The Masters Indwelling | Page 2

pardon for sin; they begin to
work for God; and yet, somehow, there is very little growth in spirituality, in the real
heavenly life. We come into contact with them, and we feel at once there is something
wanting; there is none of the beauty of holiness or of the power of God's Spirit in them.
This is the condition of the carnal Corinthians, expressed in what was said to the Hebrews:
"You have had the Gospel so long that by this time you ought to be teachers, and yet you
need that men should teach you the very rudiments of the oracles of God." Is it not a sad
thing to see a believer who has been converted five, ten, twenty years, and yet no growth,
and no strength, and no joy of holiness?
What are the marks of a little child? One is, a little child cannot help himself, but is
always keeping others occupied to serve him. What a tyrant a baby in a house often is!
The mother cannot go out, there must be a servant to nurse it; it needs to be cared for
constantly. God made a man to care for others, but the baby was made to be cared for and
to be helped. So there are Christians who always want help. Their pastor and their
Christian friends must always be teaching and comforting them. They go to church, and
to prayer-meetings, and to conventions, always wanting to be helped,--a sign of spiritual
infancy.
The other sign of an infant is this: he can do nothing to help his fellow-man. Every man is
expected to contribute something to the welfare of society; every one has a place to fill
and a work to do, but the babe can do nothing for the common weal. It is just so with
Christians. How little some can do! They take a part in work, as it is called, but there is
little of exercising spiritual power and carrying real blessing. Should we not each ask,
"Have I outgrown my spiritual infancy?" Some must reply, "No, instead of having gone
forward, I have gone backward, and the joy of conversion and the first love is gone." Alas!
They are babes in Christ; they are yet carnal.
The second mark of the carnal state is this: that there is sin and failure continually. Paul
says: "Whereas there is strife and division among you, and envying, are ye not carnal?" A
man gives way to temper. He may be a minister, or a preacher of the Gospel, or a
Sunday-school teacher, most earnest at the prayer-meeting, but yet strife or bitterness or
envying is often shown by him. Alas! Alas! In Gal. 3:5 we are told that the works of the

flesh are specially hatred and envy. How often among Christians, who have to work
together, do we see divisions and bitterness! God have mercy upon them, that the fruit of
the Spirit, which is love, is so frequently absent from His own people. You ask, "Why is
it, that for twenty years I have been fighting with my temper, and can not conquer it?" It
is because you have been fighting with the temper, and you have not been fighting with
the root of the temper. You have not seen that it is all because you are in the carnal state,
and not properly given up to the Spirit of God. It may be that you never were taught it;
that you never saw it in God's Word; that you never believed it. But there it is; the truth
of God remains unchangeable. Jesus Christ can give us the victory over sin, and can keep
us from actual transgression. I am not telling you that the root of sin will be eradicated,
and that you will have no longer any natural tendency to sin; but when the Holy Spirit
comes not only with His power for service as a gift, but when He comes in Divine grace
to fill the heart, there is victory over sin; power not to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. And
you see a mark of the carnal state not only in unlovingness, self-consciousness and
bitterness, but in so many other sins. How much worldliness, how much ambition among
men, how much seeking for the honor that comes from man--all the fruit of the carnal
life--to be found in the midst of Christian activity! Let us remember that the carnal state
is a state of continual sinning and failure, and God wants us not only to make confession
of individual sins, but to come to the acknowledgment that they are the sign that we are
not living a healthy life,--we are yet carnal.
A third mark which will explain further what I have been