The Amazing Secret of the Human Mind

Good afternoon, everyone! Thank you, Heidi! That was beautiful. Wonderful lyrics, certainly inspiring. Thanks for all the work you put in on that and bringing that to us this afternoon. Well, this afternoon I thought I could talk a little bit about something that is unique to the Church of God. A teaching and an understanding that most of the world doesn't understand, especially when you consider the scientific world. They don't understand what God has revealed to His Church. In fact, I heard the story about a teacher that was trying to explain man's existence to her little second-grade class. And of course, you know the ways of the world. She was going to explain how evolution is how we all came about. So she asked this one little boy to stand up and look out the window. And so this little boy looked out the window and the teacher said, Little boy said, Yes, I see the grass. I said, Do you see the trees outside? Little boy said, Yeah, I see the trees. She said, Do you see the sky outside? She said, Yeah, I see the blue sky. It's beautiful outside. Then the teacher said, Do you see God? Little boy looked and said, No. So the teacher said, That's the point. We can't see God because there is no God. He doesn't exist. Right then this little girl who was growing up in the church raised her hand in the back. Wait, teacher, teacher, can I ask a question? And she said, Sure. So the little girl asked the little boy, Do you see the trees outside? He said, Yeah, I see the trees outside. Do you see the grass outside? Yeah, I see the green grass. Do you see the sky? Yes, I see the sky. Then she said, Do you see the teacher? He said, Well, yes, of course I see the teacher. Do you see her brain?

No. You get the point. That line of reasoning doesn't work so well when you put it that way. And when you consider that silly joke, and this whole concept is, Why are we so superior? You know, when it comes to all the other created beings that are out here, the animal world, why is our brain and our capabilities so much superior to others? Why is it like that? Because this is something that science recognizes. It recognizes very clearly that there's something different about human beings. There's something different about us. This goes back thousands and thousands of years.

You could go back to Hippocrates, back in the 4000 B.C.s. And he recognized our brain was something different, that it was the center of our intelligence, that it was a center for sensation. And for thousands of years, philosophers wrote about it, scientists wrote about it. Today, they spend millions and millions of dollars trying to research why we think the way that we do. What is it that makes us so different? And whether you're a biologist or a geneticist or an astronomer, even mathematicians have jumped in the game trying to settle this dispute of why we have this amazing capability while animals don't.

And yet today, the question is still there. What's the secret? What is the secret to our thinking? And of course, if you turn to science, like the teacher was trying to turn to science, it can get you in trouble. And yet, science knows a lot. They know a lot about our brain. One of the interesting things that they've discovered about our brain is that it actually feels no pain. You ever thought about that? The brain feels no pain, but then it feels all the pain. But not directly. It senses those pains that other parts of our body are experiencing. And when you consider that, it might be disputed, but you think about the fattest organ in your body is your brain.

It's your brain. And they've learned a lot of things. Science can identify certain things. They can observe various things. They recognize that the left side of your brain, that left hemisphere, controls the right side of your body. And the right hemisphere of your brain controls the left side of your body. And they can learn a lot about these things. And yet, when it comes right down to it, what is it that makes the brain work? Is it simply neurons that are firing off that cause this to happen?

Or what is it that supplies the energy to the brain? And you can read lots of scientific journals about these various things. But it really comes down to the fact, what gives us consciousness? What is it that helps us to recognize that we really do exist? Are there certain forces that bring that about?

Well, researchers have studied animal brains. They've dissected animal brains to try to sort that out. Easier to do animals than human beings. But what do they find? They find more questions that they've really discovered there is no vast difference between an animal's brain and a human being's brain. You can look at all kinds of scientific journals. I looked at one that came from MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

There's a neurologist named Steven Pinker that wrote a lot about these kinds of things. And he wrote something interesting. He said, neuroscientists like to point out that all parts of the cerebral cortex look pretty much the same. In other words, open up your skull and everything in there kind of looks similar, all kind of messed all around there. It all looks the same then. But he says, different parts, not only in different parts of the human brain, is that true, but also the brains of different animals.

