♪ Nothing but the blood of Jesus ♪
♪ This is hope and nothing but the blood of us ♪
♪ This is justness ♪
♪ Nothing but the blood of Jesus ♪
♪ Just is the blood ♪
- I'm singing everybody, Brother Ron,
just please help us up in a word of prayer.
- Thank you God for this church
and everybody here, I pray, God,
that those that are missing pay,
that you will heal them quickly
so they can come back and serve you, Lord.
And in Jesus' name, Amen.
- Amen, all right, if you want to take your hymnals,
we're going to turn to page number 343.
Page number 343, revive us again.
- First of the week is Proverbs 16, verse number three,
which says, "Commit thy works unto the Lord
and my thoughts shall be established."
That's once again, Proverbs 16, verse number three.
I got a helper for the announcements
'cause I feel you guys might pay attention
if there's someone else up here.
We're at our Wednesday evening Bible study,
as you guys could have imagined.
Tonight we're gonna be going over
First Corinthians chapter number two.
We have our soul winning times this week.
We haven't had any more salvations throughout the week, huh?
So it's still, the number's correct on here
and 12 salvations for August.
That's cool, praise God.
For that, well, this is September.
This is an old bulletin.
What is going on here?
Okay, it says salvations for August, though.
Salvation for July.
Okay, I'm just tripping.
We need the SOS for Brother Paul.
Help us, Brother Paul.
So we had our men's preaching night,
which I was very pleased with.
I was very thankful.
First of all, for the men that came up here
and had the courage to come up and preach,
it's always a nerve-wracking thing,
especially when it's your first time preaching.
I still get nervous sometimes
when I come up to preach in front of people,
so I'm always impressed by people
when they will come up to preach.
And the sermons were really good, too.
I can say, I've been to some men's preaching nights
in my lifetime where you're snoozing through some of them,
okay, or it's just like,
I've told you about the heresy stuff, okay,
so I won't go into that again,
but it's like where you're like, what is going on here?
But you guys were not boring and you didn't preach heresy,
so I was very happy for that.
Upcoming events, though, we have Pastor Thompson
coming to preach on Friday, September the 19th,
and we have our church trip to Silverwood right after that.
RSVP with Miss Kylie for that.
And then we have Brother David Akers
coming up to preach both services on Sunday,
which will be a blessing as well.
I'm excited to see him more often now.
And then we have our memory verse for the children again,
John 316.
Have all the kids claimed it?
Have none of the kids claimed it?
Three kids, okay, good job, kiddos.
But yeah, that's pretty much all.
Oh, except for we did have our seventh anniversary,
which was awesome.
We did make it through the night on Sunday,
so that was a good thing.
So seven years and two days, okay, yeah.
And going on strong.
With that all being said,
we'll go over the prayer requests.
Well, before we do our song for the evening,
I did want to do the happy anniversary song
for the Thompson's since we didn't do it on Sunday,
but you know what, it was before their anniversary,
so we didn't know for sure if it was gonna happen.
So it's actually more proper to do it now,
and everyone can stop holding their breath and everything.
So, let's sing happy anniversary.
All right, we'll sing it out on the,
I don't know if we'll have the panel for it,
but we're just gonna sing happy anniversary.
All right.
♪ Happy anniversary to the anniversary ♪
♪ To the anniversary ♪
Turn to Psalm number 15, that is Psalm number 15.
And would you please pray for the offering?
- As much as we'll increase everybody, God,
mentally, to increase everybody emotionally,
God, and spiritually, God,
and I just pray that you would bless us, God,
and help us to do great for you, God,
and I just pray that you help us to realize,
at the end of the day, God,
that everything that we have on this earth
comes from you, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- Amen.
- First Corinthians chapter two,
First Corinthians chapter two.
Here at Sure Foundation Baptist Church,
we read the entire chapter before the preaching,
so if everybody can go to First Corinthians chapter two.
So here we are in First Corinthians chapter two,
and the Bible reads,
"And I, brethren, when I came to you,
"came not with excellency of speech or wisdom,
"declaring unto you the testimony of God,
"for I determined not to know anything among you
"save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
"And I was with you in weakness and in fear
"and in much trembling, and in my speech and my preaching
"was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
"but in demonstration of the spirit and of power,
"that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men,
"but in the power of God.
"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them
"that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world,
"nor the princes of this world that come to not.
"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
"even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
"before the world unto our glory,
"which none of the princes of this world knew,
"for had they known it,
"they would have not crucified the Lord of glory.
"But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard,
"neither have entered into the heart of man
"the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
"But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit,
"for the Spirit searcheth all things,
"yea, the deep things of God.
"For what man knoweth the things of a man,
"save the spirit of a man which is in him,
"even so the things of God knoweth no man,
"but the spirit of God.
"Now we have received not the spirit of the world,
"but the spirit which is of God,
"that we might know the things
"that are freely given to us of God.
"Which things also we speak not in the words
"which man's wisdom teacheth,
"but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,
"comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
"But the natural man receiveth not the things
"of the spirit of God,
"for they are foolishness unto him,
"neither can he know them
"because they are spiritually discerned.
"But he that is spiritual judges all things,
"yet he himself is judged of no man,
"for who hath known the mind of the Lord
"that he may instruct him,
"but we have the mind of Christ."
Brother Ryan, why don't you go ahead
and pray for the sermon.
- Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you, God,
that we should all be here tonight.
I pray that you fill the prayer room.
- Amen, you guys are there.
