Our text this morning is in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 13. We are still in the same passage that we have been in for two occasions perhaps. And this morning we desire to speak a word upon the reproach of Christ. Verse 13 of the last chapter of Hebrews. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. You will know of course that this is the second time in the epistle to the Hebrews that Paul uses precisely the same phrase. For of Moses in chapter 11 and verse 26 he writes esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches and the treasures in Egypt. That is, that Moses, though occupying so great a position of authority and power and prestige and opportunity in Egypt, nevertheless his heart was not there but with the people of God, the suffering And he esteemed the reproach of Christ, greater riches and the treasures in Egypt. Although he did not know Christ by name, yet already he was a prophet, and perceived in his spirit the coming day of deliverance, of which the prospect of deliverance from captivity in Egypt was only just a glorious and earthly type. He looked forward to the full benefits of the atonement, of the forgiveness of sin, and of the heavenly inheritance, and chose rather the reproach of Christ, esteeming it in this world greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. So Paul speaks in our text, let us go therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. I would ask you to bear in mind too what is a favourite thought of the Apostle Paul in this connection which he further expresses in the fifth chapter of Galatians. And verse 11, And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, that is, if I go the way of the Jewish law, and please them who are in the synagogues, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offence of the cross ceased. in one place of the reproach of Christ, in this place of the offence of the cross. Or, as it can be translated, the scandal of the cross. The shame and the rebuke of the cross as the cross is to men of worldly mind. The offence of the cross. He carries the same thought in the last chapter of Galatians. where in verse 14 he says God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Here he enlarges somewhat upon the scandal of the cross or the reproach of Christ by showing how it comes about that it is a line of demarcation between the redeemed and the unregenerate and sinful world about them that it makes us different from our neighbours and friends and sometimes even from many who worship with us in name if not in spirit and this is an offence to many people that we should be different from them. That the very faith that we hold should be a rebuke to their false religion and pride and an injury to their conscience. And they mistake their anger and their distaste for the likes of us. They mistake that anger for a sense of righteous indignation. that such people should set themselves up as a standard to be judged by and try to make out that our religion isn't as good as theirs. Their is the offence of the cross. Our religion is very, very different from theirs. Not because there's any pride in us, but because we have been humbled. Not because our hearts are lifted up but because they have been pressed down in true penitence and repentance to acknowledge Christ and His death and suffering as our only hope in time and in eternity. That by which God has wrought a great and gracious change within us. This is the offence of the cross. It is taken by people whom are not for change but for worldly respectability, not for siding openly with Christ, not to be numbered in that sense with the people of God, with those who bear reproach for his Christ's blessed name. This is what Paul is speaking of when he speaks of the reproach of Christ and the offence of the cross. Again his well known words in Romans 1 and verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes. His language indicates that there is that in the cross and in the gospel which is calculated to make men ashamed. of confessing Christ, unless they have been delivered from that sense of shame by the power of the Holy Spirit within them, so that they are able to say, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. And so in 1 Corinthians chapter It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a psalm and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. We are dealing with the offense of the cross, the reproach of Christ. We have drawn your attention just now to the passage in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. The Jews require a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block. and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. In short, there is that in the preaching of the cross of Christ, which is a stumbling block to people of a certain type of mind, and a deliberate offence, a sign of stupidity, a closed mind of ignorance and obtuseness unto people who are wise according to this world, to the Jews a stumbling block, unto the Greeks foolishness. Now we shall endeavour to see just what this means to us who profess the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. the offence of the cross, the reproach of Christ, does not lie merely in a denial of the atonement. For there are many who acknowledge the atonement as something which is wrapped up with the death of Christ upon the cross, who are nevertheless inside and not outside the camp of which Paul speaks. That is, they are in the camp of this world. They are not in the camp of the saints. They would avow with us that the death of Christ is a satisfaction for sin. Nevertheless, they are different from us in a very, very important particular. When it comes to the question, what must I do to be saved, they are not with us at all. The reproach of Christ, the offence of the cross, lies in this, that it renders useless all the effort, the strength, and the righteousness of men so that they are cast utterly and entirely upon this one thing that Christ has died and they seek for righteousness in no other quarter and least of all in any of their own works, in anything that they do, in any prayers, religious observances. And in this of course is revealed the fact that the world knows of only two religions which we have mentioned before and will often mention again in the very simple words that there are only two religions, the religion of doom and the religion of done. The religion of doom, that is we must do something of self-effort for our own righteousness and to make ourselves acceptable with God, even although we add the atonement. of something which God also requires. And so we mix up the righteousness of Christ with our own righteousness and merit which in the sight of God is filthy rags. Or on the other hand we have the religion of done and that is when Christ said it is finished. He meant that the work of redemption was done by his own merits and his own obedience to blood upon the cross. Now it