Spiritual Ears - 1 Corinthians 2:10-13

If you have your Bibles turned to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, we're going to be looking at six verses, the last six verses, verses 10 through 16 this morning.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

When we ask God to speak to us, and we all want to hear the voice of God, and we're looking for God to lead us and guide us and direct us in our lives, and we sing, speak, O Lord. We come to church, Lord willing, we come to church.

We are here to hear God, to listen to God.

We want to know that we've heard God.

It's vital that we live on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

You cannot live the Christian life without a constant inflow of God's voice.

If you're a sheep of God, you know the voice of God, you've heard His voice, and you have to live off that.

How would you like to be married to your spouse but never hear your spouse speak?

Never listen to her, never, she never speaks or he never communicates.

How would you like to have a relationship with God and he just never speaks to you?

He's deaf, I mean you're deaf and you can't hear.

He's mute, he doesn't communicate.

Sometimes as you ask, Lord, speak to me, I need to hear from you, and it's desperate.

You need to hear from the Lord, and maybe it's a decision that you're making, and you need direction, and you open up the Bible, and you read and read, and nothing.

It seems like the Bible's dead to you.

Sometimes you come to church, you want to hear from the Lord, and you don't get much from the sermon.

Lord, I need to hear from you.

So we ask God to speak to us, what are we meaning by that?

Are we meaning that we need to hear additional revelation or new revelation or extra-biblical revelation?

Is that what we mean?

There's those who are looking for God to speak to them, and they're looking for audible voices, and they need direction not by looking into scriptures, but by hoping that God would give them fresh, new, extra-biblical revelation.

I want to suggest to you that's very dangerous, and we don't need, you and I don't need new revelation.

The Bible's sufficient, but we do need God to speak to us from His word.

We need that word to come alive to us.

You know the difference, if you've lived the Christian life at all for any measure of time, you know the difference between reading the Bible and checking it off.

I did my Bible reading for the day, and when God uses that word and speaks in it, by it, and through it, and it's fresh, it's real, it's meaningful, it's impactful.

You see, for God to speak to you, for God to reveal Himself to you, He doesn't just have to be the author of scriptures.

The Bible doesn't just need to be the inspired, living Word of God.

For God to speak to you, He has to give you ears to hear.

See, there's two sides to communication.

You have the transmitter, and then you have a receiver.

We all pretty much understand that He has to be the transmitter.

Revelation has to come from God.

It has to come not from ourselves or from the wisdom of this world or from men.

It has to come directly from the mouth of God.

He's the transmitter of Revelation.

We understand that, but we'll see in this text, He also has to be the receiver.

He has to give you ears to hear.

He has to open up your heart to see.

He has to give you illumination.

So we don't just need spiritual inspiration of God's words, the Bible.

We also need spiritual illumination of God's word.

That's the subjective side of hearing from God.

The objective side is the Word of God.

You have to have that.

It's sufficient for everything that you're going through.

We must treasure it, read it, study it, listen to it, know it.

But we need that word to come alive to us.

It is sufficient in its content.

We need nothing more than what is written.

But we need not just the Spirit of God to work 2,000 years ago when He inspired the original authors.

We need the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives today.

Us, cessationists, which I'm a cessationist, I don't believe in the ongoing, miraculous, spiritual gifts.

I think the office of the Apostolic Ministry has gone.

I think the canon is closed.

I believe in the sufficiency of Scriptures.

But us cessationists like to talk about what the Spirit doesn't do.

Sometimes through the neglect to focus on what the Spirit must continue to do.

We still believe in the Holy Spirit, and we still need the Holy Spirit in our lives.

We still need the Holy Spirit in our services.

This whole meeting today is useless without the Spirit.

Those who worship God must worship Him not just in truth, which we must worship in truth, but also with not little s Spirit, not us being emotional.

We need the capital S Spirit.

We must worship God in spirit and in truth.

We must have the Holy Spirit in our lives to be able to understand the Word of God.

If this sermon is going to mean anything to you this morning, it'll be only because the Holy Spirit Himself, the third person of the Trinity, God Himself opening up the written word to your hearts so that you can see and comprehend and understand what God has said.

For it to be real knowledge, for you to have knowledge that produces faith and understanding.

And like we talked about last week, wisdom, you need the work of the Holy Spirit in your lives.

So we cannot hear God without the Spirit.

