Good morning. What we just sang is a glorious
mystery of the gospel. How we can comprehend that our
God is in three persons and yet all of one nature, one God, beyond
our ability, and yet the Lord gives us faith to believe that
God the Father has according to his own will and his own purpose,
elected a particular people before the foundation of the world.
And God the Son accomplished the redemption of those people
by the sacrifice of himself on Calvary's cross. And the God
of the Holy Spirit takes the gospel and makes it effectual
to the hearts of those for whom Christ died and whom the Father
chose. We have a triune God who cannot
fail in redeeming all his people. There's our hope, our hope. We're gonna be in Acts chapter
17, both hours this morning, Lord willing, if you'd like to
turn with me there in your Bibles, Acts chapter 17. Let's go to the Lord in prayer
and ask his blessings on his word, our merciful heavenly father. We come into thy holy presence,
looking in faith to thy beloved for all our acceptance and believing
that we have full acceptance in him. We thank you for his
accomplished work of redemption. We thank you, Lord, for the promise
of your presence and of your power when your people are gathered
together and your gospel is preached. And so, Lord, we pray this hour
that you'd be pleased to manifest your grace and your glory in
our hearts and to cause us to find all our hope, all our salvation
in thy dear son. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. I've titled this message, Lovers
of Wisdom. Lovers of Wisdom. Normally we
would not be even talking about philosophy from the pulpit, yet
the scriptures speak of it here in Acts chapter 17. And Paul, after the riots in Philippi
and Berea and Thessalonia, has now come to Athens to preach
the gospel. Athens, a city named after the
goddess of wisdom, Athena. And he finds himself in God's
good providence, bringing the gospel to the philosophers of
that city. And the Lord tells us who these
philosophers are. If you have your Bibles open
to Acts chapter 17, look with me at verse 18, then certain
philosophers. Now, the reason I called this
message lovers of wisdom is because the word philos is one of the
Greek words for love. And the word Sophia is the Greek
word for wisdom, Sophie. And those two words together
mean lovers of wisdom. Lovers of wisdom. The truth is
that men who profess themselves to be philosophers, the lovers
of wisdom, in fact, hate wisdom. They hate wisdom. The scriptures
make it clear that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is the wisdom
of God. He is the power of God and he
is the wisdom of God. And God has made him to be unto
us our wisdom. And so these proud, self-righteous
philosophers are dabbling in things that they have no understanding
of, and they're priding themselves in believing that they've got
some secret insight into depths of truth that are beyond the
natural man's ability to understand. The truth is that the gospel,
or that wisdom, is very simple. Nothing wrong with education,
nothing wrong with intelligence. But some of the most educated
people in this world and some of the most naturally intelligent
people in this world are fools in their hearts toward God. They have no wisdom. Wisdom is simple. The Lord concludes 1 Corinthians
with this admonition. First Corinthians chapter 16,
verse 22. If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Now I wanna be a lover of wisdom.
I wanna be a true philosopher. One who has had their hearts
captured by the love of Christ. One who is looking in faith not
to some human knowledge of foolishness, and that's really what man's
wisdom is. It's just a confusion of foolishness. Never, I suppose, in the history
of the world has there been a generation of people who have professed
themselves to be wise, but have become fools in their hearts
toward God. The scripture says that man will
increase in knowledge towards the end of time. And while he
increases in knowledge, he will become a fool in his heart towards
God. Is that not where we are? Is there not a proliferation of knowledge in
the world today? If there's something you don't
know, just reach in your pocket and pull your cell phone out,
ask, what's her name, Siri? She'll tell you, she knows everything.
And men think that because they've increased in knowledge, That
means they have wisdom. Man increases in knowledge and
yet becomes a fool in his heart towards God. That's exactly what we have here
in Acts chapter 17. Therefore, I'm
sorry, verse 18, then certain philosophers, men who professed
themselves to be lovers of wisdom, of the Epicurean and Stoics. Now, in contrast to true wisdom
being very simple, if you read the definition of Epicureanism
and Stoicism, you know, maybe you can figure it out. I couldn't.
I couldn't. It's very convoluted. It's very confusing. It's double
talk. The only simple definition that
I could come to is that Epicureanism is the philosophy that believes
that truth and wisdom is derived from your senses. In other words, if it looks good,
if it feels good, if it tastes good, if it sounds good, what'd
I miss? It's true, and so Epicureanism
is trying to discern wisdom and truth from outside influences. Whereas Stoicism is an attempt
to discover wisdom and truth from reflection, and from thought,
and from reason, and from logic. Now both of these philosophies
have one thing in common. They make man the discerner and
the arbiter of truth. That's what they have in common.
