THE KING’S BUSINESS
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work of baptizing? God had not only sent Paul to preach the gospel, but to preach it in simplicity—“not with wisdom of words.” How many preachers make such a display of wisdom of words that you quite lose sight of the gospel that they are preaching. The danger is when the gospel is preached “in wisdom of words” that “the cross of Christ” will be made of none-effect (literally, be emptied). How often the cross of Christ is emptied of its power by the ornate rhetoric and the display of philosophic and psychologic knowledge with which it is presented—or rather, under which it is hidden. Friday, Sept. 21 . 1 Cor. 1 : 18 . To men who are perishing, men who are blinded by sin, “the word of the cross” is “foolishness:” it looks perfectly unphilo- sophical and nonsensical to them. How men do ridicule the doctrine of the sub stitutionary atonement. How even men who call themselves Christian theologians reject as utterly unphilosophical and untrue the doctrine of substitution that is found everywhere in the Bible (e.g., Isaiah 53:6; Gal. 3:10-13; 2 Cor. 5:21). The people who so calmly and confidently call them selves “Christian Scientists” utterly repu diate “the word of the cross.” Well, if the doctrine of the cross is foolishness to anyone, it only shows that that one belongs to the class that Paul here describes as “them that are perishing;” not a very good class to belong to. While “the word of the cross is to them that are perishing “foolishness,” “unto us which are saved” it is “the power of God.” We have found it the power of God in our own lives. To others it may appear like “foolishness,” but we have found it in our own personal experience the most blessed, the most glor ious and the most saving truth. What men think of the cross is a test of what men are, “perishing” or “saved”. Which are you as determined by this test? In the olden time God had prophesied that He would “destroy the wisdom of the wise” and that He would “reject the
understanding (or, prudence) of the pru dent (or, understanding)” (Isa. 29:14 cf. Jer. 8:9). In nothing else does this pre diction receive so complete a fulfilment as in the cross of Christ. It is also being fulfilled daily: the wisdom of the philoso pher fails, the boasted discoveries of the scientist are proved untrue and worthless, but in the simple minded, God reveals the path of life (Matt. 11:25). SaturdaySept. 22 . 1 Cor. 1 : 20 . God is constantly making foolish the proud wisdom of this world. The world in all its boasted wisdom knows not .Him Whom it is most important to know— God. Philosophy discovers “the Abso lute” and “the Unknowable” and tries to make a God after that pattern, but such a god is no God and does not satisfy the deep cry of the human heart after a real, personal God. But God “through the fool ishness of the thing preached” (i.e., that which seems foolish to the blind philos opher—“the word of the cross”) saves “them that believe” that which the world calls “foolishness.” This is God’s good pleasure, or delight. Jews “ask for signs” that is, for some miracle to be performed (cf. Matt. 12:38) and Greeks “seek after wisdom,” that is for philosophical reason ing, “but we,” says Paul, “preach Christ crucified.” Can we preachers say what Paul says ? do we really preach “Christ Crucified?” And is that what we wish to hear, we hearers? The preaching of “Christ Crucified” is “unto Jews a stumb ling block,” and it is to many Gentiles also in this day. How very many men stumble at the doctrine of the atonement. On the other hand, the preaching o f-“Christ Cru cified” is “unto Gentiles foolishness.” So it is always to those who are of a philo sophical bent of mind, until their minds are illuminated by being born again. “But unto them that are called,” whether they are Jews or Gentiles, Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” How worthless is all man’s most vaunted wis dom alongside God’s wisdom, and how
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