Today we're going to look at, it's actually
prompted yesterday while I was working on the
yard, I was also listening to a preacher
on the radio.
And it struck my attention that when he
began his sermon, he says, you know, I'm
going to tell you about the meaning of
the cross.
And I was surprised that he spent a
lot of time talking about the cross of
Jesus Christ, but did not put the emphasis
where emphasis was due.
And did not truly explain the meaning of
the cross.
And he did something that is so common
today.
Let me just give you a little bit
of background.
As you know, and I've said this before,
wisdom was not born with anyone, nor will
it die with anyone.
Now if I stand up here today and
I say that the church at large is
basically missing the point about the gospel of
Jesus Christ, you can look at me and
say, well, who are you?
Are you Billy Graham?
Are you this guy or that guy?
What gives you the right to stand up
here and say the church at large is
missing the point?
Well, here's the point.
History gives me that right.
You see, one of the things that you
have to understand is this.
There is a difference between a theologian and
a pop theologian.
You ever heard of pop music?
It's the music that is popular, music given
to the populace.
It's music that, for the day, kind of
just jumps up, doesn't last very long.
And one of the reasons is it's pretty
superficial.
You know, like Sonny and Cher, you know,
I would die for you.
I would even climb a mountain for you.
I never could figure out how climbing a
mountain was more than dying for someone.
But pop music is very superficial.
Well, also there's what we call pop theology,
which is very superficial.
Theology is the study of God, and there's
a lot of what we call pop theologians
on the radio.
They're not truly trained theologians.
They just have a following.
They haven't given themselves the study.
They give themselves more to preaching.
And their preaching deals more with illustrations and
stories and antidotes and cute little sayings.
But as far as theology, no.
Now, whenever someone comes to you and says,
like I said this morning, the church by
and large has missed the point with regard
to the cross.
The first thing you need to ask them
is this, why do you say that?
The answer better be this, not only because
I have found these things in the Bible,
but because history backs me up.
You see, if you take a look at
2000...
If you say, for example, I believe a
certain thing.
If you stick Benny Hinn right here and
me right here, if you can pull both
of us apart, and if you ask Benny
Hinn why he believes that all the stuff
he does and the fact that he makes
millions of dollars and he'll only stay in
five-star hotels and all these different things,
if you ask him why he does that,
he will tell you, because that's what the
Bible teaches.
And if you ask me, I'll say, he
is completely wrong.
And if you ask me why, I'll say,
because this is what the Bible teaches.
Now, the question is, both of us are
using the Bible as our authority, so who's
right?
You know, that's the big question.
Who's right?
Well, there's two things that you need to
look at.
One of them is called context, and the
other is called history.
First of all, I want you to understand
something.
If the Bible says, or if I make
a statement, the barn is red, it means
the barn is red.
I am so tired of speaking on university
campuses and hearing students say, well, that's just
your interpretation.
And I say, well, here, interpret it grammatically.
Not according to the Spirit, not according to...
Just grammatically, like you would in an English
class.
What is it saying grammatically?
That's the first point.
The second point is this.
We have 2,000 years of Christian history,
okay?
2,000 years of Christians writing thousands and
millions of books.
Now, if I teach something on the cross,
and you compare what I teach to 2
,000 years of Christian history, and you don't
find it anywhere in 2,000 years of
Christian history, then you've got to decide who's
right.
2,000 years of Christian theologians and writers
or Paul Washer?
Well, obviously, 2,000 years of Christian history
and teachers are right.
Whenever someone teaches you something, one of the
good things to do is to compare what
they're saying to 2,000 years of Christian
history.
If nobody agrees with them, they're probably wrong,
aren't they?
And if we as Americans come up with
some new theology or new way of doing
Christianity, yet it disagrees with 2,000 years
worth of Christians from all over the world,
who's probably wrong?
We are.
You see, and so that's why I say
today that on the teaching on the cross,
most people are completely missing the point.
And when you hear a teaching on the
cross, when someone preaches about the suffering of
Jesus, what is it that you usually hear
about?
Physical suffering, right?
Isn't that what...
And I mean, the preacher...
And we need to talk about physical suffering.
But I mean, the preacher will talk about
physical suffering and what will happen.
I mean, he'll start crying, everybody in the
congregation starts crying.
