The Heart Of Flesh

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 31, 1873,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you an heart of flesh.'' Ezekiel 36:26.

IT is a peculiar feature in our holy religion that it begins its work
within and acts first upon the heart. Other religions, like that of the
Pharisees, begin with outward forms and ceremonies, perhaps hoping to
work inwardly from without, although the process never ends, for though
the outside of the cup and of the platter is made clean, the inside
still remains full of rottenness as before. No Truth of God is more
sure than this concerning all the sons of men, "You must be born
again."

There must be an entire and radical change of man's nature or else
where God is he can never come–the Gospel does not flinch from this,
but enforces the declaration. The Holy Spirit does not attempt to
improve human nature into something better, but lays the axe at the
root of the trees and declares that we must become new creatures–and
that by a supernatural work of the Omnipotent God.

Scripture does not mince matters, or say that some men may be better
than others, naturally, and by an improvement of their excellencies may
at last become good enough for God. Far from it! It declares concerning
all, "Except you are converted and become as little children, you shall
in no wise enter into the kingdom of Heaven." True religion begins,
then, with the heart, and the heart is the ruling power of manhood. You
may enlighten a man's understanding and you have done much, but as long
as his heart is wrong, the enlightenment of the understanding only
enables him to sin with a greater weight of responsibility resting upon
him. He knows good to be good, but he prefers the evil. He sees the
light, but he loves the darkness and turns from the Truth of God
because his heart is alienated from God.

If the heart is renewed, the judgment will, before long, follow in the
same track. But as long as the heart is wrong, the affections govern
the will and bias the character of the man towards evil. If a man loves
evil he is evil. If he hates God he is God's enemy, whatever his
outward professions, whatever his knowledge, whatever his apparent good
qualities. "As a man thinks in his heart so he is." This is more nearly
the man than any other of the faculties and powers which God has
bestowed upon our nature. What if I say that the heart is the Eve in
the little garden of our nature and she it is that first plucks the
evil fruit? And though the understanding follows the affections, even
as Adam followed Eve, yet the first power for good or evil lies in the
affections.

The heart, when renewed by Grace, is the best part of manhood.
Unrenewed, it is the very worst. Aesop, when his master ordered him to
provide nothing for a feast but the best things in the market, brought
him nothing but tongues, and when, the next day, he ordered him to buy
nothing but the worst things in the market, still brought nothing but
tongues. And I would venture to correct or spiritualize the story by
exchanging hearts for tongues, for there is nothing better in the world
than hearts renewed, and nothing worse than hearts unregenerate. It is
a great Covenant promise that the heart shall be renewed and the
particular form of its renewal is this–that it shall be made living,
warm, sensitive, and tender. It is naturally a heart of stone–it is to
become, by a work of Divine Grace–a heart of flesh. Therefore, very
much of the result of regeneration and conversion will be found to lie
in the production of a tender spirit.

Tenderness, the opposite of that which is stout, obstinate, cold,
hard–tenderness is one of the most gracious signs in a man's
character. And where God has given fleshiness, or living sensitiveness
instead of stoniness, or dead insensibility of heart, there we may
conclude that there is a real work of Grace and that God has created
vital godliness within. Concerning this tenderness I am about to
speak–"I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
give you a heart of flesh."

I. Our first remark is that THE TENDERNESS HERE INTENDED IS ABSENT IN
THE UNREGENERATE. They frequently have a natural sensitiveness–some
persons who are not converted are very tender, indeed, as mothers to

their children, as fathers to their offspring, as friends to friends.
And God forbid that we should say anything amiss concerning that which
is good in human nature after its kind! But that is widely different
from the spiritually tender heart. Some there are who have a tenderness
which arises from timidity, a tenderness which sometimes inclines them
to good, not because they love the good, but because they are easily
ruled by their company–so that they would be just as easily led
towards evil if they fell in with bad companions. They have no
principle, no root in themselves.

Such a tenderness Rehoboam had, who was tender, and therefore followed
evil advisers to his own injury. Such an unmanly softness as this is to
be strived against, for we need to have some grit in our constitution,
some firmness and resolution–and that sort of pliability which unman's
a man and makes him a puppet for others to handle is a great evil.
There is also a tenderness which arises mainly from legal terror and
fear which is very different from the evangelical or saving softness of
heart which is described in our text. I know some who exhibit a sort of
counterfeit tenderness. When they hear a sermon they are excited by it
and if it is about the world to come, the lifting up of the curtain of
the future, they are affected for the time being. But then their
goodness soon departs from them. They forget the next moment that which
affected them a moment back–they are soon hot and soon cold–they are
inconstant as the wind. That is a not the kind of tenderness to be
desired–goodness which is as the morning cloud and the early dew which
passes away.