Let's read our text starting in verse 10.

These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

By the way, that is the thesis of the rest of the six verses.

These things, the things that God has freely chosen to reveal to us, these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

For the Holy Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God, for who knows a person's thoughts except the Spirit of that person who is in Him.

So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.

This is why. That we might understand the things freely given to us by God.

And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person, that is the person that doesn't have the Holy Spirit, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to Him, and He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person, that is the one who has the Holy Spirit, judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him, but we have the mind of Christ.

There in verse 10 at the beginning, we see the kind of the main thesis of this paragraph, this unit of thought, is these things, these things that we learned about last week, that I has not seen the things that God was going to reveal to us who love Him.

These things He has revealed to us, not through philosophy and through the wisdom of this age.

He's revealed to these things to us by His Spirit.

We must have the Holy Spirit to know God.

And that's my thesis.

Without the Holy Spirit, you do not know God. You need God to know God.

This idea that conversion is just talking people into it is a myth.

You understand that it's a supernatural act of God.

It's a miracle for you to comprehend the Word of God.

It's a miracle for you to have faith.

It's a miracle for you to be able to understand what God says.

What I'm talking about understanding, I'm not talking about mentally conceiving what God says.

Natural men can be theologians. We talked about that last week.

But I'm talking about appreciating and understanding the true value of these words, to understand the value of Christ in order that you can willfully sell all that you have, that you might buy that precious treasure in the field.

For you to understand the glory of God and see that glory in your heart.

That takes spiritual illumination. That takes divine grace.

You're not smart enough. You're not capable enough to open up the Scriptures and understand them in a way to give you faith to change your life.

There's a supernatural divine act, and that's the giving of the Holy Spirit, the illuminating act of the Spirit. The Spirit is an active agent that he must work in our day.

When we pray for revival, we're praying for the Spirit to illuminate the Scriptures, to speak to us, to change us, to transform us.

And we see this in our text. It takes the Spirit to know God.

First of all, this is true because the first point that Paul makes is only the Spirit knows God.

We see in verse 10 that the Holy Spirit knows all things perfectly.

That is, the Holy Spirit is omniscient. He's all-knowing.

Look at it says in verse 10, for the Spirit searches everything.

This word searches as not to be understood as he doesn't know when he's searching things out so he can learn.

The word searches here means that he's evaluating all things.

Everything there is to know about all things, the Holy Spirit is evaluating and looking into and understands from all angles, from all perspectives.

You know, our knowledge is so finite and limited.

We see all things from a particular perspective, a particular angle.

And sometimes that angle has a little bit of truth, but we don't understand everything related to it because we don't see it from other people's perspectives or from that perspective.

But the Holy Spirit knows everything exhaustively.

You can take anything that you want to know about and the Holy Spirit knows it from every possible angle to understand that particular thing.

He searches, he knows, he examines, he looks, he understands all things.

But not only does he understand all things that there is to be known in the universe, he knows the galaxies and he knows the hairs on your head.

He knows that every concept of every aspect of all of science and all of learning, the Holy Spirit knows.

He searches all things, but not only does he search all things, it says even he searches the depths of God.

That's unfathomable.

We're not just talking about a surface knowledge of deity.

There's cracks and crevices into God's infinite being that we have no knowledge of.

But the Holy Spirit is looking and examining into the very crevices of God.

He's there. He's omnipresent and he knows all aspects of every angle of the infinite eternal being.

This is the Holy Spirit. He knows all things. He knows the depths of God.

And who of us can understand God?

Can we comprehend the incomprehensible?

No, we can't.

How can we know God? We can't even know ourselves.

We can't know God. That's the point.

If we're going to know God, we need to know someone who does know God.

And if we're going to know God, we need one who knows God to reveal God to us.

And that's the Holy Spirit.

He knows God perfectly.

So if we're going to know God, we need the one who knows God to reveal God to us.

And Paul gives us a human illustration to make this point.

And we see this in verse 11.

For who knows a person's thought except the spirit of that person, which is in him.

I think I know my wife, Lethe, better than I know anyone else in this world.

I've spent 20 wonderful years with her.

And the Bible tells me to live with my wife in an understanding manner, to know my wife.

And over the years, I feel like I'm just now getting to know her.

I'm beginning to understand her.

But you know, even though I feel like I know my wife, I don't know her the way she knows herself.

