The Power Of The Cross

Date: 4/20/2011
Speaker: Pastor Johnny Moore

 

     The sun, peaking over the top of the marketplace, found the merchants scurrying back and forth preparing their posts for another day of peddling their wares. As the sun continues to rise, the quietness of the busy street disappears into the noise of early morning shoppers hurrying to the market to stock up for the weekend. After all, it’s just another Friday...or is it? Suddenly, in the busyness of the marketplace, another sound is heard. Is it a parade? A celebration? No, wait! Listen, it sounds as if they are saying…They’re shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

     All the commotion in the street drew the multitude from the marketplace. In a matter of seconds, the street was crowded with people pushing and shoving, desperate to see the procession sluggishly moving towards them. As the eyes of the people gazed into the morning sun, someone shouted, “It’s a man carrying a cross!” “He’s bleeding,” yelled another. A soldier following him cracked his whip. Bystanders screamed in horror at what they saw. Others hid their faces in their hands and wept.

Humanity simply did not understand that this man and His cross were in the process of winning the final battle between Heaven and hell. The payment for sin, not His sin, but ours, was being paid in full. Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, “made himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion of a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” For the cross, though declared a “curse” by the law (Deuteronomy 21:23), became for us who believe, a blessing (Galatians 3:13-14). You see, it was the cross where our sin died, our peace was bought, our healing was declared. Isaiah saw it coming and recorded the event. He said, “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 54:4-5).

By the time the sun began to set, the man that carried the cross now hung from it. There He was, just like He said, “Lifted up from the earth, drawing all men to Himself.” (John 12:32). The Apostle Paul said it right when he said, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness: but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18).

 

 

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