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I Corinthians 2:11-12
Excerpted from: Satan (Part 3)

You see now the comparison. The reason the rulers of the world did not understand—did not put into the proper perspective; did not grasp what they saw in the Lord of glory—was because God had not revealed to them who Jesus was, what He was doing, or why He was doing what He was doing. The reason is because those things cannot be discerned by physical means—eye, ear, nose, mouth, the senses—but rather these things have to be revealed. There has to be a spiritual miracle that takes place for a person to understand and to see these spiritual things.

God created us physical and mortal. He created us very good, but He also placed within us a spirit. That is really the key to this entire sermon. We are building on the understanding that we have been given a spirit. That spirit is not an immortal soul. It is not the man. It is a non-material element within the man that imparts to the man the power of intellect so that he is able to grasp, to understand, the physical things of this world. It is what separates man from an animal. Though an animal may have a brain that is similar to man's, the animal does not have a spirit. It did not have imparted to it a spirit giving it the intelligence, the intellectual capacity, which a man has. Man is different from those other physical beings that also have life.

This non-material element does not possess life of itself. The Bible very clearly says that our life is in the blood. (It says that a couple of different times.) The spirit did not impart life to us—the spirit is dependent upon the body for use or for carrying out its functions.

The spirit cannot see on its own. It cannot hear on its own. It needs the eyes, it needs the ears, and it needs the brain to sort all of these signals out in order to make use of them.

There is a very simple way this can be proved. If a person's eyes do not work, the spirit cannot see. If a person's ears do not work, the spirit cannot hear. This is necessary in order to carry out the other functions of the spirit as well as we are able to understand it.

The illustrations that I use here may not be entirely adequate to the situation, but the spirit does impart to the human brain the power of intellect, but it needs the brain. It cannot function without it. But it has an additional capacity in that it is able to use the brain to be a receptacle for the information that it processes—and apparently also be of use to draw upon that information—that is, our memory—and then use it.

I have read in news magazines, other publications—things entirely apart from the church of God—that seem to indicate (at least this was the conclusion that these experimenters reached) that by prodding different areas of the brain with small charges of electricity they were able to induce the person to recall things that were stored in the person's memory. Their conclusion was that the brain never forgets a single thing that ever happened in your life.

We see two clear functions that apparently are functions of the spirit in man. One is to impart the power of intellect using the human brain and the other organs of the body; and the second is to facilitate the brain in recording the experiences of life so that they can be recalled. We need desperately to be able to recall. If we cannot recall, what good is information? Both functions are absolutely necessary.

God therefore not only created us mortal, but He also created us with a spiritual capacity. In fact, understanding this in the light of Genesis 1, we can begin to understand another angle why He used the term "very good" and that is that we were incomplete. We were good as far as we went, but there was much more to come. We were incomplete because we understand from other parts of the Bible that man needs another spirit joining with his spirit so that he can then have the capacity to make use of, to see, to comprehend spiritual things as well as the things of a man.

This is what I Corinthians 2 is explaining as … . . .

I Corinthians 2:10-11
Excerpted from: Faith (Part Seven)

Think of this in the light of what I have just said. Did you create yourself? Did you create the goal in life? God's Word refutes that, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard." God's own testimony through the apostle Paul is that what we are talking about here is impossible apart from what God gives, because the human spirit is what? It is confined. It is constrained by its "humanity" to the things that come through the senses: the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, the sense of touch.

So God calls. That is a free, unmerited act on His part. God reveals Himself and He reveals the true Christ, and separates Him away from all of the false Christs that this world has. Otherwise we would never ever find them in the midst of all the confusion that Satan has spread. We cannot have faith in something that has never been revealed to us. We cannot have faith in someone who has never been revealed to us.

