to First Peter and hear more of the old, old story. First Peter chapter two is our text. We'll begin reading again in First Peter chapter one and verse 17. First Peter one, verse 17. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, and to unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore, lay aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Let us pray. Our loving Heavenly Father, we come before Thee as Thy dear children purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Thy heavenly family. We pray that we may be fed by Thee, the provider of every good and perfect gift that comes from above. We pray for good gifts for our soul, for nourishment, for our hearts and we pray thy blessing upon the preaching of thy word as the scriptures are opened unto us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Beloved congregation, it is a special gift of the Lord if you desire God's word. It is a token of his blessing and an evidence of salvation. As we look into 1 Peter here, there is actually a command to desire the sincere milk of the word. So the focus immediately in our text this evening is the middle of verse two, desire the sincere milk of the word. It's a command, an imperative. And it's interesting then, if you do go back to verse 1, that it begins with the word wherefore, which means that the preceding argument is very important here in what Peter is saying. What is the wherefore therefore? Who is he speaking to? Wherefore desire the sincere milk of the word? Well, he is speaking to those, as we saw last week, who have been born again, verse 23 of chapter one. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. So he is talking to people who already have the spirit. And this is an interesting thing to think about because just because you are born again, just because you are indwelt by the spirit does not mean that your love for the word is automatic. And I think Christian experience proves that. There are times when you open the word very, very eagerly and with joy and anticipation of a blessing, but there are other times, aren't there, when you have to fight to open your Bible, when sin and temptation come in the way, and you have to cast those aside. When there are distractions, when you know you ought to open God's word, but this seems more important, or that is very compelling, and so you just set aside God's word for a time, and that time may turn not only into hours, but sometimes days, because a good habit is easily broken, isn't it? So we need to obey this command to desire the sincere milk of the word. What are the things that you love? So because you have been born again by the word, because you have purified your souls in obeying the truth, verse 22, You need to have this as your foundation. The Lord Jesus said, ye must be born again. So there's always some level of desire if you're indwelt by the spirit, but it can wax or wane, and it can come and go. And we see that contrast even in the Psalms. We have the confidence of David in Psalm 37 verse 28, for the Lord loveth judgment and forsaketh not his saints. It's a beautiful promise found in many places in the word of God. God will not forsake his covenant people, his saints. The next psalm, Psalm 38 verse 21, the psalmist is pleading, forsake me not, oh Lord, oh my God, be not far from me. So in the very next psalm, he feels forsaken. He feels far away. The desire is there in some measure but he knows that God is with him. He may not feel those strong desires, but he knows that he needs to go to the Lord to have those desires instilled with him, reinstilled maybe, his vigor, his zeal aroused by the Holy Spirit. And so there's that wonderful dependence upon the Lord. It's only those really who are born again that are going to appeal to the Lord, that are going to even confess, I don't feel like opening your word today. There are things that are preventing me. And earnestly to plead with the Lord, remove those barriers. We have that saying often written in This book will keep me from sin. Sin will keep me from this book. And that's very true, isn't it? Sin will keep me from this book. And we ought to desire to be students of the word. We ought to be students of the word. Peter says, on this account, because you have been born again, because you've been begotten again by the word of the Lord, which endureth forever, verse 25 of chapter one, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you, the good news that is proclaimed to you. Therefore, he says, desire. the sincere milk of God's word. The word desire is the word for longing, an earnest desire for the word of God. It's an imperative, it's a command. And it's to be desired for as newborn babes desire their mother's milk. and been a while since we've had babies in our home, but it's unforgettable to see a hungry baby latch onto his mother's breast. Just looking for it, where is it, where is it? I need this, I need it now with hunger and desire. And often it's preceded with crying, right? I need this right now. Charles Spurgeon talks about this. A minister would wish to be like the mother bird which comes back with a worm to the nest and finds all the mouths open. Everyone desiring to be fed. It's a beautiful picture. Now this is