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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/scott-macleod/wisdom-of-men-vs-power-of-god/
We'll turn please in our Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 1, 1st Corinthians chapter 1 and we'll start at verse number 17, 1st Corinthians 1 verse 17, for Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, I want you to underline that, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, now here comes a quote from the Old Testament, Isaiah 29 verse 14, for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Now just turn your eye over to chapter 2, 1st Corinthians 2, once again Paul comes at this idea of wisdom with the spirit directing him, verse 1, and I brethren when I came to you came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you say Jesus Christ and him crucified.
And it's hard for us to imagine verse 3, we always and rightly so we hold the apostle Paul in high regard as a very educated man, a powerful speaker, percenter of the truth, hard to understand verse 3, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing, means persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit of God, spirit and of power that here's the end result that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Now just let your eye go back to chapter 1, I want to emphasize verse 19, make a few brief comments and then we're going to go and read the setting in the Old Testament, 1st Corinthians 1, verse 19, for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Now just a few introductory remarks, I hope that everyone that is here today listening, I hope we all read our Bibles very carefully, particularly I've been noticing everywhere in the New Testament where the spirit of God causes the author to write a verse from the Old Testament.
I hope we understand that everything that is in our Bibles is not there by accident, but it is there with purpose, and sometimes we might be reading our Bibles so quickly that all of a sudden we read the expression as it is written, oh big deal, an Old Testament quote, and we just run over the verse and then we keep on going.
I tell you what will be a benefit to your soul, stop, turn back to the Old Testament, find out where it's coming from, read a chapter or two before it, read a chapter or two after it, and try to ask God for help to understand now why did the spirit of God just direct the mind of the Apostle Paul back into the Old Testament, pick up this quote from Isaiah 29 and then apply it here.
What is the context of here? Why here? You see the context of 1 Corinthians 1 -2, the whole thing is the Gospel, and that's really where my mind is on, it's the Gospel. And here's what the Apostle Paul is doing, he's holding this out before the people, the Gospel, the Gospel, and as he goes through the first couple of chapters it's amazing how many times he mentions the wisdom of men versus the wisdom of God.
The wisdom of men and the power of God. And then you read, linked with the wisdom of men, words of persuasion. They're just at that human level. And then we find out from reading in the chapter that when a person resorts to that humanistic thinking, that worldly wisdom, do you know what the direct result is?
Less the cross, no power, no value. Sometimes we want to be more powerful and we wonder, and I've heard older preachers say it many times on the platform, we wonder why there's a lot of preaching today and there's not a whole lot of people getting saved.
Now I'm not being critical, I'm just quoting what I've heard them say. You know, recently what I've been looking at, it has spoken to me. I hope I never lose the fear associated with standing before those that are perishing.
And I hope I never lose, and may God give me a greater grip on the power of God's Gospel. Now what we have out there in that, and I don't say that critical, but what we have out there in the religious world, the denominational world, is we have the end result of what has happened because they have humanized God's Gospel.
Do you know what I mean by that? What ends up happening is the sinner becomes the focus of the message. It's all what you have to do. It's all about you. You just believe. You just put your faith in God.
Instead of a God-centered Gospel, where the holiness of God is brought before those that are perishing. The fact that sin will take you to hell. The whole thing is opposite of what man thinks. Now listen, you and I, we live in a world and it's very easy to be influenced by what is done out there.
I'm actually shocked, and this is going to sound like a critical comment, so if you don't like critical comments, just sort of go like this now, plug your ears. A man writes a book, Rick Warren, and he takes business principles and he brings that into the supposed church of God.
Out in the business world these principles produce fruit. It works. And we're going to bring that into church and we're going to make it work. That is human wisdom in a place where it doesn't belong. Now we can sit back and we can literally be wowed by the results.
Man, they're building churches so big. They're mega churches. Look at the size of them. Look at the people that are coming to the front. Look at the professions. God must be in it. No, don't you make that conclusion too quick.
I'll give you an example that has spoken to me in the Old Testament. I want to think of a man and then I want to think of a method. Here was Moses told to speak to the rock and God said, I'll give you water for the people to drink.
