The Message of the Cross

And normally I preach, after Christmas, a message on the Magi. I have done that before. We're going to be talking about, actually, within the text today, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Within this text we will see that not many are wise. I didn't say not any are wise, but not many are wise. And if you notice, there were wise men that came to worship, seeking the Lord Jesus Christ. And God's hand, sovereign hand, was upon them as they came.

And it wasn't just three, you know, that hymn basically says three wise men, but it was more than three wise men. It was a whole caravan. We just know that three presented the gifts, gold, myrrh, and frankincense.

But I'd like to turn your attention this morning to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And this has been on my heart. And I really believe it ties in perfectly as we celebrate the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As you well know, our Lord came to earth to die. His mission was to die upon the cross of Calvary, unto the glory of God and for our salvation. But how would He die unless He would come and be made flesh?

He had to take upon Himself a body. And He did that through the virgin birth. So we acknowledge that and believe that because all that is incorporated with our belief in Him. Now in this Lord's Day morning, the message and focus of our time as we worship the Lord and continue to worship the Lord comes from this wonderful epistle, 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

And I'd like to focus and begin with verse 18 to verse 24. Verse 18 to verse 25. Hear the word of the living God. The apostle Paul says,. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

But to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?

Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

For Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. May God bless the reading of his word from our ears to our hearts this morning. Please bow with me as we seek our Lord's face and blessing and his favor this morning.

Our Father and our God, Lord my prayer is speak Lord for your servant hears. And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. The Apostle John in 1 John chapter 2, two strong verses, verse 16 and 17, says this concerning the world system of this age.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever.

John MacArthur says of this text from 1 John chapter 2, while the world's philosophies and ideologies and much of that offers may appear attractive and appealing, that is deception. It's true and pervasive nature is evil, it's harmful, it's runious and it's satanic.

It's deadly theories are raised up against the knowledge of God and hold the souls of men captive.

End quote.

I began that quote because and from that wonderful epistle from 1 John because it ties into, as we see in this day, some things has never changed. God never changes, but this in a sense does not change because we see men and women ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

The Apostle Paul draws attention to this also in Romans chapter 1 as he speaks. And the verse I'm thinking of is they profess to be wise, but they're fools. They profess to be wise, but they're fools.

And keep in mind the gospel of Jesus Christ is itself repelling to many sinners.

It's scandalous.

But it's repelling to sinners and the same message is also glorious to others,.

To those that are saved.

It's a complete flip. It is a complete paradox. Why is that? Why is that? Why do some people, or should I say most people, sneer and laugh and reject the gospel while others that are being saved believe it and cling to it?

Well, there's many answers and scripturally you could say that to the few that believe it are those that have received mercy from God. It's nothing in and of ourselves. It is the sheer mercy of God that we receive the gospel while He passes over the rest.

That is justice. Another question is, why do most people dismiss the gospel as foolish while others treasure it as the greatest news ever? Well, again, these are just a few questions I set before you and honestly, the text before us answers the question.

May God help us by His grace to truly understand by His Spirit and believe His Word today and not to harden our hearts as He did in the provocation in the wilderness as Brother Keith mentioned from Psalm 95.

Those warnings are constantly there because we are so prone to have a hard heart. So here's another thing I'd like for us to look at at the offset of this introduction of this message. So the natural way of thinking and living in this world makes the gospel message sound utterly ridiculous.

This is why Paul, the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 2, the next chapter over, verse 13 and 14, these things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but, and here's the key verse, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

Basically what he's saying is they are still in darkness, they're still dead in their sins, there must be regeneration. For someone to understand the things of God, they must be born from above. God must show it to them.

God must open their unstopped ears. God must open their blinded eyes. God and His sovereignty must give that to them in order for them to understand because spiritual things are spiritually discerned.

He cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned. So as we hear the Word of God this morning within our text on the message of the cross, the only reason you and I have any understanding whatsoever is not because we're wiser, not because we're smarter than the other person here, not because of something we have done.

It's only because of the sheer grace of God and the mercy of God that we are redeemed and we believe the gospel and that we've come to repentance. The Holy Spirit of God has given us illumination from the Word which He provides the believers actually the capacity and the ability to understand and to know the truth.

And it's inward knowledge, it's not just head knowledge. We're talking about an inward opening up. The spiritually dead are unable to comprehend the things of God. So the message of the cross carries with it the very power of God.

Think of that. It's incredible. All the power of God is in the cross of Christ. All the wisdom of God is in the cross of Christ. Everything that we have and all the benefits from heaven that comes from God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is all through the cross of Christ.

