As Brother Jim said, I'm going
to be preaching there from 1 Corinthians 1, the main text, or the main
verse, verse 23, but we preach Christ crucified. Christ crucified. Let me begin this way over, and
you don't have to turn to this passage, but in the book of Matthew,
It's recorded in chapter 22 that some of the different religious
people, different sects, different ideas that were prevalent among
the Jews at the time of our Lord's earthly walk, who did not believe
the gospel of God's grace in Christ, who did not believe that
Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Messiah, They all got together
at one point in time and they came to him, came to our Lord,
and asked what is common among religious people who don't know
the truth. And what was common? They asked stupid questions.
That's common among religious people who don't know the truth.
And they were concerned about marriage in heaven, taxes, all
of this stuff, and our Lord As was his custom, he answered them
truthfully. He didn't ridicule them. He just
answered them truthfully and their goal was to trap him. That
was often a tool of the Pharisees. They wanted to trip him up, get
him to say something that they could pounce on him. They weren't
trying, in other words, they weren't seeking truth. They weren't
a truth seeker. You know, the Bible says that
man by nature will not seek God. The true God, he'll seek religion,
he'll seek other things, but he won't seek the true God. None
good, no, not one, none that seek after the Lord. And so at the end of this, it
says in verse 41, let me just read this to you. In Matthew
22, it says, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus
asked them, now he's gonna ask them a question. And I guarantee
it's not gonna be a stupid question. It's a prime question that everybody
should consider. And here's what he asked in verse
42 saying, what think ye of Christ? Now what he's asking them is
what do you think about the Messiah? The term Christ is not his last
name, it's a title. It's the Greek equivalent to
anointed one, the Messiah. It's his office. It's what he
came to do. What do you think of the Messiah?
And he asked, he followed it up. He says, what think ye of
Christ? Whose son is he? Whose son is he? Well, now they
knew enough of the scripture to make a right answer, but not
a complete answer and really, Even though they gave the right
answer, it goes on to show their ignorance. Our Lord has a way of doing stuff
like that. You know, people today, they
can quote scripture, but they don't know what it means. They
don't really seek the truth. And he says, whose son is he?
And they say unto him, well, he's the son of David. You know
that's right. the son of David. You know who
David was? King David. And so he followed it up. He
said, all right, he saith unto them, how then doth David in
spirit call him Lord? Saying, The Lord said unto my
Lord, now he quotes from a Psalm here, Psalm 110, written by David,
as inspired by the Holy Spirit. He says, the Lord said unto my
Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy
footstool. Now you know what this is all
about. If he's the son of David, and he was in his perfect humanity,
you see, Jesus Christ is a man. He's a man without sin. He's
not in the lineage or the seed of man, he's the seed of woman. The seed of the woman was created
in her womb by the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary. The Holy Spirit
created that seed in her womb and it became the human nature
of Christ without sin. And he was brought in his humanity
through the earthly lineage of King David. through Judah. He was a descendant in his humanity. So he was the son of David. And
that's what the Bible says in the Old Testament about the Messiah.
The Messiah is going to be the son of David. Many of the Jews
think that he was talking about King David back then, the man.
But that's not what he was talking about. When he said, thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever, that's talking about Christ. the son
of David. And so they were right, he's
the son of David. So then Christ asked him, he
says, well then why did David call him Lord, meaning Jehovah? That's the transliterated word
we get. It's really not in the scripture
in that form. But it means the same thing.
The Savior, God who saves. If he's David's offspring, how
then could David call him God? Because you know that's forbidden.
If you worship any man, that's idolatry. So how does David call
him Lord? God? Verse 45 of Matthew 22 says,
if David didn't call him Lord, how is he his son? How can he
be both David's God and David's son? How is that possible? And
listen to the Last verse of Matthew 22, it says, and no man was able
to answer him a word. Now these were Pharisees, these
were students of the scripture. They couldn't answer him a word,
neither did any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. He shut him up. That's hard to
do, especially with religious people. I found the best way to do it,
if it can be done, is to quote scripture. Just take them to
the Word of God. I've had people rattle off some
of the awfulest things to me that they think about salvation,
about the Word, and I'll look at them, I'll say, well, you
got one problem. They'll say, what? I say, that's not in the
Bible. What think ye of Christ? Now,
that's an important question. That's a question of life and
death, isn't it? What is your estimation, your
value of Christ? And of course, he honed in on
the glory of his person here. Well, here's the thing. The only
way that we can see the real value of Christ is to see and
find and see what estimation, what value God the Father puts
upon Christ. You say, well, how can I know,
what does God think of his, what does the Father think of his
son? Somebody says, well, how in the world can we know that?