Now Moses prior that happened, God told him to smite the rock and God gave water. Now the second time God said, listen, just take your rod and hold on to it, but don't you strike the rock. Speak to it.
I'll produce water. What did Moses do? You bunch of rebels. Bang, bang. What happened? God did give water, but God dealt with Moses later and said, you were wrong. Your method was wrong. Now I'm sure there were thousands of people that stood back and they saw Moses strike the rock the second time and they probably thought, it's of God.
Look at it. There's the evidence. There's the water. God says to Moses, you're not getting into the land. You disobeyed me. It doesn't seem that serious to us. It seems like such a minor detail, but God comes again.
It's amazing the amount of times that God mentions that to Moses and brings it up before him. You misrepresented me. You disobeyed, but the method looked like it worked. So now I go to a man, Balaam. If you listened to the way this man talked, you'd be convinced he was a Christian.
I can't do anything unless the Lord directs me. I have to go and pray about it. That sounds good. And even when the pressure is mounting and the dollar signs are going up, he seems to keep maintaining his...
I have to go and see what the Lord wants me to do. I can't go beyond the Lord. And then the man does go. And it is amazing that as the man there in all of his sin and his wickedness, we find from the New Testament, he's an apostate.
He couldn't be any further from God. He's an absolute apostate in hell at this moment. God actually uses him and speaks through his mouth. And he gives us a lovely prophecy of the star of Jacob. Thousands could have sat back and said, listen to the words that are coming out of his mouth.
Was the man of God? No, he was just being used by God. We all know that God is sovereign. God can do what he likes, where he likes, when he likes, how he likes, with who he likes, whatever. But there are systems, there are peoples by the thousands out there.
You know what they're going to do to us? They're going to challenge what this book says. This is what I'm getting down to. And I find it very interesting that in a chapter that's presenting to me the gospel and all of its power, all of a sudden I get this warning.
Don't you mix human wisdom with it. Don't you water it down. Now someone says, now I'm not one of these fellows that like to skirt the edge, you know. I like stepping right over the line, so I'm going to tell you exactly where I'm coming from.
You know, the last year I've heard a number of comments from people, our children don't know Bible stories. I wonder why. So I started to listen. And I've heard stories of people that were trapped in mountains.
And that was the Sunday school lesson. Oh, we'll take a little verse in there. We'll take a 20 minute session with the kids and maybe we'll emphasize the verse for maybe two minutes. But then we're going to spend 18 minutes on what?
Some man trapped in a mountain and he's rescued. That's getting away from the gospel. Now you can call it old fashioned. I call it biblical. Make the focus the Word of God. Don't allow what can be an illustration to help.
I remember Peter Orsak drilling that into my head. He said, Scott, in the presentation of the gospel, it is good, it is scriptural, and the Lord Jesus did it, to use illustrations and stories that are only windows to let a little bit of light in.
But he said, don't let the window become the house. It's the entire message. And if you ask the people on the way out, what was the story about? It was all about a man trapped in a mountain. That's all I remember.
The power is in the Word of God, not the illustration. The power is in the Word of God, not the story. Now you might, I don't want anybody to jump in, oh, you're saying that we should turn our children's meetings into a gospel meeting where you just pound, pound, pound.
Absolutely not. You have to gauge your audience. I'm not against using little things and demonstrations, but what I'm trying to do is this. God helped me never to make it the center, the focus. That's all they remember.
Instead of sending those children, sinners from our gospel meetings, instead of sending them out with the Word of God, which is the power of God unto salvation, pounding in their mind, it's the Bible.
The Bible alone. He tells us in chapter 2, God wants our faith to rest solely in Him. Not a mixture. Not a mixture. Not a blending of human wisdom or intelligence linked with the power and the might of God.
Our brother did a wonderful job. I told him after, I was dying over there just to jump and say, hallelujah. The power of God in creation. Doesn't it just literally thrill your heart? Wouldn't it be something that we could go back to this, the power of God in His gospel.