And Jesus Christ has accomplished it. The Father designed it, He planned it. And the Holy Spirit applies it. So God and God alone, and that's why we give Him glory, right? Because we had nothing to do with our salvation whatsoever.

Even on our side, we come to Christ by faith, but even that faith is a gift from God. Repentance, even repentance, if you and I repent, and we have to repent, and we have to believe, and we're commanded to in repentance, that is even given and granted to us by God.

If the birth of Jesus Christ in the Incarnation brought God to man, then it was the cross of Jesus Christ that brought man to God. And it's the bridge. That's the bridge of salvation. So there is no cross unless there is an Incarnation.

So in the Incarnation, He took flesh. Now, our plans today was to have communion, but because so many people have been sick and missing, we're going to, Lord willing, do that next Lord's Day, next year, right?

And I praise God, and we understand that in communion. And that's why we celebrate communion, because we understand the body of Jesus, the body and the blood, the body and the blood. See, the Incarnation, the sacrifice, the cross, it ties them together.

It's the bridge that brings us to God, that has reconciled us to God. Aren't you glad? God's total revelation of the Gospel in all of its fullness centers in the Incarnation and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

And this is why the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, one of my favorite verses, for I determine not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, why does he say that?

Because we do know that Paul preached the whole counsel of God, the whole design of God, the whole plan of God. He preached all of Scripture. He spoke of sanctification. He spoke of forgiveness. He spoke of peace.

He spoke of all the great truths of Scripture. But why does he say that I determine not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified? I want you to think about this. What he's saying, and what he's saying basically is his focus, his goal, his aim was to preach Christ crucified because he knew the importance of the atonement, the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, that all that we receive, forgiveness from sins, peace from God, peace of God, sanctification, all the benefits that come to us in the Christian life comes through the cross.

Take out the cross, we don't have any of it. His focus in preaching and teaching to unbelievers was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. His supreme substitutionary death and sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, one great simple act was the act that Jesus died on the cross.

I basically have three points. Again, I borrowed these points from MacArthur. He is so good on outlines, so I'm giving him the credit here. My first point this morning, we will look in verse 18, the superiority of God's wisdom.

My second point would be the permanence of God's wisdom, verse 19 and 20. The superiority is verse 18. And then the third point would be the power of God's wisdom in verse 21 to 25, and then we will look at some practical application for us.

Look at the first one. The first point is the superiority of God's wisdom. Paul says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us. He's talking about the believers here.

He's writing this to the church of Corinth, the believers there. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The power of God. The power of God is through the preached word of God and mainly the message of the cross.

Albert Barnes says this, commentator, this concerning the crucifixion. In Roman times, the death of the cross was associated with the idea of all that is shameful and dishonorable. And to speak of salvation only by the sufferings and the death of a crucified man was fitting to its site and their bosoms only a mingled scorn.

End quote.

A crucified Messiah, think of this, no one would have ever thought, only God, that the king of glory, the king of kings, the Messiah, the anointed one, would bring his people in by a crucifixion. His kingdom, he says, was not of this world.

He brings it and he takes it to the cross. A symbol of death. A symbol of suffering. A symbol of scorn. A symbol of rejection. Even the wisest would have never thought that the Messiah, a king, would come like this.

And even been born in a stable. In a feeding trough. And then in his humiliation, he is born there, we're talking about the king of glory, we're talking about the creator God, the second person of the Trinity, taken on flesh and then he lives a perfect life and fulfills the law of God.

And he takes it all the way to his humiliation to a cross. Where he's humiliated in shame as he hangs on a cross. And shame and scorn. And is nailed there. A crucified Messiah. And as wisdom in unbelievers, God's wisdom jolts them, surprises them, and unbelievers reject this message as foolishness.

This is an interesting word, this word foolishness. It translates into Greek, moron.

Moron.

It's where we get the English word moron. A person might think that they're smarter than God, which is the very height of arrogance and pride. And they think that God owes them an explanation somehow to justify himself to them.

But really, it's the other way around, isn't it? God demonstrated his power to a man by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, who rose up one day. And that God allowed him to rise up. And then he exalted himself above God, the Most High.

And you know the story. I say he's the original wolfman. Nebuchadnezzar. Seven years. As literally like a wild beast. It says his fingernails became like eagle's claws. And he was like a wild man. And he grew long hair.

