Father, kind and gracious, merciful
to us through Jesus Christ, we approach thy throne of grace,
not in our own name or merit or worth, not, Lord, dragging
in a bunch of ceremonies, but through Christ. Christ only we
approach thy mercy seat, that we might find grace to help us
in time of need. We give thanks for the text we've
already studied today, pray now that you might make this one
a blessing to our heart. We pray that we may hear and
that there might be profit in our hearing, and that we might
be reminded afresh and taught further of the importance of
the heart of man, that you look on the heart, that you know the
heart, that you are able to discern the thoughts and the intents
of the heart. For there is nothing, O God,
either in our tongue or in our heart, but that You know it all
together. We pray, therefore, You'll bless
the Word to our hearing and our understanding, giving grace and
mercy to those in our number who are sick or weak and have
physical ailments. Give them grace sufficient for
the hour, We pray it in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen. All right, this is kind of a
short verse, but very powerful, and it can take us in a lot of
directions. Solomon has written this, Proverbs
4, and verse 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life. Now look at those two
parts again. Keep the heart, keep it with
all diligence, and the motive to do so is because out of it
are the issues of life. A long time ago, an old Puritan
preacher by the name of John Flavell, if you will, wrote a
rather large exposition of this one verse of the Scripture, and
he entitled that little book, Keeping the Heart. He opened
the subject with these words, and I quote, The heart of man
is the worst part before regeneration and the best part afterward. Unquote. The heart of man is
the worst before regeneration and is the best afterward. The Bible has so much to say
about the heart of man both in the Old Testament and also in
the New Testament, and in both an unregenerate and then a regenerate
or a converted state of grace. Yet, are we clear? Do we really
understand as to the meaning of the nature and the function
of the heart of man from the Scripture? Exactly what is the
heart of man? And what does the Scripture have
to say to us about the heart of man? Before we attempt to
answer that, let's acknowledge that Scripture mentions several
faculties that men and women possess in their natural estate. There are several faculties that
make up the human nature of us people. They're operative in
all of us. They have some use or exert some
influence upon us in our life. For example, when I speak of
faculties, I'm not talking of the outward members, but of those
immaterial faculties in all men. We count some of them up. There
is the will, for man has a will. There is the mind. There is the
understanding. that the Bible speaks a lot about.
There is the conscience that is so important. There are the
affections that dwell in us. And also, the Bible talks about
the heart and the soul of human beings. Now, each of these faculties
that we have mentioned just now make up the immaterial or the
spiritual part of men. just as the body has many members,
as they're called sometimes in the New Testament. That would
be the hands, the feet, the mouth, the eyes. They make up the physical
part of the person. And concerning those faculties
that we have just mentioned a moment ago, they are present and they
are active whether we are under sin or whether we are under the
grace of God. And they are capable of functioning
under the influence of depravity and then capable of being made
alive and functioning and influence God's renewing grace in His elect. By nature, All of them are defiled,
whether it be the will or the mind or the understanding or
the conscience or whatever. By nature, all of them are corrupt
and therefore they are all inclined to sin. In regeneration and the
application of God's grace, God therefore need not create any
absolutely new faculties that were non-existent before in our
makeup. The same original faculties are
operative whether under the grace of God or under sin. So Thomas Goodwin, another Puritan,
did write in a book with the title, The Objects and Acts of
Justifying Faith, these words, and I quote, there are no more
faculties in the soul when it is regenerate than when it is
unbelieve. Only they are endued with new
powers and new abilities." Again, A.W. Pink, in his chapter on
spiritual regeneration, said practically the same thing, because
likely he had read from Goodwin, expressing it this way, No new
faculties are created, but the power of the soul are spiritualized
and made alive unto God and enabled to hold communion with God."