Not ashamed just to lay out the scriptures. Not ashamed to, oh, we don't dare mention that. We'll use another word. You all might go to the bad place. What's wrong with using that? Really, now come on.
We have almost, I'm being critical, but I'm trying not to be critical. But we can allow that humanizing of God's message just to filter in. And you know what's happening? For the younger people, I want to throw a warning to you.
I'm not up here to go against the internet and all this, but I am the abuse of it. What the internet has done is this. It has brought you and I in contact with the teachings of men and women that are not linked with God's ascendance.
And they don't see the full light that is in the script. There's nothing like men of the age. I take my hat off to the dear brother selling books. I love to see the quality of books that he's selling.
They're top-notch. What you got out there in that denominational world is a bunch of bubblegum Christianity. It's so light. It's so shallow. It doesn't have any depth to it. It's just all on the surface.
Get into this book. Buy them out. You want to spend your money on something good? You buy his books. They're good. He didn't pay me to say that, by the way. But that's something that my father drilled into me as an elder.
He said, Scott, when you're studying for the Bible study, you make sure you have about four or five assembly men at your side. Don't be resorting to denominational men. Someone says, that sounds critical.
No, no, dear child of God. I'm not being critical. I'm trying to show you from the word of God that there's a reason where everything is, where it is, why it is. And God preserves us when we get to the point where we have to say the word of God says this and then we got to add reasoning to it.
You should believe this because. And what ends up happening is your faith is based upon what? What the Bible says and what he says. Let's just get back to the simple power that's in the word of God. I honestly believe that if you allow the message that God has given us just to be presented the way it is so well throughout the word of God, isn't it wonderful those that have seen blessing?
Isn't it wonderful when you're in a series and you're preaching? I've only been in four years, but I thank God that you can look back and there's times you could just stand back and go. God is working.
Wow. Tremendous. Isn't that thrill your heart? You're not in there with your fingers muddled and all up. One thing, many things I've learned from this man. Here's what I've noticed, learned from him. I'm not getting to what I'm supposed to be at, but that's all right.
Leave them with the word of God. But we think we got to explain it. You'd almost think that the spirit of God doesn't know what he's doing. You'd almost think that the spirit of God needs me to lead a sinner to Christ.
Where's that thinking coming from? Last summer we had a gospel series down in a town called Montague and we had quite a series. Anyways, we had a Baptist pastor with his whole congregation. I had a Pentecostal pastor with one of his members' congregation.
It was quite a thing. So anyways, I'm talking to this Baptist man, the pastor, and he's telling me about his boy trusting Christ. Here's how it happened. Well, he said, I was at this place and he said, my boy had a false profession.
I could tell that. So we were at this revival meeting and the man made an altar call. Oh, he said, I was so glad to see my boy going up. I said, great, praise the Lord. So he said, I thought I'd tag along with my son.
I've never been in these things, so I don't know how they are set up. So anyways, he said his son was a 19, 20 year old man was kneeling up there and he said, I was kneeling beside him and I was listening.
Now get this, when I felt that he was feeling his sinfulness, I led him to Christ. My heart sank. I felt like turning the boy around looking for the Holy Spirit tag when you felt, oh, do you know that we can get like that too?
How many times you've heard people, oh, they're close, they're close, and they're probably thousands of miles away. There's something in the presentation of the gospel message collectively that allows the Spirit of God just to move freely.
I love it. And the Spirit of God, he's the birth mother, which are born of God, which are born of the Spirit. And when I just get my little fingers into it and I'm trying to throw verses and I'm trying to stuff words into their mouth, do you know what's happening?
Human wisdom is being mixed with the power of God. Now quickly, I only got about 10 minutes left. Let's come back to the Old Testament. I have to show you this quote in 1 Corinthians 1 and 9 because it illustrates this very point.
We're going to go through this really quick. Go back to 2 Kings. And for those that would like to do a study of this later, I would encourage you to. I've been enjoying this man's light, Hezekiah. And there's an event that happened in his life.
And this is the reason why the Spirit of God picks this up because there is a valuable lesson that is illustrated for us. And we're just going to read a couple of scattered verses. 2 Kings 18. This is where it starts out.
