The Whole Body, Part 11: The Stomach

The Word of God as the Source of Growth in the Body

Well, this morning we are bundled up and working through this series on the whole body. We don't have that many body parts left. In fact, come mid-April we'll be in a new series working through Ecclesiastes and be looking forward even this next week doing some heavy preparation for that.

And we certainly should be praying that the Lord uses all the things that we've received up to this point and that we don't soon forget some of the things that perhaps He's placed uniquely on our hearts as individuals, the things that even tonight as we gather and talk more practically about where the rubber meets the road, that we would be able to grow into all things into Him who is our head, that the Lord by His own Spirit would join and knit us together and that we as individual joints would supply that which effectively works to build this body up in love.

That's Ephesians 4 in a nutshell and that's been the banner over which we've spent these past several weeks, the head, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, the heart, the spine, the shoulders, the hands last week and this morning we're at the stomach.

Now when I thought about the stomach and why it would be a useful body part to discuss about the health of the body or a whole body, you realize a lot of our bodily health is bound up to our stomach. It reminded me of a fable from the Greek writer Aesop where he describes the body parts were beginning to feel a little jilted that the stomach could just revel in eating luxurious foods all day long, you know.

The hands were saying, I'm basically grinded down to my knuckles, scabbed and bloody with all the work I have to do. The brain says I have migraines and headaches with all the thinking and planning and anxiety that's wracking my body.

The knees are weary, the feet are tired, the back is aching and here's the stomach. All it does is just eat olives and garlic and lamb chops and what have you. And so all the body parts decided they would rebel against the stomach.

They would work together to make sure that the stomach would not have it so easy and would not have the food and as the fable progresses, all these body parts begin to fail. They realized that though that stomach seemed to be just receiving, that in fact their health was uniquely tied to the stomach and it was because the stomach was receiving food and the fruit of the hands and the back and the knees and the brain that actually it was able to give life and growth and sustenance to every part of the body.

Now if that's true and he was using that, Aesop was using that to speak of the body politic, I think we can use it to speak to the body corporate, the body ecclesial. The stomach, however, I want to tie to the individual believer.

The stomach here being the means by which we digest that which causes growth. That's what the stomach does. The stomach receives something and it's able in receiving it to transform it into energy.

For growth.

And so the stomach is that which will digest the word of God and therefrom cause growth. That's true corporately. That's also true individually. So we're talking about the means of growth and specifically within that, the means of growth that comes from the word of God.

That's how I want to approach the stomach this morning. Now we're going to have a roundabout way of getting there as we come to talk about growth because the first thing I want to do is just talk about how not only do we receive the word of God, but first we are born of the word of God.

The word of God is that which begets Christians and only from that new life born of the word do we actually receive the life and the growth that comes from that life. It's the word that's living and active and so as that word has brought life to those who were dead and trespassed in sin, as that word has brought new life and new light, it also causes growth, it edifies and advances.

And so the word, the power, the life, the endurance of the word, that's the first thing that we need to establish and only then can we consider the digestion of the word, the progress of the word, the growth of the word in our lives.

And I think all of that gets held together rather neatly in 1 Peter 1, 22, through chapter.

2, verse 3.

We don't often go across chapter divisions. That's a good practice. In fact, some Bible publishers print Bibles now without chapter or even verse number. And the idea is that you just read the text as the text and don't use, perhaps, artificial numbering systems as a way of dividing things that would have been organically linked together.

Read a letter as a letter rather than say, oh, I'm done the chapter, therefore I'm done the reading. And maybe here's a good case and example of why we should do that. 1 Peter 1, beginning in verse 22.

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides forever because all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.

The grass withers, its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You see just across 1 20 through 2 through 2 3 how several themes are held together. We have been born again and therefore as newborn babes we desire the milk of the word.

What is this word? It's the word which was preached in the gospel, which you heard, which you tasted. This word doesn't fade. It doesn't wither. It endures forever. Just like your birth from that word showed that it was not a corruptible seed, but it was an incorruptible seed.

This word lives and abides forever. This word will cause you to purify yourselves because this word tells you the truth that you are to obey. In obeying that truth, you will be able to love the brethren.

What does loving the brethren look like? Laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, all evil speaking. You see all these things are held together just across 1 22 through 2 3. Now we want to pay due attention to the flow that Peter gives us, the birth of the word, the endurance of the word, and then we'll come to perhaps the meat of the sermon, which is the milk of the word.

Peter begins at the very beginning of his letter by saying, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again. This idea of the new birth is front and center.

And here as we come to the end of chapter one, he's returned to it again, having been born again. Peter's argument presupposes that a Christian is one who's born again. I don't know about you, every now and then I hear people who they speak of born again Christians like that was some denomination.

