Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow in your
Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from a passage that I preached
on last week in Jeremiah 17. If you'd like to turn there,
the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah
who prophesied about 450-500 years before the coming of Christ. Last week I dealt with the same
old message. I want to focus in on verse 9
and verse 10 this morning with the deceitful heart and the new
heart. The deceitful heart and the new
heart. That's the title. I made these points last week,
but just to give you an idea if you didn't hear last week's
message. It says in Jeremiah 17 9, it says, The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Now, what he's
talking about there is man and woman by nature. And as I always
make a point to say, what I'm talking about there is all human
beings, as we are naturally born, as fallen in Adam, we fell in
Adam, and we're born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins.
You know, Ephesians chapter two and verse one speaks of that.
He says, and you hath he quickened, given life, who were dead in
trespasses and sins. And so he's talking about those
who are spiritually dead and we're physically alive. We have
minds, we have a heart. You know, the heart in the Bible
is the mind, the affections, the will, the conscience, All
of those things. And what he's saying is that
this, when he says the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked, who could know it? He's talking about our
natural fallen state wherein we're ignorant of the right way
in which God brings salvation and how a right relationship
with God is established. We don't know that until God
reveals it to us. And until He reveals it to us,
our heart will deceive us. In other words, we can't figure
it out on our own. We can't know it by human wisdom,
human religion, or feelings. And so I made this point last
week how Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem quite a bit. And
there's a picture in the book of Jeremiah where the people
of Jerusalem are looking towards the temple, the temple that Solomon
built, with their hands up in the air, spread wide open, praying
and praising but their minds and their hearts are not right
with God. They don't know the gospel. They don't know how God
saves sinners. They're like those in verse five.
They trust in themselves and make flesh their arm. That is,
they're trusting in their own works. They're trusting in their
own wills. And so the picture that Jeremiah
has is as they're holding their hands up and praying, they think
they're getting nearer to God, but they're actually backing
up. That's the picture. And why is that? Because the
heart is deceitful, above all things. Desperately wicked. Their hearts are deceiving them.
I see people all the time in church services, what they call
worship services, where the gospel is not preached, or where a false
gospel is preached, a gospel that makes salvation conditioned
on the works and the wills of men. and they feel good about
themselves. They feel like the Spirit is
there, but their hearts are deceiving them. How do I know that? Somebody
said, you don't know the hearts of all men. I know this, that
if a sinner is not looking to Christ for all salvation, for
all forgiveness, for all righteousness, that if they believe that salvation
is conditioned on them in any way, at any stage, to any degree,
but they don't believe the gospel. I know that their hearts are
deceiving them, and why do I know that? It's because God says it. Now look at verse 10. He says,
I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins. The reins in
the Bible is what drives, what motivates a person to do what
they're doing. Whenever a person goes to worship
or goes to do anything, what is their motivation? Now, if
they believe that salvation is conditioned on them, then their
motivation is legalism. Or, as one preacher told me one
time, he said the reason he preached is because he wanted greater
rewards in heaven. He wanted to earn some greater
rewards. Well, that's a mercenary. See, if God tests those reins,
what's he gonna find? He's gonna find a desperately
wicked heart. And he says there in Jeremiah
1710, even to give every man according to his ways. Now, what
is your way? You say, well, I'm doing my best
to be good enough to enter heaven. Well, that's a bad way. That's
a wicked way. I'll show you that in Jeremiah,
but let me show you how the Lord searches the heart and tries
the reins. Over in Hebrews chapter four, listen to this. Hebrews
chapter four and verse 12. It says, for the word of God
is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. See, the only way I can really
know the true state of my own heart is by God's searching. in His Word telling me what it's
like. And here's what God says now
in His Word. If you're seeking salvation by
your works, by anything you do or don't do, if you're seeking
salvation conditioned on you, then that's a wicked, deceitful
heart. That's the natural heart. And
