Christ -- the Power and Wisdom of God by C. H. Spurgeon

the prince of preachers [Music] Charles Haddon Spurgeon has been called England's greatest contribution to the spread of the gospel in the 19th century one of his contemporary said that the chief secret of Spurgeon's attractiveness was the fact that in every sermon no matter what the text or the occasion he explained the way of salvation in simple terms Spurgeon's messages remain one of the great treasure houses of Christian literature still bringing the light of the gospel and the comfort of the scriptures to hungry souls long after the preacher has passed into glory this is Charles couch

inviting you to listen to a message from the Prince of preachers this message was preached by CH Spurgeon on May 17th 1857 at the Music Hall of the Royal Surrey Gardens it is entitled Christ the power and wisdom of God the text is found in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 24 but we preach Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God unbelief towards the gospel of Christ is the most unreasonable thing in all the world because the reason which the unbeliever gives for his unbelief is fairly met by the character and constitution

of the gospel of Christ notice that before this verse we read the Jews required a sign the Greeks seek after wisdom if you met the Jew who believed not on Christ and the Apostles day he said I cannot believe because I want a sign and if you met the Greek he said I cannot believe because I want a philosophic system one that is full of wisdom now says the Apostle both these objections are untenable and unreasonable if you suppose that the Jew requires a sign that sign is given him Christ is the power of God

the miracles that Christ wrought upon earth were signs more than sufficiently abundant and if the Jewish people had but the will to believe they would have found abundant signs and reasons for believing in the personal acts of Christ and His apostles and let the Greek say I cannot believe because I require a wise system old Greek Christ is the wisdom of God if thou wouldst but investigate the subject thou it's to find in it profoundness of wisdom a depth where the most gigantic intellect might be drowned it is no shallow gospel but a deep had

the great deep - a deep which passeth understanding thine objection is ill-founded for Christ is the wisdom of God and his gospel is the highest of all Sciences if now wishes to find wisdom thou must find it in the Word of Revelation now this morning we shall try to bring out these two thoughts of the gospel and it may be that God shall bless what we shall say to the removing of the objection of either Jew or Greek that the one requiring a sign may see it in the power of God in Christ and that

he who require earth wisdom may behold it in the wisdom of God in Christ we shall understand our text in a three-fold manner Christ that is Christ personally is the power of God and the wisdom of God Christ that is Christ's gospel is the power of God and the wisdom of God Christ that is Christ in the heart true religion is the power of God and the wisdom of God first to begin then with Christ personally Christ considered as God and man the son of God equal with his father and yet the man born of

the Virgin Mary Christ in his complex person is the power of God and the wisdom of God he is the power of God from all eternity by his word where the heavens made and all the host of them the Word was God and the Word was with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made the pillars of the earth were placed in their everlasting sockets by the omnipotent right hand of Christ the curtains of the heavens were drawn upon their rings of starry light by him who

was from everlasting the all glorious Son of God the orbs that float aloft in ether those ponderous planets and those mighty stars were placed in their positions or sent rolling through space by the eternal strength of him who is the first and the last the Prince of the kings of the earth Christ is the power of God for he is the creator of all things and by him all things exist but when he came to earth upon himself the fashion of a man tabernacled in the inn and slept in the manger he still gave proof

that he was the son of God not so much so when as an infant of a span long the immortal was the mortal and the infinite became a babe not so much so in his youth but afterwards when he began his public ministry he gave abundant proofs of his power and Godhead the winds hushed by his finger uplifted the waves calmed by his voice so that they became solid as marble beneath his tread The Tempest cowering at his feet as before a conqueror whom it knew and obeyed these things these stormy elements the wind The

Tempest and the water gave full proof of his abundant power the lame man leaping the Deaf man hearing the dumb man singing the Dead Rising these again were proofs that he was the power of God when the voice of Jesus startled the shades of Hades and rented bonds of death with Lazarus come forth and when the carcass rotten in the tomb woke to life there was proof of his divine power and Godhead a thousand other proofs he afforded but we need not stay to mention them to you who have Bibles in your houses and who

can read them every day at last he yielded up his life and was buried in the tomb not long however did he sleep for he gave another proof of his divine power and Godhead when starting from his slumber he affrighted the guards with the majesty of his grandeur not being holden by the bonds of death they being like green widths before our conquering Samson who had meanwhile pulled up the gates of hell and carried them on his shoulders far away that he is the power of God now scripture very positively afirma 'the for it is

