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We are thine.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming is unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious ye also, as lively stones are built up a spiritual house.
And holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling in a rock of offense.
Even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, where unto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy.
But now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the King as supreme.
Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that both that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness. But as the servants of God honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king, servants, be subject to your masters with all fear.
Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. For this is thank worthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
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For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently, But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently? This is acceptable with God. For even here unto where ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps.
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled, reviled not again when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live under righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed, For ye were a sheep going astray, but are now returned under the shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
Just to read the last four verses of chapter one, that seems to blend into the wherefore of the second chapter in first verse. Seeing ye have purified your souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.
But the word of the Lord endures forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore, laying aside, well, just.
An exercise that I've had in connection with tying together the 2nd chapter with what went immediately before.
It certainly does connect because he's going to go on now and talk about the subject of growth and how we grow. In fact, you get this in Peter. And the 2nd epistle ends with an exhortation to grow, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But there has to be life for there to be growth. And how do we receive that life? We're not talking about natural life. We're talking about divine life, spiritual life. And how do we receive that life? Well, everyone of us here that are the possessors of divine life this afternoon, it's the result of having heard the Word of God in some way. Perhaps we heard it from our parents. Perhaps we heard it in a meeting like this or a gospel meeting. Perhaps it was from reading a tract or perhaps opening this blessed book for one reason or another and reading it. But as Brother Stan has pointed out, we're born again.
Not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever.
That is, it's the word of God in the power of the Spirit that God uses to impart divine life to us. But just as in natural things, afterlife is given, then we expect growth. Any one of us who have raised children, we get concerned if there isn't proper growth.
We talk about how surprised we are to see our children and young people from time to time and how they've grown and so on. And we say, oh, I can't believe that young person has grown like that.
But by the same token, if they hadn't, wouldn't we be concerned if we came to meetings like this and we saw children and young people of other parents that we hadn't seen for a few months and we didn't see some proper growth and maturity and natural things, why we'd be concerned? We go to that parent, we'd say maybe there's something wrong. And so it's interesting that as our chapter opens, he talks about the things that hinder normal growth in our in our spiritual life.
We have divine life. We have that life imparted to us by God in the power of the Spirit. Now he says there ought to be, there ought to be growth. There is a progression in spiritual things. He says don't let some of these things that he lists here hinder that growth.
They're going to, Someone has said it's like weeds in a garden. If you don't pull the weeds, they're going to hinder the proper growth of the plants. You don't expect to sow seed and go back in a few months and have mature plants that have grown properly if you haven't weeded and tended that garden in the proper way. And so as we look at this list, let's remember that these are the things that are going to hinder growth if they're allowed to be in our personal lives.
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It's going to hinder personal growth and it's going to hinder growth and proper relationships together in divine things as well.
Says to lay.
And I think it takes some getting into the presence of the Lord to realize that many times.
These things are in our lives, brethren. Sometimes we like to exonerate ourselves, but these things do get in and we need to be careful that they don't have a place there in our hearts. And all malice. It's just bad stuff. Lay it aside.
All guile that's pretending to be what we're not. Hypocrisies too. And envies.
And all evil speakings. How easy it is to let our minds go and speak negatively about God's people.
We really need to be careful not to do that. If that's the thing that takes place, we need to lay it aside. Just feel very strongly, brethren, that we take time sometimes to speak.
About negative things about our dear brethren.
Do we take time to pray for those brethren? That's what we should do.
You know.
Moses had two siblings.
Aaron and Miriam. Miriam was the oldest and Aaron was the next and Moses was the youngest and they got perturbed at Moses one time.
Because he had taken an Ethiopian woman to wife.
But they started speaking madly about him, and the Lord was not pleased with that, whether it was right or not what they said.
Brethren, we need to be careful what we say about God's people. God loves His people. Even when they are disobedient or stiff necked, He still loves them. And if you're going to do anything about negative reports, get down on your knees and pray for those, dear brother. That's what we need to do to have the proper attitude towards them.
That's what it is. Notice that evil speaking is the last of the list and it's really the result of fruition of letting the other things develop in our hearts. If you speak about praying for one another and you and I really can't get down truly in the presence of God and pray by name for individuals and hold these things in our hearts, often the remedy is to pray in the presence of God by name, and not just in general, but by name.
