sermonette: Stony vs. Fleshy Heart

Changing Our Natures
Bill Cherry
Given 17-Oct-00; Sermon #FT00-06s; 19 minutes

Description: (show)

For our first scripture, please turn to Isaiah 11, verse 9.

Isaiah 11:9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Now who is "they" that they are talking about? It is a wolf, a bear, a leopard, a lion, and a venomous snake. God is saying this is a time when even the wild beast and the savage beast will not hurt little children who even play around the hole of the snake. It is going to be a tremendous time. And we are going to be protected from men and the things of men because, why? Because the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

Now, many of us have had the experience to look out over the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean or Gulf of Mexico or from a view on an airplane as it travels over large masses of water, and we have seen water and water and water, and God gives us this graphic image of how this tremendous blanket of water covers the land below. And this is what God is going to do with this world, is to cover it with His knowledge. And God is going to do this by performing a miracle. And as Richard told us, it is not going to be a snap in an instant. It is going to be a miracle. It is going to take time. And it is going to take work. And you and I are going to have a vital part in helping God perform this miracle.

So the purpose of this sermonette is to show you our part in helping God cover the earth with His knowledge.

Let us look at Ezekiel chapter 36, starting in verse 24. This is talking about in a similar way where we just came from in Isaiah 11, the restoration of Israel.

Ezekiel 36:24-25 "For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols."

Now, God is telling about what He is going to do with Israel. He is going to gather them up, place them in one place, and begin to sprinkle clean water, which God's Word and God's knowledge is a symbol of. Water is a symbol for God's knowledge and God's Spirit. But in a similar way, God is doing that to us right now, this minute, in this hall and at the Feast of Tabernacles. He has gathered us all from our own individual dwelling places and cities, and He has placed us here in this place. And He is sprinkling clean water on us as we hear God's ministers who have labored to understand God's mind and to tell you a message that they think God wants you to hear.

So you are being sprinkled with water today and even as God spoke from the jackass He can speak for me. So I am sprinkling you with water and as long as you go to God's Word, you know, you do not have any fear. But what God wants us to do, see, He says, "I will sprinkle you." This is God's part, but what is your part? See, as we hear the sermons, and we have the Scriptures to turn to, we should take our Bibles, we should take our sermon notes, we should go over them, study them, try to understand exactly what God wants and deeply ingrain in our minds and hearts and make it a part of our attitudes. And this is our part.

Now, if a car is covered with specks of road tar and covered with dirt and bird droppings that have hardened in the sun, you cannot take a water hose and sprinkle it and clean it. We need to take God's Word and scrub and scrub because God says, I will clean you from all your filthiness. And we have had sermons this Feast that say "look at yourself, judge yourself, do not have a tolerance for sin." And all your idols and the idols of affluenza and the things that we do out of our own lust and those idols that we should look and examine what is in our hearts and it comes from us taking God's Word and listening to it and putting it in our hearts and minds.

So the first step in helping God cover the earth with the knowledge of God is for us to clean up ourselves, look for the filth in ourselves, look for idols in our own hearts, and that is how we assist God in one way.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 "I will give you a new heart and a new spirit within you; and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will keep My judgments and do them."

That sounds wonderful! We will be walking along and zap! we have a new Spirit and we are just exuding with God's Spirit and love and happiness. But it does not work that way and you know it. So I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is Stony. Stony Heart. Now Stony is confident, he looks confident. He feels confident, he is sure of himself. And he is a nice looking stone. In fact, he came from South Africa. He is a South African stone. But if we were to put water on him, he would glisten and he would even look better, he would shine. But the water would not go inside of Stony. And Stony is the kind of person that when he hears the preacher preach a sermon, he will go up to the preacher and say, "Preacher, you sure told 'em today." And he is the kind of person, if he was the only one in the congregation and the preacher preached a message to help him clean up his own filthiness and his idols, he would go up to the preacher and say, "Preacher, if they'd have been here, you'd have sure told 'em until today!" And Stony cannot see his sins.

But look in verse 27. He said, "I will cause you to walk in My statues." And how can we cause Stony to have the water of the word in his heart? A sledgehammer, wham! wham! wham! We could mash him and mash him and pulverize him till he is ground up into fine powder and then we could put him in the water and he would be in the water of God's Word. And there are instances where many men have been pulverized and you know that we individually, in a sense, have been pulverized through trials and shaped up where we see, instead of having our own confidence, and we begin to develop confidence in God. And Stony is going to learn.

