1. A work of spiritual purification. The gains of business, the pleasures and enjoyments of the world, the vanities and follies of time; of these we may, and of these many do, make a God. Now when the Lord takes a sinner to Himself, and calls him out of that state in which he is by nature, He says, “From all your idols will I cleanse you.” He cleanses, both from the power and the guilt of them. The love of sin is now destroyed, as well as the guilt of it taken away. The great end of the Gospel is thus accomplished (Eph_5:26-27).
2. As a work of inward regeneration. Man is often content with outward reformation, but the Lord goes to the seat of the evil. The heart of man is hard by nature. There may be, and there is, in many persons much kindness towards their fellow creatures; much affection towards their friends, and all around them; but the heart is hard towards God. How unfeeling is it under the Divine dispensations. Warnings and invitations are given; judgments from God of the most awful nature are pointed out; the dying love of Christ is preached and heard; the sweet and encouraging promises of the Gospel are held forth; but still these are met with cold indifference, or possibly with disdain! Melted by the love of Christ, he grieves over sin; he hates himself on account of it, and both prays and strives against it. A wrong temper causes him more sorrow now, than cursing or drunkenness did in former days. In short, old things are passed away, all things are become new.
3. A work of outward reformation. If the Lord gives a new heart, it follows as a necessary consequence that there must be a willingness to walk in His statutes. Was a man, before this change, addicted to sinful practices? They will be given up. Did be keep sinful company? It will be forsaken. He is not indeed perfect, for perfection is a plant which grows not in this lower world; it flourishes only in the paradise above. Sin will cleave to him, for it is his nature; but the sin which the Christian does, he allows not; it is his grief; he prays and he struggles against it. When the heart of stone is changed to a heart of flesh, there is a total alteration both in the motives and habits of a man.
II. The author of this work.
1. Man cannot be the author of it. It is far above human power. It is opposed to all the prejudices, passions, and inclinations of man.
2. God alone is the Author of it. He may, and does use instruments; and, in various ways, brings about this change; but the work is His.
III. The blessed privileges flowing from this work.
1. He acknowledges them as His people. “They shall be My people,” not in that general sense in which all the world belongs to Him by right of creation; but His peculiar people, His “chosen ones”; those over whom He delights to do good; over whom He rests in His love; making them His care, and enriching them with all spiritual blessings; and all this from His free grace and mercy.
2. They claim Him as their God. Mark the steps which lead to this blessed privilege. God sprinkles clean water; He purifies the heart of the sinner; He renews it, and puts into it right dispositions, and then they walk in His statutes. This promise then ensures a supply of all that His people can possibly need or desire. Are they weak? I will be their God to strengthen them. Are they guilty? I will be their God to pardon them. Are they ignorant? I will be their God to teach them. Do they mourn? I will be their God to comfort them. Are they mortal? and do they sometimes look upon the grave with trembling? What are the words of God on this subject? (Hos_13:14.) (J. G. Breay, M. A.)
The heart all wrong made all right
I. The rottenness of the human heart.
1. Every unregenerated heart is unclean. “From your filthiness will I cleanse you.” Our hands may be clean as water can wash them, and our garments as white as snow; and yet our inward nature be polluted. Sin is not like wine, that gets better by being kept. It gets worse and worse. The Arabs have a fable that once a camel came to the door of a tent and thrust in his nose. Not being resisted, he thrust in his feet. There being no hindrance, he came half way in. After a while he got all the way in. The Arab said to the camel, “This tent is too small for two.” Then the camel said to the Arab, “If that be so, you had better leave.” So sin comes into the heart further and further, until it takes full possession. It is not satisfied until it has pushed the soul into an eternal prison house, and slammed to the door, and shoved the bolts, and turned the locks of an everlasting incarceration.
2. The text represents the heart as idolatrous. “From all your idols will I cleanse you.” If we do not worship the God in heaven, we worship something on earth. This man worships pleasure. This one, applause. This one, money. This one, his family. That to which a man gives his supreme thought and affections is his idol. Like Dagon, how often it falls down, crushing its worshippers. God will have no rivals.
3. The text represents the heart as stony, or insensible. I prove it by the fact that we do not realise the truth of what we have already said. If we had any appreciation of our unclean and idolatrous nature, could we be as unmoved as we are? We are insensible. I saw men walking through the Louvre Gallery, in Paris, half asleep. No flash came to their eyes, no flush to their cheeks, no exclamation to their lips, amid the most thrilling triumphs of painter’s pencil and sculptor’s chisel. And so, until grace touches our soul, we walk through the great picture gallery of the Gospel; and the wonders of Christ and the glories of heaven strike no thrill through the heart.
II. The healing process that God proposes for everyone. “I will sprinkle,” etc. It is a change from black to white, from down to up, from the highway to hell to the highway of heaven. The whole nature made over again. Here are men who once rejected the Bible, cared not for God, talked against high heaven; but now all their hopes are hung on one strong nail: the Nail of the Cross. One Form is to them more glorious than any other: the Form of the Son of God. “I take Him,” they cry. “Through joy and sorrow, through fire and flood, for time and for eternity. None but Jesus!” They would stick to Him though the guillotine flashed its bloody knife in their faces. They have a new heart. New in its sentiments, hopes, affections, ambitions. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The power and dominion of God over the heart
I.God hath supreme dominion over the hearts of men.
1. He furnishes the hearts of men with qualifications suited to their several offices and employments, which He assigns them in the course of His providence.
2. He moderates and controls the most unruly passions, and renders them subservient to His own glory.
3. He sends spiritual judgments into the hearts of men.
4. He also shows His supreme dominion over the hearts of men, by renewing and sanctifying the various powers of their souls.
5. He restores order to the affections, and places them upon their proper objects.
6. He likewise inclines the heart to those things which are well-pleasing in His sight, and brings it into a willing subjection to His law.
II. God mercifully removes every obstacle that might obstruct His powerful gracious operation. The stony heart, which God graciously promises to take away, is remarkable--
1. For insensibility.
(1) It is insensible to the majesty and glory of God, impressed on the works of His hands, and to His power and presence displayed in His providential dispensations.
