The preaching of the cross is the power of God and the wisdom of God, not human wisdom, for salvation. God chooses the foolish, weak, and despised things of the world to confound the wise and mighty, ensuring that no flesh glories in His presence. Salvation is entirely God's work, not man's achievement, and is found solely in Christ Jesus, who is made wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption for believers. Therefore, one must glory only in the Lord, not in human intellect or accomplishment, as the gospel's message of Christ crucified is the only means by which God saves.
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Let us turn to First Corinthians chapter one and begin our reading at verse eighteen. Paul's letter to the Corinthians and we're in chapter one. Verse eighteen. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are being saved it is the power of God, for it is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believed. for the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men, for ye see your calling, brethren, are that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen ye, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him are
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God he's made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
May the Lord bless the reading of his word. I'm going to ask our brother Dave Netherick to lead us into the presence of the Lord. Now let us look for the Lord in a word of prayer. Loving Father, we desire that we may hear thy voice. We desire that Thou wilt be glorified in our midst, deliver us from anything that hinders. May our faith indeed stand not in the wisdom of men, but indeed in the power of God. We ask, O God, that thou wilt speak to us in this hour.
Remember those of the Patton family who are mourning the loss of a sister. We remember just a year ago that she visited with us one Lord day morning. We commend them to thee for thy rich blessing. And now for us minister to our souls. We pray for Jesus' sake. Amen. Here in First Corinthians chapter one, we notice that the very essence of the gospel is to glorify God. and a humble man. This is because in the gospel God's power and God's wisdom are revealed.
Now last week what I did I gave you an outline of this section from First Corinthians one eighteen through the whole of the second chapter and the outline I'm going to repeat again for we're going to follow it. God exalts His glory and He excludes human wisdom or human boasting in the display of His wisdom, first of all, in the nature of the gospel. And you have that in chapter one, verses eighteen through twenty five, the nature of the gospel. God has so designed the gospel that He receives all the glory in the salvation of a soul.
But then second, he does it in the membership of his church at Corinth, verses twenty-six through verse thirty-one of chapter one. And then he does it also in the ministry of his servants, in chapter two, verses one through five. And it was there that we ended our Bible reading this morning. But then in a fourth way, he does it in the revelation of his truth. And you have that in verse sixteen, or verse six, through the end of the chapter, which is verse sixteen. It is the message of the cross that goes to the root of the disease that were so prevalent in the Church of Corinth.
The disease was a boasting in man rather than in the Lord. Now, Paul's great principle... that he outlines is that wisdom and power for salvation are not found in man but in God. And in the gospel he has set forth his power and his wisdom. Now Paul supports this principle in three ways. We noticed one of them last Lord's Day morning. He does it first of all biblically. And he uses the word there in verse nineteen, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.
And we dwell on how God in the Old Testament, in Isaiah twenty nine, he doesn't depend upon the schemes of men. He destroys the wisdom of the wise. He brings to nothing the intelligence of the intelligent, as the NIV puts it. in Isaiah twenty nine. But now this morning we want to examine the wisdom of God supported contemporarily. Paul asks the question in verse twenty, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? In other words, the Greeks were so filled with philosophy and philosophers.
that they gathered together to hear or to listen to some new thing. And they were great on this. And this was the day of Greek philosophy. And Paul cries out, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? I know that this is based on Isaiah nineteen and some verses there. But What he's really saying is this, where is the wisdom of this age? Where is the wisdom of the wise men? When you come to the real problems of men, we observe that what has happened to the wisdom of men, the ultimate question to which people must be driven is, where are your great thinkers?
Where are they? Where are your great philosophers? Now, we're not decrying what man has done, and we're not decrying human achievement. But we are asking, where has the wisdom of this world gotten us? Now we need to confront the modern world with these questions, whether we like to or not. We have to confront the modern world with these rhetorical questions that Paul is asking. You see, we're living in an age scientifically. When I was a boy, we used to read some science fiction. I believe just about every boy did when I was coming along.
