address myself and direct your
thoughts to a very practical question this morning. The question
being, why men do not understand the saving truth of God? I'm sure there are many of you,
if not all of you, who have heard people talk along these lines. I read the Bible, but it's all
kind of double-dutched to me. The Old Testament, there's all
those bloody wars and those long genealogies. And in the New Testament,
there's an awful lot that it's kind of hard to swallow, walking
on water and raising the dead. And when you read the writings
of Paul and Peter, they use such high-sounding language, justification,
sanctification. It's all kind of confusing to
me. Or perhaps you've heard someone
talk along these lines. Yeah, I've heard that business
about God and sin and Christ, but it just plain doesn't make
sense to me. It just must be that I'm not
cut out to be the religious type, to be a Christian. It's all right
for you, but it's not my cup of tea. Or perhaps you've heard
others say, if the gospel you say you believe is the truth
and the only truth, Why is it that there are so few who believe
it? Now, let's face up to it. You're in a minority. And it
just doesn't make sense to me to believe that if something
is absolute truth, there'd only be a small handful, and usually
not a pretty significant bunch, who believe it. Usually kind
of the riffraff of society. Not many noble, not many mighty.
Well, when you hear that kind of talk, what's your response
to it? Why is it that men do not understand the saving truth
of God and voice their inability in the ways that I have already
described? Well, our text this morning addresses
itself to that question and answers it with great clarity and with
divine authority. The text is found in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 and verse 14. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14, Now the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually
judged. Now, before we begin to take
the text apart, phrase by phrase, to understand its teaching, it's
necessary that we spend just a few moments considering the
context of this verse. I hope you have some acquaintance
with the first five verses, since I expounded them a few weeks
ago. And you remember in those verses the Apostle Paul declared
that his essential role was that of a witness. He says, I came
unto you proclaiming the testimony of God. What I speak, he says,
is God's testimony. Now in verses six to nine, he
says that though this testimony does not suit the world's idea
of wisdom, it is indeed God's wisdom. a wisdom made known by
divine revelation. That's the essential teaching
of verses 6 through 9. Men have not conceived of these
things, but God has revealed them. So the Apostle says, my
role is the role of a witness, and I bear witness to that which
God has revealed. Then in verses 12 through 13,
he tells us how that testimony is revealed, namely, by the person
of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who knows the
deep things of God, and therefore has revealed them. And Paul says
in verse 12, we've received the Spirit, and He has given us to
know the things that are freely given to us of God. And furthermore,
he says, that same Holy Spirit has directed us in the very choice
of words by which we express the mysteries of God. But now
there's a problem. Though Paul comes merely bearing
testimony to God's revealed truth, truth revealed by the Spirit
in words which the Spirit gave him, man does not receive it. Men do not understand it. Men
count it foolishness. And it's that particular problem
to which Paul addresses himself now in verse 14 when he says,
"...for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God." So a distillation of Paul's argument is this. God
has revealed his truth. That truth is embodied in verbal
statements of apostolic authority, now found, of course, in Scripture,
yet men don't understand that truth. Why? Now, with that background
of the context, look at the text, and as we do, we'll consider,
first of all, that person defined. The person who cannot understand
God's truth, God defines him in this text. Secondly, God then
describes His actions, so we have not only His person defined,
but His actions described. He receives not the things of
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto Him. And thirdly,
His condition declared. He cannot know them. A condition of spiritual impotence. First of all, then, that person
defined. How does God define the man or
woman, fellow or girl, who hears divine truth, but cannot understand
it, and because he cannot understand it, he does not receive it? Well, Paul uses a term called
here, the natural man. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. What then is this natural man? Well, let me state negatively,
it has nothing to do with any of the human factors which divide
men into various categories. Male, female, culture, cultured,
uncultured, wise, ignorant, high, low, black, white. It has absolutely
nothing to do with any of these distinctions. Rather, it has
to do with the person who has never received the Holy Spirit. The opposite of the natural man
in the context is the spiritual man. Verse 15, But he that is
spiritual judges all things. And how does a man become spiritual? Verse 12, Now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from
God. That which constitutes a person
a spiritual man as opposed to a natural man is that the Holy
Spirit has regenerated him, has taken up his abode in him, has
thus made him spiritual. Now natural men have marvelous
bodies. The scripture says we are fearfully
