DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
world." Galatians 6:14.
WHENEVER we rebuke other people we should be prepared to clear
ourselves of their offense. The Apostle had been rebuking those who
wished to glory in the flesh. In denouncing false teachers and
upbraiding their weak-minded followers, he used sharp language while he
appealed to plain facts and maintained his ground with strong
arguments. And this he did without fear of being met by a flank
movement and being charged with doing the same things himself. Very
fitly, therefore, does he contrast his own determined purpose with
their plausible falseness. They were for making a fair show in the
flesh, but he shrunk not from the deepest shame of the Christian
profession. So far from shrinking, he even counted it honor to be
scorned for Christ's sake, exclaiming, "God forbid that I should glory,
save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The Galatians and all others to whom his name was familiar, well knew
how truly he spoke, for the manner of his life as well as the matter of
his teaching had supplied evidence of this assertion, which none of his
enemies could deny. There had not been in all his ministry any doctrine
that he extolled more highly than that of "Christ crucified." Nor any
experience that he touched on more tenderly than this "fellowship with
Christ in His sufferings." Nor any rule of conduct that he counted more
safe than following in the footsteps of Him who "endured the Cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of
God." His example accorded with his precept. God grant, of His Grace,
that there may always be with us the same transparent consistency.
Sometimes when we notice an evil and protest as boldly and
conscientiously as we can against it, we feel that our protest is too
obscure to have much influence. It will then be our very best resource
to resolutely abstain from the evil, ourselves, and so, at least in one
person, to overthrow its power. If you cannot convert a man from his
error by an argument, you can at least prove the sincerity of your
reasoning by your own behavior. And thus, if no fortress is captured,
you will at least "hold the fort" and you may do more–your
faithfulness may win more than your zeal could have! Vow faithfully
within your own heart and say frankly to your neighbor, "You may do
what you will, but as for me, God forbid that I should remove the old
landmarks, or seek out new paths, however inviting, or turn aside from
that which I know to be the good old way."
A determined resolution of that sort, fully adhered to, will often
carry more weight and exert more influence on the mind of an
individual, especially of a waverer, than a host of arguments. Your
actions will speak more loudly than your words. The Apostle in the
present case warms with emotion at the thought of anybody presuming to
set a carnal ordinance in front of the Cross by wishing to glory in
circumcision or any other outward institution. The idea of a ceremony
claiming to be made more of than faith in Jesus provoked him till his
heart presently grew hot with indignation and he thundered forth the
words, "God forbid!" He never used the sacred name with lightness, but
when the fire was hot within him, he called God to witness that he did
not and could not glory in anything but the Cross.
Indeed, there is, to every true-hearted Believer, something shocking
and revolting in the putting of anything before Jesus Christ, be it
what it may, whether it is an idol of superstition or a toy of
skepticism–whether it is the fruit of tradition or the flower of
philosophy! Do you need new Scriptures to supplement the true sayings
of God? Do you need a new Savior who can surpass Him whom the Father
has sent? Do you need a new sacrifice that can save you from sins which
His atoning blood could not expiate? Do you need a modern song to
supersede the new song of, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain"? "O
foolish Galatians!" said Paul.
O silly Protestants, I am inclined to say! We might go on, in these
times, to speak warmly to many of the parties around us–the doting
Ritualists, the puffed-up Rationalists and the self-exalting school of
modern thought. I marvel
not at Paul's warmth. I only wish that some who think so little of
doctrinal discrepancies, as they call them, could but sympathize a
little with his holy indignation when he saw the first symptoms of
departure from godly simplicity and sincerity. Do you not notice that a
little dissembling of a dear Brother made him withstand him to his
face? When a whole company turned the cold shoulder to the Cross of
Christ it made him burn with indignation! He could not stand it. The
Cross was the center of his hopes–around it his affections
curled–there he had found peace for his troubled conscience.
