Alright brethren, let's be turning
to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I wanted to tell you that we
had good meetings both in Madisonville and at Crossville. And I'm so thankful for the men
that preached here while I was gone. Thank you for coming to
hear the gospel preached. And I wanted to tell you that
we have so many brethren that are truly praying for us, praying
we'll get this building, praying the Lord's will will be done
in it. So many that expressed their interest to help us try
to get the down payment we need and it just was overwhelming. It was really overwhelming to
hear Brother Donnie has told a lot of people. And they're
so happy for us. They're really happy for us.
Hoping, you know, that it comes to pass. But just knowing, you
know, that you have that many brethren praying for you, willing
to help you. It's such a good... It was refreshing. It was a comfort to me. And I
hope it is to you too. Let's turn here now to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. Now Paul declared that Christ
sent him to do one thing. He sent him to preach, to preach. And he sent him to
preach the subject of Christ and Him crucified. He said there
in verse 17, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the
gospel. Not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be none effected. He said, Christ
sent me to literally preach the gospel, to do what I'm doing
right here now. And we know that's the context
because he says how we're not to do it. We're not to do it
with wisdom of words. So he's talking about this literal
thing of preaching. And he says the subject is the
preaching of the cross of Christ. The person of Christ and the
work of Christ. And then he divides the whole
world into two classes of people. Two classes of people, unbelievers
and believers. Verse 18, he says, "...for the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness."
Now that's a reason he gave that Christ sent him to preach the
gospel. That for means because. Because the preaching of the
cross is to them that are perishing foolishness. And then, "...but
to us which are saved is the power of God." And then the Holy
Spirit uses Paul to give five reasons why God chose to save
His people through this means of preaching, through this means
of preaching Christ and Him crucified. We won't get to all of these
tonight. We're just going to look at one of them, but I just
want to read these to you through the rest of the chapter so you
can see where we're headed as we study over the course of the
next few weeks. First of all, This is what we'll
look at tonight. God chose the means of public
preaching because the preaching of Christ crucified is how God
destroys the wisdom of the wise and prudent. Look here, verse
19. For, because, this is why Christ
sent me to preach the gospel. Because it's written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise. And 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? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Now,
here's the second reason given. This is why God chose to save
through the foolishness of preaching. It's because it pleased God. It pleased God. Look at verse
21. 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 believe. Then the third
reason given that God chose the means of preaching, the subject
of Christ and Him crucified, is because this is how God makes
Christ the power and wisdom of God to His people. Look at verse
22. He says, "...for the cause..."
This is why Christ sent me to preach the gospel. "...because
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."
have to be called of God. And unto them which are called,
whether you are a Jew or a Greek, both to Jews and to Greeks, Christ,
the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness
of God... Notice he said Christ is the
power and the wisdom of God. And he says the foolishness of
God is wiser than men. And the weakness of God is stronger
than men. That's why he chose this means. And then, fourthly, he says,
God chose the means of preaching Christ and Him crucified because
it's the means whereby God makes His people nothing, so that none
of us can glory in God's presence. Verse 26, for, because, this
is why he sent me to preach, because you see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble are called. but God hath chosen." He's 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. He's talking about people here
when He speaks of things. He says, "...and base things
of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen,
yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that
are." that no flesh, that word that means for this reason, for
this call, that no flesh should glory in His presence. And then
the fifth reason the Holy Spirit gives for God saving His people
through this means of preaching Christ crucified is because this
is the means whereby God brings all His people to glory only
in the Lord. He says, verse 30, but of Him
are you in Christ Jesus. who of God is made unto us. And then what's he made unto
us? Wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
That for this cause, that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. Now those are five excellent
reasons why every called child of God bows to the Word of God
and rejoices that it pleased God to save us through the foolishness
of preaching. This is not a thorn to us to
know that it pleased God to save by the foolishness of preaching.
