Good morning. If we could find
our seats, it's 10 o'clock, time to begin. Let's open this morning's service.
Hello. Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 21 from your gospel hymns hymn
book. Let's all stand together. Number
21. God the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one, in eternal ages past made a covenant
sure and fast. God my Father chose His own in
the person of His Son, and ordained that I should be one with Him
eternally. God the Son agreed to come in
the flesh to bring me home. He would keep God's holy law
and retrieve me from the fall. Christ in love so willingly Stood
as my great surety, For my price he offered blood, To appease
the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly dove,
promised to come down in love, bringing life and peace and grace. to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and he brings us to the Lamb. By his mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure,
for God's covenant will endure. It is sealed by God's own word,
by His Spirit and His blood. Blessed Holy Covenant God, I
am yours by ties of blood, ties of grace and ties of love. Hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to
continue our study in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians chapter
2. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on His Word. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
how thankful we are that we have an advocate, one who has made
your throne to be for us a throne of grace. We thank you for the
boldness that you give us, the confidence to approach you as
the holy, sovereign God of creation, God of salvation, and to have
the hope of knowing, Lord, that not only do we have acceptance
in your presence, but we have your love. We have your son as our savior. We pray, Lord, that you would
reveal his glory in our hearts by your word. We pray for those
that remain, Lord, strangers to your grace and ask that you
would be pleased today to open their hearts, cause them, Lord,
to find their hope in Christ. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Second Corinthians, first Corinthians,
I'm sorry, chapter two in Preparing this study, I was thinking about
a man I used to know who worked for Martin Marietta. He had a, um, um, some sort of,
um, secret, um, access to government contracts. And I guess it was,
um, you know, military weapons and stuff like that. And, and,
um, people would ask him, what do you do? And he responded by
saying, well, if I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill
you. And I thought about, you know, and I heard him make that
statement on several occasions. I could tell you what I'd do,
but then I'd have to kill you. And it seemed like he took certain
pride in having some information that no one else had. And isn't
that the way secrets are? You know, how do we tell a secret? We whisper it in someone's ear.
And secrets give us some power and they give us some, you know,
some position over, some advantage over other men to know something
that someone else doesn't know. When the Lord reveals the gospel,
the scripture refers to it as a secret. It's a mystery. Other men don't know it. The
difference is that we're not interested in keeping it quiet. We want other men to know this
secret. We proclaim it from the housetops. We pray and declare the mystery
of the gospel with as much simplicity and clarity as we possibly can
in hopes that other men will hear. But all along we know that
if the Lord doesn't give them the mind of Christ, they won't
hear it. And if the Lord doesn't reveal
himself to us, we won't hear it. We do not have the capacity
to comprehend the gospel. We just don't. And the scriptures
are very clear on that. And we're not, we're not proudly
hoarding a secret in order to get advantage over other men. Some of us have been there. Some
of us have had some Calvinistic doctrine and enjoyed debating
doctrine with other professed religious people in hopes of,
you know, getting some advantage over them. But once the Lord
opens what no man can shut, once He reveals Christ to you, You
don't want the Lord Jesus Christ to be a secret. You want other
men to know who he is and what it is he's accomplished. The
problem is that that who he is and what it is he's accomplished
is so contrary to what the natural man thinks that he's not capable
of getting rid of his preconceived ideas about God unless the Lord
does a work of grace in his heart. And so, first, Lord, do a work
of grace for me. Reveal yourself to me. Show me
the truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ really is and what it
is He's accomplished. And then give me the boldness
to declare Him to other men and be merciful, be merciful to open
the hearts of men. That's what Paul's dealing with
in 2 Corinthians. Look what he says, beginning
in verse... In verse 4 he said, My speech
and my preaching was not with enticing words of men's wisdoms,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. We didn't come
to you with philosophy. We didn't come to you with politically
correct speech. We didn't come to you with psychological
ideas. We didn't come to you with what
men perceive to be true. The natural man thinks that the
Bible is nothing more than a rule book for Christian living. It's
a set of moral precepts that if one will just obey the Word
of God, they'll have success in this life and they'll have
hope for salvation. That's what the natural man thinks.
