n real
spiritual truth."

We find the carnal state not only at Corinth, but throughout the Christian
world to-day. Many Christians are asking, "What is the reason there is so
much feebleness in the Church?" We can not ask this question too earnestly,
and I trust that God Himself will so impress it upon our hearts that we
shall say to Him, "It must be changed. Have mercy upon us." But, ah! that
prayer and that change can not come until we have begun to see that there
is a carnal root ruling in believers; they are living more after the flesh
than the Spirit; they are yet carnal Christians.

There is a passage "from carnal to spiritual." Did Paul find any spiritual
believers? Undoubtedly he did. Just read the 6th chapter of the Epistle to
the Galatians! That was a church where strife, and bitterness, and envy
were terrible. But the apostle says in the first verse: "Brethren, if a man
be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the
spirit of meekness." There we see that the marks of the spiritual man are
that he will be a meek man; and that he will have power, and love to help
and restore those that are fallen. The carnal man can not do that. If there
is a true spiritual life that can be lived, the great question is: Is the
way open, and how can I enter into the spiritual state? Here, again, I have
four short answers.

First, we must know that there is such a spiritual life to be lived by men
on earth. Nothing cuts the roots of the Christian life so much as unbelief.
People do not believe what God has said about what He is willing to do for
His children. Men do not believe that when God says, "Be filled with
the Spirit," He means it for every Christian. And yet Paul wrote to the
Ephesians each one: "Be filled with the Spirit, and do not be drunk with
wine." Just as little as you may be drunk with wine, so little may you live
without being filled with the Spirit. Now, if God means that for believers,
the first thing that we need is to study, and to take home God's Word, to
our belief until our hearts are filled with the assurance that there is
such a life possible which it is our duty to live; that we can be spiritual
men. God's Word teaches us that God does not expect a man to live as he
ought for one minute unless the Holy Spirit is in him to enable him to do
it.

We do not want the Holy Spirit only when we go to preach, or when we have
some special temptation of the devil to meet, or some gre