THE LORD'S PROMISE TO REMOVE THE STONY HEART

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

The text describes both the hardest thing in the world and the most difficult surgical operation. Nothing is harder than the stony heart in man; nothing more unreasonable; nothing more unresponsive to pity and sympathy: the stony heart is hard, unfeeling, unresponsive, unyielding to the law of God and in itself it is impossible of betterment. The only remedy Jehovah has for it is Removal, Elimination, Taking Away. Like the carnal mind; "it is not subject to the law of God, " Paul wrote "neither indeed, can be;" it is enmity to God; it cannot please God; its promptings bring death. It is the affliction of religious people. Paul wrote of its synonym: "Take heed (warning) therefore brethren (it is the affliction of Christian brethren) lest there be in (it is an inside affliction) any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God (it is prone to leave God) -- from this Scripture doubtless the poets got the idea of the "prone to wander" condition of the heart.

The text also describes the most difficult surgical operation in the world. We read and hear of truly marvelous feats of surgical skill -- the removal of one lung and the patient lives: the removal of a kidney; cancer, tumor, appendix; of blood transfusion and of skin grafting, -- radium treatment, and other remarkable feats of surgical skill but we never read or hear of a "major operation on the heart. We read one account of a minor operation on the heart -- the repairing of the thin outer cover with minor stitches and the latest report said the patient was doing well. But no where in the universe has any one had his heart removed and another put in its place and survived the ordeal. Our text is figurative but it illustrates the difficulty and delicacy of the operation Jehovah is to perform for us. He can do what no surgeon has the temerity to do, perform this delicate operation so that we survive the ordeal -- take one out, the stony heart, and place another in its stead, the fleshly heart and we live on without the miss of a heart beat.

We repeat that the stony heart is the affliction of the religious man. The Lord Jehovah is the authority for the statement. Several "Thus saith the Lord's" precede the text. Its removal is His own volitional act. We wish in this study to avoid as far as possible the dogmatic statements of men of all schools and cling closely to the Word of Jehovah. The promise is specifically applied to Israel when God shall restore, forgive, cleanse from all her idols, renew, remove the stony heart and give the heart of flesh, filled with God's Holy Spirit. We love to think that Jehovah has nothing for Israel in the Millennium He will not now confer on the fully redeemed soul. They will have the filling with the Spirit and that is our promise now and that Spirit, in all dispensations, brings the hearts of men to submission to God's will for the rule of life.

We were once preaching in a camp meeting about the Lordship of Christ and my co-worker said if we had what we preached we would give to him a fine novelty-handle pen-knife we had. We handed him the knife, and after a while he came back to the tent and said, "I have what I preach and I cannot keep your knife." If we have the Spirit of Christ now our brothers' interests are as safe in our hands as in his own. We do not think God will do for Israel in the next dispensation, what He would not gladly do for the real Christian in this; if they are fully surrendered to (His Lordship.

We rejoice in the fact that while a Scripture passage has one interpretation, it has many applications, and while we look forward to Israel's restoration and earthly blessings in the near future, we are not unmindful that these things were written for our admonition.

A Divine gift of a new heart precedes the Divine work of removal of the stony heart in the order of the text: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, " then follows the promise to remove the stony heart. Something manifestly definite precedes the work of elimination. Far be it from any to say that Jehovah can not take out of the human heart all that Satan put in it. That is to make Satan greater than God! The gift of a new heart is identical with regeneration or the impartation of spiritual life and synonymous with the birth of the Spirit without which a man cannot see the kingdom of God. The new heart, which precedes the elimination of the stony heart is a gift from Jehovah -- "A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you." Someone says in justification and regeneration, the Lord gives us something which we never had, whereas in sanctification, or the removal of the stony heart, He takes away from us something we always had. The Lord gives us a new heart; He gives us a new spirit: He takes away from us the stony heart! and the fact that Jehovah says several times in the immediate context that He will do this for Israel, is sufficient evidence that it is in the heart remaining side by side with the new heart He gives, and not removed by the gift of the new heart or by growth or any other process but the exercise of the omnipotent power of Jehovah who says He will do this not for Israel's sake, but for His Own Name's Sake which was in derision and reproach among the heathen round about because of the hardness of Israel's heart and consequent dullness of mind in comprehending His will.

The work is done for His Own Name's Sake, which Name was profaned among the heathen; again He repeats, "I had pity for mine holy name" and "I will sanctify my great name, " "And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes." Not, primarily, when He works a work in Israel or takes the stony heart out of them, but when He Himself is sanctified in them -- A Person indwelling them as their sanctification. Lest, like the Socinians, we greatly magnify His Person as fairer than the sons of men, and eulogize all His perfections and minimize His works, He shortly adds that synchronous with His being sanctified in them, there is a work of removal accomplished: "I will take the stony heart out of your flesh."

