We return once again to our verse-by-verse study of First Corinthians, and we find ourselves in verses 18 through 25 of First Corinthians one. So will you take your Bibles and turn there? This is actually the second part of a discourse that I began last week entitled "Wisdom - God's Versus Man's."

Now before we go to the text, I want to remind you of what's going on here. This is Paul's exhortation to a church that was very immature. They were a church filled with people that struggled with their past, their worldly desires, their culture. In fact, they came out of a culture that was predisposed to factious groups, like denominational groups that we would have today, or like political parties. And again, by way of quick review, the Greeks prided themselves in being a very sophisticated people. They prided themselves in philosophical reasoning. In fact, Philosophia in the Greek means the love of wisdom, and that's what they were really into in that day. In fact, their primary form of entertainment was to listen to skilled and erudite orators explain the meaning of life and death and all of those kinds of thing. And naturally, people would align themselves to their favorite philosophy and their favorite philosopher, the one they like the best. And then that would turn into something tantamount to our political parties or religious denominations. And it was estimated that about 50 of these denominations existed in this era of history, and they were each competing with one another to gain influence, to have the largest following in the culture.

And so naturally, with this kind of cultural influence, these things came into the church. The people naturally brought this into the church, and so there was sectarianism in the church, and people would idolize their favorite preacher, but they also still had a love for human reasoning, and certainly all of those things are utterly incompatible with biblical Christianity, and some of them were even aligning themselves with the man that baptized them. So Paul addresses this head on you will recall beginning in verse 17 and 18, which, by the way, in the original is one unit there. There's no paragraph break between verses 17 and 18. He says in verse 17, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech..." in other words, not with the soaring rhetoric that you're used to from your philosophers.

And it's also interesting, by the way, that false teachers in the church said of Paul in Second Corinthians 10:10, "...his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible." Alright? So that was his reputation. But he says, Hey, I didn't I didn't come in cleverness of speech. And he knew that his physical presence did not have the aura or the charisma that the kind of people respected and that caused them to be loyal to them. And so he lacked all of the polished oratorical and rhetorical skills that were prized in that culture.

And by the way, I might add that maybe he wasn't a dynamic speaker, and I find a little comfort in this, because remember, in Acts 20, he put a young man by the name of Eutychus to sleep. Remember that? And he preached for a long time, and the poor guy fell out of the window three stories and to his death. You know, that's why, when I preach, I like to make sure we're all on the same floor. Nobody's by the window. The good news is, Paul was able to raise him from the dead. The bad news is I can't do that. But, so anyway, he says, I didn't come to you here with, you know, the manipulative rhetoric and techniques that that move a crowd and therefore forfeit the power of God in the gospel to save and transform sinners.

And so he goes on in verse 18, he says, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." It's interesting, in chapter two, verses one and two, he says, "And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Then back to verse 19 again, he says, "It is written, I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WSE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVR I WILL SET ASIDE.'" And of course, that was a reference to what God did to ancient Judah, who departed from the wisdom of God, and they preferred, instead, the wisdom of man, who told them what they wanted to hear, rather than what they needed to hear. And as a result, they were delivered over into judgment.

And so this is what was happening there in Corinth; once again, a very, very immoral city, but very proud, very educated, very sophisticated. They might be likened to what the urban elite in New York and San Francisco. Now let me give you a little more historical background here, because this helps us understand where Paul is coming from.

This Greek culture also believed in Plato's dualism. You may remember some about that - philosophical dualism. That taught essentially that matter is good or is bad, but spirit is good. Matter is evil, spirit is good, so the human body, and in fact, all matter would be inferior. It's bad, it's evil. And he taught the superiority of the spiritual, therefore, over the material. In fact, later on, Gnosticism, which was a major threat to the early church, was really a form of Platonism, and Gnosticism disparaged the goodness of the material world and so forth. And later on, it's interesting that even the influential theologian Augustine believed that the idea of an earthly kingdom was of Jesus was carnal, and so he opted out for the view that the kingdom of God is a spiritual reality realized in the church, and that the church has therefore permanently replaced Israel in God's plan of redemption; a view that has also been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.

