Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program. Today,
I'm going to be preaching from the book of 1 Corinthians chapter
2. And the title of the message
is Revelation by the Holy Spirit. Revelation by the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians chapter 2, if you'd like to follow along in your
Bibles. Now this message is part of a series of messages that
I'm doing concerning the subject of how to interpret the Bible. how to interpret the scriptures.
And what I'm doing is I'm taking time to go over what I call the
rules of biblical interpretation. And I've dealt with the first
rule, which I call the rule of Jesus Christ crucified and risen,
or raised from the dead, which is the gospel rule, and says
that when we read the Bible, if we want to understand the
Bible, we see it with a Christ-centered view. This book, from Genesis
to Revelation, is a book about Jesus Christ and how God saves
sinners by His grace through Christ. Everything in this book
is going to support that truth. He's never going to deny it or
contradict it or even ignore it. But that's what this book
is about. And then the second rule is what
I call the rule of first mention, where a truth or a concept of
Scripture is first mentioned That never changes. All throughout
the Bible, and I went back to the book of Genesis to show the
first prophecy of Jesus Christ as Messiah and God's way of salvation
through His blood, His righteousness as our substitute and surety,
who took the place of his people, God's elect, on the cross of
Calvary and redeemed them and provided the righteousness by
which God justifies sinners, which is the imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the third rule that
I mentioned was the rule of simplicity. And that's the simplicity of
the fact that if God says it, then that settles it. It's true
whether I believe it, whether I understand it, no matter what. If God says it, it's true. And
I as a minister, a teacher, a pastor, I don't have any right to deny
or to hide or ignore or skip over any part of scripture because
it doesn't fit with my human logic or my human rationale. In other words, God said it,
and that settles it. So that's the rule of simplicity.
Well, today I'm going to talk to you about the fourth rule
of biblical interpretation, which is the rule of revelation. And that's why I entitled this
message, Revelation by the Holy Spirit. And like I said, turn
to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, and I want to show you some things
there about revelation. But the rule of revelation simply
states this, that whenever we read the Bible and seek to understand
the meaning of the scriptures, what they mean, Seek to to find
out what how it applies to ourselves personally our lives what it
means in in every realm there We are totally dependent upon
God the Holy Spirit To gain a real understanding of the scriptures.
We can't do it on our own and We have a mind, we have affections,
we have wills. God gave us a mind to reason
with. But by nature, we are dead in
trespasses and sin. We fell in Adam. That's what
it means to be ruined by the fall. And as a result, sin and
death spread upon the whole human race, all who are descended from
Adam. And we're born dead in trespasses
and sin. Now what that means is this,
we have the physical and the mental capacities to read the
Bible, to read the words, maybe even to understand some of it.
But what we do not have is the spiritual capacity, the spiritual
ability to understand the Bible savingly. And that's the issue
of sin. We don't have what the Bible
calls spiritual eyes. We have eyes. I have eyes and
I can look down on this page and I can read its words. But
by nature, I don't have spiritual eyes. Those have to be given
to me. And I'll show you that in just
a moment. We don't have spiritual ears. We can audibly hear physically
and we can understand some of what we're hearing as far as
the scriptures. But we don't have spiritual ears. We have a heart of understanding. The heart in the Bible is the
mind, the affections and the will. We have desires, but we
don't have desires for God until they're given to us by the Holy
Spirit. Now, that's what Christ meant
when He talked to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 and verse 3. And
He said this, He said, Accept a man, be born again. Born again
from above. Born again by the Spirit. He
cannot see the Kingdom of God. Now that word see there means
he cannot understand it. He cannot grasp it. He cannot
perceive the reality, the glory, the truth of it. He can't do
it until he's born again. Now preachers today, many will
tell you, That, well, the only way to get born again is to believe.
And that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that
we will not believe until we're born again. In fact, in John
chapter 1, verses 12 through 13, it tells that. It talks about
those who receive Jesus Christ. And it says He gives them the
power, the word power there meaning the right to become the sons
of God. And he says, these were born
not of bloods, that is, not of physical heritage. That's particularly
relating to the Jews who claimed to be children of God because
they were descendants of Abraham. No, that's not how a person's
born again. That's physical birth. And he says, not of the will
of the flesh. That means the works of the flesh.
