1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,640 Can I just tell you something? It's hard to start a new church. The Apostle Paul understood 2 00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:15,760 that because he had started a church in Corinth. In fact, he had spent a year and a half of 3 00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:25,320 his life with these people. What happened? He must have wondered what happened? Let's 4 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:33,440 open our Bibles together to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 as we pick up our text in verse 18. 5 00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:38,200 What happened goes back to the context of their lives. Corinth was not a university city, 6 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:44,600 but the Greek influence was very strong there. After all, it was only 48 miles from the city 7 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:51,880 of Athens. And the Greeks love speculation. They loved logic and argumentation. Sort 8 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:58,840 of sounds like your teenager, doesn't it? The Greek influenced Pagan's valued rhetoric 9 00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:08,760 and debate. And they had perhaps 50 different philosophies that they built their lives around, 10 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:15,920 50 different parties or groups that they divided themselves into. Each one of them had their 11 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:23,680 own answers for the significant questions of life. Who am I? Why am I here? What happens 12 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:28,680 after life? Rick Warren, you see, he wasn't around yet to write his book, The Purpose-Driven 13 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:36,720 Life. And so they didn't have the answers to those questions yet. Exploring these questions, 14 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:44,160 they developed sometimes very complex systems of thinking, of outlining the order of society 15 00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:51,080 and the relationships between people. Now, understand that these people were not stupid 16 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:58,680 because they were Pagans and they were Greeks. In fact, many of them were brilliant thinkers, 17 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:07,520 but they were blinded by one fundamental flaw. And that was the flaw that they rejected the 18 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:16,480 knowledge of God. That's what Romans chapter 1 is all about. The spirit and the values 19 00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:24,600 of this Greek Pagan-oriented culture stuck with the Corinthian Christians after they 20 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:31,640 had believed. Now, look, that's almost always true. Until some work of grace is done in 21 00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:38,520 our hearts by the Spirit of God changing our minds, our spirits, we are very much still 22 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:45,880 connected with whatever we were saved out of. Like their Pagan neighbors, these Corinthian 23 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:52,600 Christian converts were prone to pick a favorite preacher or teacher and then divide themselves 24 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:58,520 into factions based upon their choice. You see, that's what they had come out of, these 25 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:07,160 philosophers that they followed. And these people still had an ear for clever words, 26 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:15,240 for sharp arguments of philosophy. And so Paul warns them in verse 17 about mixing the 27 00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:23,260 wisdom of words, talking about human wisdom, mixing the wisdom of words with the revelation 28 00:03:23,260 --> 00:03:31,000 of God and the message of the cross. He says, if you do that, it empties the gospel of its 29 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:39,400 power. If you mix together the wisdom of man with the revelation of God in Christ, he says 30 00:03:39,400 --> 00:03:47,680 it voids, it neutralizes, it nullifies the gospel message. That is true if we mix the 31 00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:54,600 gospel today with positive thinking, or we mix it with the so-called health and wealth 32 00:03:54,600 --> 00:04:03,400 gospel that people like to hear, or we mix the gospel message with the self-help principles. 33 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:12,640 When we do that, it nullifies the gospel. It robs the gospel of its power. As in those 34 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:22,760 days still today, there are two opposing wisdoms, or we might say two opposing worldviews, or 35 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:32,400 two opposing ways of interpreting the world. There's God's way and there's man's way. 36 00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:40,840 The apostle warns here that one's faith must be based upon God's wisdom, not man's wisdom. 37 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:48,340 God's wisdom and man's wisdom cannot coexist. They are mutually exclusive. And if you're 38 00:04:48,340 --> 00:04:53,360 following along in the outline and I encourage you to do that, it always helps to take notes 39 00:04:53,360 --> 00:04:58,160 so that you can go back and reflect and remember, we've come now to the first blank to fill 40 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:08,800 in. God's wisdom and man's wisdom are mutually exclusive. They don't mix. Why is this? Let 41 00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:15,640 me say in the first place, it's because of how the two wisdoms differ in their content. 