A Matter of the Heart

Good afternoon, everyone, and wasn't the ABC chorale wonderful? Yeah, they are. They put out a really good sound for 14 people. So we really appreciate them, the harmony, their musical class. We appreciate them and all their service. Some of them have stayed back for the feast. They were very helpful to us. So thank you, ABC chorale. Thank you very much.

Ken Shoemaker, who's been leading them for 25 years. Yeah, when I started, I moved on here 25 years ago. So this is my longest place I've ever lived in my life. So I'm enjoying Cincinnati. I probably will stay here. Our Cincinnati Bengals are not quite my favorite team. I do like the Steelers, but I like Buffalo because I lived in Buffalo for many years. So anyhow, it's nice to be with you. Happy Sabbath. I'm sorry for stumbling up on the stage. I left my cane back somewhere at home.

And we got in the car, we drove, I said, I'm sure it's over there, but it's usually on my wife's side. I wasn't there. So I can walk all right, but my balance is not so good. My knees sometimes hurt more than others, and cold weather doesn't do them a lot of good. Anyway, it's great to be here.

Great to see you on the Sabbath, and we're really happy to be among God's people. Thank you for being here, all of you. Did you know that there are over 800 scriptures in the Bible with the word heart in them? Some say close to a thousand. There are two primary meanings of the word heart in the Greek and Hebrew.

And when that word heart is used, one, it can refer to the physical heart, that which pumps the blood throughout our system. And secondly, it refers to the inner man. It's a figurative use of the word heart, which means the entire man with his emotions, with his thoughts, and with his innermost thoughts and feelings. Some describe that aspect as the inner man, the character that you're building as a person. And that that's, when you say the core, the center of it, when you see some of the Greek words, what Greek and Hebrew words, they'll help amplify that.

And I'm just going to cover that very briefly. I'll try to make sure I get this sermon done in times. I read an article years and years ago. This comes from Reader's Digest when I was getting Reader's Digest. This is an old article, probably from, let's see, I think it was 19 April of 1967. But it's just as valid. A lot of the facts I double-checked. It says, I am Joe's heart. And it tells you all about the heart, and the absolute heart is fascinating.

But tell me, when it says, Love God with all your heart, does that mean you pour out your blood? And you know what? If we don't understand what the word heart is, we will have a very difficult time loving God as we're supposed to do at the first commandment that Jesus Christ gave. We'll see that in a moment. If we don't understand how important it is to have a good heart, because as we know that heart can be evil, we know that in Noah's time it was only evil continually.

Could you imagine living at a time that all a person ever did was do wrong? Was do dirt? Was speak dirt? Act dirt? Toward others? What kind of... And that's what God said. I'm sorry that I even made human beings. God put in them potential. That potential has to be that we recognize what is human, what is carnal, what is earthy, and what is spiritual. And if we get too involved in the earthy, the carnal mind takes over. And when it takes over, it can go amok.

So the Cleveland Clinic talks about the physical heart. Just give you a few facts about the physical heart. Your heart pumps, listen to this, 2,000 gallons of blood each day. You know how much 2,000 gallons is? It's enough to fill an 8 by 10 foot swimming pool. It beats around 100,000 times a day. Don't stop and start counting.

Because in 79 years, in 79 year lifespan, your heart will beat 2.9 billion times. So to count even to 1 billion, you know how long it would take you? To just count to 1 billion, just 1. Between 79 and 250 years. Why? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 100 and 1, 100 and 2. It starts to take longer time to say 1,001, 1,002, 10,001, 10,002, 100,001. You have to say all those words to get up to counting one by one. It will take you 79 years to count how many times. And our hearts will just beat automatically. One of the fascinating aspects of the human body. And you know, it also goes through your heart's pump 1.9 gallons of blood each minute. And they circulate through 60,000 miles of arteries, capillaries, veins to get to your heart and all other cells of our bodies. If the cell does not get the nourishment from the heart, from the blood that comes from the heart, we will die. It'll die. Eventually, we will die. The only part of the body that does not get blood from the heart, you know what it is?

Your eyeball. Does not get blood. You know what it gets? How you nourish it? Tears. So when you cry, you're actually nourishing your eyes. That's the only nourishment they get. That comes from the Temple Health, it comes also from the Cleveland Clinic. That the only cell in all the body that does not get, the only part is the cornea of the eye. It gets nourishment from our tears. So when you cry, when you blink, you're nourishing your eyes. Isn't that fascinating? But the heart beats, beats, beats. And no wonder it wears out sometimes. Many times. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States of America. Now, I'm not going to be talking much more about the physical heart, but I just wanted to awe and inspire you about how great God is, who made the heart, just like the same God who made the sun. Why does the sun keep burning? And why can the sun, from 93 million miles away, heat the earth?

