WWUTT 1448 Spiritual Truths to Those Who Are Spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:13)

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In 1 Corinthians 2 .13, the Apostle Paul said that he spoke the depths of God, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the

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Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words. When we understand the text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in 1 Corinthians, God willing, finishing up chapter 2 today.

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I'm going to start reading in verse 10, and we'll go to the end of the chapter out of the Legacy Standard Bible the

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Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. But to us God revealed them through the

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Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

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For who among men knows the depths of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, the depths of God, no one knows except the

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Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the

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Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God.

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Of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the

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Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the depths of the

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Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined.

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But he who is spiritual examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one.

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For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will direct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

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We stopped in the middle of a sentence yesterday, so I'm picking up in verse 13 today, of which depths we also speak.

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Now when Paul says we here, he's really talking about apostolic teaching.

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So he's talking about himself, the other apostles, maybe those others that are likewise teaching what the apostles teach, but he's in reference to himself and other teachers.

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You look back at verse 6, yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature.

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Verse 7, but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery. So talking in reference to those who have received, who have been the first to receive the revelation of this mystery, and that is the apostles whom

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Christ has sent to preach the gospel. So here Paul referring to himself in verse 13, in that collective we, with the rest of the apostles, of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the

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Spirit. Again, what Paul shares here is not something that he received from man.

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Back to verse 2, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

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Verse 5, so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

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So what Paul has to speak to them is not words that come from man. It's not words that could have been sought out anywhere on earth if it had not come by the power of God through revelation to those persons whom he had appointed to go out and speak.

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In the Old Testament, it was a prophet. God spoke to prophets. The prophets spoke to the people.

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Why did God specifically speak through prophets and not just everybody? Like not anyone got the chance to hear

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God. Now if you were an Israelite that came out of Egypt and were brought out into the wilderness at the foot of Mount Sinai, everybody who was brought out of slavery in Egypt heard the voice of God booming from the mountain when

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God descended upon the mountain and gave the Ten Commandments to the entire nation of Israel, but the nation rejected it.

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They said, hey, we can't do this. We can't listen to God. This is terrifying. Just listening to his voice will kill us.

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So they said to Moses, you go up on the mountain and you talk to God and then you come tell us what

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God said. And then what did the people do after that? They made a golden calf and worshiped it.

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They did not worship God. They did not even desire to be with God who brought them out of slavery, but they desired these gods that they made for themselves in their image.

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They who are made in God's image to worship God, they made an idol in their image was a golden calf, but it was the image that they wanted and they worshiped that instead.

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So God separated himself from the people just as he did from Adam and Eve when they sinned against God.

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So now God did to the nation of Israel when they rejected God. And because of our sin, we have been separated from God.

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He is holy and we are not. So God chose select persons that he would speak to, and then those persons would speak to God's people or to other nations.

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I mean, you can read Ezekiel and you can read Isaiah and even those prophets are speaking to other kings.

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Daniel spoke to pagan kings as well as to the people of Israel. So it was whatever message that God had to a people, he would speak through a prophet because he is holy and we are not.

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And so he would he would specifically select certain men, sometimes women.

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There were prophetesses to whom he would give his word and then they would speak to the people.

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Those today who claim to hear from God and what they speak comes from God. Whenever they say something like that, they're thinking way too highly of themselves.

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They want to put themselves in the same place as a prophet or as an apostle. Now I've heard some of these persons say, well,

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God didn't audibly speak to me, right? It wasn't like I heard a voice coming from heaven. But then again, there are those who do say they're on a one on one communication with God.

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When I was in Kansas, the International House of Prayer was just two hours away from where I lived, and we had to deal with their false teaching all the time.

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There were preachers from my area who regularly went out to IHOP and would receive their training and then come back and try to shape their church after what the

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International House of Prayer was doing. Mike Bickle, the founder of IHOP, claimed that he had gone to heaven and had a personal audience with Jesus Christ, not once but two times, and everything that Mike Bickle tells his church or guides his church in, whatever it might be, you have to follow it because it came from God.

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This is where Bickle has put himself right up there with the prophets of old and the and the apostles of, well, the

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New Testament, prophets of the Old Testament, apostles of the New Testament. In fact, Bickle has said that in this age, there will come these apostles that are greater than the apostles in the

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New Testament. Yeah, Paul warned about them in Second Corinthians 11. He called them sarcastically super apostles.

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It's the same kind of people that Mike Bickle is elevating. And he says that on that day that we enter into glory, the apostles of the

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New Testament will be lining up to shake the hands of today's modern apostles. Bickle has not gone through anything like what the apostles went through.

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In fact, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter five, when others hate you, when they when they revile you and they persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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So how are you most like a prophet in the Old Testament or an apostle in the new when you suffer persecution like they did now when you're sitting high and mighty over a group of people and you're telling them, well,

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I had this thought, so it must have come from God. And so you must listen to me for to reject me would be like rejecting

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God. These guys are blasphemers in that way. I fear for their souls, really, because Deuteronomy chapters 13 and 18 are clear as to what happens to guys who claim that they are speaking a word from God and what they are saying does not really come from God.

