The Prophet Isaiah speaks of some who “are drunken, but not with wine; who stagger, but not with strong drink.”  I fancy I hear someone in the congregation say:  “I guess they must have taken laurel.”  Precisely so, friend!  They took the very laurel that has been the ruin of thousands of the Lord’s sheep and lambs.  Let me tell you exactly what I mean.

The love of worldly pleasure is laurel of one kind.  It blooms forth in the desire for fine dress, gay company, night gatherings, social parties, and the like things.

Worldly treasure is laurel of another kind.  It blooms forth in the desire for worldly possessions, no matter how obtained, and only to gratify selfish ends.  I have known some old sheep to take this kind.

Ambition to be great and highly honored is still another kind.  This is the “deer-tongued” laurel, the very tallest kind that grows, and has the richest looking flowers.  But it is just as poisonous as any, and it blooms forth in the desire to be admired for beauty, to be looked up to for superior power and wisdom, and to be held in high honor for great deeds.  I have known some old sheep and even leaders of the flock to eat of this kind until they staggered considerably.  It was plainly visible in their steps that their heads were not exactly level.  I am glad, however, to be able to say, that in the flock to which we belong, I have met with very few who ever gave any signs of being afflicted in the way last described.

In his letter to the Philippian brethren, Paul says:  “For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.”

But, brethren, there is a remedy for all these evils.  God has provided the remedy.  Nor is it a bitter draught.  It is the “milk and wine” of his Word.  Both mean TRUTH.  I used to wonder why the Prophet Isaiah used both terms, when both mean the same thing.  Now I will tell you.  He says:  “Come unto me, buy WINE and MILK, yea, buy WINE and MILK without money, and without price.” Milk is TRUTH in its simplest and plainest forms.  Gospel truth presented in a way that very young and uninstructed minds may readily take it in, is what Paul calls “milk for babes.”  But wine is the very same TRUTH extended and expanded into forms of instruction adapted to the understandings of “men in Christ Jesus.”

All are invited and even exhorted to come; to come to the “fountain that was opened in the house of David.”  It is the same that is meant by the “river of the water of life which proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”  I exhort every one, both old and young, to study God’s Word for the truth it contains, represented by the beautiful symbols set before you therein.  Even the unconverted sinner is invited to come and take of the “water of life freely.”

  “Here pardon, love, and joy divine
    In rich effusion flow,
  For guilty sinners lost in sin
    And doomed to endless woe.”