Well this morning I have the distinct and privilege and joy to introduce probably the easiest speaker to introduce to this congregation. Anthony Kidd is a pastor out in South Central LA Faith Bible Church and yet we like to claim him in some ways as on staff in some way here because of how many times he's been here. We were Joking in the hallway, I think his ministry and influence has been even longer than I've been a pastor here. It stretches back, I guess, 10 years or so, almost 2016. He's been here every other Legacy Conference, so many of you are familiar with him. We'll just give him that extra office on the end across from Pans. We have some affirmations there, so. But for those of you who don't know Anthony, he and his wife Sherry are here, of course. They have five grown adult children, and I think you'll find that you'll be very encouraged under his preaching and his ministry. I think one of the things that I appreciate most about Anthony is not just his clarity in the pulpit and his passion in the pulpit, but his friendship. and his pastoral heart comes out and through in that preaching, as I'm sure you'll experience, and just how like-minded he is to us here at Twin Cities. So, Anthony, it's a joy for me to be able to invite you back into this pulpit. Come minister the word to us. Well, good morning. It is a great joy for me to be back in the second best church in America. And I do lay claim to the extra office there. It is just always the highlight, I think, for me and Sherry to be able to come out every other year. I think what it is is that the elders here and Pastor Kerry They feel sorry for me, so they keep giving me another opportunity to get it right. And so they are kind and gracious in that regard. And so it's so delightful for us to look out and see so many familiar faces and then so many new faces as well. And Carrie and Danny and Kevin have just been mentioning just the tremendous work that the Spirit of God has been doing here at Twin City Bible Church. It's a testament to your faithfulness and His graciousness, that He is adding to your numbers, so much so that we're building out. You see, I said, we're building out. And praise the Lord and congratulations on the new wing. And Lord willing, maybe we'll be around long enough to see phase two come into realization. So again, thank you for having us. We're delighted to open up God's word to you this morning. And I invite you to that end. to take a Bible or turn on your Bible and join me in 1 Corinthians 2. The challenge often coming along or after such gifted and skilled brothers is that you just have a few scraps left to feed. So you guys are full, so I'm going to give you some leftovers. I was commenting to some of the brothers after last night that Pastor Tom just blessed us so tremendously. That was like four semesters of the theology of pneumatology wrapped into one sermon and I had to go home and just figure out like what is there left to say about the Holy Spirit. And then Brother Conrad comes along. So I started off with nine pages of notes. I now have two pages of notes. And so we'll figure it out, you guys, as we go. But we do want to look and concentrate our time together here in God's Word. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, I'm reading for the New American Standard Version. I'm going to read in our hearing verses 6 down to the end of the chapter. If you are there, give me a hearty Amen. And for those of you that are newer, you guys know that I need help, not only from the Holy Spirit, but I need help from the congregation. So if something is said, Carrie has given me permission to give you permission to say amen. You say amen. There we go. This is God's word to us this morning, 1 Corinthians 2, verses 6 through 16. Let us hear God's word. Paul writes, yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature. A wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, 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 have not crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 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. Now, we have received, and not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 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 let's pray together Father, we come with our hearts full already this morning, having heard from your Word, having sung your praises, and we desire to continue to think your thoughts after you. So we pray, our Father, that now you would continue to fill us with your Spirit and illumine our minds. God, give us the ability to focus and to concentrate and to receive your good Word. so that you might accomplish all your good purposes in and through our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. For all of us, I think, as believers would recognize that the Bible is the Word of God. That is a basic tenet of our faith. As a believer, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God. We believe that God has given to us his truth inscripturated in the pages the Bible and we believe it so much so that we stake the destiny of our very souls on that reality that God has spoken to us and given us his truth by which we are in fact saved and God entrusted that truth to his apostles and to his prophets and they had scripturated that truth and so that it might be passed down from generation to generation and that that truth would be the beacon of light for all those who live in the darkness of this world. And in that message is contained the wisdom of God which gives us access to the power of God. And this saving power invested in the message concerning Christ is what the Bible is all about. This wisdom that we'll see in a moment is what Paul is discussing in the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians. God's power, he is teaching his listeners and he is teaching us God's power comes through God's wisdom and it is