After a couple of weeks off, we're back in 1 Corinthians in our series through this epistle. So please, if you are able, grab a Bible, grab a smartphone, grab a pew Bible, and turn with me 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, we're going to pick up in verse 18. And as we jump in, I want to stop for a second and remind you of the context. What have we seen so far? What did we see a few weeks ago when we looked at the previous section? The main reason why this letter was written, the central overarching issue that has led to all of the chaos and sins of the church in Corinth, is that there were divisions in the church, personality cults. So the Apostle Paul writes to them, beginning in verse 10, I appeal to you, be united, be of the same mind, be of the same judgment. A church divided against itself cannot stand. Well, following that, that section, Paul now, beginning in verse 18, begins to detail the root problem of the division. So he's called them to be united. Now he begins to explain what the problem is and what the remedy is. And as we've noted, he doesn't just throw out a bunch of law and commandments. He doesn't do this even for the most heinous sins in this church. He doesn't just seek to shame them. He doesn't put them in their place. I'm the apostle, now obey me. Don't you know the law of God? Don't you know what obedience is? Rather, he seeks to convince them, to draw them in by pointing to the solution to these sins and every other sin, the solution being the cross. and how the cross must be the center of our hearts, the center of our homes, and the center of our churches. And that's what we see here in this passage. That's what he begins to detail. So with this in mind, let's turn and let's read what God has for us this morning, 1 Corinthians 1.18. Our focus is gonna be of 18, 19, 20, and 21 today, and then next week, we're gonna round it off, this is part one of part two, Next week we're going to look at verses 23-25, but for the sake of context, let's read it all. 1 Corinthians 1.18-25. This is, remember brethren, God's Word. For 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 was 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 pleased 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 wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Amen. Would you bow with me again in prayer? Father, we stop. We stop. And we still our hearts before You. We hear Your Word when it says that Christ in Him are hidden all the riches and treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Lord, when we are honest with ourselves, we all acknowledge that we lack wisdom and that we are easily and frequently led astray by foolishness. We pray then, Lord, that this morning that You would be pleased to manifest Your wisdom and power, that through the preaching of the cross that You would save and sanctify Your people. Be faithful to your promises this morning, we ask through your son, Jesus Christ, amen. Well, if we were to distill the entire message of scripture down to the bare fundamentals, the inescapable conclusion that we would reach is that there are two and only two ways to live. You know, sometimes we chafe at strict dichotomies. Sometimes we argue strongly for nuance, for middle ground, for gray area, something other than black and white. You know, things aren't always that simple, we say. And admittedly, while many issues in life, most of them are complicated, oftentimes, you know, one perspective doesn't always provide the full picture. Admittedly, in most things we can often find an element of truth in them. All truth is God's truth. But at the end of the day, when we break down everything to ultimate issues, there really is only two ways to live. There really are only two ages. This age and the age to come that we are being conformed to. There really is only two basic responses to God and His revelation to us. There is truth and there is wisdom. There is wisdom and there is foolishness. There is power and there is weakness. There is salvation and there is perishing. There is this age, there is the age to come. And sometimes there is no middle ground between them. Sometimes, as Paul will say later in this letter, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. You see, the church in Corinth had forgotten these truths, or they had neglected this most foundational truth about God and His Word. They had started well, but at some point they had began to fracture into different cliques, and this had led to an assortment of other sins and problems. And when we peel back the layer as to why did this happen, why are they so fractured? Why were they favoring this teacher or that teacher? Why were they fighting and suing one another? Why were they arguing? Why were their worship services chaotic? Why was the Lord's Supper being abused? When we get down to where the rubber meets the road, the ultimate problem is they had become infatuated with the wisdom of this world. It's not like they had thrown off God's word in favor of human wisdom. It's not like they had adopted human wisdom as their ultimate overarching philosophy or worldview. It's not as if they cast aside the scriptures and pulled up the latest philosophical writings or the rantings of a popular thinker. No, rather, it's much more subtle than this. It's much more deceptive than this. the world had infiltrated the church and their thinking and had been mixed with the gospel. Perhaps this was done in