Please open your Bibles this
morning to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. We often quote this chapter, but I want us to read it this
morning in its entirety. 1 Corinthians 2. Of course, this
is the Apostle Paul, as he says in the first verse of chapter
1, according to the will of God. He says, "...and I, brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God." For I
determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness,
and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we
speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom
of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught. But we speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before
the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world
knew, For had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit, For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the
Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God,
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. But the natural man receives
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth
all things, Yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, that we may instruct him? But we have
the mind of Christ." I've entitled this message, The
Means of Revelation. And from what we read not only
in this portion of Scripture, but all throughout the Word of
God, it is obvious and it is plain that all men and women
by nature as we come into this world are blind, and ignorant
and without understanding of the things of God. No matter what else we may know,
no matter how many of the things of this world we may understand,
we are every one in this state spiritually. We are ignorant
to the meaning even of the things of the Bible. And so blind and
without understanding as to who God really is, and not only that,
but also as to what our real condition and state is in ourselves. And therefore, we are also blind
and ignorant and without understanding as to how it is that God saves
sinners. We are ignorant as to who He
saves. And we are most ignorant of Him
who is Himself The Savior. The one Savior. And not only is that the case,
but what we naturally think, what our hearts and our minds
naturally imagine about these things is always totally false. Totally wrong. And we find it against our very
fallen nature to admit that that is the case and the reality in
all things. But after the fall, after our
whole race fell in our father Adam, Before we ever get out
of the book of Genesis, it says, And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart evil continually. And then by the prophet Jeremiah,
he gives this description of how we are by nature concerning
these things. He writes, "...and they said,
There is no hope but we will walk after our own devices, and
we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart." Evil. And that is a word that is used
so often in our day And yet it is used to say that maybe you
and what you do and what you imagine is evil, but mine's not. And that's the state of men and
women. We not only have nothing but
evil imaginations, But we imagine in this evil state that our imaginations
are somehow better than our fellow sinners. But he says, every one
and every imagination is only evil continually. Every imagination. And when I read that again, I
thought about how it was with Naaman, and we are so like him. When he first heard what the
prescription that God gave the prophet to give to him concerning
his cleansing for his leprosy, He didn't receive it gladly,
did he? He didn't receive it willingly. He didn't receive it as truth. He said, but I thought. I thought that the prophet would
do this. I thought that his God would
tell him to tell me to do something else. You see, his imagination
was only Evil. And maybe the clearest way to
understand what evil is, is to think back when our father and
our mother, Adam and Eve, ate of that tree which God described
as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What did they
do when they fell? What did they do when their hearts
became evil and their imaginations therefore flowing from their
heart and mind was also evil? What did they do? Did they run
out and get drunk? Did they kill or seek to harm
or hurt one another? Only two people on the earth
at that time? What was that display, that first
manifestation of this evil imagination? The Bible says that they went
and they made for themselves Aprons made of fig leaves and
sought to cover themselves before God, and then they went and hid
themselves in the trees in the midst of the garden." The first
display of evil. That first evil imagination. showed itself in how they would
approach God and deal with the situation of their sins. And it was absolutely wrong. It was totally wrong. And when you read in this second
epistle to the Corinthians, The Apostle Paul describes the state
of men and women in this blindness, in this way. He says, but if
our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. These in whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them." Blinded. in that natural state,
blinded, described in Romans 1 as being without understanding,
described in Romans 10 as though zealous toward God, but not according
to knowledge. And a number of times described
by God in this way, and that is having a way that seems right
to them, but the end thereof is the ways of death. And the truth is that no person,
though all are in this state and condition, with every imagination
only evil continually, Thinking that right is wrong and wrong
is right, and seeking every remedy of themselves, none can do anything
of themselves to remedy this condition. Not one thing. And not only that, all of our
remedies, our personal remedies, and the remedies that others
like us give to us and suggest to us, they only make us worse. They only make us worse. And so our Lord says this in
Luke 11. He said, "...all things are delivered
to me of my Father, And no man knoweth who the Son is but the
Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the
Son will reveal Him." We're all in this state, and
we'll remain in this state Unable to bring ourselves out of this
blindness. Unable to give ourselves this
understanding. Unable to see that which is true
and right. He says, except the Son reveal
Him. Reveal Him. You see, what God is saying to
us, to all, is that what we need is a revelation. And it not only says that what
