e 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 saying, is that
this carnal state may be found in existence in connection with great
spiritual gifts. There is a difference between gifts and graces. The graces
of the Spirit are humility and love, like the humility and love of Christ.
The graces of the Spirit are to make a man free from self; the gifts of
the Spirit are to fit a man for work. We see this illustrated among the
Corinthians. In the first chapter Paul says, "I thank God that you are
enriched unto all utterance, and all knowledge, and all wisdom." In the
12th and 14th chapters we see that the gifts of prophecy and of working
miracles were in great power among them; but the graces of the Spirit were
noticeably absent.

And this may be in our days as well as in the time of the Corinthians. I
may be a minister of the Gospel; I may teach God's Word beautifully; I may
have influence, and gather a large congregation, and yet, alas! I may be a
carnal man; a man who may be used by God, and may be a blessing to others,
and yet the carnal life may still mark me. You all know the law that a
thing is named according to what is its most prominent characteristic. Now,
in these carnal Corinthians there wa