Now, we ended our lesson last
week in verse 8, where Paul told us how none of the religious
leaders of the world at the time of our Lord Jesus, that none
of them knew him. None of them who crucified him
knew God. None of them knew the mystery
of the gospel. None of them understood the true
meaning of the scriptures. None of them understood that
salvation would be found in a substitute, in the Messiah, that God would
send. And verse 9 tells us why none of them do that, because
they're in the flesh. He says in verse 9, but 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. Now this is a quotation from
Isaiah 64, verse 4. And this is why none of the wise
men, none of the prudent men of the world, why they didn't
know Christ, why they didn't love him, why they didn't love
his gospel. Because the natural eye cannot see spiritual truths. The natural ear can't hear the
gospel and understand it and believe it and love it. No spiritual
truth can be understood with carnal senses. It's just a different
plane. These things must be revealed
to us. And we cannot see spiritual truths. We cannot see and understand
spiritual truths until God gives us eyes to see. We can't hear
unless God gives us an ear that will hear. We can't believe with
the heart of stone that we're born with. We can only believe
when God gives us a new heart. A heart that loves God, believes
God, and believes His Word. Impulses the human natural senses. Cannot imagine the things which
God has prepared for them that love Him. Now that's not talking
about future glory in heaven. Although we can rest assured
it hadn't entered into our mind how glorious that will be. But
that's not what this is talking about. This is talking about
everything that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ right now. All those spiritual blessings
that God has for a sinner that are hidden in His Son. Those
things are more than the human mind can ever imagine. We just
couldn't dream those things up. They're just too glorious. To understand forgiveness of
sins found in the blood of the Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be made righteous. To be made holy in Christ. To
have acceptance with the Father. To have peace with God. To be
in Christ and have an end of the law. To have freedom from
the ruling power of sin. To, in Christ, be made a son
of God and a daughter of God. All those things are things that
God has prepared for us and given us in Christ right now. These
are blessings we don't wait to enjoy. We have them right now.
And we have them because of the sacrifice of Christ. Because
of His blood and His righteousness. And none of those blessings can
ever be understood. They can't be appreciated. They
can't be loved with the human mind and the human heart and
the human nature. How God can save a sinner and
all these blessings that we have in Christ are a mystery to natural
man unless God reveals them to us or until God reveals them
to us. Because look at verse 10. But God, but God, hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things,
yea, the deep things of God." Now, I love all the but-Gods
in Scripture. They're all so beautiful to me.
Look over at Psalm 49. We'll look at three or four of
them. But-God. Psalm 49, verse 14. Like sheep, they are laid in
the grave. Death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have
dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty shall consume
in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from
the power of the grave, for he shall receive me." But God. Look
over in Acts chapter 7. I shudder to think where we'd
be if it wasn't for but God. Acts chapter 7 verse 9, and the
patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt as a slave,
but God was with him and took that slave to the throne of Egypt,
all because of but God. Look over a few pages in Acts
13. Acts 13 verse 28. And though they found no cause
of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be
slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him,
they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulcher.
But God raised him from the grave. He raised him from the dead for
our justification. One more scripture, Romans chapter
5. Romans 5 verse 6, For when we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet for a good man some
would even dare to die. But God commended His love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Thank God for this but God. And we're born into this world not knowing the first thing about
God. Not knowing, not loving, not
understanding the first thing about Scripture. Having no interest
in the Gospel, no love for Christ, and we'd still be that way this
morning. Uninterested, without any knowledge of God, unless
God. unless for this, but God revealed
them to us, revealed them to His people by His Spirit. The
Spirit comes to all those for whom Christ died, for those that
He rose from the dead for. The Spirit comes to them and
points us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look over in John 16. He's revealed the things of Christ
to us by His Spirit. That's what the Holy Spirit does.
He gives us life and points us to Christ. In John 16, verse
13, how be it when he, the Spirit
of truth has come, that's the Holy Spirit, he will guide you
into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself,
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will
show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall
receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that
the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of
mine, He'll take of all things, and show it unto you. And He'll
show it unto you in Christ. Now, Paul's called these truths,
the truth of the Scripture, the truth of the Gospel, it's a mystery,
he said. Well, a mystery is whodunit. That's what we call a mystery.
Whodunit. And that's what the Gospel is. It's a mystery of
whodunit. And God the Holy Spirit comes
and teaches us that Christ, The Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is the One who done it. He did it all. That's what the
Spirit teaches us. Christ has done it all. And the
Spirit is God. And He has a complete knowledge
of the Gospel. He has a perfect understanding
of everything, of who God is, of His purpose, of His will.