In all unregenerate men there is a lack of the real spiritual
tenderness of which I have to speak, though all are not equally
hardened. In all, for instance, there is a natural stoniness of heart.
We are not born into this world perfect, so that when sin meets us it
receives a kindly reception and is not dreaded and shunned as it should
be. Those who notice children in their first acts will not have
discovered any strong aversion in them to children's sins, or horror at
the sight of them. How early does the little child give way to
unrestrained passion and practice little acts of deceit? As the Prophet
said, "We go astray from the womb, speaking lies." Our children's poet
was correct when he said–

"True, you are young, but there's a stone Within the youngest breast,
Or half the sins which you have done Would rob you of your rest."

The heart by nature is like the nether millstone and its hardness is
increased by contact with the world. A youth's flesh from a godly
household is not one-half so hard as he who has been for some time in
the midst of ungodly company and has seen the ways of the debauched and
the profane. Custom has a great power over us and what we see others do
with impunity we by-and-by come to think, (unless the Grace of God
prevents it), it cannot be quite so bad as our parents and guardians
taught us that it was. Familiarity with sin does not breed contempt for
it, but often causes a measure of contempt for the law which forbids
it. We see the sparkling eye of the drunk. We hear his hilarious shout
and imagine that there is pleasure in the bowl. Or we hear men speak of
the delights of their transgressions and the sweets of lust, and unless
we are held back by Providence and Grace, we are apt to think lightly
of those things which once we regarded with abhorrence. This world is a
petrifying spring and all who are of the world are being putrefied in
it and are growing harder and harder as the years roll on.

Moreover, men harden themselves by their own sins. Every time a man
sins it becomes more easy for him to sin again. Like a stone falling,
sin gains impetus and increased velocity. The man who sins once has a
stronger tendency to sin again and there are some sins which almost
necessitate a succession of sins. The man who lies, for instance,
thinks he must lie a second time to conceal the first. And some
transgressions which root themselves in the flesh breed a hunger and a
thirst for the sin so that the flesh craves to be indulged again–and
those who cannot bridle their passions are thus carried away by them
with great force. As labor renders the hand hard, so sin makes the
heart callous, and each sin makes the stony heart yet more like
adamant.

At the same time, all the circumstances around an unregenerate man will
be perverted to the same result. If, for instance, a man prospers,
nothing is more hardening to the heart than long prosperity. Find me an
ungodly man whose course has been one of perpetual gain and you shall
find me, almost certainly, a man who is ready to say unto the Lord,
"Who is Jehovah that I should obey His voice?" Pride is often begotten
of fullness of bread. If the man had known what need is, he might,
perhaps, have been humbled before God. But now he boasts in his broad
acres and his large estates and, like Nebuchadnezzar, he says, "Behold
this great Babylon that I have built."

It is also a dangerous thing to be for many years in good health
without a sickness. This also hardens a man. The sickness which brings
a man to the borders of the grave is often sanctified to the breaking
of the heart. To be without

ache or pain for a long time is so far from being a blessing from God
to the wicked, that I scarcely know anything which may turn out to be a
greater curse to an ungodly man. Never chastened? Then you are no child
of God! Left to find pleasure in sin? Then surely it must be that God
will let you have what pleasure you may in this world because He knows
a terrible future awaits you! O soul in prosperity, disturb yourself,
for you are in solemn danger! Hardness of heart will almost inevitably
come upon you. You are at ease from your youth–you have not been
emptied from vessel to vessel– therefore your scent remains in you,
and that scent is pride and carnal security.

The opposite condition of circumstances will, through sin, produce the
same result. Affliction hardens those whom it does not soften. There
are men who have been in many storms at sea and, though once they
feared, they never tremble now. If the mast had to be cut away and the
vessel were almost to go down, they have grown so desperate they would
curse and swear in the teeth of the tempest! Those who have escaped
many accidents and dire diseases, who have passed unscathed by the hot
furnace of fever, or have risen from between the jaws of cholera, are
too often men whom nothing can move. What the fire does not melt it
anneals as steel. Alas, of how many may it be said, "Why should you be
stricken any more? You will revolt more and more."