So keep this in mind, for the ancient Greeks to believe that Jesus Christ - who was God, who was spirit - for him to come and become material to put on a body. Well, that was insane to them, because material things were bad, that was evil, that was preposterous. So the gospel from the outset, was considered just completely ridiculous.

Moreover, another one of their great philosophers, Socrates, believed that the human body was a prison for the soul. He even longed for death so he could finally be released forever from his carnal frame. And I find it interesting that later on in Socrates life, he was found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth, of Athens and of impiety, which meant not believing in the gods of the state. So he was sentenced to death caused by the drinking of a mixture containing poison hemlock. And what's really interesting is Socrates last words are so ironic. He spoke to his friend, Crito, and said, quote, "Crito, we owe a rooster to Asklepios, please don't forget to pay the debt." How would you like that? For your last words? You remember Asklepios was the god of medicine to the Greeks in their ancient mythology, and the Temple of Asklepios was the temple where people would come in and lie down, and they had 1000s and 1000s of non-poisonous snakes that would crawl over them, and they thought that that would bring healing to him or to them; and all of that was represented by the snake entwined staff that remains a symbol of medicine to this very day. Well, so much for man's wisdom and so much for saying that he didn't believe in the gods of the state. So you see how crazy all of this gets.

But now think about this, here's the background that you have in this Greek culture, and what does God do? Well, according to Acts 16, God appears to Paul in a vision, and he tells them that some of his elect are in this region of the world, and I want you to go there, and I want you to preach the gospel like he did in Athens on Mars Hill.

And given Paul's reputation, you would think God would have picked a more skilled orator, right? A guy that was a little more cool for the culture, little more culturally relevant with his message, because, again, his opponent said that "...his appearance is unimpressive and his speech contemptible." You know, that's not how God works, is it? Just not how he works. He not only loves impossible odds, he actually ordains them so that he ultimately will get all of the glory. So it's in the in the midst of this maelstrom of philosophy swirling around Corinth, that God asks this, this little unimpressive Jewish rabbi, to go to this place, the guy that's not a great orator, to go into this this satanic, dark, wicked place where the people are so proud of their human wisdom, and tell them that God sent his Son to take on human flesh and to die as a substitute for sinners. But you can imagine how that went over. Tell them all of their philosophies are foolish, but God's wisdom is the only wisdom that has the power of God to save. Knowing that they are going to think you are a moron, because that's what the word foolishness in the Greek is, "mōrónos", where we get our word moron, they going to think it's moronic.

So as you will recall, Paul did go to Corinth. He spends about a year and a half there. He unleashes the gospel on the people, and many people are saved. But now, even with the great pastor, Apollos, in charge, as their pastor, a man who was mighty in the Scriptures, we're told the people are still prone to factions. They're still prone to philosophy of the love of man's wisdom, which, again, is not only dangerous, it's completely unnecessary as it relates to the human condition. I despise the philosophy courses I had to take when I was in the years of higher education, because I already had a clear understanding of the origin of life, the meaning the destiny of life, what happens when we die, and why all of those things...I had a clear understanding of that because the word of God told me all of that. All I needed was one book and God has revealed that all in his word. Remember what Peter said in Second Peter one, three, "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence." So why waste my time reading the conflicting opinions of men who, according to Scripture, are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins? Men who are at enmity with God, who are spiritually blind and deaf and who have been doubly blinded by Satan, given over to a worthless mind, unable to understand the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to them.

Think about it, folks. Think where man's wisdom has brought us today. These are the same people who can behold the macro and the micro mysteries of the universe. They can see intelligent design in everything in the universe, and they can still say there is no God, at least not the God of the Bible. These are the same people that will tell us that the origin of the universe happened as a result of a big bang that happened 13.7 billion years ago. These are the same people that will tell us that given enough time, the law of entropy will be reversed,and disorder will turn into order. These are the same people that will tell us, and tell our children, that we are nothing more than sophisticated germs that have evolved over millions of years through the process of natural selection that occurs at the level of our DNA and our genes, when in fact, there is no evidence of any of this; and all kinds of evidence to the contrary. These are the same people that have no problem with killing millions of unborn infants, yet they will freak out when some depraved nut case takes a gun into a school or some other gathering and kills innocent people and then blame the whole thing on the guns. These are the same people that have given us political correctness to include safe spaces on campuses for buttercup snowflakes to go and to feel safe from any kind of ideas or speech that might make them feel uncomfortable, truly insane. These are the wise people who have now concocted anywhere from three to 112 different genders. You realize that Facebook now offers 50 different gender identity options for new users. Go online. Check it out. I know of a young man who received an athletic scholarship to a college, and in his first day of class, of all the students were asked to introduce themselves and to also to tell the class and the teacher what pronoun you prefer to use for us to address you. By the way, the parents immediately took their son out of this school, put them in another school. Well, so much for the perceived wisdom of men. And I could go on and on with this. I mean, there's no limit to how far your jaw can drop when you see what's happening in our world today.

