The Spirit’s Ministry of Revealing Truth

Transcript

GR 2343
04/03/2022
The Spirit’s Ministry of Revealing Truth
1 Corinthians 2:6-16
Gil Rugh

We’re going to 1 Corinthians 2 in your bibles. The Apostle Paul began this letter by reminding the Corinthians that they have been greatly blessed by God in the salvation that they enjoy through faith in Jesus Christ. God had blessed them with all the necessary spiritual gifts for them to function as the spiritual body of Christ in the city of Corinth. It was something that His power had accomplished and done. It was a result of the work of Christ on the cross. Look down in verse 30 of chapter 1, “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus.” And it’s Christ Jesus, the one who died on the cross, who provided wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, all of that mentioned in verse 30. The problem was that after the first nine verses or so of this letter, Paul had to deal with divisions that occurred in the church at Corinth. So, God had done a work to bring them together in a relationship of oneness, but they were already losing their focus. And as a result, they were not clear in their focus on what Jesus Christ had accomplished for them in His death and resurrection on the cross. So that He would say in verse 17 of chapter 1, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech.” And this is part of what has happened. They had adjusted their thinking and taken their eyes off of the focus that belongs on Christ, His death, and began to focus on individuals that had impacted them. Without denying the truth, they were setting the truth aside. And that’s a danger. They are not going to openly deny the truth, but we begin to adjust our focus so that the truth is no longer the center of what we’re thinking, what we are doing. And that was happening at the church at Corinth.

Verse 18 reminded us, “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.” So, Paul said in chapter 2:1, “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech… I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Let’s get our focus back where it belongs. Different individuals had been used at the church at Corinth, that’s wonderful. But all individuals are instruments that God is using to focus attention on Christ. And when the attention begins to come on the individuals, then there is division and ultimately there would be conflict.

In verse 4 of chapter 2, Paul said, “my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom.” This is where we have to come down to the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. And the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. And when you understand the wisdom of God, you see the foolishness of the world. But you can not wed the two together. You can’t make the gospel more appealing to the unbelieving person. And this is where we begin to make adjustments and we want to appreciate man and we want to appreciate what they are doing. And pretty soon, we’re not focusing on the uniqueness of what God has done for us in Christ. So, Paul said in verse 3 of chapter 2, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom.” Now, that’s the wisdom of man, “my preaching was not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and the power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God.” So, that contrast here, they’re losing their focus and perspective. And pretty soon they are expressing, not a denial of the truth, but in their practice, they are setting the truth into a sub-kind of position. Well, the men that God has used in my life and then the wisdom of the world begins to elevate itself.

We have this today, I have an article that I’ve shared with some, one man writing in a book that deals with some of this kind of material, was saying, when he was in seminary, he had a church professor who was an elderly man at the time. But he would say that churches generally and religious institutions, by the third generation they are no longer focusing exclusively on the truth. And I thought about that, and there’s an element of truth in that. Because we want to come back to, well, yes, but… maybe if we did this, we would be more effective, maybe if we did that. I’m from the Philadelphia area, and we have the Amish people north of Philadelphia an hour or so. They have their focus, just like you were living in the 1800’s. They only take horse and buggy. They only dress like they dressed in the 1800’s. They only use homemade clothes and buttons. You’ve lost the focus of what really matters. What really makes a difference. Well, we say we’d never do that. But we subtly begin to think, well maybe this, maybe that. We want to make our service attractive for the unbeliever. Well, what do we have to do? Well, we play down the emphasis, and I mentioned to you, we were visiting in another city in another state, and asked why they didn’t present the gospel in the morning service that they attended. They said, well, you know, we want to be broader in the morning and in our service, so that the unbeliever feels more comfortable, then we’ll reach him through our other means. And Paul is saying, you never do that. Because the distinction is between the believer and the unbeliever, that’s the two divisions that Paul is talking about.