And friend, the science fiction of my day, I thought, boy, this could never happen. But it has happened. What I read as a boy as science fiction has become reality to us in our days. We have the wisdom and the technology today to put a man on the moon and to bring him back within a square mile of the ocean where we said he would land. You talk about technology? No, we can put a man on the moon and we can bring him back to earth, but we cannot control his behavior right here in earth.
And where's man's problem? Man's problem is on the inside. And we can boast of our scientific achievements, and we can boast of our technology. But if the heart of man is wrong, how can you touch it? Where is the lie? Paul says. Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? You see, this is the challenge of the apostle. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? He has. The man who has the technology to put a man on the moon. He can't control his own emotions or his own behavior. And God has made foolish, beloved, the wisdom of this world by accomplishing what the world has failed to accomplish.
And in so doing, he has dismissed the wisdom of this world as Pali. This is why it is so important, beloved. to have our confidence in God and in the gospel. In spite of the fact, beloved, that the city of Corinth was given over to philosophy and the wisdom of the wise men. Yet the Corinthians, before God and His grace through the preaching of the gospel by Paul, entered into the city, they were pagans living in debauchery and immorality, unable to control their own lives. And Paul had a say in First Corinthians six and eleven, know ye not, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
And then he catalogued the vicious vices of Corinth. And he says, But such were some of you. What man in his wisdom couldn't do. God in the gospel of grace has done. And beloved, this is why we have to have such confidence. In God and in the gospel of His grace, we cannot, for the sake of a sick and a needy world, abandon the gospel. We cannot permit our confidence in the gospel to drift even in a small way. We can't do it, for the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Our only hope for the world, beloved, is in the gospel of God's grace. Do you have a question? Do you believe that? Do you believe that today? Do you believe that in relation to the gospel that is brought to you and to me? You know, there's a parody I heard this week on a song. And it's a very good one. The young man that was with us on Wednesday night who rode his bicycle from California to New York and just recently peddled over the Rocky Mountains both ways, from east to west and from west to east.
And he was only saved three years ago, and I was brought up in a Christian home. He was, quote, decision by his mother. But when he got to college, he didn't want anything to do with God. No time for God, no time for the things of God. And God brought him to an end of himself in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a computer analyst. And it was there that God saved him. But his mother doesn't believe it. His mother says, oh, you were saved back to what I remember when you were saved. He says, mother, I wasn't saved.
And here's a parody of the song. He says, Jesus loves me, this I know, for my mommy tells me so. And that's the condition, beloved. In many areas today, people are told they're saved by other people, but God's word has never told them. God's word has never told them. Beloved, we've lost confidence in the gospel and in the message of the gospel. And what has happened, we are made substitutes for the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration. Beloved, the ultimate hope of this world rests only in one area.
It's in the grace of God. So Paul not only supports his system of the wisdom of God in the gospel, he not only supports it favorably. He not only supports it contemporarily. What else could have formed the church at Corinth? Nothing. But he does it now, theologically. Beginning in verse twenty-one. He says, For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. He pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now he does it, theologically. Why is it, beloved, that the gospel, that in the gospel human pride is brought to nothing, and human wisdom shows its true poverty.
Paul tells us. Paul tells us. And the answer is the sovereign pleasure of God. Don't miss that. Why is human wisdom so powerless? And so poverty stricken, it is according to the good pleasure of God. How do I know? It says it pleased God. Not by the instrumentality of humanism, but by the foolishness of preaching. By the foolishness of the message that was preached. To save them that believe. Now this is a divine decree, beloved, that is expressed negatively.
and positively. Now notice this expression negatively. Negatively, God has decreed in his wisdom that the world by wisdom will never come to know him. That's what it says. The world by wisdom will never come to know God. That is the expression of God's decree negatively. Now positively, God has been pleased by the foolishness of what was preached. The same then that they leave. So we look at the divine decree in two ways. Notice the verbs that are in the passage here.
The Jews require. The Greek seek. We preach. God call. Oh, get those verbs in their proper order. The Jews require a sign. The Greeks seek after wisdom. We preach. Christ crucified. God called. Now the Jews demand a sign. The Jews demand a miracle. And all we're living in a day when miracles are demanded of men. And there are those who succumb to try to perform them. The Jews require a sign.
