You should be in 1 Corinthians 2. And as we've been looking at this chapter, we know that Paul is dealing with or making a contrast between worldly wisdom and what we would understand as heavenly wisdom. God, now listen to me, God is absolute. He's absolute. What I mean by that is God is the ultimate reality. We exist because He exists. He's the Creator. We are the creatures. We're the special creation of God. And because God is absolute in His existence, He doesn't need us, but God created us because He wants us. He desires us to have a relationship, to fellowship with us. He made us for Himself. And so God has absolute existence. He is complete in Himself. He is completely self-sufficient. God doesn't need anyone. God doesn't need anything. But aren't you glad that God desires to have fellowship with you and us? And so we understand that He's unchanging. Now watch this. Now follow me. Because God is absolute, His Word is absolute. The Bible is absolute truth because our God is absolute in His existence, alright? Who He is. Now the word absolute, when you say, preacher, you're telling me the Bible is absolute truth. We live in a world where they claim there are no absolutes, there's no absolute truth. But we know the Bible to be absolute truth because it's the Word of God, alright? Who is absolute in His existence. So what does that mean? It means something is complete, pure, Perfect, definite, fixed, immovable, infallible, constant, unchanging. You see what I'm saying? The Bible says, Thy word is truth. If you want to know truth, then you go to the Word of God. Because it flows out from Him who is the truth. Of course, one of the greatest verses in the Bible on that is Psalm 119 verse 89. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled, it's absolute, settled in heaven. Isn't that a wonderful verse? Isn't that a wonderful truth? We know that everything in this world changes, but Jesus never. And He's the Living Word of which the Bible is the written Word. And the Corinthian church is fractured, it's divided, it's sick, it's an unhealthy congregation of believers because they're following a worldly wisdom that's ever-shifting, it's ever-changing. It's not absolute. It's not fixed. It's not pure. It's not perfect. It's not immovable. You see the difference. And by the way, every Christian in this room, you're either going to conduct your life, your future, your family, your parenting, your marital, whatever you do as a Christian, you're going to do it based on one of two ways of wisdom. You're either going to be in the shifting wisdom of this world or the fixed settled, absolute wisdom that's found in God's truth. I believe one of the problems we have today, much of the parenting going on is because there's way too much dependence upon worldly wisdom found in parenting books, magazines, blogs, podcasts, rather than going to the absolute truths of the Word of God. You're not going to improve on God's Word. What they say is true only when it comes into alignment with the Word of God. And so you're going to find that the church was sick, it was unhealthy because the believers in that church were unhealthy, because they were undernourished and undeveloped spiritually, and we're going to see that. And so Paul is dealing with that when he talks about the wonders of the Word. Now I'm going to work my way through this chapter again for context because it's been a couple weeks since we've been here, alright? And so first of all, we saw the declaration of God's Word, alright? The declaration of God's Word. I'm not sure. Do we have an outline tonight on the screen? We do? Don't? All right, there it comes. There we go. All right. And so Paul comes to Corinth declaring unto you. Look what he says. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with the excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. And so he is publicly making known God's testimony about himself, because that's what the Bible is. The Bible is God's revealed testimony of who He is. You cannot know God apart from the Bible. And he begins to talk about the person of the Word. Verse number 2, "...for I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Now that doesn't mean that Paul didn't preach other doctrines, but all that we have, all that we are finds its embodiment in the person of Jesus Christ. And when you know Christ and you know Him, then everything we have, all that we are, flows out of that relationship. And so He's preaching Christ to them. Then we talked about the power of the Word. We saw that in verse 3 when Paul said, And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And that weakness was not a physical weakness. It was a spiritual weakness. He was saying, I want to be dependent upon the Lord. I don't want to come in my own ability. My own strength. I don't want to give you what I can do. I want what God can do through me. By the way, that's a lesson to every person that stands at any moment and shares the Word of God. Whether you're preaching in the jails through our ministry, whether you're in a life group, whether you're teaching a children's class, whether you're standing in a pulpit, wherever that is, listen, can I help you understand? They don't need what you can do. They need what God can do through you. And there needs to be a dependence upon the Lord. And Paul said, I don't want to depend on myself, I want to depend on God. And that word fear is a fear and much trembling. It wasn't that he was afraid of man, he was fearful that somehow through how he would speak or how he would handle things that he would devalue or diminish the power and the integrity of the gospel message. And by the way, there's a lot of people that take away from the gospel in their preaching and teaching. and the