How can I?

There's things about my wife.

There's no way for me to be able to comprehend and understand, you know, no one knows you except your conscience.

The spirit within you.

It's amazing self-awareness and that conscience of I am a living being who has a personal identity.

You know what I'm talking about is hard to explain it, but there's something in use as I am.

I am me. I am self-aware and that whatever that is in you, your conscience has been with you from the day one.

It's been with you since the earliest memories you have.

How do you communicate that to someone else?

You'd have to take that spirit, that conscience, and take it out of you and instill it in someone else.

Now, if you could give me your conscience, now I can know you like you know yourself.

But you can't give me your conscience.

In some ways, you remain a mystery to me.

Know you superficially.

How are we going to know God?

And I'm talking about knowing Him in a very intimate way.

Not know of Him, but to truly know Him.

You see, we see at the end of verse 11, So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

I mean, you ever wonder why God does what He does?

Why does He allow what you would consider to be disappointments to happen in your life?

And to be truthful, you think you know, I know this is truth be.

We think we know better than God at times because we wouldn't have done it this way.

We would have done it another way.

And when it doesn't happen the way we thought it should happen, and even when God doesn't answer our prayers according to how we've asked them to be answered, we go, why?

Well, how do we know the mind of God?

How can we understand His thoughts?

The Bible says we don't know the thoughts of God.

It says that His ways are higher than our ways.

His thoughts are transcendent.

They're higher than our thoughts.

But we're only going to know the mind of God and understand God and what He does and why He does what He does.

If the Holy Spirit, which is the very Spirit of God who lives in God, reveals God to us.

We see that's the point of this passage.

These things God has revealed us through the Spirit.

Jesus says, the helper will come, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send to you in my name.

He will teach you all things.

John 1526, but when the helper comes, I will send you, send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.

He will bear witness about me.

You see, God has revealed Himself.

The Father has revealed Himself to us by the Son, and the Son reveals Himself to us by the Spirit.

Without the Spirit, we cannot know Christ.

Without Christ, we cannot know God.

We must never minimize the active, ongoing importance of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

That's my point, number one.

Without the Spirit, we cannot know God.

Excuse me.

Point number two.

If only by the Spirit we can know God, that it bears the reason, only those who have the Spirit know God.

We see this in verses 12 through 13.

Look at verse 12.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.

It's not the Spirit of this age. It's not the Spirit of pagan philosophers.

It's not the Spirit of the Enlightenment.

It's not the Spirit of the wisdom of men.

It's not the wisdom from below.

This is not what we need to know God.

Remember that Corinthians had a false understanding of wisdom, and where wisdom came from.

Paul's correcting their thinking.

He said, you're impressed with this set of preachers, and their emphasis on this type of wisdom.

And you think my preaching is subpar because of my delivery style, and also that my content seems pretty basic.

You must realize that what I communicate to you, in the words that I used to, is the wisdom from the Lord, wisdom from above.

And it's not from the Spirit of this world.

He told us earlier for the wisdom of this world, that man does not know God.

No one has come to understand the depths of God through the wisdom of this age.

Philosophy, and even science, and all forms of human learning, may have a place and a role to play in various aspects of life, but none of it can bring us to knowledge of God.

But rather we've been given the very Spirit that lives in God.

I mean, if I could give you my conscience, you can understand my inner thoughts.

And when I talk to you, you'd be going, I know what you're saying.

That makes sense.

I know how you think.

How are we going to understand the mind of Christ, the mind of God?

What if He took His Spirit that lives in Him, that searches the depths of His understanding, and He gave us His Spirit and installed His Spirit into our hearts?

That's why He gives us the Spirit.

It says in verse 12, why did we receive the Spirit from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us by God?

In other words, everything we understand, I mean, truly understand from our hearts.

We understand only by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Now, how does the Spirit reveal God to us?

He does it in two ways.

There's two important things that must take place for you to know God, for the Spirit to reveal truth to you.

One, we need a divine transmitter.

And two, we need a divine receiver.

Now, do you know in this room there's a lot of communication going on?

But thankfully, you're discerned or you're an app to receive most of the communication in this room.

But if you took your iPhones out and had your phone say, play this radio station, or if you just had a radio and pulled it out, turned it on, and you can turn the dial, you'd realize that there were things that are being transmitted, radio waves that has filled this room up.

