Thank you, Simon, for your welcome to both Lorna and myself. We really have been looking forward to this couple of days and we are delighted and privileged to be with you. The material that I want to give you today and tomorrow, I preached three weeks ago, finishing today, three weeks ago today, in Wales. I consider this to be the more important of the two conferences. In Wales, I was preaching to between 1,300 and 1,400 people in the Great Hall of the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. And that was a great privilege. But you are the young people of the church to which I have given my life. And while it was a privilege to preach to so many of God's people, I'm really enthusiastic about meeting you young people who are the future of our church and consider this time very important. Our subject, as Simon has said, is Christ's Church at the Crossroads. Crossroads are a bit of a sore topic in our marriage because we do have different approaches. Lorna and I have been driving together in a car for a number of decades now and we do treat crossroads in different ways. I have to say that I think her approach is very timid and unexciting. When we come to a crossroads in somewhere we've never been before and we don't know which road to take Laura's approach tends to be either to look at the map or to ask somebody who lives nearby which is the right road to our destination. My approach is just to follow my gut instinct and go for one of the roads. It's then important to drive. As doubt begins to enter your mind, It's important to drive more and more quickly, to put the boot down to the boards and also then to lose your temper and start shouting at everybody else in the car. So those are the two approaches that we take to crossroads. And I have to make a very embarrassing admission that after all these years, I've come to the conclusion that Lorna's approach is in fact better. Because to make the wrong choice is annoying at best and at worst it's quite serious but the church of Jesus Christ in the 20th century is at a crossroads and large sectors of the church are dealing with this crossroads the way I deal with crossroads they're going down the wrong road It's a very appealing road. The other road looks steep and narrow and bumpy. The wrong road is smooth and wide. The scenery at first is beautiful and there are lots of people traveling along. So it seems an easy choice. But it is the wrong choice. In other words, if the church tries to serve Christ, do we look at the map? This is the map. Or, do we follow the world? Do we follow fashion? Do we go with our instinct? Do we think, do what we think may be right? And many churches are choosing that second option. They're choosing The broad road, the easy road, the popular road, their motives are often good. They want to reach the world with the gospel. They want to make an impact on the world around us. They want to win a hearing. And like me in the car, they stifle their doubts by driving ever faster down this road. And like me in the car, they become impatient. with anybody who says why don't we stop and look at the map which God has given to us. Are we to reach the world by being like the world or by being different from the world? Large sectors of the church are saying if we want to reach the world we have to become more like the world. That's a wrong road. The right road is to ask, what does the Bible teach us? And to be guided, to be regulated by the Bible in everything we're doing. So my goal in this series is to encourage you to do what the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland has decided to do. We have decided, and it's in our history, We've decided that in whatever we're doing, we're going to try to be guided by the Word as best we can understand it. We're going to stick to the map and we're going to go by the map. And if it's not fashionable, too bad. If it doesn't seem successful at first, too bad. We're going to go by what God has said. And what I want to do is to encourage you young people to really commit yourselves to that. as members of the church, or whatever church you belong to, because I know that you're not all Reformed Presbyterians, to keep choosing the right road and to be guided by the map. And there's no more relevant book than 1 Corinthians. It's one of the most stunningly contemporary books in the Bible. Corinth was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. There were between half a million and three quarters of a million people living there during the time of Paul. It was a large, complex, modern city. In Corinth there were lawyers and businessmen and politicians and scientists. There were entertainment stars and sports stars. There were leisure centers. There were trade unions. The economy was flourishing. There were luxury goods in the stores from all over the world. It was a multicultural society. There were many languages spoken in Curran, many backgrounds. If you had gone along the seafront, you'd have seen every kind of ethnic restaurant. It was a place of religious pluralism. Paul said, there are many gods and many lords. Archaeologists have discovered at least 26 sacred places in Curran, all different religions, very