Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the chapter we read, Paul's
first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter two and verse 10. Verse 10, but God hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 10. The apostle in the previous verse,
verse 9, has quoted from Isaiah 64 and verse 4. He has set before them the truth
that in the Old Testament the things of God were revealed,
they were set forth, the foretelling of the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, his sufferings, his death, these things were all shown in
the types and in the shadows and in the prophecies. But they
were things that Even though they were shown, yet the Old
Testament saints could not really enter into or understand the
great fulfilment of them as we do. If we were to compare what
the Old Testament saints had and what we now see as revealed
in the Gospels, of Christ's coming, his death, his resurrection,
and what we now know of the Church of God, Jews and Gentiles in
every nation, kindred and tongue. The Old Testament saints had
really very little idea of this. It was very, very dark to them. And so it is written, I had not
seen nor ear heard Neither have entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." And
he says of those that crucified our Lord, if they had have understood
these things, if they had have known them, they would not have
crucified Him. But these things were hidden
from them. But it's the same with the Church
of God now. The Church in the Old Testament,
they look for Christ's first coming, and we look for his second
coming. And though we have many things
that tell us about it, we know that he will come, we know that
he will come with power and great glory, we know that there shall
be a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,
but we really have not entered into our hearts. We cannot know. We see through a glass darkly. And as dark as it was to the
Old Testament saints, so dark is it to us as well. What shall
really be revealed and really be shown and known. And yet those things are with
us in the New Testament. We have all that God has seen
fit to reveal to man in the pages of Holy Scripture, it is complete. Now the Apostle writing to the
Corinthians, he makes a couple of points here. One is that concerning
the natural man in verse 14. 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. And what he's telling us, we
cannot just take the Word of God and we cannot just read it
and understand it without being quickened into spiritual life
and having the God that gave that Word to show us and
open that Word up to us. And there's a very important
principle and truth in this, that though the Word of God is
plainly written and said before us, Yet those things are spiritually
discerned. And we hope to look at this a
little bit more later, but there is a natural man, a man that
is still dead in trespasses and sins, however wise he might be. And then there is one that has
been quickened into spiritual life, and God gives an understanding
and God opens the understanding and teaches and instructs in
the things of God. The second thing that he says
before them is that where there is the true
spirit of God, then there will be a deepening of the understanding
and a feeding on things that are deep in the things of God. In our text we have, but this
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. But in the very next chapter,
the apostle says of the Corinthians, that he could not speak unto
them as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes
in Christ. And he speaks of feeding them
with milk. And the reason was, and he says,
the evidence of why they were carnal or why they were natural
and not walking in the Spirit was because one was saying, I
am of Paul, another saying, I am of Apollos, another I'm of Christ,
they had a party spirit amongst them. And where the Holy Spirit
is, there will be that revealing of the things of God and not
lifting up a man or a party spirit, but God himself. and exalting
the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul says in verse two of
the chapter where our text is, for I determine not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. There is a deepening
of the things of God in a believer. We are to grow in grace and in
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Our religion
must not thus be in just superficial, light, empty things, but be really
deepened in a real knowledge of the truth and of the doctrines
of God. And if we are of those that are
just content just to know a few, truths, just to be able to say,
well, God is love. Or perhaps some hymns that hardly
could be called hymns, but just have a few words repeated again
and again and again, and choruses that have no depth of teaching
in them. One thing we're so thankful for
with our hymns that we use here is that there is a depth of teaching
and instruction, verse by verse, and of course in the Psalms,
and where the Psalms are sung, the depth of teaching and instruction,
that is the pattern for us. In the Word of God, if there
is to be singing, if there is to be teaching, then there is
to be that meat and substance and depth in it, not just vain
repetition. And so the apostle here is speaking
in our text of the deeper things of God and pointing to these
being revealed by the Holy Spirit of God. So I want to look, with
the Lord's help this evening, three points. Firstly, the person
of the Holy Spirit. And then secondly, the works
of the Spirit and thirdly, the teaching of the Spirit. But firstly,
the person of the Holy Spirit we've sung in the hymn that we've
just sung. The Son of the Trinity, of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And each one is
God. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit of Trinity. Three persons, but one God. The Lord says, and we can only
understand the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, we
can understand it by the words of the Lord himself. He says
regarding his Father, I and my Father are one. If you've seen
me, you've seen my Father also. And then again, my father is
greater than I. The Lord in his humiliation humbled
himself to become obedient unto death. We think of the work of
creation and let us make man in our own image and immediately
we have the idea of more than one. We have a triune God, and
the Lord speaking of his Father, and especially at his baptism. We have his Father speaking from
heaven, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. We have the Holy Spirit descending
