In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of not being familiar with God and Christ. He highlights that familiarity with God is foreign to those who have truly seen Him, specifically referencing His crucifixion. The preacher also discusses the concept of dispensationalism and how it can help in understanding difficult passages in scripture. He encourages the audience to hold on to Jesus Christ and to have a personal relationship with Him. The sermon concludes with a reminder of the preciousness of Jesus and the need to preach the cross of Christ to a world that takes it for granted.

Freedom of the gospel, not the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none of faith. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the strife? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For as to that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek as to wisdom. But we preach Christ having crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Upon the truth of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great truth of salvation by grace depends. And while in the scriptures the death of Christ and the cross of Christ are never separated, in religion is all they always are. And I'm not speaking on the death of Christ tonight, I'm speaking on the cross of Christ. It is said that Mr. Spurgeon, where in tremendously favorable environment, began to seek as to a vital union with God and Christ. When he was converted at the age of 16, he'd already mastered more theology than perhaps any seminary today, seminary gives the students. Mr. Spurgeon in later years said that the problem this 16-year-old boy wrestled with was how can a holy God deal with me? How can a holy God deal with me? It reminds us of the query of the disciples after the Lord's encounter with the rich young ruler and when the young man had a great procession and was very sorrowful and he went away. And the Lord watched him go away. And the Lord Jesus said, it's easier for a camel to enter into the eye of a needle than for a rich man entering the kingdom of God. And the next question, now these men were, they weren't fools. If you study this, let your hair stand on your head, especially in this day of easy familiarity. Where are we so familiar with God? In the old days of the bewhiskered patriarchs of our phase, it'd take an old-time Baptist about 30 minutes to properly address the deity when he approached him in prayer. Now we rush rapidly into his presence and the vice of familiarity is the greatest advertising that this generation talks so much about God and Christ know nothing of it. For familiarity with God is entirely foreign to a soul that's once seen him marred on a cross, dying for him. And they didn't just ask questions about the difference between being a poor man and being a rich man, but having heard the Lord and watched him deal with the rich young ruler. Now you dispensationalists, I think you've got that all fixed up, so it takes all the steam out of it. You know, every time you come to a hard place in the scripture, there's two ways you can get around it. Either it is for the Jews, or it's before Pentecost. But these men, solemn men, solemnized by watching the Lord Jesus Christ let an awful good prospect go. Says he left him, but he let him go. And they said, Lord, who then can be saved by us? So I wish we could preach the cross of Christ until a holy hour would come upon us. Instead of running around here trying to explain how God's got to deal fairly with everybody and give everybody a chance, they'd come upon us a holy hush. Who then can be saved? You know, the whole fabric of apostate Christianity is based upon the fact that the death of Jesus Christ, everybody who believes in the death of Christ, the Savior's death is owned by everybody—Muslims, Buddhists, polite Japanese who wouldn't think of rejecting your Jesus if you offer him to them, put him up on the shelf for the rest of their gods. The Savior's death is owned as a part of this religious world's philosophy. Everybody accepts the death of Jesus. That which God never separates is death, and the cross man always separates. The death of Christ is a fact, and a doctrine, that human wisdom has adopted and rejoices in as the highest tribute to human worth. Wonderful men who fast-discovering doctrines in our so-called Christian churches, and they're growing in your fundamental churches too, are universal salvation, and there is no hell. Man is so wonderfully made that these two precious gods wouldn't waste him and send him to hell. And God, strangely enough, God is sovereign! See, all modernists believe in the sovereignty of God. Every last one of them, else three, believes in the sovereignty of God. He says that a sovereign God will not stop until every one of his creatures is saved. That is, sovereignty implies it. Right in your own so-called missionary Baptist churches, you're raising a generation of church people that actually believe, that would do better to believe that he isn't alone, rather than go over there with this gospel that's a saver