But we're not picking it up.

So you have to have a transmitter, a big tower transmitting radio waves.

And that's what we have with the Word of God.

It's the divine, inspired, living Word of God that communicates, that transmits the mind of God, the words of God, the heart of God, truth, wisdom to us.

So we all know that we need the Word of God, the objective, written Word of God, the Bible.

You've got to have the Bible.

But more than that, you also have to have a receiver.

You need a transmitter.

You need a receiver.

You need what we call illumination.

You need inspiration of the written Word of God, and you need illumination.

Ears to hear of that written Word.

We see in verse 13 that Paul is speaking of both sides.

The transmission of the Word of God is in verse 13.

And we import, this is Paul speaking, and we import these, this, and words.

Now, see the instrumentality.

He said the Spirit has to reveal, I am a part of that process.

I, the Apostle Paul, I think he's speaking as an apostle.

An apostle is one who sits on behalf of Christ to give divine communication.

All that the apostles learned from home, Christ Jesus, the Spirit was going to bring it back into remembrance to them.

And through the Holy Spirit, they were going to impart to us in words.

We impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit.

You see, Paul is speaking about the words that the Spirit has taught him.

You see, the Apostle Paul was inspired.

He was an inspired author.

He didn't receive his words from the teaching of men, but he received these words directly from the inspiration of the Spirit.

And I like how he brings out that it comes in words, down to the details, not just concepts.

I learned these broad, overarching concepts, and I get to choose my own words, how I want to formulate those concepts.

God gave me the words to speak.

God inspired the very words that I impart this knowledge or wisdom or revelation to you.

Peter put it this way in 2 Peter 1, 20, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

You see, those words that we have in Scriptures are not the words of men.

The very words that were born are carried along by the Holy Spirit.

This phrase, to be carried along, could be translated to be moved, moved by.

It is a present passive-parcifical, which means to be born along or to be carried along like you would carry a baby.

They were not merely guided by the Holy Spirit, but they were carried by the Holy Spirit.

B.B. Warfield says, to be born is not the same thing as to be led, much less to be guided or directed.

He that is born contributes nothing to the movement induced, but is the object to be moved.

So these authors, the Apostle Paul and Peter and others, they were picked up and carried.

Robert Raymond in his systematic theology says, just as the ship knowing no will of its own was driven along by the will of the wind, so also the prophets knowing no will of their own in any ultimate sense in the production of the prophetic scriptures were driven along by the will of the Holy Spirit.

And this is why Paul says in 2 Timothy 3.16, all scriptures is breathed out by God.

It was not the production of the breath of the author or the intermediate author, the piment of scriptures, Paul or Peter, but rather they were breathed out by the very breath of the Holy Spirit.

Now this is we have to realize because many of us when we have a dilemma, we would love to hear God speak audibly to us.

We would love for God to go, Jeff, choose door B, take this job, do this, and we look for God to give us a direct word to help us in our decision making.

But I love what John Owen says.

He says the written word of God is just as much authoritative and the word of God as his verbal word.

We need to believe that.

In fact, Peter says we have a more sure word.

They get to see the glory of Jesus being transformed among them.

They got to eyewitness something with their own eyes.

And you would think that would be the most confident word is to see something visibly.

Peter said, no, we have a more sure word.

We have something more concrete than empirical evidence can lead us.

We have the written word and what makes the written word so vital for our lives.

It's not subjective.

It's not tossed to and fro by your feelings and your emotions.

And I hope this is true.

Or did God really say that?

Was that in my imagination?

Did my eyes really see that or did I daydream this?

No, we have the objective standard that stands outside of our affections, outside of our conceptions, outside of our subjective reception of it.

It is true and it needs to be outside of us.

It needs to be written.

It needs to be objective so we can stand on it and know that we have indeed the revelation of God.

Don't underestimate and devalue the written word of God.

Yes, we need the ongoing active work of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not acting independent or outside of that which he has already spoken.

It is a sufficient word for you and I.

And all you need to make all of your decisions is found in the word of God.

Oh, how we should study it and know it.

Apply it, memorize it, give ourselves to understand every word that has proceeded out of the mouth of God.

However, we also need that written word to be illuminated to us.

Now, we don't need a new word given to us.

We just need the words already given to us to be eliminated.