He talks about how the nails went through
a certain part of the wrist because that
was the only thing that would hold up
a man.
And how the nail went through both the
feet at a certain place, and that in
order to keep alive, the person would have
to push up on the nail in order
to take a breath.
Because when you died of crucifixion, you died
of suffocation.
They'll talk about the spear in the side.
They'll talk about the crown of thorns on
the head.
They'll talk about all these different things.
The beating with the whip, and how he
drug his cross, and the blood flowing down,
and everything else.
And then they'll tell you, by this we
are saved.
Now, that draws you to a certain conclusion.
How is it that the physical sufferings of
Jesus caused by men somehow pay for our
sins?
It doesn't work out theologically.
Are our sins paid for because the Romans
and Jews rejected Jesus?
Are our sins paid for because they whipped
Him and beat Him?
I was in a German Mennonite Bible
camp in the mountains, the Alps in Romania.
And I walked into their theological, they had
a theological library.
And I walked in there and I saw
a thing on the cross of Christ.
So I pulled it out, and praise the
Lord it wasn't in German.
And the only book in there, I think,
that wasn't in German.
And I started looking through it.
And this is what the man said.
God sent His Son who lived a perfect
life.
Now this is a theologian.
God sent His Son who lived a perfect
life.
And then, according to the plan of God,
men rejected Him.
They beat Him.
They crucified Him.
They mocked Him.
They put a crown of thorns on His
head.
They stuck a spear in His side.
And all these different things.
And God looked at that suffering that Jesus
suffered at the hands of men.
And He considered that to be payment for
all our sins against Him.
Now, a lot of people say, well, yeah,
that sounds good.
Actually, historically, that's heresy.
The deepest form of heresy.
I mean, you can be wrong about a
lot of things.
But if you're wrong about the cross, you're
in trouble.
Now here's what I want you to do.
I want you to put two things together.
How is it, what happened on that cross
that would cause God to forgive us of
our sins?
Now, the first question, though, is this.
Why does the Son of God, God in
the flesh, why is it necessary that He
die?
Why can't God just forgive everybody?
You ever thought about that?
Why can't He just...
I mean, we're called to forgive people, aren't
we?
If you sin against me, I'm called to
forgive you.
And I'm not called to require a sacrifice
or anything.
I'm just told to forgive you.
So why can't God simply forgive?
That's the first question you need to answer.
And I'll show you a verse.
I want us to go to Proverbs.
I'm going to condense about a week worth
of lectures into one thing.
So I just want to go to one
text.
Go to Proverbs 17.15. Now
look what it says.
He who justifies the wicked and he who
condemns the righteous, both of them alike are
an abomination to the Lord.
Now let's just consider this one phrase.
He who justifies the wicked is an abomination
to the Lord.
Now we've got a big problem.
Most of the songs we sing today are
going to be about God justifying the wicked.
That's what we sing about all the time.
Man, God justified us.
Even though we were sinners, God declared us
to be right.
That's what justification means.
God declared you to be right before Him.
And you praise God for that.
But there's a big problem here.
Do you see what it is?
God says that anyone who declares the wicked
to be right when they are not right,
they are an abomination before Him.
So if God declared you to be right
when you were not right, it's an abomination.
He has made Himself an abomination.
If God forgives the wicked, He Himself becomes
an abomination.
In the same way that if a judge
forgives a murderer and lets him go, he's
no longer a just judge.
It's so amazing to me how so many
people when I speak at a university, the
students are just furious because I say that
God throws men in hell.
They're furious when I say that.
But you know what bothers heaven?
Heaven has a problem with what God has
done.
Heaven's problem is this.
If God is a just God, He cannot
forgive.
He must punish the wicked.
That is the thing of the whole Bible.
Have you ever wondered why God's got all
these animals dying in the Old Testament?
It's a symbol and a type.
But the whole point is, if the sinner
sins, he must die.
He must die.
And if God justifies someone who is wicked,
if He declares a wicked person to be
innocent, then God is an abomination.
God has become wicked.
Now we're beginning to see why it was
necessary for God the Son to die.
God cannot simply forgive.
The law, the righteous law demands that the
sinner die.
Demands it.
You just can't push that away.
You just can't say, okay, well, we're going
to let them slide this time.