They resemble Ahaz of old, who, the more he was afflicted, the more he
sinned–of whom the Spirit of God has written, "This is that king
Ahaz." This is obduracy, indeed, comparable to that of Pharaoh, whom
the Lord hardened by judgments which ought to have melted him to
repentance. And alas! Alas, that we should have to add it–holy
influences will come in to complete this hardening and carry it, still,
to a higher degree! The Gospel has a wonderfully hardening power over
those who reject it. The sun shines out of the heavens upon wax and
softens it, but at the same time it shines upon clay and hardens it.
The sunlight of the Gospel shining upon hearers either melts them into
repentance or else hardens them into greater obstinacy. You cannot be
hearers of the Gospel without its having some effect upon you.

Some of you have attended this place ever since it was built [12 years
earlier] and if you are not the better for it, you certainly are the
worse. If the Gospel is not a savor of life unto life to you it will be
a savor of death unto death. Among hardened sinners the Gospel-hardened
sinner is one of the worst. Yet, further, when an unregenerate man
dares to put on a Christian profession, this is perhaps the most rapid
and certain process for consummating the devil's work, for if a man
will be audacious enough to join himself with the saints while he is
indulging in private sin–if he will continue to come to the Communion
Table when he knows that his base lusts are still indulged–and if,
moreover, he has the face to boast of being a child of God when he
knows that he is an utter stranger to Divine Grace, why, such a man is
the raw material out of which Satan can make a Judas!

The devil himself could not make a Judas till he had found a false
Apostle. You must look among hypocritical professors of religion if you
would find the worst of men! And I must add, you may succeed best in
your search if you can find a false-hearted minister. The higher the
place in God's garden the more the weeds stink. The hardest-hearted men
of all are not those who have been guilty of crimes against society and
have been put away into our jails–often a little kindness will melt
these savages down. No, the worst of all are those demons in human
shape who make a profession of being the people of God and all the
while know that they are sinning wickedly with both hands! To cover a
vile life with the coverlet of a Christian profession is a sign of
reprobation. Take men, however, at any stage, this is still true–that
the heart of flesh is not to be found in any unregenerate man.

II. WHEREVER TRUE TENDERNESS IS FOUND, IT IS A SPECIAL GIFT OF THE NEW
COVENANT. A

heart of flesh is a gift of Sovereign Grace and it is always the result
of Divine power. No heart of stone was ever turned into flesh by
accident, nor by mere Providential dispensations, nor by human
persuasions. You might argue with a rock a long while before you would
persuade it into flesh. Neither is such a change worked by a man's own
actions. How shall a stone, being a stone, produce in itself flesh?

A power from above the man must work upon him. According to the
language of the Scriptures, "Except a man be born from above he cannot
see the kingdom of God." The Spirit of God must change the nature, or
the heart of stone will never become a heart of flesh! Note that the
first works of the Spirit of God upon the soul tend towards this
tenderness, for when He comes to a man He convinces him of sin and so
softens him. The man convinced of sin does not laugh any longer at sin,
neither does he despise the wrath of God on account of it. When the
Spirit of God darts the arrows of conviction into the soul, then the
heart begins to bleed and the man is conscious of feelings and emotions
to which he was a stranger before.

I trust there are some of you who understand this first work of the
Spirit in the heart–He has begun to make you feel the guilt of sin, He
has compelled you to tremble before an angry God and to dread the wrath
to come–this early work of Grace has already made you sensitive as you
never were before. And the further the Spirit's work proceeds, the more
tender will you become. When the soul comes to be really saved and to
obtain peace through Jesus Christ, one great mark of its salvation is
tenderness in heart. Oh, what a place for tenderness the Cross is! When
for the first time our eyes behold the Savior, we weep! We look and
live, but we also look and mourn that we pierced the Lord. Who can
behold a bleeding Savior suffering for his sin without being melted
down? No heart of stone can bear contact with the Cross.