written he sitteth at the right hand of God he hath the reigns of Providence gathered in his hands the fleet quarters of time are driven by him who sits in the chariot of the world and bids its wheels run round and he shall bid them stay when it shall please him he is the great umpire of all disputes the great sovereign head of the church the Lord of heaven and death and hell and by-and-by we know that he shall come on fiery clouds and wings of wind appointed judge of all mankind and then the quicken

dead the startled myriads the divided firmaments the depart ye cursed and become he blessed shall proclaim him to be the power of God who hath power over all flesh to save or to condemn as it pleases him but he is equally the wisdom of God but great things that he did before all worlds were proof of his wisdom he planned the way of salvation he devised the system of atonement and substitution he laid the foundations of the great plan of salvation there was wisdom but he built the heavens by wisdom and he laid the pillars

of light whereon the firmament is balanced by his skill and wisdom marked the world and learn as you see all its multitudinous proofs of the wisdom of god that there ye have the wisdom of Christ for he was the creator of it and when he became a man he gave proofs enough of wisdom even in childhood when he made the doctors sit abashed by the questions that he asked he showed that he was more than mortal and when Pharisee and sad you see and Herodian were all at last defeated and their nets were broken he

proved again the superlative wisdom of the Son of God and when those who came to take him stood and chained by his eloquence spellbound by his marvelous oratory there was again a proof that he was the wisdom of God who could sew and chain the minds of men and now that he interceded before the throne of God now that he is our advocate before the throne the pledge and surety for the Blessed now that the reins of government are in his hands and are ever wisely directed we have abundant proofs that the wisdom of God

is in Christ as well as the power of God bow before him ye that love him bow before him ye that desire him crown him crown him he is worthy of it unto him is everlasting might unto him his unswerving wisdom bless his name exalt him clap your hands he serifs cry aloud each cherubim shout shout to his praise ye ransomed hosts above and ye o men that know his grace extol him in your songs forever for he is Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God but now Christ that is Christ's gospel

is the power and the wisdom of God Christ's gospel is a thing of divine power do you want proofs of it you shall not go far how could Christ gospel have been established in this world as it was if it had not in itself intrinsic might by whom was it spread by mitred prelate spy learn at doctors by fierce warriors by caliphs by prophets know by fishermen untaught unlettered save as the Spirit gave them utterance not knowing how to preach or speak how did they spread it by the bayonet by their swords by the keen

metal of their blades did they drive their gospel into men at the point of the Lance and with the scimitar say did myriads rush to battle as they did when they follow the crescent of Muhammad and did they convert men by force by law by might ah no nothing but their simple words their unvarnished eloquence their roughed declamation their unhewn oratory these it was which by the blessing of God's Spirit carried the gospel round the world within a century after the death of its founder but what was this gospel which achieved so much was it

a thing palatable to human nature did it offer a paradise of present happiness did it offer delight to the flesh under the senses did it give charming prospects of wealth did it give licentiousness a gospel of morality most strict it was a gospel with delights entirely spiritual a gospel which have jord the flesh which unlike the course delusion of Joseph Smith cut off every prospect from men of delighting themselves with the joys of lust it was a gospel wholly spotless clean as the breath of heaven it was as pure as the wing of Angel not

like that which spread of old in the days of Muhammad a gospel of lust and vice and wickedness but pure and consequently not palatable to human nature and yet it spread why my friends I think the only answer I can give you is because it has in it the power of God do you want another proof how has it been maintained since then no easy path as the gospel had the good bark of the church has had to plow her way through seas of blood and those whom and her have been be spattered with the

bloody spray yeh they have had to man her and keep her in motion by laying down their lives unto the death mark the bitter persecution of the Church of Christ from the time of Nero to the days of Mary and further on through the days of Charles ii and of those kings of unhappy memory who had not as yet learned how to spell toleration from the dragoons of Claver house right straight away to the gladiatorial shows of rome what a long series of persecutions as the gospel had but as the old Divine's used to say

the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church it has been as the old herbalists had it's like the herb chamomile the moor trodden on the more it grows and the more the church has been ill-treated the more it has prospered behold the mountains where the Alba Gen Z's walk in their white garments see the steaks of Smithfield not yet forgotten behold ye the fields amongst the towering hills where brave bands kept themselves free from despotic tyranny marque the Pilgrim Fathers driven by a government of persecution across the briny deep see what

vitality the gospel has plunge her under the wave and she Rises the pure for her washing thrust her in the fire and she comes out the more bright for her burning cut her in sunder and each piece shall make another Church behead her and like the Hydra of old she shall have a hundred heads for every one you cut away she cannot die she must live for she has the power of God within her do you want another proof I give you a better one than the last I do not wonder that the church has

