So first, first Corinthians, very first chapter. Let's break into the reading at the first 17 or 17. Let's hear the words of the Apostle Paul writing under under inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Paul writes, 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 to them that perish foolishness. But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and 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. Amen. The Lord will certainly add his own blessing to the reading of his word. Let's go to the Lord in prayer before the message. Oh Lord, I do thank you for the power of the gospel. Lord, I do thank you that you have ordained the preaching of the gospel, Lord, as the instrument to bring men to Christ. Lord, I pray that you would help me this morning, Lord, as I would preach the word. Lord, to be lost to myself. Lord, to be totally emptied of myself. Lord, of everything that I can do, Lord, with the arm of the flesh. Lord, I pray that I would be emptied, Lord, of everything in me, and that I would be filled with Christ and with the power of your spirit. Lord, help me, Lord, to preach Christ, Lord, to hide behind the cross and to lift up Christ for everyone to see. Lord, I pray that you would abide with us here this morning. Lord, we are helpless and we need your grace. Lord, we need your power. Lord, I pray that you would speak to us in a mighty way this morning. Lord, I pray if there are any lost souls here today, that you would bring them all the way through to Christ, that they would not rest till they have cast their all on the cross of Jesus Christ as their only hope, for eternity. Lord, I would ask for our entire church, Lord, that we would be revived, that we would get a fresh sight of the basic truth of the gospel, the basic truth that we would be pointed to this morning. Lord, let us be caught up with Christ, Lord, and with him crucified. Lord, I pray these things in your son's precious and his holy name. Lord, get all the glory here this morning. Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. The church at Corinth was a church that was rent apart by many issues. Sexual impurity was running rampant throughout the membership. The Lord's table was in disarray. False teachers were denying the truth of Christ's resurrection and the resurrection of the believer. Charismatic chaos was tearing apart the worship of the church. And divisions were tearing apart any of the remaining unity left in the body. But through all the haze of all the issues and all the problems here at Corinth, Paul cuts to the quick, the very heart of the matter in this first chapter. Before he begins to get into the issues, the sexual impurity, the Lord's table, the head cover, all these different issues, before he gets to them, he points the people of God back to the cross of Jesus Christ. He says, remember the very heart of the gospel. Remember the purpose of the church being here in the first place. It's the cross of Christ. It's the basic gospel that I came to you and I preached. In this 23rd verse of this first chapter, we find the heart cry of the apostle. He says, but we preach Christ crucified under the Jews, a stumbling block and under the Greeks foolishness. But under them, which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. You have here the heart cry of the apostle before he begins to break the Corinthians for their sin, before he begins to say, here, here's where you're wrong. Here's where you've gone astray. Before he begins to even get into the issues and before he gives them principles by which to get their lives straightened out and the church straightened out, he points them back to Christ crucified. He says, remember what you were. Remember that it was by the power of the cross that you were saved. Remember, it was by the power of Christ. that you were brought. It wasn't with any wisdom of man. It wasn't with any philosophy of man. It was with my preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I would submit to you today, all of us here, that the church in America is in much the same difficult situation as the church there at Corinth. Our church, our own denomination, is confronted with many of the same issues that the church at Corinth faced. And our nation is faced with many issues and many problems. in our own day. But I would emphasize very humbly this morning that the solution for all the problems is found in the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And that's where I would point your attention this morning, to the cross of Jesus Christ. As Dr. Alan Cairns, a servant of God that I really look up to, has said, he said, there's no issue, there's no problem that we face today that a view of the cross cannot fix. And that's what we need to do this morning to get to come apart from all the chaos of the world. From all the needs, we do have great needs in our church. We have the need of seeing a great revival in our day. We have the need of seeing lost souls pointed to Christ. We have the need of winning the next generation for Christ and standing for Christ against spiritual apostasy in our day. But apart from all the needs, we need to get our eyes on Calvary. The need for us personally as individuals and the need for us as a church is to get our eyes on Jesus Christ and him crucified. Because that's the source of the power of the gospel. That's the very heart of the gospel. That's what Paul exalts here. And it is that simple message that I would exalt before you and lift up before you even this morning. So as we consider this simple verse, this simple theme of the preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified, I would simply make two observations before you this morning. The first is that simply the need for old time gospel preaching of Jesus Christ and secondly, the second need is the nature