God's wisdom that comes through the Word of God to the people of God. Let me say it this way, that God's power to save, God's power to sanctify, God's power to transform, God's power to take us from being sinners lost to saints headed to glory, comes from God's wisdom, and that wisdom is in the Word of God. And this Word of God has been revealed to us by the Spirit, and if we don't have knowledge of that Word, there is in fact no salvation. What we have in our hands, brothers and sisters and friends here, is the wisdom of God that gives us access to the very power of God that then transforms our lives and brings us into comprehensive salvation and takes us to glory. Put your finger here in 1 Corinthians or keep it there and turn with me to a brief moment to 2 Timothy. And I want to just highlight this pattern for us to understand as we work our way through this passage. In 2 Timothy, a familiar passage to most of us where Paul is writing to his young lieutenant in the faith, it reminds him of something of what I just said here in chapter 3 of 2 Timothy. I'll look at verse 14. And Paul writes, deceived and being deceived, you, however, Timothy, continuing the things that you have heard and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and notice this, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings, the holy scriptures, which are, listen to this, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. So you see the connection there. That the sacred writings, the scriptures in that context, the Old Testament are able, they have the power, they have the ability to give to Timothy the wisdom that leads to salvation. That's the pattern I want you to lock in your minds. That's the pattern of God. God's power for salvation through God's wisdom revealed in God's word for God's people. That's the pattern and the way that it works. This is foundational to our faith, and what we will see in our text is that none of this is possible apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You'll see that the Holy Spirit superintends this entire process from God's wisdom being inscripturated in God's Word that comes to us and gives us the power to be saved, that none of that is possible apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That's what makes the Spirit of God so glorious. You heard that last night. You heard that already this morning, that the Spirit of God is moving in such a way that we would be lost without Him. The Holy Spirit, without Him, there would be no revelation of the wisdom of God. Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no inscripturation of the wisdom of God. Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no understanding of that wisdom inscripturated in the Word of God. Let me just say it clear and plain. Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no salvation. There would be no truth. We would be locked in our blindness. We would be groping around in this world without any way to access God and His power because we'd had no way of understanding or gaining access to His wisdom. We heard last night out of John chapter 14 and 15 and 16, all of the titles that describe the Holy Spirit. Pastor Tom was taking us through that, and three times I'm sure you noticed that he is called the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit of Truth. Truth resides in God, and we'll see in a moment that the Spirit of God is also in God, and he comes from God, but he searches the deep things of God, and he brings that truth to us, and he reveals it to the apostles and the prophets who inscripturated, and then we have it before us. Brothers and sisters, we will see that what you have on your laps or on your phone or on your iPad is the truth of God himself and the Spirit of God. has been given in order for us to understand it and to apply it and to stake the claims of our souls for eternity on it. And let me put it more succinctly this way, as we work our way through the text, without the Holy Spirit, there would be no revelation, there would be no inspiration, and there would be no illumination. Quite frankly, there would be no communication from God to us as His people. And so I want to just set the context before we get to our verses. If your Bibles are still open, look with me at verses 1 through 5. And Paul is doing here is he is reminding the Corinthians that his coming to them wasn't characterized by worldly speech or the wisdom of the world. Let me just read the verses and we'll just make a few comments before we get to our text. Paul writes, and when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Paul has in his mind the time that he came to Corinth, and Corinth was being racked, the church was being divided because they had been embracing so much of the wisdom of the world. That the wisdom of the world had caused them to start judging and appraising pastors predicated upon their giftedness and their skill to communicate. Paul got a knowledge of that and he wrote this letter to them to correct that. He is saying to them that you guys are drinking too much from the fountain of the wisdom of the world. Let me remind you of when I came to you. When I came to you, I did not come that way. I did not come using the tricks of the trade. They were high on oration and rhetoric, individuals who were great speakers and orators and were hired by people to communicate their message. And they had all of the tricks of the trade. They could move people just by the strength of their voices, kind of like Conrad, but in a different way. They had all the tricks and all of the trades. They were influencers, power brokers. They could talk about anything, and it didn't matter what they were talking about. It didn't matter whether or not they believed what they were talking about, but they knew how to persuade individuals to believe what they were believing. And Paul said, when