Sermon Tone Analysis

- There is a legitimacy to getting wisdom about your health from, say, a doctor

- There is a legitimacy to getting wisdom about your health from, say, a doctor

Date: 02-06-19 834 Echuca

- There is a legitimacy to getting wisdom about your health from, say, a doctor

- We go to a licensed builder to have our houses built

- We get engineers to design bridges and high rise buildings

- These are all worthy enterprises & they are legitimate sources of wisdom & sense

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- Solomon was a producer & collector of wisdom sayings & he discerned the sayings of the wise & sifted out the good from the bad

- Wisdom is the tool you use to live your life &, by which, you make your choices

- Solomon warned of the foolishness of certain words & actions & exhorted everyone to take heed to true wisdom

- Wisdom that is true wisdom has it’s source in God & acknowledges God

- David in the Psalms, gives a wisdom saying, “The Fool says in his heart, there is no God” () – the fool in contrast to the wise

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- Throughout the history of the church, there has been a constant toing & froing from one worldly way to another

- The church has been constantly pushed here & there by the wisdom of this age – by the waves & the winds of worldliness!

- We all think that we come to the Bible with a clean slate & that we read it faithfully as it is

- But over the centuries & even millenniums, people have been reading the Bible differently

Q.

Why is that?

If we have the same Bible, why is that?

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- It is that way, because we all interpret the Bible according to what our culture or society either says or expects!

- We have all grown up in the world as it is & are conditioned by it

- For 1950 yrs, the church believed what Paul says about the role of men & women in the home & in the church

- Now, most churches have thrown that out – not because the Bible has said anything different, but because the world in which we live, chooses not to accept that & so the church bends to what they say

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- For 1950 yrs, the church believed that homosexuality or transgenderism was a sin

- Now, many churches no longer believe that they are sins

- Oh yes, they would affirm that promiscuous homosexuality is a sin, but not the homosexuality itself

Q. Has the message of the Bible changed?

Or has it been re-written in recent years”

- No, it hasn’t – the culture has changed – which means that the church has chosen to follow it’s culture rather than the Scriptures

- Notice this latest census that came in the post

Which of the following best describes your current gender identity

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- Now people have made arguments to say that we need to change with our culture & I accept that there is provision for us to change & adapt to the times – clothing is a good example

- However, be very very careful about using “changing times” to change explicit teachings of the Bible

- In the debate between Bill Shorten & Scott Morrison, we saw the wisdom of this age on full display against the godly position

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- Scott Morrison is a Christian & believes there is a heaven & hell

- After the election, he affirmed very clearly – with tongue in cheek – that he believes in miracles – that was definitely a not-so-veiled swipe at Bill Shorten who maintained that there is no hell

- Shorten apparently goes to church, and not only did he not agree with Israel Folau’s post but, went further, to deny that there is a hell at all

- Actually, Folau merely gave an accurate paraphrase of the Bible

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- But Shorten chooses to believe the world rather than the Bible

Q.

If that is the case, why would you go to church?

- Jesus spoke as much about hell as He did about heaven

- In that case, does Shorten not believe in heaven either?

- Can you see how precarious it is, when you start to cherry pick about what you believe or disbelieve in the Bible

- Certainly, there is proper interpretation to be done, but we must be careful not to dismiss something, merely because the people of this age doesn’t like it

1.

Wisdom for those who Possess the Future

1. Wisdom for those who Possess the Future

- In this passage, the apostle is dealing with the wisdom of this age that has infiltrated the church at Corinth

- The worldliness of this age has caused the church at Corinth to be divided; it had become factional; it has caused brother to sue brother; the church even thought incest wasn’t a problem

- It caused the rich among them to think they were more privileged than the poorer Christians & left some of the poorer ones hungry at their communal meals

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- It had caused men to frequent brothels; has caused husband & wife to see marital intimacy as an unholy activity, from which they must abstain

- It caused Christians to be involved in pagan feasts; has caused pride in the gifts God has provided the church; has caused bickering & infighting about who is the greatest or who has the greater gifts; it has caused a lack of belief in the resurrection from the dead

- Some thought they had even out-grown the apostle Paul & considered him less enlightened than they (; ).

- We could go on, but the main problem here, in this church, is that they are listening to the world & not to God

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- I have entitled this point, “Wisdom for those who possess the future”

- It’s not a very catchy title, but I’ve used it because it really accurately describes the difference between the church people & the people of the world

- The people of the world belong to this present evil age – it’s the era of the fallen world:- the thinking, the doing, the attitudes that are resistant to, & indeed opposed to, God

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- Paul notes that if the rulers of this age – the rulers of Israel & the Roman governor Pilate, understood God’s wisdom, they would never have crucified Christ

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- Don’t miss his point by thinking that, if Christ wasn’t crucified, then there could be no forgiveness of sin etc. etc.

- The point is that the rulers of this present evil age show their opposition to God by opposing His purposes in Christ in trying to destroy Him

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- This opposition parallels the wisdom that comes from this age

- It’s a wisdom that sees the cross as foolishness

- It’s a wisdom that encourages rebellion against God’s authority & parental authority

- It’s a wisdom that worships the creation but denies the creator

- It’s a wisdom that writes something like this - "Self-love means accepting yourself as a worthy person because you chose to"

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- It’s a wisdom that does not allow Christians to witness to and teach school children God's Word

- It’s a wisdom that tells Chaplains to leave their Christianity at the door when they enter the public schools

- It’s a wisdom that says you must not discriminate between religions

- It’s a wisdom that says I can bend the rules because everyone else does it

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- It’s a wisdom that says you can't smack or discipline your children

- Its a wisdom that sanctions all deviant sexual behaviour under the disguise of diversity & inclusion (it used to be called “tolerance” until it was obvious to all, that tolerance was never the aim)

Q.

Why would the church ever want to adopt the wisdom of this age?

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- The biggest hurdle for the Christian, living in this age, is the desire to be popular, accepted, liked

- There is an overarching value in our culture to be agreeable with the mainstream

- If you are to be embraced & congratulated, you have to be secular in your thinking & accepting of just about every view so long as it is not exclusive, or absolute

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- But let us embrace what the apostle says here

- He says the “rulers of this age" – the world’s representatives – are passing away

- In contrast, those who embrace God’s wisdom, will endure for eternity – they will possess the future age & all that entails

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- This same wisdom is written about by the apostle James

—13 Who among you is wise and understanding?

Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.

15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.

16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.

18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

- The Corinthian church was truly struggling with what the world was throwing at them

- They adopted the wisdom & spirit of the age & became worldly & were quick to condemn one another, quick to quarrel about issues they weren't happy with

- In the next chapter, Paul has to tell them that they are so far from being mature Christians that he has to consider them infants or babes

- What makes you a babe or an infant in Christ, is not that you are shallow in your knowledge, but shallow in your behaviour

- The two go together, but the behaviour is the fruit of what’s happening in the heart

2. Wisdom Imparted by the Spirit of God

- The first thing we need to grasp is this talk by Paul of the mystery that was hidden but now is revealed

—7 but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;

- He’s talking about the cross & resurrection of Christ

- This is now revealed & it is viewed, on the one hand, as foolishness by those who are perishing, but as the power of God to those who are being saved ()

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- It is so important for us to understand, that God has had the crucifixion of Christ planned before the ages – from eternity past

- This “wisdom” of God is the cross & resurrection of Christ

- It is what He has revealed to His people & through the cross to prepare us for glory