I'd like to take for my text this evening, Galatians 6, verse 14. Just this single text. The Apostle Paul's words, Galatians 6, verse 14. But 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." What a strange, mysterious, and surprising statement. To boast to glory in the death, the most cruel death ever conceived of no less than the Son of God. This is what we call a paradox. Something that at first glance seems to be a contradiction. Two things that don't go together. Boasting in something awful, it seems. And yet, the further you dig, as with all paradoxes, this statement has so much truth. forbid, God prevent, God stop, that I should boast in anything but the death of Christ. There's a double negative. He's actually saying I want to boast about one thing only and the only thing I can boast and God stop me if I boast about anything else except the cross the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the text that Isaac Watts in 1707 penned, One of Thee Surely, greatest hymns in the English language that has ever been written. We shall sing it later. When I survey the wondrous cross, That's what I'd like to do tonight. When I survey, what does that word mean, survey? Maybe the children don't know what that word means. A surveyor is somebody that measures, somebody that stands back, somebody that draws a map, somebody that seeks to evaluate and to take in and to assess a site. a building, countryside, land, to be a surveyor. That's what I'd like us to do tonight. I want you and I to be surveyors. When I survey, here's Isaac Watts. He's standing back in his mind's eye. He's looking at the cross. The apostle Paul has already done it. He's looked at the cross and he said, well, there's many things in life that people do boast about. They boast about their looks. They boast about their intelligence, their wealth. They boast about their career. Look how many promotions I've had. They boast about the size of their farm. They boast about their accomplishments. And Paul was like that. But not now. The old Saul has died with all his boasts, all his pride, and now there's only one thing that he's proud of, something that he's had nothing to do, nothing to contribute, something that's nothing to do with him. Oh, but he would boast. He would boast in Christ and in the cross and in the crucifixion. This is something he's proud about, something he wants to talk about, something which is an accomplishment beyond any other. Christ would say those words. It is finished, accomplished, done. Everything that Christ set out to do on time, in full, finished. No wonder then Paul can say, I can boast of only one thing, Jesus Christ. No wonder Isaac Watts can say, when I survey. So what I would like to do tonight with the Lord's help is to stand back And just to try and give you a few headings to help us to survey, to evaluate, to assess, to measure what's really happening. You see, it's only when you stand back with the benefit of history, 2,000 years, with the benefit of the four accounts in the Gospels and the letters of Paul that speak of Christ and Christ crucified so often that we begin to see the impact, the importance, the effect that this glorious, wondrous event in history has had and will have upon your life. This cross, it's like a magnet. The Lord Jesus Christ said, if I be lifted up, speaking of him being lifted upon a cross, I will draw all men and women to myself. And so if we can just gaze tonight, we can stand back and survey the cross. Oh, it's my prayer that you would be drawn, drawn to Christ, to see his love, his dying love, before our very eyes. If, if this was the last sermon I was ever to preach in this church, and I pray it's not, there would be no finer subject than the cross of Jesus Christ and to survey this theme. So I give you a number of headings. Let's look first of all at the drama of the cross. There's so much going on. People have tried to turn it into films. They are almost blasphemous, depicting Christ. They don't know the half of what was happening. What was happening was unseen. What was seen was just the half, the drama of the cross. We've read, if you'd like to turn back, we see some of these things. In Luke 23, it speaks of a great crowd. Why had they come? Many of them had a morbid fascination with death. His A very poor analogy. Somebody has a tragic accident on the motorway and there's a pileup and everybody slows down to look. How many were there? Verse 27, Luke 23, there followed a great company of people and of women. A thousand? I don't know. But it was a lot of people. They had come for entertainment. They had come to goggle their eyes, to look, to stare, to see the great fall. Men and women through history, we've loved to lift people up, haven't we? There's nothing that human nature delights in more than to see somebody lifted up and then fallen. And that's what they thought was happening. But they'd got it all wrong. Many of course would pass by. They were disinterested. They didn't see the importance, the significance of what was happening. They had no interest. They didn't know this was the Son of God. They carried on their merry way. And there will be people here tonight. You will pass by. All ye that pass by to Jesus, draw nigh. To you is it nothing that Jesus should die? There's two thieves. What drama, three men, thieves. The man in the middle has done no sin. The man in the middle is the one that everybody is looking to if they care to look. His arms are stretched open wide. The arms that made the world, the hands that made you. And they're stretched wide, the hands open. He's seeking to draw men and women. Some who see the Savior die begin to ponder. The place is called the place of the skull. There's bones on the floor. Many have died here before. This is where they sent the thieves and the criminals outside the city to die. It's where