I came, I did not use those tools, because I brought a different message. I brought the testimony of God, and the testimony of God, which is the spiritual testimony, can only be contained in spiritual words, and the words that these other individuals are using are natural words, and it has no place in the communication of God's Word. He didn't come that way, because He brought a different message. And you see right there in the text what the message was. testimony of God or the testimony about God which was centered on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's talking about the gospel. He's talking about what he said already in this verse. I'll just remind you, if your Bibles are still open and you go back to verse 18, he's talking about the word of the cross, where he says there, for the word of the cross is foolishness. It dropped down to verse 23. But we preach Christ crucified. So it's the word of the cross is Christ crucified. maybe more comprehensively in chapter 1 verse 30, but by his doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That's the message that Paul brought to them. It's about Jesus Christ and him crucified, the gospel, the good news, and everything else that extends out from that. The fullness, the comprehensiveness of our redemption, including regeneration and justification and sanctification and glorification, all hinging on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the testimony. That's the wisdom that the apostle Paul brought. to the Corinthians. And he did not, we see it, he did not use the tools of the day, the tools of the wisdom of the world. In his tool belt, if we can frame it that way, when he came, he did not have rhetoric, he did not have drama, he did not have oration. But you see in the next verse there, what he did have in his tool belt in verse three, he came with three really impressive tools, didn't he? He came with fear, weakness and much trembling and that doesn't sound like one that would be able to persuade man it doesn't sound like one that would be able to move people's heart and and it wasn't because the power of the message had nothing to do with the messenger it had nothing to do with his ability to communicate but it was all invested in the message itself as attended by the Spirit of God. So Paul came and he said, I was not impressive. But verse 4, but my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom. But notice this. Take note of this. but in the demonstration of the Spirit of God and of power. And I don't think what Paul means here is the sign gifts, although miracles were happening because the Jews, the Gentiles were looking for that and he didn't give them that. I think what he means right here is that when he preached the Word of God by the power of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God showed up and convinced those who heard that it was in fact the words of God. They knew They knew that these words were different than what the other orators and rhetoricians were communicating to them. These words came with power, and they experienced that power. So much so, he says there in verse 5, so that your faith would not rest on, here it is, the wisdom of man, but on what? The power of God. He simply preached by the power of the Spirit, the wisdom of God. God showed up in regenerating grace, as we heard about this morning, and regenerated and generated faith in them, and that faith rested on the power of God. They experienced something like the Thessalonians experience. If you guys could turn there for a brief moment in 1 Thessalonians 1, chapter 1, verse 5, where Paul writes that our gospel did not come to you in word only, listen to this, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you. It came in the power of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit. And then drop over to verse 13. For this reason, also, we constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. You see it there? They receive the Word as it truly was. because it came in the power of the Holy Spirit. And go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And so Paul is setting them up then now from verses 6 through 16 to give an expansive articulation and explanation of the power of God. He's going to tell them how they experienced the power of God, which was accessed through the wisdom of God. He doesn't want them to think that somehow or another that he wasn't preaching wisdom. He wants them to understand that he wasn't preaching the wisdom of the world, but he did preach a wisdom, and that wisdom particularly is the wisdom that comes from God. And so I want us just to think together. There are going to be three just simple headings. I've already mentioned them to work our way through the passage. And the first heading is Revelation. We're going to look at Revelation. And the second heading is Inspiration. And then the third heading is Illumination. So that's easy enough for us to follow. Revelation, Inspiration, and then illumination. And we'll see how the Spirit of God is involved in all three of those. And without those three, we would have no access to the truth of God. We would have no access to our salvation, to God's communication to us. Revelation inspiration, illumination. So first of all, Revelation verses 6 through 11. Look at what Paul says in verse 6 and we're just going to work our way through it and we'll pick up a little bit more intensely in verse 10. Yet Paul says, we do speak wisdom among those who are mature. Stop right there. And I think what Paul is saying there is that our wisdom, our message, we'll see in a moment that it comes from God through the Holy Spirit is what we preach to the mature. And I think what Paul means there, the mature is the regenerate, to Christians, those who are complete in Christ. That's who his target audience was. That's who receives the message, the wisdom