First Corinthians, we'll pick
up in verse 18. That's where we left off, I believe,
the last time. Paul tells us here in this verse
that there are two views of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one is foolishness. That's
what the worldly wise man, the intellectual, calls the preaching
of the cross. He calls it foolishness. But
to us who are being saved, us who are being saved, it's the
power of God. It's our hope. It's our life. The Lord Jesus Christ and Him
crucified is our hope. He's our life. He's our all in
all, as it says in Colossians. He's our all in all. Now, one thing we have to realize,
and it's kind of come across to me, and I was studying this
this week, looking at it, the preaching of the cross, In our
day, because it's been 2,000 years, and we don't really have
quite the understanding of the cross that they had in that day. You know, in today's terminology,
we're talking about the electric chair. You know, then we'd have
a different view. We'd say, he put to death. The
cross was for criminals, just like the electric chair is for
criminals. And the Greek which represents the worldly wise man,
the intellectual, and the Jew which represents the religious
people that day, they cannot grasp Christ and Him crucified. You see there in verse 23, we
preach Christ Now to the Jew, that meant Messiah,
that meant a position of power, that meant anointed of God, that
meant He's the Savior, He's the one we are looking for. And crucified
means criminal. Now how is the anointed, the appointed of God, the one
who has the power to save, how is he a criminal? They couldn't
get that together. It's kind of like an oxymoron. It's like we have Christ and
crucified don't go together. And because of this, they said,
this is foolishness. This is foolishness. Because
crucified was reserved for the worst of criminals. And for him
to be put into that category, it was foolishness. They just
couldn't comprehend it. The mysteries of grace cannot
be comprehended by human intellect. It can't be grasped. Now, you
can teach that to someone and they can say, okay, yeah, that's,
you know, you can give them facts. and people can receive facts,
but I'm talking about to be able to really comprehend it, to understand
it. Human intellect can't do that.
It can't enter into that. It comes to us by revelation.
God reveals to us the truth. He reveals to us the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And in revealing Him to us, we
understand how God can be God. We understand how God can be
a just God and a Savior. We understand the wisdom of God.
We see in Christ the wisdom of God. But the world can't see
that. The lost man, those that are
perishing, and that's what that means in verse 18, for the preaching
of the cross is to them that are perishing. They are perishing. It's foolishness. But unto us
who are being saved, it's the power of God. It's the power
of God. Worldly wisdom despises spiritual
wisdom. And Christ is the wisdom of God.
That's why they despise it. Then he says here in verse 19,
and he's quoting from Isaiah 29.14, And what Paul is going
to do here, he's going to show how unreasonable it is to question
the gospel, to question the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, because
some intellectual says it's not so. For it is written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I'll bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. How does he do that? Through
the preaching of the cross. Through the preaching of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now to you and me, we see the
wisdom of God in it. And he says here that through
the preaching of the cross, I'll destroy worldly wisdom. I'll bring it to nothing. I'll
bring their wisdom to nothing. I'll render useless, useless
the learning of the philosophers, the learning of men. I'll render
it useless through the preaching of the cross. And he says here
in verse 20, where is the wise? The real intellectual, he's talking
here about the worldly, what the world would call wisdom,
you know, a wise man, like Cicero, you know, some of those people.
Where are they? Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Who is the one who counts every letter of the law? Where
is the disputer of this world, the debater? Where is he? Why
is he not standing in the pulpit preaching? Why is he not here? If he's so
wise, I heard Henry say one time in a message, if he's so wise,
why is he not here? For the most part, listen, for
the most part, The wise men of the world are not called upon
of God or used of God in the ministry. God uses men like me. Now, the world, the intellectual
would look at me and they would say, he's not that educated. Why would God use him? Why would God use any of us? Where are these men? That's why
He said, where are they? Where's the wise man? For the most part, God passes
them by. I'm thankful. I'm thankful that I'm not among
them. I'm thankful I'm not among them.
I tell you what I'm thankful for in verse 27 or verse 26,
and I'll get to this in a minute, but you see you're calling brethren,
not many wise men after the flesh. God hasn't called many intellectuals
to preach. nor has He called many of them
in salvation." Now that doesn't mean He hasn't called any. I
think it was Lady Huntington, she was a very good friend of
Whitefield, said, I was saved by an M. It doesn't say not any, it says
not many. "'You see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. For the most part God has passed
them by, I said this to you the other night, the general direction
of anyone that keeps getting higher learning, more intellectual,
the further away from God they go. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. The world would look
at us and call us weak, foolish. Foolish because we believe God.
Foolish because we believe the gospel. And they would call us
foolish for that. And God's chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things which are mighty. This
is what God has done. Where's the wise? Don't envy
the wise man. Don't envy the intellectual.
Don't envy that religious man. Don't envy those men. Don't envy
the debater. Don't envy anyone out there in
the world. Be thankful that God has chosen
you. That God has chosen you. Be thankful that he kept you
down. You know, you could have been
born into nobility. You could have been born into
nobility. You could have been born into wealth. You could have
been born into that, but God put you where you are, into the
family you were born into, in the position, in the station
of life you were born into, because you're His, and He chose you.
