Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
"When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood." (Isa. 1:15)
There is wisdom available to man if he will receive it, but he has a choice between several kinds of wisdom. There is wisdom that comes from God through the holy Ghost (1Cor. 2:13). The first product of this kind of wisdom when it enters the heart of man is the fear of God (Prov. 9:10). But there are at least two other kinds of wisdom.
First, there is a worldly wisdom. Isaiah refers to it (29:14), and Paul quotes that ancient prophet (1Cor. 1:19), "For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' " This is the kind of wisdom that men teach each other, in great universities and technical schools. Men become extremely proud of themselves when they attain to this kind of wisdom, even though this kind of wisdom is perfectly worthless when it comes to understanding the ways of God and attaining to eternal life. "The world by wisdom knew not God," declared Paul. None of knowledge men can teach each other enabled the "wise men" of earth to recognize Christ, "the wisdom of God", when he came to dwell among them (1Cor. 2:8). In fact, he writes, by the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ, "God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world." To sum it up, Paul tells the saints in Corinth, "The natural man receiveth not the things of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." And to the Romans (8:7), Paul wrote these sobering words: "The carnal mind [the ordinary mind of man] is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be."
This is what Jesus was trying to communicate to his disciples, when answering their question, "Who then can be saved?" He said, "With men, it is impossible."
Another characteristic of worldly wisdom, Solomon taught us, is that the person who has it knows how to make money. But that, too, is worthless in the pursuit of eternal happiness, and that is why Solomon told his son, "Labor not to be rich; cease from thine own wisdom."
Another kind of wisdom available to men is the wisdom of the devil. Ezekiel reveals that when Satan was created perfect in beauty and "full of wisdom" (28:12). Ezekiel also reveals that for a time after he was created, Satan conducted himself in perfect holiness before God (28:15). But he became proud of his beauty and wisdom and, within his heart, sin became a reality. God said to him, "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." (Ezek. 28:17).
Impossible as it sounds, Satan did not seem to think that God or anyone else knew what kind of spirit he had within him. God did not cast the devil out of heaven the moment that his heart became perverse. In fact, Satan was not cast out of heaven until Jesus died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and began his ministry to the saints from the right hand of God.
All those thousands of years, Satan was in the presence of God as one of the sons of God (Job 1:6). He and the angels who had become like him gathered with all the sons of God, worshiping God when they did, singing when they sang, bowing when they bowed, praising God when they praised God, and feeling the glory of His power when they felt it. If you had been there, observing them all as they worshiped around God's throne, you would not have been able to tell which of the angels were evil and which were upright, nor would you have been able to tell which one of the worshiping cherubim was Satan. And because God withheld His judgment on that wicked creature, Satan and his angel friends continued doing as they were doing, blind to what they had become in God's sight.
Sometimes, God's children make the same mistake. In Israel, God spoke to some of these foolish saints in Psalm 50. After cataloging their sins, he concluded, "These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."
Satan's "devilish wisdom" is the knowledge of how to appear to belong among the righteous without really being righteous. His wisdom is to know how to appear holy without truly being holy. I have seen children of God in this same spiritual condition. They knew they were not doing right but thought that their lives were acceptable because God had not exposed and condemned them. By all appearances, they blended in well with the saints of God, but they were being guided by a wisdom that was not holy.
Satan shares his "devilish wisdom" with children of God who, like him, want to share in God's glory but who, also like him, are unwilling to pay the price to really have it. God tolerates those saints as He tolerated Satan, and they seem to think that their true spiritual condition is hidden, as Satan must have thought that his spiritual condition was hidden, even in the very presence of God.
This is the wisdom of Satan, and any child of God can have it if he elects not to submit to the power of God but just to seem to submit. James warned some of the saints that if there was any ungodliness on the inside, then they must not rejoice with the saints as though that was not true. "If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts," he said, "Glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish" (3:14-15). Paul called it "eating and drinking unworthily" when someone in the body attempted to deceive the saints by partaking of the glory of God when they were hiding secret sin. They thought they were "getting by", too, but Paul pointed out the obvious fact that some of the guilty were sick, and others had actually died prematurely. As he told another group of saints, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7).
It is frightening to know that God will bless a hypocrite when that hypocrite comes to worship Him. May God help us not belong to that "wise" group of saints, that group who depend upon the wisdom of Satan for their fellowship with other saints and do not do the will of God so that their fellowship can be real. In the end, Jesus said, they will be cut out of the body and thrown into flames that will never be quenched.