42 00:05:15,640 --> 00:05:22,240 How they differ in their content. One reason they're mutually exclusive is this, that man 43 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:32,680 is the center of man's wisdom. And who is the center of God's wisdom? Exactly. God is. 44 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:41,880 Human wisdom represents any number of ideations or schemes of thinking that exalt human discovery 45 00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:50,760 and human rationalism over divine revelation. I like to leave that statement on the screen 46 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:55,720 for just a moment so you can copy it down. Human wisdom represents any number of ideations 47 00:05:55,720 --> 00:06:04,600 or schemes of thinking that exalts human discovery or human rationalism over divine revelation. 48 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:10,600 These are worldviews that define reality or define truth for their adherence. And I want 49 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:17,120 to give you some modern day examples of what I'm talking about. This is modern day human 50 00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:26,040 wisdom. One example would be naturalism or we might call it evolutionism. This way of 51 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:36,640 thinking precludes anything supernatural. Reality for the naturalist is based upon chance 52 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:43,920 and the survival of the fittest. Life has no ultimate meaning to a naturalist. The goal 53 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:51,560 of one who is a naturalist is to bring everything together as globalism, as world government. 54 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:58,200 It is the rule of the fittest. This is where Nazism comes from. This is where Communism 55 00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:11,200 comes from. Inevitably, naturalism will lead to despotism, to dictatorship, to the tyranny 56 00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:20,040 of minorities. There's a second modern day example of human wisdom that is dominant. 57 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:26,720 It's called materialism. This is a way of thinking. This is a way of perceiving reality. 58 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:36,280 It precludes anything spiritual or supernatural. The only thing real is what is material. Ultimate 59 00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:45,040 meaning is found only in material things. Some materialists are free market capitalists. 60 00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:49,960 They believe very much like the man in Luke's Gospel that Jesus talked about whose only 61 00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:56,700 interest in life was to tear down his small barns and to build bigger barns. Everything 62 00:07:56,700 --> 00:08:05,000 about life was material to him. That was his reality. Certainly we believe in a free economy. 63 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:11,560 It provides opportunity for anyone who wishes to work hard. I'm not knocking that. But it's 64 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:16,880 dangerous when we see that the only goal to a free market economy and to capitalism is 65 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:27,080 to be prosperous and to accumulate things. That's a materialist. There are others who 66 00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:33,880 see themselves in a different light. There are materialists who I would call socialists. 67 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:39,040 They want a new world order that's based upon socialism. As somebody who defines socialism, 68 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:44,840 it's where everybody shares equally in the misery. Socialism takes from the rich and 69 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:51,080 it gives to the poor. It's the old Robin Hood kind of a thing. It's the redistribution of 70 00:08:51,080 --> 00:08:56,920 wealth through taxes or whatever. Now certainly helping the poor is a compassionate thing 71 00:08:56,920 --> 00:09:04,560 and a godly thing to do, but not stealing from somebody else to do that. That's what 72 00:09:04,560 --> 00:09:11,200 socialism is all about. Again, socialism just sees the reality as material right now. Sees 73 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:18,640 nothing beyond that. There's a third example of human wisdom I want to point out and that 74 00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:26,280 is mystical spiritualism. Very prominent today. Now people who are in this camp believe in 75 00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:33,120 the spiritual unlike the other two. They believe in the supernatural, but not in a personal 76 00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:41,240 sovereign God. Reality for them is connecting to the spiritual through some sort of a mystical 77 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:49,320 experience, whether that spiritual be within oneself or if it be in another dimension, 78 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:58,000 it taps into the darkness. Life has meaning in self-realization by becoming one's own 79 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:03,400 God, getting in touch with the God who is within you. You've heard these kinds of phrases 80 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:09,520 or getting in touch with the God, however you define your God. The goal of a person 81 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:17,560 who is a mystical spiritualist is to enter into a new age of human harmony or perhaps 82 00:10:17,560 --> 00:10:26,360 differently to experience reincarnation into a higher plane of existence. Now there's 83 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:31,840 one thing that all of these worldviews have in common and there's some overlapping too. 84 00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:37,080 We