Wisdom, however, not of this age nor the rulers of this age who are passing away. But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory. The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But just as it is written, things which eye has not seen or ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. Let's pray and then we'll jump in. God we thank you for your word. We pray Lord, God that every time we open it up, that first of all our hearts will be prepared and that Lord we would cause our, we would determine in our hearts to really receive your truth, but also God through your spirit help us to understand.

God through your spirit help us to have conviction. Help us to have lasting memory of the things that you teach us Lord through your word. Father we thank you for your truth and we pray that we would gain much fruit from it today as we study. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.

Okay. So as we look at this passage, what I did was I did not like an extensive diagram, but I did a essentially a kind of a pseudo outline for us when I looked at verse six through nine and in our warmup I asked you guys to do the same thing, which is try in your simplest form to do an outline because it helps you understand the passage a lot.

If you want to get real technical, you could actually start diagramming each verse in ways when which you show each phrase has a connection to another, right? So you show the syntax basically between each word. Here what I did was I was getting kind of a little bit confused by all the repetitive wording by this little paragraph.

And so what I did was I said, okay, verse six he's talking about, we're speaking about wisdom and wisdom happens to be the main thing. Okay. From that he describes what wisdom is and then he repeats himself in verse seven saying, we speak this wisdom and he describes it again.

And then pertaining to this wisdom, he describes how, again, whether people understand it and all that kind of stuff. So I want to begin by asking you as, as I tried to outline here that the wisdom is what he's trying to unpack. Again, he's trying to describe this wisdom that he's now speaking of.

Question to you at first for a first point is what descriptions have you found from this, these verses about wisdom? And that was the homework from the last week. Okay. What are the descriptions that you see of the wisdom that Paul speaks of in verse six through nine? And if you haven't done it, take a moment to just start underlining real quick or maybe even numbering one, two, three.

What are the descriptions of wisdom from these four verses? And then as you find them, just yell it out. Great. That's part B of verse six. It's not of this age nor the rulers of this age. Okay. What else? Great. So jot these down if you want to, or again, underline and number.

It's secret and hidden. The ESV, I believe it says secret and the NASB it says it's a mystery. Okay. And that it's hidden wisdom. What else? Great. I'm glad you didn't just, you know, these are these little phrases. It's both mystery and it's hidden, but then it was also predestined before the ages.

Okay. What else did you guys find? The wisdom is among those who are mature. All right. So the wisdom is spoken to those who are mature. What else? Okay. Revealed through the spirit. What else? Okay. So you guys can kind of see as we're doing this again, the main focal point, he's talking about this wisdom again, which essentially we've been talking about for the last several weeks.

But as you think about this wisdom, or as you think about how he's describing it, if you were to try to highlight certain major thoughts from that, like what are we supposed to gather from this description of wisdom? What's something that stands out? What's the general feel you guys is describing this?

Great. That's a great way to put it. I would actually just kind of highlight that first part of what Alex said. Alex said, this wisdom is not attainable without the spirit. And that's exactly what Apostle Paul is trying to describe. And that's something that we need to take a moment to think about and meditate on.

So one of the things that we should gather from this description of wisdom is it's not attainable by natural man. And if you think about this for a moment, we're reminded that natural man, I guess, or human wisdom has been incompetent. And not only has it been incompetent for a long time, but broadly speaking, all of mankind has been incompetent.

And so if you look at that verse, looking at your Bibles, you know how one of the first descriptions that somebody mentioned was, it's not of this age or the rulers of this age. If you think about this, he's talking about timeline in terms of this age or this generation.

But not only that, he says basically that it's all passing away. And so you get the sense of wisdom, okay? Wisdom is not attainable and it never has been because man's wisdom in total has been incompetent. We're weak for the entire time. And there's a sense in which from the previous passages that we've studied in this book, it was taught to us that whether we're trying to figure things out internally, whether we're trying to figure things out rationally, whether we're trying to figure things out experientially and empirically, we are not going to obtain to God.

And we're not only going to obtain to God, but we're not going to obtain to the things of the Lord by our own human measure. Okay? By our own human measure. But as you think about that, I want to highlight something that's something that we've probably all known, but it is a little bit like shocking.

It is a little bit like not just in our common thought. And that is this question. Has God intentionally hidden his truth from people? It's a yes or no question. You know the answer to this. Yeah. He has. He calls this wisdom a mystery, which essentially the reason why there's this different translation of mystery or secret is because oftentimes it's translated mystery, but in its full sense of the word, it's like a secret.

It's something that's not like, "Oh, it's mysterious. No one's going to ever figure it out." That's not the meaning behind it. When they say mystery, it's more like it was hidden and it's to be revealed. So essentially, what is that? A secret. Okay? So he describes it in two terms, that it's a secret and it's hidden.

So in answering the question, has God ever withheld his truth, his wisdom from mankind? Yes, he has. But let me ask you a question. Do you know of any other references? Do you know of any other times when God has done this? Right. Excellent. So if you remember, when Jesus was on earth, Jesus started speaking in parables at a certain point and the disciples were like, "Why?" You know, I think it's actually good for us to go to that passage for a little bit in Matthew 13.