I'm going to do that, because there's a God in heaven who made it, just like there's a God in heaven who made your heart and designed it so carefully. And you know, your heart has two pumps. Two pumps, not just one. One that pumps it to the body, and the other one pumps it to the lungs, so that it can be cleansed, and also so it can be received, the oxygen, to be able to oxygenate other cells. So there are two main words that are used. One in Hebrew, leb, leb, leb, or lebab, that's in Hebrew. And there's the Greek, it's kardia.

And here's what Brown Driver and Briggs say, at Lexicon, on Hebrew. It says, this word means the inner man, the mind, the will, the heart, the inner man, in contrast to the outer man. What you are like, character-wise, not what you look like, not your physical aspect, but what you actually are, the character that you're developing. In the Greek, it's kardia, and that means the heart, the thoughts, the feelings. Helps word study puts it this way, and that came from Strong's exhaustive concordance. Helps word study puts it this way. Cardia, the heart, it's the affective center of our being. You think about the heart, that's the core of your body. There are five main organs, five main organs, four of which you can live without for a short time. One of which you cannot live if it stops at your brain. They have no machine to keep your brain running. They do have machines that will keep your heart running for a period of time. When they take the heart out to operate on it, open heart surgery, take it off, put a machine, keeps your blood circulating. They don't have any such machine for the brain. The other one is the lungs. Very important for cleansing, putting oxygen. The kidneys deliver both for cleansing and purifying and getting rid of toxins. Five main organs. The most important organ from the standpoint of one that you can't do without or you'll die is the brain. The second most important organ has to do with the heart. Even the physical side of it tells you how important the heart is. Here's what it says, the effective center of our being and the capacity of moral preference, your desire, your choice. That comes from the heart, not your physical heart. Sometimes you can think, well, how can my physical heart think? My title of the sermon is, it's a matter of the heart. It is a matter of the heart.

Cardia is mentioned over 800 times, I mentioned that, but never referring. This comes from one of the commentaries. Never referring to the literal physical pump that drives the blood. That is, heart is only used figuratively in both the Old and New Testaments.

So let's get down to the main subject of this sermon, and that is, why is the heart so important?

Why is the heart so important to you? Why a bad heart will keep you from being in the kingdom of God? Why you must guard your heart? Why you must ask God to guard your heart? And to guide your heart? And to lead your heart? Let's take a look. Proverbs 4, verse 23, and by the way, I have the Bible here in case I get messed up, but I copied every one of the scriptures right from the New King James. So hopefully it'll be exactly as you read it in your Bibles. Proverbs 4, verse 23, here's what this sage, probably Solomon in this case, wrote. Keep your heart with all diligence. Why should you pay attention to your heart? For out of it spring the issues of life. Life comes from you. Your life comes from you and your heart. Proverbs 14, verse, I'm not going to read. It talks about the soundness of the heart. A sound heart is a life to the body, a sound heart. And then let's continue. Colossians 3, verses 22 to 24, we will read. And this talks about how the heart is affected and how the heart affects us and why we need to pay attention to our heart. Now some people are more hearty people. Not hearty, but hearty. That means they feel. And you can tell right away when somebody, when you ask them a question and they're going to answer, they say, I feel, when they say I feel, they're very much a heart person. They say, I think they're a head person. Now some people's heads don't allow for people with heart. Unfortunately, it's best to be a mix of both. Don't let your heart rule you either or else you're going to be an emotional basket case. On the other hand, if your head is, you have no sensitivity toward others. Compassion is almost out the window. Unless it's forced.

So many times I've encountered head, I've, according to Myers-Briggs, I'm kind of both. I'm almost equal, heart and head, feelings and thoughts. Almost.

I've talked with people, I've been on councils with people, where the, some of them cannot understand when you feel something. And I've given, I have a sermon I'm preparing, I've never given it yet, called feelings versus facts.

And you know what? It shouldn't be versus, should feelings and facts. Because sometimes feelings do lead you to the facts. And sometimes feelings help you discover the facts.