Humanly we have a capacity for spiritual faith. I think that is easily attested to because all over the world, amongst all people, there is a hunger to worship something perceived as being greater than the self. But this same book of I Corinthians in chapter 8 says that there is a demon behind all of these idols. The spiritual thing that is being worshipped by the spirit in man is a demon, not the true God. The true God has to be revealed. It has to be given.

The corollary is that once God reveals the faith by which we believe the revelation has been a gift of His. We would never have that faith unless He gave it to us. Unless we are led by His Spirit, there would be no saving faith. God leads us to repentance. Again, it is His Spirit that convicts us of sin, judgment, and His righteousness. He then gives us His Spirit as a gift, begetting us to eternal life, and the production of the fruit of His Spirit.

I Corinthians 2:9-13
Excerpted from: Reconciliation and the Day of Atonement

Because of the action God took upon the sin of Adam and Eve—Adam and Eve being cut off from the Holy Spirit—all of the cultures of mankind have been built on reasoning that is apart from God's Holy Spirit. You might say that man has been doomed to produce those kinds of cultures that are based on his own reasoning, because access to the Holy Spirit was cut off, and therefore there was a dimension missing in mankind's reasoning processes.

Therefore, the separation can only get wider, unless God acts to heal the breach. Unless God bridges the gap, mankind is unable to do it because (as we just read in I Corinthians 2) spiritual things are not physically discerned; eyes, ears, nose, mouth—they do not discern spiritual things. So mankind is trapped—he is doomed in that regard. Even though mankind was created with a spiritual capacity, it is so limited that it cannot find the true things of God, and therefore man is very easily overpowered by Satan.

I Corinthians 2:10-12
Excerpted from: Do You See God?

If it is seen and if it is understood, then life begins to make sense. We begin to be able to see ourselves - this single, unique individual, us, I, me - as a part of the whole, the awesome plan and purpose that God is working out! Then, being able to see God gives direction to our life. So your eye has seen and your ear has heard, and it has entered into your heart the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

Those three verses prove that we are predisposed by God's calling to see Him. Not only to know His truth, but to know who His servants are, as well. So we can know. We may not know perfectly; but what we know is a great source of comfort, security, hope, and direction.

Articles

A Woman's World  
Azazel: Observations and Questions  
Born Again or Begotten? (Part Two)  
Comparing Ourselves Among Ourselves  
Do You See God? (Part Two)  
Eternal Torment?  
Eternal Torment?  
God Is . . . What?  
Judgment, Tolerance, and Correction  
Parables and a Pearl  
Parables and Prophecy  
Parables and Prophecy  
Recognizing the Second Witness  
Religious Confusion and You  
Seeing Is Not Believing  
Taking It Through the Grave  
The Final Harvest  
The First Prophecy (Part One)  
The Fruit of the Spirit  
The Gift of Discerning Spirits  
The Prophecies of Balaam (Part Two)  
The Prophesied Creation of Light  
Time and Life  
What Did Jesus Do?  
What Is the Holy Spirit?  
Who Fulfills the Azazel Goat—Satan or Christ? (Part Two)  
Who Is Doing the Work of God?  
Y2K: You-2-the-Kingdom  
Y2K: You-2-the-Kingdom  

Bible Studies

Self-Control  
The Holy Spirit  
The Holy Spirit  
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Deaf-Mute (Part One)  
The Model Prayer (Part Five): Your Will Be Done  
The Model Prayer (Part Five): Your Will Be Done  
The Model Prayer (Part Two): Our Father in Heaven  

Booklets

God Is . . . What?  
Preparing the Bride  
The World, the Church, and Laodiceanism  
What Do You Mean . . . the Unpardonable Sin?  (2)

Essays

All About Attitude  
An Illuminating Prophecy  
Are These Your Feasts? (Part One)  
Character and Reputation (Part Two)  
Citizens of Heaven  
Death Is Not the End (Part Seven)  
Groping for Jesus  
Jesus, Nathanael, and Jacob's Ladder  
Knowledge and the Truth (Part Two)  
Listen Carefully (Part One)  
Man's Natural Spirituality  
No Works Is No Good!  
Our Awesome Calling  
The Bible's Claims About Itself  
The True Gospel (Part 6)  
The Unique Greatness of Our God (Part Two)  
Trust the Bible (Part One)  
We Persuade Men  
What Happened to the Thief on the Cross? (Part Two)  
What Is Real Conversion? (Part Five)  
What Is Truth?  

