Don’t Hide the Cross
Acts 4:11,12 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (ESV)
The reason I do what I do, the thing that gets me out of bed every morning, is an unquenchable desire to tell as many people about Jesus as possible. Sadly though, many – most of them – don’t want to know.
Anyone who’s experienced the wonder of God’s grace in Jesus will likely want others to receive what they’ve received; to come to know the love of God in Jesus Christ.
But have you noticed, most people don’t want to know? So the temptation is to water down the Gospel, to soften it a bit, to stop all this talk of sin and punishment, of forgiveness in Christ. After all, that’s by and large the stumbling block. It has been from the very beginning.
In his sermon to the very same people who’d bayed for Jesus’ blood, who’d had Him crucified, the Apostle Peter said this:
Acts 4:11,12 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (ESV)
People rejected Jesus from the start. But the answer lies not in watering down the Gospel.
As Charles Spurgeon once said: My dear brethren, don’t try to make the Gospel tasteful to carnal minds. Hide not the offense of the cross, lest you make it of no effect. The angles and corners of the gospel are its strength: to pare them off is to deprive it of its power. Toning it down is not the increase of strength, but the death of it.
People will reject the Good News of Jesus, but never water it down. To do so is to empty it of its power.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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