of the gospel preaching of Jesus Christ. So we note, first of all, the need for gospel preaching in our day. But I must say, very humbly, before I even get started with this need and give you reasons for why we need the preaching of the gospel, I must first of all emphasize that the preaching of the cross, the preaching of the whole gospel of Jesus Christ, has never been a popular thing in the midst of an ungodly culture and a worldly professing church. Christ promised us as much in Matthew 5, 11, and 12. He said, that blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Christ has promised his people, and especially godly ministers, that if they will stand up and really preach the word, if they preach this book and they preach Christ, they will be confronted by great persecution. If you look at the example of Paul here, he didn't come to Corinth as some acclaimed rabbi or some acclaimed prophet that all the people wanted to listen to. He came as a very humble preacher of the gospel. He says here, I didn't come with the wisdom of man's words. I came preaching Christ, which was foolishness. to the Corinthians, to the Greeks, and to the Romans. And to somehow begin to put this in perspective for us, when Paul says that the preaching of the cross was foolishness to the Greeks, it means just that, and it means even more. Because if you look back to that day, I've read some of the church fathers on this. They said that the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Corinthians, that hated even the mention of the gospel. The only descriptions which those people in that day could find for the preaching of the gospel were damnable and depraved among others. Some of the other descriptions aren't even fit to be talked about. The milder term that they used was excessive superstition. You see, in that day, the very mention of the cross of Jesus Christ to those people, even mentioning a cross for the crucifixion process, was equivalent to the media using censorable language today. And a system of belief, a religion, a gospel, where the God of that gospel came to a cross and died on that cross for human sin, that was just unthinkable. It defied human wisdom. It was totally contrary to all the wisdom of the world. So Paul comes here to Corinth. preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ as his only plea and his only cry. And he was despised and he was rejected. He was the man that was entirely sold out to Jesus Christ, not expected to be accepted by the world, but preaching the gospel. And if we read anything of church history, will find that the men who have gone before us, who have faithfully stood for Jesus Christ and actively and boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, have by and large been men that the world has largely hated and rejected. The gospel that we hold dear today, beloved, is a hated, spittle-drenched, blood-soaked gospel. And that's the truth of the matter. It's the fact of the matter. And let me say this very humbly. but also very truthfully, that there is a movement in the church today to dress down the gospel. There is a movement in the church to get away from preaching on the blood of Christ and on the cross of Christ and on the imputed righteousness of Christ. And if they want to make it contemporary, they say, well, you know, you've got to have exciting, powerful, contemporary worship. You have to have programs for all the kids. You have to bring the people in. You have to make it exciting and powerful. And you have to excite the people. You have to have more bigger buildings, and bigger offerings, and bigger ties, and more prophecy conferences, and this, that, and the other. But I simply ask, very humbly, Where is the preaching of Jesus Christ in all of it? Where is Christ being uplifted? Where is his blood? Do you ever hear sermons on the blood anymore, on the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, on the sufficiency of Christ as he is offered in the gospel, as Paul preached it? And that is my burden for us today, that we would get past all the chaos of the world, what the world would want to, and a worldly church would want to offer as a gospel, and we need to get back to the heart of the gospel, the word that Paul preached, and there And there bow the knee to the Christ who has died for us. The need is to get back to the old fashioned preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified. So as we consider this morning the need of old fashioned gospel preaching, I would just like to give you several, several reasons. These aren't the only reasons, but these are a few of the reasons why the preaching of the cross is so needed in our own day. The first reason. Why we need the preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified today is because the justice and the holiness of God demand it. Our God is a holy God who cannot stand even the stench of sin. Our God is a God who holds all men up to a high objective holy standard. And he said, in order for you to have eternal life, you must reach the standard. It's not a popular thing to say today, but God is a God of wrath who hates all the workers of iniquity. He hates it. He can't stand even the stench of sin. And if we go back even to the Old Testament, the dietary laws and the ceremonial laws of Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, if we begin to study them and read them, we find that constantly God was demanding in order for the children of Israel to come before him, they had to come with the blood and the sacrifices of animals. They had to come with lambs or rams or bullets being shed for their sin, being shed as a symbol of their entrance into worship and service of God. And so there's this constant flow of blood, a constant sacrifice being made and ever pointing to the cross of Jesus Christ, because it's when