The Cross (1 of 2) Power, Liberty, Oneness — G.W. North

The Cross in the New Testament

Shall we turn again to scripture? I think that, unplanned by me, the Spirit of the Lord is moving us along a theme, and tonight I want to talk to you around the cross. I shan't be able to take all the references to the cross in the New Testament, and you know that, except by oblique reference, the cross isn't plainly spoken about in the Old Testament at all.

But in the New Testament, you know, we're introduced to the cross. Praise the name of the Lord. It was in the fullness of time that God sent forth His Son, made of a woman and made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

It was when time was full, and it was at the end of an age, when Jesus Christ came onto the earth, and God planned to bring His Son into the world at the time when the Roman Empire was at full height and strength.

And these were people who used the cross as their means of capital punishment. It's a marvellous thing what God does. It's always right. And He moves towards fixed ends. Bless His name for that. And since the Lord Jesus came into the world and hung on that cross and died upon it and then left it, the cross has been a great focal point, a symbol.

And the Lord has made it permanent in the church. You know that as you draw near to the end of each of the Gospels, we are presented with the cross. We are presented with that cross, beloved, because it was necessary to God.

It was necessary to Jesus Christ. I know that we always think of the cross, or I suppose we mostly do, with reference to ourselves. I want us to do that presently. But I want us, first of all, to think of the cross in its necessity to Jesus Christ.

And I think perhaps I want to read first to you, or you read with me, please, in the Scriptures, in the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians and chapter 1. Praise God. Paul speaking in verse 17 of the first chapter.

Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Hallelujah. If I understand the relationship of the next verses to that, it's written in verse 19, that God said he would destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

And if I understand that right, he did it by the cross. Hallelujah. The cross is set forth in many, many ways. Let us note, first of all, beloved, that it is set forth to destroy wisdom. Hallelujah. To bring in another wisdom.

A greater wisdom. A spiritual wisdom. A wisdom that isn't founded on education, or on the discoveries of men, or on humanistic theories, or whatever you want. It's a new and glorious wisdom, devastating in power, absolutely destructive of everything that a man may imagine, hatch up, think, present, propound, or what he may do.

Hallelujah. Jesus Christ and that cross has been set forth to destroy the wisdom of the wise. Amen. For where is the wise man? And where is the scribe in verse 20? And where is the disputer of this world?

Praise the name of the Lord. Where is he? Has he ever produced dynamic power, this man? Has he ever been able to deal with the causes of mankind's ills? This wise man, where is he? Where is this scribe?

Even if he be a scribe of scripture, or just a banal ordinary writer, for which men get laureates and all this sort of thing, that means laurels around their necks, figuratively speaking, and so on. Where are they, all these people?

Has ever anybody, at any time, anywhere, produced the answer to the needs of man? Many have totted up all our needs, many have sought to catalogue them, many have pointed out, I was going to say secondary causes, I wonder if they even get to secondary causes.

Maybe about tenth cause. They don't know the other nine that go back to the first one. And so they philosophise, and so they write, and so they teach, and so they set up schools, and so they do this, that, and the other.

And, well, where are they now, in realms that matter, and in terms of human souls, and in power? Where are they? What have they produced? God, beloved, has produced the cross. Hallelujah. God has produced the cross.

Hallelujah. Amen. And what a wonderful thing it is. And we, tonight, must beware of falling into common errors. I perhaps ought not to specify tonight, but here we are, and we are considering this great thing.

Common errors such as this. And one hears them to one's great, my own, anyway, disappointment, considering the sources from which they come. We don't want you to preach about the cross. We want you to preach about the things beyond the cross.

We've got beyond the cross. And these kinds of things, making the cross of none effect. And yet, beloved, if they did but know it, and let's not seek to talk about these as though they're trying to destroy anything, they're reaching forth into something that they want.

They want to talk about the baptism in the Spirit, which I suppose we shall talk about, seeing that it's a wits and tide in this conference, at some time or another. They want you to talk about the Spirit.

They want to talk about being sons of God. They want you to talk about gifts. They want to talk about power. They want you to talk about anointings. They want you to talk about everything else, but they don't want you to talk about the cross, for somehow that seems to be a negative position.

