A Spiritually Clean Heart

One of the things that we have after services, we try to encourage fellowship and staying around. So there are some snack foods, beverages, and other foods to eat. And then after we've had a little time to fellowship, many times we'll have a Bible study. So we're going to be able to do that here today. So I do plan to speak on a topic this go-around that deals with prophecy. And I've got three different sermons. I'm still going back and forth on which one I should give. But we will all of them deal with the subject of prophecy. So we'll be taking a look at that. The human heart is an amazing organ. It's approximately five inches long, weighs 9 to 11 ounces.

It's about the size of your fist. So if you were to take your fist and put it here, that's about the size. My brother-in-law had twins, twin boys, and they were mirror twins.

A mirror twin means you can look. As you look in a mirror, you see your reflection the opposite way.

One of them had their heart on the right side, the other on the left. Their organs were all switched around. And it was amazing to look at them because none of us could really tell the difference in those boys. And when they were small, even their parents couldn't. They had to put different armbands on them, tell them apart. But your heart pumps about 17,200 quarts of blood a day. That's equal to 6,278,000 quarts a year. Now that's quite a little pump that keeps going. Over a 70-year lifespan, that's 439,460,000 quarts of blood pumped through the body, through the organ. Every cell in your body needs oxygen, as we know. In order to live and function, the role of the heart is to deliver oxygen, rich blood to every cell in the body.

But sometimes we discover the disease related to the heart stops that, doesn't allow as much to flow. You find diseases related to the heart kill over a million people in the United States every year. Heart disease is America's leading, or one of its leading health problems and causes of death. At least 55.8 million people in this country, some suffer from some form of heart disease. So it is a major problem. Every 34 seconds in the United States, someone dies of a heart-related disease. That's more than 2,500 people dying daily of heart problems. Almost 6 million are hospitalized every year for cardiovascular disease.

Since 1900, cardiovascular disease has been the number one killer in the U.S. every year, except for 1918. Anybody know what happened in 1918?

Flu, right? Flu epidemic. We can have a healthy heart, a good heart, or a bad heart, or somewhere in between. And I think that probably describes most of us here. We all need to be aware of the state of our health. I think we are whenever something begins to hurt and you go to see a doctor, you know, basically they cue off of you. They say, what's the matter? And you say, well, it hurts here, or it hurts over here. And, you know, they, you know, they began to look at where you're telling them the problem is. Conditions sometimes that produce health problems, and these aren't the only reasons, but some of the major factors. Too little exercise. Diet. And when I say diet, probably mainly eating fats, the wrong type of fats. Many Americans, 40% of their diet are fats. Many of those are trans fats and things that they shouldn't be eating. Perhaps being overweight, overstressed, not really taking care of yourself. And then, quite frankly, some people just have a genetic disposition. I know families where heart problems run in the family, and it's just a genetic disposition. Heart disease can cripple, handicap, or kill us. We could have a heart attack, and that's happened to a number of people. If you ever ask yourself, could you have a spiritual heart attack? We know that human beings have physical heart attacks. What about a spiritual heart attack? Now, you'd ask the question, what do you mean a spiritual heart attack? Well, we'll see. How sound is our spiritual heart? How sound are we, health-wise, when it comes to our spiritual approach? Could we be suffering from a spiritual sickness? What makes for a sound, spiritually healthy heart? And how can you tell if your heart is sound? Well, that's what we're going to take a look at today. What are the attributes of a bad heart? Notice what God has to say about this. We want to take a look in the Word of God today exactly what He has to say. Notice what God said when He brought the flood on the earth and destroyed everyone in the flood except Noah and his family. There were eight of them who passed through the flood. Back in Genesis 6 and verse 5, we have a summary statement here concerning how conditions had become before the flood. If you remember from creation to the flood was around 1656 years. So it wasn't a great deal of time had passed, but in verse 5 it says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.

Again, this is the most emphasis that you can find in a verse that I know of in the Bible.

That the wickedness of man was great. Every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. That's pretty strong wording. And so God describes mankind. The inclination or the intent of the heart of the people of society had come to the point to where they were evil. Now, in the book of Matthew 24, we won't turn there, but Matthew 24 compares the time of Noah with our day to day, the time that you and I are living in today. So when we look around us today and we see the plummeting of standards, the culture going down, values being undermined, you find that it compares with the time of Noah. You might remember when God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, they were cut off from the Tree of Life. They came to sit under the Tree of the Knowledge, good and evil. And let's notice in Genesis 8, verse 21. Genesis 8, verse 21, even after the flood, you would think that man would be on his best behavior. But notice here what God says. The Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination, the man's heart, is evil from his youth. The imagination, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. In other words, by water. Now it's interesting when you look at alternate translations of this verse, the ESV says, the inclination of his heart is evil.