we get to the cross of Jesus Christ that we can begin to understand how just and how holy God really is. Because of human sin, God took his own sign, the darling of his own bosom, him who they had enjoyed sweet communion and fellowship throughout all of eternity past. And God took that sign. And he put them on that cross. Isaiah 53 says that Christ was smitten of God and afflicted. Yes, he was afflicted and he was smitten by the Romans and the Jews of that day. But even more than that, the sword of divine justice, as it were, awoke against Christ and smoked him and crucified him there on that cross because of the blackness of human sin. So the preaching of the cross is needed today in order for us to begin to comprehend how just God is and how holy God is and how we can't even begin to stand even the slightest stench of man's sin. And that's why we need the preaching of the cross. The second reason why we need the preaching of the cross today is because all men are sinners and are totally unable to make their own peace with God. Romans 3, 23 says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Throughout all of scripture, you have a picture painted for you of the blackness and the deadness of man's sin, that we are without God and without hope in the world. Apart from Christ, we have constantly references made to the deadness of man's soul, the lethargy of man's soul, how we are totally unable to do anything to save ourselves apart from Christ. And so we must, as I read even this morning, Acts chapter 4, verse 12, there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved. We must emphasize Christ in the preaching of the gospel because it's the only hope if sinners are going to be saved. If you're going to be saved today, it's only through the cross. That's the only way you can be saved. And I'm not ashamed to say it. It's the only way, no matter what evangelicals or neo-evangelicals or modernists would try to tell us about there being multiple ways or a pluralism of ways to get there. The only way you can be saved is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And that's why we as the preachers of the gospel, we as the people of God, must cling to the preaching of the cross and the cross alone, because it's only by the cross, it's only by the gospel that man can be saved eternally. The third reason why we must emphasize and we need the preaching of the cross is because the cross is God's way of condemning the subjective and the relativistic philosophy of our own day. When you begin to talk about how God's Son, the Son of God, Christ, the Word incarnate in the flesh, died on a cross for human sin, It's hard to talk about that and believe in relative truth, which of course is an oxymoron. It's hard to talk about the cross and the blood of Christ being shed when you hold to the subjectivism and the relativism of our day. You see, Christ being nailed to that cross, was because of God's holy objective standard, an absolute truth, an absolute reality, and a culture and a society that says you're good if you believe and you believe whatever you want to believe. And I'm good because I believe this and we're all good because truth is all relative and nothing really matters. The preaching of the cross is a rebuke to that culture and that society because the cross and the gospel and the preaching of it demands an absolute objective truth and an absolute objective standard. And if you read here in verse 19 of 1 Corinthians 1, the Apostle Paul writes, For it is written, God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. And in our day, in our nation, even now, we need to get back to the preaching of the gospel to rebuke the subjectivism and the relativism and the pluralism that is so eating the heart out of our culture. The fourth reason that we need to preach on the cross is because the cross is at the heart of every standard in the Christian life and is the basis for gospel separation. Love of the cross is at the heart of everything we do in the Christian life. The blood of Christ is central to the Christian life. The Free Presbyterian Church and other denominations like her have come under much heat, may I say, from the community of faith as a whole for taking a strong stand against Rome and against spiritual apostasy. And we've also taken a lot of heat for maintaining old fashioned for what are termed old fashioned out of touch gospel standards. But the question must be asked when you have a human system such as Rome and such as many other systems that would take human work and they would add that human work to the blood of Christ that they now God, we can get somebody saved. Can any degree of separation too much from from a system that would compromise the perfect cross work of Jesus Christ? You see, when you have systems that would add human work to to the blood of Christ, when you would compromise the perfect work of Jesus Christ, can you be too far? and separating from such a thing? I mean, if the gospel is the most important thing in this life, is that if the cross of Christ is the only way for sinners to be saved, then can we be too adamant and too passionate about speaking for the truth and insisting that it's Christ alone and the cross alone and all other ways are heresy and lead men to destruction? Is any degree of separation too much? Beloved, they may be called legalism. We may be termed Pharisees for our standards and for maintaining strict separation. But when the cross is at stake, when the gospel is being compromised, is any stand too bold? Is any stand too great? And we must have the preaching of the cross today because the cross is at the heart of everything we do in the Christian life and is the basis for gospel separation. Truly, we are confronted with great issues in the church today, great needs in our nation, in our own homes, and