JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED

At the close of 1926 Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones left a brilliant medical career. Early in
1927 he was to become the Minister of Bethlehem Forward Movement Mission Hall,
Sandfields, Aberavon. On February 6th 1977, the 50th anniversary of the
commencement of his ministry, he returned there and preached the following
sermon.

'For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified' (1
Corinthians 2:2).

I HAVE a number of reasons for calling your attention tonight to this particular
statement. One of them-and I think you will forgive me for it-is that it was actually the
text I preached on, on the first Sunday night I ever visited this Church. That is, not 50
years tonight, but 50 years on the 28th of November last year. My first visit here was
on the 28th November, 1926, and my text at the evening service - my first evening
sermon preached here - was the second verse of the second chapter of Paul's First
Epistle to the Corinthians. It was not my text 50 years tonight, which was my first night
here officially as Minister, for on that occasion my text was 'God hath not given us the
spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.'

I call attention to it not merely for that reason, but rather because it is still my
determination. It is still what I am endeavoring, as God helps me, to do. I preached on
this text then - I have no idea what I said in detail, I have not got the notes-but I did so
because it was an expression of my whole attitude towards life. It was what I felt was
the commission that had been given to me. And I call attention to it again because it is
still the same, and because I am profoundly convinced that this is what should control
our every endeavor as Christian people and as members of the Christian Church at
this present time.

THE FOUNDATION ATTACKED

Now the Apostle, as you remember, is dealing in these first chapters with the situation
in the church at Corinth; and he reminds them here of how he first visited them,
because there was no church in Corinth until the Apostle Paul went there and
preached the gospel. The church came into being directly as the result of his
preaching and his teaching. He formed and established a church, and it was a very
great church and a flourishing church. But after a while other elements came in, and
the church was in a very disturbed and unhappy condition when the Apostle wrote this
letter to them. That is why he writes. He is concerned because some of the things that

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were being said amongst them and that were being believed by some of them were, in
his opinion, attacking the very foundations of the gospel itself. So he reminds them of
what he first preached, and how he preached to them, and how he had to do this. And,
as I say, I am calling attention to it because I feel it is equally important at the present
time. I need take none of your time in reminding you of the state of the world. We are
living in a world of crisis and a world of calamity. You never know what the next news
bulletin is going to bring forth. It is a world which is in a state of collapse in almost
every respect. It is a time of great trouble and perplexity. And the great question that
arises is this: Has the Christian Church anything to say at such a time? What has she
got to say? What is the greatest need of the world tonight? What is the greatest need
of every one of us, of every single human being? Now it is because I feel that the
great Apostle here in these words deals with and answers those very questions that I
am calling attention to this great announcement, this great proclamation by the
Apostle.

A SOLEMN DECISION

You notice that he says that he determined not to know anything among them save
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. In other words, it was a decision. It was something he
had determined. It was something quite deliberate; it was not haphazard. His
statement is that, having looked at the whole situation, he came to this conclusion,
this decision, that he was not going to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified. Now there are those authorities who would have us believe that
this happened as a kind of reaction to what had happened to the Apostle previously in
the great city of Athens. Those of you who are still familiar with the history of the book
of the Acts of the Apostles will remember that Paul went from Athens to Corinth, and
that his work at Athens was interrupted and was not successful. It was there in that
sermon in Athens that the Apostle had quoted some of the Greek poets. So some of
these authorities tell us that Paul, having quoted these Greek writers and having
shown his knowledge of Greek literature and having more or less failed, said on the
road from Athens to Corinth, 'Well, I'd better not do that again.' And so he decided and
determined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now I think that is entirely wrong. I reject that interpretation completely, because, after
all, the mere quoting of some two poets was neither here nor there; it did not affect the
thrust of his message. Paul preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified in Athens quite
as much as he did in Corinth. Indeed, this is what he did everywhere. He had decided
at the very outset of his ministry that this was to be his great theme, to the exclusion of
everything else. This is not merely a new or fresh decision, it is a repetition of the
original decision. But he reminds them that that is what he had actually done amongst

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them.

Now he came to this decision quite deliberately, because he could have done many
other things. He was an unusually able and erudite man. So it was a very solemn
decision. Indeed the Apostle goes further in the next chapter and in chapter 4. In
chapter 3 he puts it like this: 'Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you
seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise' (verse 18),
and later he goes on to say that he had deliberately become a fool for Christ's sake.
What he means, of course, by a fool, is a man who is regarded as an ignoramus by
these Greeks. The Greeks were very able people, great philosophers, and the Apostle
knew perfectly well that if he preached only Jesus Christ and Him crucified and did not
preach philosophy and other things to them, they would dismiss him as an ignoramus
and as a fool. And so he says, All right, I deliberately became a fool for Christ's sake.
So that is what he is clearly saying here-that he went out of his way, as it were, and
deliberately decided that he would eschew everything else and all other knowledge;
and, in simplicity and as one regarded as a fool and a babbler by these learned
people in Athens and in Corinth, that he would know nothing among them save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified.