we need is a revelation, it says that only God can give us that
revelation. And I began to look in Scripture
at this word, reveal, or revelation. This word, reveal, means to take
off the cover. It means to disclose. It means
to make manifest. Here we are in this state, naturally,
spiritually. And we are unable to see anything,
or understand to write, or to know what is true. What we need
is what God alone can give us, which is to make it manifest
to us, to disclose it to us, to take off the cover, to remove
our blindness. You see, the Bible says concerning
John the Baptist, It says that he was a witness to the light. Who needs a witness to the light? A blind person. You don't change
the light bulb from a 60 watt bulb to a 100 watt light bulb
and that will help a blind person. The only thing that will help
a blind person to see light is to give him sight. Give him revelation. And he says, no one can know
these things, or understand these things, or know who God is, except
he reveal it to him. And that's what Paul is talking
about in our text. And it wasn't something that
was new to him in this particular age and time, He goes back and
quotes the Old Testament prophets where God said to them in that
day the exact same thing. But as it is written, as it has
long been written, as it was written by the prophets long
ago, I have not seen nor e'er heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love Him." It hadn't even dawned on us. It doesn't in any age find itself
to be any different It never even, as we say, dawns on us
as sinners what this truth is, who God is, how He is, what our
own state and condition is, and most especially, who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. It doesn't even enter into our
minds. It is not in our imagination,
which is only evil continually. And then Paul writing to these
believers at Corinth, he turns immediately on one of those buts
and he says, but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. We are just like everybody else.
It will be the same way with everyone God saves. Though this
is the natural state and condition, but our thanks is, our praise
is, our understanding now is that God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. Who's the us He's talking about
here? How much good it would do us,
all who read the Bible, if when we come to one of these pronouns
such as us, we would trace back to who he's talking about. And
who he's talking to and talking about, we find in verse 2 of
chapter 1. He says, "...unto the church
of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified or
set apart by God in Christ Jesus, called saints," that to be is
added there, called or named saints, with all, not just those
believers at Corinth or at Ephesus, or in Rome, but with all that
in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
both theirs and ours." He says, God has revealed these
things to His people. to the true worshippers of God
in every place, in every age, to His elect, chosen in Christ
Jesus, though they were in the same state and condition as everybody
else is because of His sovereign, free grace and mercy to them
in Christ, He's revealed it unto us. He has revealed it unto us. And what I want us to notice
this morning, what I want us to make sure that you and everybody
who might hear me, by whatever means, what I want us to make
sure that we understand is how He does it. How did He do it
to these at Corinth? How did He do it to those at
Ephesus? In all these places where men
and women were found to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, identified
not only by themselves, but by God Himself as His people. How did they come to see what
they never saw before? How did they come to understand
these things that have to do with our souls and salvation
and God Himself and eternity? How did they come to understand
and to have this knowledge that they didn't have and that others
didn't have? Well, we know it's by His revelation. He hath revealed them unto us. And Paul says here that he does
it by his Spirit. By the Holy Spirit. You might
call him the revealer. The revealer of truth. The revealer
of Christ. He's the one who uncovers. He's the one who discloses. He's the one who makes known. What before was not known. But it's twofold. You see, this revelation is by
His Spirit and by His Word. By His Word. And sometimes men
and women, they have a misguided Understanding as to this matter
of revelation, they make the revelation of Christ by the Spirit
of God to be a revelation of Christ in some mystical form. Just really what is only another
of our imaginations. There are a lot of people who
profess to be Christians. The most prostituted term in
all our language right now. They profess to be believers,
but by their own words, they confess that they don't really
know Christ. Why? Because they profess to
have some kind of revelation apart from the written Word of
God. One man saw Jesus as a big hundred
foot statue over Tulsa, I believe it was, with his arms outstretched. Some see Him in their mind's
eye in one way or another. All that is is just vain imaginations,
evil imaginations. And then some imagine that just
by reading, intellectual reception, comprehension of things that
are read in the Bible, they think they know God. But it is neither by the Spirit
alone, nor is it by the written Word alone. It's by the Spirit
of God taking the Word of God and teaching us what it means. If a man writes a book, and this
was always one of my kind of pet peeves in any study of literature,
Because it seemed like there were often teachers that if you
read something and were asked to give what you thought was
meant by the author of that piece, something of your thoughts concerning
it, if your thoughts in that matter didn't match their thoughts,
then you were wrong. But Paul says this, In so many words, he says, if
a man writes a book, and I've about determined that
I never will, and that I'll leave enough error on this earth as
it is without doing so. But he said, if a man writes
a book, who knows the true meaning of what that man has written
except the author himself? I may read it. I may think he's
saying this. You may read it. You may think
he's saying that. I've heard so many stories about
the book Alice in Wonderland that there's all these underlying
meanings in that. I don't know that. You don't
know that. But the man that wrote it does. That's what Paul is saying here.