In First Corinthians, we're gonna look at verse number one
where the Bible says, "And I, brethren, when I came to you,
"came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom,
"declaring unto you the testimony of God."
The title of my sermon tonight is Natural Man
versus Spiritual Man, let's pray.
Dear Lord God, thank you so much for this wonderful day, God.
Thank you so much for this great chapter out of your Word.
I just pray that you be with me.
God, as I preach this chapter,
I just pray that you fill me with your Holy Spirit, God,
and help me to interpret it properly.
I pray that you'd help me to speak words
that'd be edifying to the people in this room, God,
and help me to not say what you don't want me to say, God.
I just pray that you would keep on my mind
what you do want me to say, God,
and help me to have a clear train of thought as I preach.
Jesus, may I pray, amen.
On the side of my sermon, like I said, again, is natural man versus spiritual man.
We're here in 1 Corinthians chapter 2,
and Paul's kind of jumping right back into his train of thought from chapter 1,
so I'm going to kind of do the same thing and not kind of do too much of an introduction.
I will just say, though, that we took a one-week break from Corinthians
between chapter 1 and chapter 2,
so I'm just going to refresh your memory very quickly, real quick.
In verse 21 of chapter number 1, look what the Bible says there.
If you want to turn one page backwards, it says,
"For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews of stumbling block
and of the Greeks foolishness."
The last time I kind of left off on this,
I explained how a lot of people get the interpretation
of these three verses in first Corinthians wrong,
in my opinion.
They'll say like, they'll point to this verse
and say these three verses.
They'll say, hey, the Bible says that the Jews need a sign
and that the Greeks seek after wisdom.
So that's what we need to give these people.
And I explained that that's not what Paul is teaching here.
He's saying, hey, the Jews might seek after a sign
and the Greeks might seek after wisdom.
But you know what we should give them to get them saved?
We should give them Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
He says that we preach Christ crucified in verse 23.
If that's a stumbling block to them,
that is their own fault because here's the thing,
God is the one who chose the foolishness of preaching
to get these people saved.
He didn't give them signs, He didn't give them wisdom.
He gave them the preaching of His word
and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And so that's kind of what he leads into chapter two
at the same kind of train of thought,
'cause he kind of goes on a rabbit trail
and then he kind of brings it back to this
from chapter number one, beginning with chapter two again.
It says, "And I, brethren, when I came to you,
"came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom,
"declaring unto you the testimony of God,
"for I determined not to know anything among you,
"saved Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
So again, Paul, who is he speaking to right here?
The Corinthians.
Where were the Corinthians at?
In Corinth, where's Corinth?
It's in Greece.
What do the Greeks seek after,
according to Paul's own words, wisdom.
But did he come to them with wisdom?
No, he didn't.
He didn't come to them with wisdom
or great excellency of speech.
He came to them.
And the only thing that he was telling them
was the testimony of God and Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And keep your finger there in 1 Corinthians chapter number
two and go, if you would, to Revelation one,
verse number nine, because very quickly,
I want to kind of touch on this fact
that he says right there that he was preaching
the testimony of God unto them.
And I just want to show you that the testimony of God
proves that Jesus Christ is God.
And there's hundreds of verses that show this.
Brother Jake also preached a sermon on this
for our men's preaching night last Sunday.
And really, I mean, you could spend a whole sermon series
on verses just showing that Jesus Christ is God,
but I'll just show you this 'cause it's in our text.
First John, or excuse me, Revelation one nine,
it says this is John speaking.
He says, "I John, who also am your brother
"and companion in tribulation and the kingdom
"and patience of Jesus Christ was in the isle
"that is called Patmos for the word of God
"and for the testimony of Jesus Christ."
And so Paul and John were not preaching different things.
They're preaching the exact same thing.
And Paul refers to it as the testimony of God
and John refers to it as the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Why are they doing that?
It's because the testimony of God
and the testimony of Jesus Christ is the same thing
because Jesus Christ is God.
So that is why Paul's on the isle, or excuse me,
that's why John's on the isle of Patmos
and the testimony that Paul has given these people
is the testimony of Jesus
by comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
First Corinthians two, verse number three though,
we'll move along in that it says,
"And I was with you in weakness and in fear
"and in much trembling and my speech and my preaching
"was not with enticing words of man's wisdom
"but in demonstration of the spirit and of power."
Two things I wanna bring up for this.
Number one is this, is that Paul doubles down on the fact
that he wasn't preaching with man's wisdom.
I've said that multiple times
but I do wanna drive that point
because what we should take from that is this,
is that when we preach the gospel
to people when we go door to door and go soul winning,
we should not rely on our own wisdom at the door.
People have all these little fancy gimmicks
and all these things and I think they mean well
all the times I do.
I think people think that there's some fantastic way
to reinvent the wheel of preaching the gospel
but this is a wheel that doesn't need to be reinvented
because the gospel is perfect in and of itself.
In the gospel the Bible is very clear
is what has the power to get people saved.
Not your testimony, not your logic, not your wisdom,
not anything like that.
It is the power of the gospel
that gets people saved out soul winning.
So when we're out soul winning
that should be our main focus.
And obviously there's more things to it than just that.
Like when we preach the gospel
we tell people that they're a sinner,
that they obviously deserve to go to hell for their sins,
but Jesus Christ came and we preach the gospel then.
And then we explain to them eternal security at the door.
That's all great as well, but here's the thing,
'cause this is the second thing I'm gonna bring up about this
is that when you are preaching the gospel out to people,
like when we're going soul winning,
you should bring up the gospel according to the Bible.