integrity of it. They water it down. Or they add their own things to it. And Paul's saying, I'm going to preach to you the simplicity and the clarity of the gospel message, the truth of God. And he didn't come... Notice what he says. I love verse 4 in my speech and my preaching. It's not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit of power. He said, listen, what I'm doing is not a performance, but a demonstration of power. Can I tell you, preachers are not... Now, some preachers perform. That's just a fact. Can I help us understand? Some preachers have a more dynamic delivery maybe than others, but the power is not in the delivery. The power is in the Word. It is. And one of the greatest revivals started from a preacher by the name of Jonathan Edwards that preached sinners in the hands of an angry God monotone. Monotone. And God's power fell on that congregation. And it shows us that the power is not in the man, it's in the Word. And he said it's a demonstration of power and it was evidenced by their changed lives. But then we saw the revelation of the Word that not only was He declaring it publicly, but He was declaring what God had revealed. And we know that the Bible is distinct, that man didn't think it up, God sent it down. Look at verse 6, "...howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the prince of the..." That's the wise, the mighty, the noble of this world that comes to nothing. but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world into our glory." And so the Bible is distinct. It's not the wisdom of this world. It comes from a heavenly world. It's something that God has delivered to us and therefore it's a disclosed word. So what we mean by that is God's made it known. It was a mystery. It's a sacred secret, but yet God has made His secrets known to us. All right? And we know that. And notice, if you would, he talks about how, in verse number 9, that it's not through human observation. You cannot discover spiritual truth through human observation. Notice, but as it's written, I have not seen or ear heard neither of any in the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. So I can't perceive it, ear can't hear it, heart can't conceive it. That means that you're not going to get it through human instrumentality. You're not going to arrive at spiritual truth through human instrumentality. No, God has revealed His sacred secrets to us. What's been hidden has been made known. How do you know that? Look at verse number 10. He hath revealed. He's made them known. And the word revelation means to make known something that's been hidden. And so God has made Himself known to us through His Word. And so we've seen the declaration of the Word, we've seen the revelation of the Word of God where God's revealing Himself to mankind through the pages of Scripture. But then there's the impartation of God's Word. And we know that God's inspired His Word, He's preserved His Word, that you and I have in our hands the very Word of the living God. If I didn't believe that, I'd go home tonight and I'd get an honest job because I'd be being dishonest. If I preached a book that I didn't believe was the truth, the very Word of God, And I believe that. And so God's revealed His Word through inspiration. He's preserved it through transmission down through time. And that means that God has protected His Word supernaturally and providentially so that from the very moment that it was revealed, the very moment it was revealed and written down, God preserved those inspired words so that you and I, even though we have a translation in our own language, And it's infallible, it's inerrant, and all of that. And so there's no lost books of the Bible. You have everything God wants you to have, all right? And then number three, now God's gonna move to where we can understand it. This is what we would call the impartation of God's Word. This is where the understanding comes in. And then we're gonna talk about receiving His Word in a moment, but let's finish this up real quickly. has hidden His truth from the wise, the mighty, the noble. Look, if you would, verse number 11 and 12. The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Verse 10, verse 11. What man knoweth the things of man save the Spirit of man which is in him? Who knows a man better than the man himself? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. And so the Spirit searches the deep things of God. He knows the deep things of God because He is God and He is the revealing agent, okay? And then look at verse 12, Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know. That means we might perceive, we might understand the things that are freely given to us. Alright? We can grasp it. That's the doctrine of illumination that God casts light upon. I tell my preaching students, I say, now listen, God's not going to reveal anything to you. If you found something new, you're probably not preaching something true. A guy ever gets up and says, listen, I found something new. You need to beware. There's nothing new. We're just preaching the old, old story that never gets old. Isn't that right? That's what we do. And it's faithful. But here's where the Spirit of God opens our hearts, He opens our minds so that we can understand God's truth. So the moment you were saved, God gave you a capacity to understand Scripture, to understand the truth. Look at verse 13, which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Now that phrase there, that word comparing has the idea of a combination of combining something. of combining spiritual truth with spiritual words so that they can be conveyed. It's through words that we express ourselves. God's expressed Himself through words so that we can understand Him and so that we can know