But some people who are factual only, they can't understand people with feelings very well. They don't relate well to people who feel. And it's hard to have compassion without feeling for others. So, very important that the feeling aspect is there. Colossians 3, verses 22-24. Bond servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as bend pleasers, but in sincerity of heart. With sincerity of heart. So that heart signals, this person is genuine, this person is real. Sincerity of heart, fear God. And whatever you do, do it heartily.

Do it with all your heart. You know that, what is it? Ecclesiastes 9-10, what's whoever your hands are finds to do. Do it with all your might. God says we should love God with all of our heart, all of our might, all of our mind, and all of our soul. And that word heart can encompass all of those in the figurative sense.

When we do something with our might, it's usually done with our heart too. Heartily. Fearing God. Do it as heartily as to the Lord not to men. Everything you do, do you do it heartily to God? Well, the man asked me to do this, the person asked me to do that. Are you doing it heartily to God, or are you doing this to men? I'll just do this for men. God says do it to me. Do it as if I'm there watching you. Do it as if I'm the one that told you.

Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. Deuteronomy 5, 29, you're familiar with this, where God laments, but it's a good lament. He said, oh, that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them. They were obedient at that time. He wasn't chastising them. He was saying, I just wish you could have this kind of a heart all the time. I wish you had your heart in it all the time.

But they didn't. Israel, there are flashes of heart and mostly evil heart. Flashes of good heart and mostly evil heart. We'll see that evil heart in a moment. Deuteronomy 5, 29, write it down in your notes. It's a great scripture. Matthew 22, verses 37 to 38, and we'll come to the crux of this, why it's so important. Matthew 22, 37 and 38, Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord. They asked Him, what is the great commandment of the Lord? Jesus said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.

There was a love song sung by the letter written by other groups too called, Love Me With All Your Heart. That's all I want, dear. Love me with all your heart as I love you. God loves you with all of His heart. He wants you to love Him with all of your heart. But if you don't even know what your heart is, how do you love Him with all your heart? And I think a lot of people avoid being hardy.

I don't want to be sentimental. I don't want to cry about this. Don't cry. Hey, you know what? When people cry on the phone to me, I say, You know, good for you. You're releasing a lot of emotion, and you have a reason you're crying. Good for you. I don't try to stuff them up and stop them. Here, Kleenex. Here, here, here's a whole box in case you need it. People who feel are wonderful because they can let it out. And when they're in touch with their feelings, they can say it also with their head how they've been feeling.

A lot of people stifle their feelings. I talk with people who've gone through situations that are very dour and very difficult, and all they do is stuff. I don't want to cry. I don't want to cry. I don't want to say, I'm up, I'm up, I'm weak. Good people cry. Jesus wept. Is he a wimp? I wouldn't want to call him that. Jesus Christ is strong and powerful. Tears have a purpose. They help us understand. Love God with all your heart. Many love songs talk about the heart.

Many expressions talk about the heart. I could read just a couple of them, just give you a sample. Heart expressions, big hearted, half hearted, soft hearted, hard hearted, light hearted, heart beat, heartbreak, heartburn, heart felt, heart sick, heart rending, heartstrings, heart to heart, hearty, after one's heart, at heart, break one's heart, by heart, learn something by heart, change of heart, do one's heart good, eat your heart out, from the bottom of my heart, have a heart, heart in the right place, heart and soul, lay it to heart, lose one's heart, near one's heart, set the heart at rest, take heart, set your heart on, and to your heart's content, and with all your heart.

That's not the only ones, but that's a good sampling. Heart is very important to life, and a good heart is very important to your spiritual life. He says, love God with all your heart, all your soul. Huh! I didn't think I had a soul. Yes, you do. You know what the soul is? It's your life. Suki. Or, sukei. Sukei is the way they pronounce it. We used to say, su-chei. It's not su-chei. Su-kei. It's about the way that you explain it. The meaning of it is your inner being or life, soul. It's translated soul. And by the way, animals have soul in the Old Testament.

They have souls because it means your life, your blood life, your alive. So he says, you're supposed to love God with all your being, all you are. And also, he says, with all your mind. The Greek word for all your mind is dia-noia. Dia-noia. And it means your understanding, your thought and your intention, your imagination, your mind, your thoughts.

Love God in every way, in every aspect. When we walk through life, when we're baptized, we receive God's Holy Spirit. God's Holy Spirit gives us the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. We'll read that toward the end. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. We can have a mind like God. And our minds today will change when we're made spirit. We're not going to take our physical minds into the kingdom of God because flesh and blood can't enter it. So you can't take.