like a dove upon him, and we have the Lord himself, this Son
of God, made manifest in the flesh. Solomon was very clear
of the coming of the Christ as being God in the flesh, but will
God in very deed dwell upon the earth, was what he said in a
dedication of the temple. And dear Job also, he knew, he
lived in Abraham's time, that I know that my Redeemer liveth
and that he shall stand. at the latter day upon the earth. Our Lord, while he was on earth,
was worshipped as God, and forbade not any to do so. Angels that
appeared, they did forbid worshipping of them. And the Lord's people,
like Peter, when Cornelius fell down to him, forbade him, he
says, worship God. And so with the person of the
Holy Spirit, our Lord says, when he, the spirit of truth, is come,
he will guide you into all truth. And he's speaking of him as a
person, he. Also we read, grieve not the
Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. You can't grieve an eminence
or an influence, you can grieve a person. And so the Holy Ghost
is a person in the Trinity. He truly is God. And so we need
to be very clear of this. There are some sects and cults
that not only do they deny that the Lord Jesus Christ was the
eternal God and equal with the Father, But they also deny the
Holy Spirit as being a person, but only being an emanating power
from God. This is very contrary to the
scriptures, which very clearly teach a trinity, a God that is
in three persons. So for this evening especially,
it is the person of the Holy Spirit. Well, what are the works of the
Holy Spirit? We might say regarding the Father,
that in John 10 we read that he had a people, And He gave
that people to the Son. Regarding the Son, we know that
He came and that He suffered for His people, laid down His
life for them. And many other things we may
say, but what of the Spirit? Well, in the very beginning of
the Word of God, we read of the creation of God, that the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters. And it was by the
Spirit that the creation was brought about. The Spirit, the
power of God. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form,
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,
let there be light, and there was light. And that is how the
Word of God begins. But then we have the Holy Spirit
as being the author of the Word of God. Holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. All scripture is given
by inspiration of God. It is the word of God that we
have before us, the author, though many human authors were used,
penmen were used, yet the word is spirit-breathed. And that
which we receive, we receive it as it is in truth, the word
of God, not the word of men. And there's a very, very important
principle that from Genesis to Revelation, we have the very
words of God and we receive it all as God's word, not to be
added to or taken away from, No more revelation, no more opening
up of anything else than what is actually in the pages of the
Word of God before us here. In revelation there's a curse
on those that add or subtract to it. It was through the Holy Spirit's
overshadowing of Mary that our Lord came. into this world. Mary said, how shall these things
be? When the angel revealed to her
that she should have a son, and she knew not a man, the power
of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The new birth, the quickening,
into spiritual life, he must be born again, what our Lord
teaches in John 3, is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is the one that brings about
a spiritual being, quickened into spiritual life. The Lord
says, I give unto them eternal life, they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand, but that life
is given by the Spirit quickening into life. And then there is
the teaching. We read in the Old Testament,
as well as rehearsed in the New, in Hebrews, that they shall all
be taught of God. And now, Lord, we've quoted part
of it already from in John. When he, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He shall reveal all things to you, make them known
to you. The Lord says to those that believed
on him, if you continue in my word, then you shall know the
truth. You shall be my disciples. Indeed,
you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
And it is then through the Holy Spirit, they shall not teach
every man his neighbours, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall
all know me from the least, even unto the greatest. They shall
all be taught of God. He is the Great Teacher, and
though the Lord has ordained ministers and elders and teachers
in the Church of God, yet as the Apostle Paul here says to
the Corinthians, he comes to them, not with excellency of
speech or of wisdom, but all he is determined to know is Jesus
Christ and him crucified. He says in verse four, he's not
using enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the spirit and of power. He is using the word of God. He reasoned with them from the
Scriptures from morning to night when He came to places where
they had not heard the Word. He opened to them the Scriptures,
explained to them the way. He did exactly what our Lord
did on the way to Emmaus with the Two, that he began at Moses
and all the prophets and all the scriptures concerning himself,
he opened it up, the same as Philip did to the eunuch in Isaiah
53. They take the holy word of God
and preach and open up and explain those truths in the word of God. It is the Holy Spirit that helps
the minister, that gives him light and knowledge. and then
blesses that word to his hearers so that they receive it and they
understand it. And so the work of the Holy Spirit
is predominantly, and this is what I, in connection with the
text and this evening, is in teaching. So I want to look then
in the third place, the teaching of the Spirit of Truth, the teaching
of the deep things of God. The things of God are a deep,
they are a mystery. Great is the mystery of godliness,
God manifest in the flesh. They are to be revealed and it
must be by the Spirit of God. And it's really a wonderful way
where those that know this truth can be delivered from all error,
from all deceivers. We read in the Word of God of
those that have men in admiration because of advantage. And men often, you might say,
put on a back foot or put off when someone would say, you don't
know anything. I've got a degree in theology,
or I've had a special revelation from heaven, and I know more
than you. You trust me, and you believe
