Heart

I've seen the movie The Wizard of Oz. Okay. I'm pretty well 100% right here. How many of you have seen The Wizard of Oz more than a dozen times? Yeah, I probably have two. Every year growing up, that would always be played at least once on the television program, and now you can get your own copy of it if you want so desire. But I've seen it many, many times over the years and can tell you the story.

And you can tell me the story of The Wizard of Oz. Of Dorothy landing in this place called Oz and wanting to get back home to Kansas. And she's got her little black dog, Toto. And she starts off on the yellow brick road as she's been told to get to the city of Oz where the wizard will be able to get her back to Kansas. That's the essence of the story, but along the road, you all know she meets up with some friends and some foes.

She meets up with three individuals who become her friend and they all trot off to the land toward the city, the Emerald City. You've got the lion. And what was it the lion wanted? Anybody remember? Courage. The lion wanted to go and ask the wizard for courage. And then you had the scarecrow. And what was it that the scarecrow wanted? He wanted brains. Boy, you like this interactive business, don't you? He wanted brains. Then they met the Tin Man. And what was it the Tin Man wanted? A heart. Now, you remember the story of the Tin Man?

I want to focus on the Tin Man for a minute. They find the Tin Man who is standing alongside the road and he's kind of got his axe in his hand and he's frozen in his position. And what they don't tell you in the movie is why he got to that point. And if you ever read the book, how many of you read the book?

Some of you did. Okay. By Frank Baum, the Wizard of Oz, you find out the story of how the Tin Man got to that point where he was frozen. You see, the Tin Man had been a real man at one point. And he was in love with a very beautiful maiden who was going to marry this maiden and he was starting to build a home for her. But the Wicked Witch was envious and jealous of his love for this young woman. And she cast a spell on the Tin Man.

And so gradually the Tin Man's parts began and limbs began to wear out and they got replaced with tin. He found someone, a tin maker, tin master, who could replace him with his arms and his legs with tin and he could keep right on working.

And he did. He kept working along, doing his job as chopping the wood, making that he was going to build a home for his maiden and then merrier. But along the way, the work that he was doing led to eventually more jealousy on the part of the Witch and a further deepening of this spell. And as he kept working harder and harder, the man became more like a machine. And he eventually lost his zeal and his heart for his love because he was just working all the time.

And he didn't really care if he married her or not. He just kept working and working and working. And the spell got bigger and at one point he sliced himself in half with his axe. Well, that's how he got the body of tin. And so he could keep working and now he was more or less just a machine, a heartless machine, continuing to chop the wood and work at it. But there was no real...

he'd lost his passion for his beautiful maiden. But he could continue working as long as he used that oil can. Remember the oil can? And he kept his joints lubricated. But one day he got caught out in the rain. He was shown brightly. He felt very proud of himself and what he was able to do. He just kept working and working and working. And he was a complete tin man. But then in that pride, one day he forgot his oil and got caught out in the rain and he rusted up. And he'd been like that for about a year when Dorothy and maybe the scarecrow at that point, they came along.

And when you look in the book, you find more of the story. And what he then wanted to do as a result of joining up with this troop, going down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to find the wizard so that they could all get what they wanted. And of course, as we know, he wanted a heart. Let me read to you just a couple of paragraphs from the book, an excerpt from the book, the tin man's dialogue as he was thinking it.

He was talking about that year where he was frozen, his mind was still there. And he thought about himself. And he thought about what had brought him to that point.

He couldn't move, he couldn't do anything. He said, it was a terrible thing to undergo. But during the year I stood there, I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love, I was the happiest man on earth. But no one can love who has not a heart. And so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one.

If he does, I will go back to the maiden and marry her. Both Dorothy and the scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story of the tin woodman. And now they knew why he was so anxious to get a new heart. All the same, said the scarecrow, I shall ask for brains instead of a heart. For a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one. I shall take the heart, returned the tin woodman. For brains do not make one happy. And happiness is the best thing in the world.

