No Confidence in the Flesh
Human flesh is woefully depraved! This fact inspired Apostle Paul to begin his epistle to the notorious city of Corinth with warnings about human wisdom. This city was one of the richest in the world. Scores of pagan religions had found great acceptance and worshippers. Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was central to the city with her temple on its most prominent point. It stood on a hill called Acrocorinth and was served with a thousand temple prostitutes. It was a brothel more than it was a temple. It sounds exactly like a multitude of our modern cities in America and the world.
The Holy Spirit said, "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (I Corinthians 1:19-21). It is impossible for any person that trusts the wisdom of this world to discover and know the great wisdom of God. The Bible is often called a "mystery." It is full of great truths that mystify the worldly crowd. The Biblical word mystery as used in the Scripture means "a secret truth known only by inspiration or revelation.” It’s amazing what damage an unspiritual person can do to a simple verse of Scripture!
The Bible was not written or transmitted by the Holy Spirit for natural human wisdom to decipher. The unconverted person or believer that seeks the revelations of the Bible with a worldly mind will miss the hidden mysteries. This truth is the reason our church world is in a dark state. New ideas of theology are more abundant than Bible-loving people can keep up with.
Great prophetic revelations of Scripture are facing strange new interpretations that serve no purpose but to thrust new personalities in the mix. The Antichrist teachings in the Bible are straightforward and enlightening. Godly ministers have been used of the Spirit to give us wonderful understanding. You can count on the new innovative invasions of words to be human wisdom gone amuck.
The apostle, moved by the Spirit, goes deeper with this warning. He quotes Isaiah in chapter sixty-four, verse four, and then explains that great truth. "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (I Corinthians 2:9). Read carefully as he warns us that God’s great revelation must be discovered by the wisdom of God, not the wisdom of men. "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:10-11).
Every Bible minister or teacher should commit to memory the next three verses of Paul’s words by the Holy Ghost, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Corinthians 2:12-14). The Holy Spirit is the author of the Holy Bible and He alone is the teacher that will meet you on your knees as you reject all human wisdom and wait for a spiritual visitation. The Bible itself is i ts own interpretation.
Any idea that you have to search the wisdom of men to understand did not come from God. The Word of God teaches us, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3). This is why Apostle Paul stated emphatically, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness" (II Timothy 2:15-16). Vain babbling is the wisdom of men that finds its source in human imagination and pretty words that exalt the flesh.
The Book of Revelation has been left on the shelf because so much that you read or hear about it sounds like a riddle. Every truth in the Bible is dramatized in the Book of Revelation. When we leave every type or symbol in this book free of human imagination and simply go back to the first sixty-five books of the Bible for discovery, this great revelation explodes. The whole Bible is a perfect whole. It needs no other book to be complete and perfect.
There is no greater joy than to search the Bible and live in its revelations. Quit spending your free time in worldly pursuits and empty hobbies. Get alone with God, His Holy Spirit will set you aflame with a spiritual joy that transcends the flesh life. The mysteries of the Bible are simple truths that teach simple and plain living that exalts Jesus Christ in your daily walk. Everything about your life will begin to change and you will be a light to the part of the world into which the Lord places you.
"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him…" (Psalm 37:4-7a).