Somehow that seems to belong to the past. When, beloved, it belongs to the present, and it belongs to the future, and it has been produced by God, and it has been placed by God centrally in our faith.

Amen. The cross, beloved, was absolutely necessary to Jesus Christ. Moreover, I wish to point out to you that it was necessary to Jesus Christ at the prime of His life, and at the peak of His powers as a man.

It was necessary to Jesus Christ to end an age with it, and commence another one by it. Hallelujah! Perhaps we're beginning to get the cross into focus then. And we're seeing what God wants us to see.

And not without cause do the four gospel writers present us at the end of their gospels with the blessed, blessed cross. It all merges unto the cross. You know, one starts here and goes that way, and one takes another path in talking to us about Jesus, and one takes another way to talk to us, and then the fourth one, he takes another way, and for my part, he takes the best way.

But, I mean, if you take them in the order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, but never mind, I've got no quarrel with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It's just that I seem to find affinity with John. And the tremendous thing about it is that they all, whichever way they come, whichever facet of the life of Jesus they have been raised up to bring to us, whether it be king or servant or man or God, in that order, they bring the king, the servant, the man, and the God to the cross.

Amen. Amen. And what a wonderful and glorious thing this is. It was so necessary to Jesus. You see, we are told in this verse, beloved, that the cross, or the preaching of the cross in verse 18, if we're saved, to us it's the power of God.

I want you to see that it isn't a power of God. It is the power of God. All right. Have you noticed that? For instance, it's not a power like I give you power over unclean spirits or over all sickness.

It is not an authorizing. It is the power of God. And this, beloved, immediately introduces us to a vital point where Jesus Christ is concerned. For an uncrucified Christ could give power to cast out devils, could give power to cleanse lepers, could give power to heal the sick, could give authority and power to God and preach in his name.

But, that's right, now you begin to see why the cross was so vital. There were things he couldn't do for men until he had the cross. The most vital needs of men could never be met apart from the cross.

And he knew it. Hallelujah. So necessary to Jesus Christ. All that he'd ever done before, all that he'd ever said before, without the cross would have been unfulfilled, unconsummated. It would have been a flare up in the dark and would soon have subsided.

The Cross as the Power of God

For I suppose you know, as well as I, that during the days of our Lord Jesus Christ's life on the earth, Israel enjoyed the greatest revival it had ever known. Have you ever thought about that? Jesus Christ, the revivalist.

Mind you, he didn't have a band, and he didn't have any tambourines, as far as I know, and he didn't have any gimmicks, and he didn't have anything. I don't believe he did, if you discover this, or got some secret sort of revelation about it, I'd like you to tell me.

He just came down on this earth, and Israel went through the greatest period of national revival it had ever known, at least the tribes that were there in the land. You see, and like all revivals, at the end there was nothing to show for it.

This is what Daniel the prophet said. He said this, he shall be cut off and have nothing. You'll find that in Daniel. Amen. That's one of the reasons I don't go to revival prayer meetings, because that's not what I'm after.

I don't know whether you do, and if you cross me off your list from tonight on, well, we're all right. That's why I don't go to revival prayer meetings. I believe that what we're needing is regeneration, not revival.

That's what I believe, with all my heart. As a matter of fact, I'm heading for the regeneration all the time. I'm not heading for revival. Bless the name of the Lord. May God open your eyes to see that.

And it's a tremendous and wonderful thing, for all revivals, born along waves of power, and raising up six, twelve men, seventy men, marvelous excursions within a period of three years, out into Israel.

It was wonderful. And then there was nothing. Nothing. Oh, hallelujah. When will we learn? When will we learn that the greatest of all that engaged in revival had nothing at the end of it? Except there be regeneration.

Except there be a cross. Except there be a sudden death, and an utter curtailment. Except there be a sweeping into a grave as rubbish. Everything of the old. There can be nothing, even for God. This is the lesson of the cross.

And this is the thing that we've been so slow to learn. No wonder this man Paul says, God didn't send me to baptize. Now, that's a tremendous thing. If you read, for instance, when he went to Corinth, perhaps you ought to read it for yourself in the Acts of the Apostles.