So, in chapter 2, when he opened up, “when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Well, we as believers understand that’s what transformed our lives and made us new. That faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. But I also understand that the unbelieving world is not going to come to church primarily to hear that, unless God is doing something in their hearts. But we decide to be the bridge and decide, well, we will make an adjustment, and then they will like it better. And then they’ll hear it. But that’s a fool’s decision. And that’s what Paul is dealing with in the church at Corinth. He wants their faith, verse 5 of chapter 2, “not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

Now, we’re talking about wisdom, but there are two kinds of wisdom. So, verse 6, where we pick up, but “yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature.” But it’s not the wisdom of the world, it’s the wisdom of God. And he’s not talking about a mature Christian and an immature Christian, he’s talking about a Christian and a non-Christian. The mature are the believers, those who have come to trust in Christ. There is no middle ground, so to speak. I understand we can talk to a person and lead up to the gospel, we pick up where they are and so on. But basically, the dividing line, is the cross of Christ. Have you believed that Jesus Christ died for you? Was buried, was raised the third day? Are you trusting in His death as the payment for your sin? That’s it. Well, the world is not, those who have the wisdom of God are. Now, the danger comes when the church, which is to be a testimony of God’s wisdom, and a place where God’s wisdom is proclaimed, begin to make adjustments. Not, you know, superficial, whether we sit in individual seats, or we sit on benches, or we sit on folding chairs, we sit on the floor, that’s irrelevant. And by in large, the clothes, they’ve changed in the last hundred and fifty years. So, the fact that the Amish may think that dressing like they did in the 1800’s makes them more spiritual, again, corrupts the truth. Those things are irrelevant. And that’s what Paul is talking about when he says in verse 6, “we do speak wisdom among those who are mature.” Those who have come to the salvation that is in Christ. “A wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery.” So, that’s the point. We’re speaking to those who are mature, recognizing the wisdom of God in providing a Savior on the cross. The other wisdom, of the world, it’s where the world focuses, what the world wants to pay attention to. We have churches that have people attending that are teaching the wisdom of the world. So, we’re talking about true believers here. “We do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age or the rulers of this age, who are passing away.”

Let me read you from the prophecy of Isaiah. You don’t need to turn there now, we may be back in Isaiah later, we’ll see. But in Isaiah 40, it’s put this way, “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades,” but note this, “but the word of our God stands forever.” That’s Isaiah 40:6-8, “the word of our God stands forever.” That’s the wisdom that people are to hear when they come to church. When a church gathers together, it’s not the wisdom of this age, or the rulers of this age, the people. We live in a university city, but that’s not what they’re interested in. This is foolishness. But the true wisdom of God is foolishness to the world. We want to be careful, we think, well, over time we can put the two together. And then we will be reaching the unbeliever, but we’ll still be presenting the truth. This is where the Corinthians perhaps were. We don’t know. We know they were mixing the world and its wisdom with the wisdom of God. And Paul says, they don’t mix. So, what is happening is you are putting aside the focus on what Christ has accomplished.

We do speak wisdom, verse 7 of chapter 2, “we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery.” Now, here’s where we’ve got to be careful we don’t lose our focus. It is a mystery, a mystery in the bible is dealing with something you can not know apart from divine revelation. It’s not something complicated, it’s not something that you really have to think through, it’s something closed to those who do not believe the truth that God has provided.

Come back a page or so to Romans 16, so its just the book before 1 Corinthians, so a page or two in your bibles. Come to Romans 16, look at verse 25, the closing verses of that letter. “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery.” There’s our word again, “the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past.” The clarity of it was still blurred even through Old Testament times. The Old Testament prophets prophesied of the coming of Christ, but they didn’t really understand. “But now is manifested,” it’s made known, it’s revealed, “and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to the obedience of faith.” So, that’s what we’re talking about. Now, what the prophets prophesied, Isaiah 53 we think of, oh yes, they prophesied the coming and the death of the Messiah. But Isaiah didn’t understand all that.

