Turn in your Bibles this morning
to the book of Luke 24. We're going to read here an account of two followers of our Lord
who had been with his apostles and disciples. And they encountered
a man that they did not know. This happened three days after
Jesus Christ was crucified at Calvary. So you read with me
here, beginning in verse 13. And behold, two of them went
that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem,
about three score forelongs. And they talked together of all
these things which had happened. And it came to pass that while
they communed together and reasoned, and I want you to notice what
they're doing. They're reasoning. They're trying to think this
thing through. While they were doing that, Jesus Himself drew
near and went with them. But their eyes were holding that
they should not know Him. Somehow He made it. And remember,
He's God. He can do anything He wants.
Somehow he made it so they couldn't recognize him, because they had
seen him in the flesh just three days before. And he said unto
them, What manner of communication are these, that ye have one to
another as ye walk, and are sad? And one of them, whose name was
Cleopas, answering it, said unto him, Art thou only a stranger
in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to
pass therein in these days? And the Lord said unto them,
What things? And they said unto him concerning Jesus of Nazareth,
and notice how they described him. Jesus of Nazareth, which
was a prophet, and he was mighty indeed in word before God and
all the people. Now, those things were true. But if the Lord Jesus Christ
said to you, Describe me. Is that the word you would want
to use? A prophet? Just mighty indeed with the people.
Let's go on. This is evidence they do not
know who this is they're talking to. They don't know the Lord
Jesus Christ. Verse 20, And how the chief priests and our rulers
delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified
him. But we trusted, this tells who they really thought he was,
that this man that was crucified had been he which should have
redeemed Israel, that is, raised us back to political prominence,
to military might. And beside all this, today is
the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women
also of our company made us astonished. They went early to the sepulchre
where he was buried, and when they found not his body, they
came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels which
said that Jesus was alive. And certain of our number, the
apostles of them which were with us, went to the grave, and found
it even as these women had said, but they did not see him. Then
he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart," and I want you
to notice almost every reference I make to the word heart in a
whole message today, there is no S on the end of it. He said
unto them, O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that
the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses,
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, and all the scriptures,
the things concerning himself. Notice what he taught them, not
the how, the when, the where, the what, the who. When he expounded
the scriptures, it was about Christ, about himself. Verse
28, And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went. And
he made as though he would have gone further. But the two men
constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward the
evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with
them. And it came to pass, as he sat at eat with them, he took
bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave it to them. And
their eyes were opened, and they knew him." You see, they didn't
know him before. Now they know him. And he vanished
out of their sight. And they said one to another,
Did not our heart, singular, burn within us while he talked
with us by the way? And how did he talk to them?
He opened to us the scriptures. That's how they knew him. And
now their eyes were opened. And what did they do? They rose
up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem. They just walked
20 furlongs. They said, We can't wait to spread
this news. We're going back. And found the eleven together,
and then that were with him, saying, The Lord is risen indeed,
and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were
done in the way, and how he was known of them in the baking of
bread. Our hearts did burn within us. Let's look at each of those words.
Let's talk about the heart for a minute. Now, everybody in here
knows you've got a physical organ in here. It's the most important
one you have. If it stops, you die, right? If it doesn't work
anymore, you're dead. But that's not heart in these
scriptures we're talking about here. The word heart in the scriptures
most often refers not to a physical heart, but to the spiritual.
The spiritual heart is the center. the controller of our affections. That heart controls these three
things, our thoughts, everything we think. It controls our desires,
everything we want. And it ultimately controls our
actions, what we do. Turn back to Genesis chapter
3. When Adam disobeyed God, his
spiritual heart changed. When God created Adam, He gave
him a physical heart and He gave him a spiritual heart, and that
heart was perfect. It thought the right things,
it desired the right things, and it did the right things. But his heart changed here. Look
in Genesis 3, verse 11. The Lord said to Adam, Who told
you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof
I have commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?' And Adam
said, The woman who thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree, and I did eat." Notice the change here in Adam. The
Lord said, In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die. It is obvious that if Adam is in the garden after he ate
and he is still talking, he is not dead physically, is he? So
his physical heart didn't die, did it? Now, it would in time,
but it didn't die yet. The death that's being spoken
of here is both spiritual and physical. The physical, in time,
Adam would die, but the minute he ate, his spiritual heart,
it died. It changed. It changed. You see,
he no longer thinking straight because he actually thinks he
can outmaneuver God and get away with this by going. She did it.