the Romans had prescribed that the death of crucifixion in Jerusalem should be carried out. And for six excruciating hours, from nine in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon, Christ would hang and his breath would struggle. three hours of light, three hours of darkness. And in those three hours of darkness, there was an agony that never will Hollywood understand. As Christ took the punishment of the sins of all his people, of your sin, if you will trust in him. There's an earthquake. The city is shaken. The graves of men and women who've died weeks, months, years before are burst open. Men and women start walking who were dead. There's such a shake in the town that everybody knows it's happened. The curtain is torn. What drama. Just at the moment. that Christ says, it is finished into thy hands. I commend my spirit, top to bottom, an enormous curtain. The hand of God did it. Everybody's watching, what drama. The significance, secondly, of the cross and its power. He's just an ordinary man. Is he? He wept, he laughed, he was hungry, he cried. He mourned. He obeyed his parents. He was let down by his brothers. One of his disciples betrayed him and it cut him to the heart. He wasn't an ordinary man, he was an extraordinary. Man, the God-man. It seems the one who gave his life is dying. And it's involuntary. His life was taken from him. But no, it's not. He's giving it up. He's offering up his life. Nobody takes his life from him. He's the giver of life. He alone can give his life. And he calmly, silently offers up his life as a sacrifice. The creator of the world is dying. The one who made all things is allowing himself to die. It seems his ministry of three years has been a failure. It seems that the religious leaders and the authorities are going to have the victory and he's going to lose. But no, it's the other way around. He will have the victory, they will lose. This event is world changing, this is so significant. Before Christ, after Christ, the death of Christ, nobody thinks more about any other event in history. This is the turning point. This is the pivot on which lives have turned round. People going down, down, down, and they come to the cross with the burden of their sin, and they turn round, and their life goes up, up, up. This is the most significant point, and for the Apostle Paul, this was the event that turned him from destruction and death and murder to a life of preaching Christ crucified. Thirdly, let's reflect upon the horror of the cross. We must do that. There is a horror. This man has done no wrong, that's a horror. The great injustice. Not only had he done no wrong, he'd done so much good. Thousands fed, thousands healed, thousands taught. If he hadn't died, Wouldn't there be more who would be healed, taught, fed? Demons exercised? Oh no. That's to misunderstand because Christ died. Millions will be healed, not only of diseases. Millions will be fed, not only with food. Millions will have Satan's control smashed. because he died on the cross. Oh, the horror, the worst form of death known at the time to humanity, public, demoralizing, demeaning, humiliating. It was a deterrent for the Romans to try and keep control of the occupied territories. And it was kept for him. But it was planned of God. We read in Psalm 22 that they would pierce him. Isaiah 53 says he would be pierced. But what about the unseen suffering? That's the worst of all. The wrath of God. was poured out. Imagine a big cup and in it contains the wrath of God for all the sins of all his people and every single drop is poured on Christ and he drinks it. He takes the cup. Fourthly, a sacrifice. There is no forgiveness for sin without a sacrifice, without the shedding of blood, without a death. There must be a death. The first death was an animal. And God took that animal and made a coat and it involved the shedding of blood to clothe Adam and Eve, and not an animal, but the Lamb of God had to be taken, crucified, killed, offered up, sacrificed, because the wages of sin, your sin, means death, either the death of Christ or your death, not the death at the end of your life, but your death in hell, where you will die an eternal death. And Christ took that death, compressed into six hours. It was a penalty. You break the law, there must be a penalty. Three points, six points, license taken away, there must be a penalty. And Christ has taken that penalty. What about what was really happening? This is unseen, this is not mentioned in the films. On the cross, this is a crude term, there were two transactions done. Two, not one, two. On the cross, two enormous transactions, bigger than the debt of America, trillions. All the debt added up of all his people. That penalty was paid. There is a verse that we must turn to. It just is the verse to describe these two transactions. If you'd like to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21, this is sublime. Just ponder, reflect. Here are the two transactions which Christ did. This is what the Apostle Paul says, 2 Corinthians 5. 