That's why the tin man wanted a heart. He wanted to regain his happiness. That's what the movie doesn't tell you because, as all the good movies are, they have to cut out something to get it all in there and they don't tell you the whole story. That's why the tin man wanted a heart. Now, I normally don't get into mythical stories like that, but the Wizard of Oz, like any other mythical story, whatever it might be, always has elements that really bring us right back to the Bible.

The Wizard of Oz has a replete with symbolism that's right out of the book of Revelation. In the Bible, you've got the woman, Dorothy, like the church, trying to get back home. There's all this evil. The Wicked Witch of the West is after Dorothy. It's not just for the red shoes. That's just part of the story. The Wicked Witch of the West obviously represents Satan. Immediately, that brings up Revelation 12 of the dragon out for the woman.

You've got the Oz, who's this godlike figure that is supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient and all-knowing, in that sense, living in this emerald city, the kingdom of God. You've got the yellow brick road, which is kind of the road, the way to the kingdom of God. You have all these elements into play. Those are elements and themes that are right out of the Bible. The best stories of myths play on those themes, and they just repackage them.

Whether it's the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, Wizard of Oz, or any of the great mythic stories of life, they all play on those basic themes that come right out of the Bible. So, to relate to them in one sense shouldn't take us too far afield, and it's a story we all know. I don't mean to offend anybody by getting off into myth, at least I'm using it as an introduction to my topic here today. But I think it fits because we can at least put our minds around the concept and the ideas of a man, a ten man, who's wanting to find his heart.

And I think it fits very, very well to get into something that is really central to the message of the Bible. It is central to the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. Today, what I want to share with you, I want to show you the lost message of the Gospel. For those of you who like titles, the lost message of the Gospel is the title for this sermon. You think you know the Gospel, you think you've heard the Gospel of the Kingdom of God coming to this earth, and that is the Gospel, in large part.

There's a lot of elements to the Gospel. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, his life and death and resurrection are part of the story of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God as well. But there's a lost message of the Gospel that is important to each of us that I want to bring out today and help us to understand. Let's turn back to the book of Luke. In one of the parables that is probably one of the most central of all the parables Christ gave, this is one of the most central parables to the Kingdom of God.

In Luke 8, this is the parable of the sower and the sea.

Matthew 13 has a parallel account, but there's something different here in Luke 8, in the Luke account of this parable that I want to bring us to. In verse 4, Luke 8, When a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to him from every city, he spoke by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it.

Some fell on rock, and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others of the seed fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. When he had said these things, he cried, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

And then he goes on to talk about the purpose of parables, and that they are meant to hide certain elemental basic truths of the Scripture. Down in verse 11, he begins to explain the parable. Matthew 13 goes a little bit more into detail here. But here's the explanation. Verse 11. The parable is this. The seed is the Word of God, the truth, the gospel, being sown like grass seed, like wheat seed, like corn seed in a field. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear. Then the devil comes and takes away the Word out of their hearts. Lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the Word with joy, and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. They respond and they believe. They live by the truth of the gospel and the truths of God for a while. But something happens. Temptation, persecution, physical issues, whatever it might be. All of us could list two or three items very quickly as to what causes people to drift away from God, drift away from the church, drift away from obedience. They fall away.

Now the ones that fell, verse 14, among the thorns are those that, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life and bring no fruit to maturity. So all these categories are marched through, marches through to... Really, we could spend a whole sermon just going through each of these to, for the sake of the parable itself, which is not my point today. But they show the various ways by which the words of the gospel, the seed, are planted, nourished, snatched away, bare fruit, take root in varying ways and degrees. It's one of the most instructive parables for how we react to the truth of God and our calling as any other parable. But I want to get down to verse 15.

