The Foolishness of God, Part 1 B

Human wisdom is one, earthly.

That is, it never gets beyond the earth. It never really understands supernatural reality. It's earthly. Two, sensual. It is based upon human desire and lust.

Three, demonic. Its source is Satan. That's human wisdom. Now that, friends, is set against the wisdom of God. Wouldn't you agree? Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. These days it seems that people trust in science to answer life's questions, or hope that politics will improve the world, or they see education as the path to ultimate fulfillment, or they look inward, believing that some inner voice is the best guide in life. The result? Human wisdom is elevated, and God's wisdom is considered foolish. So how can you be sure you're trusting in God's wisdom and not worldly wisdom? John MacArthur answers that question today as he continues his look at the foolishness of God.

And now here's John. If you will take your Bible and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. The book of 1 Corinthians is divided basically into Paul's discussion of the various problems that existed in the Corinthian church. The entire book, beginning in verse 10 of chapter 1 and going into chapter 16, deals with the areas of problems in the assembly. But the first problem that confronted the apostle, as he wrote, was the problem of division. Now as we come to chapter 1 verse 18, Paul is continuing to deal with this problem of division in the church. We're going to be looking at chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 2 verse 8 as a unit. This, I think, is one of the greatest sections in all of scripture because it gives a contrast.

Now mark this. It gives a contrast between the foolishness of men, which they think is wisdom, and the wisdom of God, which they think is foolishness. It contrasts human wisdom with divine wisdom. From verse 19 through chapter 2 verse 8, Paul gives five reasons why he considers God's wisdom superior to man's.

Now these are really good. Five reasons why Paul considers God's wisdom to be superior to man's wisdom. Reason number one, God's wisdom is permanent. It's permanence, verses 19 and 20.

Now this is most interesting. Here Paul uses an Old Testament passage to show that man's wisdom will be swept away, that it is very temporary. Look at verse 19. And Paul quotes Isaiah 29 14. For it is written, and it is in Isaiah 29 14, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Now that's Isaiah 29 14. Now let me hasten to help you to interpret that.

That can have a very general element of fulfillment. There is coming a day when all of the philosophies of man will be swept away, right? Christ will reign as King of King.

When all of man's wisdom becomes ashes, the tribulation period as we study it in the book of Revelation is the disintegration of all of man's wisdom. But it has more than just the future fulfillment. It had a very interesting meaning at the time that it was given.

Like so many prophecies, it has an immediate fulfillment and a future fulfillment. This is what was going on when Isaiah said that. There was a king. His name was Sennacherib.

And you may have heard of him. He was a very mighty king. And he was king over a nation called Assyria. And they wanted to conquer Judah, the land of Israel. And so they decided to attack Judah. God, through the prophet Isaiah, says to Judah, don't worry.

Deliverance will come. Sennacherib will fail in his conquering. But, God said, it won't be because of your wise men. It won't be the strategy of the political advisors to King Hezekiah, who was the king of Israel at the time, or the king of Judah. It won't be because of the political cunning and the secret trickery of these wise advisors.

Nope. You're not going to escape the hand of the Assyrians because of your wisdom. God says, I will do it myself because I want to demonstrate to you the impotence and the impermanence of human wisdom. When all of your wisdom is run the gamut, I'll just destroy it all.

I'll put it down to nothing. And by myself, I will do what all your wisdom couldn't do. Wow. That's quite a promise. Sennacherib had a huge army. Say, if God's going to deal with Sennacherib, boy, he's going to really have to get it together. He did. You know what he did? He just called over one angel.

That's right. One angel. You say, what happened? Oh, I'll read it to you.

What happened? All those wise people in Israel. Oh, all those political advisors had all the strategy.

So smart. All the hosts of the army of Israel. God says, come here, angel. The angel of the Lord went forth.

That's him by himself. And he smote in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000. One angel slew 185,000. And then this is kind of interesting. He says, and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were dead.

Terrific. They woke up and found out they were dead. No.

Some arose and found the 185,000 were dead. Now listen, you know what that says about angels? I think you do. Don't mess with them. What all of the political advisors of Israel couldn't do, what all of the wisdom and knowledge and acumen of the best of the people couldn't come up with, God did with one angel. And He says, I'll just wipe your wisdom out.

I don't need it. God always did tell Israel, I'll fight for you. You know, we have the wrong idea. You know, we want to solve everything by our own ingenuity rather than let God do it. So Paul uses that passage, and it's a fantastic thing. Oh, by the way, not only that, but later on Sennacherib went back and dwelled at Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria. And it came to pass as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god that Adrammelek and Cheriezer his son smote him with a sword, escaped into the land of Ararat and Esarhad and his son reigned in his stead. So even he was killed by his own children. You see, God didn't need any of the wisdom of Israel.