(2) It is insensible to the spirituality and excellence of the Divine law, and to the wonderful discoveries made in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. For obduracy. The hearts of all men are naturally possessed of this bad quality, which is greatly augmented by sinful habits, which, when indulged, provoke God to permit them judicially to harden themselves more and more.
3. For inflexibility. The stony heart is not easily bent to comply with the gracious purposes which God hath in view to execute. It will not be persuaded to accept of the rich mercies which He offers to bestow, nor obey the directions of His Word.
4. For resistance. The stony heart strongly resists the instruments employed to soften and render it tender. The merciful designs of providence are counteracted. Even the convictions and impulses of the Holy Spirit are resisted.
III. God promises to work a great change in the hearts of his people.
1. The spiritual and gracious qualities conveyed to the soul, by the fulfilment of this promise, are called a new heart and a new spirit; because they come in place of the old things which pass away, and are very different from them. By the new heart and the new spirit, we are made partakers of the Divine nature, and renovation after the image of Christ is begun, which is afterward gradually carried forward under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The eyes of the mind are enlightened, and a new light shines into it, whereby it is filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Divine truths are seen in their native beauty, displaying the manifold wisdom of God, and the unsearchable riches of Christ; they penetrate to the bottom of the heart, they are embraced with sincere affection, and have a transforming influence on the heart and life.
2. God also promises to give you an heart of flesh--which seems to intend, a heart the reverse of the stony heart, which He takes away.
(1) The heart of flesh is a sensible heart, that perceives the great importance and excellence of spiritual and Divine things.
(2) The heart of flesh is a soft and tender heart, that is deeply impressed with a sense of the Divine goodness and the manifold mercies of God.
(3) The heart of flesh is likewise flexible and pliant to the holy will of God.
(4) The heart of flesh makes no resistance to God, as doth the stony heart.
3. “And I will put My Spirit within you.” By the Spirit may be meant, the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in the people of God as in His temple, the Comforter whom Jesus Christ promises to send from the Father, that He may abide with them forever, even the Spirit of truth--who dwelleth with you and shall be in you (Joh_14:16-17). As a Spirit of power, He strengthens with all might in the inner man; as a Spirit of supplication, He helps their infirmities, and teaches them to pray; in every respect acting as a Spirit of holiness, sanctifying them wholly, and enabling them to perform duties in another and more spiritual manner than ever before. As the promised Comforter, He supports and comforts; so that as their sufferings abound, their consolations by Christ are made to superabound. As a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, He discovers the deep things of God, that we may know the things freely given us of God. As a Spirit of adoption, He enables us to cry, Abba, Father, and to draw near to God with filial freedom and confidence.
IV. The accomplishment of the precious promises which are here given, is attended with blessed effects and consequences. Those who have the Spirits of God put within them, shall be made to walk in God’s statutes, and to keep His judgments and do them. The statutes of God are the rule by which they shall walk, His judgments point out the work which they ought to do. By both expressions the Word of God is intended, which is given to be a lamp to our feet, and a light to our goings, and to show us what is good, and what the Lord our God requireth of us. In these statutes and judgments, God promises that those in whom He puts His Spirit shall walk. In Scripture, walking is often mentioned in a figurative sense, to denote a person’s habitual temper and practice.
1. Walking in God’s statutes is a voluntary, agreeable employment to those who have received a new heart and spirit. They delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man, and in the ways of His commandments which they have loved. In doing the will of their heavenly Father, they find far more real pleasure and satisfaction than in sensual pleasures, worldly riches, and great temporal honours.
2. Walking in God’s statutes is a diligent and progressive business. There may be, no doubt, some accidental obstructions and checks made to growth in grace, and progress in holiness; still, however, faith and love, and other graces, increase and grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (W. M’Culloch.)
The Lord’s New Year’s gifts to hardened sinners
It is recorded that when Sir Walter Raleigh knelt on the scaffold with his neck on the block waiting for the axe of the executioner to behead him, the latter said, “Does your head lie easy, Sir Walter?” The brave man replied, “It matters not, my friend, how my head lies, provided my heart is right.”
I. A new heart. The old heart is compared in this verse to a stone. What use is there then in preaching to such as are in heart senseless? The love of Christ is a solvent to soften the heart which is hard as a stone; and the Holy Spirit then shall mould it into the image of the Saviour. In a cathedral at Rome I saw what I thought to be most precious stone; but, placing my hand upon that huge slab, I found that it was wood, painted like marble. A stone is known by its coldness; and we know a man is unconverted by his coldness to God and to his fellow men. A few men possess natural benevolence; but many are as cold as a stone to the appeals of the helpless and the suffering. When the new heart is received their disposition is changed; they are tender and compassionate to the sufferer, and weep with the sorrowing. A man with a stony heart who loves money wonders why another gives his time and his money so generously, day after day, to the cause of God and of his fellow men; and he says to himself, “Why, the Christian does this as if he really enjoyed it! I like to get money; but he seems to be most pleased when he is giving it!” The reason is that the Christian has received a new heart; and, loving God and his fellow men, it is his delight to minister to them of his time and substance. The new heart does not grudge what it gives; because it loves.
II. A new spirit. The old spirit readily conforms itself to the world; and it seeks to run with the stream. But when God gives the new spirit, we are ruled by the mind that was in Jesus; and though there were only one Christian in an opposing world, that Christian would be against the world. The old spirit thinks it cannot resist sin, and it yields to it as a necessity of his nature; but when God gives the new spirit, it breaks the gyves of Satan, and cries, “I am free; and will not longer submit to my besetting sin; I am to cast aside every weight, so that I may run the race that is set before me.” The old spirit trusts in outward circumstances, in money, and in men; but when we receive the new spirit we trust in the power of our God. The old spirit does not know the sweetness of communion with God. But the new spirit delights to pray; it is a privilege rather than a duty. The old spirit also is corrupt. It is like the polished veneer that is placed over the decayed wood which smells with the dry rot. But when the new spirit is received the Christian is all glorious within.