Like you can't go out and preach the gospel
if you don't bring up the gospel according to the Bible,
which is according to 1 Corinthians 15,
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I think people do this as well.
I don't think people do it on purpose a lot of times.
I think they're meaning well
and they just don't think about it,
but you just need to remember what am I preaching?
The gospel, the death, the burial and resurrection.
It's like having like a, I don't know,
it's like you miss the whole point
of what you're preaching then if you don't mention
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
'Cause again, eternal security is important
and it's attached to the gospel
and people knowing that they're a sinner,
that's really important as well,
but you must bring up the death,
burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
because that is what has the power
to get people saved out so many.
So if you're not bringing that up out so many,
you absolutely need to.
You're dropping the ball if you're doing that.
Why is this so important though?
Verse number five in the same chapter says this.
It says that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
The reason why we're supposed to be winning people over
with the gospel and not with our wisdom
and not with our logic and not with signs and with wonders
is because of the fact that our faith needs to rest
in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Not anything else on this earth.
And I showed you last time
when we were in first Corinthians chapter one,
all the different ways these things fail,
like the miracles, falsely so called,
like the Bible says that the Antichrist, when he comes,
he's gonna do great lying wonders.
And it said, if it was possible, it would deceive the elect.
And also, if you think about the Egyptian sorcerers,
like Jans and Jambries, they were also doing miracles.
I mean, they're matching the plagues of Moses
up to a certain point where they can't anymore.
But I'm just bringing that to show you that miracles fail.
All these things, everything else in this world,
it will fail, but the gospel of Jesus Christ,
that never fails.
So that's what we should be relying in
to get people saved out so many.
Here's another thing that fails, like with these miracles,
Brother Jason brought this up in his Catholic sermon,
but I thought it was a really good point,
is this Shroud of Turin.
Did I lose my picture of this?
Oh no, I lost, oh no, here it is.
You guys are lucky today.
I brought this little picture
because I've heard this multiple times
and I just kind of always ignore it
because it's always just sounded way too good
to be true to me.
Like they're like, we have the cloth
that covered Jesus Christ in the tomb.
Like, I'm just like, that doesn't sound real.
So like all the Catholic church and the Orthodox church,
they have all these icons of all these things.
I'm like, they're all fake.
There's no way.
We got a vial of Jesus Christ blood from Calvary.
No you don't, that's fake, come on now.
We have the original cross, no you don't, okay.
Because again, God didn't leave all these signs
for us to get saved.
He expects us to believe the death row and resurrection
by faith is what we're supposed to believe it by.
But going back to the Shroud of Turn,
the reason I printed off this picture is this,
is they'll say, if you don't know what that is,
it's basically, they think that they have the cloth
that was laid over Jesus Christ in the tomb,
and they have an imprint of the face of Jesus Christ,
is what the Shroud of Turn is.
I brought a picture of it though, so you guys can see that.
I don't know how well you guys can see this.
Can you guys see this back there?
Yeah, yeah.
That's the first thing you should notice about this thing,
is that it makes Jesus Christ out to have long hair.
But here's the problem with that.
The Bible says that it's a shame for men to have long hair.
So I can tell you, I don't know what this is,
but I can tell you 100%, it is not Jesus Christ.
And they'll say all this stuff with it, they'll be like,
it would have taken 34 trillion watts of power
to make this imprint in this cloth.
I just don't believe that, it sounds dumb.
And I'm a Christian.
If I think that sounds dumb and I'm a Christian,
then I can only imagine what an atheist
would look at that and think.
Silly, and why are we trying to win people over
with signs and with miracles and all this evidence?
The Bible says that faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
We don't need to prove God like it's like,
we're in a lab and we're scientists or something like that.
We take the Bible by faith.
We take the death, the burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ by faith.
That's how God chose to get people saved.
And if you're a problem with that,
take it up with God 'cause he's the one who ordained that,
as we're gonna see in this passage itself.
Well, we'll continue on in this passage, as a matter of fact.
1 Corinthians 2, verse number six, it says,
"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect."
And notice that real quick, it says perfect.
Perfect is saying like complete,
and it's talking about people that are saved, okay?
It says, "Yet not the wisdom of this world,
"nor the princes of this world that come to naught,
"but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
"even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
"before the world unto our glory."
These verses can kind of be a little tricky
to articulate what they're saying.
I feel like I understand what they're saying,
but they're hard to kind of articulate
like I kind of just had said.
But I'll try to do my best here.
First of all, what Paul's making very clear here
is that Christianity and the gospel and the Bible itself,
the wisdom of God is not contrary to wisdom itself,
but it is contrary to the wisdom of the world.
There is a difference in that regard.
And the second thing that Paul is saying right here is this,
is that the wisdom that we have is not for unsaved people,
it's for saved people.
It's hidden from unsaved people.
And it's a wisdom that we have
because we have the Holy Spirit
that's in our heart that reveals it to us.
And unsaved people can't understand the wisdom of the Bible
because they don't have the Holy Spirit in their heart.
That's why Paul is saying right here,
we speak the wisdom of God to who?
To them that are perfect.
Them that are saved.
Them that have the Holy Spirit in their heart.
That's who can understand the wisdom from the Bible.
That's what Paul is saying right here.
And you can take my word for it
'cause I guess he doesn't bring all that up right here.
I'm kind of digging in a little bit further on.
So you just have to kind of take my word.
But I'll show you that in the Bible
as we progress in this chapter.
But Paul's also saying this.
