1 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul has been writing about the
wisdom of God which we preach and he called it the hidden wisdom.
Why is it that some people know and believe the gospel and some
people do not know and believe the gospel. He's going to answer
that for us in this next passage. He says in verse 9, As it is
written, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them
that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now the point he makes here is
very clear, it's just easy to understand. But this is a point
that stirs up enmity, the enmity of the natural heart, especially
if that natural man is religious. The point he makes here is that
spiritual things of God, the spiritual things of God are not
known by the flesh. They're not known by man's natural
abilities, but they're known only by revelation, by the revelation
of the Spirit of God. Carnal flesh, that's when we
talk about carnal flesh, we're talking about that which we're
born with, that's which we come into this world with. And carnal
flesh cannot receive spiritual things. can't know spiritual
things, can't believe spiritual things. Only the Spirit of God
can reveal spiritual things, and the Spirit of God reveals
spiritual things in the new spirit, in the child of God, that God's
given. It's a new spirit God has given,
that He's put there, a new spirit that was not there before. These
things are revealed in that Spirit, not to our flesh, not to the
carnal old man, to the new man. And they're only known in the
new man, and they're only known by the Spirit of God revealing
them, by revelation. So our subject is revelation
by the Spirit of God. He says there, God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. Now the first thing we deal with
here, he says, by man's own natural flesh, no man has ever known
the things of God. By man's natural flesh, no man
has ever known the things of God. Let's look at verse 9. As it is written, I hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man. the understanding. None of these things, the eye,
the ear, the understanding, has no man seen the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. Now, this goes back
a long time because the Apostle Paul here is quoting from Isaiah,
from Isaiah 64. So this is true as far back as
Isaiah's day. But it goes back further than
Isaiah's day because when Isaiah wrote this, this is how he wrote
it. He wrote, Since the beginning of the world men have not heard,
nor perceived by the ear, neither hath seen, O God, beside Thee,
what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him. So this
is true since Adam. It's since Adam sinned, since
sin entered, and since all flesh died spiritually. Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered the heart of man
the things which God has prepared for them that love him." Now,
when we talk about the eye and the ear and the heart that's
spoken of here, we're talking about instruments of our fleshly
part. Now, if we've never been born
again, that's all we have. That's all we have is the old
man, the flesh. That's all we have. And that
carnal man, He can use these instruments to know carnal things,
to get carnal knowledge and carnal understanding and do carnal things.
I have family members who are very skilled at getting knowledge
and understanding to do things that require great skill to do.
My father can take apart just about any kind of engine and
rebuild it. My father-in-law tries to just
think up new things to, I think, challenge himself to see if he
can learn how to do it. And, you know, when it comes
to natural things, you can use the eye and the ear and the natural
understanding to get knowledge and to figure things out and
to do things, but that's not how It is when it comes to the
things of God. The things of God are spiritual,
and the eye and the ear and the heart of our flesh are not used
by God. Nothing about you and me, our
eye, ear, or our flesh, of our flesh, nothing about it is going
to be profitable in the things of God. Look at Romans 7, 14.
And when I say not profitable, I mean not ever. Look at Romans
7 and verse 14, just a few pages back. Paul says, we know that
the law... Now he's talking specifically
here about the law that was given by God at Mount Sinai. But the
law throughout Scripture means all the Word of God. And truly
you can apply this to all the Word of God. The whole Word of
God is spiritual. But, Paul says, I am carnal,
sold under sin. Now understand, when he writes
this, when he says, I am carnal, sold under sin, he's writing
that as a regenerated believer. And what he's saying is, is even
though I've been given a new spirit by God, even though I've
been born from above and the Spirit of God has revealed these
these spiritual things to me in the new man, my carnal man
is just what it's always been. It does not receive the word
of God. It does not profit me in spiritual
things. It's not used at all of God. That's why the Lord said, it's
the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing. That
means before you're regenerated or after you're regenerated,
it profits nothing. That's why he told Nicodemus,
look at John 3, John chapter 3, and look at verse 3. Our Lord Jesus was speaking to
him and he said, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He has no
eyes to see. till he's born again. Look down
at verse 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which
is born of Adam is always going to be born of Adam. It's always
going to be that till it goes back to the dust. Now then, God
will raise a new body. But until then, that which is
born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit.
