Alright brethren, let's turn
to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We'll just read the first two
verses. The Apostle Paul says, And I,
brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as
unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with
milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it,
neither yet now are ye able." Our subject is milk for babies. Milk for babies. Whenever a sinner
is born of God, the newly born child of God is a baby. He's a baby. And he's fed with
milk. And he's grown by that milk to
maturity so he can eat stronger meat and stronger meat and become
more mature in grace and grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus. Now, as we go through 1 Corinthians,
I want to keep us looking at the context and I want to remember
the context of it as we go through. Now, two groups of people were
opposing Paul at Corinth. Two different groups of people
that were opposing him. Not everybody was opposing him. But there were two specific groups
that were opposing him. Number one, there were the unregenerate
false preachers and philosophers and the wise and prudent men,
the unbelievers there. And what they were critical about
was that Paul was preaching basic doctrine, that his doctrine was
elementary. and that his style of preaching
was simple. He wasn't challenging them enough
in his preaching, what he was saying. They were wise and old
and had been around a long time. They needed to be challenged
in what was being preached. And they were critical because
he preached basic elementary doctrine. And then the second
group there that was critical of Paul were believers. They
were believers. But they were babies. They were
babies. They were newly born again. And so being newly born again,
they were easily influenced by those false preachers. And so
they too began to criticize Paul. They were critical that Paul
was preaching basic doctrine, elementary doctrine. Well, Paul
answers both of these people. He answers both of them. One,
to the false preachers and to those he declared that when he
first came to Corinth, he indeed preached the basic doctrine of
Christ and Him crucified. He preached the first principles
of Christ and Him crucified. We dealt with that all through
chapter 2. And he said why he did that.
In 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 5, he said, that's your faith,
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
If you're going to begin with a group of people that are unbelievers,
you've got to begin in the beginning. You've got to begin with the
basics. You've got to lay the foundation. And that's what Paul
did. But he makes an important point
here. If those newborn believers had really been mature, and really
needed to have stronger doctrine, they would have seen that that
basic doctrine Paul preached was wisdom. They would have rejoiced
in even that basic elementary doctrine, even those first principles
they would have rejoiced in. He said there in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 verse 6, We speak wisdom among them that
are perfect, among them that are born of God and matured of
God and grown by God in grace and knowledge of Christ. Even
though I'm preaching to you the most elementary principles of
Christ, this is wisdom to the mature believer. Paul said over
there to the Philippians, it's not grievous for me to repeat
the same things to you over and over. It's safe for you. And
a mature believer won't find that grievous to hear the first
principles of the doctrine of Christ preached. We'd like to
hear it. So if they'd been truly mature,
they would have too. Then Paul answers those believers. And he tells them, the reason
I preach to you in such a basic elementary doctrine is because
of your state of grace. He says there in our text, 1
Corinthians 3, verse 1, And I, brethren... Now he is speaking
to believers here. I, brethren. I, brethren, could
not speak unto you as unto spiritual. I could not speak unto you as
unto mature, grown, well-matured believers. I couldn't. He says,
but as unto carnal. even as unto babies in Christ."
Even as babies in Christ. Now, here's the first thing I
want us to see. When a believer is born of God,
born of God, that believer is a baby. That believer is a baby
in Christ. Now, the new birth is like our
first birth in a lot of ways. It's like our first birth in
a lot of ways. First of all, God does that which
is absolutely necessary, that which must be done. God regenerates
us. He regenerates us. He creates
in us a new baby, a new child. Now, when we're born the first
time, we're born by natural generation. It's just natural generation.
We talk about generations, generation after generation. It's a natural
generation. But when you're born of God,
born again, it's a supernatural regeneration. It's not a natural
generation. It's a supernatural regeneration. It's of God. And when God births
us, He doesn't birth us with corruptible seed, but with incorruptible
seed, which lives and abides forever. And we're told in 1
Peter 1 that that seed is the Word of God, which we preach
unto you. That's the incorruptible seed. What's going forth right now
is the incorruptible seed. And if God is pleased to birth
a child within a body of death, it's going to be by the Word
of God. And this Word of God is Christ
the Word, it's Christ the Gospel, it's Christ who lives and abides
forever. So when that new birth happens
and a new child is born, that new baby that's born lives and
abides forever. It's eternal. It's spiritual.
It's alive. Now when you're born the first
time of your father, of Adam, that's corrupt seed. It's corrupt
seed. It's natural. It's corrupt seed.
