John MacArthur | God's Divine Wisdom vs. Man's

good morning everyone i'm so happy to welcome you to the grace community church peaceful protest thank you are you glad to be here everything for us based on the word of god right and uh that means we are pro-life pro-family pro-law and order in pro church of the lord jesus christ this morning we have a very special privilege chaplain morehouse from the lapd is going to come and lead us in our opening prayer good morning as pastor said i am chaplain morehouse with los angeles police department chaplain corps i would like to share two verses of scripture with you and then pray for the church psalm 91 14 because he loves me says the lord i will rescue him i will protect him for he acknowledges my name james 1 5 if any of you lack wisdom you should ask god who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you lord thank you for another day to wake up and praise your mighty name and lord i ask you to please put such a strong wall and mighty shield of protection around this mighty church that no outside influence can harm it i also ask that all the pastors elders and the whole congregation of grace community church have the wisdom and the faith to weather all of the things going on in your in church and outside church father i ask you to help us help us of faith to push back against the evil one that tries to break our spirit but with you on our side we will not be broken in your son jesus holy and gracious name amen stand for the reading of the word of god called to worship is psalm 27 the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall i fear the lord is the defense of my life whom shall i dread when evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh my adversaries and my enemies they stumbled and fell though a host in camp against me my heart will not fear the war arise against me in spite of this i shall be confident one thing i have asked from the lord that i shall seek that i may dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the lord and to meditate in his temple for in the day of trouble he will conceal me in his tabernacle in the secret place of his tent he will hide me he will lift me up on a rock and now my head will be lifted above my enemies around me and i will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy i will sing yes i will sing praises to the lord hear o lord and when i cry with my voice and be gracious to me and answer me when you said seek my face my heart said to you your face o lord i shall seek do not hide your face from me do not turn your servant away in anger you have been my help do not abandon me nor forsake me o god of my salvation for my father and my mother have forsaken me but the lord will take me up teach me your way o lord and lead me in a level path because of my foes do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries for false witnesses have risen against me and such as breathe out violence i would have despaired unless i had believed that i would see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living wait for the lord be strong let your heart take courage yes wait for the lord those who would not listen to the prophets when they spoke the word of god would go into captivity scattered all over the pagan world and they would never find a prophet to speak the word of god amos pictures a scene of spiritual destitution that is the most horrible of all possible settings hoping to hear a word from god and never being able to hear it for us it seems the word of god is becoming more scarce the world of unbelievers doesn't want to hear the word of god false christians don't really want to hear the word of god they want everything but the scripture and in many cases they're getting it even from so-called churches those who hold to the fact that the bible is the divine revelation from god those who are sober and serious and diligent students and preachers of holy scripture those who are being faithful are not honored so much as they are ridiculed why have we held on why are we still here going through the bible verse by verse by verse by verse when it's not popular in the world or even in the church the answer to that question is found in the text i read earlier if you'll open your bible to first corinthians chapter one nowhere is the issue of the work of god in the scripture more richly presented than this those of you who know me know that i don't normally cover two chapters in one sermon two words maybe the text that i read you from chapter 1 verse 18 to 2 verse 16 is about divine wisdom the word wise or wisdom is used 20 times and it's contrasted with foolishness which is used six times the whole section explains why grace church is here and why we accept the wisdom of god revealed in scripture the gospel the good news of the cross and by the way in this text you see the phrase the word of the cross then you see the phrase the wisdom of god and then you see the phrase the testimony of god the word of the cross the wisdom of god and the testimony of god are all the same this is the gospel revealed through scripture now there's a simple way to break this section down and i confess that we're going to touch it somewhat lightly but i think you'll get the main point i said a couple of weeks ago that we understand that non-believers don't believe the bible can't believe the bible have no interest in the bible it's not only unclear to them it's obscure they have no ability to understand it so they don't understand us how we can be so passionately committed to the word of god and love it so much and love obeying it for the sake of the love that we have for the one who died for us and rose again they don't understand it and on the surface i understand why let me give you some reasons why non-christians don't believe the bible okay let's go back to verse 18 of chapter one so the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing foolishness the message first point is unreasonable it's foolishness the greek word is this will sound familiar it's stupid pointless the idea the idea that god the one a true and eternal god became a jewish man lived in israel was rejected by his people crucified by the romans rose from the dead and is the world's only savior was unreasonable that's what the early christians were preaching throughout the roman world a crucified jew rejected by his own people and rejected by the the romans and executed as a common criminal is the eternal god and the savior of the world that's just unreasonable it's foolishness how do you convince somebody of that put yourself in the position of a believer in the first century going into the gentile world and saying i want to tell you about a man named jesus who is god incarnate born in absolute obscurity in a manger laid lived in a nondescript town called nazareth was totally rejected by his own nation as a tre as a false messiah handed over the romans and executed and he's the eternal god only savior and he is going to reign over the earth and his kingdom forever this is moronic its message is unreasonable look at verse 19. its truth is also unattainable verse 19 for it is written i will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever i will set aside where is the wise man where is the scribe where is the debater of this age has not god made foolish the wisdom of the world then this important verse for since in the wisdom of god the world through its wisdom did not come to know god god was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe now let me just give you an overview of that it's verse 19 where we start and that's a quote from isaiah 29 14. isaiah had said when sennacherib the assyrian king was threatening the southern kingdom of judah isaiah said deliverance will come for judah but that deliverance will not come by the wisdom of the leaders it will not come by the wisdom of the sages of judah it will not come because of their strength or because of their cunning or because of their craftiness but god by his wisdom would save judah from sennacherib and paul borrows that i will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever i will set aside it's god who delivers and depart from god delivering there is no deliverance you can't come from the wise men look at verse 20. this is also alluding to a couple of passages in isaiah where is the wise man where is the scribe where is the debater of this age has not god made foolish the wisdom of the world take all the supposed wise counsellors of israel and they were fools all the wise counselors of judaism they were fools all the wise counselors of any nation any people at any level and they are fools which is to say that as smart and wise as they may think they are like romans one professing to be wise they're foolish they cannot attain to the truth that is what verse 21 then sums up in the wisdom of god the world through its wisdom did not come to know god you can't get to god through human wisdom so i say again we understand we understand the word of the cross the gospel is unattainable it is unreasonable and unattainable you can't get there on your own and then thirdly the apostle paul says its claims are actually unattractive they're actually unattractive they aren't what people are looking for look at verse 22 for indeed jews ask for signs and greeks search for wisdom but we preach christ crucified to jews the stumbling block and to gentiles foolishness you see the verb ask and the verb search the jews are seeking for a sign luke 11 16 show us a sign from heaven they said they wanted a big sign they wanted i think a sign in the sky a sign that jesus was their messiah that he had come to fulfill the messianic promise and that he would conquer all of israel's enemies and establish his glorious kingdom in jerusalem and israel would be elevated in matthew chapter 12 jesus confronted this desire for a sign matthew chapter 12 verse 38 some of the scribes and pharisees said to him teacher we want to see a sign from you he answered and said to them an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of jonah the prophet for just as jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth jesus said you want to sign i'm going to be buried but only for three days you want a sign i'll give you a sign the sign will be the resurrection they wanted a sign they gotta sign the resurrection when they went to the tomb it was what it was empty the grave clothes were lying where they would have been when they were wrapped around his body the stone was rolled away were eyewitnesses the women saw him the apostles then saw him and he was with them for 40 days and then the holy spirit came and the church was established on the basis of the death and resurrection of the redeemer jesus christ in spite of that the jews rejected and when the apostles in the book of acts went out to preach the resurrection they put them in jail the jews wanted a sign they wanted a different sign than they got because there was nothing in them there was no faculty in them that could believe it was too contrary to what their expectations were on the other hand the greeks search for wisdom that's a simple phrase but if you go back and look at greek philosophy you find that it is rather intricate complicated profound oratory was a big part of it putting people through sort of mental mazes with your airy addition esoteric kind of concepts were what appealed to the greeks and they laughed at a god who was crucified by the romans the whole thing was utterly ridiculous to the jews and the greeks so there are some barriers here the gospel the word of the cross is unreasonable it is unattainable it is beyond their ability to process that is because they don't get what they want it doesn't give them what they want the jews wanted a sign the