It's not a denomination. It's like, oh, you know, where do you go to church? A Baptist. Oh, I'm a born again Christian. It's like every Christian is born. You're not rightly called a Christian unless you're born again.

Of course, there's those who are Christian in name only, those who are called Christians but are are no such thing. But to be rightly called a Christian, to be rightly defined as a Christian, you must be born again.

There is no other. This Peter assumes. How vital is this new birth? In John 3, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night, said, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God.

No one can do the signs you're doing unless God is with him. Jesus said to him, and oh, by the way, notice that Nicodemus says, we know, not just I know, we know, we actually really do know. That's why I'm coming to you by night.

I don't want to get outed by my group. See, it's pretty popular to reject you, but secretly we all know God is really with you. He comes by night. He asserts this. We know that you really are from God.

Now, Jesus says, well, it's not that you know so much as it's been revealed to you, Nicodemus. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he can't even see the kingdom.

Of God.

Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born again when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Nicodemus is very literal in his understanding of what Jesus was saying.

Jesus says, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Without this new birth, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Without this new birth, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of flesh is just flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And so don't marvel, Jesus says, that I said you must be born again. And he describes the work of the Spirit.

The Spirit blows where it wishes. You can hear the sound of the wind. You cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. This is how the Spirit works. This is how the Spirit moves. Have you ever met someone who chose to be born?

Yeah, I figured it was about time. I was born in 86. Yeah, it's a good year for the Celtics. This is as good a year as any. I might as well be born. No, no man ever chose to be born. No man ever chose to be born again.

This is a work, a sovereign work of the Spirit of God. As many as received Him, John 1 says, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not even the will of man, but of God.

It's God's will to bring about the new birth. And how does He bring about this new birth? This is the whole point of where we're going. That which gives life is that which sustains life. That from which we're born is that from which we grow.

It's the Word of God. We've been begotten of the Word and now we need to receive that Word that this principle of life, this principle of new growth, new transformation may continue. Every good gift, every perfect gift is from above, James says.

It comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there's no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will, again, not of our will, of His own will, He brought us forth, how? By the Word of truth. God brings forth His people, His children, by His Word.

His Word is this incorruptible seed. His Word is this Spirit-wrought principle of life. Romans 10 presumes this, in a few weeks, when we come toward Easter, we'll be at the feet, the beautiful feet that herald the Gospel.

And Paul reasons in this way, how will any call on Him whom they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard? So then, faith comes by hearing, well how does hearing come? Hearing comes by the Word of God.

Paul says to the church at Ephesus, in Him you trusted after you heard the Word of truth, which is the Gospel of your salvation. So it's the centrality of the Word, it's the efficacy of the Word. 1 Thessalonians 2 .13, for this reason we also thank God, without ceasing, when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you did not receive it as a word from men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God.

And it's effectively working in you. So Paul recognizes that which gave you new life, is that which causes new growth. It's the Word of God, effectively working in the life of the believer. Joel Green in his commentary says it so well, if the seed from which these believers were begotten was a perishable seed, then their fate would surely be just like the grass, just like the flower, it withers and falls away.

But if the Word of God, if the Gospel of God's truth is a living Word, an everlasting Word, and if believers are begotten from this Word, the life into which they've been reborn is unending. And therefore, even the way they love one another can become unending.

It's exactly right. And secondly, we see Peter's drawing out this idea of the permanence of the Word, the endurance of the Word, verses 24 and 25. Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever.

Because all flesh is as grass, all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, its flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. This is the Word which by the Gospel was preached to you.

So this is the source of life. We have this language of the fading flower, the flesh being like grass, it withers, it falls away. In a world where everything is lacking permanence, here's the Word that endures.

Here's the one thing that will never pass away. God being the Alpha and the Omega, all that He says is true, eternally so. In a world, as Ecclesiastes will show us, where under the sun all is vanity. If we understand the word vanity rightly.

There is one who sits above the sun. There's one who sits outside of time and space and creation itself. And His Word, therefore, endures forever. It's not subject to decay. And think about it in this way.

This is Charles Spurgeon. I have to mention him at least weekly. A wonderful sermon called The Withering Work of the Spirit. He says, when the Spirit of God breathes on us, that which was sweet becomes bitter.

That which was bright becomes dim. The world and the lusts thereof are to the unregenerate as beautiful as the meadows in spring. They're bedecked with flowers, but to the regenerate soul, the born-again soul, they're a wilderness, a salt land, uninhabitable.