So the point being, just looking at animals' brains and man's brain, not much different. It's pretty much the same material. You can even look at the size of brains, whether it's an animal brain. The human brain isn't really that much different than a chimpanzees. They're almost alike in many, many facets. But then you look at an elephant and compare that to our brain?

Their brain is huge! Well, why don't they have the capabilities that we do if it's just based on the size of that brain? Because when you compare the output that we have versus a chimpanzee versus an elephant, whatever, it's not explained by size. So that's some of the difficulties that science deals with. It wrestles with these riddles that don't explain anything. And even though science is based on the fact of observation, they can't observe why we're so different.

And when you look at the difference, it is phenomenal. Science can recognize we have a lot going on inside of our skulls. How many thoughts do you think that we think per day? How many thoughts go through your mind? Too many. Too many thoughts go through our...

And that is the point! 90,000 thoughts is what they say would be an average for an average human being. 90,000 thoughts a day. How many minutes are there today? Wow, there's something racing all the time. And when you put all of those neurons together, every day there is so much going on. And there's so many redundancies built into our brain.

If you just think about the blood vessels in your brain, how long are those blood vessels? Here's something science has learned. Do you think it's maybe, what, a mile long? 5 miles long? Actually, science has discovered blood vessels in your brain, if you stretch them all out, they would go 100,000 miles.

100,000 miles! And of course, when you examine what we're all about, science knows there are things we do, we think, that no animal can possibly do. Can you think of examples of that? What are things that are uniquely human versus what animals can do? Well, we can build a knowledge base.

We can go to the library. We can go to our phone and Google whatever it might be. Google how many miles your blood vessels are in your brain. It'll give you something closer than what I just gave you.

We can build the knowledge base. Animals don't do that. We can teach that knowledge base to future generations. That is uniquely human. Talk about language. Yeah, animals can communicate at certain levels, maybe with sounds or movements, but only human beings can write. Only human beings can talk and communicate the way that we do.

Human beings are the only ones that can talk about abstract concepts. We can talk about and deal with issues like physics and mathematics. And, yeah, some of us are better at physics and mathematics than some of the rest of us. But do animals understand those things? Can they communicate those things?

No. Can they communicate in art or music or architecture? They can't do any of those things. So when it comes down to, we think, we reason, we make choices where animals do not. They can't decide, well, I'm going to save 10% of my income and go to the feast this year. They can't do that. They can't decide to go and visit the sick. They can't do those things. But we can choose.

We can choose to share, to serve, to cooperate. Those are uniquely human. Yes, there's the bad side of those things, too. We can decide to be jealous. We can decide to be hateful. We can decide to do... animals, they don't have those choices. Why? You see, that's something science doesn't know. Science doesn't know the why. And when it really comes right down to it, that's where their research ends. And part of that is because science is limited to a physical perspective.

So let's think about that for a moment. Science knows a lot, no doubt. But science is limited to a physical perspective. The latest research from science is what science observes. It's what science is subjected to experimentation. And so it's based on those things. What they can research, what they can see with their eyes, what they can understand and observe, or what they can experiment on. And so science, on the most part, will not admit to anything about us that isn't physical. And that's important. They will not consider there is something that might be non-physical as a part of our existence.

And so science identifies how we reason. They call it cognitive science. And what's it limited to? Kind of like the teacher. It's limited to biology and genetics and their theories. So what is man brought down to? Matter. It's matter. We're matter. That's what we are. And science tries to identify things with that in mind. So cognitive science tells us. Another scientist at MIT said this. I want to convince you that our minds are not animated by some godly vapor.

What is it that makes us think? He wrote, We've been victims of an illusion. The mind is a system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection. That's evolution. To solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in foraging their way of life. So the mind is organized by mental organs, each with specialized design, specified by our genetic program.

