When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (Part 2)
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Introduction: This week I heard the story of a little girl who absolutely LOVED her dolls. She would brush her dolls hair. She had a beautiful doll house where all of her dolls would come and have sleepovers. She would have “teas” with her dolls . . . but one day she was very sad. When her mom asked her what what wrong she said, “I spend all day loving on my dolls, but they never love me back.”
You know God spends all day, every day loving on us and I wonder how many love Him back? After all that is the greatest commandment! I want to tell you up front today what I hope this message accomplishes. My desire is this:
For those of you who know Jesus Christ as your own personal Lord and Savior—my desire is that you come to love and appreciate Him more as you survey the wondrous cross with me. When you love Him more, you will obey Him more and you will find true satisfaction in your life as a result.
For those of you who do not know Him—by desire is that you will comprehend His love for YOU and His desire to have a personal relationship with YOU and today will be the day that you repent of your sin and turn to the only ONE who loves YOU more than YOU can even begin to comprehend or imagine.
Introduction:
We began this message last week and I would like to quickly review before we begin today.
Someone wrote this poem about the wondrous cross:
Today we will continue our journey of surveying the wondrous cross on which the “Prince of Glory” died. I shared with you last week three things that I see when I survey the wondrous cross:
You cannot look at the cross of Christ without seeing the wonderful promise of FORGIVENESS! Jesus prayed, “Father, FORGIVE them for they know not what they do.”
Th
As man for man was made a curse;
The cross also provides HOPE! Even while a man, who had lived a criminal lifestyle, was dying on the cross, Jesus offered him the promise of paradise and gave a dying man HOPE!
The claims of laws which He had made
Unto the uttermost He paid.
The final thing we talked about last week was Jesus’ CONCERN for others. Even while He was dying an agonizing death, He demonstrated concern for His mother Mary and instructed John to care for her until her dying day.
His holy fingers made the bough
Today I want to continue this message and share with you three more things that I see when “I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”
Where grew the thorns that crowned His brow;
The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.
He made the forests when there sprung
The tree on which His body hung;
He died upon a cross of wood,
Yet made the hill on which it stood!
The sky which darkened o’er His head
By Him above the earth was spread;
The sun which hid from Him its face
By His decree was poised in space!
The spear which spilt His precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God;
The grave in which His form was laid
Was hewed in rocks His hands had made!
The throne on which He now appears
Was His from everlasting years!
But a new glory crowns His brow
And every knee to Him shall bow!
I See the Seriousness of Sin
I See the Seriousness of Sin
Explanation (v. 44, see also )
And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Do not miss the significance of what happens here. Luke reveals that when high noon comes, an eerie dark blackness veils the sun for THREE HOURS. It is during this time, when the world is as black as midnight that a cry pierces the thick darkness that says: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was not a whisper, but a better translation would be “a scream up.”
According to Swindoll, “In the Scriptures this combination of words is occasionally used for a guttural scream, perhaps more like a deep roar, or a passionate groan.” Dear friend this is the darkest three hours our universe has ever known. Because the Lord Jesus Christ was taking on the sin of all humanity and literally becoming sin for us, so that we could have His righteousness, the righteous God of creation had to “turn His back” on His Son. He had to turn His back on His Son so He could embrace us. As Swindoll said, “The fellowship between God the Father and God the Son was broken, leaving Jesus alienated, abandoned, forsaken, dying alone on the cross.”
This demonstrates for us the seriousness of sin. Sin is not a game. As someone said, “Sin is the antithesis for what is best for us.” Sin is idolatry. Sin is us telling God He doesn’t know what is best for us. Sin is spiritual adultery. Sin cost the Lord Jesus Christ His life and in doing so, part of the Hell of the cross was knowing what it was like for the first time in all of eternity what it was like to somehow be separated from God the Father.
Illustration
Note
Throughout Scripture we are confronted with the seriousness of sin over and over and over again. Notice the following verses:
Sin separates and brings death:
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Sin enslaves:
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ,
Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!” The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
Application
Can we honestly look at the bloody cross, and hear the words of the Lord Jesus scream from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” and see the black, eerie darkness that enveloped the earth for those three hours and come to the conclusion that sin is no big deal? Surely not. The horrors of Calvary are in direct correlation with the horrors of sin!
The problem is in my life, far too often, I hate the sin of others more than I hate the sin of myself. However, I have to realize that it wasn’t just the sin of the world that propelled my Savior to the cross, it was MY sin! My sin sent Him there and your sin sent Him there. However, the awesome thing is that God was PLEASED to have Jesus die in my place and in yours so we could be reconciled to Him and live forever with Him!
Listen to the words of the prophet Micah:
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
So the question may be asked, what shall we do with sin?
