Transcript

1 Corinthians, we’re just going verse by verse, chapter by chapter through this wonderful New Testament book. We saw last time that the apostle Paul has already dealt with the first problem, as he saw it in this carnal, baby church. That was the problem of divisions, and now he hits a theological concept that was obviously being attacked by false teachers and other influences. Let’s look at it together, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.

Paul writing to the church at Corinth said, “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger then men.”

I’ve simply entitled the message “The Word of the Cross.” You could say the doctrine of the cross, or the message of the cross, or the teaching of the cross. It’s simply the message that the Savior of the world has come, and he died on the cross, bearing our sins and taking the judgment blow for us in our place. The word of the cross. Stephen Olford, entitled this section “The Character of the Gospel.” Because the word of the cross and the gospel are the same thing, but we’ll stay with the word of the cross.

First of all I want you to notice that the word of the cross is divisive. The word of the cross, the teaching, the doctrine, the preaching of the message of the cross is divisive. Everyone who hears the word of the cross or the preaching of the gospel, is divided into one of two classes. Let’s notice these, beginning in verse 18. The first class is those who are perishing. Verse 18, “for the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness.” Now the New American Standard has, I believe, the best translation. He says, “those who are perishing.” It means they are in the state of condemnation, the state of separation from God or lostness, and they are progressing in that perishing. They are in the state of lostness, and they are progressing in the perishing. And that’s the way every lost man is. Every day we perish a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, until that final judgment day when we’ll be cast into a godless eternity, forever and ever and ever. And this group is blinded to the truth of God. They are those who are perishing. As a matter of fact, let me just share a verse, I’ll not ask you to turn there, but John 3:3, let me just paraphrase it. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, who wants to know about eternal life, and Jesus basically says that if you are not born again you can’t see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus, unless there is a regenerating work in your heart, and you’re not birthed to repentance and faith, you are not going to be able to see it anyway. Those who are perishing cannot see that salvation is through the preaching of the cross. They are blinded to it.

The word of the cross, this verse says, to those who are perishing is what? Foolishness—it’s foolishness. Now the Greek scholars tell us that the root word is the same word we get “moron” from. They will look at you and say, it’s moronic to believe in the teaching of a Savior dying on a cross, to be the power and the wisdom that man is looking for. For example, you go to the university professor, where most of the professors are in league with the perishing, and you stand up in the professor’s class, the class of astronomy, and you say listen, the real truth and the wisdom of the ages is in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. You know what he is going to tell you? You’re a moron. That’s foolishness. Go to the archaeologist, or the class of archeology, stand up in the class and say to that professor, the most important truth and real wisdom and power, it’s in the death of the incarnate Son of God on the cross, 2000 years ago. He’s going to look at you and say, son, you’re a moron, that’s foolishness. Go to the biology class, go to the ecology class, go to the botany class, go to any class you want, with a professor is in league with the perishing, and he’s blinded to the truth, and he’s says that’s foolish. That is not the hope of mankind, and the cross is not the answer.

In other words, the word, or the teaching of the cross really cuts man down to the quick. You see for a person to accept the teaching of the cross, or the word of the cross, they have to accept that they are totally depraved before God. That totally and completely there is no component of their being, whereby they can pick themselves up by their own bootstraps, so to speak, and find God, find salvation. They are totally depraved. And no man is going to naturally humble himself to agree with that truth. No man’s going to look and say, I am so bad, and in such a deplorable and desperate situation, that it takes the death of the Son of God to cure my problem. No man will naturally do that. He’ll say, why listen, that is foolishness. The word of the cross, the doctrine of the cross, the teaching of the cross, so humbles man that it cuts the root of man’s centered wisdom, or in more contemporary words, you might say man-centered science. It severs the Achilles heel of man-centered learning. Because when you preach the cross, the first truth that a man has to understand with the preaching of the cross is that he is fallen and totally unable to get up by himself. Fallen in sin and totally unable to find his way to God and therefore find truth and find wisdom. So he disregards the word of the cross as foolishness or moronic. You’re a moron, you are crazy. So when you preach the cross, it’s going to divide, some are going to land up on that side. And that group is those who are perishing. The lost, those who reject it.