So that which comes forth is a sinner. Natural and it's going
to die. But that which is born of God
is incorruptible. It's a sinless new man. A sinless spiritual man. You
know, I was thinking about this, that when He does this, He puts
a baby in these new bodies. I mean, in these old bodies of
death. There's a baby created within us. You think about when
a baby is conceived in the mother's womb the first time. When you
were conceived the first time, you were the baby created in
a sinner. Well, when a child is born again,
born of God, the new you, the true you, is that new spiritual
baby that's in that center. But it just so happens you're
also that old center. You're also that old body. You're
that old center. We have a new sinless baby born
in us when we're born of God, a new spiritual man, a new spirit,
and we have an old man of sin. That new baby is weak, that new
baby is doesn't have any strength. You've seen a baby born, they've
got all the senses of a full grown man and they've got all
the faculties, the limbs and everything. If they're born with
all their limbs, everything's healthy. They're just like a
full grown person. But they don't know how to use
those faculties, they don't know how to use those senses. Well
that's how the newborn baby is inside the baby, that new man
that's born in a believer, that is a believer, but then that
body of sin is old and been around a while and is strong and is
wise to sin. It's a wonder of God's grace
that we even continue as babies born of God because that old
man is so much stronger that's with us and at wars against us.
So we have to have God strengthening us and keeping us and growing
us because the whole body is so strong, that old man of sin. Now, this is something that's
important to remember too. Being a baby in Christ, being
a baby in Christ or being mature in Christ has nothing whatsoever
to do with our natural age. It has nothing to do with that
whatsoever. Sometimes God gives life to a sinner. He regenerates
a sinner when they're very young. And sometimes He does it when
they're very old. And so there could be a young
person, middle-aged person, who's been in the faith a while and
been grown in grace and is more spiritually mature. There could
be an older person who's brand new to the faith, been born of
God, and they're not mature. Yeah, they're still a baby in
Christ. So it has... The flesh profits
nothing. This has nothing to do with the
flesh. This is all spiritual of God. We have to remember that. You know, a lot of times people
have a tendency to look... That's why Paul told Timothy,
don't let anybody despise your youth. Timothy was a young person. And old fellows could have easily
looked at him and said, what are you going to teach us? It
don't have a thing to do with age. Natural age. This is a spiritual thing. It's
a spiritual thing. So to believers, these believers
who were criticizing Paul and they were, you know, saying he's
preaching so basic, so these elementary principles. Paul said,
I, brethren, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual. I
had to speak unto you as to carnal, even as babes in Christ. They
were babies. Now secondly, babies in Christ
must be fed with milk. They can't be fed with meat.
They must be fed with milk. Verse 2. He says, I fed you with
milk and not with meat. For hitherto you were not able
to bear it. Christ said that. You remember
that? Christ said that to His apostles. Think of the apostles. When you think of them, you think
of some strong spiritual men. They walked with Christ, were
taught by Christ. But there was a point there where
Christ told them, He said, I have many things to say unto you,
but you can't bear it now. You can't bear it right now.
Naturally, a baby can only be fed with milk. You can't come
out and give a baby a steak. You can only give it milk. That's
all a baby can have. That's all it can feed upon.
But now be sure to get this. The milk and the meat is the
same gospel. When I talk, the milk and the
meat is the same gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not
two gospels. We don't have a gospel for babies
in Christ and a gospel for more mature believers. It's one gospel. One gospel. The gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. One gospel. So what's the difference? What is the difference between
the milk of the gospel and the meat of the gospel? The difference
is in the believer's ability to receive it. His capacity to
receive it. Paul says there, verse 2, hitherto
you were not able to bear it. That's what Christ said. I have
yet many things to say unto you, but you can't bear them now.
You don't have the capacity to receive it now. Now, a newly
born again believer only has the capacity to digest the milk
of the gospel, the first principles of the gospel of Christ. That's
all he can digest. He's a baby. But as God grows
us in grace, as we grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we
can feed on stronger meat and stronger meat and stronger meat.
But it's still building on those same principles, those very first
principles. We don't go beyond Christ. We don't leave Christ. We don't
go from the message of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ.
We learn more of that. More of it. When Paul first visited
Corinth, nobody there had ever even heard the truth of the Gospel.
They had never heard the Gospel. All he was dealing with was Carloman.
