There is an emphasis in this
chapter on knowledge, knowing or not
knowing. It's good when you're looking
at a verse of scripture to look at the entire chapter, the prominent
thoughts, the recurring statements and words, what the overall subject
is and the context is. And there's emphasis here on
knowing and not knowing. In verse 2, Paul said to this
church at Corinth, I'm determined not to know anything among you
save or except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. In verse 8, He
talks about the princes of this world not knowing Christ. None of the princes of this world
knew for had they known it, they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory. In verse 11, he talks about human
wisdom, human knowledge, and divine knowledge. 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 verse 12, he talks about what
divine knowledge does for the children of God. Now, we have
received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is
of God, that we might know. See, there's that word again,
know. the things that are freely given us of God. And in verse 14, we see the helplessness
and hopelessness of the natural man without God. He said, but
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them. The emphasis on that know. You
can't know them because they are spiritually discerned. But the main emphasis in this
chapter is upon the revealing and the teaching of the Holy
Spirit in the lives and the hearts of God's elect. We often hear
verse 9 or part of it quoted or misquoted in reference to heaven or in
reference to future blessing or reward. And they'll say, well,
you know, the Bible says that I have not seen or ear heard
all the things that God's prepared for his people. Well, this is
not a reference to heaven. This is not a reference to future
blessing, especially not material. but refers to present tense spiritual
blessing look at it carefully he said these things have not
entered into the heart of man that is the natural man now verse 10 but God hath revealed
them unto us by his spirit The very things
that people are talking about when they say, Oh, I had not
seen it, not heard what's way on out there in the future. No,
that's not what he's saying. But God hath revealed them unto
us. Talking about spiritual blessings,
present tense. And to us here is God's children. We say this quite often, and
I guess I'll keep saying it. Throughout the New Testament
epistles, don't forget this, they're all addressed to God's
children. And when you read the word us,
it never refers to Adam's race. It refers to us who believe. And verse 12 tells us that our
believing is due to the fact that we have received a spirit
which the world does not possess, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know, and this statement is the subject of our
message this morning, that we might know the things that are
freely given to us of God. That we might know. These things
are not to be known by human intellect. In verse 13 he said,
it's not that which man's wisdom teacheth, but that which the
Holy Ghost teacheth, that we might know. Now there are some
things the Lord's people know, and only the Lord's people know. Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter
1. 2 Timothy chapter 1. Now, the first one, the thing
that we know is not a theme, but it's a person. We know Christ. In spite of all the doubts and
fears, in spite of all the ups and downs, disappointments and
heartaches, We know Him. Look at this verse, 2 Timothy
chapter 1 and verse 12. Paul says, For
the witchcalls also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not
ashamed, for I know, there's our word, for I know whom I have
believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which
I have committed unto Him against that day. We know Him, not because
we've seen Him visibly with these physical eyes. That's not how
you know anything. I've seen a great many things
and a great many people with these eyes that I do not know
and know nothing about. When He walked this earth, multitudes
saw Him, but they didn't know Him. We don't know Christ because
we've heard Him audibly with these physical ears. Multitudes
heard Him when He walked the earth and could not believe on
Him, did not know Him. But we know Him, according to
this scripture and other scriptures, by the revelation of the Spirit
of God. Remember Christ told Peter, He
said, you don't know me by your own intelligence. You don't know me because your
friends have convinced you of me. It was pretty hard to convince
Peter of anything. But Christ said to him, Flesh
and blood have not revealed this unto you, but my Father which
is in heaven. This, Peter, in you is a work
of my Father. And in us this morning, it's
a work of the Spirit that we believe. The Lord was saying to him, Peter,
you believe because you can't help but believe. That's why
I believe this morning. I know Him whom I have believed. And the assurance is in the whom.
Whom? Jesus Christ. You'll never have
any assurance looking at yourself. Our assurance is in this whom.