Okay? So let's go to Matthew 13. So go to your Bibles in Matthew 13. Okay. In Matthew 13, starting from verse 10, he says, "And the disciples came and said to him," so we're at Matthew 13, verse 10, "Why do you speak to them in parables? And Jesus answered them, 'To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.

For whoever has to him, more shall be given and he will have an abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables because while seeing, they do not see, and while hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand.'" Wow.

So he actually almost uses the same verbiage as we see here, or Apostle Paul uses the same verbiage that Jesus said. Right? Why? Because they were actually quoting a passage in Isaiah. Okay? If you guys remember, Isaiah was a prophet, a prophet of the Lord. And Isaiah experienced an incredible scene with God on the throne.

But when Isaiah told God, "Here I am, send me," Isaiah said, "You're going to go, but guess what God said? They're not going to understand you." So what's really interesting about this passage is, as we look to this idea of men and their wisdom were incompetent, but God also intentionally withheld his wisdom.

And so what we learn from that is this idea that unless God grants, it's literally impossible. Men will not reason, men will not have in their ingenuity, in their, you know, like investigation, they will never discover the truth of God. They will never understand him. And if you think about that, really it's just this idea like, how can a lesser creature understand a greater creature?

Okay? How will a fly understand a cat? You know? How will a cat understand a human person? How will a human person understand a divine being? You know, right now I'm living with Bia's parents and they have this dog that's cute because he's a small little white dog, but he's like insane.

He's nuts. So if the garage door opens, just goes, you know, darting off, barking like crazy, he won't stop until you go over and you like grab him. The gardeners come, the kids come out, everything. He just goes nuts. And I'm always thinking, why in the world do people have dogs?

Like this is, this is insane to me, you know? And, but one of the things that happens obviously is when you try to vacuum, it's like a whole nother story. Like, it's worse than all the other stuff that's going on. You start vacuuming and the dog just goes wild.

He's like biting at the vacuum. He starts jumping on your leg and you're like, what are you doing? And then, you know, you try to hold him and you put him in his little like little room or whatever. He starts going nuts. He's clawing at the wall. He just hates that vacuum, you know?

And I'm sitting there like, what are you doing? Like my, my phrase, my favorite phrase at the house right now is like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Dumb dog. Like it's just the whole time, right?

And Bia, he's, she's on the side just laughing cause I'm going like getting all frustrated. And she's like, it's a dog. What do you expect? You know, sermon illustration. It's a dog. How does a creature understand what the human is doing when he's trying to clean the house? You know, small creature is not going to understand something more advanced.

There's a sense in which no creature is going to reason to above his stature and then also all of a sudden reason to the Lord on high. Does that make sense? The thing about it is again, this whole passage we're talking about still connected to the idea of division and the division because of pride.

Remember that people are divided because of their arrogance and they need to be reminded you're not where you are because you discovered it. You know what I mean? You're not where you are because you figured it out. You will not have any of this unless what the Lord grants it.

And that's the lesson. And so we take those first couple of verses and I want to ask you, how would you summarize that first section from verse six through nine? How would you kind of encapsulate? Because for me that's part one of the outline and it's simplest form part one is what we just covered now in verse six through nine.

How would you summarize it? Something like a short phrase or one sentence. I'm going to call on a few people to try. How's about sincere? Okay, great. The wisdom of God is, did you say profound? Yes. Okay. Wisdom of God is profound. What else? Any other way of summarizing that first section of verse six through nine?

I'm going to call on a few guys. How's about John Kim? You. But is what? Okay. So God's wisdom is profound. It's hidden, but his spirit reveals. Okay. So I want us to think about that a little bit more. Just kind of like soaking in the main point. Okay.

I don't know if it was for you. I've had you guys kind of read some of this section. You know, this first several chapters, the first three chapters of first Corinthians, it's actually really elaborate. You know, there's like multiple points he's making. And then the reason why I started drawing all these lines is because I couldn't figure out where his trail of thought went, you know, but the main point is really clear.

God's wisdom is hidden. I said God's wisdom is not discoverable by man. God's wisdom is only revealed. God's wisdom is profound. And you can describe the wisdom of God in all these ways. Now I want you to go back to verse 13, or sorry, chapter 13 of Matthew. Okay.

So if you're still there, cool, but go back to chapter 13 of Matthew and I'm going to read the whole little section that Jesus says. So you know, he says, again, in verse 11 to you, it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them, it was not granted for whoever has to him, more shall be given and he who will have an abundance, but whoever does not have even what he has shall be taken away from him.

Therefore, I speak to them in parables because while seeing, they do not see and while hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case, the prophet says it is fulfilled, which says, you will keep on hearing, but will not understand. You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive.

For the heart of his people has been dull with their ears. They are, they scarcely hear and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return. And I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.

