III.  Lastly, observe the all-sufficient comprehensiveness which this theme secures.

Paul says ‘nothing but’; he might have said ‘everything in.’  For ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ covers all the ground of men’s needs.  No doubt many of you will have been saying to yourselves whilst you have been listening, if you have been listening, to what I have been saying, ’Ah! old-fashioned narrowness; quite out of date in this generation.’  Brethren, there are two ways of adapting one’s ministry to the times.  One is falling in with the requirements of the times, and the other is going dead against them, and both of these methods have to be pursued by us.

But the exclusiveness of which I have been speaking, is no narrow exclusiveness.  Paul felt that, if he was to give the Corinthians what they needed, he must refuse to give them what they wanted, and that whilst he crossed their wishes he was consulting their necessities.  That is true yet, for the preaching that bases itself upon the life and death of Jesus Christ, conceived as Paul had learned from Jesus Christ to conceive them, that Gospel, whilst it brushes aside men’s superficial wishes, goes straight to the heart of their deep-lying universal necessities, for what the Jew needs most is not a sign, and what the Greek needs most is not wisdom, but what they both need most is deliverance from the guilt and power of sin.  And we all, scholars and fools, poets and common-place people, artists and ploughmen, all of us, in all conditions of life, in all varieties of culture, in all stages of intellectual development, in all diversities of occupation and of mental bias, what we all have in common is that human heart in which sin abides, and what we all need most to have is that evil drop squeezed out of it, and our souls delivered from the burden and the bondage.  Therefore, any man that comes with a sign, and does not deal with the sin of the human heart, and any man that comes with a philosophical system of wisdom, and does not deal with sin, does not bring a Gospel that will meet the necessities even of the people to whose cravings he has been aiming to adapt his message.

But, beyond that, in this message of Christ and Him crucified, there lies in germ the satisfaction of all that is legitimate in these desires that at first sight it seems to thwart.  ‘A sign?’ Yes, and where is there power like the power that dwells in Him who is the Incarnate might of omnipotence?  ‘Wisdom?’ Yes, and where is there wisdom, except ’in Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’?  Let the Jew come to the Cross, and in the weak Man hanging there, he will find a mightier revelation of the power of God than anywhere else.  Let the Greek come to the Cross, and there he will find wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption.  The bases of all social, economical, political reform and well-being, lie in the understanding and the application to social and national life, of the principles that are wrapped