He knew, as he has already told them in the first chapter, that his message was going
to be a stumbling-block to the Jews, and that the Greeks would regard it as
unutterable foolishness. He was a Jew himself and he knew the Jewish attitude. He
knew that this preaching of the cross was a real stumbling block to the Jew and that
the Greeks regarded it as just nonsense. That a carpenter in a place like Palestine, by
dying on a cross, should be the Savior of the world it was unutterable rubbish! He
knew exactly what the Jews and the Greeks believed. Nevertheless he decided
deliberately that he would go on preaching it, in spite of what they believed about it
and the way in which they regarded it. So let us be clear about this. This is a
deliberate decision. The great Apostle comes to this decision, this determination, not
to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

WHY THIS DECISION?

Well now, the question before us is this. Why did he come to this decision? Why did
Paul decide and determine to behave in this way? And, if I may say so with humility,
why did I in my small way come to the same decision and the same determination? Or
why am I, 50 years afterwards, still doing exactly the same thing? I cannot remember
what I said 50 years ago, but I know that the thrust was the same. The essential
message was the same, whatever the particular form, and whatever the particular

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details may be. Why did the Apostle come to this decision? Why should every
preacher of the gospel and the Christian Church today come to this decision? I am
convinced that the Church is powerless today and is ignored by the people because
she has not dome to this decision-because she is doing the exact opposite and is
trying to be all things to all men in a wrong way and in a wrong manner. So I regard it
as very vital that we should be certain as to why the great Apostle decided in this way.
And I think he makes it abundantly plain to us as to why he did so.

THE MODERN ARGUMENT

Today, of course, the view is almost the exact opposite of this. The argument is that if
the Church, the Christian Church, is to have any impact upon people and is to win the
people to the Church and to Christ, well then, we must of necessity talk about things in
which people are interested. That is the argument. It has been said throughout the
centuries that it is no use going to men and women in the midst of life with all sorts
and kinds of problems and difficulties and just telling them about Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. They simply will not listen. You will have no impact at all. You will have a
little coterie of people perhaps, but it will have no impact upon people. If you want to
influence people, we are told, and want to affect them and to win them, you must talk
about the things in which they are interested. Well now, there is nothing new about
that. You see that is exactly what they were saying nearly 2,000 years ago when the
great Apostle visited Athens and visited Corinth. They always wanted any man who
came to speak, to talk about the things in which they were interested. You remember
we are told about the people in Athens that they spent their time in doing 'nothing else,
but either to tell, or to hear some new thing' (Acts 17:21). They were very fond of
listening to people, and when Paul came along they said, 'What will this babbler say?'
They were ready to listen. But they always wanted a man to speak about the things in
which they were interested. What were they?

THE LAW

Well, the people consisted partly of Jews and mainly, probably, of Greeks. What were
they interested in? What did they want Paul to talk about? The answer, of course, is
quite simple. The Jews were always interested in the Law-the Law given by God
through Moses to the children of Israel. And they were always arguing and debating
about this. 'Which is the most important and the chiefest element in the Law, the first
and the greatest commandment?' Nothing pleased the Jews more than to be arguing
about the Law and the respective merits of the particular commandments. And they
were always ready to listen to a man who talked about the Law.

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PHILOSOPHY

The Greeks-well, we know exactly what they were interested in. As I have already
reminded you, the Greeks were primarily interested in what is called philosophy. I
suppose in many ways the Greeks were the ablest, the most intelligent and the most
intellectual race of people that the world has ever known. It was the country which had
produced the greatest succession of philosophers the world has ever known-Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle. And they had all been preaching in Greece before Christ and Paul
ever appeared on the scene and began to present their message. The Greeks were
tremendously interested in this question of philosophy. What does it mean? Well,
philosophy means the attempt to understand life. You see, any intelligent man in a
world like this, seeing the problems and the pain and the trouble, any intelligent man
doesn't go and have a drink to forget all about it. He says, Why are things like this?
What is the matter? Were we meant to be like this? Can anything be done about it?
So these Greek men with their great minds applied themselves to the study of the
problem of life and living; and, of course, there were rival teachings and rival views.
They all set up their co-called porches, academics if you like-what would now
correspond to our universities and schools and so on-and there were the rival theories.
You read about the Stoics and the Epicureans, and they put forward their views and
argued as to how man might perhaps even arrive at Utopia, a perfect condition.

CULTURE

But again, another branch of philosophy was what is called culture. What do they
mean by culture? Well, we all know about this. You have all, I am sure, watched those
famous lectures by Lord Clark on the television - 'Civilization'. Culture! They were
expert architects, they built their magnificent buildings. You can still go and see the
ruins in Athens, and it is worth a visit even to see the ruins-they were such magnificent
buildings. General culture, architecture, monuments, all these things. The same was
true of art. They were interested in art in every shape and form. And they delighted in
them and they discussed them. In addition to that they were great experts on sport.
We get excited about the Olympic Games. We did not start them, you know. It was
they-the Greeks-who started the Olympic Games, and they gave such names as
Marathon races, Olympic Games, and so on. These were the things which these
intellectual people worked out and elaborated. This was the centre of their interest.
They were concerned likewise about social conditions, about morality and conduct
and behavior and all these matters. Then, the Apostle came amongst them. He knew
that these were the subjects in which they were interested, and that any man who
talked about any one of these things was not only sure of an interest, but was sure of

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keeping his congregation and might even become popular amongst them. Yet,
knowing that these were the things that the people were interested in, having the
ability and the understanding to deal with them, this man deliberately decided and
determined not to deal with any of those subjects. 'I determined not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.'

