We are speaking about the message of the
cross.
1 Corinthians 1 verse 18 For the message
of the cross is foolishness to those who
are perishing, but to us who are being
saved, it is the power of God.
We spoke yesterday morning a little about the
cross.
We said the cross was erected because of
sin.
It was on the cross that Jesus wrestled
with Satan and with those evil forces.
Satan and death and the world.
And he made an open public spectacle of
them, conquering over them.
And he poured disgrace and contempt upon them.
And to some it's difficult to understand that.
The English Bible says he made an open
show of them.
I'm just telling them to close the doors,
cold wind is coming in there.
I hope if it's possible in the future
we'll put some warm air here.
Then you needn't freeze because of the cold.
An open show.
Now in those days Caesar ruled the world.
He ruled over the whole known world at
that time.
Just as America, the USA is a superpower
today.
Many don't like the United States.
Especially the Muslims.
But I love them.
And I love Bush as well, for he's
a Christian, somebody who's given his life to
the Lord.
When I say that overseas, in
Europe, they get furious.
Why is that?
Because they want homosexuality.
They want abortion.
They want to be able to do those
things.
And that's why they hate him.
And if you still hate him then you
need to repent.
You still need to turn to God and
confess your sin.
Because you hate your brother in Christ.
If the strongest man in this world is
washed in the blood of Jesus, not ashamed
of my Lord, then I should have something
against it.
You're not a real Christian.
You're not a spiritual Christian if you are
like that.
You're a tool in the devil's hand.
But if you're a Muslim, I can understand
that you are against him.
But I thank God that the Muslim world
that wanted to swallow up the world, that
God used Bush just to give them a
kick on the head.
I'm not a politician.
But I'm not ashamed of somebody who is
not ashamed of my Lord.
And that he confesses and testifies in front
of the whole world that he is saved,
that he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now some say that he fought against Iraq
just because he wanted to put missionaries into
Iraq.
Now would that be a crime if he
would do something like that?
If you still think like that, it's terrible.
Some people don't have their brains up here
but down there.
And they sit on it.
Here is the cross where Jesus Christ conquered
over Satan and his hordes and his power.
He destroyed sin.
Your sin.
So when he conquered sin on the cross,
he conquered over your sin as well.
The message of the cross cannot be fathomed.
It's too high and it's too deep and
too wide to be fathomed.
We can take the brains of the most
brilliant people, the most brilliant minds and put
them all together.
But even through that we won't be able
to fathom the depth of the cross.
It goes further than that.
It was on the cross that Jesus dealt
with where he dealt with your and my
sin.
Yesterday for the sake of those of you
that weren't here, I said that we shouldn't
take sin lightly.
Sin is evil, it's terrible, it's gruesome.
We shouldn't take it lightly.
And we might take it lightly and say,
oh well, what is it to have a
girlfriend or a boyfriend?
There's nothing much bad, much wrong with that.
But with God, it's serious.
And we say, oh well, worldly clothing, what
does that matter?
It doesn't matter much.
And some Christians say it's no matter.
It doesn't matter how you dress.
God doesn't look at the outside.
He just looks at the inside.
It's true.
But I can't understand you silly person.
Why don't you go naked?
Because he doesn't look at the outside.
He just looks at the inside.
But God says, if you love the world,
you become an enemy of God.
You become an enemy to God if you
love the world.
Did you hear what Nonto said about her
niece?
That when she got converted, just what happened,
even in the car, she got into the
car.
We are still going to stand before God
when we have to give an account of
our lives.
And I don't know how you women are
going to stand before God, before Him, with
a worldly appearance and a worldly hairstyle.
The blacks, they like to take Indian hair
and wear that.
I say, how will you stand before God?
With an Indian hair and having a flat
nose.
Now, God created us as we are, and
we shouldn't find fault with them, and I
don't want to find fault with them, even
though sometimes I do wish I had hair
like the blacks, because they don't have any
problem.
If the wind blows, the hair just stays
as it is, but with the whites, it
goes all over the show.
Sin is a serious matter to God, and
God treats it seriously.
Just look at the cross, and you saw
last night, when we saw Jesus dying on
the cross, how serious God takes sin.
God struck Jesus on the cross, and the
Bible says God made him sin.