And obviously these are the people that are going to scoff at the gospel, verse 18, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." Now, folks, may I remind you that there are only two genders. Alright? There are only two genders. And also, according to what we read here, there are only two categories of people in the world, there are those who are perishing and those who are being saved, and we also see that those who are perishing are the ones that believe that what Christ did on the cross is utter foolishness and it has no bearing on their life or on their eternity. And those who are being saved find the atoning work of Christ to be the power of God unto salvation, and this is the basis of Paul's exhortation to these immature Christians in Corinth who still had this penchant for human wisdom.

Now I've been looking at this from two simple categories we began last week. I'm going to go there again with the first category - the power of God's presumed foolishness, and then we will move to the final category - the limits of man's presumed wisdom.

So again, we began last week with an introduction to all of this, and we started to look at number one: the power of God's presumed foolishness. I want to return there. Notice again in verse 18, it says, "For the word of the cross..." In other words, the word of the cross being the simple, unadorned, unembellished proclamation of the gospel in all of its fullness, which at its core centers around the cross; the penal substitutionary atonement, the reality that Christ bore our sins in his body as a penalty for sin so that we could have salvation. But again, the idea of all of this, the idea of atonement, is utterly absurd to them that according First John 4:10 that God "would send His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Propitiation, the satisfaction, the appeasement, the placation for our sins.

Now human sacrifice has always been reprehensible to civilized societies. The idea of appeasing an angry deity has always been a prominent feature in most ancient Middle Eastern pagan religions, and you will recall the brutal savagery of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians who worshiped Molech in order to appease Molech's wrath, the people were required to place live infants on an altar of fire as a sacrifice. Isn't it interesting how Satan loves a counterfeit. But the difference between the one true God and the satanic counterfeit in the idols is the one true God is willing to forgive.

Moreover, he has a plan, a sovereign plan of redemption. We know according to Psalm 145 beginning in verse eight, "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion." I might add, unlike Moloch that never even existed. The Psalmist goes on to say, "He's slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works."

So folks, for this reason, a propitiation is not necessary to somehow make God willing to forgive. A propitiation was necessary to pay the penalty for our sin. And there is a huge difference there. You see, God is not some angry, bloodthirsty tyrant that needs to be appeased before he will be kind and merciful; that is not the God of the Bible, the one true God. You see, his wrath demonstrates his utter hatred of sin, his judicial loathing of everything that is evil and everything that brings such misery into our life and death into the world. So we must understand that the propitiation of Christ, in the atonement, must be understood in terms of a payment of the legal penalty for sin. It eliminates the sinner's sin-debt to divine justice, so that, according to Romans 3:26, "He might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

You see, folks, because God is holy and because he is infinitely just, all sin must be punished. So he caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him, as we read earlier in Isaiah 53. So as we look at Scripture, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily bore the guilt and the curse of our sins in his body. And we read that "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Dear Christian, it is this - the word of the cross - that I have just given you, that is foolishness to those who are perishing and so for millennia, people have tried now to somehow twist this around, to make it more appealing. And I gave you a list of five ways man's wisdom has infiltrated the church to utterly eviscerate the gospel and emasculate its power.

