me illustrate. Say we had a country and somebody who knew how to do it came along and tampered with his country. so that ever afterwards this compass gave a wrong reading. Whoever used this compass was deceived by the reading it gave. But imagine that that was the master compass and that all other compasses were manufactured from that.
I know the illustration of the poet, but it wouldn't. That all other compasses were manufactured from that so that eventually every compass in the world gives a wrong reading, a false reading. Everyone's going in the wrong direction. And that's a parable of exactly what has happened to mankind. The initial compass of man's mind and man's heart was countered with the fore. And he gave a wrong meaning. And there's not a man or a woman in the whole wide world who doesn't suffer from the same trouble. And their compass is incorrect. And it's always giving the wrong reading. Scripture bears testimony to this.
Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart, only evil continually, says God, in the early chapters of Genesis. Isaiah speaks of the same thing for God when he says, My thoughts, says God, and not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. Says the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. And the New Testament agreed, and Paul writes to the Romans and says, You became vain in your reasonings. Your foolish thoughts have been darkened. And man's thoughts and God's thoughts do not coincide.
Paul said about his own life, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and I did so. I shut up many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Looking back, he says, my ideas were hopelessly warped. My opinions were distorted. Everything was wrong. Nowhere is this more graphically and poignantly seen than in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. On the one hand, the cross is the condemnation of humanity. On the other hand, it has got revelations of the divine heart. And here is the cross of our Lord Jesus.
We get the ultimate in opposite. on the one hand man's rebellion and on the other God's grace human diversity and divine excellence now the prodigal of the cross as it was seen at Corinth and indeed as it is seen today is in man's reaction to this message of the cross Paul came preaching what he called in verse eighteen the word of the cross he said this is my message I determined to know nothing other than this. The Word of the Cross is God's way of acceptance. To those who are being saved, he says, they prove that this Word of the Cross is the divine dynamic.
When they make their first encounter with this Word of the Cross, it's not for them a mere philosophy. Not only a revolutionary concept, it's a parable. a revolutionizing power. It's a dynamic. And so they prove that it is a power of God unto salvation. But to others, to those who are perished, therefore it is folly. And so it is today, sheer folly of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because it is so completely alien to the ideas and the thoughts of men.
Now, what foretold that it would be? He says through Isaiah, and Paul quotes him, Where is the wise man? He says, Has this man by his wisdom ever appealed to the knowledge of God? Where is the scribe? Now, the scribe was the man who knew the book, had the ability to quote Scripture. But he didn't live it. And Paul, he sure said, Have the knowledge of the Word, apart from submission to it, ever brought a man, a spiritual ready? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater? Has spirit in argument ever led anyone to the forgiveness of sins?
A person might debate, might argue, does that bring them into peace? Now the paradox of the cross is seen in this, that and human skill. It is by this means that God is pleased to serve those who believe. It's pleased God, says Paul, to do it. And he does it freely, and his own sovereignty. It's pleased God. He does it gratuitously. He chooses this, but the way by which men might deserve it. Now it is not the foolishness of preaching, but the following what is preaching I think it's important we should notice that change.
For preaching as a method is not, or ought to be, foolish. It's not the foolishness of preaching. Preaching appeals to people by far, at least, I think, a lot of great preachers, and their ability to convey a message. And people will go, and whether they agree with a man or not, they may enjoy the preaching and his powers of oratory, maybe, preaching itself is not foolish. What Paul is saying here is it is the folly of that which is preached. The substance of what is preached is regarded by those who carry it at the inclusion.
But it is by the preaching of a crucified Savior which man regards as folly. God is pleased to save men. He is pleased to do what man in all his wisdom can never achieve. Now this paradox of the cross is seen in this passage still further, and it's demonstrated by the reaction of two distinct classes of people. There are the Jews and Greeks. Of the Jews, Paul says, but they demand a sign. In other words, they require evidence. They are some tangible demonstration, some proof of the truth of what is being stated.