All this is a great temptation in our modern world. tailor the message to the demands and the requirements of men. We have an idea today that if we just tailor the message in order that this group can understand it, and that group can understand it, and another group can understand it, oh no, we cannot tailor the message. This is a great temptation. The gospel beloved is a proclamation of unchanging truth. We preach. Christ crucified. The uncrucified pride will stumble over that message.
Uncrucified pride and the man who worships human reason will dismiss that message as follows. But as we preach Christ crucified, the sovereign God who calls men to himself will draw both the self-righteous views and a proud Greek to experience the power and the wisdom of God. That is the simplicity of the gospel. God calls the proud Jews. God calls the wise Greek.
And through the gospel, they experience the power and the wisdom of God. For the scripture says to those who are called. both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, beloved, when you look at this text, we learn immediately that it is neither human gift or wisdom or a new methodology or a new intellectual skill. It is the power of God in the gospel that saves men. Today, there is a crisis of confidence in two areas. And beloved, we need to look at this crisis of confidence that is so prevalent today.
There's a crisis in the message of the gospel itself, in God's sovereign power of salvation. Am I absolutely clear who it is that saves men and what it is? that saves men. Am I clear about it? In my own thinking, in my own witnessing to men, am I clear who it is that saves? Beloved, it isn't the church. It isn't an organization, a parish church organization over here who says, you come along with us and we'll show you how it's done.
And whenever anybody ever tells me that, I'm scared. When any group tells me, here's how it's done, I'm always scared. For this reason, it is God who saves, and he only has one message that he uses. He uses the gospel of Christ crucified. Nothing else will save us. There's a crisis of confidence in preaching itself. You see, there's a crisis of confidence not only as to who it is that saves and what it is that saves, that's number one.
But number two, there's a crisis of confidence in preaching itself. God says it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. Not by foolish preaching. I've heard a lot of foolish preaching. And so have you. It's not a foolish preaching, but it's a foolishness of the thing preached. The message of Christ crucified in reality, it is what the Greek called foolishness. It's what to the Jews of stumbling block. You see, it's that simple message of the gospel that he's talking about.
Now, it is not in miraculous signs. Everybody today seems to be looking for a miracle. The Jews require a sign, our text says. And whenever you think of signs and miracles, they said to the Lord when he was here on earth, show us a sign and we'll believe. Show us a miracle and we'll believe. And you know the story of the rich man in Lazarus in Luke sixteen. The rich man who fared sumptuously every day. And There was poor Lazarus the beggar who was laid at his gate full of sores, and the rich man died and was buried.
They had a funeral for him. Lazarus died. We don't read of a funeral, but the angels carried him into Abraham's bosom. But the rich man was in hell, and in hell he opened his eyes, and he saw Lazarus in Abraham's bosom in paradise afar off. And he cried, Father Abraham! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water that he may cool my tongue, for I am fermented in this flame. And Abraham said, no, you can't do that. There's a great gulf between you and me. We can't get across.
Lazarus can't come to you and you can't come to Lazarus. Here's an impossibility. It's impossible. But then he said, Oh, Abraham, Father Abraham, I have five brothers. I have five brothers. Send Lazarus to him. Oh, he said they have something better. They have Moses and the prophets. They have the word of God. Let him listen to the word of God. Oh, no. You see, the rich man is still arguing in hell. He hasn't repented of this. He's still arguing with God. He's arguing that he knows better than God.
He says, you send Lazarus. They'll believe if someone rose from the dead. If someone rose from the dead, they'll have a miracle and they'll believe. Abraham says, no. If they don't believe Abraham or if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't believe if somebody rose from the dead. My dear friends, in the midst, of all the so-called miracles that are seen to abound today when you listen to certain TV preachers. There is less faith. There is less and less and less of the Word of God. And there is more and more and more of man. The very disease that occupied the believers in Corinth seems to be getting hold in our land today.
The Jews require us time, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach, Paul says, Christ crucified. You see, but God exalts his glory and excludes human pride in the membership of his church at Corinth. That brings us, you see, to this second section. Verse twenty-six, he says, well, you see, you're calling, brethren. Oh, there's a tremendous flow of thinking in the mind of the apostle as he deals with the corruption of the divisions that existed at Corinth. He says here, For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.