of life unto life, death unto death. The fastest-growing Baptist church in Tennessee, that they very hardly bear doctrines, the big so-called missionary Baptist church. They've discovered that if a man doesn't reject Christ, he won't be sent to hell. And so if he never hears of Christ, he can't reject him. Boy, they've grown, don't cost much to be a member of that church, no missionary program at all. Because this world accepts the death of Christ and denies the cross of Christ, God is made to pander to the pride and the sense of self-importance of this puffed-up generation. With the world's philosophy so it is, with the world's wisdom, the doctrine of the death of Christ is separated from the truth that makes up the truth of the cross of Christ, just preaching the death of Christ. I wish you young preachers would listen to me now. I hope under God you don't get your theory of the atonement worked out. I hope it's always too much for you. The day you get it worked out so you can explain it and make it logical, you've separated the death of Christ. It offends nobody and saves nobody. The doctrine of the death of Christ is separated from the truth. The prince of glory died, raised in the nature still, hanging a crown to stand upon, and anybody will take Jesus if you leave his self and his pride alone. The doctrine of the death of Christ, separated from the cross, is consistent with the claims of men and women and class privileges. Sinners of the better sort can accept your limited atonement theory by trying to figure out they're one of the elect and God's under obligation to save them. I hope you don't get it worked out for. Sinners of the better class can accept the death of Christ as a matter of course. That's exactly what they're doing. But the cross of Jesus Christ is actually to the root of the tree. It's the death blow to SELF and human nature on every ground and in every guise. And you'll be crucified at the cross, or you'll be crushed by it. And the cross forever says that the mildest sinner out of heaven can be saved forever. But the best sinner out of heaven cannot be saved apart from it. And it shuts all men up to faith or judgment and no in between. A gospel that points to the death of Christ in proof of God's high estimate of man, watch it, and then turns that doctrine into a cynicism that you can make logical and reason out so that man may lose his self-respect, can calmly reason out his right to being justified. That sort of gospel will give no offense to anybody, nor it'll never be branded as foolishness. Somebody said, please God, by the foolishness of preaching, not the preaching of foolishness, but ladies and gentlemen, please God, by the preaching of foolishness, for it's the most foolish thing this side of hell, the doctrine of the cross. It's so foolish that nobody except an idiot or a born-again person can believe it. That's the God's truth. Such a gospel gospel. It's got it all worked out. I hear it. God's plan of salvation. I thank God. He hasn't got any plan of salvation. He's got Christ. You all go on and join the Camelites. They're cussing him out. You're preaching the same thing they are. He's got your little plan, one, two, three. It's all worked out. One leads to two and two leads to three. No, no. No, no. There's no plan of salvation. There's a saving God in Christ. Yes, and it's a meeting up. It's a meeting up. Your plan, believe, one, two, three, four, five, six of the Camelites. You ain't got two, three, four. Same principle. One leads to the other. All of them ignore the cross. Such a gospel pays due respect to human nature. It satisfies man's sense of need without hurting his pride. Such a gospel, ladies and gentlemen, has created Christendom. Such a gospel. Watch it. Has created a Christian world. But Paul said we are not hoaxsters. We are not offering Jesus to the highest bidder. We are not preaching a gospel that can be understood. We are not crippling down the demands of him on the cross. Such a gospel of the cross will create a church within a hostile world. But the gospel we've had today has created a church that is the world. The gospel of many has constituted the world itself, the church, until every chamber of commerce says, come to our city, a city full of churches, nice place to rear your children, with a great Christian environment. My friends, a gospel that pays court, tries to reason, tries to appeal to man's reason, to man's religion, will always be popular. But it will not be the gospel of the cross of Christ. What is the gospel? In John chapter 3, in verses 14, 15, and 16, we have the theory of atonement. This is good enough for me. In verse 14, we have the gospel. What is the gospel? The Lord said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The Greek scholar will tell you that word talked about a crucifixion that demands a resurrection. The endless power of a godly life demands a resurrection. And in the scriptures, in gospel preaching, they were agreed on separating the cross and the resurrection. It was the two aspects of a completed thing. The gospel is the cross and the resurrection. Of course, the resurrection secures an exaltation. And the exaltation, I say again, is God's answer to the verdict of man. You know who took him and killed him? I raised him and set him on the throne. Now, let's change that verdict. John 3, 15 gives us the result of the cross and resurrection, yet all the theory of atonement is needed. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up in all of that. Here is what God had in mind. Here is the result of the cross and resurrection. That whosoever believes that Jesus died for him, no, no. That whosoever believes that Jesus was raised from the dead, no, no. Thank God in the New Testament they didn't believe in the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Christ they associated with the Christ that was risen. And you better get that right. A lot of folks don't go to hell believing in the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Christ if they don't believe in him who was raised. They make the experience before the doctrine was written that whosoever believes in him, in him, in him, in him, not in a past, but in a present. The person who hung on that cross and the person who arose from that grave and is now seated on the throne forever, whoever believes that present, continuous, participle, keeps on obeying, keeps on believing. That is sending people to hell with your carnal doctrine of the security of the professor of faith. But the believer is secure, but the question is, who is a believer? Nowhere in the New Testament is anybody about to say eternal life and being raised at the last day, except in connection with the present, living, vibrant, obedient, fully at that very day. And I have no compunction about saying it. And you have to go back to yesterday, which is an evidence that you are a believer. You are a day late, bud. You are a day late. It must be today. I'll fight you over security, believer, but I will not preach this carnal stuff. You need come close to preaching that if a man professes faith in Christ, he'll wander far away from God, but just before he dies, he'll come home. Why are you allowed to put death on the cross and the resurrection? Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And then John 3 16 gives us the reason for the cross and the resurrection. Of course it is true there isn't a word of gospel truth in John 3 16. Their brother Moody used it, God more than all of us put together. He coined the phrase enough gospel in John 3 16 saved the world in the bitter gospel and we put it there. There's no blood in John 3 16. There's no resurrection in John 3 16. I'll tell you what there is. I read John 3 16. I'll tell you why Christ hung on a cross. I'll tell you why God raised him from the dead. Jesus one time caught God in the ocean. God was in the ocean and God so loved. God so loved. You fellas guard his love, you know, it's liable to run dry. No, he got plenty. God so loved the world they gave. What? Lord sent my savior. Lord, Lord, put down the cross. Lord did it. Lord did it. What is the gospel? The preaching of the one who was on a cross eternally in the heart of God. And in that sense will be forever there. You're silly to build your doctrines and decrees and so forth. Try to handle the element of time and eternity. He was as a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Is that 2 million years ago or 1,500 million? Isn't that silly to talk that way? What does it mean? Well the Bible means awful deep, that's what I know. You're silly to work your doctrine and decree of election that way. He had chosen us and him from before the foundation of the world. When was that? 15 million years ago? When was that? You handle that. You can't, can you? We'll walk softly there. But somebody said there'll be a cross in the heart of God forever. And it's because it was in his heart forever that in due time his son was made flesh, he was made flesh. You see, young preachers, never forget that certainty does not make unnecessary necessity. The elect will repent, but they must repent. In the heart of God, Jesus Christ was as a lamb slain forever, but he had to be made into a tree. Oh, what wondrous love, he so loved that he gave. And no man is incapable of quoting the next word, so rich and wonderful. He so loved that he gave his all begotten son. If God's not a bunch of clay, if he has a heart, what wealth is in that expression, he gave his all begotten son. What's the gospel? It's a cross and a resurrection that took place because God's got a heart of love. And the result of it, whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. May I ask you to bear with me tonight as I say another thing. I want to consider with you credentials of gospel preachers, Bible credentials of gospel preachers. There are three that are mentioned in our scripture tonight. Any presentation of what you call the gospel that doesn't do three things isn't the gospel. It's not the gospel of the cross, not simply the death of Jesus, but who died there and why he died there. That's what makes the difference