Now, while it may be foolishness to man, we see in verse 18 at the end "...to us who are being saved it is the power of God." As I was thinking about this, I was reminded of Solomon. Remember, Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. Solomon received a quote "wise and discerning mind from the Lord." We read about that in First Kings three, we read in First Kings four, that his wisdom surpassed all the people of the East. And so this guy was smart, and you know what he said about human wisdom? It's all vanity, worthless, useless. You will recall in Ecclesiastes one and verse 13, he says, "I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven." And he said, in verse 16, "I said to myself, 'Behold, I have magnified and increased in wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.'" And in verse 17, he said, "I realize that this also is striving after wind. Because in much wisdom, there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." And then, as you read through Ecclesiastes, he says, it's all vanity, all of it's vanity. But then at the end, he says this, beginning in verse 13 of chapter 12, "The conclusion, when all has been heard is:..." here it is now, catch it, "...fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil." Folks, there's the bottom line, this is God's wisdom, which the world perceives as foolishness. What he's saying is that everything in life pales into utter insignificance when compared to the reality of death and the certainty of divine judgment. And it is the perceived foolishness of the cross that remedies all of that, and that's what man perceives to be foolish. The reason it remedies all of that - the fear of death and of judgment, is because Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of all who will place their trust in Him. That's the gospel. My friends, therein is the "power of God" that Paul speaks of. This is why Paul says in Romans 1:18, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

You see my friends, justice and mercy come together at the cross, and there's no greater news in all the world than this. And whatever, a man humbles himself before the cross and admits his sinfulness and his utter inability to save himself, God saves him, and suddenly there is a transformation. There is a new birth. A person is born again. It's what the Bible calls regeneration. That instantaneous, supernatural transformation of the inner man, of a man's nature, he becomes a new creature in Christ, it's the impartation of spiritual life to the spiritually dead. Sins are forgiven, but moreover, righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, is instantly credited to that person's account, and that person is given eternal life. Because of that radical transformation of the inner man, everything about a person begins to change. Little by little, it becomes more like Christ.

Now I ask you, have you ever seen man's wisdom do anything close to that?  Of course, not. And so for this reason, Paul goes on to ask a series of questions, beginning in verse 20. He says, "Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" Let me explain this text to you.

The wise man in the original language, it is the sophist, the clever man. And this is actually aparaphrase of Isaiah 19:12 remember, they had the Old Testament then, they didn't have the New Testament then, so Paul takes them back to this and in Isaiah 19:12 Isaiah asked, "Well then, where are your wise men? Please, let them tell you, and let them understand what the LORD of hosts has purposed against Egypt." This was a reference to the political experts, the mediums, the wizards of ancient Egypt. You see, these guys only told the Egyptians what they wanted to hear. They were ignorant of the word and the will of God, and they were helpless to deal, therefore, with the crisis of judgment that God had pronounced against them. And that's why, later on, in verse 14, the Prophet says, "They have led Egypt astray in all that it does, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit." How graphic. And all you have to do is look around even here in Nashville, and you will actually see drunkards staggering in their vomit, an incredible picture of what happens when people buy into the wisdom of man and consider the wisdom of God to be foolishness.

What about the scribe? The "grammateus." He's the clerk, a secretary in the original language. Again, Paul reaches back into the Old Testament scripture, probably a paraphrase of Isaiah 33 and verse 18. He says, "'Where is he who counts? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?'" Now this seems really foreign to us. Let me explain it to you. You see here the Prophet ridicules the Assyrians, who had teams of scribes that would go with the soldiers to document the booty that would be taken in battle. And you will recall in Second Kings 18 and 19 after Sennacherib had destroyed Lachish, he went to Jerusalem, and he surrounded Jerusalem with a siege wall, and he was prepared to destroy them. And Hezekiah looks down upon them and and he's afraid, and he cries out to the Lord, and the Lord is merciful to them. And the Lord takes one angel and kills 185,000 Assyrians. Amazing story. And Sennacherib then took a flight back to Assyria, along with his scribes, who had nothing to count.

By the way, if you go to the British Museum, you will see a black cylinder that has this entire history that Sennacherib's scribes and people have written out. It's a fascinating, it's a fascinating piece of history.

Dave Harrell  

So again, where's the wise man? Where's the scribe? And he says, "Where's the debater of this age?" The "syzētētēs" in Greek. It's interesting. This was a Hellenic, or the Hellenistic, Greeks term for a disputer. Where is the disputer? The one who could debate in the Greek philosophic schools, those who would boast about all that God opposes and ridicule the cross, where are they? And so Paul's point is this, even as God made fools of the Egyptians, the wise men of Egypt, even as he made fools of the Assyrians and the scribes in Assyria, so too he is going to make human wisdom look equally foolish.