I cannot speak about it all, the sun
will set.
That's why I'm just touching on it here
and there.
Go home, and if you've got a TV
set, switch it off, or rather even get
rid of it.
If you've got a pit toilet, throw it
inside.
Your children will be all the more blessed
because of it.
A young girl who had fallen into sin,
I said, young girl, I know your father,
I know your mother, did they teach you
to sin like that?
So who taught you?
So I said, who taught you then, to
go with a man?
You don't know where he comes from, where
he's going to, where he's been, just a
man of the road, and you are found
sitting on his lap, kissing him, who taught
you such dirt?
And this were purebred Europeans.
There was an Indian here, and he spoke
to me about the Europeans, was a European,
but he spoke about Europeans.
I said, who taught you that a boy
can sit on your lap, and that you
can kiss each other?
You know what she told me?
She says, my father has got a TV
set, but he's hidden it from us upstairs
on the attic.
He doesn't know that we know, but as
soon as mum and dad are gone, we
switch it on.
And that's where we look at the things
of hell.
And that's where I was taught.
You hear, father?
If your daughter goes to hell, you want
to go to heaven.
You'll go to where your daughter is, before
you've paid the guilt of her blood.
And you, mother, you allow such a thing?
And the man who was not so far
from us here, was not.
In addition, like our neighbor, he said, how
do you know, brother?
I bought a television, not for me, but
for my children.
Because I don't want my children to go
to the neighbors and watch it there, rather
than in my own house.
I said to him, now I can better
understand Luther, that he says, hell will be
plagued with heads of dominions and kings.
You can
hate me for telling you the truth, because
I know many people don't like the truth.
But in heaven or before God, you will
thank me for that.
And you will say, well, thank you for
telling me the truth.
I knew it.
And even if I go to hell, I
know that you're innocent of my blood.
On Judgment Day, and maybe that day isn't
far away, if there was ever time when
you had to repent and was
it nice to you to see the Lord
Jesus' body broken on the cross, him being
crucified, suffering, whilst innocent, doing so for your
sin?
And that which we are shown, which we
can see with our eyes, is only a
tiny fraction of that which he really had
to suffer.
He went through things ten thousand times more
than what you saw.
And the depths of these things are many,
many, many light years away from us.
We can just see through a dark glimpse,
glimly, of those depths and those heights that
Jesus went through.
You can laugh and scorn at anything, but
not about the Lord and his death on
the cross.
Even if you're the biggest fool in this
world, the worst drunkard, the worst prostitute, if
you look there at Jesus who died, then
the scars on his head, the nails in
his hands, shut your mouth and bring you
to your senses forever and ever.
The Bible
says
that Jesus was the lamb that was slain,
the lamb that was slain, even before the
foundations of the world were laid.
Can you fathom what that means?
Even before God created the heaven and the
earth, the lamb that was slain was before
his eyes.
That's how deep Jesus Christ's death went, cut
into the heart of the Father.
We can't, as far as we can go,
we can't go any further than that.
We can't go any further than that, we
can't go any further than that, we can't
go any further than that, we can't go
any further than that, we can't go any
further than that, we can't go any further
than that, we can't go any further than
that, we can't go any further than that,
we can't go any further than that, we
can't go any further than that, we can't
go any further than that, we can't go
any further than that, we can't go any
further than that, we can't go any further
than that, we can't go any further than
that, we can't go any further than that,
we can't go any further than that, we
can't go any further than that, we can't
go any further than that, we can't go
any further than that, we can't go any
further than that, we can't go any further
than that, we can We cannot fathom how
deep the cross of Jesus that he hung
on goes with the Father and how it
cuts into his heart and it should touch
anybody, whether he's a communist, socialist, nationalist, wherever
he might be.
Even in our country they wiped out Ascension
Day from the calendar as a holiday, but
they make human rights a holiday.
So that is raised up above Ascension Day.
You that have voted, God will ask you
one day on Judgment Day where did you
put your cross?
In democracy the Zulus call it the will
of the majority.
And I say when you put your cross
on that piece of paper, on Judgment Day,
we'll see where that cross was.
And you'll see, you'll have to bear the
fruit of that.