The ones that fell on the good ground... These are the ones who are going to endure. This is the ones we want to focus on. And I like the way Luke's account puts it. The ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

Those who bear fruit, those who hold on to it, who put down roots, who resist the cares of the world, and the thorns that are all around, resist all of that... He says they bear fruit, but he says something here, and this is what I like about Luke's account, as it describes this person. They have a noble and good heart. Matthew doesn't say that. A noble and good heart. How's your heart? Is it noble? Is it good? I ran across this phrase, a noble heart, just recently. I finished a couple of weeks ago reading the Count of Monte Cristo. I spent about six weeks reading it. Many of you know the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. We've seen the movie, Edmund Dante's, imprisoned illegally for 14 years in a prison, and then he escapes and finds his fabulous fortune. Then he takes revenge on the men who put him into prison. It's a fabulous story. For years I'd wanted to read it. I'd seen the movies, and I wanted to read it. Nearly 1,500 pages. That's why it took me a few weeks to get through it. They described Edmund Dante's, the hero of the story, at one point. He was described as having a noble heart. When you get into his character, he did have a noble heart, despite all that he had been put through. Luke here describes those who bear fruit for the kingdom, who bear fruit in their lives, who change, who endure, who develop, as people who have a good heart, a noble heart. This, I submit to us, is our goal. This is all that there is. This is what it's all about. For you and I, at our level, as we endure, as we deal with life, as we deal with the truth, as we wrestle with God, as we live our lives, as we maintain the faith, we have to do it with a noble and a good heart. This is our goal. And we have to understand that we do have a noble and good heart. That's something that is perhaps missing for a lot of us, for reasons I'll show in a minute. That we don't always understand that we do have, and we can have a noble and a good heart. But if we understand this, if we get this point, to me this locks us into one of the central keys, and really the lost message of the gospel. That then we can do anything. We can go anywhere. We will follow Christ anywhere and do anything. We can be anything. If we believe this, and if we act on it. And the reason perhaps we struggle more than we should, beyond our measure, or don't accomplish certain things, or perhaps still struggle even with our own spiritual image of our life and of ourselves, is because we don't understand this particular point of the gospel and what the Bible tells us. Because at times we have perhaps focused too much on the negative. Perhaps we have looked at certain scriptures and certain scriptures alone and thought, we don't have a good heart. There's one scripture, and some of you may have already been thinking about it, back in Jeremiah, chapter 17. I remember hearing the scripture and looking at it, hearing it taught. It's one of my first memory scriptures, I'm sad to say, that I had in my years. Jeremiah 17.9 I don't even have to turn to it. I can tell you what Jeremiah 17.9 says. Some of you could too. You're kind of nodding and smiling. The heart is deceitful above all things. And what? Desperately wicked. And who can know it?

I'm sad to say that was one of my first memory scriptures. I heard that very early on. Is it true? Yes, it's in scripture. Is that description of your heart?

We just read back in Luke 8.15 where it says, Those who bear fruit to the kingdom who endure have a noble and good heart. It doesn't say there that those that endure all the other things of that parable have a wicked heart above all things. And deceitful heart. If you have a deceitful heart, you wouldn't be here. If your heart is desperately wicked, then why on earth aren't you out on some other part of town engaged in something else today rather than being right here? Your heart isn't wicked and desperately wicked. Now, it may have been at one time. And at certain points of your life, you might find yourself a little bit irritated. You might slip and you might do some wicked things. But does that mean your heart is deceitful? You may go off down a wrong course for a period of time. Maybe you are deceived, but are you deceitful?

Get to point? I guess what I should have been pointed to in the early years was down in verse 14 as well. We should have read on down and memorized verse 14. Jeremiah prayed this way, Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed. Save me and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.

God heals our heart and he does heal. And he begins to patch it up. God doesn't want our heart to stay desperately wicked and against God. Otherwise, we would be just pretty well wrinkled up, shriveled, horrible looking individuals. Kind of like that picture of Dorian Gray. That turns and changes in ages right before the eyes into an old man. We'd look like that if we were continually wicked in our innermost thoughts and heart. There is a healing that takes place. Conversion is a process of healing as God gives us his spirit.

Repentance leads to our hearts being healed. When we fully understand the new covenant, the covenant that God has made with us, we have to move away from Jeremiah 17.9. Not forgetting the important lesson there of how we were and what we were and what we could become if we neglect God and if we turn from God.

But once we understand these things and we change, our hearts become different. In Jeremiah 31, let's look at what our heart is to become. Jeremiah 31, verse 31, talks about the new covenant. This is repeated by Paul in the book of Hebrews. But let's read it since we're here in Jeremiah. It saves a little bit of finger walking for us.