A great Puritan John Owen said, Regeneration consists in a new
spiritual principle or habit of grace infused into the heart,
the soul, and the faculties and so on. In other words, these
faculties are not such as were non-existent before regeneration,
but they were existent while under spiritual death and the
dominion of sin. But then are we quickened by
divine regeneration, and these faculties are raised out of their
deadness. And remember, if you will, that
these very same faculties were once all upright in Adam, our
first father, before he fell. All of these faculties in him
were created upright and were without depravity, and therefore
able to function in their perfect and original state. Then they
fell under sin when Adam sinned and when he fell, and are not
renewed until a man is in Jesus Christ or is regenerated by the
Spirit of grace. Now, with all that said, coming
to that faculty that is so often referred to as the heart in the
Scripture, and the question that we want to consider, such as,
is the heart a completely different and distinct faculty from those
already mentioned? Is it completely distinct from
those that we mentioned? Again, is the heart one and the
same with the soul, so often mentioned in the Scripture? Are
they two separate faculties, the heart and the soul, since
both are so frequently mentioned in the inspired Word and sometimes
mentioned even together. And from a different word they
are, heart and soul, in the original, can the heart and the soul then
be used interchangeably in the Scripture in referring to man? Can they mean one and the same
thing in some instances? We know that in most all instances,
where that word heart is used in the Scripture, that it does
not refer to the physical blood-pumping heart of the flesh that we so
often think about. The heart of man is not that
heart that pumps the blood that carries it throughout our body,
that keeps our extremities alive, and so forth. Though me thinks
that some Armenians are content to apply the bleeding a blood
pumper as the same heart that we talk about sometime in the
Scripture. I heard one say, some of you
are going to miss heaven by 18 inches. You got it in your head,
not in your heart. Therefore, thinking that blood
pumper would answer that heart. It is true that the organ that
is called heart is the center of the life of the body. It is
the very heart and soul. So as the condition of the heart
of the body in large part determines the health of the physical body,
and a diseased heart affects all of the body when we think
about it in the realm of the physical. But in Scripture, the
heart of a person is used in most often a metaphorical sense
for the inner man, the spiritual man or the inner being. In the
New Testament, the word is cardiac, and you recognize that immediately
from medicine and our word cardiac. But in the Scripture, it is used
for a metaphor of the mental, the moral, and the emotional
element of the human makeup, or what we might call the immaterial,
that is, not visible and not corporeal, but invisible. So
there are various ways of describing that faculty that we refer to
in the scripture as the heart, such as the heart is the seat
of the mental or spiritual powers or capacities that dwell in individuals. It is the seat of rational functions,
of moral conduct. They are rooted in the heart,
and the heart has planning, and it has volition that proceed
out of it. It is the innermost part of us. And Peter speaks of the hidden
man of the heart in 1 Peter 3 and verse 4, as opposed to the outward,
the hidden man of the heart. Hence, in 1 Samuel 16 and verse
7, the prophet Samuel is told, when he was about to anoint a
king over Israel. He saw a goodly man, and he thought,
surely this is him. And the Lord interrupted and
said to Samuel the prophet, quote, Look not on his countenance or
his statue, for the Lord sees not as man sees, for man looks
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart,
unquote. The Lord knows the heart, 1 Kings
8 and verse 39. He tries the hearts and the reins,
Psalms 7 and verse 9. And in Hebrews chapter 4 and
verse 12, He is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents
of the heart. Dealing with the heart, we first
make the distinction between the heart as it is by nature,
and what it is by grace and regeneration. First of all, let's speak of
the heart as it is by nature. That would be our first point
under that. What is the condition of the
heart of man by nature? Now, we're not talking about
