May I please the Lord to bless
our souls as we meditate in his word this morning. Let's turn
to the prophecy of Ezekiel, and chapter 11, and we'll read verses
19 and 20. The prophecy of Ezekiel, chapter
11, and reading verses 19 and 20. And I will give them one heart,
and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony
heart out of their flesh and I will give them a heart of flesh
that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do
them and they shall be my people and I will be their God. we see that much of the prophecy
of Ezekiel was given to Ezekiel in visions. And this 11th chapter
was a vision that Ezekiel received, but having received it, he then
went, as we read in the last verse of this chapter, then I
speak unto them, of the captivity, all the things that the Lord
had showed me. So it was a wonderful favour
for the children who of course were captives, captives in Babylon
and how they ignored and turned away from the many words of remonstration
they received from the prophets and had not believed that the
day would come when they would be taken captive and Jerusalem
would be destroyed and they would be far away in this place in
Babylon. And yet you see God's promises,
God's words come to pass. Sometimes we may think, we may
read perhaps the word of God and we may Look at those words
which are very pleasant and very encouraging. But yet, you see,
we need to look at the whole counsel of God and to realize
that there are those many words which are also spoken against
us, spoken against the actions and the things that we do and
the things that we do not do. The Word of God is very comprehensive
from Genesis to Revelation, and we should not just select certain
verses which we think are rather pleasant and wonderful. We should
read the whole counsel of God and to examine ourselves before
God to be able to assess whether we are in the faith or not. It's a terrible thing to assume
that we are in the faith when we are outside of the faith.
And you see, true believers, the true blessing of faith is
that which affects our lives, it affects our hearts. There
is a complete change and it's the work of the Holy Spirit. And if we do not know that, then
however good we may be in an outward performance, of our religious
life. If there's no life within, then
we are lost. We're eternally lost. It's a
terrible truth, isn't it? And you know, I've known people
who've spent all their life outwardly morally good, and they've always
gone to chapel, gone to chapel on Sundays, gone in a week as
well. And yet, the reality is, there was no life. They were
spiritually dead. And terrible thought to think
that such end up in eternal hell. And we know the Word of God tells
us that they may come and say, I did this and I did that in
thy name. And what does the Lord say? I
never knew you. I never knew you. essential that
all of us possess the work of God in our hearts. Now that's really what we have
here in these two verses this morning. There's the blessing of what
God does, and then there's the blessing effect of that. And we must realise that the
two go together. People are very fond of separating
things out when it's not convenient for them. But here we have a
very clear statement, a wonderful statement by Almighty God speaking
to these people who were in Babylon. And just remember that the Lord
was addressing them in this very comforting way because he said,
I have scattered them among the countries yet I be to them as
a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come." So although
they turn their back upon God, the Lord does not forsake his
people. He cannot forsake his people.
And therefore, although these people had been carried away,
there they were in Babylon, Yet the Lord graciously and gloriously
and wonderfully gave them this promise that he would be a little
sanctuary unto them. There were those, of course,
who remained in Jerusalem. But you see, they didn't have
God's presence there. But these who were captive were
promised God's presence. What a favor and what a blessing.
And then he says these great words. Remember, it's God speaking. And he says, and I will. Now when God says he will, there's
no doubt about it. And I will give them one heart. That means united together in
the things of God. And I will put a new spirit within
you. His spirit, the quickened spirit,
And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, which we
have by nature, and will give them a heart of flesh." Now that's
a wonderful promise, isn't it? And it's true. And then he tells
them that there's a purpose. There's a purpose in God's work. And God's work, never forget,
is so that that work will honour and glorify his name. Never forget that. And so here
we have this statement, that they may walk in my statutes,
that means to follow, walk in my statutes, follow his laws
and keep mine ordinances, do the ordinances which the Lord
has set before us and do them and they shall be my people and
I will be their God. Now the inference clearly is
really, if there are those who do not keep his statutes and
his ordinances, then he will not be their God. And so we have
this very wonderful statement, you know, people sometimes hide
under what they think as a fact, well, Sanso, of course, he never
did this, never did that, and he was all right, but we don't
know. whether he was all right or she was all right. We may
perhaps think they were all right. You know, I sometimes think of
the case of the dying thief. The dying thief was called, wasn't
he, by the grace of God, right at the very end of his life.
But you know, he made a wonderful confession. A wonderful confession. He said, we deserve the due rewards
to our sins, but this man hath done nothing amiss." That was
a very clear, Spirit-inspired statement. And then he desires
one blessing, that he might be found with the Lord in paradise. Now, you may say, why do you
mention that? Well, I mention that because
of this reason. If you follow through the New Testament, you
will find that those who were called, those who believed, were
baptised. I don't read of any exceptions
in the New Testament apart from the dying thief. And of course
the dying thief could not be baptised. So we should never
hide under that situation and think, well of course The dying
thief wasn't, but he could not. Therefore there may be those
situations where at the eleventh hour, or perhaps the eleventh
hour and the last minute and seconds, the Lord may come and
call somebody, and it's impossible for them to be a true follower.