And He says here that He chose the foolish things of the world,
the weak things of the world, and God made you that way. He
put you there. He put you there because you're
His. and He's going to confound the
world with you. When this is all over, and all
those intellectual nitwits are cast into hell, and they're going
to see the poor things of the world sitting at the throne of
grace, sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. So where's
the wise man describing the spirit of the world? Had not God made
foolish their wisdom? Has he not proven their wisdom
to be foolish? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom, by its own
wisdom now, by its own human intellect, knew not God. God has to reveal Himself. Man,
listen, the intellectual, because he cannot, He cannot logically
believe in the existence of God. He can't prove God. He cannot
prove God to his satisfaction. Therefore, he believes he can't
exist. He can't be. The fool has said
in his heart, what? No God. The biggest fool of all is the
intellectual. Really? He's so smart, he's so
intelligent, and yet he believes there's no God. Albert Einstein
had a class, and his students had come to the conclusion that
God did not exist. And Albert Einstein asked them,
he said, collectively, all the students there in that room,
collectively, he said, how much knowledge do we have of the world
and all that is? And they said about 5%. That's the number they came up
with, about 5%. And he felt that was extremely generous. He said,
you reckon in the 95% we don't know that God exists? I think
5% would be very generous, don't you? If you take all that is
in creation and the complexity of it, we know very little. For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by its own wisdom, its own intellect, knew
not God. It failed them. It pleased God,
though, by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
We are not saved because we figured it out. We are saved because
we believe God. Faith has been granted to us,
faith and repentance, and we believe God. We don't believe
because we have figured this thing out. We have figured God
out. We believe because God has made
Himself known to us through the preaching, how? Of Christ and
Him crucified. God has made Himself known. He
has revealed Himself to us through His Son. being crucified. Now, it's not just a preaching
of Christ, it's a preaching of Christ and Him crucified. We
cannot separate Him from His substitutionary work, His substitutionary
character. It is Christ and Him crucified. Now, He says here, for the Jews
require a sign. They say, show us a sign. How
many signs did He show them? It's like, how many signs do
you need? But what they wanted was a sign
of their own making. It's like they're going to whip
up one and say, well, like Satan did, turn these stones into bread.
If you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread. They require a sign. The religious
world, the false religious world, they want signs and they want
wonders. That's what they want. They don't want the Word of God.
They don't want preaching. They just want wonders and signs
and, you know, people get caught up in prophecies. I remember
years ago when I, the place I worked, my soul, man, it was a, there
was this thing that swept through that whole place and people were
going out and they were scared to death. They had read the book,
The Late Great Planet Earth, I think is what it was. And they
started reading the prophecy and the Armageddon and the end
of time. And I'm telling you, I don't
know how many men, when I say they'd leave and work, this one
guy, they'd go to his pastor's house. They came back saved all
the time. Every time they came back saved. It didn't last long.
About a few weeks went by. They were just as honored as
ever. There was no change. They were still themselves. They just got wrapped up in this
excitement of prophecy and all these things that were going
to happen. Christ wasn't preached. All they were interested in was
the end of time and all that. That's all they was interested
in. The Jews require sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. They want to be able to grasp
this intellectually. Not believe because God said
it. Not believe because God said
so. But we preach Christ crucified. I'm not going to change the message
because it's offensive. It's offensive. It's offensive
to the Jew. It's offensive to the Greek. It's a bloody message. It's a bloody message. And it's
offensive message. But Paul said, but we preach
Christ crucified unto the Jews. It's a stumbling block. It's
offensive to the Jew to put Christ and crucified together. That's offensive. That's offensive. And to the Greek is foolishness,
but unto them which are called... You see, when we started, to
them that are saved are being saved. And here he's saying now,
unto them which are called, called effectually, called by the Spirit
of God, called to believe, You know the
reason you're here and you believe? God called you. The Spirit of
God called you. I like over in the Old Testament,
one of the great examples I think is Samuel. When the Lord called
him, he got up out of bed that night and went into Eli and said,
here am I. And Eli said, I didn't call you.
He said, go back to bed. He goes back to bed, and again,
the Lord called him again. He got up, he went in there to
Eli, and he said, here am I. What do you want? Eli said, I
didn't call you. Go back to bed. If it happens
a third time, you say, here am I, Lord. And the third time it
happened, he answered the Lord. God called him. And that's how
God calls us, by His Spirit, powerfully. You do not have to
convince somebody to walk down an aisle, except Jesus has a
personal savior, you don't have to do that. I've seen that happen
so many times when I was young. They put the pressure on people
when they would, boy, I tell you what, somebody new come in.
