Gracious Father, once again, as we pause at the beginning of the time we open the book, we acknowledge the fact that this is no ordinary book. This is the very Word of God. And we also are aware of what the title of the message is today, and that is that many times your thoughts and your ways are inscrutable. Big words, it just means they're difficult and hard to understand and to comprehend. And we cannot really understand them just with the resources that we have in our nature. Because the scripture says, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness to him, neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned. So we are aware that we must lean on your Holy Spirit, the empowerment that you provide for us that we might, the illumination of the Holy Spirit that we might comprehend the truth of your word. Father, have mercy and give that enlightenment of the Spirit today, as the Word is taught, among all who are in the congregation here. May we be aware of the power and working of your Spirit in our presence. And we ask your blessing upon this time, and we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. For the last two weeks, we've been looking at the 40th chapter of Isaiah, so you can take your Bibles and open them up to might put a couple markers, but ones in first Corinthians or in Romans, I'm sorry, in Isaiah chapter 40, because we're also going to be turning to first Corinthians chapter two, if you want to mark that chapter. But anyway, in the last study last week, we entered into a new section. We entered into a new section of this chapter, Isaiah 40, and the first section presented an extraordinary prophetic foreshadowing of the gospel. I hope that if you were here, you remember that. A beautiful picture, considering it was given nearly 800 years before Christ was ever born into the world. And yet we have this extraordinary prophetic foreshadowing of the gospel in this 40th chapter of Isaiah in the Old Testament. And all of the elements of that gospel, when you look at it, the forgiveness of sins, comfort, the glory of the Lord being revealed and all of these things, would make us believe that, you know, we realize the gospel and this message of God that he has for humanity is so marvelous and is so wonderful and is so desirable, you would think, why isn't everybody in the world a Christian then? That's the way it would seem. I mean, it's such good stuff. Wow, look at what God is giving. Look at what he's doing. Why doesn't everybody respond to this truth from God? But that's not the case. And so we asked the question last week, why is that so? Why isn't it that everybody doesn't become saved then? Why isn't everyone a Christian? Why is it so difficult? And the answer is implied here in this next section of Isaiah chapter 40. And Isaiah here brings us face to face with God. And there are some extraordinary high and lofty concepts and pictures of the character of God in the rest of Isaiah chapter 40. And the question is, why does Isaiah do this? After he's been presenting a foreshadowing of the gospel message, why does he bring us face to face with the character and the nature of God? Well, the point is that Isaiah is suggesting that the reason, stay with me now, the reason that people fail to understand and believe and embrace such a wonderful gospel message from God is because they do not know and understand the truth about God himself. Let me say it another way. All of our difficulties in believing ultimately arise from one common source, and that is our ignorance concerning God and who and what he is. If we had a better concept of the reality of God himself, we'd have no problem grasping and believing and accepting the message that he gives to us. But that's where the problem lies. Now in our last study, we noted that in this new section, Isaiah focuses upon three important aspects of the person and the character of God. So I'll give you a quick review of the three points from last week, which we won't be teaching on again this week. But just so you're up to date on where we've been, in this new section, Isaiah does have three important aspects of the person and character of God that we looked at last week. First of all, verses, right, if you want to review them quickly, Verses 12, 15, and 17 of Isaiah 40, he emphasizes the greatness and the power and the majesty of God. Then in verse 16, he looks at the transcendent glory of God. God says, the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it. We saw it when Christ walked on the face of the earth, even though it was veiled in human flesh. We saw flashes of it then, but then one day the scripture teaches he's coming again in the clouds, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to be the judge of the world and to usher in his ultimate eternal kingdom and establish new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. So all of those things were in the first few points. And the third point is in verses 13 and 14, and that is Isaiah there draws us attention to the inscrutability of God's thoughts and his ways. Well, last week, we only just sort of scratched the surface on that third point. And I told you at that time, I said, well, we'll come back next week on that subject. So here we are. So today, we're going to be expanding his comments on verses 13 and 14. on the thoughts and the ways of God, and specifically having to do with the inscrutability of God's thoughts and His ways. My wife says, who in the world is going to understand what inscrutability means? Well, it just means hard to understand. So that's a good word for that. And we mentioned several examples. The fact that God's truth, when God speaks and He reveals something to mankind because of man's sin. Because a man's sinful condition, his fallen condition, of all who are in the world since sin entered into the world, we all have a sin nature. Because of that, it's difficult for us to believe and respond and accept God's message. And we gave three examples of even the greatest saints of God, remember last week, who at first, when God spoke to them some truth, they sort of stumbled. And I'm talking about people like Abraham and Sarah. Abraham, who's the father of all who believe. When God told him he was going to have a son and he's in his 90s, you know, heck, he had a problem with that. And Sarah even laughed about it. And then we remember that God, Gabriel the angel, spoke to Mary. And Mary had a problem at first. How can this be? I'm going to be with child. I've never known a man. I'm not married yet. How can this be? And yet Gabriel said, with God, all things are possible. And then, of course, Zachariah, who is the father of John the