Or when he went, say, to Philippi, or places like that. See, I don't know, were we baptized? He tells people in this Corinthian letter, for instance, he says, I thank God, in verse 14, that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius.

This then he should say, that I had baptized in mine own name, and I baptized also the household of Stephanus. Beside, I know not whether I baptized any other. Praise God. For a man who wasn't swept along on the current wave of dipping everybody in quick.

Hallelujah. Amen. Not that perhaps we shan't have the tent uncovered sometime during this week. That's not what I'm talking about. But bless God for a man who got into a place where he was prepared to leave even the sacred ordinations and go into something which is eternal in the heart of God and move in the realm of power and preach from the place of power lest anything, whether words or ordinations or anything, should make the cross of Christ of none effect.

Amen. I wouldn't be surprised. Again, you might write me off after this, but at least I must be allowed to say what I've got to say. I wouldn't be surprised if again yet before Christ comes, God raises up a people that will do what the early Quakers did in England.

They saw through all these other ordinances and had none of them but moved in power not to establish it forever in the church, this sort of thing, but to sweep from people's minds the trust that they have in outward ceremonies.

The trust that they have in, oh, I've been baptized. And you know, baptize me, don't you, Paul? Or, I have breaking of bread every Sunday morning. You see. And all this. Bless God for the first generation of Quakers who had the courage to go through with what they believe and God save this present generation of Quakers who've got no courage to believe anything that's really true, mostly.

And I wouldn't be surprised, I wouldn't, if God moved again in all this great mix-up that there is about water baptism. And I don't know what that's sweeping through this country or was sweeping. I hope it's slowed down a bit now, the pace of it.

I hope it has. So that we shall see right down through, beloved, it is the cross itself stark and naked and glorious and powerful as it is for it exists this night as power in the Spirit of God. It doesn't exist as wood.

It exists as power. Power. The power where the mighty God of Heaven stooped down and got hold of things invisible and moved against the damning, corrupting thing that's absolutely ruined the race of men and has reared itself against God's plans.

Got hold of it. When a man didn't know that God had got hold of it, hadn't got the intelligence to know that God had got hold of it, no wise man could tell us anything about it that counted much. Go even to the wisest man, perhaps except Jesus Christ, whoever lived on the earth.

That's Solomon. You won't find he talks much about these things. And perhaps it was because of the lack of this great cross that he finished as he finished. Now God is wanting us to understand that what that cross meant to Jesus Christ, that there He who divided the Red Sea, though I wanted to stop you this morning about this.

You didn't sing the truth in that chorus. You sang, how did Moses cross the Red Sea? Did he walk? Well, of course he walked. You said no. Of course he walked. How do you think he got across? Of course he walked.

You'd better correct that chorus. You'd correct the tunes. We have lovely new tunes. Well, let's have some of these words altered that aren't right too. Amen. Of course Moses walked across the Red Sea.

You mustn't teach your young children untruths. If you expect me to be a child, you must treat me properly. Amen. Of course he walked across the Red Sea. Amen. I know that God used the great figure of bearing them all on eagle's wings, but they weren't flying through the waters.

They walked across the Red Sea. Hallelujah. That's how they knew it was dry. It was a bare, flat, dry road for them. Specially made by God so that they could walk across. Amen. Amen. And this is a tremendous thing.

But the great God, beloved, that divided the Red Sea, did all these mighty miracles for men that people sing about and shout about and stamp about and wave about, is the God of the cross. And there He did His greatest work, beloved.

He got down to this, beloved, and oh may God save us from ever moving off this marvellous ground of the cross. Not that I think we want to get all sad and sing sad songs about it. I don't think that at all.

I think we want to sing songs of glory and rejoicing about it. That's what I think we ought to do. But, it's here, the cross. Amen. And it's by this great power that God does everything. If you want to know what the power is that comes on you in the baptism in the Spirit, it's the power of the cross.

If you really want to know. If you want to know what the power of your authority is, it's the power of the cross. Amen. I invite you that have a Young's Concordance, there you are, or if better than I, you're a great Greek scholar, to trace through this word dunamis that's translated power in Acts 1 .8, and see what else it is you're told about it in your New Testament.

