I love Brother Jim, but he's
got a little bit of a mean streak in him. Who said that? Just a
mischievous twinkle. Turn with me in your Bibles,
if you would, to Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 36. Look with
me beginning in verse 24. This is the prophet
speaking the promises of God. For I will take you from among
the heathen and gather you out of all countries and will bring
you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you and ye shall be clean. From all your filthiness and
from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of
flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statues. And you shall keep
my judgments and do them. These are covenant promises, that everlasting covenant, that
covenant of grace that Brother Norm spoke of. And they're based all upon Christ's
death, the death of the testator ratifying this covenant. when he died as the substitute
of that people on the cross. And in the midst of all these
promises, surely too many to talk about tonight, but in the
midst of these promises is this promise. He says, a new heart Also will I give you." Everything in salvation is based
on what God does. And everything that we have,
we receive from Him as a gift. He says, and I'll give you a
new heart. And we know that he's not talking
about this natural fleshly heart. He's not talking about that kind
of a transplant. Man can do that. But he is not also talking about
some mystical gift called a new heart. But most of the definitions,
most of the explanations, most of the commentaries, when men
talk and describe this new heart, it seems like it's always very
subjective. It's always described by feeling. or it's always defined by producing
certain works. But most things that men say
are the result of this new heart are works and feelings, things
that can be and are counterfeited. They can be and they are counterfeited. But the work of God's Spirit,
the work by which they have this new heart, that work cannot be
counterfeited. He says, I'll give you a new
heart. not a new nature, not a new nature, a new heart. And he says, I'll put in you
a new spirit. I'll give you my spirit. And in verse 27, he says, I'll
cause you to walk in my statues and ye shall keep my judgments
and do them. I'll cause you to walk. Well, how does a believer walk? The Bible says that we not only
live by faith, but also that we walk by faith. And I submit to you tonight as
earnestly and as clearly as I can by what I believe the Bible teaches,
I submit to you the new heart is simply but profoundly the
heart of faith. The heart of faith. The difference between those
who are born of God and those who are not is that they who
are born of God believe God. They don't just believe in God,
but rather they believe God, they believe His gospel, they
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 3, the apostle warns
in verse 12 saying this, Take heed, brethren, lest there be
in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living
God. An evil heart. What is an evil
heart? Simply a heart of unbelief. And when we turn over to the
book of Romans, if you'll turn with me and look at Romans chapter
10, listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 10. He says in writing verse 5, For Moses describes the righteousness
which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things
shall live by them. But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart who shall
ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above,
Or who shall descend into the deep, that is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead? But what saith it? The word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the
word of faith which we preach. that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Now watch this in verse 10. For with the heart For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. With the heart man believeth
under righteousness. You see, God in the new birth
gives those who have never believed, he gives them faith and enables
them to believe. But believing just never ever
stands alone. True believing involves to believe
something about somebody. Something about the one who is
called the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not simply just to believe,
but it is to believe the truth. We're saved, God has chosen us
to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. And nobody who has ever lived
on this earth, born of Adam into this world, is born having faith. I don't care what people say.
I don't care what evangelists say. You don't have some innate
ability to believe God, to believe on Christ that only needs to
be exercised. We don't exercise our faith,
faith exercises us. It exercises us. And to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ is to believe something about Him,
is to believe the truth, as it says here, that God hath raised
Him from the dead. It involves believing something
in particular that nobody ever believes apart from God-given
faith. They'll believe anything else,
naturally. But they'll never believe the
gospel, they'll never believe the truth until the Spirit of
God gives them the gift of faith and they believe, as Paul said,
how that Christ died and was buried again and rose again according
to the scriptures. Not just that bare fact. but
what the scriptures have to say, Old Testament and New Testament
about the life and the death and the accomplishments of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, we believe unto
righteousness. That means that this faith is
not righteousness. Our believing is not righteousness. But this faith that God gives
as a gift when He gives this new heart of faith, this faith
lays hold of the Lord Jesus Christ. It received His righteousness. Look back in this fourth verse
of chapter 10 here. Faith believes what the Bible
says about Christ. And it believes what He says
that He did, and what the Scriptures as a whole, those writers moved
by the Spirit of God, what they said that He accomplished, and
what they say about Him is this, for Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness. To everyone that believeth. To everyone that believeth. So when you come back to what
Paul begins this chapter with, he begins by saying, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved, for I bear them record that they have a zeal
of God, but not according to knowledge. And what I found out some time
ago is that every time something seems to be mentioned about faith
and about a believing, it always has something in connection with
knowledge. Knowledge. And faith that is a gift from
God cannot be counterfeited because it goes out to, it trusts in,
it leans on, it sees sufficiency in Christ alone. Now there are a lot of people
who would claim to be believers. You ask them, do you believe
on Christ? Yes, absolutely. But immediately
almost after they tell you about their believing in Christ, they
add to it something else. But you've got to. so that it is not by nature for
us to turn from any help in ourselves to something that is based on
what one we've not seen has accomplished on our behalf that we can only
learn by the scriptures. We believe on Christ. And faith is always Christ plus
nothing, nothing. Sad to say, there are many who
