Sermon Tone Analysis

JRR Tolkien penned the world renowned Lord of the Rings.

In his imagination, he created fabulous lands and creatures within with their own ethic, language, and purpose.

One kingdom of creatures was the dwarfs.

These were not the Snow White, dumpy, goofy creatures from Disney.

These were the short, but strong bearded fellows who lived in the Mines of Moria.

Moria was their kingdom and they made their name excavating precious metals from deep under the mountain.

The problem is that greed and discontentment was the demise of this kingdom of dwarfs.

They amassed large wealth in their mining depositories and yet the coffers were never full enough.

They always wanted more.

They dug deeper and deeper into mountain until they unearthed an evil force that lied dormant beneath them.

Their greed for more wealth resulted in their very destruction.

I am not sure exactly the inspiration that Tolkein used for the kingdom of Moria and the dwarfs but I cannot help but see a big connection.

The Gk word for foolish that will be used in our study of God’s word today is Moria(Mor-ee-a).

Greed and discontentment is foolish thinking that leads to destruction, even the destruction of a fictional kingdom of axe-welding, mine-carving dwarfs.

Therefore, Moria is not just fictitious land its the reality of this world that can never get enough.

Moria is rooted in the sinful human condition that can never satisfy our fleshly appetites.

In our day in age, the digging deeper into the mines of foolishness is not just for wealth, but also political power, social prestige, outward physical perfection.

For Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians, he immediately address a dire problem among this body of believers.

They were so consumed with worldly influences that they were allowing the lust for wisdom to infiltrate their own way of thinking.

For a Greek culture, now under Roman rule, the quest for wisdom was its own religion.

Like our culture today, that search for a higher wisdom was always subjective and rested on an imbalanced and ever changing relativism.

Macarthur writes,

The ancient Greeks were in love with philosophy, around which their culture was built.

They had perhaps as many as fifty identifiable philosophical parties or movements, which vied for acceptance and influence.

Each had its views of man’s origin, significance, destiny, and relationship to the gods—of which they had many.

Some of the philosophies had detailed schemes for the religious, political, social, economic, and educational ordering of society.

The Greeks were in love with human wisdom.

They believed that philosophy (philosophia,, “love of wisdom”) was all-important.

Philosophy provided a view, invented by man, of the meaning of life, values, relationships, purpose, and destiny.

Thus there were as many philosophies as there were philosophers, and people tended to line up behind their favorite.

They widely disagreed as to which philosophy was the truest and most reliable, and, inevitably, many factions developed, each with its own leaders and adherents.

Without an absolute standard for truth, ideas of right and wrong were based entirely on human opinion.

When Paul addresses the church in Corinth, he is addressing the infiltration of this worldly quest for wisdom, which has caused faction within their membership.

In our verses today, he marks a clear dividing line between wisdom from God and wisdom from the world.

Before we begin, the idea that must lead us in this study is who defines wisdom and truth?

If you have one person who states something is wise, and another person with a contradictory view says he is wise in his beliefs, how do you know what is true?

Let me tell you a few ways that DO NOT determine what is wise.

1- Being the loudest does not mean you are wise.

Politicians, philosophers, and scientists all wants to scream the loudest about their views regarding humanity but having the loudest microphone and screaming your views does not mean you are wise.

2- Having the most support does not mean you are wise.

History has shown us that some of the most evil leaders in the history of the human race were able to accumulate followers.

A mass of supporters or disciples does not mean what you are teaching them and saying contains any wisdom in it.

For us to truly know wisdom, it cannot be a wisdom that originates in men.

Instead, we know that the wisdom that we should truly cling to comes from God. Why?

Because wisdom from above never changes, it not biased, it not culturally molded.

It is eternal because it comes from God and therefore it is good and good for us.

“The ethical dynamic of Greek philosophy lay in the intellect; if a person had perfect knowledge he could live the good life (Plato).

Knowledge was virtue.

The emphasis of ot wisdom was that the human will, in the realm of practical matters, was to be subject to divine causes.

Therefore, Hebrew wisdom was not theoretical and speculative.

