How to Know God Through the Bible

Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has impacted untold numbers of lives by presenting profound truth, simply stated. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. In order to be blessed, you must obey. In order to obey, you must trust. In order to trust, you must love. And in order to love, you must know. Now, this chain of events begins with the idea of knowing God.

The reason that many people are not blessed is they don't know God, that they might love God, that they might trust God, that they might obey God, and that they might be blessed. I want to talk to you really about how to know God through the Bible. How to know God through the Bible. How God can become real to you.

Not someone that you know about, but someone that you know. Because to know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to obey Him.

To obey Him is to be blessed. And it all begins with this idea of knowing God. And the entire second chapter of 1 Corinthians deals with this idea of knowing God. And really, it deals with the word wisdom. Because what wisdom is is the knowledge of God. Wisdom is the knowledge of God. Wisdom is seeing life from God's perspective, from God's point of view.

That's what wisdom is. Now, he talks here in this chapter about human wisdom and its deficiency. And then he talks about heavenly wisdom and its sufficiency. Now, we're going to talk, first of all, about human wisdom and its deficiency. And then we're going to talk about heavenly wisdom and its sufficiency. How we can sufficiently know God through the heavenly wisdom that God gives. Now, let's begin reading, therefore, in chapter 2 and verse 1.

Now, when I think, first of all, about the deficiency of human wisdom, the first thing that comes to me is that this human wisdom, dear friend, is so beneficial. You see, if you knew God just simply by human wisdom, if I could just begin to teach a course in systematic theology, I could tell you all of the facts about God. And you could get out your notebook and you could write them down. And you could say, God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, and God is this and God is that. And you could learn all of the facts about God. You wouldn't know God. I mean, if I were to be able to pour it on and use all kinds of flamboyant speech and clever phraseology and all of these things, that wouldn't help you to know God. You see, the apostle Paul said, when I came to you and when I preached to you, I didn't come this way with human wisdom.

You see, the people at Corinth had been swept away by worldly philosophy. Now, the apostle Paul, if he had wanted to, could have done it. The apostle Paul was mighty in intellect. He was mighty in learning. But he was terrified at the thought.

That their faith should stand in human wisdom because it is so superficial. And I remember hearing Billy Graham say on one occasion, he said, I stay frightened. I wonder why Billy said that. And I listened more carefully. He said, I stay frightened. And he went on to explain it. He said, I'm so afraid that I might do something or say something that would discredit my Lord or have people following me rather than the Jesus.

That I preached. That's what the apostle Paul meant when he said, I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. I don't want people, he said, to follow me and I don't want to be able to use human ingenuity and human philosophy and human wisdom to get any kind of followship because the deficiency of human wisdom is that it is so superficial. You can know about God and yet not know God. But secondly, not only is human wisdom so superficial, it is so transitory.

Look again in verse six. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world nor of the princes of this world. Now the word princes, it stands for the intellectuals. Those intellectual top waters of this world.

These people who have attained in their learning. He said, we speak wisdom, but not the wisdom of this world. Not what the princes of this world know that will come to know not. Now when he says the princes of this world, he literally says, the princes of this age.

That is for this time. There are certain people in this day in this age and they're supposed to be the great vaunted intellectual leaders. And Paul says, hey, all of that is just going up in smoke.

It's going to come to naught. I remember hearing Dr. R.G. Lee who had the ability to express himself so eloquently talk about philosophy. And he said that philosophy was a chunk of cloud bank buttered with the night wind. Now that's what the apostle Paul is talking about here. It's the wisdom of the princes of this world.

Folks, it's just going to come to nothing. It is so superficial. It is so transitory and it is so limited. Look again, if you will, in verse seven. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Now human wisdom is totally incapable of understanding or probing into what Paul calls here the divine mystery. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom. What does he mean here by mystery? He's talking here about a sacred secret that you can only know as God reveals it.

He reveals himself to you. You see, human wisdom can never, never fathom God. I don't care how smart you are. You don't have a head start toward God. You see, the finite can never probe the infinite. You can never fathom God.

The natural man can never know the supernatural God. Wisdom is so superficial, the wisdom of this world. The wisdom of this world is so transitory.

It is so passing away. The wisdom of this world is so limited. And then he goes on to speak of the wisdom of this world that is actually so dangerous and ungodly.

Go on in verse eight and look. Jesus Christ the Lord of glory. If these smart alecks in this world had known real wisdom, they never would have nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. Here the classic proof of the bankruptcy of human wisdom is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And who crucified Jesus Christ? I want to remind you that Jesus Christ was crucified by the best minds of his day. It was not the rabble. It was the Jewish and Roman intelligentsia that nailed Jesus Christ up to the cross.

