Now, for our heart's blessing this morning, our
brother Dr. Carl Armadale from Dallas.
Carl Armadale.
For our meditation this morning, I'm asking you
to turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 1.
1 Corinthians, chapter 1, and beginning at verse
18, For the preaching, or the word, of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
But unto us which are saved, it is
the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world?
For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the
Greeks seek after wisdom.
But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews
a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which 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.
For you see your calling, brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble are called.
But God hath chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise.
And God hath chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things that are
mighty.
And these things of the world, and things
which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to naught
things that are.
That no flesh should glory in his presence.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto you wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
That according as it is written, he that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Yesterday morning in looking at the eleventh chapter
of Matthew, we noted that our Lord on
that occasion turned to his Father and said,
Father, I thank thee that thou hast hid
these things from the wise and the prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
in thy sight.
In the light of that text, I've been
interested in reading through the word of God
to see how simple and direct God's statements
are.
You don't have to guess at the meaning
of so many of the great texts of
the Bible.
Who has ever been baffled by looking at
John 3, 16?
You quote this verse to somebody and it's
just as plain as day, there it is.
That God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whoso believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
The person looks at that text in any
language that you're pleased to quote it, and
it comes to you with all of its
simplicity, directness, and power.
But in this letter to the Corinthians, Paul
is dealing with people who are accustomed to
philosophical dissertations.
They were noted for this very thing, as
you read here in this 22nd verse of
our chapter.
For the Jews require a sign, and the
Greeks, and of course these Corinthians were Greeks,
they seek after wisdom.
You notice this is just what characterized them
as a people.
So when the Apostle Paul came along there
with the gospel, this sounded like a lot
of nonsense to them.
But you know as he writes this letter
here, beginning at verse 18, where we began
reading this morning, he uses a word for
preaching there.
I don't think it's translated preaching anywhere else
in the New Testament.
But it's the very Greek word from which
we get our word logic.
It's the Greek word logos from which we
get the word logic.
And so this morning I would just like
to use this as sort of a basis.
Instead of saying the preaching, or as Mr.
Darby translates it, the word of the cross,
let's think of it as the logic of
the cross.
The logic of the cross is to them
that perish foolishness.
And you can see how that would be.
You come to them and you present to
them a Savior who never did a thing
wrong, who is absolutely sinless and perfect.
And yet he is condemned to die upon
a cross.
Unless you should think that this is altogether
just a mistake on the part of men.
Or as St. Peter puts it, I want
that through ignorance you did it, as did
also your fathers.
But he also reminds them that this was
all in the plan of God.
That this was God's plan for saving men.
To send his beloved Son, absolutely perfect, holy,
spotless, sinless, to die in the place of
sinful men.
That sounds like a lot of nonsense to
the worldly wise.
And this is why as the apostle says
here in this 18th verse, the logic, or
the word of the cross, is to them
that perish foolishness.
But you know when you take something like
this and it does something to you, you
are convinced immediately of its power.
And those of us who have known the
Lord Jesus for a few years, we're here
to say whatever it is, I can't explain
it, but it certainly did something not only
to me, but for me.
Take for instance those who have lived a
life of terrible sin, who plunged down deep
into it.
Then one day the gospel of God's grace
reached their hearts and transformed them.
I was just talking to a young fellow,
he came to our mission, the Central American
mission with which I am connected in Dallas.
He and his dear wife applied for membership
in the mission to work in Mexico.
And each one who makes application in this
way has not only to give us evidence
of the fact that they have been born
again, that they have some reason for believing
that God has called them to this work
of spreading the gospel in Central America, but
they have to give us an autobiography.
That is, they have to tell us a
little story of their life.
And when I read this man's autobiography, Bob
Hutchins, telling me that as a young boy
of 17, mind you a teenager right in
the middle of his teenage years, 17, he
was already a drunkard, an adult fiend on
marijuana and even stronger than this, went on
to heroin, LSD, what have you, had it
all.
Plunged down deep into everything and yet a
brilliant mind.
At 20 years of age he owned his
own business and it was prosperous.
Indeed it was the very prosperity of his
business, it was his ruination morally.
And his wife was one with him in
it.
She was 16 and he was 17 when
they got married.
And here they were living it up.
And then the gospel of God's grace got
a hold of her.
And from that moment on, of course, she
was greatly concerned about her husband, Bob.
When she first presented the gospel to him,
he used exactly the language we've been using
here this morning when he said, That's nothing
but nonsense.
Don't let anybody fool you with that rock.
But you know, as he watched her life,
she went off the drugs, she went off
the drinks, and she appeared to be much
happier than she ever was when she used
all of these things.
He was convinced.
He said, There must be something to this.
And sure enough, he tried it for himself.
He came to the Lord Jesus.