Come over to 1 Peter 1, toward the back of your New Testament. It may be easier to just to go to the book of Revelation and come forward. You come forward a few books and you’ll be in 1 Peter. Chapter 1, look at verse 10, “As to this salvation, the prophets how prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves.” Remember in the book of Daniel, toward the end of that book, Daniel is told, now go your way Daniel, these things are hidden. If I can use that word, they will be revealed later. So, Daniel wrote about things he really didn’t understand, as Isaiah did. And the Jews, we know when Jesus came, the nation was caught up and thinking of just those portions of the bible that talked about a Messiah who would rule and reign in glory. But what about the Messiah who would suffer and die? They couldn’t put it all together. And now, the nation Israel went under judgment, God is dealing with the church. But we’ve got to be careful. We fall into the same trap as Israel did. We begin to just focus on the portions of the scripture that we like, and we let the other get progressed down. So, we have churches that are seeker services, they are for the unbeliever to come in, and so they are broadly appealing. But we’ll present Christ along the way. That is a compromise that does not work. Doesn’t mean there might not be a person saved, but overall those churches have followed the pattern of the Corinthians.

Back to 1 Corinthians 2, they are looking to be wise in the world’s thinking. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Chapter 2:7, it is a mystery because it is “the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory.” You know, we sometimes hear the criticism of those who hold the position we do as a church, that well, oh, God had to change His plan because Christ got rejected. No, God didn’t change His plan, but He hadn’t revealed with clarity so that the prophets of the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel could understand it and put it together. They were responsible to believe by faith and be prepared when the Messiah came. But they weren’t. But God predestined this, verse 7, “before the ages to our glory.” So, this is part of the eternal plan of God to provide redemption by the rejection and death of His Son on the cross, so that He could be raised in glorious victory. That’s the substance of the gospel message. You may be here and, of course, I believe that. But really, do you believe in it? Have you believed in Him as the one who died for you, to pay the penalty for your sin, have you placed your faith in Him alone and allowed Him to make you new? That’s the issue. Well, generally speaking, yes.

Verse 8, of chapter 2, it’s “the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood.” Now, here we have the contrast. This is the problem with trying to be popular and accepted in the world, you have to adjust the message to make it more world friendly. It is friendly, in that it is a message that tells the sinner, you could be saved by God’s grace through faith in what Christ did for you on the cross, period, nothing else. Well, I don’t know that I believe that. There are churches throughout our city, they don’t believe that. That’s just one of many things. And of course, we all believe that Christ died for us. But it’s the good works that we do, that are important if we’re going to be saved. You could be Roman Catholic, and then you believe in the church and whatever the Pope says, whatever the church says, and I just go through the ritual. So, we want to be careful. You can still be claiming to believe. The Corinthians, no indication they had denied that Christ had died on the cross and been raised from the dead. That just wasn’t the only thing they were teaching anymore. They had taken the focus off the cross and put it on the men. And then the diversity goes from there.

“We speak God’s wisdom in a mystery.” It is the mystery because it can only be understood by turning to what God says. “The hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory.” It’s “the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” This is the wisdom, we just have this barrier in-between. We have the world’s wisdom here, we have God’s wisdom here, but we have a barrier in-between called sin. And man, no matter what he says, no matter what the Corinthians were saying, and they had experienced the power of God, but they were letting it go. And thinking now we’re going to mix it together, because I like this man, and I like this man, and I like this man. And pretty soon, the attention is drawn away from the wisdom of God in providing a Savior, “which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

So, we have a quote, and again, this is from Isaiah. We won’t turn there, you have in the margin of your bible, if you’re using a New American Standard, Isaiah 64:4, and Isaiah 65:17. And they quote here, “As it is written, ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.’ ” So, Isaiah wrote about this, and he understood portions of it, but he couldn’t put it all together. It’s just not through human intellectual pursuits that you come to understand and believe that Christ died on the cross for your sin. And we have churches today who are being seeker friendly. Whatever that means, because there are none seeking after God. There is God drawing, and so the external manifestation, but it’s ultimately God’s work. Think about when you were saved. How were you saved? Well, I just rationally thought through everything. I worked through everything. I, blah, blah, blah. No, somehow… I can say for myself, the Lord opened my eyes to see and believe. That Christ died for me. I needed Him. That’s how you’re saved. So, “the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood.”