A little quicker. Verse 31, Jeremiah 31, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers and the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. That was the old covenant. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it in their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Now that is the essence of the new covenant right there through verse 33. As I said, it's repeated again in Hebrews by Paul to make the point that this is the terms by which we live and relate to God now.

God's law, and we are under the new covenant, God's law, still in effect, is being written on our hearts. Now if it's being written on our hearts, we better not be desperately wicked and deceitful or have that frame of mind. In fact, we shouldn't and we don't. Because things have changed. Let's quickly turn to Ezekiel 36 and notice a statement that is made here about the same concept.

Ezekiel 36. This is speaking here again of the new covenant and a new relationship. Ezekiel 36 and verse 26. Here the prophet says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them.

This marries right up with Jeremiah 31. This is, brethren, the lost message of the gospel. That God has given us a new heart and He is writing His laws upon our heart. If we understand this, and I think we do, theoretically, theologically, we probably do, but there comes a level of understanding it even deeper that relates back to Luke 8.15 where those who have a noble and good heart bear fruit.

That is really understanding that this is going on, an ongoing process with us. It is happening. God is writing His law upon our hearts. The heart is an interesting concept, just to think about it. We just read a few verses, a few scriptures here in Luke, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. It talks about the heart.

What are we talking about from a biblical perspective? We all know what the heart is, right? Smack center in the center of our body is our heart. It is right here. I don't believe it's over there. I have to ask my son. He aced his...it's right here, right? Right in the middle. It's not over here. Okay. So, I guess, theoretically, when we pledge allegiance, we should put it right there, but for some reason, we wind up putting it over there.

It's right in the center of our body. We all know the value and the importance of the heart. We could talk all day about that. That's not exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about the Scriptures. The heart is really what's up here. It's not just the brain. It's not that chemical, physical mass of neurons and synapses that are clicking back and forth, at least most of the time, up there in our heads. When the Bible talks about the heart, it's really talking about our intellect, our emotions, and our mind.

It's not so much the physical beating heart, but it's that consciousness mind that we have that really makes us human. We'd probably go to 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul talks about the spirit in man. By that spirit, we understand the things of man. That really is at the essence of what the Bible says when it comes to the heart.

It makes us thinking, reasoning, emotional, reactive human beings. That's really the heart, the seed of the care and the concern that we have. When the Bible talks about the heart, it is talking about the essence of who we are. Back in Proverbs chapter 4, and verse 23, just to pull out another verse that talks about the heart, Proverbs 4.23, it says, Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Keep your heart. Guard your heart. Protect your heart. For out of it spring the issues of life. This is who we are. It's what we think. It's the character. It's the consciousness. It's the reality.

It's the human matter that we have. Out of the heart we love. Out of the heart we hate. Out of the heart we strive. We envy. We love. This is the seed of all emotions and the seed of all intellect. It is where the spirit in man works to make us all human. It's such an important subject. So many scriptures talk about the heart and the Bible.

So much of life talks about the heart. I did a search on this to find out that the heart is a subject, one subject talked about more than any other subject in the Bible. More than service. More than sin. The heart is talked about more than any other topic. I did a search on one of the internet Bible programs that are out there. Just quickly to see what would come up.

I typed in heart. You could do the same. 926 scriptures came up with the heart in them. Just the word heart. Many more would have synonymous thoughts and concepts with it as well. But nearly a thousand. Over 900 scriptures just with the heart itself.

When I was doing that I thought, what about songs? How much life of our life we use the term heart and talk about the heart. So I pulled up my iTunes. I have a modest 2500 songs in my iTunes library on my computer. I typed in heart to search all the songs just to find my title. The songs that I have in my own personal library that talk about the heart. Because you can begin to think about those. In my particular library I came up with a short list that I wrote down. You're cheating heart. We talked about, oh Hank, talked about your cheating heart.

