The Day of New Beginnings

Matters of the Heart

 

Deut. 6:
4* ¶ "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
 5* "And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
 
Mat. 22:
35* And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him,
 36* "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
 37* And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
 38* "This is the great and foremost commandment.
 
What does it mean to love the Lord with all our hearts? This is one theme that occurs again and again throughout the Scriptures. It’s the one thing God desires most from us. He wants a people whose hearts are wholly set upon Him. Too often, however, the phrase, “They always go astray in their hearts,” is applied to God’s people. 
 
The heart is the seat of our being. It embraces our spirits, our emotions, our minds, it is the sum total of what we are. The heart becomes the expression of our entire makeup, spirit, soul, and body. There are literally hundreds of passages of Scripture that emphasize this theme of God desiring a people whose hearts are fully given over to Him. We use the phrase, “Lord, I love you with all my heart,” quite readily. Yet in reality, none of us are capable of fulfilling the foremost commandment. Even when we are sincere, there are parts of our heart rooted in the self life that serve the Adamic nature. At best, our hearts are ambivalent. Jesus said it is what flows out of the heart that defiles a man (Mat. 15:17-20). 
 
Above all else, we should desire pure hearts before the Lord. We should hunger for that state of heart that is constantly pleasing to the Lord. But as Jeremiah stated, “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” This condition doesn’t change just because we become Christians. There is a part of our heart that comes alive to love Him when we accept Jesus as our Saviour, but the ambivalence still remains. How then do we walk in the foremost commandment? It is as Jesus said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” 
To love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength requires the provision of the Lord operating in our lives. Only through a work of God’s grace can we present to Him a heart that is fully pleasing. We are not capable of the heart He is looking for, but He provides a means by which we can attain it. 
 
Jer 31:33 "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (This passage of Scripture is quoted again in Heb. 8, signifying it is fulfilled to those in Christ.)
 
Ezk. 36:
26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
 27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
 
De 30:6* "Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
 
The above passages, and many like them, speak of God creating a heart within us that enables us to walk with Him and be to Him what He desires. It must be emphasized again that we are utterly incapable of producing within ourselves the heart God is looking for. If our hearts are desperately sick as Jeremiah said, it means they need to be healed. 
 
Isa. 57:
15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.
 16 "For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would grow faint before Me, And the breath of those whom I have made.
 17 ¶ "Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry and struck him; I hid My face and was angry, And he went on turning away, in the way of his heart.
 18 "I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners,
 19 Creating the praise of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near," Says the LORD, "and I will heal him."
 
There must be a healing of the heart if we are to become the people of the Lord as described by the Scriptures. 'I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart (Jer. 24:7).’
 
The Scriptures give us a vivid picture of this healing of the heart. It is typified in Josiah, one of the kings of Judah. 
 
2nd Kings 22:
1* ¶ Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath.
 2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.
 
We’ll skip now to the end of Josiah’s story and read:
 
2nd Kings 23:
25 And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.
 
What a testimony! There was no king like him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul the way Josiah did. The passages of Scripture between this ending verse in 2nd Kings 23 and the beginning verse in 2nd Kings 22 are a must read. 
 
2nd Kings 22:
3 And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the LORD, saying,
 4* Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of the LORD, which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people:
 5 And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD: and let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the house of the LORD, to repair the breaches of the house,
 6 Unto carpenters, and builders, and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house.
 7 Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.
 
The first thing Josiah did was repair the house of the Lord. He made full provision for the workers laboring in God’s house. This is an attribute of a heart that God has healed. Seeking first the Kingdom and His righteousness does not come naturally to us. 
 
8* And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
 9 And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD.
 10 And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.
 11 ¶ And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.
12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king's, saying,
 13 Go ye, enquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us.
 
The second thing Josiah did was give heed to the Word. When he heard the words of the book of the law he rent his clothes. His heart was in anguish over the fact that they had fallen short of God’s commandments. He immediately began to seek the Lord. This too is an attribute of a healed heart. It anguishes over the provision of the Lord that has not yet been appropriated. It grieves over the disparity between what God has provided and what is actually being walked in.
 
The third thing Josiah did was enter into a covenant with the Lord.
 
1* ¶ And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
 2* And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.
 3* And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
 
Josiah ministered the Word to all of Judah. He then stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after Him, to keep his commandments and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul. The passage then says all the people stood to the covenant. At least for a season, during the generation of Josiah, there was a people created who walked wholly after the Lord. This again is the fruit of a healed heart. It is capable of creating in others the same love and commitment to the Lord. A healed heart becomes the channel for God’s creative Spirit to flow to others.
 
The fourth thing Josiah did was tear down all the idolatrous symbols so as to remove corruption from the land. 
 
2nd Kings 24:
4* ¶ And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
 5* And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
 6* And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
7* And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
 8* And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
 9* Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
 10* And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
11* And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
 12* And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
 13* And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
 14* And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.
 16* And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
 17* Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.
 18* And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.
19* And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.
 20* And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
 21 And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.
 22* Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;
 23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24* Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
 
Every idolatrous practice that God hated, Josiah destroyed. He was thorough in his removal of the things despised by the Lord. This should be our motivation as well. We want to have hearts that are zealous for the things that are pleasing to the Lord. We want to be driven to see every corruption of our old natures crucified.
 
Now, here’s the punch line for this whole exposition on Josiah. 2nd Kings 22 states:
 
18 But to the king of Judah which sent you to enquire of the LORD, thus shall ye say to him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, As touching the words which thou hast heard;
 19* Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the LORD.
 
Josiah had a tender heart. But here’s the thing. The name Josiah means, “Whom Jehovah heals.” Josiah is a type of those whom the Lord heals that they might love and serve Him with a whole heart. Josiah becomes a type of the body of Christ, those who are appropriating the new heart that God promised in the passages in Ezekiel. He is a type of those to whom it is prophesied, “I will write My laws upon their hearts and in their minds…” 
 
This granting of a healed heart, the fulfillment of the passages we read concerning a new heart, do not come automatically. If that were the case, every Christian would have already experienced it, and all would be in a mature state. But we know this is not so. It’s in a people that see their shortcomings, who cry to the Lord for the capacity to serve Him fully that He begins the creative work that produces His heart within them. Because really, a healed heart is just an expression for His heart, His nature, reproduced in us.