She's the one who made me do it. And he's going to get away
free. Now, what kind of thinking is
that? Adam's desire has changed. Don't you know? When God made
Eve and gave him to Adam, he thought this is the best thing
in the whole world that could ever happen. But you see, his
desires changed. He used to love her without shame,
and now he goes, kill her, not me. Blame her. I don't want to
die. Blame her. And Adam was perfectly
willing for Eve to suffer the wrath of God so he wouldn't.
But it was too late. You see, Adam didn't realize
he had already died spiritually. The evidence was in the change
of his desires and his thoughts and his deeds. He already has
a dead spiritual heart. And here is what all of us need
to see. Turn a page over to Genesis 6.
Just as we are born with a physical heart, just like the one Adam
made. Adam's heart had four chambers
and valves and all that stuff. We're born just like that. I'll
tell you what, the spiritual heart we get, it's just like
the one Adam got. When Adam's heart spiritually
died, he got a dead heart spiritually. And that's the kind we get when
we're born. And the evidence of it is, in Genesis 6, just
a brief time after Adam dies, what does God say in Genesis
6, verse 5? God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth, and this is the first time the word
heart is used in all the scriptures, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart," and notice it's singular. There's
no S there. There's only one heart we can
get, the one like Adam's, and that's the one we get. And it's
only evil continually. Look at Jeremiah 17. Turn over
there. We ought never to be amazed by
anything done by a human being. It's not amazing that Adolf Hitler
killed six million Jews. That's not amazing. You know
what's amazing? That the whole world didn't go
for that deceit. Hitler's saying that Jews are
all the trouble. They're all a problem. Kill them,
kill them, kill them, and all the problems will be gone. The miracle
is that we didn't all fall for that. and try to kill, that the
whole world didn't set about killing Jews. Our parents included. That's the amazing thing, that
we didn't go for that deceit. Look in Jeremiah 17, verse 9. The heart, notice it's singular,
it's the only one man has. The heart is deceitful above
all things. And it's not just wicked, it
is desperately wicked. Let me give you an illustration
of desperation. When I was a teenager, I was
a lifeguard for a summer, and you had to take this training.
And one of the first things they taught you was that when somebody's
out there drowning, don't ever go in there and swim right up
to them. Because you've got to get around behind them. Or if
they come at you, you've got to turn them and get them from
behind. Because if you go straight to them, they'll grab you. And
in order just to get a few more breaths, they'll hold you under
and stand on you if they have to, just to get a few more breaths.
You say, that's the dumbest thing in the world a person can do.
Drown the only hope they have of being saved? That's how desperately
wicked we are. We don't want anything by nature
to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, even though He's the only hope
we have, because our dead heart is just desperately wicked. All of us by nature are so desperate
to do evil, we imagine new and wicked things continually. There
is none good. No, not one. A little further
over to Ezekiel 11. Have you all ever heard this
phrase? I'm pretty sure the kids have.
When somebody particularly does something really despicable,
I mean something that You put it on the news and people go,
oh! And you go, man, that is one
sick puppy. Let me tell you, that's just
another way of dressing up sin. There is nothing cute puppy about
us. We're not cute puppy. We're mad
dog. It's like we got rabies. You
guys, when I was a child, maybe eight or ten years old, a bunch
of us boys were playing in a field. And behind the houses and out
of the tall grass comes staggering this big old jolly dog. And he's got white foam coming
out of his mouth and his nose. And he's staggering around. It's
obvious he can't really see well. And this neighbor of ours had
all these little fig bushes growing next to the field there. And
the wind blew one of them a little bit as that dog was coming out.
And he saw that movement. And he turned and attacked the
fig plant. He grabbed it, tore it every
which way, shook it. He tried to annihilate the fig
plant. What's wrong with him? He's a mad dog. He's crazy with
whatever he's got. Rabies. And fortunately, one
of the moms saw the dog and got us all inside. They called the
police and they came and they did the only thing. You know,
there's no cure for rabies. If a dog's got it, he's got it.