We must stop EXCUSING sin in our life
We must stop EXCUSING sin in our life
We must recognize OUR sin and confess OUR sin to God
We must recognize OUR sin and confess OUR sin to God
We must REPENT of our sin
We must REPENT of our sin
We must receive God’s forgiveness BY faith
We must receive God’s forgiveness BY faith
I See the Awfulness of Hell
I See the Awfulness of Hell
Explanation
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”
When I survey the wondrous cross, the darkness not only reminds me of the seriousness of sin, but it also reminds me of the awfulness of Hell. Scripture tells us that hell will be a place of unbelievable darkness, suffering and thirst. Not only was Christ enveloped in this darkness for three hours, but right before He died, right before He uttered His last statements He also proclaimed in these words:
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”
Charles Swindoll says in his book, “The Darkness and the Dawn”:
Thirst was a major part of the terrible, torturing death by crucifixion. The mouths and throats of all victims hanging on crosses cried for water. The lips cracked and bled as the eyes glazed. The tongues swelled in the mouths and saliva hung like drying glue in their throats.
The darkness, the pain and the suffering remind me of the hell that awaits those who reject Christ as their substitute and because they do, they make the choice to suffer the wrath of God, that Christ has already suffered on their behalf.
While none of us like to think about or talk about Hell, it is just as real as Heaven and we do a disservice by not telling the truth about it and not warning people to escape the wrath that is to come:
Illustration
Hell will be a place of torment, just like the cross was a place of torment...
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Hell will be a place of extreme thirst, just like the cross was a place of thirst
And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
Hell will be a place of separation just like the cross was a place of separation...
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
Hell will be a place of darkness just like the cross was a place of darkness...
These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.
Application
Occasionally someone will say something like this, “How could a loving God ever send someone to Hell?” I think better questions are these:
“How could an infinitely holy God, who is completely separate from sin, ever allow sinful people into His heaven?”
This same, infinitely holy God, loved us so much, that He became one of us, He became a man, and lived the life we could not live, and gave Himself as a sacrifice on our behalf so that we could have life and have it more abundantly. HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE HIS JUDGEMENT AND HIS CONDEMNATION IF WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST MADE ON OUR BEHALF?
reminds us
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
The wonderful, glorious, amazing news of the wondrous cross is we have the opportunity and privilege to not only bypass the judgement of God, but to be reconciled to Him and spend forever with Him in the glorious place He has gone to prepare for us.
And that leads me to the last thing I see when I survey the wondrous cross . . .
I See Victory
I See Victory
Explanation
During this time of eerie darkness several things happened.
while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
The Event in the Temple: One thing you need to understand about the temple is this: it was the center of Jewish religious life. This was the place the animal sacrifices were made. There was a curtain/veil that separated what was known as the “holy of holies” from the rest of the temple. The “holy of holies” was the earthly dwelling place of God. Man was separated from this dwelling place. Only one man, the High Priest, could pass behind this veil, and he could only do so one time every year.
This veil represented separation. As a result of sin, mankind is unholy and unclean, and on our own we could never approach God in all of His holiness and splendor. However, when Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for mankind’s sin, this veil was torn open by the hand of God Himself (through the power of an earthquake), testifying to the fact that Christ’s sacrifice had been accepted, and all those who come through faith in Him are welcome in God’s presence! The doors of access to God have been flung open wide and we do not have to try to approach Him through a sacrifice we make, but through the sacrifice He has made on our behalf!
The veil that only one could go through to reach God, has been replaced by Christ, the veil that ALL can go through by faith. The writer of put it this way:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
The Words of Jesus: Another significant thing that happened during these last few minutes of darkness was a statement by Jesus that we find recorded in the Gospel of John . . .
A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
These words are very, very important! The phrase, “it is finished” is the Greek word “tetelestai.” It is an accounting term that means, “paid in full.” In other words the debt has been paid!
This is glorious news! Once and for all the sin debt that mankind owed toward God has been PAID IN FULL! Jesus doesn’t need your help to pay it and He doesn’t need my help to pay it—it is PAID IN FULL! Either we trust the payment that He has made on our behalf and have His righteousness credited to our account or we don’t trust the payment He has made on our behalf and we pay for our sins forever in Hell. Those are the only two choices friend!
ESVA jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
We either accept His payment in FULL or reject it—there is no middle ground. He’s already written the check to cover your sins and you either endorse it by faith or void its efficiency for you by your unbelief.
Finally we see this as we look back to our text in Luke . . .
It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Conclusion
It is a wonderful thing to pause and survey the wondrous cross. It is a scene of tragedy and triumph, a gory scene, yet a glorious scene. However, I believe Scripture teaches that we must do more than just “survey the wondrous cross.” We must let what happened there 2,000 years ago personally affect us! We must put our trust and faith in the One who gave His life for us and trust Him to take us to the place He has gone away to prepare for us. I want to leave you with three more applications that I hope you will take home with you today, to help you take what you’ve seen and heard from the wondrous cross, and appropriate it into your life.