God forbid that he should allow it to be trampled on! Besides, it was
the theme of his ministry. "Christ crucified" had already proven the
power of God to salvation to every soul who had believed the
life-giving message as he proclaimed it in every city. Would any of
you, he asks, cast a slur on the Cross–you who have been
converted–you before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set
forth crucified among you? How his eyes flash! How his lips quiver! How
his heart grows hot within him! With what vehemence he protests–"God
forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ." He spreads his eagle wings and rises into eloquence at once,
while still his keen eyes look fiercely upon every enemy of the Cross
whom he leaves far beneath.
Oftentimes in his Epistles you observe this. He burns, he glows, he
mounts, he soars, he is carried clean away as soon as his thoughts are
in fellowship with his Lord Jesus, that meek and patient Sufferer who
offered Himself a Sacrifice for our sins. When his tongue begins to
speak of the glorious work which the Christ of God has done for the
sons of men, it finds a sudden liberty and he becomes as "a hind let
loose; he gives good words." May we have something of that glow within
our breasts, tonight, and whenever we think of our Lord. God forbid
that we should be cold-hearted when we come near to Jesus! God forbid
that we should ever view with heartless eyes and a lethargic soul the
sweet wonders of that Cross on which our Savior loved and died!
Let us, then, in that spirit, approach our text–and we notice, at
once, three crucifixions. These are the summary of the text. "God
forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ." That is, Christ crucified. "By whom," or, "by which," (read it
whichever way you like), "the world is crucified unto me." That is, a
crucified world. "And I unto the world." That is, Paul, himself, or the
Believer, crucified with Christ. I see, again, Calvary before me with
its three crosses–Christ in the center and on either side of Him a
crucified person–one who dies to feel the second death and the other
who dies to be with Him in Paradise! At these three crosses let us
proceed to look.
I. First, then, the main part of our subject lies in CHRIST CRUCIFIED,
in whom Paul gloried. I call your attention to the language–"God
forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross." Some popular authors
and public speakers, when they have to state a Truth of God, count it
necessary to clothe it in very delicate language. They, perhaps, do not
quite intend to conceal its point and edge but, at any rate, they do
not want the projecting angles and bare surfaces of the Truth to be too
observable and, therefore, they cast a cloak around it–they are
careful to scabbard the Sword of the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul might have done so, here, if he had chosen, but he
disdains the artifice. He presents the Truth of God "in the worst
possible form," as his opponents say–"in all its naked hideousness,"
as the Jew would have it–for he does not say, "God forbid that I
should glory, save in the death of Christ," but in the Cross. You do
not realize, I think–we cannot do so in these days–how the use of
that word, "cross," would grate on ears refined in Galatia and
elsewhere. In those days it meant the felon's tree, the hangman's
gallows–and the Apostle, therefore, does not hesitate to put it just
so–"Save in that gallows on which my Master died." We have become so
accustomed to associate the name of, "the Cross," with other sentiments
that it does not convey to us that sense of disgrace which it would
inflict upon those who heard Paul speak.
A family sensitively shrinks if one of its members has been hanged and
much the same would be the natural feeling of one who was told that his
leader was crucified. Paul puts it thus baldly; he lets it jar thus
harshly though it may prove to some a stumbling block and to others
foolishness. But he will not cloak it. He glories in "the Cross!" On
the other hand, I earnestly entreat you to observe how he seems to
contrast the Glory of the Person with the shame of the suffering, for
it is not simply the death of Christ, nor of Jesus, nor of Jesus
Christ, nor of the Lord Jesus Christ, but of, "our Lord Jesus Christ."
Every word tends to set forth the excellence of His Person, the majesty
of His Character and the interest which all the saints have in Him. It
was a cross, but it was the Cross of our Lord–let us worship Him!
It was the Cross of our Lord Jesus, the Savior–let us love Him! It was
the Cross of our Jesus Christ the anointed Messiah–let us reverence
Him! Let us sit at His feet and learn of Him! Each one may say, "It was
the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ," but it sweetens the whole matter
and gives a largeness to it when we say, "It was the Cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ." Oh yes, we delight to think of the contrast between the
precious Christ and the painful Cross–the Son of God and the shameful
gallows! He was Immanuel, God With Us–yet did He die the felon's death
upon the accursed tree! Paul brings out the shame with great sharpness
and the glory with great plainness. He does not hesitate in either
case, whether he would declare the sufferings of Christ or the glory
which should follow.