Now that's why we read back in our text. Read verse 9 carefully
with me in our text. 1 Corinthians 2, 9. God says
this of all natural sinners, all natural flesh. I hath not
seen, e'er nor e'er heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things God has prepared for them that love Him. You can
write a new translation of the Bible. You can put it in layman's
terms if you want to. Whatever terms you want to put
it in, that's not going to make a sinner believe God. That's
not going to make him know God and believe God. Not at all. And there's an even worse problem
because of this fact that we've fallen in sin. Because we are
dead in sins, we don't even have the ability to see that we're
blind. We don't even have that ability.
Not at all. You take our natural eye and
ear and our heart And it can be overwhelmingly impressed by
religious things. So that the man who has this
religious experience, or this religious
knowledge, or this religious feeling, he'll just be dead certain
that what he has is light. When it's not light at all, it's
just darkness, because he can't see his blindness. That's nothing
to make a man religious. Anybody can make a man religious.
That's nothing. People think, boy, he goes to
church. It makes him so much better.
Well, for one, if he's not hearing the gospel, it makes it far worse. But that doesn't make a man better
just because he goes to a place even where the gospels preach. It's only when God speaks to
him. That's when he's better off,
when God speaks to him. Now, the thing that we've got
to remember is, it's sin. It's sin to think we can know
God and understand God by our natural abilities. That's sin.
That's sin we have to be saved from. And you hear folks all
the time. You've seen the past couple of
days, you've seen the people's pope. And you've seen his garments
he wears and all the men around him and the garments they're
wearing. And you've seen the pomp and circumstance all around
him. And to the natural eye and to
the natural ear, It may sound impressive, and it may tug at
the heart. And there's people, I'm sure,
that feel like they have really experienced something from God
that's powerful and whatever. And you couldn't persuade them
otherwise. That man's just a sinner like everybody else is. That
man's a sinner. He can't reveal this any more
than I can reveal anything. It takes God to make a man to
see that that light that we thought is light is really darkness.
It takes God to do that. We don't even have the capacity
to see our darkness. And here's the thing about this
thing of spiritual sight and of carnal blindness. The man
that's spiritually blind will argue that he sees and knows
spiritual things by his own ability. despite God saying it's impossible. He'll say, no, I know it's by
my will, it's by my seeking, it's by my understanding that
I sought God. And no God. But the man that
God has given true spiritual sight, you know what he confesses?
I'm blind. Apart from God revealing in me
by His Spirit, I'm blind. Isn't that something? The man
who's really blind, spiritually blind, he'll say, No, I see!
And the man who has been given spiritual sight sees, I'm blind. I'm blind. Look at John chapter
9. John chapter 9. Jesus had healed that blind man.
giving him sight. And he made this statement afterwards.
John 9, 39. Jesus said, for judgment I am
coming to this world that they which see not might see. And they which see might be made
blind. That obstinate religious man
who insists that he knows God by his will and his wisdom and
his works. Christ said, I'm going to make
that man more blind than he is now. Now look at this. And some of
the Pharisees which were with him heard these words and they
said unto him, Are we blind also? These ultra-religious folks. They said to Christ, Are we blind
also? Listen to His answer. Jesus said
unto them, If you were blind, you should have no sin. If you
could confess you're totally blind, totally incapable of saving
yourself, you wouldn't have any sin right now. Christ will save
such a sinner. But he says, now you say, we
see. Therefore your sin remaineth.
They said they could see apart from Christ. And he says, therefore
your sin remaineth. Now get what our Savior's declaring
there. It's sin itself. to say that we can see spiritual
things on our own by our carnal flesh. That's sin. The first
sin that Christ must subdue in our flesh is that sin of self-reliance,
of self-seeing, of self-hearing, of self-knowing. That idol of
self's got to be crushed. And He's got to give us a heart
to see, I'm blind. I'm blind. That's the only time
we're going to need Him to save us, is when we see we're blind.
That's the first step, is to see I'm blind. If this thing
don't begin with Christ being the author of my salvation, it's
not going to end with Him being the end of my salvation. He's
got to be the author and the finisher. Some imagine that,
you know, folks come in and they come to hear the gospel preached,
And the difference is made because some believe and some decide
not to believe. And so ultimately the difference
lies in whatever you decide. If you decide for God, that's
the difference. But God's telling us, no, that's
not the difference. He says here, I hath not seen,
nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things
God has prepared for them that love him. Well then, if I can't
see, And I came here, and I can't
understand with my fleshly faculties, how then am I going to know the
gospel? How am I going to know? How am I going to understand?
