THE KING’S BUSINESS
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“weak,” and “despised” is “that no flesh would glory before God.” If we had any wisdom or strength of our own and should see we would take all the credit to ourselves but being “weak” and “foolish” and “despised” as we are, if anything is done, it is evident that it must be God and not we that does it, and so God gets all the glory. Monday, Sept. 24 . l Cor. 1 : 30 , 31 . While we are nothing in ourselves, in “Christ Jesus,” we are “of Him” that is of God. It matters not how much we lack in ouselves. Christ is everything we need; in ourselves. Christ to be unto us “wis dom from God and righteousness and sanc tification and redemption.” While we have no wisdom of our own, there is infinite wisdom in Jesus Christ (cf. Col. 2:3, 9, 10), and this infinite wisdom is all for us. While we have no righteousness of our own, God’s own righteousness is provided for us in Jesus Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 5:1; Phil. 3:9 R. V.), and in Christ, we have sanctification, that is, in Him, we are separated from the world unto God from sin unto holiness; and in Christ we have redemption, that is, in Him, we are redeemed from sin and all its consequences. There is everything we need in Jesus Christ; we get it all by simply accepting Him as our Saviour and surrendering to Him as our Lord. We have nothing out side of Him; we have everything in Him. There is then no room left for glorying in ourselves, either in anything we are or any thing we have done; all our glorying must Paul depended upon neither rhetorical or philosophical argument to convict or convert men; he came to the Corinthians' “not with excellency of speech, or of wis dom,” when he proclaimed unto them the ministry of God. Paul would not be a very acceptable preacher in many of our modern pulpits for “excellency of speech” and “wisdom” is exactly what a man be “in the Lord.” Tuesday, Sept. 23 . 1 Cor. 2 : 1 , 2 .
impotent is all man’s power alongside God’s power, God’s omnipotence: “the foolish ness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. If any man ever says to you that the gos pel of salvation through a Christ who was crucified is foolishness, tell him Yes, it is —to them that are perishing” and tell him also that “while it is foolishness, it is ‘the foolishness of God’ and that the ‘foolish ness of God is wiser than men. Sunday, Sept. 23 . 1 Cor. 1 : 26 - 29 . These words are very wonderful words. To the proud in heart they are full of darkness and doom, but to the humble they are full of light and promise. God chooses just those whom the world rejects. The world rejects the foolish things, God chooses them. The world rejects the weak things, God chooses them. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called; that is the way it was in Paul’s day, and that is the way it is in our day. One noble woman in Englanl who was saved, said, “I am glad it is not written, ‘not any noble are called, then there would be no chance for me, but as it says, ‘not many noble,’ there is a chance for me.” To what end hath God chosen the foolish to confound (to put to shame the wise). God is constantly choosing the foolish to put to shame the wise; Bible history is full of instances of that (Acts 4:13; John 7:15, 16), and mod ern history is just as full of it. How often God passes over the learned, scholarly preacher and uses some illiterate, simple m an of God. It is well that it is so; if God only chose the wise, there would be no chance for most of us, but as he chooses the foolish and the weak, there is a chance for us all,' for we can all be foolish and weak, but few of us can be wise and strong. But God not only chooses the foolish things and the weak things but even “the things that are despised. Let us be willing then and glad to be “despised,” for then God can use us. God’s purpose in thus choosing the foolish,
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