acknowledge that. There's one thing they all have in common and that is they contradict 85 00:10:37,080 --> 00:10:44,620 God's wisdom. James comments on these kinds of ways of thinking. He says, such wisdom 86 00:10:44,620 --> 00:10:54,720 does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual of the devil. Now God's wisdom 87 00:10:54,720 --> 00:11:03,200 on the other hand centers in the reality of a personal, sovereign, infinite God. This 88 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:12,760 is God's wisdom now in contrast. This personal, sovereign, infinite God entered the world 89 00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:22,160 as a man through the miracle of the incarnation. He came as the Savior, the Christ. And this 90 00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:32,320 God suffered and died on the cross as a way of satisfying his own justice against our 91 00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:40,920 sinfulness. This God was raised from the dead as a sign of his victory over sin, over death 92 00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:51,120 and Satan. God's wisdom is his own self-disclosure that is found in the Bible. God's wisdom 93 00:11:51,120 --> 00:12:00,280 tells us who we are. It tells us why we are here. It tells us what the end of all things 94 00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:08,000 is. It begins in the book of Genesis and then as the story unfolds through the 66 books 95 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:15,400 of the Bible, you discover the answers to life's greatest questions. God's wisdom is 96 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:23,960 his own revelation of the cross. You see, Christ crucified is the very apex of God's 97 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:33,320 wisdom. Isn't this amazing? God exalts the greatest crime ever committed by humanity, 98 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:40,720 the crucifixion of Christ, in order to achieve His most glorious work. And it was all for 99 00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:47,920 the benefit of mankind, the one who had done the crime. You see, man's wisdom is his own 100 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:54,160 self-discovery, whether that be through his own reasoning or rationalism, through his 101 00:12:54,160 --> 00:13:01,040 experience or through his scientific exploration. Man's wisdom is his own autonomy from any 102 00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:11,960 superior being. Man's wisdom says, I am God. I am the captain of my fates. I am the master 103 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:22,800 of my soul. God's wisdom says, I am God, the infinite, personal, sovereign God. That's 104 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:30,040 why these two cannot coexist. You can't have two gods. Now, there's a second reason they 105 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:36,760 can't coexist, and that's because of how the two wisdoms differ in worth. In worth. 106 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:44,800 The spiritually lost person naturally evaluates God's wisdom by his own wisdom. That's all 107 00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:59,280 he's got. Thank you very much. Got it. Jimmy crunched that ice. It's good. The spiritually 108 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:06,480 lost person naturally evaluates God's wisdom by his own wisdom. For example, Paul says, 109 00:14:06,480 --> 00:14:16,360 the lost pagan judges God's wisdom in Christ as what? Foolishness. Foolishness. Literally, 110 00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:23,920 the word is moronic. Man looks at what God's wisdom is, the crucified Christ, and he says, 111 00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:33,320 utter nonsense because he seeks for wisdom that meets his definition of what is logical 112 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:43,600 and reasonable and, get this, which leaves intact his own sense of ego and superiority. 113 00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:52,640 That's what man is looking for. He says, God's wisdom is for simpletons. It's for morons. 114 00:14:52,640 --> 00:15:00,240 God's wisdom is for half wits. God's wisdom does not make sense. It's just too uncomplicated. 115 00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:09,920 It's too easy. And so it writes off the wisdom of God. On the other hand, the lost Jew looks 116 00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:19,880 at God's wisdom, Christ crucified, and he sees stumbling block. Why is this? It's because 117 00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:25,800 the Jews expected the Christ to come and deliver them. The Christ is depicted in the Old Testament 118 00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:33,320 in part as the mighty deliverer who would come and rescue his people and establish his kingdom. 119 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:40,880 A Christ who is crucified, you've got to be kidding. That is a huge stumbling block to 120 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:48,680 the Jews. The Jews are looking for signs of his greatness, for proof of his Messiahship. 