He who cannot fail. He who cannot lie. of whom we don't have to wonder
about anything he says. All his words are true. And he
said, if you've truly come to me, it's not just because you
decided to. If you've really come to me,
it's because my Father gave you to me before He made the world. John 6.37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. He never said might come, or
ought to come, or I wish He had come. No, He said all that the
Father hath given me shall come to me. They're coming. And this morning, if you have
truly come to Christ, truly believe on Him, He said it's because
you're mine. My Father gave you to me, not
when you came, but in eternity past. You're not mine because
you came to me. You came to me because you're
mine. See, the religious world today
is telling people, why don't you come to Jesus and decide
to be a child of God? No, unless you're a child of
God, you're not coming. That's what Jesus said. And that's
what the book of Acts 13.48 said, all that were ordained to eternal
life believed. That's who believes and that's
who comes. John 6.37, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. That's who's coming. And then
Christ says I'm in agreement with my Father on this. Because
when those whom He has given me come to me, I will in no wise
cast them out. I will never, under any circumstances,
reject a single one who truly comes to me. Why? Because they
come to me as a love gift of my Father to me. So this morning,
if you have truly come to Christ, if you've come in conviction
of your sins, in repentance of your sin. You can know that Christ
has accepted you because He said He would. He told us why you
came to Him. And this morning, it's not what
you say, it's what He said. It's not what you think, it's
what He said. It's not what you feel, it's
what He said. It's not whether you perform
as well as somebody else, it's what He said. He is the cause. He is the authority. He is the assurance. And I promise
you going through some one, two, three man-made process is not
it. But it's what God the Holy Spirit
has put in your heart that you cannot let go of. That's the
only thing they live when hells are raging. You can count on
it. You can count on it. A love for Christ, not of your
own making. We love Him because He first
loved us. And the songwriter said, O love
that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul on thee. And that's the only reason the
Nehemiah's are still here. That's the only reason any of
us got here in the first place. Oh, love that will not let me
go. And that's how we know Him. The
love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which
is given unto us. We know Him also by the conflict
that's in our heart all the time. A conflict over sin. Now these
fellas that claim they've got this Christianity that don't
ever have any trouble, that the Lord solved all their problems,
and it's a bed of roses, and it's just skipping the mountaintops
along life's way, don't give me any of that. Uh-uh. There
is a conflict over sin. There is an old nature in us
that loves sin. and would create no conflict
over it. Anything goes. But when Christ
lives in your heart, there is a new nature, a new
creation that hates sin. And therein is the conflict between
the two natures. Thank God for the conflict. Thank God for conviction. Because you see, what I'm saying
is, if He didn't love me, I couldn't love Him. But I do. The new creation does. The old
flesh don't. The old flesh don't love anybody
but me. And your old flesh don't love anybody but you. But there's
a new creation in here that loves God. That's why we're here. If
He didn't hate sin, you couldn't hate sin. But that new creation
in you does. If He didn't know me, I couldn't
know Him. But this new creature does know
Him. He walks with me. He talks with
me. weary way and I'm to trust in
him whom I believe. Paul said unto the place, God
hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of
love and of a sound mind. That word sound means a healthy
mind to trust, to believe, to know Christ our Lord. Preacher Huntley used to say,
quit looking for boogers in the dark, you know, trust in him
whom we believed. The salvation that I have in
Christ this morning is more certain than anything in this world.
I have no promise of tomorrow. I have no idea of what's going
to happen the rest of this day. But I know him and I know he'll
be with me. Paul said to Timothy. Backing up in this same chapter,
verse nine, he had saved us and called us within holy calling,
not according to our works. Don't trust in what you've done. Don't think you've done enough
to be a Christian. You see a fellow say, bless God,
I believe we ought to act like Christians. Well, that's trouble
now, too many people acting like Christians. If you love Christ,
you'll just be one. Just be a follower. He has saved us, called us within
holy calling. Not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. Wow. And in the verse preceding that,
verse 8, Paul told Timothy, he said, don't you be ashamed
of that. Don't be ashamed of me. And he goes on to say, this
is why I'm in prison, for which cause I suffer these things.
