Two Heart Issues

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. with...: Heb. above all keeping - Proverbs 4:23

    The heart in holy writ always makes reference to the inward man, the real man. The heart is the seat, the origin of all emotions, which prompt the actions of the outward man. The life of mankind is the heart. This is the spirit of man. Life issues or springs forth from it. The natural heart of man is dead toward the things of God as the result of the fall, rendering only that which is desirable and satisfying to the flesh.

    According to God by the prophet Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Unregenerate man is void of any thing good and righteous, As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that doeth good, no, not one (Rom 3:10 & 12). Only the things of this natural life, this world (whatever it might be), stir the emotions of the dead heart. In essence, man is in bondage to himself by virtue of a deceitful and wicked heart. God almighty’s commentary of the fallen race of the Anti-deluvian world still stands today; God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gn 6:5). But thanks be unto God, in the regenerating work of God the Spirit, we are given a new heart. We are given a new life, a new Spirit, a new nature. We are given the life of Christ.

    However, the old man is still present with us and will remain with us until death. The new heart is captive of the Lord Jesus Christ, and from it issues love and desire for him, and the things that are not of this world, rather the things of God. Thus, being partakers of the divine nature, a constant warfare is raging—I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me (Rom 7:21). That evil is natural self, For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other (Gal 5:17). To deny the two natures is to glorify the natural man and deny the existence of the new man.