Baptist, remember that when he was ministering in the temple, he was a priest and he was on duty at that time, the angel Gabriel appeared to him also and told him that in his old age he would have a child. Of course, that would be John the Baptist. And Zachariah had a problem believing it also because he was so old. And it seems as though Gabriel the angel was actually offended because Gabriel says, look, what do you mean? How can this be? I stand in the very presence of God, and he has sent me to give you this good news. And you ask, that can't possibly be. That's the way we are. You see, I'm just saying, here you have some prime examples of some of the greatest saints in the scripture, and yet they had trouble believing. What does that say about the rest of the human race then? It says all of us have problems when God speaks, somehow believing. So let's look at the specific verses of our text today. Take your Bibles and look at Isaiah 40. And there, look at verses 13 and 14. Isaiah 40, verses 13 and 14. About the inscrutability of God's thoughts and His ways. It says, Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed Him as His counselor? God's thoughts. His thinking. Whom did the Lord consult? to enlighten him? And who taught him the right way? And who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? So these are the words of Isaiah. And the thing that's really good here is that we can apply an important principle of biblical interpretation, and it is this. It's a good sound principle of biblical interpretation to interpret the Old Testament in light of the New. Actually, both ways. Interpret the New Testament in light of the Old. Either way. Why? Because 1 Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is given by the inspiration of God. All scripture is God breathed. All scripture is given by the inspiration of God. This is not an ordinary book. This is a supernatural book. It's the very word of God. And Peter says, men who wrote the scriptures that God spoke to put together this book called the Bible. were carried along by the Holy Spirit, okay? So it's a unique kind of book. This is not just one more book in the world by men. This is the Word of God. Okay, so anyway, here's the point. There are two different places in the New Testament where this particular passage in Isaiah 40 we've just read is quoted. That's cool because we can go to the New Testament writers and we can see how they use this verse from Isaiah And then when we try to understand and interpret it for ourselves, we're supported by, you know, New Testament writers and their thoughts about the same verse. That's kind of cool, right? We don't have to just think in our heads here. We can also get some commentary from the New Testament itself and see whether our own interpretation is consistent with other writers in the inspired Word of God. Well, the first place, I'm going to give you two places where this passage is quoted from Isaiah 40 in the New Testament. First one is Romans chapter 11. Take your Bibles and turn over with me to Romans chapter 11. In Romans 11, look down near the end of that chapter to verses 13 and 14. No, I'm sorry. Down to verse 33, that is. 33. Verses 33 to 35. Romans 11, 33. Paul says, Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable, we could almost put the word in there, inscrutable. How unsearchable are his judgments, God's judgments, and his path beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Where have we heard that before? We just read it in Isaiah 40. See, Paul in the New Testament is quoting Isaiah 40. Verse 35, who has ever given God that God should repay him? So here we have the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament, both writers being inspired by the Holy Spirit when they wrote. And Paul is quoting from the very text that we're examining here in Isaiah 40, verses 13 and 14. And in this letter that Paul is writing in the New Testament to the Roman Christians, he's addressing God's dealings with humanity. And he's addressing the question that the Jews were raising, and that is that Paul was preaching this message from God, as he claimed, but the Jews were, and the mass of Jews in the nation of Israel, were not responding to the gospel, and most of his converts, therefore, were Gentiles. I mean, there were Jews who were being converted and believing the gospel, but I'm saying the multitude of the Jewish nation was not converted Most of the converts who went over to early Christianity were Gentiles, the people of the nations. And so Paul was preaching that salvation itself is the gift of God. It's through faith in God's promises. And he was preaching that this Jesus who had come into the world and recently lived and taught and so forth in Palestine and in the area of Israel, he was the promised Messiah Paul was preaching. And Paul was preaching that he was the fulfillment of God's promises. And the Jews, and Paul was also saying, if you believe on him and you believe the truth that he died for our sins and was raised again for our forgiveness and ascended into heaven, and that we can have eternal life and resurrection from the dead through him as well, because of the promises of God, you have a certain salvation. Well, the Jews were saying, well, wait a minute. If you're saying all of this is based upon the believing of the promises of God, didn't God make promises about us, we Jews in the Old Testament? If what you're saying is true, why isn't the whole Jewish nation being converted under this preaching, you see? That was the question the Jews were raising, a question about Israel. And so Paul's dealing with that question, which we're not going to get into today. It's a deep question, but Romans 9 through 11, Paul deals with that question. And Paul gives a very deep and profound answer to that question in these chapters. And it involves things like God's sovereign election and his predestination. If you're familiar with those chapters, you know what I'm talking about. Difficult stuff. Predestination. God knew us before the foundation of the world and chose us in Christ Jesus. And also his dealings with two groups of people in the world, and that is the nation of Israel and the Gentiles. So all of that is here. And Paul was dealing with that in Romans 9 through 11. And even today, This whole subject is so deep and profound that you've got Christians who just simply don't agree, in case you've never noticed that before, over election predestination. It's sort of like politics and religion. You want to get in an argument, start talking about election predestination among Christians. Well, Paul evidently realized that it was going to be this way. It's still one of the most difficult passages in the Bible. Theologians recognize that. quoted at the end of this exhortation, this passage that we're looking at today in Isaiah 40. And because the ways of God in this whole subject are so difficult, deep, and mysterious, we're not allowed, even I, when I go there and I read, and I don't mean even I, because I'm not one of the big scholars and theologians, but I know when I go to Romans 9-11 and I search these matters, It seems like I'm not able to really ever satisfy completely my thirst and my hunger to solve it all and get it figured out. Pastor Ross, he's got it all figured out. I say that in jest because he doesn't either. This guy's a PhD, but he doesn't have it figured out. What chance do we have? And I got news for you. Nobody's got it all figured out. And that's what Paul is saying here. Matters like sovereign election, predestination, God's dealing with the Jews and the Gentile, very difficult subjects. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this about this passage, he says, we can but dimly look at it and only grasp it up to a point. We can only grasp it up to a point. But the truth itself is beyond us. It's past finding out. And so Paul says in Romans 11, 33, oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable, how inscrutable, how unsearchable are his judgments and his paths, paths are beyond tracing out. So that's the first passage in the New Testament. Tells us a little bit about what Isaiah is talking about. He's talking about how deep and profound and mysterious the ways of God are and his thoughts of God. Remember, there's that other passage in Isaiah 55 where God, Isaiah says, as far as the heavens are above the earth, God says, speaking through Isaiah, as far as the heavens are above the earth, so far are your thoughts above, so God says, my thoughts are above your thoughts and my ways above your ways. God is way over our heads. And it's because of the way he is. He's infinite. And our brains are finite. So that's where we are. And now the second passage, I told you there's two passages in the New Testament that quote Isaiah 40 here that we are looking at today. And the other one's in Second Corinthians, chapter two. And I've got Second Corinthians, not First Corinthians, chapter two. Yes. First Corinthians, chapter two. It's quoted down in verse 16. You see it down there? 1 Corinthians 2, verse 16. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So Paul is quoting Isaiah as well here in his letter to the Corinthians. And this is a very wonderful and intriguing passage. In fact, we're going to be spending a lot of time this morning right here in 1 Corinthians 2, and that's why it was read this morning in the reading. And Paul in this letter to the Corinthians is really addressing the same issue as Isaiah is addressing in Isaiah 40. Paul came to a place called Athens. You've heard of it before. I flew in and out of there once. But anyway, Athens. Paul had been to Corinth and then he went to Athens on his second missionary journey. And when he came to Athens, he encountered a people called the Greeks. And I like to eat at Greek restaurants. I don't know about you. But the Greeks are interesting people. And I may have a few of them among us here today. But as we know the history of Greece, that the Greeks were very intelligent and clever people. In fact, Greece was the home of the great philosophers, right? Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and all of the ancient Greek scholars. But the point of the Greek people is this, and they're important, I think, providentially. That's why they are dealt with in the New Testament here. Their primary thing they desired above everything else was what? Wisdom, knowledge, understanding. And the thing they valued the most, that is understanding, was the very thing that kept them from receiving the gospel. Because they insisted upon knowing everything and understanding the mind of God completely before they would make a commitment to accept and believe. You see that? How many of you are sitting here today with the same thing? Same attitude? You know you've never received the gospel and believed because you just have questions. And there are things that are perplexing to you. And you think, if I ever figure it all out, then I'll believe. But not until then. Well, the problem is, the scripture is saying we're never going to do that. No one can understand the ways of God and the thoughts of God there as far as, love our ways as the heavens are above the earth and so forth. So the great metropolis and the center for Greek philosophical thinking was located here in Athens. And also we find Paul visiting Athens in Acts 17. You can take your Bible and turn over to Acts chapter 17 now. The other place marked there in 1 Corinthians 2, we'll be back. But in Acts chapter 17 and in verse 16, Paul had been to Thessalonica. When he went to Thessalonica on his second missionary journey, the Jews stirred up opposition to Paul and he was persecuted and run out of town. Then he went to a place called Berea. And it says the Bereans were more noble than those of Thessalonica because they reasoned from the scriptures daily and so forth. That's a good thing. But then the Jews from Thessalonica came to Berea and stirred up the people against Paul, and he had to leave Berea. And so when he left Berea, he went further south down the peninsula there, and he came to Athens. And so that's where we are now. In Athens, in verse 16, it says, now Paul went ahead. Timothy, who was one of his traveling companions and a co-worker in the ministry, Timothy and Silas stayed behind in Berea, but Paul went ahead because of the danger to his life. And so verse 16 says, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see the city was so full of idols. Then down in verse, I just want to read part of this down to verse 18 now. It says a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, different types of schools of philosophy there in Athens. began to dispute with him, and some of them asked, now remember these are not Jews now, these are Gentiles, right? But they're part of the Greek civilization there, the philosophers and so forth. They asked him, what is this babbler trying to say? Others remarked, he seems to be advocating foreign gods. And they said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. And then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus. Now, the Areopagus was the high court in Athens, and they met on Mars Hill. This is where Paul eventually met with him because he met here in their high court, which is Areopagus. And they brought him to the Areopagus where