Yes, he ate from the pastures and the grass like wild animals for seven years. He literally lost his mind. He went insane. And God caused it.

Why?

Because he lifted himself up in arrogance against God. Better be careful that any of us would dare lift ourselves up in pride and arrogance. Because it's the one thing that turned an archangel into a devil.

Sin began in heaven. In the heart of an archangel.

Arrogance.

But God owes no man anything.

Does he?

But hell and separation and wrath.

Justice.

God demonstrates his power through the cross. And God demolishes such foolishness and folly of man's pride. Listen to Psalm 14, verse 1. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. The original actually says, there is no God.

He says, just not in the sense of, no, there is not a being God. He says, no God. Rebellion. But he says in his heart, there is no God.

They are corrupt.

They have done abominable works. There is none who does good. And keep in mind when God says all and none, he means just that. None and all means universal. No one is exempt. Verse 2 and verse 3 says this.

The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of man to see if there is any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good, no, not one.

That's everyone. So we see a common spiritual association of doing with thinking here. Doing and thinking. God calls this thinking foolishness. Foolishness. Message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

Notice the connection of those that are foolish.

Perishing.

They perish. It's a strong word. Once again, perishing is another word for they are dying. They are dying. And there is more here than just death, by the way. There is spiritual death, yes. But we all will one day come to the end of our passing and fleeing moments here on this mortal life.

That our physical body will die as a believer, absent from the body, present with the Lord. But those that are dying without Jesus Christ will be absent from the body and present in hell. Until the great and final judgment.

But that's not all. Paul here is talking about, because he gives a contrast. But to us, who are being saved, it is the power of God. The very power of God is in the wisdom of God. It's in the word of God.

And that's how he has made himself known. That's why this Bible is so precious to us. Because it is the word of the living God. And he promises, he warns us, but he promises us that has come through his word.

The Greeks in Paul's day were lovers of wisdom. Literal meaning of the word literally means philosophers. They were the philosophers of that day. On the Mars Hill, chapter 17, that's the kind of people that Paul was preaching to.

And he preached Jesus Christ and him crucified. And then he went straight to the resurrection. But he first started with the general revelation of God's creation. That God is the creator. And then he goes right to the special revelation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

And he commands men to repent. He brings to them the gospel. But there was nothing in the gospel message, think of this, to appeal to their pride of knowledge. It did not appeal to their pride of knowledge.

To those who are being saved was those that are humbled themselves and broken and contrite of heart. And they come and kneel at the cross and say, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. The gospel is the very power of God.

To us, to the believers, to the elect. They hear the message, they receive it by faith alone. The miracle of regeneration takes place by the spirit of God. And notice the solemn fact in this verse that there are only two classes of people.

Two classes. Only two. Those who perish and those who are being saved. Nothing in between. Nothing in between. Men may love their human wisdom, but only the gospel leads to salvation. In Sunday school we've been studying the Sermon on the Mount.

This reminds me of a verse from chapter 7. Verse 13 and 14. Jesus said, enter in by the narrow gate. For the wide is the gate, broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it.

Because narrow is the gate. And difficult is the way which leads to life.

And there are few who find it.

That's some powerful words, folks. That's some very sobering words. But Jesus again, He's drawing a line. There's a line of demarcation. On one side, He's saying there's the road to destruction. On the other side, there's a narrow road that leads to life.

One side, on that one road, the broad road to destruction, is the narrow gate. There's a narrow gate, there's a broad gate. Let me bring out something here about this. We see a narrow way and we see a broad way.

Jesus presents this sobering truth, a narrow gate and a wide gate. The narrow gate and the wide gate both are assumed, by the way, assumed to provide the entrance to the kingdom of God. Because there's a way which seems right unto man and the way thereof is death.

Why is it assumed? Because there's deception. He goes on to say, and we don't have time to get into it, from verse 15 to verse 20, He talks about the false prophets. The false teachers. And then He talks about, you will know them by what kind of fruits they bear.

And Jesus goes on to say, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. It's impossible. And He says, you will know them by what kind of fruits. And basically what He's saying is, what kind of life do they lead?

How do they live?

Listen to what they speak. Watch them the way they live. You shall know them by their fruits. Two ways. Only two ways are offered to people. The narrow gate is by faith alone, through Jesus Christ alone.

Jesus said, He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. And He represents true salvation. That's God's way. That leads to eternal life.

Then you have the wide gate.

This is the broad road to destruction. It includes all religions. It includes most of the human race, folks. We should be broken over this. We should be weeping over people's souls. It represents the self-righteous.

