“You wouldn’t even be drawn or inclined to want to open the Bible without urging from the Holy Spirit.”
I don’t dispute that. Yet, still the question stands.. do I need the Holy Spirit to do every little thing for me, or is some effort on my part acceptable?
“Absolutely! I do it all the time. Many eye opening revelations have resulted.”
Then you must agree that there are some things that we may perform by more mundane methods in order to get to a spiritual understanding, besides simply calling on the Holy Spirit for every little thing, no?
“Have you ever read the scripture where it says God sends rain on the just and the unjust?”
Certainly, yet that verse in no way contradicts the verses that tell us that unbelievers do not have the Holy Spirit.
“Nonsense.”
Perhaps its nonsense if you mangle the quote by cutting off an entire qualifying clause.
Nobody said they did. The Holy Spirit does speak to unbelievers however. If not no unbeliever would ever become a believer. Also whether they acknowledge it or not they draw a breath by the grace of God.
Yes.
No. Doing mundane things, such as picking up a book and reading it, does NOT get one spiritual understanding.
Without the enlightening of the Holy Spirit, you could read yourself blind and not a bit of it would make any sense to you.
There is NOTHING that the natural man can do to gain spiritual understanding. It has to be given to him.
Why? you ask?
Because the natural man is spiritually dead.
Just as a blind man cannot perceive the light about him or the Deaf man cannot perceive the sound about him, neither can the natural man perceive spiritual truths because, being spiritually dead, he does not have the ability to perceive the spiritual reality around him.