will look upon a child;
Pity your simplicity,
And allow you to come to him.
He will not cast you away; for smoking flax he will not quench, and the bruised reed he will not break.
{a} Amoeba: A single celled microscopic animal.
{b} Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, KB (13 November 1761-16 January 1809) was a British soldier and General. He is best known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which he defeated a French army under Marshal Soult during the Peninsular War. See Explorer “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moore_(British_Army_officer)”
{c} General James Wolfe (2 January 1727-13 September 1759) was a British Army officer, known for his training reforms but remembered chiefly for his victory over the French in Canada and establishing British rule there. See Explorer “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wolfe”
{d} Vici Latin for I have conquered.
Christ Crucified
No. 7,8-1:49. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, February 11, 1855, By C. H. Spurgeon, At Exeter Hall, Strand.
But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. {1 Corinthians 1:23,24 }
1. What contempt has God poured upon the wisdom of this world! How has he brought it to nothing, and made it appear as nothing. He has allowed it to work out its own conclusions, and prove its own folly. Men boasted that they were wise; they said that they could find out God to perfection; and in order that their folly might be refuted once and for ever, God gave them the opportunity of so doing. He said, “Worldly wisdom, I will try you. You say that you are mighty, that your intellect is vast and comprehensive, that your eye is keen, that you can unravel all secrets; now, behold, I try you: I give you one great problem to solve. Here is the universe; stars make its canopy, fields and flowers adorn it, and the floods roll over its surface; my name is written in it; the invisible things of God may be clearly seen in the things which are made. Philosophy, I give to you this problem — find me out. Here are my works — find me out. Discover in the wondrous world which I have made, the way to worship me acceptably. I give you space enough to do it — there is data enough. Behold the clouds, the earth, and the stars. I give you time enough; I will give you four thousand years and I will not interfere; but you shall do as you will with your own world. I will give you men in abundance, for I will make great minds and vast, whom you shall call lords of earth; you shall have orators, you shall have philosophers. Find me out, oh reason, find me out, oh wisdom; discover my nature, if you can: find me out to perfection, if you are able; and if you cannot, then shut your mouth for ever, and then I will teach you that the wisdom of God is wiser than the wisdom of man; yes that the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” And how did the reason of man work out the problem? How did wisdom perform her feat? Look upon the heathen nations; there you see the result of wisdom’s research. In the time of Jesus Christ, you might have beheld the earth covered with the slime of pollution — a Sodom on a large scale, corrupt, filthy, depraved, indulging in vices which we dare not mention, revelling in lusts too abominable even for our imagination to dwell upon for a moment. We find the men prostrating themselves before blocks of wood and stone, adoring ten thousand gods more vicious than themselves. We find, in fact, that reason wrote out her own depravity with a finger covered with blood and filth, and that she for ever cut herself off from all her glory, by the vile deeds she did. She would not worship God. She would not bow down to him who is “clearly seen,” but she worshipped any creature; the reptile that crawled, the crocodile, the viper, everything might be a god, but not, indeed, the God of Heaven. Vice might be made into a ceremony, the greatest crime might be exalted into a religion, but she did know nothing about true worship. Poor reason! poor wisdom! How are you fallen from heaven! Like Lucifer — you son of the morning — you are lost. You have written out your conclusion, but it is a conclusion of consummate folly. “After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.”
2. Wisdom had had its time, and time enough; it had done its all, and that was little enough; it had made the world worse than it was before it stepped upon it, and now, God says, “Foolishness shall overcome wisdom; now ignorance, as you call it, shall sweep away your science; now, humble, child-like faith, shall crumble to the dust all the colossal systems your hands have piled.” He calls his army. Christ puts his trumpet to his mouth, and up come the warriors, clad in fisherman’s garb, with the brogue of the lake of Galilee — poor humble mariners. Here are the warriors, oh wisdom! that are to confound you; these are the heroes who shall overcome your proud philosophers! these men are to plant their standard upon the ruined walls of your strongholds, and bid them fall for ever; these men, and their successors, are to exalt a gospel in the world which you may laugh at as absurd, which you may sneer at as folly, but which shall be exalted above the hills, and shall be glorious even to the highest heavens. Since that day, God has always raised up successors of the apostles. I claim to be a successor of the apostles, not by any lineal descent, but because I have the same roll and charter as any apostle, and am as much called to preach the gospel as Paul himself: if not as much confirmed in the conversion of sinners, yet in a measure, blessed of God; and, therefore, here I stand, foolish as Paul might be, foolish as Peter, or any of those fisherman, but still with the might of God I grasp the sword of truth — coming here to “preach Christ and him crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
3. Before I enter upon our text, let me very briefly tell you what I believe preaching Christ and him crucified is. My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give our people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truth of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ’s name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified who leaves out the Holy Spirit’s work, who never says a word about the Holy Spirit, so that indeed the hearers might say, “We do not so much as know whether there is a Holy Spirit.” And I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering, love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and allows the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all critics we reply, “We have not so learned Christ.”
4. There are three things in the text. First, a gospel rejected — “Christ, crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness”; secondly, a gospel triumphant — “to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks”; and thirdly, a gospel admired — it is to those who are called “the power of God; and the wisdom of God.”
5. I. First, we have here A GOSPEL REJECTED. One would have imagined that when God sent his gospel to men, all men would meekly listen, and humbly receive its truths.