Illumination, this is my own definition, is the effectual power of the Holy Spirit working by in and through the Scriptures to give light and spiritual understanding to our minds and hearts, which enables us to willingly believe, embrace and obey the truth of God's word.

You see, it's not the spirit whispering in your ears.

Believe the Bible.

It's the Bible being opened up and as you read it, you hear the very voice of God.

The spirit is working in those very words to speak to your hearts.

And you know what it's like when you open up the Bible and you see precious things, things that open up to your heart, things that change your life.

That is the spirit working in it, working through it and by it.

Now, I will make this caveat and hear me closely because you can very easily misunderstand me.

I don't believe we need a new revelation and I don't believe many of these people who says God said this to me and God spoke this to me.

I think we have very leery of such verbiage.

But I think we also need to be careful that we have this mindset that God only speaks to us in the very wording of Scriptures.

For instance, when you hear a sermon and the sermon is a proper exegesis of the text and it takes the real if this is true, then it brings application to your heart based upon that truth.

And then when you hear that application of that word, you go, man, I'm feel convicted.

I feel encouraged.

I feel like I have more faith.

Whatever transformation it takes place is through the application of that word.

That's the Holy Spirit working.

So in the same way that God speaks to you through the application of the word and sermons, he speaks to you through the your own application of his word in your heart.

Let me give you this illustration example.

You see someone who needs a financial help.

Maybe you can see they need a jacket or they need shoes or they need something and you see it.

And all of a sudden, your conscience convicts you.

I need to help them out.

I should give them.

And for some reason, you go, I should give them two hundred dollars.

And then you begin to think, is that the word of the Bible or is that, you know, is that the Holy Spirit or is that my conscience?

You begin to wonder how what is this?

And some of the times you'll take that that conviction.

I need to give two hundred dollars to this particular person because I know they need a need and I have I have the money to do it.

And you're going, what is that?

I don't doubt it's the Holy Spirit.

Now, is he giving you new revelation? No, he's not giving you new revelation.

You're not getting a new inspired word to you.

He's taking the word of God and applying it to your heart.

And you can test the spirits by testing it with the objective written word of God, because one does the Bible say.

If you know your Bible, you know, it says if you see a need and you don't have compassion in your heart, something's wrong with your heart.

And it also says if you have the ability to help the person with the need and you don't help them, something's wrong.

So how do you not take the Bible and properly apply it to go?

I need to give to this particular cause because the Bible actually tells me to.

So that's the spirit using the word working in the word through the word by the word to apply it to your your situation today, leading you and guiding you, directing you, shaping you.

I suppose we need the Holy Spirit to be we need to be sensitive to the spirit and test that spirit by the objective word of God and be led by the spirit.

Now we got to be careful.

I can't then take my conviction and go, you have to give two hundred dollars.

The spirit spoke that to me.

The word of God spoke that to me.

I've heard God.

That's what I know I need to do.

So be careful when you have a biblical reason to do something and you know, it's right to go.

Well, I didn't see that written out in any verse or text, so I'm not going to do it.

Listen to what the Bible says for you to do in your life.

It directs you, it guides you, it helps you make all your decisions.

It's sufficient.

Now, you see, there's two aspects of understanding the word of God.

There is our understanding the mind of God and knowing God.

You have to have the written word of God and then you have to have the spirit given as understanding to that word of God.

And we see that these two concepts are combined at the end of verse 13.

It says interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

And granted, this is a difficult phrase to understand in English.

One version says explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.

The King James version says comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The NASB says combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

It's a hard phrase to put into English because it's actually in the original just three words.

It's the word spiritual used twice, spiritual, spiritual.

Then the word combining or joining.

The most direct translation would be joining spiritual with spiritual.

And what makes this phrase joining spiritual with spiritual understandable is the fact that God actually inspires words, not just concepts, but inspiration goes down to the very words that he has chosen to use.

Remember how Jesus says not one jot or tittle of all the Old Testament prophecies would go unfulfilled down to the punctuation marks or just a little the smallest markings of the Hebrew alphabet.

Remember when Peter Paul says it did not say seeds in the plural, but seeds in the singular.

I mean, that's precise inspiration.

Well, we see that in our very text because in our very text you have the word spiritual used twice, but one is in the date of the other was in the accusative.

And it's these case endings that makes the translation possible, the understanding possible.

A date of case is to be an instrumental or indirect receiver of you're not the direct object or reception, you're indirect.