between the death of Jesus, thereby believed, and the cross of Christ. May I ask you this question? You mean to sit there and tell me that you actually believe that God made himself manifest on this earth by being born as a baby in a castle? Oh, I ain't about that stuff coming out of the rain. You know that's no way for God to do. And as long as you get your little theories in your systems and try to make the gospel, where is the mystery of God? Let us not attempt to understand it. Let us simply proclaim it. God was manifest in the flesh. God, God was manifest in the flesh. Great is the mystery. Great. Let us proclaim him as God manifest in the flesh. Let us preach on that cross, now on that throne. I'll tell you what I'll say. People curse. Smarter than a snigger. And then we'll call, find in him the wisdom and the power of God. By the proclamation of the cross of Christ, we'll call religious people to fight. Being an evangelist, we always cover what we don't have. I've always wished I had a pastor's heart, but I don't have it. And sometimes it bothers me how in this world you fellows preach the gospel and keep that gang of hell-raising religionites in your church in a good humor. Ah, the preaching of the cross is to a Jew a scandal. And the Jew represents the religious man. Trusting in himself that he is righteous. The very word sinner in the New Testament connotation doesn't mean what we call a sinner. He's just a fellow who wasn't in the crowds of the Pharisees and scribes. He wasn't a member of their congregation. Anybody outside was a sinner. Amen. And the religious Jew, damn him and his successor who occupy the amen corner in our churches, planted there by Satan. The preaching of the cross lays the axe to the root of all our claims to be different to somebody else. It's offensive. It's a scandal. It's tremendously vulgar. And preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, it'll cause religious people today to get their shotguns and try to murder the messenger. We heard a call at the fifth Sunday meeting to come out in the open and expose that horror Roman Catholicism. But you ain't fixing to do it, because it'll fight back. I'm telling you that God's truth, we watered down the gospel of Jesus, tried so that we could still preach on the radio. Whoever got preaching the gospel on the radio would all get put off. If you came preaching things along on the radio, that's offensive to anybody. And the gospel would make a religious man so mad he'd kill you if he could. The offense of the cross was that it set aside every claim in valid ground. Jesus said, we'll have you understand, we don't need anybody to set us free. We'd be Abraham's children, Jesus said. If you were Abraham's children, you'd have Abraham's faith and Abraham's words. The word of doctrine of election, conception of the doctrine of election, led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. They said, now bless God, we've got to get rid of him, he's going to get rid of us all. We have no need anybody setting us free, we'd be in bondage to nobody. Our great-grandfather was Abraham. He said, I'm not dealing after the flesh, I'm dealing after the spirit. People I call Abraham's children, people got his words and his faith, and they killed him. God bless their heart, they'll kill us if we ever have a baptism for Holy Ghost on our church and go preaching the gospel of power. I'd love to preach one sermon about the Holy Ghost. Ain't no telling what happens. We can build pickles, get him arrested out of the church and back to Ukraine now. Oh, how we need him. You folks can cuss out the liberals, the moderns, I'm not worried about them, I'm worried about us getting fundamentalistically and start a religious fire because we're preaching the gospel. That's what Fent said to religious people. The cross does not offer salvation to good people, one place I know they can go is to hell. The cross offers salvation to sinners, and republicans and harlots will press in and leave the other crowd out. I was in a citywide meeting in the southern city years ago, and they conceived the idea of having a preach to the Sunday morning crowd that could round it up on Saturday night off the streets and give them a night to sleep off their dope and their drink and so forth. And I got the county jack and the chief of police and the mayor of the city to go along with it. And I said, you sit with the other criminals. And I said, in this matter of the And you and Gentile rich and poor, the offense of the cross. And then gospel preaching will be foolish to the wise. Ladies and gentlemen, here is Satan's master God. It's the stroke that he's knocked the home run with. Listen to me, the death of Christ is accepted. None but an individual will question it, but inquire in what way. And the worst of sinners are benefited by that death. And at once the harmony is broken, and fondness every school has its creed, and every ism its theorist. And the theme is a signal for scramble and struggle between all the rival groups of so-called Christendom. For that which God intended