The Cross: Jewelry or Stumbling Block? (part 2) - [1 Corinthians 1:18-25]

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Sanctification (part 3)

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When I was a kid, I loved to light fireworks. I loved the inch and a half fireworks that you would light and they would explode.
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I don't know how I ended up saving them, but I saved a bunch of fireworks for about 20 years.
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And I thought, you know, I'm going to light these things off and see what happens. Typically, there's enough fuse to light so that you can light them, lay them on the ground, and run.
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And these 20 -year -old black cats, inch and a half firecrackers, I would light and literally within one second they would explode.
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There was no wick time. I guess the gunpowder had done something and I would light them and they would just explode in my face.
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The bad news is I just kept doing it over and over because I needed to light the rest of them off.
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Sometimes when Paul writes, like in Ephesians or in Romans, he begins to line up all kinds of doctrine.
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Who God is, who Christ is, who the Spirit is, how they together as a triune
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God affect salvation. And he lays out one chapter after another after another, slowly, pedantically, carefully, to make sure people live in light of who
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God is. But Paul had been to Corinth and he had been there for 18 months and he had taught them who
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Jesus was. Jesus alone is God, the risen Savior. There's salvation in no one else.
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And so when he begins to write 1 Corinthians, it's like that firecracker that has a fuse that's fast because out of nowhere you get the explosion.
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Chapter 1, verse 10 and following, we get the first topic of discussion and that is divisions in the local church.
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So let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1. We're going verse by verse through 1 Corinthians. And Paul wastes no time as he immediately gets into the topic of unity in the church.
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You say, well, you know, that seems like a boring topic to me. Wait till you listen to Paul, inspired by the
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Spirit, and it is far from boring. Paul does not lay out a detailed systematic theology like Romans 1 -12 before he says, now this is how you should think and this is how you should live.
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He gets right to the topic and it's quick. He deals with it right away. Paul plants the church and there's problems in the church and this is a book that deals with these problems.
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And the first problem found in chapter 1, 2, 3 and 4 is church division.
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There's no unity. And since Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, don't you think the complete bride, the full body, the non -fractured bride of Christ would be important?
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And the answer is yes, because what happens in the body reflects on who the head is and what he has done.
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And so chapter 1 we deal with this first topic of division. And what people were doing is they'd say, you know, we want to follow people because they're wise.
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They've got a worldly wisdom. We like the way they talk, they approach life, so we'll follow them.
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The bad news is some people have A worldly wisdom, some people have B worldly wisdom, some people have
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C worldly wisdom, and now who do we follow? And if you've got church people following A leader,
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B leader, C leader, the church gets divided. And so Paul says, don't get so distracted with this worldly wisdom.
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Let me show you in the mirror worldly wisdom I think you'll want to run. And then let me show you godly wisdom and I think you'll want to embrace it.
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And if everybody here at Bethlehem Bible Church began to think the same way about wisdom, there'd be no reason for splits, no reasons for divisions.
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There'd be no way that we could break apart. And so the way we worked it last week was asking a series of questions for the outline so that you could think properly about biblical wisdom and that you would see unbiblical wisdom for what it is, worldly.
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So let's ask a few questions again to just get right into it because this is one of those topics where I feel like all week it's going to be so blinding of a message you're going to need these windows down.
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If I was teaching a seminary class I'd get in a three -point stance right now and I'd feel like I'd want to bust out of that three -point stance but I'm trying not to just go crazy early on because we need to build up to the craziness and the enthusiasm.
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I hope you've prayed this week, Lord, use the message to change my life.
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Use the message to shape my mind. It's been said that you get the kind of sermons you prayed for all week long.
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And so we want to come to the Word of God and say, Christ Jesus, you're a great Savior and you have redeemed us and you have loved us and reconciled us to the
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Father. And therefore in light of your love and in light of who you are and because we can live a life of energy with the
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Spirit of God, let us live a life that's pleasing to you. We don't live this life of unity so God will love us.