We rejoice in it because that's how He saved us. We rejoice in
it. We see the reasons why He did
it. Now, let's begin with this first reason that the Holy Spirit
gives. Now, here's what we see in this. God chose His people
chose to save His people through the preaching of the gospel of
Christ and Him crucified, because this is how God destroys the
wisdom of the wise and the prudent. Alright, verse 19, let's read
it again. 4, it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise, And 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? If not God made foolish the wisdom
of this world? Now one of the reasons the church
at Corinth was divided, and they were divided over their preachers,
and one of the reasons was, is because they deemed by their
perception, they deemed some of the preachers to be wise and
more eloquent preachers. And this was Greece, you know,
so that was highly prized among some people, that they seemed
wise and educated and eloquent preachers in their style and
all that. But the Holy Spirit uses Paul
here to declare that the wisdom of this world, and that means
everything that's of this world, every wisdom that's of this world,
every wisdom that we by nature, carnally speaking, deem to be
wise, Everything that we by nature deem to be wise, God says here,
it's all foolishness. It's worthless, every bit of
it. Whatever the world calls wise and calls, you know, values
and looks at as being, that's why we think so highly of rich
folks. We think they're wise for some reason. And two of the
things that God says is utter vanity. Man's wisdom and man's
riches. It's harder for a rich man to
go into heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle. But that everything that we deem to be wise in the
world is foolishness. It's all foolishness with God.
It's not by natural wisdom that sinners are taught salvation
in Christ. Nothing we do teaches us about Christ. The flesh profits
nothing. Nothing we do is going to teach
us about Christ. We have to be taught Christ by
divine revelation. God teaches us Christ. The glory
goes to Christ, our prophet, priest, and king. Alright, now
here's our first point. The wise men of this world are
brought to nothing and perish in their sins, not by accident,
but on purpose by God. Now look here in verse 18. He
says, The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. is to them that are perishing
foolishness." Now look at verse 19, for it's written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. You see, it's not by accident.
It's by God bringing their wisdom to nothing. Now in the New Testament
Scriptures, when you read a word like this where it says, it is
written, That means that it refers to the Old Testament Scriptures,
because they didn't have the New Testament Scriptures when
this was being written. They just had the Old, and so
he's referring back to Old Testament Scriptures. The Holy Spirit moved
Paul to think of Old Testament Scriptures, and he preaches on
those Old Testament Scriptures right here in 1 Corinthians 1.
Much of what he says throughout the rest of this chapter has
to do with preaching Isaiah 29. That's what he's preaching. Now
let's go over there and look at it. Isaiah chapter 29. And
I want you to mark Isaiah 29, because we're going to come back
to this. Now God's speaking to folks in
religion here, in Jerusalem. He's speaking to wise men. Our
text talks about wise men. That means they're skilled experts
in learning, naturally speaking. He talks about prudent men. I'm
just defining these words from our text so you can know that's
who these men are that God's talking to here in Jerusalem.
He talks about prudent men. Prudent men are men that can
form the very best plans and use the very best means possible
to execute those plans and bring those plans to pass. That's a
prudent man. He talks about scribes. They were students of the Mosaic
Law. There were civil scribes too
who were secretaries and recorders for civil rulers. But primarily
in the New Testament he's talking about, they were students of
the Mosaic Law. They studied the Old Covenant
Law and they would give interpretations of the Old Covenant Law. their
interpretations. And they would give their interpretations
on those not-so-easy-to-understand scriptures. And man valued this
highly. He talks about disputers, sophists. These are men who could slice
and dice and debate doctrine with anybody. and just outwit
you with how much they knew about the doctrines of God. Now God
is speaking of these people here in Isaiah 29. He's talking to
the most learned, the most educated, the most wise men in religion. But now when you look at Jerusalem,
this is just a picture of this whole world. When he talks about
Jews requiring a sign, that's religious folks. All religious
folks. And when he talks about Greeks
seeking after wisdom, that can be religious folks too. Some men rejoice more to see
you find a picture in the Old Testament than they rejoice in
Christ in the picture. Do you get what I'm saying? They
won't. They're philosophers. They're
like Grecian philosophers. They just like knowledge and
witty things and new things. And it includes all the philosophies
of this world. So this is what we see pictured
in Jerusalem. Now what does God say to them?