What did he mean, however, by the Cross? Of course he cared nothing for
the particular piece of wood to which those blessed hands and feet were
nailed, for that was mere materialism and has perished out of mind. He
means the glorious doctrine of Justification–free
justification–through the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ! This is
what he means by the Cross–the expiation for sin which our Lord Jesus
Christ made by His death–and the gift of eternal life freely bestowed
on all those who, by Grace, are led to trust in Him. To Paul the Cross
meant just what the bronze serpent meant to Moses. As the bronze
serpent in the wilderness was the hope of the sin-bitten and all that
Moses had to do was to bid them look and live–so today the Cross of
Christ–the Atonement of Jesus Christ, is the hope of mankind and our
mission is continually to cry, "Look and live! Look and live!"
It is this doctrine, this Gospel of Christ crucified, at which the
present age, with all its vaunted culture and all its vain
philosophies, sneers so broadly–it is this doctrine wherein we glory!
We are not ashamed to put it very definitely–we glory in Substitution,
in the vicarious Sacrifice of Jesus in our place. He was "made sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him." "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
His own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a Curse
for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree."
We believe in the imputation of sin to the innocent Person of our
covenant Head and Representative, in the bearing of the penalty by that
substituted One and the clearing by faith of those for whom He bore the
punishment of sin. Now we glory in this! We glory in it, not as men
sometimes boast in a creed which they have received by tradition from
their forefathers, for we have learned this Truth of God, each one for
himself, by the inward teaching of the Holy Spirit and therefore it is
very dear to us. We glory in it with no empty boast, but to the inward
satisfaction of our own hearts we prove that satisfaction by the devout
consecration of our lives to make it known.
We have trusted our souls to its truth. If it is a fable, our hopes are
forever shipwrecked because our all is embarked in that venture. We are
quite prepared to run that risk, content to perish if this salvation
should fail us. We live upon this faith. It is our meat and our drink.
Take this away and there is nothing left us in the Bible worth having.
It has become to us the head and front of our confidence, our hope, our
rest, our joy. Instead of being ashamed to preach it, we wish that we
could stand somewhere where all the inhabitants of the earth could hear
us and we would thunder it out day and night! So far from being ashamed
of acknowledging it, we count it to be our highest honor and our
greatest delight to proclaim it, as we have opportunity, among the sons
of men!
But why do we rejoice in it? Why do we glory in it? The answer is so
large that I cannot do more than glance at its manifold claims on our
gratitude. We glory in it for a thousand reasons! We fail to see
anything in the doctrine of Atonement that we should not glory in. We
have heard a great many dogs bark against it, but dogs will bay the
moon in her brightness and, therefore, we mind not their howling. Their
noise has sometimes disturbed, though never yet has it frightened us.
We have not yet heard a quibble against our Lord or an argument against
His atoning blood which has affected our faith the turn of a hair. The
Scriptures affirm it, the Holy Spirit bears witness to it and its
effect upon our inner life assures us of it.
The analogy between Jewish fasts and festivals and our Christian faith
endorses it. There is a chasm that no man yet has been able to bridge
without it. It lightens our conscience, gladdens our hearts, inspires
our devotion and elevates our aspirations. We are wed to it and daily
glory in it. In the Cross of Christ we glory because we regard it as a
matchless exhibition of the attributes of God. We see there the love of
God desiring a way by which He might save mankind, aided by His wisdom,
so that a plan is perfected by which the deed can be done without
violation of truth and justice. In the Cross we see a strange
conjunction of what once appeared to be two opposite qualities–justice
and mercy. We see how God is supremely just–as just as if He had no
mercy–and yet infinitely merciful in the gift of His Son.