The net translation says, the inclination of their mind is evil. The NIV says, the inclination of the human heart is evil. So even from our youth, the Bible again reveals, that the inclination of man's heart is evil. Now with that in mind, let's go back to Matthew 15, verse 7. The book of Matthew, chapter 15, verse 7. Christ's disciples were condemned by the religious leaders of their day because his disciples were eating without washing their hands. Now I don't know if they washed their hands or not, but at this time the religious leaders had an idea that you had to wash above your elbows. It was more of a ceremonial, ritual type of thing. If you didn't wash above your elbows, then you were breaking their tradition.

Now let's notice what Christ had to say here, beginning in verse 7. He said, hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying, these people draw near to me with their mouth, they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. I want you to notice who he's talking to. Pharisees, the religious leaders of that day, they kept the Sabbath, they kept the holy days, they tithed, they didn't eat unclean meats, they went to the temple, they did all of these things, and yet God says, they honor me with their lips.

In other words, they talked to talk, they didn't walk the walk, they didn't obey, but their heart, he said, their inclination, their motives, their passion, their minds were not with him, says, far from me. For in vain they do worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.

So we cannot worship God according to our own standards and made traditions, not according to the commandments of man. Verse 17 says, do you not yet understand that whatever enters into the mouth goes into the stomach, it's eliminated, you know, the natural process of elimination, but those things which proceed out of the mouth, where do they come from? When you open your mouth and you talk, you say something, or somebody gets angry, or somebody gets upset, or somebody curses another human being, the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.

See, they proceed from the heart. They defile a man, for out of the heart proceeds what? Evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, these are the things that defile a man, but eat with unwashing hands, does not defile a man. See, that doesn't defile you. We're defiled by what comes out of the heart. So, the spiritual diet of this world, the spiritual standards of this world in societies, are Satan the devils, not gods.

He is the master chef who's concocted the death, the diet, that most people imbibe in. He serves up attitudes, he serves up approaches, he serves up our own desires, he serves up temptations, abuse of the flesh, desires and motives. I mean, all of these type of things. He is the spirit of this world. He is called the God of this world. It is high in what we would call spiritual fat, Satan's diet.

Every time we eat at the spiritual fast food places of Satan the devil, we get a diet high in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, vanity, ego, and all of those type of things. Now, let's notice Ephesians 2 and verse 2. Ephesians 2.2, where I'll show you what I'm saying here is what the Bible brings out. Ephesians 2 and verse 2. Well, let's back up to verse 1 and get the full context. Ephesians 2.1, you whom he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of the world, according to this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

So there is a spirit, there is an influence out there that works in those who are disobedient, among whom also we all once, so at one time we all live this way, conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh. Remember the word lust simply means a wrong desire, an inordinate desire, something that is illegal or unlawful, among whom we also conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and where by nature the children of wrath, just as others.

But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love, which he loved us, and it goes on to talk about how God extended mercy to us. So it shows that the devil is constantly working on a diet of disobedience that allows us to disobey God, for he wants us to disobey and rebel.

The influences of this world, of this society around us, encourages wrong attitudes and wrong approaches. They become a way of life. Now you find that people in society, as the Bible clearly shows, live a way of life that is wrong. It is a term that the Bible uses about practicing sin. We all sin, don't we? If you're a human being here, I'll guarantee you, you sin. We all sin. We all make mistakes. We all fall short. But we're striving to obey.

There are those who just live in sin as a way of life. They practice it. So God wants us to change that. We become defiled by what comes into our minds or into our hearts. Let me read to you from Vine's complete expository dictionary of the Old New Testament. What it has to say about the heart, what the heart is. The word heart in the Greek comes from the word cardia. You have a cardiac arrest, so you see the origin of this, meaning the heart. It's the chief organ of physical life for the life of the flesh that is in the blood. It occupies the most important place in the human system. By an easy transition, the word came to stand for man's entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and the emotional element. In other words, the heart is used figuratively for the hidden springs of the personal life. The Bible describes human depravity as in the heart, because sin is a principle which has its seat in the center of man's inward life and defiles a whole circuitry of his actions. It's also used in the New Testament to denote the seat of physical life, the seat of moral nature and heart, the seat of grief. The heart and its moral significance in the Old Testament includes emotional, the reason, and the will.