Is that true? Is that really true? In other words, what he's saying is man is just physical and we evolve this way. It's just incredible to me to think that science recognizes our thinking. Our brain is just absolutely fantastic. It is absolutely amazing. It's an incredible instrument of design. And yet when it comes to what causes that process, they're simply reduced to evolution.

And when you think about that, you think about that theory, you automatically deny a creator. And so their faith is put in blind faith, blind evolution. And because of that, they will not recognize God as creator. And by not doing that, they limit themselves to understand what's really going on in our brains. And that becomes critical. They miss the revealed secret that God has given to us. Because the Word of God, the Bible, does reveal why we have these capabilities, why the human brain is so vastly superior to animal brain. Let's think about that for a moment.

The Bible itself, which science rejects, clearly shows we're not an animal. And that's an important place to start. Are we just the highest level of animal life? See, that's what science says. But your Bible says no way. All the way at the beginning, if you want to go back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1, we see very clearly under God's inspiration, we're not an animal. We are different than animals. Where science says we're just another form of animal. We're just the highest form of animal.

But Genesis 1.26, here we begin to see the secret of our brain and its tremendous capacity revealed. Genesis 1.26, God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So right away we see at the very beginning, there's all kinds of different animals, whether it's birds or cattle or giraffes or insects or reptiles, fish, whatever it is.

And how were they created? How were they created? Well, when you look at what it says here in Genesis, verse 24 says, Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind. According to their kind. There are many different kinds of animals. And God's listed some of them here. They're all created after their own kind. So what are those bugs going to produce?

Bugs. What are those cattle going to produce? More cattle. Yeah, they might be brown spotted or black spotted. They might be bigger or small. But they're cattle. What are the dogs going to produce? Doesn't matter how big the dog is, if it's a German Shepherd or if it's a Chihuahua. It's still a dog. It's still in that species. It's according to their species, according to their kind. And they're limited to those kinds. And science has proven. Nothing has ever reproduced out of its species, out of its own kind.

And so what God says is true. Each of these animals reproduce after their own kind. And the amazing part, then, is God says man is different. How is man made? What kind are we produced after? Well, if we look back... I've got to turn my cage... Go back to verse... let's see... we're at chapter 2, verse 7. Chapter 2, verse 7 makes it very clear.

So God tells us, Genesis 1.26, we're made after His image, after His likeness, after the God-kind. God was involved in forming us and breathing into man. So God is directly involved. It seems as though the animals just came into existence. With the information that we're given there, that's what it seems to tell us.

God just said, here they are, and there they are. But man's different. And I wonder if it isn't to emphasize the difference of who we are as human beings, to show that we are after God's own kind, that it says God formed man, and He breathed into man. He was personally handling us, you know, through Adam.

He was handling the being that Adam became with his own hands, his shaping it. You can imagine, maybe with his own fingers in that sense. And then he blew into this creation. Forcefully blew air. Almost like, I mean, if you looked up that Hebrew word, for he breathed into it.

It's like blowing. So I can imagine almost like a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in that sense. Blowing air. So there was expelling air from God into man. And I think it's an amazing exhibit of God's personal involvement in the creation of human beings, that wasn't there with animals, because he was created from the dust of the ground.

And so man is very different in that sense. But it's also interesting, like the other creatures, there are a lot of similarities between man. Basically, same chemical existence. When you compare animals and man, same things found in animals are found in man.

Same elements that are in the ground, in the soil. That's scientific fact. But what's interesting, something that is very different, something that is very different, is this breath. This breath becomes something that's very different. If you look at Genesis 2.7 once again, Amplified version says this, The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being. So there's something different than just a physical existence that all the animals have, and this breath that was given to man.