Come back to the book of Acts. I want to look at a couple of verses for you. The book of Acts, just after the four gospels, before the book of Romans. The book of Acts 2:23, Peter is preaching to the Israelites. “Men of Israel,” verse 22, “listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just at you yourselves know.” Note verse 23, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” So, this is something that goes back into the past, that God had determined. As a result of their rejection of Him in sin, they bore the responsibility, “you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death… For David says,” David records, in verse 25, “ ‘I saw the Lord always in my presence; for He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken,’ ” and on he quotes from what David wrote. But David didn’t understand and put this all together. Now we go back and read the Old Testament, and we see in the sacrifices a type and picture of the ultimate sacrifice God would provide. We read Isaiah 53. But the Old Testament prophecy didn’t put it all together. They spoke about things that were yet, like Daniel said to the angel, I don’t understand all this. Go your way, Daniel, this is you writing about things that are yet to take place.

So, we want to be careful. Now Christ is come, we can present with clarity, that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. The wages of sin is death, God intervened with His own Son, the second person of the triune God, to die on a cross to pay the penalty for your sin. You don’t sort that out, the wisest man of the world with all his wisdom, doesn’t come to that conclusion. It’s, I let go of all, to trust what God has done.

1 Peter 1:20, “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.” He was foreknown, it was a part of the plan of God before He created the world. Sometimes we say, well, you dispensationalists have come up with a plan. And then, blah, blah. No, God, this is God’s plan. And Christ was God’s plan before He created the world, that His Son would die to provide redemption for that world that He created. But it wasn’t made known, it wasn’t revealed until Christ came to earth and suffered and died.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 2:10, “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.” It explains how we came to trust in Christ. Well, “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.” That’s what it took. I heard the message that Christ died for my sins. And the Spirit of God opened my eyes, and I understood and believed it. I shared with you recently, my cousin was sitting next to me, and it was in an old-fashioned revival meeting, we went forward. He could hardly keep from laughing. I could hardly keep from crying. Christ died for me. Oh, I need to go, Lord. But a number of years later, he came to trust Christ and ended up going to the mission field. But who opens our eyes? It is the sovereign work of God. That’s the responsibility of man but a work of God. I can’t put it all together. But God had determined it before the creation of the world. That’s what He has said. Verse 10, for God revealed them to us through the Spirit. It was the Spirit of God who enabled you to understand and know Christ died for my sins, me personally. I must trust in Him and Him alone as my Savior. That’s a work that God does, and only God does.

That explains how you were saved. Oh, well, I should look back. My mother was saved, that was through the testimony of two little old ladies that she had some contact with. Not the smartest people. Not the wisest. It was just two little old ladies who kept telling her that Christ died for your sins, you need to read the bible. So, she started to read the bible and came to understand, yes, Christ died for my sins. Then she trusted Christ. And then she started working on our family, taking us to meetings. And pretty soon I trusted Christ. My father, and on it goes. Well, what about all the wisdom you know, and you really through these… It was the work of the Spirit of God. It’s a revelation, verse 10, “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.” You sit here today, listening to the truth of God, having believed in Jesus Christ, because the Spirit of God did a work in your heart and life, in drawing you, making it clear to you. Because you have to believe in Christ. Well, if the Spirit of God doesn’t work in my life, I guess I won’t believe. No, you won’t. But you are responsible for that decision, not to believe. So, God gets all the credit and all the glory. But we get all the blame. Because I believe, because the Spirit of God opened my eyes to understand and know Christ had died for me. A person who doesn’t chose to believe that, well, that’s your choice. So, it’s clear here to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. Do you have that underlined? Marked in your bible? “To us God revealed them through the Spirit.” That’s why any attempt to intellectualize this, and you know we’re in an intellectual society, we’re in an intellectual city, we have a major university, we want to let people know, if you’re intelligent, you’ll believe this. Well, if you have God’s wisdom, you will believe this. If you see it as God’s wisdom. But that’s different from the wisdom of the world. And when we begin to equate it to and blend the two, we begin to nullify the message.