It was. So, of course, during the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sure, it's a sign, they said to the Savior. We want a sign. We want some external demonstration that will convince us beyond the shadow of a doubt of the truth of what you are saying. And they have the audacity to say, when he was hanging upon the cross, come down from the cross, and we will believe him. Consequently, it is signed upon some exhibition of the supernatural Without whom they say they will not believe. We have no right to stipulate to God conditions upon which we will believe on His Son.
We have no right to say to God, if you will answer this prayer and heal this child, then I will believe on you. If you will do this, that or the other, if you will show me a sign, then I will believe. If God, if His grace does, grant such a fine will and good. But none of us can ever regard it as are due. No right to demand such. God wants us to trust Him when His hands are empty of gifts, as they were on the cross, there stretched forth His hands, no longer touching the miracles, touching the eyes of the blind, no longer doing miracles.
But any day, that's where we must trust Christ. But they will say, show us a sign, and we will believe you. Come down to the cross, and we will believe. And there is an insatiable appetite in the hearts of men and women for a sign. But those who ask for a sign are never satisfied. They have one sign, and they want to serve the other. Have these students who ask for a sign? Have they not had an abundance of signs? And what not the cross, and the eighty-two signs enough, though I repeat signs never that far. To such, Paul says, I love one message.
I'm one message early. It is the cross. But where, say the Jews, where is the power of God in a Messiah hanging? Yes, a couple of trees. and the doctrine concerning it as a scandalous blasphemy. When it was declared that the one who was hanging up on the cross was none other than the son of the living God, the Messiah, a central God, scorned, outraged, maltreated, humiliated by his enemies, a gamble for his clothes, is forsaken by his friends.
For then it was utterly inconceivable and that this one was the son of the almighty God whom he, the almighty one, had sent into the world. That he should suffer the unspeakable agonies of crucifixion and endure the ignominy and share that was associated with death upon a cross. This I repeat to them as an offence, a stumbling block, a scandalous thing, a blasphemous thing. But Paul says, that's my message. That's my message. It is utterly contradictory, paradoxical, as far as men are concerned. The Greeks seek wisdom.
Here's another category of persons. They demand an explanation. They seek wisdom. For them, the cross is a completely illogical thing. They say, we want something that is intellectually satisfying. We want some philosopher that is worth as much. that can be explained and understood and will satisfy our minds. But they say, where is the wisdom? A man who ends his days upon a cross. Where is wisdom in this? Does not the nature of his death indicate that he was mistaken. A suffering God was completely incomprehensible to these Greeks.
Paul shows that the word of the cross is God's wisdom and God's power. And this is the heart of the paradox, that this that appears so completely illogical, so completely ridiculous to me, is the wisdom and the power of God. It is, he says, you can see it in the experience of those who are called, whether they're Jews or Greeks, Many, he says, might fall across the foolishness of God. But yet, it's wider than men. Had God acted, according to human wisdom, had God acted as we would say rational in, but then we would have suffered for our own sins, not he.
It was the wisdom of God that devised this wonderful scheme of redemption for men. Men might fall the cross for the weakness of God. But therefore it's stronger than men. A man suffering and dying upon a cross. Is this divine power? Is this divine strength? Yes. And it's made perfect in human weakness. It's stronger than men. What man ever has a power to overcome sin? What man ever has the power to overcome the devil? What man ever possessed power to be completely free?
None, say the crucified. The cross stands as the permanent exhibition of the wisdom of God and the power of God. And this is a great paradox. And we must choose which. the wisdom of the world and the power of the world, or the cross of Jesus Christ, which introduces me to my second point, which is the principle of the cross. There is often the danger of regarding the cross in the context of sin and salvation only, as regarding the cross as being central to our gospel message, but limited to that.
The Apostle embodies the cross as an abiding principle, and he sets it deep in the heart of the Christians' families. He illustrates it from their own experience in St. Thomas. He says, my brothers, he says, you consider your call. Verse twenty-six. For consider your call, brethren, look back, reflect on the way that God worked in your midst. and it will demonstrate that the cross is God's way of working. And it's totally different from man's way of working. Indeed, here in this paradox, it's given to us a catalogue of things that are the complete antithesis of human values and human ideas.