For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see and did not see it to hear what you hear and dear and did not hear it. I hope we can take a moment to meditate about that a little bit because we're looking at a truth where people are being arrogant and they're being rebuked by saying, God has granted this to you, you never discovered it.

What are you to think about that? How does Jesus talk to the people about this? Basically it's like, you better be grateful. You better be humbly grateful. You better feel blessed. As opposed to feeling arrogant and self-confident and doing one of these, I understand. You better feel blessed by God.

Because many men before you wanted to hear this, many men before you wanted to see this and Jesus himself says, but to you it has been granted. And that's just grace upon grace upon grace. You know? And for us, we need to feel that way. In application this is one of those things where we need to have appreciation where for those of us who are here looking at the scriptures, you know, having been granted to understand the gospel, we recognize the truth.

God has in many times through history allowed people to remain in their ignorance. God has actually hardened the hearts of men and God has made their heart dull. Why? He says so that they could not return. So that he would not heal them. That's God's prerogative, you know? And so that's how we're to respond to that section.

So as we think about this, going back to our first Corinthians passage, as we think about it, because men cannot obtain to the knowledge of truth on their own, because men cannot attain to the knowledge of God on their own, what does God have to do? Let's get the next section, verse 10 through 13.

It says, "For to us, God revealed them through the knowledge of truth." Through the spirit. And then he starts describing the spirit. "For the spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." And he describes the searching. "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?

Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God." Okay? And then he goes back to the spirit. "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that they may know the things freely given to us by God.

These things are the things we speak of, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thought with spiritual words." Okay? I don't know, does my line thing help you, or does that just confuse you more? I spend a lot of time on these lines, okay?

And if you guys have ever tried to do lines on Microsoft Word, nightmare. So appreciate these lines, you're blessed, okay? I'm just kidding. All right. So in thinking through this entire section, you have three concepts that are most repeated in this passage. The first obviously is wisdom, but then the second is, especially in verse 10 through 13, what's the second term that's repeated?

Spirit, okay? It's talking mainly about the role of the spirit. It's talking about what the spirit does, okay? But then also, another concept that we have to understand, hint hint, is it's repeated many times in kind of synonymous words. So the concept is repeated in synonymous words. Verb, huh?

Thought? Not the thought, but search. He says, so search, he extrapolates that and says, "For who among men," what? Sorry? Reveals, not reveals, but knows. Okay? So in this whole paragraph, the concept, again, so it's not the exact word that's repeated a bunch, but the concept that's repeated a lot within this entire paragraph, and especially here too, is the concept of understanding, okay?

The concept of knowing. So if you look, like for example, so in verse 10, he talks about how the spirit searches, but then as he extrapolates that out, he says in verse 11, "For who among men knows the thoughts of man, the spirit of which," and then he says, "Even so the thoughts of God no one knows," and in verse 12, he says, "So you receive this spirit," not the world, but you receive the spirit of God, and he says, "So that we may," what?

Know. So actually, he's repeated that concept of know about three to four times already. And so what you're finding is this, is he's saying, "There's no way you can know," right? That was verse six through nine. "There's no way you can discover. You're not gonna investigate and find." And then he says, "So that you know, what had to happen was God had to reveal.

He had to reveal through the spirit." Okay? And so, why did I leave that as a blank? But number two, it says, "First thing we learn about the wisdom of God from the second half of the paragraph, natural man cannot discover, so it must be revealed by God through the spirit." Okay?

Through the spirit. Now, I wanna ask you an important question. So in my little diagram of my line, so essentially, what I could've done is just draw a straight line. He's talking about the spirit, but there is a side note, right? Verse 11. It says, "God revealed him through the spirit, for the spirit," and then he says, "You receive the spirit," and so he's essentially talking about the spirit, but then there's a side note, verse 11, "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?

Even so the thoughts of God, no one knows except the spirit of God." Right? My question to you is, how does verse 11 fit into this discussion of wisdom or even the spirit? It's like a side note that's just in there, and when I started it, it just confused me like crazy.

So I had to draw this little thingy. How does that fit into his thinking? Yes? >> Kind of the idea that no one can know what's really going on in us more than us, so we would be the best people to reveal what's going on in our minds and hearts, things like that.

So, likewise, the spirit of God knows the thoughts of God, therefore the spirit would be the one who can actually reveal it. It's not just some outside entity. >> Great. Absolutely. So if you didn't hear him, basically he's saying, God revealed, right, the truth to you, but he did it through the spirit.

But what I want you to understand is, God, God's thoughts, the way God works, the truth that God wants to reveal, the best qualified person is who? The spirit of God. Right? And so that's what Mitch said, that is basically the best person qualified to speak anything really is you, right?

Because you know your thoughts. You know, roommates, they know each other quite well, they know how dirty they are, they know their bad habits and stuff. If you get married, then you know the other person real well, but guess what? There's still hidden things in the heart you don't know.

But the thought of the man, the spirit of the man knows all the depths of the man. And so this passage is saying the spirit is most qualified to reveal this to you. But in order to make this, I guess, as profound as Apostle Paul thinks of it, because the way he like reveals this, he's almost giving you an argumentation.