they said to him, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You're bringing some strange ideas to our ears. This is the gospel. The truth about God dealing with human race by sending his son into the world. You're bringing, the philosophers of the world say, you're bringing some strange ideas to our ears. And we want to know what they mean. And it says all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. So that's what Paul's visit to Athens was like. And later on in 1 Corinthians 1.23, Paul reminded the Corinthians that to them, as a people, the gospel was merely foolishness. to the Corinthians. It was nonsense and something the Greeks could not understand. So, we need to ask, what did Paul say then when he was there in Athens, when he preached among them? And we can look at that again in Acts 17. In Acts 17 verse 24, for example, this is interesting to me, I don't know if it is to you, but this is what Paul preached when he preached to the Gentiles there in Athens. This has to do with our subject this morning. Because we're questioning, how can we understand? How does mankind receive the things that God preaches to man about the gospel? And the Athenians are an example of this. In verse 24, in Acts 17, 24, Paul talked about God as the creator. He's the maker of all things in heaven and earth. Verse 26, he spoke about how all of the human race came from one man, from Adam. And God was the creator and maker of Adam. Then in verse 28, Acts 17, 28, he talks about how we move and have our being in him. In other words, God is the sovereign sustainer and ruler of all things in heaven and earth. And then also, down in verse 31, Paul spoke about the resurrection. If you look down in Acts 17, 31 with me, and it says, we all, and he was talking to them about their idols, all the idols he saw that bothered him there in Athens. and the pagan gods. And he talked about how God has overlooked man's ignorance in the past about such things in verse 30. But then he goes on, he says, but now he commands everyone to repent. And look at verse 31. Because, it says, he has set a day, God has set a day when he's going to judge the world with justice by the man that he has appointed. And he's given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. Now here are these Greeks for the first time hearing The idea that God has sent a man into the world to judge the whole world, and that this man was put to death, and that he was raised again. Verse 32, how did they receive this knowledge from God? When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, and others said, we want to hear you again on this subject. So, in other words, some of them said, most of them said, this is foolishness, this is rubbish. And others says, well, you know, I like to debate all kinds of philosophical thought and ideas and schools of thought. So we want to hear you again at a future time. But their desire to hear him was what? More intellectual gymnastics in their mind and all of that kind of thing. So when Paul came, when he wrote to the Corinthians, those who were believers, he said, he remarked about the first time that he came to Corinth. Look at this, back in 1 Corinthians 2 again. I told you we'd be back here. 1 Corinthians 2. Notice Paul says what he did when he first came to them and preached. And he says, when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or with superior wisdom. See, Paul wasn't trying to compete with these philosophers on their own ground, really, in terms of, you know, quoting philosophers and quoting the wisdom of man and so forth. I didn't come to you with some kind of eloquence or superior 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. And I came to you in weakness and fear and with much 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 men's wisdom, but on God's power." When Paul encountered those who were caught up and inebriated with the knowledge and the wisdom of this world in which our culture is saturated with it, our world is saturated with it today. People are caught up with the scientific method and the secular view of the world and the universe and so forth and the theory of evolution and all that. People are caught up with those views that are not in the Word of God, that are not consistent with the truth in the Word of God. But when Paul encountered these kind of people, he did not conformed to their methods, notice. He didn't quote the classic schools of philosophical thought and all the theories that were out there. He just stood up in front of them and told his story. And his story was about a man, a man who was a carpenter. He was a Jew, not a Greek. But most importantly, that he was crucified and he was put to death in apparent weakness, like a common thief on a Roman cross. So Paul, he says, that's what I did when I first came to you. And then this man was buried in a borrowed tomb. And he went on to talk about how he was resurrected from the dead. This is what he told the Athenians and the Greeks when he first came there. And to most of those Greeks, therefore, this was all monstrous. It was hideous because that wasn't the kind of thing they were used to thinking about. Today, the gospel is monstrous and hideous to many in the secular world. because they're not used to thinking about people dying and coming back to life again. They're not used to thinking about God coming into the world as a man and living here. It doesn't fit in with their scientific thinking, their scientific methodology of observation and experiment and so forth. So the important point, though, is that Paul, his answer and his response to the gospel was not to advocate, and get this now, it wasn't to advocate, and Paul wasn't saying you need to depart from wisdom. He wasn't saying, and this is important, he wasn't saying you need to just be subjective and rely on your emotion and your experience to find out the meaning of life. That isn't what he was saying. He's not saying to these people that they needed to choose between an intelligent and rational approach to truth and a sentimental, emotional, subjective approach. That's not what Paul was saying either. And Paul was not suggesting that the search for wisdom was evil or harmful. He wasn't saying it was wrong to search for wisdom and knowledge. That wasn't the problem. And he wasn't even saying that he himself didn't have any wisdom. We're going to read in Corinthians again where he says, I do speak a wisdom, but a wisdom from God. So Paul, instead, he was claiming that he was offering another kind of wisdom. In fact, the only ultimately true wisdom. That's kind of a summary of where Paul was coming from. He was saying precisely what