Allow me to tell you the truth, that
you may wake up out of your sleep.
Some time ago there was a man who
was in charge of a bank, and he
was in charge of a bank, some time
ago there was a political slogan many years
ago many years ago that the white man
is a dog i said well i love
that i want to be your dog that
i can bark and you'll even feed
your dog and so don't be upset with
me if i bark to wake you up
out of your sleep saying that your enemy
those thieves are coming to break in.
And they'll kill you.
And today people are no longer living in
safety.
You just hear a rat running on the
ceiling and you get afraid thinking maybe somebody's
come to kill you.
Before the foundations of the earth, God already
saw your sin and he said, How will
I deal with that sin?
And then he saw the Lamb of God
slain before him.
When God thinks
about salvation on the cross, that he thinks
of a multitude of words and terms, that
he doesn't know how to express himself, to
describe and to portray the depth and the
meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection.
Sometimes it is referred to as redemption, as
a ransom.
He talks about it as the need to
be justified.
He talks about it as being reconciled with
God, being made one with God.
Where God uses various terms to try and
express the message of the cross.
Let me speak for a moment about the
need of a ransom.
There is a song that says redeemed, redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb.
Now what does that redemption or that ransom
mean?
It's the same word in Zulu.
To be ransomed means liberating
a prisoner with money or some other great
payment.
Jesus paid the ransom for us on the
cross.
Let me illustrate to you what that ransom
means.
There were two brothers.
One was a believer and one not.
One would take his Bible to the service
on a Sunday.
And the other one would go and play
soccer, go and talk to the girls, go
with his pals to go and smoke and
do other things.
In the evening, the one brother would take
his Bible and read it.
And then his brother would come back late
at night, 9, 10, 11, sometimes later, sometimes
he would even sleep outside.
And he would plead with him and say,
brother, dear brother, what does God say about
your lifestyle?
What does God say about your smoking and
drinking and using drugs?
And he would say, brother, this is my
life, just as the women also say that
it's their body, they can choose to have
an abortion or not.
And it went from bad to worse.
Eventually he lived like a wild animal.
Today he would sleep with one girl, tomorrow
with another woman, and every day somebody different.
Eventually he joined up with a gang.
He had a knife, a dagger, and then
at one place he stabbed somebody.
But this happened not in these days where
there's no longer any capital punishment, but with
the previous government, where those governments still said,
we honor that which God's word says.
When somebody kills, then his blood should be
shed.
And one evening while he was still reading
his Bible peacefully in the house, all of
a sudden the doors were flung open and
somebody ran inside and it was his brother.
And he said, brother, please help me, help
me.
And he was full of blood.
And he said, I've murdered somebody, I've killed
somebody, and the police are on my heels.
Please do something for me, help me.
You see how it is when you're in
trouble, then you remember the minister, then you
remember those who serve the Lord.
Even the man whom you hate, maybe it
could be me, but one day you'll love
me and you'll come to me for help.
Even if they should write badly in the
newspapers, what can you expect of a newspaper?
Or in the internet?
Jesus says, if they hate me, they'll hate
you, and if they don't hate you, you
belong to the devil.
Woe to you if all men speak well
of you.
And then he said, brother, take off your
clothing, quickly.
And he took off his own clothing and
said, get dressed in this.
And he got dressed in the clothing of
his brother and he said, now you run,
you flee, go as quick and as far
as you can.
And so the believing brother had put on
the clothing, the bloodstained clothing of his brother,
the bloodstained shirt and trousers, and even caused
his shirt to hang outside, as his brother
would normally do.
Leaving the buttons, the top buttons of the
shirt open to breastfeed the cats.
And then the police arrived and they kicked
open the doors and they came inside and
they said, oh, here he is, we got
him so easily.
He said, oh, he's got a Bible even
with him, so today's criminals go around with
a Bible.
Well, what else do we need?
We've got all the evidence.
Yeah, there were the handcuffs.
And they put him in the back of
the police van.
And so he was imprisoned.
But how?
As it were, may the Lord be praised,
we so quickly got hold of this criminal.
And the case was heard.
And he didn't deny his guilt.
He took his brother's guilt upon himself.
And the judge gave his verdict.
He said, do you deny your guilt?
