Happy Resurrection Sunday!
I got a lot of positive response from Joint SS at Antioch today. I talked briefly about the life & ministry of Billy Graham. He had over 400 crusades, preached in 185+ countries, 6 continents, and live to over 215 million people. He did so with a simple message about the cross. Billy Graham believed that once could not come to the cross and not be changed.
Below is a timely Easter message by Billy Graham concerning the Offense of the Cross.
Thanks,
Pastor Glen
Below is a message entitled "Why is the Cross an Offense?" By Billy Graham
Many people wear crosses. It’s popular to wear them. But what the cross stands for is an offense, a stumbling block, a scandal. It’s a rugged cross, a place where blood was shed. It’s a place where Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. Eight hundred years before Christ was born Isaiah said, “There is no beauty [in him] that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2, KJV). There was no beauty on that cross. Jesus was bleeding, suffering, dying and crying out to God, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, KJV). The Apostle Paul found that the cross provoked antagonism.
We hear the cry, “Back to Christ, back to Christ!” What kind of Christ?
Too often it’s a romantic Jesus that we want, the One who walked in Galilee. But it's not the Christ of the cross whom we want. Christ came to die. Jesus is the only One who was ever born for the express purpose of dying. He came to die for the redemptive purpose of God, and he rose again in the will of God, by the plan of God, for the salvation of the human race.
The Scripture says, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3 KJV). It was horrible in one sense and glorious in another. We remember how Judas betrayed him. We remember how the soldiers came to take him away. We remember how he was taken to the Temple and how they spit in his face and hit him. And we remember how they took him to Pilate, who said, “Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:17, KJV). The people who had a choice said, “Give us Barabbas. Crucify Jesus.”
Then we remember how they took him and scourged him, put a crown of thorns on his head, stripped him and put a robe on him. Then they took him out to Golgotha and put spikes in his hands and feet and lifted him up on a cross between two thieves.
Agony
But the agony of the cross wasn't just the physical suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ; the deeper suffering of Christ on the cross was spiritual: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). In that holy moment God laid upon him all the sins of the world. We cannot comprehend such love.
Why is the cross an offense? The cross of Christ is an offense because it condemns the world. It says to us, “You are sinners.”We don’t like to be told we are sinners. We love darkness because our deeds are evil. We don’t like the Gospel spotlighting us. We don’t like someone to point out our faults and our failures and our mistakes, and especially our sins.
Not only is the cross an offense because it says that we are sinners, but it is an offense because on the cross blood was shed. God’s Word teaches that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. All the way through the Old Testament lambs and bullocks are sacrificial offerings, representing the time when Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, would come and die on the cross, shedding his blood as a sacrifice for us, taking our sins.
Blood is repulsive. The Bible says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood."(Leviticus 17:11). When Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross, his life was given for us. This is called the blood of propitiation. Jesus Christ is the One whom “God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the [forgiveness] of sins that are past.” (Romans 3:25, KJV). It means a covering: God covers our sin by the blood.
The blood of Christ is the blood of redemption: “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” (Revelation 5:9, KJV). We are redeemed by the blood.
Forgiveness
It is the blood of forgiveness: “Without shedding of blood there is no [forgiveness].” (Hebrews 9:22, KJV).
It is the blood of reconciliation: “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians2:13, KJV). It's the blood that reconciles us to God. If you are separated from God by sin, you can be restored to fellowship with God. You can have your sins forgiven; you can know you are going to heaven; you can have God's peace in your heart. But first there must be reconciliation with God made possible by the blood.
It is the blood of justification: “Much more then, being now justifiied by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:9). And the word “justified” means to be released from the guilt of sin and accepted as righteous. The Bible says God remembers your sins no more because of the cross.
It is also the blood of peace. We have “peace through the blood of his cross.”(Colossians 1:20). Is there peace in your heart? Peace toward God; peace toward your fellow man; peace in your home; peace where you work? That turbulence raging in your heart can be quieted by the Lord Jesus Christ if you will in simple faith say, “Yes, Lord Jesus, come into my heart."
The cross is an offense because it demands a disciplined life. Jesus said, “lf any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke :23).
Many chafe at that kind of restraint. We refuse to give up what we know his cross condemns. And his cross condemns evil and wrongdoing. It condemns lying and cheating and fraud. It condemns corruption and oppression and racial prejudice.
Peace
The cross is also an offense because it points to a dramatic end to the world as we know it. The world likes to think that it will somehow work out its problems and that permanent peace will come. Permanent peace will come when the Prince of Peace comes back — not until then. We may have temporary peace — and the Christian is to work for peace — but ultimately the prophecy of Jesus will be fulfilled. There will be wars and rumors of wars until the end of time when Christ will intervene in human history. At that time Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, will be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.
And the cross of Christ is an offense because it claims to be the only way of salvation. If l proclaim ritualism, works, ordinances, the offense of the cross will cease. The offense of the cross arises chiefly from the fact that the cross is the only way to God.
If you want to go to heaven, if you want your sins forgiven, if you want to know that you have eternal life, you will have to come to the cross. By faith, with all your heart, surrender to him. That’s the teaching of the New Testament; that’s the teaching of Jesus Christ.
https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/
Source: Decision - August 1980