And there's something that's said about this king that is not said about any other king. And that's quite amazing. He's the 13th king, if you include the woman that was on the throne, since David. And here's what it says.
2 Kings 18. Verse number 1. Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. Verse number 3. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father did.
Here it goes. He removed the high places, break the images, cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen serpent. We can read about that in the Gospel of John that Moses had made for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it.
And he became an idol to them. And he called it Nahashtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he claimed to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses.
And the Lord was with him. That's what we all want. And he prospered with us wherever he went forth. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria, served him not. He smote the Philistines even unto Gaza.
And the borders thereof from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city. Now one final reading in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah was the prophet that was a very close friend to Hezekiah. And now we get just a little perspective from Isaiah chapter 29.
Because he plays very significantly into Hezekiah's life. And this is where the quote comes from in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. So just to kind of get a little grasp of what is happening at this particular time, I want you to look at verse number 11, verse 10.
There's a lot of sin in the nation. For the Lord had poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes. The prophets and your rulers and the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all has become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed.
That's it. The Bible is a sealed book to them. Which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. So there's the educated man. Now we get the other end.
And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord saith, Listen, God preserveth us from this. Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me.
See, God is after your heart. But have removed their heart far from me. Listen, and their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men. Human wisdom. That's something. And their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men.
Here it is. Here's the quote in its entirety. Verse 14. Therefore, behold, this is God speaking, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people. Even a marvelous work and a wonder. Here it is.
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. Now what's happening here? Here's Hezekiah. His father Ahaz was a wicked man. His father Ahaz had idols, images, groves, everything spread over the place.
It was wicked. And here's this young boy, Hezekiah, growing up in that home of such departure. Finally this man passes off the scene and Hezekiah comes into the picture. Do you know what Hezekiah does?
The first place he starts, the word of God. And then he goes in and he opens up the temple which had been closed. And then he gets the Levites and the priests and he gets them all to sanctify themselves.
And he cleans the temple. And he puts everything back. His father had taken the vessels out of the temple and everything. He puts everything back into the temple. And it's amazing when you go through 2nd Chronicles, literally thousands, tens of thousands of animals are sacrificed over and over and over.
And then he reinstitutes the passage. This man, just completely, after seeing what his father did and all the mess it produced, he just completely looks to God. His whole entire heart. It's an amazing expression in 2nd Chronicles.
He just put his whole being, trust in the power and the might of God. But that will be tested. We will be tested when we stick to this book by the outside world. So here he is in Judah. Now quickly, history.
We all know there's 12 tribes. 10 were to the north, 2 were to the south. These 10, they were falling into idolatry far quicker than these folks. Here's Hezekiah down here, here's the 10 up north. Do you know what happened?
Hezekiah comes to the throne and he's looking after his little part down here and all of a sudden he looks to the north and the mighty Assyrian army sweeps down, surrounds those 10 tribes for 3 years.
That's quite a thing, that's quite a test. Are they going to come to us? And as he watches from his little throne room down here, do you know what happens? The 10 tribes carry off into captivity. Gone.
Finished. Where's your God now? They're going to come after you next. I was just sitting over there today trying to imagine 52 states of my geography I remember from school. I never liked geography anyway.
Let's just assume here I am in Iowa. What would you think if 51 states were gone by Russia? No, Canada. We're really bad up there. Let's say we just sweeped in from the north and we surrounded Iowa and took 51 states.
Boom, they're all Canadians now. Of course you'd probably like that. And here you were right in the middle. What would you do? Would you feel the pressure? Just trusting in God ain't working. Look at this.
Look at how close they are to me. Well, this is what was happening to Hezekiah. And do you know what happened? Hezekiah had counselors. You know what they were saying? Man, you better start calling Egypt for help.
Look at this army. And here are these wise men with their human thinking. Call Egypt. Get an allegiance with Egypt. Call Babylon. These people will come to our aid because Assyria is our common enemy.
Do you know what Hezekiah does? He keeps holding on to God. And he says to the people, he says, don't you waver. You just put your faith in God. Everything will be okay. We need people like that in God's assemblies.
