The Carnal Mind is Enmity Against God pt.6 Spurgeon

And if this applies to children, equally does it include every class of men. There are some men that are born into this world master spirits. They walk about it as giants, wrapped in mantles of light and glory. I refer to the poets—men who stand aloft like Colossi—mightier than we, seeming to be descended from celestial spheres. There are others of acute intellect, who, searching into mysteries of science, discover things that have been hidden from the creation of the world. Men of keen research and mighty erudition—and yet of each of these—poet, philosopher, metaphysician and great discoverer—it can be said, “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”

You may train him up, you may make his intellect almost angelic, you may strengthen his soul until he shall take what are riddles to us and unravel them with his fingers in a moment. You may make him so mighty that he can grasp the iron secrets of the eternal hills and grind them to atoms in his fist. You may give him an eye so keen that he can penetrate the deep secrets of rocks and mountains. You may add a soul so potent that he may slay the giant Sphinx that had for ages troubled the mightiest men of learning. Yet when you have done all this, his mind shall be a depraved one and his carnal heart shall still be in opposition to God. Yes, more, you shall bring him to the house of prayer. You shall make him sit constantly under the clearest preaching of the word where he shall hear the doctrines of grace in all their purity, attended by a holy unction.

But if that holy unction does not rest upon him, all shall be vain—he shall attend most regularly, but like the pious door of the chapel that turns in and out, he shall still be the same—having an outside superficial religion and his carnal mind shall still be at enmity against God. Now, this is not my assertion, it is the declaration of God’s Word and you must leave it if you do not believe it. But quarrel not with me, it is my Master’s message and it is true of every one of you—men, women and children and myself, too—that if we had not been regenerated and converted, if we have not experienced a change of heart, our carnal mind is still at enmity against God.

Again, notice the universality of this at all times. The carnal mind is at all times enmity against God. “Oh,” say some, “it may be true that we are at times opposed to God, but surely we are not always so.” “There are moments,” says one, “when I feel rebellious. At times my passions lead me astray. But surely there are other favorable seasons when I really am Friendly to God and offer true devotion. I have (continues the objector) stood upon the mountaintop, until my whole soul has kindled with the scene below and my lips have uttered the song of praise—


“These are Your glorious works, parent of good,
Almighty, shine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair—Yourself how wondrous then!”

Yes, but mark—what is true one day is not false another, “the carnal mind is enmity against God” at all times. The wolf may sleep, but it is a wolf still. The snake with its azure hues may slumber amid the flowers and the child may stroke its slimy back, but it is a serpent still. It does not change its nature, though it is dormant. The sea is the house of storms even when it is glassy as a lake. The thunder is still the mighty rolling thunder when it is so much aloft that we hear it not. And the heart, when we perceive not its boiling, when it belches not forth its lava and sends not forth the hot stones of its corruption, is still the same dread volcano. At all times, at all hours, at every moment, (I speak this as God speaks it) if you are carnal, you are each one of you enmity against God.