Babies are easily spoiled. And when they become spoiled they become irritable. It's mighty easy to spoil them to a light so that you have to keep a light on. It's mighty easy to spoil them to being handled and held. They are babies.
But the Bible says something about babies growing up. David said, "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child" (Psalm 131:2). The Bible says concerning Isaac, "And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned" (Genesis 21:8).
That ought to be a great day—that day when Christians grow enough to get off the bottle. But you know, it isn't. It ought to be a feast day; instead it's a cry day. I know, I pastored nearly twelve years. It's no wonder to me at all that we're not doing more in some of our churches than we are. If we do get a newborn babe in we don't have a bottle for it. Every bottle is in use. And the older babies are not going to give up their bottles. Every bed in the spiritual nursery is taken. And the older babies don't want to get up and give up their beds.
In the last church I pastored there were two ladies who lived next door to each other. Bless their hearts. They had been saved I don't know how long, baptized with the Holy Spirit and speaking with tongues. But that doesn't make you a full grown Christian. They were the biggest babies in the world. You'd have to run after them, and run after them, and run after them. They wanted you to come and pet them. They would miss church Sunday for you to come over on Monday and pet them.
So I just quit.
When one of the deacons said something to me about it I said, "Brother, if you want to go over and visit them, you go. But I'm never going over there again. The longest day I live, or the longest day I pastor this church, I will never set foot inside their houses again. I'm tired of wasting my time with them. They are babies who want to stay babies. There are other people who can be helped. There are new people to be visited. And others are getting saved who can be taught."
You couldn't have taught those old babies anything. So I quit visiting them and never set foot inside their houses the eighteen months I continued to pastor that church. But do you know what? When they saw I wasn't coming again I believe they were more faithful to church than they'd ever been.
We ought to grow enough spiritually so that instead of someone's having to come and visit us, and pump us up, and prop us up, and pray with us, and feed us, we are able to be out helping others ourselves. When weaning time comes we ought to thank God for it.
Actually, if a child is weaned properly, when weaning time comes it will turn its face from the bottle. If it isn't, you have a cry on your hands. If you can just keep people on the milk, they will grow. Peter said, "Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
I have actually had pastors say to me, in trying to tell me I was giving their congregation a little too much, "Now Brother Hagin, I know my congregation should be better than they are, but you have to be careful. All they can take is a little milk. All I ever feed them is a little milk."
I said, "No, you haven't even given them milk. You've been pastor here thirty years. If they had been getting milk they would have grown. Peter said that we would grow thereby."
They didn't grow; so they weren't even getting milk. They were just getting bluejohn. Bluejohn is milk with all the cream taken out.
Babies are easily frustrated, easily distracted, easily hurt. The Lord wants to bring us to the place where we're not so easily frustrated. He wants to bring us to the place where we're not so easily distracted. He wants to bring us to the place where we're not so easily hurt.
CHAPTER 1