They came and shot the dog and put him where he'd do no more
harm, put him in the grave. Do we all understand if God doesn't
do something for us, we're not sick puppies, we're mad dogs,
and God's going to put us someday in a place where we'll do no
more harm. That's who we are. That's what
we are. You see, Ezekiel 11, verse 21,
it says, But as for them whose heart, singular, Walketh after
the heart, singular, of their detestable things and their abominations,
he said, I'll recompense their way upon their own heads, saith
the Lord." That's where hell is. We get just what we had coming.
Sorry. But there's good news. A few verses up to Ezekiel 11
and 17, and it says, Therefore say, thus saith the Lord God,
I'll even gather you from the people and assemble you out of
the countries where you've been scattered. And I'll give you
the land of Israel, and they shall come thither, and they
shall take away all the detestable things thereof, and all the abominations
thereof from thence." I just got through reading that we're
desperately wicked. We're despicable. And this Scripture
says God's going to take it away from some people he's going to
choose. In verse 19, he says, and here's the cure, "...I will
give them one heart." No S. 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, that they may walk
in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them, and
they shall be my people, and I will be their God." See, God's
people, he gives them a new heart. He takes this old stony one,
this nasty one out of us. and gives us a new heart. Turn
over to John chapter 3. You say, how does God do that? How can God give somebody a new
heart? Well, our Lord, a real religious
guy, came to our Lord and basically listened to what he said and
the Lord told him what he would do. In verse 1 of chapter 3 of
John, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. He
was a ruler of the Jews. And this man came to Jesus by
night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art... Now
look, this is evidence he doesn't know who it is, because he said,
we know you're a teacher. Well, gee whiz, what a compliment,
right? To call the Lord of glory, we
know you're a teacher. He said, And we know you have
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that you do,
except God be with him. But Jesus answered and said to
him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again,
be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. What
is he talking about here? Well, where did we all get the
spiritual heart we're born with? We're born with it. We got it
from Adam. And this is saying, unless you
get a new one, you're born again. You've got a problem. Verse 4,
Nicodemus said to him, Well, how can a man be born when he's
old? He's trying to reason this out, trying to figure it out
on his own. He says, Can he enter the second time into his mother's
womb and be born? It doesn't make any sense to
him. And Jesus answered, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, except the man be born, and remember this term,
of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said
unto you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but you can't tell whence it
cometh, or whither it goes, so is every one that is born of
the Spirit." What that's saying is that you can't look back in
your records and say, oh, I was in the hospital on this day,
and that's when I had the surgery. We can't do that, can we, people
who are born again? You don't necessarily know the
hour, the minute, the second, the day. It doesn't mean it didn't
happen. Verse 9, Nicodemus answered,
and look what he said to him. He said, How can these things
be? How can this be? And our Lord
answered and said unto him, Are you a master of Israel, and know
not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto you,
We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen, and
you receive not our witness. If I told you earthly things
and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly
things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came
down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." You see, I am much more sympathetic
with Nicodemus. than I and anybody in this country
in this day and time, and I'll tell you why. Nicodemus is trying
to reason this out, and in our day and time, it doesn't take
much reason. It's been 25 years ago, this
fellow from Louisville named Robert Jarvik, he actually opened
up a man's chest and took his heart out and put a mechanical
Jarvik 7 heart in that man's chest. Now, if we can do that,
Is it hard to believe that God could send His Holy Spirit down
and take the stony heart out and put a new heart in? If man
can do that, God can't do this other? There's no reasoning here. It's only to believe. The natural
man asks, well, did you make a doctor's appointment? schedule
a time and a place? Did you feel the surgery? A natural
man asks what Nicodemus is. How can this be? The Holy Spirit does not ask our
permission. He doesn't have to. He's God.
And even if He asked our permission, you know what we'd say? I don't
want that heart. I like the one I got. God has
done whatsoever He pleases among the inhabitants of men, and it
pleased Him to redeem a people. and in so doing he gives them
a new heart." These fellows on that road are a clear example
of how this happens. Let me repeat it plainly. We
are born with a bad heart, a dead heart. It desires wrong, it thinks
wrong, it does evil. God has chosen people one day.
