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this passage and we're starting
really from verse 10 where we last dealt with this passage
and finished. But God has revealed them to
us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things,
yes, the deep things of God. And it is a wonder, isn't it,
that God has these wonderful deep things for us. laid up for
us, as we read, these things are prepared for those who love
Him. God is now revealing them to
us and helping us to understand these incredible things, the
things of the Spirit, the things of God. And it's all laid up
in His Word, of course. And the Spirit helps us to understand
His Word and to appreciate His Word and to obey His Word. And without the Spirit, we can
know nothing. And that's what Paul is now teaching
us, that the Gospel and the propagation of the Gospel and the reception
of the Gospel is totally dependent on the work of the Holy Spirit
in people's hearts and souls. Without that work, they cannot
understand and they will not understand the gospel. They will
not receive it. They will not obey it. They will
not turn to Christ and be saved. Without him, we labour in vain. And all our efforts and all our
works are in vain because it takes that miraculous work of
the Holy Spirit in people's hearts and souls to illuminate them
and to help them and to show them the things of God. And so
that's how Paul came to them. He came to them in the demonstration
of the spirit and of power, verse four. He did not come with the
deceptive words of man's wisdom, not the excellency of speech
or of wisdom, not persuasive words of human wisdom, but a
demonstration of the spirit and of power. In all ways, Paul determined
this. He determined to know Christ
and him crucified only. to preach that to people, to
explain that to people. Yes, to persuade people too,
but to persuade them with the wisdom of God, with the gospel
itself, with the teaching of the gospel. And if people did
not receive that, they did not receive it. That was it. You look at Jesus Christ's ministry. Jesus Christ's ministry is one
of telling people the truth. But there were many people who
did not receive the truth and would not have the truth. What
did Jesus Christ do? Did he try and change the truth?
Did he try and make it more acceptable to them? Did he try and explain
it in a way that would be overpowering to them, which he could have
done? No, he didn't. He explained the truth. He preached
the truth. He gave them the truth. And if
they would not have it, they would not have it. Because if
they would not have it, it's because the Holy Spirit was not
working in their hearts and their souls to bring them to understanding
of the things of God. And that's what he goes on to
tell us. But God has revealed, verse 10, them to us through
his spirit. All that we know of God and all
that we understand of God and understand of his word is because
the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us. For the Spirit searches
all things, yes, the deep things of God. And the more that we
know of the Word of God, and the more that we understand of
the truths of the Word of God, it's because the Holy Spirit
is the one that searches the mind of God, and knows the mind
of God, and knows those deep things of God. and reveals them
to us and helps us to understand these things. But the natural
man, he does not understand them. He has no comprehension of these
things at all. Verse 11, for what man knows
the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in
him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the spirit
of God. So here it is. We have a spirit. God is spirit, no God. We have
to commune with him through our spirit. That's why we worship
him in spirit and in truth. The word spirit is not synonymous
with our soul and it is not as many commentators say in John
4, that it's our heart. We worship him with our hearts
and with the truth. No, it's not. We have a spirit. We are body, soul, and spirit.
That spirit is dead within us until it's revived by the spirit
of God and made alive. We are made alive by the spirit
of God. Born again, our spirits are made
alive within us. And then, and only then, can
we begin to appreciate and understand the things of God. But that spirit
of ours, that spirit of us, understands us too. It says, for what man
knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is
in him. So the spirit searches our soul
and searches our minds as well. Even so, no one knows the things
of God except the Spirit of God. That's logical, isn't it? To
know anything of God, the only one that can know the things
of God is the Spirit of God. and because he understands God
and he knows God's mind. Our spirit knows us, understands
us, and knows our minds because we are one. And so the Holy Spirit,
being one with God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit, he understands the things of God. So, unless the Holy Spirit
is leading and guiding and revealing these things to us, it is impossible
for man to understand God, to understand anything about God,
and to understand the teachings of God. Now that doesn't mean
that he can't understand the words of the Scriptures, and
it doesn't mean that he can't understand the arguments of Scripture.