And Paul said, we didn't come to you that way. We didn't come
to you declaring unto you what the natural man thinks, the wisdom
of man. that God loves everybody and Christ died for everybody
and God wants everybody to be saved and you know it's up to
you to make what God did work for you. You hold the power. That's the wisdom of man. Paul
said we did not come to you with the wisdom of man. We came to
you with the demonstration of the Spirit and the power. We
came to you declaring the Word of God. without compromise, comparing
the spiritual to the spiritual, scripture to scripture, declaring
to you what this book is really all about. And really, that's
not a good way to put it, who this book is really all about.
This book, in the volume of the book, it is written of me. And beginning with Genesis and
all the way through to the book of Revelation, this is a revelation
of the glorious person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. What did he come to do? Did he
come to make salvation possible? Or did he come to accomplish
the salvation of God's elect? The wisdom of man says that he
came to make salvation possible. You make it work. Your faith
becomes the effectual cause of salvation. You exercise your
faith and God will apply the work of Christ to your account.
That's the wisdom of man. Paul said we didn't come to you
like that. A demonstration of the Spirit and with power that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. Talk to folks who call themselves
Christians. Their faith is in their faith.
That's where their faith is. Their hope, The hope of their
salvation is in a decision that they made or in a will that they
exercised or in a work that they performed. And Paul said, we
didn't come to you declared unto you the wisdom of man. We came
to you in the demonstration of the spirit, which is the word
of God and of power. That's the only hope that we
have. that your faith would not stand, it would not stand in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Our faith is not
in a creed, it's not in a confession, it's not in a church constitution. Our faith is in the glorious
person of Christ. He's the one that we're resting
all the hope of our salvation on. And the revelation of Him
is made known to us by the power of God through the Word of God. How be it? Look at verse 6. We
speak wisdom among them that are perfect. A natural man is not going to
receive the things of the Spirit. The wisdom of God can only be
understood by those that are perfect. Now God requires absolute, total,
complete perfection. He's not going to settle for
anything less. The wisdom of man says, do your best and God
will be satisfied. God says, I'm not satisfied with
your best. You've got to be absolutely sinless. You've got to be perfect
before God in order to have any acceptance before God. How are
you going to get there? How are you going to have that? When
in you, that is in your flesh, dwelleth no good thing. When
everything about you is sinful, how are you going to be perfect
before God? Being found in Him. not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness,
which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. I've got to be in Christ. Christ has got to be my advocate.
I've got to have him as my righteous standard, presenting himself
on my behalf before God. That's the only hope I have. And those who have Christ as
their hope are perfect. They're perfect in the person
of their substitute, in their sin-bearer, in their surety. They stand complete before God. Perfectly complete. God says
that's who this is for. This is not for the one who's
trying to achieve perfection. This is not for the one who's
doing his best. This message is for the one who
is perfect. Perfect. and only those who are
perfect will hear it. 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." Where are
the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? If you're perfect in Christ,
if you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as for all your
righteousness and all your justification before God, everything you're
hoping for is bound up in who He is and what He's accomplished. You see how foolish this world
really is, don't you? You see how foolish the opinions
of men are. You see how foolish man-made
works, free will religion is. You see the foolishness of it.
Paul said we didn't come to you with the foolishness of man.
We came speaking the wisdom of God to them which are perfect.
The princes of this world don't know this. kings and presidents
and congressmen and senators and they don't know this. It's a mystery to them. If they
did know it, they would not have crucified the Son of God. Now, look at the next verse. We speak the wisdom of God in
a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the
world unto our glory. God ordained. Everything that's happening in
time, everything, has already happened in eternity. We serve
a God who's sovereign. We serve a God who has ordained
everything. And you know, if you know the
mystery of the gospel, if you know Christ, you know that He
is working all things together for good, for them that love
Him and those that are the called according to His purpose. We
talked about this last week. Men talk about a God who has
a plan. Our God doesn't have plans. Plans
can be changed. We change plans all the time,
don't we? We don't talk about a plan of salvation. Our God
is a God of purpose. And He's ordained the salvation
of His people before the foundation of the world. He chose a particular
people in the covenant of grace. He coveted with His Son to be
the advocate for those, to be the sin-bearer for those that
God chose. And he made a promise to the
Spirit of God, the Spirit of God to the Father, to make willing
all those whom the Father chose, all those whom Christ would shed
His precious blood for. This is all bound up in God.