Now he says there is another group, look at it there in 1 Corinthians 1:18. “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved,” that means we are in the state or the sphere of salvation, and increasingly we are being saved, because your salvation is not complete until the body is redeemed. Your salvation is not complete until the body is glorified. Now it’s going to be, you are already in Christ in the sphere of salvation, if you will, but you’re continually progressing to live out more of what you already are in him. And that’s what he’s saying there. Those who are in that position, to us the word of cross is the power of God. It’s the consummation of God’s power. In other words, listen, the power to forgive, totally depraved unworthy sinners is in the cross. The power to restore totally depraved, fallen, unholy, unrighteous men, with a totally, completely righteous God is through the cross. That is a power this world knows nothing about. There’s power in that cross. There’s power in the gospel to do for man what nothing else can do. In other words, in the cross of Jesus Christ, we find omnipotent power open to us, the power of his omnipotence. We have found omnipotence, in the message that they declare is impotent. The power to get our sins forgiven, the power to have oneness with the holy God of heaven, the power to bring peace into a fallen lost sinner’s heart. What power we find.

So my friend, the word of the cross, first of all, is divisive. Paul says, those who are lost in the state of lost and who are progressing, or digressing toward ultimate perishing, they will say it’s foolishness. Why a moron would believe that. But to those who are saved, we know it’s God’s omnipotent power, put to work on us and getting us what no man, no teaching, no wisdom, no religion, no philosophy could ever begin to give us.

Well, not only is the word of the cross divisive, notice also here the word of the cross is destructive. I looked up the word destroyed, and it appears over 200 times in my Bible, and most of the time, at least as I glanced on my computer, God was doing the destroying. My friend, I want to tell you, God is a God of grace and mercy, but he’s also a God who destroys and in this context he is destroying the wisdom of the world. He destroys it. Watch how He does it. Look at it there in verse 19. “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,” well, there’s the word right there, isn’t it? “and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”

Now this is a quote from Isaiah 29:14. And as in Isaiah 29:14, the prophet is predicting that Israel will be exposed in her folly, because she’s leaning toward trusting an alliance with pagan Egypt in order to defend herself against Assyria. So the prophet is saying, I am predicting that you and your earthly wisdom that says we’d better make an alliance with Egypt to protect ourselves with Assyria, but that’s going to prove to be utter folly. And then Paul takes that scripture and that context and applies it in this situation. So in other words, he’s saying, God prophesied beforehand that he would reveal true wisdom to man. And what is the true wisdom of man? The word of the cross. The preaching of the cross. And when he revealed the true wisdom, that true wisdom would expose as a fraud all of man’s wisdom. It would be revealed and exposed for what it really is, a fraud. Man’s wisdom cannot get you to God, cannot get your sins forgiven, cannot bring you into forgiveness, or a restored relationship to the God of heaven. The unveiling of the word of the cross and consequently the intelligentsia’s rejection of it exposes the ignorance of the learned. And how it has been exposed as God’s preachers have preached the word of the cross, the doctrine of the cross.

Look at verse 20. Paul says, “Now where is the wise man?” And the wise man there probably is the Greek philosopher. The Greek philosophers in this day were seekers and worshippers, they just keep seeking and kept worshipping, everywhere they went. Never found anything, but they kept on. And then he says, “where is the scribe?” That’s probably the Jewish religious leader. The scribes by this time were responsible for copying the Old Testament scripture, but also for doing exposition of the Old Testament scripture. And then he says, “where is the debater of this age?” And I believe that includes both groups. Anybody who would stand up and teach and proclaim hey, we have the truth and we know true wisdom. God says, where are they? “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” So what God does, he challenges the wise man of the age. He challenges the religious authority of the age, he challenges any debaters, and any challengers to come forth and prove their wisdom in light of the word of the cross. Take your wisdom, he says, and tell me what it can do, and we’re going to take the preaching of the cross and find out what it can do, now let the challenge be on, Paul says. How’s the world’s wisdom and the wise man’s teaching going to bear with the teaching of the cross?

