Alright brethren, let's turn
to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I'll begin reading in verse 1.
Our text will be the last phrase in verse 2 and verse 3, but we'll
begin with verse 1. He said, And I, brethren, could
not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto
babies in Christ. I have fed you with milk and
not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it." Now
here's a most sad word. Neither yet now are you able. Neither yet now are you able. After this so long a period of
time of hearing the gospel preached faithfully, their spiritual growth was hindered. Their spiritual growth was hindered. And this is the saddest part
of this, is they were the ones who hindered it. They were the
ones who hindered it. That's what Paul says here. He
says, for ye are yet carnal. The word for means because. You're
not able now because ye are yet carnal. For whereas there's among
you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as
men? Now let me point this out before
we get into the text. This is not that so-called doctrine
of the carnal Christian that so many preach and teach, which
is a false doctrine. What I mean by that is there
are some that teach that a sinner can be regenerated by God the
Holy Spirit and he can be brought under the sound of the gospel,
and yet he can leave the gospel, he can leave his brethren, go
out into the world and live to himself, to his flesh, the rest
of his days, and men say, but he's a believer, he's just a
carnal Christian. And then there are others who
teach that if your God's elect, even some of God's elect, will
not be regenerated in this lifetime. And yet, if they're God's elect,
they'll be saved. If they never heard the gospel,
they never believed the gospel, they might be carnal, but in
the end, they'll be found to be Christians, and be found that
they were just carnal Christians. Now, neither one of those doctrines
are according to the Word of God, And that's not what Paul's
dealing with here. It's not what he's teaching here. Those to whom Paul wrote were
united by the Spirit of God as far as being born of God. He
calls them brethren. As far as we know, they were
regenerated children of God. And they were united with the
other members of Christ's church as far as hearing the gospel
preached. They were there where the gospel was preached. They
were with them where the gospel was preached. But the problem
was is that their carnal hearts were set on carnal things. That
carnal old spirit that's in every believer was set on carnal things. And so it was preventing them,
it was hindering them from being able to hear the Word of God
that was being preached. And so it was stunning their
growth, or hindering their growth, because if you can't hear the
Word of God, that's how we're going to grow, by the Word of
God. So they had all these carnal things that they had their attention
focused on, and it was preventing them from hearing the Word of
God. Now here's what I want us to get tonight. If we would grow
in grace as believers, If we would grow in grace as believers,
then as the Holy Spirit of God feeds us through the preaching
of the gospel, we must continue feeding upon
God's Word. We must continue feeding upon
God's Word here and at home. We must be in God's Word. We
must be giving ourselves to the Word of God, feeding upon the
Word of God rather than upon these carnal things, upon these
carnal fleshly things. Our subject tonight is hungry,
harmless babies and understanding men. hungry, harmless babies
and understanding men. And that's really our outline.
I want to show you first of all hungry babies. Now the sense
in which Paul said here that they were still babies, that
was a negative thing. Because they had been in the
gospel now for a while. But they were still babies. But
now, it's good to be a baby as far as our hunger for the Word
of God. Now that's a good way to be a
baby. It's good to be a baby as far as hungering after the
Word of God. And then harmless babies. Another
thing that was negative here is they were being strong men
when it came to the carnal flesh and the deeds of the carnal flesh.
