1 Corinthians 1:18-24

The Cross, Human Response, and God’s Judgment

Considered that Might do this text this morning and the subject who did this morning this evening. There might have been a logical reason to do that. But I felt that the discussion of the common objection to existence based on His brain judgment against people would Be more fitting in the Sunday morning context and so this evening Looking at this text certainly they're very closely related to one another.

First Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 Through 24 will be our text for the season before we look to the Word of God. The once again our father we pray that you will be pleased Visit your people by your spirit.

We understand your word remember it believe great Christ. Let's say you have the opportunity Over the course of this next week as Lord willing I will To apply some of the things we spoke of this morning in regards to God's righteous judgment.

Let's say there is someone in your place of employment as someone at school Who has often raised? Objections to your faith based upon this idea that well this God that you serve is is too stern is not loving enough he judges people and look at what happened with With the Amorites or the Amalekites or name some other Old Testament group?

And hence the objection is made and let's say you had the opportunity of sitting down with them. It wasn't one of those super rushed conversations. It wasn't one of those situations where you had to in essence Be very quiet and what you were saying you had the opportunity of really going through things and you you start a Conversation that leads to a a lengthy witnessing encounter maybe multiple sessions over time something that Hopefully everyone here has had that opportunity of having and look forward to having in the future as well and yet after all of Your best efforts and after much exposure to the truth of God What will be the final?

Deciding fact in How that person responds? to what you say. Now if you ask that question of many in our world today The answer will be well it will all depend on how winsome you have been. How good your presentation has been how accepting you have been.

How comfortable you've made them feel. How much their heart has been warmed by how kind you are? Now if you listen to what I just said what was the focus of every single comment the focus of every single comment.

Was the person to whom you were speaking? How they felt? What their attitudes were for many many people today that is of course The only way it can be whether a person is going to accept The gospel message is completely up that person.

He has his free will he's a morally neutral agent of and if you just present the right facts to him and Then you do a smile on your face in fact you can buy entire books on how to do it the proper orders.

It's very appealing. Certainly all of that will result in a positive response, but if you mess up and And if you aren't loving enough well Maybe they might not accept what you have to say. That is how many people understand the gospel task.

And it is not only surprising to me that especially in an ever more Anti-christian society that people don't really look forward to this thing called bearing witness. Because if you really Speak the truth of what the Word of God says the natural man in this society is going to really look down upon you.

You you sound like you're you're spewing forth hate speech. You sound like you're talking about a God who judges sinners, and I Didn't you didn't you get the memo? That's the old-style Christianity. That's passed away.

We need the new stuff. What will make the difference. I? truly believe that. It's as far as I can tell and we know that all scripture is God breathe. But that doesn't mean that all scripture is addressing the same subjects.

And it's very clear that when you're talking about certain topics and certain subjects. There are certain texts of scripture that that glow in the light that they can provide on that particular subject.

It seems to me that the first chapter of Romans that we looked at in his discussion of sin the third chapter of Romans concluding that discussion of sin and Then these first two chapters of first Corinthians seem to Distill down some of the key issues in regards to the natural man is his Response to the gospel.

There's all sorts of reasons for us to understand this in our day. Most of you're sitting there going up. Whites got a debate this week doesn't. Yeah, yeah, and so whatever he's got a debate. He preaches on something that's relevant to me.

So he has something to say otherwise he just said saying if they're stammering because his mind someplace else. And so I always appreciate the patience of you all surviving me. Preaching on things relevant to you know some Person I'm going to be going toe-to-toe with in front of an audience and video cameras in a matter of hours.

Literally on Thursday evening specifically and that's true. But you know as I was thinking about it It's not just dealing with the nasty atheist that this text is so vitally important. It doesn't matter who you're talking to parents talking to your children.

Your children are so deeply influenced by the ways of thinking of the world. Anyone That you work with your family members your lost family members. Maybe you have family members who are nominally Christian.

And they're some of the most difficult people the world's reach because they think they've already got. Whatever it might be the words of this text in Describing the natural man and how the natural man responds To the gospel I think has to be understood.

You may be speaking to a friend and who's a part of a false religion. You say well does this really have to do with religious people yes? It has to do with people who are Secular people who are religious people who are just debauched in their sin.

It doesn't matter the description that is provided here. I think is extremely important understand. Let's look at first Corinthians chapter one. We'll just look at Verses 18 to 24, and I'll draw a few comments there from.