modern. It was morally permissive. The two main deities of Corinth were Aphrodite, who was the goddess of prostitution, and Apollo, who was the god of homosexuality. In other words, Corinth, in many ways, was a picture of modern Western society. And Paul is writing to Christians who are facing pressures very, very much like So when you read Corinthians or any part of the New Testament, don't say how different they are from us, say how similar they are to us, because they are. And in Corinth, the Christians are confused. How can we live in a society for Jesus? How can we communicate the gospel to the world? And they're at risk of being sucked into worldly thinking. worldly methods, worldly approaches, even in doing God's work. And if you open to your Bibles at first, at Corinthians, we're going to be reading verses 18 to 25 in a moment, but in verses 10 to 17, after the opening greeting, Paul is highlighting the temptation to be worldly in your approaches and your methods. Some say I follow Paul. Some say I follow Apollos. Some say I follow Cephas or Peter. Verse 12. What is this about? Well, in those days, the pop stars, the footballers, were actually traveling lecturers. for teachers. I know that seems hard to believe. Stadiums were filled with people who cheered wildly as their favorite lecturer stood up to speak. They were called sophists, wise men. They were paid enormous fees and they were fanatically supported. And they could talk on any subject, any subject. They were masters of oratory and argument, and people loved to listen to them. They could change sides in the middle. They could start off saying that water was wet, and convince you that it was wet, and then they could turn around and convince you that it wasn't wet at all. They were masters at all this, and the interest of the people was not in what they were saying, It was on how they were saying it. And everybody had their favorite teacher, their favorite orator, their favorite wise man. And the Corinthian church is buying into this mentality. And Paul says they're having quarrels about their favorite preachers. Hard to believe, isn't it? A couple of you fellas having a fist fight outside tonight, afterwards. as to whether Robert Robb or Samuel McCollum's a better preacher. It's not likely to happen, but that's what was happening then. Some of them were regarding Paul as the Wayne Rooney of the day, and Apollos was the Stephen Gerrard of the day. If they could have bought shirts, they'd have worn shirts. And Paul is saying this whole mentality is a worldly mentality. You're making heroes of these men. You're making stars of these men. And this is wrong. And his desire is to stop the church copying the world. And we're going to look at three reasons Paul gives why the church shouldn't copy the world. Why at the crossroads the church should go God's way. Let me just outline where we're going over the next couple of days. In verses 18 to 25, Paul says the message is not what the world wants. In verses 26 to 31, he says the people who believe the message are not the sort of people the world admires. And in chapter 2 verses 1 to 5, he says the approach to communicating the message, preaching, is not what the world finds convincing. So that's Paul's argument. We can't do the work of evangelism or witnessing or church building in a worldly way. Because they're not interested in the gospel, they're not oppressed by Christians, and they think preaching's boring. So we're going to look at each of those in turn, and I want to read now chapter 1, verses 18 to 25. And that's what we'll be looking at this evening. So the word of the cross is folly 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, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it praised God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. The subject then this evening is the message of the cross. I want to note three aspects of that. First of all, the problem with the message. The problem with the message. Paul states it in verse 18. For the word of the cross is folly, foolishness to those who are perishing. So that's a fact as Christians that we have to come to terms with right away. The gospel of Christ will never be popular. It's not going to happen. To many people it will never seem attractive, it will never seem reasonable. They will think it is utter foolishness, a stumbling block, he calls it. Now, why is that so? Why do so many people think the gospel is foolishness? Well, Paul says it's because of the sort of people they are. And he mentions two sorts of people. First of all, the Jews. The Jews demand signs Now, in the Middle Ages, the Jews had some great philosophers. But at this time in their history, they weren't interested in philosophy or speculation. They were a practical people. Their concern was what works. And if you read the Gospels, you'll see that they're always, always asking Jesus for signs. Let me give you four references one from each gospel. Matthew 12, 38, the Pharisees. Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. The Jews demand signs. Luke 11, 16. Others to test him kept seeking a sign from heaven. John 6, 30. What sign do you do that we may see and believe you? sort of a typical verse, a theme verse, Mark 8, 11 and 12. The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Why is everybody always asking me for signs? And it was in their history. God divided the Red Sea so that Israel could go out of Egypt and he drowned Pharaoh's army. That was a sign. God made the walls of Jericho fall down. That was a sign. God sent fire on the altar for Elijah against the prophets of Baal. That was a sign. So they wanted the Lord Jesus to give them a sign. Where is the proof? Prove to us that you are who you say you are. And for the Jews, God's Messiah would validate himself through spectacular miracles, and then here's the important part, and through practical, visible blessings. He would defeat the Romans. He would drive them out of Palestine. He would build a new temple in Jerusalem. He would set up a new monarchy. The people would be free. They would be prosperous. They would be wealthy. They would rule the world. The great kingdom of God would come in. And this is the sort of Messiah they wanted. Perhaps you remember in John 6, 15 that when Jesus said the 5,000, John says, they were about to come and take him by force. to make him their king. This is what we want. He's fed 5,000 people. This is terrific. This is the sort of Messiah we want. The Jews demand science. The Greeks, on the other hand, seek wisdom. The Greeks of the day were the intellectuals, the academics, They loved to debate and to argue and to theorize. One scholar says there were perhaps as many as 50 different philosophical parties in the city of Cork. They just spent their days and nights arguing about philosophy and science and the latest developments. And if you wanted a Greek to believe your message, it had to be something that agreed with popular philosophy, with the thought patterns of the day. It had to seem logical, rational, and scientific. So here you have these people. The Jews demand a triumphant, glorious, conquering messiah who brings peace and health and wealth and plenty and victory to his people. That's what they want. And the Greeks want a reasoned, scientific, intellectual, academic message. And Paul says to these people, we preach Christ crucified. Now think about that. He says it is a stumbling block to Jews. And I think it's nearly impossible for us in the 21st century to imagine how shocking the gospel message was how blasphemous and foul and appalling to Jewish ears the happiest word in their language was Christ Messiah the anointed one, the one they'd been looking for for centuries and praying for. And for them, Christ, what it meant was blessing, and glory, and joy, and victory, and the presence of God beyond compare. Christ. The ugliest word in their language was crucified. Now, we can't get that. For us, the cross is an honored thing. People wear crosses around their necks, or decorations that put crosses on church buildings. People get sentimental about the cross, this thing about the old rugged cross. But in the first century, when you heard the word cross, you wanted to vomit. It was a repulsive word, a terrifying word. The cross meant screaming, shrieking, torture, blood, excrement, flies buzzing in the hot sun, a scene of absolute horror. The Roman lawyer Cicero writes, the very word cross should be far removed, not only from the person of the Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. Don't even think about it. And for the Jew, it was even worse For a man on a cross was being hanged on a tree. And their law, Deuteronomy 21-23, said a hanged man is cursed by God. Jesus was crucified, so he must have been cursed anathema to God. And the early Christian preachers come to the Jews and they take the most glorious word in their language and the most horrible word and they tie them together. We preach Christ crucified. Everything wonderful linked with everything horrible. Can you understand what that must have meant to a Jew listening to that? How could that be? How could you have a curse Blessed one. That doesn't make sense. How can you have a king who dies tortured to death in shame and weakness? What sort of a Messiah is it? Is he? Who not only doesn't defeat the Romans, but is killed by the Romans. He seems to make no difference to their daily lives. Stumbling block to duty. They couldn't take that in. They couldn't get their heads around it. Christ crucified. Paul says it's also folly to the Gentiles. Let me explain that for a moment. The core belief of the Greeks about their gods was a word which we know as apathy. different then. You heard about the Theopathy Society at university who held a rally and nobody came. The Greeks had this view of the gods and their view of the gods was that gods cannot suffer. They cannot be touched by anything on earth. The gods do not care. That's what the word apathy meant. They do not care about anything on earth. We're just little worms crawling about on the surface of the planet, and the thought that God would get involved, that God would love us, that God would hate us, that God would punish us, that God would feel sorry for us? Ridiculous. Just absolutely ridiculous. The gods are way up here. They also believe that the gods where pure spirit made a little