Amen. Well, let us continue in our exposition of 1 Peter. We find ourselves in 1 Peter and chapter 2. This morning, as with God's help, we continue to consider this small epistle full of spiritual truth that must be ingested into our souls. And we come to the reading of this word, 1 Peter 2 and verse 1. Once again, this is God's holy word. We'll consider the first three verses. 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. Amen. May God bless the reading and especially the preaching of his holy word now. Well there are many perhaps disputable things when it comes to our physical nutrition these days. And with the internet all kinds of interesting theories are posited and put forth to us. It can be hard to understand sometimes what is actual science and what is not. But one thing that all seem to agree upon is that without a proper diet, one will be malnourished. A proper diet is necessary to grow and to be healthy. One cannot fight off disease, one cannot grow healthy, and one cannot do any of that without a good diet. All of you likely acknowledge it, though what you do with it may be very inconsistent. All things equal, bad nutrition leads to sickness and a general lack of well-being. Now the issue is the very same thing is true on the spiritual plane, on a spiritual level for our soul. We need soul food that is good. And the Bible here in our text says that it is the sincere or pure milk of the word that is necessary for you to grow healthy and to be kept free, especially from the disease that is sin, a disease that runs rampant in all of us. And if you are depressed, the physical analogy, we are all genetically predisposed to due to original sin and our corruption. And because of that, we are in need of soul food, spiritual health that comes from a particular place, the Word of God. There are many spiritually sick Christians because they have a terrible spiritual diet. Many of us who struggle with sin, and perhaps we have all the pieces, all the doctrines there in our mind, and yet we've never connected it together in our own practice. We recognize that there is sin in us. We recognize that we have a great struggle. And we recognize all of this, and sometimes we lament all of this, and yet we don't know what it is that we need for our soul to be nourished. so that we would be strong and be able to fight the good fight of faith, that we would be able to mortify our sin, to walk away from it, to live unto righteousness. We need power for that. We need health and vitality. You can't do it in your flesh. In fact, your flesh craves everything contrary and it has no strength in itself. You need nourishment and you must be humble enough to say, I need the pure milk of the word of God so that I can run my race and I could live after righteousness. And if you're not going to feed yourself on the word of God, don't be surprised that you are a sickly Christian. Even if somewhere in the bottom and in the recesses of your soul, you know that you must do better. It's not going to happen just in yourself. You need the grace of God through the spiritual sustenance, the spiritual bread from heaven, as it were, so that you might, as the apostle has exhorted us, be holy, even as I am holy, the Lord said in 1 Peter 1. That's been the general exhortation. You can't do it without spiritual food. And that's really the point here. If you're going to put away malice, if you're going to put away guile, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speakings, and if you are going to put on the opposite of that, which you saw at the end of chapter one and in verse 22, if you're going to put unfeigned love of the brethren and a fervent love for one another, the only way you're going to be able to do that is if you have this spiritual food operative in you to give you strength to do it. And so today, let's just consider this as our theme, growth in grace by the grace of the word, growth in grace by the grace of the word. And we'll consider that under three heads. First is flesh. Second is milk. Third is grace, flesh, milk, and grace. First, flesh. And in that we consider the evil that is still in us, in our flesh. We consider that we are still diseased in a sense. Every Christian would do well to remember that, that there's still disease in us. We're not glorified yet. And the apostle lays out much of the disease that still lingers in us. And it's an awful thing when you think about what still resides in the Christian. At the end of the prior chapter, he exhorted us to put on the new birth, the character of the new birth. And he focused on our relationship with our brethren in the church in verse 22, chapter one, seeing you 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. That was the charge that we received from the apostle, that we love one another with a pure heart. We love one another fervently. But there is a disease in us, in this chapter that you see that still resides, that is contrary to what we are called to be. Contrary to the new man. Contrary to the one who is born again. And so what we are to put away in verse one is laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings. These things are contrary to loving one another with that pure love. that we were exhorted to that is part and parcel of the character of the new birth, right? And the new birth, you have that expulsive power of a new affection that