This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The History of Salvation” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 16, 1990.

Can I do a reading from 1 Corinthians 1, verses 18-31? Listen to the word of God, beginning with verse 18. For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? 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 through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believed. For indeed, Jews ask for a sign. and Greeks. Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To Jews, a stumbling block, and to Gentiles, foolishness. But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your call, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. For by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. Let’s pray together now.

Our Father, the ordering of your church by your word is certainly no small matter, but it has been made to be a small matter even by your church, which in many respects has despised your word and set it aside. We ask, Father, that where you have been pleased to maintain testimony for yourself in truth, that there would be zeal for the ordering of your assemblies throughout the world. And to that end, Lord, we do pray for gifted men, not only those who may labor well in doctrine, and in preaching and teaching. But those, Lord, who may rule well in the midst of your people, give good and strong elders to your saints throughout the length and breadth of your church. And may their office be revered and may their personages be conformed to the image of Christ in his rule. Lord, we ask that with such as these, you would be pleased to govern and direct your people who are on the face of the earth now. For those that you have given this congregation, we give you thanks. and be with them especially as they must give account for their souls with respect to the disposition of the people who are under their charge. And may they be mindful of their responsibility with respect to the word, not only to govern by the word, but to make sure that your word is honored in its preaching, in its proclamation. Hear us now, Father, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

We are now venturing into the area and era of New Testament times. We have finished our messages on Old Testament times, and we begin our messages now on New Testament times, and this evening we are speaking about the preparation. so that this is not a lecture or a religious talk. Let it be set out at the outset, God is about to send his Son into the world. An event. An unprecedented event. God is about to send his Son into the world.

His Son, then, the Christ, the promised Redeemer, poised and ready to enter the world in human flesh with a body like yours and mine. to enter into the world of space and time, the world that you know, that you live in. This world, now, the Son, will come to share in the most intimate fashion. And with the coming of the Son of God, God in the flesh, New Testament times commence. New things come.

We may ask ourselves, what kind of a world is it into which the Son of God, God in the flesh comes? In what kind of world will he perform his ministry? Preach, teach, heal, serve, suffer, die, rise again. In what kind of world will his unique community take shape? the community of his disciples, the fellowship of those known by his name, called by his name, his church.

This is not a question without religious importance, for we know, do we not, amongst all Christians that populate the earth, our God is sovereign. And our God, being sovereign, directs all the affairs of men and nations. Thus the form of things as the sun makes his entrance testifies to God’s superintending of circumstance and history in all of its outworkings. So we take stock of the world into which the Son of God makes entrance, and even there we are face to face with the awesome sovereignty of God. A world prepared, the scene set, the stage of time and history prepared. When we concluded our survey of the Old Testament, we left Israel under Persian domination.

This was around the year 400 B.C., 400 years before the birth of Christ. during the time of the ministry of that culminating prophet, Malachi. Now you will recall that part and parcel of that era that included Malachi, part and parcel of that era was the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, servants of God who had been sent to Judea by Persian kings earlier in the 5th century B.C. All in all, Persian supremacy lasted about 200 years.

Babylon fell to the Medo-Persians in the year 539, and the Persian Empire did not itself succumb until the year 331 B.C. So, 539 to 331. Truly we can say, one of the world’s great empires. but yet it crumbled and fell.” We’ve already suggested or located the year 331 as that date for the demise of the Persian Empire. To whom did the Persians fall?

Well, there was this upstart barbarian from Macedonia, son of a fellow named Philip. The territory north of Greece, his name was Alexander. He was the one who brought Persia to its knees. He died, however, about eight years later. He died in Babylon in the year 323 B.C., his vast empire stretching as far eastward as India. When he died, his empire fragmented into smaller kingdoms. which in some cases were controlled by Greeks, but in all cases were influenced to their very core by Greeks.

In fact, through Greek influence, the world into which the Son of God enters was remarkably unified. The world at that time spoke one language, and it wasn’t Latin. The unifying language of that world was Greek. The world was also somewhat unified culturally, because Greek influences had permeated the civilized world at that time, even affected Judea.