slogan in Greek. It was Soma Sema. Soma means body and Sema means tomb or grave. And they believed that the body was a tomb, a grave. And that what we need is to get the spirit free from the body and have nothing to do with the body. So the gods were pure spirit who had nothing to do with this world. And then they were told that in Jesus, God was made flesh, and God suffered, and God died on a piece of wood outside Jerusalem. And to the Jews, that just seemed absolutely ridiculous. And that's the problem of the Gospel. And both categories are still with us in various ways. They're still opposed to the gospel. There are people who are looking for immediate benefits. They're interested in a message that will tell you how to be healthy, how to be rich, how to have a good marriage, how to have peace of mind. They're interested in that sort of a Savior, and parts of the church are providing that sort of a Savior for them, but they're not interested in self-sacrifice. They're not interested in putting sin to death. They're not interested in taking up the cross and following Jesus. No, don't want to hear about that. Health and wealth, fine. Prosperity, fine. They're interested in science. They're interested in spectacular things. They're interested... They're like children. There are people, and if they went to a church service, let's imagine they go to a church service and two things happen. First of all, the minister preaches a marvelous sermon, 35 minutes of brilliant exposition and application, opens a passage of Scripture, explains it, illustrates it, applies it, drives home to their hearts. After he's finished, the lady in the congregation says, wait a moment, wait, wait, I have a message. I have a message from God. I love you all. And people would go home and say, do you know what happened today? We got a message from God in our church. Well, yes, you did get a message from God. Definitely got a message from God. That was the first message you heard. But because, you see what I'm saying? It's unusual. It's spectacular. Oh, that's absolutely wonderful. We've sang some wonders in our church. Still with us. I don't think I need to take too long to convince you that there are lots of people who believe that Christianity is unreasonable and unscientific. It's becoming quite nasty. I was looking the other day at the blurb on the back cover of Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. I quote, a preeminent scientist and the world's most prominent atheist asserts the irrationality of belief in God, and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society from the Crusades to 9-11." The next sentence is irresistibly comic. With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms. That's a good trick. examines God in all his forms. He destroys the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels wars, foments bigotry, abuses children, and is responsible for the difficulty of the Irish selectors in fixing on a settled-back role." Well, I added the last one, but they're putting everything else in, so we might as well, we might as well. Christianti's responsible for everything that's wrong in the world. Rod Liddell says, this superstitious nonsense that has bedeviled us since our first visit to Sunday school. Desmond Morris writes, is it too much to hope that this brave and important book will dump religious bigotry in the dustbin of history where it belongs. The mail on Sunday, the case Dawkins makes could not be clearer. There is no God. All religion is wrong. That's the world we're living in. To the Jews, a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness. The problem with the message. That's the longest of the three points. Secondly, a purpose of the message. Get this, it will help you. A purpose of the message. It seems a pity that the gospel is so unpopular and so unconvincing. And we might be tempted to think, has God goofed here? Has he made a mistake of some kind? Could God not have devised a message of salvation which would be easier for people to accept? Could God not have devised a gospel which is more logical and more scientific and more persuasive? Would that not have been a better idea? A gospel that when everybody heard it, people would say, well that makes perfect sense. I understand that. That's great. That's good. I'm going to believe in this Christ. Paul tells us something surprising in verse 19. God has deliberately planned a gospel which is offensive to believers. God has deliberately planned a gospel which will be a stumbling block and folly. That is not a mistake or an accident or an oversight. He has done it with a definite purpose. Look at what Paul says, the word of the cross is folly. Note this little word, for, don't overlook that word, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. and the discernment of the discerning I will forth. Why is it folly? Because God wants to destroy the wisdom of the wise. And so he planned for it to be folly so that the wisdom of the wise would be destroyed. Now Paul is here quoting from Isaiah chapter 29 verse 14. 