And I don't know when I've ever seen
a more radiant soul than Bob Hutchins and
his wife.
Both of them soundly converted.
A living proof of the fact that that
which is foolishness to men is to us
who are saved, it's the power of God.
You know, dear friends, this is one of
those incontrovertible things.
This is one of those things against which
no man can argue.
I remember years ago, the late Dr. Ironside
telling a story of how he was preaching
in an open-air meeting in, I think
it was either San Francisco or Oakland, one
of the two cities in the Bay Area.
And in his audience in that open-air
meeting was an atheist who was heckling him.
And finally, Dr. Ironside stopped.
He said, Sir, he said, I challenge you
to bring to this meeting next Sunday afternoon
one person who has been saved from a
life of drunkenness and debauchery through your atheism,
and I'll bring you ten people whom God
has saved from just that kind of a
life through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ
as their personal Savior.
He said, Do you accept the challenge?
The atheist simply turned tail and went.
He had no answer for that.
They don't have any.
And so however clever their arguments may be,
how convincing it may sound sometimes, you've got
the living proof before you, perhaps in your
own case, or perhaps in the case of
some others.
Thank God for those of us who never
knew what it meant to get right down
into the depths of things.
There's a hymn written which I can't truly
sing.
All my life was wrecked through sin and
strife.
Mine wasn't.
And yet I was a sinner lost in
my sins.
But I couldn't say that my life was
wrecked through sin and strife because I was
born and brought up in a Christian home.
My dear parents lived Christ before me, and
they preserved me from many of the things
that others have plunged into and for which
they regret and will live to regret the
rest of their days.
Thank God I was preserved from all of
that.
In fact, one of the reasons was that
as a young lad, I wasn't able to
enter into these things because of sickness and
so on.
In fact, nobody expected me to live beyond
my twenties.
But God in his marvelous grace reached down
and showed me that underneath this exterior there
was a heart that was just as wicked
as any other, for as in water face
answers to face, so the heart of man
to man.
And I needed to be saved just like
that drunkard down in the Pacific Garden Mission
or wherever he is.
But these are demonstrations of the power of
God.
Again, I come back to this, dear friends,
that Paul was here writing to a people
who had had the benefit of these great
schools of philosophy to which we referred yesterday
morning.
To them, the word Epicurus or Epicureanism, these
were by words.
They knew them.
They knew how to explain the philosophy of
Epicurus and the philosophy of the Stoics of
which you read in the book of the
Acts.
Those of us who read that today, we
need a dictionary to tell us just what
does it mean by the Epicureans and the
Stoics.
But they didn't need any dictionary.
You mentioned the name of Socrates to them
and Aristotle and Plato.
They knew exactly what these men taught.
They knew their philosophies.
And some of these philosophies are still being
taught in the schools of today.
The philosophy of Aristotle has had a vogue
for many, many years.
And a thoroughgoing theologian these days doesn't consider
himself fully prepared unless he's had a few
courses in philosophy.
And I suppose some of you who are
still going to school, perhaps in college, taking
a course in philosophy, you'll be introduced as
I was introduced to these things in college
when they began by presenting certain problems to
us.
The problem of evil.
How do you reason this out?
The problem of God.
I remember when the professor announced that we're
going to speak tomorrow morning about the problem
of God.
I went to him and I said, Sir,
God's no problem to me.
I'm sure I must be to him.
But he's no problem to me.
You see, God has made foolish the wisdom
of this world.
See, a very poignant history that we were
talking about yesterday morning.
Our blessed Lord Jesus came into the world
and thanked his Father that he had hid
these things in the wise and prudent and
had revealed them unto me.
Even so.
And then used that simple language that we
were talking about yesterday when he said, Come
unto me all ye that labor and are
heavy laden and I will give you rest.
And so the apostle here goes down the
list.
In this chapter here, as we've already said,
the Jews seek after a sign.
That's what characterized them.
They had to have signs.
The Greeks seek after wisdom.
Wisdom.
But he says in verse 23, But we
preach Christ's truth, and unto the Greeks foolishness.
How was Christ's stumbling?
Ignoring the fact altogether that he was to
be born of a virgin, that he was
to be born in the humble little village
of Bethlehem.
And as we'll be hearing in the readings
on...
And all three of these things converging over
one blessed person at one particular time, in
one particular place, giving us incontrovertible proof that
this is he of whom the scripture speaks.
And yet, the Jew not seeing in Christ
the fulfillment of those Old Testament scriptures, the
blessed Lord who was born a helpless babe
in Bethlehem's manger, was a stumbling block to
him.
And of course to the Greeks who looked
for some great worldly wise person to see
an infant lying in his mother's arms, this
to him was utter foolishness.
But the apostle says here, verse 24, But
unto them which are called...
Yes, God calls.
And how wonderful it is to hear his
voice when he calls.