And circumstance for these for a brother or sister in Christ and you'll find that it will take care of the.
Uh, malice, the guile of hypocrisies and the envyings. And if those things are taken care of, then we're not going to speak evil one of another. But I say that because it tells us out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And if I come to you after this meeting and talk about a brother or sister in an evil way, in a bad way, it's going to be because I have perhaps for some time harbored in my heart some evil thoughts. Evil speaking is the result of evil thoughts.
And so we need to get these things judged in the presence of the Lord, as Bob said. And I think we can't emphasize enough the praying for one another by name and need. That's what Epiphros did. He prayed for the Saints, and there was a great blessing as a result of it. But I say the evil speaking is the last on the list.
Because it is the result of holding these other things in our hearts. Let me ask the question. You know the answer, and I do too. What man is mentioned in the New Testament as the only one whose failure in the Old Testament is told in the New?
I remember those of us are a little older remember a brother saying the only failure of an Old Testament St. recorded in the New is in Romans 11 verse two. He made intercession to God against Israel.
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And then there's a verse in James that is very similar to our verse and James four and verse 11. It says speak not evil one of another brethren. Now I'm no Greek scholar, but I can look up books that that purport to be and that word for evil is not what we usually think of as evil. I may be sarcasm. It may be a criticism of one sister against another for the way she she has her hair or doesn't seem to be able to coordinate colors or or men that would say, well, he certainly doesn't understand Scripture as much as he thinks he does or.
So those are evil things. It's, it's inconsistent with seeing our brethren from the top of the rocks, isn't it?
So we shouldn't hide behind the fact that, well, I know what evil is, evil is evil, but I don't do that. Well, that's a.
That's a cop out, isn't it?
So in the beginning of verse 22 read it says they're seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. And so Peter speaks of obedience and disobedience in this particular epistle. I just bring call to attention in verse two. He speaks of part way through, he says through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. So he brings before them the obedience of the Lord himself and then in verse 14.
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former less in your ignorance. And then in verse 22 There and then he speaks other times in in our chapter chapter 2 of disobedience in verse 7 unto them which be disobedient. The stone which the builders disallowed the same as made the head of the corner. And then they stumble at the word, being disobedient, where unto also they were appointed.
And so in chapter 3 it says, if any obey not the word, that they may also, that they also may without the Word be won by the conversation of the wives. And so we'll enter into these things and enjoy them. If we walk as obedient children, we cannot walk in the will of the flesh and bear fruit for God. And so as we just read these portions of Scripture, if there are those things that trouble us, then there needs to be that self judgment, the knife of self judgment applied, that we might be able to judge it in the presence of God.
And walk as obedient children.
Or.
Going through these verses to recognize the place of new birth.
And the exhortation that's connected with it in the first chapter.
It says in verse 23 being born again and then in the chapter where we read in verse two as newborn babes, the connection is important is because in verse one you have what belonged to the old life. That's why it says put it aside because we had.
Everyone of us had hearts born with hearts that were characterized by malice, guile, hypocrisy and so on. It is our nature as fallen to have those things in US. And so the foundation of Peters exhortation.
Was based on the fact that they had they were born again and they belong to the family of God.
And now, as newborn children in God's family, they were to put aside those things that belonged or characterized them in the family before.
An illustration of it he uses the expression newborn babes because even in natural things, although every child is born with these things, they develop themselves and are manifested in the life as a child grows.
There's a little girl in this room named Emma, and you'll probably some of you see her and Emmas. Not quite a year old. She doesn't. She wouldn't know what it meant. An expression to show malice.
Emma wouldn't know Guile if she saw it.
There's a simplicity seen at first we call the innocence of the child.
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In natural things, because a child doesn't know at first, they have to learn by practice, since watching older people sometimes how to express pretend and pretense and things. And so Peter is saying to his brother, and you have a new life, put aside the things of the old light and be like a little baby, be like a little child.
You have a life, which, thankfully enough, we do. The life that is to be shown in US doesn't know what guile is and never will.
It doesn't know what evil speaking is and never will. It's a perfect it's the life of Christ in US and everyone of these things that are spoken of in verse one. You think about the Lord Jesus and you say impossible, impossible. There was never seen in him hypocrisy or guile. Well, brethren, you've got the life, you have that life, you have the life and I have the life in which there is no God.
