Well, as I have tried to do today, I am explaining the cross of Jesus Christ to you. I gave you five ways of looking at it this morning, that it's a revelation, that it is humiliation, that it is a penalty, a retribution, that it is substitution and propitiation. And I want to give you five more ways of looking at it tonight. Firstly, that it's redemption. And that's the favorite word of our Lord Jesus. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give his life a ransom for men. Now, you know what a ransom was, the old battles and the defeated army would be captured and the knights would be taken by the men of war on the winning side. and they would discover where they were from and what wealth they had and they would send a demand. They would let the prisoner go free if they paid the ransom price. So the prisoner was freed. That's the ransom. There's a great verse in Galatians 3.22. I like the NIV translation very much. It says, For the Scripture says that the whole world is a prisoner of sin. The authority, the Scripture is saying this, not me or any of us. The Scripture says the whole world, the whole world, no exceptions, no not one, is this awful plight, a prisoner of sin. Sin says, don't go to church, don't go Sunday night, don't go Sunday, don't read the Bible, don't pray, Don't think about your soul, don't think about death, or hell, or eternity. If the conversation comes to you, and obviously the person's a Christian, turn it another way. Yes, sir, we say. They're prisoners of sin. If you're given a tract, throw it away, don't read it. Yes, sir. For the scripture declares the whole world is a prisoner of sin. Scripture says, the world says to us, you can't believe that God made the world, that God loved the world, that Adam fell, that the world was plunged into sin. You can't believe that, can you? No, sir, we say. Men and women are under the dominion of sin, England particularly so. Now, of course, we are. They have freedom, the prisoner has freedom. There's a man in Swansea jail, he wakes up in the morning, he gets breakfast at the right time and then he can decide. Am I gonna read a book? Am I gonna read the paper? Am I gonna put on my yellow socks or my blue socks? Am I gonna rest in the afternoon or am I gonna do some exercises? Am I gonna watch this program on TV? He has all that freedom, but he doesn't have the freedom to say, I'm going to open the door myself and walk down the corridor and open the corridor door and walk out into the yard and open the main door and go home. He's a prisoner. And men have great freedom within the prison that sin has captured them. And we speak about true freedom. Emancipation, that's what we talk about. So that we can cry, free at last. Free at last, my chains are broken. I'm free at last. Here's a man and he had that experience. And this is what he wrote. Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused the quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flame with light, my chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. The Lord Jesus has delivered us by being a stronger one than the strong man who had us captive. He overcame him. On the cross, he spoiled principalities and powers that all came in their greatest strength together, and he destroyed them. He spoiled them. spoiled their power to keep hold of all the people that God had given him to save. And he said, at the end, it is finished. He releases the prisoner. He can release you from your bondage to sin. You don't have to serve sin. You can have the freedom of serving God. Redemption. That's what it is. That's the first word. That's what Jesus did on the cross. Secondly, Reconciliation. Oh, it's the great words at the end of chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians, isn't it? God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself by Christ Jesus. And He has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Him, not imputing their trespasses to them, and hath committed unto us The word of reconciliation, we beseech you then, in Christ's name, be reconciled to God. For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Reconciliation. Now, reconciliation implies there has been once friendship. Two princes known to us all, grew up together, suffered the loss of their mother, loved one another, played together, and then married different people and then just don't talk to each other any longer. And these two princes need to come together. They need to be reconciled, don't they? When Adam rebelled against God, he hid from God. He'd walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day They talk together, what you do today, Adam. Adam would ask God questions, he'd answer everything. It was union and harmony. Not any longer. He was hiding from God. Where are you, Adam? God is saying to you, where are you? Do you know me as God? Are you reconciled to me as your Lord and Savior? What happens when A friendship has ended. Well, what happens is the guilty one who did the silly thing, who said the foolish words, he has to apologize. He has to go to the house and knock on the door and say, I'm sorry, I beg your pardon, I did wrong. The guilty one, the guilty one. explains, I was under pressure, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said