The Foolishness of the Cross to Those Perishing

For the word the preaching the message of the cross is Indeed to those who are perishing foolishness. But to those who are being saved. Us to us were being saved the power of God for has been written I will set aside or I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the understanding ones I will place aside.

Where is the the wise person? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish? That's a very strong term from which we get moronic. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world.

For since in the wisdom of God the world Through wisdom did not come to know God. God was pleased through the foolishness of what is preached the message that is preached to save those who believe. We're since Jews Seeking after signs the Greeks seeking after wisdom.

But we are proclaiming Christ crucified to the Jews indeed a scandal and to the Gentiles Foolishness. But to the call the elect Whether Jew or Greek Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. What a tremendous text.

There is so much we can spend a great deal of time on each one of these Verses, but I just want to hit the high points and sort of provide a foundation. For some of the things that I said this morning because the fact of the matter is In the situation.

I just presented to you. You can do your best to present a Wonderfully biblical answer to any objection that someone might raise. You might take time away from other duties and away from things you like to do and you may delve deeply into the text and you might provide this Wonderful response to someone who has asked you a question a reason the hope is within you.

And you spend all this time and it's very clear if they just put open their eyes that you have spent a lot of time. You've invested yourself in this and yet the response. But but what about this this doesn't make any sense and you're disappointed and For a lot of folks they do that once or twice and say I forget I'm just not obvious.

I'm just not cut out for this. But see the problem is you need to realize that the Motivation that you should have had all the way through the preparation of that material and the study that you were doing Was first and foremost to glorify your God.

You should have been concerned about having a deeper knowledge of his truth. And you need to recognize that even when you present a message and it is rejected God is still glorified when his truth is proclaimed.

Your faith is increased your foundation has been made more firm. I've seen many a person with great zeal Was eventually burned out because they didn't have that important piece of information to realize God has a purpose even when I speak to someone and they reject the truth if we can learn anything from the prophets.

Do we not learn that? How many of them were wildly popular? How many of them have wildly popular ministries? Well, not many at all. And yet God was glorified in what in there. Obediently proclaiming the message that he gave them no matter how.

And so you may spend that time and On the one hand You find a person rejecting. In another instance, you may not even feel you did as good a job. You may feel that you invest as much effort and yet there is acceptance.

There's interest. There's there's a moving on and it seems this person begins to understand what the the gospel message is. And there's conversion. What's the difference between it? Well, I know that I'm talking to the Sunday evening crowd of Phoenix reform.

That's true and In all probability, I could ask almost any one of you up here to finish the sermon because you know. We emphasize all the time. It's God. It's God by his spirit opens hearts and minds.

The Wisdom of God and the Myth of Moral Neutrality

That's exactly what the Apostle is emphasizing here, but you see I think one of the reasons we need to repeat this in our day and age is because In the society in which we live There is such an emphasis upon this idea of worldly wisdom.

Worldly wisdom. You have your scholars you see and the scholars say this and the scholars say that and the scholars assure us That what you believe is not true. The scholars assure us that the Bible is not trustworthy.

The scholars assure us that it's your SUV. It's killing the polar bears. And that that's why you need to have your taxes doubled and tripled so that we can save the polar bears by stopping the Sun from warming the planet.

There is such emphasis upon the wisdom of man and much emphasis upon the foolishness of Christian faith. Now some elements of that might be new in the sense of the ubiquity of communication Satellites and and the Internet and so on and so forth.

The speed with which Blasphemy can be communicated is indeed unparalleled in history. But the mockery of God's truth is nothing. For some reason when we experience it we tend to think that we're the only ones who've ever experienced this.

Oh Woe is me but my friends there's a great deal of strength and Comfort to be obtained by the recognition that You stand in a long line of believers when you experience the look of disapproval of the world.

The Apostle knew all about it. The pop the Apostle Very well knew what his audience Wanted to hear him say. And what would have been popular had he said. He knew all was no dummy. All knew what would have been what would have caught fire with his audience.

Notice he talks about the fact that well the Jews they seek after signs and So if I really wanted to get the Jews excited, I would have I would have sought to do miracles and signs. And it's obvious that when Paul went to Athens Looking around and all that was going on there He knew Exactly what would have caught their attention and he was he had read philosophy.