III. A new pilot. “I will put My Spirit within you.”
IV. A new life. “And cause you to walk in My statutes.” We shall not be dragged to heaven: ours is a willing service. It is a walk, not a limp Christ heals perfectly.
V. New rules. “Ye shall keep My judgments.” The fingerpost points out your way at the corner of the road, and you do not hesitate to walk in the path pointed out, because you believe that fingerpost to tell the right direction. Likewise, the fingerpost of the Bible is a sufficient security for us to keep in the path of righteousness.
VI. New employment. “And do them.” How sweet to be assured that God will give us power to do His will! Pray with increasing faith, “Thy will be done”; and expect the ability and the resignation to do it. You shall do His will! Rejoice!
VII. God’s guarantee. “I will do it: I will give it you.” The Lord means what He says. Cannot you trust Him? Whosoever will may receive the gifts offered by our loving Father. (W. Birch.)
Covenant blessings
I.Observe, first, we have here to all God’s covenanted people, or in other words, to all believers, a promise of preparation for the Spirit’s indwelling. This promise is as a cluster of nuts, or a bough with many golden apples. Like the cherubim of Ezekiel it has four faces, all smiling upon the heirs of salvation. Like the New Jerusalem it lieth four-square. It is a quadruple treasure worthy of four-fold consideration.
1. The first of the four blessings is the gift of a new heart. Observe where the inward work of grace begins. All man’s attempts at the betterment of human nature begin from without, and the theory is that the work will deepen till it reaches that which is within. They profess to emancipate the man from the grosser vices, trusting that the reform will go further, that he will be brought under superior influences, and so be elevated in mind and heart. Miserable physicians are they all. Their remedies fail to eradicate the deep seated maladies of humanity. God’s way of dealing with men is the reverse. He begins within and works towards the exterior in due course. Look at our brooks and rivulets which have been by a lax legislature so long delivered over to the tormentors to be blackened into pestiferous sewers; if we want to have them purged it is of small avail to cast chloride of lime and other chemicals into the stream; the only remedy is to forbid the pollution, to demand that manufactories shall not poison us wholesale, but shall in some other manner consume their useless products. The voice of common sense bids us go to the original cause of the defilement and deal with it at its sources. That is just what God does when He saves a sinner, He begins at the origin of the sinner’s sin and deals with His heart. Blessed be God, He is omnipotent enough to give Us new hearts, He has wisdom enough to renew us, He has purity sufficient to cleanse us, He has abounding mercy to bear with us.
2. Turn, now, to the second blessing--“A new spirit will I put within you.” The natural man is correctly and strictly speaking a compound of soul and body only. The first man, Adam, was made a living soul; and, as we bear the image of the first Adam, we are body and soul only. It is our own belief that in regeneration something more is done than the mere rectifying of what was there: there is in the new birth infused and implanted in man a third and more elevated principle,--a spirit is begotten in him; and, as the second Adam was made a quickening spirit, so in the new birth we are transformed into the likeness of Christ Jesus, who is the second Adam. The implantation, infusion, and putting into our nature the third and higher principle is, we believe, the being born again. Regarded in this light, the words before us may be regarded as an absolute and unconditional promise of the covenant of grace to all the seed that a new spirit shall be put within them. But, if we view it as some do, we shall then read it thus--the ruling spirit of man’s nature shall be changed. The spirit which rules and reigns in Godless, Christless men, is the spirit of a rebellious slave, the spirit of self. But, when the Spirit of God comes upon us, to make our spirit a fit place for His residence, He takes away the spirit of the slave, and gives us the spirit of a child, and from that moment the service of God becomes a different thing: we do not serve Him now because we are afraid of the whip, but nobler motives move us; gratitude binds us to the Lord’s service, and love gives wings to the feet of obedience. Now the Lord is no more regarded as a tyrant, but as a wise and loving parent. Whatever He may do with us, we rejoice in His wisdom and goodness. We view Him no longer with suspicion and dread, but with confidence and joy.
3. A third and further blessing of the text is the removal of the stony heart. “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.” I do not think the Lord removes at once the evil heart out of any man’s flesh; there it remains to be fought with, like the Canaanites in Canaan when Israel had entered there, to prove us and to try us, but He does take away the stony heart at once. The stony heart is a hard heart. We have heard of many expedients for softening hard hearts, but none of them are of any avail. You may make a man weep over his dead child or his dead wife, till his eyes are red, but his heart will be black for all that. Men’s hearts are changed by quite another agency than oratorical or rhetorical appeals to the natural affections.
4. The fourth promise of the preparation of the heart for the indwelling of the Spirit is this: “I will give you a heart of flesh,” by which is meant a soft heart, an impressible heart, a sensitive heart, a heart which can feel, can be moved to shame, to repentance, to loathing of sin, to desiring, to seeking, to punting, to longing after God; a tender heart, a heart that does not require a thousand blows to move it, but, like flesh with its skin broken, feels the very faintest touch,--such is the heart which the Holy Spirit creates in the children of God. It is a teachable heart, a heart willing to be guided, moulded, governed by the Divine will: a heart which, like young Samuel, cries, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth”:--an obedient heart, ready to be run into the mould, plastic beneath the sacred hand, anxious to be conformed to the heavenly pattern.
II. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
1. Observe, first, that the Lord says, “I will put My Spirit within you.” God Himself, the Eternal Spirit in propria persona, in His own person, resides and dwells within the renewed heart. The mystery of the incarnation is not greater than that of the Holy Ghost’s indwelling, nor does it appear to me to involve more condescension. I marvel at Christ’s dwelling with sinners, and I marvel equally at the Holy Ghost’s dwelling in sinners.
2. Note a little word also in the text worthy of your attention. “I will put My Spirit within you.” It is not the spirit of angels, it is not the spirit of good men, it is God’s own Spirit who takes up His residence in every sinner’s heart when God renews it. “My Spirit.” And, perhaps, this may allude to the fact that this is the self-same Spirit which abode without measure in our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Observe also carefully the words, “within you.” This is marvellous. Augustine, when reflecting upon the various glories which come to God, and the benefits which accrue to men through redemption, none of which could have been revealed without the fall of Adam, exclaimed, “Obeata culpa!”“O happy fault”; and I have the self-same expression trembling on my lips. Where sin abounded grace has much more abounded.