He said He's going to send armies and destroy it. Destroy Jerusalem. He said He's going to pour out
the spirit of slumber on the people and make it so their prophets
and their rulers could not open this book and learn anything
from it. That's what God said He was going to do. Now why on
earth would God do that to a people? Here's why. Isaiah 29.13 Wherefore
the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their
mouth, and with their lips do honor me." Now again, I'm telling
you, pay close attention. We're not talking about irreligious
people. We're talking about religious
folks. We're not talking about people in a heathen idol temple. We're talking about folks in
the Lord's house. We're not talking about folks who were saying dishonorable
things. We're talking about folks who
were saying honorable things with their mouth. So what was
their problem? Verse 13, but they've removed
their heart far from Me. Removed their heart far from
Me. And, now watch this, their fear
toward Me, that which they taught people about Me, their fear toward
Me is taught by the precept of men. Now you know how this came
about? They took what God gave them.
They took the oracles of God and the Word, the pictures, the
types, the shadows that were meant to be pictures and types
and shadows. They took that old covenant law that God gave and
they deemed themselves wise. And because they deemed themselves
wise, they became fools. And the way they did it is they
started worshipping and serving the creature, the sinner. rather
than God and His Christ. That's what they were doing because
they were wise. They did what religious folks
do in this day. This is so important. The gospel
has to do with righteousness. The gospel has to do with God's
righteousness being established. The righteousness of God's holy
law about God being just, about God being the justifier. It has
to do with God's holiness. And what men are doing in our
day is what they were doing back here in Isaiah's day, what they
were doing in Paul's day. They took the Word of God and
they were teaching men, trying to create reverence in the heart
of men, in the heart of sinners. They themselves were trying to
create this reverence. And the way they were trying
to do it was by teaching the precepts of men, the doctrines
of men, man-made doctrines, man-made laws. He said, their fear toward
Me is taught by the precept of men. And doing this, they had
removed their heart far from God. They preached there. They preached that the sinner's
obedience to the law is how he's made righteous and holy. You
ever heard that message? They were preaching that a sinner's
righteousness and a sinner's holiness is achieved, it's obtained
by his obedience to the law. He had to put away certain things
and adopt certain things. I read a message today, Brother
Henry preached. And he said, reckon how Adam
was a sinner. There wasn't a picture show to
go to. There wasn't any alcohol to abstain from. None of that
stuff existed then. How was he made a sinner? He
disobeyed God. He disobeyed God. It says here
that the only way they could teach that, the only way they
could teach that righteousness and holiness is by the law is
to bring the law down. They had to bring the law down
and give a sinner something he could do. Well, when you bring
the law down and you give a sinner something he can do, you stop
preaching the law and using the law like it was given for. The
law was given to show us our sin. The law was given to declare
us guilty and shut our mouths. The law was given to make us
flee to Christ that we might be saved by His righteousness
and His holiness. This is what the law was given
for. But when you bring that law down and you start teaching
a sinner that he can do something to make himself a little more
righteous or a little more holy, Then what you're doing is you
won't preach the truth of the law to him. He'll never see he's
a sinner. He won't ever see his need of
Christ. He'll think he can come to God by his works. I heard
a poor man just yesterday. This man was about to die. This
man was on death row. And somebody asked him, do you
believe in heaven? He said, yeah, I believe in heaven.
They said, how do you go there? He said, well, you got to be
as good as Christ is. He said, but I don't think I've
done it just yet. Well, you don't have to be as good as Christ
is. Christ has got to be your all. He's got to be representing
you. And it don't have a thing to do with you. It's got to be
Him. All Him. And nothing to do with
you. That fella died on the death penalty and went to hell. He
didn't know how God saved sinners. According to his own testimony,
he didn't know how God saved sinners. Hold your place here
and go with me to Mark 7. I want you to see. The Lord dealt
with this and the Lord shows us here just exactly what I'm
trying to teach you. Look here at Mark 7. Now this is wisdom himself. This
is power himself. This is righteousness and holiness
himself. This is the prophet, priest,
and king of his people. Now watch what happens here.