THEY COME TO NOUGHT!

Well now then, the question is, Why did he decide that? Why did he determine that?
And fortunately for us, he gives us the answer in the sixth verse of this second chapter
of First Corinthians, 'Howbeit', he says, 'we speak wisdom among them that are
perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to
nought.' Nought! Nothing! A cipher! Vacuity! Nothing at all! Why didn't Paul preach
philosophy, why didn't he preach politics, why didn't he preach culture and art and all
these things? The answer is, he says, they come to nothing. Nought! Is he right? Well,
let us test. Let us test by what he says himself in his epistles. Let us test by the history
of the world.

What of this question of Law that the Jews were so interested in? Why didn't the
Apostle preach perpetually on the details and the minutiae of the Law as the
Pharisees had always done? Why didn't he spend the whole of his time in just
expounding the Law? He gives us the answer in many, many places. You have it, for
instance, in the twentieth verse of the third chapter of his great Epistle to the Romans.
'Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by
the law is the knowledge of sin'-and nothing else. The Law will give you a knowledge
of sin and it will condemn you. But it will leave you groveling in the dust. You have it
again in Romans 8:3-'For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh.' In other words, the Law was a failure. Nobody could keep the Law,
the Law about which these Jews and experts argued so much. It could not help men,
it simply condemned them. It exposed the need and the ills, but it left them groveling
in the dust in complete hopelessness. I did not preach the Law, says Paul, because it
could not do anything for you. It comes to nought. It leaves you in utter helplessness.
And the same thing applies precisely and exactly to all these other questions. Why did
not Paul preach philosophy? His answer is that it all comes to nothing. He calls it here
human wisdom, the wisdom of this world. Do you know that before Christ ever came
into this world, the greatest philosophers that the world has ever known had already
been here? They had already given us their great teaching. They had put forward their
plans and their proposals for Utopia. But it was all a failure. The statistics-it is not in

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the Bible but it is in secular history-the statistics show that the rate of suicide was
higher proportionately amongst the philosophers than any other single section of the
community. Philosophy was failing. It had h ad its trial. God, as it were, had kept His
Son back until human wisdom and learning had had their full opportunity. And Paul
says it has come to nothing 'the world by wisdom knew not God' (1:21).

FAILURE IN THE OLD WORLD

It is all very well to raise questions, but you know a great man, Thomas Masaryk-the
man who founded the state of Czechoslovakia after the end of the First World
War-that great leader of Czechoslovakia put it like this: 'The philosophers have only
interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.' The
philosophers were very clever in putting forward different points of view and different
interpretations. But that leaves us where we are. What the world needs is to be
changed. And no philosopher has ever changed this world. No, no! The old world, in
spite of the teaching of these master thinkers and philosophers, was in a terrible state
and condition. What was it? Well, you need not take my word for it, the Apostle Paul
has given us a description of it at the end of the first chapter of his Epistle to the
Romans. This was the state of society. In spite of Greek philosophy and culture,
Roman law and all the politics of the age, this is how people were living. 'As they did
not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to
do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters,
inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding,
covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the
judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do
the same, but have pleasure in them that do them' (Romans 1:28-32). That is how
they were living, instead of according to the great teachings of the philosophers.
Previously Paul has been telling us about the terrible, scandalous, sexual
perversions-. men leaving the right use of the woman and turning to men, dishonoring
their own bodies between themselves. The whole world was a sink of iniquity. In spite
of all the blueprints for Utopia, all the politics, all the social ameliorations that were
being proposed, all the learned arguing and disputation of the philosophers, that is
how they were actually living. Paul was right. All this comes to nothing. Nought!
Failure! Nothing! Blank!

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FAILURE TODAY

And, my dear friends, as it was true then it is true today, and it has continued to be
true throughout the centuries. People today are interested in the same things. We
express it in different forms, but for 100 years or more people have been trusting to
these things. People have stopped going to chapels and churches. Why? They have
stopped believing the Bible. What do they believe in? Philosophy. The great
philosophers. And you can hear them now whenever you like on the television and the
wireless. Philosophy! Politics! We were assured that politics was going to change the
face of society. It was being preached here by Ramsay MacDonald and many another
when I came here 50 years ago. This was what was going to put the world
right-education, culture. Not such nonsense, such folk lore and fairy tales as the Bible
and the Scriptures, but new knowledge, science, understanding and philosophy-they
were going to make a perfect world! Now these are sheer facts. But what is the
position? What has it all come to? I am here to remind you that what the Apostle said
in his day is equally true today. It comes to nought. It comes to nothing. Do not
misunderstand me; there are particular benefits that we have all received and we
thank God for them. But face to face with the problem of man and of life and death
and true living and peace and happiness and joy, they have all completely failed. They
have come to nought.