III. The blessed results which come from all this. The indwelling Spirit leads every man in whom He reigns into obedience to the ways of God. The soul that possesses the Spirit becomes active. It walks. It is not passive, as one carried by main force; it works because the Spirit works in it, “to will and to do of His own good pleasure.” The Holy Ghost leads us to holy habits, for, mark the phrase, “I will cause you to walk in My ways.” Mere excitement may produce momentary zeal, and transient morality, but habitual holiness is the fruit of the Spirit. Note, next, the delight it implies. “I will cause you to walk in My ways,” not as a man who toils, but as one who walks at ease. The believer finds it as sweet to walk in God’s ways as Isaac felt it sweet to walk in the fields at eventide, it implies, too, holy perseverance; the words have the meaning of continuing to follow after holiness. It is a small matter to begin, but to hold out to the end is the testing point. The text promises to us a complete obedience,--“I will cause you to walk in My statutes, and to keep My judgments.” A Christian man is obedient to God,--he minds the first table; he is just to man,--he does not despise the second table. And the Holy Ghost also works a holy care for righteousness in the soul. “I will cause you to keep My judgments”;--that is, to have an exactness of obedience, a precision, a deliberation, a willingness to find out God’s will, and a care to attend to it in every jot and tittle. Now, to what a delightful consummation has our text conducted us. It began with a renewed heart, and it ends in a purified life. It commenced with taking away the stone and giving the flesh; now it gives us the life of Christ written out, in living characters in our daily practice. Glory be to God for this!(C. H. Spurgeon.)
A new heart
1. No problem, whether of religion or philosophy, of nature or revelation, more transcends the power of human reason to solve than that of the existence of moral evil in the world.
2. In what consists the nature of this evil? What is its essence? In nature, it subsists in a heart not in accordance with the Divine law. In essence it is a moral depravity; a moral corruption; a perversion of the understanding and the affections in regard to moral truth and duty; a discord among the harmonies of our moral being, and a slavish subjection to the appetites of our bestial nature in opposition to the nobler promptings and requirements of our higher, our godlike, nature.
3. Is there any escape from this evil--any remedy for it on man’s behalf. And if so, in what, and where, and how may it be obtained? “A new heart will I give you.” God makes for us a way of escape; God provides the remedy, and we are made the beneficiaries of it by God’s bestowal upon us of a new heart.
I. This gift of God, a new heart. A new heart contrasts with the old. The old heart is alienated from God; the new heart cleaves to God with supreme affection of love. The old heart is sold under sin; the new heart is redeemed from all iniquity. The old heart is accompanied by carnal-mindedness, which is death; the new heart by spiritual-mindedness, which is life and peace.
II. How does God bestow this gift? God gives this new heart, not by destroying the freedom of human will and agency, but by emancipating it from every condition of slavery. By the unspeakable gift of His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins, by the influence and agency of His Holy Spirit, enlightening us in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, and regenerating our natures, and by His blessing upon the means of grace which He has appointed, God confers this gift of a new heart upon all those who believe in Jesus, and who walk by the Spirit, according to revealed truth, in the use of the appointed means of grace, and in obedience to God’s law.
III. How does the new heart manifest itself in the life and character of its recipient? It effects an entire change in them. There are new objects of life and new attributes of character consequent upon the desires, affections, and purposes of a new heart. His life is a continual proof and illustration of the power of the Gospel to save, and his character is a beautiful example of purity of thought, simplicity and integrity of purpose, kindliness of demeanour, beneficence of deeds, and faithfulness in the discharge of every duty toward God and man. (W. T. Findley, D. D.)
A new heart
I. A new heart is a contrast to the old.
II. A new heart is productive of new effects.
1. Repentance.
2. Holiness.
III. A new heart is connected with new privileges (verse 28). If Jehovah be our God, there is not a real good that is not ours. We have Him for the portion of our souls. We are interested in the exercise of all His perfections. His love is inviolably and eternally fixed upon us. His wisdom is incessantly engaged in making all things work together for our good. His power is ever operating to defend us from essential injury. His universal presence becomes an uninterrupted source of peace and a never failing occasion of comfort. We have access to Him and communion with Him. He is our Father, our Guide, our Friend.
IV. A new heart is the work of God.
V. A new heart is the gift of God. Application--
1. What an important subject on which to examine ourselves. It is possible to be mistaken--and a mistake here is fatal.
2. How vain are the attempts men make to do without a new heart.
3. Let the most guilty be encouraged to seek this blessing as the gift of God in Christ Jesus; and the most hardened to hope for it as the work of God, if He be sought as the Author of it.
4. Let every man know that he inevitably and justly perishes if he neglects it--despises it--or presumes that he can be saved without it.
5. Let us adore God for having made known so wonderful and gracious a method of restoring our fallen nature. (Essex Remembrancer.)
