Smash Your Wooden Jesus

Manly Beasley used to talk about a missionary who shared the following story. He said, you could stand on a cliff in Mexico and gaze down at a certain village of Mexican workers. These people work down in the riverbed in their corn patch, and there they grow their corn.

And when the corn is ready to harvest, they shuck it, and after it dries out, they'll take it and grind it into cornmeal and make tortillas. And then take these tortillas down to the open market, and there sell the tortillas for a few pesos and put them away. Come back out to their house, and there they will live off of lizards.

They'll go out among the rocks and catch these huge, long lizards, and they'll eat those lizards and save that money for a special day. A special day when they will start a pilgrimage to a wooden statue of Jesus up in the mountains. The terrain to that statue is so bad that most of the people will have to crawl on their hands and knees a couple of miles, and by the time they get to that statue, they're bleeding all over.

Standing beside the statue is a priest, and that priest is saying, now you love God, give to Him, because you show your love to God by giving. And those people will reach into their little bags and purses and pull out those pesos stained in their own blood, and drop that money in a slit in the top of the head of that wooden Jesus. Then the priest prays, and when he is finished, the priest will yell, you have not given enough.

Look, Jesus is sad. He is crying, and all the time there will be another priest hidden in that hollow statue. With a little hand pump, he will pump water to where it comes out of, human-made tear ducts, and that statue is crying.

And there, those people will give all they have, crawl down that mountain and go back to eating lizards, growing their corn, to make more tortillas, to get more pesos to go and give to a dead God that cannot move or hear. And although they are sincere in their sacrificing for their wooden Jesus, they are greatly deceived. Well, I submit to you, friends, that there are some, within the sound of my voice, who have gotten out their pocket knives and have carved out for themselves a God they can live with.

But he's not the God of the Bible. Just like that wooden Jesus, your God is a God of your own making. Your God won't get in the way of your daily living.

But the Christ of the Bible has rights and claims on all followers of his. Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

But the God you've carved out for yourself, friend, is a sin-tolerant God who won't send anybody to hell. Yet Jesus said to the Father in Matthew 10, 28, And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. But your God will not punish sin.

Your God is just a love God of your own making. Listen, friends, God is a God who must punish sin. When the Son of God was nailed up on that bloody cross, every stroke of the Roman's hammer was an explanation point stating, God must punish sin.

God must punish sin. God must punish sin. If you've been sacrificing to a dead God, it's time to come and bow to the living God of the Bible.

Jesus hung naked on a scandalous cross so you wouldn't have to go to hell, friend. Listen, I know I am a sinner, and I need a substitute for sin in the person of Christ Jesus. And so do you, friend.

So do you. Get out your hammer. Get out your hammer now and smash your wooden Jesus and get to the genuine vine.

Let me tell you about Jesus. Jesus came into this world doing good, healing the sick and giving sight to the blind, raising the dead to life. Yet what happened? Cruel men cried away with him and nailed him to a cross.

Look at that blessed man on the cross, friend. Go ahead. Look at that man on the cross, his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him.

When all was against him, his love flows out to a world of guilty sinners. He prays, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The cross is the place where wicked men sought to get rid of him.

But by his death, it becomes the place where his saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own them as their Savior and Lord. Listen, friend, get a saving interest in Jesus. Get it now, because soon he will come in judgment on this world when his anger shall burn as an oven, and then you shall meet him as your judge.

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Smash your wooden Jesus, friend, and come to the real deal, the remedy for sin, who is the pearl of great price, who is worth selling off for and losing off so he may be gained. If God has been dealing with you tonight, friend, give your heart in surrender to the Lord Jesus and get your sins washed in his blood.

You come to Christ now, friend, as I sing. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.