The Person With The Spirit Makes Judgments About All Things

1 Corinthians 2:15

“The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,”

1 Cor. 2:14-16…”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.”

Most Christians who are not led by the Spirit cringe when they realize that your words are somewhat judging them. They find solace and hang on to comments like this one: “Didn't Jesus say not to judge others?”  Or they would say things like, “who are you to judge?” Like a dog with a bone they cannot let go of this verse in the Bible and their stand in their self-righteousness without the Spirit. IT IS SO SAD TO WATCH AND READ SUCH PEOPLE.  

I have to admit that when I first came to know the Lord, I found solace in knowing that Christ Himself said in Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Because I was sealed with the spirit, He led me to stop hanging onto a simple verse and build my life on it. As I let go, I started seeing other verses that I read about but never truly paid attention to them, as if they never entered my mind. I first noticed that God wants us to judge with the Spirit. Then, I was floored when I realized how much Christ judged the people of His time. In fact, I found Him very harsh at times.

Later, I learned it was not because Christ was trying to hurt others, it was the Spirit of God calling things exactly what they were. I could also see how I was thinking like someone with no spiritual understanding looking for Christ to sympathize with them instead of judging them rightly. I had a need for Christ to say things like other human being would, which means you have to downplay what you see to avoid telling the blunt truth to someone. As human being we do not like being told a blunt truth and we do not like facing ourselves, hence why we constantly wear masks in order to protect our fragile ego.

I also understood much later, after God equipped me with the truth and boldness to share His word, when you speak, live and walk in Spirit you cannot control the Holy Spirit. In fact, trying to control the Holy Spirit calling things the way He sees things through you, is a sin. If we try to sympathize with people instead of holding them accountable, we condemn them to hell and we nullify Christ’s work on the cross. Most of the time, we Christians use sympathy instead of the Agape love of Christ.  We also do things as we walk with common sense and self-righteousness, all to avoid righteous judgement and our desperate need to please man.  When we cultivate this state of mind, there is no question about it that we are not living or walking in the Spirit, let alone living a spirit filled life.

I will share a secret with you and you can take it to the bank.  When you find yourself fighting with everything that you are, the idea of being judged, you can bank on it that you are in the flesh. Why? Because the Holy Spirit could care less that someone is making wrong judgment about Him. Furthermore, when you know you are living and walking in the Spirit and all your judgments are flowing through Him, anyone who dares judge you will deal with God. Why? Because once again it is not about you, it is about the Spirit of God in you. In fact, as you mature spiritually in the faith and you are living the Spirit filled life, the Holy Spirit in you, shares the fact this natural person talking about you or with you is simply a fool. And instead of feeling pain for yourself, you take pity on them for their ignorance. What’s more sad is that you are watching someone calling himself or herself a Christian and who’s so devoid of spiritual understanding and complete absence of the Holy Spirit activities, yet they are no wiser of their own situation.

Years ago, I used to be upset at people for lying to my pastors so that they can be promoted or just so they can be held in high esteem by them. One of my pastors made a big mistake that was costly to the Church and his life with God just by listening to people he thought were good Christians. In reality, these people were not. One of them God revealed it to me through a dream and made me confront this person. I used to be so mad when I knew people lied to my pastor. I felt, by lying to a pastor you cause him to make the wrong decision and jeopardize the Church. Later on when God moves to heal my heart because I was mad at these people for lying, He taught me that while it is true these people were wrong, but the onus was on my pastor to be living and walking in the Spirit so that these people would not have prevailed. My pastor would have been led by the Spirit and the actions taken through the Church would have been different.  

The moral of the story is, if you find yourself like a dog with a bone hanging onto Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” If you find yourself putting much more weight on this verse to demand your rights be respected. If you are a pastor and you find ample materials to preach about how we should not judge others, then you have a much bigger problem and you need the Holy Spirit big time.

This is also one of the reasons you see the internet is filled with Christian sites devoted to denounce real Christians, talking about much deeper Christianity. Yet they, in their self-righteousness have felt the need to blast these people’s names all over the internet, denouncing them as false teachers. When in reality, the person who has the site devoted to this so called “unmasking the false prophets” is the one doing Satan’s deed.

It is strange to see that I am not a minister, God has taught me there are many out there with mega ministry without His blessings and some with those mega ministries are saved by the skin of their teeth. He taught me to identify those who are truly false prophets, yet He also taught me to keep these things for myself. If those with internet programs devoted to blast God’s true messengers as being false prophets knew how badly God will judge them, they would shudder right now. While God does not want me to turn what I know into a ministry to unmask anyone, but, He wants me to use it on a one to one basis with people that I know for sure are following the wrong ministers on television.