All of me goes in as a spirit, but my fleshly mind goes in. It does not. Your fleshly heart does not. But what you will take is the character that has been produced by a good heart and a good mind and a good effort. Deanoia is very important. So he's left God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. If you don't understand heart, and if you don't have heart, you'll have a hard time fulfilling that commandment.

You won't know what heart is. Genesis 6, 5. Just a couple of scriptures on how evil the heart can become. The heart can be good, or it can be evil. Genesis 6, 5. How evil the heart can be and can revert to even in Christians without God's cleansing it. That's what repentance does and belief cleanses us. Then the Lord saw, we're reading, quoting Genesis 6, 5. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent, every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Can you imagine people who can't think of anything but evil? They can't even say anything good. That's what they had come to when God looked down and said, Noah, it grieves me that I even made human beings. Now God made us to have to fight something and resist something, because he doesn't want somebody made perfect like Lucifer was. Perfect in beauty, but he was not perfect in character. He doesn't want that.

Matthew 12, and the word there for evil means evil, bad, wicked, harmful, unpleasant. Some of the meanings of that word evil is raw. Evil, bad, wicked, harmful, unpleasant. Matthew 12, verses 34 and 35. You say, do I understand who that person is? Yes, you can understand. How can I speak up here to you without you knowing who I am? I can't. I can't speak to you casually without you not knowing who I am. Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What's residing in your thoughts and your feelings and your intent, what's residing in your emotions about something, someone, or whatever, you cannot hide.

So when you speak of that, we know you. You can't hide it. You go to the spokesman's club, you can't hide who you are. When would you get up and speak? We know who you are. You go to the team club, we know who you are. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.

And an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. If he is good-hearted, what comes from his mouth? Good. If he is evil-hearted, guess what comes from his mouth? Evil. You could only hide it for so long. You can't disguise your natural self. You could have it changed. You could have it cleansed.

You could have God purify you. Help me to have pure thoughts. So again, in Matthew 15, verses 16-20, verse 18 repeats this. But those things which proceed out of the mouth, they ask him, So what about a person who eats this?

He said, if they eat something with unwashing hands, OK, a little dirt in it, it'll be purified and sent out through the toilet. It'll be gotten rid of through the pores of the skin. It'll be eliminated. But you know what? What comes from the... He said, But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. If the heart is not right, you can't hide it. I can't hide it.

I could put on for a while. Oh, yeah. I could put on the right words and right things and sound right. If you hear me very much, you know who I am, good or bad, you know who I am. And the same way with you. Same way with you. He said, these are the things, all these thefts, false witness, blasphemies, fornications, adulteries, murders, evil thoughts. These are the things which defile a man not to eat with unwashing hands. So a summary of some of the words, there are many more of these than you'll find.

My point is not to dwell on the evil, but to show you there is evil there that can be cleansed. Proverbs 10, 20, a heart of little worth speaks about a heart that's worth nothing or value. Proverbs 16, 5, proud in heart. Jeremiah 17, 9, we're all familiar with that. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who could know it? I know it. Soon as you open your mouth, I can know you.

You are also I know you by your fruits, by what you bear in your life. I know you. You know me. And you know me is either good or bad. I hope I have more on the good side than bad side.

Romans 2, 5, a hardened and unrepentant heart. I won't change. I won't change. Which has stimulated a sermon that I'm working on. One that I'm working on has to do with self-will. You look up the Scriptures on self-will. There are a whole bunch of them that allude to it, but there are several that talk about it. Are you going to do your will no matter what? What I want to do, that counts, not with anybody else. I'll cover that some other time. 1 Kings 8, 39. I found this Scripture in my early years, studying going through Scriptures. When I was a student at Ambassador College, I remember finding it. And I always remembered it since that time. 1 Kings 8, 39. Who would ever think there's a nugget of truth in 1 Kings 8, 39? Probably talking about some king and what he did, and how many wives he had or didn't have, and how many things he didn't do or did do. But notice what it says. 1 Kings 8, 39. Then here in heaven, your dwelling place, God, and forgive and act, and give to everyone, according to all his ways, whose heart you know, for you alone know the hearts of all the sons of men. You know their hearts. God knows your heart. He knows what's in it. He even talks about sometimes we pray we can't utter words. We don't know what we're trying to say things. We feel something, but we can't say it. And the Holy Spirit transmits to God those feelings in the words for us. Sometimes. Sometimes you're overwhelmed. You don't know how to say it. God says it. But the heart is important. And who alone knows it? God. And when people do things, they mess up. You can't judge what they did by the heart. You can't. God can't. You can have a pretty good idea by what they say, by how they act. But you can't know for sure, because you can't read their hearts. You can't know the whys and wherefores. God does. And God can keep your hearts in good repair after he initially cleansed it at baptism. When we're baptized, God says, you're clean. You're pure. That doesn't mean we can't fall back. And many times we do. Many times we slip and stumble, and we have to go to God in repentance to be cleansed. Romans 6 verses 3 to 6 talks about the cleansing at baptism. Hebrews 10.22, God cleansed the hearts of those called and repentant at baptism. He says, let us draw near with a true heart, in assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled, Hebrews 10.22, from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Is that baptism? It could also picture God's Word cleansing us. But we can be cleansed. God's Word also can purify us. As we read it, it's perfect. We're not.

