A Heart Like His
Dorothy Dalton
Midland SDA Church
May 5, 2018
Last week the pastor chose as the title of his message “Keep the Faith” and he spoke on our need, not to be like Jesus; but our need for the righteousness of Jesus. Jesus character is to be interwoven into our life and Jesus waits to give us His character. Today, I have chosen “A heart like His” as the title of my message. Explore with me what that would mean for our life.
Let’s begin with PRAYER
Of all the metaphors in the Bible there is probably no other that engages my attention in such a way as the thought of a heart of stone. A heart of stone might make a neat sculpture or an odd memento. However, It is not meant to take up residence in the human body. It is lifeless, cold and heavy. A heart of stone is bloodless and cumbersome not a life giving organ but a solid petrified rock. A heart of stone does not contract and cannot be jump started. It does nothing to sustain life.
In the 17th century the French physician Patin described the case of a local woman who had “turned to wood”. This “wood” was actually bone and the woman possessed an incredibly rare condition that caused her muscles to slowly turn to bone. Fibrodysplasia Ossificans progressiva or FOP, as the condition is known by today, affects 1 of 2 million people with varied severity. The condition is a genetic mutation in which the bodies of those affected cannot switch off the mechanism that grows the skeleton. Also any small injury to connective tissue- muscles, ligaments, and tendons—results in the formation of hard bone around the damaged site. The extra bone growth only becomes painfully obvious after a few years,10 being the average. The only sign of the condition observable in an infant is malformed big toes. For those with this condition, life is far from easy. It is not until the second skeleton begins to form and mobility becomes severely restricted that the condition becomes evident. Movement is severely hampered. A heart of stone is not meant to live long. It is the death sentence to a life.
The Bible reveals at least two behaviors that trigger the onset of “Spiritual hardness of heart.” The first has to do with the clogging effect of disobedience. In Hebrews 3:12 we read “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And quoting Psalm 95:7-9, its author adds “For he is our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart, as in the provocation and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my work. And Psalm 95: verse 7 is quoted in verse 13 of Hebrews 3. Our scripture this morning 3:12 & 13. “Beware brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But, exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Verse 12 states “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
The second behavior relates more to a lack of action. In the story of Jesus’ encounter with two mourning disciples on the road to Emmaus. (Luke 24: 13-35) our Lord chastises His hearers, telling them. “O foolish ones, and slow to hear to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”(verse 25) Especially as regards Bible prophecies, Jesus says, sloppy study habits and half hearted beliefs have the potential of making our hearts slow, heavy, and unfit for vigorous, healthy, spiritual pumping!
Thus, whether by commission or omission, a failure to act according to the written and the incarnate Word places us in a dangerous heart-hardening zone, from which recovery seems to become harder by the moment. Spiritual Progressive ROT
Thank God, there is hope for hearts in the process of this life threatening hardness. The solutions are provided in the context of the same passages referred to earlier. “Do not harden your hearts.” In Psalm 95 the psalmist introduces us to the antidote even before referring to the problem. He writes: verse 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, verse 7.for He is our God” As we worship and acknowledge God as our Creator and Redeemer, keeping in mind that as creatures, “we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice 8 Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. 9 As in the day of trial in the wilderness 9. When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw my work. 10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation. And said, It is a people who go astray in their hearts.
The second prescription is found in the same story on the road to Emmaus. After the heartbroken disciples discover they had been walking with Jesus all along, they say to one another. “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked to us on the road and while He opened the scripture to us?” (Luke 24:32) Indeed meeting Jesus sets lukewarm hearts aflame. After eagerly drinking the words of Jesus and enjoying His presence, slow and foolish hearts cannot help but burn, giving away light and warmth to an otherwise coldhearted world.
Sin is so numbing, we might feel at times our hearts have been traveling the hardening road for too long to apply for their tender reversion. But, Ellen White aptly advises, “Be not discouraged because your heart seems hard. Every obstacle, every internal foe, only increases our need of Christ.” Indeed, the Master Physician invites us to adopt His most drastic approaches to spiritual heart hardness. Once more, His treatment is two-fold.