But what he cannot understand is the truth of the scripture
and receive that truth to himself. He will always reject it. He
will always balk at it. It would always be something
that he classes to himself to be foolishness. We'll come on
to that in just a moment. until the Holy Spirit works in
them. They cannot receive the things
of God. They cannot understand the things
of God. So the spirit must give discernment
and the spirit is the one who must lead them to God, to salvation. Now, secondly, What we must preach
to be received by them can only be through the power of the Holy
Spirit. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but
the spirit who is from God that we might know the things which
have been freely given to us by God. These things we also
speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the
Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. So bringing the gospel to people,
the only way that we can be affected in the preaching of the gospel,
or in our ministry amongst children, or in our ministry and our witness
to others, is through the Holy Spirit. We must pray for his
help, and we must seek his help in disseminating the gospel,
or else it will go nowhere. It would be like water of a duck's
back to all the people that we speak to. The Holy Spirit must
do that work in people's hearts and souls. to prepare them to
receive the things of God. He must open their eyes so that
they can see and appreciate the things of God. He must open their
ears so that they can receive the things of God as it is spoken
to them. He must open their hearts, that
stony heart, and prepare that stony heart so that they want
the things of God and they appreciate the things of God. Without that
word, There is no gospel work. Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that
we might know the things that have been freely given to us
by God. And that is what we must bring
to people. We must bring to people what God has freely given to
us. He has freely given to us the
gospel. He has freely given to us that
gospel in his word, and that's what we must preach, and that's
what the Holy Spirit will bless and use. How did we receive the
word of God? How were we given the word of
God? Well, look at 2 Peter and chapter
1. And verse 21, for prophecy never
came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit. And that's how the word of God
was given to us. It was given to the prophets
because they were moved by the Holy Spirit to speak. It was
given to the apostles and to the other writers of the scriptures
because the Holy Spirit moved them. came upon them and moved
them and inspired them, their minds and their hearts, to write
what they wrote for us and to preach what they preached. That's
the inspiration of God. God, it was God breathed. It was given by God through them. And he used all their skills
and all their abilities. He used the way that they wrote
and their particular idioms that they used. He used all of that. He used that to bring it together
to give us the word of God. And he discounted some people
because the particular idioms that they had and the particular
way that they approached things was not what God wanted. He chose
the men of God for his word and he inspired them so that they
could understand and know what they were writing was the word
of God and give it to the people. as the word of God. It's the
Holy Spirit that gives us the scriptures and therefore that
gospel that is given by the Holy Spirit is what the Holy Spirit
will use to save and to redeem his people. And we cannot alter
it and we don't have liberty to alter it to suit our generation
or to suit our tastes or to suit whatever else people want. We
don't have the liberty to do that. And if we do do that, then
the Holy Spirit will not use it and will not bless it. He's given us the word. In verse
14 and 15 we'll see this, how important this is. In verse 13,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual. That's what we must
do. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom
teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches. comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. You see, the Holy Spirit teaches
us and illuminates us and helps us to understand these things,
but it's through the Word of God. And how do we know that
what the Holy Spirit is teaching us is truly of God? Or it's not
that we're just making it up, it's not what we're just thinking,
it's because we have the Word of God to guide us and to discipline
us and to keep us true to what God wants us to know. So there
is nothing that we can know and there is nothing that the Holy
Spirit will ever, ever give us that is not verifiable by the
word of God. Why would he give it to us otherwise? It's so that we can know what
God wants what the mind of God is. And we can't know that, of
course, without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, but it's
illuminating the word. So when we bring the gospel to
people, it must be according to the word. So those people
who say, well, we can leave out the bit about hell, well, does
the Bible leave out hell? No, it doesn't. We can leave
out the sovereignty of God. No, the Bible doesn't leave that
out. We can leave out the things about
Noah because, you know, people don't find that acceptable in
our day. And frankly, it's rather stupid and it makes us look foolish. I was told that once. Don't talk
about Noah, they told me. You'll frighten them away. And
anyway, they think it's just a fable. They think it's just
a myth. Don't talk about Noah. No friends, does the Bible talk
about it? Does Christ talk about it? Yes
they do and therefore it's for us to preach and it's for us
to believe and it's for us to declare and yes people will find
it foolish a foolish notion, unless the Holy Spirit works
upon them. But when the Holy Spirit works
upon them, then they will understand. You see? So what do we do? We
compare spiritual things with spiritual, don't we? We compare
the Word of God with the Word of God. If we have a thought
that maybe, you know, that God wants something or desires something
of us, look to the Word of God. Is it verifiable by the word
of God? If we want to know what to preach,
how to put things over to people, then it must be from the word
of God. And it must be governed by the
word of God and by the truths of the word of God. We have no
liberty to go beyond the word of God. If we go beyond the word of God,
we're going beyond the spirit of God. and we're going beyond
God himself. This is his declaration and his
revelation of his mind to us. So who will receive the gospel?
