Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: There is a mediator between God and man and who's that? Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus Christ, He died for my sins. He died for your sins. How can we reject that? How can we reject the crown and the whip that paid for you and paid for me?

The nails that went through His hands and through His feet and He stood up there and He said, "Father, forgive them."

Guest (Male): I am falling in love with you. I am falling in love with you. I am falling in love with you. I am falling in love with you.

Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. We're glad you've joined us today as Raul continues our Truth Series with insight into the greatest reality of all: we have a Savior and His name is Jesus.

He died on a cross for our sins and His sacrifice built a bridge that forever connects those who repent with God. Sadly, many people reject this gift. They call it foolishness. Yet the fact remains that Jesus is the source of eternal life. Today's lesson is taken from 1 Corinthians Chapter 1. Here's Raul Ries with the lesson, "The Power of the Cross."

Raul Ries: Paul the Apostle was one of those persons that really believed in the cross. Paul the Apostle was not only persecuting the church, and as he persecuted the church, somehow on his way to Damascus, the Lord appeared to him. The soldiers that were with him, they couldn't see Jesus, but they heard a voice.

And when Jesus spoke to Paul, Paul not only gave his life to Him, but from that point on he went down to Damascus. I've been to Damascus once, probably about 12 years ago. You can't go to Damascus now. And on his way to Damascus, for three days he was blind. He couldn't see.

And there was a disciple by the name of Ananias in Damascus. And the Lord told him to go and lay hands on Paul. And Ananias said, "I heard about this guy, he's killing Christians, I'm not going." And then the Lord said, "Hey, I've touched his life. Go lay hands on him."

When he went and laid hands on him, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit fell upon him, the Holy Spirit. And for nine years he went to the desert. Not only his eyes opened, but he went to the desert for nine years to prepare himself to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul gave us 14 letters, 14 epistles that we have in our Bibles. And all through the epistles, he never misses the point of speaking about Jesus and what He did for us. Let's read, see what Paul says here. Very important, the message this evening because Paul the Apostle not only is going to give the message, but we're going to hear his heartbeat tonight.

Starting in verse 18, I'll go down to verse 25. He says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." And then he quotes from Isaiah 29:14: "For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."

"Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe."

The message that is so simple. To people, the message of the cross is foolishness. They could care less. But the message of the cross is what brought me to my knees. When I saw Jesus hanging on there, and they put those nails through His hands and His feet, and a crown of thorns into His head.

And they took a sack over His face and they began to hit Him with their fists closed and said, "Prophesy unto us, who hit you?" Blow after blow after blow. Then they took the sack off and they put a crown of thorns just like that, Palestinian thorns, into His head. And then they gave Him a cross.

And that cross is the instrument of death. When I look at the cross of Jesus Christ, it reminds me of what Christ did for me and for you and for anybody that comes to know Christ, even for the non-believer, even though he hates the cross. Salvation is for everybody and anybody that wants to come to Christ.

The problem with people is pride. And guess who's the father of pride? Satan. Isaiah Chapter 14, Ezekiel 28, he talks about he was in heaven and he rebelled. "I will, I will, I will, I will do this," and God says, "No, you won't," and kicked him out of heaven. And one-third of the angels followed him. I can't believe it.

And this is why Paul the Apostle wants to make sure that we understand the cross. He says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." The message of the cross, God's total revelation, the gospel in all its fullness.

In that fullness, it's the incarnation and the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 100 percent human, 100 percent God. Out of all eternity He comes and the Father sends Him. He sends Him here because this is the only place in the universe where God populated the earth. Man, man was put here.

Adam and Eve were our first parents. They blew it, they got kicked out, they sinned. From that point on, everybody was born in sin. And out of all those years, I mean by the time Christ came, already 4,000 years had passed from Adam and Eve until Christ came. And what's incredible, when He came, He was sent.

He was sent because we lost, Adam and Eve lost the garden, they were kicked out. He came to do what He came back to, to redeem us, to bring us back to Himself. That's really important to me, that if it wasn't for Him, many of us would not be here tonight because of what He did.

And this is the entire divine plan of God, provision for the redemption of sinners, which the theme of the scriptures is given to us, the cross of Jesus Christ. The word foolishness here, it translated this way, it's moron. It's derived from perishing, to be saved. Every person is either a process of salvation or a process of destruction.

These are days where a lot of people they become religious, Christmas, Easter. And many times when people come into an area like, actually in a place like this, they really don't understand that there's nobody going to force you to do anything. You hear the message and you can leave just like you came here, empty, hating God.

But what's so cool about that is when Jesus left, the last week before He left, the disciples were gathered together. He said, "You guys, before I leave, I want you guys to know that I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the one that comes alongside to assist you." They felt like, "Where are you going?"