of God. And it is a wisdom that he says there, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. And Paul's point here is that the wisdom that we preach, it doesn't come from the power brokers of the world. It doesn't come from the influencers of the world. man in his fallenness. And that's what he means there when he says they are passing away. They are ineffective. They are inoperative. They are temporal. And the message that Paul brings is just the opposite of those things. They are divinely powerful, the message that he preaches. It is eternal, the message that he preaches. And so it's blinded from the purveyors of the world. The individuals that the world hold up in high esteem, they can't access the wisdom of God. They know nothing about the wisdom of God, which as an aside, brothers and sisters and friends, which is why we have to be so very careful about to whom it is that we listen. There's all kind of individuals, and today in our society, we have voices vying for our attention all the time, 24-7. We have television and radio and cell phones and iPads and iPods and everything else, right? People are plugged in to listening to things all the time and as believers we have to be so careful because Paul's assessment and the Bible's assessment is that the wisdom of God is not coming to us from individuals who know not God. So be very careful to whom it is that you're listening. And I'll just share with you, I got so convicted just about a year or two ago, I have a little drive to my church. Sister Sherry, if we were living here, we wouldn't have to drive too far to Twin City. Just planting the seeds, you guys, just planting the seeds. But we have about a 20-minute drive to church, and I go to the office every day. And so 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back, and I just turn on the radio, and I just got caught just listening to talk radio, listening to conservative talk radio over and over and over and over and over. And I'm not to suggest that there's not some helpful things there, but I found myself becoming increasingly more agitated, increasingly more irritated, increasingly more frustrated. increasingly more mean, increasingly more thinking us versus them. And I wonder what in the world is happening? Why am I just so like this all bent up? And a brother said, hey, what are you filling your mind with? And the Spirit of God convicted me that I'm listening too much, too much to the wisdom that comes from the rulers of this age. And all of us subtly can just slide into that thinking. And I'm not saying that we go through this world ignorant of what's happening in this world. As we were taught, and some of you men were here, we need to have one foot in the world and one foot in the Bible, particularly as pastors, as those who want to understand how to meet people where they are. But if we're drinking in too much of those who are passing away, it will begin to have a shaping influence on our minds, and we must be careful, right? Because again, you will begin to think the thoughts after whom you're listening to. Paul is saying the wisdom that we have is not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. Notice what he says in verse 7, on the contrary. The wisdom that Paul spoke came from God. Came from God over against any other kind of wisdoms. There's only two kinds of wisdom. James would tell us that. Wisdom that is from above and wisdom that is from below. There's no middle ground. That's it. Two kinds of wisdom. And Paul preached and the apostles preached and the prophets of old preached the wisdom that came from God. The wisdom that Paul describes there, if your Bibles are still open, notice how he describes it in verse 7. But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory. He's speaking of the wisdom that is centered, as I said, on Jesus Christ. It is that which Paul is saying is a mystery and hidden. And it's a mystery hidden in God, which he's saying then that it can't be accessible by man, that God and God alone has to reveal it if we are, in fact, to know it at all. And he did through the Holy Spirit, as we'll see in a moment. This wisdom from God can't be gained by human understanding. It can't be gained by human intuition. And I love this in verses 8 and 9, Paul presses home this reality. And he says that this wisdom that was predestined before the ages to our glory for believers to bring us to glory, this wisdom, which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood it, they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. You see what he's saying? That fallen man is so blinded that Jesus Christ himself, the embodiment of God's wisdom. Stood before them and they did not recognize him He was literally God in the flesh. We know that God incarnate for three years Spoke only the words of the father did only the deeds of the father Everything that he did pointed to the reality that he himself was God in their midst and they could not see it and Not that they didn't see it, they could not see it. So much so that they hated him and they crucified him because they were blinded to the wisdom that God had in Christ. And so they rid themselves of him and they crucified him. That's how far man is from the wisdom of God. Unless God reveals himself, we will not. know him and see him for who he is. Even, this is his point, if he shows up as a man, we won't see it. And that's proven by the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. And verse 9 just underscores that fact, as Paul quotes from Isaiah 64, verse 4. You don't have to turn there. It's here in the text. Notice what he says. and ear has not heard and which has not entered the heart of man all that God has prepared for those who love him. He is just saying with all of the faculties of man either through the eye gate of man or through the ear gate of man or which has entered into the