Verse 17, of chapter 1, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech,” not in the wisdom of speech, “so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.” I’d suck the power and the life out of the cross when I wed it to the wisdom of men. It’s a simple message. That’s important for you to believe, understand well. Oh, I don’t have the gift of evangelist, I don’t know what to say. What do you mean you don’t know what to say? Have you trusted Christ as the one who loved you and died for you on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin? Well, of course. Well, that’s what you need to know to tell someone else. Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. Oh, I believe that. The average Protestant, the average Catholic, they’ll say, oh, I believe that. But the trouble is, they believe it with everything else. And they’ve just taken what is warned about in these opening chapters of 1 Corinthians and spread it out. That’s just one of many things they believe. You believe that unless you place your faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone as the one who loved you and died for you on the cross, you will be lost forever. Think there are other things? Don’t you think there are other things we have to do? There’s nothing else you have to do to be saved. You don’t have to be baptized. You don’t have to attend this church. You don’t have to clean up your life. Oh, well, then you think the drunk and the immoral person… No, because when Christ cleans up your life on the inside out, then He makes you new. But we want to be careful, we begin to load everything up, like the wisdom. This is wisdom, but it’s the wisdom of God, but that’s different than the wisdom of the world. If we don’t keep these two distinct wisdoms distinct, where will we be? We’ll be where Paul warns the Corinthians about. And he reminds them, to back to your salvation, verse 10, “the Spirit searches all things.” Who knows, “who among men,” verse 11, “knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.”

Right, let’s get down to the basics. The only one who really can know God intimately and as He truly is, is the Holy Spirit of God. And He uses an analogy. The Spirit, you’re all sitting here looking at me, everybody is hanging on every word I say, but I know some of you, boy, I got this this afternoon, I’ve got to think about that. I’ve got this coming up this week. And we get all kind of things. But the Spirit is the thing who knows really what you’re about. That’s the only one who really knows what’s going on in you right now. The Spirit, who’s in you. That’s the way the Holy Spirit is with God. He knows God. He knows how God works. He knows God. So, that’s what verse 11 has said. “Even so,” the end of verse 11, “even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.” So, people… oh, I know that God wouldn’t do this. How do you know? I just know. I know God. You have all kind of people talking about, writing books and talking about knowing God as though they could know Him. That’s the very thing God says the problem with the Corinthians, they were not careful. They begin to slide down in this, without denying the truth. And so that’s where the roll-over. I read you a comment from a professor, probably deceased now. You just subtly… and the Corinthians weren’t denying that Christ died for them, they just were adding other things to that truth. We sometimes get confused as Christians, well, they say they believe that Christ died for our sins and He was raised. So, that’s all that matters. So, even though they’re confused on the other, but that confusion then turns to unbelief. If you asked the average Roman Catholic, do you believe Christ died on the cross for your sins? Oh yes, but they don’t believe that that’s all. So, that’s just one of many things they believe. But really, my faith is in the church. The Pope just mentioned about a man who had died, oh yes, he’s in heaven. How does he know? Well, it’s the Pope. And I can speak hexoctahedral. Out of the chair with the full authority of God. Protestants are no better. So, here we have, he “who among men knows the thoughts of a man,” who knows the thoughts except the spirit of man within him. And the only one who really knows you, is you. The spirit that’s within you. That’s the only one who knows God.