Let but Jesus dart a look of love and we are dissolved, as once Peter's
heart was melted and made to flow out in penitential tears. Only let us
hear the accents of our Redeemer's voice and we shall cry, "My soul
melted while He spoke to me." The fact that He loved us and gave
Himself for us is enough to dissolve a heart of iron, if it could once
know it. Now as these first works of the Spirit of God in conviction
and conversion lead to tenderness, so it is true of all the Divine
operations which follow in due course. The whole tenor of the Gospel is
towards tenderness. I cannot remember a promise, I cannot recall a
doctrine, I cannot remember a fact connected with the Gospel which
could make a Believer hard-hearted. Can you? I think, if you will turn
over all that you know and all that God has revealed concerning
salvation, you will find nothing to make you stubborn and willful, but
everything to make you tender and sensitive.

Oh, to think that salvation should be of the Sovereign Grace of God!
How it humbles us. How it lays us in the dust. No more talking about
man's rights as a creature, man's claims and what God ought to do! We
are broken down and feel that the Lord may do exactly what He wills and
thus we are made tender before His face. Oh, to know that there is no
pardon except by faith in a Substitute! To understand that God must and
will punish sin–how it makes us feel that sin is no trifle! How it
leads us to abhor sin as a great evil and makes us jealous lest we
should offend again! When we read that all our help was laid on Jesus
Christ, how it cuts away, by the roots, all our self-confidence and
makes us lie low at the foot of the Throne of God!

I might go through all the Truths of God and Doctrines and promises, if
we had time, and I think I could prove to a demonstration that their
legitimate effect is to render the heart tender, wherever they operate.
So it is with every Christian Grace. All the Christian virtues promote
warmth and tenderness of heart. Have you zeal for God? I know you will
be fearful of sinning. You will hate the very garment spotted by the
flesh. Have you patience under the Divine rod? That patience is only
softness of heart in one of its sweetest forms. Have you much love?
Then I am sure you have much tenderness, for in proportion as the heart
is stony it is destitute of affection. Every one of the Divine circle
of Graces has an intimate connection with the heart of flesh. And I
also venture to say that the more tender a man is the more advanced in
Grace he is–and that the more callous and unconcerned he is the
further is he from what he should be. Let the unfeeling professor know,
and rest assured that if he is a child of God at all, he is certainly
in a weak and backsliding state, or his insensibility would be a great
burden and grief to him.

Every Grace leans towards tenderness, and the whole current of the
Divine life sets that way. You cannot be strong in piety unless you are
tender in heart. Are you a child? Can a child be good if it is
indifferent, haughty, obstinate and stony-hearted towards its parents?
Are you a servant? Who is a good servant but he that is tender of his
master's reputation and anxious to fulfill his lord's command? Are you
a soldier? Where is there a good soldier that is not jealous of his
captain's honor and careful, lest by any means, he should break the
martial law? There must be tenderness. It is an essential point. Unless
it is melted down the hard metal cannot be poured into the mold and
fashioned for use and beauty. The Lord Jesus will never set His seal
upon cold wax. He stamps His image on hearts of flesh and not on
stones. A tender conscience is an essential ingredient in the perfect
Christian character and where it is not, neither is the life and work
of

God.

III. Let us dwell upon another point, that THIS TENDERNESS, WHEN IT IS
GIVEN, IS OBSERVABLE UNDER SEVERAL ASPECTS. The man who has a heart of
flesh given him becomes sensitive to fear. He trembles at the thought
of a holy God in arms against him. He no longer jokes about Hell and
eternity, as so many do, but he says, "My heart stands in awe of You
and I am afraid of Your judgments." He no longer argues that the Lord
is too severe, but he admits that He is just when He judges and clear
when He condemns. The renewed heart is afraid of what other men call
little sins and flees from them as from a serpent. The regenerate man
knows that there is death in every drop of sin's wine and he

will not venture to sip thereof, nor taste a mouthful of sin's most
royal dainties. He fears the Lord and dreads to offend because he is
made alive, so as to know the Lord's holiness and perceive His justice.