Of those very things in which we once took to light, we say, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Beloved hearers, do you know what this kind of withering means? Have you seen the lusts of the flesh and the pomps and the pleasures fade away before your very eyes?

It must be so, or the Spirit of God has not breathed upon your soul. You see, there's nothing enduring, nothing satisfying, nothing fulfilling. The only thing that's enduring, the only thing that holds true, the only thing that is solid and lasting and therefore can be a refuge and a shelter for my undying soul is the very Word of God.

What he says abides forever. What he's promised is the only truth that will abide. Everything else is lies in a world of lies. It's the Word of God that abides forever. Spurgeon, like James in his letter, uses this metaphor of the fading flower or all flesh being like grass.

He talks about the glory of man fading away, and that's in high contrast to the Word of God abiding. If you're reading 1 Peter, it's throughout 1 Peter, he's referencing this Word of God in chapter 1.

He calls it the truth in verse 22, the seed by which we're born again, the living and abiding Word, the Word of the Lord, the Word which was preached to you. And as we'll see a little bit later, the pure milk of the Word.

It's what the writer of Hebrews was getting at in chapter 4. The Word of God is living and powerful. Where do we derive our life from? The Word of God. Jesus says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my Word will never pass away.

And this is the great contrast. Where is Peter pulling this from? He's pulling it from several places in Scripture, but preeminently Isaiah chapter 40. There's a lot of parallels. In fact, we'll look at them in a moment.

But let me just begin with Isaiah 40, beginning in verse 1. If you remember the prophecy of Isaiah, with all the judgment and oracles of woe that are about to come, occupies largely chapters 1 through 39.

You have brief little moments of respite along the way, but generally speaking, it's a pretty bleak prophecy. And then you get to chapter 40 and the whole tone shifts. The promises of God begin to adorn all that Isaiah has to say.

And God desires now to speak comfort and hope to His people that are going to face His judgment. Isaiah 40 begins, comfort. Yes, comfort. My people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem. Cry out to her.

Her warfare has ended. Her iniquity is pardoned. She's received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, speaking to John the Baptist's ministry. Prepare the way of the Lord.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted. Every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places will be made straight. The rough places smooth.

The glory of the Lord will be revealed.

All flesh will now see it together. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. The voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall I cry? Verse six. All flesh is grass. All its loveliness like the flower of the field.

The grass withers. The flower fades. Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it, surely even the people are grass. The grass withers. The flower fades. But the word of our God stands forever. You see how this is tied into the comfort of a people who are withering and decaying in the exile to come.

In a world and a life of absolute and utter decay, what is the comfort that will comfort the people of God? The word of God stands forever. It's this promise, this good news of the gospel. There's this way in the wilderness that I'm preparing.

There's a time coming when you're iniquity will be pardoned. This is the entrance into the suffering servant songs. God is showcasing all that He will do with His mighty arm to deliver His people and redeem them from their death.

In a world of decay, in a world of absolute corruption and ruin, the one thing that endures forever is the word of God. All of its promise. All of its hope. All that God has purpose to bring about.

Unthwartable.

This is the word of comfort. And there's parallels here. Peter is writing his letter to a group of discouraged believers that are about to be tried with a fiery trial. And he's speaking comfort to their souls in this very way.

Everything's fading.

All flesh is reeling. All people are like grass. The one thing that endures forever is what God has uttered. The one thing that will endure to the end is what He has foretold. That's the one thing that abides forever.

And he says this very word of God is how you have been born. You've been brought into light. So that's the word of hope. That's the comfort that God speaks to His people. It's the grace that Isaiah was prophesying.

Peter wrote earlier in this letter of this salvation, the prophets inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. Searching water, what manner of time the spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand of the suffering of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Most evidently having Isaiah. And that's why he goes to quote from Isaiah. To them, it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us. They were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you.

Now we come to verse 25. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. You've been born again. You've been begotten by this word of God. This is how life came about. This is how your life has begun.

How must that life continue? It's the milk of the word that must be received. That's where he goes. So if you've been born of the word and now you need the milk of the word that that same life which only comes from the word, the word that alone abides forever, that that life would continue in you, renewing you, transforming you, bringing you from one degree of glory to the next.

That's the idea. All of the life, all of the endurance comes from the word of God. So we come to now chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

If you've been born again, you'll desire this milk of the word. If you've been born again, you'll desire that this life you've received would continue to grow and transform your life. This word is an imperishable source of food.

It's an everlasting bread. It's pure milk. And interestingly here, to begin, he says, therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking, desire the milk and receive the milk.

So notice here that something has to be laid aside in order for us to rightly receive. If you could put it this way, putting away these sins, putting away these vices, putting away these corruptible activities is part of the stomach properly digesting the word.