He's saying that the world mistakes the fact
that they can't understand our wisdom
for the fact that we have no wisdom at all.
And he's clarifying that here.
He's saying, hey, just because the world doesn't understand
the wisdom of the Bible and the wisdom of God,
it's not because it's not there.
It's because they can't see it because it's spiritually
discerned, because it takes the Holy Spirit to understand
the deep wisdom and the deep truths from the Bible.
And Paul's also, on the contrary point of that,
pointing out this, the wisdom of the world is not wisdom
at all in reality.
He says the wisdom of the world comes to nought
in those verses, he's like the princes, the kingdoms,
all these nations in this world, they come to nought
and their wisdom comes to nought.
Like you can just go and look at this yourself,
it's 100% true.
Every nation, every kingdom, every group of people,
every culture on this planet throughout all of time
has different morality and different wisdom
and different knowledge and different things
that they cling to.
Paul says, hey, they cling to all that stuff
and it's new.
Every single year, every single time
there's a new king in the land, he's saying,
but the wisdom of God, it doesn't change
because it's genuine wisdom, because it's true.
And that's why God himself also doesn't change
because truth doesn't change.
That's why he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
But the wisdom of God, again, like I said,
which he reveals to us that are saved
through his Holy Spirit is always consistent,
it's always stable, and it does not change.
And that's huge because real wisdom,
real truth cannot change.
It's not fluid, it doesn't move around.
There's real, genuine wisdom,
like what the Bible talks about in the book of Proverbs,
that's been the same from the foundation of the world.
The Bible says in Proverbs that God used wisdom
when he formed the foundation of the world, right?
And so God's wisdom, that's the difference
between God's wisdom and the world's wisdom,
is that God's wisdom is consistent,
and the world's wisdom changes every single year,
every single decade.
You can just do this with America.
Look at our morality nowadays,
and then just go back 20 years,
so just like 2000 or whatever.
It's like completely different culture,
completely different morality,
completely different values that people had.
That's kind of what Paul is bringing up.
He's like the world's wisdom is always changing,
but guess what?
If we went back a thousand years
and looked at what the Bible said a thousand years ago,
it's gonna say the exact same thing
that our Bible says nowadays,
'cause God's wisdom and his word does not change.
'Cause it's true, because it's genuine.
And the world can't say that
'cause they can't even go back five years.
And then it's like, it's just a whole different society.
That's kind of what Paul's bringing up.
Thirdly is this, is that when Paul says
that it's ordained for our glory,
it's because we actually can benefit from the wisdom of God
because we have the Holy Spirit
to understand it in the first place.
But the wisdom can't understand,
excuse me, the world can't understand it
'cause they don't have the Holy Spirit.
Verse number eight, it says,
"Which none of the princes of this world knew,
"for had they known it,
"they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
Paul says, do you wanna know
what the wisdom of the world did
and what the wisdom of the world does?
It crucified the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords
when he came to this earth
and when he was manifest in the flesh.
He's like, is that really wisdom?
That sounds like foolishness.
And it is foolishness.
Verse number nine, it says,
"But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man
the things which God had prepared for them that love him."
This verse is interesting because I feel like a lot of people,
including myself in the past,
have used this out of context to basically teach that,
you know, we can't understand what heaven's gonna be like
because, you know, like I have not seen
and you have not heard what God's prepared
for those that love Him.
So like people will say all the time,
like we can't even imagine what heaven's gonna be like.
Here's the thing though.
When you actually look at this in context,
it's not what He's saying.
Look at verse number 10.
Look what it says.
It says, "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit
"for the Spirit searched with all things,
"yea, the deep things of God."
God has told us what He's prepared for us in the Bible.
I mean, there's a whole book about it in Revelation, right?
We hear everything that He's prepared for us.
And obviously we don't know all the little details
of these things, but He's saying in general,
He's saying the world doesn't understand
what God's prepared for us.
Not that we don't know, 'cause we do know
because we have the Holy Spirit
that reveals these things to us through God's word.
But the world doesn't know because again,
they don't have the Spirit.
And I'm bringing that up because that's an example
that He's gonna drive home later on.
So I just want you to understand what He's setting up
is that the world isn't understanding wisdom
and the world doesn't understand
what God's prepared for us.
And the world is confused by Christians
and the wisdom of God
because they don't have the Holy Spirit.
You don't have to even look very further.
Go to Mark 410 real quick, Mark 410,
and keep your figure there in 1 Corinthians 2.
A good example of the world not understanding
the wisdom of God is some people say this sometimes,
they'll be like, I don't even wanna go to heaven.
Heaven sounds boring.
Like who wants to just go and live for all of eternity
and we're gonna be playing harps
and have like wings up there.
It sounds so boring.
What are we even gonna be doing?
You know why they think that?
Because they don't understand
what God has actually prepared for us up in heaven,
which is eternal happiness, eternal joy, life never ending.
It's like the pinnacle of everything good in this world
is what heaven's gonna be for us.
And really truly beyond what this world could ever offer us.
Mark 4:10, it says,
"And when he was alone, they that were about him,"
or excuse me, "And when he was alone,
they that were about him with the 12 asked of him,
the parable, and he said unto them,
unto you it is given to know the mystery
of the kingdom of God,
but unto them that are without all these things
are done in parables."
I'm bringing this up because it's kind of reminiscent
of what we're hearing right here,
that Jesus is saying he's gonna reveal the truths
in the parables to the disciples.
Why?
'Cause it's given to them.
