Scripture Reading: Psalms 33:13-15; Jeremiah 17:10
Psalms 33:13-15 says, ‘The LORD watches from heaven; he sees all people. From the place where he lives he looks carefully at all the earth’s inhabitants. He is the one who forms every human heart, and takes note of all their actions.’
Jeremiah 17:10 ‘I, the LORD, probe into people’s minds. I examine people’s hearts. I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done.’
Today, Swiss-made watches are renowned for their beauty, dependability and intricacy. Not only do they keep time, they also bequeath it as families hand down, these mechanical masterpieces from generation to generation. Take for instance the Rolex Watch, it is one of the planet’s most recognizable luxury watch brands, it is a most innovative piece of beauty, with 220 mechanical parts that takes one year to make. They are not mass produced like quartz watch which has only 50 to 100 parts. The creator of a Rolex Watch knows every motorised parts at the tip of his finger because he is the one who created it. He knows the keys, the hands, the rotating teeth, the intricacies; he knows everything about that one watch. Likewise, God is the one who forms the human heart. He knows everything about the human heart. All hearts are fashioned by the LORD. All the motions and operations of the heart, which no mortals know but themselves, God knows better than they do.
The Greek term for heart is ‘kardia’ and it is used in the Septuagint to reflect the Hebrew term ‘lēb’. It occurs over one thousand times in the Bible, making it the most common anthropological term in the Scripture. Ancient people believes that the heart is the central organ that moved the rest of the body. Ancients ate to strengthen the heart and so revive the body. Abraham offers his weary guests food so that they might “sustain their hearts” and then go on their way. The ancients are right. The heart is the central seat that moves a human. The heart is also seen as a figure of hiddenness and inaccessibility. It is used in several ways. What can we learn about the heart?
1. The centre of physical life
The heart denotes the seat and centre of the physical life or physical activity. The manifestation of the physical life is the result of the heart. You are that person manifested in the physical life. Your physical life reveals you as a person. This is a metaphor for the person.
Look at God’s physical life. Acts 14:17 says ‘Nevertheless he left not himself without witness (his physical life is his witness), in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.’ This is seen in creation—“seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night”. Look at seedtime and harvest. I just came back from Antique, two weeks ago. I was looking at large, unending rice fields. I mean the farmers just had their first harvest and they are planting again. In Libertad, I saw a man using a tracker, not a carabao, to plough the field. I can’t remember who made this comment, whether it was Pastor Carlos or Pastor Roger. As we were watching the farmer ploughing the field with his tracker, he said, ‘Well, he has to make a conscious effort to switch off the motor if he wants to stop ploughing, because if he does not switch it off, the motor will continue to plough the field without him. For a carabao, the farmer will just stop pushing and the carabao will not move. But it is so amazing to see that at this time of the year, rain will just come and seedtime is possible and harvest will come next. But do you know that it is God that is faithful in sending the rain, year after year after year, to be exact, already 6000 years, so that we can have seedtime and harvest. Look at Day and Night. God created Day so that we can work and the night so that we can rest. And every day, without fail, night will come and after rest, day will dawn. And it is God that is doing all these job, sustaining the Day and Night. Psalms 68:19 says, ‘Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burdens, even the God who is our salvation.’ That is the physical life of God. You want to know the true character of God, look at His physical life.
Look at a human’s physical life. James 5:5 says, ‘Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton (malicious, cruel, viscous); ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter (judgment).’ I don’t care how well your speech is, or how you talk your way out, how you explain your way and even in denial, but some men’s physical life are spent living delicately on earth, in the pleasure of self-indulgence and self-gratification, self-orientation and simply just for self. And God says they are actually fattening their hearts (again the heart is the centre of the physical life) as in the day of slaughter (judgment). You can live it up at the time while the poor and needy are all around us and live for this life only, then God says, you are nourishing yourself up for the slaughter. Money itself is not the problem; Christian leaders need money to live and support their families; missionaries need money to help them spread the gospel; churches need money to do their work effectively. And God is not against pleasure, entertainment, or beautiful things. But they (what God has blessed us with) are meant to help to others, ways to restore us for further work, bridges of contact with others, and hints reminding us that God has been very gracious to us. I want you to imagine, God daily without fail, sustaining man with seedtime, harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night and we his created lived our physical life in pleasure on the earth.
Are we in our physical life, the epistle of Christ, manifested with the Spirit of the Living God? Or have we lived in pleasure, spent years on earth in luxury, satisfying every desire on earth and only nourished your heart ready for slaughter? The heart is the centre of the physical life.
2. The centre of spiritual life
The heart is used of mankind’s spiritual life. Some people are just spiritual and some people are just not spiritual. But that actually reveals your heart, the actual you. And please, spirituality is more than just coming to church. I have witnessed people that has done the cruellest things to others and yet will come to church kneeling down in a posture of humility. The word spiritual relates to the spirit or the soul and is closely akin to one’s interest, attitude, moral and outlook towards sacred things of God.