an attempt to make the gospel more attractive to outsiders. It's really what we'll consider more in the next few weeks, being ashamed of the gospel. If we kind of dumb that down a little bit, if we make it a little bit less offensive, maybe we can attract more people into our church. Maybe this was done because they love the beautiful and inspiring rhetoric of the cultural philosophers and they were ashamed of the simple preaching of the cross. Maybe this was done simply from the fallout of being bored with a simple message of the gospel, bored with the ordinary means of grace with its plain gospel preaching, and they felt they needed to progress to something a little higher, something a little better in order to truly flourish in life. For whatever reason it was, they had begun to suddenly turn from the centrality of Christ and Him crucified to other things, and it was causing problems. And this is why Paul starts right here. This is why this entire letter is built upon how he begins here in chapter one and two. He goes to the root of their problems. He goes to how they had neglected or forgotten the centrality of the cross, and he seeks to draw them in back to fix their eyes upon Christ and Him crucified as the center of everything. And brethren, when we think about this, don't we see these very same tendencies around us in our day as well, all around us? Don't we see teachers and preachers and inspirational speakers and life coaches, professors and politicians, celebrities and therapists, scientists and psychologists, TikTok celebrities and YouTube influencers, Don't we see this all around us? Those who entice us with promise, the promise and the secrets of the good life. And we hear so often, you know, this is what you really need to flourish in life. To overcome your pain, to overcome your depression, to overcome your anxiety, to overcome your struggles, to overcome your sins, to overcome your difficulties, to overcome your family dysfunction, what you really need to be happy is this worldview, or this political party, or this particular therapy, or this medication, or this technology, or this lifestyle, or this perspective, or these tips that nobody else really has grasped. And even though these voices sometimes come to us and they may not outright deny Christ and Him crucified, how subtly, how easily do these voices seek to push Christ into the background of seemingly more important and more helpful and more practical, bigger and better things. Brethren, this passage speaks to those realities. the passage before us this morning. This passage confronts these things head on. And what we see in clear and emphatic terms is that at the end of the day, there is emphatic opposition between human wisdom and the message of the cross. Here we see that the gospel will always be offensive, or stupid, or just plain irrelevant and boring in the eyes of the world. Here we also see that it's only this message to those who are being saved. It's only this message to those who are being called. It's only this message in which all the treasures of wisdom are found and the power of God is unleashed in our lives and our hearts and in our churches. So brethren, again today, I want you to see from this passage that in the Christian life, we never move beyond the gospel. We never move beyond the gospel as if it's just concerning our forgiveness of sins, and now we need to turn to bigger and better things, because when we move beyond the gospel, we move beyond and away from Christ himself. The same gospel that saves is the same gospel that gives us our identity as Christians, and it's the same gospel that leads to an ongoing transformation in us that reshapes us. for the age to come. That's what we see and that's what we need to embrace from this passage this morning. Three things then to work through this passage. Three points for us to consider. The cross divides, the cross destroys, and the cross delivers. Divides, destroys, and delivers. First, from verse 18. I want you to see how the cross divides. It always divides. It divides. Look at it again. For 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. It may seem strange to categorize this under divide, because isn't Paul's whole point is that the church needs to be united and not divided? Well, division in the church, of course, is a sinful thing. It's undesirable. But brethren, you need to know, there absolutely must be division between the church and the world. If there is no division between the church and the world, you don't have a church. And that's kind of Paul's point here in verse 18. That's what he wants to nail home, and it's kind of hard to see because of the paragraph break. It's also kind of difficult to see reading it just in English, but I want to point out a parallel between verse 17 and verse 18. If you look back at verse 17, we see here Paul say, I've not been sent to preach, excuse me, I've been sent to preach not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power. And then in verse 18, he says, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. The connection is that there is a word that belongs to eloquent wisdom, verse 17, and a word of the cross in verse 18. And that's the parallel. Two words. Same word, logos. The two words that are mutually exclusive, that are opposed to one another. And this is how I think in verse 18, it really sums up the key issue in the entire church. Virtually every other problem in the church can