If God does that, He is unjust, He
is wrong, He is sinful, He becomes just
like the devil, and the devil's accusations against
Him now are correct.
Can you imagine the devil standing before God?
Hey God, remember when we sinned against You?
You were just then, weren't You?
Cast us all out of heaven.
Yeah, where's Your justice now, God?
Huh?
Where is it?
These men, these balls of dirt, sin against
You?
You let them go.
Guess what, God?
You've become like me.
Congratulations.
You see the problem?
That's the problem.
Now, the only way that God can forgive
sinful men is if God who made the
law and God who demands satisfaction, if He
Himself comes down and pays the penalty.
That's why the doctrine of the Jehovah Witnesses
is so blasphemous.
Look at what they're saying.
They're saying that when the world fell, God
created an innocent being, the Son, created Him,
and then took this innocent being, independent from
God, and put Him on a cross to
die to fix the problem.
See, that's not what happened.
The Son of God is not a created
being.
He is God.
You see, the only way the law of
God can be satisfied is by God.
And you can use that against the Jehovah
Witness.
If Jesus is not God, then everybody's going
to hell because what was done on that
cross is not enough.
God made the law.
God has to satisfy it.
It has to be God.
The Jehovah Witness comes to the door and
says, Jesus wasn't God.
I said, just sit down like that and
just start weeping.
I said, what are you crying for?
Well, then we're all going to hell.
Why?
Because only God can satisfy God's law.
Only He can pay the price.
And if Jesus is not God, then we're
going to hell.
Me and you and the rest of us.
But you see, God, in order to forgive
the wicked and still be just, He must
die in the wicked's place.
That's the only way He can forgive is
to die in the place of the wicked.
Now, here comes the important point.
How does He die?
What is it about the death of the
Son of God that leads to our forgiveness?
How does His death satisfy the law?
Now, here's something I want you to understand.
When someone says they've been saved...
Now, I never do this to a young
Christian, but if they're a seminary student or
something, they're going to get this.
If they say, I've been saved.
And I go, from what?
From what have you been saved?
People usually say, sin.
Nope.
Say, what do you mean, nope?
Sin wasn't after you.
Sin wasn't going to throw you in hell.
You have sinned, but the sin caused something
else.
Sin isn't going to throw you in hell.
Sin is not even a person.
It's not a living being that's going to
judge you and grab you and throw you
in hell.
From what have you been saved?
This is going to really rock your boat.
I'll tell you from what you have been
saved.
From what you have been saved is not
a what, it's a who.
You have been saved from God.
You see, here's what you need to understand.
God is the judge of all the universe.
You have sinned.
Since you have sinned and made yourself an
enemy of God, before the just judge, when
you stand before Him, He will throw you
in hell.
Now, I hear a lot of people say,
God doesn't throw anybody in hell.
Well, that's really nice if you want to
write that on the back of a Christian
t-shirt or sing it in a contemporary
Christian song, but it's not in the Bible.
Jesus said, you do not be afraid of
men who can kill your body, but be
afraid of God who can kill your body
and throw you in hell.
You see?
Again, this God of ours is not very
politically correct.
He's not a tame lion.
Have you ever heard the statement, we see
it in Romans 5, we also see it
in Romans 1, enemy of God and hater
of God?
Have you ever heard that word?
Enemy of God.
You know what the problem is?
Contemporary Christianity interprets it differently than historical
Christianity.
You'll hear preachers say, when the Bible says
we were an enemy of God, it means
that we were an enemy against God.
That we were in rebellion against God.
That we were against God.
But it doesn't mean that God was against
us.
That God was our enemy.
And then they'll usually say something like this.
It's like you're holding a gun on God.
God wants you to put that gun down.
And then you'll be friends.
That's not true.
All throughout historical Christianity, when it says that
enemies of God, you know what it really
means?
Not only were you God's enemy, holding your
gun on Him, God was your enemy holding
His gun on you.
You put your gun down, fine.
He's still got His gun on you.
You're a criminal.
You've broke the law.
You deserve to die.
You put your gun down, surrender if you
want, but you're still going to hell.
Because not only are you His enemy, He's
yours.
God says things in the Bible like I
will hate them.
I will come against them.
I will fight against them.
I'll raise up a standard.