outlived persecution so much as I wonder how she has outlived the unfaithfulness of her professed teachers never was Church so abused as the Church of Christ has been all through her history from the days of Diotrephes who sought to have the preeminence even to these latter times we can read of proud arrogant prelate sand supercilious haughty lords over God's inheritance men of all sorts have come into her ranks and done all they could to kill her and with their lordly priestcraft they have tried to turn her aside and what shall we say to that huge

apostasy of Rome a thousand miracles that the church outlived that when her pretended head had become apostate and all her bishops disciples of Hell and she had gone far away wonder of wonders that she should come out in the days of the glorious Reformation and should still live and even now when I mark the sub - of many of my brethren in the ministry when I marked their utter and entire inefficiency for doing aught for God when I see their waste of time preaching now and then on the Sunday instead of going to the highways

and hedges and preaching the gospel everywhere to the poor when I see the want of unction in the church itself the want of prayerfulness when I see Wars and Fighting's factions and dis unions when I see hot blood and pride even in the meeting of the saints I say it is a thousand thousand miracles that the Church of God should be alive at all after the unfaithfulness of her members her ministers and her bishops she has the power of God within her or else she would have been destroyed for she has got enough within her

own loins to work her destruction but says one you have not yet proved it is the power of God to my understanding sir I will give you another proof there are not a few of you who are now present who would be ready I know if it were necessary to rise in your seats and bear me witness that I speak the truth there are some who not many months ago were drunkards some who were loosed livers men who were unfaithful to every vow which should keep man to truth and right and chastity and honesty and

integrity yes I repeat I have some here who look back to a life of detestable sin you tell me some of you that for 30 years even there is one such present now you never listened to a gospel ministry nor ever entered the house of God at all you despised the Sabbath you spent it in all kinds of evil pleasures you plunged headlong into sin and vice and your only wonder is that God has not cut you off long ago as cumbers of the ground and now you are here as different as light from darkness

I know your characters and have watched you with a Father's love for child though I am I am a spiritual father of some here whose years out count mine by four times the number and I have seen you honest who were thieves and used sober who were drunkards I have seen the wipes glad I sparkling with happiness and many a woman has grasped me by the hand shed her tears upon me and said I bless God I am a happy woman now my husband is reclaimed my house is blessed our children are brought up in

the fear of the Lord not one or two but scores of such are here and my friends if these be not proofs that the gospel is the power of God I say there is no proof of anything to be had in the world and everything must be conjecture yes and their worships with you this day and if there be a secularist here my friend will pardon me for alluding to him for a moment there is in the house of God this day one who was a leader in your ranks one who despised God and ran

very far away from right and here he is it is his honor to this day to own himself a Christian and I hope when this sermon has ended to grasp him by the hand for he has done a valiant deed he has bravely burned his papers in the sight of all the people and has turned to God with full purpose of heart I could give you proofs enough if proofs were wanted that the gospel has been to men the power of God and the wisdom of God more proofs I could give yeh thousands one upon

the other but we must notice the other points Christ's gospel is the wisdom of God look at the gospel itself and you will see it to be the wisdom the man who scoffs and sneers at the gospel does so for no other reason but because he does not understand it we have two of the richest books of theology extant that were written by professed infidels by men that were so I mean before they wrote the books you may have heard the story of Lord Littleton and West I believe they determined to refute Christianity one of

them took up the subject of Paul's conversion and the other the subject of resurrection they sat down both of them to write books to those two events and the effect was that in studying the subject they both of them became Christians and wrote books which are now bulwarks to the church they hope to have overthrown every man who looks the gospel fairly in the face and gives it the study it ought to have will discover that it is no false gospel but a gospel that is replete with wisdom and full of the knowledge of Christ

If any man will cavil at the Bible he must cavil there are some men who can find no wisdom anywhere except in their own heads such men however are no judges of wisdom we should not set a mouse to explain the phenomena of astronomy nor should we set a man who is so foolish as to do nothing but cavil to understand the wisdom of the gospel it needs that a man should at least be honest and should have some share of sense or we cannot dispute with them at all Christ's gospel to any man who

believes it is the wisdom of God allow me just to hint that to be a believer in the gospel is no dishonor to a man's intellect while the gospel can be understood by the poorest and the most illiterate while there are shallows in it where a lamb may wade there are depths where Leviathan may swim the intellect of Locke found ample space in the gospel the mind of Newton submitted to receive the truth of inspiration as a little child and found of something in its majestic being higher than itself unto which it could not attain

the rudest and most untaught have been enabled by the study of Holy Scripture of God's truth to enter the kingdom and the most erudite have said of the gospel it surpasses thought I was thinking the other day what a vast amount of literature must be lost if the gospel be not true no book was ever so suggestive as the Bible large tomes we have in our library which it takes all our strength to lift all upon Holy Scripture myriads upon myriads of smaller volumes tens of thousands of every shape and size all written upon the