comes, which wants to love the brethren and wants to love God. But there is a residue here that hates even your own brethren. And you're to lay that aside. Why? Because you are born again. and a purified heart of faith now beats in your soul. And unholiness, all this unholiness that remains as residues to be put away. Because do these things belong to the new birth? Is malice part of the new birth? No, it's contrary to it. Was there ever any malice in Jesus Christ? Was there ever any guile? In fact, later in this chapter, Peter's going to say no guile was found in Jesus. This is not the new birth. This is the legacy and inheritance of a post-fall Adam. You find this tension in you, don't you brethren? And maybe you've been confused by that. I am born again. I am a Christian. Why do I still hate even my brethren at times? Why is it I do the things that are not good? There is this tension, there is this old fleshly man that is in us, carnality, that comes from our first conception. You remember in our New Testament reading in Ephesians 4, you heard of the old man and the new man. That old man belongs to your first birth. The new man belongs to the second birth. Ephesians 4 said, to put away the old and put on the new, that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt. You see, that's the original sin. Corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Same language that Peter has been giving in these last two chapters, corruption, holiness, these two principles war in you. This has great explanatory power for your experience, doesn't it? This explains Romans 7 as well. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present within me. And so if you've wrestled and you've struggled in these ways, that's not unusual. But that is normal for the Christian to do so. And yet the Christian is called to fight the good fight and to war against the indwelling corruption, not to make peace with it, but to lay it aside, to put it away by the help of God. The new birth does not desire malice, guile, hypocrisies, and envies, but your old birth does. The new birth desires unfeigned, fervent love for the brethren. And you are to put away all that is against the new birth. Now, Peter here is not comprehensive. He has been particularly in this section of his epistle, dealing with our relationships one to another in the church. But he gives here five characteristics of the old birth that needs to be put away, that is found far too often in Christian assemblies. I want to consider these five with you briefly as a survey so that we may better put these things to death. And that we may retain that mark of the Christian disciple and that mark of the Christian church that Jesus Christ said, all men will know us by, which is love one for another and put away everything that is contrary to that. So five characteristics. The first here is malice. That's malevolence, a desire and a disposition to harm others out of hatred. a disposition to injure. At its worst and in full blossom, you see this in something like premeditated murder. That's sort of the end of malice as it is fully formed. If it was given full reign in you, malice would lead to murder. Perhaps the most sobering reality then, as we look at this contrast of the old birth and the new, one of the most striking things you find about Adam's fall is what happens to his son immediately after, right? Conceived with corruptible seed, Adam's firstborn Cain. What is this man? The first generation of Adam's corrupt seed begets murder. A man who breaks both tables of the law with impunity, not giving to God the worship he is due. And we remember that he also slays his own brother out of malice. That is the old man born in Adam. Whenever you see a murderer in this life being convicted, you say that is the product of the old birth, of the corruption of original seed, original sin. and that residue is in me. That's still there, that potentiality is there in me. The Bible has you remember Cain in your own conduct, believer. 1 John 3, 11 and 12. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. See, we are to love one another. We are to not be as Cain who had malice in his heart, who was of the wicked one and slew his own brother. So you see malice here is in opposition to love. Now I dare say, say this with great grief, that churches are often filled with malice, even if they're not filled with murder. Quite often they're filled with malice. And the reason for that is malice is a heart matter. Malice is a matter of the heart. Now it may break out into words or actions, but where does malice begin? It begins in your own soul. It lodges there often, and it often stays there when no one else but you and God know about it. 1 John 3.15 says, whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hatred in the heart, that kind of malice is as the sin of murder. It is murder in seed form. Yes, actual murder, physical murder is more heinous. Absolutely. But to God, malice, hatred in the heart, hating your brother is as though God is looking upon a murderer, even you yourself, whenever you find this in your heart. In 1 John, John reminded us that Cain was of the wicked one. And so are we, if we give ourselves over to malice. I suppose it's always helpful for us to remember that when we have hatred and we have malice and we're taught, there is a righteous kind of anger, of course, which