Solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is,
those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and
evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
In our natural, physical man we
have five senses. We have our sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Those are
the five senses of our physical natural life. But there is also an inner man
called the "hidden man of the heart," and that inward man has what corresponds
to the outer man's five senses. There is a faculty of spiritual sight, of
spiritual hearing, of spiritual smelling or sensing, of spiritual taste and
spiritual touch, and these senses are very important to the life of the inward
man – yes, more important even than the senses of the physical man.
We know how we feel the tragedy
of people who have lost any of those outward senses. It is a great loss; it is
an imperfect life, a life of limitation. But it is equally true of the inward
man. To be without spiritual sight is a tragic loss and a terrible limitation;
or without spiritual hearing, that capacity for answering to the Spirit – "he
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith": if there is no capacity
for hearing, that is a desperate situation. What loss there is if there is no
sensing – sensing as in the matter of smell, so that you at once scent things. I
know how wrongly that has been used, in an everlasting attempt to scent heresy
and fault and wrong, but there is a right faculty of spiritual scent which is
very important. I believe it was to that that reference was made concerning our
Lord – "His scent shall be in the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11:3, A.R.M.) – quick
of scent, right on the mark in scenting what the Lord wanted. And how true it
was of His heavenly life: what it saved Him to scent the enemy and what the
enemy was up to, to scent what the Father wanted and when He did not want
things. It is important to be quick of scent. And so with our taste and with our
touch – our contact, and what we register by contact. This is a very real inward
man, and these are the senses which form the basis of spiritual capacity: these
are the things to be exercised, to be "put through it" for increase and
development.