heart and the heart in the Old Testament he knows more about the mind, the central control place of mankind. None of that is available or none of that has the capacity or the power to reach and understand and comprehend all that God has prepared for those who love Him. We oftentimes hear here in verse 9, this text is referring more so to heaven, the things that God has prepared for heaven, and that's not what the context is saying. The context is saying what God has prepared for those who love him in the gospel. That's what he's saying. It's not that there's wonderful things in heaven, but he's saying this, that there's no way for man, because of his fallenness, because of his sin, because of his unregenerate nature, to understand the gospel. Those are the wonderful things. Those are the beautiful things. Those are the wise things that God has prepared for those who love him. It's hidden from man's eyes. is only revealed by God. But Paul says, and now we get to the meat of it, but Paul says, We speak God's wisdom. You guys see it there in the text, verse 10? For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. What's the them that he revealed? Things of verse 9, which God has prepared. And back in verse 7, the things that God predestined before ages. It's the wisdom of God. Those things God revealed to us, is what Paul is saying. to us in the Greek is emphatic. He's saying to us, how do we know the wisdom of God? If what I said is true and fallen man can't understand it, fallen man can't access it, how do we preach the wisdom of God? And here it is. This is the thrust. God simply revealed it. God had to communicate it. And how did God do it? You see that the agent of the communication of the wisdom of God to man, to the prophets and to the apostles in this context is through the Spirit. Through the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who brought the revelation of God, the mystery of God to the minds and to the hearts of the prophets and the apostles. We would not have it, brothers and sisters, if the Spirit were not so glorious in bringing it to us. And there's a sense, brothers and sisters, right here, that we stand on holy ground in verse 11. Notice what Paul says about this revelation, and the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. Now, if I were to ask you how deep are the depths of God, you would say that there is no bottom to it. Right? That it is no bottom to it. It just keeps going down and down and down and down. And Paul says that what the Spirit does is that it searches all of the depths of God. And we're in something of just a Trinitarian mystery here, are we not? that the Spirit of God that we were taught so masterfully yesterday, last night, that the Spirit of God is God, and yet the Spirit of God is a third person of God, and the Spirit of God is in God the Father, but not God the Father, but it's God's Spirit, and as God's Spirit, he searches the mind of the Father. And that's just words. I have no idea what that means. But he gives us an illustration to try to help us understand it, doesn't he, with the next verse. He says, for who among you knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Which being translated is simply this. You're sitting on the couch, you and your wife. And your wife is looking at you very strange. It's late in the evening and the window is open and she's looking at you very strange. And you wonder, why is she looking at me so strange? And she's acting almost as if there is something that you should know about her and you don't know it and you haven't done it. And so she's now mad at you. She was sitting this close to you and now she's on the other side of the couch. Because she thinks you ought to be able to read her mind that she is cold, and why don't you, lunkhead, get up and close the window? And you say, sweetheart, love bug, I can't read your mind. I have no idea what you're thinking unless you communicate it to me. You have no idea what I'm thinking unless you communicate it to me. But my spirit, my spirit knows what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what I want to communicate even before my spirit knows everything in me. That's what Paul is saying about God. that the Spirit of God is in God searching the deep things of God, the knowledge of God, the Spirit of God knows it all. And this is the beauty, this is what makes Him so glorious. He takes the deep things of God, Paul is saying, and He has revealed them to us. How amazing is that? How mind-blowing is that reality, Paul is saying, that the Spirit of God who is in God, who comes from God, has brought to us the wisdom of God. All of the things that had been hidden in God, the mystery that had not unfolded as of yet, Paul is saying to us it has been revealed. Look with me as Paul says this in other places, and it would be helpful to be reminded of it in Ephesians. If you turn there in your Bibles, Ephesians chapter 3, Verse 8, Paul says this, to me, the very least of all saints, this grace, the grace of apostleship was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the, here it is, of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. Paul is underscoring the exact same truth we find in our text that the mystery of the wisdom of God had been hidden in God but now has been made manifest through the prophets. One other text in Romans chapter 16 Romans chapter 16 in verse 25, Paul speaks in a similar fashion. He says there, now to him. who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according, here it is, to the revelation of the mystery which had been kept secret for long ages past but now is manifested and by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God. has been made known to all the nations, leading to the obedience of faith. And how has it been made known to all the nations? Because God revealed it to his apostles and his