And he was there 18 months. And he knew that if God had given
life to anybody in that 18 months, at best, he's preaching to babies
in Christ. And so that's how he preached
when he was there at Corinth. He didn't preach with strong
meat. That was different than me preaching here. When I'm preaching
here to you, I'm preaching to a mixed congregation. You're
preaching to some who are carnal, don't know God, they're overgenerate.
You're preaching to some who are babies in Christ, preaching
to some who are more mature in Christ. So it's a mixed congregation,
but it's one gospel. You preach Christ and Him crucified.
You declare the truth of Christ to be crucified. And the Holy
Spirit takes the first principles and feeds the baby. And He takes
the, as the points develop, same message, He takes the stronger
meat, He feeds the more mature believer. We're not dealing with
deep things tonight. The subject is milk for babies. And that's what we're dealing
with. Milk for babies. Milk for babies. but the milk
is Christ and the meat is Christ. You think that might be elementary,
but I'm telling you brethren, you listen to the world preaching,
what you hear them say is there's an evangelical message and they
might talk about Christ in that message a little bit, but then
most of what they preach, we go beyond that. We get to deeper
stuff and by that they mean Ain't nothing in it about Christ. It's
all about what you got to do. That's not stronger meat. That's
leaving Christ. That's not going stronger into
Christ. That's leaving Christ altogether.
No, the milk is Christ and the meat is Christ. Now, when I preach
here, you know, we're preaching a message that that usually is
more little more developed a little more involved and so there's
there's the milk and the meat together tonight I'm being a
little more simple but elementary but on the fourth Friday we don't
have place here to have to teach the kids so they you know we
get together one month once Friday a month and we have a Bible class
for the kids when we do that I'm preaching to them the same
doctrine of Christ, but I'm not developing it as fully as when
I preach here. For instance, when I preached
1 Corinthians 6 through chapter 2, verses 6 through 16, I preached
one message to our young people on that. Just one message. And
just touched on each verse a little bit. We had four messages here
on those verses, and we dealt with a lot stronger meat in those
verses than we did when I talk to young people. You see, I'm
just trying to show you here that when Paul was preaching
at Corinth, he knew who he was dealing with. He wasn't dealing
with folks who knew the gospel. And so he preached Christ and
Him crucified. That's all he preached was Christ
and Him crucified. But he preached the first principles
of Christ and Him crucified. Now, this is my last thing I
want to deal with. What are these principles? What
are these first principles he's talking about? These elementary
basic doctrine of Christ. What is that? Well, it's the
truth that the Holy Spirit reveals to every single child of God
that's born of God. Every child that's born of God
is taught these first principles. Every one of them. He doesn't
teach some one thing and some other. He teaches all of them
these first principles. Every child of God that's born
of God is taught these first principles. This is the foundation.
What is it? Look over at verse 11. Other
foundation. That's the first. That's the
principle. Other foundation can no man lay that is laid which
is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Christ is the foundation. He's the one foundation. He's
the only foundation. The one foundation. Now, each
of these principles that we hear and we learn, they're taught
as we behold Christ. They're taught in the light of
Christ. Christ is the truth. Christ is
the light. You're not going to behold any
truth or any light unless you behold Christ. So all these principles
come from seeing Christ and hearing of Christ. And as we grow, this
foundation that's laid and then we build on this foundation line
upon line, Precept upon precept, we're not leaving Christ, we're
building on Christ. We continue to preach Christ.
We're preaching, drinking deeper into Christ. But it's still Christ.
Alright? Now look, turn to Hebrews 6.
I'll show you here these principles. These first principles, this
one foundation. This is the milk of the gospel.
We're going to look at what he's dealing with here in Hebrews
5 and 6 later, when we get to verse 3 of our text next time. But I want tonight for you just
to focus on these principles. Verse 1, Hebrews 6, verse 1. Therefore leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ. You might better write there,
building on the principles of the doctrine of Christ. That's
how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 3, building on these principles
of Christ. But you see there, they're principles. They're principles of the doctrine
of Christ. He says, let us go on to perfection. That word means
maturity. Let's grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not laying again the foundation.
See, this is the foundation. What does he mean by not laying
again the foundation? He means we shouldn't have to
prove these truths over and over and over again. Why don't I have
to every time that we preach, you know, turn and say, now let
me show you this first. You know, there's some things
you get so that you, okay, we've got that and we move, you can
go a little deeper with it, you know. But now let me show you. This is what I want you to focus
on tonight. These first principles of the
doctrine of Christ. This foundation of the doctrine
of Christ. This is what the Holy Spirit
is going to teach every baby that is born of God, right here.