But it's good to be a baby when it comes to our carnal lusts,
to the malice of the flesh. It's good to be a baby in that
regard. It's good to be a baby in submission
to God and in far as malice goes. Don't be malicious. Don't live
in the strength of the flesh. It's good to be a baby in that
regard. And then discerning or understanding men. In regard
to spiritual understanding, in regard to spiritual growth, it's
good to be men. It's good to be babies as far
as our hunger for the gospel. It's good to be babies as far
as the carnal flesh is concerned and malice is concerned. But
when it comes to spiritual growth, when it comes to spiritual understanding,
spiritual discernment, it's good to be men. It's good to be men. Now those will be the three things
we look at. First of all, It's good to be as babies in our desire
for the Word of God. You see, they were babies in
the sense that they were still having to feed upon the milk
of the Gospel. But by now, they had lost that
desire for that milk because of this carnal flesh. And that's
not a good thing. It's good to always be as a baby
when it comes to hungering after the Word of God. 1 Peter, with
me. 1 Peter. We're going to have
three different scriptures for our text tonight. 1 Peter, in
addition to this, we'll have three others. 1 Peter 2. Peter says, Verse 1, 1 Peter
2, 1. Wherefore, laying aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking,
laying that aside, he says, Or verse 2, as newborn babies, desire
the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. That
newborn baby has one hunger. It's got one thing that it wants
to do. It wants to eat. It wants to
eat. It's hungry for the mother's milk. And that's what he's saying
here. Hunger for the Word of God. That's good to be a baby
in that sense. Hunger for the Word of God. Look
back up at 1 Peter 1. I want to show you why the Spirit
of God moved Peter to write this. Why is the Word of God so important? Look at 1 Peter 1.23. being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. The first reason the Word is
important is because it's by the Word of God that we were
born again. We were dead in sins and we couldn't make ourselves
be born again. The Holy Spirit gave us life, regenerated us
through the preaching of the Word of God, through the Word
of God. And I guarantee you whatever one of us did who believed, when
God gave us that hunger, opened our eyes, gave us life, and opened
our eyes to the Scriptures, and we first began to have this hunger,
I know what we did. You began looking all through
this Word, didn't you? You began looking for faithful
books that could give you some light on this, and faithful preachers
that were preaching this Word. You couldn't get enough of feeding
on the Word of God. Because that's how you were born
by it, and you began to hunger after it. Well, what about now? What about now? Still doing that? That's what he's saying here.
Don't lose that hunger you had as a newborn baby. Like the newborn
baby. Then the second reason he says
here is because our carnal flesh at the very best, at its very
best glory, our flesh in all its glory is dead and dying and
it's soon going to just wither away. But this Word by which
we were born, this Word lives and it's how we live. And this
Word abides forever. It's how we have eternal life.
Now look here at the next thing, 1 Peter 1.24, For all flesh is
as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The
grass withers, the flower thereof falleth away. That ought to tell
us we don't really owe the flesh anything and we ought not to
be seeking any feeding on the flesh or seeking anything from
the flesh, should we? That's feeding on death. But
look at this, But the word of the Lord endureth forever. So we see another reason why
the Word is vital to a believer. Not only do we have spiritual
life, we have eternal life by this Word. And we'll live forever
by this Word, this new born-again Spirit of God. We'll live forever
by this Word. And then He gives us a third
reason. And He says at the end of verse 25, And this is the
Word which by the gospel is preached unto you. This is the Word by
which Christ the Gospel is preached unto you. Now, we preach the
Word of God, capital W-O-R-D. We preach Christ. We preach Christ
who is the Word, who was in the beginning, before the beginning,
who was with God and is God. We preach the Word and that Christ
the Word is who the whole written Word speaks about. And that's
this word that we're preaching, as we preach the written word,
we're preaching Christ the word. Now let me ask you something.
Can you live without Christ the word? No. Well then we can't live without
the written word either. Because that's what the written
word is, Christ the word. And we can't live without the
one, we can't live without the other. So the Holy Spirit says
through Peter here, seeing then that you were born again by the
Word of God, seeing then it's the Word of God that's given
you eternal life so that you're ever alive and you'll ever endure
by the Word of God, and seeing how that it's by the Word that
Christ the Word is preached unto you, He says then 1 Peter 2,
1, wherefore? Wherefore, what more reason do
we need? Wherefore, laying aside all malice
and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings,
as newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that
you may grow thereby. Now go back to our text just
a minute. You can leave Peter there. Go
on back to our text and look at this. Some at Corinth, to
whom Paul was writing, had done just the opposite of this. Instead
of laying aside the carnal, laying aside that malicious spirit with
all of its dead fruit, they were feeding on that. And they had
laid aside the Word. They had laid aside the Word.
He says, verse 2, neither yet are you able to bear this strong
meat for your carnal, your yet carnal. Whereas there is among
you envying, strife, divisions, are you not carnal?" He could
be saying this, are you not feeding on your flesh rather than on
the Word? See, the carnal is what they
need to lay aside and desire that Word, the milk of the Word. It wouldn't be so bad to still
be babies if they still had the hunger for the Word. Here's the
problem, you babies, and you're more involved with this flesh
than you are with the Word. You're looking after the flesh
more than the Word. Feeding on that more than the Word. Now,
true believers, I want you to hear me carefully on this. True
believers, I mean born of God, redeemed, chosen, born of God,
we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility and
it's a necessity. It's a responsibility and a necessity. And it's this, not to feed on
these carnal things, but to feed our inward man by the Word of
God. We have a responsibility to do
that. And it's a necessity that we do it. Through hearing the
gospel preached, you're faithful to come here and hear the gospel
preached. We need to come hear the gospel preached. It's so
vital. It's so vital. It's the most important thing
to a believer, to hear Christ exalted. But then, when we leave,
we go and we feed more upon the Word, feeding upon the Word concerning
what we've heard, what we've heard preached. And then by asking
Christ, who is the Word, who's going to grow us up into Him,
who gave us preachers to feed us, who gave us His gospel to
grow us, and who is the One through the Spirit that's going to grow
us, we've got to ask Him, Lord, grow us. Make this bread nourish
my body. That's what I need spiritually.