You'll have such an eye-opener that I reckon you'll change your ministry on these tremendous truths that God wants us to understand. When you want the power, it's the cross you're asking for. Yes. To us which are saved, this is the power.

This is the power. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh, glory. You see, when I thought it was power to do miracles and heal the sick, yeah, hallelujah. Do you know why? Because He dealt with sicknesses on the cross.

Amen. That's right. I thought it was power to give prophecies. Do you know why? Because the Word was crucified. The Word, and this is the great Word you've got here. It says the preaching of the cross.

It's the Logos. The Logos of the cross. There it is. The Logos that we read about in John 1 has become empowered to us by the cross. Amen. Yes. There's your prophet. Amen. Look what our brother said to us a little earlier this night.

All the Holy Spirit through Him. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spaking times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. But now listen. Who, not prior to Calvary.

Notice it. Who, being this, being that, we're upholding all things by the Word of His power. When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down. It's the voice from the throne. The Son on the throne. With Calvary now.

I was going to say in the bag. Excuse me using that word. Amen. And He's spoken to us from there. That's the Word. Hallelujah. Yes. The power that He wields from the throne is the cross. Glory be to God.

Hallelujah. Glory. That's why lower down in that same Hebrews 1, it says, the scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter, or a scepter of righteousness. It's the cross. Hallelujah. It's the power of righteousness.

It's the power of God. There wouldn't have been any righteousness worth talking about if there had been no cross. Where would righteousness have been if there had been no Calvary? Where would the Gospel have been?

Where would a man have been able to open his mouth and say one word if there had been no cross? What if God had made a sentimental attempt to reach us by marvelous miracles like virgin birth and the Christmas story and His wonderful concern for the sick if there had been no cross?

Where, O where, beloved, would have been truth and justice and love? Where would it have been? The cross. Everything is the cross. The Holy Ghost didn't come until He got the cross. Do you understand it?

The Holy Ghost was withheld until God had the cross. Do you see it? God opening your eyes that you might understand that He was withheld until He could come and He could come with the power. Amen. And so, beloved, we begin to understand something of the glory and the reality and the fullness of the cross.

It's the key to everything. Turn with me for a moment into the Galatian lair. Now you will know that Paul, when he wrote to the Galatians, wrote because these people were in absolute bondage. You know what had happened.

They'd been born of God. They had a mighty visitation of the Lord in Galatia and so on. They moved into a wonderful place with God. And then they'd come along people that had preached specious doctrines to them.

People had come along and said, Oh, yes, but so and so and so and so. I won't say what they said because they're not relevant today. These things aren't relevant. You see, the tragedy is we get hold of young people, we send them to Bible colleges, we fill them up with all sorts of irrelevant things to 1974.

It's not relevant to us about circumcision and law and legalism and all that. Except there's a sort of a new antinomianism come, but we won't want to deal with that now. But that's what we do. We fill them up with this, that and the other and they come out without a clue except how to present a sermon from the Bible.

What we've got to know is this, beloved, that people are being brought into bondage in our day because of certain things that are being said. Certain teachings. You've got to do this. You've got to have that.

You've got to renounce this and take that. You've got to, oh, oh, oh, oh. You see, this is what's going on. And what these people were needing in Galatia was liberty. They weren't wanting to be brought into freedom.

They'd got all bound up by this man, that man, this idea, a new presentation of that, the old, old ways of getting people back into the old, old bondages. That's what they needed. So what did Paul take to the Galatians?

Liberty Through the Cross

Let's read a moment in chapter 4. Why? He sort of puts us right onto the ground of this thing. He says this, My little children, verse 19. Oh, I think that's marvelous, don't you? My little children. Bless God, he wasn't standing up saying, Oh, I disown you.

You've gone back from the gospel of grace that I preached to you. I disown you. Bless God, he didn't say that. Thank God his name wasn't Pilate and he wasn't calling for a bowl of water. His name was Paul.

And he was ministering in the great truth of God. He says, My little children of whom I travel in birth again until Christ be formed in you. I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice for I stand in doubt of you.

Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other one by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh.

But he of the free woman was by the promise, which things are an allegory. For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which genereth the bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children.