if you don't receive what I'm saying from the Word of God,
you're put in the category of I Corinthians 2.14 again. And
I quote all the time, "...the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them." They're
spiritually discerned. And so you can hear what I'm
saying, you can know what I'm saying, but you won't receive
what I'm saying until God gives you a new heart. That's what
Christ told Nicodemus, you must be born again or you cannot see
the kingdom. Why must I be born again? I must
be born from above, born spiritually, given a new heart. And I'll show
you that in just a moment. But look at verse 13 of Hebrews
4. He says, neither is there any creature that is not manifest
in his sight, but all things are naked. and open unto the
eyes of him with whom we have to do." You see, God is the great
judge of all, and He's the one with whom we have to do. And
that's what He says. You know, the natural heart is
a deceptive heart, desperately wicked. Look back over in Jeremiah
chapter 2. I want to show you this passage
here. Now, I made the point last time that the people to whom
Jeremiah was prophesying, on the whole, were religious people
who were seeking salvation based upon their works. They were trying
to make themselves righteous before God by their works. And that's a desperately deceived
wicked heart. And he puts it this way over
in Jeremiah chapter two, and look at verse 13. He says, He
says, for my people have committed two evils. Now, here's the thing
about it. When you look at a passage like
that, two evils. Now, I can look at myself, I've
committed more than two evils. We're all sinners. We all come
short of the glory of God. The Bible says there's none that
doeth good, no not one. That's us naturally. So, but
what does he mean, my people have committed two evils? Well,
he's gonna show the problem here under two things. He says, first,
they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. They've forsaken
the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Now doesn't that, if
you know anything about the Bible, doesn't that remind you of what
Christ said to the woman at the well in John chapter four? He
said, I'm the living waters. Drink of me, he's the water of
life. That's what they've done. They
took the law of God and turned it into a legal system of work
salvation. The commandments of men, the
traditions of men. And the law was given to show
them their sinfulness and drive them to Christ, the future promised
Messiah for salvation, for forgiveness, for righteousness. So they have
forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they have
hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water. That's
their false religion. So they've forsaken Christ and
they've tried to make a new way. A cistern that'll hold water,
but it's broken. It won't hold any water. There's
no life there. False religion, there's no, my
friend, the way of God's grace in Christ is the one and only
way of salvation. And your heart will deceive you
in every way until God gives you a new heart. Now Ezekiel,
the prophet Ezekiel, you know Jeremiah, he prophesied, as I
said, 450, 500 years before Christ. But his prophecy was given right
up until the time that the Babylonian army, Nebuchadnezzar and the
Babylonian army came down and destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed
the temple, and took the people into captivity. And that's where
you have the prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel when they were in
captivity. And Ezekiel was born in captivity
and stayed there until he died. In fact, one scholar says that
Ezekiel is the only Hebrew prophet that did not prophesy in Judea. Now Daniel, he was in Jerusalem
and he was taken captive, but Ezekiel was born in captivity. And they were gonna be in captivity
seven years. And so Ezekiel prophesied that
in the future, there was gonna be a great deliverance of God's
people, God's elect out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
and that deliverance was not gonna be through the people and
their works, or the law, it was gonna be through Christ who was
to come. And he prophesied of Christ.
Daniel did the same thing. But he says in prophecy here
in Ezekiel chapter 36, listen to this. And this is all, we're
not spiritualizing here, we're just giving you the true meaning
of what Ezekiel's telling these people who are in captivity,
your hope is not in yourself, your hope is not in the law,
your hope is not in your works, your hope is in the promised
Messiah to come. And here's what's gonna happen.
God says in Ezekiel 36, this is verse 25. He says, then will
I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. From
all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. And he says, verse 26, a new
heart also will I give you. You see, by nature, what is our
heart? Desperately wicked. That's the
old heart. That's the deceived heart. But
here's the new heart. A new heart also will I give
you. and a new spirit will I put within
you." A new spirit means new life, that's spiritual life.