Let us not so magnify the beauties of Jesus that we conceal the works which He does in us, the accomplishing of which is not always pleasant to the natural man -- the purging of the heart unto greater fruitfulness; the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning; the cutting off of the right arm and the plucking out of the right eye; the forsaking of all we have; the leaving all to follow Him, etc.

Because He is exalted above His works is no warrant to minimize His works. There are things which accompany salvation: With =Him he freely gives us all things. Overemphasis of some particular phase of truth is the trouble with us all and we are not willing to see truth in its proper perspective; to recognize the value of the other fellow's emphasis. One faction greatly exalts His Personality and with it sometimes make light of the definite works He accomplishes in the heart. They say it is He! Himself! "He is all in all! Wonderful truth! But there is another side. "He doeth it" Paul wrote. It is both Him and it. "The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly... faithful is He that calleth you who also will do it." Scripture reveals the Worker and the work; The Blesser and the blessing; the Source from whence the things which accompany salvation flow and the things which accompany salvation; the Builder of the house and the house; Jehovah sanctified in the heart and the stony heart removed; He who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified; the Sanctifier and sanctification; the Benefactor and the benefits; Christ appearing unto Paul revealing things to him and promising to reveal other things unto him, all of which things He was to bear witness to; and then again the Spirit revealing Jesus unto the disciples and (He shall testify of Me, He shall glorify Me) yet he had many things to say unto them and the Spirit also would show them things to come, things that are Mine He would take, and "show them unto you;" also the context reveals several times Jehovah referring to His Indwelling them and the removal of this stony heart and that He the Lord had spoken it and would do It and that finally He would be inquired of by the house of Israel concerning this to do it for them. So those who magnify Him much above His works are right and wrong; and those who magnify it much and say little about Him are right and wrong: the happy medium is, like Paul, to say, "He doeth It." Those who say so much of Him need to sit at the feet of those who are so adept in description of what He doeth; and those who say so much of It need to sit at the feet of those who magnify Him to learn of Him who doeth it.

The stony heart is incapable of improvement: God will not help man in his schemes to get victory over it by culture; after its highest culture it is still the same old stony heart; no amount of science, civilization or culture can change the stony heart. It may be organized and given lofty names but it is still the unchanged stone; transfer it -- it is a transferred stone; re-name it and it is yet as hard as adamant; post-graduate it in institutions of highest learning and it is still the unresponsive stone; give it dramatic art, interpretative dancing and teach it gracefulness and then tap it and see that it has not been softened by all the processes; it is more to be dreaded than poor taste or grammar. Go on with the efforts to change it: polish it, paint it, name it, baptize it, catechize it, confirm it, commune it, join it to the church, immerse it, sprinkle it, receive it into the society on probation, or in full standing; go through the pretense of conversion with it and it is, on examination, a hard, unfeeling, unreasoning, unsympathetic stone. It can not be cured by veneering it or by poulticing it; the veneer will not stand under the test and the poultice will not draw. My wife once told me that a carbuncle on my neck was healed. I said, "It is not" -- she said, "It is;" I said, "It isn't," and she said, "It is, don't contradict me because you cannot see back of your head, " and I said, "I know I can't, but I can feel the back of my head. The inflammation is not gone yet. When it is healed there will be no inflammation and pain." That is how you can tell when the stony heart has been removed according to the promise of Jehovah, -- the inflammation and the pain is gone.

The Stony Heart is Unsympathetic: Some one says the only place you will find sympathy is in the dictionary and that one-half of the world is dying for the lack of sympathy and the other half is dying because it does not give the needed sympathy. The stony heart is cold and passionless, not warm with love, pity and sympathy. That word sympathy means to suffer with others; it is a close relative of compassion. Christ was moved with compassion on the shepherdless multitude and when our stony heart is removed we find, with the incoming of the heart of flesh, a tender pitiful sympathy for all mankind in all their burdens. The stony heart is selfish and not generous to friend, foe or God; the heart of flesh is generous and large-hearted to a fault and, as an old woman said, "givish." I have met three men who claim to be entirely consecrated and wholly sanctified, each of whom said to me that they could as easily give God a thousand-dollar check as turn their hand over "If they saw fit to do it!" What kind of language is this from those who are not their own? Who belong to another? It is surely not the language of entire consecration for the entirely consecrated soul sees fit to do whatever God shows him to do and he fears not to do it for -- "to Him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin."

The stony heart is Unsubmissive, unbending, unyielding, it does not gladly welcome the searching truth which would make it free; it is unspiritual, not subject to the law of God and cannot be. It is unfair! Why should a man who is supposed to be free from it have a struggle to be fair and generous; to do right; to receive truth; to walk in the light; to adjust himself to the ever-increasing demands of advancing light? to give of his means to be fair with God and man? It lacks-comprehension of the things which please God. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib but this people do not know: the Lord raised them up as his children and they rebelled against Him -- they were taken up with that which is not of God wherein He delighted not; they could not enter into fellowship with His sufferings.