From the very beginning, every born again child of God is taught
the doctrine of repentance and faith. Everyone, this is the
first principle, verse 1. He says, the foundation of repentance
from dead works and faith toward God. Now that's a principle that
every sinner got to be taught in the beginning. When the Holy
Spirit makes you behold the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit
makes you behold Him and you behold Christ in His wisdom. You see Christ is the wisdom
of God by the Spirit of God revealing Christ in you. You see Christ
is the righteousness of God. You see Him as the holiness of
God. You see this perfect person who
knew no sin, who thought no sin, who did no sin. You see this
perfect person who had to come into this place where we live
because His people could not save ourselves. That's why He
had to come here. And you see Him, you behold Him. And when you behold Him and His
perfect accomplished work of redemption that He accomplished,
the first thing He does is He makes all of your so-called righteousness,
your very best deeds. I'm not just talking about your
sinful deeds. I'm talking about your very best
efforts at pleasing God. and of walking before God and
gaining acceptance with God and making God accept you and making
yourself righteous before God, you behold, your very best efforts
are filthy rags. They're just dead works, worthless
works before God. Worthless before God. The grace
of God is free. That means God, this got to be,
you got to grasp this from the very beginning when God teaches
you. The grace of God is free. That means God's not looking
at your person in any capacity. He's not looking at you to say,
You know, there's anything that makes you better than somebody
else, or worse than somebody else. It's not based on any good
or evil in us, brethren. That's grace. It's free grace. Free grace. By the Spirit of
God, we're made to look at Christ, and we behold Christ, and in
the light of Christ, in His wisdom, His righteousness, His holiness,
we see we couldn't make ourselves righteous. We couldn't give ourselves
life, much less make ourselves righteous. Have you been made
to know that? God made you to know that. This
is one of the first things God makes you to see and know. I
couldn't make myself holy. I couldn't sanctify myself. I
couldn't separate myself. I couldn't free myself from the
justice of God, from the justice I owed to God. I couldn't free
myself from condemnation. Christ has to be my redemption.
And so from the very beginning, we're taught all our works of
righteousness are nothing. They're dead works. And God,
when he teaches you this, God gives repentance. The prince
of life is the one that the apostle said in Acts, he grants repentance. And when God gives you repentance,
He gives you a radical change of mind and heart. You'll radically
see things totally different than the way you saw them before.
Those works you were hugging up on and thought, boy, this
is going to really commend me to God, they become stinking,
filthy. You want to get as far away from
that mess as you possibly can. And the flip side of that coin
is faith in Christ. Faith and repentance are two
sides of the same coin. When He gives you repentance,
He gives you faith. He makes you willing in the day
of His power. You don't have this willingness
before this, but in the day of His power, He makes you willing
to cast every bit of your care into Christ's hand and leave
it there. Leave it there. Now, this is
the first principle. Repentance from dead works and
faith toward God. This is the first principle.
Alright? Now, when He grows you in grace
and He grows you in knowledge of Christ, you don't leave repentance
from dead works and faith in Christ. You don't leave that
doctrine. You learn more. You learn more about what your
dead works are. Do you know more? You know more
that you that have been in the faithful life, you see some more
about what your dead works are now than you did in the beginning,
don't you? You thought your dead works were just, you know, this
act and that act and this other, what have you. Now you see, everything
I think and do is just deadness. If I touch it, it's deadness.
You grow to see more of faith. You grow to see that Christ is
the faithfulness of God. And you grow to see that with
Christ dwelling in you, the faith of your faith Not something you've
upholding or you're mustering up. It's Christ in you. It's
the faith of your faith. Isn't that what Paul said? The
life I now live, I live by the faith of Christ. And that's what
that means. The faith of Christ. Christ living
in me. It's His faithfulness. These
are things you learn as you go. You grow to learn these things.
That's stronger me. But you don't leave the first
principle. You just grow on it. and build
on it. Alright, here's the next thing.
From the beginning, every new-born-again child of God is taught this principle.
