Looking Forward and Back
At this time of year many of you will be setting off on holiday or, perhaps will just have returned from holiday. If you were travelling by car or bus from Scotland to England you may have noticed a sign outside a hotel as soon as you got across the border. The sign would read, “The First Hotel in England.” If you happened to look out the back window of the car or bus, however, you would have seen that the other side of the sign read, “The Last Hotel in England”. That may seem a strange thing, boys and girls; but, of course, it isn't, and it all depends from which direction you are approaching that hotel. Coming from England, it is, indeed, the last hotel in England, but going to England, it is the first hotel that you come across when you go over the border.
Now, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is something like that hotel and its sign. The Bible tells us that we are saved from our sins by “believing” that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to save people from their sins. This “believing” is also called “faith,” and it is also referred to as “looking” to the cross and to Jesus Christ who died there. We “look”, of course, by faith – by believing; and when we today look to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ we look back to that cross. Jesus has come to this world and has died to save people from their sins, and we look – look back – by faith, believing that that is true.
But the Bible also tells us about people who lived many years before Jesus came to this world to die on the cross, and who also believed and had faith. Here is what our Lord Jesus Christ says of one of them – Abraham – who lived many, many years before the birth, and death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.”
You see, boys and girls, God had always promised to send a Saviour into this world to die for people's sins. And before Jesus came, people had faith in what God had promised, and they looked forward to the One who would come and die on the cross.
They looked towards the cross, and we look back to the cross, but it is the same way of salvation. For we are told to “believe” that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins.
Do you believe?