Look what he said. God’s made it foolish. In other words, it’s of no worth in bringing any man to God. Let me ask you something, which wise man of the age, which astronomer have you gone to and that astronomer says, guess what I found out? I was looking at the stars the other night and looking at the stars I discovered there’s a God of absolute holiness. And looking at the stars I also discovered that man is an unworthy, fallen, depraved sinner. And in my great scientific abilities, drawn up from with the resources of my own human inability, I discovered that that God sent his Son and died on the cross and if you repent and believe in that Son, you can be saved, and have the power of God that forgives you and cleans you and restores you to a perfect relationship as a forgiven sinner with a holy God. No astronomer ever found that out by looking at the stars. And you can go on and on, go to any study, or field of science that you want to go to, and Paul says, where is he? Can any of those guys come up with anything close to as good for man as the word of the cross is good for man? Where are they? Hadn’t God exposed their teachings as utterly useless in getting man to God? They are exposed. In other words, their teaching has been destroyed. He has exposed and slain man’s wisdom as foolishness. The word foolishness here is the same word where God says he makes their teachings or their wisdom foolishness, but it’s also used in the New Testament of salt when it has lost its flavor. You know, salt, when it is salty is not worth a lot. I mean, for a few cents you can get quite a lot of it. But I mean, salt when it’s lost its taste, it’s just a big bundle of nothing. And that’s what God says, when you take the word of the cross and what it can do for man, and take all the wise men and the religious legalists of the day and find out what they can do for man, their teaching is exposed as useless. Like salt that’s lost all of its taste. Can’t do anything for man.

Now, look at verse 21. “For since in the wisdom of God,” in other words, God in his planning has planned to do something. God and his perfect omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence has set out a course to accomplish something. “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God.” God said, I planned beforehand that the world would study, would research, would investigate, would use their scientific, and philosophical processes, but they would never, never, never ever find God or the way to God. God in his wisdom, or, or for since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God. So he’s exposed and set aside man’s wisdom as utterly worthless to save.

Now look at it this way. God said okay man, I’m going to wait a few thousand years, I believe it was about four thousand, I don’t know, you can pick your thousand. I believe it was 4000 years since man hit planet earth and the teaching of the cross came. About 4000 years, and God says, okay, for 4000 years, you’ve had time with all of your abilities to research, learn, study, philosophy, investigate, observe and come to your conclusion, and God says after 4000 years, man with all of his wisdom is no closer to finding God then when he first started. God said, it’s utterly worthless. It’s useless, man’s wisdom that is, to find God. He even surrounded man with some revelation. Romans 2:15 says, God put his law in every man’s heart. To give man some revelation that there’s a holy God that I must answer to and find a way to be just before. And God even, the Bible ever says in Romans chapter 1, God gave man creation that revealed his invisible attributes. And with those helps, man still in his ability, couldn’t find his way to God. God says, where is the scribe, where is the wise man, where is the debater of the age? Verse 21, “for since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God.”

Lenski was a great, Greek scholar, and he shows how man is totally blown away that the true answer of all of life doesn’t come out of man at all, it comes through the preaching of the cross. He says to announce as the Savior of the world, one who died the vile death of a criminal on a cross, seems indeed, to be the acme of foolishness. To expect that this announcement will do what all the world, with its mighty efforts of wisdom failed to do, namely, actually to lift man up again in the communion with God, only intensifies the impression of utter foolishness. So all the learned men who’ve rejected Jesus Christ and look at all of their scientific abilities and studies and theories and research and say, you mean to tell me, preaching that a Jewish boy from Nazareth died on a cross, is the key to it all, and all of our work, study and effort, for thousands of years, didn’t get us anywhere? You know what they are going to tell you? You’re crazy. We’re just going to keep on studying for a few more thousand years, to see if we can get it, because we don’t believe the teaching of the cross is the real way to God.