who He is in our relationship with Him. Alright, now we're to wherever we want to be. Number four, the reception of the Word. So we know that God imparts His Word through illumination. The Spirit of God enlightens our minds so that we can understand truth. But wait, watch this. Not everybody understands truth. Not everybody has the ability to grasp truth. All right? And so now when you come to verse number 14, 15, and 16, Paul's going to bring us back to that dividing line of humanity. You remember there was division in this church, but should there be division in God's church? No. That's not the place where the division's at. The division should be out in the world. And the dividing line is the cross. Those who count it as foolishness and those who see it as the power of God. There's where the dividing line is. And so he's brought us back to that here in verse number 14. But the natural man, did you see that? Receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. And so he's going to talk about actually, I'm going to say two classes, but we're going to find there's three. But first of all, the natural man. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." So what does that mean, natural? It means soulish. It means to be of the flesh. It's one whose thinking is of the world. Romans 3.10 describes the natural or the unsaved man or woman, boy, girl, teenager, whatever it is, as them that dwell upon the earth. That means they are earth dwellers. The unsaved who live for this world, everything they can get out of this world. They have the cliches, you only live once, so live it up. They're after what this world can offer. They have no concept of spiritual things. God is not in all of their thoughts. I remember I was working when I was in Bible college before I was pastoring and there was a person there that she was involved in what we would understand as a sinful alternative lifestyle. And I was trying to witness to her and I said, do you not ever think of the Bible or God or eternity? She said, never. Never. I don't want to think about it. No desire whatsoever. to have any interaction with God, the Bible, the truth of God. They don't want anything to do with that. In Romans 8, verse 9, you can jot this down in your notes, having not the Spirit. That's what Paul says of the natural man. In Romans, he has not the Spirit. They've not been made alive spiritually. They are dead in their spirit. So they do not have a capacity to interact with the Spirit of God. Satan has blinded their minds. Now I want you to notice something very carefully in verse 14. Will you look at that verse with me? There is no rebuke here. God's not rebuking them. It's a statement of fact, not a statement of rebuke. God's just simply stating to us that a natural person who is unsaved may read the words of the Bible, but there is no spiritual comprehension. It don't make any sense to them whatsoever. That's why you can go into, young people, into a college classroom, a secular college classroom. They're going to have a religion class. They're going to open the Bible and they are going to openly deny or avoid Bible truths and give you alternatives to what is really there because they're not going to talk about the supernatural. They're going to give you an explanation. By the way, it's not a very good one of the supernatural, the miracles. They're going to say that You remember last time I preached, can you all remember back that far? Okay? Here on Sunday. And Jesus was walking on the water. Here's what they claim. So here's what the liberal Bible theologian would claim, who receives not the things of the Spirit of God, who denies the spiritual and supernatural. He would say that the disciples were out there and it was a breezy night and Jesus, because the moon wasn't out, they really couldn't see who He was, and He was walking along the shore slowly, giving them the illusion that He was walking on water. You have to really have a lot of faith to believe that. Because if you go to the text itself, they were in the middle of the ocean. Who's going to be able to see somebody walking on the shore four miles away? You're not. What it is, is they're trying to give you a human reason, logic in their mind not to believe the Bible. Why? Because they don't receive it. They don't receive it. So let me give you a couple things to write down under number A. Number one, there's no appreciation for spiritual things. No appreciation for spiritual things. Look in verse number 14, the word receiveth. Do you see that? Receiveth, that means they welcome not. They don't welcome it into their heart. There's no room for it. the things of the Spirit of God. The believer, on the other hand, welcomes the Word of God. You see the difference? Before I was saved, I didn't care anything about the Bible. I didn't read the Bible. I went to church because I had to go to church. I didn't listen to the Bible. I didn't want to listen to the Bible. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be out with my friends. I just was clocking time. And then the Sunday night that God broke through in my life and I got saved, the Bible came alive. And suddenly what I didn't want, I welcomed it into my heart. I wanted it. Alright? Watch this. Not only is there no appreciation for spiritual things, number two under this, there's no apprehension. Now, these are not on your notes. I added this later. This didn't get to the ladies to go on the PowerPoint. No apprehension for spiritual things. It's not that they just don't welcome it. They can't even know it. Look what he says, verse number 14. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. You have to be spiritually made alive to be able to spiritually discern or understand God's truth. When a natural person can encounter a spiritual truth church, they treat it as foolishness. But then Paul says there's the spiritual man. Look at verse number 15. In contrast to the natural man who doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God is the spiritual man. He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet himself is judged of no man. Now what does that mean to be spiritual? That means this person has experienced a spiritual birth. That means they possess spiritual life. That means the Holy Spirit of God lives within them. He indwells them. They've made a new creature in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5.17, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. He is a new creation. Alright? God doesn't rehabilitate us. He regenerates us. He makes us new. He gives us new eyes. Now not physical eyes, but spiritual eyes that we may see. He gives us new ears that we may hear. Suddenly what I was deaf to, I now hear. and a new heart that I can understand that. It's a spiritual matter. And they've been made new in their mind, in their heart, in their life. And they have an ability to know and love and follow God with their lives and to understand spiritual truth. And the Bible comes alive to them. That's what He's saying. They live in the realm of and under the control of the Spirit of God. And so now watch this, okay? A spiritual person is a person whose life is in alignment to the Holy Spirit. That means we're living yielded to and under the control of the Spirit of God. And notice he says judgeth. Did you see that? Now understand this is not sitting in judgment of someone. It means to examine. It means to discern. It means to understand. Now let me help you understand this. Somebody says, well maybe I'm not saved. I don't understand everything in the Bible. Well, I don't either. There's a lot of things in the Bible I don't understand. There's some things that God asked Ezekiel to do that I still haven't figured out why God would send a message that way. But God knows. There are end-time events that I don't have the answer to. I don't think some of it we'll know to the people living on the earth that are experiencing it. I believe we know the basics. I think there's lots of things we can know, but there's still things that we probably won't know or understand until there's a generation of people that are there. So it doesn't mean that we have to understand everything the Bible has to say. Here's what it means. It means you have the capacity to understand it. You have the ability to understand it. You have the ability to discern between what's right, what's wrong, what's true, what's not true. To see this world for what it is and not only to have the ability, not only to understand and see the world for what it is, but to have the ability to live successfully in this life and also the life to come because you're not living just for this world. You're living for another world. That's what the spiritual man does. They're living for the world to come. They realize this world is going to pass away. That everything in it is temporal. It's not lasting, but the world that's coming is. It means they can sift through the evidence and come to right conclusions. We have a proper worldview. That means we see the world from God's viewpoint, from God's Word, from God's truth. You know what's interesting? I was listening to a podcast today, something I listen to on a pretty regular basis, and the guy deals with worldview issues. He was talking about a write-up in the New York Times about how that Newborns that are discarded, that means they're left in garbage cans, they're left in alleys, a lot of big cities, and they're left there to die. Infants. That doesn't sit right with us, does it? It doesn't. We all know that's wrong, don't we? And they would be discarded there. And New York Times was writing the article about how that now, through just routine Blood tests for genealogies has created a huge DNA database that now law enforcement accesses. How about that? They've went back decades and found the person that's discarded the child and prosecuted them. You know what the New York Times is saying? If you discard an infant that's been born, it's wrong and you ought to be prosecuted. But you know what they don't understand? That it's still taking a human life before it's born if you abort the child. You see how the thinking is twisted? But yet we understand that it's a child whether it's born or not born yet. while it's still in the womb. You see the difference? That means that they can't have some morality, they can't see some, but they can't fully understand and see life and the world from God's perspective, but you can. That's what it's saying. Look at verse number 15. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. Well, that means nobody can judge me, preacher. Well, that's not what he's talking about. What he's talking about is they don't comprehend you. They don't know why you come to church three times a week, why you give your money to a church because all preachers are up there for is to get after people's money. That's all they want. That's all they preach on. You know that. That's all I preach on is money. Right? Isn't that right? That we're just trying to fleece the flock? That's what they say. You go to church on Wednesday night too? And they can't comprehend it. You read the Bible every day? They'll pray when there's an emergency. You know, because they need somebody to help them, you know what I'm saying? And they have a God consciousness, and so they cry out to somebody to help them, but they don't understand somebody that would have a... You know how we know that? Because they would mock a believer in our government that would claim that God talks to them and