Ezekiel 36:26 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… 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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 an heart of flesh. |
    |