prophets, and they preached it, and they taught it, and they wrote it down. The Spirit of God did that, brothers and sisters. The Spirit of God worked The Spirit of God works in God and through God and for God to give us a perfect and exhaustive revelation of His wisdom. He is glorious. He brings it to us, and we cannot know truth apart from that revelation from the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us free access to the deep things of God. Now that takes us from revelation in our text, from the Spirit to inspiration by the Spirit. Because the question then comes up then, how do we know that what the Spirit revealed to the apostles and the prophets, that they actually communicated accurately? That they actually communicated properly? That they actually communicated without error in an infallible way? Where Paul is saying, I'm glad you asked me those questions. Because he tells us. In verses 12 through 13, look at what he says. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. This is the spirit who brought the wisdom and revelation from God. We've received that spirit so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. What things? We already mentioned that. It's the things that God has prepared for those who love Him. It's the wisdom of God. It's the deep things of God that God wants to freely give to us. We know those things because we receive the Spirit of God. Verse 13, which things we also speak. How do we know that what they spoke and what they wrote and now what we read are actually the deep things of God accurately? He tells us. because the Spirit of God superintended the whole process. Which things, verse 13, we also speak. Not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. And I know in your Bibles, you may have italics there in verse 13 for thoughts and words. There's different opinions of what should go there, but I think the NASB gets it correct, that we're combining the apostles are saying spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. In other words, think with me this way. Is that God not only revealed by the Spirit, the thoughts of his wisdom in the minds of his prophets and his apostles. But he also gave them words so that they would communicate God's thoughts in words, do you see? And sometimes you hear out there, people who are just in kind of neo-orthodoxy, people would say things like, yeah, it's the thoughts of Scripture that are inspired by God. But the words, we're not sure. We can't rest our souls on the fact that every word of the Bible is true. No, no, no, that's not the testimony of Scripture. God inspired not only the thoughts, but the Holy Spirit also inspired the words, so that as the apostles, using their own words, using their own education, were actually communicating, speaking, and preaching, and teaching, and writing down the very words of God. Brothers and sisters, what you hold in your hands are the words of God, infallible, inexhaustible, totally accurate. The words that God himself thought that he gave to the Spirit of God, that the Spirit of God gave to prophets and apostles have been written down for us and we read his words. They are inspired. What does this look like? And two texts, and we'll be quick here to go to our last point, which is supposed to be the thrust of my message, and we'll be done by at least one o'clock. If you guys open your Bibles to 2 Peter, you'll see something of how Peter communicates this process, this inspiration, how men wrote, how God's men wrote. He says in verse 19 of 2 Peter chapter 1, So we have the prophetic word made more sure to which we do well to pay attention. as to 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, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, that men didn't give this. Men didn't just make this up. Verse 21, for no prophecy ever was made by an act of human will. But listen to this, but men moved by who? You say it. moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God. This idea of born along, it's a nautical idea, as wind takes the sail and moves the ship across the lake or the ocean. The Spirit of God, so operated in the apostles and in the prophets, moved them along so that what they spoke and what they wrote were the very words of God. that they would be without error in the original manuscripts. They would be infallible and so they would be trustworthy. And so we find in 2 Timothy back there in chapter 3 again, as Paul was encouraging Timothy to continue in the things that he had learned and become convinced of knowing from whom he had learned them and that from childhood he had known the sacred writings. which were able, which were powerful, which had the ability to give him wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ. And he said, all scripture then, therefore, is inspired by God. See that? All scripture is breathed out of the mouth of God. Scripture itself is breathed out of the mouth of God, which then makes it profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God so that your pastor could be thoroughly equipped, adequate for every good work, every good work that you need to have done in your life. Teaching so that you can know doctrine how to rightly think about God and what he's revealed to us Correction when you go astray being brought back to the right path and then comprehensive training in righteousness brothers and sisters It's in the Word of God and it's powerful enough to bring us from from being a sinner to a saint to glory Because of the work of the Holy Spirit Praise the Lord How amazing is God? How amazing it is Spirit to give us this complete revelation of His wisdom that gives us access to His power. And that then leads us to the third heading. So we move from revelation, from inspiration, to illumination. Because there's a question then. How then can we understand it? If it's spiritual, if it comes from the