the blood pumper, but the inner being, the spiritual part, that
immaterial part of a man. What is the condition of the
heart of man by nature? Is the heart basically good in
all of the sons and the daughters of Adam? We hear a lot along
that line today. This is the contention of many,
both in and out of our churches. You will hear it most often. You will hear it in many pulpits. The psychobabble is heard that
for the most part, The hearts of men and women are basically
good. And most people are good at heart. That so and so has a heart of
gold. He or she would give you the
shirt right off of their back. They would do anything they could
for you. Such and such volunteers, they
say. Coaches the children and the
little league. And out of that, they determine
that they have a good heart. But all of these are outward
observation. All of these are the result of
observing their outward conduct. But the Lord looks upon the heart. We always judge by outward looks
and principles, I guess. But the Lord looks upon the heart. God is a searcher of the hearts
of men. He is the knower of the hearts
of men. Nothing is hidden from Him. He
sees all that is inward as well as we see what is outward and
visible. Well now, how does God see the
heart in this fashion? One of the first mentions is
found, that is, I don't mean how does He do it, but what is
it before His eyes and how does He see it? In Genesis 6 and 5,
speaking of those prior to the days of the flood, and God saw
the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Now let's look at that. Every imagination, every intent. Now this is from the root word
meaning to mold. as if one is molding or fashioning
something, to form or develop a purpose. It is the word that
would mean to frame a purpose, to conceive a design, so that
every single resolution was only evil continually in that generation. Do you think that God destroyed
that generation before the flood, because they were basically good
and decent in their heart. On the contrary, the just and
the holy God saw evil in two forms in that generation. One, Genesis 6 and verse 5, the
hearts of men was full of evil and that continually. And then
number two, Genesis 6 and verse 11, The earth was filled with
violence in that day. The first being the cause of
the second. That every thought and motive
and intent and imagination of the heart was evil, and therefore
it was filled up with violence. Note in Genesis 6 and verse 5,
two words that Moses uses to impress upon us his meaning. The word, only. Continual only
and continually. Only and continually. Every intent was evil. It was
evil continually. It was evil constantly. It was evil perpetual, one after
the other. Now, such a study of the heart,
therefore, puts us in mind of the strong words of the great
old prophet Jeremiah. Remember that passage from him
in Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse 9 that says something like this,
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,
and then ask, and who can know it? Did we hear the prophet?
Did we hear what Jeremiah said? He said the heart is deceitful
above all else. more so than all else is the
heart deceitful. We have a very devious deceiver
within our own bosom. Yes, the barbarians are not at
the gates, they are inside of the heart. Obadiah 1 and verse
3, the pride of thine heart hath deceived you. And why Solomon
agrees, saying in Ecclesiastes 9, verse 3, "...the hearts of
the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil, and madness
is in their heart while they live." Now this sounds like Noah's
generation all over again, does it not? Let's hear a word now
from the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of Mark 7 concerning the heart. And it is verse 21 and 22 of
Mark 7, if you turn there. It comes about because some of
the Pharisees saw the disciples of our Lord eating without washing
their hands. The Pharisees caught some of
the Lord's disciples eating before they had washed their hands.
And they challenged the Lord for allowing it to be so. Evangelists tell us something
interesting about the Jews in that chapter in verses 3 and
4, and that's this, that the Jews, those Pharisees, never
ate a meal without first washing and cleansing their hands. When
they came back from the market, the first thing they did was
to go in and wash their hands. And they even had a realistic,
ritualistic, I should have said, way of immersing their pots and
their vessels in water, baptizing their pots and their vessels.