This breath that was breathed into man, not only breathed physical existence into Adam, but in a sense he spiritually breathed this human spirit into Adam. That made him uniquely human. Uniquely human. And so when we recognize this, we see there's something more. More than just the physical existence. We could think of it in a sense like God spiritually breathing this human spirit into Adam. We could recognize that if you turn with me over to Job 32, verse 8.

Because here's what science misses. Science misses this fact. There is a spiritual component in our brain that isn't in an animal's brain. There's this, well, like the MIT scientist says, a God vapor, if you want to call it that. There's this spiritual component that every single human being has that animals do not have. Job puts it this way, Job 32, verse 8. It says, but there is a spirit in man. And the breath, this is King James, the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.

Some translations say the inspiration of the Almighty gives him understanding. It gives him awareness. It gives him intelligence. So when we step back and ask that question again, why is the output of a human mind so vastly superior to animal brain?

Because the physical things aren't that different. You see, the answer Job gives us, God placed within human brains a spirit, a non-physical component that gives us distinctly human qualities and abilities. It's a spirit essence. So the spirit in man that Job talks about, this spirit that is there, that was given how? By God's breath. When he blew into Adam, that breath gives us understanding that animals don't have. And so the spirit in man gives us the power, the ability to know things that animals cannot know.

It actuates our thinking. We recognize our own existence. We can be empowered in order to comprehend all of those abstract concepts that we talked about. And whether that's philosophy or mathematics or literature or art or music, all of those things are made possible because of this human spirit that God has given us. If we didn't have that human spirit, well, then we couldn't know it.

And so when we recognize what Scripture reveals, we are made after the God-kind. And because we have a spirit in us that God has placed there, it answers that unanswerable scientific question of, why are we so different? You see, God reveals that secret. In fact, if you turn with me over to Zechariah 12, we can jump into a middle of a thought here in Zechariah 12, verse 1, right at the very beginning.

It seems like out of nowhere, Zechariah just happens to mention this, that once again shows us why we're so different. Zechariah 12, verse 1, Zechariah is talking about the burden of the Word. He has a prophecy to give. And as he's describing God, notice one of the things he says about God in relation to our thinking, and our reasoning, and our brain. This great God, he says, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him. You see, this is one of the things our great God has done, that there is a spiritual component in our brain that's not found in an animal's brain, that actuates our thinking to comprehend, to think, to reason, to know. And it's the spirit of man. And many times throughout Scripture, this concept is mentioned. Probably the most familiar one is found over in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, if you'd like to turn there with me. The Apostle Paul also talked about this.

Why can we reason and think? What's the secret? Science can't measure non-physical components. And the reason we're so different is because of that. It's a spiritual component. Paul lays it out so beautifully as he's speaking to the Corinthians here. 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 11. Notice what he says.

In other words, how can you think? How can you reason? How can you know? How can you understand and perceive? How can you be conscious of yourself? How do you know you exist? Well, Paul says, you can understand things. You can know the things of human beings. You can know things animals don't know because the spirit in man imparts those aspects to the human mind that include self-awareness, that include intellect, that include creativity, personality, temperament, all of those kinds of things. So we feel and we love and we can be jealous. We can create and we can design things.

You see, that's not just free will. You can't just relegate it to that. But that's something that animals don't have. No other animal that exists has that capability. And of course, that also includes the dark side of things, that we can create weapons of mass destruction. We can kill each other. We can threaten extinction to the world. Yet we can also imagine a better future. We can imagine down the line. We can have a sense of purpose. We can have a sense of why were we born. And that's all because of the human spirit, the spirit in man.

And it's important to recognize the amazing capabilities that God has given us. And so when you begin to consider these things, it doesn't have to be a secret. The Bible does reveal why we can think the way we think and how we can reason. Now, I did hear a story about a guy that was getting really forgetful. So he went to the doctor. Yeah, I'm setting up the joke.

Don't worry about that. It's hard to come up with brain jokes, though. You know that? Especially that kind of fit with the sermon. So the guy goes to the doctor, does a brain scan. And so he's waiting for the results. The doctor comes out and he says, I've got bad news.

