There are some words I come back to every so often because they bring life to me. Brennan Manning’s preaching clips on Youtube would be an example of what brings life to me  every time I listen. Take a listen yourself. Sometimes though there is a different tone I need to hear.  Today I thought with sadness and yet with hope of the words quoted below written by A W Tozer. The times are not favourable for such words to get a hearing in much of today’s church, even in those parts which have a reputation of life. My prayer is seasons will change in the church and the day may come when we embrace such words with godly regret, repentance and sorrow. When that day comes the Day of God’ s power for which many faithful souls have prayed over the decades will surely quickly follow.

THE OLD CROSS AND THE NEW

“Unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental. 

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique — a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam’s proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure.…

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist… preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level…  

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect…. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross. 

The old cross is a symbol of death…. The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life. 

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death…. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.  …the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.“

Longer version here: The Old Cross and The New