EDUCATION FAILS

Now you need not take my word for this. Let me give you some quotations which will
substantiate my contention. Take a great man like Tolstoy, Count Tolstoy, one of the
greatest novelists of all times, the author of War and Peace and other masterpieces.
Do you know what he said? Let me read his words to you. 'The meaningless absurdity
of life is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to men.' The meaningless
absurdity of life-that, he says, is the only thing which is incontestable. But let me give
you another. A man called Morris Ginsberg, who is an expert on sociology and
political matters today, wrote quite recently: 'Modern psychological theories expose
the naivety of the assumption which earlier theories have taken for granted, namely,
that intellectual advance will be necessarily reflected in improved human
relationships.' That was the assumption of our fathers, grandfathers and forefathers.
They assumed that intellectual advance would of necessity be reflected in improved
human relationships. Is that so? Has it happened? Are human relationships better?
This was the assumption: give people knowledge and intellectual advance, and
human relationships will be better. But come, last year, 1976, was the centenary of
the birth of a man called Albert Mansbridge. And I refer to Albert Mansbridge for this

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reason. Here was the man who started the Workers' Educational Association-the
WEA. I do not know whether WEA classes are popular here now; they were very
popular 50 years ago, and many people had left the churches and the chapels
believing they were going to find salvation in the WEA classes. What had Albert
Mansbridge said? He started these WEA classes in 1903 and what he said was
this-and he really believed it, there was never a more honest man, or a more earnest
and sincere man; he really believed it and he made sacrifices for it-'If enough effort',
he said in 1903, 'was put into the education of the workers, then the main social
problems of this present age would solve themselves.' That is what he believed, and
thousands believed it with him. If only people put an effort into education and if only
the masses of the people were educated, the main social problems of the age would
solve themselves. They put it into practice and men really believed that if only we
could all be educated we would solve all our problems. What has it come to, my
friends? Are there no social problems in Aberavon, Port Talbot, tonight? Are they
much less than they were 100 years ago or 50 years ago? I leave you to answer the
question.

MORAL INABILITY

Come, let me give you another-Professor Arnold Toynbee, a great historian,

published his massive History of the World in 10 volumes, eventually 12 volumes. His
last book bore the title Mankind and Mother Earth and was published last year. Now
here is a man who spent a lifetime studying the human condition, trying to understand
life and the world from the standpoint of history, not merely as an academic exercise,
but because he wanted to make a contribution. He wanted things to be better and to
be improved. But this is what he said in his last book, when he was an old man: 'There
is a morality gap in the development of mankind. Man constantly extends his physical
power over the environment, but he is unable to improve his social arrangements
correspondingly; still less to subdue his destructive passions. Technology is the only
field of human activity in which there has been progression.' That is Arnold Toynbee.
He was not a Christian; he was a humanist. He did not believe this gospel of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. He was a man who believed in these various
ideas-philosophy and so on-but he maintains that the only development that there has
been is in the realm of technology. We can certainly land people on the surface of the
moon, but are we living any better? Has there been corresponding advance in the
matter of man's social arrangements? Do we know how to subdue man's destructive
passions? Oh, the brilliant technology of the last few years, conquering the force of
gravity, landing men on the surface of the moon! Marvelous, wonderful! Has it
lessened the destructive capacity of man and the destructive desires of man? Well, I

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ask you to look around you, read the newspapers, listen to the bulletins on the news.
These men, who are not Christians at all, by simply viewing the facts and facing them
squarely have come to the conclusion that it all comes to nought.

NO ANSWERS

I end with a quotation from Mr. Aldous Huxley. Here was a brilliant man, a brilliant
novelist, who believed in what is called Scientific Humanism for so many years and
wrote about it in his novels. He came to tell that that was not the answer and then he
turned to mysticism and became a Buddhist. But still he was not satisfied, and if you
read his biography you will find that he said this at the end of his life.-Now again, here
is a man who really was concerned about men and women and life and living. He
wanted to live a better life himself. He wanted the world to be a better place. He was
appalled at the two world wars, the making of the atomic and the hydrogen bombs. He
was aghast at it all, and had spent a lifetime trying to understand it. But this is what he
said at the end of his life-'It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the
human problem all one's life and that at the end one has no more to offer by way of
advice than "Try to be a little kinder".' After all the brilliant philosophy and scientific
reasoning, this is all he has got to tell us: 'Try to be a little kinder.'

TOTAL BANKRUPTCY

These men who were going to solve the problem seduction, knowledge, culture,
philosophy, politics, and who were going to put the world right, -this is what they have
to admit at the end. Well now, you see, they are but confirming what the great Apostle
tells us in the sixth verse of this second chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
He says: 'I've got a wisdom, but it isn't a wisdom of this world-the thing you want me to
be talking about. Why am I not talking about it? I'll tell you. It comes to nothing. It's a
blank, it's a cipher. It leaves you at the end with nothing at all. Just "try to be a little
kinder"' What a bankruptcy! What a complete failure!' And this is what the world needs
to be told tonight, that all it has trusted to, and the men it has trusted have led them to
the present chaos, and have nothing to offer us, and have no hope. They make
promises, but who believes them? They do not believe them themselves. They have
been falsified. They are baffled, they are bewildered, they do not know where they are.
It comes to nothing. Blank. Cipher. Vacuity. Complete hopelessness. Final despair.
Well there, my friends, I have taken the trouble to take you through all that, because
the negative is important. People will not listen to the gospel until they have seen
through the fallacy of everything else, and the final uselessness of everything else.
But I cannot leave you on a negative. Let me come to the positive. 'I determined not to

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know anything among you' - none of those things. Why not? - 'but Jesus Christ and
him crucified.' Why does he preach this? Why should every preacher of the gospel
preach this? Why should the Church today be telling the whole world that we need to
be told about this -Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Why did Paul determine to preach
this?