Turn with me to Proverbs chapter 18. Proverbs chapter 18. The Lord has put this in his word
for a reason. And in fact, all the philosophies of man fit
under one of those two categories. That's the reason why the Lord
identified those two. Every sub-subject of philosophy
fits under one of those two categories. Either you discern truth from
outside influences, or you discern truth from within yourself, or by your flesh, by your senses,
or through your knowledge. Look at Proverbs 18 at verse 1. Through desire, a man
having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. And that word intermeddleth means
that he rejects wisdom. So a man separates himself, as
these philosophers did, and they believe that they've got insight
into things that they're seeking after, but in fact, while they
do that, they are rejecting true wisdom. Look at verse two. A fool hath no delight in understanding,
but that his heart might discover itself. Isn't that the philosophy of
the world? Figure yourself out. Just dive deep enough. It's navel-gazing is what it
is. It's just sitting around trying
to figure out who you are and why you are and what you are.
And all along, it's a rejection of true wisdom. It's a rejection
of Christ. And so these men who call themselves
philosophers, the lovers of wisdom, are actually, in fact, haters
of wisdom. They have made themselves the
focus of wisdom rather than looking outside of themselves to the
Lord Jesus Christ for all their wisdom. Turn back with me to
our text. Let me define wisdom. It is the
knowledge of that which is true and right, coupled with the ability
to act on it. It is the knowledge of that which
is true and right, coupled with the ability to act on it. Now translated into the gospel,
it means that it is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ coupled
with the ability to believe on him. That's wisdom. That's wisdom. And anything else
that men want to call wisdom is nothing but men trying to
discover themselves. You back with me? Men feed their egos and their
pride by making things complicated. We see it in religion. We see
it in man-made philosophies. The gospel's not complicated.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, if you know the truth, the truth
shall set you free. And then in another place, he
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man can come
to the Father except by me. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
1. 1 Corinthians 1. Look at verse 24. But unto them which are called, How do I know if I've been called?
Both of the Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and
Christ, the wisdom of God. That's how I know I've been called. that the Lord Jesus Christ is
all my power. I'm without power. While we were
yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. I have
no power to come to God. I have no ability to believe
on God. I have no ability to discern that which is truth and
right and no ability to act upon that which is true and right
if God doesn't exercise the power of his grace in my heart. Back up with me to verse 18. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved,
it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise. I 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
that after in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not
God. What is it that men are trying
to discover through their philosophies? They're trying to discover God. The origin of life, the meaning
of life, the end of life, what's it all about? They're looking
for God in all the wrong places. And God says, when man, by wisdom,
knew not God, it pleased God. Right now, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
belief. For the Jews require a sign,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom. You see, men don't want the simplicity
of the gospel. They want an experience. That's
Epicureanism. I want a sign. I want something
I can see, something I can feel, something I can touch. The Greeks
seek after wisdom, that's stoicism. I wanna be able to discern this
on my own through my own intellect and through my own discernment
and through my own logic and my own wisdom. And men are too
proud, they're too proud to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
true wisdom, he gets all the glory. He's the answer. It's all, it's all bound up in
him. Look at, look at verse, halfway through verse 21. For
it pleased God by the foodless as a preaching to save them that
believe. Verse 23, for we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews,
a stumbling block. Why is it a stumbling block to
the Jews? it robs them of their glory. It takes away their righteousness. It exposes their works for what
they are, filthy rags before God. And we're not talking about just
national ethnic Jews. We're talking about all religious
people who are looking to their righteousness for their hope
of acceptance before God. And to the Greeks, it's just
foolishness. Well, that's too simple. We need to debate these
things. We need to go into deeper understanding
of these things. We're going to see that in our
text in Acts chapter 17. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, the wisdom
of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and
the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble are called." I was talking to a philosophy
professor at UCF some years ago, and And he told me, he said,
you know, he found out I was a preacher. And he said, he said,
and he was my age. And he said, he said, you know,
I'm still contemplating the same question that I toyed with when
I was working on my doctorate degree in college. Did God create
us or did we create him? That was the deep, dark truth
that he was trying. And I looked at him and I thought,
what a fool. What a fool you are. But there
is a philosopher. That's man-made philosophy. And God made foolish the wisdom
of this world. Has God made that foolishness
to you? Verse 27, but God, But God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
I'm sure after our conversation, that professor walked away thinking
I was the biggest fool in the world. God has made the foolish things
to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are mighty and the base
things and the things which are despised have God chosen, yea,
the things which are not to bring to naught. the things that are
that no flesh, no flesh should glory in his presence. You see,
these philosophers in Athens were so proud. They were glorying
and debating and discussing their philosophical views of life. We don't do that with the gospel.