Mercy and justice, in fact, become counsel upon the same side and
irresistibly plead for the acquittal of the believing sinner. We can
never tell which of the attributes of God shines most glorious in the
Sacrifice of Christ–they each one find a glorious high throne in the
Person and work of the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the
world! Since it has become, as it were, the mirror which reflects the
Character and perfections of God, it is meet that we should glory in
the Cross of Christ and none shall stop us of our boasting! We glory in
it, next, as the manifestation of the love of Jesus. He was loving
inasmuch as He came to earth at all–loving in feeding the hungry, in
healing the sick, in raising the dead. He was loving in His whole
life–He was embodied charity, the Prince of philanthropists, the King
of kindly souls!
But oh, His death!–His cruel and shameful death-bearing, as we believe
He did bear the wrath due to sin, subjecting Himself to the curse,
though in Him was no sin–this shows the love of Christ at its highest
altitude and, therefore, do we glory in it and will never be ashamed to
do so! We glory in the Cross, moreover, because it is the putting away
of sin. There was no other way of making an end of sin and making
reconciliation for iniquity. To forgive the transgressions without
exacting the penalty would have been contrary to all the threats of
God! It would not have appeased the claims of justice, nor satisfied
the conscience of the sinner.
No peace of mind can be enjoyed without pardon and conscience declares
that no pardon can be obtained without an atonement. We would have
distracted ourselves with the fear that it was only a reprieve and not
a remission even if the most comforting promises had been given
unsealed with the atoning blood. The instincts of Nature have convinced
men of this truth, for all the world over religion has been associated
with sacrifice. Almost every kind of worship that has ever sprung up
among the sons of men has had sacrifice for its most prominent
feature–crime must be avenged, evil and sin cry from the ground–and a
victim is sought to avert the vengeance. The heart craves for something
that can calm the conscience–that craving is a relic of the ancient
Truth of God learned by man in primeval ages.
Now, Christ made His soul an offering for sin when He bore our sins in
His own body on the tree. With His expiring breath He said, "It is
finished!" Oh, wondrous Grace! Pardon is now freely published among the
sons of men, pardon of which we see the justice and validity! As far as
the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions
from us by the death of Christ! This, and this, only, will put away
sin! Therefore in this Cross of Christ we glory! Yes, and in it, alone,
will we glory evermore! It has put away our sins, blessed be God, so
that this load and burden no more weigh us down!
We do not speak at random, now. It has breathed hope and peace and joy
into our spirits. I am sure that no one knows how to glory in the Cross
unless He has had an experimental acquaintance with its peace-breathing
power. I speak what I know and testify what I have felt. The burden of
my sin laid so heavy upon me that I would sooner have died than have
lived. Many a day and many a night I felt the flames of Hell in the
anguish of my heart because I knew my guilt and saw no way of righteous
forgiveness. Yet in a moment the load went from me and I felt
overflowing love to my Savior! I fell at His feet awe-stricken that He
should have taken away my sin and made an end of it. That matchless
deed of love won my heart to Jesus! He changed my nature and renewed my
soul in that same hour.
And oh, the joy I had! Those who have sunk to the very depths of
despair and risen, in a moment, to the heights of peace and unspeakable
joy, can tell you that they must glory in the Cross and its power to
save. Why, Sirs, we must believe according to our own conscience! We
cannot belie that inward witness. We only wish that others had been as
deeply convinced of sin and as truly led to the Cross to feel their
burden roll from off their shoulders as we have been! And then they,
too, would glory in the Cross of Christ. Since then we have gone with
this remedy in our hands to souls that have been near despair and we
have never found the medicine fail. Many and many a time have I spoken
to people so depressed in spirit that they seemed not far from the
madhouse, so heavy was their sense of sin! Yet I have never known the
matchless music of Jesus' name in any case fail to charm the soul out
of its despondency.