These Jews contended that the disciples had contracted defilement
because they ate without washing their hands, or before they ate. And then the Lord deals with
that matter later. after when he exposed their hypocrisy
and their false righteousness, the Lord said to those present,
and who might have heard that contention before, beginning
at verse 14, He says what did and what did not defile. That's at verse 19. Let us read
into the record now from Mark chapter 7 and verse 20, through
verse 23. Mark 7 and verse 20 through verse
23. And he said, That which comes
out of a man, that defiles the man. For that from within, out
of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, and
these and murderers, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness," verse 23, all these
evil things come from within and they defile the man. Now the Lord in essence says
here, it is not that that goes into the belly that defiles,
for it is digested and eliminated. never entering at all into the
heart. It is what comes out of the heart,
the Lord said, that is defiling. The Lord teaches us here that
the heart of man is likened unto a cesspool. It has in it the
seed of every sin that lays in the heart. Now, some want to
say that we run into sin because of bad examples because of a
bad environment in which we live, because of the examples that
we see, because we are tempted, and because we are enticed by
others from without, and that we need not any inborn depravity,
so they say. But the Lord mentions here thirteen
manifestations of sins that are hatched out in the heart of an
individual, showing us As J.C. Ryle wrote, I quote, we need
no evil companions to teach us, we need no devil to tempt us
in order to run into sin, seeing that we have within us the embryo
of every sin, unquote. Every sin under heaven. Confirming what Jeremiah said,
the heart is deceitful, It is wicked, nothing is more deceitful,
nothing is more deceptive than the heart, and in nothing more
than religion is the heart a deceiver. Now before we consider the renewed
heart, let us meditate upon part of the first text that we read
in Proverbs 4.23. The motive there that is given
for the keeping of the heart Which is this, out of it, that
is, out of the heart are the issues of life. Keep the heart
for out of it are the issues of life. Look how it rises higher
and higher. Keep the heart. Keep it with
all diligence. Keep it because out of it or
the issues of life, the things that come into our life and our
way. Flavell, that I referred to earlier,
wrote, the motive to this duty is very forcible and very weighty,
unquote, because the heart is the source of all human action. All actions, whether they be
good or whether they be evil, are first hatched out in the
heart and can be traced there as the fountainhead of the streams
that flow out of the heart. All things are born, shall I
say, in the heart. There they are formed, they are
molded, and from thence are they brought out. Let me illustrate
it, if I can, by an illustration that I remember from some years
ago. We were in Colorado on vacation,
high up in the mountains. That's where I always like to
go. And a man said to me, he showed
me a place up there on the side of a great mountain where the
Rio Grande River starts, the fountainhead of the Rio Grande
River. He said, you can come here and
you can stand straddle of it, where it first comes out. Then
it flows all across Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and into the
Gulf of Mexico. We've been across it in New Mexico,
a bridge hundreds of feet down in a great gorge, that river.
But it has its fountainhead up there on the eastern edge of
the continental divide in the state of Colorado. Even so, the
heart is the wellspring the fountain from which there flows all manner
of ungodliness. Goodwin called it the first seat
and forge of all the vital spirits by which we act and move." I'm
going to Matthew now, if you'd like to turn chapter 12. You
recognize this chapter probably as that chapter dealing with
the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I'm reading verses 34-36,
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 12. Verse 34, O generation of vipers,
how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man, out of the good treasure
of the heart, brings forth good things, And an evil man out of
the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say unto you,
that every idle word that men speak, they shall give an account
thereof in the day of judgment." Look at the middle verse, verse
35, and the last of verse 34, that out of the abundance of
the heart, the mouth is speaking. Spurgeon expressed it this way,
the heart betrays and expresses itself by the mouth. In other
words, the mouth is simply the instrument of expressing that
that is in the heart. These words from Matthew are
part of the fallout from the Jews accusing the Lord of being
in union with Beelzebub in the casting out of devils. It gives the Lord the occasion
to warn of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God. The evil and blasphemous words
against the Christ were a reflection of that which was in their heart. They simply spoke the intent
of their heart. Out of the abundance is the word
in verse 34. It is the exceeding supply, the
abundance of the heart, the superabundant, as in verse 35, out of the treasure,
or out of the deposit, or out of the wealth, out of that which
is treasured up in the heart. It says seven abominations are
there in Proverbs chapter 26 and verse 25. But thus, the true
state of the heart is the true state of the person. The person
is what he is at heart. Solomon said in Proverbs 23 and
verse 7, As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Whatever be the condition of
the heart of an individual, that be the condition of the person. But now we come to the renewed
heart, the regenerate heart, or the soul renewed. For it is
the promise of God in Ezekiel 11 and verse 19, I will take
away the stony heart out of the flesh, and I will give them a
heart of flesh. In Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse
26, and a new heart also will I give you. And Jeremiah 31-33,
I will put my law in their inward parts and write it, upon their
heart. Now, no man can make himself
a new heart. No man can take away the old
heart and give himself a new heart. The change must come from
a greater and a divine power. The prophets did not say, you
must acquire a new heart, for a new heart cannot be given by
a man who is unregenerate. He cannot give himself a new
heart any more than the leopard can change his spots, or the
blackamore can change the tone of his skin, as Jeremiah 13.23
said. But God said, I will give them
a new heart. This is one and the same part
and parcel of regeneration. It is a sovereign, it is a divine,
inward work performed by the Spirit of God in the elect. They are born of God. The heart and the soul and all
the attending faculties that make up the individual or the
being are spiritually quickened. They are raised out of their
deadness. They are enlightened by the Spirit
of grace. Like Lydia, their hearts are
open and inclined to the things of God. For the natural heart,
the graceless heart, is totally set upon temporal earthly things,
has no desire for the things of God. The heart must have an
object, as one Puritan has said, to which it is inclined and to
which it cleaves. It must have an object, the heart.
