Our passage this evening comes from 1 Corinthians 1, and just to give a little context, I'll read a little bit more than the preaching passage. 1 Corinthians 1, and while you're turning there, let me take a moment to give greetings or bring greetings to you from your brothers and sisters in Oceanside and Carlsbad. And we're grateful always for your prayers and support. And you may know that we'll be installing Reverend Vanderbilt on the 28th as we send him out to Kauai to begin preparing that congregation to be organized. So we appreciate your prayers and support. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and we'll begin with verse 18. God's holy, infallible, inerrant, and inspired word. 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, the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world, through its wisdom, did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs, and Greeks look for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Thus far the reading of God's word. May he write this word on our hearts and may he give us true understanding. I'd also like to read from Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 11, just to put this passage in context. Lord's Day 11 from the Heidelberg Catechism, questions 29 and 30. 29. Why is the Son of God called Jesus? meaning Savior, because he saves us from our sins. Salvation cannot be found in anyone else. It is futile to look for salvation elsewhere. Do those who look for their salvation and security in saints, in themselves, or elsewhere, really believe in the only Savior, Jesus? No. Although they boast of being his, By their deeds, they deny the only Savior and Deliverer, Jesus. Either Jesus is not a perfect Savior, or those who in true faith accept this Savior have in him all they need for their salvation. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this passage from 1 Corinthians. ought to speak, and I think does speak, volumes to us just as it did to them when it was originally given in about 55 A.D. 1 Corinthians is part of a stream of correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the Corinthian congregation. We don't know which epistles we have. We call this 1 and 2 Corinthians. It could be first and second, or it could be, you know, first. It's either first and third, actually, or second and fourth. No one really knows. But most scholars think there were probably about four letters back and forth between the Corinthians and the Apostle Paul. And you can see very early on in this epistle what it was that animated the Apostle Paul, what it was that concerned him about what was happening in the Corinthian congregation. And these are things that ought to animate us and concern us because nothing has really changed. Although this was written under the emperor Claudius a long time ago to another place in another language, it could just as well have been written to us because the world to which it was written is very much or was very much like the world in which we live today. It was written to a culture, a congregation that was called out of and in a culture in a Greek city that had been destroyed and rebuilt by Rome. So it was a Greek city in some respects, but culturally, after the rebuilding of Corinth, it was really a Roman city. And it had all, really, all of the virtues of the Roman culture, industry, busyness, and the like. But it also had the vices. And those vices you can see all through the pages of 1st and 2nd Corinthians. And perhaps the one vice that plagued them more than any, that shows up really is reflected in the Apostle Paul's comments and instruction and even preaching to the Corinthians, was their lust for power. And if there's any one thing that marks this age in which we live, which scholars, some scholars anyway, call the late modern period, Sometimes people call it post-modern, but it really isn't. As Dr. Horton and others like to say, it's really most modern. All those things that made modernity what it is, they haven't gone away. If it were post-modern, then this world would be very different from what it is. But it isn't post-modern. All those things that made the modern world what it was, they've only been intensified. And that's why I think it's right to call it most modern or late modern. Because what happened in the modern world was that we displaced, as a culture, if it were possible, although it's not really possible, but in our own thinking, we displaced God from his throne. And we made ourselves the ultimate authority. So that the fundamental question was no longer, what has God said? That was the question that animated the Western world and the Christian church for a thousand years. There were lots of different answers given to that question, but they were all asking that question. The modern question that came to dominate the world in the late 17th and into the 18th and 19th centuries and 20th century and now in our century was not what has God said, but has God said. And of course, the minute I put the question that way and ask it, you should think to yourself, well, wait a minute, preacher, that's not a new question at all. If I remember my Bible, I think that's a very old question. And of course, you would be exactly right. It's an ancient question. It's one of the oldest questions. And it was just as wicked a question, or it is just as wicked a question now as it was then. And that's the premise on which all of modern life has been organized, that God has not really spoken. And in fact, as one of my professors said when I was in university, God went to the corner for a beer in the modern period and he never came back. And that's the way people think about God. That he's gone away. I sometimes carry a pocket watch that was made in 1932. One of the reasons I carry it is because it was made in 1932. I love it because it works. But one of the things you have to do to make this work is wind it up. That's what people said in the 18th and 19th centuries. I don't know if you can hear it. If I put it up there, don't turn up the mic. It might be ugly. But it ticks. It's an old-fashioned, yeah, you can hear it ticking. People said God wound up the world and he walked away. We're in charge now. We're sovereign. We get to say, as an old friend of mine used to say, what's what and what's not. The fancy word for that is autonomy. That we're the boss. We get to decide. As our former president said, I'm the