I'll tell you how, right here it is. This is the word of God. And I could show you many scriptures
to show you what the father thinks of the son. Think about his baptism. When Christ came to John the
Baptist, said, John, baptize me. And John said, oh, I can't
do that. I'm not worthy. He said, suffer it to be so that
we'll fulfill all righteousness. And he was baptized. And the
father spoke from heaven, I believe, in an audible voice. And he said,
this is my beloved son. in whom I am well pleased." In
another place he said, hear ye him. He's the Son of God. Well, how
can he be both David's son and David's God? Well, he is both.
He's the God-man. He's both God and man in one
person. God with every attribute of God's
nature and man with every attribute of a man without sin. Now, that's
important. You need to understand that.
He was a man. In his fleshly human body, he
had weaknesses just like we did. He got tired. He got hungry.
He wept. He sorrowed. Those are called
the infirmities of the flesh. They of themselves are not sinful.
He was never a sinner. He was never made to be a sinner.
He was never contaminated. He consorted with sinners. He
ate with them. Pharisee says, told the disciples,
your master eats with publicans and sinners. Good night? You
believe that? He who in himself is perfect
and righteous sat down and had meals with sinners. You know
what we say to that? If you know him, thank God he
did. Because you know what he told
them? He said, well listen folks, it makes sense to me. He shall
save his people from their sins. That's the kind of people he
came to save. The whole need not a physician, he said. I didn't
come to call the righteous to repentance. The righteous need
no repentance. But I came to save sinners. Jesus Christ. Well, go to this
first chapter of 1 Corinthians. I love this chapter because a
lot of the phrases that people use religiously are set forth
here to really mean the same thing. Just like back up in verse
17, Paul said, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach
the gospel. To preach the gospel, I preached
on that last week. That's what I'm here for, that's
what you're here for. Preach and hear, witness, rally
around, fellowship around, be united around the gospel. What
does gospel mean? Good news. Well, is that just
any good news? If I found out that I won the
publisher's sweepstake, that'd be good news, wouldn't it? Yeah. But not compared to this good
news. This is eternal news. Well, what
is it to preach the gospel? Well, look at verse 18. Brother
Jim read, for the preaching of the cross. The preaching of the
gospel is the preaching of the cross. Well, what happened on
the cross? That's an issue, see? One of the first messages I heard
when I first began to hear the true good news of the gospel
had three points. What happened in the garden when
Adam fell? That's a good question. The Bible
says Adam plunged the whole human race into a state of sin, spiritual
death, and spiritual depravity. You know right here in 1 Corinthians
we have a good definition of total depravity? You know, when
people think of that term total depravity, what do they think
of? They think of some wild eyed pervert running around trying
to kill everybody or something like that. Let me show you the
definition of total depravity right here in this verse. And
here's what he says in verse 18. For the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish foolishness. That's total depravity. You wanna know if you're a believer
You want to know if you're totally depraved? How do you respond
to the preaching of the cross? There's the idea. If it's foolishness to you, if
it's something that you don't believe, don't care for, my friend,
that's total depravity. That's unbelief. That's denying
the glory of God and the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. Preaching
of the cross. But that's what happened in the
garden. Adam plunged the whole human race into a state of sin,
spiritual death, and depravity. That's why the natural man, it
says over in chapter two and verse 14, look at it. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither
can he know them. For they are foolishness unto
him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. The natural man, the spiritually dead person, man
and woman, has no spiritual ears. You know, and you can relate
to that, in essence. You know when you want to hear
good news and when you want to hear bad news, and then there's
news you don't care about. Well, if the preaching of the
gospel is good news to you, if it's the greatest message you've
ever heard, you know what that means? That means you've been
raised from the dead. You've been given spiritual life
from the dead. Why? Because Christ was crucified. Well, the next point of that
message I was telling you about is what happened on the cross. What did Jesus Christ, the God-man,
actually accomplish on the cross? And that's what this verse 23
is about, but we preach Christ crucified. We preach the glory
of His person and the power of His finished work. What did He
accomplish? Well, we read it over in Hebrews
1 as I opened the service. when the Lord, by the Apostle
here in Hebrews chapter one, speaking of how God has spoken
unto us by his Son, whom he appointed to be heir of all things, by
whom he made the world, this is the glory of Christ, who being
the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person,
he is God, God, man, and one person, upholding all things
by the word of his power, when he had by himself done what?