Isaiah said back in Isaiah, remember? Isaiah said, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways. The heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours. That's what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians. He's saying that the problem with your people, the Greeks, and why most of them did not respond to the gospel is because, not that there's a problem, there's not a problem with the message I'm preaching, the problem is in you. your inability to understand what I'm saying. Paul was saying to them that their thinking was, now stay with me, their thinking was too narrow. Their thinking was too restricted. Can we take that today and apply it to our generation? Yes. The reason people don't believe is they are too hemmed in to what they have learned and been exposed to in their thought. If there is an infinite God, he transcends everything we've ever known, everything we've ever been exposed to in this world. And that's what Paul is saying. If you're going to comprehend the message I'm bringing to you, you've got to broaden out your thinking and your mind, or you'll never be in a position to receive it. That's why Jesus said you actually have to come as what? A little child. And that's what the Lord himself who came into the world said. Here's the requirement you need to understand, believe, and receive, and be saved through the gospel. And that is you have to become like a little child in your faith. Paul was saying that they think it was too narrow. They were thinking in terms of the finite. He was talking in terms of the infinite. They were limited. They were too narrow. Life as they knew it was all that they had been experiencing, and that's all they had to deal with. Paul summarized this in 1 Corinthians 2.14, and I've quoted it many times. You can almost quote it with me. Paul summarized this whole thought, 1 Corinthians 2.14. Remember, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Who's the natural man? That's all of us as we're born into this world and as we are exposed to the thinking of this world. He says the natural man in that condition does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. It says neither can he know them, it's not even possible, because they are spiritually discerned. Now let me pause and inject something else here. Paul is saying that our thinking is so decrepit, our pea brains are so small, so finite, that we cannot, he says, neither can he receive them. Therefore, we need a support. We need something to empower us and brace up our thought that we might understand it. And he says God even gives that. And that's what he means when he says they're spiritually discerned, which means God will reach down with his Holy Spirit and he'll prop up your weak and puny understanding, the power to your brain, so that you can comprehend and understand these things. It gives us reinforcement and strengthening through the Holy Spirit he gives to us. Now, I want to also go down to 1 Corinthians 2 again. Keep your Bibles marked in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 because there are three observations the rest of our time this morning that I want to give you. three observations from 1 Corinthians chapter 2, from this passage here, that Paul makes about why the natural man cannot receive the things of God. Three observations Paul makes about why the natural man cannot receive the things of God. Now again, the passage there is 1 Corinthians 2. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 2, 6 through 8. Look at the passage, and then I'll show you the three reasons he gives here, why men do not receive the things of God, right here in the text. 1 Corinthians 2 verses 6-8, he says, we do, however, speak a message of wisdom. So Paul wasn't saying we need to get rid of all wisdom. He said, no, we speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this world or the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of Glory. I want you to especially focus on verse 7. Notice that he says, we speak God's secret wisdom, a wisdom hidden and destined for our glory before time began. Notice there are three phrases there, and those are the three reasons why man cannot believe, why man has a difficulty in believing. In this passage, notice that the first reason that he gives is because it is the wisdom of God. Now pay attention. The first reason men cannot so easily believe and accept the truth when God speaks a message of truth to us about the gospel is because this that comes to us is the wisdom of God. He says in verse 6 and 7, we speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this world, but we declare God's wisdom. This is the starting point always. We are entering, in other words, when we listen to these words from God into an entirely separate and distinct category, we're entering into a whole different realm. This is not the opinion of men, the thinking of men, this is the wisdom of God. This is not to demean human wisdom. There's nothing wrong with human wisdom, that's good. The arts, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, All of these things are beautiful and good for us and profitable. They edify us. But they reflect our creativity which comes from where? Comes from God. How is man created? In whose image? In the image of God. So all of the good things that the wisdom of man produces are a reflection of the fact that he was created in the image of God. So that's not a bad thing in itself. All we're saying here, and all Paul is saying, is that the gospel message from God should never be put into the same category as these things. The gospel is not about man reaching up to God. It's about God coming down into a realm of fallen and lost humanity. And the gospel is God's thought. The gospel is God's plan. No one suggested it to him. No one stood at his elbow to give him advice. Isn't that what Isaiah said? So it's the wisdom of God. And that's what Isaiah was saying back in Isaiah 40, 13, 14. Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord or instruct the Lord as his counselor? That's why God didn't consult with anyone when he created the world and so forth. And it doesn't make any sense to us because it says, while we were yet sinners, he thought of this plan and construed it for us. And then Paul also in 1 Corinthians 1.20, check it out there, 1 Corinthians 1.20. He also rules out even the possibility that human wisdom of the philosophers or even anyone else can ever attain to an understanding of the divine truth that God reveals to us in the gospel. 