So, “Now we,” verse 12, “have received, not the spirit of the world,” so we ought not to be constantly looking to the world, how can we make the gospel more effective in the world? How can we get people to want to? We can’t. “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.” This basically comes down, we come to the word of God, we open the word of God, we study the word of God. Why? Because that’s how we come to know God. The Spirit of God has moved men to write things in this book called the Bible, so that we might know about God. Now, my subjective feelings about God are a totally different thing. I want to be careful. Do I know I’m saved? Yes, how do I know I’m saved? I just can feel the Spirit working in my heart. What’s that mean? A Roman Catholic can say the same thing. The average liberal Protestant could say the same thing. What’s it mean, the Spirit of God working? I have to come to the word of God. And I come and find out Christ died for my sins according to the scripture. He was buried, He was raised the third day. If I believe in Him, whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish. But whosoever believes in the church, whoever believes in all the doctrines that are promoted, No, whoever believes in Him, will not perish, but have everlasting life. So, I narrow it down, that’s what it’s about. So, it’s about the cross. And then the Spirit now, who indwells me as a believer, enables me to understand the truth of His word. So, “we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.” So, this is what Paul talks about. He’ll elaborate on it as the book of Corinthians goes on. We, as believers today, now have the Spirit who gives us insight and understanding, even into Old Testament prophetic writings, that the Old Testament prophets who wrote them didn’t understand. Now, they were still writing under the direction of the Spirit of God, Peter reminds us of that, in his first chapter as well. That they wrote it as they were moved by the Spirit. But that didn’t mean that they had understanding of all that. Isaiah wrote Isaiah 53, but he didn’t understand that Messiah was going to come and suffer and die and be raised in victory. And as a result of Israel’s rejection of that truth, he didn’t understand all of that. But it was the Spirit of God. Now the Spirit of God indwells us as believers, and we have a completed revelation, we can know God. I don’t have any knowledge of God that you don’t have.

Now there is different levels of maturity as we’re growing. But that’s why we ought to be one. We are here because we have our faith in Jesus Christ, and Him alone. “We have,” verse 12 of chapter 2, “received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things freely given to us by God.” That’s where, back in the first nine verses of chapter 1 of this letter, that’s what God has done in your life. He’s made you new because you’ve believed in Him. His Spirit now dwells in you. It’s unique with the church. Beginning in Acts 2, it’s given so the Spirit now gives us understanding. We can read this book. I’ve read a variety of things, but we have men writing commentaries on books of the Bible, who don’t have the Spirit of God. They don’t understand what they are writing. Sometimes they’ll write some things that are, yes that’s good. But the basic message illudes them. They are clueless. I think of one who’s written commentaries on most of the books of the New Testament, he’s deceased now. Far as I can tell, he’s not a believer. He did not know and understand the truth, but much of what he wrote was good and helpful. But you have to read him very carefully, because he just misses the point on the clearest and most essential things. And there are commentaries after commentaries. I was reading earlier today, in a journal, a review of a commentary. The man’s conclusion is, this man doesn’t know. That doesn’t mean he’d never written anything… it may have some good things to say about the historical setting or something. But he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. You have to have the Spirit of God. That’s why you can come and listen to these sermons week after week, but unless the Spirit of God is giving you understanding, by His indwelling presence, it’s just, well, I’m collecting facts, yes I could repeat those to somebody. But the transformation of life is something only the Spirit can do.

So, verse 13 says, “which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual (thoughts) with spiritual (words).” That’s the key. Let me read you from Isaiah again. Isaiah 55:8-9, “ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’ ” Isaiah wrote that. And he believed that truth. And he wrote much about the coming of Christ and so on, that he didn’t understand. There’s much prophesy there, that now we look back and we can understand, because the revelation has been completed with the New Testament, the New Covenant. The work of the Spirit. But the wisdom of the world, it doesn’t help. Oh, I can learn to read, that helps me read the Bible. I can learn Greek and Hebrew and that helps me learn a little bit more maybe. But verse 13, “we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit.”

