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Thursday
Reading: Matthew 15 v 17 – 19
Let’s continue today looking at the issues of the HEART. The Bible speaks of
different “heart conditions”.
Firstly, the Bible speaks, in the book of Ezekiel, of the hardened heart; this is the
heart that has for so long rejected the claims of God and is hardened in all things
pertaining to the issues of God. Apparently, however, the hard heart is not a
problem to God, because the passage goes on to say that God is able to take the
hardened heart out and replace it with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11 v 19 and Ezekiel
36 v 26). This speaks of the beautiful work of the Holy Spirit who, through conviction
of sin and exposure to the love of God, can take the most hardened of people and
cause them to come to Christ. Scripture is full of beautiful examples of this.
An up to date example would be that of John Newton who, as a hardened slave
trader, in the midst of a storm one night, came to know Christ. His hardened heart
was softened and it was he who penned the words, “Amazing grace how sweet the
sound, that saved a wretch like me.” In the second verse of this beautiful song he
writes, “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my heart relieved…”
isn’t it incredible the power of God to change a person’s heart.
The second heart condition that we see in Scripture is that of a cold heart. This is
the heart that is often depicted in the nation of Israel where, in the ebb and flow of
their spiritual history, they hit times when God’s word was ignored and sidelined.
The king generally set the tone for the spiritual condition of the nation and sadly, as
you read Scripture, you will notice that the nation of Israel suffered terribly the
consequences of spiritual “coldness”. These kings often led the nation astray to
worship idols and conform to the norms and standards of the nations around them.
Many times the prophets confronted these issues of “spiritual coldness” with
varying results.
The third heart condition is one, I believe, that in our context is probably the worst
and it is that of a calloused heart. The calloused heart is the heart that has heard
the claims of Christ many times and yet, mainly through procrastination, has
developed a “thick skin” towards the things of God. You have heard me say before
that when you hear the voice of God and ignore it, that voice will continue to speak,