And if you kind of compare that with Corinthians,
you can see it's 'cause it's ordained to their glory.
Why is that?
Because they're saved, 'cause they have the Holy Spirit.
And He's saying that, He's contrasting that with
like the world, who'd be the unsaved Jews in this example
that are not understanding this parable,
and saying that they can't understand the deep wisdoms
and the deep truths of the Bible because they're not saved.
This kind of idea, those segues kind of pretty well
into the next thing that I'm gonna teach in this sermon,
which is this, unsaved people cannot understand the Bible.
And I don't, people get mad about this sometimes,
but I just think it's completely cut and dry
from this passage.
It's very obvious what he's saying.
Unsaved people cannot understand the deep things of God
and the reason why is because they don't have
the Holy Spirit.
I'll probably say that a hundred times in the sermon,
but I wanna drive that point home
because people will just like miss
what Paul's teaching here.
The unsaved people of this world cannot understand
the Bible, it's deep spiritual truths
and the underlying truth, but underneath it,
because they're not saved,
because they don't have the Holy Spirit.
And this is a spiritual book.
And you don't even have to look any further
to prove that to you than the parable that I had you at
in Mark 410, or excuse me, the explanation of that parable,
because the Jews are a good example of this,
because even in the New Testament,
the Bible says that there's a veil over their eyes
that they can't understand.
And that veil is done away with by Jesus Christ,
because you're saved when you have Jesus Christ.
But if you just think about the Jews,
they're a really good example of this.
Think about this.
They have the Old Testament that we have.
So how do they look at verses like Micah 5-2,
which says that Jesus Christ is from old,
from everlasting.
How do they look at a verse like Isaiah 9-6,
which says, "For unto us a child is born,
"unto us a son is given,
"and the government shall be upon his shoulders,
"and his name shall be called Wonderful,
"Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
"the Prince of Peace."
And not realize that that's talking about Jesus Christ.
How do they look at Isaiah 7 14,
where it talks about a virgin shall be with child,
and shall bring forth a son,
and shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is God with us.
How do they look at these things,
and not understand that they're talking about Jesus Christ?
'Cause they're blind, 'cause they don't have the spirit
in their heart to understand these things, that's why.
So that's my proof text here to show you,
the Jews have all the scriptures they need
to believe on Jesus Christ, and they still don't understand.
It goes right over their head,
because they don't have the Holy Spirit
to understand these things,
and they have a veil that's over their eyes.
Outside of Jews, though, mankind in general, though,
just doesn't understand the Bible either.
That's why this happens to us all the time
when we're out soul hunting.
I'm sure you can relate to this.
You'll be like reading someone the Bible,
you're like John 3:16,
and they'll start quoting it with you,
and they'll like, "Forgot to love the world,"
and then like they interrupt,
"That he gave his only begotten son,
"that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
"but have everlasting life."
And you're like, "Yeah, that's what I'm gonna show you."
That's what that verse says.
But then the reason we're showing that verse
in the first place is because when we ask them
what it took to get to heaven, they say,
"You just gotta do good works to the end, brother."
It's like they're quoting a verse
about what real salvation is, and they don't understand it.
And they don't understand it 'cause they're not saved.
So that's kind of what I'm trying to get across
to you tonight in this sermon.
Continuing on in verse number 10, though,
it says this, it says,
"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit,
"for the Spirit searcheth all things,
"yea, the deep things of God.
"For what man knoweth the things of God,
"said the Spirit of man which is in him,
"even so the things of God knoweth no man,
"but the Spirit of God."
Or excuse me, "Even so the things of God knoweth no man,
"but the Spirit of God.
"Now we have received not the Spirit of the world,
"but the Spirit which is of God,
"that we might know the things
"that are freely given to us of God."
Again, why can we understand the Bible?
Because we have the comforter,
we have the Holy Spirit,
we have an unction from the Holy One,
we have the Holy Spirit that guides us into all truth
and that interprets the Bible for us.
That's why we can understand the things of God,
which is obviously being referred to
as like the Bible right here,
or wisdom from the Bible.
These things are freely given to us,
not to the world, but to us as Christians,
is what Paul is bringing up here.
Verse number 13, it says,
"Which things also we speak not in the words
"which man's wisdom teacheth,
"but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,
"comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
"But the natural man receiveth not the things
"in the Spirit of God, for their foolishness unto him,
"neither can he know them."
Look what it says, "Because they are spiritually discerned."
Go, if you would, to John 6 63.
My water bearer is gone, oh no.
Callie, oh no, she is going, okay.
God bless you.
John 6 63 is where you guys are going.
I'm gonna use these verses to derive two teachings
to kind of end this sermon on tonight, which is this.
Number one, and I've already said this before,
but I'm gonna drive this point real quick.
Unsafe people cannot understand the Bible.
John 63, let me just show you more proof
versus for why this.
It says, it is the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh prophet of nothing.
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit,
they are life.
If the words of Jesus Christ are spirit
and they are life, according to 1 Corinthians 2 14,
which says the things of God, a natural man
can't understand them because they're spiritually discerned,
why would we think that an unsafe person
could look at the Bible and just pick it up
and understand what it's saying?
Obviously, if they're speaking the same language
as the Bible speaks, they can get kind of
the surface level things, but we're talking about
like the deep truths of the Bible.
Go to Acts 8 verse 30, 'cause I just want to show you
one more thing about this before we move on
to the last kind of thing of this sermon.
While you guys are going to Acts 8 30,
I'll just kind of give you the back story
of the Ethiopian eunuch just for time's sake.