That's why whatsoever or whosoever, controls the heart, controls
the person, whether in sin or whether in grace. Remember the
text in Ecclesiastes 8 and verse 11, the hearts of the sons of
men are fully set in them to do evil. They are fixed in an
evil way to serve and live and worship God. to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, they must be given a new heart, and this
is a divine work. God gives new hearts to whom
He would, for He is a sovereign God. He is sovereign over the
hearts and over the will of His creatures. Proverbs 21 says,
the heart of the king is in the Lord's hand. Like the
rivers of water, He turneth it whithersoever He will." Turns
it in the channels that are pleasing to Him. I noted, not the lowest
peasant, but the most powerful in the nation or the kingdom.
The King's heart is in the Lord's hand, and He turns it whithersoever
way He will. It was God that hardened the
heart of Pharaoh. Exodus chapter 4. And verse 21,
it was God that hardened the heart of Sihon the king, Deuteronomy
2 and 30, while he opened the heart of Lydia and inclined her
toward the things of God, so that the former perished and
the latter believed. In 1 Samuel 10 and 26 we read,
Saul went back home to Gibeah. and there went with him a band
of men whose heart the Lord had touched." The Lord touched their
heart in such a way that they fell in with King Saul. Now,
the work of God upon the heart of the elect is sometimes called
the circumcision of the heart, as in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6,
Colossians chapter 2 and verse 11. In Deuteronomy 30 and verse
6, the purpose and result of this holy surgery is to love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, the
taking away of the flesh and the giving of a new habit, a
new heart that can love God and have communion with God and desires
that. Said Solomon in Proverbs 10 and
20, the heart of the wicked is of little worth. It's just not
much good. Proverbs 20 and verse 9. Who can say, I have made my heart
clean, I am pure from my sin? The counsel in our text is, keep
the heart with all diligence. Guard it, keep it, constantly
watch it, set a faithful sentinel to keep watch upon the heart,
And in addition to diligence, then let us emulate the psalmist
in his prayer. In Psalm 119 and verse 36, and
what a prayer is this, he prayed, Lord, incline my heart unto Thy
testimonies. Incline me toward the Word of
the Lord, knowing the indwelling of sin that roosts in our hearts
that our prayer often be, O most precious Lord God, incline our
hearts towards the sacred oracle and the way of God. How quickly
is the heart able to wander and to neglect and to be distracted
away from the divine testimony and to grow cold. How quickly
can that happen. So Solomon said, keep the heart,
keep it with all diligence, Keep it, for out of it are the issues
of life. In closing, I want to close with
a part of Solomon's benediction at the dedication of the temple.
Now, I'm turning to 1 Kings 8. We'll read this in closing. 1 Kings 8, verse 56 through verse
58. Though his prayer was long, it
was an all-day affair, Here's part of it that I'd like to share
in closing, part of Solomon's benediction. 1 Kings 8, verse
56 through 58. Blessed be the Lord that hath
given rest unto this people Israel according to all that he promised.
There hath not failed one word of all of his good promise which
he promised by the hand of Moses his servant. The Lord our God
be with us as he was with our fathers. Let him not leave us
nor forsake us, that He may incline our heart unto Him to walk in
all of His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes
and His judgments which He hath commanded our fathers. Let that
be part of a prayer of our heart this day. All right, thank you.
Let's bow together for a word of closing prayer.