Bible and I have thought that the very suggestiveness of Scripture the supernatural suggestiveness of Holy Writ maybe in itself a proof of its divine wisdom since no man has ever been able to write a book which could have so many commentators and so many writers upon its text as the Bible has received by so much as one millionth part now Christ in a man the gospel in the soul is the power of God and the wisdom of God we will picture the Christian from his beginning to his end we will give a short map of

his history he begins there in that prison house with huge iron bars which he cannot file in that dark damp cell where pestilence and death are bred there in poverty and nakedness without a pitcher to put to his thirsty lips without a mouthful even of a dry crust to satisfy his hunger that is where he begins in the prison chamber of conviction powerless lost and ruined between the bars I thrust my hand to him and give to him in God's name the name of Christ to plead look at him he has been filing away at

these bars many and many a day without their yielding an inch but now he has got the name of Christ upon his lips he puts his hand upon the bars and one of them is gone and another and another and he makes a happy escape crying I am free I am free I am free Christ has been the power of God to me in bringing me out of my trouble no sooner is he free however then a thousand doubts meet him this one cries you are not elect another cries you are not redeemed another says

you are not called another says you are not converted away he says he away Christ died and he just pleads the name of Christ as the power of God and the doubts flee apace and he walks straight on he comes soon into the furnace of trouble he is thrust into the innermost prison and his feet are made fast in the stocks God has put his hand upon him he is in deep trouble at midnight he begins to sing of Christ and lo the walls begin to totter and the foundation of the prison to shake and

the man's chains are taken off and he comes out free for Christ hath delivered him from his trouble here is a hill to climb on the road to heaven wearily he pants up the side of that hill and thinks he must die ere he can reach the summit the name of Jesus is whispered in his ear he leaps to his feet and pursues his way with fresh courage until the summit is gained when he cries Jesus Christ is the strength of my song he also have become my salvation see him again he is on a

sudden beset by many enemies how shall he resist them with this true sword this true Jerusalem blade Christ and him crucified with this he keeps the devil at arm's length with this he fights against temptation against lust against spiritual wickedness in high places and with this he resists now he has come to his last struggle the river death rolls black and sullen before him dark shapes rise upward from the flood and howl and frighten him how shall he crossed the stream how shall he find a landing place on the other side dread thoughts perplex him

for a moment he is alarmed but he remembers Jesus died and catching up that watchword he ventures to the flood before his feet the Jordan flies a pace like Israel of old he walks through dry-shod singing as he goes to heaven Christ is with me Christ is with me passing through the stream victory victory victory to him that loveth me to the Christian in his own experience Christ is ever the power of God as for temptation he we can meet that with Christ as for trouble he can endure that through Christ who strengthens him yay

he can say with Paul I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me have you never seen a Christian in trouble a true Christian I have read a story of a man who was converted to God by seeing the conduct of his wife in the hour of trouble they had a lovely child their only offspring the Father's heart doted on it perpetually and the mother's soul was knit up in the heart of that little one it lay upon its bed and his parents watched it day and night because it was sick at last it

died the father had no God he rent his hair he rolled upon the floor in misery wallet upon the earth cursing his being and defying God and the utter casting down of his agony there sat his wife as fond of the child as ever he could be and though tears would come she gently said the Lord gave and the LORD hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord what said he starting to his feet you love that child I thought that when that child died you would break your heart here am I a

strong man I am mad here you are a weak woman and yet you are strong and bold tell me what it is that possesses you said she Christ is my Lord I trust in him surely I can give this child to him who gave himself for me from that instant the man became a believer there must said he be some truth and some power in the gospel which could lead you to believe in such a manner under such a trial Christians try to exhibit that spirit wherever you are and prove to the world thing that

in your experience at least Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God and now to the last point in the Christians experience is wisdom as well as power if you want to be a thoroughly learned man the best place to begin is to begin at the Bible to begin at Christ it is said that even children learn to read more quickly from the Bible than from any other book and this I am sure of that we who are but grown-up children will learn better and learn faster by beginning with Christ than we

could by beginning with anything else I remember saying once and as I cannot say it better I will repeat it that before I knew the gospel I gathered up a heterogeneous mass of all kinds of knowledge from here there and everywhere a bit of chemistry a bit of botany and a bit of astronomy and a bit of this that and the other I put them all together in one great confused chaos when I learned the gospel I got a shelf in my head to put everything away upon just where it should be it seemed to