If you're unaware of this story,
basically there's a man that's riding a chariot
that we refer to as the Ethiopian eunuch
who wants to get saved.
He's reading the Bible.
He probably is praying to God to get saved.
And so the Holy Spirit goes to Philip and says,
"Hey, go catch up with that chariot
and go talk with that man."
'Cause God is sending him there to conversate with him,
obviously to preach him the gospel.
But look at verse number 30 of this chapter,
now that we have that little backstory.
It says, in Acts 8:30, it says,
"And Philip ran thither to him
and heard him read the prophet Isaiah's and said,
'Understandest thou what thou readest?'
And he said, 'How can I, except some man should guide me?'
And he desired Philip that he would come up
and sit with him."
Philip asked him this question,
"Can you understand what you're reading?"
And he says, "How can I, except some man to guide me?"
Right? Yeah, that's what he's saying.
He's like, "No, but in a fancy way, right?"
But this is what I want to ask you.
Why can't this guy understand the Bible?
'Cause he's not saved, 'cause he doesn't have the Holy Spirit
to understand the spiritual words that he's reading.
Why can Philip understand the Bible?
'Cause he's saved, 'cause he has the Holy Spirit
in his heart, right?
This is not rocket science,
but sometimes people get mad about this stuff.
I just don't understand why.
This is a side note to this as well,
is that this is why there's so many atheists
that butcher interpretations of the Bible.
Like online I'll see them,
which they have no business reading anything
from the Bible because they don't believe it
in the first place.
But when they do, they always butcher it
and they have no idea what they're talking about.
There's so many times where they'll quote
like such an obvious verse, like what was this guy,
this atheist was talking about like,
oh, in the creation story, he's like saying that
there's light before the sun is made.
So clearly the Bible has an error in it.
But then it's like, if you go to Revelation,
you can see that the light was the lamb of God
that lights the whole city.
So God doesn't need the sun to light things.
That doesn't make sense to them because they're just focused
on all their little dinky science stuff,
but God has no mistakes in him.
And the Bible has no mistakes in it, it's infallible.
So all their little dumb logics come from the fact
that they don't understand what they're actually reading.
(clears throat)
And the same thing, 'cause I'm talking about atheists,
but also false religions.
You look at the teachings of false religion sometimes,
like the Mormons, like the Catholics, like the Orthodox,
like, you know, the Jehovah's Witnesses.
And you're like, how do you come to that conclusion?
'Cause I'm like, we're like,
we're reading the same book as you.
Well, kind of, okay?
Maybe I shouldn't even say that, okay?
We're reading the King James,
which is the right word of God, okay?
But in theory, like, the overarching picture sometimes,
I'm like, where do you guys derive all this weird stuff from?
Like Catholics, where do you get the Pope from?
Where do you get all this incense from?
Where do you get praying to the saints from?
Like, where do you get all these icons from?
Like the shroud of turn that's fake anyways.
Where do you get that from?
'Cause it's not in the Bible.
You know why they come to all these dumb conclusions though
and all these false doctrines, all these false teachings?
It's 'cause they're reading this book
without the Holy Spirit in their heart, that's why.
So number one that I was deriving from these verses
that it's very obvious that unsaved people
can't understand the Bible
'cause they don't have the Holy Spirit.
Number two, and this one's probably
a little bit more controversial, is this,
is that unsaved people do not just pick up the Bible
and get themselves saved.
Now, again, if you disagree with me on this,
it's not the end all be all.
I'm just, this is the thing,
this is what I expect out of people
when they hear God's word.
We should always be willing to change our position
depending on what the word of God says.
There's been multiple times in my life
where I look at something and I'm like,
oh, I'm wrong, I just assumed wrong
because I wasn't going with what the Bible says.
And we should always be willing to, you know,
change our beliefs or whatever.
So I don't know what everybody believes in here,
but I'm just gonna tell you what I believe
and what we derive as a church from these verses.
And that is that unsaved people
do not just get themselves saved
by picking up the Bible and reading it.
And I'll show you why.
Go to Romans 1:16.
I'll show you a couple of proofs of this,
I believe, from the Bible.
This is probably the weakest one
that I'm gonna show you just 'cause
I'm gonna kinda go in order of things
that I think are stronger.
But in Romans 1:16 it says this,
"For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
"for it is the power of God unto salvation
"to everyone that believeth,
"to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
He says, "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed."
He says, "From faith to faith, as it is written,
"the just shall live by faith."
How do people get saved?
It's from faith to faith, that's how.
Someone that's saved is preaching them the gospel
so that they can have faith as well.
Go to 1 Corinthians 3:5, I'll show you.
'Cause I think we're just depending on that verse.
I don't think that would be solid enough.
But 1 Corinthians 3:5, I think there's another
proof verse of this.
It says, in 1 Corinthians 3, verse number five,
it says, "Who then is Paul?
And who is Apollos?"
Listen to what it says.
It says, "But ministers by whom ye believed,
even as the Lord gave to every man."
What is the Bible saying right there?
Every single person that's gonna believe
has a minister given to them by God
that's gonna preach them the gospel to get them saved.
That is what that is teaching.
Go back to Acts 8:31 as well.
Acts 831, every man has a minister appointed to them
by how they're gonna believe
is what the Bible says right there,
that the Lord gave to every man.
Acts 831, I just wanna show you kind of the rest
of the story with the eunuch real quick.
And we're wrapping up pretty close.
This is a pretty short chapter.
