The Carnal Mind is Enmity Against God pt.5 Spurgeon

II. Now, secondly, we are called upon to notice the universality of this evil.
What a broad assertion it is! It is not a single carnal mind, or a certain class of characters, but “the carnal mind.” It is an unqualified statement, including every individual. Whatever mind may properly be called carnal, not having been spiritualized by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, is “enmity against God.”

Observe then, first of all, the universality of this as to all persons. Every carnal mind in the world is at enmity against God. This does not exclude even infants at the mother’s breast. We call them innocent and so they are of actual transgression, but as the poet says, “Within the youngest breast there lies a stone.” There is in the carnal mind of an infant, enmity against God. It is not developed, but it lies there. Some say that children learn sin by imitation. But no—take a child away, place it under the most pious influences, let the very air it breathes be purified by piety—let it constantly drink in draughts of holiness. Let it hear nothing but the voice of prayer and praise. Let its ear be always kept in tune by notes of sacred song—and that child, notwithstanding, may still become one of the grossest of transgressors. And though placed apparently on the very road to Heaven, it shall, if not directed by Divine grace, march downwards to the pit.

Oh, how true it is that some who have had the best of parents have been the worst of sons—that many who have been trained up under the most Holy auspices, in the midst of most favorable scenes of piety—have nevertheless become loose and wanton! So it is not by imitation but it is by nature that the child is evil! Grant me that the child is carnal and my text says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” The young crocodile, I have heard, when broken from the shell, will in a moment begin to put itself in a posture of attack, opening its mouth as if it had been taught and trained. We know that young lions when tamed and domesticated still will have the wild nature of their fellows of the forest and were liberty given them, would prey as fiercely as others. So with the child. You may bind him with the green withes of education, you may do what you will with him—but you cannot change his heart. That carnal mind shall still be at enmity against God. And notwithstanding intellect, talent and all you may give to boot, it shall be of the same sinful complexion as every other child, if not as apparently evil, for, “the carnal mind is enmity against God.”