Glorying in the Cross: Prayer and Salvation

Prayer is something that tests us I suggested the first occasion that if you really wanted to know whether you're a Christian or not because you know people think they're Christian sometimes when they're I've no remote connection with Christianity if you want really to know the other Christian or not there's no better test in this whole question of prayer what you do in a crisis. [00:06:49]

What is to me so fascinating about this prayer is that it tells us something about the true character of proud, there are many loose ideas with a big out of prayer some people seem to think the prayer is the easiest thing in the world it isn't it's the most difficult that you ever there that's that, oh come on was pray no you can't you can talk to yourself but that doesn't mean you're praying. [00:06:35]

Prayer reveals all of us the character of our belief in God and then we saw last Sunday night that prayer also reveals the fact that we've got a true understanding of men in sinful men, and the state of the world tonight did you notice that as these people are praying they are revealing their knowledge of God and they're thinking concerning God they are revealing their understanding of human nature the human predicament men in sin the world rebelling against God they've got it all. [00:08:18]

The Christian always starts there he doesn't start with men don't misunderstand me the Christian doesn't even start with the Lord Jesus Christ he starts with God because the Bible and you don't understand the Lord Jesus Christ and his work unless you start with God the Father the eternal creator and the sustainer of the whole universe then you see they go on from there and they then work that second sock which we've already considered together and there they show that they are not surprised that the treatment they're getting. [00:09:35]

The very center of Christian preacher is the preaching of the cross the death of the son of God now we've already seen that you remember al Peter on the day of Pentecost he stood after he began to punish what did he preach about well he will be preached about the gift of our law he gave an expositional again over the incident of the healing of the lay men of the beautiful gate of the temple the moment Peter begins to preach and to explain what's happening to this man how he's been healed that it wasn't then but it was this Lord he again brings in the cross he preaches the cross once more. [00:13:55]

The cross is the very heart and center of the message and here in their prayer they do the same thing again now you see this is obviously therefore central and crucial then where you turn to the Ministry of the great Apostle Paul you find he did exactly the same thing read the report of his sermon attempt your Khimki severe as it's recorded in the thirteenth chapter of this book of the Acts 30 yet he explained it he expounded it and read the whole of his ministry you find these always doing the same thing but he has a boss summed it up for us once and forever in a most memorable prayer in the First Epistle to the Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2 I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. [00:15:09]

The cross of Jesus Christ is something to which God responds and something which God uses I'll give the pictures the cross we are told is entirely the action of MIM these cruel men these members of the Sanhedrin these subtle Pharisees and scribes and Sadducees and doctors of the law these political theological people these ecclesiastics these men its direction they are entirely responsible they shouldn't have done it but they did it but God the Son opportunity in what they've done, God reacted to what they've done and God made use of what they've done and he made use of it in this way and this is one of the commonest modern explanations of the death of our Lord upon the trust and you you hear it from people who regard it as evangelical this is what they say God uses it in this way he looks at the world and he says though you have done that even that who my only-begotten dearly beloved son I still love you I still forgive you you shouldn't have done but you've done it but though you've done it though you've killed my only son I still tell you that I love you and I forgive even that you see what it saying that God reacts to what men does on the cross it man was acting God simply reacts to it but he takes hold of it and he was is it and demonstrates and revealed his great and eternal love to us others were there to that and say that our Lord Himself is doing the same thing on the cross he is looking at us and saying though you've done this to me I still love you that the cross is just a great Proclamation that God loves us all every one of us will do we know it or not and he's telling us on the cross them how much we may disobey however much we may violet is law. [00:32:40]

The death of Jesus Christ on the cross on Calvary Hill was something that was planned before the foundation of the world, Peter said it on the day of Pentecost and now let's listen to him year later when he writes is it people as an old men did you catch it when I read that portion of the first chapter of the First Epistle of Peter listen he says I would remind you that you were not redeemed with corruptible things of Vernon gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your father but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot listen who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world that wasn't anything in these last times for you who by him to believe in God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God the trust an accident the crosses suppliers that saw something that might never happen and that need not have happened, the task really is something that God gives us my dear friends the trust was planned before the foundation of the world before the world was ever created before man was ever made God have planned the death of Christ his son upon the cross this is the explanation these men of Jesus whatsoever thy hand and the council determined before all the foundation of the world told ordained before dying before the creation of the universe before men that ever come into existence it was all planets but I can prove their people how do I prove it to you I prove it to you from the Old Testament. [00:37:40]

God's nature demands the sin should be punished and daughter said that many times over he revealed it time without end in the Old Testament in explicit language in all the burnt offerings of the sacrifice summed up in a great phrase without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin sin must be punished and the wages of sin is death you see God who like men man changes his law of doesn t until recently homosexuality was condemned as a crime but now we're going to change it not at all a crime indeed some of them are almost making it out to be the most wonderful thing surpassing every title human love men changes his law the silk himself, I'll tell you this God can't change his law why not well because he is the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning God is and what God says is eternal he can't modify the content if God cannot lie though Kenneth Oh second what he said and his own nature of all sins and sin cometh live in his presence he's a consuming fire and the wages of sin is death and every man who has ever sinned deserves to die it's inevitable jobs just righteous every matured amend so you're you see is the problem God's law before the creation of the world that men in his folly would listen to the devil and would in McKinstry does that mean then that the whole of humanity is to become science to death until not no that would have meant the triumph of the devil God for the sake of his own glory must save and heaviest people how can we do this he's created a man and the whole of humanity has come out of him the man was formed of all four with him what can he do. [00:48:44]

He sent His only Son into this world and he sent him into the world as I've already got it from Hebrews 2:9 he made him a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of death that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man he becomes a man the head of a new humanity and he takes our sins upon himself and God lays the, he has laid on him the iniquity of the whole God must punish sin and God has punished the iminium and because the astonish marries him in him god remaining just and righteous and true and loving can give me a free pardon and forgiveness it was the only way whereby a single individual could ever be forgiven his sins there was no other way at all if there had been God would of a doctor if there wasn't it necessitated the Incarnation it necessitated the world being made flesh it necessitated is going to the crash could have escaped of cause he could if a man my guy Sagan could be taken to heaven without dying or much more the Son of God, no but you couldn't forgive fulfill all righteousness in that way no no he has got to die he's got to die follow he's got a fare the wages of sin because a receive the punishment men children but in doing so they were telling us this eternal purpose of God the depth of the Son of God is the means of our salvation he died that we might be forgiven he died to make us good. [00:56:53]

The christianism in who is smashed and finished by the cross reconcile that God by it made a new man because of it receiving every other blessing directly flowing from pray that you may so see it but you shall never glory in anything save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:56:53]