You guys got lucky, okay, tonight.
Acts 831, it says, and he said,
how can I accept some man should guide me?
And he desired so that he would come up and sit with him.
I want you to notice this.
Look where he's reading the Bible.
Says, the place of the scripture which he read
was this he was led as a sheep to the slaughter
and like a lamb dumb before his shearers.
So he opened, so opened he not his mouth
and his humiliation, his judgment was taken away
and who shall declare his generation
for his life is taken from the earth.
And the eunuch answered Philip and said,
I pray thee of whom speaketh the prophet this
of himself or some other man.
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus.
This is what I want to point out to you from this,
a couple things, okay?
Number one is if the eunuch was gonna get himself saved,
this would have been the passage of scripture to do it
because he's reading about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
But, and I want you to understand this prophecy though
is very basic, in the New Testament it is,
because we have the hindsight of Jesus Christ, right?
Why is he missing this again, when you guys answered earlier?
It's 'cause he's not saved.
This is very obvious who this is referring to though,
if you have the Holy Spirit, it's clearly Jesus Christ.
And so this man needed Philip to be that minister
that God appointed to preach him the gospel
so that he could understand it properly
because Philip had the Holy Spirit,
so he could understand the things that are spiritual
and interpret them to the eunuch.
Go to 1 Corinthians 1.21, 1.21,
and this is what I want you to think about as well,
is that if the Holy Spirit, or I should say this,
why is the Holy Spirit telling Philip
to go and preach to this guy?
Why didn't the Holy Spirit just reveal this
to the eunuch himself while he's reading this?
Couldn't he have done that?
Like, he's reading this, he wants to get saved,
and then God says, hey, I wanna get this guy saved,
so here's what I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna send Philip to get him saved.
Why not just reveal it to him?
Here's why, it's 'cause God didn't choose
just you picking up the Bible and reading it,
he didn't ordain that to get people saved.
What did he ordain to get people saved
according to 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians,
or excuse me, 1 Corinthians chapter two,
the preaching of the gospel, that's what he chose.
Not just people picking it up and reading it.
And so, again, if you have a problem with that,
that's what God ordained, that's what God chose,
and that's why I have you guys going to 1 Corinthians 1.21.
I also just wanna point out to you as well,
the story of Cornelius is like the same thing.
Cornelius wants to get saved,
God wants to get Cornelius saved,
so what does he do?
Sends him Peter, that's how God operates.
He sends soul winners to get people saved.
He doesn't just reveal it to their eyes,
and they just pick up the Bible
and just get themselves saved.
Faith to faith, there's a minister appointed
for every man that's gonna believe,
and the Bible's saying right here that God,
excuse me, in 1 Corinthians 1.21 it says,
for after that in the wisdom of God,
of God the world by wisdom knew not God,
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe.
It's God that chose this.
So again, 'cause this is what people
would rebuttal to this, they would say like,
well, are you saying that God can't do
just whatever he wants?
Obviously we know in theory that God can do per se
whatever he wants, there's obviously some caveats
about that that I'm not really gonna get into right now,
but I just want you to realize that God is the one
who chose it to be this way.
God can choose to do what he wants in areas,
but what God chose to do for the gospel
is to get people saved by preaching.
That's what he chose.
So he could have chosen all these different ways in theory,
but he chose the foolishness of preaching.
So again, you can take that up with God
if you have a problem with that.
Here's the thing though,
there's something that people will say to this sometimes,
is that they'll say, well, I got saved by just, you know,
picking up the Bible and reading it though.
So I know that you're not telling me the truth.
Here's what I think happens in some situations.
I think that people get the gospel preached to them,
or they have someone that is saved interpret things
to the Bible out of them.
Maybe it was a long time from their past,
and they have someone that sheds the light
of the gospel to them, and then later on,
they might like pick up something in the Bible
and be able to kind of like piece together
from what that interpretation was told to them
to where they could get saved.
But if you think about it, and that's not them
getting themselves saved, it's still the first person
that preached to them that would be responsible for that.
Because again, what did we read in the Bible?
The natural man doesn't understand the Bible.
He doesn't understand the Bible, why?
Because it's spiritually discerned.
So I don't care what someone's story is,
I don't believe it, I go with what the Bible says.
The Bible says the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God,
and their foolishness unto him,
because they're spiritually discerned.
I just don't know how you explain those verses
any other way if people can just get themselves saved.
That's also not what we see in the Bible either.
People have children in the faith,
like Paul mentions that with Timothy.
We are all someone's child in the faith.
Obviously, we all know that God is our father,
but I'm saying in the sense of the gospel,
someone got you saved.
A man got you saved.
Someone preached the gospel
and got you saved is what God is teaching.
Here's another thing that people bring up
through about all this.
They'll say that you're just limiting the Word of God.
You're limiting its power.
Isn't the Word of God powerful?
Here's the thing though.
The Word of God is powerful,
but the Word of God also, as we've seen before,
sorry, the Bible's messing me up.
As we've seen before, people can still be blind
to the Bible despite its power.
That's kind of used the example with you guys earlier
with the Jews.
The Word of God is powerful,
so then why do they stumble at Isaiah 9-6,
at Micah 5-2, at Isaiah 7-14?
It's not because the Word of God's not powerful.
It's 'cause they're blind to it.
There's a barrier there is why.
Here's another example,
and I've used this analogy before,
but let me just use this now
that I got this Spanish Bible
and kind of show you,
'cause I think it's very similar
to how we use the term like a language barrier.