And I want to tell you something else. They did not do it casually. They did it carefully after they applied their minds to it.

Not a few of them, but many of them. And the Bible says they took counsel together. That is, they pooled their so-called wisdom and they crucified the Lord of glory.

Well, why is all of this? Why is human wisdom so superficial? Why is human wisdom so transitory?

Why is human wisdom so limited? Well, the Bible says that God has prepared for them the things which God has prepared for them that love him. Now, what Paul is saying is the reason that these people don't know God is they don't have the proper equipment. They're trying to understand things with their eyes and with their ears and with their heart.

And you can't do it. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. Now, when he talks about your eyes and your ears, he's talking about the object of knowledge, things that you can read and see and hear. And when he talks about your heart, he's talking about subject to feeling. And what he's saying here, whether it be object to fact or subject to feeling, you will never know God that way. Now, you may know Greek, but you won't know God. You may know Hebrew, but you will not know him.

Why? Because you don't have the ability to know him if you're a natural man. Look in verse 14 of this same chapter. He says here, You see, when God made man, when God created man, God created man to begin with body, soul, and spirit. With his body, he has physical life and knows the physical world. With his soul, he has psychological life and knows the psychological world. His soul is his mind, emotions, and his will. And then he has a spirit, and with his spirit, he knows the spiritual world. With his body, he knows the world beneath him. With his soul, he knows the world around him. With his spirit, he knows the world above him.

Now, that's the way Adam was created. He was body, soul, and spirit. But when Adam sinned against God, Adam died. But how did he die? He did not die in his body. He did not die in his soul. He died in his spirit. His death was a spiritual death.

God said, In the day that you eat, you will surely die. And he died, but he continued to exist. But he was spiritually dead. That is, the spirit in him shriveled up. And now, rather than being a spiritual man, Adam became a natural man.

That's the same word that's used here in verse 14. He became a soulish man. And rather than knowing God through the spirit, he now has his soul as the organ of knowledge. His soul deals with what his eye can see. His soul deals with what his ear can hear.

His soul deals with what his heart can feel. And he lives by mind, emotion, and will, but he doesn't know God. Because, you see, it is the spirit that is the organ of spiritual knowledge. And you can only know God through the spirit. You can never figure God out.

You can never come to God intellectually and understand God. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. That is, when God wants to speak to you, when God wants to illumine you, when God wants to teach you, he is going to teach you in the spirit. And God's spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now, that doesn't mean that God bypasses your mind.

It doesn't mean that you have to crucify your intellect. It means what you know down deep in your spirit. Now, if you're a natural man and never have been born again, and a natural man is a man who's only had one birth, he is born into the natural world. He is bound by the material world. He's only had one birth, and he can never, ever know the things of the spirit of God until he has a second birth. Look at it again.

The natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God. Now, for example, if you were to come into a room, and there's some music going on in that room, but you're deaf, and I say to you, smell that music. Well, some music.

I think you could do that. But smell that music. You say that's impossible. Now, that wouldn't mean that there was anything wrong with your nose. It just would mean that the nose is the wrong organ for perceiving music. You don't smell music.

You hear music. Now, there may be some music in that room, but neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. And so we see the deficiency of human wisdom. Human wisdom is so superficial. Human wisdom is so transitory. Human wisdom is so limited.

Human wisdom is so dangerous. You cannot know God through human wisdom. Now, let's just turn it over and tell you how you can know God. Remember, to know God, to know God is to love him.

To love him is to trust him. To trust him is to obey him, and to obey him is to be blessed. And I want you to know God, not to know about God, not to know him with your mind, your emotion, and your will, but to know him with your spirit that will affect your mind and your emotion and your will.

All right. Now, God has done three mighty acts that you might know him. There are three things that God has done, and because God has done these things, you can know God. The first of these mighty acts is what we call revelation.

God simply reveals himself. Now, we left off in verses 9, and let's pick up verse 9 and 10. Let's go back and read it again, verse 9. Now, remember, not by objective facts or by subjective feeling are you going to know God, but now notice verse 10.

Notice the word but, but. That is in contradistinction to what you perceive with your eyes, your ears, and your emotion. Now, the first thing that God has done that you might know him is revelation. Revelation. God reveals himself.