There is no hypocrisy, Peter says. Live it, live it like a little child and put aside those things that came from that old bike, which is not the life you're to live anymore.
Concerning Christ because two, isn't it?
The real offering?
How do we get this like?
Born of the water and of the Spirit, the water being the word of God and the.
Spirit taking that word and imparting new life through the hearing of faith.
Peter calls that the incorruptible sea.
Then we know what sage is, we're in farm country, we know what it is to plant the garden.
Who planted the seed?
So behind work, isn't it?
It's only ever gone.
But he uses human instruments, doesn't he?
That's right.
It's interesting in verse two it says as newborn babes I noticed the new translation says earnestly desire the sincere milk of the word. I enjoy watching a little baby when he's hungry.
Grabbing that bottle and the whole energy of that baby is to get the milk out of that bottle into his tummy.
And that's the picture. We should never lose our appetite for the precious Word of God. You know, in my mind's eye, many of you remember dear brother AC Brown.
It's out in California. I'll never forget how he read the scriptures when he in a reading like this. But he was just as if he was afraid he was going to miss a drop of this precious word. He would read it like this as newborn babes.
Desire the sincere milk of the word.
Giving emphasis to every word, brethren, it's the living, the abiding Word of God. This is what's going to make you and I grow in our faith, and we should never lose the appetite for it. I don't suppose it be right to say that everybody here is obeyed. No, there are those who have grown in the faith. But we should, as newborn babes, never lose our appetite for that precious.
Word of God There's another word here that I think is good to explain this sincere milk of the word unadulterated.
When we lived in Bolivia, I remember a man used to go by the front door of our house every morning.
Crying out milk, milk for sale. And we'd often go out there and buy a liter or two off of him. But then we found out that to make his profits a little better, he added a little bit of water to the milk. It was not unadulterated milk, the brethren.
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This book is the unadulterated mind of God. Think of it that God has communicated to us and that's what's going to feed. That's what's going to make us grow in our spiritual lives. How precious it is precious it is to open this book on a daily basis and drink of this unadulterated milk. We have good books of ministry.
But there's always the danger in books of ministry that something of human thoughts will enter in. That's why we're told despise not prophesying. But it then goes on to say, prove all things hold fast that which is good. So we listen to prophesying, but we all have our Bibles open, and we should test it by this standard. This is the only completely pure standard.
I was thinking when Brother Dawn was mentioning how that the little child learns those things that are in verse one by seeing them and others but as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word.
I don't know if any of you brothers have had this experience. You may have picked up one of your grandchildren and as of infinite, hold it against your.
Your body and you know, without even knowing it, the child turns the head as it was going to be fed, not realizing that you're incapable of doing this. But that's the instinct. That's the new newborn. Instinct is not taught. It's, it's part of that child's being. It knows that food is there, knows which way to turn.
So that's interesting, isn't it, as far as you meet a new believer and they just want to drink in everything you can tell them about the word.
We should be like that continuously.
The problem is that we allow things that spoil our appetite or distract our appetite from the sincere milk of the word. When I was a boy, I grew up in a home where my father was the old school and he felt that a child should drink an 8 oz glass of milk at every meal. And certainly there was nothing wrong with that. And so we learned to drink milk and to enjoy milk. But when I was about 12 years of age, I ended up in the hospital for several weeks.
And for some reason, whether space or whatever, instead of putting me on a child or youth ward, they put me on the adult ward and they served me tea and coffee every day.
And you know, have drinking tea and coffee every day. At 12 years of age, I lost my desire for milk. Something came in and spoiled my appetite for milk. And in natural things, I have never really learned to drink milk again. And anyone who's had me in their home will know that if they offer me a glass of milk, I will flatly refuse it. One thing I really can't drink, even to be polite. But my appetite was spoiled for milk at that time. And Brother and I believe that we need to learn or be careful that we don't allow things to spoil our appetite for the sincere milk of the word.
Now, some of the things not to go back that were, but that were listed in the first verse, they can distract us and spoil our appetite for the sincere milk of the word. But I believe there are other things too that come into our lives. If we're it's a question of what we're drinking and feeding on. Where are we drinking from? Are we drinking from the things of this world, the joys of this world? Are we feeding on the husks of this world? It's going to spoil our appetite for the sincere milk of the word.