Sermons

Testing the Spirits (Part 1)  
The Sixth Commandment  
Limiting the Holy One of Israel (Part 1)  
Sin And Overcoming (Part 1): If Anyone Sins!  
Themes of I Corinthians (Part 3)  
What We Can Learn From This Day of Atonement  
The Wonderful, Powerful Gift of God's Holy Spirit  
Why Many Do Not Understand  
Why Many Do Not Understand  
Imagining the Garden of Eden (Part 1)  
The Feast Brings Hope  
Who Was Herbert W. Armstrong?  
Why Are We Called To Overcome?  
The Three Angels  
John (Part 15)  
God the Father (Part 3)  
Immutable Scientific Laws  
Powerful Effects of the Holy Spirit  
The Law's Purpose and Intent  
Should a Christian Go To War? (Part 2)  
Why We Do Not Vote  
Why We Do Not Vote  
Christ Our Wisdom  
Disinterestedness: Our Spiritual Iron Dome  
Teaching Us to Think (Part Two)  
Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness  
Spiritual Renewal  
No One Else Matters (Part Two)  
Discerning Truth and Applying Wisdom  
All Flesh Shall See the Salvation of God  
Back to Life (Part Five)  
The Post-Resurrection Last Words of Christ (Part One)  
Tests of True Knowledge  
Sight to the Blind  
Hope!  
Who Are You?  
Self-Government  
Re-Embracing the Berean Model  
Without a Parable  
Living by Faith: God's Grace (Part 3)  
Teach Us To Pray! (Part 1)  
Marriage and the Bride of Christ (Part 9)  
Imagining The Garden of Eden (Part 4)  
Grace, Unleavened Bread, and the Holy Spirit  
Is Your Soul Immortal?  
Lessons From First-Century Christianity  
Unleavened Bread and Pentecost  
The Purpose of the Ministry  
Four Views of Christ (Part 2)  
Going On to Perfection  
Grace Upon Grace  
Stewards of the Mysteries of God  
The Pure in Heart  
God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Three)  
Watch and Vigilantly Prepare  
'But I Say To You' (Part One)  
The Handwriting Is on the Wall (1994)  
Recognizing the Intents of the Heart  
Strategies for Escaping Babylon (Part Two)  
Good, Good, Good Vibrations  
The Unleavened Sinless Life!  
Discern and Distinguish Between Spirits  
The Father's Promise of Power!  
Ecclesiastes Resumed (Part Thirty-Two): Ecclesiastes 8:1-9  
Strategies for Interfacing with Babylon without Becoming Assimilated (Part Five)  
Self-Examination, Not Self-Preoccupation  
Psalm 51 (Part Three): Verses 5-12  
Real Conversion  
Developing Discernment  
Jesus in the Feasts (Part One): Unleavened Bread  
How Emotions Affect Spiritual Maturity  
Pitfalls of Scholarship  
Our Awesome Destiny (2000)  
What Does God Really Want? (Part 6)  
How the Human Mind Shapes What We Believe  
Holiness of God (Part 3)  
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part 2)  
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part 1)  
Sovereignty, Election, and Grace (Part 5)  
The Christian and the World (Part Two)  
Keeping God's Standards  
Benefits of the Third Resurrection  
The Handwriting Is on the Wall (1996)  
Sin (Part 3)  
How Big Is God?  
Elements of Motivation (Part 2)  
The Needed Dimension  
Narrow Is the Way  
Image and Likeness of God (Part Three)  

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