1 Corinthians 1.20, he says, when it comes to this, he says, 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? So natural man, even the wisest, greatest among us in the human race, cannot attain to this knowledge is according to what Paul says. Now let's go to the second reason he gives second observation Paul gives as to why men cannot receive the message of God. And that is because it says the message involves a revelation of a divine mystery. First Corinthians 2 7 Paul says we declare God's wisdom. And then he says a what a mystery that has been hidden. Now think again. He refers to the message God gives us Stay with me, as a what? A mystery. Something that is hidden. Now this aspect of revelation of God is given in the gospel. And the gospel comes across this way for this reason. And Lloyd-Jones summarized it better than me, so I'm going to quote him. Look at the words of Lloyd-Jones. Why is it a mystery? Why is it something hidden? He says it was almost enough to say that the gospel is God's wisdom. But with human nature being what it is, craving for understanding and believing in the power of the human mind to comprehend even the infinities and eternities, the truth must be put on a very plain, very plainly and beyond the shadow of a doubt. The gospel is not only the wisdom of God, but because it is the wisdom of God, it's also hidden wisdom. Something that is at one and the same time revealed and yet hidden. It's a mystery. It's a, what's that word? An enigma. and a mystery. Now what does Paul mean by a mystery? Let's follow this through a bit. What does he mean by a mystery? Well, the Bible tells us that God has an eternal purpose. Ephesians 3.11. I don't have time to go to all this today because I don't have time to get everything in. But Ephesians 3.11, mark it down, it refers to the fact that God has an eternal purpose. And Ephesians 1.9, it talks about how He has made known the purpose of His will, the secret of His will to those who are redeemed. So according to scripture, God before the foundation of the world had a plan, a scheme. And God is working that out in his great history of things in the world right now. And this is something that man by nature is not aware of and actually can't be aware of when you stop and think about it. I mean, we can go out and we can study the trees and we can study nature and we can learn about the handiwork of God. But how are you going to learn about God's thinking and planning about his plan of redemption before the world? By looking at the trees. No way. So, it's something that we have to have revealed to us. Now people think also that they are greatly influenced by history, and we are in a way. But listen to this. The greatest thing that will ever happen in history has already happened. Think about it, right? The greatest thing that will ever happen on the face of the planet Earth has already happened. And that is that the Son of God came into the world and walked in the earth and was one of us, the one who created and made it. Now listen, what effect does that have on the world that you see around you today? Very little. Comparatively, very little, right? It's already occurred, this great thing, but it's a mystery. It's hidden to them because people don't even realize. Their life is not governed by the principle God has visited this planet. God has been here. God has told us what's to come. You think that's governing the thoughts of most people? Most people don't care. It's still rubbish and foolishness to them. It's still a mystery. Most people think it's important to know something about history, but again, they don't even know there's more than one kind of history. Listen to this. And this is important because it's very biblical. There are two kinds of history. Of course, one is secular history. We know all about that because we had to sit there and read the books and listen to the teachers in school. Many of us fell asleep during those lectures. We read books about nations, international events that shape the political and economic maps of the modern world. We learn about kings and princes and presidents and prime ministers and wars and disputes. And I'm not saying these aren't important. This kind of history is important. This is secular history, the history of the world. But what I'm saying is there's another kind of history. And it is salvation history, or you can call it sacred history, or, and here's the chance I told my wife I get to use the 25 cent word I had to go to school to get, heilsgeschichte. You know, anybody know what heilsgeschichte is? I know one person who probably does. It's the German word for holy history, or for sacred. It refers to salvation history. And what this is, is this is the history that's in the Bible. This is the history that tells us about what went on before the foundation of the world. OK? And if you read John 17, before I ever got into this series in Isaiah, and before Pastor Ross became senior pastor, I preached for a long time on Isaiah 7, or on Jeremiah. No, John. John's Gospel. I'll get there in a minute. John's Gospel, Chapter 17. If you read it, you're going to read all about what happened in heaven and in glory before the foundation of the world. And Jesus himself is telling us. He was there. Isn't that amazing? Well see, the secular world doesn't even believe that. It doesn't take that into consideration. It's a mystery to them. They're living in ignorance of it. So the world sees one of these histories but not the other one. And the other history tells us that the sovereign being who created the world has actually visited the planet. He's lived here in the human form. John 1.14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed the glory of God even though it was veiled in human flesh. at that time. And the Son of God, it says, also is going to be coming back again. And with the clouds of heaven, this King of Kings and Lord of Lords is going to establish one final kingdom. All the other political kingdoms of the world, the result of the genius of man, have risen and fallen, risen and fallen, keep becoming corrupt and weak and hollow, and they fall through. But the day is coming in which there's going to come the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, according to holy history. And this world's history is going to be over. There's going to be one kingdom that will last forever. There will be new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. And that's the sacred history that's in the Bible. But listen to me, the world is living as though the Son of God never even came to this world. As though nothing has happened and it's hidden to them, it is a mystery. You get the idea of what Paul means about a mystery now? And even the leaders of the world, the smartest, most intelligent people, we think of them as that anyway, in the world they don't, the presidents, the prime ministers, the kings, the philosophers, the princes, the scientists, the teachers. 