Verse 5, Mark 7, verse 5 says, Then the Pharisees and scribes... Here's these wise religious folks. The Pharisees appeared to be
the most holy and the most righteous men there were by their outward
obedience. And the scribes were those students
of the law that could teach you anything you want to know about
the law. Now look at how smart they were. They asked Christ,
Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders?
Why don't your people walk like our people walk? That's what
they're asking. According to the traditions, the teachings,
the doctrines that the elders teach. And he tells what they
are. They eat bread with unwashing
hands. He answered and said unto them,
Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, saying, As it
is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship
me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Now watch
what Christ says here. For laying aside the commandment
of God, you hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots
and of cups and many other such like things you do. And He said
unto them, Full well you reject the commandment of God, that
you may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, now he's going
to declare the law, Moses said, honor thy father and thy mother,
and whosoever curseth father or mother, you know where, not
just with the mouth, the Lord taught this on the Sermon on
the Mount, He's saying here, it's not just with the mouth
that you curse mother or father, but in your heart if you curse
your mother or your father. He says, the law says, Let him die the death. That death
is the second death. It's not just the first death.
The wages of sin is death. If he hasn't perfectly honored
his mother and his father all his days, he's got to die under
the law. That second death, that worm
that never dies. Now, if they'd have preached
that, everybody would have seen they couldn't have kept the law.
Everybody would have seen the truth that they could not keep
the law. They'd have seen their sin, if God revealed it to them,
they'd have blessed it to their heart, they'd have seen their
sin, they'd have seen their need of Christ. But now watch, verse
11. But you say, if a man shall say
to his father or mother, it's Corbin, that is to say, it's
a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be
free. In other words, They didn't have
to honor, they didn't have to provide for their father or their
mother. All they had to do was say, now this is designated as
a gift. And I'm free from that law because
I've given this as a gift to God to serve God. So I don't
have to, I don't have to, that law don't apply to me. They just
made that up. It wasn't of God. It was just
made up. That was just a man's tradition. Now look what God,
what Christ said. He said, and you suffer him no
more to do aught for his father or his mother." Verse 13, making
the Word of God of none effect through your tradition which
you've delivered in many such like things, do you? So what
did Christ do? What did He do? He preached the
truth. He preached the Word. Look here,
verse 14, when He called all the people unto Him, He said
unto them, hearken unto Me. Hearken unto Me, every one of
you, and understand." You know what Christ is saying right now
from His throne in glory, as real as He did right there that
day in that person with those people? He's saying, hearken
unto Me and understand. That's what Christ speaks in
His Word when His Gospel is going forth. He's the Prophet. He's
the Word. You can't separate Christ the
Word from the message being preached. He is the Word. This is the incorruptible
seed by which we're born again, the Word of God that liveth and
abideth forever. And this is the Word whereby
the Gospel is preached unto you. Christ is that Word. He's that
prophet. He's that preacher. You can't
separate this from Christ. And this is as much an offense
to say, I can be saved apart from the preaching of the gospel
as it is to say, I can be saved apart from Christ. It's that
much of an offense. Because you can't separate them.
You cannot separate them. Alright, watch this now. He says
here, verse 15, There's nothing from without a man, that entering
into him can defile him. Nothing. But the things which
come out of him, Those are they that defile the man. Oh, it's
what comes out of us that is the defilement. And He says,
if any man have ears to hear, let him hear. That's a lesson
to us too. Christ is God and He could have
spoke this word in their heart and made them sexual just like
that. But He's serving God. And as the servant of God, dependent
upon the Father, He waited on the Father to teach this in the
heart. He says, if any man have ears
to hear, let him hear. Look down at verse 21. For from
within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts. Evil thoughts
and adulteries and fornications and murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness. All these evil things come from
within and defile the man. He's saying that's the heart
of a man. Now that's what the gospel was given to teach us.