And that's the point now. Now you go back to 1 Corinthians 1 19. Paul says, look, you know the passage in Isaiah. God never did need human wisdom.

God never did need human understanding. Proverbs puts it this way in 1412, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. You know, there's always people who want to give their opinion.

Well, I think such and such. Well, I think that one of the reasons that a lot of people won't come to the Bible or they won't come to church or they won't study Christianity is because their own philosophy is so shaky anyway that they just don't think it could stand another blow. You know, they'd rather mask themselves, put their head in the sand, and just be buried, keeping their eternal fingers crossed. Listen to Jeremiah 8 9. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken.

Now listen to this. Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them? Listen, if you reject revelation, what wisdom is left?

There isn't any. God has set against worldly wisdom. He has set against worldly philosophy, even the philosophy of Israel, Judah.

He destroys it. Man's wisdom is defined, I think, as well as anywhere in the Bible in James 3 15, in most apt terms. It says this, and maybe you never thought of this definition. Listen to this. This wisdom descends not from above. All right, we know which wisdom it is, right? It's not God's wisdom, it's man's. It doesn't come from above. It's just plain old man's wisdom.

Now listen. It is earthly, sensual, and demonic. Human wisdom is one, earthly.

That is, it never gets beyond the earth. It never really understands supernatural reality. It's earthly. Two, sensual. It is based upon human desire and lust.

Three, demonic, its source of Satan. That's human wisdom. Now that, friends, is set against the wisdom of God.

Wouldn't you agree? That's James 3 15. So, he says, it's written.

It's impermanent. God's wisdom is permanent. Verse 20, he asks some questions.

Really, it's one question with three parts. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Where are all the smart people going to solve all the problems? Aren't we all yelling about that now? You know, we've talked so much about how great education is and how we've educated ourselves into problems that we can't solve. Of course, we never could solve them. You know, human wisdom never solved anything.

All of our education never really solved anything. You say, wait a minute. Wait a minute. We used to be living in the boondocks out there in the bush and now we're in cities and homes.

That's right. And we're just as rotten here as we were there. And we haven't changed. We're just more comfortable. You know, our immorality isn't committed out in the woods.

It's committed in fancy hotels. Isn't any different? We just made our sinning a little more accommodated. Human wisdom throughout a history, the history of man, has never solved any real problem. Never. It just makes us more comfortable with our problems.

That's all. And so God says, where are the wise people? Where are all these wise people? And He quotes here Isaiah 19, 12. And it's most interesting because in Isaiah 19, God was talking to Egypt. He says, Egypt, you've had it.

You've gone after false gods and you've worshiped false gods and you've denied My truth and you're going to be judged. And remember that great prophecy against Egypt that the rivers would dry up and the sea wouldn't give them water anymore and all the reeds would be broken and Memphis would be destroyed, a great city, the capital and all these things? And when that was all done, then Isaiah says, now where are your wise men? Who's going to offer the solution to the destruction of God? The answer is, there aren't any left. And you know what Egypt did?

It says in Isaiah 19, they went after the soothsayers and the mediums and the wizards. You know what answers they had? Zilch. None.

There aren't any answers. Now where are the wise? And then He says the second question, where is the scribe? Where is the scribe?

This is the writer. And in fact, it's Isaiah 33 18 where you find that statement. And it had to do with the Assyrians again. The Assyrians, when they sent their army down, sent scribes along. You know what the scribes were to do? They were to write out all of the things that they took when they took Israel. They were to list all the booty and they were to record all of the tribute that was to be exacted. They were to write down everything that was taken in the victory.

You know what happened? They didn't take a victory. And the scribes had nothing to write. And so Isaiah says, where are the scribes?

There aren't any. Then he says, where is the disputer of this age? And this I don't think has an Old Testament counterpart. The word disputer here is the very Greek word used for arguing about philosophy. Where are your philosophical arguments now? Look, where are the people versed in philosophy? Where are the people versed in literature, the scribes? Where are the people versed in rhetoric? Where are they when you need them? All their wisdom is folly. You know, I get that feeling in the world today, don't you? Who knows any answer?

Any of them. So to make clear the futility and fatality of human wisdom, Paul sarcastically says, where's the wise? Where's the scribe?

Where's the disputer of this age? You tell me, what has human philosophy ever contributed to man? What has it ever done to make him nobler, to make him a better man in his heart?