He said, no.
So he was given the death sentence.
And he was hung.
And he died.
His brother had run away to a different
country.
After many years, his brother came back.
And the matter had long been forgotten.
When he got home, where's my brother?
After all, your brother died.
Don't you remember that there was that case
where somebody was murdered, and he was accused
of that murder?
How?
How did they put him into jail?
Yes.
Did they try the case?
They said yes, and he didn't deny his
guilt.
And then he held his head, he took
hold of his head, and he wailed with
a loud voice, crying, oh, I should have
died, but my brother died in my stead.
And then he went to the police.
He said, you executed someone who was innocent.
I am guilty of the death of that
man.
And so
they
were at a loss as to what to
do with this case.
They went to the chief magistrate, to the
judges, and they said, here is somebody now
admitting to his guilt.
Saying that his brother who was executed was
innocent.
He said, take me, I am guilty.
Put me into jail.
Execute me.
The judge said, no, you have been ransomed.
And the chief judge said, no, you have
been ransomed.
Your brother took your guilt upon him, and
he died.
We cannot execute a second person for the
same crime.
And this real guilty one went free.
And he went home, and there he took
off his clothing, put on his brother's clothing.
He said, it's the end of the world.
I will no longer wear the clothing of
the world.
He found his brother's Bible, and he took
it, and he said, from now on, I'll
make this book to be mine.
And live accordingly.
His brother had paid the ransom for him.
You had to be crucified.
But Jesus carried your sin.
Silently, he didn't open his mouth, but he
carried my sin.
And God Himself speaks about that ransom.
And then, I'm leaving that word now, ransom,
but God also uses the word, to be
justified.
To be justified means to be shown as
righteous.
When Jesus hung on the cross, he didn't
only die for our sin, but God made
him to be sin.
And it wasn't just to be, he made
him sin.
He was sin.
The eternal one, who is pure, became sin
for your sake.
He became sin for your sake.
Jesus prayed alone there, in the garden of
Gethsemane.
And he called his three closest disciples, John,
Peter, and James, to be with him and
to pray.
And he said, my soul is troubled unto
death.
And then he knelt down and he prayed,
and when he prayed he sweated sweat drops
of blood.
Those sweat drops were like blood dropping on
the ground.
What a struggle.
That must have been for him, who knew
no sin for all eternities, living in holiness,
one with the Holy Father, sin, being made
sin.
How could the Father possibly do such a
thing?
The others just crucified him, put the thorns
on his brow, nailed him to the cross,
but the Father made him sin, as black
as sin can be, as dark as the
darkest night can be.
Millions of times worse than what the Jews
and the high priests and those murderers did,
what the Father did, he was sin, the
Father made him sin.
Why did the Father do that?
How could he do such an awful, terrifying
thing to his only begotten son?
Before time began, he was one with him,
and now he turns his back on him
and makes him to be sin.
God, how can you do such
a thing to your only begotten son?
He says, Elo, because of you.
That's why I talk the way I'm talking.
That's why I'm preaching the way I'm preaching.
But I can't do it well enough and
express my appreciation for that, what the Father
has done for me.
For all eternities, never speck of light in
that darkness, the darkest darkness of any darkness
that ever will be, whether it was in
the past, the future, or present.
I can't do it well enough and express
my appreciation for that, what the Father has
done for me.
I can't do it well enough and express
my appreciation for that, what the Father has
done
for
me.
And after he had accepted that will of
God, God turned his back upon him and
left him, forsook him.
Think of the price he paid, think of
the death and the hell he went through
to get you out of it, and the
rest of your life should be a thank
you to him.
Before friends and foes, white and black, before
the whole world.
Before friends and foes, white and black, before
the whole world.
Robert Bruce was his name, was once hiding
from the English army which had been sent
by King Edward to be caught and to
put into chains.
Robert Bruce was his name, was once hiding
from the English army which had been sent
by King Edward to be caught and to
put into chains.
I'm just explaining to them what a patriot
is, one who is defending his country, fighting
for his own land and his own country.
Now King Edward, we even have a hospital
name after him, he failed to catch Robert
Bruce.
You know the Scots, the Scottish, in the
Anglo-Boer war, the Afrikaner said, the English
soldier was not a good soldier, but his
wife, their wives, they did leave.