I'm not speaking of. This is malice that we are speaking of. It's good to remember who it is and whose character you are bearing. It's the devil himself. And the devil is a being of pure malevolence and pure malice. There is no love in that fallen angel's heart at all. All he does is he hates. He hates God and he hates those made in God's image. He is a spirit of pure malevolence. And even when he transforms himself into an angel of light and he looks very pleasing and he looks even very kind, what is behind all of that is maliciousness. And that's what you're going to see with these other aspects that the apostle Peter has. Guile, evil speakings, right? Hypocrisy. All of these things are of the devil and they're not of Christ. It's hard to believe. that this devil was once an angel of light and actually at one point loved God. But now he's been transformed by his own fall into something that is pure malice and evil. And the Christian has to do nothing, has nothing to do with that. Hatred and maliciousness, a desire to hurt others, does not belong to the Christian. As a new creature, you are made after Christ. And if there is one thing that is not found at all in the heart of the Redeemer, it is maliciousness. He died not only to cleanse you of malice, but he also died to remove malice from you, Christian, that you would be conformed after his image. And we considered, even in times of preparation for communion, as we think about how this text is dealing with the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 5, 7-8, And what's that old leaven? We considered this in our preparatory services. Neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. See, the old leaven is malice and wickedness. And when we think of the communion table in a text like that, we remember not just the communion table itself, but that we do have a communion one with another, generally speaking. with each other. And there is not to be any malice in the Christian community, one to another. That cannot be among God's people, though it often is, sad to say. Our communion is not a communion of malice and wickedness, but of sincerity, love, and truth. Malice does not belong to Christ. It belongs to the devil. It is to be put away. Second, there is guile. as a generality comprehended as lying, deceit, and duplicity, with a particular aim to manipulate another to a selfish or evil end. Craftiness. That too, you recall, is devilish. The slippery serpent, so subtle and crafty. Now the devil is called two things in particular, a murderer and a liar. And you find both here in these characteristics. He spoke lies that manipulated Adam and Eve to die. What was the root of that though? Malice? Malice? There's a connection often with malice and guile. Often there is, anyhow. Often guile is an expression of malevolence, though it's not always that. Other times, one employs guile to gain favor or position or an outcome. Someone will manipulate you, or maybe you will manipulate someone else, God forbid, in order to gain something for yourself. That you will do things and say things that are not true in order to gain something to yourself. And these things are not alien to the church, sad to say, this side of glory. Now guile also includes flattery. So we are to also be aware of that. Flattery is something that is often found in the church, sad to say, and that's a deceptive thing. It's prohibited under the ninth commandment, if you look at our larger catechism, because one who flatters is trying to puff up somebody else to maybe distort or push the truth or excessively speak of gifts and graces in such a way that manipulates them to show favor to themselves. That is something gross and sinful. I dare say that many in the church, especially in positions of leadership, have to deal with the temptation to be flattered. But we sang in Psalm 12 how it is that flattery is something abominable to God, that the Lord will cut off all with flattering lips. But in any case, guile is not to be found in us. In fact, what Jesus says is that rather than guile, A lack of it is what characterizes the Christian. Do you remember when he first saw Nathanael? What did he say? Here is an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. In fact, he's saying something like what characterizes the people of God is their relative innocence. Their speech is not something that is crafty. It doesn't manipulate. It speaks the truth in love. And it does not seek in any way to gain the advantage for themselves through their speech. So we are an upfront people, right? We speak the truth in love. We do not deceive. We do not exercise guile. And it's important for you to see this in your own savior, brethren. You look at verse 22 of chapter two of first Peter, when it says of Jesus who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Here is a true Israelite. Indeed, one who was not crafty, Your dealings with others, brethren, is not to be manipulative. You don't play people. You don't manipulate them for your own ends, especially not your brethren. You are upfront. You're upfront with them. You speak the truth, and you don't flatter. The third characteristic of the old man is hypocrisy. He says, love is to be sincere without pretense, but with sincerity and integrity. We've already talked about the unfeigned love of the brethren, which is what this is speaking of. But let me