be traced back to here in verse 18. The Corinthians don't see how the word of the world and the word of the cross are diametrically opposed. They're trying to mix the two. They're trying to find a happy medium between the two. Or they're operating on that assumption. So first, he says here that the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. When we think about this, it may seem a little odd in our day. Because to us, the cross isn't really that foolish, at least in this culture. Let's think about the image of the cross. They adorn our church buildings. Logos and letterheads, T-shirts and coffee mugs. We see the cross all the time. My guess is some of you are probably wearing jewelry this morning that's a cross. And Christianity is on every street corner, especially here in the South. And we may say, OK, maybe Christianity is despised among the elites in our country. But really, we don't live in a culture or in a day where a lot of people see the cross as foolishness or as scandalous. Rather than the ancient world, it's very different. Very different. In that day, and you know this, I'm not telling you anything new, but crucifixion was reserved for the worst of criminals. The lowest dregs of society. Slaves, traitors, barbarians and terrorists. Insurrectionists. It was the form of execution, like if we were to bring this into our day, that we would reserve for like the 9-11 bombers. Or maybe a child molester. or a Benedict Arnold, a spy, a traitor. It was reserved for the worst of the worst. It was the most heinous form of execution, and to die on the cross was to die in utter shame. So just think about this. If a new religion appears on the scene, and they keep talking about an electric chair, or they adopt a noose as their symbol, Or maybe their church has, you know, like a logo, like an image of a crematory at Auschwitz on the front of it. Maybe this new religious keeps talking about how their Lord and Savior died by being lynched by a mob. That's kind of the picture here. And wouldn't we say that, you know, they're verifiably insane? That sounds ridiculous. Especially in Jewish thought, because to die on the cross was a sign of being cursed by God and cut off from the covenant. And in Greek thought, they valued everything of honor and success and beauty and proper and intellectualism. That's the picture here. Of course, that only really scratches the surface of why the cross is foolishness to unbelievers. Think about how absurd it is to think that the very God who made the world, the God who made the universe, the stars, the planets, all the black holes in the galaxies, We think of the God who upholds creation, who feeds the animals, where everything, the planets and creation just operates in an orderly, systematic fashion. How absurd is it to think that the God who does and did and does all of these things was nailed to a cross by the very creatures that He created and sustains moment by moment. and he suffers and he dies there as a criminal. The cross is foolishness. It's foolishness to human wisdom. And even if it's not so foolish in our culture, It's still foolishness when we break it down according to human logic. And brethren, we hear the scoffing. We hear the scoffing all around us still. Last week. There's this contemporary Christian artist, this artist, many years, he wrote and sang hymns and produced Christian music. He's now deconstructed. I read last week, he posed a question on social media. He said, let's be honest, what's more ridiculous, the thought of heaven or the thought and idea of hell? He's like, I'm torn between the two because they're both absurd. We hear the scoffings in our culture. God so angry with us, whoa, we're such horrible people that he has to kill his own son in order to forgive us. God dying himself in shame. God humbling himself and seemingly let his enemies conquer him. We hear this, we think this. Liberal theologians often scoff and say the cross is a form of cosmic child abuse. I've heard that many times. So many in our day, they act and they think as if the cross is foolishness. Maybe they don't come out and say it, but even by being indifferent to it, eh, that's good, that's all right. Even by scoffing, oh, the cross really doesn't change people. In fact, Christianity has had a negative effect on our society because, you know, the church is still full of hypocrites and racists and greedy and there's oppression and patriarchy and they mistreat women and they scar kids for life. It's all a demonstration of how they think the cross is folly. Brethren, if you've ever wondered why Christianity is so difficult and hard to accept, this verse answers that. The message of the cross is foolish, it is boring, it is unhelpful to those who do not have eyes to see. Those who are perishing, Paul says. Those who are on their way to ruin. Those who have not been rescued from the powers of sin and hell. Those who are still citizens of this age that is passing away. Those who have not been given the Holy Spirit and eyes to see and hearts to believe. It's a challenge to us, it's a challenge to all of us here. If the cross doesn't amaze you, if it doesn't fill you with wonder and adoration, if it doesn't capture your love, if it's just not really that important to you, then you might just be this one who is on their way to ruin, perishing. This is how the message of the cross divides. On one hand, you have those who are perishing. They see the cross as foolishness