decider. And that's exactly what we said in the modern period. But as I say, there was nothing new about that. That's what the Corinthians were arguing about. Who is the decider? And they had placed themselves over the word of God. They had placed themselves over the message of the gospel. They had placed themselves and some of them particularly whom the Apostle Paul calls super-apostles over God's authorized, designated representative, the Apostle Paul. And so Paul comes to them with a rebuke that lasts most of 15 or 16 chapters. What is he on here? There are three things that he wants us to see. And he wants us to think tonight a little bit about stupidity, sophistication, and sovereignty. Stupidity, sophistication, and sovereignty. Look at verse 18 of your text. You've got your Bibles open and you're looking there. And I want to meditate with you for a few minutes about the opening words of our passage. Paul says, for the word of the cross is foolishness. I want to stop there. We'll come back and talk about to whom it's foolishness and why, and to whom it's not foolishness and why. But I want to think with you for a minute about what it means to say the word of the cross. The Roman culture was all about power. Roman culture was all about influence and control. An old teacher of mine used to talk about power, authority, and control, or control, authority, and power. And it's interesting how often as I listen to the news and read the, I was going to say the paper, but I guess that's not right, read the news online and the like, how often it seems to me that most of what we are seeing is really about control, authority, and power. Who's in control, who has authority, and who has the power to make their will into policy, into practice? And into a context that's very much like that. I don't suppose you've ever, by the way, seen office politics. That probably never happens where you work. Probably no one's ever gone into a supervisor's office and closed the door and said things that were, let's say, misleading. Or perhaps it made them look pretty good. That probably never happens where you work. But I've worked in some places where that kind of thing happened. I know it's shocking, but it happens from time to time. That's the kind of power that we're talking about. It's the kind of struggle for power that was happening in Corinth. And it's so interesting that the Apostle Paul starts off with these words, for the word of the cross. And the reason this is so significant, and I could probably spend the rest of the sermon just on those words, for the word of the cross. Because if you understand that, you understand really the word of God. And if you don't understand that, you don't understand anything. whatever else you know about the Bible, if you don't understand the word of the cross, then you're in darkness still. You trust that's not the case, but just so you know what the dividing line is. He says the word of the cross. You see, there wasn't any single thing that was more scandalous to the Roman culture than the cross. Who got crucified? The bottom end of the social scale. Who are on the bottom end of the social scale in our culture? We could pick groups, which you can think of some just as easily as I can. Those are the folk who got crucified. It was the most disreputable, scandalous, shameful, shocking way to serve the ultimate punishment, to administer the ultimate punishment, to receive the ultimate punishment. And it was the last thing that any Roman, Any decent, upstanding, law-abiding, and by large Romans were law-abiding. They were outwardly, many of them, good people. The emperor in this period, Claudius, was among the emperors in the first century, perhaps the most benevolent, most decent, most fair. Romans said to themselves, whether they lived in Corinth or in Rome, we have orderly homes, tidy yards, people respect us. We attend the guilds, we make the offering to the gods. Of course, no one believes it, but we do it anyway because it's good social form. We put a little pinch on the fire and we say a little prayer to Caesar. And that's called civilization, getting along with your neighbor. And the antithesis of all of that was to be naked, was to carry two wooden beams lashed together up a hill, to be hammered onto that cross, and to be exhibited in shame and disrepute until finally you died. Roman citizens didn't die on a cross. Roman citizens were politely, neatly dispatched with the sharp end of a sword, which is exactly what happened, according to church history, to the Apostle Paul. Apostle Peter, not a Roman citizen, by legend is said to have been crucified, not willing to be crucified like his Lord, was crucified upside down. That's what they did to those people over there. and Paul says to the Corinthians, the word of the cross. You people are concerned about power. You people are concerned about who's in charge. You people are concerned about influence. You people are concerned about parties, not parties, let's have a party and enjoy ourselves and light a bonfire parties, but factions and groups, literally heresies and sects, not necessarily doctrinal error, but that was part of it. We follow this one, we follow that one. And the most spiritual among them, of course, said, well, we just follow Jesus. The Apostle Paul says the word of the cross is foolishness. I think it's essential, loved ones, that we understand that. Because we're coming into a time in our culture, in the prevailing surrounding culture, where more and more people will know less and less about biblical Christianity. Fewer and fewer people will understand the most basic things about the Christian faith and that we will no longer be able to assume anything about what people outside the church know and that whatever common basis there was for a common culture 25, 50, 75 years or 100 years ago, that's all going away. And today, so-called evangelical theologians routinely deny, for example, that Jesus died on the cross in order to satisfy the wrath of God, To turn it away, that's propitiation, and to expiate or put away sin. They say he died on the cross to set a good example, to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. This is not a new view, it's a very old view, it's been around for a long time, it's making a comeback. So-called evangelical theologians who are in good standing with the Evangelical Theological Society routinely say, and without