The Lord has no use for the stony heart or He would not take it away and our great need is to recognize that there is something to be taken away after the impartation of the new heart and new spirit.

He will not make the discovery to all of us in the same way but He will sooner or later make its presence known to us; it may be by the revelation to us of our besetting sin of remaining unbelief; or as a quality of nature or disturbing element; or a sense of unutterable hunger to be filled with righteousness; as a Danish friend aptly expressed it: "I have the conviction of an unfulfilled longing;" or it may be a consciousness of needed cleansing; or of a wrong thought-life. Wesley called it sin in believers and Murray said that the believer must confess that he is yet in the carnal state. Finney said, "There must come a terribly searching application of the law of God to the heart and conscience of the believer before he can. enter into the enjoyment of the higher life of sanctification." The need may be discovered by the consciousness of remaining carnal pride as with Dr. Coke who thought he had in his justification the removal of the stony heart. Riding along in the stage coach a fellow-traveler fainted and Dr. Coke was dispatched to the spring near by for water to revive the man. On reaching the spring he discovered there was no vessel to carry the water in and not wishing to spoil his new beaver hat with its customary embroidered rose, he returned to the coach without the water. Looking at him in dismay another occupant of the coach asked him why he did not bring the water and receiving his reply with indignation rushed to the spring and dipped his own fine beaver hat into the spring, filled it and returned to the stricken man, and, dashing the water into his face, he was soon resuscitated. Dr. Coke, through this incident, discovered the remaining heart of stone.

The soul should pray for the Lord to reveal the stony heart, for, when the disease is recognized, the battle is half won. The government has a receiving teller in the Treasury Building who will receive our dirty, worn, germ-covered bills and give, in their place, new, clean, crisp bills that were never before in circulation. The Lord will receive our old stony hearts and give us hearts of flesh in their stead, thank God!

STONY HEART WHICH GOD WILL TAKE AWAY IS: Unwise, Unbelieving, Unable, Unkind, Unforgiving, Prayerless, Ungracious, Discourteous, Unloving, Joyless, Unbecoming, UnChristlike, Undiscerning, Ungenerous, Unready, Unsubmissive, Unwilling, Unyielded, Unspiritual, Unknowing, Unseemly, and Unthankful,

HEART OF FLESH WHICH HE WILL GIVE IS: Wise, Believing, Able Through Grace, Kind, Forgiving, Prayerful, Gracious, Courteous To All, Loving, Joyful, As Becometh Saints, Christlike, Discerning, Generous, Ready, Submissive, Willing, Yielded, Spiritually Knowing, Seemly, and Thankful.

The stony heart is negative -- the heart of flesh is positive -- possessing all the qualities the other lacks.

Finally, notice the text: word for word:--

I -- Jehovah, the great I Am with whom nothing is impossible -- Who speaks and it is done, Who commands and it stands fast -- :He has power to take out of the human heart all that Satan has put within it, or He is not God. WILL -- Denotes action or determination of the speaker to perform something definite. It is the direct opposite of passivity. TAKE -- That is, seize, secure: God assumes charge of the stony heart. AWAY -- That means to remove or convey: it implies absence, not presence. THE STONY HEART -- That is the definite, specific objective of this determination of the Father's will. OUT OF -- That means out not in and is as  definite as to the change of location of the stony heart as the promise is clear as to the place where Jehovah puts the heart of flesh -- I will give you a heart of flesh in which I will put my Spirit.

Linking these words together, we find that God promises and is determined, by a definite act of His Sovereign will, to seize the stony heart which is in us, secure it and convey it at a distance so that it will be absent, removed, outside of us, not in, and that God will thoroughly do this work. While recognizing that this removal does not preclude the impossibility of sinning, nor infallibility of judgment, nor exemption from mistake, nor from temptation, nor freedom from infirmity, yet it comprises what God has provided for us in Christ. There is no room here for a partial work or the suppression of the stone; or for more victory over it while it still indwells us, but its utter complete removal, elimination and carting away to the regions of the unknown and while the term eradication is not used here, it is implied.

This operation is preceded by the gift of a new heart and followed by a positive work of elimination of the stony heart and work of infilling: "I will put my Spirit in you" -- (this may be synchronous (at the same time) or subsequent to the removal of the stony heart) and cause you to walk in and keep and do my commandments. Bishop Warne says of thousands of his converts in India that this is their procedure: They are first justified and then sanctified and then they tarry for the Holy Ghost. How little the procedure matters so that they are full of the Spirit of God and manifest His fruitfulness in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The writer once greatly grieved the Lord for rebuking a good brother who gave ninety percent of his income to the Lord and prayed hundreds of souls into victory, because we rebuked him for saying that he was first justified and then regenerated, then sanctified and then baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire. Many who condemned the way he told his experience, had it perfectly straight according to the Wesleyan conception of the second-work, but they were woefully short on the fruit of the Spirit in life, some being lovers of money and married to the second wife while the first was alive.