is a very, very important distinction because everything depends upon what and upon whom you rely. Whether upon, in any measure however slight, your own works or entirely upon Christ. The satisfaction which Christ renders on the cross for sin is, in short, an absolute satisfaction. It is complete and full in the sight of God on behalf of all those for whom it is truly rendered. That does not mean all men indiscriminately, for redemption in this sense is particular. Only the redeemed come to Zion with songs of everlasting joy. upon their head. The great question for you and for me is, have I been redeemed? Am I redeemed? And if I am redeemed by the satisfaction of Christ, then God requires no payment, no merit on my part. If anyone should say, well this means that we can live as we please, and we answer to that, we wish to God that we could. But if we could live as we pleased, we would live in perfect love with Him. We would live without sin. We would live in absolute perfection and entire sanctification. We would that we could live as we pleased. Because having received a new heart, we hate the world. And we hate the sins that make thee born, and drives thee, O Spirit, from our breath. For that our attitude to ourselves, not only to our sin within, but to that whole lump of sinfulness which we know as ourselves, is the attitude of the Apostle, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. Yes indeed we believe in the absolute nature of that satisfaction which Christ has rendered upon the cross. And by disavowing the slightest hope, the slightest grain of confidence in anything that is within ourselves or that we can do, however slight it may be, we sit in judgement upon the world's religion and upon the state of the world round about us. and we incur the reproach of Christ, the offence or scandal of the cross. So that this reproach of Christ arises from the unique feature of his gospel, the absolute satisfaction he rendered on the cross for our sins. And it offends or affronts the pride of man in this way that it shows man's fallen nature. It shows that he is in such a state of rebellion, curse and condemnation that he can by no means deliver his own soul. And he can by no means be saved at all except in this one way through the atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That atonement does not avail him unless he be found a believing man and a repenting man and thus he is redeemed. So the doctrine of Christ and of the Gospel affronts the pride of man because before anybody can come to a true faith and repentance in Christ our Saviour then he must sit in judgement upon himself and upon the world around him and acknowledge that he is a corrupt shoot out of a corrupt stem and that there is no hope in him of salvation apart from an entire work of divine mercy and grace. Now this applies to every one of us here today. It could be that there are those of us present who have not come under the redemption which Christ has wrought through the cross. It may be we're religious. It may be we have a religion. It may be we think that our religion is as good as anybody else's religion. It may be we say in our heart of hearts, well it suits me, it may not suit you, but it suits me. And after all, it's before God I stand, not before you. You've no right to judge me. You've no right to say that my religion isn't as good as yours. Or to imply that it is not enough to satisfy God. True, we have no right to do any of these things. Nobody else has any right neither, but the Word of God has right. That's the thing. Has this religion of yours made such a difference between you and the world around you that your friends and neighbours know that you're different? And they don't care for it. They may respect you, But they don't respect your religion. It's too narrow, you say. It's too offensive to other people's consciences. No, we do not judge anybody else's religion. But we do name the verdict which the Word of God passes upon human nature. And we do very jealously regard the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the honour and the and the glory of our Saviour Jesus Christ, by whom alone the soul can approach its God. It is an offence to people of worldly mind because the cross separates from the world, for it condemns the world. John 15 verse 18, If the world hate you, Ye know that it hated me before it hated you. And the world really hates Christ. This coming Christmas you will see it. Not an open expression, oh no. There will be Christmas cards, there will be the exchange of gifts. There will be midnight masses and communions. There will be all the paraphernalia of external religion. There'll be plum puddings and feasts. There'll be swillings of alcoholic liquor. There'll be dozens of people killed upon the road by drunken drivers. There'll be all this, and they will say that it's the festival of Christ, but there'll be very little of Christ in it. It'll be a good time, an excuse for abandonment for two or three days, if not longer. And the babe of Bethlehem and the man upon the tree will scarcely be spared a thought. Everybody knows that this is the case, even worldly people are just getting a little bit wearied of the utter commercialism and secularization of what was intended to be a Christian feast and occasion. And this will indicate the real state of the world, and it may indicate the state of your heart and mine too, just in a week or two's time, as to what these things really mean to us, as to whether we are different from the world that is round about us. The world hates Christ, not by name, but when he is truly presented as the only hope of the soul and the only righteousness that this world can ever see. When he requires, by his death and rising again and the outpouring of his Spirit, the conversion of the soul to himself, an absolute repentance and a new life coming down from above. The cross of Christ offends the Jewish world in particular because it destroys their pride and exposes their false doctrine of the Messiah. For the Jews have a doctrine of the Messiah and the Messiah is only the Hebrew word of which we have the Greek equivalent in the word Christ. Both words Christ and Messiah mean the Anointed One. So that they do not hate Christ, really, by name, provided you say Messiah. And provided you do not, provided you add, well of course, we do not necessarily mean Jesus of Nazareth. Oh no, they believe in a Messiah. They do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. But there's nothing offensive to the Jew in the term Messiah, or its Greek equivalent, Christ. Provided it is different from the person to whom we attribute it. But their doctrine of the Messiah is very very different from the Bible doctrine. They believe that their Messiah shall come adorned with human pomp and that his kingdom is one of earthly glory and of worldly advantage. That's what they believe and because Jesus of Nazareth when he came claiming that he was the Messiah