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But since he has loved us then let's respond with proper living. And so chapter one, it's one of these chapters that just starts with a bang.
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And let's ask these questions now. Question number one, so you can think biblically about wisdom and not with worldly wisdom.
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It's question one. What symbol would worldly wisdom pick for their religion? If you were going to start a religion, what symbol would you pick?
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And without repeating my sermon from last week, it's interesting what God picks.
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Chapter one, verse 18, For the word of the stock of grain, the word of the ikthus, fish, the word of the dove, those all might be fine.
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But here it is, for the word of the what? The cross. The word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
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This word cross, as we learned last week, is not for refined sensibilities. It's used in the culture back then with contempt, with disgust, with disdain.
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Cicero, the mighty Cicero said, This very word cross should be removed not only from the person of a
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Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, his ears.
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We don't talk about the cross in pleasant company. Paul, if I was
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Paul, please just make it a little bit easier and round some of those rough edges off and say, but the word of the resurrection.
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There he is raised, but Paul doesn't focus on the resurrection. He focuses on the cross where God the
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Son was receiving the wrath of the Father as they had agreed upon in eternity past.
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And we see the Lamb of God that was being slain. It's kind of awkward.
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It doesn't really help in social circumstances. But Paul says there's one symbol that symbolizes
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Christianity and that is the cross. Number two, still in review. Question number two, does worldly wisdom see all ways to heaven as equal?
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And the answer is what? Yes. And you say, well, what do you mean worldly wisdom? Remember, wisdom that's worldly is not knowledge that's applied.
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For me, I think of knowledge as wisdom. Pastor Mike, here's a catechism question, what is wisdom?
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And I would say wisdom is knowledge applied. Pastor Mike, what is wisdom? The fear of the
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Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But he's not talking about that here. He's talking about wisdom that doesn't have
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God in view at all. You get the telescope of wisdom and there's not God to be found at the beginning, at the end.
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You don't think about things the way Scripture does. It's wisdom that is void of God. That's what this worldly wisdom is.
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And that kind of language, that kind of wisdom says, we're all going to get to heaven, aren't we? All roads finally get there.
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But do you see the bifurcation? Do you see the split two and only two ways here in verse 18?
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To one, they look at the cross and they think, foolishness, they're perishing. But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.
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Friends, sitting here today, you either are lost or you are saved. You are either redeemed or you are perishing.
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You are either saved or you are damned. You are either holy or you are soiled. And not everybody is going to make it.
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Did you notice this language? This is current tense. This is not, we'll eventually perish, eventually be damned, eventually be doomed.
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This is language that right now, right now kind of language. This reminds me of Christ's language in John chapter 3.
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He who believes in Him is not judged, but he who does not believe has been judged already.
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Everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
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He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life.
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But the wrath of God is waiting for him. Well, that's true, but the text says, but the wrath of God abides on him.
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Religionism, the world says, is good. Just believe something. By the way, the world says this. Religionism is good.
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Just believe something as long as it isn't evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity. Number three, asking these questions so we can look at this passage and then understand what
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Paul says and then asking the Spirit of God to help us think this way and then live this way out.
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Do you know that worldly wisdom thinks the cross is moronic? Do you know that worldly wisdom thinks the cross is moronic?
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Do you see the text, verse 18, the word of the cross to those who are perishing is applaudable.
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Foolishness. That's where we get the word, and if you're a kid here today, I want you to know that there is a time and place, young people, to say the word stupid.
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When the world sees our religion, Christianity, the world says that is stupid.
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It's foolishness. Now, if you were a Corinthian, you'd say, wisdom is also tied to social status.
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How we think, what we do, our education, is tied to where we are strategically in the social layers.
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And so if you want to move up the social ladder and you want to be a shaker and you want to be a mover, I suggest you not believe in a religion that's moronic.