We're taught the doctrine of the sin-cleansing power of Christ's
blood. Verse 2, Hebrews 6, 2. The doctrine
of baptisms. Now the reason that word baptisms
is plural here, and it could be the doctrine of washings is
what it could be translated, because he's talking about Hebrews
is a commentary on Leviticus. And he's talking about all those
divers washings in the Old Covenant. You know how they had all different
kinds of washings in the Old Covenant. I'll give you an example.
Turn over to Hebrews 9. You're taught, brethren, that
it's not any kind of washing except for the cleansing of Christ's
blood that washes us. Only His blood washes us from
our sin. And look here, Paul says that
right here in Hebrews 9 verse 13. if the blood of bulls and
of goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean." See,
that was one of those different kinds of washings under the Old
Testament. They took the blood of bulls
and goats and they took these ashes of a red heifer and they
mingled them together and they took hyssop and they would sprinkle
that on you. And if you had been defiled by
death, you touched death in any way, you walked over a grave
and you didn't even know the grave was there, you were defiled.
It's to show you that that there's no possible way you can move
a muscle, take a breath or do anything without you being defiled. That's what God's law taught.
And so then they would take this blood and this ashes and this
hyssop and they would take that hyssop and dip it in there and
they would sprinkle that person and ceremonially that would wash
them from this defilement of sin. Well, look what he says
here. Well, if that did that ceremonially,
he said, if it sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, how
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge, wash, cleanse
your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. This
repentance from dead works, you know what it is? It's God washing
your conscience with the blood of Christ and cleansing you and
purging you. So you can see, these are dead
works. But only the blood of Christ
does that. If we confess our sins, Scripture said, He's faithful
and just to forgive our sins. And the blood of Christ cleanseth
us from all sins. But it's only the blood of Christ.
It's only the blood of Christ. And I'll tell you something else,
the baptisms here also talks about baptism. Because under
the Old Covenant, there was all kinds of baptisms. Different
kinds of immersions that they had in the Old Covenant. And
we learned through the Holy Spirit from the very beginning. We learned
something about when Christ was immersed. You know what baptism
is? Christ's baptism was Christ being
immersed. in the judgment and justice of
God into death on behalf of His people. And then He came out
of that immersion. He came out of that judgment
and out of that death and sat down at the right hand of God
brand new. And when He went into that immersion,
His people went into it. When He went into that death,
the body of our sins died. And when He came out, all His
people came out brand new in Him. And that's what we're picturing,
that's what we're typifying when we're baptized, when we follow
the Lord in baptism. This is the very first thing
God teaches His child. Romans 6 says, therefore, we're
buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
also we shall walk in newness of life. Our body of sins has
died. It's buried. Isn't that good
news? And the new man is raised with Christ. Now, we don't leave
that principle. We don't quit preaching that
principle. We just learn more and more and
more and more and more about it. And grow in that knowledge
of it and stronger and learn more of it and eat the stronger
and stronger meat of that doctrine. Okay, look here. Here's another
one. Verse 2, Hebrews 6, 2. Every
believer at the beginning is taught the doctrine of imputation.
Verse 2, he says, and the doctrine of the laying on of hands. The laying on of hands. That's
still, you know, he's referring to the Old Testament. Remember
the priest? The priest would take that spotless lamb, and
he brought it to the priest. The priest laid his hand on the
head of that spotless lamb, and he confessed the sins of all
Israel. Not the sins of people outside
of Israel, but the sins of Israel. And He put them on the head of
that lamb. Now when He put those sins on the head of that lamb,
ceremonially, typically, as a picture, now that lamb is guilty. So you
know what happened to that lamb? They killed him. They killed
him. Now that was a picture. But it
pictured what God actually did with His Son. 2 Corinthians 5.21
says, hath made Him sin for us, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. We got to be taught this from
the very beginning, that my sin was made, Christ was made my
sin, and Christ's righteousness hath been made by Christ. So
that when God purges that conscience and He, through faith, through
the channel of faith, He imputes to you the righteousness of Christ,
it's because that's what Christ has made us, brother. He made
us the righteousness of God. And what a glorious doctrine.
What a deep doctrine. At the very best, even when we
grow to maturity, we're still just tippy-toeing in this pool. This is an ocean right here.
But you don't leave it. You grow in it. It's milk. and
it grows to be meat. Learn more and more of it. Look
here now. Every child's taught the doctrine
of resurrection. Verse 2, of resurrection of the
dead. Not just that there's a resurrection.
