Why Natural Man Can’t Understand God’s Word

SPEAKER 01 : 0:12

Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:29

Well, let’s turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And as a matter of review, the Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthian church, probably one of the most carnal churches that has ever existed on the face of the earth, one of the most sinful cities that anyone would ever dare to live in. And that’s exactly where the Apostle Paul went to spread the gospel. He’s talking to us about the fact that natural man cannot understand spiritual things. And these are spiritual words. The Bible that we have are spiritual words. Now, they’re not spiritual words because they’re King James. They’re not spiritual words because of these and thousand begets and begats and you’ll be gone. That is not what spiritual words are. It’s words of spiritual truth that you do not get from the world. And so he’s saying that when I came to you, I didn’t speak to you in eloquence and I didn’t speak to you with lofty words and brilliant ideas because I wanted your faith to be resting not on man, but on the power of the words of God. And he talks about the fact that no eye has seen or ear has heard or mind has conceived of what God has prepared for those who love Him. But it has to be revealed to us by His Spirit. Now, we’ve talked about the fact that in order for the Spirit to reveal truth to you, you have to be indwelt by the Spirit. That’s the difference between religion, going to church, and a relationship with Christ Jesus where you are the church. If you are in Christ Jesus, you are the body of Christ. It isn’t a building on the corner of walk and don’t walk. It’s not being a Baptist or a Presbyterian or a Methodist or a people to people or anything else. It is the fact that you are born again of the Spirit of God. Independently, you have come to a relationship with Christ at a specific time in history. It isn’t something that happens by osmosis. You don’t become a Christian sitting in church any more than you become a chicken sitting in a hen house. The issue is that you are born again of the Spirit of God. It’s a time in your life when you have come to the frustration of life. It’s a time when you’ve come to recognize that there’s something missing inside of me. There’s an emptiness there. You may be outwardly okay. You may be successful in business. You can do all of those things without Jesus. And you can have a nice home, and you can have a nice car, and you can have all the things, the niceties of the world. But if you don’t have Christ, you don’t have anything. And there’s always this longing inside of you, this God-shaped vacuum that is there. It’s just there. There’s always this awareness in a lost person that there’s something missing, something missing. And the reason for that awareness is there is something missing. And what is missing is the Spirit of God living in you. You and I were born once at the human desire of my mom and dad, and of your mom and dad. That was called physical birth. And Jesus came along and said, there’s another birth available to you, and that’s spiritual birth. You see, God created man to be a spiritual person. But when man fell, when Adam fell, we separated ourselves from the spiritual world, and we said from that point on, we’ll just play church. And so there’s no reality to playing church outside of playing church. A lost person can go and sit in church. I sat in one for 36 years, and I don’t know how many you did. But the issue is that you’re not born again of the Spirit of God until the day that you are born again. it then tells us in the scripture that when you are born again you are indwelt by the spirit of god in other words christ lives in you it talks about the fact that you have the mind of christ living inside of you this is not something that takes place guys by hocus pocus it isn’t that you take a wafer and jesus lives in you it’s the fact that there is a birth from god that God comes and takes up residence in your and my heart. Christ in you, your hope of glory. And it says that when the Spirit of God comes to indwell you and me, that the Spirit of God is there to teach us about Jesus. And he says, I will take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and make them known to you. That was a promise to the apostles so that they could write the Bible, which only the apostles wrote the New Testament. And it is true today of you and me if we’re going to understand the meaning of the word of God. They put it down. When they put it down, they had a meaning to it. No one wrote this book without having a meaning behind it. And he wants us to have that meaning. Now we’re told in verse 10 how God has revealed that to us by his spirit. And we’re told that the spirit now that lives in you and me searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? Folks, no one knows what you’re thinking except you and the spirit of God who lives in you or the spirit lives in you. You don’t know what someone else is thinking. They can sit and nod or just sit like most of us and just stare. But the issue is that. You don’t know what someone else is thinking. Only your spirit knows that. We understand that, don’t we? And so no man knows, the Bible tells us, what another man is thinking except the Spirit of God living in him. That kind of annihilates the idea that there are people that know what you’re thinking. And there’s a lot of that going on today as well. But the issue is that they said that just as no man knows what you’re