have faith in faith. But Paul writes in Galatians
2 and he says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ and not the works of the law, for by the works
of the law shall no flesh be justified. There isn't a man and a woman
on the face of this earth that will believe that except those that God gives a
new heart to, a new heart. And sad it is, I'm afraid, in
our day that many preachers are careful to distinguish between
what they call head faith and heart faith. Head faith and heart faith. I've
heard that so many times. Well, he's got a head faith,
but he's not got a heart faith. I don't know about you, but I'm
not too good at separating head and heart. But I'll say this. A faith that
can be separated from knowledge is not true faith. And not only that, a knowledge
that can be separated from faith is not true knowledge. True knowledge and true faith
is just like this. You can't separate them. The
faith that's the gift of God cannot be separated from the
knowledge set forth in the gospel. And it has to do with why. God
raised Christ from the dead. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he came from that grave, was just like when
the priest came out of the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. It meant something. It meant that he had so satisfied
God on behalf of the people that God had let him live and he showed
the success and what had been accomplished in that holy place
by virtue of him coming out alive. If he came out alive, God accepted
the Word. Plain and simple. If he came
out alive, it meant that God had been honored, that God was
pleased. And this is the fact. True knowledge,
believed, is the evidence of the new birth. Now that's just too simple for
some folks. Because they, preachers can preach
days on end sermons that have to do with the evidences of the
new birth. But the problem is every evidence
they set forth, every evidence that they set forth as evidence
of one being born again, as them having this new heart, it can
be counterfeited. They say, a man, if he has a
new heart, he'll live right. A man, if he has a new heart,
he'll love the people. If a man has a new heart, he'll
do this, and he'll do that, and he'll do the other. And many
will do those very things for a while, and then turn and do
something exactly the contrary. Evidently, they never had a new
heart. Those born of the Spirit, Christ
spoke of in this way. He says in John 11, and whosoever
liveth and believeth. In other words, God must make
a man alive before he can believe. We always get the cart before
the horse. We always say, whoever believes,
they'll live. But this is what he says, whoever
lives and believes. In me shall never die. Believest thou this? God has to make him alive. He's
dead in trespasses and sins. God's got to give him this new
heart of faith. And when he does, the evidence
of that life, spiritual life, given to the sinner who's been
dead in trespasses and sin, this is the sole evidence. He'll believe. He'll believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if one ever leaves Christ,
if everyone leaves the gospel, he never had life, and he never
believed. You say, well, he left the gospel,
but he still maintained a good Christian life. No, he did not. Well, he left the church. He
don't want to hear the gospel of Christ anymore. He don't want
to hear about grace anymore. But I think he's still a believer
because he's still doing this, that, and the other. No? He may be, but we don't have
any reason to believe it. You see, it's E-T-H, believeth. That means a continual action. It's something that's going on,
and it's going to keep going on, and it's going on believing. And this God-given faith always
believes unto righteousness. It's not righteousness. but it always believes under
righteousness. It believes the gospel wherein
the righteousness of God is revealed. It believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ as the Lord, our righteousness. It receives the gift of righteousness
in Christ. The man with the new heart reckons
himself made the righteousness of God in Christ. He believes
the gospel. Men can do a lot of things, but
they can't believe God's gospel without a new heart. He can be reformed. I hate that
word. I'm sorry. I hope I'm reforming, but that
doesn't cut anything with God. He looks at the one thing, and that's the thing He gives.
which is God-given faith. He says, by grace you're saved. Yes, I believe that. Through
faith, I believe that. And not of yourselves, and that
not of yourselves. I don't know about that. It's the gift of God. It's the gift of God. He believes
God. No man can come to me. He says,
that's the way it is, except the father draw him, except he
give him this new heart. The new heart confesses with
the mouth, salvation is of the Lord. I'm in agreement, that's about
the sum of this book. Salvation's of the Lord. and believing on Christ alone
for all righteousness is what John calls doing righteousness. Look over in 1 John 3. 1 John
3 and verse 7, you know the flesh, The blinded mind and heart of
a sinner wants to make this something that men do in a natural sense. Little children, verse 7, let
no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous. even as he is righteous. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous. What is doing righteousness then? It's simply believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ for all of salvation. It's simply trusting
in His blood that you spoke of. It's trusting in His righteousness. It's renouncing all self-righteousness. Period. There are so many mystical things
that men say about this. There's so many things that thoroughly
confuse people, that put them doing that what I call belly
button introspection. Is my life good enough for God? No. That's an easy one. Am I living
a holy life? Am I living righteously? It always,
everything but true faith puts you looking somewhere else but
Christ. It may be this for one person,
there for another person, but until God gives you faith, you'll
look everywhere except where faith looks. and that that's
to Christ crucified. And when he talks about this,
he says in verse 25 of Ezekiel 36, he says, I'll sprinkle them
with clean water. Water in the scripture has to
do with the word. Has to do with the gospel. I'll
sprinkle them with clean water. With the word of God that's free
from every taint of legalism, from every taint of human works,
I'll sprinkle them with clean water. I'll bring them to the truth. You see, James said, of his own
will begot he us with the word of truth. I don't believe in
gospel regeneration. Just hearing the gospel, a man
will automatically be regenerated. But he says, of his own will,
begot he us with the word of truth. The gospel is not the
accomplisher, but it's the accompaniment. Wherever the Spirit of God is
working, wherever there's new birth, Wherever somebody is born
of the Spirit, wherever somebody receives this new heart, it'll
be the Gospel. Because the object of God-given
faith is only revealed in the Gospel. I've never seen Christ. You've never seen Christ. A fellow
told me one time he had seen Him. He went out in the mountains
and went to a cabin and shut himself in. He fasted and all.