How can we know the things of God? Verse 11 in chapter 2, he
says, "...For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth
no man, but the Spirit of God." He has to be our Teacher. And
when the Lord is pleased to give us a revelation of Himself, It
is when His Spirit, being the author of what is written, tells
us, shows us, reveals to us the meaning of what is written. How many people have taken so
many of the Psalms and the Proverbs and all, And they read them,
they make a logical application of them. They say, well, this
means it's teaching this kind of way to live, and this, that,
and the other, and all that. But this is a spiritual book. And the only revealer of a spiritual
book has to be the Spirit Himself. And that's what Paul says. Many
read this book and all they do is read it from a legalistic
viewpoint and they come out with things that we are to do. They read it and they come out
with a moral lesson, how we are to live. Now there is no doubt
that in the Bible there are many statements, commands, things
that tell the Lord's people what to do and how to live and all
these various things. But this book is a living book
because it's about the Living One. The Living God. And he says, now we have received,
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. Quite amazing! That the Apostle, Being at this
moment led by the Spirit of God, in the writing of this letter,
this being God-breathed, He says He has given it to us, and when
the Spirit of God reveals it to us, teaches us, calls us to
know and to see, and takes the cover of it off, it is so that
we can know something about what He has given us. Isn't that something? This gospel,
this Bible, is to His people a revelation of what He's given
them. Isn't it an amazing thing? It would be an awful thing if
I stood up here as a man who claimed to be a preacher of the
gospel, sin of God, to proclaim this message. And that's what
Paul is also talking about here. He said he came to those Corinthians
and he preached to them. He didn't try to excite their
intellects. He didn't try to wow them with
his vast knowledge of all different subjects. He didn't try to impress
them by His lofty terms, whatever it might be. He said it was just
exactly the opposite. Why? He said, so your faith might
stand in what God says, and what Christ did, and not in man. Not in man. He's given us His Word, He's
given us His Spirit that we might know, have knowledge of and understanding
of the things that are freely given to us of God, which things
also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom speaketh,
but which the Holy Ghost teaches." Comparing spiritual things? to spiritual things. Revealing
spiritual things to those who have been made alive by the Spirit
of God. He says, but the natural man
receives not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolish
unto him, neither can he know them. because they are spiritually
discerned. In other words, the Bible in
its message, in its gospel, is a closed book apart from the
revealing work of God's Spirit. But all of God's elect, They shall all, according to
Him, be taught of God." And everyone that is taught of God, everyone
that has learned of the Father, Christ said, they all come to
Me. They all come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And they'll all be taught of
God, not with visions, and not with dreams, and not in trances,
and not in emotional experiences, and not in natural thoughts,
not in human logic, not in earthly education, but by the Spirit
of God revealing to them, teaching to them, the things of this book. The writer of Hebrews begins
in that first chapter, in that book which compares and yet contrasts
the things of the Old Testament and the things of Christ. He
begins by saying, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these
last days spoken unto us, by His Son. Christ has come. The type has now been fulfilled. The type is no more. He has come in the flesh. The things pictured have now
been accomplished. And what we know about this Bible,
what the Spirit of God teaches men and women, has to do with
Christ. Has to do with the Lord Jesus
Christ. When Peter writes, I don't think
there can be any doubt that he speaks of the Word as Christ
Himself. When he says, "...being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the Word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever." God incarnate, the
Word made flesh, lives, endures forever." But then he says this,
"'But the Word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the Word
which by the gospel is preached unto you.'" And the one thing that the Spirit
of God uses to teach us, and to give us understanding, and
to reveal God to us, is the Word of Truth. That's how we know
whether or not it's the Spirit of God. Somebody said, the Spirit
of God led me to do this. Well, it's strange to me that's
exactly contrary to what the Bible says. That's another spirit. Or, I believe in Jesus. My Jesus
is like this. Oh no, that's what Paul called
another Jesus. That's not the one of Scripture.