The Spirit of God comes where we are and gives us a new heart,
and that heart desires the glory of God, thinks with a new mind,
and seeks to do the will of God. And here's the example. One minute,
these fellows are walking down the road, and they don't know
who Christ is. And he opens the Scriptures to
them, and now they go, Did not our heart burn within us? What lit them up? They didn't
even have the capacity to understand who Christ was a minute ago.
Now they see him for who he is and have some understanding.
Turn over to Ezekiel 36. And I want to say this as plainly
as I know how. God's people get a new heart.
Well, whose heart do they get? That's the question. Whose heart
do they get? You remember these men said,
Did not our heart, singular, burn within us? This may seem
impossible to natural man, but God actually gives every believer
an identical heart. You know whose heart it is? It
is the heart of Jesus Christ. You see in Ezekiel 36, verse
26, a new heart, singular, 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.
What that is saying is not that the spiritual heart has flesh
on it. What it is saying is that it is the heart of a man who
actually lived. and did what a new heart would
do, what a perfect heart would do. Who can that be besides the
Lord Jesus Christ? We actually give His heart. You
see verse 27 says, And I will put My Spirit within you, and
cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments
and do them. Wait a minute. A few minutes ago you were telling
me I'm the nastiest, evilest, most wicked, abominable thing
on the planet. And now you're saying I keep
God's statutes? No, no, no, no. That old heart of yours didn't
keep them. The heart of Jesus Christ kept them. When He lived
33 years, He didn't do anything abominable. He didn't do anything
wrong. He was perfect. If God takes that old heart out
of me and gives me His right, I've kept His statutes. I'm righteous
before God. It's got to be the heart of Jesus
Christ. It could only be the heart of
the God-man. In our text, notice these men
both said, Did not our heart burn within us? Now, wait a minute
here. There's three fellows here. There's a fellow named Cleopas.
There's an unnamed disciple. And there's Jesus Christ. There's
three of them there, right? And yet this fellow says, Did
not our heart burn within us? Why is he saying that? Because
Cleopas has got the heart of Christ. The other disciple's
got the heart of Christ. And we know whose heart the Lord
Jesus Christ has. You say, boy, this is this is
kind of confusing. Let me see if I can give an illustration
and you all pray the Lord will bless this, because I would not
demean or reduce the glory and the miracles of the new birth
in any way. But if you're trying to reason
it out, if you're trying to figure it out, you're wasting your time.
It can't be done. Let me see if I can illustrate
this here. I came here today with a bunch of these in my pocket.
This is a green apple Jolly Rancher. It's wrapped in cellophane. It's sweet and it's tasty. And
it's all mine. I brought a whole pocket load
of them. They were all mine. But I chose to give to a special
group each of them one of these. I know who they are, and they
know who they are. Now, if you've got one, raise
your hand this morning. Go ahead, Zach. I know you've
got one. Raise your hand. I'm looking. Jeffrey, you've
got one. Yeah, get your hand up. Yeah, Andrea, you're hiding. She heard about them, and she
came and asked for one, and I gave it to her. All right, you can
put your hands down now. The candy is no longer all mine. It's ours. It's ours. And I know where the candy is
now. It's in you, isn't it? Yeah, I had one earlier and it's
in me. You see, we all have the same thing in us. The very same thing. If me, a foolish old man trying
to make an illustration, can do this, and most of your parents
are clueless of what I put in your children this morning, aren't
you? Is it hard to imagine that the
Holy Spirit of God can come to one of his children and reach
in and take out the heart and put in a new one, and folks around
them are totally clueless? have no understanding because
they're trying to reason it out. It's not by reasoning, it's by
believing. It's by revelation. Folks don't believe it's possible. You know why? Because they don't
have a new heart. If you were here this morning
and you got a new heart, you know exactly what I'm talking
about. And if you're here this morning and don't know what I'm
talking about, ask God to give you a new heart. You see, these
men said, did not our heart burn within us, within us? My poor
mother had two open heart surgeries in her lifetime. She had rheumatic
fever when she was young and had a rheumatic heart. And therefore,
when she got older, she had a The microvalve on the backside went
bad. And this was 30 years ago, 40
years ago. I don't remember the first surgery
she had. And I'm telling you, they cut her from neck to navel,
cut the sternum in half, pried the chest apart, went in there
and cut out that valve. And you know what they did? They
put a Teflon-coated valve with a little ball in it. If you sat
next to her afterwards, you'd go... People would go, what's wrong
with you? But after about 10 years, it didn't work anymore.