A GREAT COMMISSION

Here are some of the answers. The first was, he had been commanded to preach that.
He had been given a commission to preach it. You remember the story? Saul of
Tarsus, the Pharisee, the persecutor of Christians, going down from Jerusalem to
Damascus breathing out threatenings and slaughter, going to exterminate the
Christians. Suddenly he saw the light, and the face, and the voice which said, 'Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me? ... It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.' 'Who
art thou Lord?' he said, and he was told, 'I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.' And he
was given a great commission. He had become a new man, and the commission was
this, that he should be a minister and a witness. Christ, the risen Christ, told him on
the road to Damascus that he was to be a preacher of this gospel and that he was to
proclaim Him and Him crucified to the people. So the Apostle determines not to know
anything among them because that is what he was called to preach. You know, this is
a matter of common honesty. The great Apostle says elsewhere, 'I am an
ambassador for Christ.' What is the business of an ambassador? Is it to voice his own
opinions? Is it to say what he thinks? Well, if he does so, he is a very bad ambassador.
The ambassador's job is to convey the thinking and the point of view of the country
that has appointed him and which he is representing. He may disagree with it entirely,
but it does not matter. The business of the ambassador is to deliver the message
which has been given to him, to hand on this commission, whatever it is. And Paul
says, I have no choice about this; that's what He told me to say: I'm not here to give
you my theories and my ideas, he says. I am determined simply to preach what He
gave me. You notice, those of you who still read his epistles - and if you do not, you
know, you are missing the greatest literature in the whole world - he talks about the
deposit, the deposit that had been given to him, the dispensation of the gospel. 'I
delivered unto you first of all' - What? What I thought and what I had worked out
philosophically? Oh no! 'that which I also received.' Revelation! The commission! The
commandment! So simple, ordinary, common honesty dictated that the Apostle
should preach the message that he had been sent and commissioned to preach.

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THE TESTIMONY OF GOD

But that is not the only reason by any means. Why did Paul only preach this? Well, he
tells us again. 'And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of
speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.' Later on he puts it like
this: 'God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God' (verse 10). Why did not Paul preach politics and art and
culture and philosophy? It is because he has a message about the deep things of God,
the testimony of God. He says, 'You know, what I have preached to you was not
man's ideas about the world and about life, but God's ideas!' How can we waste our
breath and our energy in preaching human ideas that come to nothing, when we have
here what has been revealed to us, namely, God's view of it all? My dear friends,
aren't you rather tired of listening to men-the most learned men-on the television, the
wireless, and everywhere else? They are very clever and expert at putting their points
of view, and they speak with a rare dogmatism, making statements that they cannot
prove and verify. Aren't you getting rather tired of listening to what men have to say?
What is the greatest need in the world tonight? The greatest need of the world tonight
is this: What has God got to say about it all? Here is the question. Why is the world as
it is? We have had two world wars in one century, haven't we? We had had one when
I came here 50 years ago; we have had one since. We all know about these bombs.
We have seen the breakdown of society. What is the matter? We know that acts of
Parliament cannot put us right. We have had many of them, and they are tumbling out
one after another, but the problems seem to increase instead of to lessen. What is the
matter with the world? What is the matter with man? What is the matter with every one
of us, individually and separately? You know, my friends, there is only one satisfactory
answer to that question. It is God's answer! It is God's answer! Why is the world as it
is? The answer, according to the Bible-Paul preached it everywhere-is this: that
though God had made a perfect world, and had made man in a perfect condition and
put him into paradise where there were no problems and no difficulties, man's world is
as it is tonight because man in his folly and his arrogance rebelled against God. He
pitted his own mind against God. He did not care what God said. 'Ah, this is what I
say', he said, -and he brought chaos upon himself, he was driven out of the garden,
and he has been out there ever since, trying to get back. He cannot get back and his
world is in a muddle and in chaos. But God has given us the explanation. Why have
we had the two world wars? Why may we have another? Why is society collapsing
before our eyes? Why the immorality and the vice, the confusion, the unhappiness,
the drug addiction and the alcoholism? Why the mounting social and moral problem?
What is the explanation? Here it is. It is the only answer-man estranged from God.

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THE WRATH OF GOD

But not only that. Man is under the wrath of God. This is what Paul preached. You
remember how he puts it in writing to the Romans: 'I am not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew
first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith
to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.' Then he goes on, 'For'-because-'the
wrath of God has [already] been revealed against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hold [down] the truth in unrighteousness' (Romans
1:16ff.). He says, That is why I am proud of the gospel. That is why I am so glad to
preach it, and consider it an honor to preach it. It is because it is the only hope for
people who are under the wrath of God.' And you know, my friends, this is the trouble
with the world tonight. This world of ours is under the wrath of God. It is the only
explanation of this 20th century. In spite of all our education and culture and
philosophy and politics and all that we have done, the world is in an increasing
muddle. Why? Well, because God hates the way the world is living. He has always
said so. God said through an Old Testament prophet 'There is no peace, saith my
God, to the wicked' (Isa. 57:21). And this is the explanation of the world tonight. You
can have a pocket full of money, you can have knowledge, you can have learning, you
can have anything you like. But 'There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked'-and
they haven't got it! They have the money, many of them, and the learning and the
knowledge, but they haven't got peace. 'The way of transgressors is hard' (Prov. 13:1
5)-and it is! Look at your modern world. It is hard, it is unhappy. The world is so
unhappy that it has to turn to drugs and to alcohol. Men cannot go on without them,
they are in such a desperate condition. Why is this? It is God's wrath upon us. God is
not blessing us and God will not allow us to be happy if we continue in a state of
rebellion against Him. As He demolished the tower of Babel, He is demolishing our
towers of Babel, the things in which we put our faith and our trust. The things that
were the confidence of the Victorians God has smashed them. Man shall not be
happy while he is a rebel against God. The wrath of God has been revealed from
heaven. It has been revealed tonight, and it is the only explanation of the state of the
world at this moment.