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Paul said that's what the world thinks. It's like they can't see it. Remember what it was like before you were a
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Christian? You go, I just can't quite see the way these people operate. And it's like God's signal was sent out on the radio on an
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FM signal. And you said, as Dr. Zimmick, my old professor, would say, you've got an
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AM antenna that's broken. And so here comes this kind of language from the
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Bible. I don't quite understand it. I don't quite understand these evangelicals. I don't get the big deal.
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I'd rather have kind of a religion that I just go on Sunday morning, pay my dues, and then live like I want to live.
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What do you mean pick up the cross, follow me, abandon your life, hate your life, forsake your life,
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Christ is everything, utter abandonment. We don't want that. We want, let's just go pay our dues, let's just get baptized, we're set, just go have a wafer on Sunday morning, we're set.
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And then this kind of radical living. When I met the radicals, I thought, these people,
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I didn't know the word Jesus freak, but if I did, that's what I would be thinking. That person's a Jesus freak.
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I'll never forget, as long as I live up Meredith Avenue right by my house, Tomahawk Boulevard I lived on, and up the street,
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Meredith Avenue, there was a really weird kid, 10 years old, 12 years old,
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I can't really remember. And I was a Boy Scout, I was a wee below, and I was an aspiring
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Boy Scout. There was this other really weird kid. I never met a
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Baptist. There's a Catholic church across the street. I went to a Lutheran church, and I was fine as a Lutheran going to the Catholic church.
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I just made some mistakes during the Lord's Prayer, and I would blurt out thine is the kingdom and the glory, but that's another story. And I talked to this kid, and he invited me to this weirdest thing.
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It's called Awana. He had this uniform. He had these pins. I memorized
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Bible verses. You must be born again. And I just thought, this kid is on a different planet, walking around in some kind of, you know, he probably did a
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Pinewood Derby or whatever you guys did yesterday. You know, we like the word
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Jesus, but not just the Lord Jesus. We like, oh, that's Christianity, but not the kind that will cost you everything.
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Not the kind that will get your head cut off like the stams did in China. We like this Christianity that's easy.
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And, you know, if you want to believe it, you can just kind of imagine the world just pats us on our forehead.
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That's okay to believe. And they're going to say Christianity is okay to believe in it as long as it's mainline
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Christianity, dead liberal church. But this word of the cross that says
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Jesus died in our place, on our behalf, and He died to make these warring people, these warring parties rather,
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God and man, become friends. And He died this vicious death in our place.
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The Father raised Him. The Son raised Himself. The Spirit of God raised Him. And then He makes you new.
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He creates in you new life. You're born again. And He demands your all. That kind of religion, people look at that and go, if I believe that, they're going to think
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I'm stupid. What do you think would happen if President Obama becomes redeemed and born again?
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And he stands up and says, by the way, before my State of the Union, before I get to issues about Scott Brown, health care, and everything else,
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I want you to know something that just transformed my life. I realized that I'm a great sinner in need of a
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Savior, and God crushed me to my knees, and I cried out, O Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, a sinner.
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I am now a born -again Christian, and unless you repent of your sins, you will surely be doomed to hell.
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You think everybody would go, wow, even the Democrats would hate him. That's true.
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So the world looks at this and they go, it's just stupid. And you could ask yourself, am
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I living the right kind of life? The kind of life that you know after you get done telling people about your affections and your thoughts, what you do throughout the week, they're going to go, wow, you're in the end club.
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It's foolishness to those who are about to perish. It's nonsensical.
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Jesus dying on a cross to save people? How can there be any effect in death?
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How can someone die and there's power in that death? Nobody here, I mean, we all think too much about the cross from a scriptural perspective, but the unbeliever, and you see
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Jesus naked up on a cross, shameful. You tell your kids, don't look, because we better crucify him outside the gates even, because we don't want to be looking at that.
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And you say, here is the power. It's just not the way we think about things. It's crude.
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And to people who are self -righteous, self -absorbed, who love themselves, who have a high self -esteem, can't be thinking about that cross.
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And the only way they can be thinking about it if they do is, it's stupid. Number four, did you know the wisdom of the world is blind to the real power of God?