controversy in many places, that to say that Jesus died on the cross and that the wrath of God was poured out on him for us and that he turned it away is nothing less than cosmic child abuse. That's a direct quote of a leading British quote-unquote evangelical theologian. The word of the cross is foolishness. It was foolishness in 55 A.D. It was foolishness in 1855 and it's foolishness now. Loved ones, you need to be aware of the antithesis that exists between belief and unbelief because the cover that once made it harder to see that antithesis is being taken away. And soon we're going to have to stand up and speak for the faith in a time and in a place where either no one understands it or where people who even profess faith in Jesus are positively hostile to it. That's why I say the first point is stupidity, foolishness. The noun here has the same root for moron. That's where we get our adjective moron. It's foolishness. To whom is it foolishness? It's foolishness to those who are being destroyed. It is foolishness. I'll explain that in a minute. But it's foolishness to those who are being destroyed. The Apostle Paul goes on, and I'll come back to the rest of verse 18 in a minute. The Apostle Paul here quotes from Isaiah chapter 29, verse 14. We don't have time to look at Isaiah 29, but if you want to this evening, you could look at that. And you'll see that in the beginning part of chapter 29, the Lord is prosecuting a case against his people for their unfaithfulness, and he uses a somewhat unusual name for Jerusalem. He says, Ariel. Ariel. It's probably a reference to Jerusalem as the seat of the altar. And he goes on to prosecute a case against Jerusalem for her faithlessness. And in the midst of the prosecution of this case, he uses, God speaks these words, But I will destroy, he says, the wisdom of the wise. And I will hide, it says actually, or actually in the original text as it was translated, it reads a little differently, but to one way of translating it is to say, I will hide the wisdom of the wise. But the Apostle Paul changes Isaiah 29. By the way, here is evidence for the apostolic authority, for the nature of apostolic authority. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he modifies Isaiah 29. That's the difference, by the way, between those who have real apostolic authority given to them by the ascended Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit and those folks who run around and who show up on television and who call themselves apostles. This is real authority. Paul changes the text and he says, I will frustrate the understanding of those who think they have understanding. This is really two ways of saying the same thing. What's interesting here is that Paul picks up this language from Isaiah 29 and he applies it to the Corinthians. He's saying something very strong to the Corinthian congregation. He's saying, he's anticipating here in chapter 1 some of the very same things he's going to say to them in chapter 10. You people are just like the Israelites. In chapter 10 he says the Israelites were baptized. They went through the Red Sea on dry ground. They were all sprinkled. They were all baptized into Moses and they all ate the Lord's Supper just like you. But guess what? God wasn't pleased with many of them. And by implication, he says to the Corinthians, he's not pleased with many of you. You're doing the same thing that the Israelites did. They sat down to eat and they rose up to play. You people have sat down to eat at the Lord's table and you rise up to play. You've turned the Holy Supper of our Lord into a debauched feast where you exercise your own hierarchy and power and influence. The wealthier ones were sitting here. And the poorer ones were out there. And the body of Christ was divided between those who have and those who have not. And he begins to anticipate that case right here by quoting Isaiah 29 and applying it to this Christian congregation. We might be minded to read this language to apply to those people outside. And certainly he does have people outside the congregation in view. But loved ones, the thing that has struck me recently about this passage is that he also has the congregation in view. There are people within the congregation who have a worldly view. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? When Paul says this age, he's not talking about a time. He's not talking about 55 A.D. When he says in the next line here, the next clause, has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? That's the same idea. This age and the world. These are descriptions. These are qualities. This age is a kind of way of looking at the world and thinking about the world. It really isn't a reference to time at all. It is a reference to a kind of spiritual quality or lack thereof. It is a reference to a kind of spiritual blindness, an inability to see what is true, what is real, To know what one is, that one is a sinner in need of the unmerited favor of God in Christ. And those who are of this world or of this age, they think they're fine. They think they are upstanding. They don't have any consciousness that they have any need of a Savior because they have no consciousness of their sin. And Paul is warning the Corinthians that they are in danger of participating in the spirit of this age, of the world. When in fact those who belong to Christ are united to him and we participate in Christ by the spirit in, as Paul says elsewhere, in the age to come. We've been made members of, and participants of, and citizens of a heavenly city in the age to come. And therefore, our lives should reflect that fact. The gospel should not seem to us to be foolishness, but it should seem to us to be nothing but the very best news. We should not be ashamed of Jesus hanging on a cross and buried in a tomb. we should rejoice in that we who know who we are and know our need and know who Jesus is by grace alone through faith alone we should take great comfort that he was there for me that he sanctified the grave for me that he was raised for me and that's the antithesis of the wise man of this age the scribe of this age The debater of this age, has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? What's he referring to specifically, quickly, when he says wise man, scribe, and debater? He's referring probably to five different movements that were prevalent in Corinth in this period. The Stoics