It was practical, based on revealed principles of right and wrong, to be lived out in daily life.” Louis Goldberg

The wisdom we need comes from God and the wisdom that fools reject is God’s wisdom.

Paul makes his point in this passage that human wisdom contradicts godly wisdom because in the case with GK philosophy it was a quest for the meaning and purpose of life outside of God’s revelation.

Christianity has struggled through the years as it syncretized that worldliness back into church therefore only creating a deadly conglomeration resembling Edward Scissorhands.

So as the church, we learn from Paul in his dealings from the Corinthian church in order to see the stark contrast between human and godly wisdom.

In understanding this contrast, we will then put our complete trust in the power of the word of God and the message of the gospel to bring about God’s purposes in Christ.

I.

The Dividing Line of the Gospel (18)

Paul lists two distinct groups in these verses that flow from the OT Scriptures: the fool and the wise.

A. The Fool

He does use the word “fool” or “wise” in v 18 but he does state the distinction from those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

The perishing think the word of the cross is foolish and therefore, they are the fool who rejects God.

We just read Proverbs 1:7 that told us that fear of the Lord is wisdom and fools reject that wisdom.

It is a similar comparison.

As a matter of fact, it was Solomon’s major emphasis to his son in writing Proverbs to compare the wise with the fool.

Proverbs 10:8 (ESV)8 The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.

Proverbs 10:14 (ESV)14 The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

Proverbs 12:15 (ESV)15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

Paul makes the point that the the fool is a fool because he reject God and the message that God has sent in his Son, the message of the cross.

As a result the rejection of God means that those doing the rejection are in the processs and destined for perishing, which is the eternal judgment of God upon sinners.

Simon Kistemaker makes a very good point in this commentary stating that Paul is making clear that those fools are “ not on the verge of perishing, they are in actuality perishing.”

What he means is that the fool who reject God and the message of the cross, they are not reserved for God’s judgment only, but they are now currently being judged by God.

How you might ask?

They are left to their sinfulness and debased mind.

God offers them grace and restrains their greatest evils and yet he allows sin to reign in them.

Romans 1:18-25

Romans 1: 18-32

TURN WITH ME:

v 22- Claiming to be wise, they became fools

v. 24 God gave them up to lusts of heart

v 26 God gave them up to dishonorable passions

v 28 God have them up to a debased mind

If you have ever doubted the word of God’ validity and sufficiency, then let this be the day that you trust fully that God’s word needs no change because it is applicable and sufficient for Corinth in first century Rome and for the 21st century church across the world.

As if we didn’t need another illustration, with the overturning of Roe v Wade after over 50 years of the murdering of innocent children, the fools of this world expressed their rage in unimaginable ways.

You can go on social media and easily find videos of foolish mothers, so angry at the so-called rights taken away from them, that many looked down at their born children, which they were holding in their arms, and verbally wished that those children would have been or could have been aborted- because in their debased mind, it is their right to take that child’s life from them.

Church, you need to open your eyes if you haven’t already and see the storm that is coming.

We need to stop looking for some political savior that is going to change things and start looking at the true Savior who only brings real change.

Only Jesus can bring about the change that is needed in this country and in our world.

It is Jesus who can change hearts and lives by the power of his resurrection.

Any attempts that human try and create global change while leaving God and his word out of the efforts is the same as trying to slap as many fresh sweet or tangy condiments as possible on rotten, spoiled, parasite infested lunch meat and moldy bread.

You can dress it up and make it look like a healthy sandwich, but if you digest it, it will kill you.

Not only are fools who reject the message and wisdom of god already perishing, but they will perish for all eternity.

God leaving them over temporarily to these debasements of mind and lusts of hearts is judgment but it is a single flame of judgment in comparison to the forest fire of eternal hell they will face by rejecting the one who made them.

Jesus who spoke on the judgment of unbelievers more then of the heavenly realm with Christ, says in a parable

Matthew 13:40–42 (ESV)

40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

John also writes in the book of revelation,

Revelation 20:12–15 (ESV)