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They're blinded. Verse 18, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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The cross is not necessarily powerful because it makes sense. It's powerful because it actually works.
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It makes salvation accomplished. Think about God's word and how powerful it is.
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Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer which shatters a rock? Is not the gospel effective to accomplish salvation?
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Paul knew that. He was a blasphemer, and now he's a preacher. He was a murderer, and now he will soon be a martyr.
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Number five, did you know worldly wisdom has always been crushed by God? Did you know worldly wisdom has always been crushed by God?
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Now, here's what I'm going to try to say here. If you think, well, you know, worldly wisdom is no good for Corinth in 60 -some
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A .D. But there was a time in the annals of history where it was actually kind of good. So let's just go back past the cross.
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And there's a few times in history where God just said, worldly wisdom, great. But do you know it's always been crushed by God?
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Look at chapter 1, verse 19. Chapter 119. Just like Paul's master and Lord and Savior, he starts off quotes by saying, for it is written.
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That sounds just like Jesus. Adopting Jesus' methodology that says, now let me prove the point.
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How this is true, I'll chapter and verse it. I'll quote the Old Testament. And in my
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Bible, this is all in capitals. I will destroy, showing that it's a quote from the Old Testament, destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever.
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I will set aside. Men grow up thinking, my way is the right way.
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My way of wisdom is the correct way. And God says, worldly wisdom is never used by me and will never be used by me.
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The slogan is, you can't get there from here. Applies to salvation. Applies to sanctification.
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I bet you've never done this before. In chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, when
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Paul quotes the Old Testament, there's always a theme. Let's just take a little survey here. There's just six verses he quotes from the
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Old Testament, and they all have the same theme. You can't get God's wisdom and salvation humanly.
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Fascinating. Verse 19, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever. I will set aside.
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Verse 31 of chapter 1, just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the
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Lord. There's nothing inside of man, inside of women, that they can construct their own salvation.
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Chapter 2, verse 9, just as it is written, things, chapter 2, verse 9, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, and that God has prepared for those who love him.
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Verse 16, and who has known the mind of the Lord? You just come up with it on your own, that he will instruct him.
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But we, apostles, have the mind of Christ. And then two more verses, chapter 3, verse 19 and 20.
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Two more Old Testament verses that shows how God dismisses man's smarts as they try to save themselves.
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For the wisdom of the world, chapter 3, 19, is foolishness before God. For it is written, he is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness.
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And again, verse 20, and the Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.
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You can take all the philosophers in the world, dead and living, have a little think tank.
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Socrates, and Aristotle, and Hegel, and Nietzsche, and Foucault, and anybody you like, and you put them all together, and you say, now concoct a way that you can figure out how you can have your sins forgiven, and they can't do it.
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Because it has to be given by God, it can't be manufactured by man, because men and women are sinful.
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Adam's fall has affected their minds, their will, their reasoning. So Paul quotes the
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Old Testament. Now how many people, without looking at your little liner notes or study Bible, know what
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Paul is referring to here? What chapter and verse and what account? I think
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Paul probably had the Old Testament memorized. I think Jesus probably had the
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Old Testament memorized. I don't think Jesus just was in Mary's womb and go, I'm the divine kind of robot, and I've just got it pre -programmed into my mind.
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Jesus, after all, kept increasing in wisdom, and stature, and in favor with God and man.
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There was a time when He was 30, He was more wise than He was 12. There was a time at 30 when
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He had more favor with God than He had at 12. But I'm digressing. Think this passage.
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Why would Paul bring this passage in? Why would he talk about this passage?
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Let's find out. 2 Kings 18. Let's turn there, please. 2 Kings 18. I have two reasons for doing this. Number one, you'll know the passage better.
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And number two, it's a fascinating passage that makes sure you don't ever place trust in Scott Brown's election and things like that.
