BLOODLESS CROSSES
by Maurice M Johnson
Versus-
RELIGION:
God is good! God is love!
There is good in every man!
Easter — Christmas.
Join the Church of your choice.
Get water baptized.
Take communion.
If we but try our best to keep the golden rule
and don't ever kill anybody...
THE CROSS OF CHRISTREALITY:
My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?”"
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have tarried every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
That you and I might not be God forsaken —
"Christ died for our sins... and rose again for our justification.'
You put him there!! II Cor. 5:21
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
What is the meaning of these bloodless crosses?
Brazen Reno divorcees are pictured wearing bejeweled crosses. Night club queens wear pretty crosses. The increasingly popular Easter revelries are drawing near with their vari-colored crosses of Easter lilies, etc. The ancient Babylonish "hot cross buns" will soon be advertised for sale in the bakeries. (And by the way, how many Christians know that these seemingly innocent hot cross buns are the idolatrous "cakes" baked for the Babylonish "queen of heaven" referred to in Jer. 7:16-20?)
A large business house recently advertised "beautiful STREAMLINED CROSSES" and informed the readers that these crosses were very fashionable. We were given to understand that "it is smart to wear crosses this year." Last Easter we were treated to a picture of the Roman Catholic pope wearing his solid gold cross inside of which is supposed to be a piece of the coarse wood taken from the cross of Christ.
WHAT CHEAP AND DAMNABLE MOCKERY IT ALL IS! And the pope's gold trinket is the worst blasphemy and caricature of them all. My friends, the cross on which the Lord Jesus Christ died was not pretty. It was in no sense an ornament intended to decorate human flesh. It was the terrible instrument in the hands of God by which all Adamic flesh became judicially condemned and crucified in heaven's sight. "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 unto the world."—Galatians 6:14.
I have actually begun to wonder if "the sign of the cross" may not yet prove to be "THE MARK OF THE BEAST"—Rev. 13:16-18.
We are commanded to BEAR the cross, not to WORSHIP it. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."—Luke 9:23. And this denying of self does not mean denying self OF something like meat on Friday or strong drink during some certain seasons announced by an artificial "head" over God's people. The biblical denying of self is nothing less than the denying of self's right to live, the crucifixion of self. This is what Paul was inspired to put in these words:
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."—Gal. 2:20.
Paul's life of splendid self-denial, self-crucifixion, was a daily thing and not a shoddy imitation during a Babylonish "Lenten" season. Paul said: "I die daily . - . always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." With heaven-born scorn, the faithful apostle repudiated all Babylonish corruptions of Judaism and Christianity. He knew of these ancient "mysteries" connected with the spring festivals held in idolatrous worship of Ashtoreth (Easter), and he writes about them thus: "The mystery of iniquity doth already work . . . Flee idolatry . . . I am afraid of you . . . Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years . . . We (genuine Christians) are the circumcision (cross bearers) that worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh . .. For they
that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."