O Lord, how are they increased who trouble us! Persecution is our lot. The mighty array themselves against us. They call us schismatics, rebels, cowards, hirelings. They cut us out of their fellowship. They damn us before the world. They strip from us all honor and number us among the transgressors. They hang us up to be ridiculed and mocked.

Yes, Lord, because they did that to thee. The offense of the cross! To the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. For the cross made all the works of the Jews—all their ceremonies, laws, forms, and way of life—useless for salvation. The cross took away their privileged position in the world. And the cross exposed that with all their laws all that they ever did was break them and bring on themselves condemnation and cause the name of God to be blasphemed in the world. And the cross made all the wisdom of the Greek folly and all the might of the Roman impotence. And man hates—we know this, Lord, ourselves—man hates to be made nothing. Man will not be made nothing. And man hates that God and Jesus Christ are everything. Oh, yes, perhaps more than he hates being made nothing, man hates that God is made everything. And in the cross man is made nothing with all his wisdom, works, words, and will—nothing but a damnworthy sinner. And in the cross God is made everything—all-wise and wonderful in all his works and ways. And the cross offends man, whether Jew or Gentile.

To embrace the cross, to love the cross, to believe the cross, to confess the cross, and to preach the cross; the Lord, whose cross it was, must lay hold on us. Lord, we love thy cross! We glory in it. And we are determined to teach nothing besides it and to know nothing save that cross. For in that cross is all our hope and salvation, the cross on which the Prince of glory died.

And, Lord, grant us thy grace that we may joyfully take up our cross—thy cross—and rejoice in the persecution that is ours, for so they persecuted thee before us and persecuted all thy prophets and apostles, who also were despised and rejected of men. Grant that we may forsake all to be associated with thee. Grant that we may renounce all rather than renounce thee. Grant that we may preach Christ’s cross and that we may confess Christ’s cross as it debases man absolutely and as it glorifies thee absolutely.

And for this we pray because the way to escape the persecution and the temptation to escape it we also know. And we know our nature; yes, that this other way is pleasing to our flesh. That we preach circumcision! To preach the deeds of man. To teach the will, words, and activities of man that are first, prerequisite, and decisive in his salvation. We see the accolades that are heaped on those who preach circumcision. And we see the comfortable and pleasant lives that they enjoy and the acceptance that they have in the world. Grant that we may reject that way and that we may continue on in this way: to preach Christ and him crucified.

Yes, brethren, if we preach circumcision too, there will be neither offense given nor persecution suffered. And there will not be salvation either. For there is no salvation in that doctrine of circumcision. Salvation, the only way of salvation, is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!