Because Christ Gave His Life to Forgive YOU and Set YOU Free from Sin, Spend YOUR Life Fleeing From Sin and Pursuing a Life of Holiness
Because Christ Gave His Life to Forgive YOU and Set YOU Free from Sin, Spend YOUR Life Fleeing From Sin and Pursuing a Life of Holiness
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
God’s grace is not a license to continue in sin, but rather God’s grace should propel us in the opposite direction. We should not embrace or excuse the sins that our Savior agonized and died for!
Use Your Life to Rescue the Perishing!
Use Your Life to Rescue the Perishing!
Ignoring the reality of Hell does not make it go away. There are people that you know and love and there are people that I know and love that are going to spend eternity separated from God in the place of God’s judgement because they have neglected the ONLY solution for their sin.
If you are believer in Christ today it is because SOMEONE stood in your way and pointed you to Jesus! It may have been a parent, it may have been a pastor, it may have been a co-worker, it may have been a Bible Study leader, it may have been a sibling, it may have been a child, but an individual or a group of individuals were used by God to share with you the TRUTH about Christ and the sacrifice He made on YOUR behalf.
My challenge for us all is to ask ourselves—who are WE seeking to rescue?
Fanny Crosby wrote:
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.
Rescue the perishing, duty demands it;
Strength for thy labor the Lord will provide;
Back to the narrow way patiently win them;
Tell the poor wand’rer a Savior has died.
Celebrate the Victory that is Yours
Celebrate the Victory that is Yours
The enemy of your soul is a liar . . . he is the “father of lies.” He would love for you to assume that you have to continue to live the way you’ve always lived, that you have to continue to be defeated by the same old demons of the past, but it’s just not true.
No
In Christ Jesus, you have the ability to live in victory, to come boldly into your Heaven Father’s presence because He has cleansed you of your past sin and has given you the person of the Holy Spirit to live inside of you and transform you from the inside out. You see the cross is not just about taking you to Heaven when you die, but it’s about giving you VICTORY over sin and temptation RIGHT now! It’s about transforming YOUR life and using YOU, yes YOU, as an instrument in God’s hand to demonstrate to others what He can do through someone who is surrendered to God and willing to be used by Him!
He opened up a way for YOU to be reconciled to God the Father and that is something to celebrate! We celebrate His birth—just as the angels did, just as the shepherds did and just as the wise men did! We celebrate His resurrection just as the women and the angels and the disciples did! But we can also celebrate the VICTORY He purchased for us on the cross.
When Jesus proclaimed, “It is finished!” He was saying that YOUR sin debt and mine had been paid! Oh what reason to celebrate! I can live for God now out of appreciation of what He’s ALREADY done for me, rather than trying to live in hopes I can do enough good things to make Him accept me. He’s already accepted me if I’m in Christ! He has DONE what needed to be do so I can be free to do His will out of my love for Him!
But some of you do not know this victory. Some of you have trusted Christ for this victory but you continue to live in defeat.
A switchman sat in a shack on one side of the river where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place as the train crossed.
One evening as the switchman was waiting for the last train of the day to come, he looked off into the distance through
the dimming twilight and caught sight of the train lights. He stepped onto the control and waited until the train was within a prescribed distance. Then he was to turn the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but, to his horror, he found the locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position, it would cause the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river. This would be a passenger train with MANY people aboard.
He left the bridge turned across the river and hurried across the bridge to the other side of the river, where there was a lever switch he could hold to operate the lock manually.
He would have to hold the lever back firmly as the train crossed. He could hear the rumble of the train now, and he took hold of the lever and leaned backward to apply his weight to it, locking the bridge. He kept applying the pressure to keep the mechanism locked. Many lives depended on this man’s strength.
Then, coming across the bridge from the direction of his control shack, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.
“Daddy, where are you?” His four-year-old son was crossing the bridge to look for him. His first impulse was to cry out to the child, “Run! Run!” But the train was too close; the tiny legs would never make it across the bridge in time..
The man almost left his lever to snatch up his son and carry him to safety. But he realized that he could not get back to the lever in time if he saved his son.
Either many people on the train or his own son – must die.
He took but a moment to make his decision. The train sped safely and swiftly on its way, and no one aboard was even aware of the tiny broken body thrown mercilessly into the river by the on rushing train. Nor were they aware of the pitiful figure of the sobbing man, still clinging to the locking lever long after the train had passed. They did not see him walking home more slowly than he had ever walked; to tell his wife how their son had brutally died.
Now, if you comprehend the emotions that went through this man’s heart, you can begin to understand the feelings of Our Father in Heaven when He sacrificed His Son to bridge the gap between us and eternal life.
Can there be any wonder that He caused the earth to tremble and the skies to darken when His Son died? How does He feel when we speed along through life without giving a thought to what was done for us through Jesus Christ?