Often said, and you've heard me say it many times, if I made sure my girls ate a good healthy breakfast and drank a glass of milk before they went out the door to school in the morning. They weren't so apartment to want some soda pop and something that wasn't good for them at recess because their appetite was already satisfied with good wholesome food that which was good for them. And brother and I believe the more we drink in the precious word of God, the more we will develop an appetite for it.
The more their self judgment in our lives to keep out the things that hinder our enjoyment and our growth in spiritual things, the more we are going to desire the sincere milk of the Word. But I need to stop as we all do today and really ask our own hearts, do I really? Does this desire the sincere milk of the word? When I get up in the morning? Is that my first thought? Not just to get a good stiff cup of coffee to get on my way?
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But is my thought to enjoy something of the sincere milk of the Word to drink in, take time and energy to drink in something of the precious Word of God that will sustain me for the day as I face the world. That will refresh my spirit and my soul as I go out into a spiritual wilderness where there's nothing to sustain the new man or refresh the spirit. Plenty to feed our lusts and the flesh and the old. The feet are the flesh, and so on. But.
Nothing to feed the Newman in this world, nothing to refresh. Are we drinking in the sincere milk of the Word every day? And is it really our desire?
That's quite a question to ask.
No, the Old Testament suggested or mandated that the kings write out a copy of the word of God, and you know versions of that I've taken.
Access to my computer and I have what I called special verses. Pretty soon I realized that the call them special verses was to put down those that I didn't choose as not being special. So it was a poor term.
But I've gone through Isaiah and Jeremiah.
And Psalms and Proverbs. And now I have on my computer those verses that have been chosen from Isaiah and Jeremiah and Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah. And I can go back and, and sometimes I look and see, oh, that verse is so special, how could I possibly have left it out?
But you know and encourage young people have a notepad, have something that you in addition to reading you write down because the early due of morning has passed away at noon and in the afternoon. If you would ask me, Brother Stan, what did you enjoy this morning?
Oh, I wish I hadn't asked me. I've been so busy. But you know, write it down and if you keep it in your pocket or put it in the back of your Bible, though the person that rebound my Bible said the hardest thing on Bibles is to keep too many pieces of paper in the back. So do that as as you think best, but make notes of what you have read and and you can pick it up during the day and and retain it and it will mean so much more to you.
As you go on.
Verse three reads that.
If so, be have tasted the look that the Lord is gracious an.
Another way of reading that would be since ye have tasted a past tense if you are saved born again the first time you tasted the pure milk. The graciousness of the Lord is in salvation, wasn't it? So we have a past tense since you have tasted but the.
What he is writing here is that we need to continually keep tasting, the psalmist wrote Psalms 34 and eight.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
We learned he was gracious in salvation, didn't we? But we can continually taste and see that He is good also too, can't we? So there is the past tense in the current. Right now we need to taste. When we read this passage, did it give me some milk?
Yes, it did for myself. I can show you what it gave me for milk today. It gave me milk in one word. One word over in verse 23.
That word was committed.
It reminded me of Luke 23 and 46. Into thine hands I command my spirit.
He fed me with some milk on the little word, Commit into thy hands. I commend my spirit.
Look at First Peter chapter 4 and verse 19 together please.
First Peter 4 and 19. Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God.
Commit the keeping of their souls to Him and well doing as unto a fateful Creator. The only time in the New Testament that the words faithful Creator are used together.
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And it may be the only time in the whole Bible. I'm not sure on that. A faithful creator we have committed.
First Timothy 1:00 and 12:00 For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. The committal of our souls took place the first time we tasted the pure Word of God. It rang out in the heavens above, and it was accepted on high that we loved His Son, and believed and trusted in Him. And the Almighty God, the faithful Creator, accepted that vow.
And He saved our soul and we have committed that soul into His hands, into thine hands. I commend my soul. That was our Lord right on Calvary St. wasn't it? What fed you today in this passage? What is going to feed you in the pure milk when you get up out of your chair and you walk away? I just shared with you the little portion that fed me today with the communal committal that ring out in heaven. There's going to be something that the Holy Spirit.