should be an impossibility to the natural mind. Satan has made the common creed of man. And of the very biggest sinners in your community, you preach enough, they'll look you in the face and tell you they believe that Jesus died upon them. There you go. My friends, he who shall not actually believe that Jesus is the Son of God is a man with a God-given supernatural faith. It's a faith that overcomes the world. In 1 John 5 and 1, who shall ever believe it but Jesus. That's the name of this humiliation. Who shall ever believe, shall never, that Jesus, that little fellow that was born over there in Cal State, and lived in Nazareth. No good thing ever came out of Nazareth. And nobody was, anybody ever had anything to do with it. And the nice people looked him over and said, he'll never do. Just a bunch of harlots and public tax collectors and a few poor fishermen. They followed him around. And he got what was coming to him and took him outside the holy city while they were observing the Passover feast, and nailed him on a tree between two seeds. And he didn't even have a grave, had to get somebody else's grave to put him in. Didn't have any spices or perfume, but the perfume he was brought in with, the bar of some. And he didn't even have any clothing, the wreckage brought to the tribe. And they put him down there in that grave, and set the Roman seal on it and put some soldiers to watch him. And ladies and gentlemen, that's the last this world ever heard of Jesus. Nobody's ever seen him since, except men and women who've been born from the blood. The evidence of the new birth is that you actually believe that Jesus is the son of the living God. That is absolutely impossible to the natural mind. But Satan has pulled a trick in everybody's spirit on the stack of Bibles now. He believes it. I say to you with this authority, I know right here, if you ever find out who Jesus really is, you'll never be the same again. You can't be. But just one question really now stands on this side of eternity. Who is Jesus? Who is he? Who is he? Rebels say he's a teacher. Jews say he's a prophet. The world says he's a good man. Who's son am I? What do you say about that? Who is Jesus? Like he has sought to see Jesus through the ages, man's got to see him for who he is. You ever say he was manifest in the world and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory? That's what the saved crowd could say in the days of his flesh. He who believes that Jesus, the one in whom the carnal eye could find no guilty one in the flesh, and so in this gospel is it proclaimed the carnal mind can see no wonders, for the devil has blinded their minds lest they see the glory of God in the face of Christ. I say to you that gospel preaching has to be preached in the power of the Holy Ghost, for the Holy Ghost must own the word, to reveal thereby the mighty mysteries and marvels of redemption, not roaring with it, humanizing it to bring it within the reach of the natural man, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. If we really believe the gospel, we have received a revelation from on high, a revelation to which flesh and blood can never reach, no matter how hard it tries. But the gospel may be so sophistic and simplified that none shall fail to understand it, and therefore none shall deceive by it. The preaching that is wanted this very night is not preaching the persuasive words of man's wisdom, and reasoning out salvation. Such statements, well, if he paid for the sins of all their life, they got to be saved. Be careful, brethren, you're not preaching salvation by grace. We don't need preaching that men until they sleep. No, no, not reasoning out a plan, thus cheating the gospel to suit the condition of the hearers. The gospel must be preached in the demonstration and power of the Spirit, preaching that of the foolishness of them that perish, but unto them do it a call, preaching that it'll have power, it'll be the power and wisdom of God. Now, I close by saying to you, it's one thing to master Christianity, it's another thing to be mastered by it. Will you listen to me? It's the cross that conquered him on that cross. It's not an easy, this cross of Christ is not an easy way of pardoning, nor is it a plan of salvation, but it's a fact and a revelation to change the heartless world into an adoring worshiper, to please the unseen as real, and to those who believe in the cross, Jesus Christ has been openly set forth, crucified before their eyes. They've seen that marred and agonized face. They've been witness to the approach that broke his heart, the scorn, the derision, the hate of that attendant throne. They've heard Emmanuel go forth and cry, when forsaken of his God, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And in gazing on him, there on most beings has sustained a mighty change, the power to divorce self from self, and to separate in heart from the world that killed him once and would again, if it could get their hands on him. To them, him hanging on that cross is where they find their deepest satisfaction. They feast