Jesus says in Luke 16:15, ‘You are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.’
God knows whether you are really spiritual or not. Romans 8:27 says, ‘He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind.’ He knows what is in your heart. And I just read Psalms 50:16 which says ‘But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you. When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil. Your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son. You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you and accuse you in front of your eyes.’ Please understand that this is directed to the faithful followers, and they are called wicked. They are actually dispensing the word of God. These are men, women, and youth of the covenant people who, by their words, deeds, and omissions, showed their rebellious self-centred orientation. They speak of God and His covenant but ignores it. They were faithless and their lifestyle manifested it. They hate the requirement of the Christian life and ignore them. Not only are they not offended by evil deeds, they associate with those who do them. That is their spiritual life, and their words reveals their hearts. They thought YHWH’s patience with them was an affirmation of what they are doing.
The heart is used of mankind’s spiritual life. Matthew 15:18-19 says, ‘But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony and blasphemies. These are things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands doesn’t defile the man.’
3. The centre of the thought life
The heart is synonymous with the mind. YHWH sees the inner thoughts. He knows the thought and intent of every heart. Matthew 24:48 says ‘But if you are evil and say to yourself, ‘My Lord won’t be coming for a while.’ The phrase I want to emphasize in this verse is ‘saying to yourself.’ Saying to yourself comes from the mind. It is the centre of your thought life. And it reveals your heart. Saying to yourself is executed by your intellect. Prisons are overcrowded today with men and women. It is said that the prison in Singapore, called the Changi Prison used to have a bigger ratio of men over women but the trend is reversing. More and more women are in prison today in Singapore. Most of the crime started with these men and women who had evil thoughts coming out of their hearts because of sin, which caused them to maybe kill someone, rob a bank, rape, sell or do bad drugs, or many other types of crimes.
4. The centre of the volition
The will reveals the heart. When Ananias with his wife Sapphira who sold some property and brought only part of the money, claiming it was the full price (His wife had agreed to this deception); that is, their will. Peter says, ‘The property was yours to sell or not, as you wished. And after selling it, it was yours to decide how much to give. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us, but to God.” The will reveals the heart of the person. The phrase ‘purpose of heart’ refers to the will.
5. The centre of the emotions
Your emotion reveals your heart. Acts 2:26 ‘No wonder my heart is filled with joy and my tongue shouts his praises! For I know all will be well with me in death.’ The emotions of joy and praises reveals the true condition of the heart. I was asking God a number of questions and there was some confusion in my life and I need some answers. And then God spoke to me in Psalms 50 but his ending is a little bit surprising to me. He says in Psalms 50:1, 7-8, 14-15, ‘The Mighty One, God, the LORD speaks (here El Shaddai, Elohim and YHWH are all mentioned). Hear, my people, and I will speak; Israel, and I will testify against you. I am God, your God. I don’t rebuke your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. (I am not against your sacrifices and your burnt offerings). Offer to God the sacrifices of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honour me.’ God was telling me that the God (El) of gods (Elohim) is YHWH. He is the only God and He is my YHWH; I am in a covenant relationship with Him. And He has a word for me. He recognizes and accepts my sacrifices and burnt offerings. But he reminds me that He does not really need human sacrifices, especially if by me giving my sacrifices and burnt offerings I feel that YHWH is obliged to act on my behalf. What YHWH wants is a heart faith. The heart is as crucial as my act. Then he suddenly ask me to do something that is not directly related to my sacrifices. He ask me to offer to Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving. You see that last thing you can do when you are in a hard situation is to be joyous and let my tongue shouts shout his praises. But that is the thing. It reveals me, my heart, my true state; that I don’t have faith in him. The heart is the centre of the emotions. God wants me to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to Him; revealing my heart towards Him. I believe if I just let my heart be filled with thanksgiving and joy and praises, I am paying my vow and I can call upon El Shaddai, Elohim, YHWH, the great and only God, in my day of trouble and if I do these emotional positive manifestation, YHWH will rescue me, deliver me and I will see His salvation and continue to honour Him. Your emotion reveals your heart.
6. Unique place of the Spirit’s activity
The heart is the unique place of the Sprit’s activity. Romans 5:5 says, ‘Then, when that happens, we are able to hold our heads high no matter what happens and know that all is well, for we know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love’. There are times when we worship God, we feel our heart strangely warmed. It is the Holy Spirit that has filled the heart with His warmness, with His love. There are times when we feel that our heart feels like bursting. That is because the Holy Spirit has so touched the heart that it is overflowing with the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit can put fire in our heart. 2 Corinthians 1:22 says ‘He has put his brand upon us—his mark of ownership—and given us his Holy Spirit in our hearts as guarantee that we belong to him and as the first instalment of all that he is going to give us.’ Let spiritual activities starts to take place in your heart. Because the heart is a unique place for the Holy Spirit’s activity in your life. Heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person. Because it is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as “the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity,” the place to which God turns.” Your heart is the Key to God’s plan.