It represents those that you know what I'm talking about. People who say, I am a good person. I am a good person. There is a way again, which seems right unto man, but the end thereof is death. Only the way, the broad road to destruction only leads to hell.

And keep in mind this verse, verse 14.

Jesus says, difficult is the way.

Difficult. That's why He says, strive to enter in.

Strive. Agonize.

In other words, we must seek by the help and the power of God to enter in.

It's by grace.

And it's not trying to say that it's something we do, but on the sense of as God's sovereign power helps us by His grace, we strive to enter in because you're not saved until ultimately we arrive in heaven, folks.

Ultimately, full salvation. We have been saved. That is past done through Jesus' cross. We're being saved is sanctification. Then we're fully, completely saved when we're glorified. So there is a process.

That's why Paul says, if you believe and continue in the gospel. You know that word continue? How many times Jesus says that word continue? You know what He's talking about? He's talking about obedience to the will of God.

In other words, and I like what Paul Washer says. He says it like this. Do you really long to see the face of Jesus or do you just have a ticket, fire insurance from hell? That's the truth, isn't it, folks?

In other words, our heart's desire is to really love our Lord in whom we have not seen and long to be with Him and long to see His face. Just not a fire insurance and a ticket to heaven? That's blasphemy.

But it is deceiving though. And Satan is working real hard in the churches to deceive people about how to get to the true and pure way in which the gospel presents. Jesus says the way is difficult. And if Jesus says it's difficult, it means it's difficult.

But what does Paul say, I believe? You press. With many tribulations, we press into the kingdom of God. We press in. God's way is by grace, by His loving favor.

It's not easy.

Jesus never said it was easy. Look at the way the Master took, folks. It was suffering all the way. I remember hearing this from Elizabeth Elliott on her program years ago. And she always began her wonderful broadcast when she was alive.

God rest her soul in heaven now. She's worshiping the Lord. She would always say, you are loved with an everlasting love. And underneath are the everlasting arms. And then immediately she went to this.

She says, Christians, I want to talk to you about something today. I want to talk to you about suffering. Don't you love somebody that just wants to get right to what the gospel is about? And I thought, wow, suffering?

And the first thing she said, she says, believers, I want you to understand one thing. And you might as well get it in your mind now. And she said it lovingly and graciously. She says, it is normal in the Christian life to suffer.

Suffering is normal.

You see what she's saying?

Jesus said it. It would be difficult.

Folks, as you've already seen, the way is narrow. And Ravenhill says, and the longer he lived, he's with the Lord too. He says, the longer he lived, it becomes narrower and narrower and narrower. And that's the way it is.

But it's worth it.

You know why? Because Jesus is worth it. Where else can we go to, folks? Jesus says the words of eternal life. That's what Peter said. Amen? It's not easy, but it's rewarding. And he's worth it. It's a great cost.

You know what he's talking about really here? There's the cost of discipleship. The way is hard. There's a cross to bear. Many, many crosses. Many, many losses. Many, many giving up of ourselves.

But it's all worth it.

It's the way of the cross. The way of the cross leads to life. Self-denial leads to life. It calls for knowledge of the truth. It calls for true repentance. It calls for submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

It calls for a willingness to obey Him. It calls us to obey His will and His word. And that's the cost of discipleship, folks. We need to hear more about this. I highly recommend a good book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I heard he made a movie. I hope it's true to his life. But he wrote the book, The Cost of Discipleship. But more than that, you can read more about the cost of discipleship and the birth and the life and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as he taught it.

Well, we need to tell people about this cost as we preach the gospel. So, as we have seen, there's the superiority of God's wisdom. Next, we see the permanence of God's wisdom. Verse 19 and 20. Paul says, I would destroy the wisdom of the wise.

I would bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. He's quoting. He says it is written, right? Where is he quoting? Isaiah 29, 14. Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent men shall be hidden.

That's Isaiah 29, 14. The fact that the gospel would be offensive to human wisdom was prophesied by the prophet. And we see in Scripture, interpreting Scripture here. Don't you love it? You got the prophet Isaiah, then you have the apostle Paul.

And the same Spirit of God was breathing upon them. God destroys the wisdom of the prideful man. Aren't you glad? How does He do it? Through the cross. That's how He does it. That's why a lot of people would not come to Christ and bow at the cross, because it destroys their pride.

It destroys, don't you think, if pride starts to come up in us,.

That's the place to go.