"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Psalm 25:14). Let the Spirit of God takes you to a higher ground and you will see human being has nothing on you.

MATHEW HENRY’S CONCIZE COMMENTARY

”1Cor.2:10-16 God has revealed true wisdom to us by his Spirit. Here is a proof of the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, 2Pe 1:21. In proof of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, observe that he knows all things, and he searches all things, even the deep things of God. No one can know the things of God, but his Holy Spirit, who is one with the Father and the Son, and who makes known Divine mysteries to his church. This is most clear testimony, both to the real Godhead and the distinct person of the Holy Spirit. The apostles were not guided by worldly principles. They had the revelation of these things from the Spirit of God, and the saving impression of them from the same Spirit. These things they declared in plain, simple language, taught by the Holy Spirit, totally different from the affected oratory or enticing words of man's wisdom. The natural man, the wise man of the world, receives not the things of the Spirit of God. The pride of carnal reasoning is really as much opposed to spirituality, as the basest sensuality. The sanctified mind discerns the real beauties of holiness, but the power of discerning and judging about common and natural things is not lost. But the carnal man is a stranger to the principles, and pleasures, and actings of the Divine life. The spiritual man only, is the person to whom God gives the knowledge of his will. How little have any known of the mind of God by natural power! And the apostles were enabled by his Spirit to make known his mind. In the Holy Scriptures, the mind of Christ, and the mind of God in Christ, are fully made known to us. It is the great privilege of Christians, that they have the mind of Christ revealed to them by his Spirit. They experience his sanctifying power in their hearts, and bring forth good fruits in their lives.”

A Four Fold Salvation — Part 12

A Fourfold Salvation

Arthur Pink, 1938 

Sometimes chastenings are sent for our spiritual education, that by them we may be brought to a deeper experimental acquaintance with God, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes" (Psalm 119:71).

Sometimes chastenings are sent for the testing and strengthening of our graces, "We glory in tribulations also—knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope," (Romans 5:3, 4). "Count it all joy when you fall into varied trials—knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience" (James 1:2, 3).

Chastening is God's sin-purging medicine, sent to wither our fleshly aspirations, to detach our hearts from carnal objects, to deliver us from our idols, to wean us more thoroughly from the world. God has bidden us, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers . . . come out from among them, and be separate" (2 Cor. 6:14, 17). We are slow to respond, and therefore does He take measures to drive us out. He has bidden us "love not the world," and if we disobey we must not be surprised if He causes some of our worldly friends to hate and persecute us. God has bidden us, "put to death whatever in you is worldly: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed" (Col. 3:5). If we refuse to comply with this unpleasant task, then we may expect God Himself to use the pruning knife upon us! God has bidden us, "cease you from man" (Isaiah 2:22), and if we will trust our fellows, we are made to suffer for it.

"My son, do not take the Lord's chastening lightly, or faint when you are reproved by Him" (Heb. 12:5). This is a beneficial warning. So far from despising it, we should be grateful for the same—that God cares so much and takes such trouble with us, and that His bitter medicine produces such healthful effects. "In their affliction, they will seek Me early" (Hosea 5:15). While everything is running smoothly for us, we are apt to be self-sufficient; but when trouble comes, we promptly turn unto the Lord. Own, then, with the Psalmist, "In faithfulness You have afflicted me" (119:75). 

Not only do God's chastisements, when sanctified to us, subdue the workings of pride and wean us more from the world—but they make the Divine promises more precious to the heart—such an one as this takes on a new meaning, "Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine! When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." (Isaiah 43:2-3). Moreover, they break down selfishness and make us more sympathetic to our fellow-sufferers, "Who comfort us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble" (2 Cor. 1:4).

Third, by bitter disappointments. God has plainly warned us of the vanity of earthly pursuits. "When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun" (Eccl. 2:11). This was written by one who was permitted to gratify the physical senses as none other ever has been. Yet we do not take this warning to heart, for we do not really believe it. On the contrary, we persuade ourselves that satisfaction is to be found in things under the sun, that the creature can give contentment to our hearts. As well attempt to fill a circle with a square! The heart was made for God—and He alone can meet its needs. But by nature we are idolaters, putting things in His place. Those things we invest with pleasing qualities which they do not possess, and sooner or later our delusions are rudely exposed to us, and we discover that the images in our minds are only dreams—that the golden idol is but clay after all.