But Jerusalem which is above is free. Which is the mother of us all. And he was wanting these people to come into freedom, liberty. Oh, hallelujah! And now listen to it. He breaks right into it. For it's written, verse 27, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not.

Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not. For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of the promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit.

Listen, I'll say amen to this. Even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

So, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. That's right, hallelujah. They were needing liberty, freedom.

But how did Christ make you free? By the cross. And he applies the cross in the Galatians. The cross, the cross, the cross. It's the cross that sets people free. I beg your pardon. It's the cross that does it.

Amen. Isn't God good? That's the set that's not working. It's an amazing thing. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. That mic was only decoration. But this is the truth, beloved. It's the cross. And if you're not free, I tell you you're needing the cross by prescription of the Holy Ghost through the Apostle Paul.

It's the cross. He didn't come on any fancy things about this, that and the other. What you're needing is deliverance or something like that. He said, it's the cross. I hope that really, really wakes you right up.

It's the cross. The cross, the cross, the cross, the cross. Amen. That's how he did it. By the cross. Not a nice comforting, soothing, syrupy sort of something. The cross. He knows, beloved, that the only way that men and women can be free is the cross.

And the trouble with so many people, they have a bond woman birth. That's what they have. And it's not my idea. It's the Scripture. They have a bond woman birth. They don't have a free woman birth. Hallelujah.

They don't. Oh, glory be to the name of the Lord. They don't have a free woman birth. They have a bond woman birth. That's what you're told. There are two sons. Only one is the seed. The one that's born free.

Hallelujah. Born free. When God bore me by His precious seed, He bore me free. Hallelujah. I've had to learn what my freedom is, mind you. I've had to learn it in increasing measure. I've had to let the Lord deal with all sorts of things.

But, oh, blessed be His name. It's the cross. And if you've had a baptism in the Spirit that hasn't brought the power of the cross to you, I don't know what you've had. Amen. Amen and amen. Glory be to the cross.

Sudden death. Amen. Do you believe in the annihilating power of the cross? Do you? Oh, the ways that men have found to get round the cross. Oh, the new specious arguments. Oh, the new kind of doctrines.

Oh, the things that fall on itching ears. But all those that itch to be free have got to get low. You've got to ache to be free. You've got to despair. You've got to come to the place, beloved, where you'd rather die than live in your own state.

And that's when God brings the cross for it's His secret death. Amen. Amen. And what a marvellous thing it is. When it was enacted on the tree of wood at Calvary, it meant nothing to any man save God and Christ and the devil.

It only meant something in the spiritual world. The men and the women of flesh and blood around them ran away, smoked their breasts, or did all sorts of things, despaired and said, so this is the end.

We thought it had been He which should have redeemed Israel. This then seems to be the heart cry of people that never knew. And the cross only ever meant, and it was why it was done, beloved, only to carry the act of Christ over into the spirit and into the spiritual world.

The body of the Christ, wonderful as it was, was a means of God moving by spirit into the realm of spirit to get at unknown, undreamed of, unmentionable bondages and sins and weights and complications and perversions in the spirit of man.

Dead, dead, dead. Bound, bound. No hope of release. And here comes Jesus Christ. Moves onto the cross. Hallelujah. Dies on the cross. Praise God. Oh, it's all so wonderful. Moves it all into that realm.

Let me say it again. It was spirit world that was affected there. God, the devil, principalities, powers, death, spiritual death, moral and physical death. Amen. These were the things that God got at by the cross.

This is why the writers of the New Testament sing its praise. This is why they never deviated one iota from the glory of this cross. Amen. If you want to be free, sister, if you want to be free, brother, look me in the eyes now and look at God.

It's the cross you need. It isn't a deliverance, man. Not primarily. It's the cross. Yeah. It's the death. It's the utter death of self. And then there's no one to bind. Is that right? Yeah, that's right.

Why did the binding grave clothes on Jesus Christ fold up and collapse in the tomb? Because there was no one to bind. It'd come out of it. It's very simple. Yeah. Glory. Hallelujah. The grave clothes, it's really bandages in the Greek.

They just bandaged him up like that and then they folded up because there was no one there to bind anymore. He'd gone. He's not here, said the angels. He's risen, as he told you. Nobody to bind. Well, we'll go in and have a look.

