Address—Bill Prost
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Gracious Lord, my heart is fixed.
Sing I will, and sing of thee since the cup, that justice mix.
Thou hast drunk and drunk for me, great deliverer. Thou hast set the prisoner free.
Many of you probably recognize this verse from the 57th Psalm where it speaks of the psalmist's heart being fixed and he would sing praise unto God. So let's sing number six in the appendix together.
Gracious Lord, my heart is fixed, saying I will and say.
Since I got.
When all broken, drunk all over the sea, bring the land, deliver.
What happened? That's the prisoner praying.
My life is cold, I did life before I go together and I want to hear.
What I'm doing?
Why is my God all the time?
I'm sorry I didn't feel.
You're just wrong.
Should I get from death so I can tell them that we saw?
Him.
All of your friends like, uh.
Blah blah blah blah.
Oh my God, I found uh.
We pray together.
Our loving God and our Father.
We look up to thee this afternoon and thank Thee for the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we thank thee for that one who hung on Calvary's cross in order that we might be brought into the most wonderful blessing. And we thank thee, our God too, for the bright hope that is before us of being with and like that one.
Whoever was, and is, and ever will be the Object of thy heart.
But we look to Thee now for help as we open Thy word together, and we do praise especially our God, that Thou wilt speak to our hearts.
We are still here in this world.
And we recognize the temptations that are all around us. We have sung together. Savior, guard me, lest I grieve thee, lest I cease to love Thy cross.
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And we do trust that we sing from our hearts. This is treasure. All the rest I count but dross.
So we commit our time together to the our God and do so independence in the precious and worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
What I have before me this afternoon is to speak on something that I will admit to you that I have spoken on at least twice within the last few weeks and I didn't come to the meetings with the intention of speaking on this subject.
But in thinking and meditating a little before the Lord, and in keeping with what we have had before us in our readings.
In keeping with what our brother Bob brought before us yesterday afternoon, I trust I have the mind of the Lord in speaking a little on the cross of Christ.
The cross of Christ.
Now we know that.
That cross as we sometimes sing together in a hymn in our hymn book.
Was indeed, and is indeed, as the hymn writer said.
Center of two eternities, which look with wrath adoring eyes, onward and back to thee. Henry read in Colossians one those wonderful words, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, we read in Ephesians chapter 2.
That through the cross.
Christ slew the enmity that existed between Jew and Gentile and brought both together into one body.
How blessed to think of what took place at that cross.
But there is an aspect of that cross that I believe God would bring before us in a way I speak to my own heart that would search my heart and would make me realize that as.
Well, I don't think it hurts to name a brother in whose presence I learned much and in whom I hold in high esteem, even though he's with the Lord. Our late brother, **** Gorgoth, he used to remind us, he said, remember that salvation is free, but discipleship has a price attached to it. So turn, please, with me, first of all, And these are.
Well known verses, but turn to Matthew chapter 10 for a verse.
Matthew 10 and verse 34.
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth.
I came not to send peace, but a sword, For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foe shall be they of his own household.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me.
Is not worthy of me.
Ye that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake.
Shall find it.
Now these verses are repeated in other places with slight variations, but this will do for our purposes.
Hear the Lord Jesus was speaking to his disciples.
And at this point in Matthew's Gospel, it was becoming plain and evident, not only to the Lord Jesus, but perhaps to his disciples too, that their Lord and Master was being rejected. The one who had come offering himself to Israel as the rightful king was not going to be accepted.
Now we know that the disciples and Israel in general had a very hard time coming to grips with that, because that glorious Kingdom that they had so looked forward to, that wonderful time of blessing, they just could not imagine that it was going to be postponed for a time.
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But it was, and the Lord Jesus was making it clear to them here that.
It was not going to be an immediate display of power and glory, but rather that they were going to have to follow.
A rejected Christ.
And I say to you and me here this afternoon.
Let us never forget that things have not changed since the Lord Jesus was here.
And if he was rejected, you will be rejected. If he was hated, if he was cast out.
And you and I follow him faithfully. That will be our portion, our lot in this world.
What did the Lord Jesus mean when he said take up the cross and follow me?
We often speak of a cross and say how that someone has a very heavy cross to bear, perhaps referring to some severe set back in their lives. At least as we can see some serious illness, some long term financial problem, some series of health difficulties either in themselves or a family member or perhaps some members of their family going into some serious sin in their lifestyle.
That causes a lot of grief and we say, and it's not a misplaced term, he or she has a very heavy cross to bear.