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I couldn't believe it. I was down in Orlando, and I just thought the Messiah had come to Massachusetts. I thought maybe from Bethlehem, from Boston, we had the
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Messiah who was born. And I don't care if you're a Democrat or you're a Republican, but if you trust in horses, if you trust in power, if you trust in political alliances, if you trust in environmentalism, if you trust in anything that's got
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Jesus far removed, you're trusting in the wrong person and system.
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Does God bring up rulers and set them down? Or if you're really glad you're not going to have universal health care, fine and dandy.
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When I step back like that, I'm thinking, do I do this or don't I? People like to devise their own strategy on how they're going to get right with God.
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Maybe it's baptisms. Maybe it's sacraments. Maybe it's be spiritual and be good.
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The problem for most of us here as I look around is we're not really inner city people with a bunch of problems.
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I do believe that Thomas Chalmers was right when he said,
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God made the country, man made the city, and the devil made the suburbs.
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We're not really that bad. We're kind of the bedroom community. You know, those other people that live in downtown
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Orlando, they're really the bad ones. People that live someplace in Boston where all that crime is, they're really the bad ones.
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We are acceptable. We can run in these circles. And we pay homage to God, but it's not the kind of homage that demands everything.
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I was reading a book about Hitler. And as long as Christianity didn't interfere with the
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Nazi party, it was fine. And he called that kind of Christianity, you'll like this, you'll like it because it's interesting, not because it's good.
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Positive Christianity. As long as it was positive, not saying negative things against Hitler and the leaders, it was okay.
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And so people just kind of create this moralistic, I'm good, we go on Easter, we go on Christmas, we kind of pay homage to God a little bit here and there.
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And after all, why should we be nervous? We've got our health, we've got our economy, our retirement's fine, everything seems to be going along pretty well.
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And I keep thinking about Hosea chapter 5 when God says, I'm going to judge Judah. Sometimes if I think of God's going to judge you, think a lion.
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Some kind of attack. He's going to get you. You know how God says, I'm going to judge Judah? That's what
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I think about with the suburbian thoughts. He judges them like a... Think of God's anger and fury like a mall.
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Things seem to be going well. Everything's fine. But incessantly, constantly, day and night, out of sight, the moth is just destroying that wool sweater.
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And before you know it, you take the sweater out and it's just full of holes. Can't use it for what it's supposed to be used for.
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The problem with us, if we're thinking with worldly wisdom, that the state of the nation, the state of our health, the state of our spirituality, we kind of just construct it in such a way that one man called it
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Sheila -ism. Because a lady named Sheila came up with it.
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And she said, well, extra portions of love, I like that. Jesus is my Savior, but He's not the only
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Savior, I like that. And constructing your own religion, versus having this religion that says,
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God will inform your mind on what is right, what is wrong, and how to think about Him. So now we turn to 2
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Kings 18, and we're going to see a passage that will help us, because this is the background of 1
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Corinthians 1, verse 19. And the background is this. When your life's on the line, are you going to trust in God?
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Are you going to try to massage and manipulate and say, I'll use my power,
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I'll use my wealth, I can get myself out of my own jam. Political alliances, using worldly wisdom, instead of saying,
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God, we're like the Israelites, and there's the Red Sea, there's a mountain, there's a mountain, and there are the bad
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Pharaoh's army right there. And we have nowhere else to go.
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God, help me. Because that's the way to think of salvation and sanctification. So 2 Kings 18, verse 13.
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Let's take a look at this. If you're a young man, especially a young boy, and you think, what's going on here? Let me just tell you, this is going to be the
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Assyrian invasion. As a young boy, I think, OK, you got my attention.
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The Assyrian invasion. Now, in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, the dastardly and powerful and wicked
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Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah.
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And, hey, they were fortified, but he is a powerful man. He sees them. He isolates
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Judah away from her allies, her potential allies, in kind of like a pincer movement.
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Verse 14. Then Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to king of Assyria at Lachish, saying,
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I'll do anything you want. Don't kill me. I have done wrong. Withdraw from me.
