I Peter 2: Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, 2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. 9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; 10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. 16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
Peter uses the same illustration as Paul did in Corinthians, likening Christians to babes that need to grow. A baby communicates when it is hungry by crying. Even when they get older they point to a bottle and say ‘ba-ba.’ Babies are sincere and mean business because they are hungry. They get to it and enjoy it. If anyone tries to interfere with their feeding they’ll let you know.
Peter is saying not to lose your hunger and desire for God’s Word. It doesn’t need modifications. God’s plan for his Word was that it would meet the needs of everyone. You don’t feed some babies vegetables and some beans and some hamburgers. You feed all babies milk. Every child desires sincere milk; that means the real thing. In our country, this is the problem. People want the real thing but don’t want it by the means God provided. Don’t trust other sources. Paul said if anyone preaches another gospel to leave it alone. When Christians lose their desire for the Bible—the sincere/real milk—there is nowhere else to go for nourishment. If we want to grow, Peter said to lay aside the desires and behaviors of the flesh: all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings. Before we’ll seek the Word we must lose our desire for fleshly yearnings. There is plenty of this in the world; we don’t need to add to it. God saved us out of that not to dive back into it. We were once lost; we mingled with the crowd headed to hell. The only identity we had before God was as a sinner. When we got saved we were born again—newborn babes.
A newborn’s first sound is a cry. It misses its food supply. In the womb it was constant through the umbilical cord. There is no shortage of spiritual food; there is no famine of the Word. There is a famine of hearing and doing the Word. If we lose that desire for the Word it’s like having a table of food in front of us and pantries and freezers full of food but choosing to starve yourself. We still have our Bible in spite of the government. People don’t believe in a Creator or that they’ll face him in judgment. They don’t believe in sin. Look what the world chases after. There is every religion you can think of with a god of their own imagination. God gave us his Son to save us from hell. Jesus didn’t stop at saving us. We have the hands of the Father and the arms of the Savior to help us. AND our Father knows best. He provided the milk, the sustenance, we need. Remember Jesus told Satan that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
People see that we have something that satisfies. Even though Hitler burned Bibles he couldn’t stop the Word of God. It won’t do us any good if we don’t hunger after it. You can still get to the Word. Peter was telling us not to get too big for our britches that we think we don’t need the Word. If a baby doesn’t get fed it will die. Our Father wants to give us all we need. We let him down because we won’t come to him. His Word is spirit; it is life. We can’t go for the ‘fast food’. We need to stop relying on self and thinking we can eat and drink extra stuff along with the Bible. Stick with the sincere milk of the Word. The children of Israel complained about the food God provided in the wilderness. It gave them everything they needed. When you think that the Bible is not enough you are cutting off the source of food. You cannot eat at two tables.
Every day God bakes us a fresh meal from the Word. If we think we don’t need it, just take a look in the mirror. Even as long as some of us have been saved, we still need the real thing, not the fake stuff. If we want to feed as we should, we must quit watering it down and reducing the content. We can grow and become what God wants us to be.
Don’t lose your desire for the sincere milk of the Word. Don’t be deceived. If we’re saved we have the real salvation. We have the real Father. The only thing between us and the real thing is our desiring it. Get hold of God. Feed. Grow. Be the children of God that he wants us to be.
Adwolfe Freewill Baptist Church 