Will guide and lead you with the passages that you read and you have to read them daily. You cannot leave it late to be fed with the pure milk of the Word of God.
But in the gathering of the manna, when the children of Israel gathered what God had provided for them in its pure form, we find that it was palatable and sweet. And I think of it in connection with the 34th Psalm and our verse here about tasting that the Lord is gracious. I say it was palatable and sweet because we find that it tasted like wafers and honey when they tried to do other things with it, beat it and put it in a mortar and bake it and so on.
It tasted like fresh oil. I'd rather eat wafers than and honey than fresh oil, but in the way God gave it to them in the purity of its original form. It was all that they needed for the wilderness journey and it was sweet to the to the taste. And so we've been Speaking of the sincere milk of the word, the pure milk of the word and brethren, it's true has been said that there are many things that have been written that are helps on the word of God and so on. But we need to if we're going to really take.
Of the goodness of the Lord and that the Lord is gracious. We need to get back to the simplicity that is in Christ. We need the pure milk of the word. Not that there ought to be growth and in our souls. Not that there ought to be a deepening of the appreciation and understanding of things in our souls. And sometimes those helps that are written and good Christ exalting ministry is a help. It is and I we don't want to discredit it in any way, but we need to take the Word of God in the pure form that God gave it.
And one of the great sins of Israel in the wilderness was that they despised the simple manna that God gave them. Brethren, let's be careful that we don't despise the manna that God has given us, or in our the illustration used here, the sincere milk of the Word.
In the 78th Psalm it says.
Man did eat Angels food. He sent the meat to the full.
Marvelous.
Been said, I'd just like to give emphasis to it.
Spiritual food, the Word of God is the life, the food of the life of.
That we have when we're born again.
It is vital. It isn't just maybe or maybe not. If you look at a person and they aren't eating physical food, they're starving.
And if you look at a person who is not feeding on the word of God, they're starving. If there's a person in this room who does not read the word of God every day, you're starving.
Young people, did you hear it? When I sometimes hear a young person say, well, I don't read the word of God all the time. I don't necessarily say it to their face, but in my heart, in my understanding, I know they're starving.
It is the light, the life of the new life, it's the food of that life, and it will be so forever. It's not going to stop when we get to heaven.
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We are going to continue to feed on the Word of God forever. It is the food of our life and we need it now. You can't live properly without it. And the wonderful thing about the food that God provides is just to give emphasis to it. Again, it's Bob used the expression unadulterated. Mr. Darby translates it pure.
It's absolutely pure food. You feed on some of the, I'm going to say mental food that this world provides and it draws out the lust of the heart.
It's impure.
It is that which promotes sin in the life because it is an impure mental food.
But the word of God is pure food. It you'll never read it and it in such a way that it will ever stir you to ever want to sin. There's not a bit of it that promotes sin in the soul because of the purity and the way that God is given to us and consequently we need it. It's vital. It's not just knowledge.
It's not necessarily that you have to read it and learn something new every time. While we enjoy that and it's important you you eat a meal.
You needed the meal whether you got any new knowledge about food or not on that meal.
Or even you necessarily conscientiously enjoyed it more than some other time. But you have to have it and.
I say this particularly burden free on people. You gotta have it, read it every single day or you're going to starve. There's no in between. You either feed on it or you starve.
Brother in the Denver Assembly long ago went to be with the Lord and the fan without mentioning who he is because we know all too well and still missing that. They noted he was dying of cancer. And they noted after he had passed away that there was a time about 12 days before he passed away, he lost complete appetite. And they knew from precedence that.
Health care people know of that. That was the sign that his days were numbered.
And so is it that serious with what our brother Don has said that that you're not well? I, I don't think he meant that you're going to die of cancer, but the opportunity to be kept.
Is is lessened by not having the word of God each day? How important.
I've read alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and when you consider, brethren, how well we take care of our bodies, we take a good chunk of time every day, I would suppose close to an hour a day feeding these bodies.
Young people and older ones too. How much time do we take feeding on this living, abiding Word of God? So often it's easy to let other things push time for the Scriptures out of the picture. Do you understand the importance of reading the Scriptures? You will definitely take steps to spend time with the precious Word of God.