He gives an analogy of the man and the spirit. And so he's making kind of an emphatic point. Think about this, and this is the, again, just the amazing thing about God. For us in the New Testament, we should feel absolutely blessed. Why? Because to us it was granted to know.

But not only that, in ages past, God spoke through different medium. God spoke through angels, God spoke through dreams, God spoke through miraculous signs and figures of stuff, right? How much would he have to care where he does not send an angel with this message, where he does not send just a nebulous sign with this message, but he is making sure it goes the way exactly how he desires it by sending his spirit.

Do you get my point? There's a degree of carefulness, there's a degree of attention, there's a degree of, I've got so much invested in this, I'm not gonna make an angel go deliver this message. He's gonna send his spirit, the most qualified person, to reveal his truth. That's the way I think of it.

And I think that's the way Apostle Paul is saying, God is designed to reveal, and he revealed it through his spirit, and his spirit is the most qualified, okay? Now in thinking about this, we gotta realize that the spirit then reveals in, I guess you can say, different ways, so to speak.

In the next verses of chapter two, let's take a look at the next part here in verse 13. In verse 13 he says, "So you've not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God." Verse 13, "Which things we also speak, not in the words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thought with spiritual words." Okay, so, for those of you guys who are members, you guys better get this answered quickly, 'cause it was on your quiz.

What is the biblical doctrine that teaches that the Bible has its source in God? Thank you! It's like, "Oh no!" Inspiration, okay, inspiration is the blank there. That we covered in BCC class. This is to say, this is another passage that teaches us that the Bible has its source in God.

Why? Because it says, "These are words not taught by human wisdom." This isn't like, you know, words of wise men and sages, experienced pastors just giving you ministry experience and life wisdom. No, these are words given by the spirit. Okay? And so, something I want to let you guys kind of, again, review with you is, there is in the theological world what's called plenary verbal inspiration.

I personally think they can just do away with that, you know, like high-wording plenary verbal inspiration. But what that really just means is, the idea is that the verbal aspect of it is simply every single word. Okay? I believe that in the original manuscript, every single word that's in there is inspired.

And that's why we study stuff like grammar. That's why we study stuff like, you know, doing the prospects of Jesus. And we're able to deduce, "Hey, because this word is in the present ongoing way, that's what He expects of you." If I didn't believe that every word was inspired by God, guess what?

All I'm really doing is reading way too in the lines. You see what I'm saying? Because the biblical doctrine is that every word has its place, because it's from the Spirit, we preach in the way that we do. What's more, the plenary sense is essentially saying all of the Bible.

When you say somebody has the plenary authority, that means all authority, unlimited authority. Basically in every aspect of the Bible, whether geography, whether genealogy, whether historicity, whether scientific, some of the stuff that a lot of the liberal people in our day and age have said, "Dude, the Bible is an ancient text.

How is it going to get that right?" And they've completely denied its authenticity or even accuracy. We believe that every aspect of the Bible in every single page is the inspired Word of God. And so, the other part is Holy Scripture. And I just put a bunch of blanks there because it would have been lame to have a blank, for inspiration and then to have the answer there.

So anyway, so the whole idea is plenary verbal inspiration is saying every word, every page, all inspired. Any questions about that? There's a passage that is really good for you to know. If somebody asks you, "Why do you put so much? Why do you put so much weight? Why do you put so much importance and why do you give so much authority to the Bible?" It's because the Scripture says very clearly that these are the words of God.

First Peter chapter one, verse 19 through 21, it says here, "So we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all," okay, know this as like something super crucial, "that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." So this passage in 1 Corinthians that we're studying, this is a passage that proves to us, a lot of people ask, "You know, Apostle Paul, I don't think he understood that he was giving the word of God." No, I think he clearly understood he was giving the word of God.

Why? Because he says very clearly, "We speak these things that the Spirit has given to us." So this passage really goes to prove and show us that the inspiration of Scripture is true. Any questions about that? All right, then in the next section, he goes on to give us a contrast between a natural man and a spiritual man.

And in so doing, he shows us another way in which the Holy Spirit gives us the wisdom of God. All right? Verse 14, "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised." "But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.

For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." Okay? So if you look on your packet, what I've done is, because in the passage, he sets up a contrast. He says, "But the natural man," and then in verse 14, "But he who is spiritual." And if you guys look at how I kind of put those in the column, you guys can see the contrast, right?

He says, "The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, he cannot understand. On the flip side, he who is a spiritual man appraises all things," and then at the very end, "But we have the mind of Christ." Okay? One cannot understand, the other has been granted the mind of Christ.

Okay? So, I asked this question. Although we believe that the Bible is powerful, why is it that many people can read the Bible, maybe even a lot, but yet don't understand? This is a question for you guys. There's sometimes, you know, people who are against Christianity, or people who've been jaded by Christianity, will sometimes ask questions similar to this.