Don't be afraid to speak the truth about who our God is and
what he's done for us in Christ. Be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel. It's an unpopular message. the
gospel of Christ is. Oh, religion's a big thing, but
the basic doctrine gospel of Jesus Christ is something else
altogether. Now, today's religious world
all around us, and I mean not around the world either, I'm
talking about right around us, the little circle right around
us here, has created an inoffensive gospel. May I say, an inoffensive gospel
is no gospel. But they'll say, oh, you don't
want to offend people. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
very offensive to sinful flesh. And apart from the operation
of the Spirit of God in a sinner's heart, they'll tell you all day
long I'm not that bad. You talk to
me like I'm an awful person. Well, you are an awful person. Apart from God, we all are. But the one gospel, the only
gospel of God is concerning His Son, in whom God discriminately
and deliberately passed over most of what we'd call the good
prospects in this world in order to get to such wretched creatures
like you and I. We ought to be tickled to death
about that. If you could buy salvation, most of us couldn't
afford it. What difference would it make? See, no one can buy
it. No one can earn it. It's the
gift of God. Let me read you what Paul said
back here in where we started in 1 Corinthians in the first
chapter. He said, for you see your calling, brethren. See,
I'm telling you again, all through this New Testament, look for
the us, we, brethren, brothers. It's to the people of God. For
you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh Not many mighty, not many noble are called. Now he didn't say there wasn't
any, but he said not many. But this next verse is our verse.
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of
the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea,
and things which are not." Now that's what you are and are
not, and are not until God came along. He hath chosen things
which are not to bring to naught things that are. Why did God
do it this way? He tells us in the next verse
that no flesh should glory in His presence. I want to tell
you this morning, many pretend to join in this family of the
Lord for some fleshly glory, and many have. But I tell you
right now, when the truth comes out, when the truth is preached,
when the bullets start flying, when the fiery darts of hell
start coming, when you start preaching that Christ is all,
flesh can't take it. They tuck tail and slip out saying,
this is not for me. I don't believe like that. Well,
like that, whatever that is, like that is not the issue. Like God said it is the issue.
What God has done in Christ for his people, that's the issue. We who know him this morning
are constrained by his love and the rest of the world is not.
Paul said 2 Corinthians 5, 14, for the love of Christ constraineth
us. Doesn't seem to make any difference
with the heathen God hateth the world, but the love of Christ
constraineth us. What does that mean? The love
of Christ constraineth us. Let me read you out of my old
book. 1853, 161 years ago, a man named
William Burkett, he said, The love of Christ constraineth
us. He said the expression denotes the absolute empire which the
love of Christ has over us, ruling all the inclinations of the heart
and the actions of the life. It signifies the sweet violence
and force of love by which the soul is overpowered and cannot
say no. It does wholly possess us, rule
and command us, keep us in its power, and makes us to do whatever
He would have us do. Learn hence that the love of
Christ is such a constraining power, an obliging force, an
efficacy upon the soul, that it inclines it to a willing performance. of its duties, though attended
with the greatest difficulties and dangers. Love is the spring
of action, tis a forcible and compelling, tis an invincible,
unconquerable affection, and it has such an influence upon
the consideration, it has such an influence from the consideration
of what Christ is in Himself and what He has done for us and
designed for us. That's the power of it. The love
of Christ constraineth us. We know Him. We know Him. Now, a second thought from our
verse in 1 Corinthians 2, that we might know these things freely
given us of God. A second thing Turn with me to Romans 8.28.
This one's quite familiar. Not only do we know Him, but
we know that He controls and overrules and decrees and works
all things. Familiar verse. Most of you could
quote it. But stay right here. We're going
to look at the next verse, too. And we know, Paul said, I don't
wonder about this, don't question this, but we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to His purpose. Now this is for God's children
again, to them that love God. And who is it that loves God?
Well, it's them who are the called according to His purpose. Nobody
else loves God. Them who are the called according
to His purpose. And He works all things together
for our good. God is not trying to make this
world a better place to live. That's what all the politicians
are doing. You know what kind of job they're doing. God's not
trying to make us a better place to live. He's working all things
together for the good of His people. Good things, bad things. Hard things, easy things. Pleasant things, painful things. All things. Failures, successes,
victories, defeats, all things. I heard a preacher illustrate
this all things working together. And I thought it was good. He
said his wife sent him to the paint store. She wanted some
paint, wanted to do some painting. And she had a little sample card
of the paint she wanted. She went through all these samples.
