PER:Christian Information Bureau March 1988  by Dave Hunt

   Dear Praying Friends;

   Last month I suggested that the Rapture will probably become a hotly
contested issue. There are many other important issues, some of which
we have discussed already and others we hope to deal with in the
future. One consideration, however, must always have top priority. In
our great concern over the growing apostasy, in our zeal to contend for
the faith once for all delivered to the saints, and to stand
uncompromisingly for the truth as we understand it, we must constantly
take heed to ouir personal relationship with and testimony of our Lord.
And to do this, we must always keep foremost in our hearts and minds
the cross.

   Scripture frequently makes it very clear that the cross of Christ is
the heart of the message we preach, the determinat of our relationship
to this evil world, and the secret of victory over the world, the flesh
and the devil in our daily lives. Christ reminded His listeners
repeatedly that it was not possible to be His disciple, a true
Christian, without denying self and taking up the cross to follow Him.
And I think the Bible makes it clear what this means, although there is
also more depth of truth in the cross than we will be able to fathom in
this life.

   Paul wrote, "I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). this characterized his
consistent conduct and the message he preached. And there was one
important rule: "Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be
made of none effect" (1:17). We dare not compromise, dilute or try to
imporve, with man's wisdom, the straightforward simplicity of the
cross. To do so destroys its truth and power to save others and to
deliver us from daily trials and temptations.

   We have a tendency to forget that "The preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness" (1:18). One of the greatest problems
today is the often well-intentioned attempt to reinterpret the gospel
to make it sensible and acceptable to the natural or carnal man.
Instead, the unchangeable message must change the thinking and lives of
those who receive it or it cannot change their eternal destiny. Let
that never be forgotten. And that transforming power is missing, both
from the gospel preached to the lost and from the christian's life,
when the sharp sword of the Word with its radical message of the cross
had been sheathed in the popular psychologies and self-oriented
thinking of our day.

   What we are trying to say is illustrated through a man who had the
most amazing and unique testimony of anyone who ever lived. A resident
of death row, he knew, on the day of his execution as footsteps came
resolutely down the corridor, that he was going to die. When the door
of his cell swung open, however, the jailor spoke these astonishing
words: "You are being set free. Another man is dying in your place!"

   Of course, I'm referring to Barabbas, the only man who ever lived
who could literally testify, "Jesus died for me, in my place!" But
Barabbas was not saved. Why? Simply because the death of Christ had
freed him to live his own life. Yet that is often today's self-centered
understanding of the gospel: Jesus died for me so that I can live for
myself, for worldly success and happiness, and go to heaven when I'm
too old or too sick to enjoy earth anymore. Against that false
impression, A.W. Tozer wrote:

   Among the plastic saints of our times, Christ has to do all the
dying and all we want is to hear another sermon about His dying - No
cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the
little kingdom of Mansoul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride
of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and
spiritual sterility.

   People would come to Christ promising to follow Him wherever He
would lead. His reply was simple: "Let me make it very clear. I'm
heading for a hill outside of Jerusalem called Calvary, where they will
crucify me. So if you intend to be true to me to the end, take up your
cross right now, because that is were we're going."

   Of course no one did that. Even his closest disciples all forsook
Him and fled to save their own lives. Nor would it have saved their
souls had they died on crosses erected beside His. He had to die in
their place. But after His resurrection they were changed men, no
longer afraid to die for their Lord. For then they understood and
believed and gladly submitted to the truth: Christ had died in their
place because they deserved to die. His death was not to deliver them
form death, but to take them through death and out the other side into
resurrection.

   At last the understood and believed. Acknowledging that God was just
in condemning them to death ofr their rebellion against Him, they
accepted the death of Christ their Savior as their very own. They had
died in Him; and believing that changed everything.

   In Gal. 6:14 Paul writes: "But God forvid that I should glory except
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world." As for those who have been crucified
with Christ, we have been completely cut off from this world. One of
the problems with Christianity today is tis attempt to make itself
appealing to the spirit of this world and thus to become popular with
the world. Christ would no more be popular today than He was in His
day; and He said that those who hated Him would hate His disciples. So
John wrote: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him"
(1 Jn. 2:15).

   Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul explained further: "For though He
was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For
we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of
God" (2 Cor. 13:4). How are we weak in Him? Not in our relationship to
sin or Satan or to the temptations of this world, over which we have
the victory through Christ. We are weak in the same way that He was
weak: i.e. in that He did not fight to defend Himself or His Kingdom
against the political or military might of this world. His victory (and
ours in Him) over Satan also came in submitting to death: "That through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the
devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2:14-15).

   It is not through gritting our teeth and determing by our will-power
that we overcome temptation, but in accepting the fact that we are dead
in christ. The dead no longer lust, lose their tempers or act
selfishly; and our victory is in our being "dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:11). We have
given up life as we would live it in order to experience His life being
lived in and through us. The life He gives is resurrection life, and
only those who are dead can receive that. We cannot know the fullness
of the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, until
we have willingly accepted His death as our death.

   These few thoughts scarcely scratch the surface of the meaning of
the cross (which includes, of course, the resurrection). In meditating
upon this greatest event of all time and eternity, we begin to see both
the horror of our sin and the amazing love of our Lord - the two chief
motivations for holiness. May we abide in His love, the love fully
proved at the cross, and become the messengers and channels of that
love to the world for which He died.

   In Christ's love, Dave Hunt

   This has been put up on the board by the kind permission of the
staff of CIB, and I would encourage you to write to the address that
was at the beginning of this message to order their monthly newsletter
for $12.00 U.S. per year, (subject to change without notice.) Make sure
that chegues are made out on a U.S. money order and payable to:

   Christian Information Bureau

   PO Box 3120

   Camarillo Ca 93011
