(e-mail: Rev. Carl
Haak)
March 24, 2002; No. 3090
Dear radio friends,
Is the power of the cross of Jesus Christ seen in your life? The power to repent, power to dethrone sin from
your heart, power to lead a new, holy life? The
sufferings of Jesus Christ summed in the Bible as the cross were great sufferings. By His sufferings He removed forever the guilt,
the curse, and the punishment due to the sins of His children.
We read in
I John 1:7,
“And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
from all sin.” We are washed by
the blood of the Lamb. His child and forever
I am, we may sing. But as the sufferings of
Jesus Christ were great, to wash away the sins of all those whom the Father gave to
Jesus, so also the power of the cross of Jesus Christ is great, to free them from the
reigning power of sin.
The apostle Paul was very conscious of this mighty power.
Romans 1:16,
“For I am not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God
unto salvation to every one that believeth.” By
the cross we are freed from the curse and dominion of sin. We read in
Romans 6:11,
“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The believer in Jesus Christ realizes that sin still wars within him. We still have that remaining sinful flesh. Sin constantly seeks to gain the mastery in our
lives. Sin may tempt. It entices and fights against us. But, by the power of the cross of Jesus Christ,
sin does not have dominion over us. For
there is power in the cross of Jesus Christ, power to live a new and holy life before God.
We live in a power mad society. We
hear much of political power, economic power, the power of our nation. And in religion there are all kinds of emphases on
power as well — dynamic personalities in ministers, gifts of the Holy Spirit, mega
churches. We preach the power of the cross
— the only power, real power, power which reaches you and me to deliver us from our sins; to deliver (as we read in
Psalm 116)
our soul from death, our eyes from tears, our
feet from falling — power to bring to us repentance from our lust, from vice, from
hate, and from greed; power to live a new and holy life.
The power of the cross of Jesus Christ is liberating power. It makes us free.
It is a power to take enslaved men and women, bound to sin, serving sin willingly,
and to open their eyes, to bring repentance, and to loose them from the power of that sin
so that they may live a life pleasing to God. The
power of the cross does that. What Jesus did
upon the cross is mighty power. When applied
by the Holy Spirit, it is a power to free you; it is a power of emancipation from the
misery of the sin that is yours.
The power of the cross of Jesus Christ
is liberating power.
In the Old Testament God showed that the cross was freeing power in the great event
of Israel’s being delivered from Egypt. There
He said, “I take you from the house of bondage, from the house of slavery.” That was a picture of the mighty power of Jesus
Christ to take His children out of the bondage, out of the slavery of sin.
So God says to us in the law of God (the fourth commandment), “And remember
that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out
thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm.”
That is the triumphant note of the cross: by
a mighty hand and a stretched out arm, God Himself, through Jesus Christ, delivered His
people from their sins — not just from the penalty for those sins, but from the power
of those sins. He freed them so that they
might repent, so that they might live holy lives to God.
The power of the cross is seen, first of all, in that the cross was a complete
satisfaction for our sins. The power of the
cross is this, that the cross redeemed all and every one for whom Jesus suffered and died. Jesus said in
John 10:15,
“I lay down my life
for the sheep.” He went on to say in
that chapter that the sheep were those who were given to Him of His Father. And he prayed in
John 17:12,
“Those that
thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost.” And again,
John 17:2,
“As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.” Jesus Christ gave eternal life to as many as the
Father gave to Him. Those are His own words. On the cross Jesus stood in their place. And on the cross Jesus exhausted the wrath of God
due to their sins. For the Bible teaches that
God laid upon His Son Jesus the penalty for the sins committed by the sheep of God, by the
elect of God. What did God pour out upon
Jesus on the cross? All the punishment and
all the hellish anguish that our sins deserved — the sins of God’s people. What did Gabriel say, what did the angel say to
Joseph when he discovered that Mary, to whom he was espoused in marriage, was with child? He said to him, “Call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins.” That
is the power of the cross. By the cross Jesus
Christ removed the punishment due to the sins of God’s people.
Therefore, says the apostle in
Galatians 6:14,
“God forbid that I should
glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The cross is powerful. The
cross is no mere example. The cross is not
simply God saying, “Well, I will save you if….