Young at Heart was another one of the songs. Wooden Heart, that's a Johnny Cash song. What Do I Do With My Heart was another song. That's a new one by the Eagles. Teardrops in My Heart was another song, as I wrote down. Shoot Straight From Your Heart. I think that was George Strait that came through. Most of my songs are country, as you can pretty well figure out here. Sea of Heartbreak, Rose of My Heart. I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Nothing for a broken heart. Hearts of Stone. Heartbreak Hotel. Heartaches By The Number. Another one, you know that one. And this was my favorite of all on my list. Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart.

I can't remember who did that one. That's just a portion of the songs. I think I had 112 songs that came up on my listing out of my short library. But you go through that, you go through poetry, you go through literature. How much the heart is the subject of song and poetry and literature? Because it's the essence of life.

And we break our hearts, we pull them out, stomp those suckers flat, and do all kinds of things with hearts and our emotions and our relationships. And the Bible has a great deal to say about the heart. Deuteronomy 6, 5. Love, Lord your God, with all your heart, it says.

Just look at a few scriptures. 1 Samuel 16, verse 7. That should be another one of your memory scriptures. 1 Samuel 16, 7. What does that say? It's a scripture that describes King David. And it says, God looks on the heart. God looks on the heart when Samuel was anointing David to be king. We're here in Proverbs, so let's look at Proverbs 3 and verse 5.

It says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. With all of your mind, with all of your being, trust God with your heart and rely on Him. Luke 12, verse 34. It says, Where your treasure is, there will also be your heart. We know that scripture. Psalm 119 and verse 4. David writes, Your word I have treasured in my heart, in my mind. I've stored it up. I've kept it.

I've been diligent and I've protected it there. Matthew 15 and verse 8. Christ said, These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.

And then when we just recently covered Matthew 5 and verse 8. Blessed are the... No. Let's try again. Blessed are the pure in heart. Pure in heart. I'd like to be young in heart.

I try to be young in heart. Good thing. But blessed are the pure in heart. You can do your own search. You can put together your own list. Just look at all of the scriptures that talk about the heart. The heart can be wounded. The heart can be broken. The heart can be troubled. The heart can be cheerful, joyful, merry, envious, sad, broken. All of those things. And it plays so much into our life. And it's such a major, major part of our life. Think about your life.

Think about your life. What about your heart? What is the state of your heart? How strong is it? What about your job? Do you like your job? How do you feel when you get up on Monday morning? Do you like going to your job? Are you part of the TGIF crowd? We have a whole restaurant chain named after people who, thank God, it's Friday. Why? Because they don't like their job. I heard a saying on the radio the other day driving, and I've heard it before, you have two.

And I've used it. If you really like your work, you really like your job, you're probably one of those people who's never worked a day in their life. Because you like your job. It's not work to you, it's love. You love it. I've had my frustrations with my job. There have been moments of exasperation, sadness, difficulty. But I can relate to that statement because I've done what I've done for 35 years, what I wanted to do.

And at heart, I've loved it. So in one sense, I've never worked a day in my life. Some of you are saying, I know. But if you love your job, you enjoy going to work. And Friday, 5 o'clock, other than the Sabbath, you don't think about your life that way. The Johnny Paycheck song, Take This Job and Shove It! is not on your iTunes library, if you think that way. But so many people don't. And some of you don't think that way. Your jobs are a chore. It's how close am I to retirement?

What do I have to do to get by? Think about that. Is your heart not in your job? Sometimes we've had to make trade-offs, we've had to make things work. We've been dealt certain things that we didn't always choose. Sometimes we chose poorly. But think about it. Is your heart in your job? The reason people don't succeed or do as well is because their heart just isn't there. Their mind's not engaged, they're not interested. My dad lost the heart in his job. I've thought about this over the years. For like 25 years, he owned and operated a Texaco gas station. And for a number of years, he made a very good living at it.

He didn't get wealthy, but he could take a hunting trip to Colorado every year. He bought a brand new 1959 red and white Oldsmobile. He parked it out in front of the car so everybody in the neighborhood could see. He made a living, as he said. But then things in the business changed. Customers, big accounts left and this and that as things happened. After about 20 years, he lost heart in his job.