purge our sins. Now let me tell you something
about Christ crucified. If Jesus Christ on that cross
purged my sins and that word purge means cleansed, it's like
a burning away of something that is negative, something that is
like dross or impurities, If Jesus Christ cleansed me from
my sin by His blood, that's what the cross is all about. It's
about death. Then there's no way that I can
be lost forever. There's no way I can be condemned.
There's no way that God can send me to eternal damnation. If He
purged my sins, how did He purge my sins? By His death for my
sins. How could he do that? My sins
were charged to his account. That's why he was crucified.
He wasn't crucified for any sin that he committed. He wasn't
crucified for any law that he broke. He didn't break any law.
He didn't commit any sins. He was made sin. How was he made
sin? God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, not
charging them with their sin. Well, who'd he charge them to?
He's a just God. What's he talking about there?
The sin debt was charged to Christ. That's why he was crucified.
That's why God manifest in the flesh was crucified. And he, by himself, did it. He didn't do it with our cooperation.
Romans 5 says, when we were enemies, Christ died for the ungodly.
It's not a conditional salvation. Christ crucified is not, well,
Jesus did all that he could, now the rest is up to you. Christ
crucified is not, well, he died for everybody, and it doesn't
mean anything until you Put your stamp of approval on it. You
believe it. You make the decision. No, no. All for whom he was crucified
will believe. Their sins cannot be charged
to them. They were charged to Christ. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, he
rather is risen again, seated at the right hand of the Father,
ever living to make intercession for us. He purged our sins, and
when he purged our sins, what did he do? He sat down on the
right hand of the majesty on high. That's Christ crucified.
Somebody asked me one time, said, well, you say you preach Christ
crucified. Look across the page at 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 2. Listen to what Paul says here.
He says, for I determined not to know anything among you, save
Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul, in essence, is saying,
really, when it's all over but to shut, that's all I want to
know. Somebody said, weren't there
other things that you can preach out of the Bible? Well, there
are other things that Paul deals with. He deals with a lot of
things right here in 1 Corinthians. A lot of problems that this church
had. But he always deals with them, now listen, on the basis
of and in the light of this one truth. Christ crucified. And if I preach on any set, let's
say today I'm gonna preach on the new birth. The new birth
is the fruit, the result, the product of Christ crucified. Nobody would be born again by
the Spirit. Christ said you must be born
again or you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. You must be
born again or you can't even see it. It's a necessity that
sinners be born again. Why? Because we fell in Adam.
And that's that third point in that message. Not what happened
in the garden, what happened on the cross, and what happens
in the heart of a sinner in the new birth. I'll tell you what
happens. God gives him a new heart. God
gives him spiritual life from the dead. It's a resurrection
spiritually from the dead. If you're born again, you've
got ears now that you didn't have before. Oh, I know he had
these physical ears, but the preaching of the cross was foolishness
unto you. You didn't believe it, didn't
know it, didn't believe it. But when God gave you those spiritual
ears and he says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the
word of God, that's what happened. He gave you a new heart, a new
spirit, new life. You were born again. Well, if
I'm preaching on the new birth, I've got to talk about Christ
crucified. And somebody asked me one time, said, well, what
about his resurrection? That's what the resurrection
is about, Christ crucified, because we preach a living Christ crucified,
not a dead Christ. The Christ that we're preaching,
who was crucified, he lives. He arose from the dead. Why? Because he accomplished a work.
He purged our sins. He made an end of sin. He finished
the transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting
righteousness. And from that righteousness that
Christ brought in comes life from the dead. That's what it
is to preach Christ crucified. And you see all of that. Speaks
of the gospel. The gospel is the preaching of
the cross. The gospel is preaching Christ crucified. The glory of
his person, the power of his finished work. Look back at verse 18 again.