thinking except the spirit within him, in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Now, you look at that and say, if no one knows what I’m thinking except my spirit within then how are you going to know what I’m thinking? And if no one knows what God is thinking except the Spirit, how in the world am I going to know what God’s thinking? In other words, it’s saying to you, you can’t know. But he says, yeah, you can know. And here’s how you could know. We have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. So no one knows what God is thinking except His Spirit. So what did God do? Sent His Spirit to live in our hearts. How come? So that we can know and comprehend those things that God has freely given us. So we have received the Spirit, not of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. Now this is what we speak, he says. These are the words, therefore, that we speak. What is he talking about there, guys? The words that I have been taught by the Spirit, this is what we speak. Now you remember Jesus, guys. Here was Jesus, here on this earth, God in the flesh. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And what did the word God do? Became flesh and dwelt among us as the only begotten Son of the Father, full of what? Grace and of truth. And so here was Jesus, God himself, who said, I’m going to put the prerogative of deity aside. Because the prerogative of deity is that I’m going to be the dynamic of my own action and the cause of my own effect. But if I live like that here on this earth, I’m not going to teach you, man, anything because you can’t live that way. You’re not God. So I’m going to behave as a man. And it says he found himself in an appearance as a man and he behaved in total dependency. He said, I do nothing unless the father tells me to do it. And I say nothing unless the father tells me to say it and how to say it. So Jesus lived in total dependency on the Spirit of God to teach him what the Father wants him to say and what the Father wants him to do. And then he said, as the Father sent me, so send I you. That’s how we’re to live. Not imitating the actions of Jesus. You know, you got these things you wear around your wrist. What would Jesus do? Well, he walked on water. Try that one for size. He raised people from the dead. Try that one on. We’re not there to imitate the actions of Jesus. You’re there to imitate the faith of Jesus. Jesus said, I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to do it. Now, remember what he said? What does it make any difference to you, Peter, what I do with John? You follow me. So quit following me because of somebody else. This is for you and it’s for me. And so we’re to live. He taught us how to live in total dependency upon our Father who lives in us. That’s a part of this marvelous spiritual birth. So he says, what we speak, they’re not in words taught to us by human wisdom. This isn’t something you’re going to get out of Reader’s Digest. But words taught by the Spirit. These are words that are here because of the Spirit of God. And we can understand it because of the Spirit of God living in us. So these are not words that you could learn by normal means. These are words expressing spiritual truth in spiritual words. And I love the alternate translation of that, which might be listed in your Bible down below, where it says interpreting spiritual truths to spiritual men. And that’s the work of the Spirit of God, is to interpret spiritual things to spiritual people. Now, the man without the spirit, this could be a person who has no interest at all in the things of God, or it could be a person who claims to be religious. I’m a churchgoer. I’ve been baptized. I give a dollar every Sunday. I’m a big spender from the east and things like this. But you see, that’s not being born again. I sat in church for 36 years, but didn’t know the Lord from an apple tree. I knew about him, but I didn’t know him. There’s a world of difference between knowing about somebody and having a personal relationship. And it says that natural man, it’s a man without the spirit of God living in him, doesn’t understand spiritual things. Why? You can’t. Because spiritual things have to be interpreted spiritually. And if you don’t have the spirit of God living in you, how can you interpret spiritual things spiritually? So natural man cannot understand spiritual things. It sounds foolish to him. But what can a natural man understand? The gospel. That’s why if natural man can’t understand spiritual things, you don’t need to sit around and teach the book of Revelation to them. Or try to teach theology to them because you can’t understand it. And so you lean on your own understanding for interpretation. And that’s why we have denominations today. That’s why you have a church on every corner teaching something different. Every single one of them different. Why? Because there’s not a unity of understanding because there is not a dependency upon the one person that can interpret the scripture to you. And he’s called the Holy Spirit. And so I don’t have the spirit of God living in me. So I’m just leaning on my own understanding. So here’s what the scripture says. And we say, OK, OK, OK. Tell me, pastor, what to believe. That, folks, is just absolute intellectual suicide. We have the privilege as Christians to look into this book and find truth. If we’re born again, you have the spirit of God living in you to interpret the meaning of this. And therefore, it says you don’t even need a teacher.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:54