We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom
which God ordained before the world. This is ordained of God. This message is so contrary to
the message of free will works religion. It strips men of their
glory. It strips men of all their righteousness.
And it makes Christ to be all our glory and all our hope and
salvation. Paul said, this is the message
we came preaching to you. This is the only message of hope,
a message that's based on anything that you and I do. There's no hope in that. There's
no comfort in that. There's no peace in that. If
you're an honest person, you're an honest person. You have to
ask yourself, have I done it right? Did I really mean it? Did I, have I done enough? And
have I measured up? There's only one that measures
up, and that's Christ. And He has measured up. So look
what he goes on to say, that none of the princes of this world
knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. Paul said, before the Lord arrested
me, you remember God knocked him off his high horse, put his
face in the dirt. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. And the Lord shined that light
from heaven and converted the Apostle Paul. And Paul, in talking
about that conversion experience, when God stopped him in his tracks,
and that's he he talked about that as being a pattern of salvation
for everyone that's what the Lord does for every one of his
children he knocks us off our high horse he puts our face in
the dirt he arrest us he stops us in our hell-bent tracks and
reveals himself to us and Paul said before that happened I was
a blasphemer I was an idolater I was an injurious man but God
forgave me for I did it in ignorance I did it in ignorance. Now that's
what he's talking about here. Had they known who they were crucifying,
they wouldn't have done it. They wouldn't have crucified
him. Had they understood that this was the God of glory, they
would not have put their hand to the crucifixion of the Lord
Jesus Christ. They wouldn't have done it. And the same thing is true of
us, isn't it? Lord, we did it in ignorance. We did it in ignorance. But now
we know better. You know what's so humbling about
this? There are, sad to say, often
times when people who hear the gospel, profess the gospel, identify with the church, walk
away from the gospel. Hebrews chapter 10 makes it clear
that when that happens, when that happens, there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sin. No longer can you say with the
Apostle Paul, I did it in ignorance therefore God forgave me. No
longer can you say here, I didn't know who I was crucifying.
You heard the gospel, you profess to believe the gospel, fellowship
with God's people, and walked away from the gospel. And that person, though they
may walk away from the gospel and live an outwardly moral life
in this life, will stand before God in greater judgment than
the person who never heard the gospel. Now, I don't say that in order
to cast aspersions on those who have forsaken the gospel. I say
that as a stern warning to myself and to you. Lord, keep me. Lord, don't let me fall away.
There's no lower place in hell. There's no greater judgment than
those who have professed faith in Christ, heard the gospel,
believed the gospel, and walked away from it. Lord, don't let
that happen to me. It's very humbling, isn't it?
Had they known what they were doing, they wouldn't have done
it. And Hebrews chapter 10 says they knew who Christ was, but
they trampled underfoot the blood of Christ and counted the covenant
of grace a common thing. They left the gospel, forsook
it altogether, and there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. And
if those, he goes on to say, if those who had been punished
for breaking Moses' law were sternly treated, how much greater
judgment will be those who believed or confessed faith in grace and
then forsook it. Now we know that God's not going
to let his people forsake the gospel. John makes that clear,
doesn't it? If they went away from us, it
just meant they were never of us. But here's the thing about
it. Lord, keep me. Keep me. Don't let me walk away. And we know that if we're going
to remain faithful to Christ, He's going to have to do it.
He's going to have to keep us in the gospel just like he brought
us into the gospel. God says they did it in ignorance
because they did not understand that this was the Lord of glory.
Now look what else he goes on to say. Verse 9, But as it is
written, I hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, neither hath
it entered into the heart of men, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him. Now you've heard me quote that
one verse in context to heaven, and it's true. When Paul was caught up into
the third heaven, he saw things that were unspeakable. When John
was given the revelation of glory, there were things he could not
write. There was no words in any language
capable of expressing the things that the Lord had prepared for
his people. And that verse says, eyes not
seen, nor is ear heard, nor is it entered into the imagination.