God may so order His providences, that our earthly nest is destroyed. The winds of adversity compel us to leave the downy bed of carnal ease and luxuriation. Grievous losses are experienced in some form or other. Trusted friends prove fickle and in the hour of need fail us. The family circle, which had so long sheltered us and where peace and happiness were found, is broken up by the grim hand of death. Health fails, and weary nights are our portion. These trying experiences, these bitter disappointments, are another of the means which our gracious God employs to save us from the pleasure and pollution of sin. By them He reveals to us the vanity and vexation of the creature. By them He weans us more completely from the world. By them He teaches us that the objects in which we sought satisfaction, are but "broken cisterns," and this that we may turn to Christ and draw from Him who is the living water, the One who alone can supply true satisfaction of soul.

Spiritual Fruit

Spiritual Fruit

Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on
September 2, 1858, by Philpot

"From Me is your fruit found." Hosea 14:8

Man unites in himself what at first sight seem to be completely opposite things; he is the greatest of sinners—and yet the greatest of Pharisees. Now, what two things can be so opposed to each other as sin and self-righteousness? Yet the very same man who is a sinner from top to toe, with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint, who is spiritually nothing else but a leper throughout, how contradictory it appears that the same man has in his own heart a most stubborn self-righteousness.

Now, against these two evils God, so to speak, directs his whole artillery—he spares neither one nor the other; but it is hard to say which is the greatest rebellion against God—the existence of sin in man and what he is as a fallen sinner; or his Pharisaism—the lifting up his head in pride of self-righteousness. It is not easy to decide which is the more obnoxious to God—the drunkard who sins without shame; or the Pharisee puffed up with how pleasing he is to God.

The one is abhorrent to our feelings, and, as far as decency and morality are concerned, we would sooner see the Pharisee; but when we come to matters of true religion, the Pharisee seems the worst—at least our Lord intimated as much when he said the publicans and harlots would enter the kingdom of God before them.

Now, in this Book the Lord seems sometimes to knock Ephraim to pieces and then to put him together again. Sometimes we find denunciations against his backslidings, and then when Ephraim is broken to pieces the Lord seeks to raise him up, as he says in the 13th chapter, "When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel." When he was humble and broken down—broken so as to tremble at the majesty of God—he exalted himself—that is, God exalted him, for God exalts the humble; "but when he became guilty of Baal worship, he died"—the life of God seemed to be extinct in his soul. Now, in this last chapter the Lord speaks very comfortably, and he says, "O Ephraim," that is Israel, "return unto the Lord your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity."

Never think to stand upright by your own self-righteousness—you have fallen by your iniquity, and now you must humble yourself before the Lord your God. Turn to the Lord your God and say unto him, "Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips"—that is, we will sing and praise your holy name. "Asshur shall not save us," that is the king of Assyria, "we will not ride upon horses," that is the devices of men, "neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods"—our idols are self and self-righteousness—"for in you the fatherless finds mercy."

Well, I need not go on with the chapter. Ephraim shall say, "What have I to do any more with idols?" Here is Ephraim brought away from his idols—"I have heard him and observed him; I am like a green fig tree;" and then the words of our text, "From me is your fruit found," as though he would show Ephraim this—"Ephraim, though you are a sinner, let not that cast you down, so that you shall think there never can be any fruit in you—look upward and not to yourself for this fruit."

In opening up these words I shall with God's blessing show—

I. What is the fruit called here "your fruit."
II. How this fruit is from the Lord, "from me is your fruit found."
III. How this fruit not only is from the Lord but is found also to be such, and made manifest, for we not only have it from the Lord, but it is found to be from the Lord—"From me is your fruit found."

I. What is the fruit? Now, I sincerely believe that wherever God the Spirit has anything to do with a man's soul—(and oh! if God the Spirit has nothing to do with a man's soul, what a dreadful condition it is in!)—in his quickening and regenerating operations upon it, his communications of life and grace to it, there will always be a desire to bring forth fruit unto God. No child of God can be an Antinomian, especially when God first begins to work upon the heart. If he has been years in the work, there may be a leaning in his wretched heart to this weakness, to this carelessness—but no beginner has any leaning toward, or is ever upset, by this Antinomian devil. On the contrary, his longing is to work out his own righteousness. He is trying to keep the law, working hard to please God by a life of obedience—he is seeking to be holy, and endeavoring to overcome the wicked passions of his heart. So that you never find a child of God under the first teaching who has any leaning towards Antinomianism—it is his desire to please God by his own acts and words.