If men had wished to commence a new movement in Corinth, they would have, in this debate, possibly because those who are wise, They would have said, if we're going to start a new movement in Corinth, we want to pick all the men of wisdom that we can find in Corinth. If we want to start a new movement in Corinth, they might have said, we want to enlist the influential. We want to give priority to those who are nobility. But God didn't do that. God didn't do that. Such incidences are not excellent. for he says not many.
Notice the M with which that word commended. He does not say not any, but not many. The fact was, however, that God deliberately chose simple folk, unimportant folk, unmitted folk. The foolish in the world, the weak, those who were low and despised, God selected deliberately these insignificant methods to this very sophisticated society and says, this will be the material with which I will go to work. Isn't this the principle of a cross-action? Doesn't it show that this applies not only to that event that transpired at Calvary, but it is in a permanent way of working?
Now, why does God work like this? Why did God, through the Apostles, reach through the Gospel mainly those who were foolish, weak, despised, nothing. Why do you believe? I suggest to you to indicate to those who are wise and powerful and of noble birth that these things do not count with God. They may be a radical in their own career. They may be important, they serve a way, but they do not count with God. The choice of the individual, by God, to salvation, is entirely independent of social status, is absolutely irrespective of intellectual ability and civil actions.
In this way, God would cut the ground from underneath their feet when it comes to the question of pride and self-confidence and self-sufficiency. He would show them that there was no room for these things, that salvation is always remains an undeserved moment of God. It is the cross that cuts men down to sideways. It is when we stand at the cross and see it not only as that event that transpired at Calvary, but that God's permanent principle of working all the way through. We recognize that he who boasts must boast of the Lord.
The problem, I would underline, is not only an event, is a principle, and an abiding principle for that. It is not only something that happened once for all at Calvary. It is that. But it is the way, it is the method by which God operates continuously in his church and in the lives of believers. Now, the church is intended to reflect the divine image. If this is how God works, if this is the principle upon which he operates, then it must be the principle upon which we operate at. And so we must constantly acknowledge this very fact that we have no ground to believe.
Have you wisdom? Then the thoughts of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, we have no wisdom about it. If we have wisdom, that isn't from God, then it is that wisdom that James castigates as sensual, worldly devilish. If, however, we have true wisdom, then it is the wisdom that comes with Jesus Christ. Have we righteousness? Have we sanctification? Is ours redemption? Have we unacceptable standing with God? Is he working out progressively holiness in our lives?
keep getting in our hearts a hope of a final deliverance redemption then all these things we owe to Jesus Christ all these things derived from his cross nothing in the church is attributable to man may I repeat that nothing in the church is attributable attributable to man it's all attributable to God and to recognize this is to Now, thirdly, the practical application of the cross. This is shown in this section in two ways.
It supplies, first of all, to strife in the church, and then, secondly, to service for Christ. First of all, then, to strife in the church. Despite the fact that the church of Corinth was gifted in an outstanding way, Paul was able to say, you come behind in no gift, you possess the gift of utterance and you possess the gift of knowledge and in chapters twelve and fourteen he catalogued some of these gifts though they enjoyed gifts in the in the form of individuals apostles prophets teachers evangelists and others yet they were plagued with serious problems this epistle deals with these problems one after the other the first major problem with which Paul deals in this letter, is the problem of party strife.
And this party strife, this dividing up into peaks, was disfiguring the life and witness of the Church of Collins. There were those who said, I belong to Paul. Though we can quite understand this really, these people would say, isn't Paul actually a wonderful servant of God? Do you remember where he came and when he preached to us? and converted on that first night someone would say. And another would repeat, and I would say through his instrumentality too, there's no one on earth like Paul. And they were those who were the party of Paul, and they didn't have an evil word to say about Paul. In fact, when others criticized him, they said, we remain loyal to Paul, whatever anyone else said.
So I belong to Paul, was their watchword. There were others who said, I belong to a poet. Now, Apollos was a man who was greatly gifted with oligary, as oligary appealed tremendously in college. If a man would spin words together with brilliance, it mattered little to them. The substance of what he said, his very ability to weave words together so appealed to them that they would give rapt attention to what he had to say. And Apollos came to college, and he was an eloquent man, and he was my muse. He was a man of outstanding intellect, possibly having been educated at the University of Alexandria, a man who had a particular brilliance of giving allegorical interpretation of Old Testament scriptures.
