Victory at the Cross – Part 2

There is hardly a church or congregation I’ve spoken to where people haven’t felt rejected.- rejected by their children, children rejected by their parents, wives rejected by their husbands. Do you feel rejected and filled with sorrow? Did the Lord overcome rejection and sorrow? “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was despised and rejected of men.” Isa. 53:3. Yet, many souls led by the Man of Sorrows came to know Christ. (MB 10).

Some of you may have cried into your pillow last night. Our Lord wept with you. He knows your sorrows. Some of you are lonely. “He came into his own and His own received Him not.” He knew the meaning of loneliness. He was alone when He died with our sins upon Him. He was alone in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There is nothing that comes to us emotionally, mentally, spiritually or physically that our Lord has not known. We have dealt with pain. Pain is not the Lord’s way. It is the product of the devil and our Lord defeated pain. He defeated pain in His hands and feet. On his head was a crown of thorns pressing down on him. He defeated pain and He defeated death. He came to destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. Heb. 2:14, 15.

The greatest mistake this prince of evil ever made was to take the Prince of Life into the kingdom of death. Why? Because He would break out. Even if mountain was piled upon mountain, nothing could stop Hun from coming out because the strength of death is in sin and He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us.

Now let us go back to the cross and see Hun there. Before the Lord died on the cross He gained two special victories that we often miss. In speaking from the cross, the Lord said, “I thirst”. Some women there offered him vinegar to drink. Now it wasn’t so terrible. They thought it was an act of kindness. The word “vinegar” is an old French word vin=wine.. wineyard, egre=bitter or bitter wine; alcohol.

When is saw this I began to understand the victory of our Lord. One of the last things He did before He died was to gain victory over alcohol. In Matthew 27:34, alcohol is referred to as “gall”. Gall was an opiate, a narcotic. It was used to deaden pain. This was yet another act of kindness from the women at the cross. But when the Lord refused vinegar wine, which contained gall, at that point on the cross, one of the last things that He did was to gain victory over all drugs. He gamed a victory for all the drug addicts that day on the cross.

If only we understood that the cross is not just an emotional symbol, but to see it as an experience. We need to experience it and understand it, grasp hold of it and know that the victory our Lord gave, He gave to you and me because without Him we could not accomplish them. Because without Him we can do nothing.

Let us go back to the cross. What was the crucifixion? There are many answers to that question. I wish to share several of the answers with you.

The crucifixion was a demonic attack on the body of Jesus Christ, the devil attacked Him emotionally and mentally all during His ministry. He felt sure that if he could get hold of the Lord’s body he would defeat Him. What did our Lord do? Our Lord surrendered His body
What was the devil doing at the cross? I want you to intensify your thinking for a moment. He was tempting Jesus! Tempting him to come down. I want you to look at that temptation. He was tempting Jesus on the most basic human emotion… hate.

If there is one word that describes the character of God it is “love”. If there is one word that describes the character of Satan it is “hate”. The devil said to Jesus, “Look over there at your hand. Do you see that nail? Look over at your other hand? Do you see that nail? That is how much they appreciate you. Consider that you opened the blind eyes. There is the letter of gratitude. You straightened a twisted limb, you touched the lepers, you touched the untouchable and unlovable. You loved them. They are not worth it. Look at what they are doing to you. Turn on them. Turn against them. Hate them. Look at your feet. The weary miles you walked to see the Seraphonecian woman, to see the man of Gadara, to cross the lake and see the gatherings, all the weary miles you walked. This is their gratitude. They are not worth it. They are dogs. Let them die.”

Demons, fallen angels were at the cross that day. Every demon kept their eyes on His face, for every grieving moment. They were waiting for His eyes to narrow, waiting for His jaws to clench. But He never did. He was love. If he would have reacted with hatred, all would have been lost. Because at that point the character of Satan and Christ would become one. Instead He looked down from the cross and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Lk. 23:24).

I have good news for you. In the previous Bible verse the Lord made forgiveness possible for the whole human race. None of us know what we are doing. We think we know what we are doing. We are arrogant and proud of our opinions. Why did the Lord offer to forgive the human race? Because He could see behind the men who drove the nails and planted the thorns. There were powers that were manipulating the men. They were tools of a powerful foe.

Dear Brethren, I believe that the Lord can forgive us and He does forgive us if we repent. Many times we may be unaware that we are being manipulated. But by the grace of Jesus Christ we can be free of that manipulation.
So, what was the cross? It was the great battle of love against hate. It was the devil’s last effort to turn the love to hate against the human family.

Do you have troubles with these works of Satan? Do you have trouble with fear, worry, anxiety, violence, hatred? Do you have trouble with alcohol or drugs? I have good news, brothers and sisters. There is victory through Jesus Christ. Claim it for yourself. It is the gift of God for eternal life. All we have to do is to reach out and take hold of His nail pierced hands.

Can you see that everything we need, without exception, is found in our Lord Jesus Christ? I wish to close this message with a few sentences.

He bled from His hands that He might atone for the things we have done, we should have never done. He bled from His head that He might atone for the thoughts we have thought and that we should never have thought. He bled from His side that He might atone for the feelings that we have felt and that we should never have felt.

Do you have a problem with hatred, anger, pride, fear, worry, stress, tension, discouragement, despondency, loneliness, rejection, feelings of being unwanted, unloved? Jesus will take it all away. He has promised to give you the comfort of His presence. He will accept you if you go to Him. He will be with you always even to the end of the world. The infinite resources of God in Christ Jesus our Lord are available to you.

Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened, all in His name.
AMEN.