Your works cannot get you born again. And then he says, nor
of the will of man. You see, you can't will your
way into the kingdom of God. You don't have a will to go into
the kingdom of God. Man by nature does not, man by
nature wants salvation, he desires salvation, he wills to have it,
but he doesn't want it God's way. And I'll show you that too. Here in 1 Corinthians chapter
two, we'll see that. But let me say this about revelation. When we talk about revelation,
it has to be revealed. The Bible speaks of a general
revelation. Back over in the Psalms in Psalm
19, we can read about that where the Psalmist David talked about
in Psalm 19 in verse one, he says, the heavens declare the
glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto
day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.
There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
That's the general revelation that shows man something of the
glory and character and power of God through nature. The sun,
the stars, nature, the trees, all of that. What is that revelation? That's
a general revelation of nature that shows the power of a creator. You see, what happens though,
what does man by nature do with that general revelation? He turns
it into idolatry. You see, if left to ourselves,
that's what we'll do. The book of Romans chapter 1
speaks of that. You can start at verse 18 of
Romans 1 and start reading about man by nature left to himself,
how he holds the truth in unrighteousness, and how he takes the things that
glorify God in nature and rather than seek the Creator and worship
Him, They worship the creation. The sun god, or the sun, or the
trees. There are people today called
pantheists. They believe that the earth is God. You know, the
trees are God. And man, really, what he's after
ultimately is to worship himself. But you see, general revelation
is not enough to bring a sinner to Christ. So there's a general
revelation. There's a Bible revelation. This Bible here, here's another
for, this Bible here is the word of God revealed. This is not
the word of man. He used men to write the Bible,
but this Bible here is the book of salvation. I dealt with that
a few messages ago, why I believe the Bible. It's the verbally
inspired inerrant word of God. It's the book of salvation because
it's the book of Christ. How do I know how God saves sinners? Because of what this Bible says. And so this Bible is the completed
word of God. You can't add anything to this.
Men try to do that. But you see, this is the revelation
of God and it's complete and in the last book of the Bible,
Revelation, the last chapter, it says anyone who attempts to
add to or take away from this word, his name is not in the
Lamb's book of life. That's why when anybody comes
to you and says, well, God revealed something to me. Well, he's not
gonna reveal anything new. It may be new to you, but it's
not new in the annals of God's time. Anything God reveals to
you or to me must line up with what God's already revealed.
That's why Joseph Smith was a false preacher, a false prophet, because
he went beyond the scripture, and there's so many of those
today. Then there's the gospel revelation. Now, that's the gospel
preached. Paul said in Romans 1, 16 and
17, he said, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and to the Greek also. In verse 17, he says, for
therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. You see,
the gospel revelation is the preaching of the gospel. But
not everybody has believed the gospel. Who hears it? Isaiah
said that. In Isaiah 53, he said, Who hath
believed our report, our doctrine? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? The arm of the Lord is the power
of the Lord, and that's Christ. 1 Corinthians 1 talks about how
the preaching of the cross is foolishness. to them who are
perishing. But unto them who are saved,
it's the power of God. The gospel revelation is the
power, is the preaching of the gospel. But then there's a special
revelation. There's a irresistible revelation
of the Holy Spirit. And that's what I'm talking about
in this message here on revelation by the Holy Spirit. Now I want
you to look at 1 Corinthians chapter two, and we'll begin
at verse seven. And I'm going to read through
these verses. He's talking about the preaching of the cross. Now
the preaching of the cross is the preaching of the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel message, which speaks
of who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Who is Jesus Christ? He is God in human flesh. He is God-man. He's the Word
made flesh dwelling among us. He is the Messiah. He is the
one way of salvation for sinners. And what did He do when He died
on the cross? Well, He died as the substitute
and surety of God's elect. That's who He died for, His sheep,
His church. He took their place. Their sins
were imputed, charged, accounted to Him. That's what the Bible
says in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He was made sin. Christ was made
sin. How? God charged Him with the
debt of sin. And what pays that debt? Only
death. The wages of sin is death. Remember
He told Adam in the garden, in the day that you eat thereof,