and wonderfully made. The natural man has a marvelous
faculty called the mind that can think and can reason. He
has a faculty called the soul. Non-regenerate men have souls. That's why the Lord said, don't
fear those that can kill merely the body, but fear him who can
destroy both soul and body in hell. And the natural man, then,
is man with all that he has by virtue of his natural birth,
but he has nothing more. Nothing more. He is a natural
man. And added to this thing of his
naturalness, having what all men have by nature, he has inherited
from Adam a sinful, depraved nature. So that our Lord says
in John 3 and verse 6, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. The totality of his being has
been radically affected by sin. Not only his deeds, but his heart,
his affections, and his mind. So God then defines this person
who cannot understand the gospel, who cannot embrace the things
of the Spirit of God as a natural man, a man devoid of the Holy
Spirit. Whatever else he may have in
the way of intellectual development, in the way of social development,
in the way of culture, whatever he may not have, this is the
common denominator of all men who reject the gospel. They are
natural men. His unbelief and his impenitence
are not rooted in the fact that he is too brilliant for these
things, that he is too sophisticated for these things, or that these
things are too obtuse. No, no, the problem is he is
a natural man. So much then for his person defined,
now notice his action described, and there are two parts of this
description. The essence of his action, the
natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
and then secondly, the reason for his action, for they are
foolishness unto him. What is the essence of the action
of unregenerate men with reference to the truth of God? Paul says,
they receive not the things of the Spirit of God. We've got
to define these words. Receive not and the things of
the Spirit of God. What are the things of the Spirit
of God? Well, in the context, the things
of the Spirit of God are the things that the Holy Spirit has
revealed. Verse 12, We received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that
we might know the things that were freely given to us of God,
which things we speak. Well, what are those things?
Well, Paul has told us in the previous chapter and a half.
He summarizes those things in chapter 2 and in verse 2, I determine
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The things of the Spirit of God
are the truths which cluster around the person and work of
Jesus Christ. Hence, the things of the Spirit
are essentially the doctrines of the incarnation of the Son
of God who was constituted God's Christ. You remember Peter's
confession? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. And our Lord said, flesh and
blood is not revealed unto you, but my Father who is in heaven. The things of the Spirit of God
are the truths that cluster around the doctrine of the incarnation. The truths that cluster around
the doctrine of the satisfaction for sin made by Christ's death. The things of the Spirit are
those things which point to Christ's death, not as the death of a
martyr, not as the death of a weak religious teacher who could influence
men by his words but had no power to influence governments by the
sword. No, no. The truth that in dying
He died the just for the unjust. Or in the words of 2 Corinthians
5, God made Him to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him. Those are the things of the Spirit
of God that in this picture of absolute weakness and defeat,
the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, given up by the will of this
puppet court and this spineless man of whom we read this morning,
given up to jeering, to spittle, given up to all of this vile
treatment of men, that in all of that, Almighty God is weaving
the fabric of a perfect righteousness which He will give to all who
repent and believe the gospel. That's the thing of the Spirit
of God. The things that relate to the
incarnation, to the satisfaction of Christ, to the imputation
of His righteousness to all who believe, the regenerating work
of the Spirit imparting life, these are the things of the Spirit
of God. Now, the essence of the action
of that natural man is that he does not receive these things. And this word receive means to
give a hearty welcome, to embrace with delight. Now, we use the
term very loosely. We say, so-and-so received a
spanking from his parents. Well, that's not the way the
word is received here. No one welcomes with delight. a spanking from his parents.
At least not if it's the kind of spankings I give. We use the
term loosely when we say that so-and-so received a demotion
at work. Well, he didn't receive it in
this sense. He didn't when the boss came and said, now, Henry,
I've got bad news for you. Things are going rough, and we've
got to tighten the belt here, and we've got to... He didn't
just say, oh, this is wonderful, and receive it. No, this word
has the connotation of an open-armed welcome. a hearty reception. It's the word our Lord uses twice
in Matthew 10 when He says, He that receiveth you receiveth
me. He that receiveth a prophet in
the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. What is it
to receive a prophet? It's to welcome him from the
heart, to welcome his person and the message which he brings.
There's a very tender use of the word in the second chapter
of Luke, where it speaks of Simeon receiving the babe into his arms. Now, how do you hold an eight-year-old
babe? You don't just pick it up. You
receive it. You see some awkward father.