We can't even begin to imagine. Don't think heaven's gonna be
a better version of this life. A version of this life without
conflict, you know, that's... when we try to think of heaven
we just... we just improve on what we understand
and we... and we, you know, that's not
gonna be it at all. All that having been said, That's
not what this verse is talking about. Not in its context. It's talking about the gospel.
They say, "...and the natural eye has not seen, nor has the
natural ear heard, nor has it entered into the natural imagination
of man the things that God has prepared for him." What's been
prepared? Heaven's prepared. The Lord Jesus
Christ said, I go and prepare a place for you. and I will come
again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may
be also." You believe in God? Believe also in me. For in my
Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I would have told you. He's prepared
the place. What did he do to prepare the
place? He took back his rightful place
at the right hand of God. He returned back into the presence
of God as the Word, not void, but with the names of those for
whom He lived and died. And He presented Himself faultless
before the throne of God. And all those for whom He lived
and died are in Him, in the heavenlies, in Christ, right now. Right now. Everything's been done. When
the Lord Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of God, everything
necessary for you and I to go to heaven was prepared. And he
ever lives right now to make intercession for us, doesn't
he? He's our advocate with the Father. John said, if any man,
he said, I write unto you little children that you sin not, but
if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous one. So we have a righteous Savior
who stands in our stead before God and presents himself on our
behalf. And we're perfect in the presence
of God in the person of our substitute. And that's what he's saying here.
He's saying the natural man can't see that. He can't hear that.
He can't even begin to understand that. Why? Because it's his preconceived
idea that it's his will and it's his works. It's something that
He does to make what Christ did work for Him. He can't believe
in a gospel of free grace. He can't do it. He won't do it
unless the Lord opens the eyes of His understanding. And what
God opens, no man can shut. Aren't you glad? He just can't. He can't see it. Look at the next verse. But God
But God, verse 10, hath revealed them to us by His Spirit. You see, what the natural man
can't see, what the natural man can't hear, what the natural
man can't even begin to imagine has been revealed to us. It's
the mystery. It's the secret. Now, forget
not who maketh thee to differ. What do you have that you did
not receive? And if you received it as a free
gift, why boast in it? We don't boast in it, do we?
We boast in Christ. He's the one that revealed it. God hath revealed them unto us
by his spirit, for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. You're not going to understand
the word of God apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Not going to do it. Turn God's Word into a into
nothing but precept upon precept, line upon line. We'll look at
that in a few minutes in Isaiah chapter 28. You'll do that. I'll do that. will turn it into
a book of history will turn into a book of theology will turn
into a book of moral isms will turn it into a book of doctrine
a what will turn into anything other than what it is a revelation
of Christ what the Lord say to those Pharisees he said you search
the scriptures and they were very diligent to search the scriptures
I told y'all I'm at a A Jewish man one time that had the entire
Old Testament committed to memory in Hebrew. He didn't have a clue what it
meant. Could recite it, quote it. That's
the kind of man the Lord was talking to. You search the scriptures
because you think in them you have eternal life. But these
are they which testify of me. You've missed the message of
the Bible. So the natural man, he can't
see it, he can't hear it, he can't begin to, but God has revealed
them to 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 the man that is in
him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit
of God. Nobody can read your mind. You've got to be able to
speak before anybody knows what you're thinking. Don't you? Nobody knows what you're thinking,
except you. No one knows the spirit of a
man except the spirit that's even so. No one knows what God's
thinking. My thoughts are not your thoughts
and my ways are not your ways. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts. Don't think
that I'm like you. You're not going to know what
I'm thinking. except for the Spirit of God to speak. To speak. God has to speak. How does He speak? He speaks
by His Word. He speaks by the power of His
Spirit. And when He speaks, He always speaks of Christ. He always
speaks of Christ. When the Spirit of God speaks,
He says the same thing John the Baptist said. Behold, the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. The Lord said
it's expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come. But when He comes, what's He
going to do? He's going to convict the world
of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And He's going to
remind you of the things that I spoke, and lead you into all
truth." He's going to speak of me. He's going to speak of me. That's the ministry of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit does what John did. He points to Christ.