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Whatever you impose on me, I will bear. So the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.
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Tribute. Then Hezekiah, he gives more.
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He just gives him the whole farm. Hezekiah gave all the silver which was found in the house of the
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Lord, in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time, king Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the
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Lord. He's going beyond and above. He's being sacrilegious to the temple.
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The doorpost, which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
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I'll do anything. I want to be rescued. Do you think maybe Hezekiah should have said, there's worldly wisdom.
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Give them everything. Do what he says are. God have mercy upon us. We're going to call on you, this great God, for intercession.
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Verse 23, skip down there. Rabshakeh, here, the spokesperson of Sennacherib says,
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Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria, and I'll give you 2 ,000 horses, if you're able on your part to set riders on them.
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You have no strength. We have 2 ,000 horses, and you can't even have enough fighting men to put on 2 ,000 horses.
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He's slamming them. How then can you repulse one official of the least of my master's servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
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You're weak. We own you. Verse 25, have
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I now come up without the Lord's approval against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it.
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Verse 26, then Elakim, the son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joash said to Rabshakeh, Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.
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Would you talk to us in Aramaic? Because if we say things in Judean, all the people who live on the wall are going to freak out.
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We've got to keep the masses in Judea down, because if we really tell them what's going to happen, they're going to go crazy. Have you ever been in another country and you're speaking
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English to someone and then they say to their friend, they speak their original language, and you think, somehow I'm excluded from this conversation.
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But Rabshakeh said to them, Verse 27, has my master sent me only to your master and to speak these words, and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?
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They are going to pay too. They need to hear what's coming. Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean, saying,
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Get this, hear the word of the great king.
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Forget Yahweh, this is the great king. The king of Assyria. Thus says the king, do not let
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Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hand. Don't trust Hezekiah the king.
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Don't trust Yahweh the king. How are you going to get out of this? And look at the sarcasm in verse 30.
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Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord. The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
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Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me.
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Forget Hezekiah. Forget the God of the universe. And eat of his vine, and each of his fig tree, and drink each of the waters of his own cistern.
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I'm going to make it good for you, until I come and take you away to a land like your own. A land of grain and new wine, a land of bread, and of olive trees and honeys, that you may live and not die.
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Do not listen to Hezekiah, who misleads you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. So it seems like there has been some talk by Hezekiah, God must do this.
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Choose life by the way we're big shots. He says in verses 33 to 35,
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There are many notches on the king of Assyria's belt. Verse 36,
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But the people were silent and answered him not a word. For the king's commandment was, Do not answer. Then Elikim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Ursheka.
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And when the king, Hezekiah, chapter 19, verse 1, heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and entered the...
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Thankfully! Wonderfully! He could have gone over to Ethiopia, or Egypt rather, and said, let's make an alliance.
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He goes to God. And then in verse 2 it says,
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He goes to Isaiah the prophet. First let's pray, then let's hear some preaching. Let's hear the word of God, and then let's hear some...
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Then let's speak to God. Verse 3, They said to him, thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, rebuke, rejection, for children have come to birth, and there's no strength to deliver.
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Perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of Ursheka. Maybe He's going to discipline us. Whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to reproach the living
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God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. For offer a remnant... Excuse me, offer a prayer for the remnant that has left.
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Here's what Isaiah says. Verse 6, Thus you shall say to your master, Thus says the
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Lord, Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed
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Me. Here's the thankful message that the repentant hear. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor, and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword of his own land.
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Sword in his own land. He's going to die, but nothing's told about how. You don't put your trust in princes, in horses, in weapons.
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You trust in Me. Let's finish the story, and then get back to 1
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Corinthians. Chapter 19, verse 10. 2
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Kings. Thus you shall say to Hezekiah, king of Judah, Do not let your
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God in whom you trust deceive you, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. All the psychological warfare.
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Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared?
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It's oblivion for you. Verse 14.
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Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it. And he went to make a truce with Egypt.