Most everybody, whether they've been born of God or not, believe
something to that effect. But when you're born of God,
you're taught that when Christ arose, we arose in Christ. And when Christ sat down at the
right hand of the Father, we sat down at the right hand of
the Father. That's what Ephesians 2, 5 says. Even when we were
dead in sins. As far as yet, we never knew
anything about it when we were dead in sins. We were quickened
together with Christ. All by grace. So that He raised
us up together, and He made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ. So that in the ages to come,
so that when Cheryl D'Armiento would be born one day, she'd
go all these years, and then one day she'd be sitting in a
firehouse in New Jersey, and God would teach her the gospel
and quicken her to life. Why? Why did He do that? Because
He already raised you and quickened you in Christ. Raised you to
the right hand of the Father. And you grow in that. You grow
on. You go on learning more about
this doctrine. You go on learning that Christ
Himself is the resurrection and the life. I'm not looking for
an event. I'm looking for a person. A person. And then look here. And then
we learn this very first. We learn eternal judgment. Eternal judgment. We're taught
that we all must stand before God in the judgment. But everybody
knows that. If a man acts like he don't know
that or he denies that, he's just trying to fool himself.
He's just trying to put it out of his mind. But when God teaches
you in the heart, this is what God teaches His child. Turn over
Romans chapter 8. God teaches His child this, that
when Christ went to that cross, and Christ suffered in the room
instead of His people on that cross, and He cried out, it is
finished, the judgment, the eternal judgment was settled for all
those Christ died for. It was done. God freely justified
us. It was done. And now when He
quickens you and He gives you life and faith and repentance
and brings you, washes you with His blood and brings you from
your dead works to rest entirely in Christ, this is what He teaches
you about eternal judgment. Romans 8.1. There is therefore
now, right now, no condemnation. There's no judgment. To them
which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but
after the Spirit. You see? These are things we
got. If we're not taught these things
in the beginning, if we're not taught these first principles,
if this is not the foundation that's laid, if this is not the
milk we've been made to drink of in the beginning, then we
would still be trusting ourselves for something. But you see, everything
about these first principles takes the work out of our hands,
puts it all in Christ's hand. It settles the matter. I'm saved
by Christ. Totally. And this matter of eternal
judgment, when you learn more about it, and you grow and get
to the stronger me, what you learn is, not only was it settled
at the cross, not only was it settled when God made me to know
it in my heart, not only will it be settled when I get to judgment
day and that day and stand before God, not only will God have nothing
to say to me in Christ, this thing was settled from eternity.
It was settled before the foundation of the world. That's stronger
meat. You see this thing has been done
from the beginning. But you start with this milk.
We never leave Christ. We never leave the foundation.
We never go beyond the doctrine of Christ. We build on it. We
build on these first principles. The Spirit makes us drink deeper
and deeper into Christ. And we go from milk to meat as
we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Now, that's why Paul
said, I preach to you like I preach milk to you. Because I had to. I'm dealing with carnal men and
babies at best. So I fed you with milk. Fed you
with milk. Now next time, here's what we're
going to see. Next time, he's going to tell us they yet had
a problem. In verse 2, neither yet now are
you able. Uh-oh. That's a problem, isn't
it? For you're yet carnal. Whereas
there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you
not yet carnal and walk as men? And we'll deal with that next
time. Lord willing. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. We pray that You would feed Your babies in Christ. Feed them the milk. Make them
to be nourished. and the sincere milk of the Word. Lord, we pray that You would
give those that You've grown, that You would feed them, make
them to see the wisdom in the milk, just like in the meat. Make us to not tire, not to grow
weary of hearing the very first principles even the stronger
things and at best to know, Lord, even when we've learned, been
taught by You, we're still just babies. We're still ever dependent
upon Your mercy and upon Your grace to teach us. Make us put
away everything that would hinder us and everything that would
cause us to have our growth stunted. And make us come to the Word. Make us get into Your Word, and
get into Your Gospel, and hear it, and drink it, and be nourished
by it. Lord, this is what we need. We
need to feed upon Your Gospel. Make us to do that. Make us put
away the carnal things, and put away the things that are coming
between us and the Word, and make us feed upon the Word. As
our brother said, we've never had the Word like we've had it
in our day. Lord, don't let us take that
for granted. Make us feed on the Word, and grow us thereby. We pray this, Lord, for Christ's
sake, for Christ's honor, for Christ's glory, and for your
glory in Christ. Amen.