Why Preach Christ Crucified?

What is written below is taken from my pastor's sermon on Sunday. Read it and make it part of your life:

“Why Preach Christ Crucified?”

1. Christ crucified proclaims the holiness of God
“My brethren, I plead that we may get that note back into our religious life. We are never going to have grand trees of righteousness until they are rooted in a rich soil of reverence, and we are never, I think, going to get the requisite reverence until we find time to contemplate God’s holiness; and I do not know any place that will lead us to such a fruitful contemplation of God’s holiness as when we take our place near the cross.”

2. Christ crucified reveals the awfulness of sin
“We preach Christ crucified, because it is the doctrine that incomparably creates and preserves the sense of the nature of sin. Any doctrine that unveils the holiness of God reveals also the horribleness of sin; any doctrine that obscures God’s holiness veneers man’s sin.”

3. Christ crucified demonstrates the grace of God
“The cross is not merely the birthplace of my fears, or the birthplace of my shames, or the birthplace of my disgusts. It is the birthplace of the radiant and immortal hope.”

4. Christ crucified prompts a life of holiness
Quoting David Brainerd:
“I never got away from Jesus, and Him crucified, and found that when my people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ, and Him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality. I found that one followed as sure and inevitable as the other… I find my Indians begin to put on the garments of holiness, and their common life begins to be sanctified even in a trifle when they are possessed by the doctrine of Christ, and Him crucified.”