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No! He went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. Hezekiah prayed to the
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Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, You are God. You alone of all the kings of the earth.
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You have made heaven and earth. Verse 16. Your name's at stake. Incline your ear,
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O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living
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God. Verse 19. O Lord, I pray, deliver us.
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I wonder if you pray like this, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone,
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O Lord. Verse 35.
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Then it happened that the angel of the
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Lord, second person of the Trinity, went out and struck in Haitian proportions, 185 ,000 in the camp of the
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Assyrians. And when the men rose up early in the morning, we're going to go have victory today.
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Can you imagine you're Sennacherib? You wake up. Today's the day. You kind of open your eyes, and you take the sleep out of your eyes, and you think,
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Today's the day I'm going to go get them. And there lays your army dead. And behold, all of them were dead.
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So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. No worldly wisdom, no political alliances, no strength in numbers, but a trust in God and God alone.
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Twenty years later, verse 37, it came about as he, Sennacherib, was worshiping in the house of Nishrash, his god.
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Who is Nishrash? Nishrash, we think, means something that means wood. And the story goes in Jewish kind of folklore that it was a piece of wood that was actually part of the ark that Noah built.
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And it was symbolizing rescue and deliverance. And so if you find some kind of piece of Noah's ark, you kind of put it in there, and then you worship it.
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So now here comes Sennacherib, bowing down, worshiping Nishrash, the wood god made out of, maybe, gopher wood.
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Worshiping that Adramelech and Sherez, his own two sons, killed him with a sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat.
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His other son became king in this place. Back to 1
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Corinthians. That is the account that Isaiah uses in chapter 1, verse 19, that says this, when it comes to worldly wisdom,
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God has always said it doesn't work. See how Paul says, if you look back to 2
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Kings, if you look back to Isaiah, they both tell the same story. When it comes to being on the precipice of eternity, you don't have anybody to put your trust in except the
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Lord God of the universe. How different is that today? True or false? There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
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Think, I want to try to save myself. Oh, I think I'll do this. For me, when I was growing up, it was, I'll be a good
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Lutheran, I'll have communion, I'll get baptized, I'll go on some mission trips,
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I'll go down to Mexico and preach the gospel, and then I'll kind of just do what I want. And when
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I'm older and I have kids, then religion will be important. Proverbs chapter 16 also says the same thing
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Proverbs 14 says, there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. You have to ask yourself the question, when it comes to saving your soul, what's your rationale, what's your wisdom?
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Is it worldly? I'll try to cut and paste all my theology so somehow
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I'll be pleasing enough to God. And here's the damning one of all, I'm good.
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I'm a good person. Or is your philosophy similar to Hezekiah's? God, if you don't save me,
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I can't be saved. God, I'm going to have to throw myself on your mercy because you are the one that saves.
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God never says, oh, worldly wisdom, yeah, that's pretty good. Most people don't use worldly wisdom very well, but you just did such a good job coming up with your own system of salvation,
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I shouldn't have even had to kill my son. Good job, come on in. The only wisdom that's real wisdom is wisdom that starts with God and ends with God.
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But who wants the cross? Who wants the cross? Now, I don't quite think we understand the depths of the cross like we should because I think most of the time we think the cross is good.
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And we don't really realize how repulsive and how wicked and how horrible such a symbol is.
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So what would you do if I did this? The world's in a bad state.
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There's some kind of up -and -coming wonderful redeemer kind of person. But he gets executed.
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Like the cross, let me give you some other ways people were executed. And I want you to see how horrible and repulsive these are so that you realize the word of the cross, the view of the cross that the world has, it's not the cross and these execution forms.
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They see them all together. And I'll try not to be very graphic.
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Some of the ways that the human mind has concocted to execute people in the history of the world, let me just give you several.
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Being buried alive. And you think, you know what? Here's the new Messiah that's going to come and help us and He's been buried alive.
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How about killing people in snake pits? Venomous snakes. Don't feed them.
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Irritate them. And like Gunnar, the king of Burgundy, you throw the person into the snake pit to be killed.