In conclusion the heart is a metaphorical way of referring to the entire person. The thoughts, the motives, and actions attributed to the heart and fully reveal the type of individual. YHWH is an ethical god. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He says ‘I changes not.’ So there are consequences to choices! We reap what we sow. The thoughts, motives, and actions attributed to the heart fully reveal the type of individual we are. The OT has some striking usages of the terms concerning the heart. In Genesis 6:6 we are told that God was sorry he had made them (us). It broke his heart. Jeremiah gives a description of the human heart. In Jeremiah 17:9 it says, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely, mortally sick! Who can know it [perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind]? We may not like to hear it but if we are honest with ourselves, we must confess that our heart is deceitful above all things. It is exceedingly perverse and corrupt. And we are told it is mortally sick and is wax gross. Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness (arousing sexual desire) an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. Among the thousands of apples grown each year, some of them does contain worms. Although most producers of apples do their best to keep this from happening, some apples will still be discovered with worms. Lots of people think the worm works his way in from the outside. It has been discovered that the worm comes from the inside. When the apple blossom is on the tree, an insect comes along and lays an egg in it. Sometimes later the worm hatches in the heart of the apple, then eats his way out. Sin like the worm begins in the heart.
But if begin to search again for Jehovah your God, and you will find him when you search for him with all your heart and soul. Yes our heart is uncircumcised. But Ezekiel gives us a hope of a new heart. He says in Ezekiel 18:31-32, ‘Put them behind you and receive a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, O Israel? I do not enjoy seeing you die,” the Lord God says. “Turn, turn and live!’ Ezekiel 36:26 says, ‘And I will give you a new heart—I will give you new and right desires—and put a new spirit within you. I will take out your stony hearts of sin and give you new hearts of love.’ ‘Put them behind you’ means you don’t have to keep a sinful heart. Jesus wants to wash it and make it clean and replace a right spirit inside of you, with his blood that he shed on Calvary.’ No matter how deep in sin a person has gone, God still loves them. This is why he strives so hard to get precious souls to listen to him. Remember you don’t have to keep a sinful heart. Pro 28:13 says, ‘He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.’
The first medical heart transplant was performed just over forty years ago. But God’s promise of a spiritual heart transplant was made over two-and-a-half thousand years ago. For a successful heart transplant, we need three key things: we need a diagnosis, we need a doctor and we need a donor. First the Diagnosis. The prophet Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel’s, says, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Our heart condition cannot be cured. We cannot make ourselves alive to God. We cannot make our cold, stone, lifeless hearts beat with warmth towards God any more than we can take a rock and make it live. So that’s the diagnosis: we need a heart transplant. Second the doctor. And here God claims that he is able to do it: ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’ Finally the Donor. There’s only ever been one man who did not suffer with the birth-defect of a heart of stone. The Son of God, rather than a son of Adam. Only Jesus had a heart that was fundamentally warm to God, a heart of flesh. When a medical heart transplant is done we know that there must have been a death. The donor gives life to another at the expense of his own life, usually in tragic circumstances. So it is with a spiritual heart transplant. The donor had to die. Jesus voluntarily died so that we might have life. His heart of flesh was so good, so sufficient that it is sufficient for the hundreds of millions of Christians in the world, replacing their hearts of stone. That’s one of the pictures the Bible gives for what happened at the cross. Because of Jesus’ death, he can now live within us: Jesus becomes our heart donor and gives us hope of life. Unless this heart transplant has taken place — unless Jesus is in us, his heart of flesh replacing our heart of stone — we are not in the faith. We are simply not Christians. And we won’t make it.
Now is God’s appeal. Earlier on in Ezekiel, God has urged his people rid yourselves of all the offences you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? He is asking you the same question this morning: why will you die? Why won’t you come to God for a new heart and a new spirit, and live? You don’t need to be good. Our reading earlier made it quite clear that the Israelites were wicked people. Yet God offers them this promise. That’s the point, isn’t it: it is the spiritually sick — all of us — who need this transplant. You don’t need to be good. If you were in the doctor’s surgery tomorrow and he said “Here’s the bad news: your heart is failing, it is riddled with disease and you are certain to die. The good news is that a perfect replacement has just come in, would you agree to a transplant?” What would you say? It would be strange to say anything else but “doctor, where do I sign?” Wouldn’t it? Well, the donor heart is available for you. The doctor is waiting to perform the operation. Do you agree with the diagnosis? Will you come to him for a new heart?