HAVE YOU LISTENED?

I have something much profounder to preach to you than politics. The politicians do
not understand the state of the world tonight; they are fumbling. All their prophecies
have been falsified. And all those who put their faith in these things do not know
where they are. Poor H. G. Wells, with all his morals and his scientific knowledge! Do

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you know the title of his last book?-Mind at the end of its tether. He did not understand
it, he did not know what was happening. But the answer is that God looks down with
displeasure upon us. He has made us; we are not our own; we are His creatures, and
we were meant to live to His glory and to His honor. Until we do, we will never know
peace, we will never know happiness, we will never know joy. 'I didn't preach those
other things to you,' says Paul, 'because I have the testimony of God to preach to you.
I wanted to tell you about the deep things of God.' This analysis of God on the human
situation-aren't you ready to listen to it? Aren't you tired of the vain speeches of men?
My dear friends, have you listened to God's diagnosis of your condition and the
condition of the whole world?

GOD'S SOLUTION

But again, I thank God that He did not stop at the negative-and I must not. That is
God's diagnosis of the state of affairs. But, thank God, Paul was able to preach to
them God's solution to our problems. Where everything else has failed to provide a
solution, Paul says, 'We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden
wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory' (verse 6). This is the
solution. Are you hopeful about the future? Are you happy about the future prospects?
What do you feel, if you do look ahead to the remainder of your life and on to your
death? What have you got? Is there any hope? There is none! But, you know, here -
and this is why Paul preached it and determined not to know anything 9 else-here is
God's plan for the salvation of the individual and of the whole world. God's plan of
salvation, prepared and ordained before the very foundation of the world, but now put
into practice.

What is this? What is God's plan for this world? Well, you see, it is the exact antithesis
of all human proposals. The world is always waiting for some great man-great men of
history. And if there is any crisis, we hope a great man is going to emerge. Have you
read these journalists? They often say this. This always happens, you know, when we
face a terrible crisis, 'the great man' always appears on the scene and they mention
the great men. This is the way the world always looks at this. Is that God's plan?
Thank God it isn't. 'I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ.'
Who is this? Well, He is a man, Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter-a great man! Well, is
this the answer? No, says Paul, listen! You must know who He is-'which none of the
princes of this world knew'. They thought He was only a man - 'for had they known it,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' Here is God's solution. My dear
people, this is why I rejoice in this gospel. It is the only answer. 'God so loved the
world that he gave' - a great philosopher? a great politician? - 'he gave his only

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begotten Son', Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord of glory. Paul, as I reminded you, came to
this realization on the road to Damascus. He had regarded this Jesus as a carpenter
and had dismissed Him and derided Him. He had blasphemed Him. But on the road to
Damascus, he discovered that the despised Jesus is the Lord of glory, the second
Person in the blessed Holy Trinity, and that He had been in this world because God
His Father had sent Him. This is God's way of salvation.

It is the great message of the incarnation, and it is literally the only hope. Everything
man does is a failure. But God has sent His own Son-the miracle, the mystery, the
marvel of the incarnation, a little babe was born in a stable in Bethlehem! Why was He
born in a stable? 'Because there was no room for them in the inn.' Oh, the people with
money had booked the rooms! They are not going to turn out because a poor
pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth to a baby has arrived. Why should they
give up their rooms? They were as selfish then as people are today-pushing
themselves forward in the queue, asserting their rights, not caring about anything as
long as they are all right. A babe was born in a stable amidst the straw and the lowing
of the cattle, a little helpless babe, and they put Him into a manger. Who is this? The
Lord of glory!

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!

Hail, the incarnate Deity!

This is what Paul preached. 'God bath visited and redeemed his people.' God has
come into time. God has sent His own Son. He had raised great prophets, great
servants; they had all failed. But now He sends His only Son. So Paul preached Jesus
Christ to them, showing them that He was none other than the eternal Son of God and
the Lord of glory. This was proved by His miracles. It was proved by His life and by His
teaching, His perfect example. But above all it was proved by His conquest over all
the devils and everything that assails man. It was proved by His conquest of the
tempest, the raging of the sea, the storm-the Lord of creation! And supremely it was
proved by His glorious resurrection, when He even burst asunder the bands of death
and arose triumphant over the grave. Jesus Christ!