She had this specific blue that she wanted. And he said he got
there and he went to the paint department and shows the man
what he wants. And the man goes over on the
shelf and gets a can of paint and comes over there and sets
it on the table, pops the lid off and it's white. And he says,
oh no, that's white. That's not what I want. I want
this. The man says okay. So then he
takes it over to this turnaround thing and sets it there under
that. pulls a lever, and down comes
a squirt of something that looks black. And again the man says,
oh no, that's wrong, that's wrong, I want this, this is what I want. The fellow says, alright, just
be patient, just be patient. And so he turns that thing around,
puts a squirt of something else, and then something else, and
then something else, put four, five, six things in there. And
then, He taps the lead back on the can and puts it in this shaker
thing and goes, you know, shaking the daylights out of it. Two or three minutes, he takes
it out of that machine, pops the lead off again, dips his
finger in it and puts his finger right down on that sample and
it matches perfectly. That's all things working together. That's what God does in our lives. A squirt of this, a squirt of
that. None of it looks right. None
of it seems right. None of it seems to be heading
in the right direction. But He works all these things.
And then, during the process, this is all of life's journey.
He puts us in that shaker thing. That about does us in, we think.
But guess what? When he gets done, it's right. And every little pink card sample,
and there's hundreds of them, they all have a certain little
name, you know. Everyone's got a different name,
different color. Well, on God's sample card, you
know what the name is? My Beloved Son. That's the desired finished product. And guess what? It's going to
be that way. Look what the next verse said.
For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son, that He, that is, the Lord Jesus,
might be the firstborn among many brethren. We're not predestinated
to success in the eyes of the world. We're not predestinated
to everything in life being fun. Oh, no. They crucified God's Son, and
we're predestinated to be like Him. That does not happen by everybody
thinking you're a wonderful person. but rather by saying, away with
him! Crucify him! He's not fit to live. She's not
fit to live. God's working all things. And
according to this verse, 29, God wants, He plans to have a
whole house full of young'uns. And he don't want them all to
be different. I've heard parents say, of course,
I don't think it was really being serious. I heard them say, I
hope my next one is not like that. Well, guess what? God wants all of his just alike. But he don't want them all like
you. And he don't want them all like me. He wants them all like
his firstborn. That's what that verse says. Guess what? All his children
will be conformed to his image. A third thing we know, and I'll
let us go. This life is not all there is. Turn with me. Now this is the
last time I'll make a turn. 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians
5. We'll be just a minute. Something
else Paul said that we know, and I can say with him, thank
God we know. 2 Corinthians 5 chapter 1, for we know, don't have to wonder about this, we know if our earthly house
or this tabernacle were dissolved, We have a building of God and
house not made with hands, eternal in the heaven. Now let's look
at that verse just a minute. The earthly house, this body, this fleshly body
is called a tabernacle. The earthly house of this tabernacle. A tabernacle is a tent. It's
a temporary dwelling. It's not permanent. And Paul
says here, we know that if, or rather when, this tabernacle
be dissolved, this fleshly body gives out. We kick the bucket. Then he says, we have. That's present tense. It's already
ours. A sure thing. Boy, I'd love to
move into a new house. You're going to, if you're God's
child. We have a building of God. Watch the words carefully now.
We have a building of God. Not another tent. permanent of God's making. A house, not a tent, but a house
not made with hands. Not temporary, but eternal. Eternal in the heavens. Or in the heavenlies, it's plural
here. In other words, not to live in the realm of satanic
influence and God-hating demons and demon-possessed people like
we mix and mingle with every day now, but to live eternal
in the heavens, in the heavenly atmosphere and influence of all
the holy angels. and of all the redeemed who have
gone on before us, worshiping and praising our God forever.
Now we have received this, not the spirit of the world,
but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know, know the
things that are freely given us. of God. It's the Spirit of
God in us by which we know, bless His holy name, so we know these
things. I know whom I have believed and I know that all things work
together for my good because God's called me and I love Him. And I know that when it's over
here, we've got a better dwelling, a permanent, a God influence rather than a
devil influence. And it's not just for a time,
but it's eternal. Eternal. How blessed, how blessed
is the people of God we are today. Bless His holy name. Let's stand
together. Thank you.