He said, "I'm going to leave, but I'm going to send him. He's the comforter." And when He came, what happened in the book of Acts Chapter 2, verses 1 through 11? The Holy Spirit, upon 120, including Mary the mother of Jesus, were baptized with the power of the Holy Spirit. And they began to praise God in tongues.

It wasn't a message in tongues, they were just worshipping God, worshipping Him. And from that point on, the Holy Spirit was given. Notice, before you came to Christ and Christ began to deal with your life, He was with you. And when you repented, He came into your life. And then most people stop there.

But they forget that there's a third, and that is the Holy Spirit comes upon you every day. And we need the power of the Holy Spirit in order to live the Christian life. Many people fail in their Christian life because they don't have the upon-experience.

And the upon-experience, yeah, many people speak in tongues, they do it in the privacy of their homes. I do it in the privacy of my home or in my car if I'm alone. It's not that I want to speak to myself, I speak as a step of faith. I don't even know what I'm saying. I know one thing, that a lot of the words that I say, and I don't know Greek, but they're Greek, praising God, worshipping Him, no message.

And it's so awesome to sit there and to think of the upon-experience that gives me the power like Paul to do what? To overcome sin. To overcome Satan, to put up the armor of God and fight the enemy and win the battle, not be defeated by the enemy.

When you look at the church today, there are so many people that are defeated, defeated totally. When we don't have to be defeated, God has given us power just like Paul says here. What? The gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness. Foolishness to who? To the world. But to us it's the power of God.

The power of God is given to all of us here. It's not only the power given to us for salvation, but the cross is a symbol, listen carefully, of shame, humiliation, and forgiveness. Forgiveness. Again, a symbol of shame. I am ashamed of myself for sinning against God.

All the things that I did. And then He says what? He says humiliation. We have been humiliated. But isn't that cool that in that humiliation, when I come to Christ and the reason I come to Christ is because I drop to the ground and I surrender to Him my life and say, "Lord, here am I, take my life."

And then the forgiveness that He gives to us, amazing. Takes my sins and He casts them as far to the east, to the west, buries them in the deepest part of the ocean, and get this, He never remembers them again. Ever. You remember them, I remember, but He does not.

And when I walk in the flesh, I break communion with God. No fellowship until I repent. And when I repent and I come to the Lord and I'm ashamed of what I've done, and the Holy Spirit baptizes me and I'm back in fellowship with Him. What a glorious thing to be in fellowship with Him, to worship Him.

To worship Him and to worship Him and to wait upon Him so that He can not only baptize me with the Holy Spirit but He can bless my life spiritually just like Paul would say here. Let me read just something that's really important here. Matthew 27:32 says, "And now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, and him they compelled to bear his cross, the cross of Jesus."

And when they had come to a place called Golgotha. When you go to Golgotha, when you go to Israel, you see this kind of a mountain, a little hill, and it's like two eyes and then a nose and a mouth. And what's amazing when you look at the Mount Golgotha, you're sitting here, here's Mount Golgotha, and over to my right is the garden where He was buried, the tomb of Jesus.

And every time I go to the tomb, I cannot help to weep because of what we did to Him. How we drove those nails through His hands, through His feet, the crown of thorns. And as He cried out to the Father, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," what did He do? He gave up the ghost and He fell and He died.

And then they took a spear and they pierced His side, and the water and the blood came forth. I'm not a doctor, but in my heart what happened, He died of a broken heart for you, for me. A broken heart that a lot of people don't see, because if people would see the broken heart of God, how much He loves you, how much He cares for you, we wouldn't be doing the things that we do.

We would be close to the heart of God and hear His heartbeat, the heartbeat of Jesus Christ. The one that touched me, the one not only that saved my life, but He goes on to say, and that is to say place of the skull, they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink it.

For they crucified Him and divided His garments, casting lots that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, Psalm 22:18: "They divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots." Psalm 22, that's just one scripture. Read Psalm 22, read Isaiah 52 and 53, the whole crucifixion of Christ.

And when I read this, they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. How can you not believe something that was written 700 years before the New Testament? In the Old Testament you have all these prophecies. That's why I tell people, if you don't read the Old Testament, you only read the New Testament, how are you going to know what was written?

Because in the Old they're written, in the New Testament they're fulfilled. They're fulfilled. You go, "Wow, Moses said that! Wow, Jeremiah said that! Isaiah said that! Habakkuk said that! Malachi said that!" And then you begin to see, you know what? The word of God is real and God is real.

And Jesus said, "Those that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And the word truth there means that God is real. Those that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in reality. Is God real in your life tonight? Do you know Him? Does He know you?

