The Gospel of the Cross — E.A. Johnston

The Cross as the Center of the Gospel

We live in a nation today that is morally debauched, and our modern churches today proclaim a debased gospel, a gospel that has had all its teeth removed. Our modern gospel, friends, is so diluted of its saving power that it couldn't save a flea, much less a sinner in love with his sins.

But the gospel of my Bible has a cross central to it, the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter one and verses 17 through 18 declares, for 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. Did you hear that, friends? The power of God, the old gospel had power, and that is because of the centrality of the cross.

The Blood of Christ and the New Birth

All the old preacher boys that I used to listen to all preached up the cross and the bloody savior who died there, and their gospel got your attention. Their gospel got under your skin. Their gospel got you convicted of sin because they preached up a crucified savior on a bloodstained cross.

And if you want to be saved, then your sins have to be washed in his blood, and you must be born from above. And that cross of Calvary stood high on the hill of most sermon outlines back when I was a little boy.

But today, many of our preachers have gotten out their mop buckets and have cleaned up all the blood and gore around Calvary to make it more acceptable to modern man. In fact, they've cleaned up the area around Calvary so well, it's so pristine that you can sit and have your lunch there.

We don't hear much preaching today on the gospel of the cross, but that's what I'm gonna preach today, friends. I'm gonna preach about a bloody cross and a bloody savior who died there. My Bible declares that the gospel is the cross, for it declares Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

Historic Preachers Who Lived Near the Cross

And when I study Christian biography and I read about men whom God has used in former times in the salvation of souls, I see men who preached up the cross, their gospel had power, and they were men who lived near the cross, and their lives had power and influence as well.

Listen, friends, God's eyes are continually searching the earth for those rare individuals of whom the world was not worthy, men like Moses and John the Baptist, Luther and Knox, Whitfield and Wesley, Spurgeon and Moody, men who live in a different atmosphere than other mortals, men who have annihilated self with the cross and whose lives are broken alabaster boxes from which fragrances arise to the heavens from the broken pieces of selflessness, self-sacrifice, and self-crucifixion.

God is always on the lookout for such men, and those kind of men shook nations for God, and they did so with the preaching of Christ crucified on a bloody cross. The title of my message today, friends, is The Gospel of the Cross, and my text can be found in Paul's letter to the Colossians.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter one and verses 17 through 22. Let me read this striking a passage scripture to us at this time. Here now is the word of God, and may the spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word.

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.

For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell, and have he made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.

And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unapprovable in his sight.

Reconciliation Through the Blood of the Cross

That's the gospel in a nutshell, friends, peace through the blood of his cross. You were an enemy of God, a rebel on the wrong side of God and living in a perilous position of facing a Christless eternity, but peace was made through the blood of his cross to reconcile you back to God, to the God who made you, the entire teaching ministry of Jesus centered in the cross.

He insisted upon its necessity just about every chance he got as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. My Bible says that from that time began Jesus to show his disciples how he must go on to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and the third day be raised up.

Listen to me, friends, you take the cross out of the gospel and you have no gospel. You take the blood out of the gospel and you have a bloodless gospel like we have today. You remove man's duty of repentance from the gospel and you're stuck with a only believe gospel and that is a no soul gospel that will send you to hell for Jesus himself declared, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

And if you don't repent friends, that means all will perish, including the chairman of the deacons. I've never seen a time in my life in the church where more damage has been done by folks, by preachers, omitting the great doctrine of the Bible, which is central to the teaching of the cross.

Sin Nature and Human Rebellion

Old time preachers used to preach up the great doctrines of the gospel. They used to preach up the doctrine of rune that you're born under a curse and there's a poison in your blood and you hate all things holy because you were born with a rune nature that has a bent towards sin.

My Bible declares man drinks iniquity like it's water and man is a rebel who's committed treason against the sovereign. Listen to me dear friend, you are not a sinner because you sin, rather you sin because you're a big sinner.

