Mat 18:2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
Mat 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
You will remember we said that "firstborn" means a new beginning.
We quoted the Lord's words as recorded in Matthew 18: "Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven".
That certainly is a new beginning, and such a beginning obviously means certain things.
When you start with the little child (and the word is the diminutive there, 'babe'), there is this to your advantage: that you have a clear course.
It means that there is no history to be undone, nothing to be given up, gone back upon, but you have a clear way from the start, and everything lies before you.
Thus it is when you turn and become a little child.
It is interesting and helpful to remember the simple meaning of the word "repent".
It is translated in the Revised Version as "turn".
It simply means that you go back and start again; you reverse the course that you have taken, and come back to a new beginning, and so you become as a little child.
The Lord would not have His people childish, but He would always have them childlike, and there should be a cry in our hearts.
God forbid that we should ever be other than childlike, that ever we should get beyond the place that is represented by the little child!
We know all that the Lord says about growing up, about maturity, but there is this that we always seek to bear in mind, that real maturity is only possible to the childlike in spirit.
It is the people of the childlike spirit who grow fastest, who make the swiftest progress, who arrive at things more promptly than other people.
Remember that when the Lord uttered these words He was dealing with the question of greatness: "Who then is greatest in the kingdom?"
Now the question of greatness is bound up with childlikeness.
The standards of God are so different from the standards of men.
When John (in the book of Revelation) looks to see what he believes must be something phenomenal as the explanation of all that he is hearing, he sees a Lamb.
That is a standard altogether different from this world's standard of power.
There is so much history to undo.
That is the thing that is holding us up all the time, the tremendous history that lies behind and that counts for nothing, and has all to be undone.
Yet we stand to the point of what we have just said, that it does not matter at what time this great event takes place of turning and becoming as a little child.
That is, it does not matter how old we may have grown in this life and in this world, it is still possible for us to be in a position where there is no history to be undone.
~T.Austin Sparks~
This childlikeness which gives God a free, clear, full way is a teachable thing.
The essence of it is teachableness and adjustableness.
If we know anything, and think we know anything, that very mentality is the hindrance to our progress.
So many of us perhaps have been held up by a tremendous amount of knowledge that we think we have had of the things of the Lord.
Oh, we do not know what a hindrance such a mentality is to spiritual progress.
The mark of maturity, of growth, is this: that the more you know and the further you go, the less you know that you do know, and the more you realize your need to know.
That is where the spirit of the child is carried right through to the end.
It is a teachableness, resultant from the consciousness that, though we may have been on the road for a life-time, we are yet only on the fringe of things so far as the Lord is concerned.
That is a mark of the Holy Spirit's power working in us.
We do come to a place where we are able to say: I do know the Lord on that thing; I do know the Lord in this.
But in that full sense of knowledge we have ever to be coming more and more to the place where we realize how little we know, simply because we are seeing more and more of what there is that we ought to know, need to know, and that there is to know in Christ.
You can adjust a child.
A child is ready to be adjusted.
But that is the trouble with so many of us, we are not just like that, we are not adjustable.
There was a beautiful childlikeness and simplicity about David, although he was king.
How marvellously adjustable he was!
You notice that whenever David made a mistake the Lord had no difficulty in putting David right.
He adjusted to the situation every time.
He did not stand out against the Lord, he let go, he yielded, and whenever a new position required that he should adjust himself to it in the Lord's interests he did so.
What a rich life of the knowledge of the Lord David's was.
There, on the one hand, is this beautiful simplicity, this teachableness, and this adjustableness, and on the other hand, a wonderful walk with the Lord.
How much his Psalms mean always!
What a fullness of personal, simple walking with the Lord is in those Psalms.
That is becoming as a little child.
~T. Austin Sparks~
