Four Conditions of the Heart
Isa 6:10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears, understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed."
ƒÜ What¡¦s Your Heart Condition?
Ć In 1998 459,841 people or one in every 5 deaths in America were attributed to Coronary Heart Disease. It is amazing what the Lord has allowed the medical field to learn about the condition and repair of hearts. It is very interesting to watch a Dr. take a vein from a persons leg and build a bypass around a blockage, to watch that person have their heart intentionally stopped, worked on, restarted, and see that person only a few days later go home with a new lease on life.
ƒÜ Helen Good Brenneman, well-known devotional writer, speaks of the need of kindness: "There was once a man who had a heart transplant but the operation was a total failure. For the man was a mean man and the heart was a kind heart. His body simply rejected it. The Bible tells us, however, of a heart transplant that was successful. ¡K Ezek 11:19-20 ’And I will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take out the stony heart. I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God.’"
Ć The English word heart is used 840 times in the Old Testament alone. To say the least, God has a lot to say about the heart. Sometimes the word heart is used in reference to the blood pumping organ in our chest.
Ć Most of the time it is to speak of the seat or center of our emotions, sometimes to speak of our inner person-our spirit, sometimes to speak of our personality.
ƒÜ The widest thing in the universe is not space; it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions. And one of the world’s greatest tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is room in them for little beside ourselves. A.W. Tozar
4 conditions of the heart:
I. A HEART THAT IS HARD.
a. Ephesians 4:17-19 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
b. Three key words:
i. Darkened---To cover with darkness-usually intentionally
ii. Blindness---A hardened callous that covers the eyes
iii. Past Feeling-No longer feel pain because the callous numbs.
c. The continual ignoring of the conviction of the Holy Spirit will callous our heart so that we no longer feel the sting of that conviction.
i. As a believer
1. First time committing a sin versus the 100th time.
ii. As a lost person under conviction
1. I have seen people that knew they were lost that no longer felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit when they heard the Gospel presented.
d. Symptoms of a hard heart:
i. Rejecting the preaching and teaching of the Word
ii. Uncompassionate outlook like the Levi and Priest that passed the man who was beaten on the road to Jericho.
iii. An uncooperative spirit towards others who don¡¦t do things "my way" like the Pharisees attitude toward Christ.
When a believer considers how much God has forgiven him, he is able to extend pardon to others no matter what they have done. A Christian husband found this to be true when his wife, who had become an alcoholic, told him of an affair she had had with his best friend 10 years earlier. She said she experienced such feelings of guilt that the bottle was a means of escape. Anger and resentment began to sweep over him, for his wife’s drinking had embittered their children and nearly destroyed their home. He was also deeply hurt by the fact that his close friend had betrayed his trust. Then he remembered Jesus’ words, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." As he thought of God’s mercy toward him, he prayed for grace to do the Christlike thing. Here is his description of what happened the next time he met the man who had caused him such heartache: "With a sob in my soul, I reached out my hand and gripped his, and for the first time in my life I knew what it was to forgive. I felt a tremendous sense of release as the unbearable weight of bitterness was lifted from my heart. This freedom enabled me to renew my love for my wife, and to overcome the barrier that had arisen between us. When I said to her, ’I forgive you and will accept you just as I did when I pledged to love and cherish you unto death,’ the healing process began its wonderful work."
II. A HEART THAT IS ROTTEN.
a. Matthew 23:27-28 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
b. Jesus was talking to the Pharisees
i. I can guarantee you that not one of them had ever touched the body of a dead person. They were so filled with pride about their perfect living (in their eyes).
c. Jesus said you are white and beautiful on the outside and rotten and unclean on the inside.
d. 1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
i. This teaches us this can work two ways:
1. When people only see a shepherd boy, God may see a king.---God knows your potential.
2. When people may think that a person is the "Super Saint"-God my see all kinds of uncleanliness inside the heart.
Dr. Redford B. Williams Jr., a Duke University scientist says that studies "suggest that an awful lot of premature mortality may be associated with hostility." Hostility and anger, he said, may be the dangerous key component of the heart attack-prone Type A personality-people who also are characterized as being highly ambitious and impatient. Half the American population is considered Type A, and studies show the incidence of heart disease in five times higher among hostile persons than those who are more relaxed and willing to take life as it comes. Maybe this is what the Bible is trying to tell us: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Eph. 4:26).
III. A HEART THAT IS SLOW.
a. Luke 24:13-26 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?" "What things?" he asked. ¡§About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"
b. These two men were not sinful, evil, hard hearted, or rotten hearted. They simply were distracted by their ideas and agendas.
i. They were discouraged and disillusioned
ii. They knew all about Jesus.
iii. But their focus was on how He would fulfill their expectations of a temporal kingdom.
c. They had been told of the great things that had happened at the tomb but it hadn¡¦t soaked in yet.
d. We get slow hearted when we get:
i. Distracted---by worldly or even too much business in Christian things.
ii. Discouraged that God didn¡¦t do things the way we think He should.
iii. Displaced---Hearing what God is doing and looking from the outside in instead of becoming a part of what is going on.
READ- Emerson said, "A man is what he thinks about all day long." The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius put it this way, "A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it." William James said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." In the Bible, we find: "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."
IV. A HEART THAT IS ON FIRE.
a. Luke 24:27-35 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
Scientists have discovered that every snowflake has a tiny piece of dust at its core. Yes, every snowflake has a "dirty heart". In the spiritual realm, when the blood of Christ is applied to the heart of an unbeliever, it cleanses him from all sin. Not a speck of defilement remains, for God removes every stain and washes him even whiter than snow.
Psalms 51:7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
b. When they communicated with Jesus in the Word.
c. When they communicated with Jesus in fellowship.
d. When they told others of what Christ had done.
We come to know truth not only through reason, but still more so through our hearts.
A heart in every thought renewed
And full of love divine,
Perfect and right and pure and good,
A copy, Lord, of thine.
When Sir Walter Raleigh was led to the block, his executioner asked him if his head lay right. Raleigh answered, "It matters little, my friend, how the head lies provided the heart is right. Here in the presence of God, here before him through whom are revealed the secrets of all hearts, here before the Cross of mercy and of love, what does your heart speak? How does your heart lie?
An artist wanted a man for a model who would represent the prodigal. One day he met a wretched beggar and he thought: "That man would represent the prodigal." He found the beggar ready to sit for his painting if he would pay him. The man appeared on the day appointed, but the artist did not recognize him. He said, You made an appointment with me." "No," responded the artist, "I never saw you before." "You are mistaken; you did see me and made an appointment with me." "No; it must have been some other artist. I have an appointment to meet a beggar here at this hour." "Well," said the beggar, "I am the man." "You, the man ?" "Yes" "What have you been doing?" "Well, I thought I would get a new suit of clothes before I got painted." "Oh," replied the artist; "I don’t want you." Likewise, if you are coming to God, come just as you are. Do not go and put on some garments of your own. Do not try to make yourself more acceptable to God. All of your "put on" righteousness will not avail. Come just as you are. Come with all your crimes. Come with your broken vows. Come with your lost opportunities. Come with your hardened heart. Come with your crushing burden. Come come just as you are.
Disclaimer: The work found here comes from a multitude of sources including but not limited to Sermon Central, personal sermon collections and others. In all cases where similarities may occur I have taken materials such as outlines or creative ideas and added my own illustrations as led by God. There is no attempt to claim sole authorship for anything offered here. Enjoy and God Bless.