did not give them these things. And when they saw him as one in whom there was no beauty that they should desire him, but rather despised and rejected of men, they say this isn't the Messiah, this couldn't be the Messiah, couldn't possibly be the Messiah. And when they saw him impaled upon the tree, that settled the issue so far as they were concerned. This to them was the offence and scandal of the cross, that one claiming to be the Messiah should so end his days. as a crucified manufacturer was something they could not abide because their Messiah was to be in great pomp and glory and ostentation and making them a superior nation not on account of their repentance but just because they were the children of those who'd gone before them. The whole ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ was to destroy this idea. As he said to Nicodemus, one of their own council, one of the rulers of the Jews, except ye be born again, ye cannot see this kingdom of God. You'll never see Messiah's kingdom. You'll never see his glory, except you be born again. It's not enough that you be born of Abraham, or the family of Judah. that you could say Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are our ancestors. It's not enough. You have to be born again into another family and by another line, even that which is heavenly, born of the Spirit and born from above. This was an offence to the Jew. When it was crowned by the cross of Christ, that means by which We receive the gift of everlasting life and born again. It became 10,000 times more an offense to them. And so Paul says, let us go forth therefore to him without the camp, outside the camp of Israel and outside the camp of this world, bearing his reproach. The cross was an offense not only to the Jew, but to the Gentile world. we read in 1 Corinthians, for the Greeks seek after wisdom. They seek that which comes from the intellect, that which comes from the reason of man. And so they philosophized about man and his past and his future and his welfare. when someone came and said to them in their very midst, when Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill, overlooking the great city of Athens, the city of the philosophers and of the Greeks. And he said, God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus of Nazareth. And he commands all men everywhere to repent. This had nothing to do with human reason. This had nothing to do with philosophy or intellect. They regarded it as foolishness and stupidity that one should preach the cross of Christ. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, there was a chorus of jeers. They said, we will hear thee again of this matter. What will this babbler say? So to this day, these things are strange in the ears of worldly wise men when we speak to them about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The late Professor Jones was too big a man, too intellectual a man to regard these things as anything other than nonsense. But when at the end of his life God placed his finger upon him, he made this confession and passed into heaven ultimately by the mercy of God. He made this confession. He said, I am beginning to see that that article of the Church of England which tells us that the human heart is wholly depraved and incapable of righteousness is after all true. I believe in the form of man. So the great philosopher learned to bow the knee. I have in my hand an American track posted to me only this week. Very, very interesting indeed. It is built upon the experience of a gold medalist at the Olympic Games, not the ones that have just been completed, but the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, where he won an Olympic gold medal. Now you say, what has this to do with conversion? It's got a great deal to do with conversion apparently. Because a former sportsman in America spoke to him at a youth-led evangelistic crusade in Ponca City, wherever that is. Apparently it's in Texas or somewhere. His name was Ron. What Ron said fitted me. I realised that without a personal commitment to Christ, life was without meaning. He gave an invitation. I went forward to repent of my sins and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal saviour. He didn't mean repentance. That is the weakness of these tracts. Repentance is only a word there. The real motive was this. Life didn't have any meaning. without committing to our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that is not conversion, dear friends. It's not a question of your life being without a certain degree of comfort. Finding yourself without a particular aim and saying, oh well, Christ is the answer. I'll come and offer my valuable young life to Him. And that this is what this man meant. He goes on to say, I'll never forget the day I decided to try out for the Olympics. I was tired, I was running in the field house. I went clear to the top of the building and prayed, Lord if you want me to wrestle in the higher weight class let me know. By the time I arrived at the fountain, that's not the fountain of salvation, it's another fountain, I had the assurance in my heart that the Lord wanted me to try out as a 147.5 pounder in the wrestling contest. So the Lord gave him the go-ahead to be a wrestler and to win an Olympic gold medal. And this he advances as proof of his salvation, that he won a gold medal by the grace of God. Now dear friends, this is not conversion. This is worse than the mass. This is the most banal form of false religion. And it happens in the evangelical sphere. No reproach of Christ there. Oh no. Winning gold medals for Christ at the great Olympics. Perish every fond ambition. All that I have ever hoped to be. God and Christ are my ambition, says the heavens. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Its high time that this note was sounded out more and more even in the sphere of evangelical religion because we are being subverted on this subject of conversion. We are failing to recognise very often that to be converted is in the eyes of the world not an honour but a shame. that it is not going to necessarily advance our interest in this world, and that repentance is from sin and guilt, from curse and condemnation, from the deserving of eternal hell by the iniquities that we have committed, and that this is the only plea by which we can come to Christ. We are nothing except sinners. We are condemned, we are under condemnation. And we come to him for mercy and to his cross with all its shame for forgiveness. It is the only settlement of the sin question. And thank God there is nothing in the true doctrine of the atonement which hinders our coming to Christ. As Christ tells in John 6 and verse 44. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. You may come. You may not stop to inquire, Am I given to the Father? For your coming to Christ will prove whether you have been given to the Father or not. For him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Amen.