Oh, this is my gospel. This is what I believe the gospel
is. Simply this, Jesus lived, died,
was buried and rose again. That's what Paul called another
gospel. You see, the Holy Spirit is called
the Spirit of Truth. And the Spirit of Truth reveals
Christ, who is Himself the Truth, because He's the One we're to
believe on. And none are ever saved apart
from believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's not the one of our vain
imaginations. The most evil of imaginations
is the wrong view of the Lord Jesus Christ. The wrong view, the wrong imagination
doesn't have to be carved into an image of stone or cast as
an image of metal. Evil imagination that's in our
minds of who He is, which is never changed until the Spirit
of God takes the truth of God and points Him out, teaches us. You see, men have all kinds of
false knowledge, false imaginations. They have three main ones. They
imagine wrongly that God loves all people without exception. They imagine falsely, just like
most of us did, that Christ died for all men without exception. And they have another evil imagination. They imagine that the Spirit
of God is trying to save everybody. That's just your imagination.
Where did they get that from? They didn't get it from the Bible. They got it from preachers who
stand and lie, and in order to gain, do whatever is necessary
to control men, to gain glory for themselves, to have power
over individuals, But they didn't get that from
the Spirit of God. They didn't get that from the
Word of God. Christ says, the Spirit of God,
the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, when He's come, He'll
take the things of mine and show them to you. He said He'll guide
you into all truth. Does that mean that those God
saves will know everything? No. But they'll be taught that
which is necessary. They'll have, as John says, that
understanding given unto them that they may know Him that is
true. You'll take the things of this
book. And on the one hand, what he
teaches us in this book, it will totally show how obvious all
these false Christs are. And he will distinguish by this
word, the true Christ. Well, the day at hand. Janice
and Richard's daughter coming into the airport at Raleigh in
a little while. Suppose that they said, we want
you to go up there to Raleigh today and pick up our daughter.
She's going to come in on a flight from Philadelphia. This is how
you'll know her. She's a woman. She'll have a
coat on. She'll be carrying a suitcase.
Do you think you could go up and on that basis find her? Those are such general descriptions
that you couldn't find her in that crowd for anything. But what if I said, she'll be
wearing a red hat. She'll be carrying a purple suitcase. She will be named Ivy. And I went on with such a description.
Do you think you could identify her then? I think you could. And you see, the Spirit of God
takes what is written in this Word and distinguishes the false
Christ and distinguishes the true Christ. Well, you say, how
come all these people are deceived? They don't have a clue as to
what this book says. And even if they knew every word,
they still wouldn't know Him until the Spirit of God revealed
Him. Revealed Him. The Spirit of God puts God's
elect in that time appointed by Him to looking into the Scriptures
and is seeking someone that preaches the Word, the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The preaching which Paul, the
same apostle, describes as the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. Well, somebody says, well, my
preacher preaches Christ and Him crucified. He preaches the
cross. Yeah? That's why you have one
standing outside in your parking lot. A piece of wood. You see, the preaching of Christ
crucified, the preaching of the cross, has to do with the particulars
concerning who He is and most especially, what He accomplished
in that cross and who He accomplished it for. So rather than saying, as so
many do, that the gospel is simply that Jesus died, was buried,
and rose again the third day, Paul says to these same people
in another place, you remember how that I preached to you at
the beginning? How? that Christ died according
to the Scriptures. The gospel is not the simple
repetition of a name or three things concerning that name.