He was a learned man. He could have he could have spun things in a particular direction. He knew what subjects to avoid if he wanted to get the adulation of those at the Areopagus. But he didn't and that's because he had a fundamental recognition of How it is that people come to have saving faith in Jesus Christ and no one has ever been tricked into saving faith.

The people Who had their emotions? Manipulated. There were many people that tricked into a religious experience. But saving faith is the work of the Spirit of God based upon the truth of God. And anytime you compromise the proclamation of that truth You're demonstrating you don't trust.

They go in. So what does he say? Paul says I understand the preaching of the cross. What stays the same here. What's that. What's the consistency in this text if the message is pretty. It's described in different ways it's called the word of the cross.

It's called the foolishness of God the foolishness of what is preached, but it stays the same. What's the variable mankind's reaction to it? Mankind's reaction to it. Paul knows that the message of the cross that thing which was so Despicable and despised in that day.

That message to make it the center of your building the church. Is from the world's perspective absolute fool? No one in that day Could have possibly seen wisdom worldly wisdom. And making the cross the centerpiece it was revolting to be.

It was revolting to people. The only people who died on crosses were the lowest dregs of society. You don't want to follow somebody who died on a cross. Sure, it's become religious art in our day. It's become something you wear around your neck in our day.

But that's 2 ,000 years down the road. When it was first proclaimed the only image that comes into the mind when you start speaking about the cross is Agony and blood and gore and death and defeat. And so the idea that the preaching of the cross Would be the means by which God would build his church.

God would save his people. There are two people there are two groups of people described there in verse 18. Those who are perishing and those who are being saved. They're directly parallel to one another.

There's nothing wrong in recognizing the ongoing nature of the Greek term there those who are being saved. This is something God's doing just as there are those who are perishing. It's describing the very kind of life that these two different kinds of groups of people experience.

And it is appropriate to say that a person outside of Christ is perishing not just that they will perish. But they don't have God's life. They're stealing life in a sense. But outside the proper relationship with God, they are not experiencing life.

In the way that we can and those were perishing the message of the cross the word of the cross. It's foolish. And it's not just foolishness in the sense of sometimes the term fool is used in the Bible a person lacking.

Understanding it's not just that. Well, this is beyond them. No, this is kind of foolishness that you you make reference to someone who's just simply the court jester it's something to be mocked and That is exactly what we hear today.

All you have to do is turn on your television. Once a while, you'll see a Project a proper British man. He has a wonderful British accent. He sounds very wise. When he's not inebriated. He's a very brilliant man named Christopher Hitchens.

He doesn't drink water while he's debating. He's got something much harder there. So by the end of the day, he's much looser at the beginning. But he's on television all the time. You want to debate him come up with $20 ,000?

That's what he gets for each speaking thing. He does. So he's traveling around and he's debating folks. I've also just did a series of debates with the new debate at Westminster Seminary and stuff like that.

And he sounds so wise he and he's very very learned tremendous grasp of history. Names and citations and quotes and imagine would be like you laid off the socks. He'd be incredible. But the world looks at someone like that and they hear worldly wisdom.

How does he respond to Christianity with? Measured words of scholarly acumen with gut level. He detests. He detests Christ. He detests the cross. He detests the gospel and he uses his considerable Linguistic ability to make sure to mock it in the most blasphemous.

Turn your television on and see that almost anytime you want to if you ever want. The message of the cross is to those who are perishing. It's worthy to be mocked. Yeah. There are those Justice Learned it just as brilliant just as bright.

They hear the message. And in it they find the very power of God. The very power of God. Those are the ones who are being saved. Now it's not that by choosing to hear that this is the word the power of God that they become those are being saved.

No, no. The Apostle Paul is very clear. Those are perishing those are being saved. That's. That's God's Activity, that's God's work. That's God's choice. But they hear the same message and they respond differently.

What does this tell us. It tells us that this myth of Moral neutrality is a lie. There is nobody sitting there waiting to hear the gospel and they're this just they're just right on the boat. You know, it's just a little breeze to push them over the right direction.

Anybody who thinks that that's where the lost person is is going to find Evangelism a very frustrating experience. It does not do honor to God's Word to view things in that way. So you see Paul draws from the Old Testament?

And he says prophets knew about this the prophets knew about this issue of the wisdom of man. And then he uses a Description he uses hyperbole. He starts talking about the foolishness of God. The foolishness of God is wiser than that.

That which is foolish is wise. Obviously drawing a strong contrast he possibly can. But notice what he says. It is God's wisdom. It is God's wisdom that the world would not come to know him through the means of Wisdom.

