so And that's your attention back
to first Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 25 Read these words
because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness
of God is stronger than men Now in this portion of Scripture
Here in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, or 1st Corinthians chapter 1
and 2, up through verse 14 of chapter 2, the words wise, wisdom,
foolish, and foolishness are used more than 25 times. It is
clearly stated without a doubt that Christ is the wisdom of
God and the power of God and all other wisdom that is human
wisdom, earthly wisdom, religious wisdom, worldly wisdom is doomed
and damned and God said I am going to destroy it. Now the
word foolish is used in different ways here. It's mostly applied
to the natural state of God's elect and the word foolishness
is applied to God. and to spiritual things in the
context. Now the context in which these
terms are applied is singular. This chapter has to do with the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ or how God saves sinners and
also the kind of people that God has saved as declared by
God and the way they are viewed also by the world. Our text is
in no small way a sarcastic remark. Sarcasm is a tool of language
used to make fun of someone else's ideas. And this is making fun
of the ideas of the world concerning how God saves sinners. Natural, carnal, religiously
wise men Being unable to discern spiritual things cannot grasp
a salvation that discounts the numerous and venerable qualities
of humanity and indeed counts all that man thinks he is as
absolutely without value at all. He cannot contemplate that the
vast capacity of his wisdom is actually by divine intent and
purpose designed to drive him away from God, to make it impossible
by his logical process to seek after God. Verse 21, our Lord
says, for after that in the wisdom of God, This is according to
God's wisdom. The world by its wisdom knew
not God. That's part of God's wisdom,
God's wise plan that man by his own wisdom can never know God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. God has made man's wisdom to
be foolishness because men count God's way of salvation foolishness. Natural wisdom simply cannot
countenance that salvation is anything other than a trophy
given for their achievement. an accolade for their meritorious
choice, a prize for their admirable power of their will. That's what
men believe salvation is. And when they hear how God saves
sinners, they say, that's foolishness. That's foolishness. That can't
be right. That can't be right. Well, what is this foolish way
that God saves sinners? He saves them by his wisdom and
by his power, alone that wisdom and power is declared to be in
this very same text Jesus Christ and him crucified verse 23 says
but we preach Christ crucified Unto the Jews who seek a sign
is a stumbling block. Unto the Greeks who seek truth
or wisdom, it's foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. The foolish way he does this
is through declaration. through the preaching of the
gospel. He employs no other means, allows no inventions of men or
the subtle seduction of religion. He allows not for men's thoughts
or for the exercise of man's wisdom or for the vanity of their
works. He mocks their righteousness
and laughs at their calamity. Against all their wisdom, he
saves them. He saves them. saves them that
believe and does it through a strange and wondrous thing called the
here, the foolishness of preaching. And wonder of wonders, the foolishness
of preaching is how the gift of faith is delivered to the
elect. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. Therefore, the foolishness of
God is wiser than me. And the weakness of God is stronger
than me. The word for that begins verse
26, begins verse 26 indicates that what follows is a declaration
or an explanation of how the foolishness of God is wiser than
men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. The Lord supplies
this explanation with the use of two characters or two types
of people, the ours and the are nots. The ours and the are nots. I love this book. I love this
book. It is ever showing me things
I've not seen before. This message began in my head
about two weeks ago when I was returning from a visit for Wayne
over in Waynesville. I was rehearsing the words of
verses 26 through 29 in my head and something I'd never considered
before began to take shape. I have preached from this passage
numerous times and always that it was an apt description of
our depravity. These words, for 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 the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things that are mighty, the base things of the world, and
things which are despised has God chosen, yea, and things which
are not to bring to naught things that are. That's a pretty apt
description of our depravity. I did it proudly. And that's
how I preached it for so long. But as I was pondering that day
and behind the wheel of my Chrysler and driving back, I was over
on 441 about where Ethel lives when this started to roll around
in my head, I remembered this word for began that whole passage
and realized that what I was considering was an explanation
of what preceded these words. Began to see that the ours and
the are not said so much more To prove the fact that foolishness
of God is wiser than man and The weakness of God is stronger
than me the matter of God's calling and his choosing he says you
see I Not everybody sees the natural man receiving, not the
season of the spirit, their foolishness to him, neither can he know them
nor discern them because they're spiritually disturbed. But he
said, you see, you see your calling. Now, if a person stands before
you and proclaims that there's some spark of divinity in humanity,
there's some good in humanity that by his own power, he can
work up faith and will to receive God. If a person tells you that,
he doesn't see. Because you see your calling.
