Born Crucified. It was the French preacher, Lacordaire, who said that the Church was "born crucified." By this he meant that all the members of the divine Head died in and with the last Adam, when He laid down His life on Calvary.  These pages are an at-tempt in a small way to set forth, not as an exposition or theological statement, but in simple sermon and exhortation, "The Cross in the Life of the Believer."

Those who read these pages may conclude, before they have gone far, that the writer "seems spoiled for everything but to see people die." We are guilty, verily guilty.  Dare we misapply Scripture to say, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord?" Resurrections follow such blessed deaths to self, even as day follows night.

A missionary from Africa recently said to us: "If only all of our missionaries had this teaching, it would be the solution of many of our difficulties on the field." Even so.  The Cross is the key to all situations as well as to all Scripture.  If I lose that key, I miss the road not only in the Bible, but also in the whole of my life.  If, through the years, the Cross in the life of the believer had been adhered to as strenuously as the Cross for salvation, the Church would not today be so plagued with modernistic infidelity.  We little dream how we are suffering from what has been termed "a decapitated gospel". This book is written to show the believer that, from the moment be is saved, he is so related to the Cross, that, if he henceforth fails to live by the Cross, he is an utter ethical contradiction to himself and to his position in Christ.
  Many of these chapters have been prepared too hurriedly and under tremendous pressure.  Our prayer, therefore, is continually going up to the throne that in spite of our frailties and weaknesses in presentation, God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.