you'll die. You shall surely die. Or die and thou shalt die. So Jesus Christ went to the cross
as a guilty person, a cursed person, based on sin imputed
to him, charged to him, accounted to him, based on a debt that
he took upon himself as the surety of his people, and he suffered,
he bled, and he died to pay that debt. And in paying that debt,
he washed away their sins. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. And in paying that debt, he established
righteousness, perfect satisfaction to God's justice that was imputed
to his people. So if I'm a believer, if I'm
a child of God, If I'm one to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed
Christ to, the gospel and the word of God, I stand before God
righteous, justified, not guilty, without sin in a legal way. I'm
a sinner, but my sins are not charged to me. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Now that's what he's talking
about. And here's what he says in verse
seven of 1 Corinthians 2. He says, but we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world unto our glory. Now that hidden wisdom has to
do with this gospel message. Man doesn't know anything about
that by nature. He's ignorant. You see, man's
problem by nature is twofold. It's ignorance, willful unbelief
We don't know the way of salvation and when we hear it, we don't
want the way of salvation God's way we wanted our way We're like
Cain by nature We want to bring the works of our hand we want
to talk about I well I was saved because I did this or I did that
or I made this decision or I made that decision and People today
are ensconced in free willism and decisional regeneration,
and that's not what the Bible teaches. Do we have a will? Yes, but it's not a will toward
God. How can that will be changed
toward God? You must be born again by the
Spirit. God makes his people willing
in the day of his power. That's what this book says. Do
we make a decision when we come to Christ? Yes, we do. But the
power of salvation is not the power of our decision. The power
of regeneration is not the power of our decision. The power of
salvation is the power of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.
So this is hidden, and it was set up before the world began.
He says in verse eight of 1 Corinthians 2, with none of the princes of
this world knew, none of the noblemen, the highfalutin philosophers,
teachers, and princes of this world knew, for had they known
it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. You see, those
who were actually involved in the historical crucifixion are
only representative of the whole human race fallen in Adam. I heard of a preacher years ago
who made this statement when he was talking about the crucifixion
of Christ. He was describing it in such
graphic detail and crying. He made this statement. He said,
if I had been there, I would have stopped it. I thought, do
you know anything about the God of glory who saves sinners by
the death of Christ? To stop Christ from going to
the cross is to stop salvation. How can anybody be so bold and
arrogant as to make a statement like that? The man's an unbeliever.
Stopped it? My friend, we're the ones who
were instrumental in doing it. But it was all because of God's
determinate counsel and foreknowledge. That's what Peter said at Pentecost
in Acts chapter 2. Christ himself said, this is
the reason I came to earth, to die. My friend, if Jesus Christ
had not gone to the cross, there'd be no salvation for any of us. There'd be no righteousness established.
But he says, had they known better, which we don't, they would not
have done it. Had they known better, they would
not have needed it. Because if we know better, that's
salvation. But he says in verse nine, but
as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man. Now think about that, the things
which God has prepared for them that love Him. Man by nature
doesn't know this. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. Verse 10, you see that? Now who's
the us there? That's not all without exception.
He's talking about those who have been called unto glory.
He says in verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us by
His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things
of God. these things of salvation by
the grace of God in Christ, only the Spirit of God can reveal
them to a sinner through the Word of God. He says in 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. In other words, man only knows
the things of man. He doesn't know by nature the
things of God. We don't have this, people say
today, this spark of goodness that just needs to be fanned
by some preacher who's persuasive or charismatic. No, we're dead
spiritually. And that's why we must be born
again, Christ said. We can't even see these things
in their glory and majesty and truth. Until we're born again. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That's what Paul's saying right
here. What man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man
which is in him. That which is born of the, and
that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So he says in verse
12, 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. Now that's the problem with man.