The new heart
Behold a wonder of Divine love. When God maketh His creatures, one creation He regardeth as sufficient, and should they lapse from the condition in which He has created them, He suffers them, as a rule, to endure the penalty of their transgression, and to abide in the place into which they are fallen. But here He makes an exception; man, fallen man, created by his Maker, pure and holy, hath wilfully and wickedly rebelled against the Most High, and lost his first estate, but behold, he is to be the subject of a new creation through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
I. The necessity for this great promise. You will notice that God does not promise to us that He will improve our nature, that He will mend our broken hearts. No, the promise is that He will give us new hearts and right spirits. Human nature is too far gone ever to be mended. If only a wheel or two of that great thing called “manhood” were out of repair, then He who made man might put the whole to rights; He might put a new cog where it had been broken off, and another wheel where it had gone to ruin, and the machine might work anew. But no, the whole of it is out of repair; there is not one lever which is not broken; not one axle which is not disturbed; not one of the wheels which act upon the others. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, to the crown of the head, it is all wounds and bruises and putrifying sores. Consider for a moment how bad human nature must be if we think how ill it has treated its God. I remember William Huntingdon says in his autobiography, that one of the sharpest sensations of pain that he felt after he had been quickened by Divine grace was this, “He felt such pity for God.” I do not know that I ever met with the expression elsewhere, but it is a very expressive one; although I might prefer to say sympathy with God and grief that He should be so evil entreated. Let us look back upon our past lives--how ungrateful have we been to Him! We have never returned His mercies into His bosom with gratitude and thankfulness; but we have let them lie forgotten without a single hallelujah, from our carelessness concerning the Most High, that He had entirely forgotten us, and that therefore we were trying to forget Him. It is so very seldom that we think of Him that one would imagine that surely He never gave us occasion to think of Him. But worse than this, we have not only been forgetful of Him, but we have rebelled against Him. We have assailed the Most High. Oh! it is a mercy that He is God and changeth not, or else we sons of Jacob would long ago have been consumed, and justly too. You may picture to yourselves, if you like, a poor creature dying in a ditch. I trust that such a thing never happens in this land, but such a thing might happen as a man who had been rich on a sudden becoming poor, and all his friends deserting and leaving him; he begs for bread and no man will help him, until at last, without a rag to cover him, his poor body yields up life in a ditch. This, I think, is the very extreme of human negligence to mankind; but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was treated even worse than this. Ah, if you think of human nature as it acts towards God, you will say indeed it is too bad to be mended, it must be made anew. Again, there is another aspect in which we may regard the sinfulness of human nature: that is its pride. It is the very worst phase of man--that he is so proud. What a strange thing it is to see a sinful, guilty wretch proud of his morality! and yet that is a thing you may see every day. A man who is an enemy to God, proud of his honesty, and yet he is robbing God; a man proud of his chastity, and yet if he knew his own thoughts, they are full of lasciviousness and uncleanness; a man proud of the praise of his fellows, while he knows himself that he has the blame of his own conscience and the blame of God Almighty. Ah, human nature, this is, then, thine own condemnation, that thou art insanely proud, while thou hast nothing to be proud of. Write “Ichabod” upon it. The glory has departed forever from human nature. Let it be put away, and let God give us something new for the old can never be made better. It is helplessly insane, decrepit, and defiled. Furthermore, it is quite certain that human nature cannot be made better, for many have tried it, but they have always failed. A man trying to improve human nature, is like trying to change the position of a weathercock, by turning it round to the east when the wind is blowing west; he has but to take his hand off and it will be back again to its place. But, once again, you will easily perceive we must have a new heart when you consider what are the employments and the enjoyments of the Christian religion. The nature that can feed on the garbage of sin, and devour the carrion of iniquity, is not the nature that ever can sing the praises of God and rejoice in His holy name. And yet once again God hates a depraved nature, and therefore it must be taken away, before we can be accepted in Him.
II. The nature of this great change which the Holy Spirit works in us.
1. It is a Divine work from first to last. To give a man a new heart and a new spirit is God’s work, and the work of God alone. We have heard of some kind of insects that have lost their limbs, and by their vital power have been able to recover them again. But take away the seat of the vital power--the heart; lay the disease there; and what power is there that can, by any possibility, rectify it, unless it be a power from without--in fact, a power from above?
2. It is a gracious change. When God puts a new heart into man, it is not because man deserves a new heart--because there was anything good in his nature, that could have prompted God to give him a new spirit. The Lord simply gives a man a new heart because He wishes to do it; that is His only reason.
3. It is a victorious effort of Divine grace. God will have the sinner, if He designs to have him. God never was thwarted yet in any one of His purposes. Man does resist with all his might, but all the might of man, tremendous though it be for sin, is not equal to the majestic might of the Most High, when He rideth forth in the chariot of His salvation. He doth irresistibly save and victoriously conquer man’s heart.
4. It is instantaneous. To sanctify a man is the work of the whole life; but to give a man a new heart is the work of an instant. Other parts of salvation are done gradually; but regeneration is the instantaneous work of God’s sovereign, effectual, and irresistible grace.
III. Hope and encouragement to the vilest of sinners.
1. There are some who are seeking after mercy; for many a day you have been in prayer in secret, till your very knees seemed sore with the oftenness of your intercession. Your cry to God has been, “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” Let me comfort you by this reflection, that your prayer is already heard. You have a new heart and a right spirit: perhaps you wilt not be able to perceive the truth of this utterance for months to come, therefore continue in prayer till God shall open your eyes, so that you may see that the prayer is answered; but rest assured it is answered already. The Lord hath begun a good work in thy heart, and He will carry it on even unto the end. All these feelings of thine are more than thou ever couldst have attained of thyself. God has helped thee up this Divine ladder of grace, and as sure as He has brought thee up so many staves of it, He will carry thee to the very summit, till He grasps thee in the arms of His love in glory everlasting.
2. There are others, however, who have not proceeded so far, but you are driven to despair. The devil has told you that you cannot be saved; you have been too guilty, too vile. Any other people in the world might find mercy, but not you, for you do not deserve to be saved. Have I not tried to make it as plain as the sunbeam all through this service, that God never saves a man for the sake of what he is, and that He does not either begin or carry on the work in us because there is anything good in us? The greatest sinner is just as eligible for Divine mercy as the very least of sinners. He can take you, a thief: a drunkard, a harlot, or whoever you may be; He can bring you on your knees, make you cry for mercy, and then make you lead a holy life, and keep you unto the end. “Oh!” says one, “I wish He would do that to me, then.” Well, soul, if that be a true wish, He will. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A new spirit will I put within you.
The invaluable gift
The gifts of God are unspeakably great; should we attempt the enumeration they would appear like the stars of heaven, or the sands on the shore for multitude. When the author of the Spectator recovered from a dangerous illness he penned a delightful hymn, in which he expresses the transports of his soul, and the wonder, love, and praise which a sense of the Divine mercies awakened in his grateful mind. But if such language was the result of a survey of God’s providential goodness, how should the believer exult in the gift of a Saviour, and in that last, best blessing, the enlightening and sanctifying Spirit by which He is revealed to the heart!