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SPEAKER 03 : 14:37

And yet we live in dependency upon what does a pastor say? Tell me, pastor, what I’m supposed to believe, and I’ll believe it. And I say, you’re an idiot. Because it’s the Spirit of God who will teach you the truth of the Word of God. And I can count on that. I don’t have to sit and feel threatened by that. That each and every one of you who are sitting in this room or listening on our television or wherever it might be, if you’re born again, you have the Spirit of God living in you. And quite frankly, I can trust the Spirit of God to teach you truth. And it’s not my truth. It’s his truth. I don’t have truth. It’s his truth. And I can trust him to do that if you’ll rely on him to do it. Now, that’s a big if. But if you rely on him, we’ll be in total unity in understanding the scripture, not announce a difference. If we’ll depend upon the spirit of God to reveal the meaning of the word of God to you. And so he’s saying that in verse 14, that the man without the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. They’re foolish to him. He can’t understand them. Why? Well, because spiritual things have to be discerned spiritually. And you can’t discern something spiritually unless the Spirit of God lives in you. The spiritual man, that’s a person now who is indwelt by the Spirit of God, makes judgments about all things. But he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But look at that, folks. But we have what? The mind of Christ. Now, if that isn’t mind-boggling, I don’t know what is. That he is saying to you and me that you possess the mind of Christ. Now, if you’re like me, which would you rather depend on? My mind or the mind of Christ? You see, if you’ve got an ounce of discernment, you ought to figure that out. That I, from at least with my thinking and what some of the dumb stuff I’ve thought and gotten into, I don’t want to depend on that. But I don’t have to depend on it. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to depend on your mind alone? You have the mind of Christ living in you. And that means that I have the ability now, as it says in the scripture, to participate in that divine nature that lives in me. That’s available to every single one of us, that we can access the mind of Christ. And so just imagine, and that’s all you’re going to be able to do, is imagine that you lived your whole life doing nothing but thinking the thoughts of Jesus. And that’s why I say that takes a big imagination. But just imagine that you could. Look what you would save yourself from. Look at the trials and tribulations that you and I have had in our lives that could be saved, that we would have been saved from had we just listened to the mind of Christ. And especially is that bad when you’re a Christian and you had the mind of Christ to depend on, but you’re too dumb to do it. So, guys, if you just think through the logic of this marvelous plan of God, he said, I have done everything that you need for life and godliness. I’ve given you my mind. You have the mind of Christ living in you. And therefore, every decision that you make, you can depend upon that mind, if you will, and get instruction directly from me. It’s not a bad deal, is it, guys? And so it says, Who has not known the mind of Christ that he may instruct him? Now he says in chapter 3, Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly, mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you’re not ready for it yet. Now what’s he talking about there? Guys, he’s talking about the fact that you are born again, but you have allowed yourself no growth. None at all. I’ve known people like that, that are 20, said they came to Christ 20, 30 years ago, that are no further along than the day they were born again. Still depending on their own understanding, have no knowledge of the Word of God, have no appreciation for the fact of even the need to study the Word of God. I’ve had people say, well, you don’t need to study the Word of God. Really? Really. And so the whole thing is that he’s saying you’re a babe in Christ and babes need to be what? To live. What do they need to be done? Fed. Fed. Now spiritually, if you’re a babe in Christ, what do you need to live? Food. What kind of food? Spiritual food. Spiritual food. If you’re a spiritual being… Now you need spiritual food. You’re a physical being. You need physical food. You’re a spiritual being. And you need spiritual food. Now, where are you going to get your spiritual food? What is spiritual food, guys? It’s the word of God. It’s the word of God. Spiritual food. Now, what is that feeding? Your toes? What’s spiritual food feeding? Your mind. Your mind. Not feed my arms, my legs. It’s feed my mind. Spiritual food feeding my mind. Not my stomach. My mind. Because he says, as a man thinks, what? So is he. Whatever you