By Rev. Trevor Dearing
The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. Throughout the Bible God has chosen people who, to the world, appear to be a foolish choice because they are ignorant or despised. But His foolishness is wise because, through these base people, we can see that the works they do and the words they say are from God, not of their own power. We have to flow with the foolishness of the Holy Spirit, but in order to do that we have to become weak and put our faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and the cross.
During my ministry I have preached about everything I know about the nature and attributes of God. When I was praying God said to me: “Trevor, you’ve never preached about my foolishness. So I thought to myself that I couldn’t go in front of a group of Christians here and tell them that God was foolish. But then, my mind went to this passage:
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5
As I meditated upon this passage I realised that we cannot be saved from our sins unless we flow with God’s foolishness. I began to see that we cannot be used in our ministry or bring others into the kingdom unless we flow with God’s foolishness. So, Abraham was called to go and leave his country and he said in modern English: “Ok Lord God I will go. Where am I going?” God replied: “I will not tell you until you get there.” Abraham set off. Now Abraham didn’t have a natural son and there came a day when God promised him that Sarah would bare a son. Sarah was past it. And Abraham realised that he wasn’t doing too good either. Sarah laughed at the promise, but the baby was gone.
Later on Moses was sent to free the Israelites from the most powerful nation in the world: the Egyptians. Moses told God that he was not very good at speaking, but God told him that He would take care of that. Moses then asked what he should take with him and God replied that he should only take the stick that was in hand.
Joshua was leading the people into the promise land and Jericho, the most fortified city in the world, stood as an unsurpassable obstacle on their journey. The Lord said to Joshua that He would give him the city. So Joshua asked what he should do and the Lord replied that he should get the people to walk around it; so for seven days they walked round it. On the last day God told them to walk round the city seven times and to shout as they did it. So they did it and in the whole of history Jericho is the only city that fell because of shouting.
Gideon was told that he had too many to defeat the army of the Amalachite’s. When he had only a small army left, God said that that was the army He would use to defeat them.
When God chose the prophets He chose some unlikely people. God chose Amos who was a gardener, but was prepared to listen to do the word. Hosea was chosen when his wife was a prostitute and his bakery business had gone bust. This goes on into the New Testament. When Jesus was choosing His disciples He did not go to the universities and to those who had learnt the law. He went to the beach and chose fishermen and tax payers. He said later on that these were ignorant and unlearned men. This is the foolishness of God.
The foolishness of God is wiser than men. What lies at the heart of all this? One thing that lies at the heart of all this is that God chooses the weak things of the world, and the things which are not, so that when the end is accomplished the glory will not go to men but to God. If Moses had set the people free with a great army it would have been said that Moses was a great general. But because he did it with a stick it is recorded that God was a great God. Sarah had a baby when she was weak and old, so the glory went to God. The Lord gave Joshua the city because they simply walked round it. When the prophets and disciples were chosen people knew that their wisdom was of God because they were not learned people. Thus, they knew that their words were the word of the Lord. God’s power is demonstrated through the things which are not. Paul writes that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise things and the things which are weak to shame that which is strong.
The second great factor in the foolishness of God is that He has chosen that men and women will know Him and will do works for Him by faith. Because Abraham set out not knowing where he was going, he went by faith. Moses had only God’s word that without an army he would set the Israelites free. So, he acted upon God’s word in faith and the promise was fulfilled. Gideon had only the word of the Lord, Hosea and Amos had only the word of the Lord. Throughout the whole of the scripture, all human beings have had is the promise of God, and when they have obeyed God without understanding but in faith, God’s power has been released.
In the New Testament Jesus came walking on the water and Peter asked Jesus to bid him to walk to Him on the water. So the Lord said ‘come’. Peter then stepped out of the boat and stood on the water. The trouble with many Christians today is that they praise God from the safety of the boat, they are not prepared to walk in faith on the water.