me as if when I had discovered Christ and him crucified I had got to the center of the universe so that I could see every other science revolving round in order from the earth you know the planets appear to move in a very irregular manner they are progressive retrograde stationary but if you could get upon the Sun you would see the marching round in their constant uniform circular motion so with knowledge begin with any other science you like and truth will seem to be awry begin with the science of Christ crucified and you will begin

with the Sun you will see every other science moving round it in complete harmony the greatest mind in the world will be evolved by beginning at the right end the old saying is go from nature up to nature's God but it is hard work going uphill the best thing is to go from nature's God down to nature and if you once get to nature's God and believe him and love him it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves and songs in the mild whisperings of the winds to see God everywhere

in the stones and the rocks in the rippling brooks and to hear him everywhere in the lowing of the cattle in the rolling of thunders and in the fury of tempest s-- get Christ first put him in the right place and you will find him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience but wisdom is not knowledge and we must not confound the two wisdom is the right use of knowledge and Christ's gospel helps us by teaching us the right use of knowledge it directs us yon Christian has lost his way in a

dark wood but God's Word is a compass to him and a lantern to he finds his way by Christ he comes to a turn in the road which is right and which is wrong he cannot tell Christ is the great signpost telling him which way to go he sees every day new straits attend he knows not which way to steer Christ is the great pilot who puts his hand on the tiller and makes him wise to steer through shoals of temptation and the rocks of sin get the gospel and you are a wise man the

fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and right understanding have they who keep his Commandments aw Christian you may have had many doubts but you have had them all unriddle when you have come to the cross of Christ you have had many difficulties but they have been all explained in the light of Calvary you have seen mysteries when you have brought them to the face of Christ made clear and manifest which ones you never could have known allow me to remark here that some people make use of Christ's gospel to illuminate their heads

instead of making use of it to illuminate their hearts they are like the farmer Rowland Hill once described the farmer is sitting by the fire with his children the cat is purring on the hearth and they are all in great comfort the plowmen rushes in and cries thieves thieves thieves the farmer rise up in a moment grasps the candle holds it up to his head rushes after the thieves and says Rowland Hill he tumbles over a wheelbarrow because he holds the light to his head instead of holding it to his feet so there are many

who just hold religion up to illuminate their intellect instead of holding it down to illuminate their practice and so they make a sad tumble of it and cast themselves into the mire and do more to hurt their Christian profession in one hour than they will ever be able to retrieve take care that you make the wisdom of God by God's holy spirit a thing of true wisdom directing your feet into his statutes and keeping you in his ways and now a practical appeal and we have done I have been putting my arrow on the strings

and if I have used any light similes I have a done so just as the archer tips his arrow with a feather to make it fly the better I know that a rough quaint saying often sticks when another thing is entirely forgotten now let us draw the bowl and send the hour right at your hearts men brethren fathers how many of you have felt in yourselves that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God internal evidence is the best evidence in the world for the truth of the gospel no paly or Butler

can prove the truth of the gospel so well as Mary the servant girl yonder that has got the gospel in her heart and the power of it manifest in her life say has Christ ever broken your bonds and set you free has he delivered you from your evil life and from your sin has he given you a good hope through grace and can you now say on him I lean on my beloved I stay myself if so go away and rejoice you are a saint for the Apostle has said he is unto us who are

saved Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God but if you cannot say this allow me affectionately to warned you if you want not this power of Christ and this wisdom of Christ now you will want them in a few short moments when God shall come to judge the quick and the dead when you shall stand before his bar and when all the deeds that you have done shall be read before an assembled world you will want religion then oh that you had grace to tremble now grace to kiss the son lest he

be angry and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little hear ye how to be saved and I have done do you feel that you are a sinner are you conscious that you have rebelled against God are you willing to acknowledge your transgressions and do you hate and abhor them while at the same time you feel you can do nothing to atone for them then hear this Christ died for you and if he died for you you cannot be lost Christ died in vain for no man for whom he died

if you are a penitent and a believer he died for you and you are safe go your way rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory for he who has taught you your need of a savior will give that saviors blood to be applied to your conscience and you shall ere long with yonder blood washed hosts praise God and the lamb saying hallelujah forever amen only do you feel that you are a sinner if not I have no gospel to preach to you I can but warn you but if you feel you're lost estate come

to Christ come and welcome for he will never cast you away this message Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God was preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon on May 17th 1857 this is Charles Kelsey inviting you to join me again for another message from the Prince of preachers [Music] [Applause] [Music]