My friends, are you interested in this Person? Do you know that God has intervened
about our state and about our condition, and that He has come in the Person of His
own Son? God has come in the flesh, 'in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin'. Talk
about Plato and Socrates? No, no! When I can talk about Jesus Christ, I cannot talk
about them. Why talk about men when you can speak of the Lord of glory? That is
why he determined not to know anything among them but Jesus Christ, and Him

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crucified. And this addition is essential-the cross, Calvary, this thing that is a
stumbling-block to the Jews and utter foolishness to the Greeks. All right, you say,
miracles are all right; but He died in utter weakness. Why didn't He come down and
save Himself He died an ignominious death, a death of shame, and they buried Him in
a tomb. Why emphasize 'Him crucified'? And the Apostle tells us. He tells us, 'We
preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks
foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God, and the wisdom of God.'

BE RECONCILED TO GOD

What does it mean? Let me hurriedly summarize it. Your greatest need and mine-the
greatest need of the whole world-is to be reconciled to God. Nothing can avail us but
that we are reconciled to God. All our troubles are due to the fact that we are aliens
and rebels and, as I say, under the curse and the wrath of God. Man's supreme need
is to be right with God and to be blessed by God. How can it happen? Here are my
sins and they come between me and God. I cannot get rid of them. What I have done I
have done, and if I spent an eternity trying to erase my sins I cannot do it.

Not the labors of my hands

Can fulfill Thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone:

-it is impossible! -

Thou must save, and Thou alone.

And He has done it in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The meaning of the death on
the cross is this: God, being holy, cannot pretend that He has not seen sin. He is a just
and a righteous and a holy God, and He has said that 'the soul that sinneth, it shall
die.' 'The wages of sin is death'-and it is evident in the modern world.

Very well, how can I be reconciled to God? What can be done about my sins? God
has said He must punish them. His righteousness demands it. But if He punished my
sins, it would be the end of me. I would go to eternal death. But God has planned a
way, and He planned it before the very foundation of the world. He sent His own Son,
spotless, pure, undefiled, who had never broken an iota of the Law, who had given
His Father complete obedience. God sent Him to the cross and He laid our sins upon

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Him. 'He bath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.' 'God was in Christ' - in and through Christ, and
particularly on the cross - 'reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them' (2 Cor. 5:21,19). Or as Peter puts it, 'who his own self bare our
sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed' (1 Pet. 2:24). My dear friends, the
only way of being reconciled to God is to know that Christ has died for your sins,
borne your punishment, borne your guilt. In Him you are reconciled to God. And so
Paul preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

GOD'S POWER AT WORK

And then, to round it off-Paul preached this, and nothing else, because it is the only
thing that works. Nothing else works. We have seen the failure. This works. This is the
power of God, as well as the wisdom of God. And as the Apostle says, 'Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God
hath prepared for them that love him' (verse 9). 'Jesus Christ and him crucified.' Why?
Because it works, and because of the things that it gives us. What does it give us? It
gives me a knowledge of sins forgiven. What a wonderful thing it is to have your
conscience cleared! You may have done terrible things, and you cannot forgive
yourself, and you are afraid to die-and rightly so, because when we die we all have to
stand before God in judgment. How can I get rid of these sins? How can I know my
sins are forgiven? There is only one answer. It is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
'Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ'
(Romans 5:1). What a wonderful thing it is to know that your sins are forgiven!-that
you can put your head on the pillow and not worry as to whether you will ever wake up
or noty You know that you are right with God; you are at peace with God; nothing can
ever separate you from the love of God. My friends, have you got peace? Have you
got peace of conscience? Are you ready to face death? Are you ready to face
judgment? This is the only way. But it is given to us: 'the things that are freely given to
us of God' (verse 12).

This is Christianity. Not an exhortation to you to go home and turn over a new leaf and
try and live a better life. No, no! Come as you are-without money and without price.

Only believe, and thou shalt see

That Christ is all in all to thee.

It is the gift of God. 'By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it

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is the gift of God' (Eph. 2:8). So you have forgiveness, peace with God, reconciliation
with God, peace within, an understanding of life, a new outlook, a new understanding
of other people. You have got a new life in you. And you begin to know joy that the
world can never know and never has known, a joy that will hold and last whatever may
be happening to you. Paul in writing to the Romans says, 'We glory in tribulations
also.'

When all things seem against us,

To drive us to despair,
We know one gate is open,
One ear will hear our prayer.

A VISION OF GLORY

And, above it all, a vision of a glory that is to come. This old world-it is in terrible
trouble, and according to the teaching of Christ and this man Paul it is going to get
worse and worse. 'Evil men will wax worse and worse.' 'There will be wars and rumors
of wars.' Christianity has never promised to make this old world perfect in that way
and to banish war. That is not Christianity: that is humanism. Christianity says that
while men and women remain rebellious against God, the misery will increase and
things will become terrible. But the Christian, the man that believes in Jesus Christ
and in Him crucified, knows that a part of God's plan is this: that at some future date
(we do not know when) God is going to send His Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory,
back to this world again. And He will come riding the clouds of heaven, surrounded by
the holy angels; He will come conquering and to conquer. He will judge the whole
world in righteousness. All the evil and sin and the chicanery and the dishonesty and
the foulness of the perversions, and the way people are living today, it will all be
dashed to a lake of perdition, and all who have belonged to it and who have rejected
this message. He will purge the whole universe of it all, and there shall be a 'new
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' The Christian is not afraid
of life, he is not afraid of death. He knows that there is a glory. Christ at the end of His
life came to His disciples and said, 'Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God,
believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also'
(John 14:I ff.). This is it. Whatever happens to us, whatever this old world may do, if
they let off their bombs and if hell rages, it does not matter! Nothing 'shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