"They looked unto Him and were lightened: and their faces were not
ashamed." Men who, because they thought there was no hope for them,
would have desperately continued in sin, have read that word, "hope,"
written in crimson lines upon the Savior's dying body and they have
sprung up into confidence, have entered into peace and from that moment
have begun to lead a new life! We glory in the Cross because of the
peace it brings to every troubled conscience which receives it by
faith–our own case has proved to our own souls its efficacy–and what
we have seen in others has confirmed our confidence.
Yet we would not glory so much in the Cross were we not convinced that
it is the greatest moral power in all the world. We glory in the Cross
because it gets at men's hearts when nothing else can reach them. The
story of the dying Savior's love has often impressed those whom all the
moral lectures in the world could never have moved. Judged and
condemned by the unanswerable reasoning of their own consciences, they
have not had enough control over their passions to shake off the
captivity in which they were held by the temptations that assailed them
at every turn till they have drawn near to the Cross of Jesus! Then
from pardon they have gathered hope and from hope have gained strength
to master sin! When they have seen their sin laid on Jesus, they have
loved Him and hated the sin that made Him to suffer so grievously as
their Substitute.
Then the Holy Spirit has come upon them and they have resolved, with
Divine strength, to drive out the sin for which the Savior died. They
have begun a new life, yes, and they have continued in it, sustained by
that same sacred power which first constrained them–and now they look
forward to be perfected by it through the power of God! Where are the
triumphs of infidelity in rescuing men from sin? Where are the trophies
of philosophy in conquering human pride? Will you bring us harlots that
have been made chaste; thieves that have been reclaimed; angry men of
bear-like temper who have become harmless as lambs through scientific
lectures? Let our amateur philanthropists who suggest so much and do so
little, produce some instances of the moral transformations that have
been worked by their sophistries!
No, they curl their lips and leave the lower orders to the City
Missionary and the Bible Woman! It is the Cross that humbles the
haughty, lifts up the fallen, refines the polluted and gives a fresh
start to those who are forlorn and desperate! Nothing else can do it!
The world sinks lower and lower into the bog of its own selfishness and
sin. Only this wondrous lever of the Atonement, symbolized by the Cross
of Christ, can lift our abject race to the place of virtue and honor
which it ought to occupy! We glory in the Cross for so many reasons
that I cannot hope to enumerate them all. While it ennobles our life,
it invigorates us with hope in our death.
Death is now deprived of its terrors to us, for Christ has died. We,
like He, can say, "Father, into Your hands we commend our spirit." His
burial has perfumed the grave! His Resurrection has paved the road to
immortality! He rose and left a lamp behind which shows an outlet from
the gloom of the sepulcher. The Paradise He immediately predicted for
Himself and for the penitent who hung by His side has shown us how
quick the transition is from mortal pains to immortal joys! "Absent
from the body, present with the Lord," is the cheering prospect! Glory
be to Christ forever and forever that we have this doctrine of "Christ
crucified" to preach!
II. The second cross exhibits THE WORLD CRUCIFIED. The Apostle says
that the world was crucified to him. What does he mean by this? He
regarded the world as nailed up like a felon and hanged upon a cross to
die. Well, I suppose he means that its character was condemned. He
looked out upon the world which thought so much of itself and said, "I
do not think much of you, poor World! You are like a doomed
malefactor." He knew that the world had crucified its Savior–crucified
its God! It had gone to such a length of sin that it had hounded
perfect Innocence through the streets. Infinite Benevolence it had
scoffed at and maligned. Eternal Truth it had rejected and preferred a
lie–and the Son of God, who was Love incarnate, it had put to the
death on the Cross.
"Now," says Paul, "I know your character, O World! I know you! And I
hold you in no more esteem than the wretch abhorred for his crimes who
is condemned to hang upon the gallows and so end his detested life."
This led Paul, since he condemned its character, utterly to despise its
judgment. The world said, "This Paul is a fool! His Gospel is
foolishness and he, himself is a mere babbler." "Yes," thought Paul, "a
deal you know of it!" In this we unite with him. What is your judgment
worth? You did not know the Son of God, poor blind World! We are sure
that He was perfect and yet you hunted Him to death! Your judgment is a
poor thing, O World! You are crucified to us.