across the church as a whole. But as I would humbly move them with this attitude to the nature of the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ, simply why the cross of Christ is emphasized so greatly in Christian, it must be emphasized greatly in Christian circles. The first reason or the first emphasis for the nature of the preaching of the cross emphasizes the work of Christ because the work of Christ is a powerful work. Beloved, in man's natural condition, we all lie dead and locked in to sin. We lie as captives to sin and depravity. There's no hope for us in any other way but by the gospel. Ephesians 2 paints a very real picture for us of man's absolute deadness and absolute captivity to sin. If you go to Ephesians 2, we're just going to read the first few verses here. And we're going to see how depraved and how much in bondage man really is. Ephesians chapter 2. Beginning with the first verse. Let's hear the word of the Apostle Paul. And you hath equipped, he's speaking to the Ephesian believers, and you hath equipped him who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Here we find the absolute slavery of sin. Man is born an absolute dead, depraved sinner. He's born dead and lost in all his trespasses and sins. We lie as captives in the dungeon of Satan and of our own self. We lie without hope. apart from Christ and apart from the gospel. And even when souls are awakened to fear the consequences of their sin, they realize that they are lost and that they are dead. And they try to clean up their act. And they try somehow to turn over a new leaf in life and try to get right. They only become wrapped up in the bondage of their own sin even more. We know the truth of this. So many times souls, they realize that they're sinners, that they're on their way to hell. But yet they say, well, I'll go to church more, or I'll start tithing to the church, or I'll start going out and doing good things and giving money to the poor. I'll start doing these good works. But that soul only becomes wrapped up in the bondage and the slavery of sin even more. And that's the testimony of everyone who would try to use human endeavor to free themselves from the bondage of sin. But then you see a glorious truth, an absolutely glorious truth in Ephesians 2, verse 4, right after the apostle Paul finishes describing the state of humanity before conversion. He points them to the only work that saves Ephesians 2, verse 4. We have here an awesome statement of divine grace. It says, but God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And though the souls of men may be wrapped up in their own sin and in bondage to their own sin, when they come as Pilgrim did in Bunyan's work, to that ground that ascends a little, and they stand under the shadow of the cross, It is there that they can lose the burden of their own guilt and their own sin. And that is why the cross is so glorious and so amazing, is because the work of Jesus Christ is the only work powerful enough to save deadened, hardened souls from the bondage of their own sin, and their own captivity, and their own slavery to sin. And that's why the work of Christ ought to be passionately proclaimed and preached, because it's a truly powerful work, and it's amazing work, and I hope You are beginning to understand, as I hope, I'm beginning to understand how powerful the work of Jesus Christ really is. The second emphasis of the nature of the preaching of the gospel emphasizes the work of Christ, because his work is a precious work. Look over at First Peter, Chapter 1, 18 and 19. The Apostle Peter here writes the people of God. He says that for as much as ye know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Beloved, if you're in Christ today, if you've been saved, you've been washed in that blood. You've been redeemed. You're not your own anymore. You've been washed in the precious blood of the lamb of Jesus Christ. And I would say that that blood that is spoken of there in First Peter is the most precious substance in the entire universe. If you've been washed in that substance, you have much reason to shout and to sing and to sing praise to God because you've been redeemed from the blackness of sin and the deadness of sin. You've been washed in the precious blood of the Lamb. And a bride, the bride of Christ, has been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ and redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, has no business living like a dirty, rotten, filthy world that has no understanding of what it means to be washed in the precious blood of the Lamb. And I'm going to share a deep personal burden. This comes, this is just my burden speaking very truthfully, but I believe based on the merit of Scripture, there's much truth here in Scripture for us. In American Christianity today, There's much talk about standards, and talking about standards, and we ask questions like, well, what's wrong with doing this? What's wrong with watching this, or wearing this, or going here, or spending time with these people? What's wrong with, you know, I've met so many people. Show me in the word. We've all been guilty of it. Show me in the word where this is wrong, you know? Show me, you know, what's wrong with it? Why, beloved, why can't we get past that question? Why can't we ask questions like, How can we show to the world that we've been washed in the precious blood of Jesus Christ? How can we show by doing this, or wearing this, or watching this, or spending time with these people, that we've been washed in the precious blood of the Lamb, that we're not our own anymore, but we've been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ? It is my prayer that the church today would begin to ask questions like how can we demonstrate to all to all the world that we are the bride of Christ, that