How am I going to see and hear and believe? Well, secondly,
look at what he says. It's God alone who reveals spiritual
things. 1 Corinthians 2.10. But God hath
revealed them unto us by His Spirit. but God hath revealed."
Who revealed? Who's this revelation by? But
God hath revealed. Isn't that just simple to see
and hear and understand? You can see it and hear it and
believe it because God's revealed it to you. A man that doesn't
have that sight and that hearing and that understanding, he reads
this and says, but that can't mean what it says. I can't mean
that. That's going to take away all
my hope, me. That's going to take me out of
it. But the Scripture says, God hath revealed. To whom does God
reveal? But God hath revealed them unto
us. Who's this us here? To everybody
that truly believes. You see, there are no exceptions.
Every person who truly believes They didn't believe by themselves.
It wasn't of themselves that they believed. They didn't conjure
up faith in themselves. They didn't work up repentance
in themselves. They didn't work up life in themselves.
Every person who believes, believes this same way. God hath revealed
them unto us. By whom does God reveal these
things? He says there, God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. by His Spirit. Now go to John
14, and hold your place in John. I've got a couple of scriptures
I want to show you, and I think I'm going to come back here a
little bit later. John 14, and let's look at verse 26. You know when James said, speaking
to believers, and James said, you have an unction, you have
an unction, it's anointing. And that unction, that anointing,
is the Holy Spirit. That's the way we know all things.
And the way we know all things is we know Christ, who's all
and in all. Now here he's talking about the
Holy Spirit. That's who's going to reveal
the things of God in the hearts of a sinner. Look here now, John
14, 26. Christ said, the comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name. He shall
teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you." Now, if we're going to be taught,
it's clear here the Holy Spirit's going to do the teaching. If
we're going to remember Him, it's the Holy Spirit that's going
to bring to remembrance the things. Look at John chapter 16. Look
at verse 13. He says, "...howbeit when he,
the Spirit of truth..." That's who He is, the Spirit of truth.
He's not dealing in lies. He's not dealing in half-truths.
He's the Spirit of truth. He's dealing in truth. He's teaching
truth, the truth of God. "...when He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth." All truth. Here's why. He shall not speak
of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak. And He will show you things to
come. Now here's what He's going to
hear, and this is what He's going to speak, and this is what He's
going to teach, this is what He's going to show. Verse 14,
He shall glorify Me, Christ said. He shall glorify Me, for He shall
receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. That's what Christ
is going to do. When you hear somebody preaching,
and they're preaching the Holy Spirit, and they're glorying
in the Holy Spirit, and they're just talking all about the Holy
Spirit, and they're not preaching Christ and Him crucified, that's
not the Word sent by the Holy Spirit. Because the way you know
it's sent by the Holy Spirit is, He's going to speak of Christ.
He's going to speak of Christ. The Holy Spirit of God hears
from God, that's what He says there, and He speaks into the
hearts of God's people. Now back in our text, He says
this, this is why it's the Spirit of God that reveals it to us.
For the Spirit searcheth all things. Verse 10. For the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Now what
are these deep things of God? Deep things that the Spirit searches. Deep things that the Spirit reveals
to His people. You know, you see men and women
in religion and they'll get to looking into the Scriptures and
they'll memorize all the names of the tribes of Israel. And
they'll learn all the kings of Israel. And they'll be able to
tell you all the judges that were in Israel. And they get
all these religious facts and they can just give you all this
religious trivia about names and places and locations and
things and can tell you the books of the Bible in order and backwards
and forwards, you know, and all that. That's not the deep things
of God. That's not the deep things of
God. The deep things of God is this. How can a man be just with
God? Now that's a deep thing. How
can he be clean that's born of a woman? That's a deep thing. How is it that a spiritually
dead sinner, never heard, never seen, never understood any of
the things of God, how is he going to be made to know the
things of God? Now that's a deep thing. That's not what you hear
the world preaching. The world's message is so weak
and shallow and trivial. It's just a little bit of morality,
but it's not the deep things. It's not the deep things of God.
