The Heart All Wrong Made All Right
“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart 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. And I will put my Spirit within you.” — Ezekiel xxxvi., 25, 26, 27.
r I “‘HE Presbyterian Church has recently made its report, and, according to one of the prominent journals of the denomination, there has been an average of a little more than one conversion to each Church. The most appalling statistic of the day! There is a dearth in all denominations. Millions of dollars for ministers’ salary; millions of dollars for choirs; millions of dollars for church buildings. Where is the return for the in¬ vestment? You say that one soul saved is worth more than all that money. True enough; but be frank, and confess that, considering the great outlay, the religious advantage reaped has been insignificant. What is the matter? I think, in trying to adapt the Gospel to the age, men have crippled the Gospel. Starting with the idea that the people will not come to church if the old-fashioned doctrines of grace are presented, they have not sufficiently insisted upon the first theory of the Gospel, namely, the utter ruin and pollution of the natural heart., The inference in many of our churches is, “Now, you are a very good set of fellows; not as good as you might be, and in some respects, indeed — if we must say
it — quite wrong; but, then, we are hoping every thing from education, refinement, the influence of the nineteenth century, and a genteel religion and so we have gone to tinkering the human heart with soft solder, and putting a few patches on the coat of morality, when it is all worn out. We have harped on the theory of development, and hoped that man, who, according to the scientists, began as a monkey, will go on improving until, after a while, under each arm will be felt sprouting the feathers of an angel’s wing. There is nothing but a little pimple on the soul, which needs a piece of court-plaster.
My friends, depend upon it that is all wrong. It is infamous to try with human quackery to cure the cancer of the soul. The reason that more men are not saved is because we do not show their infinite need, their ruin — yea, the rottenness of the human heart. If I am very sick, and I call in a doctor, I do not want him to begin telling me that there is nothing special the matter with me, and that all that I need is a little panada, or gruel, or catnip tea, when I want the most radical and thorough treatment, or in a week I am a dead man.
The Bible is either a truth or a lie. If it be a lie, cast it out and shut up your churches. If it be true, listen to Paul in Ephesians, where he says,“We are by nature children of wrath to Jeremiah, who says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked to Moses, who says, “The imagination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth to the Psalmist, who says, “They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy.”
Ah! sin is no half-and-half thing. The human heart is not in a tolerable condition. The Bible, in the most uncomplimentary manner, says that we are poor and wretched, and blind and naked; and if God should send his Spirit upon us to-night, making revelation of our true state, how many quick-beating hearts! how many blanched cheeks! And some soul in this audience, no longer able to keep silence, would cry out, “What must I do? Whither shall I fly? God be merciful to me, a sinner!” It is not one screw loose, or one rivet dropped out: it is a rail-train at Revere run into by a Bangor express, telescoped and crushed, amid the shrieking horrors of death.
Pray for me to-day, that, varnishing nothing over, compromising nothing, holding back nothing, I may present to you the true condition of every unregenerated heart.
First: It 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. All the impure thoughts of your life have left their mark on your soul. Though a bad thought passed through your mind thirty years ago, its vileness is there yet. If you have had one thousand unclean thoughts which you would not have any one know, those one thousand thoughts are all rankling, festering, and befouling your soul, and God has been looking at them all the while. The text is not too strong when it speaks of the filthiness of the heart. Your soul is vilely, terribly unclean. It is loathsome in the sight of God. Sin is a carrion bird that has strewn its nest with foulness. I only take the Bible imagery when I say that your heart, unchanged, is a sepulchre, reeking and stenchful with corruption. Water can not wash it off. Fire can not burn it. Sin has cursed you through and through. The mire has been rubbed into the soul. It is a leprosy. People who had that disease in the olden time put bandages over their mouths as they walked in the street, and cried “Unclean!” And if we could realize our moral defile¬ ment as we advance, we would cry, “Make room for the leper! room!” 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 hinderance, 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 farther and farther, until it takes full possession. Byron and Shelley wreathed sin with garlands but I tear off the flowers from the skeleton, and hold out before you the reeking Death’s-head. Oh, how sin has trampled and scarred your soul! It is a black, a horrible, a damning thing. It is not satisfied until it has pushed the soul into an eternal prison - house, and slammed shut the door, and shoved the bolts, and turned the locks of an everlasting incarceration. A heart under such unclean sorcery, how it must appear to God’s all-searching eye! He sees it through and through. The darkness can not hide it. Years can not erase it. He sees the horrible unwinding of the serpents as, with fangs of eternal poison, they lift their heads to strike. Think of the Holy One before whom seraphic purity is sullied — the One in whose quiver are all the thunder¬ bolts of an omnipotent God — watching a soul unclean, and willfully unclean.