This message, this one simple message, it identifies and divides the
whole world into two classes of people. This one message,
isn't that something? You know, I've often thought
when you think about religious denominations, you can go to
the Catholics, you can go to the Baptists, the Methodists,
and then you'll find little subgroups amongst all of them, and sometimes
you get lost in the mix. But right here, in this one message,
you're either in one category or the other. And here it is.
Look at it again. For the preaching of the cross,
The preaching of the blood of Christ, the preaching of Christ
crucified, the preaching of His righteousness imputed to us,
whereby God is just to justify sinners, is to them that perish,
literally them that are in a state of perishing, who are perishing,
foolishness. And what is it to count it foolishness? It's to not believe it. You see,
if God says something, we're to believe it. And if you don't
believe it, you might as well say it's foolishness. But unto
us which are saved, who are being saved in a state of salvation,
what's that mean? It is the power of God, the dynamite
of God. Remember Romans 1 16, for I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of
God. everyone that believeth, to the
Jew first, the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. That is from knowledge
revealed to knowledge received by the gift of faith. For it's
written, the justified shall live by faith. It's either believed or it's
not believed. It's like somebody said, there's
only two religions, the religion of Cain and the religion of Abel.
The religion of Cain is salvation by the works or the wills of
men in any way, in any form. The religion of Abel is salvation
totally by the grace of God based upon the blood, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's it. He says in verse 19, for it's
written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent The word prudent
there means the intelligent. The intelligentsia. You would
think you could go to the wise men and the intelligent men and
women of this world and find these answers. Those who tried
to trap Christ, as recorded in Matthew 22, they were the wise
and the prudent. And when He posed that great
question to them, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? How can he be both David's God
and David's son? They didn't know. And all the
wisdom and all the intelligence of the wise and the prudent,
when it comes to salvation and a right relationship with God,
they don't know, they cannot come up with it. He's gonna deal
with that in chapter two in detail. In fact, over in chapter two,
he says this. He says the issues of salvation,
how God saves sinners by Christ crucified, by the blood and righteousness
of Christ, that has never even entered the minds of the wise
and prudent. And so all of their wisdom and
all of their knowledge concerning how God saves sinners is going
to be destroyed. Well, how am I going to find
that knowledge? We go to God's Word. What does God say? God says He justifies the ungodly. How can He do that and still
be righteous and just? Well, David said it. He said,
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without
works. How does he do it? Through Christ
crucified, who is my surety. What does that mean? That means
he took my debt, my sin debt upon himself. He said, I'll be
responsible for Bill Parker's sin debt because Bill can't pay
it. I'll pay it. He said, Father,
put it upon my account. That's my sin imputed to Christ,
charged to Christ. And he came, and as my surety,
he took my place under the law, which I had broken. He didn't
break it, but I did. I broke it when I fell in Adam. I broke it when I was born and
being raised. You've broken it. We've all broken
the law. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And as my surety, he took my
place under law. He was made of a woman, made
under the law, the scripture said. To do what? To pay the
price, to redeem them that were under the law. Who are those
he redeemed? His sheep, his elect, his church,
his brethren, all whom God gives the gift of faith to see it as
the power of God. And he died. Because that's the
penalty of sin. The wages of sin is death. And
in his death was the complete payment of my sin debt in full,
and because of what he accomplished, purging my sins, establishing
righteousness to honor the law, he was raised from the dead.
Sin demands death. Righteousness demands life. And
in his death, we find righteousness. And so he was raised from the
dead. And he did that for his people,
purging our sins, raised from the dead. And from his resurrection
life, we're born again by the Spirit. And we come to see it
as the power of God. Verse 20, he asked the question,
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? What he's saying, this is a comparative,
or really it's a contrast, you might say better. Compared to
the wisdom and the power and the knowledge of God, the wisdom
of the scribes and the disputers and the debaters of this world,
it's nothing. It's nothing. Why even listen
to him? Verse 21, he says, for after
that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God.