The end of verse 20, he says, "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" And indeed, he has, despite all the combined wisdom of the world, mankind is not one wit closer to Utopia than he was in the days of Noah, when God judged the world, in a day when, according to Genesis, six, five, "Every intent of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually." And yet, what did they do for 120 years? They scoffed at Noah's warning until the waters begin to rise, and then it was too late; and folks that judgment is coming again. Jesus has promised that, yet man does not believe it. He refuses to repent to be saved, all because he buys into man's wisdom and thinks God's wisdom in his word is foolish.

But how different those of us who are being saved? How different, I was thinking about this, even as we were we were singing today, the wisdom of God, the power of God. And it's for this reason that at the end of Romans 11, Paul would break forth in that magnificent doxology, and he would say,

"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

FOR WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?

OR WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIIM AGAIN?

Then he says,

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen."

So we've seen the perceived foolishness of God. Finally, let's look for a few minutes at the perceived wisdom of man. Notice again in verse 21 he says, "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God..." Fascinating statement. Now think about it, with all of the advances in knowledge over the millennia, man still is utterly incapable of knowing God on his own. And by the way, this will become the theme of chapter two. You see, the only way we can know about God is for Him to reveal Himself to us. And that divine revelation is found in the scriptures, in the Bible; and God has also revealed himself to us in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But then as well, in his word, which we can read and which we can hear through faithful preaching and teaching and so forth. In fact, he mentions this at the end of verse 21, "God was well-pleased through the...."I might add, perceived, "...foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. By the way, he's not talking about preaching in and of itself. He's talking about the content of the message that is preached, the content being the cross. That's what saves those who believe.

And I might add this, and I want you to hear this, it doesn't save those who hear. It doesn't save those who like what they heard. It saves those who believe, those who wholeheartedly abandon their wisdom in exchange for the wisdom of God that is revealed in his word and place their faith, their trust in Christ as their only hope of salvation. Yeah, but man prefers his own wisdom, doesn't he? Yet it is his wisdom that is not able to even know God, much less worship him. You see, man cannot solve even his most basic problems because he refuses to acknowledge his sinfulness. Remember, Romans, one speaks of this verse 18, "man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness." It's like he's trying to keep a lid on the reality that God exists and he's responsible to him. He prefers his sin over being obedient to a holy God. Romans one goes on to talk about how that because of creation and because of conscience, man knows that God exists and knows that he's in rebellion to him, but he just simply will not admit it, and that's all a part of man's depraved nature, and with respect to the perceived wisdom of man, remember, once again, the context of what Paul's talking about here as he's exhorting them about the disunity and the divisions that existed in the church, brought in by but many of the folks who were self-centered and they were factious, they were divisive people who had lost sight of the glorious truths of the gospel and God's wisdom in his word; they had once again reverted back to the love of human wisdom, perhaps even unwittingly.

And in James three, if you will go there with me for a moment, and we'll have some of this on the screens. In James three, the apostle warns about the self-centered, arrogant, self-promoting nature of human wisdom that produces bitter jealousy and selfish ambitions, which, of course, engenders antagonism and factionalism. And we see this in every institution and even in the church. And he says this in verse 15, "This wisdom,” in other words, this worldly wisdom, "is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural..." meaning, it's characterized by an unsanctified heart and an unredeemed spirit that's ruled by lust. "It's earthly, it's natural and it's demonic." Wow, that is powerful. He goes on to say, "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder in every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, than peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