Again, this God of 21st century Christianity is
a lot different from the biblical one and
a lot different from the one who's been
preached throughout 2,000 years of Christian history.
So you see, not only were you making
yourself an enemy against God, God was your
enemy.
And the one from whom you need to
be saved is God because He is coming.
Remember what Amos said?
Be prepared to meet thy God.
Remember what Revelation says?
It talks about, I mean, He's coming and
the captains and the great men of the
world will cry out for the rocks to
fall upon them to hide them from the
wrath of the Lamb.
He's not coming back with His hands like
this going, oh, I just want to save
you, but now you have to go to
hell.
No, He's coming back.
It says sword of His Spirit.
I mean, everything else is going on here.
He's coming back and He's going to fight
somebody because He's mad.
Now, the problem that you have to see,
there is punishment.
We have broken God's law.
So now, we deserve to be punished.
From where does that punishment come?
Ask yourself that question.
From where does the punishment come?
We have grown up under preaching that tells
us, well, if you sin and something bad
happens to you, that's not God.
That's just the consequences of sin, just like
the law of gravity.
You jump off of a roof, you're going
to get hurt.
You sin, you're going to get hurt.
It's not that God's doing it, it's just
that's the way things are.
That's not true.
God talks about coming in judgment all the
time against people's sin.
He does.
Just read the Bible all the time.
I will come against you.
I will set My face against you.
Okay?
So, we realize that we have to be
saved from God and His punishment.
So, how is that punishment to be done
away with?
When Jesus, the Son of God, was dying
on the cross, it is not the spears
of Romans or the crowns of thorns or
the nails in His hands that save you.
It is not that that pays for the
crime.
The suffering that men heaped upon Jesus, God
doesn't look at that and say, okay, good
enough.
That's not what paid for your sin.
What paid for your sin?
Look in Isaiah 53.
This is what paid for your sin.
Isaiah 53 and verse 10.
But the Lord was pleased to crush Him.
Now, you've all read 53 and you've heard
gazillions of sermons on the radio and everything
about Isaiah 53.
But isn't it funny that when you hear
a sermon on Isaiah 53, it's always verses
3, 4, 5, and 6 talking about the
sufferings heaped upon the Christ by men.
But very rarely do you hear Isaiah 53
.10. It pleased the Lord.
Who's the Lord?
The word here is not Adonai.
It's Yahweh.
Or as some of you may pronounce it,
Jehovah.
I mean, it's God.
It pleased God to what?
Crush Him.
This is the Messiah.
It pleased the Lord to crush Him.
This word crushed, it refers to like...
The best illustration I could give you is,
imagine, you know what a millstone is?
A millstone is what they used to have
was a big stone, usually about this big,
round, maybe about that tall, I mean a
huge stone.
And then they placed another stone on top
of that that actually rotated, okay?
It turned.
And what you would do, as you can
imagine, you put grain, corn, and everything in
between those two stones when they made their
way through there.
That stone would ground them to powder.
That's the terminology being used here.
That's what it refers to.
It pleased God the Father to crush His
own Son and to ground Him into powder.
Now, another illustration would be this.
Imagine you're standing at the foot of a
dam that's a thousand miles high and a
thousand miles wide.
And you're standing right there at the foot
of this thing.
It's filled with water.
And in one second, the wall's pulled out
of the way.
What do you think's going to happen to
you?
I mean, it's over.
Your body's never going to be found.
Or imagine you're standing there walking along one
day and a star 6,000 times larger
than the sun crashes to earth right on
your head.
What are we talking about here?
How is it that that cross saves you?
It's because on the cross, all the sin
that God hates...
You know, have you ever heard someone say
the love of God is so great, you
can't describe it?
And that if you were to even get
a glimpse of how great it is, it
would drive you mad.
It is so great, it would literally drive
you mad.
And the only way you're ever going to
be able to know more of the love
of God is if God supernaturally strengthens you
and glorifies your body because to stand in
His presence and to know His love would
be too much joy for you.
You'd explode.
I mean, you just wouldn't be able to
handle it.
You'd go mad.
Well, in the same way, God's hatred is
so great, it goes beyond description.
And that if you were to even catch
a glimpse of it, it would drive you
mad.
It would be like a little wax figurine
this tall.
You know, that has a nuclear bomb explode
three inches from it.