Go back over to Isaiah 29. That's what the gospel was given
to teach us. The law was given to teach us
that we're sinners. Our very nature is sinful. Look, the sinner must die. We
got to die in Christ on the cross. And we have to be made the righteousness
of God in Christ on the cross. And then we have to be made new
inwardly. Christ has to come and dwell
within us and make us holy by Him sanctifying us, by Him being
the sanctification of our hearts. Because that's only when we'll
start worshipping God in a true spirit, without a mercenary spirit,
without a spirit that says, well I did this, you owe me now. The
only time we'll come and worship God in spirit and in truth is
when Christ is forming in us and gives us a new holy heart,
an inward nature to serve Him. And then when that new heart,
He's not saying here that the outward cup's not important,
but He gives you that new heart and then the outward cup will
be clean. You'll straighten up the outward
cup when your heart is fearing God and you want to serve God,
then you will. That's the only way though. It's
got to be from the inside out. It can't be from the outside
in. We can't give us new heart. So what did God declare He'd
do? Now this is what they were doing. This is the heart. Do
you see this is what men are doing in our day? Taking the
law and showing sinners that they can have life by it, rather
than showing them it's the ministration of death. It's meant to declare
us guilty. So what did God do to Jerusalem?
Verse 14, Isaiah 29, verse 14, Therefore, behold, I will proceed
to do a marvelous work among these people, even a marvelous
work and a wonder. When you see God speaking of
a marvelous work, judgment is about to happen. He said this,
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding
of their prudent men shall be hidden. God made their wisdom
and their understanding to utterly perish. He shut their eyes and
shut their ears. He turned them over to a reprobate
mind. And in the end, before Christ
did away with them completely, The result of all this morality
preaching is listed in Romans 1. You can go there and read
it sometime. Every kind of immorality there is. That's why we have
what we have in this day in this country. Because men have done
the same exact things Jerusalem did. Taken the law and taught
sinners you can come to God by it. And so God destroyed them. He destroyed them. I read this
Jewish writer, ancient Jewish writer, and he made this observation.
And he said, in 70 A.D., God said there in Isaiah 29, He said,
I'm going to send armies up against them and they're going to bring
them down to the dust. And he made this observation that whenever
God sent the heathen rulers in there and God says in Isaiah
29, it's going to be one after another. It wasn't just the Roman
ruler, it was one after another. And he just broke it down, broke
it down, broke it down. And this writer said when he
did that, when they came in, they destroyed the temple and
its vessels. They destroyed the whole system of worship. They
destroyed their books. They destroyed their so-called
wise men. And he said, by doing that, they
destroyed all their wisdom. because all their wisdom was
in carnal things. All their wisdom was in man,
in what man had built, in all their doings. That was all their
righteousness and all their holiness and all their wisdom. And all
it took was God taking down the wall and letting a heathen king
come in there and take it all away. And it was gone. And it
was gone. Turn over to Hebrews 12. That
physical destruction of Jerusalem, That's a picture of the wise
and prudent religious men all over this world. And it's an
example of what God did to them is an example of what God's going
to do to this whole world one day. He's going to shake it to
the point that everything that's man-made, every righteousness
of man, every holiness of man, all redemption that's by man,
all man's works and man's will and all man's doing and all man's
religion and all man himself that can be shaken is going to
be destroyed. And only those that are in Christ, by what Christ
has made, by His righteousness and His holiness and His redemption,
what Christ has made, it won't ever be moved. It can't be moved. Look here. Look here at this
now. God said, I'll destroy the wisdom
of the wise. Look at this, verse 24. Every regenerated child of grace
has come to Jesus. We've come to the mediator of
the new covenant, to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better
things than that of April. We've come to eternal blood.
We've come to everlasting righteousness. We've come to everlasting holiness. And His blood speaks better things
than that physical blood, that carnal blood, all of it that
was shed from Abel all through the ages. That was a shadow.