I would sure like to save you if you, of yourself, add something to it, if you are
able of yourself to believe.” That is not
the cross. The cross is powerful. The cross secured forgiveness for all those for
whom Jesus died.
And the power of the cross goes beyond that. For
them also the Holy Spirit brings faith so that they might believe in Jesus. All by the power of the cross.
Romans 8:1,
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus.” Why? Because Jesus died for their sins. He died in the place of them. He purged away their sins (
Heb. 1).
He redeemed them with His own blood (
Eph. 1).
And, therefore, we declare, upon the basis of
God’s own Word, every sinner who, by the grace of God, looks to that cross in faith
shall live. His sins are forgiven. And he is forgiven of grace alone in Jesus.
The cross, therefore, has power. It
has power to deliver you from the fear that your sins would deserve at the hand of God. God is a holy God.
The Bible tells us that our God is a consuming fire.
And the Bible tells us that, apart from Jesus Christ, there is only fear —
fear to face the living and the holy God.
But the power of the cross is this: for
God’s children, they are delivered from that fear.
They know there is no condemnation. Fear
is lifted. They are not afraid of the living
God. But they see in the cross the shining
eyes of God’s mercy and grace. The power
of the cross is able to deliver you from the fear of death and from the fear of the grave.
Now the death of Jesus Christ on the cross did not take away the necessity that the
believer must die and go into the grave so long as the Lord tarries. But the cross changed death. Christ died willingly and entered into the grave,
and His body lay cold in the tomb three days. Christ’s
cross makes death our ally. Christ made the
grave the entrance into Father’s house. Death
is swallowed up in the victory of the cross of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we do not fear death. We do not fear hell. Hell is a great reality. Hell is true because God says it is true. Hell is true because God is holy and God is just. But the believer, again, does not stand in dread
of hell because God has forgiven him and freed him from that power of hell through the
cross of Jesus Christ.
Christ’s cross makes death our ally.
Now I want to point out to you today, from the Word of God, that the cross is not
only the power to deliver you from the fear of the punishment for your sins — the
fear of death and the fear of hell. But the
cross is power to deliver from sin, not only from the punishment that sin deserves
but from the power and the dominion of sin in your life.
Is there power in the cross of Jesus Christ for a Christian life, right now in this
world? Is there power in the cross for us who
still have that old man of sin within us? Sin
is within the Christian and stays there. The
apostle calls it the “old man of sin.” Is
there power, yet, to break the dominion of that sin and to bring a child of God to
repentance? More, to lead a child of God into
a holy life of praise and thanksgiving to God? Is
the cross able to do that — to defeat the power of sin? Yes! For
the cross has also broken the power of sin in the lives of those for whom Christ died.
Romans 6:14,
“Sin shall not have dominion
over you.” And again, in verse 22,
“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit
unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”
The Bible says that we cannot have Christ’s death for us and then go on living
our old life of sin. The cross has delivered
us from the reigning power of sin and given us a new master, God, so that we might obey
and serve Him. Now gratitude, thankfulness
to God, rests at the center of the Christian life. Now the Christian (
Ps. 116)
cries out the question, “How shall my soul give worthy
thanks, O Lord, to thee?” The cross is
the renewal of our will. By the power of the
cross we now hate those things that we formerly loved — the things of sin. And, by the power of the cross, we love those
things that we formerly despised — the things of God.
The cross has delivered us from the reigning power
of sin and given us a new master....
Now hear the gospel today. Do not be
deceived. Jesus Christ did not die so that
the Christian can go on in his own way of sin, making peace with sin. Jesus Christ did not die to scotch-guard or to
immunize you from the consequences of sin and from the eternal penalty of sin in order
that now you may live a sinful life. Oh, no! But Jesus Christ died so that, forgiven your sin,
you might be a holy person, you might now begin to live as a servant of righteousness unto
God.
