In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the seriousness of sin to God, drawing attention to the crucifixion of Jesus as evidence of God's seriousness towards sin. The preacher also urges the audience to reflect on their own lifestyles and choices, comparing it to the story of two brothers, one living a righteous life and the other indulging in sinful behaviors. The sermon includes a story about a man who commits murder and seeks help from his righteous brother, ultimately finding refuge in a stream of water where his pursuers cannot find him. The preacher uses this story to illustrate the concept of finding safety and redemption in God.

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, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he was in charge of a bank, and he 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. 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. 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.