What has it ever done to lift him up? Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing ever. The wisdom of the world is stupidity when it tries to redeem men, when it tries to transform sinners. It can't do it.

It can't do it. And so, hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? God just made it look foolish. And I'm not knocking ethics, and I'm not knocking kindness and love. I'm just saying, none of these human philosophies, no matter how good they appear on the surface, ever get to the real issue.

That's a man's eternal soul. So God in wisdom allowed learned men of the world to seek by their worldly wisdom the solution to man's misery, to seek by their worldly wisdom the solution to man's suffering. And they saw it. And they had philosophies, and more philosophies, and more philosophies.

And you know what? They never ever came to uncover the secret. They never really got to the end of all human wisdom. They were left without the one thing they needed most, and that was the knowledge of God. They never knew God. Because it was only in God that these things could be found.

Peace, joy, forgiveness, freedom from guilt, meaning the life, eternal hope. And all of human philosophy never met God. That's what Paul says. It all just came out moronic. They thought the cross was stupid.

It was their philosophy that was stupid. So God moves in to do what human wisdom could never do. And that takes us to second point. We'll just look at the first verse of the second poem. Paul says, God's wisdom is superior to men's because of its permanence and secondly its power.

It is able to do what man's wisdom never did. Look at verse 21. For since, the word is since, for since 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.

Now notice this. He says, the world with all of its wisdom never knew God. It never reached the ultimate goal of man to know God. And so since man's wisdom couldn't do it, God did it through the cross. The world of men with all our wisdom.

Just think of it. We have had philosophers and sages for ages. What do they know?

And what have they offered? Wars increase, crime increases, injustice increases, hate, cruelty, problems, mental breakdowns, drugs, alcohol, problems, problems, problems, problems never ever change. We haven't solved any problems. Not with human philosophy. Because men cannot attain salvation, they cannot have a transformed nature, they cannot know God by their own wisdom. Even religion doesn't make it. All the philosophy of the world comes up bankrupt. Now God says, it shall please me to do with something as basic and silly and stupid and moronic in their sight as the death on the cross to accomplish what they couldn't accomplish with the complexities of their philosophies throughout the ages. Isn't that beautiful?

Simple. Chapter 3, verse 18 says the same thing, let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this age, you think you really got your philosophy, let him become a fool that he may be wise.

You better come down to the level of the cross. You better really come off your high horse that you may truly be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. He takes the wise in their own craftiness. The next verse says, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise. They are vanity. Now you'll notice this interesting phrase at the beginning of verse 21.

What does it say? Since in the wisdom of God, the world. In other words, that this is the wise plan of God, that He allowed the world to go on in its own wisdom.

In the wisdom of God, He permitted the world to follow its own path. Man exists surrounded by the wisdom of God. And in the midst of the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom what?

Knew not God. Here we are surrounded by God's wisdom and ignorant of it. To me, that's Romans 1. That which may be known of God is in them, right?

And it's around them. The invisible things of God can be seen by the creation. But man did not like to retain God in their knowledge.

They turned from God, turned His truth into a lie, worshiped the creature more than the Creator, began to worship images. Here is man surrounded by the wisdom of God. Every time he looks at a mountain, every time he looks at his hand, he sees the wisdom of God, the stars. At the intricacies of nature, he sees God's wisdom. And he applies his own wisdom, rejects God's wisdom, and never knows God.

You think about it. The astronomer looks through his telescope and sees stars, but no God. The natural scientist studies his biology and his botany and whatever else, and he comes up with evolution without a source.

Religion creates a God who is no God and bows to the no God. You know, it's like the Greeks. Just sum it up. The Greek philosophy was centered in one great city. What was that city? Athens. The pinnacle of Athens was the Areopagus. Great Mars Hill. Paul walks up the Mars Hill where all the Greek philosophers gathered. There was a great altar there.

He walked up to it. This is what it said. To the unknown God.

Isn't that interesting? With everything that they knew, the one thing they didn't know, was the one thing that was the most obvious. God. In the midst of the wisdom of God, verse 21, the world by its own wisdom did not know God.

They applied the wrong thing. Instead of accepting revelation, they took their own wisdom and they didn't know God. Human wisdom doesn't make it.

Oh, I love this part. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. You see, God really, God just, that to me is the greatest possible blow against all the complexity of human wisdom. God just did something so simple and by the very simplest thing that God did, he accomplished what all of the philosophers and wise men of the ages never could do.

Now that puts it in perspective, doesn't it? The wisest of the wise men are stupid compared to the simplest of a wise God. The foolishness of preaching, the stupidity of kurugmatos. Now notice the word preaching.