And he said, I saw Christ. He's wearing a black robe. And
he was just black in the face. I couldn't see him. But I knew
it was Christ. He had starvation pains. He had
hunger delusions. But he didn't see Christ. Because
the only place you'll ever see Christ is in the truth of God's
Word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. When God gives a person a new
heart, that is a heart of faith to believe what He says in His
Word. Not a new nature. Not so many new things that people
talk about. who prove in a day or two or
a week that it's just old things rehashed. A woman said of me one time,
a long time ago, she said, I know Gary, she said, he's been involved
in this, he likes this, he jumps from one thing to the other,
this won't last long. But when I was enabled to believe
the truth, there wasn't no getting away
from it. When the Lord gave me a new heart,
I still had an old nature. I'm still sinning, I'm still
doing this and that and the other, but I haven't changed one iota
on the one whom I trust for life eternal. The one I trust to have me in
a good standing before God. The one whom I trust as all my
righteousness before God, having changed in that since he gave
me a new heart. I'll be honest with you. There are times it seems like
I try not to believe. You know anything about that?
When I get to looking, when knives are not in the boat, when I get
to looking outside at something else or when I get to looking
inside at me, I say, there's no way you can be a Christian
boy. There's no way, there's no way There's no way anyway that you
can be saved. Look at what you thought. Listen to what you said. Look
at what you just did. Look at what you failed to do. But when I get like that, after
a few minutes God will call the Word into my mind, the knowledge of the Scripture
in my mind. And I can't help but believe
in it. Despite all the evidence otherwise, in every aspect of
my being otherwise, I cannot help but trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because God gave me faith. He
gave me faith. And I could go on in this chapter
and in these passages and talk about it more and more, but it
simply always boils down to this. We do righteousness when we believe
on the righteous one. And no other way. True knowledge. Now listen to
this. All these people talking about this new heart being evidence
in the feeling. I feel like I'm saved tonight. I feel like I'm a child of God.
I feel like a burden's been lifted off me. Well, feelings come and
feelings go. Feelings are deceiving. This
is what I'm trusting, the faithful word of God. Well, they say, well, that's
awful dry. No, it's not. You see, true knowledge believed
is what produces true failings. The kingdom of God is first righteousness. Oh yes. And as a result of that
righteousness, it's peace. It's peace with God. It's the
peace of God. It's the peace that passeth understanding. And the fruit of that peace is
joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy in believing. You see, the
gospel is glad tidings. It's good news and it produces
real joy and real peace. Listen to what Peter said. He
said, whom having not seen. You can have your picture of
Jesus if you want to. You can carry the cross in your
pocket if you want to. But the one I'm resting in, I've
never seen. except by faith. Whom having
not seen, ye love. That's real. In whom, though
now ye see him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Believers rejoice in one that
the world cannot see. know nothing about, but when God gives us a new heart,
when he sprinkles us with this clean water. I was thinking about this afternoon. How did they know when a leper
was clean? When the priest said so. And that's what the priest, our
great high priest, is saying because of his sacrifice. That's
what he's saying to all his people. You're clean. You're clean. So Paul writes in Romans 15,
and he says, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost. True head faith is heart faith. True heart faith is head faith. You can't separate. And when God moves in our heart
and gives us that new heart, which He's going to do for every
one of His people. I'm going to preach by His grace
as long as He lets me preach. Not depending on what I'm able
to do or who I'm able to convince, but I'm depending on Him giving
His people a new heart. And I'm not going to send them
on some wild goose chase to search for evidence in their life. Because
if they ever find any, they're in real trouble. But a new heart won't do that.
It goes out to Christ. Don't make something mystical
of this. Preachers love to do that. They
like to show extra biblical revelations. A new heart is just a change
from an evil heart of unbelief to the new heart of belief. God bless you. Thank you.