But to them who are called, both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God and
the wisdom of God.
Two wonderful things brought together.
Never divorced in the person of our Lord
Jesus.
Sometimes we see power in the hands of
a man these days, but not much wisdom.
And again we see a man who perhaps
is noted for his wisdom, but not much
power.
But here is a wonderful combination in the
person of our Lord Jesus Christ, who not
only has all power, indeed it was on
the basis of this that he gave what
we generally call the Great Commission.
When he says, All power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth.
So ye therefore make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and
preaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even
to the end of the age.
Christ the power of God and Christ the
wisdom of God.
The one who offers us wisdom.
He says, Come unto me and you can
buy it without money and without price.
Answering the question of the 25th chapter of
the book of Job, where is the place
of wisdom to be found?
It's found in a person, in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
But now sometimes the thing that stumbles people
is the kind of people that God saves.
And this is the question that the Apostle
Paul takes up next here.
You'll notice in verse 26, oh I mustn't
pass over verse 25, because it has some
startling statements in it, when it talks about
the foolishness of God and the weakness of
God.
You know, these are expressions taken out of
context which sound most irreverent if not sacrilegious
to use them of God.
But here the Holy Spirit is giving these
words to the Apostle Paul.
And of course, what we see in this
verse is that what looks like foolishness to
you and me is wiser than men.
And what looks like weakness, and our Lord
was crucified through weakness, as we learn elsewhere
in this same epistle.
Crucified through weakness.
Look at Him hanging upon the cross between
two thieves.
Absolutely helpless.
Nailed to a cross.
But the weakness of God is stronger than
men.
And we've got the evidence.
Now, He wants the living proof of it.
And this is what we're going to take
up now for the next few minutes of
our hour this morning.
The living proof.
You know, you can argue about the gospel,
how wonderful it all is.
But now we're going to look at some
of the results.
And this, the Apostle brings forward here in
the 26th verse, when he says, You see
your calling, brethren.
And what does he say?
Oh, he's almost talking about this conference at
Britain.
There are not many wise men after the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are
called.
I understand there was a lady of noble
birth in the old country who thanked God
for the letter M.
She was thankful it didn't say not any
noble.
Because she was of noble birth.
But she also had to take up a
place as a poor, lost, ruined sinner.
But you notice this is not many.
There are a few.
Yes, we read about them in the book
of the Acts.
And we see some of them in high
places these days.
We like to think, we like to think
that our present president is a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
At least I would take that charitable view
in spite of some things that have been
said against him, the Lord Jesus.
Although his close personal friend, Billy Graham, has
never affirmed this to me.
But I noticed that Billy Graham did come
out boldly and say that he believed he'd
meet General Eisenhower in heaven.
So these are things which give us courage.
And the fact that the man would plan
a worship service in a thing to do
in a day like this, we thank God
for that.
God for every evidence of the fear of
God which we see among those who are
in high places today.
But you know the most of us are
in this same category of which we read
here, not many noble, not many wise.
And it was God who did the choosing.
He didn't have these things pushed off on
him.
The Lord did the choosing.
That's what the apostle talks about here in
verse 27.
He says, God has chosen me.
Gives you a reason for choosing.
And incidentally I might just point out that
the word here translated chosen is basically the
same word that you have elsewhere in the
Bible, elect.
You know this is a word that some
people are afraid of.
I remember when I was a teacher at
the Moody Bible Institute some years ago.
I had in my class a young man
who came up to me after one of
the lectures and he said, Sir, if I
have to listen to any more of this
election stuff, I'm not coming back to this
class.
I looked at him for a moment.
I said, Just a moment, please.
I said, Is election in the Bible or
is it not?
Well, he says, I have to admit it's
in the Bible.
Well, I said, Then I strongly object to
you referring to it as stuff.
I said, To me this is one of
the most precious doctrines in the book.
And I said, Oh, I hope God will
forgive you for referring to it in this
disrespectful way as this election stuff.
Well, he stood there rebuked.
I said, You don't like the doctrine of
election?
He said, No.
I said, Why don't you like it?
Well, he said, It doesn't leave anything for
me to do.
Well, I said, That may be a moot
question.
As far as election is concerned, no, it
doesn't.
But I said, Are you married?
He said, Yes.
What's that got to do with election?
I said, You say you are married?
He said, Yes.
I said, Who proposed, you or your wife?
He said, I'll have you understand I was
not married in leap year.
I said, Well now, you mean by that
that you did the choosing?
Yes, you did the choosing.
I said, You didn't consult her or her
parents had time?
You just simply said to her, to yourself,
Maybe I'm speaking out of personage first.
But that's all.
You got your eye on her, but she's
hard to get.
She makes herself hard.
If they only knew how much more attractive
they are when they make themselves hard to
get.
He said,
So you deny God?
I said, Yes, but she didn't.
