s a little of God's Spirit, but the
flesh predominated; the Spirit had not the rule of their whole life. And
the spiritual men are not called so because there is no flesh in them, but
because the Spirit in them has obtained dominance, and when you meet
them and have intercourse with them, you feel that the Spirit of God has
sanctified them. Ah, let us beware lest the blessing God gives us in our
work deceive us and lead us to think that because he has blessed us, we
must be spiritual men. God may give us gifts that we use, and yet our lives
may not be wholly in the power of the Holy Ghost.

My last mark of the carnal state is that it makes a man unfit for receiving
spiritual truths. That is what the apostle writes to the Corinthians: "I
could not preach to you as unto spiritual; you are not fit for spiritual
truth after being Christians so long; you can not yet bear it; I have to
feed you with milk." I am afraid that in the church of the nineteenth
century we often make a terrible mistake. We have a congregation in which
the majority are carnal men. We give these men spiritual teaching, and they
admire it, understand it, and rejoice in such ministry; yet their lives are
not practically affected. They work for Christ in a certain way, but we can
scarce recognize the true sanctification of the Spirit; we dare not say
they are spiritual men, full of the Holy Spirit.

Now, let us recognize this with regard to ourselves. A man may become very
earnest, may take in all the teaching he hears; he may be able to discern,
for discernment is a gift; he may say, "That man helps me in this line, and
that man in another direction, and a third man is remarkable for another
gift;" yet, all the time, the carnal life may be living strongly in him,
and when he gets into trouble with some friend, or Christian worker,
or worldly man, the carnal root is bearing its terrible fruit, and the
spiritual food has failed to enter his heart. Beware of that. Mark the
Corinthians and learn of them. Paul did not say to them, "You can not bear
the truth as I would speak it to you," because they were ignorant or a
stupid people. The Corinthians prided themselves on their wisdom, and
sought it above everything, and Paul said: "I thank God that you are
enriched in utterance, in knowledge, and in wisdom; nevertheless, you are
yet carnal, your life is not holy; your life is not sanctified unto the
humility of the life of the Lamb of God, you can not yet take i