I will cleanse you from all your filthiness. By Charles Spurgeon

In an old house, perhaps, there is a cellar into which nobody goes. The shutters are nailed closed, so no light ever comes in. You live in the house comfortably enough, not knowing what is down in the cellar. But one day you take a candle and go down the steps and open that moldy door. And when it is opened, dear me, what a damp, pestilential smell. How foul the floor is. All sorts of ugly creatures scramble away from your feet. There are growths on the very walls and a heap of roots in the corner, sending out those long yellow tentacles which look like the fingers of death. And there is a spider, and there are a hundred just like him. of such a size as cannot be grown, except in such horrible places. You run out of that repulsive cellar as quickly as you can.

Now the candle did not make that cellar detestable. No, the candle only manifested what was already there. And when you bring in the carpenter to take down the shutters which you could not open, and when the daylight comes in, then it is far more horrifying than it appeared by candlelight. And you wonder indeed how you ever got across it with all those frightening creatures surrounding you.

So it is with the human heart. It is filled with sin, though we hardly realize it. It is a cage of unclean birds, a haunt of every monstrous desire, a den where lusts prowl like wild beasts. Truly our heart is a dwelling place of corrupt desires, a miniature hell within. The Lord showed me my heart years ago, and the sight was appalling. Well does one say, God spares all eyes but his own from that fearful sight, a human heart.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.