So when we talk about the heart of man, do you realize it's not just talking about the brain. If it were just the mind or the brain, it would say mind. The heart describes your feelings, your passions, your desires. Many of these are motivated by what is in here.

It has been demonstrated in a number of books out that show that when a person has a heart transplant, in many ways, it changes that person's personality. Because now the old heart, the old way, passion, desires, motives, wants are no longer there. There's a new heart in there. And so there are changes that take place. It's amazing when you read of some of the things that happen. Let's go on back here to Matthew 13 and verse 13.

Notice what Christ taught here again.

He gave a parable here, the sower. His disciples wanted to know why he spoke to them in parables. In verse 13, therefore I speak to them in parables. Because, whenever you see the word because, that's important because now he's going to give the reason. Because seeing, they do not see. And hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand. So people in society have eyes they can hear. They may have brilliant intellects. They could be geniuses. They could speak 15 languages. They could read Hebrew, Sanskrit, Greek, Aramaic, you name it. That would be totally illiterate when it comes to understanding the Scriptures. Because spiritual knowledge, remember this, spiritual knowledge is revealed knowledge. The knowledge that comes into the human mind through the five senses is physical knowledge. Spiritual knowledge must be given, must be passed on from God. Now notice in verse 14, for in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled which says, Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, seeing you will see, and will see not, seeing you will see and not perceive. For the heart of this people have grown dull. Their ears are heart of hearing. Their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so then I should heal them. Notice, when a person is unconverted, they need healing. In what way? Well, their heart needs to be healed. There is a spiritual healing that must take place. But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.

So if you hear, you understand, you read, and you comprehend, blessed are your eyes, because God is revealing. In fact, here where it talks about the heart is waxed or grown dull, it's interesting. In the Greek, one of the definitions is to make thick fat or fatten.

So it's just like somebody eating their own diet, and then all it wants to get all this fat in their arteries, and it restricts their blood flow or in their heart. And in the back of the heart is what's called the widow maker. It's what kills you. When that clogs up and it goes, it's over. They can't get to you in time, because that's what feeds the heart, and your heart will die. And so this condition can lead to spiritual death. We can have spiritual hardening of the arteries.

Those who resist God harden their hearts. And the reason why he mentions this is simply because human beings have a part in the process. If they hear the truth and begin to be interested or respond, or at least have an open mind, then God can work with that person. But if they reject it, put a wall up, put a barrier up, and say, no, want to go their own way, then God can't work with them. So human beings have a part in the process. What is a human heart like naturally? Humanly? Cut off from God? What are human beings like who are not converted? Now, we know there's a difference once conversion takes place. But what about pre-conversion? Well, let's notice back in Psalm 39 and verse 5. I think it's important to read some of these to get a feel for what the Bible has to say on this topic. Psalm 39 verse 5, Indeed, you have made my days as a handbreath, and my ages as nothing before you. Certainly every man at his very best state is but vapor. Or as King James version says, vanity. Nothing but vanity, just like vapor that it's gone.

Jeremiah 17.9. I think many of us are familiar with Jeremiah 17.9.

The heart is deceitful above all things. The human heart deceives us, leads us in the wrong way. We think we're doing right, but a deception is being lied to, misled, and it is desperately wicked. You notice the margin? The word for desperately wicked says incurably sick. So the human heart has an incurable disease. It's sick. It's deceptive.

Who can know it? Well, God says, I the Lord search the heart. I test the mind even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. So God says, He knows, He looks at our heart. Isaiah 64.6. Comments again about the unconverted state, the human mind before conversion. Isaiah 64.6, but we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags. Bloody rags, God says here, filthy. Romans 8.7, the carnal mind, the physical mind, the fleshly mind cut off from God, is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can be. So that's the state of the human heart. So if we have an incurable disease there, we have hardening of the arteries, what do we need? Well, the heart has to be healed. There has to be a healing taking place. A number of procedures to handle heart problems today by the medical profession.