Again: The text represents the heart as idolatrous. “From all your idols will I cleanse you.” Because we have here no Juggernauts, or Molochs, or Joss-houses, or heathen temples, do not conclude that there are no idols. From our very nature we must worship something. If we do not worship the God in heaven, we worship some¬ thing 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, crush¬ ing its worshiper! God will have no rivals. Amid fire and darkness, thunder and earthquake, the command went forth, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” If there is any thing on earth that you think more of than you dp of God, then you are an idolater.
Again: The text represents the heart as stony or in¬ sensible. I prove it by the fact that we do not realize 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? Would that young man be whispering to his comrade? Would that woman be examining the style of her neighbor’s hat, and criticising how poorly the color of the ribbon suits the color of her shawl? Would this merchant be thinking of how much he lost last week, and how much he probably will gain next week? JSTo; this place would be like a court-house wdien a man is on trial for his life, and the jury rises to render the verdict. That is our position. Before God’s universe we have been indicted. The law has plead against us. The cross has plead for us. This night may be announced our condemnation or our acquittal. 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. Ah! there are hundreds of people here who acknowledge that their heart is hard; they carry it about like a cake of ice in their bosom; they wish it would melt; they say, “I can not feel; I want to, but can not.” The text is true. Cold as a stone; hard as a stone; dead as a stone. A company of persons suspected of crime were brought be¬ fore a judge; only one of them was guilty, but how to find out which one was the question. The judge put his ear against the heart of each one and listened; when he came to the guilty one, he heard, in every thump of his heart, the acknowledgment of the crime. And so, al¬ though to-night all may seem fair in our case, if we could listen at the door of our own hearts, every pulsation would confess, Guilty! Guilty!
But I will not leave you here. He would be a very mean doctor who would come and examine your case and say, “You are very badly off indeed,” and then propose nothing as a cure. I have told you of the disease. Hear now of the healing process that God proposes for every one of you: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. A new heart 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.”
Ah! it is no insignificant process, this change of heart. It is a change from black to white, from down to up, from the highway to hell to the highway to heaven — the whole nature ‘made over again.
Scene the First: Paul, the persecutor. He says, “Kill that man; he loves Christ. Whip that woman; she believes in Jesus. Open the prison-doors, and get ready the sharp knives, and we will put an end to Christ’s religion. Bring up my horses — fetch up a troop of horses, and let us dash down to Damascus and exterminate this religion. Mount and away!” I hear the quick clatter of the swift hoofs as they dash off.
Scene the Second: Paul’s back bared to the scourge, and the blood running. For whom? For Jesus. Paul on the floor of the Mamertine Prison, his feet fast, and the cold shivering through his agonized body. For whom? For Jesus. Paul standing before the rulers, making a speech that would have thrilled another audience into tumults of approval, yet interrupted, scoffed at, coughed down, charged with being crazy, and sentenced to die. For whom? For Jesus.
Scene the First: John Bunyan. Born of a low gipsy woman, himself vulgar and blasphemous, shocking the ears of those only ordinarily polluted, reproved even by an abandoned woman.
Scene the Second: John Bunyan, from the wicketdoor of the prison looking toward the “delectable mountains,” and pointing the whole world up to the gate of the Celestial City. What was this change in John? A change of heart.