But I suggest here in the framework in which this expression is used in the Word of God.
It has a far deeper meaning.
If you saw a man in that day being LED along the road with soldiers accompanying him and he were carrying a cross on his shoulders, that meant only one thing. That man was going to die.
And as we have often said before, that was the way that the Romans had ultimately of driving the point home very brutally, not only to the individual in question, but also to everyone around. Don't mess with Rome. Crime does not pay.
But what does it mean here?
It means, I suggest that in order to follow the Lord Jesus, you and I.
Are asked to die to all of our own ideas, all of our own ambitions, all of our own.
Wishes in this world, and that's why it goes on to say he that findeth his life shall lose it, but he that.
Lose of his life for my sake the same.
Shall, for my sake, shall find it.
Christianity is not all about immediate gratification, it is about present denial in order to have a gain in the future.
We all understand in the natural realm what that's like, don't we? Some of us here went to university and we had to deprive ourselves at the time and work hard during the summers and perhaps live on a shoestring, as we would say, in order to get through. But there was a goal in mind. There was something at the end of it. And I know others here who, not particularly having sought for higher education, have deprived themselves in other areas and for other reasons why?
Oh, because they said it's going to be worth it when I get it.
There are athletes today who deprive themselves of the normal pleasures of life in training for the Olympics. Why? Oh, because that gold medal shines very, very brightly before them, and they want it very badly. The prestige, the praise, the acclaim that goes with it. It's worth the sacrifice in the present time.
But God is calling you and me to look far beyond all that. He's calling you and me to look far beyond this world.
And he's calling you and me, as it says here, to take up the cross.
Now, I don't wish to be misunderstood because I don't want to give the impression that following the Lord is an unhappy path.
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If someone were to ask you or to ask me, and somebody did this to me once, they said who was the happiest man that ever walked through this world, It caught me by surprise for a moment because I never thought of that question before.
But all of a sudden the answer came of course. How could I even have to think twice?
Who was the happiest man that ever went through this world?
The Lord Jesus Christ, and yet we sung it in the last hymn that we sung this morning, it says the Man of sorrows Once that's what he was in this world and that's how he was known and now he's the man of patience.
And only in a coming day. The Scriptures speak of him as the man of joy.
But was there joy in his heart?
Oh, you know very well that it tells us there in Hebrews chapter 12 it says looking unto Jesus.
The author and finisher of our faith, who for what the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and to set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
There, he's an example for us.
And so there is a price to be paid, but it's a happy pass, so let's remember that.
But getting back to the cross for a moment, I would suggest to you and to me, and we don't have time to go into it in a lot of detail this afternoon, but there are different aspects in which the cross of Christ is presented to us in Scripture. And I'd like to bring them before you because it has impressed very deeply on my heart in the last little while. I don't know whether I have experienced it as I should, but it has impressed my soul very much.
What it means?
To take up the cross and to be connected with the cross of Christ. Let's turn over, please, to 1St Corinthians chapter one.
First Corinthians, chapter one.
And verse 17.
Here's Paul speaking.
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross is for them that perish foolishness.
But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.
Why does Paul emphasize the cross here? Why doesn't he say?
Lest the preaching of the gospel should be made of none effect, why doesn't he say the preaching of the gospel is to them that perish foolishness?
Ah, because here Paul was preaching to a very intellectual group of people.
A very well to do group of people, A people who thought they were doing just fine on their own and who took pride in human wisdom. And they had plenty of it, I suppose.
And Paul has to bring before them the fact that what he was preaching.
As an old brother now long since with the Lord, used to remind us, what He was preaching was not an improvement on man's wisdom, but rather it was the exact opposite of man's wisdom.
Think of it for a moment, if I could bring it right down to human terms.
Paul comes to these proud Corinthians who were steeped in paganism and all the rituals that went with idolatry.
And he says to them, do you want to be saved? Do you want to have your sins washed away? Do you want to know the true God?
And I'm going to say something from the human point of view, and I will say it with all reverence.
From a natural point of view, then, Paul says you must have faith.
In a man who, as far as this world was concerned, was a Galilean peasant.
Who was hung on a cross outside Jerusalem and gotten rid of.
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And the world went on without him.
That's the one to whom you have to look if you want to be saved, all the natural man says. I don't want any kind of a message like that. That's not what I wanted to hear. Why?
Because the preaching of the cross reduces man right down to nothing. It makes nothing of man because what did the world think of that one who is your savior and mine? It said that man is worthy to be hung on a cross. It said that man is worthy of nothing but the cruelest and most shameful death that we can think of.