The only way that you can know God is for God to disclose himself to you. I want to tell you again, dear friend, that you can never take your mind and unpick the divine mysteries. The finite can never know the infinite. The natural can never know the supernatural until the infinite reveals himself to the finite. And the supernatural reveals himself to us supernaturally. And so this is what we call supernatural revelation.

Look at it again. For God hath revealed them unto us, verse 10, by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Now, he's talking here about the Holy Spirit. And we really know the things given to us of God. That is, it takes the Holy Spirit revealing truth to you in order for you to really know that truth. Now, I've told you before, I can preach truth, but only the Holy Spirit of God can impart truth. You might want to jot these scriptures down. John chapter 3 and verse 27. John the Baptist said, A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Well, that is a phenomenal statement. A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven.

How that ought to cause us to lay our intellectual pride in the dust. You're never going to pry truth out of the Word of God. If God doesn't give it to you, you will not have it.

A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. A man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. Well, I think we would all agree to that.

But most of us perhaps would not realize the rest of that statement. And no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. What he means is this, that no man can have Christ as Lord in his life, can know Jesus Christ as Lord so as to make a proper confession of faith that Christ is Lord until the Spirit of God gives him truth.

That no man can do it. No man can receive anything except it be given him from heaven. No man can say that Jesus Christ is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. That's the reason the Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 5, For our gospel came not in word only, but in demonstration of power and in the Holy Ghost. Now what has God done that we might know him? The first mighty act of God is what I call revelation. God supernaturally reveals himself to us. Revelation is the communication of God's truth to man by God himself. Now the second thing that God has done, not only has God given us supernatural revelation, but God has also given us supernatural inspiration. Continue to read now in verses 12 and following. 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. Now when Paul uses the word we, he's talking here about the Apostles and he's saying that we have received this message.

And now he says we give you this message. Now what is the difference between revelation and inspiration? Revelation is God disclosing himself. Inspiration is those taking what God has given and recording it in such a way that it is absolutely without error. It is the very word of God.

Notice in verse 13, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. That is the Holy Ghost gave the words. We believe in verbal inspiration. The word verbal means word by word inspiration. God did not just inspire the thoughts of the Bible. God inspired the words of the Bible because you cannot have thoughts without words any more than you could have mathematics without numbers. Now there's some people who laugh at the idea of verbal inspiration. Now if you laugh at the idea of verbal inspiration, I want to tell you that you're laughing at Jesus Christ.

For Jesus said in Matthew chapter 4 verse 4, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now dear friend, God disclosed himself. That is what we call supernatural revelation.

No man can receive anything except it be given him from above from heaven. But not only is there that revelation, there is that inspiration as these words inspired are written down and we have them in what we call the word of God, the Bible. And I want to remind you that God gave the very words of the Bible.

Now the third mighty act, and here's where it comes to you now. First of all, there is that revelation. Then there's that supernatural inspiration. And finally, there must be a supernatural illumination. Now continue to read now in verse 14. Now listen, the same Holy Spirit of revelation and the same Holy Spirit of inspiration is now the spirit of illumination. He is the one who illuminates the Christian.

He is the one who turns the spiritual light on. So that you can understand the things of God. We have a divinely inspired Bible in our hands, but we cannot understand it apart from spiritual supernatural illumination. I can never know the Bible as I ought to know the Bible until I have the mind of Christ. Do you know a prayer that would be a good prayer for you to pray when you begin to study the word of God? It is Psalm 119 verse 18. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things in thy law.

Oh God, illumine me. Open my eyes that I might understand. When you pray that prayer and when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then a part of you will know that never knew before and a part of you will see that never saw before. And a man who is living by divine illumination is going to be a mystery to those around him.

Look in verses 15 and 16. The Bible says, but he that is spiritual judges all things. That is, he has a penetrating insight into the way things work. He has a supernatural wisdom about him, yet he himself is judged of no man. That literally means he's not understood by any man. The word discern is a better word here.

He himself is discerned of no man. The world is not going to understand us. I'll tell you, we're going to know some things that they won't know, and they're going to think we're the crazy ones. They're going to think we're a few bricks short of a full load, and they're going to say there's something wrong with that fellow, but there's not something wrong with us.

There's something wrong with him. You see, we're tuned in where he's not tuned in. We are marching to the beat of a different drummer. Now, they cannot understand us, but we understand them.

