Preaching About The Cross of Christ: by ML Jones

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 6:14

The preaching of the cross of Christ was the very center and heart of the message of the apostles, and there is nothing I know of that is more important than that every one of us should realize that this is still the heart and the center of the Christian message. In order to emphasize that, let me put it negatively first. What is the message of the Christian Gospel and of the Christian church? Now at the risk of being misunderstood I will put it like this: It is not primarily the

teaching of our Lord. I say that, of course, because there are so many today who think that this is Christianity. They say, “What we need is Jesus’ teaching. He is the greatest religious genius of all times. He is above all philosophers. Let us have a look at His teaching, at the Sermon on the Mount and so on. That is what we want. What the world needs today,” they say, “is a dose of the Sermon on the Mount—a dose of His ethical teaching. We must preach this to people and teach them how to live.”

But according to the apostle Paul, this is not their first need. And I will go further. If you only preach the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only do you not solve the problem of mankind, but in a sense you aggravate it. You are preaching nothing but utter condemnation, because nobody can ever carry it out. So they did not preach His teaching. Paul does not say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Sermon on the Mount” or “God forbid that I should glory save in the ethical teaching of Jesus.” He does not say that. It was not the teaching of Christ, nor the example of Christ either. What they preached was His death on the cross and the meaning of that event.

The Cross of Christ: by Andrew Murray

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:19-20

The cross of Christ is His greatest glory. Because He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, therefore God hath highly exalted Him. The cross was the power that conquered Satan and sin.

The Christian shares with Christ in the cross. The crucified Christ lives in him through the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of the cross inspires him. He lives as one who has died with Christ. As he realizes the power of Christ's crucifixion, he lives as one who has died to the world and to sin, and the power becomes a reality in his life. It is as the crucified One that Christ lives in me.

Our Lord said to His disciples: "Take up your cross and follow me." Did they understand this? They had seen men carrying a cross, and knew what it meant, a painful death on the cross. And so all His life Christ bore His cross, the death sentence that He should die for the world. And each Christian must bear his cross, acknowledging that he is worthy of death, and believing that he is crucified with Christ, and that the crucified One lives in him. "Our old man is crucified with Christ." "He that is Christ's hath crucified the flesh with all the lusts thereof." When we have accepted this life of the cross, we will be able to say with Paul: "Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

This is a deep spiritual truth. Think and pray over it, and the Holy Spirit will teach you. Let the disposition of Christ on the cross, His humility, His sacrifice of all worldly honour, His Spirit of self-denial, take possession of you. The power of His death will work in you, and you will become like Him in His death, and you will know Him and the power of His resurrection. Take time, O soul, that Christ through His Spirit, may reveal Himself as the Crucified One.

Christ in Us: by Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Dou you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? 1 Corinthians 6:19

The New Testament tells me that Christ is in me, and I am meant to live a life of constant fellowship and communion with Him. Sin is to look away from Him, to be interested in anything that the world can give rather than in Him. Oh, if it is something foul it is ten times worse; but the best that the world can give me is an insult to Him if I put it before Him.

There are endless statements of this. Paul puts it in terms of the Holy Spirit: “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The argument is about fornication and adultery. Paul does not merely give a moral lecture on immorality; he says in effect, “What is wrong about that is that you are joining your body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit, to another, and you have no right to do it. The way to overcome that sin is not to pray so much that you may be delivered from it; it is to realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that you have no right to use it in that way.” Another way he puts it is this, and it is very tender: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30). He is tender, He is sensitive, He is holy; do not grieve Him.

If you and I would only think of our lives like that, it would very soon begin to promote our sanctification. May I commend to you a simple morning rule: When you wake up, the first thing you should do (and I need to do the same) is to say to yourself, “I am a child of God. Christ is in me. That old self is gone: I died with Christ. ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.’ Everything I do today must be in the light of this knowledge.”

The Invasion: by CS Lewis

1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe—a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living ma part of the universe occupied by the rebel.
    Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening--in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. I know someone will ask me, ‘Do you really mean, at this time of day, to re-introduce our old friend the devil-—hoofs and horns and all?’ Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do. I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance. If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person. ‘Don’t worry. If you really want to, you will. Whether you’ll like it when you do is another question.’