Now, there are a great many people who could hardly endure to live if
they should happen to be misjudged by the world or what is called
"society." Oh yes, we must be respectable! We must have every man's
good word, or we are ready to faint! Paul was of another mind. What
cared he for anything the world might say? How could he wish to please
a world so abominable that it had put his Lord to death? He would
sooner have its bad opinion than its good. It were better to be frowned
at than to be smiled upon by a world that crucified Christ! Certainly,
its condemnation is more worth having than its approbation, if it can
put Christ to death! So Paul utterly despised its judgment and it was
crucified to him.
Now, we are told to think a great deal about "public opinion," "popular
belief," "the growing feeling of the age," "the sentiment of the
period" and "the spirit of the age." I should like Paul to read some of
our religious newspapers! And yet I could not wish the good man so
distasteful a task, for I dare say he would sooner pine in the
Mammertine prison than do so. But, still, I should like to see how he
would look after he had read some of those expressions about the
necessity of keeping ourselves abreast with the sentiment of the
period. "What?" he would exclaim, "the sentiment of the world! It is
crucified to me! What can it matter what its opinion is? We are of God,
little children, and the whole world lies in the Wicked One! Would you
heed what the world, that is lying in the Wicked One, thinks of you or
of the Truth of your Lord? Are you going to smooth your tongue and
soften your speech to please the world that lies in the Wicked
One?"
Paul would be indignant with such a proposition. He said, "the world is
crucified to me." Hence he looked upon all the world's pleasures as so
much rottenness, a carcass nailed to a cross. Can you fancy Paul being
taken to the Coliseum at Rome? I try to imagine him made to sit on one
of those benches to watch a combat of gladiators. There is the
emperor–there are all the great peers of Rome and the senators. And
there are those cruel eyes all gazing down upon men who shed each
others' blood! Can you picture how Paul would have felt if he had been
forced to occupy a seat at that spectacle? It would have been martyrdom
to him! He would have closed his eyes and ears against the sight of
what Rome thought to be the choicest pleasure of the day!
They thronged the imperial city–they poured in mighty streams into the
theater each day to see poor beasts tortured, or men murdering one
another–that was the world of Paul's day and he rightly judged it to
be a crucified felon. If he was compelled to see the popular pleasures
of today, upon which I will say but little, would he not be well-near
as sick of them as he would have been of the amusements of the
amphitheatre at Rome? To Paul, too, all the honors of the age must have
been crucified in the same manner. Suppose that Paul settled his mind
to think of the wretches who were reigning as emperors in his day! I
use the word advisedly, for I would not speak evil of dignitaries, but
really, I speak too well of them when I call them wretches! They seem
to have been inhuman monsters–"tyrants whose capricious folly violated
every law of Nature and decency," to whom every kind of lust was a
daily habit and who even sought out new inventions of sensuality,
calling them new pleasures.
As Paul thought of the iniquities of Napoli and all the great towns to
which the Romans went on their holidays– Pompeii and the like–oh, how
he loathed them! And I doubt not that if the Apostle were to come here
now, if he knew how often rank and title are apt to sink all true
dignity in shameful dissipation and what flagrant profligacy is to be
found in high quarters, he might as justly consider all the pomp and
dignity and honor of the world that now is, to be as little worth as a
putrid carcass hanging on a tree and rotting in the sun. He says, "The
world is crucified to me–it is hanging on the gallows, I think so
little of its pleasures and of its pomp." Alike contemptuously did Paul
judge of all the treasures of the world.
Paul never spent as much time as it would take to wink his eye in
thinking of how much money he was worth. Having food and raiment, he
was content. Sometimes he had scarcely that. He casually thanks the
Philippians for ministering to his necessities, but he never sought to
hoard up anything, nor did he live with even half a thought of
aggrandizing himself with gold and silver. "No," he said, "this will
all perish with the using," and so he treated the world as a thing
crucified to him. Now, Christian, can you say as much as this–that the
world, in its mercantile aspect as well as in its motley vices and its
manifold frivolities, is a crucified thing to you? Hear what the world
says. "Make money, young Man, make money! Honestly, if you can, but by
all means make money! Look about you, for if you are not sharp, you
will not succeed. Keep your own counsel and rather play the double than
be the dupe. Your character will rise with the credit you get."