I always like to watch those who are pappies for the first
time, and there's this little bundle of life, and they're so
afraid they're going to break something. They receive that
child. There's the picture. To welcome
tenderly, to receive as something precious. Now it's that word
that is used here. The natural man does not receive
the things of the Spirit of God. That is, he does not believe
them with a divine faith, he does not love them with a divine
love, he does not conform his life to them by a divine power. And to receive the things of
the Spirit of God means nothing less than that. To receive them
is to believe them with a divine faith. Notice how Paul underscores
that principle in 1 Thessalonians 2.13. He says, we thank God that
when ye receive, and that's the word, when ye receive the word
of God promised, ye received it not as the word of men, but
as the word of God, but as it is in truth the word of God,
which he factually worketh in them that believe. Now, get the
perspective of that verse. He says, you people receive the
things of the Spirit of God. You truly believe them. And because
you believe them, they are effectually working in you. Now what does
he say? Now you are to be praised that you exercised your common
faith toward the scriptures? How often have we heard, all
men have the ability to believe. You believe George Washington
was the President of the United States. You believe we're at
war in Vietnam. You believe this. You believe
that. Now we tell you, Jesus is the Christ. Jesus died. Jesus rode. There is perfect
righteousness. Exercise that same faith to these
objects and you're saved. No, no, no, no. To receive the
things of the Spirit of God is to believe them with a divinely
wrought faith. That's why Paul says, but God
be thanked. God be thanked that you receive
the Word. He didn't say, you be thanked.
He said, God be thanked. Why? Because God was the author
of that faith. For by grace do you save through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works. lest any man should boast. That's why Luke, off the cuff,
can say that they helped them much who had believed through
grace. That's how he describes the believers
in Acts. I believe that's Acts 18. Apollos
came and helped them much who had believed through grace. They believed with a faith that
was a divine faith. That's what it means to receive
the Word. to believe it with a divine faith, to love it with
a divine love, and to conform the whole life to it by a divine
power. That's why Paul in Romans 6,
17 says, But God be thanked that ye who were the servants of sin
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, the King James
says, which was delivered you. That's the wrong translation.
It's the other way around. God be thanked that ye have obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine unto which you were delivered.
It's the picture that these people were delivered unto the truth.
Not that the truth was delivered unto them. Now, granted, the
truth is delivered to men. But Paul says, when you've truly
received it, God is to be thanked because something happened. In
receiving the truth, You came, as it were, under the grip and
the power and the molding effect of the truth. You were delivered
under the truth. And it got hold of you. And it
gripped you. And it has begun to shape you.
And then he goes on to say what happened. You were the servants
of sin, change of masters, change of life and practice. This is
what it means to receive the things of the Spirit. of God. Now, Paul says, natural
men do not do this. They do not welcome that truth,
believing it with a divine faith, loving it with a divine love,
conforming the life to it by a divine power. Now, in some
men, that receiving not takes on the manifestation of absolute
hostility. They say, look, don't give me
any of this religion business, none of this Christ business,
none of this gospel business. Some people, they hear it, and
they say, yeah, so what? Other people, They even say,
yes, that makes sense to me, that's nice, and in a sense they
receive these things intellectually, but this they have in common
if they are natural men. If they've never been born of
the Spirit of God, Paul says, they receive them not. There is not this kind of a welcome
of God's saving truth. Therefore, all men who are natural
men, are described by this activity, they receive not the things of
the Spirit of God. They don't receive the truths
of Christ for what they really are. They are precious, divine
truths. And if you receive something
that is a precious divine truth, you'll receive it for what it
is. It's truth, therefore you don't quarrel with it, you bow
to it. It's divine, therefore you must give yourself up to
the power of it. It is precious, therefore you
cannot be indifferent to it. Now what's the reason for this
action? Paul not only gives the essence of their action, they
receive not, but he says this is the reason for They are foolishness
unto them. Now it's interesting, the word
he uses for foolishness is the one he's been using very often
in this context. 118, the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness. Chapter 1, verse 21. 23, again
in chapter 3, in verse 19. And it's the Greek word from
which we get our English word, moron. exactly the same word you tell
a man something he looks at and he says, are you kidding? only
a moron would believe that that's absolute what? foolishness, that's
moronic only a man's mental powers if snapped or warped or enfeebled
would ever buy that business Paul says that's why natural
men don't receive the things of the spirit of God they are
moronic to them they are foolishness unto them they say, are you kidding?