It's not the person who somehow manages to make it through the ontological argument. That plows through Anselm and and plows through the responses. And and works day and night for years and years until finally you climb up upon the philosophical mountain.

And there is God. That is not the method that God has chosen. That's what the wise the world would like us to think. They'd like us to think that you know. If we just listen to them and we work hard enough We eventually by the means of wisdom come to know God.

Instead it pleased God. It seemed good in God's sight. Through the foolishness of what is preached to save. The ones who believe the foolishness of what is preached from the world's perspective our Message is foolishness and woe be to the church.

When we stop believing this Woe be the church when we try to dress up the foolishness of God is the wisdom of men. We are demonstrating that we do not trust the truth of the scriptures and the work of the Spirit of God.

We do this. I understand the temptation.

We need to understand that so did the Apostle Paul and he addressed God is pleased. How does God save those who are believed? How does God save believers through the foolishness of the message that is preached?

And that foolishness is focused upon the cross of Jesus Christ. He knows That his audiences are not going to like that. He knows what Jews want. He knows the Gentiles. He knows how he could grab them.

He says no. I can't do that even though I know that when I open my mouth to speak the truth. When we proclaim Christ we proclaim him Crucified and I know that when my audience is filled with Jewish people and that will be a scandal on.

It will cause them to stumble. I know that. But I am constrained by the responsibility that is mine as an ambassador of Christ to speak the truth. Knowing that there is what the response is going to be.

I've never been dragged out of a synagogue and stone. Wouldn't really want to experience that Paul had. But I do know I have had the experience of knowing That I had to say things. I had to deliver a message.

That was going to be offensive to the audience to whom I was delivering. That's not unusual for me last year. I went over to California Northern California near berserkly Berkeley. I went on to a secular campus to do a debate on Gay marriage quote-unquote.

It's an oxymoron. That's why I put it in parentheses and The thought crossed my mind That someone in that audience might start yelling and screaming the thought crossed my mind that someone might throw something and At the very least I knew there was gonna be a lot of people in that audience that were not Going to be coming out to me afterwards.

Thanking me for my comments when I was in London few months later and the whole section over here. People dressed in erotic dress women in full burqas. All I see are their eyes. And I know I'm gonna have to look at them and say Muhammad was not a prophet of God.

He misunderstood the doctrine of Trinity. He was ignorant of these things as a result. His teachings are in error here here and here. I knew that was not going to get me many invitations to come over afterwards for dessert.

And I'm certain that Thursday evening When I have to talk about men who suppress the knowledge of God. When I have to very openly say that everyone in that room knows the triune God of Scripture exists In the sense that God has revealed himself to them and that they're suppressing that knowledge and they're doing so in Unrighteousness and direct rebellion against God that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all of that activity.

I'm not so naive as to think that walking onto a secular campus. That that's going to be a really popular thing to do. And so I understand the temptation to try to find weasel words. I understand the temptation to try to find ways of Getting around having to say the hard words like repentance and wrap judgment.

I understand that. But I also understand Verse 24 of chapter 1 and I'm so thankful for these words, I'm thankful for the confidence that I have a Confidence born by the Spirit of God, but also one that is Joined with study that these were the words that the Apostle Sent the church in Corinth so long ago.

This is what the Apostle said and I'm so thankful. They said He knows that this message of Christ crucified is the Jews a scandal on To the Gentiles absolute foolishness. Oh Your Creator died on the cross in Palestine.

Good. Yeah, sure. But to the called. Not to those who called themselves. To those who are the called the elect the chosen ones Jew or Gentile Christ the power of God the wisdom those perishing foolishness a scandal.

Those were called Christ the power of God. One message Received in two completely different ways and what is the only? Functional difference. It is not the intelligence of the people who fear. It is not the methodology of the live of the delivery of the message Paul himself that I came to you with weakness of speech.

I'm not All right, I all doesn't hold himself up as the standard of.

Methodology in that sense. What's the one thing that makes the difference? Call God.

The action of God the work of God the will of God. It's not in the people. It's in what God has done changing so one message. That the world outside of the special grace of God that brings spiritual life to them.

The world calls foolishness. The very same message to us. We see in the crucified Christ the very power of God. We see in the crucified Christ the very wisdom of God. The world in its darkness and its blindness.