Sometimes you have bypass surgery. I mentioned my brother-in-law. He had a seven bypass surgery. A while back, everything in there was clogged up practically. Sometimes you have stents put in the heart. Sometimes they insert a balloon and try to push the fatty deposits back to cling to the side and open up the vessels so the blood will flow through. In severe cases, people are given a heart. There is a heart transplant. Now, a doctor will tell a person who's having a heart problem that they need to change their way of life, that they need to change their diet, that they need to have proper moderate exercise, need to eliminate stress out of their life. I mean, there can be all kinds of advice that a doctor might give. Spiritually, what does God do? When God calls a person, opens that person's mind, begins to deal with them, how does God begin to deal with the heart? God goes right to the heart of the problem. Play on words. God goes to the heart of the situation. He performs surgery. Let's notice in the book of Ezekiel 36 and verse 25. Ezekiel 36, and we will begin to read in verse 25.

God talks about Israel, the nations of Israel who've gone into captivity. God brings them back out of captivity in verse 24. I'll take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clear water on you, and you shall be clean, God says. And I will cleanse you from all of your filthiness and all of your idols, and I will give you a new heart. See, there's a transplant, not the old heart. You're going to have a new heart. Put a new spirit within you, and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh.

So the hard-heartedness, the heart of stone, and some people, you know, we even use the expression, boy, he is cold-hearted, hard-hearted. Well, God says, I'll take that out and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. So God starts with a radical procedure, a heart transplant. He puts a new heart, a new spirit within us, not the spirit of this world, but the spirit or nature of God dwells in us. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 2.12.

1 Corinthians 2 and verse 12. You'll notice, this sort of summarizes it for us. It says, Now we have received not the spirit of the world. So there is a spirit of this world. That's Satan the devil's spirit. There is an influence of this world. But the spirit, who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. So again, we find that spiritual knowledge, spiritual understanding and awareness comes from God. So first, we have to be cleaned up, as we read back in Ezekiel. Their filthiness has to be eliminated. Symbolically, sprinkling clear water, or we're baptized, and then God can put His very nature, His very heart, mind, approach within us. In Romans chapter 2, we find the New Testament talks about the same thing, but it uses a little different analogy. In the New Testament, we find another operation is described. It's called circumcision. It's a little different analogy, but it has the exact same meaning. Let's notice in verse 28. Romans chapter 2 and verse 28, we read, He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But He is a Jew, or Jew or a converted Christian, an Israelite spiritually. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart. See, the heart has to be circumcised in the Spirit, not the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God.

Again, a play on words here that a Jew, you hear referring to praise. God says, you know, our praise has to come from God. So there is a circumcision that has to take place. When we are converted, God cuts away the hostility, the rebellion, the self-willed, the hardness of heart. When a person comes to God to be baptized, he has to be a totally different person. We have to give up our way and go God's way. We have to acknowledge that we have been sinners. We have to acknowledge that our way has been wrong. As the Bible says, there is a way that seems right into a man, but the ends there are the ways of death. So we've got to escue that, you know, hate that, and go God's way. So we've got to be willing to go God's way and give up our way. Turn over here to chapter 6, next page of my Bible, chapter 6 and verse 6. And notice how it's described here. Chapter 6 basically describes the process of baptism that takes place in conversion. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him.

Remember Galatians 2.20, I'm crucified with Christ.

Yeah, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. So here, the old man, the old way of life, the old way of doing things, the old heart, you might say, has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, and that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Now, I want you to notice the difference. At one time, you and I were slaves. We have been slaves of sin. As verse 7 says, for he who died has been freed from sin. So you and I no longer come under the domination of sin. Sin should no longer totally dominate our life, totally control us. We should not practice sin as a way of life. Let me illustrate the difference in practicing sin and sinning occasionally. This is the Sabbath day. Friday sunset to Saturday sunset is the Sabbath.

Now, what you learn about the Sabbath, you strive to keep it. And you try to obey it. You try not to work on this day. You try to do what God says to do, not do your own thing. But do you ever sin on the Sabbath? Sure, you do. Do you always keep the Sabbath day perfect? Obviously not. But you're striving to keep it right. What about the person who doesn't know anything about the Sabbath day? What does he do on the Sabbath? He goes to the ballpark. He cleans his house.

He paints his house. He repairs his car. He goes grocery shopping. He does anything and everything you can think of. He is living in sin. He doesn't know better. But you and I have come out of that, and we're striving to obey God. But we still fall short. Verse 14, sin shall not have dominion over you. So we come to a point where sin is not to dominate us. Verse 16, do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

May God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. So now our heart has changed. We want to obey. We want to do what is right. Still struggle, but we have the power of God, the Holy Spirit, dwelling within us.