Not many wise after the flesh. Not many noble, not many mighty.
But God's chosen the foolish and the despised and the base.
He's chosen those. So you see, if you're a child
of God, your calling. You see that there's nothing
in you or about you that could do anything that would move you
one iota closer to God. You see, the elect are both the
ours And they are the are nots in this passage. It is plainly
declared that we are not noble, that we are not mighty, that
we are not wise, and we are things that are not. That's how we're
described. Not wise, not noble. We're things
that are not. We're foolish and weak and base.
We're despised things. Find some element there that
you might put on your resume to try to get the job of being
saved by God. Nothing in there is there. Nothing
there. Nothing whatsoever. Clearly this
is the reasonable opinion of the world when they look at us.
It aligns with what the world in its wisdom calls the foolishness
and the weakness of God. This is what the world says about
God. God's foolish. His weakness.
Look at the kind of people He saves. Look at how he saves them
by raising up some jackleg to stand on his back legs and preach
the gospel. This is gonna have to do with
their salvation. A man whom we look at and say,
he's weak, he's foolish, he should be despised if he's not, he's
a base thing of this world, he's nothing. I've been called all
those things. So is every preacher of the gospel.
And the world looks at that and says, that can't be how it is. That can't be how it is. God
has chosen to save his people. And the world sees it as utter
foolishness. By doing so, God has flipped
the entire thing upside down. That's what he's done. Remember
when he said that the purpose of election might stand, the
elder shall serve the younger. He flipped the world upside down.
That ain't the way it's supposed to be. That's the way God does
it. He flips things upside down. The world says God loves everybody
and has a wonderful plan for his life. God said, I hated Esau.
That flips everything upside down. The gospel flips men's
world. In fact, that's what they said
of the 12 apostles. The people in Rome said, these
men have turned the world upside down. And that's what the gospel
does. It flips it. It turns it upside
down. The choice of the are nots is
who our Lord chose, the are nots. to bring the R's to nothing. That's what he said. Things that
are not to bring to nothing, things that are. And as the R's
add up to zero, and that's only as high as they can go, it's
painfully obvious that the foolish of God is wiser than men and
the weakness of God is stronger than men. God accomplished salvation
this way and for these kind of folks so that no flesh, whether
mighty or wise or noble or weak or foolish or base or despised,
no flesh can glory in his presence. What is glory? Saw a picture
in the One Feather, or actually on Facebook, I expect it was
in the One Feather of our senior citizen with all the gold medals
hanging around her neck. Glory. That's glory, why? Because they achieved something.
Actually did something. Now, if you did nothing, and
the Bible says you did nothing, if you did nothing in the matter
of your salvation, how is it that you can glory in it? How
is it you can glory is if you did something. You can only glory
in it if you glory the one who actually accomplished your salvation.
And that's God Almighty. Glory singularly belongs only
to the one who has earned it, who is worthy of it, and who
merits it. Since the glory of salvation
belongs to God alone, no flesh can participate in that glory,
no way and no form and no fashion, no means, no. And the Lord says
it this way, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none righteous,
no not one. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. Now how many does that involve?