just remind you that the Christian, so I won't spend much time here, but the Christian wears no mask of friendship. The Christian does not hide hatred, contempt, indifference, or selfish ends in their relationship. It's interesting that that kind of thing is also devilish, isn't it? It's found in a man like Judas, who could betray the son of man with a kiss. What hypocrisy was there in that? To kiss the Redeemer? Kiss, of course, signifying peaceful relations, love, friendship. Hypocrisy in the church is very much like that. A betrayal of others with a kiss. Duplicity in the congregation must be eliminated. We are to put on an unfeigned love for the brethren. Paul in Romans 12, 9 says, but let love be without dissimulation, that is without hypocrisy. We don't say, I love you, brother. I love you, sister. And then we're going to see other characteristics here of envy and of backbiting, a slander. undermining, malice, or how can you wear the mask of a kiss, kissing your brethren, so to speak, but have malice for them in your heart? That is hypocrisy and it is vile. And the Lord sees all of this, right? We may not see through each other's masks, but the Lord does. And the Lord takes note. The fourth characteristic is envies. grieving at the good of others, at their gifts, graces, estate, labors, et cetera. When a brother or sister excels in our midst, when one excels over us, perhaps even one who was beneath us in gifting or learning or material estate or whatever else, and perhaps they shoot up above us, and we don't rejoice at that. But we envy at that or whatever it is that the Lord has given out of his own good pleasure. We envy at these things. That is sinful. You saw envy in Cain. Cain had an envy for the regard that God had for Abel's gift. What happens next? Bloodshed. Envy is not a small sin. how often it has led to all manner of other sins, even crimes committed, whether it be theft or even murder. When you cannot rejoice with them that rejoice, but when you are bitter at the good that the Lord has done to your brethren, your heart is not right. This is one of the blights in the church that is not always so easy to see, but it almost always will cause schism. in a congregation. It will cause division and you will find all other evils spring out of it. You even think about something like this. It's so sad when you see how congregations can be divided. You know, here we are a young congregation, Lord willing, one day there will be officer elections. Even when men are elected to office, you'll ask, you'll see people ask these things with bitterness. Why was that man elected and not me? Or why was that man elected and not my husband or not my father? Right? These are the kinds of things, you know, it's easy to say, yes, I should not envy, but then a situation and a scenario will come and you will find the residue of the old man is very strong, very strong. You will find In the church, things like this, and I'm just giving examples. I'm not saying that any of this is residing in any of you, though it well might be. Why did that one get married? Why am I single? And you will start to envy. Why is that one able to have children and I'm not able to? There are so many things that we envy. Look at the house that that one has, or even look at how great this one understands the scriptures and how people want to come and hear what this person has to say. There's so many ways that we can envy our brother or our sister, brethren. It's staggering to think about, but anytime we have the motion of envy, you need to put it down and you need to say to the Lord, this is not good. This is sinful. This is wicked. And the best way to deal with these is to have this kind of preventative medicine in the Word of God to confront your own soul and to tell yourself, these things are not right, they are devilish indeed. Then Peter says, evil speakings must be put away. Gossip, slander, defaming our brethren, backbiting would be under all of this, that's slandering. When our brethren are not present, that's a sin you will find in 2 Corinthians 12.20 and Romans 1.30. That is not of the Lord. That is not Christ-like. And every church seems full of it. You will find all kinds of gossip. You will find all kinds of defamation and slander behind people's back. This is one of those ultimate expressions of hypocrisy, where you will find people speak about you or you will speak about others in a way that you will not in front of them. And you will try or others will try to tear others down. And that is not of the Lord. Christ never gossiped. Christ never defamed. Christ never slandered, though he was slandered himself. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. He was the one who did not have guile in his mouth, but committed himself to the Lord. Christ did all things in the open. He spoke truthfully to his neighbor and of his neighbor. And yet, gossip and slander is far too prevalent in the Christian church. Both the Word of God and Christian experience show it. First of all, you're not to engage in that kind of behavior. Myself either. And second, if that kind of behavior is going on around, you are to say, I will not hear it. You need to starve such things of oxygen, even to rebuke the one who tells you something slanderous about someone in private and speaks evil of others. That's a duty of the ninth commandment, of course. If there is evil committed by another, you need to exhort that other person. If this person is so evil, as you say, you need to do the right thing. You need to confront this person with their evil. And if it is even to the level of a crime, notify the ecclesiastic and civil authorities, but don't defame people behind their back. And so we are to make sure that we don't engage in any of this thing. We are to starve it of oxygen. And the thing is that though it is not part of the new birth, none of this is. Your old man finds all of this very salacious and very tasty and wants to indulge in it. It's a strange thing to say, but all these five things that have been mentioned, your flesh craves. Your flesh actually feeds off of this. We're going to see there's a contrast here between what you ought to crave and what your flesh craves. You ought to crave the sincere milk of the word, the new man. That's what he desires. But the flesh craves these things. And it's hard to say this, but if you know from your own experience, you know this is true, that at times maliciousness and hatred and envy and gossip and slander are quite pleasing to you. It actually feels good to hate someone in the old man. And that's why you pursue it. And that's why you won't stop it. It's something that actually gratifies your flesh. That's why we speak that way. These things gratify your flesh. Everything here, you may say with one side of your mouth, right? These things are awful. They're terrible. But on the other side, you know, you kind of like it. And you need to put to death that like of it. And you need to make sure that you stab it through the heart, so to speak, by the power of a crucified Savior. But we need to put all this stuff away. And you need to be on guard, knowing your flesh does crave these things. But in contrast, the Christian is called to be innocent. In verse 2, Peter calls you a newborn babe. Now we recognize that young children are not complete innocents. They are sinners by birth, but they are, we recognize, comparatively innocent when put next to an adult. Young children, they have all these sins here in seed form. Malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings. They're all there in the heart of the infant, but they're not fully grown. But what the idea here is, is to look at the relative innocency of a newborn babe. And the Christian is to be innocent in that sense. They are to be like a child. You are to come into the kingdom as a child, and you are to continue to be innocent in terms of guile and malice and so on. Paul says something similar. Brethren, be not children in understanding, albeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. 1 Corinthians 14.20. You are to mature in your knowledge, but in terms of your character, in terms of your heart, you are to seek after an innocency where it would probably be the best kind of compliment. If somebody says you are quite childlike and innocent in your character, meaning that you are one who doesn't do harm and one who is not malicious. So Peter says a Christian is as a little child in these ways. But how do newborn babes, Paul said, we are to be an understanding men. So that's that duality, right? We are children, not in understanding, but in malice. In understanding, we are to be as men. So how do newborn babes grow to be men in understanding and to be strong as a Christian? Well, consider that in our next head, which is milk. Verse two. As newborn babes desired the sincere, and that word means pure, the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. So this is where your growth into maturity comes from. It is through the sincere or pure milk of the word. And so if you do struggle with those sins of the heart that we spoke of, you need to recognize that you need grace by which to grow. And you need spiritual strength. You cannot grow the new man yourself. God must do that. You cannot kill the old man yourself. God must do that. And He does that by giving you spiritual food, which is better than the old manna that He gave. The Word of God We saw last time as incorruptible seed, but it's not just spiritual seed, it is also spiritual food. So being born again, you see how this analogy continues on. Being born again, we are like newborns, aren't we? In the nursery of Christ. What is the sustenance Christ gives you to grow? It is the word of God. It's like our milk. It's like mother's milk to a baby. Man, as we heard, does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And you remember that Christ quoted that verse when the devil tempted him with physical bread. There was something he needed more. Something man needs more. It is the spiritual food. And so when you come to the Bible, you come to your reading of the Bible in private, or you read it in families, in your family, or you meditate on it as you reflect upon it, or you hear it in the public services, and especially in the preaching of the word, what you must think about and must meditate on before you attend unto it is that it is spiritual food for you. It's not just that I am hearing these words, and that's my duty, which it is, of course, but that it is my spiritual food by which I grow in grace. And that kind of mentality really is transformative. This is not just information transfer. It's not just something to do, but it does something to me. It grows me. It nourishes me. And the thing