I'd have to commit some kind of mental torture to embrace
that. You mean to tell me that you
actually believe that the eternal God, boundless, no beginning,
no end? You mean to tell me that God
actually comes and is enfleshed in a virgin's womb? That's foolish. You mean to tell
me that all the problem of human sin is resolved by what a certain
man did in a little hunk of real estate in Palestine hundreds
of years ago when he hung his head upon his chest and said,
It is finished! Foolishness, that's too simple.
Life's a lot more complicated than that. He counts all of this,
what? He counts it to be foolishness,
senseless, trivial, unreasonable, unsuited to the issues of life. And Paul said this is why he
doesn't receive them. His non-reception is rooted in
his non-perception. It's because he doesn't perceive
them to be the wisdom of God, but rather foolishness, this
is why he rejects them. Suppose we could go out and round
up a Ph.D. this morning. A natural man is
a Ph.D. And we say to him, sir, all the
wisdom of the ages is bound up in Christ. Christ as the incarnate
God, Christ as the crucified Lord of glory, Christ as the
exalted Savior at the right hand of the Father, Christ as the
sender of the Holy Spirit. And he says, come off it now.
That's too simple. I've come to see in my studies
that life is much more complicated than to have its basic issues
resolved by your simple little gospel trivia. You talk about
Christ incarnate, Christ crucified, Christ exalted, and you tell
me that all the wisdom of the ages is bound up in that. No,
no, I'm sorry, sir. Paul's words are fulfilled. A
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
Why? They are foolishness unto him. Then we go out and we get
a housewife, a common laborer off the street, and we tell him,
we say, Sir, Sir, here's the answer to the problem of sin,
and we tell him about Christ incarnate, Christ crucified,
and what's his objection? He says, Ah, that's all too complicated
for me. I'm just a simple man. I'm just
a simple woman, and you talk about all these things and ineptitude
and righteousness and regeneration. It's all too high for me. It's
foolishness. Now, what does the Ph.D. and
the common labor have in common? They both regard it foolishness,
and that's why they don't receive it. Or you come to the young person
of Christian parents, some of you here this morning, and we
say to you, That Almighty God sets before you the things of
the Spirit of God, the truths of Christ, and that life alone
can be understood in Him. And Christ is presented to you.
The things of the Spirit of God are held before you, urged upon
you. And what do you say? You say,
I just can't get excited about it. i don't deny it and i see
it seems to help mom and dad but you don't receive those things
oh you don't openly deny them or blaspheme them but you don't
receive them you haven't embraced them from the heart you haven't
given yourself up to the power of those truths and why don't
you this text tells us their foolishness to you you probably
think this fella here has just gone loco plum loco before his
years for as any warrant to what in the world he gets so excited
about Foolishness. Yes, stupid. Sure, you can go
out and hoop and holler at the Mets. That's not foolishness.
Why? Because you understand what's going on out there. You know
what a home run is. You know what a double play is. You know
what a strikeout is. And you know the thrill of winning.
You can receive the whole mood and ethos and all the vibrations
of a ballpark full of people hooping and hollering for the
Mets. Why? Because as a natural man, that's in a realm where
you can be right at home. That's not foolishness to you.
Man, that's living. You let someone get excited about
the Savior, someone get carried out of himself about the work
of Christ and the work of the Spirit. What in the world is
he so excited about? That's foolishness to you. Yes,
it is. I'm not surprised that as God says it would be. And
the reason why you don't receive is because you do not perceive.
They are counted foolishness. So much then, For the person
defined his actions described, now notice in the third place,
his condition declared. What condition does God say such
a person is in? He says, neither can he know
them because they are spiritually judged. First of all, there is
the fact of the helplessness of such a person, and secondly,
the reason for that helplessness. The fact of the helplessness,
neither can he know them. And if you want this thing to
come through with greater power, translate in your own mind, and
it's perfectly legitimate, the word can into the word able. Neither is he able to receive
them. It doesn't say he will not in
this part of the text, it says he cannot. And I've often emphasized,
as you know, the difference between can and may. The word may is
a word of permission. May I have a glass of water?