121 00:15:48,680 --> 00:15:57,160 Now the real problem with God's wisdom is that it assails human pride. It assails man's 122 00:15:57,160 --> 00:16:06,400 sense of ego, his sense of control over his own destiny, because we want to be God. That's 123 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:13,600 the worth of God's wisdom as man looks at it. But on the other hand, God has something 124 00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:26,600 to say about human wisdom. God makes man's wisdom also foolish. In other words, God declares 125 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:32,520 it foolish because he shows man's wisdom for what it is. It is part of the problem and 126 00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:40,000 certainly not the solution to man's condition. God condemns man's wisdom as ineffective in 127 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:47,120 eliminating man's problems. He quotes from Isaiah 29, 14. He says, I'll destroy the 128 00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:53,600 wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent. I will frustrate quoting 129 00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:59,080 from Isaiah. And then notice the number of questions that follow. Just bam, bam, bam, 130 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:05,480 one after the other. I hope you're following the Bible as I deal with this. He asks, first 131 00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:09,800 of all, where is the wise man? Now Paul may have had in mind the Greek philosophers that 132 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:17,000 we know, Plato, Aristotle, and so forth, or he may have had in mind one of those philosophers 133 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:25,360 as one author said, who stood on every corner in Corinth and spouted his ideas. But Paul 134 00:17:25,360 --> 00:17:29,600 pokes at him. He goads him and says, where is the philosopher? He says, where is the 135 00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:36,040 scholar? Literally, where is the scribe? Perhaps thinking about a Jewish scribe, who is an 136 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:43,280 expert in the law? He says, where is he? He says, where is the philosopher of this age? 137 00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:50,120 Whether Jew or Gentile, where is that one who engages in this speculation, these intellectual 138 00:17:50,120 --> 00:17:57,440 arguments and debates while ignoring the wisdom of God? Where is he? What's his point here? 139 00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:04,740 Paul is showing, what good have all these worldly wise, well-intentioned people really 140 00:18:04,740 --> 00:18:14,760 accomplished? Isn't the human race still embroiled in the same problems it always has been? What's 141 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:22,800 different about man? What's different about our world? What has changed for the good because 142 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:28,720 of all of these people and all of these philosophies? And that's why he concludes with the rhetorical 143 00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:37,400 question, has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? And rhetorical question is answered 144 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:45,320 in the positive. Yes, He has. For God has allowed the fruit of man's wisdom to be evident, 145 00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:52,480 which is further decay, greater divisions, more wars, more injustice, continued racism 146 00:18:52,480 --> 00:19:01,800 and classism. All the fruits of sin are still present, and more so, after all of man's 147 00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:10,880 intellectual debates and pursuits, all of his ideas. And so God declares man's wisdom 148 00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:20,440 to be utter nonsense. It is unable to make men better or the world safer. Man's wisdom 149 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:28,240 does not deliver the oppressed. It does not create equality. It does not engender the 150 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:35,520 common good. It does not stop wars or promote honest politicians or preserve moral virtue 151 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:44,680 in a culture. If it does in any sense, it's only temporary and partial. Why is this? Because 152 00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:57,440 man's wisdom inevitably ignores reality because it does not include God. And God, the ultimate 153 00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:05,360 reality, answers all of the questions. Who is man? Why are we here? And in the condition 154 00:20:05,360 --> 00:20:16,280 we are and where are we headed? God tells us very plainly. So you see, both camps, if 155 00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:24,560 I can put it that way, declare the worth of each other's wisdom to be foolish. These two 156 00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:33,760 cannot coexist. Now there's a third reason as to why these are incompatible, and that 157 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:41,440 is because of how the two wisdoms differ in their outcome. I touched on this briefly. 158 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:48,600 Look at the tragic outcome of man's wisdom. In the first place, it does not bring anyone 159 00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:58,040 into a transformational relationship with God. It leaves man disconnected from ultimate 160 00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:08,960 reality and with a life that is still in bondage to its own corruption. Secondly, it leaves 161 00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:18,280 man's wisdom leaves its adherents in a state of perishing. Paul says in verse 18, but to 162 00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:26,280 those who are perishing, it's a present tense kind of thing. That is the reality of our 163 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:32,720 world. Our world and the people in it are perishing, being ruined and destroyed, and 164 00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:40,400 man's wisdom is not helping anything. In neither an eternal nor a temporal sense does 165 00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:49,200 the world's wisdom result in good. Now I'm not speaking of scientific achievements, 166 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:56,360 but the discoveries of the world. I'm kind of glad Columbus discovered the world in the 167 00:21:56,360 --> 00:22:03,920 West. I'm not talking about the progress in medication or in agriculture or manufacturing 168 