Well, verse 14, it says, but the natural man does not receive
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him,
nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Now the natural man, that means men before the Holy Spirit has
worked upon their souls. Men before the Holy Spirit has
worked upon their souls do not receive the things of the Spirit
of God. Now that's very important that
we understand it's not saying that they cannot, it's saying
that they do not. And it's not saying that they
can't understand aspects of it, they can't understand the argument
that is being laid down, or else how can they argue against it?
And they do argue against it, don't they? How can they distort
it? And why do they distort it? It's
because they know what it's teaching, but they don't receive it. They
will not receive it as truth, and they will not receive it
to themselves. So the natural man, he does not
receive the things of God. He can see it. It's plain as
day to see, isn't it? He can read it. He's not without
intelligence. He can grasp some of the teachings
of it, but he can't grasp the truth of it. and he cannot receive
it to himself. Cannot receive the things of
the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him.
That's the second reason. He cannot receive them and they
are foolishness to him. When he looks and when he understands
what the Bible is teaching, it sounds like utter rubbish to
him because is at variance with everything he's been brought
up to believe and to understand. Like the substitution and atonement
of Jesus Christ. Why do men not want a substitute
to stand in their place and to take their sin and their punishment
upon themselves? Why? Because that's utter foolishness
to them. Firstly, on the basis that anybody
would stand in our place. Man can't understand that. Man
cannot understand the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That he would,
as God, want to come into this world and stand in the place
of sinful men whom he is the judge of. and whom he is angry
with every day because he is a sinner. How? I mean, it's difficult for us,
isn't it, as spiritual people, to get our minds round this,
but we receive that, we welcome it, we love it, because it's
what we stand upon, isn't it? It's what our faith is based
upon. But more than that, because the
Holy Spirit has revealed these things to us. But the natural
man, he understands what is being said, that Jesus Christ stood
as a substitute for sinners. But he will not receive it. It's foolishness to him. It's
foolishness to him also because he believes that he must do the
work. Everything tells him that he
must pay for his his crimes, or he must make amends for them.
Everything tells him that he can, that he is worthy, that
he is good enough. So to tell man that he is not,
and the only way of salvation is through a substitutionary
atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, is utter
foolishness to him. You see, we must understand this.
We must grasp this. We're not saying that men cannot
understand. We're saying that men cannot
understand to the saving of their souls. And men cannot understand
to the reception of these truths and the taking hold of these
truths. Otherwise, as Paul has already
told us, they would not have crucified the Saviour, would
they? They wouldn't have done it. They
would have understood who he was and his great miracles. And they would have appreciated
him for who he was and believed upon him. But man will not have
a substitutionary saviour. They do not want him. It's foolishness
to him. Nor can he know them because
they are spiritually discerned. So three things. Firstly, he
can't receive them. They are foolishness to him and
he can't know them because they are spiritually discerned. You
have to have the Spirit of God within you leading you and guiding
you into that truth or else you can't understand it because only
the Spirit knows the mind of God. Only the Holy Spirit understands
what God is saying to us and what God wants us to know. Only
the spirit knows the workings of God, because he is God, of
course. So we need the spirit. And they
are not spiritual. They cannot understand it. They
have not been made alive as spiritual beings. Their spirit is dead
within them. And so they cannot grasp these
things. But he who is spiritual judges
all things. yet he himself is rightly judged
by no one. So what is the Spirit of God
telling us here? It's this, that we as spiritual
people, we can discern, we can grasp, we can understand, we
can weigh up what we are reading and what we are studying and
what we are being told and we can appreciate them as spiritual
truths. So we can judge in that sense
all things can't we? And that's how we should evaluate
everything in the world. As Christians We should always
evaluate everything from our Christian point of view, from
our Christian life that we have been given, from what God wants
us to be and what God would have us to do. Everything. I've told you that when I was
in a very poor Baptist church, Sir Cyril Black, a great, what was he? I think he was in
manufacturing, wasn't he? And he was a millionaire and
a big businessman, came to speak to us. I don't know why he came
to our church, but anyway, he came to speak to us. I think
we may have had a rally or something. and he told us that, yes, we
must be good Christians, but when it comes to business, business
is business. Church is church, business is
business. You see? So you have different
standards, you operate in a different way for business. Church, all
right, you worship, you do your best, you're a good person, but
in business, you can lie, you can cheat, you can alter the
truth to prosper your business, to do the best for your business. And one of the things he said
was, well, the Bible tells us that we've got to obey our masters,
haven't we? So do what your boss tells you,
even though it's not what God wants you to do. That was his
premise. Be good business people and serve
your masters. But that's not what the Bible
teaches us, is it? The Bible teaches us that we
have a new life. And the Bible teaches us that
we have to live that life out. in business, in work, in our
homes, in our schools, wherever we are, we are Christians, we
are Christ's and we are his representatives, we are his ambassadors, we are
his witnesses to all around us of what a Christian is. So that
when we In this context, when we evaluate everything or anything
in this world, anything in our lives, any opportunities that
we have, any need for guidance that we have, anything that we
read in the newspaper, anything that happens to us, anything,
we should be evaluating it from the standpoint of being a Christian. We should be evaluating it with
our spiritual minds. and our spiritual hearts so that
we always deal with it as far as we possibly can as Christ
would. Because that's how Christ operated,
didn't he? That's how Christ lived his life.
