Why are many church members more moved by fictional movies than the story of the cross? This presentation will unpack why this happens.

<p>Why are many church members more moved by fictional movies than the story of the cross? This presentation will unpack why this happens.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Freedom Health Ministries

Gabriel Arruda

Why Are We So Numb to the Cross?

For those of you who have attended prayer meeting you may know what I'm gonna say.

So normally like 1 week out, 2 weeks out, I know what I'm gonna speak on.

And when I'm choosing a topic, what was that?

When I'm choosing a topic, I wait till I get this feeling where the Holy Spirit just grips my heart.

I hate getting up in front of groups and speaking on something that I'm really not interested in hearing myself or that I don't feel it's really relevant or is timely.

And so I was, you know, going through topic after topic and then I had 1 I thought I was going to do and then I had another 1 that I thought I was going to do and I didn't get that feeling all week.

And so I asked the people at prayer meetings like, please pray for me because I got to preach the Sabbath and I have like no sermon and Then Friday morning, guess what?

So I hope that means that you're blessed by the message this morning Well as many of us know it's been an eventful week Queen Elizabeth Queen of England passed away this week and the whole world has responded.

Pretty much religious or government leaders from all first world countries have issued some very touching words.

And you can see there, outside of Buckingham Palace, that's maybe a little difficult to see on this slide, but tons of flowers and people are just paying their respects.

I really didn't know until her passing how much people really appreciated and loved this woman.

And there will be 10 days of ceremonies leading up to her funeral.

It's gonna be a really big ordeal, a very elaborate procession through the streets of London.

There's gonna be several days of viewings where people could come and view her body.

And they expect that thousands of people will come from all over the world.

Even sporting events, this is a soccer game here and you see that they're paying tribute to her death.

And so the whole world has been really captivated by this event this week.

And people have been deeply moved, especially those in the United Kingdom.

And they were deeply, many have been deeply affected By her passing and you could see picture after picture People mourning and I guarantee all these people you see crying have never even met her They've never spoken to her, but they just loved their queen.

They loved their leader and they have been deeply affected by that.

And as I thought about that this week, and especially as I thought about it Friday morning as I was preparing this message, a thought occurred to me that really prompted this message.

How many are deeply affected by the death of Jesus?

How many of us are deeply, not just outside of the church, we kind of know the answer to that question, but even inside of the church, how many of us are deeply affected by the death of Jesus?

And might I suggest that there are many non-Christians that have been more affected by the death of Queen Elizabeth than there are professed Christians who have been affected by the death of Jesus.

You know I've been preaching, I've been at this, I gave my first sermon in 2004, so what's that 18 years something like that, and I've noticed something over and over.

When I preach on the cross it's usually 1 of 2 extreme responses.

I either get lots of blank stares or I get people whose hearts have just really been gripped, whose hearts have really been touched, and I've wondered what is it that has just numbed the people to the cross.

I've just seen this everywhere I've gone, every church I've been in, people are numb to the cross.

It's like when people bring up the cross like, oh okay, come on, I've been hearing about that since I was 5.

You know, like let's get to something interesting, like current events, you know, or something like that.

The cross, that's like, come on, that's like 101, right?

Christians are often just very numb to the cross.

You know, I remember when my wife and I were dating, she had several friends there, we were living in San Francisco, and they had this girls' night.

They watched this Christian movie, Christian movies just kind of started coming out at that time and this movie was called Love Comes Softly.

And it's this Christian movie and it's a story about this young couple in like the mid-1800s.

It's the gold rush and this young couple they got married and they they embark out to you know find their fortune and they move out to California and they are talking about all their hopes and dreams and they finally find a place where they're gonna homestead and they're so excited and then tragedy strikes and he actually dies in an accident, leaving her out there in the wilderness and you just see her going through this process of mourning and you know I'm watching this I'm like oh you know that's kind of sad and I turn around I look at my girlfriend and all of her friends and it's just like, you know, and you know just tears, you know, and you know what's so funny?

I bet you everyone in here has cried at a movie.

I guarantee you everyone here has cried at a movie.

And you know you have to stop and think, wait a minute, this isn't real, right?

Like we weep and we cry and then we have to stop and remember, these people are acting and I know they're acting.

I bought the DVD, I've seen pictures of them, you know, in their regular clothes and this is made up, but it moves us sometimes.

And then when the cross is preached, blank stares.

You know God's Word says it won't always be this way.

There will be a revival of what people feel about the cross.

Let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Zechariah.

And a few days before the queen passed away, I started studying this verse and I realized how timely it was.

Zechariah chapter 12 starting in verse 10, And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as 1 mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as 1 that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Verse 11, in that day shall there be a great morning in Jerusalem as the morning of Hadrimon in the valley of Megiddon.

So let's back up and look at verse 10 again.

The Bible says that God would pour out His Spirit upon Jerusalem, that's God's people, that's His church in modern terms, and that there would be a great morning, they shall look on him whom they have pierced.

And the morning is depicted in 3 different ways.

First, as the morning of an only son, did you catch that?

Then as the morning of a firstborn son, and then in verse 11 it talks about this morning as in Hadrimon in the valley of Megiddon.

And if you look at that, Hadrimon, that is thought to be a city that was close to the valley of Megiddo.

And this event, most scholars agree, is referring to when King Josiah died.

King Josiah went out to fight Pharaoh Necho at a certain battle and he died in the valley of Megiddo.

And that was the boy king, remember he became king at age 8, and he was a greatly loved king, a greatly loved leader.

And when he died, the people of Israel mourned for him.

The Bible says they lamented greatly for him.

And so in scripture, this mourning is so great, it describes it in 3 different ways.

As of the only son, as of the firstborn son, and as a great king or leader who dies.

Now in the Middle East, in ancient Oriental culture, 1 of the worst things that could happen is that you could lose an only son.

And if you know anything about Oriental custom, you understand why this was so big.

Back then, carrying on the family name meant everything.

My last name is Aruda and I'll be honest with you, I have no particular Aruda pride.

I don't know, I just, I don't have, we don't carry that as much.

And the worst thing that could happen is that the name of your family could die out.

So much so, you remember they had that law, if the oldest brother died and he was married, remember what the younger brother had to do?

He had to marry his widowed wife and raise up children to his brother's name.

That's, I mean, the younger brother not being able to choose who he marries, that's irrelevant.

That's how important this was in the Hebrew mentality.

And so, after that, the next worst thing that could happen to your family is the firstborn son could die.

And if you had a second or third son, you still had a backup child, a backup son to carry on the name, but still you lost your firstborn.

That was the beginning of the father's strength.

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Why Are We So Numb to the Cross?

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