not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men" (I Corinthians 31:1-3)? The carnal Christian has the wrong attitude toward Christ, the Bible, the church, and other Chris tians. There is a wrong mental atti tude and a poor spiritual heart beat. If you are constantly up-tight spiritually, you are lacking in the necessary "spiritual cool." When you finally realize that the Chris tian life does not have to be ex perienced on a second-class level, limping to Heaven, you will be sorely disappointed with yourself and your life. You may never have come to grips with what the Lord Jesus Christ bought for you, the fact that He paid so much! "For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren . . ." Carnal Christians are barren. Our Lord said: "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36). An idle Christian is an "unem ployed" Christian, not fully com prehending the job that is his, or the commitment that is required. Idle people with time on their hands can become "tattlers" and "busybodies" (I Timothy 5:13). Have you ever noticed that many troublemakers in our local church es are Idle Christians? This word "idle," is translated differently in Titus 1:12: "One of themselves, even a prophet of their
own, said: The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." The word "slow" is the same word translated "idle." This is a clear case of arrested spiritual develop ment! ". . . that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowl edge of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is knowledge of the Person of Christ. That is how you became saved in the first place: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true Cod, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). Through the experiences of life, in the deep valley of sorrow, we get to know the Lord more inti mately. The better we know Him, the more we love Him. And the more we love Him, the more ef fectively we serve Him. The Epistle closes on the same note: "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18). "But he that lacketh these things is blind." A blind Christian knows the Lord as His Saviour but he can not see! The Laodicean Church in the third chapter of Revelation is the outstanding example of a "blind" church. Christendom is lit erally filled with barren, unfruitful and blind Christians. " . . . and cannot see afar o ff. . . " There is no vision, and "where there is no vision, the people per ish" (Proverbs 29:18). The carnal Christian is not interested in Bible Page 9
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