Now, suppose that you get the money, what is the result? The net
result, as I often find it, is a paragraph in one of the newspapers to
say that Esquire So-and-So's will was proved in the Probate Court under
so many thousands. Then follows a grand squabble among all his
relatives which shall eat him up. That is the consummation of a life of
toil and care and scheming. He has lived for lucre and he has to leave
it behind! That is the end of that folly. I have sometimes thought of
the contrast between the poor man's funeral and the rich man's funeral.
When the poor man dies, there are his sons and daughters weeping with
real distress, for the death of the father brings sadness and sympathy
into that house. The poor man is to be buried, but it can only be
managed by the united self-denials of all his sons and daughters.
There is Mary at the service. She, perhaps, contributes more than the
others towards the funeral, for she has no family of her own. The elder
son and the younger brothers all pinch themselves to pay a little and
the tears that are shed that evening when they come home from the grave
are very genuine. They suffer and they prove their sorrow by rivaling
one another in the respect they pay to their parent. Now you shall see
the rich man die. Of course everybody laments the sad loss–it is the
proper thing. Empty carriages swell the procession to the grave by way
of empty compliment. The mourners return and there is the reading of
that blessed document, the will. When that is read, the time for tears
is over in almost every case.
Few are pleased. The one whom fortune favors is the envy of all the
rest. Sad thoughts and sullen looks float on the surface, not in
respect to the man's departure, but concerning the means he has left
and the mode in which he has disposed of them. Oh, it is a poor thing
to live for–the making of money and the hoarding of it! But still, the
genius of rightly getting money can be consecrated to the glory of God.
You can use the wealth of this world in the service of the Master. To
gain is not wrong. It is only wrong when grasping becomes the main
object of life and grudging grows into covetousness which is idolatry!
To every Christian, that and every other form of worldliness ought to
be crucified so that we can say, "For me to live is not myself, but it
is Christ! I live that I may honor and glorify Him."
When the Apostle said that the world was crucified to him, He meant
just this–"I am not enslaved by any of its pursuits. I care nothing
for its maxims. I am not governed by its spirit. I do not court its
smiles. I do not fear its threats. It is not my master, nor am I its
slave. By God's Grace the whole world cannot force me to lie, or to sin
and I will tell the world the Truth of God, come what may." You
remember the words of Palissy, the potter, when the king of France said
to him that if he did not change his religion and cease to be a
Huguenot, he was afraid that he should have to deliver him up to his
enemies? "Sire," said the potter, "I am sorry to hear you say, 'I am
afraid,' for all the men in the world could not make Palissy talk like
that. I am afraid of nobody and I must do nothing but what is right."
Oh, yes, the man that fears God and loves the Cross has a moral
backbone which enables him to stand and snap his fingers at the world.
"Dead felon!" he says. "Dead felon! Crucifier of Christ! Cosmos you
call yourself. By comely names you wish to be greeted. Paul is nothing
in your esteem, but Paul is a match for you, for he thinks as much of
you as you do of him, and no more." Hear him as he cries, "The world is
crucified unto me, and I unto the world." To live to serve men is one
thing, to live to bless them is another, and this we will do, God
helping us, making sacrifices for their good. But to fear men, to ask
their leave to think–to ask their instructions as to what we shall
speak and how we shall say it– that is a baseness we cannot tolerate!
By the Grace of God, we have not so degraded ourselves and never shall.
"The world is crucified to me," says the Apostle, "by the Cross of
Christ."