I need for Him to make this spiritual food nourish me spiritually.
Now, somebody might say, well, we trust the sovereign God. What
are you doing talking here about this being our responsibility?
Well, naturally speaking, I need God to give me the means to earn
my bread, to have bread. I need God to give me the place
to prepare the bread. I need God, when I eat the bread,
I need God to nourish my body or the bread's not going to do
me any good. If He doesn't make it nourish my body, it's not
going to do me any good. God's sovereign to do all those
things. But I can tell you this, when
I'm hungry, God's sovereignty is not going to stop me from
sitting down at the table and eating. How about you? And I have to. I have to. If I don't, I'm going
to die. Well, it's true of the Word of God. It's true of the
Word of God. We can't say, well, God's sovereign. If He wants me to grow and wants
to feed me, He'll just grow me and feed me. God said, you better
eat my word. You better eat my flesh, Christ
said, or you don't have any life in you. Now I know this is without
a doubt, we worship the triune God who is absolutely sovereign
over all. We worship God our Father who
chose his people freely by his grace before the foundation of
the world and none shall be able to pluck one of his children
out of his hand. We worship Christ the Lord who
loved us from everlasting and came to where we are and redeemed
His people by His precious blood and we're risen with Him and
seated at God's right hand. And of all that the Father has
given to Him, He will not lose one. He will raise them all up
again at the last day. And it's a necessity, an absolute
necessity that we be born of the Spirit of God. The carnal
man will not receive the things of God and he cannot receive
the things of God. They're spiritually discerned.
We must be born of the Spirit of God. We must be fed by the
Spirit of God. We must be grown by the Spirit
of God. We must be preserved by the Spirit of God. He has
to give us that hunger and He has to keep us hungering. And He is able to turn us from
our flesh, and He is able to turn us away from ourselves,
and He will turn His child to Christ, and He will grow His
child according to His will, and nobody is going to stop Him
from doing it. But there is such a thing in the Scripture as quenching
the Spirit. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians
4.19, Quench not the Spirit, small s. Spirit. Quench not the spirit. What does
that mean? Let me see if I can illustrate it. As believers,
we come in here and we hear the gospel preached. I come in here
just jumping ready to go because I've been studying, you know,
the Word. And you all come in here tired.
You've been working. But when we leave here, the Spirit
of God As he's blessed the Word, the Spirit of God strengthens
your inner man. And you feel recharged, you feel
revitalized, you feel like you've been strengthened. That's the
Spirit he's talking about, that the Holy Spirit of God has strengthened
you in the inner man. Well, if we leave here and we
lay aside the Word, And we go out into the world and the rest
of the week we spend our time feeding on the carnal, fleshly
things. That's what we feed. That's what
we feed on. It's just the carnal. And we don't continue feeding
the new man in the Word, by the Word. Well, which spirit is going
to be quenched and which spirit is going to be strengthened?
The new spirit or that old carnal spirit? You see what I'm saying? Paul is the one who teaches us
most about the sovereignty of God. He teaches us most about
the necessity of the new birth and the Spirit's work within
us. He's the very one we read when we learn of these things. Listen to what Paul told Timothy.
He said this, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of
God which is in thee. Did Paul suddenly forget that
he's the one that told us God's absolutely sovereign? No. He told Timothy, I'm putting
you in remembrance now that you stir up the gift of God that's
in you. It's a gift that God gave you,
now you stir it up. How? The Word of God. The Word of God. So that's what
we see. This is number one of utmost
importance. Don't lose that hunger. Be hungry. Be hungry. As a newborn baby,
desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby.
That's number one. Hungry. Be hungry babies. Alright,
now look. Here's the second thing. It's
good to be babies in regard to the malice of our carnal flesh. It's another way to be a baby.
Now back in our text, in 1 Corinthians 3, he says, you're yet being
carnal. There's among you envy and strife
and division. Are you not carnal and walking
as men? They were strong in the flesh and weak in the spirit.