I mean, you have no idea.
The sin that evokes God's hatred, and I
mean that word, hatred, okay?
God hates.
The sin that evokes God's hatred was placed
on His Son.
Now, you take all the sin of God's
people from the first man ever saved on
the face of the earth to the last
person ever saved on the face of the
earth.
All of God's people, all of their sin
is placed on the Son.
All of God's justice, just punishment, but also
all of God's just hatred, His just loathing.
Everything that should be poured out on these
sinful creatures throughout eternity, God throws down on
His only begotten Son.
Crushes Him under the weight of His own
justice.
You say, brother Paul, could you kill your
son for me?
I'm sorry.
You can argue theologically whether I should or
shouldn't.
I couldn't.
And I'm evil.
The Bible says if you being evil can
give good gifts to your children, if you
being evil can love your children.
Now, here's God.
Perfect love manifested towards a perfect Son who
never did anything but bless His Father and
crushes Him under the weight of His holy
hatred.
When those preachers, you know, the cup, Jesus
says, let this cup pass through Me.
And they say, yeah, it's going to the
cross.
He didn't want to go to the cross.
No, they're wrong.
And yes, they're right.
They just don't know what they're saying.
Listen to me.
There have been martyrs who have gone.
Followers of Jesus Christ who have been burned
at the stake and while they were burning,
they lifted their hands and praised the Lord.
Okay?
Now let me ask you a question.
Do you think they're greater than our Lord
Jesus?
There have been Christians...
I have a picture in my office.
I keep it right in front of my
desk, a huge picture of all these Christians
crucified in a Roman theater.
And they're being burned after they've been crucified
and then lions are being set free on
others.
I keep that in front of me all
the time to remind myself this is still
happening today.
And there were many of those who were
crucified and sang out with joy as they
were pounding the nails.
Do you think they're greater than Jesus?
Do you think Jesus would actually cower and
fret and cry under a punishment that even
some of His followers were able to endure
with joy?
Do you think Jesus is weaker than them?
What you need to understand is Jesus wasn't
thinking when He was in that garden, save
me from this hour, let this cup pass
from Me.
He wasn't thinking about nails in His hands.
He wasn't thinking about a wooden cross.
He wasn't thinking about a spear in His
side or Romans or anything else.
What He was thinking about is this.
Father, I have never been out of Your
bosom.
I have always been in the most perfect,
wonderful, beautiful relationship with You.
I have all throughout eternity.
God didn't create this world because He needed
something, because God was always content with His
Son.
You take everybody in this world, throw them
straight into hell, God would still be happy
because He's got His Son.
I don't want to offend your humanism, but
that's just the way it is.
God's perfectly happy.
He created us not because of His need,
but because of the overflow of His abundance.
And here His Son is separated from Him.
I remember after my little boy was born,
I had the monitor up there in his
room, and I was outside, I had the
other monitor just right within the door, and
we were working up on a ladder, probably
about 15 feet in the air, nailing some
things, and he cried.
I didn't even think.
I threw the hammer and leaped.
Went right off the ladder.
Hit the ground running.
I was a new father, but I'd still
do the same thing today.
I mean, hit the ground running.
If we being evil could love our children.
And here's the Son thinking, I'm going to
be ripped out of the heart of the
Father.
The Father is going to turn His face
away from me.
Now you think, oh yes, He turned His
face away because He didn't want to see
His Son suffering.
No, you've got it all wrong.
He turned His face away because His Son
had become detestable.
His Son had become sin.
All of you who are fathers and those
of you who are mothers know.
I mean, your kid, after he gets a
certain age, he does something and it's, is
Dad looking?
Is Mom looking?
I mean, it can't do anything unless Mom
or Dad is looking.
I can't even worship anymore.
He grabs my face and goes like this.
The Father turns His face away.
He says, no.
He became the abominable thing.
An abomination.
You and I are an abomination before God.
In order for us to be forgiven, God
has to die as an abomination in our
place.
You and I deserve to be crushed under
God's wrath.
In order for God to save us and
forgive us, He was crushed under His own
wrath.
That's what the cross is.
That's what it means.
And now you can see why if you
ever get a heavenly vision of truly what
happened on that cross, it will affect you
for the rest of your life.
You'll become a prisoner to that thing.