There are many in the church of Jesus Christ who doubt this power of the cross
— especially when they see the power of sin. They
ask the question: “Is there a power to
break the power of sin?” There are many
who say their sins are forgiven and yet they live like the devil. What a horrible reflection upon the cross of Jesus
Christ. That is to say that there is no power
in His blood for a holy life. That is an
insult to the crucified Savior. There are
many who look for something to put sin to flight in their life — pills, a
psychiatrist, books on self-improvement, the power of positive thinking. Or, when they come hand-to-hand with a besetting
sin — pornography, a wagging tongue, greed, hatred — then they say, “Well,
we must ask for a second baptism of the Holy Spirit to become an elite believer in order
that we might really deal with those sins.” Or
there are some who leave the gospel and go back to the law.
They say, “The law will deliver us from the power of sin. Legalism. Many
commandments. Multiply the commandments and
by our own strength we will defeat the consequences of sin.”
The Bible declares that it is the cross, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
which alone can free us from the dominion of sin. The
cross leads us out of Egypt. The cross brings
us out of the bondage of slavery. The cross
declares, “Let My people go that they may serve Me.” In the cross is the power to overcome pride and
envy, jealousy, pornography, drunkenness, sexual immorality, a sharp gossipy tongue,
hatred, and covetousness.
Read
Romans 6.
There the apostle is
speaking of the Christian life — a holy life. He
says that now that we have been forgiven, or justified in Christ, shall we then go on and
continue in sin? And he answers the question,
“God forbid. How shall we, that are dead
to sin, live any longer therein?” Note
what he says there. He did not say that sin
is dead in us. No, that sin, according to our
sinful flesh, is still alive. But he says
that we are dead to sin. Christ’s cross
has changed our standing towards sin. It has
opened our eyes to see it as a monster. It
has given to us an inward revulsion and hatred of sin.
By the cross we are no longer its willing servants to obey sin in its lusts. But we are free to yield ourselves servants to God unto righteousness. Paul says in
Romans 6
that Christ has removed the right of sin to rule over us.
Sin shall not have dominion over us. Nineteen
hundred years ago sin lost the right to reign in the child of God. Sin lost the right to keep the child of God in its
clutches, to dupe the child of God and deceive him as sin would like to do. Sin lost that right because the cross broke
sin’s power in the child of God, in order that the child of God might be made free to
become a servant of righteousness.
How do we know if the power of the cross has delivered us? You will know that by one clear note in your
heart: thankfulness to God, gratitude. You will say with the psalmist in
Psalm 116,
“O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine
handmaid.” What shall I render to the
Lord? How shall I thank him? And the answer:
Keep yourself unspotted from the world. Be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Don’t
be conformed to a sinful world. Do this
rather: press toward the mark of the high
calling that is in Christ Jesus.
The unbelieving world lives only for this world — its treasures, pleasures,
approval, and possessions. But, by the power
of the cross, we now live for this: that we
might be found in Christ, that we might be to His honor and glory. Now we are no longer dedicated to sin, but we are
dedicated to Him who died for us. Christ hath
made us free.
Do you struggle with a besetting sin? Do
you struggle with lust? Do you struggle with
carnal ambition? Do you struggle with drink
and drunkenness, pornography, sexual filth, hatred of the neighbor? Do you struggle with an unbridled, uncontrolled
tongue? Do you struggle with resentment
against your husband, against your wife, or your parents?
Do you have a tongue that nobody can tame? The
message of the cross is this: Sin shall not
rule in you. Look to the cross. Embrace, by faith, Christ crucified. Recognize at the foot of the cross that you have
not only been forgiven merely of grace, but you are now made dead to sin and alive unto
God. No longer shall you live unto envy,
liquor, sharp tongue, lust. But you shall now
live unto Him who died and is risen again. You
shall live holy unto Him. You shall live in
the power of the cross.
The power of the cross is not merely a change of conduct. The power of the cross is a new life. Life flows from the cross — a living stream
flows from Calvary — not only able to
wash us clean, but it is able to break the strong bars of sin which would hold us in
bondage, able to open heaven’s gates, and able also now to bring our steps into
holiness, to bring joy into our heart and thanksgiving to our soul — a power, a
wondrous power in the cross of Jesus Christ.
The power of the cross is a new life.
Under that cross is where you must be. Under
the cross you must abide until He comes to take you to be with Himself in glory. In that day when Jesus comes for you, He will take
you into His Father’s presence for evermore. And
He will do that by the power of the cross.