Why is it that you got a Bible, but like the vast majority of your entire faith is disagreeing with each other? Like, you know, why is it that you've had this Bible for so long, but you guys are still trying to interpret it? You guys have never received those questions?

I'm pretty sure you have, you know? Like, why? What gives? You know, you've got all this Bible professors, and you've got all this stuff, but there's a whole lot of people who don't understand. How about you guys try to answer that question? Give me, you know, whatever thoughts you guys have.

(insects chirping) (insects chirping) (insects chirping) (insects chirping) (insects chirping) (insects chirping) - Okay, how about let's have somebody from Mark Ballas' table. Any one of you guys wanna try just, again, I know some of it, some of it you guys can just answer from other things you've read. Or, you know, we're talking about it today, or we're looking at the past, and it's like there's a natural man and there's a spiritual man.

What's an answer you can give to somebody who says, you know, we've had the Bible literally for like 2,000 years. Why are we still in so much confusion? How come we don't understand? - We're talking about like, most Christians, like, - So, maybe just work at it from the hypothetical scenario that one of your non-believing friends asks you.

Here's the Bible, you've had it for a whole long, there's a lot of disagreement, what gives? (coughing) - So, you guys hear him, he says, because you need faith to understand it, you have to have belief to know what it's saying. What else can you say? What other answers are there?

Yes. Sorry, I took a hear. Okay, maybe God has not revealed it to them. Okay. Hmm. So, okay. I can potentially see the guy coming back at you and be like, well, that sucks. (laughing) You're telling me to read this thing and God's not gonna reveal it to you.

But anyway, but, from what we're reading right now, Paul going on so that you need to probably give more inclination to. Okay. (typing) Yeah. - I have a question. - Yes. Speak up a little bit. I've got the computer going, my old computer fan is like, hmm. - Sir.

I just have a question, like, as a Christian, how come the Spirit reveals all the time? I guess what makes sense, but, how come you don't know everything? The Spirit is truly on, just because the Sister of Peter is saying that. - Mm-hmm. - So, it's in the reading.

People are understanding, let's say, the Sister of Peter is murder, or I'll read the parables, and each year it sounds different. Like, I'm learning. - Yeah. - So, my question is, how come you don't understand that, that's the one question I just want to ask you. What are your thoughts?

- Okay, so you guys hear this question, it's like, so, why is it that sometimes we don't know in full, basically? We read the Bible, and then we have to read the passes multiple times, and then you're like constantly figuring out stuff. If the Spirit is revealing stuff to us, why don't we just know, you know?

And there's multiple ways to think about that a little bit. And the reason why I'm asking this question is 'cause, two part, one, is because I feel that in the Christian community, there is a fear of telling people straight up, you know, yeah, you can't know, you don't understand, because your spiritual intellect is dead, right?

Like, that's a spiritual reality we have to teach people. Sometimes we fear telling people that, but that's a spiritual reality. The second part we have to understand is there is confusion between the Spirit's role of revelation, inspiration, and illumination, okay? So, to answer your question in brief, is between a non-Christian and Christian, obviously, the Spirit has to do his regenerative and illuminating work in our heart, open our eyes, and then to understand.

Otherwise, we won't. But secondly, two parts. One, people sometimes mistake, say, God's gonna just like reveal stuff to me. Well, I believe you can't be too, like, too wide-stroke to be like, because the Spirit reveals, he's gonna just reveal stuff to me. God did that definitely with the apostles.

When Apostle Paul is saying here, saying, we speak and God has revealed, I actually believe he's not saying every single Christian, we all speak and we all have been revealed to. I think he's actually specifically speaking to the fact that yes, God has moved in them to pen the scriptures, right?

But secondly, God has never removed us from the process of knowing him. He calls us to search. He calls us to hunger and thirst for him. He calls us to look deeply and to dig his word, and he calls us to keep looking, you know what I'm saying? God has never removed us from the process of knowing him and experiencing him through the word.

So, those are some things to keep in mind about. Of course I've wished, like, just, you know, jump drive it in, God, like, help me understand, you know? Do the file transfer and just let me know. And I'm pretty sure that in life situations, you've wondered, like, God, it'd be really, really nice if you would just reveal to me exactly what I should do.

But God has, again, called us to be a part of that experience of knowing and determining and discerning his will, okay? But in thinking about this, we wanna emphasize that point. You know, I ask, like, why is it that people don't understand? Well, the fact of the matter is, one, we do need to train.

We need to exercise the capacity to divide the word of God, right? I mean, there's a sense in which, not thinking through, like, you know, all that the Bible has to say, but practically and legitimately speaking, think about the people who have gone before us, who are saints before us, who have devoted their lives to say, for me to understand the wisdom of God and the will of God, what I'm going to do is literally devote myself to understanding the word of the Lord.

And so you have people who've devoted so much time and energy, typically speaking, typically speaking, that ends up bearing a lot of fruit, because that's how the Spirit works, through his word. Now, the fact of the matter, though, is that in of itself going to provide the spiritual wisdom?