He has the perfect understanding of the Scriptures and of Christ.
And He reveals those things to us, to His people. The Spirit
in old times, you read in Scripture, the Spirit in old times moved
the Old Testament prophets to write the Scriptures in the Old
Testament. Those Old Testament types and
prophecies and all those Scriptures are God breathed. Just as God
breathed in the New Testament, this is God's Word. He moved
those prophets to write those Scriptures. Then He moved the
apostles. In the fullness of time, the
apostles came. He moved the apostles to write the New Testament, the
epistles and the gospels that we have. And those things are
a mystery to natural man. We'd open that up and they're
just words on a page to us. But when the Spirit comes, He's
able to reveal those things to us because He wrote it in the
first place. He's the author of it, not James
and John and Isaiah. The Spirit's the author of it.
And because He's the author of it, He can reveal those things
to us. And look at verse 11, who else
could reveal these truths to us but the Spirit? 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 who can understand the thoughts
of a man better than the Spirit of man that's in him? Or who
can understand the thoughts and intents and purposes of God better
than the Spirit of God that's in him? You know, we can't know
the mind of a person, the spirit, the thoughts of a person until
he reveals those things to us. Well, we can't know God until
God, the Holy Spirit, reveals Himself to us. That's what the
Spirit does. He reveals Himself. He reveals God to us. He reveals
Christ to us through the Word of God. Now, 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 believers, this is who he's talking about. This is the we.
He's talking about our believers. We haven't received the spirit
of the world. A carnal spirit, a fleshly spirit,
a selfish, sinful spirit. The spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. We didn't receive that spirit
from God. We were born with that spirit. That's the spirit of
Adam. That's the spirit that we were born with. And believers,
what he's talking about here, have received another spirit. If you'll read that verse and
leave out this phrase between those two commas, not the spirit
of the world. Now, we have received the spirit,
which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God. The spirit that we have received
is the spirit of God. And Paul says we have received
him. Now that's a whole lot more than
the Spirit coming and telling you some spiritual truths and
leaving. That's not receiving Him. Receiving Him means the
Holy Spirit comes and dwells in His people. Dwells in us.
Look over at John 14. I'll show you that. The Spirit
comes. When we receive Him, it means
He will dwell in you. That Teacher is always with His
people. John 14, verse 16. And I will pray the Father, and
he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever,
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But you know him, for he
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." That's how you know
him. He's in you. He's revealed himself
to you. You have received him. And God
has given us his Spirit so that we will know. all the spiritual
blessings that God has prepared for us and given us freely in
His Son. And we were given these blessings
before the world began. This isn't just something yesterday
God decided to give you. Back in eternity, in the council
halls of eternity, God gave us these blessings at that time
in His Son. Look over at 2 Timothy 1. I'll show you that in Scripture.
Timothy chapter 1, verse 9. Who has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus,
when? Before the world began, but is
now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. who
hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel." These blessings, all of them,
were given us in our surety before the world began. But we weren't
there. We didn't know the first thing
about that. Those things weren't manifest to us until the Spirit
came and revealed Christ to our hearts. That's when they were
revealed to us, even though they were given to us before the world
began. And there's a word. In this verse
that makes this such a blessing, that word is freely. All these
blessings, all these things that the human mind cannot comprehend
were given to us of God freely. Freely, without cost. This is something you don't have
to work for. Matter of fact, you can't work
for it. You can't earn it. You can't save up enough money
to pay for it. God gives it to you freely and you don't have
to work to keep it. He gave it to you freely and
you'll keep it freely. You can't do something to deserve
it. It's undeserved. But He gave it to you freely
anyway out of His grace and His goodness and His kindness to
us in Christ Jesus. He gave it freely. Now just enjoy
it. free gift of his grace he gave
to us. Just enjoy it. Now I'll give
you an example of this. For the past eight years, in
March, my family has gone to Louisville for the State Governor's
Cup competition. That's a competition for academic
teams in the state of Kentucky. And for eight years in a row,
my enchanted girls have qualified to go up there and compete. We
go with them, of course. We go up and stay with the team.
suite at the Galt House. And it's kind of expensive. We
grumble, complain about it. But we go to be with the girls,
and it's great, right? It's a wonderful facility. It's
fantastic. You've got this nice suite. And
the girls can study and do their thing. We can close the door
and watch TV and have fun. And it's nice. But last year
we went, we had so many problems. You wouldn't believe the problems
we had with our room. Two o'clock in the morning one
night, we had to switch rooms, it got so bad. We had to switch
rooms and it was just a good grief. And then whoever had been
there the day before set a wake up call for five o'clock in the
morning so we could move all of our stuff in there and just
barely get to sleep and the stupid phone rings. Well, the manager
gave us a free night to apologize for it, you know, and gave us
a free night so you could come back and stay any time you want,
free. So that summer, We went back up and we ate at a nice
restaurant. We were in our suite for free.