I. What this invaluable blessing includes and what we are to understand by a new spirit.
1. God engages to bestow that grace upon us of which we were altogether undeserving.
2. In the bestowment of this blessing we invariably see the providence and word of God preparing the way for its reception.
(1) It includes a renewed and sanctified mind.
(2) A sorrowful and penitential disposition.
(3) A humble, resigned, and obedient spirit.
II. The reasons and grounds of encouragement we have to seek this blessing.
1. Think of the character of Him who gives this new spirit.
2. Consider that this is a free gift.
3. Reflect on the many instances in which this blessing has been conferred on individuals as undeserving as ourselves.
4. The perfection of our moral character depends on obtaining it. Enriched with this treasure, we can never be poor or unhappy; nor is it in the power of men or devils to make us miserable.
5. By individually seeking this precious gift we shall be instrumental in promoting the advent of Christ’s kingdom, and in hastening that blessed consummation which the Church of God so earnestly desires. (Essex Remembrancer.)
The new heart bestowed
I.The old heart removed.
1. The senselessness of the unconverted heart.
2. The resistance of the unconverted heart.
3. The impenetrableness of the unconverted heart.
4. The coldness of the unconverted heart.
An unconverted man will have a very tender and warm heart about earthly things. If he loses a wife, or a child, or some valuable property, oh, what intense warmth of feeling do we instantly behold! But when we tell him about the death of Christ, or the love of the Holy Spirit, he takes no more notice of what we say than the cold pavement of the street would listen to a beggar’s petition.
II. The new heart given.
1. Your new heart is sensitive. “The spiritual man,” we are told, “discerneth all things.” You are sensitive of spiritual pains and of spiritual pleasures. You are especially sensitive with respect to sin.
2. Your new heart is flexible. It can bend in accordance to God’s will.
3. Your new heart is easily impressed. Its fleshy tablets are always waiting to receive the writing of the Lord’s commands.
4. Your new heart is well known for its warmth of feeling. Once it saw no beauty nor comeliness in Jesus; but now that it is renewed, it cries, “Thou art the King of glory, O Christ”: “Thy name is as the ointment poured forth”: “In Thee, O Jesus, have I righteousness”: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee”: “Thou art the chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.”
III. The author of the change. Clean water is here used as the emblem of the blood of Christ, and of the work of the Holy Spirit. When the blood of Christ is applied to our conscience through faith, it cleanses us from all dead works; and the Holy Spirit, when applied to all the powers of your soul, purifies it from the love and dominion of sin. Conversion work is all God’s work; insomuch that, wherever God’s Spirit converts men by the ministry, He there may be said to raise up children to Abraham out of stones. There He makes water to gush out of rocks; and there He makes dead and dry bones to live. (C. Clayton, M. A.)
A new heart
I.The old principle which must be got rid of. “A stony heart.” Of course this is a figure when you speak of a man’s heart, because you do not speak of that which beats in a man’s frame, but of his will and affections. Likewise a stony heart is a figure used to describe one who knows not Christ, and cannot until it is removed. What is a stone? A stone is a thing upon which you can make no impression. You may strike it with a hammer, or a sword, or any other weapon, but you can make no impression upon it; so with a stony human heart, no arguments or anything we can do will influence it. There are some hearts we cannot reach, they seem harder than the nether millstone. Until God touches the hard heart it has no feeling; and there are men and women now who figuratively go to that stony rock of Calvary, whereon Christ died for our sins, and even come to services like these in which we literally go there with Him, and yet do not feel touched in their hearts.
II. A new principle which is to be given us. There are two ways in which people may be said to have anything new. First, when it is absolutely new. When the Ark of God was to be brought back, a cart was to be made by the Divine Will, and it has to be a new cart, entirely out of new materials. So in the New Testament we are told Joseph of Arimathea laid our Lord in a new tomb, wherein yet never anyone had lain. There is another sense in which a thing is made new, that is, when it is renewed, for that comes to the same thing. This is what happens when a man’s heart is renewed, and turned to God. You may meet a man, and say, “I see no change in him,” and yet that man has been renewed by the Spirit of God. This, then, is the new principle that God will give; and it is “a new heart,” and when that happens the whole man is changed. Again, when a man’s will is renewed he is made to say, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” And a man’s affections are renewed, and even his memory is renewed. That memory, that used to be running off on other things, now returns to God.
III. The Divine Giver. It is the work of Omnipotence. He can make the heart love and glow with life. When He does this work it is done in an instant. A man at the receipt of custom, who was as busy as any of you, was called by Christ, and Matthew arose and followed Him in a moment. He said also to Zacchaeus, “Make haste and come down,” “and he made haste and came down.” It was done in a moment. And when Lydia sat listening to Paul’s address we are told that “the Lord opened her heart,” and then she attended to the words spoken by Paul. And when Saul was entering into Damascus to persecute the Christians in that city, carrying with him letters from the high priest at Jerusalem, a voice asked him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” God touched his heart, and it was done in a moment.
IV. It brings great glory to God. It is greater than creating a world. Someone has said. “It was great to speak a world from nought”; but it is a greater work when He comes down to that heart which He first made in His own image, and which sin has marred and ruined, and promises to dwell there, than the work of creation. (Canon Fleming.)
I will take away the stony heart.--
The stony heart removed
I. The stony heart and its dangers.
1. Why is the heart of man compared to a stone at all?
(1) Like a stone it is cold. You may heat a stone for a little season if you thrust it into the fire, but for how short a time will it retain its heat; and though it glowed just now, how very soon it loses all its warmth, and returns again to its native coldness. Such is the heart of man. It is warm enough towards sin; it grows hot as coals of juniper towards its own lusts, but naturally the heart is as cold as ice towards the things of God. You may think you have heated it for a little season under a powerful exhortation, or in presence of a solemn judgment, but how soon it returns to its natural state!
(2) Like a stone it is hard. You get the hard stone, especially some sorts of stone which have been hewn from granite beds, and you may hammer as you will but you shall make no impression. I have seen the great hammer of the law, which is ten times more ponderous than Nasmyth’s great steam hammer, come down upon a man’s heart, and the heart has never shown the slightest signs of shrinking.