are and whatever you are going to become… is going to be totally predicated on the renewing of your mind, on what you’re thinking, what you’re thinking when you’re 50, 60, 70, and if you live to be 80 or 90. I won’t go beyond that. So he’s saying to us that I would like to be able to address you as a spiritual person, but you’ve remained a babe. You’ve been in Christ 20 years. How long have you had this Bible? See, I used to sit around and say, why didn’t the church teach me this? And God says, idiot, why didn’t you learn it yourself? You got a Bible. But you see, I sat there. Will you just tell me what to believe? And I hope none of you are believing what you believe because I’m telling you. I’m just telling you what I’ve learned out of this word. But until you’ve learned it by God, all you’ve done is learned what I’ve told you. And I could be lying out my teeth to you. If you don’t believe that, just watch Christian television. So he says, you’re mere infants. I gave you milk. I couldn’t feed you on meat. I couldn’t feed you on solid food. You’re not ready for it. and you were not ready for it. Indeed, you’re still not ready. He said, you’re still worldly. You still are thinking worldly. You’ve never transferred over to realize that I can study a book and get some information, and I can regurgitate that into a blue book and get enough grades to have a degree and get as high degrees as I want. But if I want wisdom from God, I’m going to have to get it here. Because this is spiritual food. This is what is feeding you spiritually. The other is feeding you on a human level. But I need wisdom from God, don’t I? I’m living here in this earth, but I have God’s wisdom available to me. Is that right or wrong, guys? So he says, you’re still worldly. You still haven’t grown up. I marvel sometimes at people that have no appreciation for the word of God. They have no desire. They’ll read everything under the sun, but never sit down and read the Bible. Don’t have any interest in it. I guess it’s the idea that don’t see worth to do you much good. Didn’t do much good for old Harry. Or something, I don’t know, I don’t, I do not comprehend why someone does not have a hunger to study a love letter. I mean, I’ll guarantee you, if you were in love, and the person you were in love with wrote you a letter, I guarantee you’re not going to sit around and go, I wonder what’s in the paper. I guarantee you’d be reading that letter. And you’d read it upside down and backwards and forwards and in between the lines. And if she wasn’t clear in how she interpreted it, you would interpret it for her. Why don’t we want to read this love letter from God? Well, I’ll tell you the reason is because we’re in a spiritual warfare. And it’s talked about in the Scripture. That we’re in a spiritual warfare. And God is continually pushing us to get our wisdom here. And Satan is never ending relentlessly to keep you away from it. Is that right or wrong? How many times have you ever said, I’m going to go read the Bible? And you said that in the kitchen. And the Bible is in the office. And between the kitchen and office, you’ve got ten chores you’ve got to do. And you never get around to reading the Bible because you’re in a warfare. Now, again, guys, if you eat because you’re hungry, or some people just eat because it’s there. Why did you eat? It’s there. It’s there. But you should eat when you’re hungry. And when you are no longer hungry, you ought to stop. That would be the best way to do if you were going to have some kind of weight control. But you’re hungry. Well, you ought to be hungry for spiritual things. If you’re a spiritual being, there should be a hunger for spiritual truth. Because what are you going to talk about, guys? I mean, what are you going to basis… What are you going to put your basis of thinking on? Either the world or spirit. And so he’s saying, you’re not ready for it. You’re still worldly. Now, he says here, guys, for there’s since there’s jealousy and quarreling among you. Are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men for? And when you see a for, it’s because of what I’ve just said for worldly. When someone says, I follow Paul, another, I follow Apollos, are we not mere men? So what he’s talking about here in regard to jealousy and in regard to quarreling, he’s talking about man followers. Now, he talked about that over, did he not, in the first chapter where he said one follows Paul, the other follows Apollos, and the other follows Cephas. Now, look what he says here, guys. In other words, you could say, that I follow the Baptists, or I follow the Presbyterians, or I follow the Catholic, or I follow this. Same thing, man-followers.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:10

Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.

SPEAKER 02 : 27:40

Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.