Worldly wisdom will not lead you to God. Worldly wisdom and
knowledge and intelligence will not lead you to Christ. And so
what does? Well, look at it, please God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now notice it doesn't say it
pleased God by the preaching of foolishness. It says by the foolishness of
preaching. What he's saying here is what
the natural man in all of his wisdom and intelligence count
as foolish. You mean an old preacher standing
up here just preaching like this? That's the way God saves sinners?
Yes. Somebody said, well does it have
to be a guy behind the pulpit and a person? God's going to
communicate the gospel to them. That's all I'm going to say about
that. But it's foolishness to the world. Come on now, we've
got to do something. You've got to give me something
to do. I've got to jump through so many hoops. I've got to be
baptized. I've got to do this, do that, do that. Stop doing
this and stop doing that. Come on now. That's worldly wisdom. But what does the foolishness
of preaching say? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rest in Him. Listen, repent of all your dead
works. All of that. He says in verse 22, for the
Jews require a sign. Give us a sign. That's people
today. Give me a sign. I was reading
this morning about a doctor. He's a cardiologist. I like cardiologists. I need them every so often. And
this doctor, apparently, he had either passed out or died. In
his mind, he went to heaven and came back. And you've heard these
near-death experiences. People say this and that. Those, my friend, count those
as nothing. I have something better than
that, the word of God. Paul, I believe it's in 2 Corinthians,
spoke of himself as being taken to the third heaven. And when
he came back, you know what he did? He wrote a book about it
and it was a bestseller. That's not what happened, did
it? They made a movie about it. You know what Paul did when he
came back? He said, I don't have words to tell you about it, forget
it, let's look to Christ. I don't have words. But these
other people, and they go to heaven and come back, boy, they
got a lot of words. Paul said, I don't have those
words. I can't describe to you what I saw. But it was glorious. The Jews require a sign. You
know, Christ in Matthew 16, I believe it is, he said, a wicked and
an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. He said, the sign
is already given. The sign of the prophet Jonah.
And you know what that points to? The resurrection of the crucified
Christ. He's risen. What does that mean
for me? That means God did a miracle.
It means a whole lot more than that. God has done miracles. I mean, he spoke life out of
nothing. But what does his resurrection
mean? He was raised from the dead because of our justification. Righteousness established, our
sins put away, and we're alive under God. He says the Greeks seek after
wisdom. You know, the Greeks believed that salvation was gained
by the attainment of knowledge, worldly knowledge. Now the Bible
says that all of God's people are gonna know him. He's gonna
give them knowledge. That passage in Romans 117, for
therein is the righteousness of God revealed. What is the
righteousness of God there? Christ crucified. Christ dying
on that cross to put away my sins and bring in an everlasting
righteousness whereby God is just to justify an ungodly person
like me. Sinners. How can God be just
and just are? There's the question. Christ
crucified. And so, when all of that took place,
he said, a wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a son.
Look to the word of God. Don't look for pictures of Jesus.
There are none. Don't look for clouds that look
like him or what you think he looks like. There are none. Look
to the word of God, a more sure word of prophecy. And so he says,
but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block.
The Jews were seeking righteousness by their works. The gospel says
righteousness cannot be attained by your works. It's only attained
by Jesus Christ on behalf of his people as our surety, our
substitute, our redeemer. You're looking for righteousness.
If you're looking for it in yourself or by your works, you're not
gonna find it. And if you think you do, that's self-righteousness,
that's Pharisaism. The only place righteousness
can be found is in the perfection of the law that comes by Jesus
Christ. When that was preached to the
Jews, they stumbled over it. Unto the Greeks it was foolishness.
Man's gotta do something. Verse 24, and I'll close with
this. But unto them which are called. Now what is that calling? That's the invincible calling
of the Spirit under the preaching of the gospel where we're born
again by the power of the Spirit, where he gives life to dead sinners. where He gives us ears to hear
and eyes to see. Christ told His disciples, blessed
are your ears for they hear, blessed are your eyes for they
see. Gives us new hearts, new minds, new wills. And then that
becomes the power of God. And that's what He says, but
unto them which are called, invincibly called. Both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God. Christ is the power of God unto
salvation. Christ crucified, risen from
the dead, His blood, His righteousness, and He's the wisdom of God. How
can God be just to justify the ungodly? The wise and the prudent
don't know. Men come up with their ways.
But my friend, there's no way but Christ crucified. And that's
what it's all about.