750 years earlier there was a political crisis in Jerusalem. They were threatened with invasion by Assyrians. And Isaiah said, trust God and He will deliver you from the Assyrians. You don't need to be afraid. You don't need to be worried to worry. God will save you. But the leaders knew better. They were too clever to listen to Isaiah. And they said, no, no, that's not the way. We need to devise, as Baldrick would say, a clever plan. And it was about as clever as most of Baldrick's clever plans tended to be. They said, we're afraid of being invaded by Assyria, so we'll form an alliance with Egypt. And then Assyria won't invade us. That was their clever plan. What happened? Assyria were so enraged and alarmed by their alliance with Egypt that that provoked the invasion. They actually caused the invasion by their own clever plan. You see what I'm saying? Not only did their wisdom not help them, their wisdom destroyed them. Their wisdom brought on themselves the very invasion they had wanted to avoid. Instead of bringing them security, it brought disaster and death and ruin. And Paul tells us that in the Gospel, God is doing this again. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will work." The message of the gospel is deliberately designed to show that man's mind cannot save him, that he cannot think his way out of his lostness, that he cannot by his own cleverness and his own brain power save himself. The gospel is designed to contradict human ways of thinking. To knock them down. To show their emptiness. To show how futile and useless they are. Now, note this. Paul is not saying that it is irrational. That's what the critics say. Unreasonable. It's not irrational. It's not unreasonable. but it is so far beyond and above anything the human mind could ever devise or bring about that it absolutely transcends and swallows up and annihilates human reason as it were. In other words, salvation won't come through human philosophy or complicated research. Salvation won't be based on scientific principles. Salvation won't be open only to the super-intelligent. Salvation will not come in any way that will enable us to boast of our abilities or our brains or our achievements or our insights or our wisdom. Can't be, will never be, won't happen. Christ crucified is a message of weakness, and shame and death and it points to the fact that we are in terrible need, that we are lost, that we are doomed, that we're dead and that we're helpless and that we need to have something done for us which we can never do for ourselves. Something which we would never think of in a million years. Something which we receive in simple childlike faith. God says, if you won't come this way, you won't come anyway. You won't come to Christ. You won't come to salvation. Last year my wife and I were in Israel in one particular church that showed us the door. The door of the church is less than two feet high. And to get into the church, you have to go flat on your face and crawl in under the door. And the architects of that church were making a point, really the verse Simon was quoting at the beginning, to come into God's presence, you come in low, you come in humble, you come in helpless, you just look up to God. So God is going to devise a gospel with a low door. That's really what Paul's saying. You've got to come to Christ. You've got to put aside all your abilities and all your good works and all that you're proud of. And just like a little child, you've got to come and believe. And he asks these penetrating questions. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Where have their brains got them? Where have their theories got them? Look at the famous people in our world. The politicians, the scientists, the businessmen, the media personalities, the pop stars, the sports stars, the people who are in Hello magazine, Do they know how to live? Do they know how to be faithful to their wives or husbands? Do they know how to have a strong 40 year marriage? Are they wise people? Are they people you would want to go to for advice? People you would want to direct your lives? Do they display admirable character? Did they know how to solve the problems of society, the environment, crime, health, education, war, peace? They haven't a clue. They haven't a clue. When I was your age, the cleverest man in the world was a man called Bertrand Russell. Some of you may have heard of him. He was a genius. He lived from 1872 to 1970. He was the grandson of a British Prime Minister. He wrote Nearly 70 books on philosophy, justice, politics, mysticism, logic, communism, morals, religion, international affairs, biography. Lorna and I felt a bit like Bertrand Russell this evening when Simon said, ask them anything. Just ask them anything, and they'll be able to answer it. Well, Bertrand Russell was the guy. He co-authored a book on mathematics, which is still regarded as one of the seminal books on the subject. cleverest man in the world. And Russell's core idea was the power of the human mind. And he was recognized worldwide. He was knighted. He was recognized as one of the most intelligent people on the face of this earth. In terms of IQ, he was the top. Let me tell you about Bertrand Russell. He had four wives. He had numerous mistresses. He had countless squalid one-night stands, and some of those women were destroyed