It was because of the Celts, you know.
I was in Scotland, but I am a
monkey, but I am a monkey, I
was in Scotland, but I am a monkey,
but I am a monkey, I was in
Scotland, but I am a monkey, I was
in Scotland, but I am a monkey, I
was in Scotland, but I am a monkey,
I was in Scotland, but I am a
monkey, I was in Scotland, but I am
a monkey, I was in Scotland, but I
am a monkey, I was in Scotland, but
I am a monkey, I was in Scotland,
but I am a monkey, I was in
Scotland, but I am a monkey, I was
in Scotland, but I am a monkey, I
was in Scotland, but I am a monkey,
I was in Scotland, but I am a
monkey, I was in Scotland, but I am
a monkey, I was in Scotland, but I
am a monkey, I was in Scotland, but
I am a monkey, I was in Scotland,
but I am a monkey, I was in
Scotland, but I am a monkey, I was
in Scotland, but I am a monkey, I
was in Scotland.
And so Robert Bruce hid away in the
mountains there in Scotland and King Edward failed
to capture him.
And he was hiding in his hideout, and
he was hungry, experiencing hunger, weakness, all other
types of weaknesses and peril, and while the
English were hunting him like a wild animal.
And then one day, suddenly Robert Bruce heard
the baying of his own dogs.
To bay is not concocter.
The English took his own dogs, and they
said, well, they know him very well.
They'll be the best to catch him and
get hold of him.
And then he heard, not the barking, the
baying of those dogs.
And he said, but those are my dogs.
And he says, oh, did they get hold
of my dogs?
Have they set my dogs on me?
But his dogs naturally didn't want to kill
him.
They were happy.
They would see their master.
And he said, well, I don't want to
kill my master.
And so Robert the Bruce said, are they
now hunting after me with my own dogs?
How will I get away?
For as sure as anything, they are going
to get hold of me.
And they'll find me.
And so Robert the Bruce said, He was
weak.
He was hiding out.
No longer had any strength left in him.
And then you heard their bane coming closer
and closer.
And they were happy.
They were going to see their master, not
realizing that they were putting him into the
danger of death.
And he scraped together his last ounce of
strength, dragging him along and started to run,
running towards a little brook that was running
close by.
And with his dogs close on his heels,
he got into that water, into that stream,
and he walked along with that stream of
water.
And so he heard how their noise was
coming closer, their bane, until they reached the
stream of water.
And then the sound changed, and they were
no longer sure where he was.
And they started running up this side of
the stream, that side of the stream.
The water had washed away his trail, and
his spore, and they could no longer find
him.
And Robert Bruce was saved.
King Henry couldn't get him.
His soldiers couldn't find him.
He was saved with his feet in the
water.
The Bible says, your sin will find you
out.
You may be as old as Methuselah, but
the sins of your youth will find you
out.
You may have sleepless nights, your guilty conscience,
your sin, your sin.
You can't forget it.
Your sin.
Your sin will find you out.
Your own dogs, your own sin, will judge
you on Judgment Day.
They'll be there.
But go into that stream that flows from
Calvary, the stream of water and of blood,
and you're safe.
The sins are gone.
The dogs won't get hold of you.
The dogs of hell, all the demons, nobody
will be able to get hold of you.
God will save you.
Now they've heard it twice, you can say
it once in English.
And if you come to that stream that
flowed from the cross, from the side of
the Lord Jesus, of the riven side, that
blood and that water, you'll be washed and
cleansed and your sin wiped out.
Have you dipped your feet into that?
Have you come to the cross, called a
spade a spade?
Call your sin by name.
Don't justify yourself.
Rather say, God, I'm guilty.
And He says, no, you are not guilty.
Then say, it's not too bad, and you'll
be guilty before Him.
Oh, for a thousand tongues to proclaim the
mystery of the cross.
There are no tongues of men or angels
that can fathom the depths, the height, the
breadth of that secret, what happened on the
cross.
But may you, with the little that you
understood and heard, be a new man from
now on, and imprint your name into the
book of heaven.
Come Holy Spirit, and make your people understand
what the Father and Jesus did for them
on the cross.
Amen.