Absolutely not. The Pharisees, prime example. If you look at the traditions of the Pharisees, it's actually quite impressive. By a certain age, they were already memorizing so much of scripture. They're called scribes and Pharisees for a reason. They're the leaders for a reason. They weren't dumb people, you know, to kind of say it frankly.

They were impressive in their habitual discipline, you know? They understood so much of the scriptures, but the fact of the matter is, they missed the main point. And in this passage that we're studying, it says, they obviously did not understand, otherwise they would not have crucified, right? They would not have crucified the Lord Jesus.

They did not understand. They missed the right picture of the Messiah. Rather, they ended up hating him. And what's really interesting is, in verse 15, it says, in a kind of unique way, that they're gonna end up hating you too. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.

You, as a Christian, as a spiritual individual, exercising spiritual appraisal, spiritual judgment and discernment of the world, you are going to be appraised by no one, in a sense that you're not gonna be respected, valued by anybody. Everybody's gonna think you're weird. Everybody's gonna think you're off. Everybody's gonna think, like, you're all messed up in the head, you know?

That's kind of like what we expect as Christians. But my whole point in all this is the whole idea of, without the Spirit of God, without the Holy Spirit in us, moving through us, without the exercise of discipline and the Holy Spirit combining his work to us, we are not going to discern.

We're not going to understand. And so we have the biblical doctrine that teaches us we need the Spirit to help us, to understand and discern appropriately, and that is, I think I said it earlier, the doctrine that we need the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible is, (pages turning) illumination, okay?

Illumination. And so I want us to think about this in a kind of wrapping up here. The illumination is required. And I wanna kind of end the point by saying this. To me, a humble man is a man who has a good grasp on reality. On the flip side, a prideful man, he what?

He always thinks more than he really is. He speaks more than he really knows. He throws himself. He, you know, kind of wears it big. But the humble man knows reality, okay? Why do I say that? Well, if you look at verse 16, there's a rhetorical question. It says, "For who has known the mind of the Lord "that he will instruct him?" Okay?

I write in your conclusion, a prideful man thinks he knows a lot. A prideful man likes to talk a lot. He likes to show people how much he knows. A prideful man thinks he can figure it out. A prideful man would actually prefer to solve things on his own.

The humble individual will ask of the Lord, "God, open my eyes." Okay? King David says in Psalm 119, "Open my eyes that I may behold "wonderful things from your law." A humble person who recognizes reality will realize he actually understands very little. As a matter of fact, when it comes to discovering things, as a matter of fact, when it comes to figuring things out on his own, it is nearly, almost impossible.

I say nearly, almost, because the only hope of understanding is what? Asking. God, instruct me. I can only understand what you give to me freely and I receive it. The humble man knows his position, that God is his instructor, and he dare not in his arrogance try to instruct God.

All right? Verse 16, that's what it says. Who knows the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? But arrogant people, they always know what's best. They will always try to teach others, and in turn, God, what's right. In line with what we've been learning so far about division and pride, I think this is probably one of these heavy-hitting notes of do you recognize where you are?

Do you understand how understanding and knowledge actually works? You don't know. What you have is only given by the grace of God. He's given it to you freely, and your attitude should be that of thank you. Thank you for opening up your truth to me. Thank you for giving me light of the word rather than pride having absolute humility.

All right, any questions about the passage or things that you guys noticed? Yes, Eugene. Can you move your hand from your, yeah. I'm having such a hard time. Okay, sorry, go ahead. Okay. Right. (audience member speaking off mic) Okay. All right, good question is how do you respond to when you're evangelizing?

How does this affect your evangelism and stuff like that? I remember Eric asked a really good question about apologetics and stuff like that, that's roll, and I remember last week saying, the Bible is solid, it's sufficient. Believe me, I actually taught a class on evangelism, and I actually really enjoy apologetics.

I've read a lot of books on it. So there is a place for reasoning with people, and there is a place for practicing the kind of like winsome and also winning of the argument, so to speak, with people. But a couple things. And you guys can maybe talk about this in your small groups and discussion groups, but how does this kind of affect the way that you evangelize?

Great question. Well, a couple things. One of the things that I find is this is somebody says like, okay, so I'm kind of a newbie at evangelism, I've got some verses memorized, I've got my Bible, I'm gonna go share with people. Here it is, ta-da, and the person's like, wah-bam, you know, shuts the door on their face, and they go, boo-hoo.

The thing about it is, most people, the way they respond is, so it doesn't work. We need da-da-da-da-da-da-da. My response is no, like, don't think that. It's not that it didn't work. You see what I'm saying? You just can't conclude now we need a new method. So that's my first application.

Second application is, what really is required is we have to be like really, really prayerful. We have to literally rely on the Lord and say, okay, I'm gonna say something now, and unless your spirit works, it's not gonna happen at all, okay? And I tell people all the time, so in my mind, again, there's a balance.

I believe in apologetics, and I believe in winning arguments. But the fact of the matter is, certain people get saved when they see a little piece of paper with four truths on it, and they're like, oh my God, you know? So there's a balance in assessing what's working, what's effective, just based on what you experienced.