And he quit developing it. And eventually, by 1969, he had to close it. But he lost heart in it. And that happened so often in terms of business, in terms of jobs, and why we succeed or don't succeed, and the levels to which we succeed. Think about it. Why do certain relationships fail? People divorce. Our marriage is just kind of cool and they may be under the same roof, but there's not much going on. Why do relationships between people fail? Good friends, friendships fade. Because neither partner has a heart for the relationship.

They've lost heart in the relationship for various reasons. Why do people fight depression, discouragement? We've lost heart at times. I know there are certain physical-chemical things that will take place, but there's also the emotional part of it. There's also the heart element to it as well, and that of choice. Addictions very often take hold. We give our heart to a chemical. We give up on life, on ourselves. Often that is a big part of the addiction process. You see this matter of heart and having a strong heart, a good heart, a noble heart, is a very important part of our life and of our relationship with God and all of our relationships and our work and our life.

That's why he says, guard your heart. Guard it jealously from a spiritual perspective so that sin, temptation, the evil one, the wicked witch, doesn't get in there and cast a spell on us and cause us to lose heart. Guard your heart when you are working too much, to where you lose heart and a relationship with somebody, your mate, your children, your heart's in your work. And it becomes the mistress of the story that we give all of our time to and we can't spend any time with our family.

All these scriptures come back to play. We have a major, major role to play in that, in our hearts. In 1 Kings chapter 3, there's an amazing story, 1 Kings 3, dealing with Solomon when he became king. 1 Kings chapter 3. Solomon became king and he followed a legend. It was not only his dad, but his dad was a legend, David. Legends are always hard to follow. You can't walk in the same shoes. They're too big. And David was that. Solomon had a little bit of a fight with one of his half-brothers who tried to take the throne.

They had to get that resolved. Finally, he consolidated his rule on the throne. He was north of Jerusalem and he was making a sacrifice. In verse 5 of 1 Kings 3, at Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and God said, What shall I give you?

Solomon said, You have shown great mercy to your servant, David, my father, because he walked before you in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with you. Remember, David was a man after God's own heart. 1 Samuel 16.7, it was that heart God looked on and pulled him from all of the sons of Jesse. He was the youngest runt of the litter. God pulled David up and shoved him in front of Samuel's eyes and said, This is the one. This is the one. I look on the heart. You look on the stature. You look on the clothes. You look on the wavy hair and the suntan and everything else.

I look on the heart. This is the man I want. And this is who Solomon had to follow. You have continued this great kindness for him, and you have given him a son to set on his throne as it is this day. Now, O Lord, my God, you have made your servant king instead of my father, David. But I'm a little child. I do not know how to go in or come out.

At this point in his life, he had a humility. He knew his limitations. He was a man. You know, plenty. Dirty Harry said at one point, a man's got to know his limitations. Solomon knew his limitations. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you've chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore, and this was his request, give to your servant an understanding heart to judge your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours.

Of all that he wanted, the genie was in front of him. He had rubbed the little magic lamp, and the genie had popped up. What do you want? He wanted wisdom. I want an understanding heart to judge the people. In the speech, please the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. You can read the rest of the story. God said, I'm going to give you the things you didn't ask for, but I'll give you wisdom. And he did. And he had an understanding heart, and an astute mind as long as he was close to God.

Solomon's life is an interesting one there, but he asked for an understanding heart, and God was pleased with that. We should ask God as well for an understanding heart. He's writing his laws upon our heart day by day, season by day, season by season, experience by experience. And we need to be specific. We need to ask God for an understanding heart. It's so important. And why is this important? Why all these scriptures about the heart? Why all these stories about the heart?

Why think about the heart? It is the lost message of the gospel. It is. As I said, if you believe this, if you get this, and if I get it, we can do anything. We can go anywhere. We can accomplish anything. We will follow God anywhere, and we will succeed. If we get this point of the gospel, and understand that our hearts can be healed, that our life can be changed, that we can develop this relationship with God, a deep, abiding, satisfying relationship with the Creator God, who wants to write His laws on our heart, and to make us His children.