The word can is a word of ability. And the Apostle Paul says that
the natural man not only has actions described by non-reception,
but he has a certain condition which makes anything else utterly
impossible, neither can he know them. Paul declares that natural men
with all their noble faculties and powers cannot understand
such things of the Spirit of God as are necessary to their
receiving of them from the heart. This is one of the most pointed
statements on human inability to be found anywhere in the Word
of God. Neither can he know them. Notice the relationship. Until
he knows them, perceives them in their proper light, he'll
never receive them. There must be perception before
there will be reception. And what's the reason for this
helplessness? Notice the words. They are spiritually
judged or spiritually discerned. That is, The things of the Spirit,
the issues of the Gospel, demand a spiritual faculty to understand
them and to receive them. And natural man does not have
that faculty. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That's why Jesus said, Don't
be amazed that I say unto you, Nicodemus, except a man be born
anew, he cannot see, he cannot understand, he cannot perceive
as well as he cannot enter. the kingdom of heaven. Suppose
we were to bring into our midst today a man who was blind, whose
retinas had become detached, or whose optic nerves had died,
or whose corneas had been absolutely destroyed as far as their usefulness
by cataracts. And we say to him, Sir, do you
see the beautiful sun that shines upon the trees here on Runnymede
Road in Essex, Looking out through sightless
eyes, he strains in what he feels to be the direction where the
sun should be, and he says, I see nothing. And if we had it in
our power to turn up the intensity of the light of the sun, to bring
it some thousands of miles nearer to our earth until its intensified
heat began to make the trees to wither and made the brightness
such that none of us could look out except through the tiniest
slits between our fingers. And we gently take the face of
the blind man and we put it up in the direction of the sun and
we say, Do you see it now? He says, I don't see it. If we
could bring the sun closer until its light was such, we could
outstand it until its heat was such that it began to consume
the earth. The blind man still would not
see. An intensification of the light
does not cure his sightless eyes. It only makes more profound the
inability of those eyes to see. It's exactly what Paul says in
this text. Neither can he know them because
they are spiritually judged. He has no spiritual optic nerves. Therefore, what he needs is not
more light. He needs sight, the ability to
see. Take the deaf man, whose optic
nerves are dead. or where there's been some severance
of the mechanism that takes the vibrations from the ears and
transmits them to the inner ear and then to the auditory nerves
and to the brain. Something has been short-circuited. We take him into Symphony Hall
in Newark, or if we've got a little more money, want to do a little
more high class, we take him in to the new fancy place for
concerts in New York. We take him in there to What's
the new place called? Well, you all know I've been
there, but it slipped my mind. Philharmonic Hall, thank you.
And we're sitting there, perhaps, say, in the first row of the
box seats. The orchestra's all blended together and playing
a beautiful symphony, and they come to a part where everything
is triple forte. And the timpani are going away
until we feel the vibrations through the whole thing and the
violins and the celli and all the things together. And we nudge
our deaf friend and we say, isn't that beautiful? Isn't that magnificent? It's as though we were nudging
a stone pillar. The man takes out his paper and
says, what do you want? And we write on it and say, isn't
this thrilling? And he writes back, I'm sorry, I cannot hear.
And so we say, well, maybe we can resolve the problem if we
can get special permission from the conductor to get him right
smack down. in the orchestra pit, and we see the conductor
between the intermissions and during the intermission, and
we get permission for a special chair to be set up right smack
in the middle of the orchestra pit, and there he is. And in
the next piece, the thing rises to a tremendous crescendo, and
all of the stops are pulled out in all of the areas of that symphony
orchestra. What about your deaf friend?
Does he hear? No, no, he doesn't need an intensification of sound.
He needs to have some repair work done on the ear. Now Paul
says, that's the problem. That's the problem. This is the
problem. Man does not need an intensification
of the sound. He doesn't need the volume of
the things of the Spirit turned up. He needs to have ears given
to him. He needs to have eyes given to
him. To change the analogy, suppose
we were to go out and find a toad this morning and take this toad
into one of the local art museums. Put down that toad in the face
of a beautiful, magnificent work of art that captures the fancy
of those who have an appreciation for art. The toad sees something
in front of him. If he starts to run in the direction
of the picture, he'll know enough to stop. Something's there. He
sees a picture, but he doesn't see a picture. It takes a human being with an appreciation
of art to see the painting. The toad sees it, but he doesn't
see it. Do you see what I'm driving at? And in that sense, as a natural
man, you can see the panorama of the truths of the gospel.