But we should not hide under that as an excuse. Because if
you follow through the New Testament, you'll find they believed and
were baptised again and again. And what does that show? That
shows that there is a keeping of the ordinances of the Lord. They are doing them. How sad
it is if the Lord gives us his grace and then we turn our back
upon the Lord. The promise here is, I will give
them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I
will take the stony heart out of their flesh and I will give
them a heart of flesh. And when the Lord does this,
when the Lord gives us a new heart, there is a change in our
lives. Until that time, we have been
born with a stony heart. Let's take a stone. It's just
absolutely inert. There's no feeling. It's dead. You can hit it. You can prick it. You can do
whatever you want to. There's absolutely no effect. And that's like your heart and
my heart by nature. We're born with a heart of stone.
And we need the Lord to give us a new heart. And when the Lord does come and
gives us a new heart, there is therefore that new spirit. Our
life has been changed. And you know, there's the evidence
of it in your heart. You know. You know that there's
been a change in your life. And it's the work of the blessed
Spirit of God. You may not know precisely when
it occurred, but you will know that one thing I know, whereas
I was blind, now I see what's happened. God has given spiritual
signs. And it is so amazing that when
God gives us that spiritual sight we're surprised that we never
saw things before. We never really understood things
before. Well they went in our mind and
we might have agreed with them but when the work of the Spirit
comes and changes our life and takes away that stony heart and
instead of that gives us a heart of flesh Now, you know that flesh,
of course, is feeling, isn't it? You know your flesh is feeling,
isn't it? It's not unaffected. And so it
is, with regard to our spiritual life. The Lord comes and takes
away, and that's what it is, He takes it away, and He doesn't
leave a void. He gives us, in its place, a
new heart, which is a heart of flesh. What a wonderful blessing
that is, if in our lives we have the evidence that we possess
that. Now, we do need to know that
God has given us that heart of flesh. We don't want to be deceived. You see, the devil is very cunning. He always has been and he always
will be. And the devil's aim is to turn
us away from the things of God and to rest satisfied in that
which is of the flesh. Just our old nature and no concern
about the true spiritual life within. A devil wants us to stay
asleep so that we don't hear, we don't see, He wants us to
remain in that condition so that then he can claim us as his own. Well, what a great and wonderful
blessing if the Holy Spirit has come upon us and produced this
wonderful and gracious change. That we are able to know that
there has been that new heart. Again, it's significant that
the Prophet says, under the influence of the Spirit of God, and I will
give them one heart. And what it means there is, there
will be a uniting together of the Church of God. And the Church
of God, the people of God, will be our best friends. Those will
be the people that we'll want to be with. We'll want to be
in their company. And you know, you may have worldly
friends, we mix in a world, don't we? And we do have those people
that perhaps we can call friends who are in the world, but remember
the Word of God tells us, and being let go, they went to their
own company. That means when you're free to
do what you want to do or can do, Where do you go? Do you go
to your worldly friends? Or do you go to the people of
God? Well, the word of God is very
clear, isn't it? Being let go, being freed, what
do they do? They went to their own company.
And you see, if our company is the world, we'll go to them.
If we have no new heart, we'll go to the world. Because we're
just like them, dead in trespasses and sins. It won't matter what
we profess, it's the effect of the Spirit of God in our souls. And so may we be able to observe
that we do possess the life of God in our souls. It's not something
which is just vague, but it's true, true from the Holy Spirit
of God. The God's servant, Job, who we
spoke about a lot last Sunday morning, he tells us this in
the 23rd chapter. He says, For God maketh my heart
soft. It's God that does it. You won't
be able to do it, but God will do it. And when God does it,
it's done. God doesn't do things by half
measures. When God works, it's done. You may not of course perhaps
experience what you may have thought you would experience.
You may be perhaps anticipating that the Lord will come in a
great way like he did to Paul on Damascus Road. and struck
him down with that glorious light from heaven. Well, that is a
very exceptional situation. But the Lord comes in many, many
ways. And it may be, just like it was
when God came and spoke to Elijah. Elijah had run away from Jezebel
and he was in a cave and there was a thunder and there was a
lightning and there was the earthquake and God wasn't in that. But then
God came and he spoke in a still, small voice. What happened? It entered into Elijah's heart. See, it's a wonderful blessing
when the Spirit of God speaks to our heart. Elijah didn't need
to ask what it was. He knew it was God speaking to
him. What a blessing that is when
you and I know that it's God speaking to us. Well, you see
here, God's servant, Ezekiel, was able to tell the people of
their situation. He didn't mince words. He told
them how evil they'd been, how wicked they'd been, and yet,
you see, he directed them then to this wonderful blessing that
he would come and give them this new heart. Well, the Lord will
come to us. And it will show us the reality
of those things which are in our heart. You see, the Lord
knows everything about them. Everything. God looks into our
hearts, we read. He knows our thoughts, every single thought.