He says, oh no, what's the bad news? He says, well, first we've recognized and see this in the scans, that your brain has two sides. You've got a left side and you've got a right side. And I said, wait, wait, that's good, right? Everybody has two sides of their brain, don't they? And the doctor said, yeah, that's true. But your brain is really unusual. Because on the left side, there isn't anything that's right. And on the right side, there's nothing left. Okay, fortunately, there's more to us.

One of the things that can be kind of confusing, especially when you take these specific passages that we've cited here, how do you think most Christianity would interpret those passages? They would deny the fact that it's some spirit entity that gives us these capabilities. What they would say is, oh, those things, that spirit that you're talking about there, that's your immortal soul. That's what that's talking about. So they try to morph that into wrong reasoning, wrong interpretation of Scripture. And there's a powerful passage that helps us with that. If you turn over to Ecclesiastes 8-8. Ecclesiastes 8-8 points out very, very clearly, this spirit in man does not have a life of its own.

Because that's your basic, you know, counter-Christian argument. That they'd say, oh, yeah, that's talking about immortal soul. That's talking about life that we could have after death. No, it's not. The spirit in man is not an immortal soul. And the spirit in man does not have an existence on its own, you know, when you separate it from your brain. It's not a soul. It's not something that lives on after your body dies. Ecclesiastes 8-8, notice what it says here. No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit.

No one has power in the day of death. There is no release from that war, and wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it. In other words, there's nothing that's going to live on. This spirit in man is not an immortal soul that carries on. That's not it at all. It has no existence without a live brain. So we have to recognize the fact the human spirit cannot see.

Can it? No, the physical brain sees through the eyes. It's actuated by the human spirit. Human spirit can't hear. The brain hears through the ears. Human spirit can't think on its own. The brain thinks and reasons.

Although the spirit in man imparts the power to reason, the ability where animals don't have that. We have to recognize the human spirit has no consciousness apart from the body. We are mortal beings. When we die, what does Ecclesiastes say? We can turn a few pages over to Ecclesiastes 9 and 10. We don't know anything. That spirit doesn't live on. No, not at all. We have no awareness in the grave. In chapter 12 in Ecclesiastes, the spirit returns to God who gave it. It doesn't live on its own, or think on its own, or have a life on its own. Not at all. It's just the essence that allows us the capabilities to think and to reason.

So much more than animal instinct. That's important. So as you consider that, can you think of any example that might illustrate that fact of this vast difference between animal brain and human mind, and this concept of the spirit and man imparting us the power of intellect? Can you think of an example of the difference between, let's say, a man with the spirit and man, and someone who doesn't have the spirit and man?

Here's an example in the Bible. Turn over to Daniel 4, verse 28. Daniel 4, verse 28. I believe it is an example of the difference between a human being with the spirit and man, and a human being that is alive, but doesn't have the spirit and man. And that man was Nebuchadnezzar. If you notice in verse 28, Daniel 4, verse 28, here's Nebuchadnezzar bragging, walking around his palace, saying how great he is, recognizing he's so all-powerful. And it all came upon Nebuchadnezzar, verse 28. At the end of 12 months, he's walking about the royal palace of Babylon. The king actually verbalizes these words. He said, Is this not great Babylon that I've built for a royal dwelling, by my mighty power, and for the honor of my majesty? Now, it is kind of interesting. We already went through the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He was recognizing there is a true God. And yet here he is, not long after, saying, Hey, look at what I did, all my mighty power. Look how great I am. Well, verse 31. While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven. King Nebuchadnezzar to you had spoken, The kingdom has departed from you, And they shall drive you from men, And your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen, And seven times shall pass over you, Until you know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men, And gives it to whomever he chooses. So what happens? Verse 33. That very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men, and ate grass like oxen. His body was wet with the dew of heaven, Till his hair had grown like eagle's feathers, And his nails like bird's claws. Sounds like an animal, doesn't it? It's acting like an animal. Well, what happens after seven years? Well, verse 34. At the end of the time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, And my understanding returned to me. So something happened seven years ago, Where he no longer had understanding. His brain was no longer actuated to think and to reason, Like a regular human being. If you were to read this in the new century, Version 34, at the end of the time, New century says, I could think normally again. New Living says, my sanity returned to me. Read it in the message. Message says, I was given my mind back. I was given my mind back. Contemporary English version says, my mind was healed. You see, something was missing. I was given my mind back. I was given my mind back. I was given my mind back. And so Nebuchadnezzar, after that time, His understanding was returned to Him. And He says, I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him, Who lives forever. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom is from generation to generation. And then He says it again, Verse 36, At the same time my reason returned to me, My counselors and nobles resorted to me. You see, for seven years they couldn't, because He couldn't reason and think. That spirit was gone. He says, I was restored to my kingdom. My excellent majesty was added to me. And I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, All of whose works are truth, and His ways justice, And all those who walk in pride, He's able to put down. And so the story of Nebuchadnezzar and his whole acting like an animal, wasn't just an act.