To know the things that are freely given is to believe salvation
by the grace of God, freely given, undeserved and unearned, but
through Jesus Christ. Man does not want these things
freely given. He wants to do something to earn
or deserve these things. That's man by nature. And until
the Spirit of God comes in and reveals these things to us in
the new birth, gives us a new heart, That's what the scripture
says he does, back in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 37. A new heart,
who gives us a new spirit, who gives us ears to hear and eyes
to see. Remember what Christ told the
disciples in Matthew 13, beginning at verse 10, when they asked
him, why are you speaking in parables? And he said, well,
they seeing, see not. Hearing, they hear not. They
don't want these things I'm saying. But then he looked at his disciples,
and here's what he said. He said, but you're better than
them. You're exercising your free will. I've fanned the Spartan. No, that's not what he said.
He said, but blessed are your eyes, for they see. Blessed are
your ears, for they hear. You've been born again. You've
been given spiritual eyes and spiritual ears. That's a miracle. And you receive the things that
are freely given. He says in verse 13, which things
also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, revelation by the Spirit, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. You see, man's problem, he always
tries to judge the spiritual by the earthly or the fleshly
or the physical. But when God the Holy Spirit
reveals the Word of God, then we compare spiritual things with
spiritual things. Now look at verse 14. He says,
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
The natural man is how we're born naturally. by nature, dead
in trespasses and sin. Their foolishness unto him, neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned, spiritually
understood, spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual, that
is a born again person, one who has spiritual life, he judgeth
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. He can understand
these things. He can understand himself because
the Spirit of God has taught him through Christ. But the world
can't understand him. For who hath known the mind of
the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ. That's what the Spirit of God
does when he gives us the mind of Christ. Now, go back to the
rule. This is the rule of Revelation. When I read this book, and seek
to understand its meaning, I am totally dependent upon the Holy
Spirit to teach me and reveal these things to me. And He does
it first by giving spiritual life. You must be born again.
And the evidences of spiritual life are faith in Christ, repentance,
that's where He gives us ears to hear, eyes to see. He shows
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And some people will hear what
I'm telling you, and they'll start reasoning physically, naturally,
and they'll say, well, then there's nothing I can do. If I'm totally
dependent upon the Holy Spirit, then there's nothing I can do
about it. I'll just sit back and wait for the Spirit to do
what He's gonna do. If He does, He doesn't. If He
does, He does. Absolutely not. And let me show
you why. You know, there's a verse in
the Bible that I always, I rely pretty heavily on. I don't just
pick out one verse here and there. But this verse says a lot. It's
in Deuteronomy chapter 29 and verse 29. And that's where the
Lord made the statement in speaking through Moses to the children
of Israel. And he says this, he says the secret things belong
to God. Now what are the secret things?
Those are things God has not revealed to us. But he said the
revealed things belong to us and to our children that we may
keep the words of this law. Now he's talking about the old
covenant, but it applies to the whole Bible. What God has not
revealed, I'm not responsible or accountable for. But God has
revealed some things. And that's the world I live in.
You say, well, I don't know if God's gonna reveal this to me
or not. I don't either. Only God knows that. But I know
this, I'm not God, and you're not God. God, first of all, has
commanded us to seek him. You're commanded to seek the
Lord. I'm commanded to seek the Lord. That's number one. Secondly,
God has given us minds, a conscience, whereby we're held accountable.
You've got a conscience. Now by nature, the conscience
is defiled. That conscience, which is part
of the mind, has to be washed in the blood of Christ. That's
what relieves the guilty conscience. That's what makes the conscience
pure, to see that my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus'
blood and righteousness. I have no hope of salvation but
Christ. When I stand before God, what am I gonna plead? If I plead
anything but Christ's righteousness imputed alone, then my friend,
I'm done for. That's eternal death and damnation. Thirdly, you know that the Bible
teaches that within man there is an emptiness. And I could
go to various scriptures to show you that. You know it's so. And man by nature is going to
try to fill that emptiness with a lot of things. Well, what are
you going to fail with? Well, look to God, look to Christ,
and pray that God will reveal it to your heart. I hope you'll
join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia, 31707. contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.