(3) Again, a stone is dead. You can find no feeling in it. Talk to it; it will shed no tears of pity, though you recount to it the saddest tales; no smiles will gladden it, though you should tell it the most happy story. Now, though man’s heart is not like this as to natural things, yet spiritually this is just its condition.
(4) Man’s heart is like a stone, because it is not easily to be softened. Lay a stone in water as long as you will and you shall not find it readily subdued. There are some sorts of stone that yield to the stress of weather, especially in the smoky atmosphere and the sulphurous vapours of London; certain stones crumble to decay, but the stone of a man’s heart no climate can affect, no weather can subdue; it grows harder whether it be the soft sunshine of love or the harsh tempest of judgment that falls upon it.
(5) It is utterly senseless, incapable of receiving impressions. I remember an anecdote of Dr. Gill which hits this nail on the head. It is said that a man came to him in the vestry of his chapel and said, “Dr. Gill, you have been preaching the doctrine of human inability; I don’t believe you. I believe that man can repent and can believe, and is not without spiritual power.” “Well,” said the doctor, “have you repented and believed?” “No,” said the other. “Very well, then,” said he, “you deserve double damnation.” And so I say to the man who boasts that he has not such a hard heart as this--have you laid hold of Christ? have you come to Him? if you have not, then out of your own heart be you condemned, for you deserve double destruction from the presence of God for having resisted the influences of God’s Spirit and rejected His grace.
2. The danger to which this hard heart is exposed.
(1) A hard heart is exposed to the danger of final impenitence. If all these years the processes of nature have been at work with your heart, and have not softened it, have you not reason to conclude that it may be so even to the end? And then you will certainly perish.
(2) Hearts that are not softened grow harder and harder; what little sensibility they seemed to have at last departs.
(3) Then further, a man who has a hard heart is Satan’s throne. There is a stone, they tell us, in Scotland, at Scone, where they were wont to crown their old kings: the stone on which they crown the old king of hell is a hard heart; it is his choicest throne; he reigns in hell, but he counts hard hearts to be his choicest dominions.
(4) Then again, the hard heart is ready for anything. When Satan sits upon it and makes it his throne, there is no wonder that from the seat of the scorner flows all manner of evil.
(5) Besides that, the hard heart is impervious to all instrumentality. John Bunyan, in his history of the Holy War, represents old Diabolus, the devil, as providing for the people of Mansoul a coat of armour, of which the breastplate was a hard heart. Oh! that is a strong breastplate. Hard hearts are the devil’s lifeguards. When he once gets a man in an armour of proof--that of a hard heart--“Now,” says he, “you may go anywhere.”
II. A heart of flesh and its privileges.
1. What is meant by a heart of flesh? It means a heart that can feel on account of sin--a heart that can bleed when the arrows of God stick fast in it; it means a heart that can yield when the Gospel makes its attacks--a heart that can be impressed when the seal of God’s word comes upon it; it means a heart that is warm, for life is warm--a heart that can think, a heart that can aspire, a heart that can love--putting all in one,--a heart of flesh means that new heart and right spirit which God giveth to the regenerate.
2. But wherein does this heart of flesh consist; wherein does its tenderness consist?
(1) There is a tenderness of conscience. Men who have lost their stony hearts are afraid of sin, even before sin they are afraid of it. The very shadow of evil across their path frightens them. And then, after sin--here comes the pinch--the heart of flesh bleeds as though it were wounded to its very core. Before sin, and in sin, and after sin, it smarts and cries out to God.
(2) In duty as well as in sin the new heart is tender. “Only let me know my Master’s will and I will do it.”
(3) A heart of flesh, again, is tender with regard to suffering. A heart of flesh would give its very life blood if it might but snatch others from going down to the pit, for its bowels yearn and its soul moves toward its fellow sinners who are on the broad road to destruction. Have you, oh, have you such a heart of flesh as this?
3. The privileges of this renewed heart are these. “‘Tis here the Spirit dwells, ‘tis here that Jesus rests.” The soft heart is ready now to receive every spiritual blessing. It is fitted to yield every heavenly fruit to the honour and praise of God. A soft heart is the best defence against sin, while it is the best preparative for heaven. A tender heart is the best means of watchfulness against evil, while it is also the best means of preparing us for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The nature of the change in conversion
I. The old heart is taken away and a new one put in its place. The head was justly considered by ancient philosophers to be the residence of the intellectual faculties, where the soul, presiding over all, sat enthroned, as in a palace. On the other hand, they regarded the affections as having their home in the heart, that other great organ of our system. Within the breast, love and hatred, grief and joy, aversion and desire, generosity, jealousy, pity, revenge were supposed to dwell; and thus (to dismiss the metaphor), that substitution of one heart for another which is promised in the text, just implies a thorough change in the character and current of our affections. Now, a change may be simply a reform; or, extending deeper and taking a wider range, it may pass into a revolution. Conversion is not a mere reform. No. It changes the heart, the habits, the everlasting destiny of an immortal being. To be sensible of our need of a new spirit, to feel that this old heart will not mend nor make better, is one of the first steps in salvation; and the deeper our impression of this truth, the more diligently shall we labour, and the more earnest shall be our prayers to be renewed day by day.
II. The view which our text gives of the natural heart. It is a heart of stone. “I will take the stony heart out of your flesh.”