we've been made different because we're the children of a king. We've been washed in the precious blood of the lamb and we've been made different by that precious work of Jesus Christ. And we have no business living like a world that knows nothing. of that washing, and nothing of that cleansing. And truly, the work of Jesus Christ must be emphasized today, because His work is the most precious work. His blood is the most precious substance in all the universe, and if you've been washed in it, shout and sing and give the glory to God, because only the precious blood of Jesus Christ can wash away my sin, and can wash away any of your sin. And we move thirdly, to simply the third emphasis, of the nature of the work of Christ. And that is the work of Christ must be preached. The cross must be preached because the work of Jesus Christ is a perfect work. Christ said on the cross, just before he died, just before he lost that last breath and he commended his spirit to the father, he said, he cried with a loud voice, it is finished. And that's an amazing thought when you begin to understand that, that the work of Jesus Christ, what makes it so amazing and so different, what makes Christianity so different from any other religion in the world today, is because the work of Jesus Christ is a completed work. It's a finished work. Every other system, every other religion will say, in order to make yourself acceptable to God, in order to live a good life, or in order to commend yourself to God, you have to hold yourself up to do these things. You have to abide by principles. You have to do what's right. You have to somehow clean up your act. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of a completed, finished work of Jesus Christ. It's a perfect work. Christ said, it's finished. And that means that the work that saves me is done. It's not my prayer that saves me. It's not even my decision. It's not even my faith, necessarily. It's the work of Jesus Christ and Him alone. And when you begin to understand that, it brings such joy to your soul. I can remember, personally, from the time I was 10 or 11 to the time I was 13. I did great God with the issue of assurance of my salvation. I constantly wondered, well, did I pray the prayer well enough? Did I ask Jesus into my heart enough times, or did I do it well enough? Was my decision right? Did I say the right words? Did I have enough faith? Did I repent well enough of my sins? Did I value work of Christ enough? Did I, you know, did I do this or do that? And I remember as a little kid, a 10 or 11 year old kid, just sitting on my dad's lap one Saturday night, just weeping all torn up about my soul because I wasn't sure if I was really saved and really a child of the king. And I had no idea. I even thought, well, what if I was to die tonight? What would happen to my soul? I wasn't sure that I would go to heaven. I kept looking back to my prayer. and my faith and what I had done. But my dad told me, as sure as you're sitting on my lap, so you have to fall into the arms of Jesus. Look away to Christ. Get your eyes even off yourself, even off your own decisions, your own prayers, your own faith, and look to that finished work of Jesus Christ. and revel in it, and throw your all on Christ, and as sure as you're sitting on my lap, and you're trusting me not to give way, or not to let you go, or throw you off of my lap, so you throw yourself on the arms of Jesus. You throw yourself on that perfect, completed, finished work of Jesus Christ, and say, Lord, I've got nothing to offer you. Not even my own prayer, or my own faith, or my own repentance, because it's all, it's all filthy rags. But I come to you and I plead the name and the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, because His work is a finished work. It's a completed work. And I cannot begin to tell you and to communicate. When I was 13 years old, I finally understood that truth of the finished work of Jesus Christ. that all my sin had been washed away, all my guilt had been paid for by that finished work. And I could not begin to communicate to you the peace and the joy and the assurance that filled my heart when I understood that the work which saves is done. It's a glorious thing. It's something to revel in. And it's something to be preached today because we need it. And let me share just one more illustration here before we close. If we were to take even my good works, I don't have many good works, they're all as filthy rags, but if we were to take all my works and try to just wash away one of my sins before God, the guilt of one of my sins, we'd be totally unable to do so. If we were to take all of our good works that we've accumulated here today, all our church going and all our baptism and all our tithing and all the good things we could ever do, And we said, we're going to try to get one soul saved with the merit of that work. We would totally and utterly fail. If we were to try to take all that merit and just try to get one sin washed away, we would still utterly fail. Because Isaiah 64 says that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Even the good things that we do are still so tainted with the wrong motives and with sin that we cannot commend even those good works to God. If we were to take all the good work that's ever been done, all the good deeds that a man or a group of men have ever done, if we were to take all the good moral teaching out of every other religion in the world, every good moral system, every good moral philosophy, every humanitarian act, or take the merit out of every time a human would lay down his life for another human being, if we were to take all the good work that's ever been done or ever will be done, and we were to try to get one soul saved with all that merit and all that work, We would still utterly and totally