Unless...

From Dr. A. W. Tozer, the great preacher of a few decades ago:

The cross is the symbol of death.

It stands for the abrupt, violent end of the human being.

The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said goodbye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was not going out to have his life redirected. He was going out to have it ended.

The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing. It slew all of the man completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck swift and hard and when it had finished its work the man was no more.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of man is false to the Bible and cruel to the soul of the hearers.

The faith of Christ does not parallel the world. It intersects it.

In coming to Christ we do not bring our life up on to a higher plane.

We leave it at a cross.

The grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die. That is the beginning of the gospel.