That is the lost message of the gospel. And no matter what problem we've had from our past, no matter what mistake we have made even in our present, we can have a good heart, because our hearts are good. As long as God's Spirit is there, and as long as our hearts are turned toward God. Now, we can deceive ourselves, yes, and we can do wicked things. We can fall. But the key is understanding the process that is taking place and engaging in it.

We'll talk more about this as we get into the Holy Days, and certainly the Days of Unleavened Bread relate to this, and reinforce this as well. For now, why is this so important to have a pure heart, to have an understanding heart, to have a noble and good heart? Why is all of this so important to guard our heart?

Let's remember another story. The answer is in another story. It's the story of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, in the hot Sinai desert. And God tells them to kill a few goats, tan a few hides, and build this tabernacle according to His specifications. And they do it. You read about it in the book of Numbers. Moses comes down with this blueprint, and they go to work. And they have craftsmen to make it all happen with the skins and the wood, and the gold, the silver, and all of it comes together, and the various instruments, and the pots, and the pans.

They create this tabernacle out in the wilderness. And there's two aspects to it. There's a holy place, which only the priests can go into, kind of the outer court. And then there's this other inner court called the Holy of Holies. We all know that. And later, when Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, they put the same pattern there, only in a permanent structure. You had this outer court of the temple itself, which was a holy place.

And the priests could walk into the holy place, and there were various parts of the administration and the priesthood there. But then there was this big veil, behind which was the Holy of Holies. And it was in the Holy of Holies that God lived.

And His presence was there. And when you read the Scriptures in Numbers, and later on at the time of Solomon, you have to understand that the Spirit of God, it says, was descended there, and then the smoke and all of that. And there was something there. And the high priest, it was so important that they understand that. That it was only the high priest that could go into that Holy of Holies, and he could only go in on the Day of Atonement. And no one else could go in there, because that's where God was.

That's where God lived. And what was in the Holy of Holies? The Ark of the Covenant. You've all seen the Indiana Jones movie. So you know that. And what was in the Ark of the Covenant? There were several things, but what was the real big number one ticket item in the Ark of the Covenant? And commandments, on the two tablets of stone. They were in there. The law. The law. And then God's presence. And that symbolized God's presence among his people. And the whole symbolism of everything that went on there. But all of that was just a symbol of something greater to come. Deeper eternal truth. Because Christ's sacrifice did away with all the need for that. And fulfilled every aspect of the priesthood, and the sacrifices, and the smoke, and the offerings, and the various instruments, and the bowls, and the altars, and everything. All of that was fulfilled in Christ's death. So much so that we understand things a little bit different today. If you turn over to 1 Corinthians 6, you see how we look at it today. Because we don't look at a temple. We're not interested in building a temple. Except from a prophetic point of view. As we look at a temple and some of the things that the book of Daniel and Matthew 24 tell us will come in the future. But in terms of your life and my life, the need for a temple, a building, an altar, and a priesthood, in the sense of the Old Testament, not necessary. Because in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul tells us this truth. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own? Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Again, not a new concept. We all should know that. We've read this scripture. From that we can draw a number of conclusions in terms of certainly a spiritual conclusion that our body is the temple of God's Spirit. The temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, that God is given, and we're not our own. Our body, our life is that. We should treat it well. We shouldn't abuse it. You can get into all kinds of physical aspects of that and certainly principles that are important to remember. Health, diet, and many other things that you draw from that. But this is the reality. We don't look at a building. Back in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, Again, he says, God's Spirit dwells in us. Where does it dwell? Where do you think God's Spirit dwells? Your toe? Your thumb? Your right arm? Behind your ear? Or sometimes you might put your chewing gum? Where does God's Spirit dwell? Let's turn over to Ephesians 3 for the answer. Ephesians 3.