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What would happen to them in Israel, in ancient Israel, is they would be taken out of the camp and stoned.

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Death was the sentence for a person who claimed to speak a word from God that did not come from God.

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So what is going to be the judgment of these false prophets when they stand before God himself? And that's why

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I tremble for the souls of these guys to hear them speak so freely, things that they claim have come from God but did not.

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God doesn't speak to just anybody. And even when he spoke to a prophet, there were things that affirm that what this prophet said truly came from God.

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Either he was performing some kind of miracle. Or you would test what he said by whether or not it came true.

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If it came true, it came from God. If it doesn't come true, then it wasn't from God. That was the test that God gave to Israel.

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And of course, if he says something that doesn't come true, then he was to be put to death, for he blaspheme the name of God, claimed to speak for God when

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God did not actually give him or her that word. And so we've got all these false prophets today claiming to speak a word from the

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Lord. I want to say whenever somebody comes along and says, I have a word from God or I speak on behalf of God, I have the authority from God, I want to respond,

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OK, raise the dead and prove it. If you can perform some kind of incredible miracle like that, raise the dead to life, then

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I'll believe what it is that you have to say. But those things don't happen. I mean, you can watch It's Supernatural with Sid Roth and he'll run these stories about so and so went into the hospital and raised him from the dead.

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They never can corroborate those stories. There's no proof that any of those stories are true. All the miracles that you hear about are things like, well,

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I had high blood pressure and then this preacher prayed for me and then my blood pressure went away.

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Or that thing that Todd White does where he, you know, he'll say to somebody, do you have any back problems?

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Oh, yeah. My back's been hurting. Well, it's because one leg is shorter than the other one has them sit down and holds their legs out and the camera will zoom in close and he'll have one foot kind of extended more than the other.

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So it looks like the other one is an inch short. So because of that, the person's experiencing a lot of back problems.

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And then Todd White will pray that this leg will grow. And he's just turning the ankle is all he's doing.

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There are people who have exposed this con just by speeding up the video. You just use the take the video that that Todd White will film of him growing out somebody's leg and you just speed it up.

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You can tell he's just turning the guy's ankle as all it is that he's doing. So these are tricks that people will do to claim that they're performing these miracles.

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These are not miracles. No, a miracle is like regrowing a limb. Jesus healing the man's withered hand in Matthew 12 or in Mark three.

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How about when he heals the blind and these people who've been blind from birth and everybody knows they've been blind from birth and Jesus just heals their eyes and suddenly they can see you've got the lame beggar in Acts three.

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Peter and John heal as they're going into the temple at the hour of prayer. This is a man who had been lame from birth.

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Everybody knew who he was because he was always outside the temple begging.

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And Peter and John heal him. And when the people see him walking around, they know we've never seen this guy walking before.

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That's a real miracle. These are not the miracles, quote unquote miracles, that you see anybody performing today who claims to be working miracles of God.

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They want to claim to be hearing from God that there's some sort of prophet or apostle raise the dead and prove it.

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Grow a limb that wasn't there. And if you can perform some kind of miracle like that, then I'll believe that the word of God is with you.

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But if you can't perform some kind of miraculous sign, I'm going to say you're a liar. And furthermore, the stuff that these people will prophesy, they don't even come true.

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So I can just test whether or not you're a prophet of God based on if what you say comes true.

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And just because they hit one out of 100 prophecies does not make them a prophet. That means they played the odds and they got one right.

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That's all that is. So so the person who speaks from God has specifically been appointed by God and reveals that they have been sent by God through the miraculous signs that they do.

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So as Paul is making reference to himself as we who also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words, he is speaking authoritatively as a prophet there.

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Now, we likewise, let's say if I were to apply myself here to first Corinthians two thirteen, can

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I say of myself that I speak of the depths of God in words taught not by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words?

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Can I say that of myself? Yes, I can. But not because I'm a I'm an apostle.

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I can say that because I'm reading the apostolic word right here. First Corinthians to that which was given to us by an apostle, the

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Holy Spirit of God working through Paul to give us this word. And I can read it and understand it, spiritual depths with spiritual words because I have the spirit of God and not because I claim to be an apostle.

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I'm not revealing anything new. I'm not claiming God is speaking into my mind or that I'm hearing some audible voice and then telling you what

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God said to me. I'm reading the Bible. And the spirit of God has given me in my heart an ability to read this and understand it.

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He's given it to you as well. Some are more mature than others. When I say he's given it to you,

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I'm I'm taking for granted that I'm speaking to a Christian, right? Someone who loves Jesus and desires to serve him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, who knows that Christ died on the cross for our sins, that he rose again from the grave for our justification.

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Whoever believes in him, we are forgiven our sins and we have everlasting life with God, the gospel of Christ.