The stony heart neither knows nor fears and therefore abides in death.
I have little fear for a soul that fears, but I tremble for those who
never tremble. I have sometimes wished that certain, very-assured
Christians, as they think themselves, who are, I fear, in very truth
presumptuous pretenders–I wish they could and would have a dash of
fear about them. Fear of the kind we now mean is a holy salt to a man's
character. Fear and trembling well become even the most eminent saint.
"God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of His saints." "Serve the
Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling." "Work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling." Though I greatly deplore all doubts
of God's truthfulness, I do not equally deprecate doubts concerning our
own condition, for there is such a thing as holy anxiety and I charge
you never to think little of it, but remember the poet's lines–

"He that never doubted of his state, He may, perhaps, he may, too
late."

self-examination will often suggest holy fear and deep searching of
heart–and it will reveal so much of sin in us that we shall be sent to
our knees, with weeping and supplication, to cry out for help and
pardon. To live without fear is to live in sin, for one mark of a
Believer is that he has the fear of God before his eyes. In this sense,
"blessed is the man that fears always." Again, a tender heart becomes
sensitive as to the decisions of its enlightened conscience. The heart
changed by Grace begins to weigh its own actions towards God and it
comes to the conclusion–"I have acted unjustly towards my Creator and
Benefactor. He has been all goodness to me. I have received, at His
hands, countless benefits and yet I have ungratefully forgotten Him.
When I heard of Him I treated Him slightingly. I have lived for myself
but not for my good and gracious Creator." The quickened conscience
holds a daily court and its sentences are heard and respected by the
heart of flesh.

In the ungodly man there is a conscience, but it is asleep and needs a
cannon fired to wake it up, so that the stony heart is never troubled.
Let our prayer be–

"Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make. Awake my soul
when sin is near, And keep it still awake."

The Christian feels that it is a horrible thing to sin against God,
against the Savior's love and against the influence of the indwelling
Spirit. He starts back from sin–he is not only afraid of the
punishment but he is wounded by the sin, itself. As smoke to the eyes,
as thorns to the flesh and as gall to the palate, such is sin to the
heart of flesh.

Then, again, the new heart, the fleshy heart, becomes sensitive of the
Divine love. Is it not one of the most amazing things in the world that
the story of Calvary does not flood with tears every eye that reads it?
Was there ever such touching, affecting love as that shown by the Son
of God towards His enemies when He left the dignities of Heaven for the
shame and suffering of earth? Silly stories of love-sick maids, or the
improbable plots of three-volume romances will bring showers of tears
from those who read them–while this grand narrative, this wondrous
tragedy of love–is as a thrice-told tale and the Book which contains
it is often put upon the shelf as far too dry for reading! Though it
concerns us all and we are lost without it–and with it are lifted up
to be near akin to God–yet this dying love of Christ is disregarded.

How can it be otherwise while the heart is made of stone? When his
heart is turned to flesh, then the love of God affects the man, humbles
him, melts him, woos him, wins him, captivates him, enchants him,
enamors him, inflames him with ardent thankfulness and draws him up
towards Heaven! Divine Love begets in the renewed man a sensitiveness
to gratitude. "Has Jesus done all this for me? Then what can I do for
Him? Has He bought me with His blood? Then I am His and not my own, or
the world's. What can I do for Him who died to save my grateful soul?"
The renewed heart feels that the love of Christ constrains it and it
judges "that if Christ died for all, then were all dead and that He
died for all, that they which live should not live from now on to
themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again."

Moreover, the heart becomes sensitive, from now on, to holy grief. When
it has erred, it chastens and humbles itself for having grieved the
Savior. It takes revenge upon itself if sin has been indulged. It
becomes sensitive to joy and oh, what a joy a Christian feels–a joy to
which the ungodly man must forever be a stranger! The renewed heart
sings at the sound of the Savior's footsteps and when His love is shed
abroad, no precious ointment can be half so sweet! Oh, the

exhilarations and delights we have known when we clearly see our
acceptance in the Beloved! Oh, the feasts and the banquets when we have
fellowship with the Crucified One! Oh, the ravishments and ecstasies
when we look through the open gates of pearl and behold our eternal
inheritance, the crowns of gold and the palms of victory!

By regeneration we are made capable of an unknown fullness of joy.
Every power and faculty is so quickened as to be able to quiver with
delight! Heaven itself seems to flash along every nerve when the heart
is steeped in fellowship with Jesus! And so we become sensitive with
pity for others. I would give nothing for your religion if you do not
desire others to share in it. If you can, without emotion, think of a
soul being damned, I fear that it will be your own lot. If you can look
upon the ignorant, the perverse, the rebellious and think of their
destruction with complacency, you are no child of God! Your Savior, who
is the first-born of the Divine family, wept over Jerusalem. Have you
no tears? Then you are not a member of the family of which He is the
Head!–

"Did Christ over sinners weep,

And can our cheeks be dry?

Let drops of sympathetic grief

Distil from every eye."