But why go so far? I point them out by hundreds in this audience. Here are men who once rejected the Bi-THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT.
ble, 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! none but Jesus 1” They would stick to him though the guillotine flashed its bloody knife in their faces. They have a new heart — new in its sentiments, new in its hopes, new in its affections, new in its ambitions.
“Well,” you say, “how queer a man must feel to turn around like that.” The change is wonderful. If, now, you hate somebody with a perfect hatred, one of your first desires would be, after such change, to go and shake hands with him. If, now, your chief aim is to gain dollars, then you would be more anxious for a fortune in the skies. Now you shudder at the thought of eternity; then the wrord wTould chime like wedding-bells in your soul.
“Oh l” you say, “I want that religion. Let me have it now.” My text tells you how you may get it. Take that stone of a heart, and dash it against the foot of the cross, and the heart would not break. Water has some¬ times wTorn away the rocks; but if that stone of a heart were placed under the water that drops from the eternal fountain, the hardness would not wear away. God says in the text, “I will put my Spirit within you.” Now I understand. God’s holy, gracious, quickening, arousing, rekindling, omnipotent Spirit only can do it. That Spirit comes to every one of your hearts to-night. There a man says, “Oh for something better!” That is a stroke of God’s Spirit. Here a man says, “I wish I could be something like my old father and mother before they died.” That was a stroke of God’s Spirit. Here is a man who says, “I wish I could get over these perplexities about the future world.” That is a stroke of God’s Spirit. Yonder is a man who looks all unconcerned, but he trembles. He knows that eternity is all around him, and that one step may plunge him beyond all rescue. O eternity! eternity! eternity! How many here feel that they are not ready for it! They know that they are keeping their old nature, and that except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God. Oh that God’s Spirit would strike harder to-night, and that each one of these citadels might be captured! For¬ ward, ye troops of light. Wheel round the thundering field-pieces of God’s law. Let the arrows of conviction shower the soul. Charge! charge! Up! on the parapefs with the standards of Immanuel! Surrender, oh immortal man! Surrender, 0I1 immortal woman! You want a new heart. Why not get it right away? Have you not postponed it long enough? I would with both hands lay hold and rattle the gates of your soul. For this night’s work you and I must answer when the earth is burning, and God is coming, and the trumpet is sound¬ ing, and the song of the righteous shall rise into a perpetual anthem, and the wail of the wicked drop into the groan of unending pain.
Oh man and woman of many broken resolutions, when you were on the sea in that storm you vowed; when you had that great sickness you vowed; when that last child was born you vowed; when, you stood in that wreck of a rail-train you vowed; when you were bending over the grave of some loved one you vowed; when, in some great revival, there was a stampede- for heaven, you vow¬ ed. These vows have been broken. Here you are, getting older. You have marched many a mile on toward the end of your earthly journey, and the opening of your eternal destiny. No pardon, no peace, no prospect of heaven. O Lord God, lay hold of that man! If this be his last chance, tell him so. Let him not plunge off where there are no soundings. I have no sympathy with that cowardice that dare not speak of future punishment without apology, and that thinks the word “hell” too vulgar to be used in polite assemblies.
The storm is coming; the cloud that was only a speck of darkness on the sky has become a squadron of black sails, and the port-holes of the thunder are opening for the cannonade in which all those who reject God shall go down. Canst contend with him who smote Sennacherib’s host in a night, and whose arm upholds the uni¬ verse, and whose voice shall announce the doom of all the dead? I tremble to offend him. Rather would I have all heaven and hell arrayed against me than to stand one moment in the darkness of his frown. Tremble, oh un forgiven soul, tremble before him. The God in whose hands is thy breath is angry with thee. Wilt thou defy him any longer? Wilt thou run upon the thick bosses of his buckler? Who will bail thee out of the prison-house of despair? Who will help thee ashore from an eternal shipwreck? I take the words of the prophet and cry out, “Who among ns shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with ever¬ lasting burnings?”
The gate of refuge is open — it is wide open. The Spirit of God, with flying feet, will bear thee within if thou wilt. Let not the bells of eternity toll the death-knell of thy soul. Escape for thy life, lest thou be consumed.