those things. It's all right, it's all right, come in. There's reconciliation. In the Bible, it's not like that. It's not the guilty one who says, I'm sorry, let's be reconciled. The innocent one. He sets up all the machinery of reconciliation, doesn't he? He clothes Adam and Eve. He promises them, I'll crush the serpent's head. He looks at a world and determines how that world should be reconciled to God through his son. He puts this carbuncle of stinking pus, our sin, and he puts it on His Son. The cause of the estrangement is imputed to Jesus Christ. And we are pardoned and forgiven because of what the good man, the one sinned against, did. Not us. And now we're told, God's done all this, be reconciled. Come on. He's taken away the shame and the blame. So be reconciled, humble yourself and call on Him for salvation. He did it. He didn't do 50% and we are left to do 50%. He didn't do 90% and we are left to do 10%. He did it all. He achieved the reconciliation. so that all our past sins and all our present sins and all our future sins are forgiven. You say, ah, you preachers, you're always talking about how, how do we know? Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's the one reason. Because God raised Him the third day. The stone rolled away. The grave grows there. He appears. for almost six weeks talking to people, even 500 of them. I was talking to Peter Masters. He'd been invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace. Three o'clock, the band plays God Save the Queen. The doors open and she comes out and she goes on to people. She talks to this one, she talks to that. She's got all the time. Peter has brought a book full of pictures of the work of Metropolitan Tabernacle. The security people say, what's that? And he said, well, it's just a book. And he shows it to them, the sort of work we do at the Elephant and Castle. So she comes to him and he bows, ma'am, yes. I've got a book here of what we do at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. He tells me about it. If you had seen The Risen Christ, Would you have told people about it? Would you never tire? When you were an old person and they said, did you actually see him, Brisson? And you would describe everything. And new things would come to your mind at that time. When you were all there, Mary and Martha and Lazarus and the converted centurions and the man born blind. All the familiar people in the Bible, the flock that Jesus gathered together, 500 in three years. And he talked to them. The resurrection. That's one reason why we know that There's reconciliation with God, even for you and me. But there's another reason. I will tell you what that is, why we believe it to be true. Our experience of the goodness of God in our lives. Now, we can doubt many things. I could doubt very easily global warming. I couldn't doubt God's goodness. Because I've had it. I've experienced it. Day by day, week by week, year by year. Before I was converted in 1954. And many, many times since. New every morning, I wake up. And God has been with me at difficult times. And he's kept me. And I've sinned against him as badly as a Christian can sin, and he's picked me up. the goodness of God to me. I can't deny that. There's reconciliation because of the resurrected Christ and because of the way you experience day by day God's patience and long-suffering and kindness to you. So, redemption, reconciliation. Thirdly, satisfaction. Well, you know the modern hymns come out, don't they? And some of them are lovely. in their place, their lovely hymns, okay? And they've got this theme of satisfaction. I noticed that. Before the throne of God above, we all know that hymn now. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the justice satisfied. So look on him and pardon me. It's there. Or again, He will hold me fast. Oh, my mother sang that, and I sang it with Mom when I was a little boy in the 1940s. He will hold me fast. And there's a new tune, and I like it. I've grown to like it very much. And it says, for my life he bled and died. He will hold me fast. Justice has been satisfied. He will hold me fast. And then, in Christ alone, again, very popular, all the students have it for their weddings. Till on that cross, where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. There we are. Three popular modern hymns, and they are bringing in God being satisfied. What does that say to us? It says this to me. Unless the death of Christ was utterly essential, absolutely essential, it could never demonstrate the love of God. It could never demonstrate John 3, 16. It couldn't. If there was another way, if he didn't have to die, If he just died, because God had a hunch, he had to die, he had to die. Every lamb, millions of them, from the Levitical sacrifices induction 1400 BC until then, 1400 years of lambs every day dying, all the blood, rivers of it shed. Something Something happens without the shedding of blood. There's no remission. That is how God is. Sin deserves condemnation. Doesn't it? Doesn't it? This is such a girl in her own home, and the door bursts open, a man comes running, another man comes with a gun, and he shoots. The bullet goes through her mother's side and into her and