Every single thought you've had this morning sat here in chapel.
You might be embarrassed if you had to stand up and God showed
on a screen all the thoughts that had gone through your mind
this morning here at Sand Chapel. You might be highly embarrassed.
But you see, we should always be concerned that every thought
is known to God and every wrong and evil thought is of course
sin against God. How many sins have we committed
this morning? Even while sitting here in chapel. God knows, doesn't
he? Very searching, isn't it? As
we might examine ourselves to this end. Well, what a blessing
it is that we have a God who is kind and gracious and merciful. And a God who will be to us as
a little sanctuary. Will come to us. where we are,
and visit our souls. And if the Lord has come and
blessed us then with that consciousness of our state before a holy God,
surely then we'll be looking out of ourselves. Because the
more you look within, the more evil you'll find. And the more
you will need the forgiveness of the Saviour the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, the effect of God taking
away the stony heart and to give us a heart of flesh is to not
do our own bidding, not do our own will, but to seek unto the
Lord, and to seek for his favour, and for his blessing, and to
know his mercy, and to experience his great love. We shall have
experienced those things if the Lord gives us this heart of flesh. It's all of his mercy. It's all
of his love. It's all of his favour. We never
deserved it. We never will. And yet to think
that this great almighty God, like he did here to these Israelites
in Babylon, they didn't deserve any mercy at all. God was gracious. You and I, never deserved any
mercy at all. But God is gracious. What a blessing
it is if you and I know that Lord has been gracious to us
by bringing about this wonderful and amazing change and giving
to us then this heart of flesh. this heart which is changed,
which seeks after the things of God. The things of God now
become a priority, not the things of time, the things of God. Again, what a test that is, isn't
it, in our lives as to the reality of our religion. Whether we do
truly prioritise the great things of God as first. The things that
we desire to be first. We don't want to feel that we're
under any great burden to put these things first and we do
it grudgingly. Now you see, as I mentioned in
prayer, when the Lord works, he draws us. He draws us to him. And then, we don't stand still,
we don't dawdle, we run. It's what the Bride of Christ
did in the Song of Solomon. Draw me, we will run after thee. That's the wonderful effect of
the work of the Spirit of God. And may it be so, in the day
and age in which we live, may we find and see many Drawn by
the Blessed Spirit, running to Christ. Because the Spirit has revealed
to them the great need of a Saviour. Oh, what a wonderful thing it
is to know that drawing power. And when that comes, We know
that it is not of the flesh, it's of the Spirit. Because it's
that which naturally we wouldn't have found, we wouldn't have
desired. But the work of the Spirit does that for you and
me which we could not do for ourselves. It's the great and
glorious evidence of the wonderful work of God to our souls. So he says, I will give them
I will give them. Well, this morning, if I was to ask, well, has God
given you a new heart? Could you put your hand up and
say, by God's grace, he's given me a new heart. Without There's no exceptions to the
need for that. All of us need to be blessed
with a new heart before we die. And that new heart turns us away
from the things of time. It turns us to the Lord Jesus
Christ, the things of the Saviour, Now, take on a different light. What is it? It's the light of
the glorious Gospel. And it shows to us the necessary
work of the Saviour. It shows to us the wonderful
work of the Saviour. It shows to us the effectual
work of the Saviour. shows to us the great cost of
our salvation. Oh, what does it do? What does
it do? I'll tell you what it does. It makes the Lord Jesus
Christ precious to our souls. Precious means valuable. My friends,
there's nothing more valuable for you and me than to know Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Because to know Jesus Christ
and Him crucified is to know that He has died to take away
our sins, that we are washed, we're cleansed in the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, this is the outworking
of the favour of God when He gives us the new heart, the heart
of flesh, and takes away that unfeeling heart, that heart that
never felt after the Saviour. We may have known something about
Him in our minds, but there was no real bowing down. There was
no real acknowledgement that He is our Lord and Saviour. What a blessing it is when the
Spirit of God comes. Oh, my friends, what a mercy
if today we know the great and glorious work which it is of
the Spirit of God in our hearts. And I will give them one heart,
family of God joined together in this, and I will put a new
spirit within you. That spirit which didn't have
before, God's Spirit. Oh, what a blessing to be a possessor
of the Spirit of God in our hearts. How amazing, isn't it? How humbling
to think that Almighty God should have looked upon us. He saw me ruined in the fall,
yet loved me notwithstanding all. Amazing, isn't it? Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, But now
I'm found. This grace has set me free. Oh, it's the glorious truth of
the gospel, which will move our hearts. I will give them one heart and