I remember one time there was a young man came there, his name
was Jake. He's about the same age I was
at that time. Man, they went back, they were on him like,
Flies out of pit neck. And he finally broke. He finally
broke and they got him down to the front. He lasted about two
Sundays and Jake was gone. Old Jake became Jake again. But if God calls you, if God
calls you, you don't have to put any pressure on anybody to
do anything. If God calls you, you're not gonna come down here
to the front. There's two things you're gonna do. You're gonna
flee to Christ. If God calls you, you're gonna
flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, and then you're gonna say, I
want you to baptize me. I wanna confess Christ. That's
how we confess Christ, is in believer's baptism. But unto
them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God. He's
the authority of God to save. He's the power of God to save.
And he's the wisdom of God. It's because of Jesus Christ
that you and I know God. You can't know God apart from
him. He's the wisdom of God. He's that prophet that Moses
said should come. And he's the one who teaches
us. He's the one who reveals the
father. No man knows the father save the son. And he to whomsoever
the son will reveal him. and the wisdom of God, because
the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of
God is stronger than men. What men call foolishness and
what men call weakness, if it's of God, it's stronger than men. It's stronger than men. When they looked at the Lord
Jesus Christ hanging on Calvary's tree, what did they see? Weakness. What the world saw,
what those Greeks saw, what those Jews saw, what they saw in their
mind, they saw weakness, they saw a weak man. That's what they
saw. And they saw foolishness. Foolishness. Are you serious? This is salvation. This is our king. That's a king. Does that look like a king? It's
a mutilated mess hanging on that cross. That's what they saw. What do you and I see? We see
salvation. We see God Almighty dying for
our sins in the person of His Son in this flesh. That's what
we see. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For you see your calling, brethren. And he's saying here, brethren,
take notice of your calling. Don't envy them. Turn your eyes
away from them and take notice of your calling. How that not many wise men after
the flesh... Now God has saved... He saved
Paul. Paul was an intelligent man. Paul was a very educated
man. And that's one of the reasons
why Paul fought against Christ crucified so much. It offended
him so much. that he tried to stamp it out
until God saved him. Paul was very, very intelligent,
very well-educated. Not many mighty are called. Not many. Not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. God hath chosen." You
know, it doesn't say the foolish things of the world have chosen
God, does it? No, because they wouldn't have
done it either. There's not a soul that's ever walked on this earth
that would have chosen God first. None. God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. And God has 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,
God has chosen. God doesn't need human intellect.
God doesn't need what we call human wisdom. God doesn't need
that. Yeah, and things which are not. Some say that I was reading,
said this may be speaking of the Gentiles because the Jews
used to refer to the Gentiles, them which are not. That's how
they used to refer to the Gentiles, them which are not. And they
thought they were the ones that were. You know, they were the
ones that had it. They were it. To bring to not,
to nothing things that are. And they thought that was them.
And here's the reason that God has done everything as He has
done them. That no flesh should glory in
His presence. That no one will stand in God's
presence and say, let me tell you what I did. When I was on
the earth, let me tell you about it. I mean, it doesn't take us
long to tell anybody about ourselves, does it? It don't take long. Let me tell you what I used to
be, what I used to do. And nobody in glory is going
to say that. No. No flesh is going to glory in
God's presence, but of Him. Of God, are you in Christ Jesus? That's how I ended up in Christ.
God put me there. He chose me in Christ, loved
me in Christ, put me in Christ, made Christ my surety, my righteousness,
my all in all. Of Him, are you in Christ Jesus?
It's not a decision I made. It's not a prayer I prayed. It's
an act of God. who of God is made unto us wisdom."
He's our wisdom. If you know God, it's because
you know Christ. Righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
We have in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has made Him to be everything
you and I need to stand in His presence. Everything. We don't supply anything. It's
not bring a dish. You don't bring anything. God has made him to be everything
we need. Do you see God's wisdom in that?
While I was studying this, I thought about representation. I was thinking about the wisdom
of God in representation. In Adam, all die. In Christ,
all are made alive. All that Adam represented died
in Him, and all whom Christ represented live in Him. We fell in one man,
we are made alive in one man. I see the wisdom of God in this. By one man's act of disobedience,
many were made sinners. By the obedience of one, many
are made righteous. That's the wisdom of God. I'm saved in a representative.
You're saved in a representative. "...But of Him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, that according as it is written..." That's over
in Jeremiah chapter 9. "...He that glorieth let him
glory in the Lord." Let me find this in closing. Turn to Jeremiah
chapter 9. Look in verse 23. Paul's quoting this. Thus saith
the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Neither let the mighty man glory
in his might, and let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him that gloryeth, glory
in this, that he understandeth." Understand, understands what?
All mysteries? He understands the mystery of
the universe? Understands all sciences? No. He understands
how God could be a just God and save him. that he understandeth, listen,
and knoweth me. Let him glory in that. That I
am the Lord, which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness
in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord. Now, if you're going to glory,
glory in this, that you, a worm, know me, God, that you know God. Oh, Christ, the power of God
and the wisdom of God.