1 Corinthians 2.8, mark it down, 1 Corinthians 2.8 says, none of the rulers of this age, none of the princes of this age, none of the really smart people of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord. Glory. See the inscrutability of God and his ways and how it presents a problem for man because man insists that he might know everything before he's going to do anything. And you can't comprehend an infinite God. And then a final statement Paul makes concerning this mystery aspect of receiving the message of God is in 1 Corinthians 2, 9 to 12. Take your Bibles and go there with me. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 to 12. And he says in verse 9, however, as it's written, no eye has seen, here's the history that's holy history that secular history rejects, no eye has ever seen nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. Here's the holy history. But God has revealed it to us. There is another overriding history that's real and is going on in the cosmos. around the sphere of the physical world that we know about. The secular man doesn't know about this, but God has revealed it to us, he says. Verse 10, but God has revealed it to us, how? By His Spirit. And the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. God's Spirit that He gives us. Verse 11, for who among men knows the thoughts of man except the Spirit of man that's in him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. And we have, listen to it, we, verse 12, We have not received the spirit of the world, the secular spirit, Christians, but the spirit who is from God. Why? That we may understand what God has freely given us. All right? So again, it talks about it as a mystery. Something that God has given to us and that we can only understand as we see that God has given it to us. So we shouldn't be surprised therefore, listen to me, We shouldn't be surprised that so many of the so-called great people of the world are rejecting this message of the gospel. So many of your Hollywood idols and all of that shouldn't come as a surprise. Paul says in Corinthians, 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 are of noble birth. And why is that so? Because men are trusting in what? Their own philosophy. their own thinking, that which they can see and touch, and it's limited to that. And they want to understand the mind of God before deciding to believe. But Jesus said, I tell you truly, unless you change and become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Well, I have to hurry on because there is a third point here. I'm sorry about that. I'm not sorry about it. I'm glad it is. I'm just sorry we're running a little slow here. But a third, final point. Paul, the reason Paul gives why men do not receive the truth in this Corinthian passage, because it's something that God destined for our glory before time began. It's something that's beyond the sphere, again, of this world. It goes back before the foundation of history, and that's why men can't accept it and believe it. 1 Corinthians 2, 6, and 9, we do not speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but the wisdom of the sage and his rulers. We're coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom and He talks about how God ordained it for our glory before time began. What does this mean? What's the implication if God ordained this wisdom before the world that He's revealing to us in the Gospel? It means that the Gospel is not an afterthought. It means that this world is not out of control. God knew from the beginning. God planned from the beginning. And in His sovereignty, He controls and overrides the history of man and shapes and molds it towards His end. Isaiah 46.10 says, God makes known the end. When? From the beginning. Because He knows all things. He is omniscient. Because He knows all things. And God has seen everything in the eternity past before it even comes about. And the message of the Gospel is the plan. That's it. that God made known of what his plan is, and he planned it before the world, and now he's revealed it to us, and we call it the gospel. And the problem is that humanity has gone astray. What does it say in Isaiah 53-6? All we like sheep have gone astray. That's the problem with man. Everyone's going to his own way. Every man has gone astray. Every political experiment, every nation, every new nation, every political trial has failed. Man has been trying to solve this problem throughout the history of the human race, but it's a deep and profound problem in man, his going astray from God. All of human ingenuity and his ability has been unable to solve the problem, and even today, as Putin is on the warpath, and the United States grows weaker and so forth, it just comes in a different form in different ages of history. But all of the political schemes of men are going to fail and ultimately there will be destruction except that God's going to interfere. The message of the gospel is that God has a plan. A plan conceived by God before the foundation of the world. It involves the changing of the hearts of men, not political control, but changing men's hearts in a way that goes beyond just intellectually comprehending truth. but that God has to come in and help with and prop it up and strengthen it with his spirit. That's the way it happened. And this gospel message, we just quickly say, well, what is that? Basically, essentially, what is that about the message God has given us? At the heart of it involves the incarnation. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 says, none of the rulers understood this, that God was going to come and visit the earth in the form of a man. For if they would, they would not have crucified Jesus. They wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. But God's plan, which He conceived before the foundation of the world, involves the Incarnation. And this is the very wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 2 says, We declare God's wisdom in a mystery. What is God's wisdom in a mystery? It is that God, the Son, would come into the earth and become a man. It says that in 1 Timothy 3.16. I've got it in no time. Just write it down. 1 Corinthians 3.16. Let me read it to you. 1 Corinthians 3.16 says, beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great. Notice it's a mystery. What is it? It goes on, it says, the mystery is that he appeared in the flesh. The incarnation. The mystery of God is the incarnation. That he appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, and believed