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:08,800 or technology and so forth. We all benefit from those kinds of things. What I'm talking 169 00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:17,000 about, what I'm referring to are the philosophical underpinnings that form the world's way of 170 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:28,320 thinking, its values, its goals, the worldviews of man, these things that are created by his 171 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:37,760 own wisdom. These are tragic consequences of errors. Human wisdom has not created a 172 00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:44,920 utopian society. It has not created an improved version of the human being. In fact, it's 173 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:52,720 just the opposite. And so we might join Paul this morning in taunting the world just a 174 00:22:52,720 --> 00:23:01,760 little bit. Where are all these smart people, the elite of our society, the wise intellects 175 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:10,200 in our universities who claim such superiority? Where are the Freud's and the Marx's and 176 00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:19,480 the Darwin's and the Margaret Meads and the George Soros' and the Carl Sagan's and the 177 00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:27,920 Richard Dawkins? Where are they? Why haven't they produced a utopia? Isn't that what they've 178 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:36,600 promised us if we believe their ideas? Where are the ones who have claimed if we just spent 179 00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:43,960 more money on education, it would produce the best educational system in the world and 180 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:50,120 smarter people able to compete in a global market. But the more money we spend on education, 181 00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:57,440 the more our educational standards go down. Where are they? Where are the Margaret's 182 00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:07,600 singers? And she, by the way, is the atheist who founded Planned Parenthood. Where are the 183 00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,200 Margaret's singers and the other promoters of sex education who advocated their cause 184 00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:15,560 and told us if we would believe what they say it would reduce teenage pregnancies, unhappiness 185 00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:24,760 in marriage and STDs? Where are they? Have the billions that we have spent on eliminating 186 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:33,520 poverty since the great society that many of us remember in our lifetime? Where are they? 187 00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:44,920 Has it created a world without injustice and hunger and poverty? No. Has the shrill propaganda 188 00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:56,160 of the anti-military leftists in our culture produced a safer world? No. Here's my point. 189 00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:06,400 Human philosophies based upon human wisdom achieve no lasting good. Man's corrupt nature 190 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:13,240 produces corrupt thinking, corrupt governments, corrupt systems, corrupt bureaucracies with 191 00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:25,320 corrupt results. That's the outcome of man's wisdom. And we are drowning in it. In contrast, 192 00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:34,600 look at the transforming outcome of God's wisdom. Paul says it is the power of God to 193 00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:46,240 save from ruin, from perishing those who believe. Now, just think with me for a moment about 194 00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:52,000 the contrast between faith-based Christ-centered programs and their secular counterparts. 195 00:25:52,000 --> 00:26:02,020 Let's think about substance abuse, for example. Compare the outcomes of these clinics and 196 00:26:02,020 --> 00:26:08,560 hospitals and programs where people go and they pay tens of thousands of dollars for 197 00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:15,000 three weeks or six weeks of treatment for their addictions. And they come out of those 198 00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:24,400 and what do they do? Almost all of them inevitably go right back to their addictions. On the 199 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:34,600 other hand, think about a program like Celebrate Recovery or Teen Challenge that exists on 200 00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:45,120 a percentage of 1% of the income of these other organizations, but whose philosophy includes 201 00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:54,900 the gospel of Jesus Christ. It changes the lives of people who get into those programs. 202 00:26:54,900 --> 00:27:01,300 They are different. And instead of the massive numbers returning to their addictions, the 203 00:27:01,300 --> 00:27:08,900 result is that 70% and 80% of them experience true deliverance from their addictions and 204 00:27:08,900 --> 00:27:14,960 substance abuse. Let's think about something else. Today, our government creates 205 00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:21,380 bigger prisons to hold more prisoners and it pours increasing numbers of dollars into 206 00:27:21,380 --> 00:27:27,780 expensive rehabilitation programs for these prisoners. We educate them, we give them degrees 207 00:27:27,780 --> 00:27:35,260 and so forth. They get out of prison and what happens in the majority of the cases? They 208 00:27:35,260 --> 00:27:42,820 return to prison within a period of time because they repeat their crimes. 