But Job was tried, he had his trials. And Jonah was caused to do what God wanted him to do, and David went through many, many trials before he came to a contrite heart, a contrite spirit. And we have a ways to go to develop a heart of flesh.

Now I want to introduce you to Fleshy Heart. He does not look as confident as Stony. In fact, he is almost a square and he has lots of holes in him. But he is holy, and he wants to be holy, and God will be pleased if we want to be holy. And so when he comes to get the sprinkling of the Word he tries to get rid of all the carnality in him. And when he gets sprinkled by the Word, he can absorb it and make it a part of his innermost being. And he will study God's Word, immerse himself in God's Word, and understand as much as he can about God's Word. So, when he meets somebody, he can greet them with love and outgoing concern and put a little bit of God's Spirit out there, and he can have enthusiasm for life in what he does and what he sees and serve other people with joy, because he knows this is God's way, and you know the joy that comes from serving.

So our second step, as it says here, "I will cause you to walk in My statues, and you will keep My judgments, and you will do them." Our second step is to learn to walk in God's way, keep His judgments, and do them, and make them so much of a part of our mind and heart that we realize that there is no better way. We genuinely accept it and understand it from living it. And I know that we are understanding it in part now, but God is giving us a heart of flesh, if we are malleable, if we seek it, and if we try to absorb it and use the sprinkling that we are getting today as stepping stones to grow and get rid of our filthiness and our idols.

Let us turn to a psalm that I love. Psalm 1. It has such a terrific promise. It is such a terrific psalm to me.

Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

Now, where in this world can you find counsel of ungodly people or paths of sinners, or seats of the scornful. Well, for starters, right in your own living room and some bedrooms, your own television set. You can see scorners, ungodly people, and sinners. And you have a choice whether or not you want to view that kind of stuff or what? Pop music, movies, psychology, all of these things have these elements, and we choose what we put in our minds and hearts and what we allow our children to get and take into their minds and hearts. And this is what he says, you are happy if you do not entertain your mind with all this stuff.

I have a brother, he is a good looking twin brother that I have. And he said that he gave himself a lot of peace by quitting taking the paper and so he did not read a lot of the things that are scornful and you know, the part of society that can be upsetting. But we choose what we take in. But God says you are happy if you do not entertain all this stuff and let it be a part of your mind.

Psalm 1:2 But his delight is in the law of God, and in His law he meditates day and night.

See, this is kind of a test of your own. How you are doing from heart of stone to a heart of flesh? Do you delight in God's law? Do you see it? Now to me, it is wonderful to see two happily married people that are together and love each other and grow in love and serve each other. And that is a part of God's way and that is obeying God's law. That is a delight.

And to me it is good to see children that are obedient. And all the kinds of things that we know, people that are honest and there some people that are honest in their business, and you go to them and say, "Will you help me do this?" And they say, "Well, I'm not the one that can do it the best. You can go to this person and they will give you some information." And they have integrity and you can see people obeying God's laws and it can give you a delight.

But you meditate in it day and night. This is the kind of character that we should develop. But what God gives us is delight. When we start delighting and really learning to delight in God's law, when we are beginning to understand and capture what God wants, we would not have anything to do with going back to the wrong attitudes and wrong desires and things that can corrupt our minds.

Here is another one.

Psalm 1:3 He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.

This Bible is rich in imagery and pictures in our minds, like a flourishing tree. And there have been many times that I have said to God, "God, You know I've tried to stay away from ungodly people and sinners and scornful people. I've tried to do right in Your laws now. Please prosper whatever I do." And I would take these scriptures and this promise as a comfort, and I would remind God of what He said. But this is a very comforting and delightful song to me.

Well, God wants us to learn to put His laws in our mind and our hearts. He wants to let us cover ourselves with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. He wants us to live and be happy in it and be examples to the people of this world in this day and age, and the age to come. And then they are going to take hold, and they are going to want us to teach them what has made us so happy and what gives us peace and all the blessings that God gives from obeying His Word.

And so we have a job to do. We have to work and help God by cleansing ourselves so we can be a part of this miracle that God is going to do by covering the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.