is, right, that milk, that food can be held out to you, right? Even as a mother's breast is held out to her infant, but unless the infant comes and suckles, it does no good. All the milk in the world laid before that infant does no good. You can hear the word of God, but unless you drink, there is no growth. So you are called to drink the Word. You are called to partake of it that you would grow thereby. Not just hear it, but to take it in. You are to receive it with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind. by faith as the very words of God, that this is your spiritual food that the Lord has put before you. If you would come to it and approach it in that manner, you might find that there is more growth through it. Peter calls it sincere milk. That's an obsolete use of the word, perhaps. Today, when you think of the word sincere, you might think of unfeigned, but the older sense in that reflects the Greek, which is simply pure. And that goes well with this illustration. We've heard from the rest of the Bible that the words of the Lord are pure words. Psalm 12, six, every word of God is pure. Proverbs 30 verse five. And so this word is something that we ingest with confidence. knowing that it's not laced with anything, it's not corrupt, and that it will do us good spiritually. There's no sense of, it's like sometimes you might go to a restaurant or something else and you have to ask, what exactly have you put in this? Because I didn't prepare it myself. It's like, what are the ingredients here? But you don't have to worry about that with the word of God. It is pure and everything in it tends to your spiritual health and well-being. Praise God. The Lord has not given us an imperfect word. It is perfect. He's not given us a word where we need to add supplements to it to grow. It gives us godly maturity. And that is why we are opposed to any tampering with the word of God, of course. And what God says to add to it or subtract to it will bring a curse upon you. Deuteronomy 4, verse 2, Revelation 22, 18 through 19. Neither do we add to the teaching of the Word with our own wisdom and our own traditions by corrupting it. 2 Corinthians 2, 17. For we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God in the sight of God speak we in Christ. It's wonderful to think But this Word is pure and has been preserved for us all ages. He's given you an infallible and inerrant Word. You heard Peter quote, the grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away, but the Word of our God endureth forever. God cares, when we think about the preservation of the Word and how it is pure, you think about the goodness of God as Father. He wants his children feeding on his pure word that they would grow thereby. And so it makes sense that God with his own power and his own providence has preserved for us an infallible and inerrant word that you can trust everything that you ingest in your soul is for your good. What kind of father would he be if he gave us a corrupt word, a corrupt meal? And so you can, with confidence, drink from it and grow. And he says, don't just admire the Word from afar. Desire the sincere milk of the Word. You ought to have hunger pangs for the Word of God, just as an infant should for its mother's breast. That's what will grow you, Christian, is this desire for the Word of God. If there's no desire, there's no growth. And you won't go to the Word. You know, Christian, that those seasons where you have seen the most growth in grace is when you have most desired the Word of God and you have been most constant under it. If you look back at your life, those times that have been most fruitful in your life have been when you have had a great inexorable desire to be under the Word of God. Even in our communion seasons, right? It's the fact that we are under the Word for a week at a time. Even though the sacrament feeds us, a lot of that growth is coming from being under the Word that much. You know, it's a terrible condition if you have no desire for the Word of God. And you ought to connect that in your own soul to what it would be like if you had no physical appetite. There's a disorder that results from the fall called anorexia. Now, that's not to be confused with anorexia nervosa, where people force themselves not to eat, because even though they are hungry, because they have a strong fear of gaining weight, that's a different disorder altogether, different aspect of the fall. But pure anorexia is a disorder where one does not feel hungry, where one does not feel hungry. They are unaware that their body is famished and needs sustenance. And now think about how deadly that is. For you to go through your day and not feel hunger pain? There's a reason the Lord designed you to feel hunger. It's not an inconvenient thing. It's because your body says, I need sustenance. Now, if you connect that spiritually, how deadly is it if you have no desire for spiritual food? you would starve yourself. And if the Lord would allow you, would starve yourself to death spiritually. It's a disorder in the Christian if you do not desire the sincere milk of the word. But God can fix that if you would pray and ask for that desire. But it's a terrible thing if any one of you here would say, I just don't want the word of God. I don't desire my spiritual nutrition. That is spiritual anorexia, and it must be fixed by God's