Something at least in the case of the man, and it says he that gathered little had no lack, and he that had gathered much had nothing over. So at least read a few verses a day. It's our life. It's what will feed that new life in Christ.
Proverbs chapter 23 we've been reading what a believer should feed on, and it's really begins with a taste in verse three. But in Proverbs chapter 23, there's a warning given there. And the Spirit of God says this in verse six. Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, say is he to thee, but his heart is not with thee.
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The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words. And So what this world is feeding on is filth, and it feeds on its sports and entertainment and all those things that appeal to the natural man. And it gives no nourishment to the believer, nothing at all. And the Spirit of God says, if you that's what you eat on, that's what you feed on, It says thou shalt vomit up and lose thy sweet words. You know when I'll just give a little illustration of that.
Some of you have heard me give it, but when I was a little boy, my twin brother and I, we used to live in a station house and it was heated by coal and there was a wood or a coal fire there, his little box stove. And when the fire went out, we would very carefully open up the door of that stove and we would go in there and we would play with the ashes.
And if my father caught us, we got a spanking. But if he didn't catch us, he wanted us to know why we were being spanked. So he didn't spank us if we didn't get caught. But you know what happens if you eat ashes is you, you vomit. It has no, no nourishment at all. And so every bit of nourishment has been passed through the fire, so to speak. And so, you know, we need to recognize that what this world is feeding on is filth. It's going to all be judged by a righteous and a holy God. And he gives us something.
Now to feed upon in our soul something of immense value and nourishment. It's the Word of God and it all speaks of Christ and that blessed manna. Why would we desire anything else? But if we get a taste for what this world is feeding on, it only begins with a taste. And that's what happened at the garden in the garden of the Lord with Adam and his wife. They just got a taste and what ruin it brought. And that's the same thing in our own lives, if we desire to just taste a little bit of what this world feeds on.
It breeds death and corruption.
Look at that first across the page here in the Proverbs 22.
And verse 20.
Have not I written to the excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth?
If we could get a taste of that, you know, it's such a wonderful book we've got in our hands.
Just like water. The doctor tells me to drink water and you probably haven't been in the habit. And the more you drink, the more you want to drink.
Was the word of God.
Turn these things.
I wish I had done this more when I was younger.
I wish I had read my Bible more. Ribs.
The Lord Jesus is presented to us here and elsewhere as food.
It's important to realize that we, through the Word of God, the Lord Jesus is brought before our hearts and our souls, and it's unto you, therefore, which as he says in verse three, if you have tasted that the Lord is good, there's a tasting.
In the soul of the person of the Lord Jesus and his work and.
So we read the word of God.
With that desire.
And we trust it's an increasing earnest desire in our souls to have more of himself for the heart. And God feeds us by occupation with the beauty, the perfection, the wonder of His Son. The manna in the Old Testament is a picture of the Lord Jesus. The old corn of the land is a picture of the Lord Jesus. And that's what the people, spiritually speaking, fed on.
And so we too, and whoever has enjoyed in their own heart the Lord Jesus and not said it's good.
It's impossible to have it otherwise. The life that God has given us finds satisfaction in feeding upon the sun. It is good. You can only say if someone doesn't find it good, that it's not the new life that's speaking, it's something else. Because the life that God has given us is newborn babes. Enjoy. We do enjoy. It can't be otherwise.
00:50:10
Satisfies the Newman, the new nature in US. And so he says, Well, if you tasted, have you not that the Lord is good?
We're going to feed on him forever and we want to get started now and.
If we do it in the right way, there's never indigestion, there's never anything that because of the purity of the food, whether it's little or much, it satisfies.
There's a beautiful bird in Leviticus 23. I'll just read it in verse 14. Now notice, and ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the South same day that you have brought an offering unto your God.
There is no possibility for unregenerate man to enjoy Christ as bread.
Incarnation, parched corn and death, nor green ears and resurrection until the South, same day that you have brought an offering unto your God. Marvelous. The aspects in which we can and do enjoy the person of Christ.
172.
Teach us more.
About the mistakes by the Lord, I want to make you cry.
And everybody is going to get your shake with God. I'm grateful, right?
00:55:13
Him, for we shall see him as he is.
The same transforming effect in this world, isn't it the same type of spiritual transformation?