God breaks the grip that Satan the devil had over us. His domination has been broken, and the lust of the flesh no longer has to dominate us. God changes our diet also. So God begins with surgery, but once that surgery takes place, God says, okay, I'm going to change your diet, just like a doctor may do. You've been eating too many fats. You need to change. You need to eat more vegetables, fruits, or whatever it might be. So He'll make a recommendation to a heart patient. Let's notice over in Hebrews 4.

God does the same thing. Hebrews 4, 12. Beginning here in verse 12. Hebrews 4, 12. For the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and the spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So notice when you study the Bible, guess what? If you're studying the Bible, not to argue with somebody about a technical point, but you're studying the Bible as it says, it's a mirror.

You look in to see the dirt. I go and look at a mirror in the morning. I'm not looking at a technical point. I'm looking at my face. I'm looking at my hair. And, you know, well, my hair needs comb. My face needs washing. Or I've got dirt on me. So you look into the mirror. The same thing you look into God's Word. Why? Because it reveals the intent of the thoughts. You're thinking a certain way. You have certain ideas, and you read the Bible, and you think, uh-oh, that's wrong. I shouldn't be thinking that way.

That's evil. So the Bible shows what's good, what's wrong, what's evil, and what's right. So it reveals to us, as 1 Corinthians 13 goes on to say, There's no creature hidden from the sight, his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him, to whom we give account.

So, brethren, God knows our weaknesses. He knows who we are. You and I must feed daily on the Word of God. We have a different standard to live by. That standard is this Bible. This is God's revelation, God's handbook, on how to operate this machine, this body, how to become a member of his family and his kingdom. Our minds are to be filled with spiritual things, spiritual attitudes, approaches, thoughts, and desires.

We get away from the fast foods of the world. We grow day by day. It is a growth process. It's maturity. How fast does a baby grow? Well, he starts out with a little bundle of joy. 6, 7 pounds.

Our son is 8 or 9 pounds. And they grow, but do they grow up? First year, have they obtained their ultimate growth? Well, no. It is interesting, though. You learn more in your first year, and you do probably the rest of your life.

That's because a child is learning basic skills, basic knowledge, beginning to learn a language, whatever it might be. But they haven't matured, have they? A child at 1 year old is not mature. A child at 5 is not mature. A child at 10 is not mature. A teenager is not mature yet. Not fully mature, more mature, but headed in that direction. But when we become an adult, we should become mature. Now, for some people, they could be 80 and still not mature. But that's what we're striving for. So the growth process that we go through is a type of the spiritual growth process we go through. And God wants us to go from eating the milk of the Word to eating the strong meat of God's Word. I didn't write that scripture down, but let's turn back there. Chapter 5 of the book of Hebrews, verse 12, says, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. You don't feed a baby solid food, do you? Their digestive system cannot handle it. And you'll make them sicker or just pass right through them. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, for he's a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of a full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. As you live God's way, apply his law. You should come to the point where you can discern what is right and what is wrong, and know what you should do or not do. So, brethren, we grow. None of us here would only think about eating once a week. Anybody eat just once a week? I don't think so. Most of us make a habit of eating at least two or three times a day. You and I must eat daily the Word of God to grow spiritually. You don't just stuff yourself on one day. You have to eat fully. The old man must die daily. We must also exercise, as 1 Timothy 4.8 indicates. Let's notice 1 Timothy 4.8. We read that bodily exercise profits a little. It profits while you're alive. As long as you're physical, it will profit you and alive. But Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. I want you to notice again, it says the life that now is as a Christian, it gives us, it's profitable now, and for the life to come in God's kingdom. The more we do, the more we practice, the more we live this way of life, it becomes second nature to us, does it not? It becomes us. We must grow in God's law. It's got to be written in our hearts and written in our minds. There may be times when we begin to slip back to the old ways. Have you ever found yourself regressing occasionally, doing something that you thought you'd overcome? It's right back there again. It just rears its ugly head. We start eating our own diet, or we start doing things that we shouldn't stop exercising. A heart patient might have to go back to the doctor, because of various reasons, have a stent put in, or some other procedure. There may be times when we need to do the same thing spiritually. We may need to take measures that go beyond what we normally do. There are times that we just want to ensure that our spiritual health is what it should be, and so we will take extra measures. Notice what the book of Joel said.