help. When you come and you open the word, say, open mine eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of your word. By faith, even say, Lord, I need to put away whatever it is you're grappling with, whatever indwelling sin you are, or besetting sin you are grappling with, whether it's malice, envy, guile, hypocrisy, or anything else, and say to the Lord, I need soul food. So feed me. Show him you have a hunger for his word and for growth, and see if he will not do something in that time under the word of God. Don't just skim through the scripture, but take in the word of God and ingest it. You need to wrestle over it, you need to meditate on it, you need to eat the scroll, bring it into the innermost parts of your soul. Ask yourself, what does this text teach me about my God? and work through the text with the Lord's help. Ask, what does this text tell me is my duty to the Lord? And you take up Augustine's prayer, right? This is a spiritual thing. Give what you command, O Lord, and then command whatever you will. This is a means of grace. And by it, you do grow. And you have to believe that. You need to interact with the Lord in your scripture reading. and under the prayer, under the preaching of the word rather. It does no good to not speak to the Lord and ask for his help, to have him bridge the gap between what you are and what you are called to be through the nourishment of the word of God. And by prayer and fervent meditation, that's how the new man grows. This is his food in the word of God. You will not grow without the word. Because the other means of grace depend on it anyhow. The sacrament needs the Word of God. Prayer needs the Word of God. Otherwise, you don't know how to pray according to His will. Everything depends on the Word. Yet, how often is it that we are feeding the old man and starving the new? We often will feed the old man with spiritual junk food and strengthen him through worldliness, amusements, entertainments that are worldly and crass. That's the stuff the old man thrives on. And yet we starve the new by not going to the Word of God. And we need to reverse that, friends. You can nourish the new man and starve the old, by going to the word of God and drinking from it. Do you struggle to put to death worldliness and sin? The prescription is simple here. Desire the sincere milk of the word and grow thereby. And you have need of patience in this. For your encouragement and that you would not be discouraged, think about the analogy here of the infant. The infant does not take one drink from its mother and suddenly become full grown. It takes time. But a constant feeding is what is prescribed here. Not a one and done. Don't say, well, I tried that for a week. I didn't grow very much. Could you imagine a mom trying to feed her child for a week and then saying, well, the child hasn't grown very much. I'll put him away or her away. But that's how we approach it. But it is imperceptible, bit by bit. You know, if you have a relative who hasn't seen your infant or newborn, right, came for the birth maybe, and then goes away for six months, comes back and says, my, how little Johnny or Jane has grown. And you don't even realize it yourself, perhaps, unless you're keeping a little chart somewhere. But that's how it is for us as Christians. We go to the milk of the word, day by day, and the growth may be imperceptible to you, but perhaps somebody comes back in acquaintance five years from now and comes to you after a steady diet on the word and says, are you the same person? Your mouth is different. The things that you think upon is totally different. The things you do and don't do, totally changed. That's because this small but steady diet on the word has done a work in you. Consistency and time. Be patient, brethren. God delights in taking his time in his work. You know, he could, children, have created the whole universe instantaneously, but he took six days. He will take time in your life and mine as well. Be patient. Finally, let's consider grace, and we'll close on this with just a couple of exhortations. He says, you must do this, if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. That's verse three. Believer, do you know that the Lord has been gracious to you? Have you tasted his mercy when the word of God first came to you and proclaimed that Christ came to save sinners? even such as you. And you remembered and you thought, you think back to that time when you saw that even you, a great sinner, can be saved by the Lord. And you saw His graciousness in the midst of your guilt and in the midst of your shame, that He freely gave you mercy and gave you heaven itself. Do you remember that? Have you tasted that yourself? Notice the experimental nature of religion here. You tasted that He is gracious. When you believed, when you were born again, you actually tasted in your soul that the Lord is gracious. In other words, you did not just say this, though it is true. Generally speaking, the Lord is gracious. That's true. The Lord is gracious. But you said, the Lord is gracious to me. The Lord is gracious to me. As the Apostle said so famously, the Son of God loved me. That's how you taste the goodness of the Lord. When you apprehend not a general goodness, not a general graciousness, but a particular one to you yourself. You said Christ Jesus came into the world to save me, the sinner. Christ left the 99 to find me. your soul was confronted with his love and his goodness and his mercy and you tasted that the Lord is gracious. You apprehended particular grace." In other words, children, he wasn't You imagine walking by a restaurant, right? And you see a window and you see a beautiful platter of food there. And you say, that's a wonderful piece of food. That's like Christ being held out as a beautiful banquet. But you don't just marvel at Christ from afar. You are to taste Christ. You are to take Christ. You are to receive Christ. And you go in and you take him without price. He is marrow and he is fatness. And he says, come to me and take me without price. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. You say, he loved me. He died for me. He gave himself for me, my blessed redeemer. I am my beloved and he is mine. I have tasted that he is gracious. Some of you, have heard over and over and over again that the Lord is good and that the Lord is gracious, but you have refused to taste. You have refused to take. You have refused to take of the bread of life. There is an imperative, a commandment from the God, from God himself in the 34th Psalm to you. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. That's the gospel call. And that's the commandment to you who do not yet believe. Isn't it a strange thing that the Lord commands you to taste his goodness? The Lord commands you to come into a state of salvation. The Lord gives a commandment, just as sure as thou shalt not kill, that you are to taste and see that he is good to sinners, to take upon yourself the bread of life in your mouth by faith. What a thing it is if you die refusing a gracious command like that. What a thing it is for you to die by covering up your mouth, spiritually speaking, anyhow, and saying, no, I won't take it. I won't taste, and I won't see that the Lord is good. I'll cover my eyes, I'll cover my mouth, and I won't receive Christ. When the Lord has said, come and take my goodness, taste my goodness, be reconciled to God through Christ my son, It's a shocking thing that man's heart is so hard that he would do so. What poor defense will you offer to the Lord having heard this commandment to come in to him and to taste him? What poor defense will you give the Lord before the throne of judgment when he says, I gave you the sweetest commandment of all. I gave you the sweetest command of all to taste and see that I am good. And yet you refused my goodness. I would not want to be in your shoes. I would not want to be in your shoes. What will the Lord do to your obstinacy to refuse his goodness? But you can have the bread of life this day, as you heard of last Lord's Day, and simply come. He excludes none of you from tasting. No sinner here is excluded from tasting and seeing that he is good, even to the chief of sinners. And he says, blessed are they that trust in him. Blessed are you that believe on Jesus Christ. What a blessing is yours who believe. Well, for those of you who have tasted the Lord's grace, one of the sweetest parts, and we'll close on this thought, of Taking of that sweet milk of the Word, that pure Word, that sincere milk, is that it continues to show grace to you. It's not just grace for conversion, but you're going to take in, you're going to suckle, as it were, sweet promises. from the Word of God. You're going to find precious promises. You're going to find the glories of heaven. You're going to find the beauty of your Redeemer. And all of that is spiritual milk to you, brethren. You don't just taste once that the Lord is good. But you come to Him over and over again, growing as you taste and see that the Lord is good. And you are reminded every time you take a taste, every time you take from the Word, blessed are they that trust in Him. And that taste will be left in your soul Even after coming to the Word, it is a foretaste of heaven and even of the wedding supper of the Lamb and the glories to come. Too many of us are spiritual anorexics, sad to say. May that end today. And may you know what the Word says, that there is marrow and there is fatness in the Lord. May God help us to be constant in His Word. Let us arise and go to the Lord in prayer. O God of heaven, we're thankful, Lord, to know that the Lord is good. We who believe have tasted and seen that thou art gracious even to the chief of sinners. And we pray, Father, this day that that goodness would be tasted by even those who are afar off from thee now, that they would not keep the bread of life at arm's length, but instead that they would come and take and receive Jesus without price, laying their sin upon him and receiving his righteousness in return, simply by faith, believing on him and repenting of their sins. And we pray, Father, for the congregation that we would put away malice and envy, backbiting, evil speaking, and all the things that tend to the destruction of the Christian church. And that Thou wouldst help us in this by feeding us day by day, week after week, on the sincere milk of the Word of God. Forgive us, O Lord, for not esteeming it more than our necessary food. for not seeing it as treasure to us, not seeing it as our sustenance. Help us to be children, Lord, having a childlike faith, but having understanding as full grown men. We know that such things can only be by the grace of God. So give us grace that we may grow