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"(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." Php_3:18 

 
Criminals make themselves enemies of the state. Spies turned traitors betray their home nation and make themselves enemies of their very homeland. The apostle Paul wrote of men who make themselves enemies of the cross of Christ. To befriend the cross is to become the friend of God. God designed the cross to take away the enmity out of the heart of man.  The cross reconciles sinful men to a holy God who is offended by our sin.  Through the power of Jesus' atoning blood, our sins are covered over so that God sees them no more.  He then declares us to be justified - just as if we had never sinned.
To shun the cross is to become an enemy of the cross and an enemy of God, so until men give up their resistance to the cross of Christ they continue in their hostilities to the goodness of God and declare themselves rebels.
To reject the instrument of reconciliation which God has ordained out of His mercy to sinners makes men enemies of God for ever. To turn down the work of a mediator leaves no hope for the resolution to the ongoing feud between your wicked heart and God's heart of grace. To trample upon the very blood of Jesus that was shed to cover your sins only declares how much you really hate the goodness of God. You truly are an enemy of the cross.
No preacher announces this with joy. Our text tells of the apostle Paul weeping to see people continue on as enemies of the cross. His earnest desire, and ours too, is to declare the good news that Jesus is the friend of sinners.  But to see every offer of the Saviour's friendship rejected makes it obvious that there is no human hope of salvation for these souls. Paul noted that they were headed for destruction. Their corruptions were stronger than their convictions, for they were married to "earthly things". Such sinners need to be turned from their sins and drawn to the cross. You need to be convicted of sin, converted by God's Spirit and brought to trust in the cross as God's way of saving your soul.
How may you know if you are a friend of the cross? The answer is very simple. Do you rejoice in the victory that Jesus won in His offering up himself as a sacrifice for sin?  Do you realise why He died? Let me answer that.  It was out of infinite love to reconcile men to God. It was to remove the curse of the sin that was destroying us in order to bring us into a state of full salvation for our souls. 
To be a friend of the cross means to know why Jesus died, and it means to rejoice in its power in your own life. To know that your sins are cast away as far as the east is from the west puts a song in every believer's heart. Believe in the cross, accept the nature of its work and rest in its power to cancel all the claims of sin in your life.  Turn from being an enemy of the cross today to being a friend of the cross.  Come to it and rejoice in the Saviour's dying love for you.
 
The Old Rugged Cross
On a hill far away, stood an old rugged Cross
The emblem of suff'ring and shame
And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain
(Refrain)
So I'll cherish the old rugged Cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged Cross
And exchange it some day for a crown
Oh, that old rugged Cross so despised by the world
Has a wondrous attraction for me
For the dear Lamb of God, left his Glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary
In the old rugged Cross, stain'd with blood so divine
A wondrous beauty I see
For the dear Lamb of God, left his Glory above
To pardon and sanctify me
To the old rugged Cross, I will ever be true
Its shame and reproach gladly bear
Then He'll call me some day to my home far away
Where his glory forever I'll share