A heart of stone says, "Let them go where they will: am I my brother's
keeper?" But a heart of flesh says, "Lord, help me by any means to save
some; it shall be a delight to me to turn sinners from the error of
their ways." Where this tenderness of heart is carried to a high point,
as it ought to be in every Christian, the Believer becomes delicately
sensitive concerning the things of God. I have seen an instrument for
weighing of so exceedingly delicate a nature that it has been affected
by a particle of dust quite imperceptible by the naked eye. An
invisible atom has turned the scale! We have different kinds of
weighing machines. Some are so rough that they would hardly yield to
the pressure of an ounce, but others quiver if the smallest particle
falls upon them. The Believer's heart should be like this last. A
Christian's heart should resemble the sensitive plant, which the moment
it is touched, folds up its leaves as a sailor reefs his canvas, or
like a wound in a man's flesh which is pained by the faintest brush.

Spiritual sensitiveness is fullness of life–insensibility is death. To
feel the slightest motion of the Holy Spirit is a sign of high
spirituality. I would not wish to be, in my heart, like the Great
Eastern upon the sea, needing an Atlantic roller to stir it. I would
rather desire to be as the angler's float which mounts or sinks by the
force of the least ripple. Spirit of the Lord, thus act upon my willing
heart! I want to be so sensitive of the Spirit of God that I may be
like the aspen leaf which trembles even when the breeze is not
perceptible to others. We should watch to do God's will and not need
His whip and bridle to force us to obedience.

Yet I have known professors who have clearly seen a certain duty to be
taught in the Bible, but they have said, "Well, we think it is
Scriptural, but we need to have it brought to us by a deep impression
on our mind and our way pointed out by Providential circumstances."
This is a disobedient spirit and ought to meet with grave censure! The
Lord's Word is our guide, not our impressions or our circumstances! And
to the renewed heart it should be enough to know the Lord's will and
our obedience should be prompt. On the other hand, if anything is
forbidden in the Word, or is clearly wrong, nothing can justify our
continuance in it. We are bound, at once, to forsake it. The great need
of this age is sensitiveness about revealed Truth and the Divine will.

We have a Church in our land in which there are three distinct classes
of men who all declare that they believe the whole of the Book of
Common Prayer–and it is clearly impossible that they should do so,
since these parties have no points of agreement with one another and
wage incessant war with each other. Yet they each one receive it all ex
amino, all of it, when no man living, nor angel, nor devil could
believe it all–the book itself being self-contradictory! This,
however, is of small consequence to supple consciences trained to play
with language. Some ministers of this Church know their position to be
a doubtful one and yet retain it on the plea that their usefulness
might be impaired if they left the Church–is this reasoning fit for
Christians?! Are we to seek a supposititious usefulness by continuing
where our conscience is ill at ease? Surely not! Our rule of conduct is
the Divine will, and that only.

Oh, I long to see a race of men born among us like the old Covenanters
who would die for the least word of Jesus and would give their blood
for the smallest jewel of His crown! But now we are to be charitable
and if any of us speak out for God, straightway we are hounded down for
lack of charity–whereas it is our great charity for souls that makes
us speak out and run all risks! We have charity for dying men and
charity for the age to come! We see deadly error propped up by
temporizers and we cannot be silent. If ministers of the Gospel set the
example of wresting words and trifling with the

Truth of God, where will this nation's morals be in the next
generation? Brothers, we who preach the Gospel must follow the highest
conceivable standard of strict Truth, for God's sake, for our office
sake and for the people's sake. We cannot afford to be lax in our
solemn declarations, for we shall have to answer for them to our Lord
at the Last Great Day.

If we are to be teachers of other men we must, ourselves, be beyond
suspicion. We must be inflexible in the Truth of God and sooner die
than be false of faith, or preach anything that savors of dishonesty or
is tainted with equivocation. We shall never lead God's troops to
victory against error and falsehood if we vacillate ourselves! Oh, for
great tenderness of heart towards the Truth of God! Even though
scrupulosity could beget the revival of a fierce sectarianism, it were
infinitely more to be desired than the soul-deceiving charity which is
the Diana of this age and the destroyer of souls! Translated into plain
English, the current charity of the times only means that it matters
not one atom what God has said! Let us make our own systems and
mutually agree to shelve all the inconvenient parts of Revelation. Let
us be liberal to our fellow men out of our Lord's estate–what matters
our Lord's honor so long as we make things pleasant all round? In the
teeth of this, the sensitive heart will be faithful and will bear the
censure of all men sooner than incur the displeasure of the Lord.
Tenderness towards God we must have!