Verse 14, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts, through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with the saints what is the width, length, depth, and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Where does God's Spirit dwell? Christ dwells in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Where's our heart? Well, the beating, pumping heart is right here. But we know that it's not there, literally. God's Spirit is in our mind. It's, again, joined to the Spirit in man. 1 Corinthians 2 tells us that God's Spirit, actually Romans 8 talks about God's Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. But God's Spirit is in our heart. It's in our mind. It's just joined to that Spirit that makes us human in which we reside, all of the emotions and all of the things that we've been talking about. All of that which we need to guard and be diligent to preserve and to protect. In other words, Christ is in us. We are now, we are told, the temple of God. So, let me put it another way. Where's the Holy of Holies today? Where's the Holy of Holies today? I've looked on the spot where it once stood in Jerusalem. I've been in that spot and I've looked on it with my own eyes, where it stood in the days of Solomon. But that's not the Holy of Holies today. The Jews would love dearly to be able to prostrate themselves on that rock and pray. But there's nothing holy there anymore. Where's the Holy of Holies today? When you put these Scriptures together, it's in your heart. It's in your heart because that's where God's Spirit dwells. That's where God dwells. And that Spirit is writing God's laws on our heart. It's not kept in a box, in a physical spot in the Holy of Holies. It's being written on our hearts.

And we have noble and good hearts. And we are to be bearing fruit and developing character and righteousness. That's the lost message of the Gospel. By repentance and faith, we're cleansed. That has very deep significance. As I say, to believe that would take us anywhere. It would take us anywhere and allow us to do anything. Let's go back to Luke 8 and read that again. I want to leave you with this thought. This is just the tip of the iceberg as to what it really means. I'm going to give you a list of three things to do today. I just want you to think about this reality. I want you to do your own reflection and your own study and your own thinking about yourself and your life. And I'm not trying to overturn anything and discredit anything. I'm just trying to help us to understand the lost message of the Gospel and to focus on that because we all have hearts. And those hearts are good if we have repented and God's Spirit is with us, in us. God dwells with us and He's writing His Spirit upon us and He doesn't dwell with wickedness. We could turn to any number of Scriptures that back that statement up. God doesn't dwell with wickedness. That's why the temple left the Spirit in the time of Ezekiel and God's presence left Israel because of sin. But because of God's grace, because of God's goodness, we have that Spirit with us and we have hearts that can be touched, hearts that are good, hearts that are being bombarded. I don't say that our hearts and our life is home free. Don't misunderstand me there. You see, if I can go back to the story that I opened with, just to use that, since we all know it, we're still on that yellow brick road, folks. There is an enemy, an evil, a source of evil that is wanting to attack us and knows every move we make. You see why these stories are so great and they've endured? But they're all copycats off of the greatest story, which is the truth and the Bible.

The fact is, you and I have been placed down in our own story. Dorothy found herself plopped down in the middle of a story that was bigger than her and she had to figure it all out. And that's part of the lesson right there. You and I have been placed right in the middle of a story by our calling to open our minds to understand that there is a lot more going on in this world than meets the eye. Remember in the movie when it went from black and white to color? There's a whole lot more going on in our own world than we realize. And there is a struggle. There is a daily struggle that we have to get up to and we have to endure, as well as we have to guard our hearts. We have to cherish this prized possession that we have, because we're marching off down the Ellebrick Road. We already got our heart. We're not like the 10 men. We've got our heart. We've got courage. We've got to use our brains. But all of that is in the package that God gives us. And it is a quest. It is a journey. But it's the most important journey that anyone will ever take part in and it's a journey toward the Kingdom of God and it's real. And again, we can be entertained for a while as we read a novel or see a movie about some great myth that someone has cooked up, but understand that it's merely a copy of what's right in here. Revelation 12 is probably the blueprint for just about any of it. But that's another story, another sermon. So we are in a struggle and there is an antagonist working against us. But God has given us a good heart. And in Luke 8 and verse 15, we are those among whom the seed has fallen in good ground. And we have heard the Word and with a noble and good heart we keep it and we bear fruit with patience. As long as we do that, that we are part of the story illustrated by this one parable, which is one parable within all of the Bible that gives us many different other teachings and stories to emphasize the one point, that we are in a struggle. We are a story bigger than ourselves, but we have a part to play. And God has given us a noble and good heart to do it. And let's be about it and let's think on this as we begin to think and plan over the coming weeks toward the Holy Days and toward the picture of that plan of salvation that God has opened up for all of us.