The things of the Spirit of God can be splashed upon the canvas
of biblical preaching. And you say, yes, there is Christ,
and there is the Incarnation, and there is the Cross, and the
Resurrection, and all the rest. But you see it like a toad who
looks upon a magnificent painting. It doesn't enter into your being. mold you and move you and capture
you. You just see it, but you don't
see it. You see, before that toad will
ever appreciate that work of art, a miracle has to happen. The toad's got to be made into
an intelligent man. And my friend, it's no less a
miracle that has to occur before you as a natural man or woman
will ever be ravished. by the beauty that's on the canvas
of the panorama of the things of the Spirit of God. You've
got no faculty to see it, though you may gaze upon it with your
toad-like eyes and see the form, but fail to perceive its beauty. Right here this morning, This
very building is not only filled with the sounds that are coming
up from my larynx and being articulated by my lips and my tongue, but
right now this room is full of pictures, full of sounds. If
I had a little portable TV with no outside connections, operated
by batteries, I'd flip the switch, all of a sudden pictures would
start flashing on that screen. This room is full of those pictures
right now. Why is it that there's no picture
on my forehead about the size of some of those small screens
on those portable TVs? What would happen if all of a
sudden pictures started flashing on my forehead? Well, you'd all
get spooked and run out of here, I think. If I didn't get spooked
first and beat you to the door. Why is it that no pictures show
up on my forehead? Pictures are here. It's because,
you see, I don't have a TV tube and the proper diodes and everything
else in my head to receive the pictures that are transmitted
from the TV station. But if I put a little portable
TV here, a little instrument that has the right tubes, the
right transistors, what happens? They are able to receive the
pictures. And if you're going to get TV
pictures of my forehead, you've got to perform a miracle. and
get TV tubes into my head to give me an organ of reception.
That's exactly, exactly what must happen before men will see
and thence receive the gospel. Well, I've used a lot of illustrations,
and I normally don't do this, but I feel this element of truth
is so essential that I wanted to enforce it from every aspect
possible, that we might understand that the reason for this helplessness,
they cannot know them, is because there is no faculty to know them
in natural man, and God must put it there. So Paul answers
our question, why don't men receive the saving truth of God? He tells
us, they are natural men. Their action, they receive them
not. Why? Their foolishness unto them,
their condition, totally unable to receive them because they
have no faculty. And as we bring our thoughts
to a conclusion this morning, I want to bring some practical
applications of all of this. Of what use is this teaching?
Why in the world would I take up your time on a hot Sunday
morning? take up my own time laid into the night in preparation,
and give myself to preaching this truth. What use is all this
to us? May I suggest three or four uses
of the doctrine, as the old Puritan divines would say. Use number
one is to humble every unsaved person in this building this
morning. You sit here, some of you, saying, all of this is absolute
foolishness to me because I am of a superior mind than to think
that business makes sense. My friend, it's not your superiority
of mind, it's your absolute blindness. For minds far more profound than
yours have received these things and have spent their days reveling
in them. The Apostle Paul had a mind that
makes any mind here look like a kindergarten mind. Jonathan
Edwards and Saint Augustine and Knox and Calvin, and we could
string out the list for minutes if not hours. Men with great
minds, prodigious mental powers, and yet they not only receive
these things, they said these things were life itself. Ah,
my unsaved friend, young, old, visitor, member of this assembly,
son or daughter, of a Christian mother, father, this doctrine
is calculated to bring home to your heart how absolutely unable
you are to grasp the very thing you must grasp if you're ever
to be saved. That's why Jesus said, except
ye be converted and become as little children, you'll in no
wise enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said, I thank thee, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth. Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and the prudent, and thou hast revealed them unto
babes. Listen, if you want to go on
strutting, my friend, you'll go strutting right into hell.
That's the price you'll pay for your strut, your mental strut. that refuses to bow in humility,
saying, Oh God, I am a sinner. Sin has not only perverted my
affections, warped my life, it has blinded my mind. Oh God,
perform the miracle. Make this toad-like disposition
into that which can appreciate all the beauty that surrounds
your beloved Son. and which is inherent in his
everlasting gospel. You better take the place of
that beggar in the gospels. When the Lord said, What wilt
thou that I should do unto you? You remember what his answer
was? Lord, that I may receive my sight. Jesus ministers to
blind beggars who acknowledge their blindness. And so the first
use of this doctrine is to humble the unconverted amongst us. Secondly,
it is calculated to fill the saints of God with gratitude.