Doesn’t matter… My mother came to know Christ, she never graduated from high school. She dropped out to get married. It was World War 2. My dad’s going off. In those days, people got married. So, she got married. Ten years later, she bumps into these… gets to know these two old ladies, who were not pockets of wisdom by any means as the world looked at them. They were just two little old ladies who went to a church. But through their testimony, she became a believer. Wait a minute. Was she smart enough? I mean she didn’t even graduate from high school. But, she trusted Christ. And she got books and she read about the bible. And she read the bible. And read Spurgeon and expository works. And marked them up. She could understand biblical truth. Well, what did she know? Did she study the philosophy of the great philosophers? Well, no. So, we are talking not about human wisdom, verse 13, but those taught by the Spirit. So, it doesn’t matter. We live in an intellectual environment in the world. The Corinthians, they prided themselves in their knowledge. None of that had anything to do with what God had done. You know something that the smartest person at the university doesn’t, if he is not a believer. And if he is a believer, he knows it’s not because of his wisdom. It’s what? Christ died for my sins. It’s through faith in Him, I’m made new. I’m made alive. That’s why anybody can tell, I’m glad those two little old ladies, many years ago, told my mother. Well, what do they know? They knew the way to life. My mother knew the way to life. So, now I, well now, I’m a little different, I have an education. Which means what? The basic truth hasn’t changed. Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. He was buried, He was raised the third day according to the scripture. Do you believe it? Is that what you’re trusting in for your salvation?

Well, yes, but if I try to explain that at the university… You know, I used to go to the university, to different classes. I’d start out, whatever the class was about, didn’t matter cause we were going to talk about the same thing. But it could be on death and dying. It could be on marriage. So, I’d say a couple of things about marriage, about divorce and dying. Anybody could have said it, but I said, let me tell you what the bible says about this. Why do people die? Well, the penalty for sin is death. Now, you may have different views, but God says that only He could solve that problem for us. He had His Son come and die on the cross. I get invited back again. Well, I don’t know. What if they bring up about existentialism? I’ll just say, well, that’s something worth considering, but it’s not the important thing we’re here about. Let’s talk about sin. Let’s talk about what the real problem is as God says it is. Then the church says, well, we’ve got to adjust, well, we have a problem.

Verse 14, “the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” They are moronic, they are stupidity. Now, we think, oh, I tried to share the gospel, but I couldn’t deal with their questions and their answers. You don’t have to. The “natural man,” the man without the Spirit, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.” That’s the distinction. The only distinction that exists between those who have the Spirit and those who don’t have the Spirit. If you don’t have the Spirit, I cannot communicate biblical truth to you. If you have the Spirit, doesn’t matter whether you’re in tenth grade or whatever, if you have the Spirit, the Spirit is the instructor. “A natural man,” a soulish man, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised,” or discerned. That’s the problem. Now we begin to lose sight of that problem, where like Paul is trying to pull the Corinthians back. We think, well I can’t share the gospel because I didn’t go to college or I don’t have a doctor’s degree. What’s that got to do with what you want to share? You want to share the wisdom of the world? You want to share the wisdom of God? Yes, but I tried to share the gospel and they just made fun of me. Oh, verse 14, the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” Of course they did, they thought you were a moron. It’s what it says, it is foolishness, it’s moronic to him, stupidity, makes no sense. Get over it. No, I can’t. He cannot understand them, they are spiritually discerned. Its only as the Spirit works, so I don’t know. I presented the gospel to a lot more people than have believed it. I said, well, I guess I don’t have the gift. I may not have the gift of an evangelist, but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell people what happened to me. How God changed my life and made me new. I don’t have to say, well I can’t deal with, you know, they are in the university and they are… They’re what? We’re talking about spiritual truth.