Now folks, I ask you, what has man's wisdom accomplished morally over the course of history?  Have you seen any place where philosophy and psychology and all of the isms of the world have made the world safer and kinder and more gentle and loving and selfless and more moral? And of course, the answer is obviously not. We're as bad today, if not worse, than we've ever been, because, you see, man's wisdom is nothing more than an expression of his depraved heart. Remember in Romans, chapter three and verse 12, Paul indicts unsaved humanity, and he does so by quoting Psalm 14, one through three and Psalm 53 one through three, here's what he says, "'ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;'" The word "useless" could be translated "corrupt" or or even "stinking." In fact, the Hebrew word used in both of those psalms that he quotes is also used to describe sour and rancid milk that is nasty stuff. You ever took, taken, you know, the carton, and you poured a good cold glass of milk, and you don't know that it's sour and rancid, and you turn it up, and you get a good gulp of it. And then that's what he's saying here that all have sinned and turned aside together they have been useless. It's interesting. Homer uses it in the Odyssey to refer to the senseless laughter of a moron, so much for the moral wisdom and the nobility of the human race. And folks again, think about where this has taken us today. It's easy for us to forget these things. I mean, our modern culture has become a fantasy world where people create their own reality on the internet. That's what's happened today. How else can you explain the the idolatrous slavery to smartphones and to pornography. In our wise, sophisticated culture, everyone is considered a winner, right? Even if they finish last. And sowhat has this produced? It has produced a generation that demands reward without responsibility. Our youth are being raised in a fool's paradise of political correctness that's been invented by the liberal left and the Metropolitan elite that will demonize and censor those who do not subscribe to their values. There's the power of the wisdom of man.

Ours is a culture that has no moral comfort compass. We are comfortable with killing millions of unborn babies. We live in a culture that that applauds effeminacy and homosexuality and obsesses over things like transgender restrooms and seeks to criminalize anyone who does not buy into that delusion. Just because a man thinks he's a woman, does that mean he is woman? And if you don't buy into that, does that mean you need to be punished because you're a bigot. I mean, this whole thing has gone crazy, yet we think the wisdom of God is foolishness. At least they do.

It's for this reason in Colossians two and verse eight, Paul says, "See to it..." It could be translated, beware - really interesting term in the original language. He's basically saying, Look out, folks. I want you to be very careful here. There is a problem coming your way, and you better be on your guard. "See to it," he says, "that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." Now practically speaking, let me, let me show you a little bit of how, how this works, even in our religious circles. And by the way, wheneveryou try to mix human wisdom with divine revelation, guess which one will win? Human wisdom will always win. Revelation always loses. It's like putting one drop of poison in a gallon of pure water. And this is why Paul said earlier in verse 17, that, "Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void." But what we know is that, because we are prone to sin, even as believers, we can absorb man's foolish wisdom like a sponge absorbs water.

Let me give you some examples of how this works out in many churches and why we have tobe on the guard. Many churches base their entire ministry on a philosophy that's built upon a false assumption, and that false assumption is that unbelievers are seeking God, and so therefore we need to become seeker sensitive. You're familiar with this. So what you have to do is make everything appealing in the church to these people who are seeking after God. This sometimes I call teenage logic, you know. It's built on a totally false assumption. But then you have this whole argument that's just very, very compelling, you know, and you have to go back and say, Wait a minute. That's built on a false assumption, the presupposition is false. So what people will do, in churches to study the cultural trends, and they will make the music and the message fit the expectations of the unbelievers, and then make the church and even our Christian lifestyle look as much like the world as possible, with the idea that we must become like the world in order to win the world, and so we have to dumb down the message. But the problem here is that because sinners are spiritually dead, because they're at enmity with God, because they love their sin more than God, unbelievers are not seeking God. Scripture is so clear about that. Romans three verses, 10 through 18. I won't look at the whole passage, but basically Paul says, No one seeks after God, all have turned aside, together they have become, there's that word again, useless. You see, what unbelievers are seeking is not the true and the living God. They're seeking relationships in a religious country club. They're seeking a religious experience that will make them feel good about themselves. They're seeking a God of their own liking, a God of their own creation, a God that is malleable, that they can somehow manipulate so that he will yield to their demands. You might say they're seeking a Santa Claus God that can be manipulated to pass out all of the goodies, whether you've been naughty or nice, right? But because so many undiscerning Christians buy into this perceived wisdom of man, they cater to this kind of evangelical pragmatism. So they speak the language of the contemporary culture. They contextualize the church. They've got to be trendy. They have to exalt every popular icon. They seek the style and the language of the world, and they turn the church into a religious Disneyland, all in an effort to try to be relevant to the culture so that the world will like them. Believe me, I want people to like me. We all should want that, but not at the expense of the gospel. And naturally, the word of the cross in these types of situations, these types of churches get so dumbed down so as not to offend, that the gospel becomes unrecognizable.