But with respect to Judea and the Greek-controlled or dominated or influenced kingdoms, she soon became the object of contention between two of these Greek-dominated domains. You had to the south of Judea, the Ptolemaic empire. The famous Ptolemaic queen, you may recall, was none other than Cleopatra. To the north were the Seleucids in the territory of Syria. And these two kingdoms fought over the territory of Judea. In the end, the Seleucids, or the Syrian kingdom, won out. Now, this is important because of one of the figures now that arises out of that Syrian kingdom. Have you heard of Antiochus before? otherwise known as Antiochus Epiphanes, ruling from 175 to 164 over that northern Syrian kingdom and exercising power and authority over Judea as well.

You may recall how this man distinguished himself in Judea, certainly making himself quite popular with the Jews. since he set up an idol in the temple’s Holy of Holies. And it has been reported that he actually slaughtered swine on the temple’s altar. How to make friends with Jews? Is it any wonder that the Jews identified this man with the abomination of desolation from the earlier prophets? His actions brought about a Jewish revolt under the famoying of the Maccabees. And this revolt was successful, gaining for Judea independence.

If you want to read about the Maccabean revolt, pick up your Apocrypha. I know you all have one at home. Pick up your Apocrypha and read the first book of the Maccabees. Great story. Even J. Gresham Machen was thrilled by the first book of the Maccabees. and the story that was told in it.

A marvelous account of a quest for political and religious independence. Judea’s independence lasts for a hundred years. The Jews then were free of foreign dominance. It’s interesting, isn’t it? that the period they were under foreign domination, beginning with the Babylonian captivity, is almost exactly the same amount of time they were in Egypt. Very interesting. Jews would make a great deal out of that.

And because of this liberation, its force, its power, and the freedom that they experience, they have made a great deal out of their so-called Festival of Lights, or Hanukkah, which commemorates the liberation effected through Judas Maccabeus. A political freedom for them.

But all was not peace and light during the period of Maccabean rule, which lasted for about a hundred years. Eventually, even these folk who had begun well became worldly and corrupt, and distanced themselves from the devout and the pious poor. The liberator becomes oppressor.

There was therefore little internal strength left when the next world empire came on the scene, striding across the earth. Who might this be, this colossus? From a small city-state in Italy, there comes the Roman Empire. In the year 63 B.C., Pompey, a name familiar to you, famous Roman general, entered Jerusalem. Interestingly, Now that you might consider the depths of corruption in Judea, interestingly for the next 26 years the Romans ruled Judea through a line of accommodating high priests of all things. Then in 37 B.C. one of the shrewdest men, shrewdest politicians, certainly one of the shrewdest that Judea had ever seen, came to power. An Idumean, that is, an Edomite, dressed up like a Jew, becomes king of Judea and all Palestine.

His name? Herod. And he is not misnamed the Great, because this man truly was something. Something indeed. This man was so astute a politician that he knew how not to offend the Jew or the Roman. He knew how to play the game so well that he could keep people as religiously minded as the Jews happy and people as secularly minded as the Romans happy at the same time. It was a genius, a true man of the world. He was the consummate politician. He had the ability to hide his ruthlessness and his butchery, he was able to keep the messy details and ugly features of his reign out of the headlines.

Do you remember the most heinous of crimes of which he was guilty? toward the end of his reign, sending some of his soldiers to the little city of Bethlehem, there to slaughter boy babies. A fiend. comes to power in 37 B.C., and he reigns until the year 4 B.C. Four years before Christ, he was actually sending out his soldiers to destroy the Christ who had been born in Bethlehem? Well, the fact that he has died in 4 B.C. makes obvious, does it not, that the reckoning of the Christian era, which was actually proposed many centuries after Christ, is at least four years too low. So we judge now that though our reckoning is mistaken, Jesus did in fact come into the world a little earlier than 4 B.C. Now, when he comes into the world, moving our eye a bit away from Judea to the Roman Luke’s Gospel tells us that Augustus was emperor of Rome. When Jerusalem had succumbed to Rome and Pompey had entered the city in 63 B.C., Rome at that time was still a republic.