fail. And what's more, we couldn't even wash away one sin. But the glorious truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the reason it must be proclaimed today, is because when the blood of Jesus Christ comes to you and it washes away your sin, it washes away all your sin. There's not one stain left to be atoned for. When the blood of Christ, when you realize that it's the work of Christ and Him alone that saves you, when the Spirit of God opens your eyes and you begin to understand that and comprehend that it's the work of Christ, He takes away all your guilt and all your stain. The work of Jesus Christ isn't a halfway work. It isn't a work that leaves some of the work undone for us to do. It's all been done. This is something to glory in and to revel in and to preach because the work of Jesus Christ, it's a perfect work. Now these are just some of the emphasis of the preaching and the nature of the cross, but they are among some of the most important. And I would humbly emphasize that we do face many needs in our nation today. This church faces many needs as the church at Corinth faced. But the answer for all the issues and all the needs is found at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. And that's what must be emphasized today more than anything else. In his concluding Lord's Day morning sermon at Faith Free Presbyterian Church back in April, Dr. Alan Cairns, a man of God that I really looked up to, shared the following story of his own personal experience. He said that several years ago, a man had asked his opinion, asked, what do you think the church in America needs more than it needs anything else? And Dr. Cairns responded by saying, yes, I believe we need more prayer meetings. We need more biblical worship and more tithing. We need more evangelism and more outreach. We need to reach the lost for Christ. We need to emphasize missions. We need to have more faithful attendance at all the services of the church. We need tithing, yes. We need giving. And yes, we need revival in our day. But he said the most important thing that this church needs or that any church needs is more powerful, bold preaching of Jesus Christ. Because only Christ can save. Only Christ can do the work. Only Christ can satisfy you. And believer today, if you're in Christ, the cross is something for you to revel in. As Paul said, God forbid that I should worry, saving the cross of Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Believer, you have great reason to rejoice today, to be assured of the work that Jesus Christ has done. Because it's a perfect work. It's a precious work. And it's a powerful work. If you're in need of assurance today, go to Christ. Throw your all on Christ. I cannot urge you enough. I'll tell you not to rest till you make sure that you're casting your all on Jesus Christ and resting in his finished work. And if you're without Christ today, If you don't know what it is, if you know nothing of what I've been talking about, the powerful work of Jesus Christ, the precious work of Jesus Christ and the perfect work of Jesus Christ. If you don't know what I've been talking about, I cannot urge you enough to get to the cross. I can't get you to the cross. No minister, no preaching can get you to the cross. You have to forsake your sin by the power of the Spirit. You must do real business with God. It is a necessity. It is an eternal necessity. Nothing in this life is nearly as important. as making right, making sure that you are right with God, that your sin has been paid for by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And I urge you to get to the cross today. You don't need to walk the aisle or even make a decision necessarily. What you need to do is you need to do business with Jesus Christ. And that's what I urge you to do today. And for all of us, our assembly urges to get back to the cross every day and to revel in it, to confess our sin there, to say, Lord, I failed today. I'm not live for you today. But I look away to Jesus. I lay my sins on Jesus. I revel in the glory of the Lamb. And there I confess my sin, and I adore my Savior. That's work for all of us to do every day. It's the biggest necessity in the Christian life, is to live our lives, as C.H. Spurgeon said, under the shadow of the cross. And I will simply share a stanza from Top Lady's hymn, Rock of Ages, as we close today. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress. Helpless, look to thee for grace. Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. Let's bow in a word of prayer. Oh, Lord God, we do thank you for the power of the blood of the land today. Lord, we do thank you that the work of Jesus Christ is a finished work. It's a completed work. Lord, it's a work that leaves nothing for us to do but simply to rest and to believe and to throw our all, Lord, on your finished work. Lord, I pray that you would do a mighty work in this church, that you would possess it, Lord, for your own glory, that we would be a people who are possessed with the cross, with views of our Christ, who are satisfied totally in Jesus Christ. And Lord, I would ask for any who are outside of Christ today, Show them their urgent need. Lord, their need of being washed in the precious blood of Jesus that nothing else will do until they get to the cross. Lord, I pray that you would do the work that no man can do. Lord, the work that we can't even do for ourselves. Lord, that you would get lost souls to the cross and there for them to confess their sin and throw their all on Christ. Lord, do the work today. We're looking to you. We're glorying in what you've done. We thank you, Lord, for what you have done. where we thank you for the gospel, where I pray that it would be ever new to us every day, where we pray these things through your son's precious and his holy name. Amen.