We just lift up Christ. We declare Him, look at verse
30, but of Him, and that first Him is God Almighty, God the
Father, of God the Father, are you in Christ Jesus? How are we gonna get in Christ
Jesus? Only of God the Father puts us in Christ Jesus. Who
of God is made unto us wisdom? Wisdom, all our wisdom, all our
sanctification, all our righteousness, all our redemption, that according
it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Go
back with me to Acts chapter 17. Verse 18, certain philosophers
of the Epicureans and Stoics encountered him. And some said,
what will this babbler say? Now that word babbler translated
means seed picker, and really the babblers of that day were
entertainers is what they were. They were people who had traveled
to other places of the world, which most people had never done.
They'd born, lived, and died in the same city where they lived,
and they would bring stories from those other places of the
world, and they would stand in the streets, and they would and
they would entertain the crowds with stories, and everyone was
interested in the details of those stories until, and everybody
expected those stories to be embellished, but if they got
so exaggerated that they were unbelievable, then everybody
would just say, no, you've gone too far. We don't believe that.
We don't believe that. Now, that's exactly what happens
here. Look what happens. What will this babbler have to
say? And others, some, he seemeth
to set us forth a strange God, because he preached unto them
Jesus and the resurrection, and that was too strange to them.
And notice if you will go down with me to verse 32, after the
apostle Paul finishes preaching the gospel, look what happens.
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. and
the others said, well, we'll hear you again on this matter.
In other words, they threw up their hands and they said, that's
just, you've exaggerated and embellished this story beyond
believability, and we're, you know, we're just gonna mock you
now. Verse 19, and they took him,
and brought him unto the Areopagus. That was the high court. That's
where these men came together and made decisions for the city
and judged those things that needed to be judged. This was
the high court of Athens at the Areopagus, Mars Hill. And they said, may we know what
this new doctrine, wherever thou speak it is, for thou bring a
certain strange things to our ears, And we would know, therefore,
what these things mean. And notice verse 21. This is
our day, brethren. This is our day. For all the
Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in
nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. All that, well, if I just, if
I can acquire a new tidbit of information, knowledge is power. Isn't that what we hear? I just need to hear something new,
something different. And the child of God says, Oh,
don't tell me anything different. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me how that God, before
the world ever created, was created according to a sovereign grace.
entered into a covenant promise with His Son and with His Spirit.
elected a people, the Lord Jesus Christ became the surety of those
people in that covenant of grace and how the Holy Spirit agreed
in that covenant to regenerate those whom Christ had redeemed.
Tell me about the successful redemptive work of the Son of
God on Calvary's cross who put away our sins. Tell me how that
I can know God through him. Philip said, Lord, show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us. Lord, just give us a knowledge
of God, and we'll be satisfied. And the Lord Jesus said to him,
oh, Philip, have I been with you so long that you don't know
that if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, for I and the
Father are one. Oh, to know Christ is to know
God. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. This doesn't require philosophical knowledge or education. You don't
even have to be literate. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the Word of God. Isn't that glorious? that no flesh should glory in
his presence. All the wisest people of this
world, as we just read in 1 Corinthians 1, the base things, the things
which are not, not many of you are noble. Those are the ones whom God has
chosen. And the wisest people in this
world, the world would call foolish, ignorant. Know what they said
to the apostles? They said to the apostles when
they brought him before the Sanhedrin, they said they took notice. They
saw that these men were ignorant and unlearned, yet they took
notice of them that they had been with Jesus. Oh, what a glorious
truth. Oh, brethren, wisdom, wisdom
does not depend upon human intellect. It depends upon God and his grace
to reveal Christ to our hearts. For Christ Jesus, the Lord himself,
is all our wisdom. You remember when our Lord was
being questioned by Pilate. And Pilate asked him, are you
the king of the Jews? And the Lord refused to answer
him. And Pilate kept asking him, he said, are you a king then?
And our Lord said, for this cause
came I into the world. For this reason was I born, to
bear witness unto the truth. And they that are of the truth,
they hear my voice and they follow me. Remember what Pilate's response
was? Truth, truth, truth. Is that what this is all about?
Don't you know that there's no such thing as absolute truth?