It seems like that spirit and man was taken away from Him, and seven years later, God returned His sanity. God gave Him His mind back. God healed Him, and His reasoning returned to Him. And it points out very clearly then, the spirit and man is all the difference between animal brain and human mind, making it possible to think and reason, and have self-consciousness, and ultimately make us like God, that we're after His kind, because all the godly attributes follow as well, because we're at His image, in His likeness, and gives us the opportunity to have similar abilities that God has as well.

Now, definitely a lot inferior, but we're on that same level in that way. Now, if we stopped right there, I think we'd miss something that's also critically important. I think we can see through Nebuchadnezzar's example that this human spirit is such a powerful thing and makes all the difference. But there is something the spirit and man cannot do. There's something that human spirit is lacking. And that is spiritual understanding. Just because we can think and reason and recognize our existence and create and appreciate art and music and all those things, we lack true spiritual understanding.

The human spirit doesn't give us that. When you think about what's the greatest potential for man, and I suppose by extension we could say the greatest potential for the mind of man, it's to receive the Spirit of God. To receive God's Spirit. We do have this spiritual component that provides the ability for spiritual understanding. If we didn't have the Spirit in man, we wouldn't have the capability for spiritual understanding. So because we can think, because we can reason, we've been given the potential to understand spiritual things.

If we don't have that, well, we can't even think and reason. We can't understand spiritual things. Now what's important then is just as the Spirit in man gives us human understanding, God's Spirit gives us Godly understanding, or spiritual understanding. And that becomes critical because we recognize in Nebuchadnezzar's example, a brain all by itself, well, you're like an animal. You've got to have that spiritual component join with that brain in order to have human understanding. And so the Spirit in man takes us far beyond the animal world. Now, as you consider that, think about the Spirit of God then. You see, because of the Spirit of God, that makes it possible then to take things to a spiritual level far beyond just the physical.

And so what the important aspect of this is that the Holy Spirit of God can join with our human spirit, and something phenomenal then is produced by that. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians for just a moment. 1 Corinthians 2. Let's begin in verse 9. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9. And we'll notice a critical aspect of this, of how God's Spirit can join with our human spirit. And like that human spirit that elevates us so far above the animals, a similar thing happens when we are joined with God's Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9. Paul writes, So without something, we don't get it.

It doesn't enter our hearts, our minds. We can't even imagine this. But, verse 10. But God has revealed them. In other words, what is our purpose? What is God all about? What is the plan? What is our destiny? All of these types of things. He says God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. Not through the Spirit in man, but through God's Holy Spirit, through His Spirit.