This is an invitation to leave aside everything that makes your heart ordinary so it can become a chosen heart, one that carries in it the very marks of the Lord This is an invitation to leave aside everything that makes our heart ordinary so it can become a chosen heart, one that carries in it the very marks of the distinctiveness assured by the reality that “we love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19)
Second, God offers us the ultimate solution for a stony heart: As we surrender to Him, He promises to give us “one heart” and “to put a new spirit” within us. Thinking of His children, the Lord declares, “I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek 11:19) A brand new heart! Nothing less than an outright comprehensive heart transplant.
As in the case of a medical intervention, the goal of the Lord’s heart surgery is not without purpose. He makes it clear, “That they may walk in My statues and keep My judgments and do them. (Verse 20) A heart of flesh is obedient and wise, for it belongs to a thriving person who delights in the Law of the Lord (see Ps 1:2). It is a throbbing organ, protected from the onset from hardening. And a heart that beats with the heart of the Infinite is never again in danger of suffering from spiritual FOB. Indeed, it will be tender and pliable ever ready to reflect, return, and be renewed.
God’s offer includes His “diving pacemaker,” His spirit, because He longs to bestow on us a heart attuned to the One who gave it all, to remedy, once and for all, our hearts of stone. (Eze 36:27 NKJ) states “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and you will keep My judgments and do them.” In short, He offers us nothing less than a heart after His own heart. A heart of flesh that is obedient and wise, for it belongs to a thriving person whose delight is a throbbing organ, protected from the onset of hardening. A heart that beats with the heart of the Infinite is never again in danger of suffering from spiritual hardness.
I believe the most notorious person from the Bible, who had a hard heart, is the Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
Before the infliction of each plague, Moses was to describe its nature and, that the king might save himself from it, if he chose. Every punishment rejected would be followed by one more severe, until his proud heart would be humbled and he would acknowledge the Maker of heaven and earth, as the true and living God. P&P 263.
Christ is the greatest Teacher that the world has ever known. And what is the standard that He holds before all who believe in Him? “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48. The ideal of Christian character is Christlikeness. There should be continual striving and constant progress onward and upward toward perfection of character. 8T 64
It is by sinful indulgence that men give Satan access to their minds, and they go from one stage of wickedness to another. The rejection of light darkens the mind and hardens the heart, so that it is easier for them to take the next step in sin and to reject still clearer light. (P&P 404)
The Lord directed Moses to go to the people and repeat the promise of deliverance. The task of Moses would have been much less difficult had not many of the Israelites become so corrupted that they were unwilling to leave Egypt (P&P 260)
Moses entered the halls of Pharaoh where, surrounded by lofty columns and glittering adornments he demanded of the haughty monarch the release of his people. It was the hand of God, and no human influence or power possessed by Moses and Aaron, that wrought the miracles which they showed before Pharaoh….
Satan’s counterfeits accomplished its purpose of emboldening the Egyptians in their rebellion and causing Pharaoh to harden his heart against conviction. He was unwilling that the children of Israel should be released from bondage to serve the living God….Moses and Aaron were directed to visit the riverside where the king was accustomed to go. The Nile was a source of food and wealth for all Egypt. The river was worshiped as a god. Moses and Aaron following God’s instructions brought ten plagues each one intended to strike an Egyptian deity. Initially pharaoh was somewhat humbled. When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart. Appeal and warning were ineffectual and another judgment was inflicted.
The animals which the Hebrews would be required to sacrifice were among those regarded as sacred by the Egyptians: and such was the reverence in which these creature were held that to slay one, even accidentally, was a crime punishable with death. It would be impossible for the Hebrews to worship in Egypt without giving offense to their masters. With each successive plague the heart of Pharaoh grew harder. In his dealing with Pharaoh, the Lord manifested His hatred of idolatry and His determination to punish cruelty and oppression.
The ten plagues
Blood, frogs, lice, flies/insects, pestilence on livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and death of firstborn
After seven plagues had occurred the Lord said to Moses, “Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these My signs before him; and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son what things I have wrought in Egypt.
The judgment of which Egypt had first been warned, was to be the last visited. God is long suffering and plenteous in mercy. He has a tender care for the beings formed in His image. If the loss of their harvests and their flocks and herds had brought Egypt to repentance, the children would not have been smitten; but the nation had stubbornly resisted the divine command and now the final blow was about to fall.
Moses had been forbidden, on pain of death, to appear again in Pharaoh’s presence; but a last message from God was to be delivered to the rebellious monarch, and again Moses came before him, with the terrible announcement “Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die.”
What a price to pay for a hard heart?
STC pg 61-4