just, I think, what the apostle meant, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word. You know, babes do not have set times for desiring their food, but when they want it, they will have it and will cry till they get it. Isn't that true? I need it and I need it now. There's a beautiful picture that's brought to us by the apostle Peter. Charles Perkins says, so should it be with believers. They should have such unceremonious longings to be fed from the breasts of heaven's consolation that they will cry till they get the heavenly food from God their Father, that living food by which they grow and are made strong in Christ. So if you've ever seen a baby receiving milk from its mother with great, great desire, it is a beautiful, beautiful picture of that desire that we ought to have. Unceremoniously, without regard for what anybody else thinks, we just need to get at the word of God. Is that the desire that you have? For the word of God, I can't get enough of it. And when I need it, I need it immediately. It's a beautiful picture for us to keep in mind, to desire God's word in just that way. And it's very instinctive. You know that you need it and you know that it's good for you. You know that it's going to nourish you. It's going to draw you away from sin and temptation. It's going to strengthen you in faith. It's going to do good things. It's going to give you a blessing, isn't it? Have you ever opened the word and not really even Being that desires but you open the word because you know you should and by the time you're done reading, your heart is just filled with joy. It ministers to you, the Holy Spirit ministers to you through the revealed word. Changes your heart, sometimes changes your mind. It's powerful, more powerful than a two-edged sword. It's a living word, it's vibrant and profitable to the Lord's people. So the object of desire, there is the desire itself. The object of the desire is the sincere milk of the word. Sincere milk of the word. And the word for sincere here means pure or unadulterated. So nothing's been added to it. We apparently, We have codes in Canada where you can advertise a juice to be 100% pure and still have a few things added to it. It is a little bit adulterated, but it's good enough for us to call it 100% pure legally, apparently. The word of God is not like this, unadulterated. You have to desire the pure milk of the word. And in some cases, if I can say it this way, unadulterated by even the words of men. And we have sermons, especially now, sermons in print. We have valuable commentaries. But all of those sermons and commentaries, if they are developed by a servant of the Lord, all of them will faithfully draw out to you the meaning of the word that is there in the scriptures. So that if it's done well in the power of the Spirit, your heart and your mind are always focused back on the text, always focused back on the word of God. And so you want it to be a pure word. Remember the Berean Christians that listened to the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest preachers in the history of the world, and still they said, we are going to compare this with a word of God. Go home. and take what Paul has said, we're going to compare it and to see whether this is actually what is taught in the Old Testament. So they were more noble, says Dr. Luke in Acts. They were more noble by doing that. They actually showed themselves to be faithful Christians. They weren't challenging the Apostle Paul, but they said, we want to know for ourselves. We want to understand the scriptures, that this is wherever Paul ended up here from this text in the Old Testament, that it really does point to the Lord Jesus Christ, which would have been obviously his burden. But that was their desire. They wanted the pure milk of God's word, the unadulterated milk of God's word. And milk, of course, is a wonderful picture of nourishment and growth. It's a very complete beverage, is what we are told. Good for our bodies, the sincere milk of the word. And of course, little babies, again, coming back to that illustration, babies are nourished particularly by their mother's milk. And they grow often very quickly in the early years, months and years. So also then this is the source of growth, that ye may grow thereby. And so the word so grips you that you may feel compelled to memorize it. There is a verse that is going to be very useful to me, is useful to me now, so you spend time working through it, memorizing it. Sometimes a truth from God's word that strikes you so tremendously that you just do remember it. because it applies very directly, becomes a very significant part of your understanding. So this is the source of growth. And then there is this experiential aspect as well. Verse three, if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. And this is a quote from Psalm 34 verse eight that we read earlier. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. And so there is a tasting of those that have already are possessed of the spirit. They're tasting, they've experienced the goodness of the Lord. And so we do that. And again, there's something of a picture of a baby there as well, where a baby learns by putting things in its mouth. That's very instinctive. And that's why immediately things go into their mouths. It's kind of their point of connection with things. And John Owen says that in a taste, there is a sweetness to the palate, and a satisfaction to the appetite. By the one in this taste, our minds are refreshed, and by the other, our souls are nourished. Of both, believers have an experience, and this is brought into the mind by spiritual light, without which nothing of it is attainable. So there is the nourishment through the sweetness of God's word. Have you ever read a portion of God's word that has, maybe you thought to be bitter or challenging? As you roll it over on your tongue, so to speak, it becomes sweet. You realize the truth that's behind it, the goodness that it conveys, the assurance that it gives you, the protection that it promises you. These are wonderful things that are found in God's word and are produced by God's Holy Spirit. In the Song of Solomon, chapter two and verse three, As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the suns. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. So there's an enjoyment of the pleasures that are brought through the word of God to the redeemed soul. And as I was reading over that text as well, I remembered the song. Have you ever heard the older song, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree? And I'm not sure why it seems to be connected with Christmas, but it is beautiful. And just a beautiful hymn and song to sing Jesus Christ the apple tree based on that text in the Song of Solomon. So once you taste it, you want more. And there ought to be times maybe when your schedule or your requirements of your time actually pull you away from the word of God. So it's more than just seeing it or understanding it, but actually tasting it. Remember, I think it was Charles Spurgeon who was visiting at the bedside of an elderly woman. He went to read to her. He took her Bible to read from it, and he noticed as he was flipping through the Bible that there were, in a number of places in the margin, the letters T and P, T and P. through the scripture, a copy of the scriptures. And he asked, what does that mean? What does that refer? Why did you put that in there? She said, that means tried and proven, tried and proven. So she went through and she said, this is part of my life. God has showed me that this is true in my own life. A beautiful, beautiful testimony. Calvin talks about that change of perspective. He says, Peter connects an access to God with the taste of his goodness. For as the human mind necessarily dreads and shuns God, as long as it regards him as rigid and severe, so as soon as he makes known his paternal love to the faithful, it immediately follows that they disregard all things and even forget themselves and hasten to Him. In short, he only makes progress in the gospel who in heart comes to God. So there is the great delight that Christians alone know in opening the scriptures and hearing God speak to them. And because the Holy Spirit is involved, it becomes a very personal speaking, a very personal experience. It doesn't mean that, like some people think that the word of God then means one thing to you and one thing to you and a different thing to me. No, but it speaks to our experience. It speaks to where we are in life. Have you ever experienced this, where you've read your scripture in the morning, and then later on in that very day, you just wonder, that word was specifically for this circumstance. very, very interesting or sometimes during the day you may get very discouraged and feel kind of apart from the Lord or just discouraged for whatever reason and then in the evening or the next morning you open your scriptures and there is just the word of comfort that addresses your situation. That's the Holy Spirit at work in your life, applying this infallible word, the very word of God to your heart and your The Lord Jesus said, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. So there's a blessing for hungering for God's word, for desiring God's word. As newborn babes, beloved, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. but we haven't looked at that first verse yet which qualifies or actually teaches us how to develop a love for God's word because according to verse one of chapter two here, there are things that you need to lay aside before you can even desire God's word. There are things that are hindrances, things that will get in the way. And so the Apostle Peter says, lay aside these, all malice. Put aside all malice, which means backbiting, bitterness, We have that word malicious. It's just, not just a hatred, but a hatred that seeks to do evil. It's active in that way. It's malicious. It wants to tear down. And so we have that connection with backbiting. How can you desire God's word when your heart isn't right with your brother? In a way, that's what all of these qualifications have to do. If your heart is filled with bitterness and malice, you're not going to receive good things. It's going to keep you even from desiring, according to Peter here, it's going to keep you from even desiring the word of God, desiring to open the scriptures. You have to lay aside all guile, all guile, which is deceit or