Now, look at verse 21. Therefore, our “God was well pleased, however, through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed.” Now, it doesn’t mean that it was a foolish preacher or foolish preaching, but that the world says our preaching of Jesus’ death on the cross is a foolish message. So God says, I’m well pleased, that a simple message, that the wise of this world would say is moronic or foolish is the very way for man to be saved. God said, that pleases me a lot. Because man had thousands of years, huh, within himself, to self discover the way, and he wasn’t even close at all. And I came with a simple message, the preaching of the cross, and that’s the way of salvation. God has put to shame all human wisdom, by making the message that the wise of this world will reject as absurd the very way of salvation. Hasn’t he destroyed the wisdom of the wise?

Well, look at verses 22 and 23. Actually they are a flowing extension of verse 21. For he says “indeed, Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom.” Now he gives us some of the specific problems that the people of the age have with the preaching of the cross. First of all he says, the Jews in their carnal religion want some sort of a testing miracle, they had set themselves up as the people who knew God and were of God, and in their arrogance and in their pride, in their man made religion, they, when Jesus came on the scene, and the preaching of the cross, they said, now wait a minute, show us a sign and we’ll believe it. Show us some sort of a testing miracle and we’ll embrace Christ. They did this several times in the Bible, Matthew 12, Mark 8, John chapter 6. You know what Jesus’ response to them was? A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after signs and miracles. The preaching of the cross should have been enough. You don’t need anything else. My friend, listen to me, the preaching of the cross is the main thing, the central thing and the only thing necessary for a man to be forgiven and know the God of heaven. There’s not the necessity of signs and wonders and miracles, in order for a man to be saved.

So he says, the Jews, in their carnal religion, wants some kind of sign. Because Jesus wasn’t the Messiah they were looking for. They wanted some Messiah to come on the scene and set up a political kingdom and usher them into the Utopian kingdom age. And this concept of this man dying in a shameful, death on a cross, why, we reject that, they would say. But secondly, he says, the Jews ask for signs, so they don’t want the simple gospel. But also the Greeks searched for wisdom. The Greeks, that’s the, the Greeks had the carnal reason. And their carnal reasoning, they wanted a teaching, a philosophy that was understandable to the fallen human mind. To the Greek, if it’s not understandable, it’s not true. If we can’t understand it, it can’t be right. You guys are morons. Paul, you are a moron, and you are a man of great learning, Paul, but this is moronic, teaching us this thing, that all of the power and all of the wisdom of the ages is in the death of Jesus on a cross. To the Jews, a stumbling block, to the Gentiles, it was foolishness.

But now look at the last thing. Not only is the word of the doctrine of the teaching of the cross divisive, there are going to be two reactions, those who are saved and are being saved, they are going to say, it’s the power of God to forgive me, to restore me, to grant me holiness and righteousness before the sovereign and holy God. And then that other response, is going to be those who are lost and who are perishing. They are going to say its foolishness and its ridiculous. Not only that, secondly the word of the cross, when its preached, is going to bring destruction, it’s going to destroy the wisdom of the wise, it’s going to lay bare, expose and show the teaching of this age as utterly foolishness and its ability to get man to God. And then thirdly and lastly, the word of the cross is dynamite. The word of the cross is dynamite. Actually the word for power here in verse 24 is the Greek word that we get our word dynamite from, so I needed a D word and I just used it. It’s dynamite, to those who are the called. But you’re not going to realize the dynamite, get in on the dynamite, understand what the dynamite is, unless you are one of the called.