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Right. So you believe the gospel. You're a follower of Jesus. You're a Christian. You have the

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Holy Spirit of God in your heart. So you likewise are able to discern spiritual depths with spiritual words because you're reading here in the

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Bible those spiritual words which reveal to us the spiritual depths of God. You have that ability as well because you have the

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Holy Spirit in your heart. But as I said yesterday, there's different levels of maturity.

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Some are more mature than others. Some are gifted with an ability to teach. So you might even be able to read it and understand it.

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But maybe you don't know how to communicate it to somebody else as the whole woke movement thing is going on with social justice stuff, the critical race theory and intersectionality.

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When this stuff started taking hold and really seizing our culture just a few years ago, I knew it was bad, but I did not know how to articulate why it was bad.

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I could just recognize this doesn't line up with the Bible. And what I see these people doing when they're spouting this stuff off, it just it doesn't line up with scripture.

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Now, I was seized by a few of those arguments. There were some arguments out there in the woke movement that were grabbing me.

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And I was going, well, you know, he makes a good point. I can't really argue with that. But for the most part, most of it that was out there, especially those that came from secularists, it was exactly contrary to the word of God.

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But I did not know how to communicate that. I didn't know how to warn people this is bad.

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And here's why. I just knew how to preach the scripture. So I stuck with the word. And by showing people the truth, hopefully they can distinguish between the truth and error.

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So I had to listen to men much wiser than me explain to me why this was wrong.

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And it wasn't even necessarily that they were explaining the word of God to me. They were examining the times.

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So it's talked about in First Chronicles, 1232, that there were men of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what

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Israel ought to do. So some of these men who were very wise in recognizing the stuff that was going on in the times and that this was just a repeat of stuff that had happened in the past, but with different terms.

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I listened to those men who had that wisdom and could therefore guide me in how to articulate this is wrong and point to the word of God.

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This is exactly the portion of scripture that this contradicts, that this worldly philosophy contradicts.

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So that's one of those instances where I wasn't gifted in recognizing the problems there. But I listened to those men who were gifted in that to instruct me that I might use the scriptures to guide others into the truth, away from error and into the truth.

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So we all have different giftings that we have been given by God and that ability to discern the spirits.

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That's one of the spiritual gifts. We'll read about that when we get to First Corinthians, 12, where we're all given that responsibility to test all things.

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Paul says so in First Thessalonians five. And as we read in First John, four, one beloved, do not believe every spirit as being from God, but test the spirits.

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For many false prophets have gone out into the world. So we need to be cautious about people who claim to be speaking from God, or they will say, hey,

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I'm loving my neighbor. I am obeying the commands of Jesus. Are they really is this thing that they're calling loving their neighbor?

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Is it really what Jesus said means loving your neighbor or what the Bible says about loving one another?

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Because there are plenty that will say you need to be accepting of LGBTQ persons in order to truly be loving that because that's what

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Jesus would do. We're about to hear a whole lot of that as we enter into the month of June, which is Pride Month.

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And you're going to see every like secular corporation out there. Pretty much 90 percent of them are going to have some kind of affirmation of of LGBTQ persons and practices.

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There's not any other group of people in the United States that get that kind of affirmation from corporate

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America like the LGBTQ movement does. It's astounding. And it's as deeply wicked. It just shows how much our culture has become like Sodom and Gomorrah.

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But anyway, point standing is that the culture is going to tell you this is what it means to love like Jesus.

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But is it is that what the Bible has said is love as Jesus loved or is the loving thing to do to tell a person who is in deep, wicked, abominable sin like the

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LGBTQ movement is is the loving thing to do there to tell them, repent, turn from that sin that God has promised that he will judge and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, who will cleanse you and make you new.

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First, John one nine. If we are faithful to ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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We understand these things in the Bible because God has given us his spirit to understand them.

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The depths that we speak of are not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words.

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Then, as we read in verse 14, we're going to get to this next week. Coming back to this study on Monday in verse 14.

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But a natural man does not accept the depths of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually examined.

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So when we get to First Corinthians, chapter six, verses nine and ten, we read this.

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Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.

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Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Why would somebody reject those three verses nine through eleven?

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Why would somebody reject that? Because they are a natural minded man who does not accept the depths of the spirit of God, they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually examined.

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And such a man is still worldly and in his flesh, chasing after the passions of the body and the mind.

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And that person is by his nature, a children of wrath like the rest of mankind or a child of wrath, as we all were before we came to Christ.

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But it's by his grace and his goodness that he has transformed our thinking from being a person after this world to being a person who is after Christ.

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As Paul will say here at the end of first Corinthians two, verse 16, we have the mind of Christ.

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So think like Christ and walk as Jesus walked. Dear God, we thank you that you have given us your word and not just given us the

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Bible, but given us a spirit that we may examine it and understand it and apply it and live according to it.

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We would not be able to do this of our own volition if we had not been given a holy volition with the

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Holy Spirit poured into our hearts, our will submitted to God's will that we may have the mind of Christ and obey his commandments.

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Lead us in these truths today, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

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Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.