We don't have.
Public executions anymore? In most countries there are places where it is still done.
But in years gone by it was rather common and if someone were considered of sufficient.
Uh, or had committed a sufficient crime to be executed. It was usually public.
And they were hung up there on a rope in front of as many people as cared to gather around and watch.
And it was a very shameful death.
If you were wealthy, you might in some cases get to have it done in private.
But most of the time it was public.
And that's the way it was when the Lord Jesus was crucified. And I say to you and to me, if you and I are going to follow a rejected Christ, it takes away everything to do with man's wisdom. It takes away everything that man naturally can have pride in. So that in the third chapter of Philippians, which also brings before us the cross of Christ, we had this before us in North Carolina. And some of you were there. What does Paul have to say about everything that naturally accredited him in the eyes of the world?
Oh, he says. It was just worthless. It wasn't worth anything.
And you and I are going to find that if we follow a rejected Christ.
Where did the world system start as we know it today?
Started a long time ago, didn't it?
Nothing new about it. It started way back in the time of Cain, when you will remember. Cain, it says went out from the presence of the Lord.
Built himself a city, called it after the name of his son, and then proceeded to surround himself with everything possible to make life as pleasant and as comfortable as it could be, but leaving God out.
And with variations as to the things that go along with that world system.
It is just the same today, and the world has, as it thinks, everything put together in order to keep man comfortable. But please don't bring God's claims in.
If you follow a rejected Christ.
If you preach Christ crucified, you will not be popular. You will not be popular. If you're willing to compromise, if you're willing to mix the gospel up with something that flatters man, something that gives man something he can glory in, that's good. And if I may be so blunt, and I don't wish to throw stones at anyone here this afternoon, but that's partly why you see much worldly Christianity out and about today.
That's why you see diluting the gospel.
I remember a dear Christian, not in North America, but in another land, he said.
Why do people dilute the word of God and why do so many people want to listen to that which is a compromise? Why do so many people want to listen to something that isn't straight from the word of God? Why is error so easily propagated? As someone has said, error will go will go all the way around the world while truth is still pulling its boots on. Why does that happen?
Because error gives something some credit to man. Error gives man something he can take pride in the preaching of the cross says man, this is what you did to the Son of God and you must come as a lost guilty Sinner. Just as Paul reminded us last night. Paul Hadley in reading that him just as I am without one plea and how that Charlotte Elliot suddenly it swept over her.
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Just as I am. That's the way I have to come.
The world is making a pitch for you and me today in many different ways.
And I don't want to get into too many specifics, but if I can be allowed to say a thing or two, and I hope it doesn't step on any toes.
I say to each one of us, be careful that you don't get your heart set on something in this world that takes you away from Christ.
Sports were never a temptation to me. I have to say for one very simple reason, I was no good at them.
And whenever teams were picked up in the corner lot for it didn't matter what we were playing, I had to get used to the fact that I was one of the last ones they picked. That was just the way it was. So take that in context. But be careful, young people, that you don't allow those things to get a hold on you. What about we who are older? Are we immune to the effect of the world? No, it's just different things.
The old saying is still true that the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
And there's truth in that. We can get our hearts set on things and remember this.
It's not what you have that makes the difference, it's what your heart is set on.
Some of us were talking at breakfast this morning and I'm going to read the verse. It's in Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12.
And verse 15.
And he, the Lord Jesus, said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness.
For a man's life consist of, not in the abundance of the things which he possessed.
I'm going to quote that as it is in the Darby translation. It's a little different.
A man does not who's got a Darby here that we could read it so we get it accurate. Has anybody got a Darby translation that would read it for me?
No, Tim, have you got it there?
15 Luke 12 and 15 read it good and loud for us.
Take heed and keep yourselves from all covetousness, for it is not because a man is in abundance that his life is in his possession.
Did you all hear that it is not because a man is in the in abundance that his life is in his possessions? Don't go around saying, well, I'm poor so I don't have to worry about that. I can tell you without being critical of anyone that I have seen a man in a foreign country more occupied with a mud Hut than somebody in North America who had a three or $400,000 home. It's not what you have. That's the important point. It's where your heart is.
In First Timothy chapter 6, the apostle gives instruction to those that are rich.
That's everyone in this room here, compared to most of the world's population.
He tells them what to do with it because presumably their heart wasn't set on it. But he gives very, very severe warning to those who will be rich. And so it's not what I have, but where my heart is set. And I would say to you, and this is a very solemn statement, but I believe it with all my heart.
