In that moment, everything Don Smarto had ever learned from the Bible came into focus, and he realized that all he needed to do to be saved was to hold on to Christ and His cross. He described his experience like this:

Now I knew, I really knew, that Christ had died for me. It was coupled with the more important revelation that I was a sinner, that I was not the good person I had thought I was a moment before. All at once I embraced the telephone pole and began to cry. I must have hugged that piece of wood for nearly an hour. I could imagine Jesus nailed to this pole, blood dripping from his wounds. I felt as if the blood were dripping over me, cleansing me of my sin and unworthiness. 2

If you are not yet a Christian, that is what God is inviting you to do tonight: to know Christ and Him crucified, to trust in Him alone for your salvation. He is calling you to admit that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, and that if you are to be saved, there is nothing else you can do except hold on to the cross of the crucified Christ.

If you have already come to the cross, do not let go! The crucified Christ is the only hope for this fallen world. As a Christian, your purpose is not to get people to conform to your lifestyle or to convince them to adopt your point of view. Your purpose is to point people to Jesus Christ, and to His cross, which alone has the power to save.

It was this great truth of salvation in Christ alone that led Billy Graham to become an evangelist. In December of 1951, Graham was wrestling with God's call on his life: Should he continue doing student work, or should he become a full-time evangelist? As he hiked the trails near his home in North Carolina, Graham searched the Scriptures, reading and rereading every Bible passage on the call to evangelism. In the end, what persuaded him to preach the gospel was "Jesus Christ and him crucified."

Graham thought about Christ's death on the cross. He later understood that the cross of Christ and its irrepressible compassion was the chief motive as a spur to service and as an incentive to evangelism. His decision made, he walked back down the mountain-side, singing the old mission hymn:

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o'er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to save. 3

From that point forward, Billy Graham had "no other desire, no other goal, no other ambition." Like Paul, and like everyone who holds on to the cross, he "resolved to know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Notes
1. See James Montgomery Boice. Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001). Page 88.
2. See Smarto, Donald. Pursued. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press: 1990). ISBN 0830817174
3. "Rescue the Perishing" Words: Fanny Crosby, 1869; appeared in Songs of Devotion (New York: Biglow & Main, 1870).Music: W. Howard Doane.
Revised 2007, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. All rights reserved.
Adapted from Dr. Ryken's "Window on the World" series delivered at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA, October 29, 2000. Copyright reserved.
All Scripture is from the English Standard Version, unless otherwise noted. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL. All rights reserved.
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Copyright: Alliance Of Confessing Evangelicals. Used with permission. For more resources from ACE visit their homepage on the Web here.