Apollos, and they found themselves entranced by Apollos. So they said, we are of Apollos. Another group said, but we are of Peter. Peter represented the establishment. After all, Peter had been with Christ, one of the original disciples. He came from the mother church back to Jerusalem. He stood for orthodoxy, and there were those who liked his orthodoxy. There were those there who liked the establishment, who were able to trace their spiritual ancestry, as it were, directly back to one of the original apostles. And so there was a group in the church and they said, we are of Cephas, of Peter.
And yet there was another group in this church and they thought of themselves as super-spirituals. And they said, oh no, we wouldn't attach the name of any man to ourselves. We wouldn't call ourselves Pauline, Petrine. I can't think of the word that applies to Apollos. We belong to Christ. We belong to Christ. And they used that sacred name in a partisan sense. And whoever, we've ever been guilty of doing that. And when Paul heard the last mention, well, he'd been upset by the others. He was absolutely horrified. And he objectivates, is Christ divided?
Was he, is he divided? Surely he is the sole bond of unity. And then he goes on. Paul crucified for you. It is the one who is crucified who unites all together. It is the one who is crucified who cleans down all these sectarian barriers. All this group, all this clique, all this little snobbery must go when we recognize that it is Christ who binds us together. He is the central one and it is his cross. that is the factor that unites all those who own his name.
It is the cross that is the sign that condemns such divisions within the church. Yet our prevalence of apostasy spirit is, when we line up behind certain prominent leaders or teachers or gifted brethren, the aspect of the truth that they emphasize comes to stand with what we are concerned for the essentials. has gone back with the whole truth. Then we fall into the error that was plaguing the Church of Corinth. And the personality curve had erupted in the first century, and it erupts in the twentieth.
Let us bow before the cross. Let us hear Paul say, is Christ divided? and you attack him to you after a group. Is Christ not above this? Was Paul crucified for him? You line yourself up behind me. Me. Don't call yourself by my name. Don't follow me. Only as I follow Christ. Is Christ who is crucified? So where this spirit exists, there is the incipient danger of denying the cross, of failing to put into effect the practical application of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pride, prestige, popularity meant nothing to him. To boast his teachings, to boast his leaders, To boast in our loyalty to the truth as we might conceive it to be is incompatible with the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, as a demonstration of the wisdom and the power of God. If we think of ourselves more highly than we also think, then we have nothing in common with the crucified. The cross is the answer to disunity. It is that that binds together. the application of the cross, the practical application of the cross, is further made to servants of Christ.
One of the greatest temptations for the Christian, I think, is to run his life, his spiritual life, that is, by natural principles, by worldly standards, to attempt a synthesis between the work of God and the energy of the flesh. Now, Paul was aware of He recognized that if he preached the gospel in accordance with the wishes of men, with the predilections of those who were in his congregation, then it would be emptied of its power. Listen again to what he said in verse seventeen. He sent me to preach the gospel not with eloquent words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
as I said, the Greek blood on a pill. For then it made everything. The acme of learning was the ability to present a well-ordered, a persuasively presented and attractively worded message. The delicates would have drawn the praise of men. Paul says, I'm student, clear of it. I'm student, clear of it. Let the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ should be evacuated. of its dynamic power. Now here we need to speak and think terribly, for eloquence is not in and of itself wrong. Where eloquence makes the truth clear, unplayed, unattractive, and to be remembered in his good, and fall in this very epistle, criticizing eloquence wrongly used, yet uses it rightly, If you ever heard anything at all, more beautiful and compelling than these words, all things are yours, whether Paul or Thomas or Stephen, or the world, or life, or death, or
the present, or the future, all are yours. And you are Christ, and Christ is God. Or what Corinthians chapter thirteen? Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not loved, then profiteth me nothing. And so on. Or in chapter fifteen. Behold, I assure you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the flinting of a night, at the last drunk. Here is true eloquence. Here is true oratory. It is only upon when it is used to draw attention to the individual.
individual's ability, when it is a manifestation of the individual's personality. Professor Denny once said, no man can bear witness to Christ and himself at the same time. No man can give the impression that he is clever and that Christ is mighty to say. That's when it's wrong. Now the great answer, of course, is the cause. And so Paul expressed his determination in the second chapter, I came, and as I came I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and his crucify. Now that is exclusively the thought of as the message that he prepared.