He points us to Christ. How do I know if God's spoken
to me? How do I know if He's spoken? Because I've cleaned
up my life. Because I've quit doing some
things. Because I've gotten better. And I'm getting better. If you're
looking to that for the hope of your salvation, boy, that's
shifting sand, isn't it? That's shifting sand. No, my feet are on the rock. I'm looking to Christ. My hope
is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
All other ground, all other ground is sinking sand. Look at the
next verse. Verse 12, now we have received
not the spirit of the world. We're not getting the spirit
of man's opinion, man's ideas. We're not getting words from
man. is a guy people tell me all that well that's what you
think so god says you know if you are on a state that the scriptures
are not complicated they're really not men complicate them because
they go to them with with with some presuppositions that don't
fit and so they try to change the word of god to fit their
own presuppositions but if you go lord teach me Lord, I don't
know anything. I can't do anything. I don't
have anything. I'm a babe. Isaiah chapter 28. Whom does
the Lord teach understanding? Them that are weaned from the
breast. That infant that has just received
its full from its mother's breast and is resting on the breast
of its mother. That's who the Lord teaches wisdom
to. Unless she becomes a little child, you shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Suffer the little children to come unto
me, for such are the kingdom of heaven. People don't want
to be little children, do they? They don't want to be babies.
Well, what does the Lord say? Desire, crave after the sincere
milk of the Word even as a newborn babe. So, Here's what the Lord's
saying, 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. Salvation is freely given
to us. It's not earned, it's not deserved,
we don't have a right for it, we can't figure it out. It's
freely given to us of God. It belongs to Him. He's got the
right. He said, I'm the potter, you're
the clay. I've got the sovereign right to make out of the same
lump of clay some vessels of honor, some of dishonor. Who's
going to control me? I'll have mercy upon whom I will
have mercy. And whom I will, I'll harden.
I'm God. That's what he's saying here.
We're not coming with the wisdom of man. which things also we speak, verse
13, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the
Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Why do we spend so much time
comparing Scripture to Scripture? Because this is the means by
which the Lord speaks. This is the way He speaks, isn't
it? Paul said, we didn't come to you with stories. We didn't
come to you with entertainment. We didn't come to you with, you
know, things that entice the flesh. We came to you speaking
the Word of God, comparing verse to verse, spiritual to spiritual. This is God's Word. Holy men
of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So this is
the Word of God. And that's the only way we're
going to hear the voice of God is for God to speak. But the
natural man, verse 14, the natural man, the unregenerate man, this
is the state in which every one of us came into this world. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit. Neither
can he know them. He can't. He's not capable. He
doesn't have the capacity. The Spirit of God, the same Spirit
of God that inspired the men to pin the Word of God has to
inspire us to understand it and to see Christ in it. Paul said,
we didn't come to you with philosophy. We didn't come to you with psychology. We didn't come to you with feel-good
theology. We came to you comparing the
spiritual to the spiritual, speaking the Word 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." I can't tell you how many times
people say to me, you know, you're just too judgmental. You're too
critical of other people's religion. You need to be more respectful
of other people's opinions. The spiritual man judges all
things. You better make righteous judgment
for the sake of your salvation. Try the spirits and see whether
they be of God. Don't be deceived. The natural
man says, well, you know, there's truth in all religions and everybody's
got their opinion and everybody's got some idea. That's not the
voice of a spiritual man. That's the voice of a natural
man. The voice of a spiritual man judges all things, yet he
himself is not judged. Now, what does that mean? That
means he's not intimidated by the judgments that other hurled
at him. When people say to you, well, you're just too judgmental,
you're too narrow. And the natural man would cower
to such an accusation and think, well, maybe there's something
wrong with me. But the spiritual man who judges all things is
not judged by other men. He's not intimidated. He's not
changed. He doesn't adjust his position
because of the opinions of others. He stands firm. Why? Because he's been taught of God.
If God's taught me and I know that what I've learned has come
from God, why do I care what you think? Isn't that true? For who hath known the mind of
the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ." The mind of Christ. Lord, give me the mind of Christ.
Don't let me be deceived. This whole world is following
after the deceit of man, the wisdom of the world.
Wisdom of the world. What saith the scriptures? What does God say? That's what
I believe. Isn't that what you believe?
All right, let's take a break. You hear that?