Christ is the body. He's the substance. And what
He did is eternal. Now look here. See that you refuse
not Him that speaketh. Now, you're not going to hear
Christ speak audibly. You're going to hear Christ speak
right here, right now, just like this, in this Word, when the
Gospel is being preached. And He says, "...see that you
refuse not Him that speaketh." Watch this, "...for if they escape
not who refused Him that spake on the earth..." And they didn't.
Jerusalem was destroyed, wiped out. God said, they can build
it again, but I'll throw it down again. They rejected Him when He walked
this earth, and He said, Your house is left to you desolate.
Now look at this. Much more, much more shall not
we escape if we turn away from Him that speaks from heaven.
Now He's seated on the throne. Now He's finished the work. And now we have all the scriptures. We got no excuse now for not
hearing Him. He says, now, if we turn away
from Him that speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth,
then He just destroyed Jerusalem. But now He promised, saying,
yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
He's going to shake everything. What does it mean? Look at verse
27. In this word, yet once more,
He's going to shake once more, it signifies the removing of
those things that are shaken as of things that are made, earthy
things. made by man, worked out by man. Anything that's of us is carnal
and it's going to die. It's of Adam, it's going to die.
It's earthy, it's going to die. It can be shaken and it will
be. Just look at Jerusalem. Now look what he says, that those
things which cannot be shaken may remain. What cannot be shaken? Christ and everyone that's in
Christ. His righteousness, His holiness,
His redemption, it can't be shaken. This is what the believers received.
Verse 28, Wherefore we receive in a kingdom which cannot be
moved. He used that other kingdom, that
picture, that natural Israel, that kingdom. He used that kingdom
to teach us something spiritual here. We got a kingdom that can't
be moved. It's spiritual. And He says,
Let us have grace, therefore, whereby we may serve God acceptably. with reverence and godly fear,
for our gods are consuming fire." Now, what does that mean to serve
God with reverence and godly fear? Go back to our text now,
1 Corinthians 1. You see how he destroyed it and
why he destroyed it? God not only destroyed the wise
and prudent of this world, but through the gospel, God destroys
every self-made religionist and every philosopher when he calls
his child into his church. Through this gospel, he's calling
his people into his church. He destroys all your self-made
religion and all your self-made philosophy and everything you
thought was wisdom. He's going to destroy it. And
every time he calls one of his children in, he destroys this
world's wisdom a little bit more too. He takes from them what
they thought was theirs. Look at verse 20. Where's the
wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the disputer of this
world? Have not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Without
a doubt, this refers to the whole world. Whether a person is a
Jewish scribe or he's a Grecian philosopher. Whether he's a self-made
religionist or he's a philosopher in the world, past, present,
or future. It doesn't matter. God's destroyed, God's made foolish
the wisdom of this world. But now I want you to apply this
to you and I who He's called by grace. Because down the page
in verse 26, he says, you see your calling, brethren. So let's
apply this to me and you. In Christ's true church, in Christ's
true church, among His true redeemed, regenerated people, where's the
wise man? Where is the scribe among Christ's
people? Where's the disputer in Christ's
church? They're not there. They don't
exist. Not in Christ. Christ's true
people don't boast of knowing Christ by any self-wisdom in
us. God's our teacher. Christ is
our prophet. He taught us. We're taught of
God. We didn't have wisdom. We don't say we're scribes who
taught ourselves, who came to know Christ by self-searching
the Word of God. There's never been a sinner saved
that way. And there won't be. I'm going to show you that here
in the next few weeks. Look back at Isaiah 29. Here's
what we know about ourselves by His grace. In the midst of
that judgment, God talked about mercy too. Look down at verse
18. He said, In that day, when Christ
has finished that work at Calvary and gone to the throne, in that
day shall the deaf hear the words of the book. How in the world's
a deaf man gonna hear? This must gonna be a spiritual
work, huh? Something mighty and powerful
that's beyond a man. That's right. Look here. And
the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase
their joy in the Lord. And the poor among men shall
rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible one is brought
to nothing. And the scorner is consumed. And all that watch for iniquity
are cut off. That's what a legalist is. That's
what every man that claims he'd come to God by his works. Don't
mess up around him. Because he's waiting on you to.