But you will not rightly, you will not desire purely if you're walking with envy, if you're practicing evil speaking, if you're acting the hypocrite, if you're playing part in deception, if you have malice toward others.

In other words, if you're not loving the brethren with fervent love, how can you rightly receive the pure milk of this word? They too have been brought of this word of God. They too must receive it. Therefore, how we occupy our walks with one another in the body has a lot to do with how we receive the word of God as the body.

This is not just Peter's insight. Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which so easily ensnares us, so that with endurance we may run the race set before us, looking unto Jesus.

Something has to be laid aside for us to see him rightly. Or James 1, 21, therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness. Receive with meekness the implanted word. Do you see what James is saying?

You must lay aside something in order to receive something. That's what Peter's saying. Lay aside this filth. Lay aside the overflow of this wickedness, these evil desires, so that in meekness you can receive the word.

James calls it the word that's been implanted in you. It's the life that you've been born from, but now it's the life you need to somehow receive. The word is the womb that bore you, and to it you must return that you may be sustained in that life.

So putting away this filth, this wickedness, not walking in hypocrisy or malice or envy or deceit, is proper digestion for us to receive rightly the word, the pure word. And the question is, just at the beginning, do we recognize this?

Do we recognize that receiving the word of God is a moral exercise, and therefore it cannot be done in immorality? It must be done in sincerity. It must be born of real hunger and real repentance. Receiving and understanding God's word is a moral activity.

It requires morality. It requires moral sincerity. Again, if we don't lay aside all filthiness, we may not receive the implanted word. If we do not lay aside all these evil things that divide and sour and embitter the people of God, we should not expect that we'll have the right hunger pain, or that we'll be able to have our mouths open to receive that which God would supply.

Desiring the word is simply the hunger pains of the stomach. The hunger pains of the stomach are the sign of life. Baby is hungry. Baby is crying for milk. That is a sign of life. That is a demand for life.

The cry is almost a subconscious expression of, I must eat that I may live. Don't deprive me of the very thing that sustains my life. It's this hunger pain that we know begins in the stomach. The lack of sustenance, the lack of that which causes growth sends a signal to the head to say, if I don't eat, I'm going to die.

Sometimes our stomach talks before even our mouth does. We have grumbling stomachs. Sometimes I meet with some of you brothers early in the mornings and my stomach is doing half the talking, uttering the things of the deep.

An empty stomach demands food. Why? Because it demands life. The body demands growth.

We grow thereby.

We must receive this word of God that we may grow thereby.

This is the idea.

Isn't it amazing? I hope I'm not mixing up trivia and facts. I've been out of the newborn season for a little bit of time, but I do remember visiting our pediatrician for a couple of the children. And of course, at the very beginning, what that infant needs most is milk.

But that is the source of nutrition, and that is the nourishment that will cause growth well through what? Maybe the first year or something like that. And maybe toward the end of that year, you can begin to get them used of textures and other foods, but their body essentially doesn't use that.

The content, the nutrition, the source of life is going to be the milk. But in time, as that infant begins to mature, no longer can milk sustain that growth. Now that food that the body didn't know what to do with and just essentially ignored, it was useless for nutrition.

Now that milk is not able to sustain that new growth. It's not able to sustain that maturity. And so other food is needed. To put it in biblical language, meat is needed. And so God has so designed a human body that in our spiritual infancy, we see this parallel.

In our spiritual infancy, we need the pure milk of the word. We don't have time to read Charles Hodge's systematic theology. We just need to know that Jesus says, stop lying.

That's pure milk.

But eventually you need to move on to, well, who is Jesus? What does it mean that he's called the son of man? And what did Chalcedon figure out about the interrelation between his humanity and his divinity?

That's going from milk to meat. Because as Irenaeus says, heretics like to add chalk to the milk. They cut in with things that won't actually cause growth, but stunt it. And so the idea is, again, infants aren't capable of receiving nutrition or growth from.

Meat.

It's just out of reach. Their body won't be sustained by that. Their growth can't benefit from that. They need the pure milk of the word until they can grow thereby to have meat from the.

Word.

We'll see that in Hebrews and 1 Corinthians 3 in a moment. But you understand the emphasis here. It's that empty stomach that's been born again by the very word of God that now demands the word of God so that it may grow, that life may continue, that fruit may appear.

Peter implies that believers who have tasted the word of God will desire the word of God and receive the word of God. To put it frankly, if you have truly tasted the Lord as gracious, you will have an insatiable hunger to continue tasting that grace.