1. A stone is cold. Coldness is its characteristic. Hence, the lapidary, by using his tongue to test the temperature, can tell whether the seeming jewel is paste or a real gem. Hence, also, when our eye has been deceived by the skill of the artist, the sense of touch has informed us that what seemed a marble pillar was only painted wood. There is reason, therefore, in the common saying, As cold as a stone. But what stone so cold as that which sin has lodged in man’s breast? We are by nature lovers of pleasure, not of God. He is not the object of our love, but of our aversion. And what return do we make to Jesus for His warm and matchless affection? The carnal mind is enmity against God; is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
2. A stone is hard. Fire melts wax, but not stone; water softens clay, but not stone; a hammer bends the stubborn iron, but not stone. It resists all these agents; and, emblem of a heart crushed, but unsanctified by affliction, a stone may be broken into fragments, or ground to powder, yet its atoms are as hard as ever. The man who remains unmoved under a ministry of mercy, who is insensible at once to the most appalling and appealing lessons of providence, who fears no more than a rock the thunders that peal and the lightnings that play round his brow, and feels no more than a rock the influences that fall like summer sunbeams from the face of a gracious Saviour, is manifestly beyond all human power. I would despair of his salvation, but for the omnipotence and benevolence of God; and because I know that He, who of the stones of the street could raise up children to Abraham, can change that heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
3. A stone is dead. It has no vitality, nor feeling, nor power of motion. Look at this statue; however skilful the sculptor’s chisel, there is no life here; no speech breaks from these cold lips; the limbs seem instinct with power, yet they never leave their pedestal; no fire flashes in these dull grey eyes, nor passions burn within that stony breast; the stone is deaf, and dumb, and dead. Spoken to, it returns no answer; wept over, it sheds no tears.
III. In conversion God gives a new spirit.
1. By this change the understanding and judgment are enlightened. Time and eternity are now seen in their just proportions, in their right relative dimensions; the one in its littleness, and the other in its greatness. When the light of heaven rises on the soul, oh, what grand and affecting discoveries does she make of the exceeding evil of sin, of the holiness of the Divine law, of the infinite purity of Divine justice, of the grace and greatness of Divine love. On Sinai’s summit and on Calvary’s Cross, what new truths and what sublime scenes open to her astonished eyes!
2. By this change the will is renewed. Bad men are worse, and good men are better than they appear. Yes, better; for in conversion the will is so changed and sanctified that, although a pious man is in some respects less, in other respects he is more holy than the world gives him credit for. The attainments of a believer are always beneath his aims; his desires are loftier than his deeds; his wishes are holier than his works. Give other men their will, let them have full sway and swing for their passions, and they would be worse than they are; give him the hill power to do as he would, and he would be better than he is. And thus, if you have experienced this gracious change, it will be your daily grief that not only are you not what you know you should be, but what you wish to be. The fruits of holy peace are reaped with sharp swords on the field of war; and this conflict within you proves that grace, even in its infancy a cradled Saviour, is engaged in struggling with and strangling the old Serpent.
3. By conversion the temper and disposition are changed and sanctified. It is with the believer under the influences of the Spirit as with fruit ripening beneath the genial power of dews and sunbeams. Hard at first, its substance grows soft; sour at first, its juices become sweet; green at first, it assumes in time a rich and mellow colour; at first adhering tenaciously to the tree, when it becomes ripe it is ready to drop at the slightest touch. So with the man who is ripening for heaven. His affections and temper grow sweet, soft, mellow, loose from earth and earthly things.
IV. In conversion God gives a heart of flesh. “I will give you a heart of flesh.”
1. In conversion man gets a warm heart. Let us restrict ourselves to a single example. When faith embraces Him, how does the heart warm to Jesus Christ! There is music in His very name. “His name is as an ointment poured forth.” All the old indifference to His cause, His people, and interests of His kingdom has passed away; and now these have the warmest place in a believer’s bosom, and are become the objects of its strongest and tenderest affections.
2. In conversion a man gets a soft heart. As “flesh,” it is soft and sensitive. It is flesh; and can be wounded or healed. It is flesh; and feels alike the kiss of kindness and the rod of correction. It is flesh; no longer like a stone, hard, obdurate, impenetrable to the gentle influences of heaven. To change the figure, once a hard block of ice, it has been melted by the beams of the sun, and turned into flowing water.
3. In conversion a man gets a living heart. The perfection of a saint’s life is death; is to be dead to sin, but alive to righteousness, alive to Christ, alive to everything which affects His crown and kingdom. With Christ living in his heart, the believer feels that now he is not his own, and belongs no longer to himself. As another’s, and purchased at a great price, the grand object of his life is Christ’s. He wishes that he could look on the seductions of the world, and sin’s most voluptuous charms, with the cold, unmoved stare of death; and that these had no more power to kindle a desire in him than in the icy bosom of a corpse.
4. By conversion man is ennobled. Religion descends like an angel from the throne of God, to burst our chains. She raises me from degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head and look up to heaven. Yes, it is that very Gospel, by some supposed to present such dark, degrading, gloomy views of our destiny, which lifts me from the dust and the dunghill to set me among princes, on a level with angels, in a sense above them. To say nothing of the nobility grace imparts to a soul which is stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred, how venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety! Angels hover round its walls, and the Spirit of God dwells within. What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct, lies in the fact that the Body of a saint is the temple of the living God!--a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his prayers, and a greater even than Solomon consecrated by his presence. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The heart of stone; or, the soul without religion
I.The soul of man is, like the stone, a mystery. Here is a stone. I see it, weigh it, feel it. But what is it? Colour, weight, and tangibility are not entities. These are mere qualities which belong to entities. By these qualities we may recognise the entities and form an opinion respecting them. In this sense the stone, itself a mystery, may be looked on as a type or picture of every soul, saved or unsaved. Every soul feels, reasons, and think;--and yet the soul is neither feeling, reason, nor thought: these are mere qualities which form no part of its essence. In itself it is a mystery.
II. The soul of the unregenerate, however, is, like the stone, very hard.
1. All stones are not equally hard, though hardness is a characteristic of each.
2. Neither are all souls equally without feeling or moral susceptibility, though all are sadly deficient in this respect. This is illustrated--
(1) By the cruel practices of Pagan nations. Infanticides, parricides, self-torture, human sacrifices, Sutteeism etc.
(2) By the indifference of those who are not Pagans--even Christians, to the welfare of others.
(3) By the difficulty invariably found of awakening the soul to an earnest inquiry for its own personal and highest interest.
III. The soul of the unregenerate is, like the stone, not what it originally was. The stone has not been always as hard as it is now. Every pebble or grain of sand was once a part of a great rock, and that rock itself a soft material; but heat, pressure, and time combined made it hard. Even flint existed in a soft and pulpy form. Similar is the history of your soul, my unregenerated brother. It was once soft, ten