21, for He hath made Him, God the Father, hath made Him, Christ, to be sin. That's the first, my sin. The sin of all His people was laid upon Him. It's as though Christ becomes sin. for us. What about the second transaction? My sin was laid upon him, but his righteousness was put on me, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I don't have any righteousness. I'm not worthy of heaven, but he is. He is righteous and only he can be made righteous for me so that that righteousness is put on me in him. There's the two transactions. and both of them needed to happen at Calvary. One was not enough. My sin had to be taken. I had to be cleansed, washed, purified, purged, purged whiter than snow, but I also had to be made righteous. I had to deserve heaven and only Christ can deserve it for me. Those things have already happened for Christ's people. They won't happen in the future. They have happened. For he has made, it's in the past tense, he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin in his life, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Because Christ died, I can now live. Because those two transactions have been done, I can be in relationship with Christ and through him, with the Father. But we have to come to a sixth heading briefly. When I survey the wondrous cross, Sorrow and love. Not just one. Sorrow and love. I put the sorrow first. So did what? You can't understand the love of Christ until you first understand the sorrow, the horror, the punishment of Christ. Sorrow and love flow mingling down. Did e'er such love and sorrow meet? He has it one way, then he turns it around. You see, this love is in the context of immeasurable sorrow. Sometimes the love of a parent can be very great. A child is in pain. A child dies tragically. and the love of the parent goes out. But when you see the sorrow and the pain of Christ, then you begin to understand the context of the love of Christ. This is love that's undeserved. It's love that it's unchanging. It's love that's unending. It's love that's uplifting. It's love which is the ultimate love. There is no greater love that a man should lay down his own life. And you are my friend, says Christ, when he laid down his life. This ultimate love is boundless. It's limited in number, but it's like an ocean that has no floor. It's so deep. You can't plumb its depths, the wonder of Christ's love. But I must finish with this, a seventh aspect. And Isaac Watts gets this absolutely perfect. Towards the end of his hymn, he says, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul my life, my all. This is a poor illustration but I read yesterday a very moving account of a man who went on holiday with his family and his daughter had a nut allergy and they got to Heathrow Airport and they had a meal in Pret And about half an hour into the flight, flying to Paris, she had eaten something that had nuts contaminating it. They sought to help her. They got the EpiPen. They gave her oxygen. They did everything they could. They got to Paris. The emergency staff were waiting as they landed. They got on the plane. They gave her heart to heart. They did all they could. And she died. And for a few days, the father was so angry. There must be an inquiry. There must be something done. There wasn't the right labeling. It's the chief executive's fault. But the following Sunday, he went to church. His daughter, two weeks, before getting on the plane had asked for baptism. She had trusted in Christ. She'd been to church. The father was an atheist. He wanted nothing to do with God. And as she died, something happened that I can't explain, but somehow he could see As his daughter died, it was as though in his mind, he saw it so visually, so dramatically. It was as though the angels came to take his own daughter. And that thought stayed with him through the days of the week. The following Sunday, he went to church. He'd never been to church before. He had to go to church. There had to be an inquiry, but no, there didn't. He was satisfied because he came to see this was the plan of God and that he needed to find peace in Christ as well. And he was converted and he went to meet the chief executive. And he said to him, I forgive you. For any part that you had in my daughter's death, I bear no malice. Love so amazing, so divine, demands. There's a demand. Where's the demand? The demand of the man at the beginning of the week was for the chief executive to lose his job. But by the end of the week, the man knew that Christ had paid the penalty of his daughter's sin. There didn't need to be an inquiry. The only inquiry was of his own soul. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Does that demand come from Calvary tonight? Is there a call? Christ can't die. A death such as he died, the death of deaths, as John Owen called it, without you considering the demand on your soul tonight. He calls you to come. He doesn't demand. But in a sense, there is a demand. Watts was right. It demands not just some day in your life, but all of your life. It demands not just some time in the future, but it demands all of the future. And it demands your soul, everything you have, your energy, your interests, your love, your affection, That's why Christ died, the ultimate sacrifice. Oh, Paul was right. There's nothing else to boast about except the cross of Christ. It's had the biggest impact on my life, on maybe the majority of the people inside this building tonight. It is the biggest thing. Would you pass by another night, another day, another year, as it draws to a close? Surely not. Would you boast in Christ crucified, Christ crucified for me? Let's pray. Our gracious God and Father, O help us to take in something more of the death of Christ. Help us to understand what thou didst do when thou didst give thine only begotten Son. O Lord, help us tonight to understand. Teach us what it meaneth. O Lord, show us the way. May there be a call from Calvary tonight to individual souls to come. to the foot of the cross with their burden of sin, to be washed in the blood, to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We plead this tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. We sing our closing hymn, What's His Grand? Astonishing hymn. Just contemplate the words as you sing them, not just the poetry, but the doctrine, the theology, and the cross. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride. 203. the grace of holy life, my righteous slave, my proud father. and shall renew my sacrifice unto his blood. See how his head, his hands, Sorrow and love, the needle fell. The exit's full, and so are we. O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!