Therefore, what happens is these churches fill up with people who claim to be Christians, but they're not. They don't really know the living Christ, and you end up with a Christless Christianity. Now this problem is nothing new, Paul had to deal with it as well. Notice what he says in verse 22 he's for, he says, "For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom..." You see, the Jews were always wanting another supernatural miracle, and the Greeks wanted more intellectual proof. In reality, both the Jews and the Greeks were just looking for other excuses to reject the gospel. It's interesting as well that in Matthew 12, we read of a group of scribes and Pharisees. They demanded Jesus, you know, prove himself by doing more signs, to which he replied, "'An evil and adulterous generation crave for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it, but the sign of Jonah, the prophet." Which was a veiled reference of his crucifixion and resurrection. But even after he rose from the dead, they still didn't believe.

So Paul reminds the Corinthians that, like Jesus, he's not going to cater to the whims of spiritual cadavers and give them what they want, he's going to give them what they need, the only thing that can save their souls. And so he says that, "...we preach," verse 23 "...Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block." Remember, they were looking for a conquering king, not a suffering Savior. They wanted a Messiah that would conquer Rome, not one that would hang on a cross. And He says, "and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called," -this refers to the effectual call that God initiates that will always result in salvation, not the general call, but the effectual call of God to those who are called both Jews and Greeks - Christ crucified is, "...the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God..." in other words, that which appears to be foolish by men, "...is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Folks remember, that God uses the offensive, unpopular message of the cross to save souls. That's what he uses to call sinners unto himself. It's for this reason that later on, Paul said in chapter three, beginning in verse 18, "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, 'He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS'; and again, 'THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.'"

Folks, in closing, let me challenge you. First of all, if you're here and you do not know Christ as Savior, I plead with you to come to him in saving faith today. You must choose between the perceived wisdom of man and the perceived foolishness of God. And your soul's eternal destiny depends upon your choice. And if you choose God's wisdom and wholeheartedly embrace the cross in repented faith, it will be the result of God choosing you in eternity past, an amazing thought, it will be the result of a God calling you by his infinite love and grace in such a way that you will freely and voluntarily choose to come to Christ in salvation. But if you choose man's wisdom, and you refuse to embrace the cross in repentant faith, it will be the result of God leaving you in your self-chosen rebellion and natural consequences of punishment, and you will perish in your sin. All I can do is give you the truth of the gospel, all I can do is give you an external call to salvation and warn you of the wrath to come.

And believers for you, I leave you with two simple things. As we look at this text, we need to learn to be humble and to be confident. First of all, be humble knowing that God has, according to Second Timothy one nine, and I don't have these for you on the overhead, be humble, knowing that God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, literally before time began. Folks that should humble us to the very core, and therefore we need to, according to Ephesians 4:1 and following, we need to "walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace."

And then finally, folks, let's be confident. Be confident in the message of the cross. Never, ever, ever be ashamed of the gospel. I don't care who you're talking with. Never try to reinvent it, or try to adapt it or compromise it, never come to certain aspects of it and try not to say anything about that, because that might really be offensive, because you want to be more appealing. Because folks, as soon as you do that, you forfeit the power of God. Be loving, be winsome, be compassionate, but be honest and bold. Give them the gospel in all of its offense and all of its power and purity. And only those who reject the perceived wisdom of man and believe in the perceived foolishness of the cross will be saved. They must be willing to come to God on his terms, not on their terms, not on your terms, not on the terms of some expert that's packing out huge stadiums and writing best-selling books.

Folks, isn't it wonderful that he rescued us by a means that we would have never imagined? Right? He has saved us by his grace through a plan that we would have never come up with. What amazing grace, Amen? Through the death of his beloved Son, we've been saved. Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for these eternal truths, cause them to bear much fruit in each of our lives. I pray especially for those that may have never come to a place where they've really done business with you. Oh God, break their hearts. May they cry out to you for undeserved mercy and experience the miracle of the new birth this day. So we commit all of this to you, and we thank you for the cross, for it's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.