You never saw Christ switching off, did you? You never saw Christ
saying, well, you know, I'm going home now. You know, I've done
my preaching. I'm going home now. I'm going
to put up my feet and, you know, everything's different now. And
no, Christ was the same at home. Christ was the same in his ministry.
Christ was the same in the temple. Christ was the same amongst his
disciples. He was always operating in the
Spirit, and so should we. And so when we come to judge
anything, we should always judge it, we should always evaluate
it from the point of view of the Scriptures and the revealed
will of God and the revealed revelation of God. What does
God want us to do? How does God want us to think?
How would God want us to react to that situation? You see? What does God want us to believe?
What does God want us to follow? How does God want us to stand?
And the world has no right to dictate to us and no right to
demand anything other than what God wants us to do because God
is God, isn't he? We render to Caesar what is Caesar's,
but we render to God what is God's. And God must have all
my heart, all my soul, all my mind, all my strength. And then
he allows us to give back to Caesar only what Caesar can legitimately
require of us and ask of us. So the spiritual man, he judges
all things. He discerns, he weighs up all
things spiritually. And so he understands what God
wants. Yet he himself is rightly judged
by no one. In other words, those people
who would criticize us for standing by what the scripture teaches
us, and has revealed to us they have no leg to stand upon and
they have no right to criticize us because they don't understand. They don't understand. They have
no reason for their criticism of us or criticism of the word
of God because they do not understand the things of God. And therefore,
how can they criticize? How can they weigh up? How can
they judge what we are doing and how we are living according
to the word of God to be right or wrong? They can't. Can they? because they have no
appreciation of it whatsoever. There's a case in the news just
today that is somewhat relevant to this. There was a man who
came from Iran and he's applying for asylum and one of the reasons
he's applying for asylum is that he has turned from Islam and
become a Christian. And he says one of the reasons
he did this was because Christianity is a religion of peace. And Islam
is a religion of violence. And he didn't want to be involved
in a religion of violence any longer. And he sought that religion
of peace. And he was denied asylum. And he was denied asylum because
the official who was deciding upon it, said Christianity is
not a religion of peace. You only have to look at Revelation
and see all the violence in Revelation and you can see that Christianity
is a religion of violence. Now that man who made that determination
had no understanding of the things of God whatsoever, did he? And
surprisingly, the Church of England is up in arms against this and
is writing letters and trying to deal with this, portraying
Christianity as a religion of violence. They have no basis
for their criticism at all, do they? Absolutely no basis of
it. They cannot judge us. on these
spiritual matters because they are not spiritual people. For
who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? There you are. It applies, doesn't
it? How can they criticize the things
of God or even seek to change the things of God when they do
not know his mind or understand him whatsoever, but we have? the mind of Christ. And therefore,
we have the mind of God, don't we? Don't we? Of course we do. We have the Holy Spirit working
within us. The Holy Spirit is God. He dwells
within us. And so we have the capability
to think in the same way as God is thinking, on the same lines
as God is thinking. to think spiritually, to think
and to understand what our God wants and what our God would
have us to do. Of course, all governed by his
word, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. What a great
blessing that is, and how we always ought to seek to live
according to the will of God, and keep to that will and that
revealed will that God has given us. Let's pray. Our gracious
God and our loving heavenly Father we come into your presence and
we do praise and thank you Lord that we do have your spirit to
lead us and guide us to illuminate us, to help us to see and to
help us to understand. O Lord, we thank you that we
have the mind of Christ and we do pray, Lord, as spiritual people,
that we may ever value this wonderful life that we have, living as
your children, living, O Lord, for you, living, O Lord, under
your care and under your direction. Lord, we do pray that we may
ever, ever be guided by you in our thoughts, in our words, in
our deeds, in our lives, Lord, in all things, that you may be
glorified. We ask these things in Jesus'
precious name.
1 Corinthians Ch2
Series First Corinthians
| Sermon ID | 32519164504914 |
| Duration | 35:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 2 |
| Language | English |
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