If you are spiritual, that is, if you've received the Spirit,
it's because God has been pleased to call you. Why is this no longer
foolishness to you? Why is it? that you no longer
receive not the things of the Spirit of God as natural men
do? Well, it's because God has been
pleased to impart life to you. As Jesus said to His disciples,
blessed are your eyes for they see. He didn't say wiser, more
powerful. He said, blessed are your eyes
for they see. They have received a divine operation
external to themselves. And so, my friend, if you see
this morning, it should fill you with humility and with gratitude
that you're no longer a natural man, but that you're a spiritual
man. And thirdly, this truth is calculated
to fill the saints with confidence in their witness. You sometimes
sort of feel bullied around when people say, oh, come off it.
If what you've got is true, why aren't there more of the world's
important people who believe it? You sort of feel bullied
by those accusations? No, don't be bullied. I've had
people tell me, look, preacher, something must be wrong. I read
the Bible and I can't understand it. I say, that doesn't surprise
me. I tell them that. I say, that doesn't surprise
me. I'd be surprised if you said you did understand it, and they
look at you, turn them to a passage like this. Why, there's no need
for you as a believer to cower and to shrivel in some kind of
self-imposed feeling of inferiority that we've got some kind of a
contraband product here that we dare not bring out into the
open and blaze abroad. Oh, no. Child of God, this should
fill you with confidence, glory in the fact that this gospel
will be foolishness unless God is pleased to open men's eyes. That is the very genius of the
gospel, that God has ordered both its content and the manner
of its proclamation in such a way that He leaves in its train the
slain pride of men. That's the way the gospel triumphs,
always leaving behind it a trail of blood, and that blood, as
it were, is man's pride and it's life being squeezed out of it,
that no flesh should what? Glory in His presence. And then last of all, this truth
should move us as the people of God to prayer and to deep,
conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit. If the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, because they are
foolishness unto him, and if he cannot know them because there
is no spiritual faculty in him to grasp them, what is our hope
in witnessing to men? What is my hope in preaching?
If I know that to people here today who are natural men and
women, fellows and girls, you've never been born of the Spirit,
that everything I say will be foolishness to you, what is my
hope? My hope is that even as I preach and my conscious dependence,
that God the Holy Ghost will change you from a natural man
into a spiritual man. Even as he did for Lydia, while
Paul is speaking, the Scripture says, whose heart the Lord opened
so that she attended to the things that were spoken by the Apostle
Paul, so that the focus of true biblical witness and teaching
and preaching is not method. That's where all the focus is
today. We've got to get the right method. We've got to get a right
gimmick. We've got to dress up the gospel. We've got to make
it contemporary and all this other business. No, no. The focus of the true child of
God is seeking to cultivate a spirit of prayer and dependence upon
God that squares up with a passage like this. The natural man receives
not, but thank God. God makes natural men. into spiritual
man. And he does so in a way that
I do not understand that is bound up in some measure with the prayers
of his people. And so we must seek as God's
people, if we claim to believe this truth, to cultivate that
spirit of prayer that is a constant monument to the genuineness of
that belief. For a man to say, oh yes, I believe
everything the preacher's talked about there, he's expounded the
text rightly, that's true, I can see it all there, that's true!
My friend, if you don't pray, and if you don't plead in your
praying, you give lie to what you say you believe. You don't
believe it. If you believe that, and there's
any measure of divine compassion in your heart, It drives you
to cry out to God, Oh God, give sight to the blind. Change tobes
into men. Make natural men. into spiritual
men. And having prayed, when you go
out to witness and you go out to contact those unsaved people,
you do so not praying and leaving the posture of prayer in the
closet, but though your body comes out of the closet of prayer,
the disposition that framed your prayers moves you as you witness. And there is that inner sense
of looking unto the living God that He would be pleased to bless
your witness and make it effectual to the hearts of men, conscious
that if he doesn't, it never will be done. Why don't people
receive the saving truth of God? God's answer in this text is,
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 Deserved. May God grant that
the truth of this text and its implications will be written
upon our hearts and worked out in our lives. Let us pray.