I think there's a spiritual barrier as well with people.
So let me just show you what I'm talking about, okay?
We got the Word of God in Spanish, okay?
So let me read you guys something, okay?
Where we got Ezekiel 13, okay?
It looks like Ezekiel, okay?
It says, "Y vino a mi parable de Jehovah diciendo."
That's the Word of God, okay?
This is the Spanish Bible, okay?
Everybody that doesn't speak Spanish in here, okay?
Ms. Malena is out of this analogy, okay?
Can you tell me what that meant?
You can't.
Are you saying the Word of God is not powerful?
No, it's just here's the reality.
You can't understand it
'cause there's a language barrier, right?
There's the same thing though.
When it comes to people,
even when you do speak the same language
that the Bible's written in,
there is a spiritual barrier
that stops people from understanding
what it's really teaching
and that barrier is only broken
through having the Holy Spirit in your heart.
You guys understand what I'm saying?
The word of God is powerful
but you have to understand it
to reap the benefits of that.
And so the word of God is powerful
but it just doesn't, just,
people don't just pick it up
and get themselves saved.
That's what we believe.
Again, if you disagree,
this is not the end all be all
but that's what I think
that this teaching in the Bible
or one of the things we can derive from this.
The last couple verses of this and one this sermon.
1st Corinthians 2 verse number 15.
The Bible says this,
"But he that is spiritual judges all things,
yet he himself is judged of no man.
For no man hath known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him."
But we have good night.
Do I have dyslexia?
That's what I want to know right now.
Verse 16, let me read that one more time.
Let me just read this all again, okay?
We've messed up.
Says, but he that is spiritual judge of all things,
yet he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord,
that he may instruct him,
but we have the mind of Christ.
What I think, again, he's saying here,
and I think these are the most confusing verses of this chapter.
I think he's doing the same thing he's talking about in verse number nine,
when it says, "Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard."
The things that God has prepared for them that loved him.
I think he's doing the same thing here,
but he's taking a different slant where he's saying,
"But he that is spiritual judgeth all things,
yet he himself is judged of no man."
Like the Bible's saying here, Paul is saying here,
that we are not judged of any man
for the wisdom that we have, okay?
The wisdom of who though?
The wisdom of God is what Paul's been talking about, right?
'Cause then he brings up the mind of Christ.
He says, "For who hath known the mind of Christ,
that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ."
So what he's basically saying here is that
no man can judge us for the wisdom
that we get from the Bible,
because the wisdom that we have is the mind of Christ, right?
So that's why we're judged of no man.
No man could judge our wisdom,
because who are they really judging in that scenario?
God, right?
And he says right there,
"Who hath known the mind of the Lord,
that he may instruct him."
Nobody can argue against God.
Nobody can argue against the wisdom of God,
is what I believe he's saying right here.
'Cause I've seen people do different things
with these verses, but I don't understand
with the context of how things have been flowing,
or I would say I don't agree with what people say about it.
I think that that's what he is saying right here,
even though it is a little bit confusing.
So anyways, kind of in summary for this sermon,
I kind of know it's kind of the same theme,
kind of all throughout the chapter,
he kind of breaks into a couple different things,
but we should just realize that we have a great privilege
and benefit through the Holy Spirit
that allows us to understand the Bible.
The reason we can understand the Bible
is because of the Holy Spirit.
We have an unction from the Holy Ones, what the Bible says.
And the reason unsaved people can't
is because they don't have the Spirit to guide them.
And if they don't have the Spirit to guide them,
they can't understand the Bible 'cause it's a spiritual book.
And the things of God are spiritually discerned.
And even in the context of that,
when it comes to the gospel,
that's what Paul is talking about in context.
It's the gospel, right?
These things are hidden from them
and it takes a soul winner with the Holy Spirit
to mend that bread, I should say,
so that they can be reconciled.
And that's not because mankind, per se,
is the one who's getting people saved,
it's God using mankind to get other people saved.
Obviously, all glory goes to God.
And we should always remember that too,
that's a good practical thing to close on,
is that when we say that we do things,
it's really God using us to do things.
So all glory goes to him at the end of the day.
Every single person you go to the door
and you preach on the gospel,
obviously you are doing a good work.
You're a co-laborer with Christ,
what we're gonna see in Corinthians later on.
But you should realize that your labor would be in vain
if you didn't have Jesus Christ labor in there with you.
If you didn't have the Holy Spirit laboring with you,
your work would be nothing.
So we just always need to remember no matter,
'cause that kind of ties back
into using your own wisdom out-souling.
That's why we depend on the gospel to get people saved.
And that's why Paul is stressing this in this chapter
because the gospel is what has power.
The word of God is what has power.
And it's a privilege that we're allowed
to be co-laborers in those things.
That being said, let's pray.
Dear Father God, thank you so much for this wonderful day.
Thank you so much for this great chapter out of your word.
I just pray that you would help us to take this to heart, God,
and help us to understand your truths
and apply them to your life
and help us to continue to see good doctrine from the Bible.
And I just pray that you would continue to help me
to preach these sermons
and that you fill me with your Holy Spirit
and that you would help the people in this room
throughout their week to be blessed with you.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
- Hymnals, we're gonna turn to page number 39.
Page number 39.
How beautiful heaven must be.
Page number 39.
Sing everybody.
Brother Ryan, would you please close the word of prayer?
- God, that you help us to reach the gospel
and with the wisdom of the world,
but the power of God by the gospel board
and I pray you'll bless us as we go.
In Jesus' name, amen.