By nature, we're spiritually dead. He says, and I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh. A stony heart is one that
will not submit or bend or obey God's way. When you hear the
true gospel, if you don't believe it, that's the stony heart. That's
the deceitful heart. And he said, I'm gonna take that
away. And he said, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Now
the word flesh in the Bible often is a metaphor for sin, but here
it's not. What he's talking about here
is a heart that's pliable, a heart that's submissive. It's not a
stony hard heart, the seed, but it's one that knows the truth
because God revealed it and bends and submits and obeys God. And
he says in verse 28, Or verse 27, he said, and I will put my
spirit within you, that's the Holy Spirit, and cause you to
walk in my statues. God's gonna cause them to walk
in his statue, because he's gonna give them a new heart, you see.
He says, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. That's
the gospel, following Christ. And verse 28, he says, you shall
dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, There is a physical
application, a temporal, when they came back to the promised
land, but they didn't keep it. But what he's talking about here,
he's dwelling the land. Remember Abraham? He sought for
a land, but not on earth. Read Hebrews 11. He sought for
a heavenly home place. And that's what he's talking
about here. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. That's
a language of marriage, a marriage that cannot be broken. Christ
is the husband and his church is his bride. And if you go over,
look at Jeremiah 23 now. Now, this is what happens. We're born with that natural,
stony, hard, unbending, unsubmissive, deceived heart. But God in the
new birth, in salvation, based upon what Christ accomplished
on the cross in His obedience unto death as the surety, the
substitute, and the redeemer of His people, He died, He was
buried, He arose again because He put away sin. He paid the
debt of all our sins and He established righteousness. Out of Him comes
life. And out of that becomes the life
given to his people. Listen to this, Jeremiah 23 in
verse five. Jeremiah prophesying, he says,
behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto
David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper,
and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. Now, that's
Christ, and when did he do that? When he died on that cross. He
executed judgment and justice. God's justice against the sins
of all for whom Christ died, God's elect, God's justice was
satisfied by the death of Christ. And it says in verse six, in
his days, Judah shall be safe and Israel shall dwell safely.
Judah and Israel there are metaphors or symbols of spiritual Israel. The word Judah means praise.
They'll praise God. The word Israel means those who
have prevailed with God. How does a sinner prevail with
God? By looking to Christ. And they'll dwell safely. And
this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. That's speaking of Christ. And
so what happens when the Lord gives us a new heart? the heart of the redeemed. Well, look over at Jeremiah.
Let me show you another passage here in Jeremiah 31. And this
is a prophecy of the coming of Christ and the establishment
of the new covenant in time. In Jeremiah 31 and verse 31,
he says, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, Now that's talking about spiritual Israel. How do
you know that? Well, look at verse 32. Not according
to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that
I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
which my covenant they break. They broke that covenant. You
see, that was a legal conditional covenant on them and they broke
it. And that's why it shows us that we're sinners. They are
sinners. People look back on the old covenant and they act
like, well, if they had been there, they wouldn't have broken
it. Yes, you would, if you're a sinner. I would have. But he said, it
won't be like that. He said, when I took them by
the hand to bring them out of Egypt, which my covenant they
break, although I wasn't husband unto them, saith the Lord, although
I joined myself to them, temporally, ceremonially, for a while. But
verse 33. But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts. That's
their heart. That's the new heart. So you
have the deceived heart. Now you have the new heart. I'll
write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall
be my people. be married to him, whom to know
is life eternal. Verse 34, and they shall teach
no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord. You see, the prophets, when they
brought the word of God to the people, one of their complaints
was, is that their people do not know the Lord. They're religious,
and you think about their history. how God delivered them out of
Egypt, kept them together in the wilderness, brought them
into the promised land, conquered their enemies, how God had blessed
them temporally, ceremonially, but they still didn't know God.
And that's a good lesson for us to learn today. We can be
what we call blessed in this world with the good things of
this life, It rains on the just and the unjust and still not
know the Lord. But he said in this new covenant,
look at verse 34. In this new covenant, listen
to this. For they shall all know me from the least of them unto
the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive their
iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now, what
does that mean, that they'll all know me? They'll know God
as both a just God and a Savior. They'll know Him as the God of
all grace, the God of salvation, who saves sinners by His grace
through the blood and the righteousness of Christ. How does a sinner
come to know God? It's by God's teaching through
His word, by the power of the Spirit, in the preaching of the
gospel. Look at John 6 and verse 44.