me. Well, if people are coming to
you with that, don't follow them at all. Steer greatly clear of
them, because even the apostle when he preached to the Bereans,
they searched the scriptures daily whether these things were
so. They didn't just take the apostle's
word for it. The apostle was preaching the
word of God. So they went back to the word
of God and they searched those scriptures and we read that many
of them, because of that, they believed. And we should be able
to test every preacher's message by the Word of God. And where
the preacher is bringing what is according to the Scriptures,
very often as those things are said, if we are familiar with
those Scriptures, we will say, now I understand, now I can see
it. With Philip, when he drew near
to the eunuch, we mentioned him already, a eunuch of Ethiopia,
very high position. And he'd been up to Jerusalem
to worship and coming again. And he was in the desert and
God sent Philip to him. And he came to his chariot and
he saw him reading or heard him reading Isaiah 53. And he asked
him, he said, do you understand what you're reading. And he said,
how can I except some man guide me? He felt his need of being
guided and instructed. And he says, concerning the portion
he was reading, of whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself
or of some other man? And it was then Philip's work
to begin at that same scripture, Isaiah 53, and where Christ is
spoken of as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, and as a sheep
is led to the slaughter. So he opened not his mouth. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
being set forth there. And he began at that same scripture
and preached unto him, Jesus. And we read how the eunuch believed,
how he's brought into real gospel liberty and desire to be baptised
on profession of his newfound faith. And it is in that way
that the ministers of the gospel, the spirit, he does not speak
of himself. He reveals Christ. and he reveals
Christ through the preaching of the word. He doth please God
through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And
why it's spoken of as the foolishness of preaching, because really
preaching is a sinner declaring, authoritatively declaring the
word of God, the commission is preach the word in the presence,
in the hearing of other sinners. And yet God hath been pleased
to use that so that men hear the minister's voice and they
hear God's voice through him. When God first called Samuel
and Samuel thought that it was Eli's voice that he was hearing,
that God was, this is in the days of the prophets, God was
speaking directly to Samuel, that many have felt that it has
been the minister that has been speaking to them or opening up
the word, and yes it has been. But God has been speaking through
them. And the apostle says, concerning
to the Thessalonians, that they receive the word preached, not
as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God. And so it's very important in
that to never view a minister like an apostle or like a prophet,
The apostles were inspired when they wrote, and part of what
they wrote is in the Word of God, it's the inspired Word of
God. But no minister today is inspired. He is helped by the
Spirit, helped to open up the Word of God, but he is not given
any fresh revelation. And whatever his ministry is,
It should leave the people so that when they go home, what
they're speaking of is what they have heard, rather than the person
that has spoken that. It's not the minister that's
being extolled, but it is Christ that's being extolled. And we
may say, regarding the Holy Spirit, It's not the Holy Spirit that
is being extolled either, because our Lord said, he shall not speak
of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he reveal
unto you. And so he is in the background,
not as taught in charismatic circles, where the Holy Spirit
is prominent, and the effects of the Spirit is very prominent.
where the Holy Spirit is active, the Lord Jesus Christ will be
precious, the Word of God will be opened up and thoroughly expounded,
and people's hearts, like those two on the way to Emmaus, will
burn within them while those truths are opened up. They will
realise that what they are hearing is the Word of God and that it
is the reveal things of God that are already in the Word of God,
hidden there, but opened up to their understanding. And so,
we must realize the truth is set
forth in our text. These things of God, these hidden
things of God, God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. That is, in one sense, to the
apostles as inspiring, but unto us, unto the Church of God, for
the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. And he says, later on, that those
things which we speak in verse 13, with which things also we
speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth, that is the inspired Word of God,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual, that is, one scripture
with another scripture. Our Lord did this when Satan
tempted Him in the desert after He was baptised, And Satan came
with the word of God. He said that it was written that
the angels shall take charge of thee, shall bear thee up in
their arms, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. And so
he took our Lord up to the pinnacle of the temple and said, cast
thyself down from hither, because here is the promised protection
and you can rely on that protection. But our Lord answered him by
comparing another scripture. And he said, it is written again,
thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And we must use the
same principles. This is comparing spiritual things
with spiritual. that one scripture is tested
against another to get the clear teaching and mind of the Lord,
not taking one text or one passage in isolation, but searching and
studying the scriptures or comparing spiritual things with spiritual. May we desire a deepening of
our knowledge of the things of God and not fall into the traps
like the Corinthians or like those referred to in the Hebrews
as well, that the apostle says that he would like to teach them
the deeper things, but then they themselves were like those that
could only take the more simple things of God. They couldn't
enter into those things that were more deep. And so we need to grow in grace,
grow in grace and in knowledge. of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. There are many that are content
with just a very superficial knowledge of the Scriptures or