You can't do that. We have to realize this passage is telling us that God is, again, opening the hearts of men, and there's inspiration of scripture, and he illuminates the word to the people to understand. So for me, I actually believe in casting the net wide and far, so I tried different types of methodologies.

I like this whole personal approach where you get to know them, and you start asking about their lives, and oh, they care so much about their kids, and you're like, what do you hope for your kids? And then you start jumping in there and saying, don't you wish that your kids were spiritually well too?

And then you get into that conversation. I actually am a fan of the open air preaching. I'm a fan of what I like to call divine appointment evangelism. It's basically cold turkey evangelism. You go out and just meet people. I'm a fan of all of that. Why? Because you just cast the net wide and far.

You just get the truth out, and then you just trust that the Holy Spirit is going to work. For me, that's the kind of application I have of that kind of stuff. I'm not sure if I'm really answering your question. I hope that helped a little bit. (audience laughing) Okay.

Mm-hmm. (audience member speaking indistinctly) Yeah. You know, so did you guys hear his question? I don't want to just spend a couple of minutes, and then we'll just kind of move on, but there's a guy, he's stuck on the fact, I don't think Bible's reliable. I can't believe it.

Then before getting on a long trail, I'll ask him, so if there is clear evidence that the Bible's reliable, will you give it a legitimate shot, or are you determined to not believe it? 'Cause I have to deal with that with him. And if he says, no, yeah, I mean, if there is reasonable evidence that it's reliable, then I would.

It's 'cause for me, I completely believe that the Bible is textually reliable, and there's so much evidence we can just spend probably like a 10-week series apologetically on why the Bible is reliable, right? But it's a whole other story when you say the Bible is authoritative and demands your faith, right?

That's kind of like that subjective experience he needs to have. So I would push him on that. So I do the research about, okay, there's some sufficient articles here, there's manuscripts, there's early documentation. Compared to any other historical document, this is probably the most well-documented thing in the universe.

The copies are consistent. They have libraries where they have ancient manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts are not 400 or 500 years out. Some of them are early as only less than 100 years out, you know, which is better than any other documents that we have that's considered ancient. And you go through all these argumentation, but then the fact of the matter is you gotta just say, see, so your prejudice was wrong.

Now can we really give a shot as to the scripture says you're a sinner. Do you understand what that's saying, you know? And I have to get back to that. So I'm not gonna spend all my time trying to prove to him, see, the Bible's reliable, you dummy, you know?

'Cause at that point, that's all I've done. I need to get to the point of there's a moral decision to be made about the gospel, yeah. All right. All right, any other questions? Oh, sorry, go here and then there, yes? I don't know, but go ahead and then. - So illumination, the last appreciation, the true believers have the Holy Spirit to help us understand the scripture.

- True. - I did miss the 1 Corinthians 1, 10, or, you know, number two in session two. But this has always got to be that we're supposed to all agree and have no division. So let's say you and me, we both say we have illumination by the Holy Spirit.

Why is it that strong Christian men like you, Parker, don't believe in Jesus, and bring fire and chaos, whereas you are like, or C.J. Mahaney, and you strongly agree, and because of that, we can't be at the same church, or, you know, we can't be together, or other stuff like covenant-verse dispensation, or churches splitting.

It's wrong because my Mormon co-workers are next to me, and their advantage is that their prophet, or whatever system they have, tells it as it is. This is what we believe, this is what we know. - Right. - That all these Christians, that the Holy Spirit, have a different illumination.

- Yeah, so it's not necessarily that there are different illuminations, you know. The way I like to put it is, well, the fact of the matter is, there is what is a difference of saying God has sufficiently revealed something, as opposed to God has exhaustively revealed something. And so the fact of the matter is, there are certain things that God will say, and so in the end times, there is this dragon who's Satan, there is this beast, and there's this prophet.

Like, whoa, that was a lot in just a couple sentences, right? So he has sufficiently revealed to you that something's gonna happen, but he did not exhaustively reveal to you what that's gonna look like, when it's gonna be, how that's gonna affect us, you know, what kind of effects will it have on the social, economic, religious atmosphere of the world.

He did not exhaustively reveal everything. But what do we tend to do as we try to interpret the scriptures? We're trying to, to the greatest degree we can, understand something. So in that room, there is room for disagreement. And no Christian's gonna look at each other and be like, and so because I disagree with you, we have two different, completely different illuminations, or the fact that we have two different faiths, or anything like that.

We call those just simply in-house debates. I believe MacArthur's a brother, I believe C.J. Mahaney is a brother, we all agree on the same core essential doctrines that cause us to be saved, but we have other parts of revelation that God has, again, sufficiently revealed, but not exhaustively, and so we have questions.

Does that help at all? Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) And the fact of the matter is, I mean, like, again, the Mormons have that, like, you know, accusation, so to speak, on us and whatnot. And, you know, to the, 'cause to me, the Mormon mind is a pagan mind. They're looking at us, and they're looking at us like fools.