I will put a new spirit within you and will take the stony heart
out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. And let's just
follow on. He says, the reason for that
is that They may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do
them." It's very clear, isn't it? Very simple, these words,
aren't they? How many people seem to go blind,
don't seem to be able to read these words, and yet they are
so true and so powerful. And you know, there's nothing
more pleasing to God, there's nothing more pleasant to ourselves
than to follow the Word of God. In keeping the Lord's commands,
there's great reward. And one of those rewards is the
answer of a good conscience. Yes, we may have been burdened
with a guilty conscience. What a blessing it is to have
that removed and to be found a true follower. And when shall
we follow? When we possess this new heart. Why? Because of His love, of
His love. And how true it is in John's
epistle, not that we loved God, but that He loved us. That's
what produces love in our heart when we see the love of God to
us. So unworthy, so utterly unworthy. A black, hell-deserving sinner,
and yet God has looked upon us, loved us with everlasting love. You see, His love, the love of
God, never changes. I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore your sons of Jacob
are not consumed. What a blessing that is. They
have such a kind and gracious God. And so he says here, that
they may walk in my statutes. That's why the Lord gives us
this wonderful blessing of life in our soul, new life, that we
may show forth his praise, that we may show forth what he's done
for us, his great work in our hearts. And again, we read, those
that honour me, I will honour, and those that despise me shall
be lightly esteemed. Sometimes we just ignore truths
like that, don't we? And yet, how powerful is the
Word of God, and how we should desire to have grace to submit
ourselves to the great truth of God. The Lord is not a hard
taskmaster. My friends, the Lord is so very
loving and so very gracious and we have the wonderful encouragement
in the Gospel of Matthew where the Lord speaks at the end of
this chapter when he was addressing the people and he gives this
gracious gospel invitation and it's this, come unto me Who are
to come? Everybody? No. Who are to come? All ye that labour and are heavy
laden, that means burdened with sin, carrying it, struggling
along, weighing us down, no progress. He says, come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden. And what's going to happen? Is
the Lord going to turn his back on you? And I will give you rest. Give you rest. What a blessing
that is. Rest is a very glorious thing,
isn't it? And he says, take my yoke upon
you. Now, you probably know what a yoke is. A yoke in Old Testament
days was used, as it is still. in Eastern countries to keep
two oxen together so that they walked in step. They were ploughing
or whatever other instrument they were pulling. They were
yoked together. They couldn't separate themselves. And so the
Lord says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Isn't that
a wonderful condescension of the blessed Lord to come to him,
to be joined to him? United to Christ. What a blessing. You see, when we're united to
somebody, when we're right by their side, we hear what they
say, don't we? We know their actions, we know
their feelings. So it is with those who are yoked to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And in that position, what happens?
And learn of me. Do you want to learn of the Saviour?
Do you desire to know more of Christ? Do you long to hear His
voice? Here we have the words. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in
heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke
is easy and my burden is light. Sometimes we may think, well,
it's a very difficult thing. My friends, it's nothing more
blessed than to be yoked with Christ. Because He knows all
about you. He knows all about me. He knows
the path we're taking. He knows the path we will take.
He knows. He's prepared a place for us.
He's prepared that journey for us. And my friends, by His grace,
we shall end up in glory with Him. God's people will not come
to glory and to be a stranger to the Lord Jesus Christ. God's people will be united to
Christ on this earth. And so we might perhaps say,
what think ye of Christ is the test. So it is. What do we think of Christ this
morning? Is he precious to us? Do be honest. Don't deceive yourselves. If he means nothing to you, nothing
to you, or you that pass by, don't be deceived. You've got
to go back to the beginning. That's good. Seek unto me and ye shall find. Oh, what a blessing it is to
have such a great and glorious Gospel. My friends, let us not
be deceived. Let us not be deceived. Let us
not be found under what we might call a cloak, something which
covers us. A cloak of religion, but yet no life. Still with a
stony heart. Oh, pray that the Lord will give
us all this heart of flesh, so that we may be truly blessed
and rejoice in what God has done and honor him in our lives by
taking up our cross, not just once, every day. Take up our
cross daily and follow him. And so he says, and I will give
them one heart And I will put a new spirit within you and I
will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give
them a heart of flesh. How positive is that? That they
may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them and
they shall be my people and I will be their God. What a promise. Amen.