Now, I'm a tightwad. It's just a fact of the matter.
And I'm telling you, I enjoyed that room so much because it
was free. I mean, just the fact that it was free. I mean, I just
loved it. It was so much better than having
to pay for it. That's what these blessings are.
They're free. You cannot work to earn them.
God gave them to us freely out of the abundance of His grace. And He gave them to us for His
glory and our enjoyment. Now enjoy them. They're free.
They're free. In verse 13, Paul says, these
things that God has given to us freely, these are the things
which also we speak. Not in the words which man's
wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches. comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. Now, these things we speak, Paul,
means these are the things that we preach. These are the truths
of Christ that we preach. The things which the Spirit reveals
to us are the things that we preach. And these things that
he's talking about here is everything that God has given to us freely
in His Son. And we preach these things, the
gospel, in spiritual language. You don't learn to preach in
seminaries, being taught by philosophers and, you know, these theologians
and, you know, they teach you to learn religious language and
these big theological words and vocabulary that nobody can understand. You've got to go to school for
years to learn and understand that vocabulary. We preach the gospel in spiritual
language, language which the Holy Ghost teaches. You don't
have to go to school to learn it. The Spirit gives it to you. It's
heart language. That's what Donny Bell called
it. It's heart language. It's language of the Spirit.
Language that we're taught by Him. And because of that, we
understand God's preacher. God's people understand God's
preacher. The Holy Spirit, like I said
a minute ago, He moved the prophets to write the Old Testament Scriptures.
He moved the apostles to write the New Testament Scriptures.
And that same Spirit gives the preacher today utterance, and
He gives us an understanding. So we understand what in this
world it is that He's saying. And we'll never understand it.
We'll never believe it. We'll never love it until the
Spirit gives us life and gives us an understanding. And when
the Spirit gives life and gives understanding, I understand what
He's saying. And it's not just I understand
it. I love it. That's it. That's
the truth. That's Him. That's Christ. That's
what we understand when the Spirit gives us life. And we understand
the Scripture not just because the preacher does such a good
job of explaining it and expounding on it. We understand the Scripture
because we compare spiritual things with spiritual. We understand
what the Word says because we read the rest of the Word. We
compare one verse with another and understand that's what that
means. Look over in 2 Peter 1. Frequently, as we go through
these studies, we'll read a verse, then we'll go over and read another
verse. It's the same thing. And what we're doing when we
do that, we're comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 2 Peter 1, verse 20. Knowing this first. The no prophecy
of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the scripture
came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. No scripture is of any
private interpretation. You can't go through here and
pick out one verse and just pick it out and make it stand by itself
and say this is what that means. You have to compare that verse
with all these other verses. Then you understand what they
mean. No verse of Scripture contradicts another verse of Scripture, because
the same Spirit breathes in both. And the Spirit's not going to
contradict Himself. So that's how we find out what
this verse means, is by comparing it with other verses. And if
it contradicts each other, we got the wrong meaning. Because
the same Spirit, who never contradicts Himself, gave all the Word. So
that's how we compare spiritual things with spiritual. Now, verse
14, back in our text here, 1 Corinthians 2. But 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." I tell you, no matter how much scripture we read, no
matter how much scripture we compare first with other verses,
no matter how much time we spend expounding on these scriptures,
the natural man will not receive them. Just will not do it. He won't receive them. He won't
love the gospel. He won't love Christ. I don't
care how much time we spend reading it to him. He won't receive the
things of God because he doesn't have anything to receive the
man. You cannot receive the things
of God without faith. An unregenerate man can no more
receive the things of God than a dead man, a physically dead
man could eat or taste or hear. Neither one of them has the capacity
to do that. The unregenerate man doesn't
have the capacity to receive the things of God because he's
spiritually dead. The man who's dead physically
can't eat, can't taste, can't smell because he's physically
dead. He doesn't contain the capacity
in that body any longer because he's dead. So the gospel, because
the natural man is spiritually dead, the gospel's foolishness
This is just utter foolishness to the natural man. The truth
of God is boring to him. The Scriptures are boring to
him. It doesn't taste good. And he
doesn't understand how anybody can be interested in that. He
doesn't understand your interest in getting up early on a Sunday
morning and coming in to the worship service. He doesn't understand
that. He doesn't understand these things
because they're spiritually discerned and all he is is flesh. He doesn't
have anything to receive them in. That's why the light shined
in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Because
it's just flesh. Nicodemus asked our Lord, how
can these things be? Because he was just in the flesh.