Oh, for the old Elijah spirit of stern determination, tempered with the
John spirit of love to those whose errors we condemn! Jehovah must be
King in this land and the idols must be utterly abolished!

IV. I shall close with a few reflections on the same subject.
TENDERNESS OF HEART IS TO BE GREATLY PRIZED AND EARNESTLY CULTIVATED.
Some among you may, for the first time, be distressed on account of
sin. I rejoice because of it! Some of you are not what you used to
be–gay and light-hearted. You are now thoughtful and, with that
thoughtfulness, sorrowful. You came here this morning praying that God
would give you peace, but you have not obtained it. I pray God to give
you your wish, but may you never find peace unless it is the peace of
God, peace through Jesus Christ. May your resolution be, "I will never
rest until I rest in God's rest, even in His own dear Son."

Beloved, do not try to get rid of soul alarms, conviction, or sin
except in God's way. There are physicians of no value who would heal
your wound if you would let them–do not endure them, for they will
only film it over and leave an ulcer beneath which will cost you your
soul. Ask the Lord to make your minister faithful to you, allow him to
use the lance to open the wound and cut out the proud flesh. Yes, ask
the Spirit of God to probe you to the quick sooner than allow you to be
flattered into the conception that you are healed when you are not!

Go to the Lord for healing–all other healing is worthless. Say, "Lord,
make sure work of it in me. Save me Yourself. Save me thoroughly.
Deliver me from trusting in myself or my fellow man and bring me to
rely, alone only Yourself and Your dear Son." Do not go to amusements
which will help you to forget your true condition. Don't be danced or
fiddled, or play-acted, into indifference. Be anxious that this
bruising and breaking should go on further, that you may be even more
conscious of the exceeding guilt of sin. You will never prize the
Savior until you loathe yourself. You will never love His blood until
you have been ashamed of the crimson of your own sin. Jesus will never
be to you a Savior till you are in your own eyes a poor, lost, ruined
sinner. Go to Jesus and put your trust in Him and harden not your heart
against Him.

Next, I speak to you, O child of God. Cultivate tenderness of heart
more and more. I would say to you who are Christians, do not believe
anything, the legitimate result of which would be to make you callous
in your spiritual feelings, or lax in your dealings with your follow
men, or careless with your God. I dread lest any of the Truths of God
which we profess should come to be so held in unrighteousness as to
make us feel easy in sin. Whenever I find a Brother perfectly content
with himself, I am afraid for him. I know he does not see the sin that
God sees in him, or he would rather bemoan himself than give way to
boasting. I delight to hear men preaching up a high standard of
holiness–the higher the better! But if any man should say that he has
reached it, I blush and tremble for him. He had better begin again upon
the ladder of sanctification, for he has not put his foot on the first
step of it yet–for that is humility.

Be very humble, lie very low. Be more and more conscious of your
natural guilt and repent more earnestly each day. I proclaim before you
all that I believe the very best place for a man to stand in is with
his arms around the Cross, saying–

"I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."

I am nothing, but Christ is everything. I am a mass of loathsomeness in
myself, but nevertheless accepted in the Beloved. Daily may we fear
lest we should fall into a routine religion without life and power. We
can sing without real joy or

praise. We can pray without any earnestness or fervency. We can read
the Bible without feeding on its Truths. And we can know the doctrines
of the Gospel without proving their influences upon the heart. Pray
against this, yes, pray against all lifeless religion! I would have my
soul vital all over and as sensitive towards God as though it were
flayed of all earth-hardened skin upon it–every Truth, every promise,
every Word of God should make me feel intensely, acutely and at
once–tenderness of heart.

I beseech you who are Believers to strive after this. Remember how
tender the Savior was. There was no stone about His heart. May you be
as tender as He was and you will then be fashioned into the likeness
for which God is preparing you by His eternal Spirit. Dread growing
hard in your thoughts of sin! Dread growing cold in your thoughts of
Christ! Dread growing stony in your thoughts of your fellow sinners!
And let this promise be pleaded in your prayers before God, "I will
take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a
heart of flesh." The Lord fulfill it to you for His Truth's sake and
His name's sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Ezekiel 36.
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