Stick to God's methods. Don't reinvent them. You do things the way God wants them done. We need to be encouraged in that way. So all of a sudden here's Hezekiah and Hezekiah says, I'm not paying taxes to him anymore.
Well, that's a bold move. His father put them all under tax. He says to the Assyrian king, I'm not paying your taxes anymore. Can you imagine? Well, the Assyrian king took that for a while. And then they went back.
They took the ten tribes and then there's a number of years and then finally they come in again. They took 46 cities off of Hezekiah. They took 200 ,000 captives. And this time the pressure is being mounted even more by the counselors.
Oh dear, they're coming so close. And isn't it wonderful how the God has the prophet Isaiah just slip in the side. Hezekiah says, Hezekiah, you keep trusting God. God is faithful. God's character can be trusted.
And here's this man, I was just trying to put myself and I want you to put yourself right there with the pressure to change, to move, to get something else going. Awful hard, but you know what Hezekiah did?
Hezekiah did call Egypt. Yep, he gave in. You know what God had to tell Isaiah? That man that once had his whole heart in me, he's now looking to Egypt. Because even when Sennacherib came down, you know what Sennacherib said?
You're trusting Egypt. He's like a stick in your hand that will go right through it if you put your weight on it. Even the Assyrian king could see it. This affected God. And God told Isaiah to tell Hezekiah the king, listen, I tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to bring the Assyrians right to your wild city. Right to your neck like in water. And as far as you look Hezekiah, just like the wings of an eagle stretched out, there's all going to be Assyrians around you.
Do you know what God called the Assyrian army and Sennacherib? That's the wonderful thing. And I'm going to bring that into your life to break your confidence in man. So here's Hezekiah. Finally he wakes up one day and he looks and ten tribes are gone.
A couple of years later in comes this massive Assyrian army. The entire city is surrounded right to his neck. Remember the famous passage? He gets the letter from Sennacherib and what does he do? He repented.
He goes into the temple of the Lord and he lays the letter out before God. Oh God, he says, look at these people. What does God do? You just trust in me, Hezekiah. I tell you what I'm going to do. I could have read it in 2 Kings.
God says, I've got a hook and I've got a bridle. And you know that man Sennacherib that's mouthing off, threatening you, he's going against me? Do you know what God said to him through Isaiah? I'm actually going to take my hook and I'm going to put it in through his nose.
Wow, I thought you caught fish with a lip. This is the nose, nose ring. And God says, I'm going to put a bridle on a horse, I'm going to put it right on his mouth because he's speaking against me. And you watch, I'll turn him around and send him back home.
So one day Hezekiah, after that he wakes up and he looks out and what does he see? 185 ,000 Assyrians slain. And the leader hears a rumor. He turns around and he just trots back home. I, listen, I bet you, of course I'm not a betting man but I'd like to have been standing beside Hezekiah as he saw that.
I bet you there was a tremendous note of worship. My God is faithful. Why did I go and listen to the wisdom of men? Go to Egypt, go to Babylon, get all these people to help you and shore you up against this mighty army.
And while Hezekiah was sleeping, God worked. You know what happened to Sennacherib? He died back in his own land. So dear child of God, take a fresh look at the Word of God. Sunday school teachers, don't be, oh the story of Noah.
You tell them the story of Noah. You go through the Kings. You keep your Sunday school classes focused on the Word of God, stories. You know one thing I'm always amazed at? When the Lord Jesus led a man to Christ in the Academy, you know where He took him?
He took him to the Old Testament. And in that Old Testament story there was life, divine life. Pick up a story out of Time magazine, Newsweek, the papers. You know what? There's no life in it. It's dead.
And don't be embarrassed to try to get your Sunday school teachers or students to learn more verses. We're falling down on that, brethren. When I went to Sunday school, they pounded them into me. Chapters!
Now we come and we say, oh here's a verse of three sentences. Too long. We'll have to cut out two sentences and just give them one phrase. Best thing you do is give them money to learn it. Get the Word of God into the brain.
That's where the power lies.