They were being men in the flesh and they were being babies when
it came to spiritual strength. Christ had sent the gospel to
them. I want you to think of this now. Just think of this.
This is so of us and this will make you see how foolish this
is of us. God had sent the gospel to the
Corinthians. The gospel of God's free grace. The gospel that declares Christ
freely justified His people. And that this free justification
is given to us freely through the free gift of faith that God
gives. They had a preacher, multiple
preachers at Corinth. There was, I believe, more than
one church there. It was a big place. I believe
there were several churches there. And they had multiple preachers
given to them there. Freely given to them by God. They had brethren God had freely
given them. Brethren. One of the greatest
gifts God gives us on this earth. Freely given to them. In everything,
Paul said, you are enriched by Him. In everything. So that you
don't come behind anybody in the gifts of God. And every bit
of this enriching, every one of these gifts were freely given
to them by God. Freely given. And they had God's
promise that He's going to confirm them to the end. Just like He
confirmed them in the beginning, He'd confirm them, preserve them
all the way to the end. All this by His free grace. All
of this. And yet, despite all this, they
envied one another. They envied one another because
God gave one a gift that He didn't give the other one. Isn't that amazing? It was all
free. It all came from God. They weren't
ones that had anything to glory in, yet they were envious that
one of their brethren had a gift that they didn't have. And then
they were striving with one another. Here they are in the midst of
the church that God freely chose, in the midst of the church Christ
freely redeemed, midst of the church freely regenerated, freely
preserved. They're freely put in the midst
of this, in the Spirit now. Here they are. And they're striving with their
brethren. And then they had, because of
all this, they broke off and were divided into cliques. That's
what that word division is. They had gotten into cliques,
different cliques. One party exalted themselves
over another party. When it was God who freely took
them all, everyone off the very same dung heap. and freely separated
all them out of the world and translated them into the kingdom
of God. And it was God that had freely
united them together in one body in Christ Jesus. Using the things God gave them,
using the Word, using gifts, using the graces God had given,
they're divided off into cliques. One clique thinking they're better
than the other clique. You know, God gives us this to
show us us. Because they did it by the same
carnal flesh that we do it by. We do these things too. They
did it by this, by the carnal flesh. But isn't it foolish when
you think about that? Think about believers. using
the things of God, the gifts of God, everything we have, we
have because God gave it. And we're going to divide from
one another and argue over this glorious doctrine of free grace
and redemption to the point that we're split off into sects and
into cliques and divided. When everything we have, God
gave it to us. Isn't that foolish? Well, Christ
said, when it comes to our carnal flesh, when it comes to this
carnality, look at Luke... I'm sorry, go to Matthew 18.
Matthew 18. Christ said, when it comes to
this, you be a baby. Now, you think that it was something
that they did this under the apostle Paul, under his ministry. Christ's own apostles did the
same thing. Started arguing over who's going
to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And look at what Christ
did. It says, verse 2, Jesus called
a little child unto him and set him in the midst of them. And
we're talking about, I don't know the age of this child, but
we're talking about in Luke's gospel, he says it's infants. Here he takes a little infant,
toddler, whatever, and sets it there in their midst, in the
middle of all of them. And he says this, Verily I say
unto you, except you be converted, From what? Weren't they already
regenerated and called? Yeah. Weren't they already converted? Yeah. Converted from what? Converted
from this carnal flesh of envying one another and striving against
one another and dividing against one another. Unless you be converted
from this and become as little children, you shall not enter
the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble
himself as this little child, the same greatest in the kingdom
of heaven, and whosoever shall receive one such little child
in my name, receives me." He's talking about his people here.
My little child that is humbled by my grace and has humbled himself
under my hand and cast himself into the care of Christ, anybody
that offends one of them, He's doing it to me, Christ said.