The reason they can't understand us is that we have the mind of Christ, and they can't understand Christ. Now, this is what we call illumination. Now, I want to give you some lessons about illumination very quickly, and I'll be finished. I want to give you some warnings here as we talk about illumination, and illumination is really right now where the rubber meets the road in knowing God. You can know the Spirit supernaturally, and the way you can know God is because God has divinely revealed himself, and God has divinely inspired that revelation. We have a Bible, and now we have the Bible in our hand, but in order to understand the Bible, there must be that divine illumination, that supernatural illumination.

Now, folks, it's all headed down right to this. This is the important thing, so I want you to understand this. What does illumination mean? Number one, it does not mean that you can know everything about God. No one knows everything about God, and we're not supposed to know everything about God. Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 29 says, the secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever. That is, a person who has illumination doesn't know everything.

You can go down to the ocean and dip out a bucket of ocean water, and everything in that bucket will be ocean, but all the ocean won't be in that bucket. Dear friend, when you come to God's Word, and you dip into God's Word, you can come up with a bucket full of truth, but there's so much that you still will not know, and the things perhaps you will never know, and still you can have illumination. I want to say that illumination does not extend to areas beyond the Word of God. Now, for example, when you go to a math test, it's not going to do you any good to bow your head and say, Spirit of God, illumine me.

If you haven't studied for it, you're going to flunk. Listen, folks, you can pray for wisdom, but you study for knowledge. You study for knowledge. Now, illumination does not mean that you won't study the Word of God either. Listen, 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 15 says, we're to study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. If I want God to illumine me, I will study, and I study the Bible. If I want God to illumine me, I will study the Word of God. If I want God to illumine me, I will study the Word of God. And the word here literally means, rightly dividing, means to cut it straight.

Now, I want to say something else. Illumination does not mean that there are no spiritual requirements. You cannot just come to God and say, God, illumine me, if you are not walking a clean and a pure life. Listen to what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. It means, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby. You want God's Word to be real to you?

Get the trash out of your life. Lay it aside and hunger after the Word of God, and He will illumine you. I'll tell you what it does mean, however. It does mean that the average man, the average woman, the average boy, the average girl in the pew, who is obedient and diligent, will understand the Word of God. Go back to chapter 1, verse 26. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world that confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world that confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are.

What does that mean? It means that God takes ordinary people, and God does extraordinary things through those people. It means that you, John Doe Layman, can get your Bible, and you can pray over it, and you can get your heart right with God, and you can say, Spirit of God, illumine me, and then you can study to show yourself approved unto God, and God will reveal Himself to you supernaturally out of the Bible. Now, it does mean something else, too, dear friend, that you can have a personal communion with God. I think of those two disciples as they were walking there on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Jesus came and walked along beside them, and here's some precious verses. Luke 24, verse 45, then opened He their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.

Isn't that wonderful? I mean, here's the Son of God. He is walking along. He's talking with them. You couldn't have a better teacher than that. About seven miles they walked together, and the Bible says He showed them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. How would you like to have a tape recording of that? Well, evidently, God didn't want us to have it because we don't have it. But He just took the Bible, and He showed them all those Old Testament prophecies concerning Himself. But the point of the matter is, even with that kind of a teacher, the very Son of God, they didn't understand until He opened their understanding. Now, you think about it. Then opened He their understanding. You see, this is the illumination, friend.

It is so supernatural. You will never know until God gives you knowledge of Himself. That's the reason we must come so reverently, so prayerfully to the Word of God. And while He opened to us the Scriptures. Oh, would to God that He would open to you the Scriptures.

Now, folks, I'm finished, but you listen to me. Everybody wants to be blessed, don't they? There's no blessing without obedience. There is no obedience without trust.

There's no trust without love. There's no love without knowledge. There is no knowledge of the Spirit. There is no knowledge of God without revelation, inspiration, illumination.

And the illumination is your part where you come to God and surrender so to God and say, Oh, Spirit of God, open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things in thy law. And when you come to God's Word that way, the Bible will burst a flame in your heart and in your mind, and God will teach you things out of His Word. The reason that many of us don't know God is, folks, we're just playing around. We're just playing around at Bible study.

And you can't do it that way. May God help us to get into His Word. Now let's bow together in prayer. Father, I pray now that you'll speak to our hearts about this wonderful truth and help us, Lord, to begin to search out in the Scriptures those things concerning our lovely Lord Jesus and to apply them to our hearts. I pray now that you'll speak to our hearts about this wonderful truth and help us to begin to search out in the Scriptures those things concerning our lovely Lord Jesus and to apply them to our hearts about this wonderful truth and to apply them to our hearts about this wonderful truth and to apply them to our hearts about this wonderful truth.