But soon, as many of you are well aware, The Empire was born and came under the sway of one Julius Caesar. I don’t have to recount for you the details of his assassination in 44 B.C. I expect all of you somewhere along the line in high school English had to read Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar. You know the facts. You might be aware also, having read that play, that after the assassination, civil war broke out and eventually Augustus emerged triumphant. His was an especially distinguished reign, running from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14. nothing short of glorious, magnificent reign by this man.

But of course, the world and Judea are not really under Augustus’ or Herod’s or Rome’s The world is under God’s control, who prepares it and its details for the advent of his Son and the ministry of the Church of Jesus Christ. When the Son of God comes into the world and when the Church takes shape and begins her mission The world is unitary, and that providentially so under Roman rule, that to the advantage not of civilization, but to the advantage of Christ’s church and God’s purpose. This Roman rule and order then provide a fitting background for the spread of the gospel. Roman law prevails, Roman peace prevails, and both are useful to God and the cause of the gospel.

The world is prepared by one greater than Augustine. And that kingdom that prides itself in its power and prominence is bet upon in the hand of God. We’ve already mentioned the Greek language, which was in fact the world’s language at that time. Language barriers then did not exist as the word of God was spread from one end of the empire to the other. A world prepared.

Is God’s hand here discernible or not? And what about this other feature? the unfortunate history of the Jewish people, the fact that they, these Jews, have been dispersed throughout the entirety of the Roman Empire. And wherever you go, regardless of what city or town you may find yourself, there is some vestige, it seems, some evidence of Jewish presence in many of those circumstances, synagogues established, built, organized, standing, sat, and at least at the beginning, open, as the gospel goes forth. These then providing bases from which the apostles moved, going from one to another as they brought the message of the fulfillment of the covenant to bear upon these people first of all, but from that base to the Gentiles also. A world controlled by caprice? Happenstance? Just happen to be that way? My, things worked out fortunately for the Church, didn’t they? All by God’s design.

But we must take pause, mustn’t we? As we look at all of these unifying features, these pluses out of the ancient world that provide the context in which Christ performs his ministry and into which then his church goes, carrying the message of the gospel. We must back off a bit, lest we make too much of all of these pluses and fail to see the deeper dimension that is here.

Rome is not indifferent to the gospel. Rome is hostile. Greek culture and civilization is not neutral with regard to the gospel. Greek culture and civilization is hostile to the gospel. Jews in Judea and in synagogues pinpointed around the Roman world are not neutral to the gospel, they are hostile to the gospel.

And therefore, when historians take up this matter of the first century and consider all of these features that they say point in the direction of the Church’s success, its automatic success, we draw back and say it was impossible for the Church to succeed in such a circumstance and situation as that.

And it is no more possible for you to succeed in this world. and age in which you live. We can go around and survey all of the sociological, all of the civilization factors that we can. We can make a science out of it and predict our success and the accommodation of the world to us as we move from one end of the globe to the other. The point is, of course, that Rome was a monolith, a colossus, an insurmountable and formidable foe.

It was impossible for these Christians to triumph, to succeed. Greek civilization and culture glorifies the mind, ideas. And Greek culture and civilization are not neutral, accommodating friends. quickly able to be synthesized into some sort of Christian vision and worldview. The Greeks seek wisdom. And as such, they find the cross of Christ to be utter foolishness. The synagogue. There he is. Jew, Greek, Roman. there is no chance, none.

But God will manifest his power in the weakness of this which he has caused to come into being. And through the lives of you, he will confound the rumors of the to his glory.” Well, a cross, a dead leader raised, showing himself only to his select band? a company armed with the Word, a company that merely preaches the coming of the Son of God into the world, his death, his resurrection, and vindication through him. Why, it’s foolishness. the epitome of weakness. But for God, it is wisdom.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.