kills her. We're outraged. outrage, in the sanctity of her own little home, this little girl murdered. We don't say, oh, things happen, oh, we never say that. We are angry because of such folly and wickedness, such a heinous crime. And so this Lord Jesus has to come because of the link between judgment and hostility to sin and our status as sinners. Are we going to pay the price? The wages of sin is death. Is that going to be me? Is that going to be you? He comes, the Lamb of God comes. The Savior comes, and He dies in our place, and God is satisfied. You think of creation. First day, God says, let there be light. God says, very good. Second day, God makes the air, the skies and the seas. He looks at it. Very good. He's satisfied. Third day, He makes the dry land. He's very good, God says. Satisfied. Fourth day, He makes the sun and the moon, the stars also. Very good, God said. It's good. Fifth day, he makes the birds and the fish. He looks at them. He's satisfied. The sixth day, he makes the animals and he makes man in his image and likeness and God is... God saw everything he made and he said he was satisfied. In creation, he was satisfied. In redemption, he's satisfied. His son, he'll do it. No need to send the angels with him. one man, the God-man, the son of my love, equal in power and glory to me, he can do it. He can achieve peace with heaven. Are you satisfied with the death of Christ? Are you totally satisfied with the death of Christ? Are you completely satisfied with the death of Christ? If God is satisfied with the death of Christ, you can be satisfied with the death of Christ. Let your mind be satisfied with the death of Christ. Let your past be satisfied with the death of Christ. Let your conscience be satisfied with the death of Christ. If God is satisfied then, then I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. satisfaction. Fourthly, destruction. I'm talking about the death of death. That's a wonderful phrase. We Welshmen, we know it from the second national anthem in Wales. Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. You know how the last verse goes. When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside. Death of death and hell's destruction. Land me safe on Canaan's side. Songs of praises I will ever give to thee. The death of death, in the death of Christ. And there's a famous book by John Owen, the Puritan. And a famous preface to it. The death of death. in the death of Christ. Death has been destroyed. It's our last enemy, isn't it? We're all facing it. Our last enemy. John Murray came from Sutherland, the most northern Scottish county, to Cardiganshire to preach for me as one of his old students. Couldn't deny me that. He preached on the Friday night, not on Christ dying for our sins, but on Christ dead for our sins. Christ tasting death, Christ entering the grave, Christ knowing the rending apart of body and soul, which is what death is. He went through that in his love for me to save me. There is a death after death, isn't there? You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the book of Revelation and the three references to the second death. If you are born once, you will die twice. You will die physically and you will have a second death in hell. If you are born twice, you only have one death. And that's your physical death. The last great enemy. The Lord Jesus spoke about hell, didn't he? In the Sermon on the Mount, they all talk about it, they don't read it. There in Matthew 5 verse 22, Matthew 5 verse 29, Jesus talks about the fires that are not quenched, the worm that doesn't die. The Lord Jesus, He spoke about it. And the writer to the Hebrews tells us, through death, Jesus destroyed death. Because He rose on the third day, didn't He? He crushed serpent's head, didn't he? The day will come when we will die. Our dust will lie in a grave somewhere, a country churchyard, but our spirits will be there at the right hand of God in his presence. Today thou will be with me in paradise. God holds on to our dust. It's precious in his sight. every speck, he holds. And our spirits, he sustains us in the presence of God. And when Christ returns, he brings them together gloriously, and we shall have a body like unto his glorious body. Death has been conquered by the Lord Jesus Christ, the death of death. So what do we do? We taunt death. We say, where's your sting, death? Where's your sting? You know when a bee stings, its stinger enters your hand. It can't pull it out. It's stuck fast. And by attempting to pull it out, it pulls its own entrails out and the bee dies. Death stuck its stinger into Jesus Christ. Jesus, thank you. Held onto it. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. God held the body of his son and welcomed his spirit to heaven. And joined them together on the third day and then in the power of an endless life he met and taught and loved. and encouraged and recommissioned his disciples. Oh, death, where's your sting then? Where's your victory? You lost. You lost to him. Finally, number five, Calvary is proclamation. Now, there are many things that are secret, aren't there? Many things in your life that are secret, the intimacies of a husband and wife are secret things. How much money you've got in the bank, how much money I got in the bank, I'm not gonna tell you. It's a secret thing that belongs to me and belongs to you. There are secrets that we keep wisely to ourselves. But there's one thing about which God is not secret at all. and that is the death of his son. A third of the Gospels deals with that last week. He wants every detail that's necessary for us to know. How John the Baptist was beheaded. Did they go to his cell, three men, pull him out, talk to him, where they did it? We're not told. We don't need to know. But the death of Christ, oh, again and again people refer to it, don't they? Because Christianity is based on history. A wooden cross. A stone that rolled down a ramp and it was there stopping any wild animals getting in. any grave robbers getting it, real stone. God invented iron ore and taught men craftsmanship so they could make hammers and nails. The God of detail, the God of creation. Christianity is based on facticity. on history. And it's a declaration. Happy if with my latest breath I might but gasp his name. Preach him to all and cry in death, behold, behold the Lamb. A declaration. Have you investigated? Have you thought of it? When did you read the last chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? When did you read 1 Corinthians 15? the greatest event in world history and you refuse to look at it and read it, the dying of God the Son for the sins of the world. It's not something too sacred for us to talk about. A man in the sauna with his other teammates and he talks to them there about the dying love of Jesus Christ. A man lying in bed with his wife talks about it. A man sitting on a bus and a man comes to sit next to him and he says to him, have you ever considered the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? There was a great holy division in 1919 in Oxford University. An organization called the Student Christian Movement was in activity in the universities of Holland, and it was a social gospel they were preaching. It was a liberal message they were preaching. that if only we could just cure the slums, and if only we could give people good housing, and if only we could give them good education, all our problems would be solved. That was the message that came from multitudes of pulpits, and it came in the student Christian movement. And there were some evangelicals in Oxford, and they were concerned. So they arranged to meet with the leaders of the student Christian movement. And Norman Grubb, their spokesman, said to them, is your message to the students at the university centered upon the cross of Jesus Christ? and the 12 people who'd come from the student Christian movement talked to one another and they came back with the answer. Well, it is important to us, but it's not all important. It's not central to us. And that started then the InterVarsity Fellowship, groups of Christians in all the universities, a doctrinal basis with 10 points of doctrine, the truthfulness of the Bible, the physical resurrection, the atoning death, the second coming, a heaven to win, a hell to lose. And that for now over 100 years has been enormously influential. Future leaders have gone through the Christian testimony because they took a stand on the cross. We preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. We want our pulpits to be Christ's crucified pulpits. We want our lives to be lived under the shadow of Calvary. We want to die to sin and die to unbelief and live for him who gave his life for us. Please do that. You think about that. Please think about what I've said tonight. The 10 pictures I've given you in this multi perspectival picture I've shown to you of why Jesus died in our place on Calvary. Heavenly Father, bless your word. We sought to exalt your son and teach your truth. May it impact us to live ever only all. for him who gave his all for us, even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Hymn number 216. O sacred head, so wounded, with grief and shame bow down, how scornfully surrounded with thorns, thy only crown, 216. O sacred and so wounded, with grief and shame undone, so sorely surrounded, with what scarred only pride. How pale art thou with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn? How does that visage languish, Which once was bright and past? The grief and bitter passion were all for sinners' gain. Thine mind was the transgression, and Thine hand the pain. O dear I for my Saviour, this I deserve thy place. Look on me with thy favour, forsake to me my grief. What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend, for this my dying sorrow, my pity without end? Oh, make me Thine forever, and show Thy faith in me. Lord, let me never, never outlive Thy love. Believe me, when I'm dying, a star, thy cross, will be. My death, my hope, sublime, from death ♪ Shall set me free ♪ ♪ His eyes will fill me still ♪ ♪ For Jesus shall not kneel ♪ ♪ For he heard thy words believing ♪ ♪ Thy saving grace ♪ Gracious and loving Heavenly Father, bless us, by helping us to be in every world, to lead us, and that prior to our life, day by day, in living and then in dying, so that the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which have loved us eternally in life, I need that for heaven. Amen.