What are the deep things of God? Justice. Look at John 16. I want
you to see this. I think this sums it up right
here. John 16. Look at verse 8. Christ is speaking about the
Comforter, the Holy Spirit. He says, when He's come, He will
reprove the world, that is, convince, that is, persuade. He's going
to persuade the world, that is, His people scattered throughout
the world, of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Now those are
some deep things. He said, of sin, because they
believe not on Me. What is sin? It's offending God. It's transgressing against the
law of God. It's not obeying the statutes of God, the judgment
of God. What's God's statute? This is
My Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. And the number one
sin is they believe not on Me. Believe not on me. He says, of
righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more. What does that have to do with
righteousness? God has received the Lord Jesus Christ into His
presence, raised again from the dead. He came as the Son of God. He went back as the God-man. And God received Him and glorified
Him and gave Him a place at His right hand for one reason. He
finished the work. He is the righteousness of God.
He's brought in an everlasting righteousness for His people
and God's satisfied with Him. That's why He's gone to the Father
and we see Him no more. And He says, "...and of judgment,
because the Prince of this world is judged." On Calvary's tree,
when Christ bore the judgment of God in the room instead of
His people, all of His people were judged in Christ. And the
prince of this world was judged right there. The sin he used
to accuse us was taken away from him because Christ put away our
sin. And he made us the righteousness of God and he's our high priest
ever living to make intercession for us so that the prince of
this world, no matter what accusations he makes, no matter what he tries
to bring up to accuse Christ's brethren, Christ stands before
him And he's the judgment. He's the one that casts him out
because he's the righteousness of his people. There could be
no charge laid against his people. It's his judgment settled for
his people. Now, go back to our text. He gives us a simple illustration
here. And I think this is so good.
This is one of those things we'll read over. But it's just so good
if you think about this. Look here now at verse 10. He
said, The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things
of God. Now look at verse 11. For what
man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which
is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit of God. Now, what if I begin? to tell
you that I think I know everything that Joshua's thinking. I know
everything Joshua's going to do. And I start telling you everything
I think Joshua's going to do. This is what I think he's done
and what he's doing and what he's going to do. Just because
this is the way I think. And what's your baseness on?
It's what I think. I don't have any idea what he's
thinking. And the only way I'm going to
know what he's thinking is if Joshua himself tells me what
he's thinking. That's the only way. He says,
that's exactly how it is with God. No man is going to be able
to tell how God saves, who God saves, by whom God saves, what
God has done, is doing, or shall do. No man knows these things. But the Spirit of God The Spirit
of God searches God, the deep things of God. And He to whom
He reveals these things. He comes. We've got to have the
Spirit of God hear the truth from God and bring that truth
and speak that truth into our hearts before we'll know anything
that God has thought or is doing. That's the only way we can know.
The only way we can know. What did he say that the Spirit
of God is going to do? He said, the Holy Spirit shall
glorify me. He shall receive of mine and
shall show it unto you. How am I going to know if the
Spirit of God is teaching me something? If I'm listening to
a man preach, what's a good indication, a good test to know, is this
the Spirit of God speaking or is this just a man speaking?
Who's getting the glory? Who's being spoken of? Who's
getting the preeminence? The Holy Spirit shall glorify
Christ, for He shall receive of mine." He's going to search
the deep things of God and He's going to show it unto you, Christ
said. Now lastly, that brings us to this then. What is it then
that the Spirit reveals to us? We can't know it by our flesh.
It's only the Spirit of God that searches the deep things of God
and reveals them to us. So what is it that the Spirit
of God reveals? Look at verse 9. He says there at the end, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Things God hath prepared for
them that love Him. And then in verse 10 he says,
God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. God prepared them. God reveals them. That takes
me and you out of it. We didn't do the works. We don't
even reveal it to ourselves. God prepared them. God reveals
them. These are the things. Well, what's
God prepared for us? What has the Spirit revealed
to us that God's prepared for us? The first thing, now this
is so telling, the first thing in our experience of God's grace,
the first thing in our experience of God's grace that we learn
that God has prepared for us is this, the seeing eye and the
hearing ear. Proverbs 20.12 says, the hearing
ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. Turn over to Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel
chapter 36. He says in verse 25, Then will
I sprinkle clean water upon you. This is regeneration by the Holy
Spirit of God. And you shall be clean. From
all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. This is how we're brought to have some understanding of
God. It begins right here. By the
washing of the water, by the Word, by the blood of Christ
cleansing our conscience, by the Spirit of God in the washing
of regeneration, God cleanses us from our filthiness and from
our idols. And he says, and a new heart
also will I give you. And a new spirit will I put within
you, and I'll take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I'll give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within
you and cause you. Don't you love that? I'll put
my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you
shall keep my judgments and do them. The man who argues that
he knows divine things by his flesh, by his wisdom, his will,
his works, whatever it's of him that he knows these things, whether
it's of himself or in conjunction with God working with him a little
bit, whatever. If he gives himself some glory
for knowing the things of God, he's betraying his own blindness. Because the first thing God reveals
to us that He's prepared for us is a new heart and a new spirit. We didn't prepare it. God did.