treachery. And the word of God, Paul told the Corinthians that we do not come, we do not handle the word as others handle the word deceitfully. We come oppressing the truth to every man's conscience in the fear of God. It's interesting here, in the Greek language, you actually have this word as being the direct opposite of the word sincere, the sincere milk of the word. We said that was unadulterated. This is, so let me give you a little Greek lesson. In Greek, if you want to make a word the opposite, you put the letter A or alpha in front of it. and that will make it opposite. That's what Peter does here. He's talked about the sincere milk of the word. Now he's saying, put aside all insincerity. That would be the opposite in the English language. So he's still got that in the back of his mind. The word of God is pure. Lay aside all deceit and impurity. in order to gain that purity. It's a beautiful contrast there. He says to lay aside hypocrisies. And hypocrisies are sometimes the most subtle, I think, of all sins, where we claim, for instance, to love fellow believers, but we turn around and gossip about them. We hold them up in high esteem on the one hand and then we tear them down privately often to someone else or even to ourselves. Even hypocrisy can take place in your own heart. You can uphold someone in public speech and then harbor ill feelings towards them within. So hypocrisy just referred to that inconsistency in the Christian life. It was the great accusation of the Lord Jesus against the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew 23. Woe unto you, hypocrites. And they openly did one thing and openly did the other. So hypocrisy, we could say, is living differently than your Sunday best. We all come to church, we're putting on our best face, our best appearance, our best treatment of one another, but then we can live completely differently in the world. And we do have reports of that happening, people harboring a deep sin, having a wonderful testimony in the church, in the community, and then finding out later that there are deep, evil sins in their lives. And so we need to guard against hypocrisies. It's something that we ought to be aware of. And we certainly ought to be guarded against it in an open way, where we come and confess that we love the truth and then we go out into the world and tell lies. We come in and confess that we believe in the sanctity of marriage and then go out and commit adultery. Those are inconsistencies that we ought to repent of and be watching continually. But it applies also to the heart, the hypocrisies of the heart, turning away from, or being consistent, not just putting on your Sunday best on Sunday, but being conscientious to live like a Christian before a watching world. When I was in high school, there used to be a saying going around, if you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? And that's very striking, isn't it? What does the world see of you? If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? And there ought to be good evidence that we are Christians, but the hypocrisy, and it's grieving, isn't it, to think that you have misrepresented your savior in the workplace or in the community, and that others might be turned away from Christ because you've not been a faithful witness. And it's a grieving thing to look back and say, yeah, I've been guilty of that, and repent of it. It's very grievous, and praying, of course, one of the wonderful things about the doctrine of God's sovereignty is that, look, when we look back on those things, not having planned them, but looking back on them, we can say, Lord, Lord, in your sovereignty, in your might, your power, and your compassionate love, bring good out of that. Don't let that soul be turned away from Christ because of my hypocrisy. Is that a good prayer to pray? Does God hear that prayer? He does. He hears that prayer. He can bring good. And all the historical accounts throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, It's just remarkable how God brings good out of what evil men have done. It's very humbling, very, very humbling to think that God would do that, but pray that when you're aware of it. Peter talks about envies as well. All guile, hypocrisies, and envies, which is not liking somebody because they're better than you are. just being, we might say, prejudiced. People talk about racism, I think we need to stop talking about racism, just talk about prejudice. Why do you not like that person? Is it because of the color of their skin? That's ridiculous. Is it because of their status in life? We have a lot of that. Well, I don't like you because you're rich. Or I don't like you because you're poor. It can go both ways. I don't like you because you were raised in a different part of the country than I was. Or you're a city person, I'm a country person. All kinds of things. We can have these envies. but the heart is very creative. Why do those envies and prejudices exist? Don't they really exist because we want to exalt ourselves over others? We want ourselves to be thought of as better than others, or we think ourselves to be in some way better than others, and so we put them down. Right? So what kind of a person could you be if you