For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. And where we left off before, verse 11, Paul says, What man knows the things of a man, except through the Spirit of man, which is in him? God's Spirit is in us so we can think, or the Spirit in man, human spirit is in us so we can think and reason. Now he says, even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. So we cannot have true spiritual understanding unless God's Holy Spirit joins with our human spirit. And so we, as converted individuals, verse 12, we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

You see, those things are spiritual things. We can freely know the spiritual things that have been given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches. What are the words that man's wisdom teaches? Well, the stuff we can know just normally.

We can Google it. We can understand it because we have the Spirit in man. So we're not talking about something much bigger, much better than just that. He says, not just words of man's wisdom, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

So the Holy Spirit joins with our human spirit, making spiritual understanding possible. True understanding. Verse 14 expounds on that. The natural man, that would be the normal, everyday human being, the normal person, the natural man, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Their foolishness to him, nor can he know them. Why can't every human being understand God's purpose in his plan? Well, they don't have the Holy Spirit. Unless God draws them, and then ultimately they're converted and receive the Holy Spirit, you don't get it. They won't get it. The difference is almost as vast as the difference between an animal and a human being.

The difference between a human being with only the Spirit in man, versus a human being with both, the Spirit in man and God's Holy Spirit. So he says to the normal, everyday person, God's ways are foolishness to him. He can't know them. Why? Well, verse 14 says, because they are spiritually discerned. And so God makes it very clear through what Paul writes here. We're not born with the Holy Spirit, but we receive it from God following repentance and baptism.

Acts 2.38 is very clear on that. But as we consider those things, we've got to have the human spirit. It's critical. But God's Spirit must join with that Spirit in order to make us children of God. And we find that to be the case. That's Paul spelled out to the Romans. Romans 8.14 Romans 8.14 I think it epitomizes that difference between human beings without the Spirit of God and human beings with the Holy Spirit.

That Spirit that is joined to their human spirit. Romans 8.14 Really, this is probably a passage. Romans 8.14 Is the definition of a Christian? What is a Christian? Well, this is it. Romans 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

That's the definition of a Christian. You have to have God's Spirit join with your human spirit. He says, you didn't receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry out, I'm a Father. And the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit. There's those two spirits being mentioned. That non-physical component of that human spirit. Right? That's our spirit. And what's added to it? The Holy Spirit. God's Spirit. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that spirit in man, that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. And so, Romans really spells it out when we begin to understand what God's plan and what His purpose is. He's created us with this non-physical component of the Spirit in man that gives us the reasoning capabilities that all men have. But to have spiritual understanding, we need God's Holy Spirit to join with our spirit. And what it helps us to recognize is that, boy, life has so many more possibilities than just making money and gaining social status.

And it's more than our job or our cars or our houses or making the next payment. What it helps us to recognize is that the purpose, our purpose, the purpose of humanity is to become spiritual children of God. And so, by adding the Spirit of God to the human spirit is what makes it possible. It makes it possible for us to be new creations in Christ. It makes it possible to have a new nature, to be a new spiritual creation. And then ultimately, that's going to change too. Eventually, in the resurrection, we will have new life and this physical we put aside.

And we will be immortal. We will be immortal children of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And so, when you consider the potential of this, well, ultimately, that's the potential of every single human being that's ever been born. That's the humanity's potential. And so, consider this amazing secret that God has revealed to His Church. I think one of the passages that kind of sums it up for me is found in the Psalms. Psalm 139, verse 13.

I think this kind of indicates the wonderful blessings that God has poured out on us, recognizing it's not just about the physical side of things, but even more so about the great spiritual truths that God has given us. Psalm 139, verse 13. This is the New King James Version. New King James says, you formed my inward parts.

You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. In fact, if you read this, go back to verse 13 for a minute. New Living says this. You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous.

How well I know it. Considering this unique truth that God has revealed to His Church, I hope it helps us to never take for granted what God has revealed to us. He has revealed the secret of the human mind. Ultimately, it is the Spirit and man. Even greater than that, combined with God's Holy Spirit. We've been blessed with an amazing secret.