In Psalms 44 verse 21, we read, Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart. God knows what's going on in your feelings and thoughts in your inner being. Hebrews 10 verse 16, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts. They'll become part of their lives. And in their minds I will write them. I don't walk around with the Ten Commandments in my wallet. Let's see. Oh, oh, I really like that other person's Bible. Oh, I really like that. Should I be coveting it? I don't know. Let me grab. No, no coveting. What if I see something there and I like that and nobody's grabbing it? Then I take it. I took what's in not mine. Oh, just a minute. I better find—oh, don't steal. Don't take what doesn't belong to you.

We have to know God's way because God puts His law in our hearts. He writes them on us, writes them in us. It becomes our second nature. I see somebody other than us. I say, I said, you have a good Bible. I'm going to take that Bible and figure out how I can get that Bible. That's dirty and rotten and conniving, and that's a heart that's evil. What a nice part. What a nice—if you'd pull up in a Cadillac, I'm not going to say, oh, I was riding a Cadillac. He probably wasn't able to— probably his tithing faithfully, he wouldn't be driving a Cadillac.

Why? I'll go out and praise you. I told the brethren that in Toronto, Canada. If you pull up in a Cadillac, I'm going to come out and take a look. Hey, wow, what a nice car you have. I'm going to say, you must have it because you haven't been tithing. Why do I want to do that? That's an evil heart.

Jesus also said the cup of wine was a symbol—symbolic of the new covenant in His blood. When we accepted the blood of Jesus Christ, He cleansed us. He also put His laws in our heart. Hey, I've studied God's word enough. I've read God's word enough. I know what it says. I know I don't do this. I know the basics. The Ten Commandments are certainly the basics. Psalm 51.10, David asked God, Create in me. Remember, after his sin, Create in me a clean heart. God can clean your heart. He said you could send it to God's laundry service for hearts. He'll cleanse it for you. It takes belief and repentance and acknowledgment. He'll cleanse it, cleanse you, cleanse me. Likewise, we can ask God to search our hearts. Search my heart. He says, Search my heart. In Psalms 139, verse 23 and 24, Search me, O God. Know my heart. Try me. Know my anxieties. And see if there be any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. God wants us to have a good heart. And if you are good-hearted, it'll show by how you treat others, by how you respect and honor God and his people and his church and your fellow brethren. Absolutely, it'll show. Can't help it. Romans 2, verses 28 and 29, God's going to perform a heart operation. On the peoples of Israel, he's already done it to you to a point. Now, that of us is going to go into the kingdom of God with a physical heart. But what that heart figuratively symbolizes, and that soul figuratively symbolizes, that inner person, you, the real you, that will go, that character. But it'll be joined with a spiritual heart. God's not going to flesh and blood. Remember 1 Corinthians 15, 15? Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So I'm not going mostly into the kingdom of the Spirit, but part of my flesh is going in. No. It doesn't work that way. You'll all be changed. But right now, he can give you a good heart. Right now, he can perform a heart operation. Notice what he says. He is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. God can do a spiritual circumcision on your heart. He can cut out the part that's not necessary and not useful. He can cleanse the dirt out of it and give you a clean heart. As David prayed, created me a clean heart, God. And of course, Jeremiah shows a conversion of the physical Israel people. It gives them new hearts. Why? Because the old heart, he has to take out of it. It's a stony heart that doesn't even change. It won't change. It can't change.