And I thank God I didn't say no.
When he came and proposed to me, with
the same hand that spread the feast that
gently else I had still refused to taste
and perished in my sin.
Back to class.
A lady came to me in Florida some
years ago, greatly troubled in soul, I'm referring
to.
I'd like to have a little talk.
What do you think would constitute the elect?
Oh, she said, They'd have to be a
lot better than I am.
As we say down in the Southland, she
was to the man of all.
Every movement, every about the elect.
I sat down here to verse 27.
And I explained to her that the word
elect here, God has elected the foolish things
of the world.
Her silence and where it says, And God
has chosen the things which are my things.
In other words, that lady, thinking
about the elect, thought the elect were some
choice individuals who had made a great name
for themselves in the world.
And he took them.
And instead of that, you read in this
picture here about people that are foolish, people
that are weak, people that are despised and
base things of the world.
And how many of us qualify here, don't
we?
Yes, we all qualify.
We'd only admit it.
Aren't you glad?
Oh, I'm so glad when I think of
this.
Because there was no promise in the home
in which I was born, apart from the
fact that my dear parents were both Christians,
but they had a large family of ten.
We didn't know anything about having two cars
and a boat and maybe a private airplane.
My dear friends, that which is much more
precious than anything we could mention here.
The apostle here goes on to, first of
all, to say why God did this, that
no flesh should be gloated.
That you or I got there because we
had the least right to be there.
But, verse 30, to show that we've got
everything in Christ.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom.
And I agree with the translators who think
that the next three words, righteousness, sanctification and
redemption, are parts of that wisdom.
So that the text could read, who of
God is made unto us wisdom, even righteousness,
and how we need it is.
Without it we'd have no standing in his
presence whatever.
But you and I who are ungodly, he
has justified us, cleared us of every charge
of guilt, and imputed righteousness to us, as
we read in the fourth chapter of the
Epistle to the Romans.
Yes.
Christ is righteousness to us.
And thank God for this.
And on the page where nothing but my
sins could stand before, everything blotted out, and
the righteousness of God in Christ put to
my account.
Oh, what peace.
Therefore being justified by faith we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wonderful.
This I have in Christ.
Then the second word, sanctification.
And don't be afraid of it because of
the misuse of it in these days.
Don't be afraid of the word sanctification.
It means simply this.
One who is set apart for God.
And surely God has a right to set
apart those whom he has saved in such
a manner so that we're his and only
his.
Set apart to him.
Oh, if we realize this in our spiritual
lives, dear friends, there'd be less problems if
I realized that I'm not my own, I
belong to another.
And set apart to him.
And then the third great word here, redemption.
Looking on to the day when this very
body of mine is going to share in
the fruits of Calvary and I'm going to
have a body likened to his own body
of glory.
What a wonderful thing it is to be
a Christian.
Am I speaking to somebody this morning who
perhaps is only a Christian in name but
you've never been born again?
You don't know what it is to have
a personal faith in the Lord Jesus?
As your Savior?
Look at what you're missing.
Just look at what you're missing.
We who are saved this morning, we who
are called this morning, we who are chosen
by God's grace this morning, who have responded
to this call, look at what we've got
in Christ.
In him we have not only wisdom personified,
but all these things go with the righteousness.
Nothing can be laid to the charge of
God-delayed.
Sanctification set apart for him.
And looking on to that day of complete
redemption.
Yes?
This is what it means to be a
Christian.
And dear friends, coming back to our original
thought this morning, we'd just like to emphasize
this, that God reveals this to people for
simple enough to believe it.
He reveals these things unto babes.
As we were pointing out yesterday, that term
is not one of reproach.
It is one that indicates that these people
are unspoiled by the wisdom and philosophy of
this world.
They're willing to take God at his word.
And dear friends, I'm here to bear witness
this morning, after 65 years of being a
child of God, for I too was saved
as a teenager.
And after 65 years, I know of nothing
that brings me greater comfort and peace in
my life than simply to take God at
his word.
Oh, may God, by his Holy Spirit, take
us from this conference if we're spared to
go.
Take us back to our homes, our local
assemblies, as those who are going to communicate
to troubled hearts, perhaps our own among them,
the joy of simply taking God at his
word.
When God says something to believe it, when
I went to the mission field as a
young man in my twenties, just turned twenty,
when I went to the mission field, and
my dear father saw me off at the
wharf in New York City.
He said, Son, I'm sorry I haven't got
a sum of money to give you to
relieve your financial anxiety for at least a
year, but I can hand on to you
something that's been a great blessing to me.
And he named the number of years that
he'd been a Christian.
He says, I've found God to be absolutely
reliable.
Friends, how that stood me in days of
trial.
I've found God to be absolutely reliable.
Oh, thou blessed Son of God, thou
is willing to pick up those who are
so worried.