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That is why Paul determined not to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. He had come to know this blessed Person. He had begun to
receive of the riches of His grace, these things that God had prepared for them that
love Him-and he was rejoicing in them. It had worked! It is a power! He had been a
miserable sinner, a Pharisee, self-righteous, self-contained, religious, moral, but
miserable. But now he knows a joy unspeakable and full of glory, and he is a master
of his fate. He looks and longs for this great day, when his Lord of glory shall come
and every eye shall see Him, and those that have believed in Him shall be changed
into His likeness. Their very bodies shall be changed and they will live with Him and
reign with Him, and spend their glorious eternity with Him. That is why Paul preached
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to the exclusion of everything else. It had worked in
his life. It had made a new man of him. It had given him all this.

MEN MADE NEW

But it had not only done it to Paul; it had done it, you know, to some of these people in
Corinth. Listen to this in chapter 6. 'Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And
such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God' (6:9ff.). Here were men,
now members of the church at Corinth, who once had been dock laborers and other
things in the dock yards and in the harbor at Corinth. They were drunkards, they were
revilers, - they were all these things. Great philosophy had been preached. It did not
touch them! They were there-besotten drunkards, guilty of all these offences and
these obscenities. Nothing could touch them. Nothing could improve them. Neither
philosophy, nor politics, nor sociology, nor education, nor anything! But such were
some of you! You are no longer that. You have been washed.

There is power, power, wonder - working power,

In the precious blood of the Lamb.

The preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified 'in demonstration of the Spirit and of
power' had raised these men up. It had renovated them and they were saints adorning
the church of God.

I cannot refrain from saying it. This not only works with Paul, it not only worked with
these people in Corinth, it has worked in this very room in Sandfields, Aberavon.

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'Such were some of you.' I could name them to you. Some of you have heard their
names. Did you ever hear of a man called William Thomas, otherwise known as Billy
Fair-play, Billy Staffordshire? He spent a lifetime in drunkenness, fighting, debauchery,
hopelessness-until he was 77 years of age. But one night in this very building he
became a new man, he was washed, he was sanctified, he was justified. He became
a saint. And Mr. E. T. Rees and I here had the great privilege of seeing him going from
time to eternity with the face of an angel, shining, and holding out his arms evidently to
this Lord of glory, who was waiting to receive him. What nothing else could do, Jesus
Christ and Him crucified had done to him-and he was only one of many. I could
mention them to you. I must not do so, but I could go on for hours, telling you of men
and women with whom everything had failed, but who, believing in Jesus Christ and
Him crucified, had started a new life. And you know at this moment they are in the
glory everlasting. They have been looking down upon us. We are surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Men and women, is Jesus Christ and Him crucified everything to you? This is the
question. It is a personal matter. Is He central? Does He come before anything and
everything? Do you pin your faith in Him and in Him alone? Nothing else works. He
works! I stand here because I can testify to the same thing.

E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream

Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.

'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the
world is crucified unto me, and I [crucified] unto the world' (Gal. 6:14).

My dear friends, in the midst of life we are in death. This is not theory; this is personal,
this is practical. How are you living? Are you happy? Are you satisfied? How do you
face the future? Are you alarmed? Terrified? How do you face death? You have got to
die. Think of the people who were here 50 years ago. They are no longer here. Most
of them have gone. We are all moving. 'Here have we no continuing city'; but can you
say, 'we seek one to come'? Are you fixed entirely upon Him-Jesus Christ, Lord of
glory, Son of God, Savior of the world, Jesus Christ and Him crucified? My dear
friends, nothing else matters finally but this. All else will come to nought. This Place
has been much more affluent than it was when I was here. We had men here, you

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know, earning 37/6d. of the old money per week, but they were great saints. They
have gone on to the glory. You have more money. You have had many things which
were not here then. But it will all come to an end. You cannot take any of these things
with you when you come to die. 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked
shall I return thither' (Job 1:21). What will you have when that end comes? You will
have nothing, unless you have Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And having Him, you
will be able to say with Charles Wesley- we have already been singing it-

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;

More than all in Thee It find; ...
Plenteous grace with Thee istfound,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound,
Make me, keep me pure within.

Jesus Christ and Him crucified! Do you know Him? Have you believed in Him? Do you
see that He alone can avail you in life, in death, and to all eternity? If not, make certain
tonight. Fall at His feet. He will receive you, and He will make you a new man or a new
woman. He will give you a new life. He will wash you. He will cleanse you. He will
renovate you. He will regenerate you and you will become a saint, and you will follow
after that glorious company of saints that have left this very place and are now
basking in the sunshine of His face in the glory everlasting. Make certain of it, ere it be
too late!

Let us pray

O Lord our God, how can we thank Thee that in a world of darkness and of sin and of
shame there is this one and only light still shining, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
God, open the eyes of all who do not know Him and have not seen Him. Have mercy.
Unstop deaf ears. Open blind eyes. God save the people. Awaken them to their need
and to the perfect provision that Thou hast made in the Son of Thy love, the Lord of
glory. And unto Thee and unto Thee alone shall we give all the praise and all the
honor and all the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

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