And he says, and who shall offend one of these little ones which
believe in me? It were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and he was drowned in the
depths of the sea. That's what Christ says about
this matter. Now, here's what I thought on that. When our flesh
would envy our brethren, when we would envy a brother or sister,
and it's our flesh, it's never of the Spirit of God. That's
not of God. Envy is not of God. That's of
us, our sinful flesh. And when we began to want to
envy our brethren, when I read this here about be a little child,
the first word I thought about was whose child? The child of my Sovereign Father. The child of my Father who is
Sovereign God over heaven, earth, and hell. That's who. I'm His
little baby. So when I want to become envious
of my brother, I need to remember God is my Father. God's my Father. He can exalt whoever He wants
to exalt, and He can abase whoever He wants to abase. So rather
than become envious, you know what I ought to do? Rejoice with
my brethren. Because my Father did it. He
did it. And then when our flesh would
strive, when we get to striving in our flesh, remember, who's
your Father? God who rules everything. God
who rules all. Even this thing, whatever it
is that somebody in their heart is striving over with another
brother over, it's coming to pass right now under the rule
of God our Father's hand. Everything's under the rule of
His hand. Maybe somebody's striving with a sister, maybe your sister
just had a bad day. Or maybe if you're striving with
a brother who's not doing as one thinks he ought to do, maybe
he's doing what he thinks is best for the whole congregation. And I'll tell you this, What
a wise pastor told me one time, if you just trust your heavenly
Father, He'll overrule your errors and His too. And He'll show you
He's got your father. And He's doing what's best for
the both of you. Just trust Him. Or maybe your father's just giving
you an opportunity to give your brother some much needed encouragement.
And rather than do that, what do we usually do? We don't usually
say it to the brother, we say it to somebody else. Can you
believe he's doing so and so? I know he's doing it this, this,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Christ said, that's my child.
That's my child. Better have a big giant weight
put around your neck, a millstone put around your neck and be thrown
into the sea than to offend one of these little ones. That's what Christ says about
me. Y'all better not offend me. That's what Christ says about
you, Art. I better not offend you. And then when our flesh would
divide for my brethren. Remember, God's my Father. I'm
His little child. What'd He do to make me one with
God? What'd He do to make me one with
my brethren? God gave His only begotten Son
to make me one with Him. Am I sure I want to talk about
one for whom Christ died? Am I sure I want to divide brethren
for whom Christ died? The Word of God says, you want
to feed on the Word? You want to be fed by the Word? The Word says how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together in unity. That's what the Word
says. So as a helpless, dependent,
adoring toddler of my father, what am I going to do? Look at
Colossians 3.12. Colossians 3.12. I'm a helpless, dependent child. So I'm going to receive whatever
my Father does in His kingdom. It's His kingdom. So whatever
He does in it, it's for my good, it's for the good of my brothers
and sisters, and it's for His glory. So I can receive it. Whatever He does in providence,
whatever He does, I can receive it. Just bow to Him and look
at this. Verse 12, "...Put on therefore
as the elect of God, As a holy and beloved child of God, put
on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another.
If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you,
so also do ye. Sometimes it just, maybe just,
we do better to just ask a couple of questions, you know. To our
brother or sister, when we don't understand something, we might
find out, they weren't even looking at me when I thought they was
giving me a dirty look. You know what I'm saying? We
go off and think about things for days and days and get all
twisted up about it. You might go talk to your brother
or sister and find out they didn't even know, they weren't even
looking at you. But that's what he's talking
about. Be long-suffering, kind, humble-minded, forgiving. Verse
14, above all these, put on charity, love, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule
in your hearts, to the which also you're called in one body,
and be ye thankful. And let the Word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom. This is what we're talking about.
Christ's Word. Be fed by the Word, not this
flesh. Teaching and admonishing one another in our personal fleshly
words, stirring up envy and strife and division. Is that what he's
talking about? Is that how we're supposed to speak to one another and admonish
one another? Look what he said. In psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And
then look at this. Look at this last thing here
in verse 17. And whatsoever you do in word
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God and the Father by Him. That's what Christ is talking
about when He says, when it comes to malice and the flesh and the
carnal and all that, you know, instead of thinking you've got
to grab somebody by the neck and wring their neck and, you
know, I've got to take up for me and mine and all this, He
says, Be a little child. Be like a toddler, totally dependent
on your Heavenly Father. It's what Peter said when he
said, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Cast
all your care on Him. He'll exalt you in due time.
Make sure He's the one that's done it and we haven't done it
ourselves. He'll do it in due time. Now let me show you this
last thing and I'm going to be very quick, very brief. Turn
to 1 Corinthians 14.20. But when it comes to spiritual discernment and understanding,
it's not time to be a baby then. It's time to be a man. Look at
1 Corinthians 14 and look at verse 20. 1 Corinthians 14 and
verse 20. Brethren, be not children in
understanding. See that? Don't be children in
understanding. Howbeit in malice be ye children. But in understanding, be men. It's perfect. It's mature. That's
what the word means. Turn over to Hebrews 5. The only
way we can have this is by the Spirit of God teaching us. You
take a word like this right here. You make your feet on this word.