The Delusive Glory of This World’s Kingdoms: by AW Tozer

Matthew 4:10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

THE DELUSIVE QUALITY OF ALL HUMAN GLORY is taught throughout the Bible, and with bold emphasis in the New Testament. It has been taught also with great clarity by the saints and faithful brethren since the days of the apostles.
Satan once tried to bring about the downfall of Christ by offering Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory in them.
In presenting to the Man Jesus the glory of the world he was shrewdly taking advantage of a known weakness in the human race. The trick should have worked, and it would have worked but for one thing: This was no fallen man Satan was attempting to seduce. It was a sinless Man full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whose penetrating glance pierced the world’s attractive exterior.
Beneath its gaudy allurements He saw the corruption and the decay. He knew its glory was but bait to catch foolish victims. He knew its bright promises were all lies. Our Lord saw what other men could not see. He saw not beauty but death, a garish death that must be purchased at the price of the soul. What He saw revolted Him.  He would have no part of it!
All this Jesus knew; and Satan for all his wisdom did not know that He knew it. The devil is familiar with the Bible, but still he did not know or he would not have attempted the impossible, and that to his own confusion and permanent loss of face!
Here is sufficient proof that the devil is wise but not wise enough!

Extreme Legacy: from VOM (Voice of the Martyrs)

Matthew 5:14 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

When Stenley got off the boat on the remote Indonesian island, he felt the spiritual darkness. The people practiced a combination of witchcraft and oay44 Islam. Stenley was fresh out of Bible school and ready for the work to which God had called him, reaching these island people for Christ.

Stenley preached boldly, calling people to tum to Christ and then to bum their idols and die relics of their old life. One Muslim burned his idol, but inside it was a scroll from the Koran. When radical Muslims heard of the burning of the Koran, they reported Stenley to area officials. Stenley was immediately arrested. Although Stenley was horribly beaten and lay comatose, his mentor from Bible school, Pastor Siwi, came to see him and witnessed tears streaming from his eyes. Soon after, Stenley died from his injuries.

But even death could not end Stenley's ministry. When his story was told in his home village, eleven Muslims accepted Christ as Savior. Fifty-three villagers made the decision to attend Bible school, seven of whom asked to be sent as missionaries to the very village where Stenley had died. Hoping to extinguish the gospel fire, village officials snuffed out Stenley's life. But even in the midst of their violence, God's hand was at work. Today the flames of the gospel bum brightly In that village.

The woman was one month away from graduating from Bible school along with her daughter. It was the same Bible school where her son, Stenley, had gone before he went to another Indonesian island as a missionary. Stenley was killed for carrying the gospel, but his testimony had prompted many others to go to Bible school and to accept God's call to share his love.

When they had completed their training, the woman and her daughter planned to go to the very village where Stenley had died. She hoped for a chance to show Christ's love, even to the men who had beaten her son to death. A visitor to the Bible school, hearing of her plans, was surprised. "Are you not afraid to die?" he asked her.

The woman seemed confused by the question, as if it was not. something she had thought of before. "Why should I be afraid to die?" she answered simply. Her faith in God's goodness was complete. If he chose to use her in the village ·· where her son died, so be it. And if he permitted her to die there, she would accept that call as well. Her death would bring her into the presence of the Christ she loved. Death was not an obstacle or a punishment, merely a doorway into the eternal presence of God.

1 Corinthians 15:15 Where, Oh death, is your victor? Where, Oh death, is your sting?

A Living Relationship: by TA Sparks

Because I live, you also will live. John 14:19

Relationship with God today in so many directions, and over such a wide range, is not a living relationship. There is an acknowledgment of God, there is a form of worship of God, there are rites connected with God; yes, there is a recognition in a greater or lesser measure of a kind of devotion to God, worship of God, acknowledgment of God, perhaps desire for God, but all short of a living relationship with God. Yet that He is the living God means that those who are related to Him should live. He would say, "Because I live ye shall live also." A living relationship with God is possible....

It is not a relationship with some dead order of things, but with a living Person. But I must ask, Have you that living relationship? Are you following a system, an order, or are you in living fellowship with a living God? The Lord desires that such a relationship with Him shall be living all the way along. It is a great thing to know that you have access to the living God. You do not know whether a thing is right or wrong? Well, you have the living God, ask Him; He is open, He is accessible, He is alive; you can have dealings with Him. Just to enjoy a living relationship with a living God is how He wills it to be. The desire of His heart is that you should treat Him as being a living God. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." We must believe, when we come, that He is; not feeling out into the universe, the vacant, empty universe. No, we are coming to a living Person; we believe that He is! There is nothing vague about that.