Now I know I'm having you go to a lot of scripture today,
but I want you to see this because these are the issues. This tells
you the difference between the deceived heart and the new heart. In John 6, 44, it says, no man
can come to me except the father which has sent me draw him. All right. And I'll raise him
up again at the last day. Now, here's the question we gotta
ask. How does God draw people? Well, look at verse 45. It is
written in the prophets. Now, this particular prophecy
is from Isaiah, but it pertains to Jeremiah and all the other
prophets. They shall be all taught of God. Remember back in Jeremiah
17, verse 10, it says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I try
the rains. Well, when God searches the hearts
of His chosen people, when He tries their reins, what He's
doing, He's teaching them the truth. They shall all be taught
of God, John 6, 45. Every man therefore that hath
heard. Heard what? Heard the gospel. Well, how do they hear? With
the spiritual ear. You must be born again or you
cannot see the kingdom of God. Remember what Christ told his
disciples in Matthew chapter 13 when he began those kingdom
parables? He said, blessed are your eyes
for they see, blessed are your ears for they hear. Remember
in Revelation at the end of each admonition or encouragement or
correction that he gave to the seven churches, he said, let
he who hath an ear, let him hear. You see, we've got to have spiritual
ears in the new birth. We've got to have a new heart.
And so he says, every man, therefore, that hath heard, heard the gospel,
heard about who God is in his holiness and his justice. Yes,
he's a loving God. Yes, he's a merciful God. Yes,
he's a gracious God. His mercy endures forever, but
His love and His grace and His mercy cannot be given or shown
or applied unless His holy law and justice are satisfied. He's
a just God. He makes Himself known in His
judgments. What does He teach us? We learn
how God can be both a just God and a Savior by His grace based
upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. Salvation
conditioned on Christ, who fulfilled all the conditions and brought
forth everlasting righteousness, all the righteousness that I
need to stand before God and be justified, have a right relationship
with Him. The Lord who gives me life from
above, gives me ears to hear, so every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father. How do you learn of the
Father? Through the gospel. You see, without Christ, if you
go, listen, put it this way, If you go to meet God without
Christ, without being washed in His blood, without being clothed
in His righteousness, without being one whom God says, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. If you go before
God that way without Christ, you won't meet a loving father.
You'll meet a stern, strict judge who will judge you to be damned.
You see, he that believeth not, the wrath of God abides on him.
And so they learn of the Father, and he said, all who have heard
and learned of the Father cometh unto me, they come to Christ.
If you know anything about the Father, it's because you see
him in the face of Jesus Christ. Now back in Jeremiah 17, look
at it again in verse nine. The heart is deceitful above
all things, desperately wicked, who can know it? I can't even
know my own heart, except God do this. Verse 10, I try the
rains, or I, Lord, search the heart. I try the rains even to
give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit
of his doings. Many of you may have gone through
something like what I've gone through in my life. when they
call heart catheterization. Are you familiar with that? Sometimes
they don't go that far. They'll give you an echocardiogram. They'll spread this gel on your
chest and put something up there that they can get images from,
and you'll see the heart. And if they do a catheterization,
they put a catheter in, they shoot a dye in, and it shows
where there's any blockage in the arteries. You can see the
heart beating, all of that, and see if there's a problem. And
that's for the physical heart, isn't it? Well, that's what God
does with the spiritual heart. He searches, He tries, He seeks
and finds, and He reveals to a person the state of their heart. I'm a sinner. I have no hope
of salvation. I have no way of saving myself.
My works and efforts are dead works. If there's any way, Lord,
that a sinner like me can be saved, then I want your way. That's what God does. And that
way is the way of grace through Jesus Christ. I hope you'll join
us next week for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.