on in the world, and then taken up into glory. And is this not a great mystery? Think about it. It's late in the day, but we can still think, right? Think about it. This is entirely different from anything that we can ever know. Can you imagine a human being ever coming up with such an idea like that or anything that remotely resembles it? No. Here is a helpless little infant lying in a manger. But this tiny baby was playing with the cosmos before he was ever born into the world. He's actually, the baby, is actually the Lord of Glory veiled in human flesh. Divine wisdom blows our mind, yes. But this is God's revelation. He's saying, this is my plan. The way I'm going to save the world is to send my own son into the world. He's going to be clothed in human flesh. He'll be a babe in a manger. And then he'll die on the cross to do something that needs to be done if the world is to be redeemed. Now for a lot of people, even sitting here today, this is going Because they do not receive the things that this belongs in the world of fairy tales and fiction. So God says you're thinking on too much of a narrow perspective. You refuse to believe the infinite creator and maker of all things who has spoken into the world and revealed these things to us. Isaiah said whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him. This is not the kind of thing any human philosopher would ever thought of again. And one more vital part of this mystery. And that is the suffering and the death of the promised Deliverer. Not only is He sending His Son into the world, but there's this amazing paradox. The Lord of Glory is crucified. God sends His Son into the world and He's crucified. And He's crucified in apparent weakness. It seems like He can't do anything about it. He seems helpless. He's rejected. He's despised. He's nailed to a tree. And then He's buried in a borrowed tomb. That seems very paradoxical. Peter's word says, you killed the author of life. How is it possible for men to kill the author of life? One who's authored the earth and all of life, how can men kill him? But that's the paradox in the wisdom of God. So we come back to the point again that we did at the beginning, and that is God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. As high as the heavens are above, so high are my ways above yours. The ways of God are, what's the title? Say the big word. The ways of God are inscrutable. We think, listen to me, we think we need to live a better life. We think we need to become more educated, get more knowledge so we can first understand God's thoughts and His ways. We think we need an example to follow and some people think that's all Jesus was. We think we need to get our act together and turn over a new leaf. Make up our mind to do better. We think we need to become religious and take up a religion and take up Christianity and practice it. We think that's what we need to do. That's all our idea of salvation. But the message of the gospel that God sends is that it's not about our reaching for God. It's about, the gospel is about how God has announced how he has acted and reached down to us. John 3, 16, most clear verse in the Bible. For God so loved the world. God, see, God acted. That he gave. The incarnation, he gave his only son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Galatians 4.4, in the fullness of time in history, God purposed before the world. Galatians 4.4 says in the fullness of time, just the right moment, God sent forth his son born of a woman. The innocent comes and dies for the guilty, God's plan. Vicarious, substitutionary suffering. All we like sheep have gone astray. Every one of us has gone the wrong way, but God has laid on Him substitutionary sacrifice. Mystery. God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 2 Corinthians 5.21, Paul says, He made Him, Christ, The Son of God, who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. On the cross, He died for our sins. The penalty of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. Jesus paid it for us on the cross. Substitutionary vicarious suffering, part of the wisdom of God and how He decided to do it. And the following aspect of the mystery is perhaps the most profound, and that is it's free. Ephesians 2 and 9, we all know it, for by grace Are you saved through faith? And that is not of yourselves. It is a gift. He calls it a gift. Check it out. If he's doing not the gift of God, not of work, not of works, lest any man should boast. And Titus 3, 5, Titus 3, 5, not you see, you hear all these guys from the Knights King table, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy that he saved us. It's free. The wisdom of God inscrutable. Isaiah 55, verse 1, Isaiah loved this. Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come and buy and eat. Come and buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Isaiah says it's by grace, it's through faith, it's free, it's a gift. 800 years before Christ was born. Then Augustus' top lady caught up in it too. Wrote the old hymn, Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress, helpless come to thee for grace, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. Let's pray. Gracious Father, thank you again that we can learn something about the inscrutable knowledge of God, the inscrutable ways of God. Even though they are inscrutable to us and incomprehensible, that's a good thing because our minds are finite and we realize that. And so, Lord, we pray that you will help us to be like little children, that we might not act foolishly and without wisdom, as Paul says, but that we may hear your truth, your wisdom from on high, and that we might believe it and accept it and base our eternal hope of our eternal destiny upon it. I pray for some in the audience today who may not be saved, that even now, Lord, best they know how, that they may reach out and say, Lord, I never heard this before. I never understood it. Have mercy upon me for I am a sinner. I'm lost and I do not want to be passed over. When you have given your son and you've given salvation freely as a gift through his death on the cross and his satisfaction of the guilt and condemnation of my sin, that he paid for it and did away with it. Lord, have mercy on me. Give me the salvation that comes through Christ. And then, Lord, I pray for the saints of God also this morning to be faithful and to be constant and continual about sharing this gospel with others and their loved ones and to be about the business of making disciples. And thank you for the glorious hope we all have in the Lord Jesus for new heavens and new earth and eternity. We give you all the praise in Christ's holy name. Amen.