1:18 For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which
are saved it is the power of God. 19 For
it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. 20
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?
The preaching of the cross does strike the lost man as foolish. Most
people, even people who call themselves Christians, are smugly self-satisfied
and don’t care for the mirror that the Bible holds to their faces revealing the
darker nature of our souls. The Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, also shows
us the consequences of the religious inclinations of man to self-worship, even
the hypocrisy of Christians who point their self-righteous fingers at the lost
person.
Romans 1:18 For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 ¶ Because that which may be known of God is
manifest in them; for God hath shewed it
unto them. 20 For the invisible things
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they
glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish
heart was darkened. 22 Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23
And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like
to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to
uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own
bodies between themselves: 25 Who
changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature
more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them
up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use
into that which is against nature: 27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned
in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly,
and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to
retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient; 29 Being filled with all
unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of
envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers,
without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they
which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them.
Romans 2:1 ¶
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest:
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that
judgest doest the same things.
Notice, as I highlighted in bold,
God gives up those people who worship the creature more than the creator to
certain things. Notice also what He said long before the letter to the Romans
in a different context in Isaiah.
Isaiah 66:1 ¶
Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is
my throne, and the earth is my
footstool: where is the house
that ye build unto me? and where is
the place of my rest? 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all
those things have been, saith
the LORD: but to this man will
I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite
spirit, and trembleth at my word. 3 He
that killeth an ox is as if he
slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as
if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he
that burneth incense, as if he
blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul
delighteth in their abominations. 4 I also will choose their delusions, and
will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when
I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
The wisdom of this world not only
produces rotten fruit but when it is examined closely by the words of its own
prophets it shows itself to be an obvious fraud. Here are some comments made by
an evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Lewontin, in a review he wrote
of a book by another atheist, the astronomer Carl Sagan. These are very telling
of the delusions of the world’s wisdom as he confesses his commitment, against
all evidence, to materialism, another word for atheism.
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of
its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant
promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific
community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior
commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and
institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of
the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we
are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus
of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no
matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in
the door.(2)
(1) Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,”
The New York Review of Books, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/01/09/billions-and-billions-of-demons/ (accessed 4.10.2018).
God also condemns the musings of
Philosophy which Paul declares is equivalent to vain deceit.
Colossians 2:8
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
Christ.
Endless arguments provoke no Godly
wisdom. Whether someone is a Postmodernist or a Nihilist or is an anti-realist
scientist or a realist has no value whatsoever in eternity and leads to
apostasy for a believer and an inability to receive the things of God for an
unbeliever unless one is very careful and knows their Bible thoroughly. The
medieval questions of ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin,’ or,
‘can God make a rock so heavy He cannot lift it,’ were diversions for
intellectuals of the Middle Ages but are really worthless examples of practical
unbelief.
The preaching of the cross is the
power of God to them that are saved instills or should instill in the
believer a reinforced confidence that God is absolute sovereign over all
reality and has the power to reverse death, to raise a person, no matter how
dispersed into the earth the elements that make them up are, from the dead.
It is the power of God, mentioned a few times in Paul’s letters to the
Corinthians, that can save men and women from eternal death and suffering, the
natural fate that awaits those that reject His free offer of amnesty in man’s
rebellion against Him.
Romans 1:16 For
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that
believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
1Peter 1:5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready
to be revealed in the last time.
It is essential to be delivered or
saved from an eternity of agony that we believe and trust in God’s ability to
raise us from the dead.
Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
1Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Death as the end of life has
always plagued mankind, who spend an inordinate amount of time dwelling on the
prospect.
Hebrews 2:15
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
If death were simply the ceasing
of existence, the end of consciousness, obliteration, it would not be as
daunting a prospect although we, in our flesh, would always struggle to live as
do all living things. But, man has something in his mind that is repelled by
the prospect of death, by a gnawing fear of something afterward, something
perhaps more horrible than we can imagine. It has been there since humans first
started dying. We fear death, like all living things, in our flesh because we
are alive and want to stay alive. We fear death in our minds because, ingrained
under the surface is a dread, a fear of what follows, as if we believed that we
would be aware of it.
I did not understand or even
believe in Hell or a lake of unquenchable fire before I was a Christian. My
flesh wanted to live, of course, like everyone elses. But, in my mind, on those
rare occasions when as a young person who acted as if he were immortal I
thought about it, there was a question that presented a shadowy and frightening
apparition of something on the horizon, something which I didn’t know, couldn’t
see or understand, but felt very vividly.
As we grow older and experience
loved ones dying, read and hear about people dying we do not know, and even
watch beloved animals grow old, falter, suffer, and perish we can feel this
sense of foreboding or we can pretend they’re going to some “better place.”
Whether it be the popular notion of a blissful heaven floating on clouds and
playing harps for those we love or the mythical “rainbow bridge” for our pets
and faithful animal companions we act like someone whistling in the dark hoping
but not knowing that there is some deliverance, some future that is not composed
of a terrible unending experience or nonexistence.
But, God promised eternal life to
those would trust in His sacrifice on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead
as God came to live on the earth as a human being in a human body…
Hebrews 10:5
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and
offering thou wouldest not, but a
body hast thou prepared me:
…and promised eternal life with
Him.
Romans 6:23 For
the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
John 10:28 And
I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand.
This is the power of God.
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