But I think it wasn't only the message that he prepared, it was his own personal disposition. It was the principle by which he was going to work. He was making practical application of it to his service for Christ. I determined to know nothing among you, say, Jesus Christ and him crucified. My life, he says, and my service will be dominated by Christ, crucified. Paul says, I will know in my own life, in my service for Jesus Christ, the cruciality of the cross. I was with you in weakness, and much fear and trembling. As the master, so is his servant.
For it was said of him that when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Paul says, My service for Jesus Christ will be overprinted with a sign of the cross. Whatever your service is, a nine, it will only be effective as we are putting into practical application day by day this great and abiding principle, this tremendous parable of the cross. You say, what is the cross? What was the cross for Christ? It was the intersection of his will and the will of God.
Not my will, but thy will be done. That's what Jesus said. And it is what for him a cross. Take up your cross daily, says Jesus, to you and to me. Take up your cross daily and follow me. What is the cross for you? A me. It is the intersection of my will and the will of God. When I surrender, I yield my will and his will and I allow my life to be over-created with a sign of the cross. Amy Carmichael once said, God is always searching out some fresh area of your life to mark with a sign of the cross.
In other words, she says, do not think of it because as a youth or a young girl, you made, as far as you knew, a total surrender of yourself to Jesus Christ and said, Lord, not my will, but thy will be done. That that was the end of the story. Every day, there will come a new area every week every month there will be a development of your life in this direction or that direction and each day we have new opportunities and new opportunities for the application of this principle of the cross where we say not my will but thine be done only in this way will our service to Jesus Christ be effective Only in this way will the wisdom of God and the power of God be revealed and manifested in our lives.
And so we bow and say, God forbid that I shall glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we start by showing the cross, I think, the world, the paradox, a complete contradiction, an absolute antithesis. to the ideas of men. And then we bring it out to that, and we show it as an abiding principle that must operate in the lives of the people of God in every situation. And then we narrow it down still further and say, this is the answer to all trouble in the church. And that's not an exaggeration.
This is the answer to all trouble in the church. The Christ was crucified for us. And we owe our loyalty to him, and we must follow the way that he went. And it is the answer to effective service when we serve him, not in the power of oratory, of wisdom, of a dynamic personality, the energy of the flesh, but when we serve him in the power and wisdom that is entrusted in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. O cross that lifteth up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee, I let thee induct light's glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red light, for that shall endless be.
May that be your experience as mine, for Christ's sake. Amen. Now let us sing the hymn number of sixteen, which is the hymn that I have just broken. Oh, love, that would now let me go. Oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, Thank you. Oh, I shall come and draw thy way.
Thy will I send thee now to thee. Thank you. Oh, Lord, let me get thee to the day.
I pray, I go to the day. and be as promised in your day. The Lord shall be with me. O God, let me take up my head. that comes, that comes, that comes, that comes, that comes, that comes, that comes, that comes, that comes to me.
O God, our Father in heaven, we bow before thee, to acknowledge with humble gratitude for the infinite blessing that has become ours because of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for pardon for monarchy, and as offended God, pardon for sins of deepest eye, for pardon bestowed through Jesus' blood. pardon to bring the rebel nigh. We bless thee for this and for the hope of eternal salvation that we shall dwell with thee forever. Now we pray that we may not only receive all the benefits that floweth from the cross of our Lord Jesus and give nothing in return.
Grant, O Lord, that we may bow not only now but constantly before that cross and to receive from thee a cross of our own a principle to operate in our lives that shall make us more like our Lord Jesus Christ more effective in his service so we commit our meditation for these and ourselves now into thy care asking thy blessing upon us as we separate the one from the other through Jesus Christ.