And she had to have another one. And this time, they took the
valve out of a pig and put it in there. And that lasted about
10 or 12 years. But the surgery was so awful
and so painful and cut her up so bad that when it came time
for the third one, she said, I think I'll just die. And she
did. But I tell you this, she had
the scars to prove it. When somebody would say, well,
you look pretty good a couple of years after that second surgery,
you know what's with you? And she'd say, well, I've had
open heart surgery. I'd think, what? Well, she just opened her collar
a little bit, and it looked like somebody had taken an axe to
the front of her. She had the scars to prove it. You know, the Lord comes to his
people, and he does surgery on them. He does it in such a way,
we don't even know what happened. You don't have any scars, do
you, from it? Those who've had this heart surgery, gotten a
new heart? No. We have it while we're fully
awake, and we don't have a single scar. So when does it happen? In the providence of God at the
appointed hour for each of his children. I tell you what, though,
they all know they've had it if they've had it. But what about
our heart donor? What of him? Well, Jesus Christ. He knows when he had the surgery.
It was at Calvary. When that soldier ran the spear
up into our Lord's side, it said out came water and blood. Earlier,
remember, I said, pay attention. We're born of water and of the
Spirit. The water came out of his abdomen,
but the blood came out of his heart. I promise you, the spear
went right up to the left under his ribcage and pierced his heart.
That's when he had the surgery. That's when his heart was cut
out and destroyed. That spear pierced the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I hope I can convey this
and say, well, why was he punished like that? Why was his heart
pierced? He never did anything wrong.
I can't explain it to you. We can't reason this out. But
I'm going to tell you what happened. Somewhere in the time he was
condemned by that wicked court of something he didn't do, but
he was condemned. And when he died at Calvary,
here's what happened. His perfect heart, the one he
lived with for thirty-three years, the perfect spiritual heart.
You know what he did with that heart? He gave it to each of his children.
Every one of them got that heart. You say, can they do a transplant
like that? If man can transplant a mechanical heart in a man,
the Holy Spirit of God can do that? It's not hard to believe,
is it? No, it's impossible unless you
get the new heart. Well, you say, well, what happened
to our wicked old nasty hearts, all of us? You know what happened?
Jesus Christ at Calvary, when he gave us his heart, he took
ours. That's why they killed him. It's
why he had to die. It's why they ran that spear
up in there and killed him. He was taking what you and I
had coming at Calvary. It's called substitution. We
get what he had coming, and he gets what we had coming. But notice, these two fellows
said, did not our heart burn within us? Who is the us? Turn
over to Romans 8 quickly. Romans 8, who is the us? Am I one of the us? If you have had the surgery and
the operation of God's grace on the heart, you know who you
are and that you are one of us. In Romans 8, verse 31. What shall
we say then to these things that I've said this morning and the
scriptures? If God be for, here's the word, us. Well, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us. You see, he did die for us at
Calvary. He put away our nasty heart. How shall he not with
him also freely give us all things, the heart of Christ? Who's going
to lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies. Who is he that condemns? It's
Christ that died, yea, rather than is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for who?
Us. Us. I want us to see one more
thing here. These fellows said, Did not our
heart burn within us? Burn. Now, we're not talking
about physical fire. But when there is a fire, there
are two things that happen. Number one is light is given
off. And as Christ is the light, if we have his heart, we shine
forth. If this assembly is not as a
lighthouse on a mountaintop, the heart of Christ does not
dwell here. And if you and I don't to some degree reflect his glory,
then his heart is not in me. But when a fire burns, it also
gives off heat. If the warmth of God's love and
affection and kindness and mercy are not evidenced by my behavior,
attitude and spirit to some degree, his heart's not in me. It's not
there. And then let me give you an example.
Turn to Acts chapter four. And you may be saying, well,
where do you go to get this heart? Where does one become the recipient
of this new heart? Well, you are sitting just in
the right place right now. It is where the gospel is preached.