Sees a Jewish peasant preacher. Maybe an apocalyptic prophet of some kind who runs afoul of the authorities of the day and gets himself killed. And that's it end of story but we see the very power of God prophecies Given hundreds of years before their fulfillment woven together into the tapestry of the Old Testament God.

Working with the people and providing in his working with them the symbols and the pictures of the coming one. Through the sacrificial system pointing them away from themselves to God's provision of the means of salvation.

We see the timing during the Pax Romana the peace of Rome where there is a language that allows This message to go out all across the Roman Empire. We see the power of God in restraint when sinful men nail the creator to a tree.

The world sees weakness. We see God's power. The early church saw God's power because they saw that what happened In the crucifixion of Christ they pray in Acts chapter 4 that which God's hand Predestined to occur Has taken place and even the power of Rome Did not stop the building Christ the power of God.

Christ the wisdom of God the very one who created all things. Very one who holds all things together. We see the wisdom of God expressed in him and indeed in comparison to him all the wisdom of man Pales it is widely.

And another who can hear with the same Faculties have very much the same background the same language for him or for her here that first phrase but to those That call comes from God. That call is the demonstration of his grace His mercy, that's why we can have confidence even in what seems to be a dark future.

Because God has told us he will continue building his church. How does he continue building his church? He keeps calling his people into himself. So when we look to the future And we think of all the dangers that could be there.

We have a God who's been Accomplishing his purposes for many many years. We will continue to do so. So I ask you to pray for the debate Thursday evening. I Don't know who will be there. But sadly I can tell you this.

There is a high probability That very few of them who will be there Have ever heard a thoroughly biblical defense of the faith. Oh, they've heard a lot of stuff. But it's highly probable. They will expect me to do one thing and well, I can't do that and so It has been my experience.

It's not the first time I've been on a college campus. Close this story one. I may have told you before maybe in Sunday school, but it's been a few years. It was also in Illinois. I was speaking at a church and they asked me if I could have one evening go to the local University campus and and Talk to some students there.

I said, oh. What I didn't realize is they had something a little different in mind when I got there. They showed me the flyer that they had distributed around campus and the flyer said stump the chunk.

And it said do you like to argue? You don't believe God exists and here is the killer free pizza and at the time of the place, I Thought I was going to talk to Christian college students about something.

And right off the bat a young man sitting sort of down this direction from me. Blue hair and all red clothing. Which I thought somewhat ironic. Stood up and started throwing all the common objections.

We went back and forth. In fact, even after I got done with my talk He pulled up a chair. I pulled up a chair guess who never got a bite of pizza in that. And we talked for a long time. And in fact, I let him talk for a long time.

I sort of kept giving him rope. Because you see eventually. The person who's creating the image of God Don't convict themselves. They live in God's world. They're still creating God's image and they will give you evidence that they don't really believe the things they're saying.

And it was cold out. I think it was in January February. He had a leather jacket sitting on the chair and At one point I asked him Do you really even think that jacket exists? Is there any do you have any basis for really believing that it exists?

No, not really. How do you talk to someone when you can't even agree with them that their jacket is hanging on the chair? Well, I presented to him much of what I presented you this evening in the sense of the centrality of the Christian worldview the fact that He is a creature of God and he lives in God's world.

He's suppressing that moment and then I closed with this. I said now when you leave. You're going to reach over you're going to take your jacket because it's cold outside. And when you walk out of this building, you're going to walk.

On the certain side of the road. You're gonna drive a vehicle. You're not getting your vehicle and drive it down the left side of the road just in front of it. And I said. You're going to behave in a way that is inconsistent with what you've told me you believe about this world.

Because you know better and my prayer for you is every single time you borrow from my God's world. You will convict you. That you're doing so and he stood up. And he looked at me and he said. No one's ever talked to me like that.

Thanks. Everyone you talk to. They've got a made-by-God stamp right on the underside they may be hiding it all they can but it's there. So we don't need to shave off the rough edges of the gospel. You proclaim the message of the cross.

Those who are perishing foolish. God be praised. Those who are being saved. Very power. Indeed our Heavenly Father. We thank you that you have given to us the gospel you have preserved it and you use it by your spirit.

To draw men and women unto yourself. And you have been doing this in every language tribe town people nation. You continue to do it to this day. We ask that you would make us bold in glorifying you the proclamation of the gospel.

May you be glorified in what we do and what we say you do. Thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity you give to us to worship you and to know your truth praying Christ.