III. Then he finishes up with the third crucifixion, which is, I AM
CRUCIFIED TO THE WORLD. We shall soon see the evidence of this
crucifixion if we notice how they poured contempt upon him. Once Saul
was a great rabbi, a man profoundly versed in Hebrew lore, a Pharisee
of the Pharisees and much admired. He was also a classic scholar and a
philosophic thinker, a man of great mental powers and fit to take the
lead in learned circles. But when Paul began to preach Christ
crucified–"Bah," they said, "he is an utter fool! Don't listen to
him!" Or else they said, "Down with him! He is an apostate!"
They cursed him. His name brought wrath into the face of all Jews that
mentioned it and all intelligent Greeks likewise. "Paul? He is nobody!"
He was everybody when he thought their way–he is nobody now that he
thinks in God's way. And then they put him to open shame by suspecting
all his motives and by misrepresenting all his actions. It did not
matter what Paul did, they were quite certain that he was
self-seeking–that he was endeavoring to make a fine thing of it for
himself. When he acted so that they were forced to admit that he was
right, they put it in such a light that they made it out to be wrong.
There were some who denied his Apostleship and said that he was never
sent of God. Others questioned his ability to preach the Gospel.
So they crucified poor Paul one way and another to the fullest. They
went further, still. They despised and they shunned him. His old
friends forsook him. Some got out of the way, others pointed the finger
of scorn at him in the streets. His persecutors showed their rancor
against him, now stoning him illegally, other times, with a semblance
of legality, dragging him before the magistrates. Paul was crucified to
them. As for his teaching, they decried him as a babbler–a
setter-forth of strange gods. I dare say they often sneered at the
Cross of Christ which he preached as a nine-days' wonder, an almost
exploded doctrine, and said, "If you do but shut the mouths of such men
as Paul, it will soon be
forgotten." I have heard them say in modern times to lesser men, "Your
old-fashioned Puritanism is nearly dead! Before long it will be utterly
extinct!" But we preach Christ crucified–the same old doctrine as the
Apostles preached and for this, by the contempt of the worldly wise, we
are crucified!
Now, dear Christian Friends, if you keep to the Cross of Christ, you
must expect to have this for your portion. The world will be crucified
to you and you will be crucified to the world. You will get the cold
shoulder. Old friends will become open foes. They will begin to hate
you more than they loved you before. At home your foes will be the men
and women of your own household. You will hardly be able to do anything
right. When you joined in their revels you were a fine fellow–when you
would drink and sing a lascivious song, you were a jolly good
fellow–but now they rate you as a fool! They tell all you are a
hypocrite and they slanderously blacken your character. Let their
dislike be a badge of your discipleship and say, "Now, also, the world
is crucified to me and I unto the world. Whatever the world says
against me for Christ's sake is the maundering of a doomed malefactor
and what do I care for that? And, on the other hand, if I am rejected
and despised, I am only taking what I always expected–my
crucifixion–in my poor, humble way, after the manner of Christ
Himself, who was despised and rejected of men."
The moral and the lesson of it all is this–whatever comes of it, still
glory in Christ! Go in for this, dear Friends, that whether you are in
honor or in dishonor, in good report or in evil report–whether God
multiplies your substance and makes you rich, or diminishes it and
makes you poor–you will still glory in the Cross of Christ! If you
have health and strength and vigor to work for Him, or if you have to
lie upon a bed of languishing and bear in patience all your heavenly
Father's will, resolve that you will still glory in the Cross! Let this
be the point of your glorying throughout your lives! Go down the steeps
of Jordan and go through Jordan, itself, still glorying in the Cross,
for in the Heaven of Glory you will find that the blood-bought hosts
celebrate the Cross as the trophy of their redemption!
Are you trusting in the Cross? Are you resting in Jesus? If not, may
the Lord teach you this blessed privilege! There is no joy like it!
There is no strength like it! There is no life like it! There is no
peace like it! At the Cross we find our Heaven! While upon the Cross we
gaze all heavenly and holy things abound within our hearts! If you have
never been there, may the Lord lead you there at this very hour–and so
shall you be pardoned, accepted and blest forever! The Lord grant that
you all may be partakers of this Grace for Christ's sake. Amen.