We're looking at this and saying, like, this is my authority that God has given me, and no man stands above this. God has said, and that, you know, this is what I submit to, right? And the Mormon is sitting there saying, he has said, and I submit to him.

He has no right to accuse us of being stupid, or that it's being false. He's, they're looking at this, you know what I'm saying? So, religion to everybody who's a pagan is gonna look foolish, because they're just looking at one source and saying, well, there's my authority. But a Mormon has no greater, like, like intellectual or even moral grounds to say, oh, therefore Christianity is less right, or less, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, so I hope that helps a little bit. Last question, and then you guys can jump into your guys' small group. - I guess it's, I mean, I touched upon it, but I guess my question is, like, obviously God reveals something in the parts that he's not, but sometimes the scripture, like, I wonder, like, why, so for example, there's, like, instances, I think it's in, like, Samuel and Luke, where they talk about the same event, but, like, the numbering is different, and then I, like, Googled things, and they said, like, oh, it's because, like, they think he's a woman, or whatever, but my question is, like, why does, in my mind, like, why does God allow that in the scene to be the happy, rather than the happy in the scene, so you don't see the pain?

- Yeah. - 'Cause it kind of, I mean, I understand, like, it's the same event, but it's different ways, and I don't think you can see it as a shared. - Yeah. - So don't doubt. - Yeah, so to tell you honestly, did you guys all hear her question?

Good. So to tell you honestly, it goes both ways. So if somebody's looking at the difference of two accounts and saying, ah, that causes me to cast a shadow of doubt, another person looks at that and says, hey, that tells me that it actually happened, because it's personal testimonies from two individuals about the same events, okay?

So if you were to go in a court of law, and you talk to lawyers, and Lee Strobel did this with his whole case for thing, whatever, and he makes this case that if you were to take the witnesses of scripture and go to a courtroom, to a judge, and to a lawyer, experienced courtroom lawyer, and say, take these witness accounts, 'cause that's what it is, when you see stories, okay?

Some of the Bible is poetic, some of the Bible is allegorical, some of the Bible is didactic teaching. A huge chunk of it is personal testimony witness stuff, like this is my account of what happened. You take that to lawyers and say, do these things, would it hold up in the court of law as valid testimonies, and they said, absolutely, right?

So it goes both ways on that. I think also, for me, it just makes sense too. So the prime example I use all the time is the whole Jesus, you know, is resurrection thing. So they make this case like, in the Gospel of John, in the Gospel of Matthew, the number of angels they see is different.

One says one angel, and the other says two angels, right? But the fact of the matter is, God spoke this revelation to us and carried it down to us through people, and we have a way of speaking. It's our common lingo. So I use this case example. If you were at a basketball game, at the NBA, you're watching the Lakers, and nowadays, all these guys have long hair sometimes, but then they're like, wait a minute, that's a girl, right?

Now, one guy says, that's a girl, and the guy next to him is like, oh my God, you're right. Wait a minute, there's two. Are they in disagreement with each other? No. If you see something miraculous, it's completely legitimate for you to say, hey, that's a girl, there's a girl on the court.

He didn't lie, he wasn't inaccurate, he wasn't just as precise as we would like him to be. And sometimes, people approach the Bible like that as a, I don't know, accountant or something. It's like, okay, you weren't very accurate in there, so it's not reliable. No, that's a way of speaking in various contexts of life.

And so one guy says, there's two. When you experience something that's completely out of the norm, like seeing an angel over an empty tomb of the crucified Messiah, it's legitimate for them to be shocked and say something like, there's an angel. There's two angels, okay? For the cases of the Old Testament and numbers, you have to also realize there's limitations to the Hebrew numbering system.

So look into that a little bit. I personally believe you do your homework on any passage that people say there's a discrepancy, good explanation why. And in the end, the people who try to see whether this is a good testimony or not, I think they'll notice this is a genuine, personal testimony of what really happened, okay?

All right. I hope that was good review for like, yeah, the Bible's reliable. The Bible is from the Spirit of God. Again, for all of us, we're at a Bible teaching church, and is it a possibility we take for granted how available the Bible is to us? Absolutely. You know?

Let's be super thankful that we are allowed, again, we are allowed to receive the Word of God so freely as we are, okay? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your grace. God, we thank you for, again, God, this world is a dark world. Our hearts was a dark place.

We thank you, Lord, that you shined the light of your truth, the light of your Son. And I pray, Father Lord, that we would be humble people that doesn't think that we need just some of it and the rest we can figure out, or that doesn't think that we absolutely are dependent on the Spirit, even to understand.

Some of us, we have a hard time just disciplining ourselves to open up the Bible and read. But then not only do we need to get past that foundation, but we need to understand. And I pray, Lord, that you'd grant to us strength for both. I pray, Father God, that our hearts would be submitted.

I pray, Lord, that our hearts would be truly devoted to applying your word into our lives. We thank you in Christ's name, amen.