or boring or unhelpful or harmful. But on the other hand, there are those who are being saved. To one, the cross is foolish. To the other, the cross is power. Now, think about this. We might expect Paul to say, if the cross is foolishness to the lost, then the cross is gonna be wisdom to the saved. But that's not what he says. Did you catch that? The contrast is not with wisdom and foolishness. It's with folly and power. Why is that? It's because the message of the gospel is not just another form of wisdom. It's not. You need to understand this. Especially in our day because that's how it's often packaged. Come to church and get your life on track. Follow Jesus and things are going to turn out great. Read the Bible, find all the help that you need there, and you can live happy and successful and fulfilled for you and your children. Brethren, the gospel is not another form of wisdom. The gospel is not good advice. The gospel is not brilliant wisdom. The gospel is not helpful principles to help you get your life on track. The gospel is not insight information and information into life's burning mysteries so that you can figure out life and live your best life now. The gospel is not good advice. The gospel is good news. And the gospel differs from human wisdom, not in degree, as if it's a greater form of wisdom. It's something else entirely different. It's a different category altogether. It's power. The gospel is God's power. What is God's power? God's power is divine potency. It is God, the strength of God, effective in being actualized in this world. It is recreation, it's transformation. And it's no accident here that the word of the cross, it's the Greek word logos again. Where else does that word appear prominently in the New Testament? John 1.1. In the beginning was the word, logos. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word dwelt, took on flesh, became flesh, and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ is the Word. Jesus Christ is the Logos. And thus it is the word of the cross that Jesus himself becomes present and active in our world. It is through the word of the cross that Jesus himself invades our world and it becomes operative. The power of God works. That's what we read in Romans 1 16. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Where is the power of God in this world? Is it when we join arms and raise money and honor all of our strength to do good in the world? Is it found in politicians? Is it found in governments? Is it found in non-profits? Is it found in community work? Where is God active in the world? He is active through the preaching of His Word. That's the power of God being unleashed on this world. So Paul wants them to see that dichotomy, that dividing line between those who are perishing and those who are being saved. And He wants them to see that don't you get it that a crucified Redeemer does look absurd or it's boring to the lost, but this is your only hope. This is what produces faith. This is what produces holiness and salvation and peace. This is where Christ is active. This is what truly leads to life. This is what will unite you. will unite you when you're so divided and turned against one another in the church. Turn back to the Gospel and the message of Christ and Him crucified. The cross divides. We've got to move quickly. Secondly, the cross also destroys. It divides, but it also destroys. And this is found in verse 19 and 20. Look at it again. For it is written. Paul quotes Scripture to back up his argument. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart. Upon hearing verse 18, we might be tempted to ask the question, why is the message of the cross foolishness to unbelievers? Why? Well, couldn't God think up of a more acceptable or attractive way to save sinners? Something that's a little bit easier to follow? Paul's point is that the cross is foolishness because God made it that way, purposely. God delights in destroying the wisdom of the world with something that is foolish and folly to human reasoning and everything that we value. We prove this, Paul quotes Isaiah 29.14 here. He's basically saying, look, God has always operated this way. Back in Isaiah, God had promised to deliver Jerusalem from her enemies, but not through the advice of King Hezekiah's advisors. They were telling him one thing, but God's saying, look, I'm gonna do this my own way, and it's gonna appear foolish and stupid to your counselors, but in the long run, it's gonna lead to a greater and fuller deliverance for the people of God. He went entirely against conventional wisdom. That's how God operated then, that's how God operates now, Paul is saying. When we think about this, aren't these the kind of things that we love to write books and make movies out of? The political strategy that goes against all common sense but ends up winning in the end? The underdog sports team that takes an unorthodox approach to training or strategy and, you know, that bold strategy pays off in the end. The weak and the small, the oppressed, the scorned, through their wisdom, kind of conquering kingdoms to the astonishment of their enemies. That's kind of the picture here. That's what Paul is saying. This is how God works. But what's interesting is that he quotes Isaiah 29.14 word for word, except that he changes the very last word. In the original, and Paul's quoting the Greek version of the Old Testament here, in the original it reads, the discernment of