209 00:27:42,820 --> 00:27:50,340 But let a prison like the one down in Alabama, for example, or Mississippi rather, let in 210 00:27:50,340 --> 00:27:59,180 a program like Prison Fellowship that is based upon the wisdom of God. And it begins 211 00:27:59,180 --> 00:28:06,980 on a fraction of the budget of these other programs. It begins to teach men the truth, 212 00:28:06,980 --> 00:28:13,300 the wisdom of God. And what happens? They get converted. Their lives are transformed. 213 00:28:13,300 --> 00:28:19,660 They get a new heart, a new nature. They get some training, the support. They get out of 214 00:28:19,660 --> 00:28:25,260 prison and the vast majority of them stay out of prison. They bring blessing and benefit 215 00:28:25,260 --> 00:28:27,540 to our communities. 216 00:28:27,540 --> 00:28:33,140 Friends, what I'm trying to point out to you is the difference between human wisdom and 217 00:28:33,140 --> 00:28:44,540 man's wisdom in the outcomes. Whoever or wherever the gospel is received, it makes a difference. 218 00:28:44,540 --> 00:28:53,660 Now human wisdom can offer ideas. It can form opinion and it does. It can help diagnose perhaps 219 00:28:53,660 --> 00:29:02,060 the human condition. It can probe for solutions. It can advance imposing arguments about itself. 220 00:29:02,060 --> 00:29:09,240 Human wisdom can dominate the public attitudes and it certainly does in our culture today. 221 00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:16,100 Human wisdom can use the force of law and of military and even terrorism to impose itself 222 00:29:16,100 --> 00:29:28,600 on others. But human wisdom has a fatal flaw. The fatal weakness of human wisdom is this. 223 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:40,500 It cannot deal with the depravity of the human heart. It cannot change the nature of man. 224 00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:49,220 It can define it. It can pass laws against certain displays of that nature. It can seek 225 00:29:49,220 --> 00:29:58,540 to understand why a man acts the way he does through psychological or sociological research. 226 00:29:58,540 --> 00:30:07,320 But human wisdom cannot transform a single life. And that's why Paul says the foolishness 227 00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:13,820 of God, the so-called foolishness of God, is wiser than man's wisdom because it changes 228 00:30:13,820 --> 00:30:21,160 lives. The weakness of God, the so-called weakness of God is stronger than man's strength 229 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:30,340 because it can lift a man out of his misery, out of his addictions, out of his poverty 230 00:30:30,340 --> 00:30:38,620 and make him a new creature in Jesus Christ. And everyone, everyone listening to me right 231 00:30:38,620 --> 00:30:44,660 now, everyone in the world has a choice. That choice is which wisdom forms the foundation 232 00:30:44,660 --> 00:30:52,300 of their lives. What you and I need to do is look hard into our hearts, be sure that 233 00:30:52,300 --> 00:30:58,580 we're building our lives by the wisdom of God and not the thinking of man. You will 234 00:30:58,580 --> 00:31:03,940 pick up books by the thousands in bookstores that espouse the thinking of man. You will 235 00:31:03,940 --> 00:31:10,620 hear talk programs. You will listen to television programs during the daytime that will say 236 00:31:10,620 --> 00:31:17,260 things that sound so good and attractive and pleasing to the ear. And all of those things 237 00:31:17,260 --> 00:31:25,100 fail. But the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot fail because it is the wisdom of God. Which 238 00:31:25,100 --> 00:31:36,340 wisdom are you building your life on? God's wisdom in Christ or the wisdom of the world. 239 00:31:36,340 --> 00:31:46,300 Just told a parable one time about a man who built his house and we have sung a chorus 240 00:31:46,300 --> 00:31:51,180 about that. Many of us learned it in Sunday school. Maybe you'd sing it with me. The wise 241 00:31:51,180 --> 00:31:59,100 man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise 242 00:31:59,100 --> 00:32:05,340 man built his house upon the rock. And the rains came tumbling. You don't have to do 243 00:32:05,340 --> 00:32:13,460 this. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came 244 00:32:13,460 --> 00:32:21,820 up. The rains came down and the floods came up. But the house on the rock stood firm. 245 00:32:21,820 --> 00:32:29,860 Oh, there's another verse. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish 246 00:32:29,860 --> 00:32:37,820 man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. And the 247 00:32:37,820 --> 00:32:46,420 rains came tumbling. It always does. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains 248 00:32:46,420 --> 00:32:53,940 came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. And the 249 00:32:53,940 --> 00:33:04,300 house on the sand fell flat. Exactly. And so we say, I'm going to change it just a little 250 00:33:04,300 --> 00:33:14,900 bit. So build your house on Christ crucified. So build your house on Christ crucified. So 251 00:33:14,900 --> 00:33:23,580 build your house on Christ crucified. And the blessings will come ling down. The blessings 252 00:33:23,580 --> 00:33:31,860 will come down as the prayers go up. The blessings will come down as the prayers go up. The blessings 253 00:33:31,860 --> 00:33:39,140 will come down as the prayers go up. So build your life on Him. 254 00:33:39,140 --> 00:33:48,260 Hey, friend, on what are you building your life? It makes all the difference in this 255 00:33:48,260 --> 00:33:57,900 world and for all of eternity. Let's pray together. Oh, Spirit of God, I pray that you 256 00:33:57,900 --> 00:34:04,580 will search our hearts. And wherein any of us are still like the Corinthians incorporating 257 00:34:04,580 --> 00:34:09,420 the world's wisdom into our decisions, into the way that we think and the way that we 258 00:34:09,420 --> 00:34:16,920 live. Show it to us, Lord. So we can get the sand out of our foundation and get the rock 259 00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:25,780 in place. God help us to build wisely and incorporate our lives upon the rock that is 260 00:34:25,780 --> 00:34:50,140 found in the wisdom of God in Christ crucified. And this I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.