greeks wanted wisdom jesus offered a sign his resurrection and he offered wisdom about sin and repentance and salvation not a message they cared to hear this is all compounded further because the people are also unremarkable if you had a message like this so hard to sell might help to put it in the hands of famous people i think sometimes christians assume that that if we could just have famous people affirming christ this would this would get past the resistance but that's not what god designed verse 23 we preach christ crucified to jesus tumbling block the gentiles foolishness verse 25 the foolishness of god is why the wiser than men and the weakness of god is stronger than men so how do we overcome this look at verse 26 to 28 for consider your calling brethren but there were not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble but god has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and god has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised god has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are not many three times not many not many not many here's the problem the people who are proclaiming the gospel are unremarkable the majority of believers are unimpressive i remember being on larry king one night with deepak chopra and he was he was denouncing what i was saying and he said of course you wouldn't understand that that depth of insight which i have he said to me and i said well actually i wrote a book dealing with that and i said i would be happy to give it to you this is a quote i would never read anything you wrote just share disdain i would never read anything you wrote why because i'm not part of the intellectual elite or the noble look at how paul piles up these statements of insignificance not many wise not many mighty that is powerful influential not many noble that means high born literally high social rank and then he goes on to say in verse 27 that god has chosen the foolish the uneducated the morons to shame the wise and god has chosen the weak the uninfluential and then he goes even deeper verse 28 and the base things ah low born insignificant and then he goes even lower the despised that is to be the verb it means to be considered as next to nothing so we're not wise we're not powerful we are foolish we are weak we are low low-born insignificant people who are to be considered as next to nothing and he ends it up by saying things that are not that's the present participle for the verb to be amy non-existent we don't exist this is the most contemptible expression in the greek language those who don't even exist in the secular world in the unconverted world we don't even exist low lives so god gave us an impossible message to preach to incapable people and we ourselves are nobody while you say there's some pretty effective preachers aren't there there are some of the nobodies are effective in their preaching but look at chapter two verse one when i came to you brother and i didn't come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of god so here's the fifth problem the preachers are unfashionable the preachers are unfashionable and therefore they are essentially unacceptable i didn't come with superiority of speech i didn't come with wisdom rather i determined to know nothing among you except jesus christ and him crucified i was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling and my message my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power they were used to those sophists who had mastered labyrinths of language and paul to them was a low life second corinthians 10 10 he acknowledges that they said his speech was contemptible he lacked the mental sophistication the philosophical complexity the esoteric cleverness persuasive words of wisdom i told our people some months ago that there's an anthology on preaching written by a scholar with seven volumes and he has a section on me in there and uh i think this is so interesting what he said quote macarthur's rhetoric is terribly out of date but maybe he knows something the rest of us don't he goes on to say why do so many people listen to macarthur this product of all the wrong schools how can he pack out a church on sunday morning in an age in which church attendance has seriously lagged here is a preacher who has nothing in the way of a winning personality good looks or charmed he's not finished here is a preacher who offers us nothing in the way of sophisticated homiletical packaging no one would suggest that he's a master of the art of oratory what he seems to have is a witness to true authority he recognizes in scripture the word of god and when he preaches it is scripture that one hears it's not that the words of john macarthur are so interesting as it is that the word of god is of surpassing interest that's why one listens i like the part about no winning personality good looks or charm actually but he is saying what what paul is saying isn't he the message is offensive and the preacher is utterly insignificant the fallen mind can't get past all this man's wisdom admittedly can do some amazing things science technology genetics medicine industry arts culture all kinds of things man's wisdom will not get him to god the gospel is not available it's not available this wisdom is too high it's in another sphere it's in another dimension

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Keywords: woship, jesus, jesus christ, Jesus, God, Trinity, preaching, expository preaching, Bible, Old Testament, New TEstament, Gospel, salvation, evangelical, Holy Spirit, hymns, sermons, church, peaceful protest, john macarthur peaceful protest, john macarthur sermon, john macarthur preaching, john macarthur grace church, grace community church, john macarthur protest, gospel, wisdom, God's wisdom, depravity, apostle paul, 2 corinthians, acts

Id: XVJgTpdqEFs

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020