the discerning I will hide. But Paul changes hide to thwart. Why does he do this? Well, He isn't just quoting Isaiah, he's interpreting it. He's interpreting it in light of the coming of Christ. And his point is that God hasn't just hidden from the wise, but that God through the death of Christ has defied and overthrown the wise of this world. In other words, the end time judgment and salvation of God's people that Isaiah was prophesying of has now taken place at the cross fully and finally. And at the cross, God has destroyed and overthrown the wisdom of this world. In fact, there's also another play on words here. The same word translated as perishing in verse 18 is the same exact word translated as destroy in verse 19. God is actively destroying worldly wisdom through the preaching of the cross, and those who see it as folly are the ones being destroyed. That's a tough pill to swallow. But this is God's doing. And why has God done it? He's done it to bring human self-sufficiency to its full and final end. Again, the cross is not some new wisdom, new philosophy, or life plan, because the gospel does not revolve around man. Salvation is not ultimately about us. Man is not the measure of all things. There is no human being who stands in judgment over God's work and God's plan as if we have the right to evaluate and decide what's best. God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. God delights in frustrating actively the wisdom of this world. And as we consider this, there's an important clarification that needs to make. And I think this comes out in verse 20. Look at verse 20 again. Where is the one that is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? I need to make a clarification here. When we talk about the antithesis between God's wisdom and human wisdom, we're not talking about just wisdom in general. Or just any wisdom that may be labeled secular or of this world Paul isn't saying that anything that's not in Scripture is foolishness That's not his point He's rather attacking worldly wisdom Worldly wisdom characterizes this age What is wisdom that characterizes this age? Well, it's not just any wisdom that isn't found in Scripture. I know that sounds good, but that's not how the Bible treats reality or truth or worldly wisdom. All truth is God's truth. The same apostle in Acts 17, he's going to quote a secular pagan philosopher to back up his point there. He's acknowledging that pagans get things right, even when it comes to the things of God. That's not worldly wisdom, just it's not scriptural. Worldly wisdom, more specifically, self-sufficiency. It's human achievement. It's where man is at the center. Self-reliance, the exaltation of self, the exaltation of humanity, or the human spirit, or anything that is status-seeking, or arrogant, or pride. And it's important to note this because it can take secular garb or it can take religious and biblical garb as well. Garb, clothing, form. If you think about the Pharisees, they embodied worldly wisdom more than anybody. But all they did was walk around and quote scripture. They didn't see themselves as being worldly wise men. This is what he brings out in verse 20. He drives us home by throwing out these rapid rhetorical questions. Where is the one who is wise? Is there any wise sage that's fixed humanity's problems or reconciled us with a creator? What has all of our science and progress gotten? The highest levels of depression and anxiety and suicide in the history of the world. That's how much progress America has made. Where is the scribe? Scribe is a religious person, somebody who knows the law of God. Where's the expert in God's law? Where is the expert on obedience, who's fixed our problems, who's dealt with sin and death and shame? Holy wisdom can look very much like biblical wisdom. Where's the debater of this age? The professionals, the philosophers, the life coaches, have they really remade humanity? Have they really ushered in new creation? You see when I, you know, I said this earlier, how relevant this is in our day. I was thinking about who are the relevant thinkers in our day, and I might date myself a little bit here, but like, has Oprah fixed America's problems? Bill Gates or Steve Jobs Richard Dawkins the famous atheist Tucker Carlson President Obama President Trump President Ronald Reagan Have they fixed America's problems What religion, what life set of principles, what technology, what medication, what motivational speaker, what psychiatrist, what philosopher has fixed America's or anyone's problems? There's always gonna be people who say, here's how to escape your problems, here's how to have a better life, here's to have more obedient children, here's how to raise them so whether they flourish, here's how to have exhilarating marriages, Brethren, those things can't cleanse your conscience. They can't cleanse your conscience. They can't pacify a holy God. They can't reconcile you to him. They can't deliver you from death. You can't even be delivered from cancer. Human wisdom doesn't have the capacity to comprehend the gravity of sin, the greatness of God, the complete helplessness of the human condition, much less the infinite sacrifice that is necessary to atone for it. And that's what Paul is saying here in v. 20. Human wisdom of this age. This age. This temporary age. This age that is passing away. This age that is heading for destruction. God has judged it. God has destroyed it. The old order of human