That's where I want to go. If I see pride coming up, and another brother brings, or a sister brings to my attention, and says, Pastor, you're very prideful in this. And if I am, I search my heart, and I fall at the foot of the cross.

And I say, oh God, humble me. And all you have to do is view the cross in full sight, and your pride will melt. For the Son of God Himself hung there, stretched there, taking our sin, your sin, my sin, and His great love.

God destroys the wisdom of the pride. Through the crucified Christ, man's wisdom and holiness comes to an end, and this is where man's prideful intellect comes to an end. And by the way, God does not want to destroy our intellect.

He wants to destroy our pride. He'll take your intellect, just humble it before the cross. God destroys the pride through His suffering, and through His crucified Son by faith. And ultimately, this scripture in Isaiah 29, 14 will be completely fulfilled one day in the kingdom to come in its fullness.

But it began there at the cross, before Jesus Christ, the King of glory. And how true it is that God delights, and how true it is that God delights to accomplish His will and His purposes for us, for His glory and through His ways.

That seemed utterly foolish to men. How often He uses methods that men in men's eyes and the world's eyes, that is foolish. The wise of the world ridicule. In other words, the wise of the world, they look at us Christians and think, you're foolish, you're crazy, you're fanatics.

Well, all this was in God's sovereign plan. God's sovereign plan meant it to be this way, through the cross of Jesus Christ. For example, let me give you, man's wisdom assures him that he can earn or merit his salvation somehow.

Isn't that the way people think? Somehow they got to have a grasp on their salvation. There's something that they got to do. But Christ has done it all. The gospel sets aside all man's efforts to save himself and presents Jesus Christ as the only way to God.

Argument over. You go to verse 20. Notice what Paul does. Questions come up. Verse 20, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made the foolish the wisdom of this world?

And what he's doing is, he's paraphrasing Isaiah 19 .12, where the prophet was referring to wise men of Egypt who promised but never produced wisdom. Human wisdom always proves to be unreliable and impermanent.

Go to verse 20. Paul is again hurling out a defiant challenge to these prideful, arrogant, wise scribes that were saying that there is foolishness in the preached message of the cross. Question after question, he uses the sword of the Lord.

Did God consult them when he devised his plan of salvation?

No.

Could they ever have worked out such a plan of redemption if left to their own wisdom? By no means. Can they rise to disprove anything that God ever said? By absolutely not. An emphatic no, no, no, because man is nothing before God but a maggot and a worm.

Well, you have the superiority of God's wisdom, you have the permanence of God's wisdom, but you now have the power of God's wisdom. Verse 21 to 25. Let's take it verse by verse. For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God,.

It pleased God,.

Listen to that beautiful language, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. MacArthur notes, let me quote him again, God wisely established that men could not come to know him by human wisdom.

That would exalt man. So God designed to save the helpless sinners through the preaching of the message that was so simple the worldly wise deemed it nonsense.

End quote.

Ain't that the truth? Romans 1, got a better quote. Romans 1. Listen to what the word of God says. Listen to verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God they did not glorify Him as God nor were they thankful.

Folks, remember this if you're unthankful. You know, an old preacher told me years ago a holy heart that's been washed in the blood of Jesus is a thankful heart. They became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.

He calls them foolish. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

And then you start seeing the degression down. God gave them up or God gave them over to uncleanness and homosexuality. And that's a bad place to be, folks. It's like God is just letting people go. And this is where people are in America.

This is where America is. Look around you. There's insanity. There's homosexuality. There's perversion. And you can find it all through a phone like an avatar. Look it up and you can find all kinds of evil at the palm of your hands.

And everywhere you go, there's wrecks taking place more and more and more because people are on their phones, their phones, their phones. Can't put down the phone. They can't get off Facebook in order to get into God's book.

We got people that's ever learning.

You get that.

Google it, folks. You can find out anything you want but yet they never come to the simple knowledge of the truth. God help us. The foolishness of the thing preached refers to the message of the cross.

Of course, we know that it is not foolish to those that are being saved because we have been given grace and God, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God has enlightened us and illumined us. Notice verse 22.

For Jews, request a sign. Always requesting a sign. We see this in John chapter 6 as we study that and we're going to continue that God willing next year. The Greeks seek after wisdom. So you have the Jews requesting a sign.

The Greeks seek after wisdom. Basically, what he's saying is their attitude was that they would believe if some miracle would be shown to them. Always seeking a sign. The Jews. The Greeks always seeking after wisdom.

Don't that sound like today?

Show me.