2000 years ago the great God of the universe, who created everything, was going to come into the world. The Holy Spirit had made the whole of the Roman empire alive with the expectation that He was going to send a Saviour. How would He come? The Romans and the Greeks said that the only suitable place for the Saviour to come was in the palace of the Roman emperor. The Jews hated the Romans and they did not believe that God would come to the emperor’s palace. They believed that God would come from the skies. They believed that trumpets would sound and blast throughout all the world to announce His arrival. But, Bethlehem, though that are the least amongst the cities of Judah. A peasant woman, poor and lowly, but holy. Not an emperor’s palace, not even an inn. When God came He lay in a cattle trough and He who created the heavens and the earth suckled for sustenance. They missed Him because they did not understand the foolishness of God.
Then, God is going to redeem mankind, He is going to save individuals within the human race from the power of sin. How would God save the human race? The generals say give us better arms and weapons, and they still say it today, asking for nuclear armaments so that they can save the world. The inventors would ask for better technology. The educationalists would say that they will save the world through education. The politicians ask for new political theories. All human beings since time began have been using their brains and hands to save the human race from total destruction. But how did God save the world? How did He save you? He hung seemingly helpless on a cross with the mockery of a crown of thorns and an inscription: “This is the King of the Jews” above His head. The crowds jeered at him saying that if He was the King of the Jews He would be able to save Himself. But He cried out: “I thirst”. Then the author and giver of life bowed His head and died; that is the foolishness of God.
The word of the cross is to those that are perishing foolishness. God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. God was well pleased through the foolishness of the word to save those who heard it. When you share this word with others and say that it is the cross and His death that will save you, to them it will seem foolishness.
1 Corinthians 2:3-4
What are the qualifications for flowing with the Holy Spirit? There are two things: one is weakness and one is faith. Some years ago I was asked to take a mission at Cambridge. They had set up discussions and forums where students would be able to ask me about theology. I was there for ten days and the discussions made my head ache. And after ten days not one person had given their life to Christ. So, I decided to have a meeting and invited the students to a church. So, I preached about the blood of Jesus and the old rugged cross. I was with them in weakness and in fear and in much trembling but I preached the blood of Jesus. At the end a student came up to me and said that he had come to the meeting to hear something sensible. He said that he was suffering from depression and that he had written a suicide note and that if I couldn’t help him he was going to hang himself. He said that he didn’t want to hear about the blood of Jesus and the old rugged cross. He said that he would only believe if he could see and understand it. But I said that he must believe and put his trust in Jesus. This man was in need, he was weak, he wasn’t proud and arrogant; the first qualification. Then he said: “I believe in Jesus and the cross.” So I laid my hands on him and he fell on him. Then he stood up and declared that his depressions had gone and that he believed in the cross. The other students had seen this and then rushed forward, and scores of students gave the hearts to God that day.
I was in America one day and was talking to an eminent doctor. He said to me one day that he had a magnificent house, a yacht, that he was an eminent man but that he was a drunkard. He had tried to cure the drunkenness with medical science, but the harder he tried the deeper into alcoholism he got. It got to the stage where his wife left him and was considering filing for a divorce. This man was weak. Then one day his wife decided instead of filing for a divorce, to go to a church and pray for her husband. To her astonishment her husband joined her and told her that he was going to put his trust in Jesus. In that instant he was cured of his alcoholism.
God chose me after years of depression and sickness. I had hardly gone to school because I was incurably ill, and was expected to die at the age of 21. But there came one night when I put my trust in the blood of Jesus and the cross. That is why I am here today at the age of 75. When I got baptised in the spirit I began preaching the Gospel with power. I saw thousands of conversions and healings every year. I laid my hands on people and they were healed. But these are not special hands; they are like Moses’ stick.
There is power in weakness. If you want to get you must give. It is all upside down according to the world. Are you weak? Are you in need? There’s only one way to be saved: to put your trust in Jesus. If you think you are a real good Christian, you will be lost. It is a constant sense of need and weakness, it is dependence on Jesus. It is constant faith on what He did at Calvary. You’ve got to become a nobody before you can become a somebody in the kingdom of God.
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