And you can't understand how these things can be until the
Spirit gives life. Because they're spiritually discerned.
Now verse 15. That's what the Master meant.
He can't understand these things. But, verse 15, he that is spiritual
judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. He that
is spiritual is talking about believers. Someone who has been
born again. Born up from above by the Spirit. And believers, they judge all
things and they discern all things. That means they discern, they
understand all things. Now you know that certainly doesn't
mean we understand everything. We can't understand everything
there is to know physically or spiritually. We're always learning. But the believer has an understanding.
We can, first of all, understand that unregenerate man. Because
I was him once. That's the way I used to be understanding.
But the unregenerate man, he can't understand a believer.
He doesn't understand your love of Christ. He doesn't understand
your love for the Scriptures. But you understand him. You understand
both the saved and the lost because I once was lost. Now I'm found. And because I was once lost,
I understand how people grope around in the dark. I understand
how they go the wrong way. It's because they're blind. I
understand that. They can't see. I understand
why men won't come to Christ. It's because they're dead. I
understand. I sat for years and never did it because I was dead.
That's why we pray for them. That's why we preach to them,
hoping the Spirit will give life. And the believer is spiritually
minded. But we can still understand people
in the flesh because there's way too much flesh left in this
town. So I understand people that are
in the flesh. But at the same time, we understand
spiritual truths. We understand the gospel. And
there are different levels of discernment, no question about
it. There are different levels of understanding that are given
to us by the Holy Spirit. But every believer, even though
there are different levels of understanding and discernment,
every believer understands who God is. We understand who we
are, who men are. We understand how God saves sinners. We understand where salvation
is found. We understand God's sovereignty.
that He will save whom He will, when He will. It's of His will,
of His choice. We understand substitution and
satisfaction. We understand the mystery of
the new birth. And every believer is able to discern and understand
everything that's necessary for salvation. And we understand
that it's found, all of it, in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we
look to Him and Him alone. Now, verse 16. For who hath known
the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have
the mind of Christ." Now, who knows the mind of the Lord? Who
knows all the hidden counsels of God? You know, I see things
that go on. And I know God's doing that.
I know that's His will. But why He's doing it, I have
absolutely no idea. Somebody knows that. Who knows
that? Who knows his hidden counsels and purpose? Who knows the purpose
of God in saving sinners through the substitutionary work of His
Son? Who understands all the hidden mysteries of the Scripture?
The person who knows all those things is qualified to teach
the spiritual man that we read about in verse 15. When Paul
says that he may instruct him, the him he's talking about here
is the spiritual man he talks about in verse 15. And the answer
to who understands all those hidden purposes and counsels
of God is God the Holy Spirit. And He teaches God's elect. And we have an understanding
of the Scripture because we've been given the mind of Christ.
Now certainly the apostles had a different level of understanding
than we do. They understood a whole lot more
than we do. That's why I said a minute ago there's different
levels of understanding and learning. And that's why the Lord sends
us pastors and elders. Look over Ephesians chapter 4
and we'll quit. Why is it that the Lord sends
us a pastor? Ephesians 4 verse 11. And he gave some apostles, some
prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.
Why did he give them? for the perfecting of the saints.
See, we have knowledge, we have spiritual knowledge, but it's
different levels. So he sent us these pastors and teachers
for the perfecting, for the maturing, so we can learn more, grow in
grace and knowledge of Christ, for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the feeding
of the body of Christ. Till we all come in the unity
of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Here's why I send his preachers, that we henceforth be no more
children. We have life, but we're just
a child, a babe in Christ. We need to grow. That we henceforth
be no more children, but that we grow up. Do we want to be
like a child tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind
of doctrine? by the slight of men and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. He sent us
a pastor so you won't be deceived by the deceiver. But speaking
the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which
is the head, even Christ." That's why he sent his pastors and teachers
to us, so that we'll continue to learn, so that we'll learn
more of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, we'll quit.