said if you can just align yourself with nature properly and understand the universal principle that governs all things, you will have a happy life. Just recently I heard a survey in which 60-some percent of Christians, people who identify themselves as Christians, said that the purpose of the Christian faith and the role of God in the world is to make me happy. Tell that to the Apostle Paul when they were throwing rocks at his head. When he was being lowered out of a basket over a wall. Or when he was kneeling over for the last time on the Appian Way outside of Rome. When he heard that Roman soldier unsheathed that, we hope, razor-sharp sword. Paul was full of joy, but trust me, I've been in enough hospitals, I've made enough hospital calls, and I've buried enough of God's people to know that he wasn't happy. Because death is an enemy. And he fought it all the way. God's role in this world is not to make you happy, but that's what the Stoics said, and some of the Corinthians were buying into that. Others were called Epicureans. They said, you know what? We really don't know what's true in this world, so what we really need to do is to have a nice meal and a nice glass of wine. Maybe a 12-year-old bottle of wine and savor it and enjoy it. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. Except if that's the thing by which you intend to make yourself at peace. If that's your God, that's Epicureanism. If you say to yourself, well, who really knows if any of it's true? Let's have a nice meal. We'll just eat, drink, and be merry, because who knows? And then there were others we could call proto-Gnostics. They weren't full-fledged Gnostics, but they said, you know, there's a spiritual world out there that if you know the secret, you can climb up into the spiritual world and you can get outside of your body. And you can see that every day, Monday through Friday at 4 o'clock on WGN. It's called Oprah. Oprah peddles this every day, five days a week. And then there's power politics we already talked about. And then there were the sophists. They didn't believe anything. They just said whatever people wanted to hear. 35 bucks an hour, they'll tell you what you want to hear. It's good entertainment. And you can see that on 200 or 300 channels any day of the week. Nothing's really changed. That's what the world thinks is sophistication. But finally, Paul has a remedy for this. And we'll go back to verse 18. But to those who are being saved, the word of the cross, the message of the cross, the revelation of the cross, the divine disclosure of God in and on the cross, and through the cross, That message is the power of God. Loved ones and children, I want you to listen to me for just a minute. When you grow up, children, people will tell you that there never was a Jesus and they will tell you that he didn't die and that he wasn't buried and that he wasn't raised and it's all just fairy tales. Don't you believe him, children? I'm here to tell you that it's true that hundreds of people saw Jesus with their own eyes. The Apostle Paul saw Jesus. The Apostle Peter saw Jesus. We have eyewitness records in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They saw Jesus. We have the truth. When they tell you it wasn't so and it didn't happen, don't you believe them because we have historical, factual records. It really happened. And when you believe it, that's the power of God. If you believe and when you believe and because you believe or if you believe it is because God the Holy Spirit used that foolish message to make you alive, to open your eyes, open your ears and to soften your heart. it's the foolishness it's foolishness to those who are perishing but it's the power of God to those who believe what's the difference? the difference is the sovereignty of God Paul reflects on that a little bit when he says in verse 20 has not God made foolish literally has God not foolished the wisdom of this age or of the world verse 21 finally for since in the wisdom of God and here I want you to pay close attention to the irony the world talks about wisdom this age talks about wisdom and how much they know and how clever they are and how well they understand things in the modern world people said in the beginning of the modern age people said we know how the world works we know that certain things aren't possible we know that if you put a man on a horse and he goes faster than 35 miles an hour, his head will explode. Why? Because a horse can only go so fast and it's not possible to go any faster. Well, that wasn't true, was it? They said, well, we know there were no such thing as Hittites. The Bible just makes up stories. Right until we dug up evidence of Hittites. Hittites everywhere. It's like that all the time, loved ones. Has God not foolished the wisdom of this age And the answer is, yes, he has foolished the wisdom of this age. For since in the wisdom of God, and when he says wisdom of God, he means Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, and buried, raised on the third day, and ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Since in the wisdom of God, the world knew not God, God through wisdom, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached and what was preached. What's the foolishness of what was preached? It's the unlikely message that salvation is to be found and is found and has been found always in one person, Jesus the Messiah who walked among us, whom the Apostle John says we touched, we held. It seems so unlikely. How can it be? It's so unreasonable, they say. Well, in a way it is. to those who are perishing, but to us who know our need, whose eyes have been opened, whose hearts have been softened. It's the power of God. And how did he do it? And for whom? He did it through the message. Not through any of the foolishness that passes for worship in so many churches today. Not through the power displays of weightlifting or dancing girls or any of the things that people do by which they think to glorify God. But through the simple, unadorned, faithful preaching of this message that Jesus is the righteous one. He obeyed the law of God perfectly. He did what we would not and could not do. And he said, it is finished. And he did it for us. And if you trust him tonight, loved ones, he did it for you. That's the message. That's the good news. That's the power of God. Let us give thanks tonight for the power of God. Amen.