Shooting Craps at the Cross

My Bible says, in Mark chapter 15, beginning in verse 22, And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the place of the skull. And they gave him to drink wine, mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.

I will stop there, friends. On the internet, recently, there sold a set of ancient Roman dice, from the first century, carved out of animal bone and in good condition, and that set sold for only $250. I'd hate to be the one who bought that set of dice, for what if they were the very ones that the Roman soldiers shot craps with at the foot of that bloody cross.

Imagine that scene in your mind's eye, friend, the sky turning dark as the sun hid behind a solar eclipse. The wind picks up and a chill comes in the air as the son of God writhes and wiggles in agony on that cruel instrument of death, that scandal of a cross, his blood dripping out from his wounds and stained in that wooden cross, while the assembled crowd of onlookers pulls back as that sky darkens, and the very creation seems to groan with the suffering of that man on the cross. And there, at the very foot of that cross, the same soldiers who drove the nails into his innocent flesh, now sit at his feet shooting craps at the cross.

And that's the title of my message today, friends, shooting craps at the cross, because that didn't stop when they crucified the Christ of glory. Men today, right at this very moment, are still shooting craps at the cross. Men gather today at that cross and still mock God and shout up at Him that they don't believe in a God at all, that there is no God in heaven, and there is no hell below, and there is nothing at the end of life but a blank void.

All the atheists of the earth stand there and mock God still by saying they don't believe in Him. They are no better than those Roman soldiers who crucified Christ, for they crucify Him as well, as they sit in their unbelief, as they are shooting craps at the cross, betting they are right and God is wrong. And there are others who come and gather around that cross still, wrapped up in the garments of religion.

They are followers of Buddha, or Confucius, or Muhammad, or some other religious leader, and they too are betting their eternal destiny on a religion to get them into their concept of heaven. They lay their prostrate in masses of humanity with dice in their hands, and they are willing to roll their dice of religion on a crapshoot for nirvana, but they are shooting craps at the cross, like the others as well. Other men gather around the cross today, wrapped up in the garments of a good opinion of themselves, and shoot craps at the cross, betting that their good works will get them into heaven.

They wager their eternal destiny on the roll of the dice and their belief about God and how He keeps a scale of weights at the gates of heaven, and all you have to do when you die is to stand there on that scale, and if your good works in life outweigh the bad, then those gates swing wide open, and in you go, kicking your feet in the air. But it's a crapshoot, with all the odds stacked against you, for God will allow no rebels into His holy heaven, hoping to get into heaven by your good works. He's shooting craps at the cross.

It's an insult to God and a crime against heaven, because your good works will only send you to hell, because good people don't go to heaven. Only forgiven people get to go there. Other men shoot craps at the cross, sitting in a baptismal pool, as they soak and sit, and boast that they will get into heaven, based on the roll of the dice of their water baptism.

Whether they have been sprinkled or dunked, they hang on to that certificate of baptism, as proof they will enter heaven's doors. They are waging their eternal destiny on a theory of man that holds the baptismal regeneration. That cross is crowded today with denominations that gather there with their dice in their hands, as they shoot craps at the cross, waging they will get in, because they have been baptized.

But they soon will see that they crapped out as well, like all the rest, because that's a bet that will surely lose any hope of heaven, for there sits in hell, at this hour, millions and millions of baptized church members who mistook baptism for regeneration. And there is another group that gathers around that cross as well, with their dice in their hands, and they think they hold a sure bet to get into heaven. And this crowd is the bunch of church people who have lived their lives inside the door of the church, and who hide beneath the religious robes of an empty religious profession.

They did what the pastor told them to do, and they believe that counted for their salvation. They walked an aisle, or raised their hand, and made some kind of decision for Jesus. And they can look back at a time in their life, when they were a little child, or an adult, where they physically responded to an emotional appeal, and made a decision to become a Christian.

They are nice church people, who like to sing in church, and serve at church, and give money to the church to convince themselves, and make themselves feel good, and convince others they are going to heaven when they die. But they too are like all the other gamblers at the foot of that cross, for their only hope of heaven is indecisional regeneration, and all they are doing is shooting craps at the cross. Jesus says to these nice church people the same thing he will say to all the rest, I never knew you, depart from me, you who work iniquity.

For all these groups of people are unconverted sinners still, but there is just one remedy for sin friend, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the only ones whom God will allow into his holy heaven, are those persons who have the merits of the Lord's life laid down, and applied to them, so that when a thrice holy God looks on them, he says, when I see the blood, because while others are gambling their only hope of heaven on the roll of the dice by shooting craps at the cross, the ones who are saved are the ones who are partaker of that cross, who have been washed in the blood, and born from above. You better not gamble friend, your eternal destiny on the roll of the dice, on what you think salvation and heaven is, you better come as a lost sinner to that cross, and turn to God in repentance and faith, and get to that blood-stained savior for sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will then be able to join that heavenly chorus who can sing praises unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Let us pray.