If your heart and mind is set on anything in this world.
On which the heart of Christ could not be set.
To that extent, I am not walking in fellowship with the Lord.
Could I repeat that?
If your heart and mind is set on anything in this world on which the heart of Christ could not be set.
To that extent I am not walking in fellowship with the Lord. Now don't look at me, because I have done such things. And my heart does get set on things down here, I have to admit. But I do say with all my heart that that is true. And if the Lord gives you something, use it for Him.
But don't set your heart on it.
But then there's a somewhat deeper aspect of the cross that I believe comes into play, and this is in one sense far more difficult, far more searching, and in some sense harder to bear. Turn to Galatians chapter 5.
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Galatians, chapter 5.
Verse 11.
And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?
Then is the offence of the cross ceased?
And then turned to Philippians 3, that verse that I made reference to a moment ago.
Philippians 3 and verse 18.
For many walk of whom I have told you often.
And now, tell you, even weeping now notice the expression that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
And now one more verse at the end of Galatians. Galatians 6.
In verse 14.
But God forbid that I should glory.
Save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom the world is crucified under me, and I under the world.
In these verses, I suggest, and I wouldn't limit them, but I suggest that it's not so much the wisdom of this world.
It's not so much the things that are in the world.
But it is the world's religion.
And I am not speaking here so much of false religions, although that certainly is part of it.
But it creeps right into that which goes under the banner.
Of Christianity.
Why is it? Why was it?
That Paul had to say in Second Timothy chapter one, all they which are in Asia be turned away from me. Why was that? Had they turned away from Christianity? No, I don't believe so. They had not apostatized back into paganism or idolatry. No. What was the problem? Oh, I believe Paul centers it out when he says enemies of the cross.
Of Christ.
What was happening?
All Paul was telling those dear believers in Philippa I and in Ephesus and in.
The assemblies in Galatia and elsewhere, that they had a heavenly calling, that they were in the world, but not of the world, as the Lord Jesus brought before his disciples in John's Gospel.
And they were saying, as it were, Paul.
We want.
If we could use the expression of religion, that is more suitable to life down here. And as a result, Paul at the end of his life finds that the greater part of those for whom he had labored so strenuously and whom he had laid down his life for in that sense turned their back on him.
It records in that same chapter of Second Timothy deem us hath forsaken me. And it doesn't say having loved this present evil world, simply this present world. Somehow it was a lot easier not to go along with a man who was in prison and why was Paul in prison? He tells us there in Galatians 5, because he would not bring down the church and the truth that God gave him to a level that made it comfortable.
With the world.
Has it always been like that?
Indeed it has.
You'll remember from history that very quickly after the apostles left the scene.
The Church began to adopt worldly religion.
And it wasn't long before Constantine in 325 AD made Christianity the the official religion of the Roman Empire and, oddly enough, lifted up the cross as the symbol of it.
But then what happened? That very system that eventually developed out of all of that became, if we could say, at the very antithesis, the very opposite of what the cross of Christ stood for.
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We could name names. There were men, godly men, who sought to stand in what little measure they had. Henry Sousa, for example, in the 1300s.
Who sought with the light that he had from the word of God, and he didn't have anywhere near what you and I have.
But he sought to stand for what he saw in the Word of God, and as a result, he was ostracized. He was pushed aside. Nobody wanted to listen to him anymore because somehow, no, you're telling us things we don't.
Want to hear?
In the 1500s, when the Reformation was dawning and the precious truth of the gospel was coming back.
In order to get rid of that precious truth, the King of France banished all the Gospel preachers from France.
But after a while, excuse me.
One of the princesses who was truly the Lords used her influence and said invite them all back.
And they invited the mall back. Except for one.
William Farrell.
They didn't invite William Farrell back and it hurt. Why didn't they invite him back?
He would not compromise. Others would preach the gospel and allow certain things to go on that.
Not according to the word of God and they made a trade off.
OK, if we can preach the gospel, we won't be too vocal about some of these evils. They were invited back, not William Farrell. No, we don't need that kind of a man. Well, the Lord had a much better work for him in Switzerland, as we all know. They didn't want a man who preached Christ crucified. And it could go on and on. And I say to you each one, it is a day when.
It's a privilege to follow a rejected Christ and to take up the cross.
Let's bring it closer to home.
A few months ago I was reading a letter written by a dear brother, written back in the 1800s, close to 150 years ago.
And he had been one of those who came out very early on when the Spirit of God began to bring back the precious truth.