You won't be able to get away from
it.
Let me give you an idea.
I've used this illustration.
I love to use it because of the
shock value of it because it makes people
so mad.
A kid said one time, well, when I
go to hell...
You know, he was taking joy in the
fact that if he went to hell, at
least there'd be people on the outside who'd
be suffering because they loved him so much
and knew he was going to hell.
You know that mentality?
Well, I'll hurt myself and it'll hurt everybody
else who loves me.
I said, I noticed this tendency in him.
And I said, young man, let me just
give you an idea of what's going to
happen on the day you stand before God.
He said, okay, I'm not afraid.
I said, you will be.
I said, this is what's going to happen.
I said, on the moment you stand before
God, everything that your parents loved about you,
it wasn't you.
Did you know that?
It was the common grace of God on
you.
That's what caused them to love you.
Now, on the moment he declares your judgment,
that grace is going to be pulled off
of you.
And what your parents are going to see
are a seething monster who would make Hitler
look like a choir boy.
And do you want to know something?
I said, when you take your first step
into hell, the last thing you're going to
hear is all of creation along with your
parents standing up and applauding and worshipping God
because God has rid the earth of you.
So don't think that anybody's going to be
mourning up here in heaven and somehow you're
going to get vengeance on at least somebody
as you suffer there in hell.
You will find no satisfaction there.
He said, that's horrible.
I said, more horrible than you could ever
imagine.
Repent and believe.
Flee from the wrath to come.
I was speaking at a university last week
and some students were in visible protest against
me.
They came in, sat down in the front
rows, crossed their arms, pulled their hats all
down, and pretended to be sleeping.
And this was their big protest, I guess.
I just walked over to the corner and
I said, listen, listen.
And I began to tell them about hell.
And I said, I want you, I'll give
each of you a quarter so you can
go back to your room and call your
mom and tell her that all of you
are going to hell and that she needs
to pray for your soul.
You see, sometimes in universities, you know the
biggest argument they will use against me?
They'll say a loving Jesus would never send
anyone to hell.
Do you want to know something?
If it were not for the loving Jesus,
we wouldn't even have a doctrine of hell.
Did you know that?
You look in the Old Testament.
It's there, but there's hardly any passages in
the whole Old Testament about hell.
You look in the writings of Paul.
There's almost nothing about hell.
Really?
Do you know where everything we know about
hell, do you know where it comes from?
From Jesus.
Really?
Almost everything we know about hell comes from
Him.
The loving Jesus who died to save men
spoke more about hell than everybody else in
the entire Bible put together.
Why?
I think there's one reason.
This is just my opinion.
Hell is so horrible that man cannot even
comprehend it.
So the only one who can truly comprehend
how horrible hell is, is God Himself.
And only God is able to communicate the
horrible nature of hell in any way.
So remember now, when you hear about Jesus
dying for you, you know now it's more
than just some whips.
Those whips were nothing.
I don't want to depreciate His physical suffering,
but folks, the cross is about the Son
of God being crushed by His own Father.
And when He cried out, it is finished.
That meant paid in full.
Do you know why God can never pour
out His wrath on you?
If you're a Christian, He can never, never
pour out His wrath on you.
Never!
His judgment, His wrath, He can never pour
it out on you.
Never!
It's impossible.
He can't do it.
He can only act towards you now with
the greatest of love, the same love with
which He loves His dearly begotten Son, is
the love He loves you.
He cannot love you with anything less.
Do you want to know why He can't
pour His wrath out on you?
I'll tell you why.
Because His Son drank it.
It doesn't exist anymore.
It's gone.
He drank it.
There's nothing left for you.
There's no more punishment for you if you're
a Christian.
But if you're not a Christian, well, dear
friend, you don't even want to know.
You don't even want to know what awaits
you.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank You for this day.
We ask, Lord, Your blessing and Your help.
And dear God, help us to appreciate what
You have done for us in giving Your
Son.
Not an angel did You give us.
Not gold.
Not a piece of the throne did You
throw away.
But You gave us Your only begotten Son.
And for that, we'll worship You throughout all
eternity that we have an older brother.
And He is not ashamed to call us
brothers and sisters because He has died for
us, He has taken away our sin, and
He has given us His own righteousness.
In Jesus' name, Amen.