Then those old preacher boys used to hold up that cross on Calvary and the bloody sacrifice and the person of Christ Jesus hanging there and they pointed you to that bloody cross and informed you of your duty of repentance and if you did not repent, they told you you were going to hell and not only you were going there, but you deserve to go there because hell is full of rebels, rebels who hate God and all things holy, who refuse to throw down their shotgun of rebellion at the foot of a sovereign.

Listen to me friend, you cannot have Christ and hug your sins. Jesus never preached a sin in religion, but we have many potty mouth preacher boys today who are both irreverent and blasphemous to God and I pity the person sitting under that kind of so-called ministry.

Holiness, Prayer, and the Power of the Cross

But men of former days knew better, they maintained a high view of God, they referred to him as the great God, the almighty and they lived their lives under the discipline of the Holy Ghost and were holy men whom God used in mighty ways.

Go study the sermons of say Jonathan Edwards and see how big his God was and then look at how God used an Edwards in powerful revival and spiritual awakening. Men whom God has used in mighty ways were men who lived low before God in humility and prayer, those kind of men lived on their knees.

Listen to an extract I wrote down here for you taken from the diary of praying pace in a Portland. Listen to this pastor's words. Spent this day in the woods in fasting and prayer with a view to obtain mortification of my abominable pride and selfishness.

Was favored with much fervency and enlargement the former part of the day but was afterward much deserted. Seemed to make no advances in holiness, to be of no advantage to the world and unfit to live.

That's how that man lived friends and that's why God used him so mightily in Portland, Maine and in the history of the church. Men like praying pace and preached up the great doctrines of the Bible that had power to saved.

They preached up the doctrine of redemption and placed a cross right in the middle of it. The necessity of the cross was always held up before their hearers and that's why so many of their hearers were saved by the power of that gospel of the cross.

And notice in our text friends that the apostle Paul states the following. In the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unapprovable in his sight. The doctrine of the cross has both power to save from the penalty of sin and to say from the power of sin to present you holy.

My Bible declares in Hebrews for holiness without no one shall see the Lord but you'd be hard pressed friend to wander into a church today and hear a sermon on holiness. Why is that? It's because most preachers have stopped preaching on sin.

They've stopped preaching on hell and its miseries. They've ceased preaching the need for repentance or even the necessity of regeneration. It's mainly just make a decision and walk this out like you would choose a presidential candidate.

The Lordship of Christ and Costly Discipleship

But if you really gonna preach up the cross then you must preach it in its entirety and here is where it becomes a scandal and offense to sinful man because if you preach that Christ is Lord and if you want him then you must submit to his Lordship and rule over your life.

Then many church members will line up with those in my Bible who cried out we will not have this man reign over us. You start preaching the utter Lordship of Jesus Christ brother preacher and they will hand you your head while the good deacons will come and remove you.

But the gospel of the cross is a gospel about a living Lord who sits at the right hand of God in glory and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross and if you want him, you must have him there. You must throw down your shotgun or rebellion and submit to him as Lord and surrender to all the rights and claims that the gospel has on your life.

For a life of discipleship includes the cross as well friend. A crucified savior must have crucified followers. You start making the cross central to your preaching and all hell will begin to pop. Some church members today have never parted with their sins and when they die, they'll split hell wide open.

You start preaching up the cross and its centrality and it's out of necessity and you'll have a fight on your hands or you'll have revival. Listen to the comments of Rees House who was mightily used of God as a man of prayer and a man of revival.

Revival Through the Bold Preaching of the Crucifixion

He was preaching one day in Africa and listen to what he said. In Pondoland on one station, I was preaching on the crucifixion on Good Friday and the spirit brought out those words, away with him, crucify him.

It seemed as though the people saw hell open before them and in one mass, the whole congregation rushed forward to get right with God. I was afraid they would push the pulpit over. Let me ask you brother preacher, when was the last time your people were so under conviction of sin that they rushed the platform and almost pushed your pulpit over?

God will honor the preaching of his son as he is lifted up by the centrality of the cross. That cross friends had Christ's blood all over it because of my sins, my dirty rotten sins and because of your sins, your filthy wretched sins.

A Final Call to Preach the Gospel of the Cross

Let us preach the cross of Christ boldly in this sad day of spiritual declension in the church and gross immorality in the land. Let us pray.