In John 3:16, He says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish and have everlasting life." But check this out, this is what He says too: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

Ephesians 2:16 says, "And that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross," there's the cross again, "thereby putting to death enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off, to those who are near." He says, "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."

The power of the cross. The cross, let me give you some insight to the cross here. The cross was invented by the Persians and then it was adopted by the Romans. Centuries before Jesus was born, the cross had been used as an instrument of torture and death.

In 519 B.C., for example, King Darius I of Persia crucified 3,000 politicians, enemies of Babylon. 3,000 were crucified. So you wonder what's going to happen next. And then it says this: This method of execution was later adopted by the Romans for non-compromising and the slave, for the slave.

Imagine Jesus coming and spending three and a half years always talking about the cross. "If any man wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." When I carry that cross, it's the instrument of denial and death. Death. The cross of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:24 says, "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you have been healed," past tense, "have been healed." He says again in Colossians Chapter 1:20, "And by Him, who notice, to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross."

"And you who once were alienated and enemies of the mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled you." Paul in his letter to Galatians wrote about the cross. Listen, Galatians 6:14: "But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified," past tense, "has been crucified to me and I to the world."

And I to the world. I don't belong to this world any longer, I belong to a new world. The world that Jesus Christ one day, when He comes, and we will stand before Him and we'll be there forever and ever. And on the other side, those that rejected the cross of Jesus Christ, never were born again of the Holy Spirit, never obeyed the word of God, but just lived as they please.

They will be separate from God forever and ever and ever. And they'll be cast into this place of torment called Gehenna, the lake of fire, where hell will be cast in. Antichrist, false prophet, demons, Satan, every person will be cast into the lake of fire never to get out forever and ever and ever. All five senses, imagine that.

So it's important that we understand the cross. He says, quote, "No wonder the hymn writer Horatius Bonar said and exclaimed: Hallelujah for the cross! So round the cross we sing, of Christ our offering, of Christ our living King. Hallelujah for the cross!"

The cross of Christ is the bridge between God and man. There is a mediator between God and man and who's that? Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus Christ, He died for my sins. He died for your sins. How can we reject that? How can we reject the crown and the whip that paid for you and paid for me?

The nails that went through His hands and through His feet and He stood up there and He said, "Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them." Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If any man desires to come after me, number one, let him deny himself, two, take up your cross and three, follow me. Follow me."

When I think of any man or woman or child wants to come after me, when I want to go after Him, what do I do? I submit, submit my life. Lord, my pride is no longer there. Lord, you can have me because I want to have you in my life. I surrender my life to you because you loved me even before I loved you. He loved me and He loves you way before you were born.

Because He goes on to say in verse 25, "For whosoever desires to save his own life, he will lose it. But if you desire to save your life, you'll lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." When you die to yourself. In verse 26, "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" What will you sell your soul for? Well, Judas did it for 25 dollars. 25 bucks. How about you?

Guest (Male): If you've never received the Lord Jesus as your Savior, it's our sincere prayer that today will be the day that you turn to God with true faith and repentance. You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Today's study was titled "The Power of the Cross."

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Underscoring the power of God's saving love, each message illuminates more of what it looks like to walk with the Lord in genuine faith and submission. You'll see that while the world claims that there are many paths to God, the only true way is to follow Jesus and obey the guidance of God's word.

Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165 to order Raul's four-part Truth Study. We'll send you the thumb drive for nine dollars or the CD set for 18 dollars. That's 800-634-9165. Or write to Somebody Loves You Radio, Post Office Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California 91765.

Every contribution you make enables us to keep spreading the Bible's hope and truth, and we are grateful for your partnership. Thanks again for making us a part of your day today and allowing us to lead you in studying God's word. We invite you to join us again next time for more biblical wisdom and encouragement to fill your heart and guide your steps. Now here's Raul with a closing comment.

Raul Ries: Are you bearing the cross of Jesus Christ in your life? Denying yourself, coming to that place in your life where you don't care if people reject you. I don't care if people reject me. That's their problem, not my problem. Christ is number one in my life. Number one.

And then my wife, and then my kids and my grandkids. But many people put their jobs number one, they put their husband number one, their wives or their kids, and the money and all these things when we're supposed to surrender and say, "Lord, I give you my whole life. Not just my hands, my whole life. But most important, I give you my heart.

I give you my heart. The heart is deceitful, desperately wicked, who could know it? I, the Lord, know your hearts. And God knows your heart this evening here. And I wonder how many of you tonight will make that decision to repent. To repent from your sins.

And if you repent from your sins, then you must confess your sins to Him. Not to me or anybody else, but to Him. And then thirdly, which is so cool, you must accept Him by faith, and then He will give you forgiveness for all your sins and He'll give you eternal life.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.