That's a poor translation. It isn't the word euangelidzo to preach the gospel in the Greek. It isn't the word keruso to proclaim.

It is the word kurugmatos. It has nothing to do with the act of preaching but it is the content of the message, the kurigma, the message, the content. What it's saying is this. It pleased God by the stupidity of the gospel, the content of the cross to save them that believe. Preaching isn't the idea that preaching is foolish. Some preaching is foolish.

I would agree with that but that's not the point. The point here is the foolishness of the gospel itself, something so silly, something so low, something so uncomplicated, something so distasteful to the Jews a stumbling block. It's foolish but it was that foolish thing, that simple thing.

Jesus dying on a cross. You don't have to be smart. You just have to do what? Does it say at the end of verse 21? To save them that are intellects.

Is that what it says? Save them and have a PhD. Save them that are wise. Save them that what? Believe.

I'm so glad, aren't you? Wouldn't it be awful if only smart people got saved? God didn't save us because we were so smart.

He made it so simple. It doesn't matter how smart we are. We just need to believe. No, faith appropriates what God has done. That's why you can have a guy who's a college professor, guy who's a medical doctor, guy over here who works with his hands, somebody over here who maybe is somewhat retarded mentally and they're all meeting together and sharing together in the same common life and praying together the same God and experiencing the same fellowship and the same salvation because it has nothing to do with intellect.

You just need to look at verse 26. You look around you, brethren, how that not many wise men, not many mighty, and not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things. That's us.

Really. Have you ever said, oh, if only so-and-so would be a Christian. Oh, we can only win so-and-so. There are not many wise, there are not many mighty, and there are not many noble.

Most of us are just plain old common folk. And you know what? God did that purposely to stand as a rebuke for all time against human wisdom. God never needed it in the past. He doesn't need it now. All they need is the cross, and those who believe in the cross are saved.

That's all it takes. That's the message of salvation. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and he calls his current study the foolishness of God. John, somebody might hear that title, the foolishness of God, and think, well, that sounds blasphemous.

But that's a biblical expression, and I love this passage that you're talking about, because this was the first passage that ever convicted me of my own sin. And I would say grasping the point that what seems like foolishness with God is actually wiser than the wisdom of men, that is foundational for any Christian worldview. Well, I think that's brilliantly stated, and I guess the irony of all of that, Phil, is this, that there are so complex philosophies in the world that they're hard to even understand, and there are endless, endless articulations of all kinds of philosophies of being and meaning and time and eternity and destiny and life and death and heaven and hell and right and wrong.

And the complexity of it is beyond comprehension. And yet all of it, in scriptural terms, is folly. All of it is foolishness. It's all foolishness. It's damning foolishness.

It's wrong. And it doesn't matter how sophisticated it is and how highly articulated it is, it is damning falsehood. But on the other hand, you have this not complicated but simple reality of the gospel, that there is one true and living God. He is a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son came into the world to die on a cross, to pay the penalty for the sins of all who would ever believe in him through human history, and that eternal life is given to those who put their trust in the Son and his sacrifice. The simplicity of this is staggering against the complexity and stupidity and damning foolishness of the world's philosophies.

I want to encourage you, you need to understand the Word of God. And though the message and the gospel is simple on its face, there are rich realities tied to it that you couldn't exhaust in your lifetime. We're looking at 1 Corinthians 1, and I would suggest that it would be good for you to get a copy of the commentary that I wrote on 1 Corinthians, the entire book, part of the New Testament commentary series. It deals with all kinds of subjects in 1 Corinthians, and you'll find it a great start for adding commentaries to your life. And it's a 500-page book with a clear explanation of everything in 1 Corinthians. Great resource, and you can order it today. Yes, and friend, commentaries are not just for pastors preparing sermons.

They're for anyone who wants to get the meaning of Scripture right so that God's truth can guide you and correct you and do its transforming work in your life. To order John's commentary on 1 Corinthians, contact us today. To place your order, call toll-free 855-GRACE or log on to our website, gty.org. The 1 Corinthians commentary is affordably priced, and in the MacArthur New Testament commentary series, there are volumes on every book of the New Testament. To order the 1 Corinthians commentary or a volume on a different book, call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. That's our website.

One more time, gty.org. And let me mention an important way that you can support Grace To You. Call this radio station and let them know that you appreciate their commitment to teaching biblical truth to airing programs such as Grace To You. As sound Bible teaching becomes harder to find on radio stations, stations like this one play a vital role in taking the gospel to communities across the United States. So as you're able, encourage them in this crucial work. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John looks at the power of the gospel to save lost sinners. He's continuing his study called The Foolishness of God with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.