To put it even more simply, do not presume you've been born of God if you have no hunger for the word of God. I was reading some comment from a teacher at a Bible school, one of these big tent schools, and they have people from all manners of walks and traditions and says, you know, I teach undergrad Greek and I have to very deliberately change some of the wording on my exams because if I just take a Greek Bible sentence and I put it on the exam, all of my Baptist students will recognize one or two nouns and then they'll figure out the whole verse because they have the verse memorized.

And he goes, but I never have to do that to my Catholic students. They're like, wow, this is in the Bible?

I never read this.

And he's commenting. You can always tell what traditions are coming from where. The Catholic students aren't even aware of what's in the Bible. The Baptists have almost the whole Bible memorized.

Amen.

That makes me very proud to be a Baptist. We ought to be people of the word, people of the book, people who have been born of the word of God and therefore have this insatiable hunger for more of the word of God so that we can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How else can you grow? According to 1 Peter 2, 1 through 3, growth comes by the word of God. The stomach demands more life and life comes from the word of God. That's been the whole thrust here from 1 22 through 2 3.

The life of God is born in us in his word and therefore life received from the word of God will be growth received from the word of God. The word alone endures forever. The word alone is incorruptible.

The word is the one thing that won't decay and wilt away.

The word is life.

Jesus shows us this by his own example in the first temptation in Matthew 4 when he was led up by the spirit we read into the wilderness to be tempted by the evil one. And there he fasted 40 days and 40 nights and afterward he was hungry.

This is what theologians call an understatement. He fasted 40 days and 40 nights. Yes, he was very hungry, ravenously hungry. And the tempter came to him and said, if you're the son of God, command that these stones would become bread.

But Jesus answered, citing Deuteronomy 8, it's written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus understands the nature of true food, of true life.

My body needs bread to survive but my soul feeds upon the very word of God. I live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus is actually doing that even here in Matthew 4. He's living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of his Father.

So if we live not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds of the mouth of God, what does that say about a Christian's appetite? Some of you maybe, I don't know how households do this, but some households, some homeschooling households often have the mantra, no Bible, no breakfast or something like that.

And I hope you young hearers, if that's the kind of household you're growing up in, that you don't count that some drudgery. Oh, again. All right, let me just flip open some pages really quick so I can get to my Eggo waffles and Froot Loops or whatever your parents are serving you.

And then you grow up and you have a distaste for the word of God because you've learned that in fact you need to fill your stomach physically and not feed upon his word or his word has become a box that you check off and you don't understand anything that's being said here from 1 Peter or even from Matthew 4.

This is the word of life. Whatever else you put in your mouth, if you're not feeding on the word of God, you are perishing. This alone is food. This alone is life. This alone is growth. So what's the state of your appetite?

I'd say that to mature Christians too. Is it a box to tick or is it a meal to be had? A meal to be enjoyed. Food to be grateful for. Food to desire and receive. You know what it's like in extreme starvation.

It's not just that people can lose the will to live. It's they lose the will to eat. They're so starved they don't even desire to eat anymore. You can so starve yourself from the word of God that you don't even desire to eat it anymore.

Why open it? It's the deer essentially saying, maybe there never was a stream, maybe there never was a stream.

I'm done with my dreams.

I'm done panting. I don't even desire it anymore. We can't think of a better physical depiction of desire than hunger, food, the bodily demand. Everything else seems to lose priority. As a pagan poet would say, no God can stop a hungry man.

Everything else begins to lose priority. When you're hungry, are you trying to maintain a budget? That goes really well until you're hungry. You're like, let's get some food and let's go get the steaks anyway.

Hunger will drive you against your very principles and goals and convictions. Hunger, that hunger of desire is something so profoundly powerful. But if you starve yourself, if you lose that desire, you essentially lose the will to continue, the will to grow, the will to have life.

We could call this spiritual fatalism. There's nothing to be gained. This desire can't be fulfilled. John Piper, I really enjoy how he speaks about this, his whole ministry, of course, desiring God and this whole point of thinking about one of the early books I read when I was cutting my teeth on Reformed theology was hungering after God.

And the idea of desire in this way, and he warns against spiritual fatalism. He says this belief or feeling that you are stuck with the way you are. And you have thoughts like this. This is all I'll ever experience of God.

Whatever I had back in those glorious days when I first came to him, those are the only moments of victory and power I've ever had and I ever will have. The level of spiritual maturity or intensity I had then, or maybe even I have now, is all I can have.

Others have stronger desires.

Other have better hunger.

Others seem to have deeper experiences of pleasure and delight in power in God. I will never have those. And the question is not, what are they doing? The question is, what are you not doing? What secret source do they have?