And of course, the accusative is the direct receiver of an action.

And so we have this idea of spiritual.

One of them is a passageway.

The other one is the end.

That's why the translators have tried to put in extra words.

Spiritual words are spiritual troops are spiritual.

They're adding something to make the translation make sense.

But I think the context makes it very clear that he's talking about the words that are inspired given to the Apostle Paul is the date of case.

It's through inspiration of words.

That those who are spiritual who have spiritual ears to hear.

It's only when you combine or join together inspiration with illumination.

Do you know God?

That's what it's saying.

You need inspiration of the written text and you need illumination of your heart.

By the Holy Spirit, the Spirit has to be the giver and the receiver.

And you know, it would be wonderful to be the Apostle Paul and have spiritual illumination.

But how wonderful is it to be the receiver of spiritual revelation to have the spirit work in your heart so that you may understand the word of God.

It is just as much of a miracle for you to understand the Bible as it was for Paul to give you the Bible.

The spirit is not done working.

He must work in your life.

He must open up the word of God to your hearts.

You say, well, Jeff, why do you go into the original language and parse these things out is because God uses words.

So this is not us being Quakers and Shakers and enthusiasts.

We just get the spirit and we don't need the word.

No.

Do proper exegesis study the word to go word for word Bible studies.

Understand the Bible.

That's the way God has chosen to communicate to us.

But ask for the spirit to give you a heart to see.

It's only when the spirit illuminates the very words that he inspired does it become real to your life.

Paul put it this way.

First Thessalonians.

We also think God constantly for this that when you receive the word of God, which you've heard from us, you accepted it.

You know, that was the objective what Paul preached.

You accepted it.

This is the subjective side of it, not as the word of men, but as it really is the word of God.

What makes you a believer and other people not a believer?

What makes you understand the Bible when other people don't understand it?

It's the Holy Spirit in your life.

That's the point.

Only the spirit knows God and only spirit can reveal God.

That leads me to my third point.

Those who don't have the spirit cannot know God.

Three of our fourteen.

The natural man or the natural person, the one who's devoid of the Holy Spirit does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are falling to him and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Now is not the Bible just so much the Bible to them as it is to us?

Is it just so much authoritative and inspired to all people who read it as it is to us who believe it?

Absolutely.

But there's a problem.

The problem is not in the text.

The problem is not in the Bible.

The problem is not with inspiration.

The problem with is with our ears.

Without receipt.

We can't receive it.

And the reason we can't receive it if we don't believe if you hear your losses like what will hide?

Why do I not?

It's because you don't have the Holy Spirit.

It says the non-spiritual person, the one who's without the Holy Spirit cannot do three things.

He cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God.

It says the natural person does not accept that the things of the Spirit of God.

You know, over and over the fair she says these things are hard to believe.

These things are hard to accept.

These things are they're offended.

The rich young ruler was offended by the words of the gospel.

They said all that you have sell to the poor.

I know what you're saying.

I can understand clearly what you're saying.

It's not that I need you to resplain yourself, Jesus.

So the natural man, it's not a natural inability to understand.

It's not like the Bible's confusing or gibberish.

The Bible's clear.

It's clear to believers.

It's clear to unbelievers.

At least the important stuff's clear.

The main things are clear.

So it's not a lack of clarity.

It's just a lack of acceptance.

And the one without the Spirit can't accept it.

I don't like what you're saying.

The reason why is secondly is because they are folly to Him.

The problem with the unspiritual person is the things of God are folly.

Again, this is not a lack of mental capacity.

This is lack of moral capacity.

It's a problem of not valuating things properly.

I mean, you could go to a two-year-old and put a candy bar or Michael Jordan's rookie card in front of him.

What is the two-year-old going to take?

Don't be a fool, little two-year-old.

Don't take the candy bar.

Don't you understand?

That's not worth much.

And the kids like, I don't want a cardboard picture.

I don't see the value in that.

And you preach to unbelievers and you go, here's Jesus Christ.

He's eternal life.

Here's things precious beyond measure.

This is the depths of God.

These are things that will change your life.

These are things that are precious reality.

And then here you are, you're going, I want my candy bar.

I can't wait to go to lunch after the service.

I can't wait to see who's playing on television, what sports teams are playing.

That's what my heart's on.

It's like it's folly because you can't see the value.