The gospel is a declaration of what God in His grace has done
for sinners, accomplished for them through His life and His cross
death. So it boils down to this. When
does one really believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, this same apostle, when
he wrote to the believers at Ephesus, he spoke to them And in that
first chapter, in the 12th and 13th verse, he says that we should
be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ. He says, in whom you also trusted. In Christ you also trusted. After. Not before, but after you heard
the Word of Truth. A lot of folks claim that they
were saved believing just exactly the opposite of what the Bible
teaches. You say, well, what is the Word
of Truth? Next statement, the gospel of
your salvation. Not the Roman road. Not three
easy steps on how to be saved. Not the fact that Christ made
you savable or offers you salvation. The gospel of your salvation. The facts that Jesus Christ according
to an everlasting covenant. All because of God's free grace
and sovereign mercy did come to this world. And in your place,
because God loved you and chose you, died as your substitute,
put away your sins, justified you before God by His blood,
and accomplished everything. He's not waiting for you to get
saved. His gospel is to you. He saved
you. He hath saved us and called us. And that's what this revelation
is all about. It's the good news that He has
saved you with an everlasting salvation all by Himself, even
before you were born, surely before you believe, but you'll
trust Him after you hear I mean, hear by
that hearing ear that only the Spirit of God can give us. Hear
the word of truth. Not half-truths, but the truth,
which is the gospel, the good news, the glad tidings of your
salvation. Now most people don't even have
as good a religious experience as this man, the apostle, did. He said, I was a Pharisee, according
to the law, blameless, a Jew. I was all these things. Nobody could find a fault with
me if they combed me over. But when the Lord revealed the
truth to him, he said, I was before a blasphemer. All his imaginations about God. All his imaginations that he
drew out of being taught at the feet of Gamaliel, great teacher. All his ideas about himself and
what he was. He said, when I heard the Word
of Truth, when Christ revealed Himself in me, and that's what
He says in Galatians, when it pleased God to reveal His Son
in me. He said, I found out I was before
a blasphemer. I wasn't just in need of a higher
light or deeper understanding. I was lost. But I didn't know
that. until God gave me this revelation. And He took His words and caused
me to understand what it was saying about Him and about me. One day Simon Peter and those
other apostles were with the Lord Jesus Christ and he said,
Who do you say that I am? Or who do men say that I am?
They say, well, some say you're Elijah, some say you're another
prophet, and all these things. He said, but who do you say that
I am? Who do you say that I am? Peter said, you're the Christ. You're the Son of the Living
God. And the Lord Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon
Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you,
but my Father in heaven has revealed that to you." Who do you say that Christ is?
There are lots of people who say He's a good teacher, good
example, good martyr, all these things. But if we know that He's
the Savior, and that in His living and dying, He saved us, flesh
and blood, we'll never tell you that, or teach you that, or ever
of yourselves rise up in your imagination. We believe God. We do the most unnatural thing
that there is. We look outside of ourselves
and find in one outside of ourselves all our salvation, all our righteousness,
all our hope, and are glad about it. And ascribe to Him all the glory
in it. That's as unnatural as it gets. Our Lord said on another occasion,
He said, Father, I thank Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, because
You've hid these things from the wise and prudent, but You've
revealed them unto babes. The man with the Ph.D. is as
lost and without understanding as anybody else, and the man
walking behind a plow in a field, if God has revealed Christ to
him. He has wisdom. He has wisdom. Paul said, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of
God and the salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. That may well mean from the faith,
the gospel, to a believing sinner. Or it may mean that message preached
or borne witness to from one that believes to another that
God enables to believe. But it's revealed. And God will give this revelation
to all His people. It's the revelation of Christ.
It's the revelation of His glory. It's the revelation of the glory
of His cross. And that's what Paul prayed for. That's what I pray for. He says
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him." In the knowledge of Him. We would know God. We would know how He is. We would
know who He loves. We would know how He saves. Know
who He saves. If we know the true Christ, The
Son of God. The only Savior. The Lord of
glory. The only righteousness. Better be in this book. And maybe
God might in His good grace reveal Christ to us. Don't try to find
Him anywhere else. Don't take anybody's word for
it except this. The Spirit of God will take the
things of Christ, the Word of God, and will show them unto
you. He is the revealer. The revelation is necessary. And He uses His Gospel. Somebody
said, God doesn't need any means. He needs the means He's told
us in His Word He's going to use. Because He gets glory in the
means as well as the end. Our Father, this morning we give
You praise and thanksgiving and we sing that hymn, How Can It
Be, that You would ever Love such a sinner as myself, that
you would ever come to me in my darkness, in my blindness,
in my ignorance, in my proud stupidity of self-righteousness,
and reveal to me the truth of your grace, the glories of your
saving mercies, in the face, the person, the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We thank you. And we pray that
this would be what you'd be pleased to do among those who would hear
us. Cause them to see, to know who
you are. And the Lord Jesus Christ as
all their salvation. We pray, we ask it for your glory,
and in His name, Amen.