drive a Nissan? We have prejudices of all kinds, right? When I was growing up, it was Ford or Chevy. You're either a Ford man or a Chevy man, right? That was just, never the twain shall meet. My father-in-law was a Chevy guy, and he had trouble getting into a Ford, even for a ride, I think. Anyway, those were prejudices. Those are kind of fun to do, There are real prejudices that are rooted in really that desire to be better, or to be thought of as better than others. So prejudices, envies, and thinking, that's the idea behind covetous, covetousness, as we'll see in the 10th commandment. It's not that I want what that person has, it's that I don't want them to have it. You see, they don't deserve that. Well, why? Because I'm better than they are. So we make those judgments very, very readily, often far too readily. So laying all these things aside and all evil speaking, slander, just calling down your own mother's son, your brother in the Lord, maybe your brother and your family, but just thinking evil, not just thinking evil of your brother, but slandering him without any cause, bringing him down and saying, you know, that person isn't who you think it is, who you think he is, and maybe calling out their hypocrisies as if you don't have any at all. But it's another way of putting other people down and bringing ourselves up, which never works in the Christian life. all evil speakings. And today we only talk, we hear about false news or fake news, I guess we call fake news, true science. We have all these terms floating around and more and more it's very difficult to find out what is true. I think it's increasingly going to be a problem for us This is one of the reasons why we say that God's word is truth. This is the main truth that I need. This is the truth that I want to live by, the truth that governs my word, my world, my life. And so to... You just get to the point where you're so skeptical that you even fact check people that you follow or admire. Is that really true? Did that really happen just that way? I ran into a case just this week where that happened. Someone that I generally follow and respect their writings and they reported a story and I went and checked it and It just wasn't the whole truth. It gave, at least it gave me a different impression than what I thought I was getting when I read the story. In fact, it was something that I was going to share in an email with a congregation, and just before I went to do that, I figured I'm going to read this over once again, because I'm going to be accountable for what I said, and it turned out that it just was not the fullest story. So those are things that are discouraging, aren't they? But it reminds us that we put not our trust in princes or in fellow men, we trust in the word of God. Everything should be checked. Everything should be checked. We should fact check one another. And that can be intimidating, but in a way, that's what the Bereans did to the Apostle Paul, right? We just want to make sure that this is true. And we ought to be challenged and challenging, be able to defend the things that are said. So all these are things that destroy the love and unity of the church, but they destroy or prohibit, really, your desire, the fulfilling of your desire for the sincere milk of the word. It'll prevent you from opening your Bible. So just a nice little list to go through. Why don't I want to open my Bible? Why don't I have a desire to get into God's word? Run through this list. And maybe there is. some malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speakings. Notice how Peter also uses the word all. Don't let any of it escape, let all guiles and all malice, all guile, all hypocrisies, all envies, all evil speakings. Put them apart from you so that you can enjoy the word of God, so that you will desire it. And Peter says this is something that will stand in the way Close with a quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones. And attending the services of the Lord's Day, he said, this idea that people should be content with attending just one service on a Sunday displays a failure to understand the true character of the Christian. He is like a newborn babe desiring the sincere milk of the word and also desiring to be with his fellows, loving the brethren. It seems to me to be indicative of a wrong view of the church and of the individual Christian as a newborn babe. So I realize I'm preaching to the choir because you are here on a Sunday evening. I should be reading this in the morning maybe, but it's a great thing to desire to fellowship with those who love the word as well, setting aside all these evils and joining with those who have a similar desire for the truth of God's word. Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, we pray that those teach us to lay aside all of these evil things, all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, that we may indeed desire the pure milk of thy word. Lord, refresh us in the reading of the scriptures and the hearing of the gospel week by week. We ask of Thee that Thou wouldst enable us to grow and to be nourished spiritually as we seek to serve Thee growing in faith. These things we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.