knowledge of the Lord. And because of that, they don't
feed upon the Word daily. They have very shallow views
of the truths of God. But the more that we know, of
the depth of the love of God, of the covenant of God's grace,
of the eternal truths of God, of that which the Lord hath prepared
for his people, those underlying doctrines and teachings that
stay the soul in times of temptation and times when man will come
in and allure and draw away. Why so many are deceived today
is because they allow others to tell them what they should
believe or what the Word of God is. You know, in the time of
the great darkness before the Reformation, the Word of God
was locked up in the Latin language and in the a church of Rome,
and the common people did not know what it said. And they had
to just take whatever the priest told them. But where we have
in our own tongue, and this was the great thing of the Reformation,
was that the common people could have the Word of God. This is
why from the church here we give the Word of God. everyone to
have that Word of God, to pray over it, to read it, to study
it, and that God will bless that to them. And then they won't
be deceived by men that will teach contrary to the Word of
God. We know of, dear friends, those
years ago over in Australia, the very first time they ever
came into the house of God, they never attended a place of worship
before, given a Bible, and then they came back and they started
to compare what the minister was saying and what was in the
Bible that they'd been given. Gradually they realised that
their minister, very sadly, was not preaching and not teaching
the same truths. And so they left that church
and went and found one that did preach the Word of God. It's
an amazing thing that that should happen, but a wonderful thing
really, that one that had no prior knowledge of the things
of God at all, put into their hands the Word of God and it
made them wiser than even the leaders in that church. A solemn
thing for that church, but this is the great blessing of having
the Word of God and the great blessing, the promised blessing
of the Holy Spirit to give an understanding and especially
as applying to ourselves. There are some that will just
be content to read the Word of God as if they were commenting
on something that didn't concern them. But we must always remember
that we have a soul. We have a soul to be saved or
lost and that we have an eternity that is before us and that we
must die and those things that we hear and those things that
we preach directly concern us. You know through this pandemic
there's been many talks and things said about the various vaccines
and no doubt Before we've had them, we've taken an interest
in what has been said. Why? Because we are susceptible
to the virus ourselves. And that if we take the vaccine,
then we want to be able to trust it. And that if there's side
effects, then we know that they could affect us. And there's
a sense that These things, they directly apply to us. When the government makes laws,
when they give rules on lockdowns, those things apply to us, apply
to our lives. And so in the Word of God, that
which is written there applies to us, to our soul, to our life. to our eternal happiness, to
whether or not we are saved or whether we are lost, whether
we have the comfort and joy of knowing that we are the Lord's
and that our sins are put away and that we are on Christ, the
one foundation. We run a race. We don't just
stand on the sidelines commenting on others. We, as the Apostle
says, are to run the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus. It is a solemn thing. If we have
before us the eternal saving truths of the everlasting gospel
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the one name given among
men whereby we must be saved, And yet we pass it by and taken
up with just vanities or externals or just some superficial things. And I believe some, they know
deep down that there's more to it, but they don't want to search
it out. They don't want to know it. They
want to be in blissful ignorance, use a natural expression, bury
their head, in the sand rather than really know the truth. John
Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, he pictured one of those characters
called Ignorance and his Christian and hopeful who were going on
pilgrimage to the promised land, the Celestial City, and they
came across this man and they realised that he did not know
the truths in his heart, that he was ignorant of that which
was vital to know. And they tried to tell him, but
he didn't want to know. He just said it would be all
right, be all right at the end. Well, it wasn't. And he found
that there was a byway to hell right at the gate of heaven.
We do not want a name to live and yet be dead as was written
to the churches in the Revelation. We do not want to be like King
Agrippa who was an almost Christian, almost thou persuadest me to
be a Christian. We do not want to be of those
that appear and even say that they are named by the name of
Christ and Christ is taught in our streets. And yet at the last,
our Lord shall say, depart from me, I never knew you. Never been
sanctified, separated from the spirit of the world, never been
taught by the spirit, never known the way of holiness, the way
of righteousness and truth. May we truly be taught of the
spirit, And if we are, some of that teaching will be very searching,
very cutting. It will find us out where we
are, what the real truth is. But are we willing to have the
truth told? Are we willing to know this side
of the grave, that we are upon the rock Christ Jesus? And if
we do truly know the Lord, if we do believe, May we count it
a privilege to know more and more of the blessedness of the
Gospel, the hope beyond the grave, the hope of Christ, the stability
of being upon the rock Christ Jesus, the blessedness of that position
that by God's grace we are found in. not content to know a little,
but to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we have a word like this,
pointing us to the Holy Spirit of God, pointing us to the Spirit
that shows the deep things of God, may our language, may our
prayer be that this Spirit would teach us and instruct us and
open to us these things, to our comfort and to the sealing of
our real interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. But God hath revealed
them unto us. Do we have a revealed religion? God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. May the Lord add his
blessings.