So, when the church begins to adjust and this is where the pressure was on Corinth, the Greeks like wisdom. We think we’ve got something new. We don’t have anything new. The Greeks loved wisdom. We like wisdom. So, we want to think, well, we get down there and we’ll debate, oh, I wish so-and-so was here, he’d really be able… No, just cut through and tell them, all the other stuff is just fluff. Let me tell you about what really matters. Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, in order that whosoever believes in Him might not perish. God has done something for you that is extraordinary. Oh, I believe in Christ. No, you don’t, your life is not, your life indicates. Let me walk through again with what the gospel says. You’re a sinner, Christ died for you, are you trusting that alone? Are you trusting in your church? In your good works? The unbeliever, in the middle of verse 14, “he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Does not have anything to do with the gifts. You realize Paul got run out of town after town. Does that mean he wasn’t gifted? No. The Corinthian church came into existence, but we don’t know, it could have been a small handful of people that had believed. And God was using him in a special way. But remember, he came to Corinth after getting run out of Philippi and Thessalonica. As far as we know, he didn’t have any church that was established before he got to Macedonia and the previous place. We want to be careful we don’t think: oh what do I have? You have what the two little old ladies who talked to my mother had. They had the message of truth, the gospel, directed it to the word of God. The “natural man,” a soulish man, a man without the Spirit, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” They are moronic, he cannot understand them, they are spiritually discerned.

“But he who is spiritual appraises,” discerns, “all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” That quote, as you’ll see in the margin of your bibles, is from Isaiah 40:13, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” That is what you as a believer have that no unbeliever has. The smartest guy in the university doesn’t know what you know. But he needs to hear it, he needs to understand it. If you knew what I knew, you wouldn’t… that would be true. But let me tell you what God says. This is what I did when I go to the high school here in town for several years, when I went to the college, lets just get down to what really matters. It didn’t matter whether I could relate to them and all their things. Could I tell them what Christ did for them? He died on the cross, why? Because you’re a sinner and God in love and mercy intervened and had His Son take your place, so that He could pay the penalty for your sin. And if you’ll believe in Him, He’ll make you new. I don’t believe that. That doesn’t surprise me, but you should believe it. It’s not, well, I just don’t, they just had so many questions that I couldn’t answer. It doesn’t matter that they have questions I can’t answer, I can answer the one that matters. The one that God says is going to determine their eternal destiny. Have you placed your faith in Christ and Him alone? Well, I go to a different church than you, and I believe differently. No, I didn’t say going to my church is the answer. I’m saying believing in Jesus Christ and what He did for you.

It’s in God’s hands, it’s His work. “We have the mind of Christ.” Oh, now that makes me arrogant. No, this is where we want to be careful. We begin to lose the hold on this simplicity because we think we’re so much more godly and spiritual. We are, but not because of who we are, but because of what God has done in us. Isn’t it amazing? That you could go down and talk to a person who has earned doctors’ degrees and everything at the university, and tell him the truth that God has provided a Savior and only by faith in Him can you have new life. Oh, I don’t think he would want to listen to me. Well, maybe not, only the Spirit of God can take the truth of God and impress it on a heart. I realize that, I realize I’ve preached to people for years, that have sat out here. But I know some of them haven’t believed. I’m not saying everybody has gone to a different church, some are in a different believing church that are preaching the truth of God. But some, you know you probably wouldn’t want to know where I go. Well, I’m disappointed to hear that. But really what matters is, have you settled your relationship with Christ?
It comes down to the simplicity of it. The beauty of it. “We have the mind of Christ.” Because we have the Spirit of God, who makes known to us the things of God. Not because we’re smarter, not because we have more intellectual understanding. Because we have heard the truth and believed it. Have you believed?

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for Your grace. We are here as testimonies of that grace. Lord, some of us have studied, some of us have not studied. Some of us are admired by the world. Some of us are not admired by the world. But all of us who have placed our faith in Christ, it is a humbling reality. That I am a sinner and only faith in Jesus Christ can provide the cleansing I must have, can make me new to live a life that is pleasing to You, the living God. Lord, I pray for any who are here, young person, older person, who may have heard this message many times and have not yet placed their faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone. Lord, pray that Your Spirit would open their eyes to see and believe. And for those of us who have, Lord may we be reinforced and encouraged and reminded that we stand on the truth of Your word, no matter what the world thinks. We come in Christ’s name. Amen.