You make you turn away from your carnal flesh and be a child in
malice, and He'll feed you. And He'll teach you this. He'll
exercise you in this Word. That's the only way we can be
taught this. That's how you grow. Watch this now. Hebrews 5.11.
He'd been talking about Melchizedek. He said Christ after the order
of Melchizedek. And He said, Of whom we have
many things to say, And hard to be uttered. These things are,
not only do we have a lot to say, it's hard to preach on these
things. Seeing ye are dull of hearing. Dull of hearing. For when for the time you ought
to be teachers. You see, Corinthians were having
the same problem as the Hebrews. For when you ought to be teachers,
you have need that one teach you again which be the first
principles of the oracles of God. And become such as have
need of milk and not of strong meat. Now he's going to tell
us something here about a person that uses milk. Everyone that
uses milk... This is milk as just the basic
principles now. Everybody that uses milk is unskillful
in the word of righteousness. Of knowing what's righteous and
right. For he's a baby. But strong meat
belongeth to them that are of full age. Mature. Same word here. Perfect, mature. Even those who
by reason of use have their senses, their spiritual senses, exercised
so that they discern both good and evil. They discern the word
of righteousness. They discern both good and evil.
Now let me be brief on this. We got to have our spiritual
senses exercised by hearing and seeing Christ high and lifted
up in this gospel. That's what I'm trying to teach
you tonight, is to look to Christ, look to Christ, hear Christ,
by smelling the sweet odor of Christ's one offering for sin. By tasting the Lord's gracious
in all that He has done, all that He is doing, and all that
He shall do. By feeling and handling the Word of Life in all our trials,
in all our shortcomings, so that spiritually we're hearing, we're
seeing, we're smelling, we're tasting, we're feeling, we're
handling, It's all Christ. Christ, Christ, Christ. And what
we're taught by this, by having these spiritual senses exercised,
we're taught that Christ is the faithful and the true witness.
That's what we're taught. He's faithful and He's true.
So ultimately, what it comes down to, what this word of righteousness
is and what it is to discern between good and evil is this.
What's going to give Christ the glory and what does not glorify
Him. So when I'm sitting and I'm listening,
I can discern between the law and the gospel. I have my spiritual
senses exercised. I can discern between the doctrines
of men and the doctrine of Christ. The doctrines of men is going
to always glorify men. The doctrines of Christ is going
to glorify Him only. I can discern between when to
speak myself and when to just keep silent. Why? Because I've learned something
about Christ. You learn something about this, get some discernment
about when should I say a word in season and when is it time
to just be quiet. You learn when am I looking to
myself and discern between that and when I'm looking to Christ.
Sometimes we find ourselves looking to us, doing it for our glory
rather than His glory. We're given that discernment
to tell the difference. When we ought to be babies, when
we ought to be men. See, I'm showing you tonight
when you ought to be babies. Two ways you ought to be babies
and a way you ought to be men. And we get discernment as He
exercises these senses. And there's stronger meat, stronger
meat. But none of these things will be given to us by our flesh. Our flesh profits nothing. Our
carnal flesh has nothing to do with this. Somebody can say a
word to us, or somebody can, the preacher can decide to do
something, and everybody get upset, and you know, all, and
it might be a mistake the preacher's making. If you're the child of God, baby,
be a baby. and trust your father like a
baby and you watch him overrule the errors of the preacher and
teach you something and him something all at the same time. Watch it.
Watch it happen. I've seen it happen. I've had
it happen to me as the preacher. I've been in both places when
it happened. But it won't happen by the flesh.
It won't happen by trying to make it happen. It won't happen
by us being envious and striving and dividing. So here's how,
number one, we got it. As a baby, desire the sincere
milk of the word. That's how we're going to grow. You can get... I was down on
Monday. I went through my normal Monday
valley. And you can listen to... I'll
just listen to some happy music. That'll help. No, it won't. I'll
go to the gym and work out. That'll help. No, it won't. I'll
do this. I'll do that. No, it won't help. Once you get in the Word of God,
that helps. There's your strength. So as
babies, feed on the Word. Number two, as a baby, receive
the Kingdom of God. Like a little baby, just trust
in your Father. Being a baby in malice, just
being a baby, trust in Him. And then lastly, but in understanding,
be men. Seek to grow. Seek to grow. Seek. Ask the Lord, take this and make
me. Make me a baby in these two areas
and a man in this other area. Grow me in grace. Teach me. He's
the only one that can do it. I pray He'll bless that. Amen.