Of the Church and the truth of the Lord's coming and the imminent return of that Blessed One.
And in commenting on the steps he had taken over 25 years before, he says something like this.
What was it that brought me out of the establishment? Oh, he said, I trust it was Christ, and I trust that is Christ that will keep me there. And he said, not wishing to be derogatory, but he said, I cannot help but feel that those who have left that path have done so because the reproach of the cross was too much to bear. He said I did not come out. The Lord is my witness for anything but Christ, and I trust that if I continue to follow Him, He will keep me there.
But our natural hearts want more.
A dear man called me up some years ago. He doesn't live in our area. He lives a little bit further away just over the US border. But I knew him and out and out Christian and he called me up and he said, Bill, I want to build a church. I want to build a church. I want to get a whole bunch of people. I think I've got something I can preach to them. He said, tell me you've you've served the Lord for a few years, you'll get a rather smile out of this. But he said, tell me what works.
What works? I said, brother, I said, I don't think I can give you a good answer on the phone. Let's have lunch together and I'll come over to you. So I drove over to Buffalo, NY, and we had lunch together. And in the course of that conversation, I said something like this. I said, brother, I don't read in Scripture about anything that works, because if it were working, what happened to the apostle Paul?
If you were to ask the apostle Paul, Paul, you've served the Lord for 30 years, what works? What would he have said?
But I can still see that brother across the table. I said brother. It's not a question of what works.
It's a question of whether at the end of the pathway, the Lord can say to you and me, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
And I said it may not work, and that doesn't mean that I deliberately look forward to being a failure in order to be assured of having the Lord's mind. That's not the point. The point is that it's not a question of what works. It's a question of faithfulness to the Lord. I could see that he felt, to some extent, the impact of what Scripture said. Sorry to have to tell you that he didn't follow it. He didn't want that kind of advice. That's not what he was looking for.
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And so I say to you each one here this afternoon, our time is gone now.
But I want to read one more verse or make a comment on one more verse. The verse we read at the end of Galatians chapter 6 and 14.
There it says that Paul gloried in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did he glory in it?
But because it was pleasant, no.
He gloried in it because.
It separated him once and for all from the world that crucified his Savior and noticed the expression here, it says.
By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
It's one thing for you and for me to give up the world, and May God give us the grace and the courage to do so.
It's a much harder thing to take when the world gives up meat.
Allow personal story.
When I was practicing medicine, I often used to get invited to things, and when I was back in medical school, our medical class often used to have parties.
And sometimes they would badly want you to come.
And I don't wish to say something to be humorous, but I can remember one time a couple of them made a pitch. They were going to get me to that class party no matter what. And this is that they said, well, look, if you don't want to drink and go on with all the things that we're going on with, then what? You're just the kind of a person we need because you can be the bartender and then you will be sober and, and, and that'll work out just fine. They would have been happy with that.
But I can tell you it was much, it was a much deeper thing one time when I was.
In practice, and I worked with doctors in the hospital all the time, knew them well. Often one of them, more of them would be giving an anesthetic and I doing the surgery and so on. So I knew them well.
And one time there was a dinner for one doctor that was retiring, and although we did not normally go to that, I thought we ought to go and pay our respects.
And I have to tell you that it hurt, and it hurt a lot at the time when most of those who knew me well made very sure that they didn't sit at my table or anywhere within the vicinity. Now, that doesn't say much. I'm not trying to tell you that I was always faithful to the Lord, but they didn't want their conversation disturbed. They didn't want what they were going to talk about deluded or anything like that by anything else. And it was very.
Very obvious.
I say to you, it will happen to you too. Not only will you give up the world.
But if you're faithful, they'll give you A and they'll say we don't want you. We haven't yet come in this country to persecution.
In an active form, but depend upon it what we read there in Two Timothy Three will take place.
All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But remember, there is a day when the Lord Jesus will have his rightful place. That'll be the day for rain. But today, it's the day to bear the cross.
Can we take a minute and sing one verse of a hymn?
173.
And well, maybe we can stretch it to two verses versus three and four of 173.
A little while it will soon be passed. Why should we shun the promised cross?
Oh, let us in his footsteps haste counting for him. All else but loss. 173 versus 3:00 and 4:00.
A little.
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Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Hold on a second.
OK.
Our God and Father, we thank Thee for the precious words of this hymn. May it be true of each one of our hearts. Give us grace to be willing to accept the offence of the cross.
And to walk before thee in that happy path.
For what Thy Word tells us and what we have sung together is only a little while, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.