Look what he says there. “But to those who are the called,” and I believe when it’s used in this way, it always means those who are effectually called. And by effectually called I mean, an effectual calling means a calling that accomplishes what it set out to achieve. A calling that accomplishes what it set out to achieve. Now we need to distinguish an effectual call from what might be called an external or universal call. God has the external or universal call that I believe goes out to all men, everywhere. And it is out there, and all men everywhere have responsibility to receive that call and repent and believe, but they don’t. God has a universal or external call going out to men through their conscience. Romans 1:19, Romans 2:15, God’s put his conscience in their heart, I believe to convict man and make man aware that he’s a sinner before a holy God. Romans 1:20, God’s put out that external or universal call through creation, man can look at creation and see in creation, there’s a God that I should be right with and I must find his way of salvation. And even through scripture, I believe scripture is an external call. Man can hear the preaching of the gospel, and hear that they are sinners, and hear that Christ died for them and they ought to respond, that universal call, external call goes out everywhere.

But in addition to that, there is an effectual call, that’s internal. God’s effectual call is internal. As a matter of fact, right quick, keep your finger in 1 Corinthians, and look at Romans chapter 1, would you do that? Romans 1:7. He says “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints.” He didn’t say you were called and given the opportunity to do some things and find out if you could become a saint. No you were called to be the saint. what’s a saint? A holy one. Called a saint, it’s an effectual call pictured there. And then go on over to Romans 8:28. This is a more familiar passage, and let me remind you again, you may say now pastor, I don’t understand all of that. But you don’t have to understand it, just be glad you got in on it. Romans 8:28. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.” Why don’t we just go on through 29. “For whom he foreknew, he also predestined, to become conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Verse 30. “And whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.” So God says from fore knowledge, all the way through calling you and then justifying you and glorifying you, it’s a done deal. it’s an effectual salvation. God when he sets out to redeem those and call those and justify those he foreknew, he will bring it to pass. Effectually. There’s a universal call that’s external, every man should respond to that, but there’s an effectual call that goes to those that God has foreknown and predestined. Brother Jeff, I can’t figure all that out, I can’t understand all that. You don’t have to, just be glad you got in on it.

You know, we wouldn’t have to deal with these things if we’d quit preaching through books of the Bible. You know that. We’d just pass right over that and preach doctrines that are real easy for the human mind to accept and believe, and we’d put God in our little box and say, Isn’t God fair and isn’t God good? But God forces us to fall on our face, and accept in humility before him and his absolute totally sovereignty, over all of our life. WELL, there’s other ones. Where the universal call, listen, goes out to everyone, it’s an external thing, the effectual call is the working of the spirit in the heart of man.

Now this time I do want you to turn to John chapter 3, would you do that? John chapter 3, and I see we, I believe this is a tremendous illustration from the lips of the Lord Jesus of how the effectual call works on the heart of man, drawing him to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nicodemus wanted to know why he couldn’t see, get in on and understand the kingdom of God that Jesus was teaching about. And Jesus was going to respond, Nicodemus, you can’t see it until the holy spirit births it in your heart to be able to see it. Verse 3, John 3. “Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He can’t enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born can he?” Jesus answered, “truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit.” The holy spirit is the agent of God who comes and does the drawing or the calling that effectually brings you to Christ.

Now notice also in John chapter 6. Turn there. John 6:44. Jesus says, “No one can come to me,” now how many can come to him? “No one can come to me,” how many can come? “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” There is that effectual inward drawing that God the holy spirit is the agent, working out in your heart, that brings you to that point and you are saved. Now, we’re just amplifying the truth Paul is indicating here in 1 Corinthians 1:24, where Paul says, “but to those who are the called. Both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Now, for all of us who are the called, God has done a work in our heart, and by doing a work in our heart, we come to the point where we knew we were sinners before a holy God, and we’ve repented of our sins and we’ve embraced Christ as the only hope for forgiveness and restoration to God. That’s the call. Now to those who are the called, what? He’s the power of God and the wisdom of God. That’s means we begin to have an appreciation and an understanding of what his power is. Because understand what sinners we are, by the illumination of the holy spirit, and through the same illumination of the holy spirit, we’re beginning to understand something of his holiness, now listen to me. If you understand anything of your sinfulness, and anything of his holiness, you’ll know that it takes divine power to forgive that sinner so that he stands righteous before that holy God. That’s what he says. We know something of power. Friend, that’s more powerful than all the atomic bombs of all the nations of all the worlds that have ever been made. They are nothing but a little old firecracker in comparison to the power it took to make you, a sinner, cleansed, forgiven, and standing right now, immediately in the presence, in a righteous standing before the truly righteous and holy God. We know something about power folks. Amen. It took power, the power of a God Almighty, to make that a reality, in the lives of us fallen sinners.