they talk to God. Well, you know what? God does talk to me. Not audibly from heaven, but from His Word, and He speaks to my heart from the Scripture. You understand what I'm saying? There's interaction there, there's fellowship, there's communion. They don't understand that. They don't get it. Notice it goes on to say verse 16, For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? Now the truth is that we don't know the Lord's mind. We can't instruct God in anything. But notice what he says, We have the mind of Christ. You say, Preacher, what is that? Well, that's the Word of God you hold in your hand. that is made real to you by the Spirit of God who lives in your heart so that you can know Christ's mind on the different situations and circumstances of life, so that you can live it successfully for Him. A number of years ago, it was real popular to wear an armband, WWJD, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? I never really got into that fad because God never told me to sit down and try to figure out what He would do in a certain situation. He's already told me. What I need to do is ask the question, what did Jesus say? You see the difference? See, me trying to figure out what He would do, I need to know what did He say because that then tells me what I need to do. You see what I'm saying? Okay. Now, I'm gonna close up, all right? Remember, Wednesday night is teaching time now. If you haven't been in a Wednesday night, we've turned that into a teaching time. The doctrine of illumination does not mean that we can know and understand everything. It doesn't mean that. It does not mean that we don't need human preachers and teachers. It doesn't mean that. Or God wouldn't have gave us pastors and evangelists and teachers and all of that. It does not mean that study is not hard work. The Bible says that we labor in the Word. It's labor to prepare messages. It's labor. It's laborious. It's hard work. That's why the Bible said, study to show thyself approved a workman, a laborer. So it doesn't mean that, but here's what it does mean. It does mean that the scripture can be understood by every Christian who is diligent and obedient to know the truth of God. If you wanna know God's truth, you can know it. That's what he's saying. And God can make his known word known to you. Now there's a third group of people we're gonna deal with in a separate message. You're gonna meet them in chapter number three. That is the carnal man or woman or teenager or boy or girl. This is the abnormal. Okay? Here's the problem. That a lot of times we're so abnormal spiritually we don't really know what normal spirituality is. Because many times we're flesh driven rather than spirit driven. And that's why the Bible says that we're to be filled with the Spirit of God. that we're to yield ourselves to Him on a regular basis so that we can be spiritual and not carnal. So this third group we meet in chapter 3 because really you understand the Bible wasn't written with chapter breaks, right? It's a letter. And so there's a continual train of thought and so he moves into a Christian who's carnal, they're not spiritual. And that's the root of the problem in the church at Corinth. He was telling them what a spiritual Christian would look like in verses 15 and 16. Now he tells them what they really were, that they were unhealthy because they were undernourished and they were undeveloped spiritually. They were babes in Christ. They'd been saved long enough not to be babies, but they had remained babies. And many times lack of health in a church setting is because there's a congregation of undernourished, undeveloped Christians who are living carnal, and I'm not trying to be unkind, but they're acting like babies. That's what Paul says. Now, can I help you understand something? There's area, I'm gonna deal with this all in one message, all right? Here's the truth. There's times that all of us, I look in the mirror, okay, as a grown man, and I think, Kevin, when are you gonna grow up? You ever do that? I mean, 58 years old and sometimes you act like a kid. What am I gonna grow up, quit acting like? You ever been there? And that's true. And there's times that there's immaturity and carnality in all of our lives. And that's why we want to be diligent. to walk in the spirit that we don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. And therefore God can help us to live spiritual in Christ Jesus. It's not a group of super saints. Every Christian can be a spiritual Christian. Amen. And receive and love and follow God's will for their lives. And that's God's desire for you. He, she, that is spiritual. Spiritual. And it's not, it's not all the time the person that's the loudest in the church. Sometimes it can be the quietest person in the church. Spirituality is not what I see, it's what we are. You following me? Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, we love you tonight. We thank you for your word. Help us to be a people of the book. Help us to love its truth. Help us to desire it, Lord, and welcome it into our hearts and lives. To nourish ourselves daily in the scriptures. to walk in the Spirit, Lord, that we wouldn't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Lord, that we would live in obedience to Christ. Lord, that You would help us to see life from Your perspective and not our own. That we would walk in Your ways and not our own. Thank You, Lord, for the wisdom of the Word. Thank you for the wonders of the Bible. Thank you, Lord, for a book that teaches us about you, that we can know you and love you and serve you with our lives. Help us to love it and cherish it and learn it and live it. Father, help that to be the desire of every Christian in the building tonight. In Jesus' name, I pray.