Well, there's only angels here. Shining light everywhere so that you can see that there's no one there. Nothing to bind. He's gone. Sudden death. Sudden resurrection. Total death. Total life. It's as simple as that.

And blessed be the name of the Lord and glory be to Him who comes to make the revelation to bring people out of all the darknesses that keep them chasing round and round and round and eventually in the end by God's grace and He will grant it this night to your soul, my brother, my sister, you'll have to come to the cross and die.

That's what you'll have to do. You won't have to plead your gifts. You won't have to plead your experiences. You won't have to plead anything. God's not forgetful of anything. You needn't plead it. He doesn't forget.

He knows. He knows it precisely. Do you notice what I said this morning? You have to come to an unspeakable place. He knows it all. Hallelujah! And when your spirit inside has got fed up with trying all the tricks of the trade, if it be a trade, and when your self inside has got sick and tired of bringing this and pleading that and throwing text at the devil's head, they always bounce off, and when you come, beloved, and you stop getting your food out of this book or getting your food out of that book and then buying the new book and the next book, I know they sell books here.

Hallelujah! When you're finished with it all, if you want to be free, God has only got the cross. When you give up, admit you've been wrong, even though you've really tried, and listen, I'm not scolding you, and God's not throwing anything at you.

You've got to come to this place where you die utterly. You don't come back with a thought and you don't say, oh, but, if you will justify yourself and the way you've been acting, you're a self-justifier, you don't need God.

If you've got to vindicate yourself, you're a self-vindicator, you don't need God. Don't you see why He provided the cross? The cross, my beloved, in the hands of the Holy Spirit this night. Oh, search out the last vestige of sin and the root of all evil, and you'll get to the seat of that carnal mind.

He'll get right back into everything you call heredity. He'll bring everything into you, beloved, and the nonsense... I'm talking to myself now. I'll cure you soon. And all the nonsense and the palaver and the fuss you've been making north is a lot of nonsense.

Die. I bless God for a merciful sentence. I bless God for a gentle hand that nailed me to the cross that I didn't even feel it. I bless God for grace that made it the sweetest thing I ever did know. I bless Him for love that cradled me on His breast when He had thorns on Him.

I bless Him. Such a sweet death.

Such an easy death.

Such a simple death. Such a straightforward death. Such an eternal death. Such an all-inclusive death. So suited to my need, and I was too stupid to understand. And I got Him to pray with me, and I got Her to pray for me.

And I really tried, O Lord, my God. And He said, The cross. Amen. If you want to be free, it's the cross. Amen. Turn with you. Turn with me. Let me go with you at the moment.

Death to Self and the Cross in Philippians

To this glorious Philippian letter. I won't be able to take this setting in all the epistles, but you will know, with me, I trust,.

That these epistles have a main message. I said, Now we'll start here. What's the main message of Ephesians? Or what's the main message of Philippians? Sit up. Look at me. Don't duck your head. I might be pointing at you.

What's the main message of the Corinthians? What's the main... He said, Well, I don't know. Well, you should know. I'm not blaming you youngsters, but if you can see anybody that's about 40, 50, they should know.

That's why they have a Bible. That's why God gave them brains. That's why God gave them a thing called time. Amen. Well, Paul took up this cross, and whatever the problem was, he always applied the cross to it.

Always. So, the problem in Galatia we saw was this, that they were all in bondage. So he said, Well, it's the cross. He said, Well, now, how about me? Well, let's come to Philippians and read this marvelous second chapter.

Or part of it is, if we may just select these verses. Verse 5. Let this mine be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Will you? Who being in the form of God. Listen. He was in the form of God. He wasn't in the form of old Adam.

He wasn't in the form of Satan, for old Adam is in the form of Satan. Alright. He was in the form of God. Thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Hallelujah. That's it. This is it. The death. I don't know how you regard that great statement, say, in Revelation chapter 12. Do you remember it? Where we are told marvelous things about the future, and things that God does.

And we are told how there was war in heaven, and Michael and his angels fought with the devil and his angels, and the devil and his angels were cast out, and all sorts of things. And then we are told a marvelous verse as he came into a head-on conflict, direct contest with the saints of God.