So he can crawl up on your back and exalt himself. He's waiting
on you. He's watching for iniquity. But
he says they've been cut off. Make a man an offender for a
word. And lay a snare for him that reproves in the gate. and
turns aside the just for a thing of naught. Not only are we not
wise and scribes, we're not debaters. We're not disputers. I don't
have to dispute with anybody. If I detect when I'm preaching
the gospel to somebody, if I detect that they want to debate and
argue, I'm not going to talk to them anymore about the gospel.
And mostly, I'm not going to say anything to anybody about
the gospel anymore anyway. Right here is where I'm going
to say it. Because it's the one time people have to keep their
mouth shut. I'm tired of trying to talk and other people objecting. But, but, but, but, but. I don't
have to argue because I've experienced the power and wisdom of God.
I know Christ is going to reveal Himself in whom He's pleased,
when He's pleased, and He's going to do it through this Word. Just
preach it. There's no wise men, there's
no scribes, there's no disputers in His church. Now we're not
talking about those that call themselves by His name. There's
a lot of people that call themselves by His name that are wise and
prudent and disputers. There might be even some among
God's people that are hiding among God's true church that
call themselves that. But you won't find one of Christ's
true people that says he has any wisdom or that he, by searching,
found out God or anything like that. No, sir. Because Christ
is our wisdom and power and we know now we don't have any outside
of Him. God sent His Son in this world and Christ established
righteousness just like God said He would do. And you know what
He established? We saw that all those things
that can be shaken will be shaken so that there's not going to
be any left. He's going to destroy the heavens
and the earth one day. Roll it up like a scroll and
burn it up from one end to the other. But you know what Christ
obtained? Eternal righteousness. He's God
in man so that everything He established for His people is
eternal. And it can't be shaken. It can't be moved. Christ went
to the cross and obtained eternal redemption for us. It can't be
undone. And when He enters in, He gives
life, eternal life. This is the record God has given
to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath life. Eternal life. You ever seen an
immortal man? You're looking at one. I'm immortal. I'm never going to die. No sir. And you that know Him who hath
Christ in you, you're not going to die either. He's given us
eternal life. And this life's in His Son. And
he that hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not the Son
hath not life. They're mortal. We know these
things because our text says, God hath made foolish the wisdom
of this world. And He's made foolish the wisdom
of this world in the hearts of His people. You know the foolishness
of this world. You see now the folly of trying
to establish your own righteousness. You see the folly of talking
about, I can become a little more holy and a little more holy
and a little more holy. That's like saying, I can become
a little more alive and a little more alive and a little more
alive. You're either alive or you're dead. You're either holy
or you're not. You're either righteous or you're
not. And it's in Christ and it's everlasting. You see the folly
and foolishness of this world, everything about it. And we know
now we've received a kingdom that cannot be moved. It can't
be moved. You see how none of this was
known to us. Christ came and did it. Christ
came and established the law. Christ came and put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself. Christ came, He arose, and all
His people arose in Him and sat down at the right hand of God.
Christ has been ruling this world. He's been sending His preachers
through this world. He's been ruling everything in
salvation and in providence in this world Himself. All power
in heaven and earth is His. He's been doing that. You and
I didn't know that till when? Till He came to where we are,
sent a preacher to where we are and preached the gospel to us
and opened up and gave us an understanding in a new heart
and taught us this. And He made the foolishness of
this world, He made this world's wisdom utter foolishness to us.
That's what He does. That's why He said He's saved
by this preaching. That's what He's doing. Now has
He done this for you? I'm telling you, I'm telling
you, if you think that there's something wise about running
after this world and about trying to get all that you can get and
trying to get rich and honorable and a name above everybody else's
name and all these things, you're a fool. I can't say that boldly
and clearly enough if that's what a man thinks. All of that
stuff's going to perish. There's one thing needful. That's
Christ. One thing. If you've got Christ,
You got the power and wisdom of God. You got everything God
requires. And it'll never be taken away.
That's the only thing you can say that about Christ. The only
thing. Amen.