There is power in the cross and there is power there to free us from all fear of loss in this life, to let it go. You are not citizens of this world. The power of that cross has set us free and ransomed us to God. We are people of another kingdom. The power of the cross calls us not to ease and not to luxury and not to retirement and rest and securities. You are called to live in the power of the cross.
God, help us. You want a prophetic word? Here it is. Some of you that sit there have an awful, vain confidence. You smile and smirk and play and laugh in the sight and thunderings and distant rumblings of coming wrath. You are a stranger to the power of the cross. Some of you are going to be consumed who right now think you won’t. It is going to take you unawares. I know it is true. Most healthy thing for the Church today would be if God would take me and put me at a cross and burn my body to cinders and let all of you see me clap my hands three times in the fire and shout out with victory. It would purge away the chaff. Some of you take this matter far too lightly. There is power in the cross. Christ endured horrors on that cross to produce such fruit and such power to sinners. Don’t despise it. Don’t think it a small thing. What he did on that cross is fully capable of saving the most foul, the most wicked, the most backwards. Jesus Christ didn’t come into the world and do what he did on that cross and unleash the power that he unleashed on the cross except for one reason, to save really, really, really bad people, judgment deserving, hell deserving, fury deserving, wretched depraved miserable people. God forbid the thought even cross your mind that you are too bad to be saved by what I just described to you. God forbid it. It’s no act of humility. It is a thought of abomination. Your thought would desecrate the very cross of Christ if it had the power to do it.
Brethren, let me tell you this. I think we will begin to see more people saved if we learn that our message to this world needs to be clear enough, biblical enough, concerning the cross that we don’t gut it of its power. And if you seek to make the cross unoffensive, you have lost the power. Brethren I will tell you this. If you are looking for a system, if you are looking for a way, if you are looking for a technique, if you are looking for something essential to your gospel message, take this with you. Know how to explain the cross in a way that it is offensive. If you get to the place where you make it out to be anything less than that, we have lost the power of our Gospel. God help us.