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And you think, here's the redeemer. The redeemer that's been killed by the snakes. So far,
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I'm not really too grossed out by it. If you don't think about the cross in a way that makes you think, short of the salvation of God that now makes me say the old rugged cross.
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If you don't think this is a repulsive thing, then you don't understand your culture and you don't understand evangelism until you realize what you're calling people to do when you say, here's
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Jesus who died on the cross. You're next. Come and follow me. Pick up your cross and follow me.
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How about the lingering death called Ling Chi? It's also called the death of the thousand cuts.
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Confucius would say, if you cut people into little enough pieces, there's no way all those pieces can figure out how to get back together in the afterlife and they'll be eternally tortured too.
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So you have my savior, the old rugged Ling Chi. See, there's nothing sentimental in this from the unbeliever's perspective.
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I could talk about necklacing, putting rubber tires around people in South Africa and lighting them. How people are given capital punishment for thousands of years by having trained elephants execute them slowly, hanged, drawn, and quartered.
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The guillotine. The Catherine wheel, a medieval execution device.
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The criminal's attached to this wheel, arms and legs outstretched, and you go, oh, that person that just got put on the
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Catherine wheel, they're our Messiah. They're our Redeemer. Way to go. They did it. But the one that turns my stomach the most in this concept is called the brazen bull, which is also known as the
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Sicilian bull. Ancient Greece designed it. Solid brass cast into the shape of a hollow bull.
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Door on the side with a latch. The victim was placed inside the brass bull and a fire was set underneath.
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The fire was heated until the metal was yellow, causing the victim to roast to death.
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And the bull was so designed so that the screams of the victim would come out sounding musical for the enjoyment of the executioner.
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Now, your reaction that you just had when I read that is the world's reaction, the people at Corinth's reaction, and every unbeliever's reaction if they know what the cross is.
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We think the cross is wonderful.
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And by the way, should we boast in the cross? That is our boast. But the cross is the means of an executing kind of death that people don't want to talk about in polite conversation.
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But for us, it's the power of God that God the Son would die in our place and God the
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Just dies for us the unjust that He might bring us to God.
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If you could design any religion in the world, you would never, ever, ever, ever come up with the
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Sicilian bull, nor would you come up with the cross. That's why the world thinks it's unwise.
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But now that we're changed and we've been given new FM antenna, we say that's our only way of salvation.
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How can holy God and loving God be reconciled? Only at the cross.
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And that's why Paul doesn't say, I preach Jesus Christ and Him resurrected.
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We'll learn in chapter 2 that he preaches Jesus Christ and Him what? Crucified. So the next time you take your cross and you put it around your neck, you just say to yourself,
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God has taken an instrument of execution and He's turned it into a symbol of wondrous love.
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Let's pray. Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope in years to come.
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You are a great God, a magnificent God. Lord, my prayer for the congregation this morning is this, that You would help them think biblically, that You'd help them understand what the cross is, what human wisdom is, and understand
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Corinth so that now we could understand our culture. And Lord, You've given this church broad influence.
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Work, school, places here in central Massachusetts, near Boston, Connecticut.
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I pray that You'd use the power of the cross that You have made effective in the people here to go out and influence others.
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And Lord, would You guard us from wanting to be cool, accepted, light, socially, upwardly mobile.
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And would You give us the heart of the Savior, Jesus Christ, who did not count it a thing to be grasped, to hold on to His privileges of deity.
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Lord, help us to be humble. Help us to be vocal about our faith. And Lord, lastly,
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I pray for all the evangelicals in Massachusetts that we would somehow not trust in 41 senators, trust in Scott Brown.
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We know that You exalt and You put down. And Lord, it's Your good pleasure. And so we look back and say, thank
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You, Lord, for what You do. And maybe we'll never know the depths of it. Certainly we won't until we get to heaven.
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So Lord, give us opportunities this week to be like Hezekiah, who had nowhere else to go but to You.