God did. And then the Spirit reveals the
things God has prepared for us in Christ. And we could be here
a long time, but I'm going to break these down into three things. Things from eternity. God's prepared
some things for His people from eternity in Christ. We read in
Matthew 25, verse 34, "...of the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world." We read in Romans 9, 23, that
He makes known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy
which He had aforeprepared unto glory. You see, all the blessings
Christ wrought for us when He walked this earth in time are
the spiritual blessings that were given to us and done and
prepared before the foundation of the world when God chose us
and put us in Christ. This kingdom was prepared for
us before the world was because He in Christ our King. And then
there's things that He prepared on the cross when He walked this
earth. He said, if I go prepare a place for you, I will come
again and receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may
be also. What did Christ prepare for us on the cross? Christ prepared
full, complete redemption on the cross. He was made a curse
for us, for His people on that cross, so that it's prepared. That means you don't add anything
to it. It's finished. It's done. He
redeemed us from the curse of the law. That's prepared. Christ
prepared justification and righteousness for His people. And He is that
righteousness. Christ is not prepared when we
believe. That's not when it's prepared.
It was prepared already. This robe of righteousness was
prepared already by Christ Jesus the Lord. And He is that robe
of righteousness. And then Christ prepared an entrance,
an acceptance into God's presence for us. When that temple veil
rent in two, and there was no ark in that holy place, There
was no mercy seat in that holy place. That priest had been hoodwinking
the people for over century after century. That thing had been
gone long before the second temple was even built. It hadn't been
in there. Why? Our true ark is Christ. And that
temple ran into, declaring loud and clear, He's our entrance
into glory. He's our acceptance with God
and He's our high priest over the house of God. And when He's
washed your conscience and purged your conscience, He causes you
to walk in His statute. That is, He causes you to approach
unto God in the full assurance of faith. In Him. In Him. In Him. And then there's something
Christ has prepared for us for the future. These are the things
He reveals to us, things He prepared for us. There's a city that He
has prepared for His people. He said in Hebrews 11, 16, God's
not ashamed to be called our God. Isn't that something? Holy God, righteous God is not
ashamed to be called our God. Why? Because He hath prepared
for us a city. He's prepared for us a city.
Revelation 21.2, I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven prepared, prepared, as a bride
adorned for her husband. What is this city? What is this
city John saw coming down out of heaven? Well, when John saw
it coming down out of heaven, it was, as it were, at a time
when all of God's elect had been called out, called into this
New Jerusalem, into this heavenly city. And that New Jerusalem
is His people. It's all His people. Just like
the church is His people. The New Jerusalem is His people.
His kingdom is His people that have been totally, thoroughly
prepared by Christ. He's our righteousness and our
holiness. He's our redemption. He's our
wisdom. He's our acceptance. He's the
one that's prepared us and assembled us and gathered us so that we're
all together citizens of this holy city. And when He's gathered
the last one, it's prepared and it's adorned by Christ our husband
for Christ our husband. Adorned as a bride for her husband. That's the city that He's prepared
for us. Now, our heavenly inheritance
is prepared for us and reserved for us and we shall have it for
this reason. Christ said, if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again. and receive
you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also." Aren't
you thankful? God didn't leave the preparation
of this place in our hands. He put it in Christ's hands.
And Christ has been preparing this place. He went to the cross
to prepare it. Now He's calling out all His
people to prepare it. And it won't be fully finished
in its preparation until He's called the last sheep to Himself. And when it's done, He's going
to bring us to behold this new creation, this new heavens, this
new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, which is all the creation of
Christ our Redeemer. And we're going to behold a bunch
of other righteous and holy vessels of mercy there, just like us.
trophies of His grace, all prepared by Him. And we're going to all
say, to Him be the glory. He prepared it and then He revealed
it to us. That's what Paul said. You know,
he said this, he saved us and called us. That's what he's saying
right here. He prepared us And then He revealed
it. He saved us and He called us. It's all by His grace. Amen.