wisdom and self-sufficiency has been brought to nothing. It's beyond repair. Only a new creation will do. So by promoting themselves, by elevating their favorite preachers and teachers, by dividing over personal preferences and rhetoric, the Corinthians were turning back to the wisdom of the world instead of the humility and the love that flows out of the cross. The cross is not a common thing. So the answer and the remedy is for them to see afresh how the message of the cross destroys the wisdom of the world. Brother, this leads third and finally to our conclusion. The cross divides, the cross destroys, and finally the cross delivers. We see this in verse 21. For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, you can't find your way to God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. Here we see yet another parallel of language, we see another irony, another contrast, another flipping of the tables, turning of the tables, as it were, because God delights, God is pleased to thwart the wisdom of the wise. He delights, he is pleased to save through folly. So-called wisdom is destroyed, and so-called folly is the means by which redemption comes. Our God is a God of great reversals. In the wisdom and plan of God, the purposes and work of God, the world did not and could not and will not know God through wisdom. All the science, all the philosophy, all the self-help, all the medical and technological advances, they've all fallen short, and this is by God's design. Brethren, this world of beauty and truth in this phrase, that it pleased God to save through the folly of preaching. We know, don't we, that we've been saved by grace. We know, don't we, that grace comes first. Brethren, if you're here today and you're a Christian, it's not because you acted first. It's not because you yourself determined what was wise. It was not because what was beautiful and true to you became a reality. It's not because you made a decision. It's not because in your own wisdom you decided what was true. You're a Christian not because you were smart enough as opposed to everybody else to sign up for the right team. To think about salvation that way is just another form of worldly wisdom. Places all the impetus on the person and all the focus on the person themselves. But true wisdom and power belong to God. It pleased God. It wasn't an essential right of yours. You don't have access to that wisdom or that power. It must be given to you as a gift. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. It pleased God. It pleased Him. Stop and think about that. If you are a Christian, you are a Christian because it pleased God to save you. Don't you know that you were loved? It pleased God to save you. It delighted God to save you. That's how much you're loved. It pleased God. The preaching of the cross then is the God-ordained means by which it pleases Him to save His chosen people. It's the God-ordained means by which He grants saving wisdom and power to undeserving sinners. It's the God-ordained means by which dead and filthy and broken and defiled and shameful wicked rebels are reconciled to God and are purified and washed clean and made fit for every good work. That's because Christ Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree. That message of the cross both saves us and it sanctifies us and there is no other way. Why is that? Because as one man put it, our world has enough teachers. What we need is a Redeemer. We need a Savior. And the message of the cross is that which repeatedly and consistently fixes our eyes on our Savior, not on ourselves, not on our wisdom, not on our life, not on our preferences, not on our problems, not even ultimately on our sins. The message of the cross fixes our eyes upon Him. And that is how we are transformed into His glorious image, day by day. And so brethren, at the end of the day, don't you see there are only two ways to live? The Corinthians were selfish, the Corinthians were greedy, the Corinthians were lustful, the Corinthians were hateful, but the cross is what preaches self-giving, love, humility, service, kindness, peace. It destroys human wisdom, and it's God's power to remake us after His image. Because in the message of the cross, we live through one who has died. We are blessed by one who has made a curse. We are justified by one who is condemned. We are liberated. We are saved. We are enlightened by the sheer grace and good pleasure of a merciful God. The incarnate word taking on flesh, entering our world, and through the foolishness of his work, and the foolishness of preaching, he still speaks. And through that foolish message, he raises us to life in the spirit. The cross divides, the cross destroys, and the cross delivers. Brethren, I leave you with this this morning. Have you heard the message of Christ and him crucified? If you're here and you're not a believer, this gospel is God appealing through me, Christ Himself speaking, be reconciled to God. If you are here and you are in Christ though, take comfort in Him, that all the treasures of wisdom are found in Him, all is yours in Him, there is nothing that you need. for life or for godliness than what He freely gives you in the message of the cross, Christ and Him crucified. That's our comfort, that's our hope, that's our assurance, that's our wisdom, that's our sanctification, that's our life. May God give us the grace to hear and believe these words today. Would you bow with me in prayer?