You know the problem with a lot of people are? They don’t have any concept of man’s depravity. They think man’s a pretty good old guy, he’s made a mistake or two, and you just put him in the right environment, and he’ll straighten everything up, and pull himself up by his own bootstraps, and he’ll fix his own life. And I want to tell you what’s worse than that. We have absolutely a minuscule concept of the holiness of Almighty God. If you get a little glimpse of those two realities and realize, God through the cross, has brought us together as one. So that Hebrews chapter 2, he’s no longer ashamed to call us brothers. Wow. I’m going to tell you something, you go home and look in the mirror and you say, I am righteous and holy, a joint heir with Jesus Christ, and he’s no longer ashamed to call me a brother, that took the power of God. Amen. It’s sure did brother, I’m looking at you and I can tell. It took the power of God to get us righteous and holy before the God of heaven. He says, man, you can, those who are called begin to see the power that took place to get them there.

Well, not only does he said the power of God, but also the wisdom of God. We begin to understand truths and insights and wisdom, just about what holiness really is. Just about what righteousness really, just about what love really is. That the world can’t understand at all. We have wisdom from God and we’re starting to have insights and understandings about truths, the rest of this world has no concept about. To those who are the called, the word of the cross is both power and it is wisdom. And then he ends it with verse 25, I believe it’s sort of a summary, a summary statement. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger then men.” In other words, the lowest manifestation of divine wisdom, exceeds the highest results of man’s wisdom. And the lowest expression of Gods’ power, exceeds all of man’s power. And the doctrine of the cross, the teaching of the cross, the message of the cross, thought regarded as absurd and powerless, has more power and more wisdom than anything that could proceed from man. God said it’s dynamite. Dynamite. And once you begin to see it, you’ll agree that it’s dynamite.

I found the story about a yogi in the Dominican Republic, who said he wanted to add to the salvation and the peace of the world so he let some people nail him on a cross. Now they hung him up there and drove the spikes through his hands and the spikes through his feet, and he said, I’m going to hang up here three days to contribute to the salvation and the peace of mankind. Just a few hours later, the pain was so terrible and excruciating they had to take the cross down and let him lay on it on the ground. And just two or three hours later, they finally had to pull the spikes out of his hands and out of his feet. He had to have emergency medical attention. Only about six or seven hours later he was hauled off to the hospital. That’s nothing in comparison to when Jesus hung on the cross. ‘Cause not only did he take the torment of the physical pain, the Bible says hanging there on the cross, Jesus, the holy wonderful darling of heaven, the righteous Lamb of God, became your depraved vile, wicked, sin. After he became sin, the Bible said the Father put on him the judgement blow of eternity that you and I deserve to rightfully fall on us. And in that is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Where are you tonight? Are you saying man, I know Jesus Christ, and he is the provision that I’m trusting in to have a right standing before a holy God? He’s the only one that can give you that provision. He’s the only way you can know forgiveness, he’s the only way you as an unrighteous one can be declared righteous before a holy God. He’s the only way you as an unholy one can be declared holy before the true and holy God. He has the power to get the job done and it’s through what his Son did on the cross. If you don’t know that peace tonight, if you don’t have that assurance in your heart tonight, step out of that pew, come down one of these aisles and let a counselor talk with you, about how you can receive the Lord Jesus Christ and know forgiveness and know immediately that you are ushered into a standing of righteousness and holiness before the God of heaven, through the all powerful provision of the cross of Jesus Christ. Let’s stand together.