How did those two disciples on the road to Emmaus get a new
heart? It says the Lord opened the scriptures to them. And Peter
and John here are opening scriptures. They are preaching in Acts chapter
4 to an assembly in verse 31. Look at what it says. the disciples, the place was
shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart,"
there it is again, "...and of one soul. Neither said any of
them that ought of the things that he possessed was his own,
but they had all things common." And don't miss the last little
part of this. Do we see there was a change instantly? When
they preach the gospel, and men got new hearts, you know what
happened? All of a sudden, we know the source of all evil,
right? The root of all evil is a love of money. So what did
these fellas do? Immediately, when they got a new heart, they
went, whatever I got is everybody's. They're not taken up with things
and stuff and all that anymore. They got a new heart, new attitude,
new way to think, and new actions. Turn to one more scripture with
me, Acts 2. Maybe two more. Acts chapter
2, where do we get this new heart? Where the gospels preach. When
do we get a new heart? If you don't have one, you ought
to be vitally interested in this. When do we get one? Well, Acts
chapter 2, verse 1 says, and when? Here's the when. When the
day of Pentecost was fully come. What happened on the day of Pentecostal?
The apostles preached the gospel. And what happened? one accord
in one place. They were in the right place
where the gospels preached. I tell you what, this is in my
notes. I hope it's okay. If we don't ever get a new heart, it's not God's fault. It's my
fault. Any of you kids, for that matter,
any grown-ups, If you didn't get a candy today, my pockets
are bulging with them, and when you come to the back door, you
ask one, I'll give you one. If you don't get a candy, it's
not my fault, it's your fault because you didn't ask. And look,
turn the page here to Acts 2. They came with one accord. That
was everybody was in the same place at the same time, with
the same frame of mind, with the same heart. And you see verse
21 of Acts 2? And it shall come to pass that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. If
you don't call, don't blame God that you didn't get a new heart."
Is that too hard? Is that too hard? That's just all you've got to
do is ask. Andrea heard about it. She wasn't ashamed. She's
a big kid. She came up and said, I'll have
one. Can I please? I was happy to give her one.
God has never sent any sinner away who asks for a new heart
without a new heart. But look at the message in verse
36 with me. Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus
whom we crucified with that wicked old heart we had, both Lord and
Christ. Now, when they heard this, they
were pricked in their what? Heart. How many S's on the end
of that? There were over 3,000 people
here and one heart. Every one of them got the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And said unto Peter and to the
rest of the apostles, did they say, like Nicodemus, how can
this be? How can this be? No, quit trying
to reason and figure it out and make it sense in the old rotten
head we got, old rotten heart. No, look at what they said. They
didn't say, how can this be? They said, what shall we do?
What shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit. That's a new heart. It's a new
heart. Verse 40, and with many other
words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from
this untoward generation. How do I save myself? Just ask
for a heart. Just ask. Ask and you shall receive. Can you take one more example?
Turn a few pages over to Acts 8. Here is another example of
a believer getting a new heart. There was a poor old eunuch who
went all the way to Jerusalem and was on his way back in a
chariot. and was none the better for it. But God, by His Holy
Spirit, sent Philip halfway out into the desert to intersect
this man's chariot. And when he did, look what happened. And he opened the Scriptures
to him in Acts 8, verse 35. Then Philip opened his mouth
and began with the same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus Christ.
Not the what, the how, or the when, but the who. And as they
went on their way, they came to a certain water, and Eunuch
said, See, here's water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?
He didn't say, How can these things be? He said, Here's water. Can I get in it? Can I go down
there in it? And Philip said, Not if you can
understand it, not if you can think it through, not if you
can reason it. He said, If thou believest, with all your heart,
thou mayest." And what did this man answer? How can these things
speak? No, he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. You know what happened? He got
a new heart right there. And he commanded the chariot to stand
still, and they went down both into the water, Philip and the
eunuch, and he baptized them. And when they were come up out
of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that
the eunuch saw him no more, but the eunuch went on his way Rejoicing. You may be having a bad day,
but if you've got a new heart, it's reason to rejoice. No matter
what else happens, after you get a new heart. Somebody said,
since I heard the good news, I haven't heard any bad news.
If you've got a new heart, it's all okay. That's what we need,
though, is the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, let's
bow together.