And he'll write it on their hearts. That's part of the New Covenant, Jeremiah 31-31-34. In Ezekiel, prophecy of the future, he promised to give the Israelites, to give all of us, a new heart and a new spirit. In this case, talking about the physical Israelites coming to God, repenting. He'll give them a new heart and a new spirit until they are changed completely. Jeremiah 24-7, God has given us now and will give the Israelites hearts to serve him. Jeremiah 24-7, Then will I give them a heart to know me.

The heart that we have can know God by feeling him, by understanding him, by having the compassion that he gives, we can feel that. He said, he will give us that heart, that we may know, he said, that you may know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, I will be their God, for they shall return to me with the whole heart. All of them. They're in it all the way.

What about that new heart? Romans 5-5. We heard a lot about this today. We heard singing about it. We heard a sermon head about it. We heard songs about it. Listen, Romans 5-5. Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which was given to us. How can we have the love of God? It only comes through God's Spirit. It's not our own love that we work up. It's God's love. Do we feel that love? Of course we feel that love. We're human. But it isn't given in human doses. It's given in spiritual strength and power. And that new heart? You read several scriptures on it. I'll just summarize them. Exodus 35-5. A willing heart. Whoever is of a willing heart. Matthew 5-8. What does he talk about in the Beatitudes? A pure heart. The heart doesn't have a lot of dirt in it. Matthew 11-29. A meek heart. Proverbs 15-13-15. A merry heart. Are you a happy person? Are you a joyful person? I try to live life happily. Not everything I go through or you go through is happy. But I don't try to let that take me down and change my whole attitude about life. And I do pray to God to help me when I go out to affect people in a positive way, not in a negative way. To be kind to them. To lift their spirits. And many times they'll smile happily when I leave. Maybe they're happy because I left. That's the reason. No, I get it. I was thinking I was doing some good. You're happy. I'm not there anymore. But when I leave, I see them happy. I try. I try to make a difference in their lives by how I conduct myself with the Spirit of God in me. He says a sincere heart, Colossians 3, 22. An honest and noble good heart, Luke 8, 15. And a settled heart, James 5, verse 8, the brother of Jesus said, We have to have our heart established. We can't have hearts over here. Once in a while, we're evil, good, evil, good, evil, good. We need to be good, and God could make us good. Philippians 4, verse 7. Philippians 4, verse 7, the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian church and said this, he loved them. He will keep our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit, which gives peace and self-control. God's Holy Spirit gives self-control. You don't have to run rampant with your feelings. You don't have to let those feelings rule you. You check up into your head. And oftentimes a great idea, if you're too emotional about things, you know what you need to do? Say, what am I thinking about? What is happening here? What's going on? Not going to cause you to think. Too many emotions? Too caught up in emotion? Go to the head. Go to the cognitive. Switch. What's going on here? Now you ask yourself a question. Now you have to answer it. Not, oh, I'm so sorry. Okay. Feel the pain. Feel the hurt. But how do you deal with that? Why am I feeling this way? Is there no hope? Well, there's hope in God. What am I feeling this way?

Kick it up into the cognitive. What can I do about this? How can I think about this? How can I do? Are there some steps I can take to get better? To work through this. And I don't shut people off when they're having emotional issues. I let them be emotional because they need that at that time. But I try to help them.

Those Christians and Israelites, all who believe and repent and have a new heart, will have eternal life and be in God's kingdom. God promises that. He makes an everlasting covenant with them. He said, I'll not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts. This is Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 32, verses 39 and 40, a prophecy of what he's going to do in the future. Not only for the Israelites, but for all of us. He said, I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts so they will not depart from me. They'll feel that they will not do it. They will not go some other way. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land. Listen, what God says, with all my heart and with all my soul, I will take care of them. I will plant them. God will work with Israel to start with, and they'll be the model people. People come through the Jews living in Jerusalem and say, we've heard God, come teach us about God because we heard he's with you. They'll say, sure, come on, we'll help you. And they're going to come to the Mount anyway, right? And say, teach us to the house of God, the mountain of the house of God. Teach us of your ways. We will learn. We will walk in your paths. I will plant them in this land with all my heart and all my soul. And that's the promise to the physical Israelites initially, to all peoples and to all peoples. And to those who are Christians now. What a great, glorious future we have if we only can make sure with God cleansing us and restoring us and giving us a good heart. So eternal life really is a matter of the heart. May God help all of us be hearty people God's way.

Thank you.