Don't you know that everything's relative? Don't you know that
we are the arbiters of truth? And you're telling me that you
are the truth and that you know the truth. You see, that's what
men won't do. They won't give to the Lord Jesus
Christ all the glory as being the truth. They want to be the
discerners of truth themselves. And they will either use outside
influences to determine that truth, or they will use their
own supposed intellect and knowledge and wisdom to discern that truth,
but they won't look to Christ as the truth. I'm so thankful
that the Lord said, they that are of the truth, they hear my
voice, and they follow me. For they know that I am the power
of God, and that I am the wisdom of God, and that they have no
power and no wisdom outside of me. That God has made me to be
unto them their wisdom and their righteousness, their sanctification
and their redemption. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
1. Ephesians chapter 1. Look with me at verse six. Well, verse five says that we've
been predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will. Yes, that
word means predestined. That God determined the destination
of his people. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth. It's of God that showeth mercy,
and he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. To the praise
of the glory of his grace, we can't take any credit for this.
These philosophers in Athens, Come again, we'll listen to you
again. We'll weigh your words again, but don't exaggerate so
much next time you tell us these stories from faraway land. We'll
listen about your God, but don't make it so that it's just unbelievable. It is unbelievable. It is. Apart from the grace of
God, you can't believe the gospel. to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved. The only way that you and I are
going to be accepted in the presence of a holy God is to be found
in the beloved. And we've already seen that the
only way to be in the beloved is for God to put you there. In whom? We have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of his grace. The Lord doesn't forgive our
sins when we exercise our faith. He's not dependent upon us to
do something in order for him to save us. He actually saved
us on Calvary's cross. through the shedding of his precious
blood on Calvary's cross, he put away the sins of his people,
wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom. All wisdom is abounded toward
us in Christ. And all prudence, all understanding,
having made known unto us the mystery of his will according
to the good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself." Oh, these men thought they were
delving into deep, mysterious things. Things that the natural man could
not understand. And yet, Christ is our wisdom. How do I know I have Christ?
How do I know I have true wisdom? How do I know I'm a true lover
of wisdom, a true philosopher? In 1 Kings 3, you remember Solomon. The Lord came to King Solomon
and said, ask for anything you want and I'll give it to you.
And Solomon said, oh Lord, I need wisdom. I need wisdom. And the Lord was pleased that
Solomon asked for wisdom, and no man was ever wiser than King
Solomon. Scripture said God gave him wisdom.
He gave him a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the very
next chapter, two harlots come to King Solomon with a case. You remember they both had given
birth to a baby? One of them in the night had
rolled over on her child and killed the child. The child suffocated
and died, and while the other mother was asleep, she swapped
the babies. And so these two harlots, and
a harlot is what we are, spiritually, They come to Solomon and they
both are claiming that the live baby is theirs. And Solomon said,
bring me a sword and let's divide the child and give each mother
half. And the woman whose baby was
already dead said, okay, let's do that. And the mother of the
child said, oh no, no, don't divide the baby. Give the baby
to her. Solomon knew right then whose
child that was. Now here's the truth, brethren. We know that we have Christ as
our wisdom when we refuse. Remember the first verse I read
was, if we love not the Lord Jesus Christ, Let him be anathema. How do I know I'm a lover of
Christ, a lover of wisdom? I refuse to have him divided. I will not divide the gospel. I will not divide works and grace
and make salvation dependent upon something that I do, contributed
to what God has done. That's how I know. The Lord Jesus
Christ is gonna do all the saving all by himself or I won't be
saved. I'm not gonna add my works to
his. You remember at the cross when
the soldiers saw that the robe of the Lord Jesus Christ was
without seam. And they were casting lots for
his vesture. And when they got to the robe,
they said, It is without seam. Let us not rend it. Let us not. They were, they were dividing
the other things, just tearing them in half. I mean, fabric
was so valuable that, you know, any piece of fabric you had.
So they were tearing everything in half and giving it to the
soldiers. And when they came to the, to the, to the, to the
robe, they said, oh no, this is a seamless robe. Let us not
rend it. Now what is that robe a picture
of? It's the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they
said, let us cast lots for it. And the scripture says in Proverbs
16, verse 33, the lot cast into the lap, but the whole disposing
thereof is of the Lord. So they cast lots for this robe,
but the outcome of who got the robe was determined by the Lord,
not by chance. Let us not render the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ by adding our righteousness to his. Let
us not divide the baby. And Solomon was gonna do it with
a sword. And what's that sword a picture of? It's a picture
of the word of God. It's the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God. And men will use this book to
divide the baby. They'll say, well, their favorite
passage is over there in James. Well, you know, Bible says in
James, faith without works is dead. We've got to have our works.
Whosoever will, you know, we've got to make our decision. And
they will use the very word of God to divide the baby and make
salvation determined by something that God has done in concert
with something that they do. I know that God has disposed
the casting of the lot to give me the robe of righteousness
and that I'm unwilling to divide it. It's a seamless robe. It's his righteousness or it's
no righteousness. So that he gets all the glory. Our heavenly father, Give us Christ, the wisdom of
God, the power of God. We ask it in his name. Amen.