on him in the blood of their own justification, and see not only a holy Lord acting at vengeance, but the love of God sitting captive free, and they rejoice at the cross of Christ. Let us so preach the cross that many despise him that hung there, and we'll say it's impossible that that could be the Son of God, for that man will be broken in heart, and we'll have some worshippers in our churches, not some reasoners. We'll hear again the cry from hearts that came from Mary and John and them, my God, was this for me? That he hung there, and turning from that transfigured look at him on the cross, to live devoted lives for him who died and rose again. Adam was a living soul, and Christ had been imbedded, he made a quickening spirit. As he sits on the throne, the power of transform, and human life comes from him. Jonathan Edwards said that he'd always think a kind providence that in the wisdom of God, God allowed David Bringer to die, and Jonathan Edwards hung. Mr. Edwards said, I was in his room by his bedside most of the time, the last 48 hours that Saint of God lived, and he laughed at this. He said, David Bringer, the saintliest man perhaps America has ever known. Spent the last 48 hours of his life examining his own heart and life, to see if he could lay hold on any evidence, any evidence that he had a saving interest in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I stop and wonder at what they call the assurance of salvation today. I remember that Jesus Christ had 12 disciples, and he said to them, one of you will betray me. And the only one who was not shaken by that statement, the only one who had perfect assurance, turned out to be the one that betrayed the Son of God. The 11 disciples, when he said, one of you will betray me. Knowing themselves, they said, Lord, is it I? I close with reading the passage of Scripture. Do you think it's nihilistic, no soul salvation they're bragging about now? Watch it. Let me give you some Scripture, and we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end, that you be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For whom God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely, blessing I will bless thee, and multiply, I'll multiply thee. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater in an oath of confirmation as to them an end of all strife, wherein, to accommodate himself to the way men do, wherein God, willing more abundantly show unto the heirs of promise, the immunity of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we, are ye in this, we might have a strong consolation. Who? Who have begged for rescues to lay hold upon the whole set before us? Where is that hope? Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast? And where is it, thank God, which entereth into that within the veil? Where is my hope? Your little carnal assurances, I know I'm through. You'll be out here robbing a bank tomorrow. You better plead for refuge. Where is it? Plead for him. Where is he? Bless God. Why, the poor runner, he's within the veil. Jesus went on. My hope's in him. Satan can't get in there, but my hope's in him, in him. Oh, brother, bow in the seeking hand. Plead for refuge to lay hold on the what? The whole that's set before us. It's within the veil, thank God. It's in good hands. It's not in your self. It's uttered in him, in him. Do you have a saving interest in the blood that Jesus Christ shed on Calvary's cross? Get Guthrie's book, Donald and Chad in his pocket, and read his saving interest, and it'll create within you maybe a thirst more than you have now, so to preach the cross of Christ, if it could, that this world it takes for granted that death would fall apostate before the fact that on that cross the sovereign of this world laid down his life and did up from that meeting with eyes that have seen the Lord. And you've seen this world, not my own. I'm just talking to you. Mine eyes have seen the glory in the face of Jesus Christ. You understand this? Then wash away my sins, Jesus, wash and cleanse me from my sins, Jesus, my Jesus. Well, I had to bow and be tragic for you to go from a conference like this, and your assurances in the decision you made one time, a profession you made, or you felt better, turned over a new leaf, you're not quite as mean as you used to be or something. Oh, my friend, there's just one safe place, and that's to lay hold on him, to take a Christian hope within the veil. Mars came corrupt at that, lay out to get ahold of Jesus Christ. Instead of a prayer for a benediction, I'd love for us to sing just a verse. So precious is Jesus, my Savior and King. He's so precious to me. Would you sing it together, Brother Young? Can you get the key to it? My Savior and King, my Savior and King. And I'll leave you with it. If the time has never come when you could stand up and say what Paul will tell the truth, he loved me. That's not gospel, that's testimony. That's what's happening. He loved me, and he gave himself promise. Amen. Don't be satisfied with anything until you can say that. Amen. Good night. God bless you.