with utter heartlessness and cruelty. He was useless as a father. He was unreliable as a friend. He was a liar. His clothes were dirty. His breath was stinking. He was greedy for money. Even his opinion changed. In 1949, he said that America was the only hope for world peace, and America should impose peace in the world using its nuclear weapons if necessary to destroy Russia in a preventative war. Nine years later, he was president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and he said that America was the main threat to the world. Kennedy and MacMillan are more wicked than Hitler. They're the wickedest people that ever lived in the history of man. He was the cleverest man in the world. That's the summit of human intelligence. And these people are admired. And the fan clubs, the followers, they get all the awards, and they get all the honors. And there's far more wisdom And some little lady sitting in your church, who left school at 12, did manual work all her life. God has made foolish the wisdom of this world. Why should we try to satisfy these people? Why should we jump to their tune? Why should we listen to those who are perishing? Paul is saying here, you can't mix the gospel with human wisdom. First reason, the message itself is opposed to such wisdom. The second reason, this is how God plans it. This is how God means it to be. And with this we close. Thirdly, it's not necessary to change the message. It's not necessary to change the message. If we thought of the problem with the message, it's a stumbling block and foolishness. We thought of a purpose of the message. It's meant to destroy human wisdom. But thirdly, we come to the power of the message. The power of the message, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. There are many people who reject the gospel. But there are others who don't. Why? Are they clever? Are they better? Are they more receptive? No. It's nothing to do with them at all. To those who are called. It's God's doing, and God's working, and God's choosing. These are the people whom God is saving, upon whom God has had mercy. Now, this is the only explanation of the difference. Paul says in verse 21, "...it pleased God to save." How shall we reach the world? What hope have we when people reject the gospel as foolishness and as a stumbling block? What hope is there for the church in the 21st century? Well, I tell you the hope. It pleases God to save. It pleases God to save. And much of the church today, in its panic is forgetting about God. And it's in its desire, and it's a laudable desire, it's a good desire, to reach people with the gospel, they're ignoring the power and the election and the choice and the purpose of the God whose gospel it is. And our hope of success, and I'll be coming back to this tomorrow, isn't our clever strategies. It's that it pleases God to save. And these people, we, look at the gospel very differently. Paul says, to us who are called, it's the power of God. It's the message which transforms people at the deepest level. The gospel changes Saul, the persecutor, into Paul, the missionary. The gospel changes Augustine, the playboy, into the great theologian. The gospel changes a pagan athlete like Johnny Erickson into a missionary in a wheelchair. It's the power of God. And it has changed millions, millions of people throughout history. It has changed us. I hope you can say it is changing you. It's changing you deep inside. Turning you into a different person. I stand up in my pulpit in Trinity and I see people sitting in front of me changed. Some of them in their past Deep, dark, wicked sins. They've been dying as far as it's possible to be dying. And I mean that. And now, godly. Godly, Christ-like people. Utterly transformed. I knew them before they were Christians. We knew them then, we know them now. The difference is just incredible. The gospel has done that. It changes societies. We talk today about binge drinking. The government worried about what to do about binge drinking. In January 1859, McKenzie's Distillery in Belfast sold 1,200,000 gallons of whiskey. every year. By the end of the year, it was out of business. 1859. There'd been a revival. Binge drinking banished. People talk about crime. In March and April 1860, the magistrates met in Carrickfergus and Dolomena. and they were dismissed as soon as they met. No crimes, not a single crime, have been committed in either of those two towns in the previous three months. Not one. What made the difference? The Gospel. The Gospel. It has changed the face of society. And it's not just something in the past. To us, he says, who are being saved, The gospel is changing us day by day, even now as we sit. There is no power on this earth that could ever compare with that of God and in Christ through the gospel. It's the power of God. And it is the wisdom of God. To those who believe, it's not foolishness. It's matchless wisdom. As we reflect on the way of salvation, How God defied Him. His Son. Fully God. Fully Man. Fully One. How God dealt with every problem. How God met every need. How God is able to be just and at the same time to be the justifier and forgive. How can God say I will punish sin and the same God can say I will forgive sin? How could that happen? as we think how suitable Christ is, how adequate Christ is as our Saviour, as we get into Bible doctrine, as we study how immense the riches He has in store for us, as we think of heaven, the new heavens and the new earth, and how much there will be through all eternity for us to find out about salvation, the wisdom of God. People sometimes talk about the simple gospel. It is simple. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. That simple. And yet one of the greatest intellects the world has ever seen, the Apostle Paul, after he had finished explaining the gospel, he falls down on his face in Romans 11 and 33, and he cries out, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. I have to ask you, young people, Do you know the power of the gospel in your heart and in your life? Is Christ changing you? And are you enraptured by the wisdom of the gospel? What a wonderful message it is! As long as we study it, through all eternity, we will never exhaust it. We will never be able to say, A million, million years from now in heaven, you'll not be able to say, I understand it all now. You'll never understand. We'll just go on learning and learning and learning. It'll be more and more wonderful. More and more God will open out new vistas of truth. More and more wonderful. Girl Richard Dawkins says there's nothing in it. The story is told of a man leaving a picture gallery in London. He said very scornfully to the attendant at the door, I didn't see anything much in there. The attendant said, sir, in this gallery, it's not the pictures that are on trial. It's the people who do government. The irony, you see, is that the Jews who were seeking signs were blind to the greatest sign has ever been, the resurrection of Christ. And the Greeks, who were seeking wisdom, couldn't discern the most profound wisdom there's ever been when it was set before them. This is the first reason why we don't follow the way of the world. The pressures on us, as in Corinth, are immense. We want people to believe. We want to see conversions. We want to see our church growing. We want to see our family and our friends coming to faith. And the temptation is to change the message a little bit. To make it more palatable, to make it more acceptable, to cut off the rough edges. And there's subtle ways, and I'm not going to take time now, but there's subtle ways in which the church can just change the message a little bit so that it's not so offensive and it doesn't sound so foolish. Paul says, if you do that, you destroy it. The way he puts it is, the cross of Christ is emptied of its power. So that's the first reason to stick with the biblical gospel. To change it is to destroy it. And why would you want to change something so powerful and so wise? Note that little word, but. The Jews require a sign and the Greeks say, but, we don't listen to them. We don't let them dictate to us. In opposition to them, we keep on, what does the ESV say, preach? Anybody? Preach. Well, yes, preach, but I take This word preach here, in the biggest sense, it certainly includes preaching from a pulpit. But it also includes anybody who tells the gospel. The verbal declaration of the gospel. The word actually means proclaim. That's a better translation than preach. We proclaim Christ crucified. Not just ministers or elders. Everybody. So what I'm saying to you young people is, don't lose your nerve. The gospel doesn't need fixed. The gospel doesn't need changed. It needs to be proclaimed. And we proclaim it. We can rejoice in its very unpopularity. Why? Because when people believe it, there's all the more glory to God. You can say, well, God has done that. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. We'll stop there. Let me have a word of prayer, and then we'll sing a few verses. Father in heaven, you know all things. We hope, Lord, that we have a passion a desire to see people brought to faith. And we're not seeing as many people coming to faith as we would like. In too many of our congregations, while we are profoundly grateful for the way in which you're bringing our covenant children to living faith. And that is a miracle of your grace. Yet we also long, O God, to see those who are far off, and see them visibly changed by the power of your gospel. And sometimes, O God, in our weakness we become discouraged and intimidated, and we begin to wonder, is the old gospel enough? Do we need something else? Do we need to change it in some way? And so we pray, O God, that Paul, as he was speaking to those earnest but confused Christians in Corinth, that he too will be our teacher. That we may remember what Christ has done for us through the gospel. That we may know afresh that it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And perhaps, O God, the problem is with ourselves that we are not proclaiming it. And so, Father, help us tonight to think again of how wonderful the gospel is. And those who do not know it, give us an increased desire to tell it somehow to the people we meet. And we pray, O God, that we will then see it again as your power and your wisdom to your glory. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.