Well, how are we going to see the value of God?

Only the one who knows God can show us that value.

We see, thirdly, the natural man can't understand them.

He's not able to truly, I mean, you can intellectually repeat what you're saying and intellectually hum to some conclusion that he's an orthodox Christian.

But in the truest sense, it's not true understanding.

It's not real to him.

And here's the reason.

This is because they are spiritually discerned.

That word means literally it's just like you're devoid of something.

The reason you don't understand, the reason you think the words of God are folly, the reason you're not seeing the value of the word of God, and you're not living off the word of God, the reason that you don't study the Bible, the reason it's not precious in your heart, is there's a deficiency in you.

And the deficiency is a spiritual deficiency.

Paul says, I would love to speak to you in higher things, but you're not spiritually capable.

You're carnal. You're still yet weak.

And I think that's true of us.

If you're unconverted, you have no spirit at all.

But I think we can make an application that, hey, if we're going to grow in spiritual wisdom and knowledge and understanding, if we're going to grow in the Lord, we have to grow spiritually.

We need more spiritual elimination.

God didn't, conversion give us all things.

He didn't open up our mind to all things at one time.

It's a gradual, the spirit takes the word here and opens up the next day.

That word allows us to understand a little bit more, and what we learned the last few days gives us more for the days to come.

And we grow and become online, upon line.

The spirit keeps continuously illuminates, and we need the spirit to continuously speak to our hearts.

The natural man may be able to mentally comprehend the words of scriptures, but he cannot grasp the glory and the beauty of scripture within his heart without the spirit.

Now we need nothing less than solid exegesis, nothing less.

Study the word line by line, view the context, do the hard work of studying the word.

You need nothing less than that, but you need a little bit more.

You need the work of God, the Holy Spirit, to show it to you.

Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot receive the words of the spirit.

Now, let's look in the last two verses, was just his keys, I think this is his conclusion, he's wrapping everything back up, and he gives us three blessings to the spiritual man, three benefits for those who have the Holy Spirit.

Starting in verse 15, those who have the spirit have discernment.

The spiritual person judges or discerns or evaluates or understands all things.

Remember, it began by saying the spirit searches all things.

Now it says those who have the spirit can search all things or discern all things or evaluate all things.

It's amazing once you understand God and understand the word of God, and gives you insights into all other knowledge.

It allows you to understand things more properly.

And without the knowledge of God, you don't understand the value of everything else.

It's amazing once you see the glory of God, you can actually appropriately evaluate the glory of a car or the glory of food.

Everything else has its proper place, and you understand its role in the light of the knowledge of God.

So this is one of the benefits.

The spiritual person is able to evaluate, discern all things.

But we see it comes with the idea that also, but he himself to be judged by no one.

I think what that means is saying that we can evaluate and discern all things, but the unbeliever doesn't really evaluate us, just as they don't appreciate the word of God.

They have really no appreciation for those who are spiritual.

They have no really evaluation of the one who has the spirit of God living within them.

Thirdly, those who have the spirit, and this is so beautiful, have the mind of Christ.

It takes us back when we began by saying, for who has understood the mind of the Lord?

Who has understood the depths of God?

Who of us has been able to instruct Him?

And he's quoting Isaiah.

This is a common phrase that Paul, he said at least twice, he says it in Romans, who has understood the mind of God, who has been His counselor, who has instructed Him.

The point is no one knows God.

No one can be able to have some knowledge that God doesn't know and be His instructor.

No one knows God, but God knows Himself.

But it ends by saying that we have the mind of Christ.

Who has known the mind of Christ or known the mind of the Lord, speaking of Jesus Christ?

No one.

But we, through the Holy Spirit, we have the mind of Christ.

Back to my conscience, if I could give you my conscience, which I'm glad I can't because I don't want you to know everything I think about.

But if you had my conscience, you would know me as I know myself.

Now, that would be the most intimate knowledge of knowing me.

Now, we may not know all there is to know about God.

Absolutely not.

He's infinite.

But we can truly, no one ever let anyone tell you otherwise, you can truly, experientially know Christ.

You can know God in your hearts.

How?

Because you've been given to the Holy Spirit the very conscience or the very mind of Christ.

How do we know God?

The Spirit of God must first communicate God to us and then the Spirit of God must give us eyes and hearts to see what He has communicated to us in His word. Amen.