You see, in verse twenty-six, Paul picks up the theme of God's calling back from verse twenty-four, where he says unto them who are called. Both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now he picks up the thought of calling and he illustrates that principle by those who made up the church in Corinth. What is he saying? Well, he's saying this. Just take a look around, brethren. Take a look around at yourself. Who are the people God called and saved and brought into fellowship with you? Who are they? Well, according to worldly standards, there are not many wise, there are not many noble, and there are not many powerful.
On the contrary, God seems to have chosen in Corinth those who, by human reasoning and human reckoning, are foolish and weak and poor and despised. God seems to have gone out of his way to choose so few from the world who are, quote, worth considering. Unquote. Are you worth considering? How do you feel toward other believers? What is your attitude toward them?
You see, God has chosen. God has chosen them. That's why in the book of James chapter two, he speaks that we may not in the church of Jesus Christ show partiality. The man with a gold ring finger, you remember? He speaks of in the man who is poorly dressed in James chapter two. We can't say to the one while you sit here, brother. Here's the best seat in the house. The man with a gold ring finger. And we'll be passing the offering place in a little while. You can't say that. And then to the poor man with a poor clothing and ill-clad, we can't say, sit in the floor, Mac.
You can't do that. That's showing partiality. Paul says, take a look. Take a look at the membership of the church in Corinth. Who among you is noble? Who among you is mighty? Who among you is great? Why was God doing this? What is it that God is doing? In verse twenty nine, he is dealing with those people at Corinth so that no one of them may boast before him. His choosing of the people in Corinth has a specific design. God is showing that in salvation he is displaying his own wisdom and his own power.
Now God hammers home this truth to the Apostle Paul. What he's saying is this. Salvation is God's work and not man. Notice in verse twenty-six. Here we find that the saving event is God calling me and not me calling on God. He says, Well, you see, you're calling brethren. Oh, that's not many wise men. Then in verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight, Paul emphasizes that the saving fact is God's choice of me and not my choice of him. For verse twenty seven he says, But God hath chosen the foolish.
Who's doing the choosing? God. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world and things which are despised as God chosen. Yeah, and things which are not. to bring to nothing things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence. And then in the last verse, or no, it's verse thirty, he says, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus. He not only emphasizes that we were called by God, he not only emphasizes that we were chosen by God, but in verse thirty it is because of God that we are in Christ.
And not because of ourselves. Now in Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God is revealed. For of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us. Wisdom. And the wisdom of God is in a threefold package. There is righteousness to justify us. righteousness it speaks of the justification of God whereby he declares the believing sinner righteous then there is sanctification or holiness to sanctify us and then there is the redemption of the body to glorify us all that is necessary for man is found in the person of Christ and that is who is presented in the gospel Paul says, I determined not to know anything among you, say Jesus Christ, and in crucify.
Now it's very clear, therefore, beloved, in what God has done in calling a people in Corinth to himself, that he has avoided every possibility of self-glorification. The very thing that they were doing in Corinth, the gospel of God, and the way in which God has worked in them, he avoided every one of those things. Oh, that we may be able to grasp this. See, God has designed the church in such a way as to exclude self-glorification. Notice, the reverse of self-glorification is not a kind of man-centered negative obedience.
Never forget that. It's not some kind of man-centered negative obedience. But it's positive. Be the glory. Let him glory in the Lord. The very opposite of glorying in man is not some kind of self-denigration. That's not what it means, not the glory in man. You see, a lot of people degrade themselves in the presence of others, and it's nothing else but a form of pride. They want to draw attention to themselves. That's not what he's talking about.
When a person is involved in self-denigration, they're pretending to be something which they are not. And that is false. that he's not a biblical picture of humility. Biblical humility, beloved, is a positive thing. He's boasting in the Lord. He who glories, let him glory in the Lord. That's genuine humility. Boy, Paul is certainly outlining the grace of God. to these Corinthians.
But you'll notice God exalts his glory and he excludes human pride in another area. In chapter two verses one through five in the ministry of each servant. Here again Paul contrasts human weakness and divine power and the message is the same. What is the message? That no flesh should glory in his presence. Notice what Paul says. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.