That involves everybody, us included. Us included. And the final blow,
the coup de grace. I looked up coup de grace. It's French. It means the final
strike of mercy. That's what it means. It means
if somebody's dying on the battlefield and he knows he ain't gonna live,
go ahead and stick a sword in his heart. End his life, because
otherwise his life's gonna end miserably. This is the coup de
grace. The Lord sets forth. The KO part
is delivered in verse 30. But of him, that is of God, are
you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
and sanctification and redemption. This is what the world considers
to be the ultimate foolishness of God. But of God, according
to his goodwill and pleasure, of God, the result of God's doing,
of God, you are nots, are in Christ. That means placed securely
in him by loving election and predestination, who of God, That
means the singular result of God's doing. Christ is made,
is become, becomes our, becomes unto us the are nots. Christ has been made to be unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Note well the
grand distinction that puts the capstone on the bringing to nothing
the wise, the mighty, and the noble. Christ does not make us
wise. Christ does not make us wise
here. He's not made unto us wise. He does not make us righteous. He does not make us redeemed. He does not make us holy. He
becomes that unto us. He becomes our wisdom, our righteousness,
our holiness, and our redemption. If He has made unto us these
things, then we can claim nothing of being these things ourselves. It's rare that you'll find that
the Lord calls his elect righteous, but often he calls them righteousness. Righteousness. We are weak and
foolish, aren't we? We have to claim that. We are
base and despised, and the world's wisdom sees that. They see us. They know what we're like. They
see us when we're at our worst. They see us when we talk wrong
and we act wrong. They see that. And the world
says, and you say you're a Christian? Christians don't act like that.
You say you're a Christian? Well, that's foolish. They see
what we are. But God didn't say we was wise.
God says we's wisdom. It's a whole different thing. So the world is wise, like it
says God is foolish to say such as this are his people, his beloved,
his chosen, the trophies of his grace. The wise and the noble
and the mighty scratch their heads, it will cease to be anything.
There will not be anything when they find that this ragtag scrap
of humanity are made up to be essential. Wisdom, not wise,
wisdom. Righteousness, not righteous,
righteousness. Sanctification, not sanctified,
sanctification. And redemption, not redeemed,
redemption. Now this is particular to the
context. This is what Christ is made to
be to us. He was made to be sin for us, wasn't he? Who knew no
sin, knew no sin. That we might be made what? Righteous? The righteousness of God. the righteousness of God. God displays to the wise and
the noble and the mighty of the world and says, see here, see
mine elect, see whom my soul loveth. Here is wisdom and righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. And I did that. I did that. And the world says, but these
are not wise. God says, no. Their wisdom. Christ has been made unto us
the essential thing. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. So as it is written, he that
glorieth must glory in the Lord is what he said. Now that was
taken from Jeremiah chapter nine in verse 23 and 24. And the reason
he quoted a shorted version of that because the original version
actually covered what he's already speaking about. Thus saith the
Lord, let not thy wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that
he understandeth, you see, you see your calling, and knoweth
me, that I am the Lord which exercise love in kindness, justice,
and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. The
world says it's foolish. I know who you are. I know what
you are. You know what I am. If the standard of so-called
salvation and religion today were applied to me, I wouldn't
make it. But religion's idea of what salvation is was applied
to me or to you, you wouldn't do well. But you know what we
are. We see it. We see it. We see our calling. Not many mighty, not many noble,
not many wise. We see that God has chosen us
and we're foolish. God has chosen us and we're base.
God has chosen us and we're unwise and despised. God has chosen
us and rejected the mighty, the wise, noble of this world. Because God has done it this
way, in this manner. The world says it's foolishness.
But the world in its wisdom, who are the ours of the world?
They are mighty. They are wise. They are noble.
They are the ours of this world. when they see and understand
what God has done and how He saves sinners, they add up to
zero. They're brought to nothing. Things
that are not to bring to nothing, things that are. We're the are-nots. And the foolishness
of God is wiser than men. and the weakness of God is stronger
than me. And that phrase begins with the
word because. Because. Father, bless us through
our understanding of praying Christ's name.