The Foolishness Of The Cross

Title: The Message Of The (Old Rugged) Cross

Text: 1 Cor 1:18-2:5

Subject: What is the message of the cross?

Complement: Salvation – Christ (!) is the power of God and the wisdom of God to save & bless and reconcile sinners to God.

Idea: “I will cling to that old rugged cross… i will proclaim that old rugged cross – until I exchange it, someday, for a crown.

Introduction - Does The Christian Gospel Get Lost Among The Religions Of Our Day?

Afterall, “religion” is viewed by most as a negative thing… a very unattractive thing… the source of so much corruption and so many scandals… so many are turning away from the gospel.

Indeed it's also the case here in Newfoundland too.

What can be done to change this? T. Keller said the choices of religion or irreligion – are both equally flawed – and the proper approach is to focus on the gospel.

Read text: 1 Corinthians 1:18 - 2:5

1 Cor 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Chapter 2:1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

1. Paul tells us - Many Have Regarded The Cross As Foolishness: 18-22

a. Stalin/Marx

In 1867 Karl Marx wrote a seminal book critiquing capitalism and—human greed called “Das Kapital." In 1917, Vladimir Lenin took these ideas, known as communism, and said to re-create a new society we must remove the idea of God and place our faith in Marx and in ourselves.

Down with the cross... away from mother Russia. - The cross is foolish they thought.

But this ruthless atheism brought death to millions. Marx and Vladimir Lenin carried the stain of sin in their ideas of power – and so, corruption followed, and utopia was never realized.

Then followed the Gulag – forced labor camps.

• 18,000,000 people taken captive

• 423 labor colonies

• 1.6 million people died there – if you can believe the numbers.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who survived 8 years of Gulag incarceration, wrote of his experience in “The Gulag Archipelago” in 1973. He compared the camps to "a chain of islands", and a system where people were worked to death.

Churches in the Soviet Union were bulldozed. Christians were killed and many sent to Siberia.

But Stalin has fallen ...the Soviet Union has unravelled ---and the cross still stands - Today, we have churches in Siberia!

Communism fails to address the fundamental human flaw – the depravity of the human heart. And so, greed remains under a veneer of equality… corruption, murder and exploitation increase in a godless society.