very heart of God and the depths of God, how then can we understand it? If it had to be revealed by the Spirit of God, if it had to be inspired by the Spirit of God, then the Spirit of God completes the full transaction by illuminating us. This is the last three verses of the chapter, verses 14 to 16. Notice what Paul says. having now received this wisdom from God. Paul says, 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. And the natural man here, you guys, is not some third category that Paul is mentioning. And sometimes maybe some of you guys got taught that, that there's the carnal man and the natural man and the spiritual man. And Paul never meant to have three categories of individuals. There's just simply two categories, natural man and spiritual man. The un-regenerate and the regenerate. And the natural man is the man that is devoid of the spirit. You can check that in Jude 19 where this psuchikos is used there too to talk about men who are merely fleshly. The next phrase says devoid of the spirit. So these natural men, what we used to be before we were regenerated and given new birth by the Spirit of God, we could not, could not, we lacked the ability to access the Word of God for what it is. Now, I need for you guys to understand what Paul says here, that they cannot understand it. He does not mean that they cannot understand it as though it's gibberish. That's not his point. You can have conversations with an individual and at some level they understand what you are saying. So he's not saying that. He's not saying that the gospel sounds like Chinese to an only English-speaking person. I have no idea. That's not his point. His point is that what they understand is foolishness to them. because of the blindness of their spiritual eyes, because they're dead in their trespasses and sin, they hear of a crucified Messiah dying for their sins, being raised for their justification as having no value in their lives whatsoever. It doesn't have any spiritual import to them because their eyes are blinded. They can understand, okay, a man on a cross dying, he is falsely accused, okay, but other than that, they don't apprehend the truth of what's being said is the idea because they're dead and they're blinded. Paul is saying that They're unspiritual. They don't possess the Holy Spirit, so they can't get it. But here's the thing, we do. We do. We possess it. So what we hear is not foolishness to us, is it? It's glorious to us. Let me just ask you, how many of you guys remember when God opened up your eyes? And if you were like me, I grew up in a church. It was a faithful church, faithfully preached the gospel. I don't remember ever a time in my life where I wasn't at church. I went to church from when I was a small boy. I was in the junior choir, if you can believe that. I went to vacation Bible school. I heard all of the stories, all of it, all of it. I knew my Bible. but it didn't have any spiritual import on me. And then one day, the wind blew, brother. The wind sovereignly blew. I was sitting in a little church, a country church somewhere in the suburb of Atlanta, and it was as if, and I don't mean to make my experience everybody's experience. God saves the way that he saves, but I was sitting there, and I can't wait to get to heaven to thank this country preacher. And it was as if, as he was preaching, I was the only one in the building. And somehow or another, the message that I had heard all of my life and had disregarded it and had mocked it, came alive to me. It opened up and it was amazing. And for the first time, brothers and sisters and friends, I saw Jesus. Not naturally, but I saw him in the text. I saw him in all of his manifold glory. I understood him as my prophet, as my priest, and my king. And I was compelled for the first time to give my life to him. Now here's the question, what happened? It wasn't like the night before that when I woke up I was smarter. Right? It wasn't like I made a connection that I had never seen before. But I would argue that God brought life, and the Spirit of God came into me, and He illumined, He illumined, He awakened my mind. And now my faculties are spiritual. Now I can see, I'm going to put it this way, now I have spiritual taste buds. And I can eat the word of God for what it is, you see. So when Paul says, because they are spiritually appraised, that word there, you see it three times there at the end of verse 14, appraised, and in verse 16, because he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is not appraised. The idea there is a value. It's the idea. It's a judgment word. It's not so much an understanding word in the sense that you understand a 2 plus 2 equals 4. It's a phrasal. It's saying like this, and maybe this is the best way to think about it. When I saved up enough money to buy my wife a wedding ring, I read all the little things that I could read about, you know, you guys know the four C's? Is it C's or K's? Right? Come on, guys. Carat, clarity, and color. The ladies know. It's like, no, it's eight C's. But you guys get the idea. So I went to the jewelry place, and I said, hey, I want that one. And the guy picked it up, and I just did it like this. He says, oh, this is great. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to look at it. I am looking at it. No, no, you've got to look at it. I am looking at it. And so he reaches into his drawer, and he brings out, I guess, what's called a loop, L-O-U-P-E. And he says, now, look at it through this. So I put it to my eye, brought it up. I saw light refracting all over the place. I saw colors that I couldn't see. I was able to now appraise the value of the diamond. Do you see? If I could put it this way without demeaning the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is our Luke to illumine our minds that as we read the Word of God, we can appraise the spiritual value of its truth as he applies it to our lives. And we see it as such that we cast the weight of our souls on it. We not only believe that it's true, but we believe that it is the wisdom of God that I can entrust myself to, that every word of it is true and what it says and all of its promises and threats are actually reliable as we depend upon the Spirit of God. That's how he works in our lives. It's not apart from study. It's not apart from rigorous reading and meditation. Paul writes elsewhere in 1 Timothy, I believe it is, chapter 1, he tells Timothy, consider what I say. for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. So we have to consider, we have to think, we have to read, we have to look up words, right? We get our commentaries out, we get our lexicons out, we do all the hard studies. So this doesn't come magically to us apart from our faculties, but the Spirit of God works in and through our faculties, do you see, to give us the true spiritual import of the Word of God. So the Holy Spirit, Paul says, helps us not only to see the true value of the Word of God given to us by the Spirit of God, but the Holy Spirit also, with this, lastly, we'll close our time. The Holy Spirit also helps us, helps us to understand the spiritual mind of the Word of God. As Paul draws this to a close, and he picks it up again and fleshes it out a little bit more in chapter 3, but notice what he says in verse 16. who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him?" That's a good question. And what's the answer to that? No one is quoting out of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 13, who has known the mind of the Lord. Paul will repeat that at the end of Romans chapter 11, who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct them. No one. We already have been told, right, that the Spirit of God is the only one who knows the mind of God because he's in God. None of us know the mind of the Lord. We would be arrogant to think that we do. But notice what he says. Look in your Bibles. We have the mind of Christ. What does he mean? And there's debate about what he means right here. I think he just simply means this. Because the Spirit of God who is in God searches the deep things of God and then reveals them, has revealed them to his apostles and prophets who have preached it and taught it and inscripturated it so that we have it. When he says we have the mind of God, I believe he's simply talking about the scriptures. That the scriptures or the mind of Christ. Maybe you can think about it this way. If you want to know what Christ thinks, where do you go? You don't go sit under a tree, right, and suck your thumb and just think that somehow or another something's magically going to come. That's not what you do. You go to the Bible. You want to know what the Lord Jesus, you want to know what God, you want to know what Christ thinks about marriage? Go to the Word of God. You want to know what the Lord thinks about raising your children? Go to the Word of God. Whatever it is, whatever it is, if you want to know what the mind of Jesus is, go to the Bible and the Spirit of God will show you what God's mind is in the text. We pray sometimes, I think it goes all the way back to an ancient Reformed prayer that they ask that, Lord, help us to think your thoughts after you. We think the thoughts after God by going to the Word of God as the Spirit of God shows us the true value of God. Let me make a couple of comments of just brief application You can think about these things later today. So if what we have is a complete revelation of God from God through the Spirit, His wisdom that is accessible to us in the pages of Scripture, then how should we think about our relationship with the Holy Spirit? First of all, that we have to acknowledge that we are completely and totally dependent upon Him. Amen? That when we come to our Bible reading, whether you're studying to preach a sermon or studying just to teach a Sunday school class or in your own devotion time, Ask the Spirit of God to open up your mind. Psalm 119, right? Open up my eyes that I might see wonderful things from your law. We are completely and totally dependent upon the Spirit of God. So pray and ask the Father to cause the Spirit to illumine your mind, to open up your mind, to awaken your understanding and your faculties to see the true beauty of the Word of God. Secondly, And I already mentioned this, just be careful about how much of the world's wisdom you're drinking in. It will cloud your spiritual vision. Be careful of who it is that you're listening to, what it is that you're reading. We want to saturate our minds with the Word of God. We want to have our minds renewed day by day by the Word of God as the Spirit of God is working in us. And then lastly, it's just simply this. You just walk with the Spirit of God. We'll hear a little bit more about that. Ask the Spirit of God, moment by moment, day by day, to lead you, to bring back to your remembrance, in the secondary way that we heard from last night, to bring back your remembrance, the Word of God. When you find yourself being cranky, like I mentioned, when you find yourself frustrated and irritated, when you find yourself downcast, when you find yourself in a state that you know that you should not be, Pray and just ask the Spirit of God to bring back the mind of Christ so that you can align yourself with the way that Christ thinks. For as a man thinketh, so is he. If we think God's thoughts after him from the Word of God as illumined by the Word of God, we will act like God. Amen? Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you, Lord God, for the clear testimony of your word and the spirit of God who has revealed it to us and illumines our minds that we can know your thoughts and live out its truths in this world. Seal these realities to our hearts, we pray in Christ's name, amen.