All think of these words. And I'd like to quote the dear brother John Stott. This is what John Stott says on this passage. He says, neither the flesh of the sinner seeking his own salvation, nor the flesh of the preacher seeking the salvation of others. If the sinner must humble himself to receive God's word, the preacher must humble himself to proclaim it. Oh, what a mess. Oh, did we grasp that, beloved. If the sinner must humble himself, To receive us, John Stock says, and I agree with him, or else I wouldn't have quoted him.
Then the preacher must humble himself to proclaim it. Paul said when I came to you, I didn't come with excellency of speech originally. It's not Paul had it. Paul was a man who could speak a few languages. He was a man who was, I'd say, one of the best educated men of the first century. But he didn't show off his educational position. He said, I didn't come with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. So you see this message.
It is illustrated, but not in the message Paul preached. And it was demonstrated in the manner in which he preached it. That's what he's saying. my message and the manner in which I preached it. You see, Paul's resolve in chapter two and verse two is to preach Christ and him crucified. Now, this is a contemporary and comprehensive survey of the entire gospel. When we talk of Christ and him crucified, we're talking about Jesus in his perfect humanity. We're talking about Jesus in his messianic dignity.
We're talking about Jesus in his willing obedience to God to the cross and to die on the cross, his obedience to the Father, even to the death of the cross. It is Jesus in his perfect offering of himself as a substitute for sinners. It is Jesus in the power of his death to breach the strongholds of Satan and the reign of sin. It is our union with Christ. In his death and subsequent resurrection, it is the guarantee that his atonement has provided his ultimate glory.
And ours too. I determine not to know anything among you, save Christ and him crucified. This, beloved, is the fulfillment of Holy Scripture. Christ. died for our sins according to the scriptures. To preach Christ and him crucified is what Paul says to the Ephesian elders is to proclaim the whole counsel of God. Renske, the New Testament commentator, he said something real good. He said this passage is in no way restricted so to say, to say that Paul only preached a portion of the gospel in Corinth and omitted other portions.
Jesus Christ and him crucified when you explore the riches and the glorious steps of it is the whole panorama of the gospel. And I agree with that Lutheran theologian, Lentz. He is right. What is our problem? What is our problem? Our problem is we don't explore enough. So in closing, I have two questions. Three questions. Question number one. Are you exploring? Are you, as a child of God, exploring the depth of the message of the gospel.
Paul was convinced of it. There was no lack of confidence in Paul in his message. Or in his God. Are you exploring? The second question is this. What is your response to the gospel of Christ crucified? How do you feel toward it? How do you feel? The third question is, in verse eighteen of chapter one it presents two groups. Those who are perishing and those who are being saved. Which group are you in?
Are you in those who are being saved? Something has taken place in your life and you're waking that ultimate day of redemption. Those who are perishing means that the same rebellion with which you were born is still there and you're just awaiting that final day of judgment you're either in one group or the other and it is your response to the gospel that determines which group you're in response to the gospel it's not your response to the preacher The preacher is just the Western Union boy.
He's delivering the message, and that's all. He responds to God who has given the gospel. I determined to know nothing among you, Paul says, save Christ and him crucified. He has confidence in that message. He's the only one that's saved. Now, my friend, if you're here this morning, And you're in the second group. You're among those who are perishing. We invite you to come to Christ. To cry out to him. And ask him for his mercy.
For you want to be among those who are moving toward that grand day of redemption. For which we are sealed when we believe. Knowledge comes. Loving Father, we thank you for the gospel, for the message of the gospel, for the confidence that we can have in it. You are utterly convinced, O God, that apart from the gospel, no one will ever be saved. And you've given us the joy and the privilege of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Deliver us, O God, from The distractions of this age.
May our faith stand in the power of the gospel. Now we commit ourselves to thee. We pray thee, O God, that thou wilt bless the word. And make the word of blessing. To each heart. Dismiss us. To our several abodes. And may it please thee. To administer thy grace. Thy mercy and thy peace. to all thine own, who have truly believed in thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.