Remember Joel back here?

Hosea Joel Amos. Joel 2, verse 12.

Now therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart. God doesn't want us to come before Him half-heartedly. He says, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, and weeping, and with mourning. Rind your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him? So God wants us to rend our hearts and not our garments. Fasting is one way that God has given us to help us to cleanse our heart spiritually. I know it's not easy to fast, and sometimes I think we make it a little more complicated than it is. There are all kinds of fasts that you can do. You can fast from noon to noon. There have been times that I know that I'm going to have to do something, and you might eat breakfast and lunch, and then fast to the next day, and you'll pass lunch. And you can do it that way. You can fast six to six, or you can fast evening to evening. Or, as you do on the day of atonement, you can fast. Or sometimes, just for your own health's sake, you can drink liquids and fast. Some people have certain health problems. But fasting has been given to us by God for the purpose of helping us to do what?

Get close to God. We want to get close to God to humble ourselves before God, and become attuned to Him, to His will, His purpose in our lives. We need forgiveness. We need mercy. We need deliverance. We need help from God. We also need to have a proper attitude towards others to be able to help them. We need God living in us. And so we fast. Now fasting, if you can pick a time when you're not doing a lot of other things, and you can fast, you draw close to God, gives you extra time to pray and study. You're not trying to say, see God, I'm fasting, therefore you must do what I ask you to do. No, you're not using fasting as a bargaining chip with God. Not playing poker with God. I've got all these chips over here. You've got to do what I said, see how many times I've fasted. No, you fast so you get close to God. The closer you are to God, the more God will show you. The more God will work with you, the more God will help you. Notice one of the most wicked kings. Couldn't help but thinking about what Lomax gave. Over here in 1 Kings 21, verse 25, King Ahab.

1 Kings 21, verse 25. It says, There was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up.

She must have been a hot potato or something. She got under his skin. She stirred him up. And he behaved himself very abominably and following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. And so it was when Ahab heard those words. He tore his clothes.

See, the prophet came along and said, you know, you're going to die. This is what's going to happen to you, your family, to your wife. Notice, he tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his body, fastened, laying in sackcloth, and went about mourning. And the word of the Lord came to alight of the tishbite, saying, See how Ahab has humbled himself before me? We fast to humble ourselves before God. I will not bring the calamity in his day. In the days of his son, I will bring the calamity on his house. So God, even wicked Ahab, God spared him, seeing his family destroyed. Humility is a quality we all strive for and seek to maintain.

Humility means that you recognize how great God is and how small you are. Human beings function the other way around. Look at me! Look how great I am! Look at all my accomplishments. And we want to pat ourselves on the back, and it's the other way around. Humility is a quality we strive for. It's the basis of our approach towards God. It's also the basis of our proper service and attitude towards human beings. That we are to be humble. Now let's quickly look in finishing up the sermon at two individuals who had a right heart, had a right spirit that are very clearly brought out in the Bible. Matthew 11. Matthew 11, verse 28.

Jesus Christ, talking here, he says, Come to me, Matthew 11. 28, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. So notice, Christ said, I am gentle, and I am lowly or meek in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus Christ was not puffed up with vanity. He had humility. He had makeness. He wasn't exalting himself. You remember in the book of John, he constantly gave credit to the Father. He said, you know, what my Father gave me, that's why I'm speaking. The message came from the Father. The works were performed by the Father. He was under His Father's authority. So Jesus Christ, the perfect example, set the example for us. Notice what he said back here in chapter 5, in verse 8 of the book of Matthew, Matthew 5, verse 8.

Blessed are the pure in heart. So you and I are to be pure in heart, for they shall see God. You want to see God one day, be in His family, in His kingdom? You've got to be pure in heart. You cannot be involved with pornography, weird TV programs, wrong sexual approaches, lust, and be pure in heart. Pure in heart means your thoughts, your mind, your motives are pure. Notice verse 28.

So if you just look on a person to lust after them, you've committed adultery. In chapter 6, verse 19, Christ gave another statement.

There your heart will be also. Notice where your treasure is. That's where your heart is going to be. That's an indication of the direction of your life, isn't it?

If you truly believe this is the work of God, the Church of God, and this is what God is doing, will you tithe? Will you give offerings? Well, certainly you will. Where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be. And so if we believe in something, we will certainly give it. We will support it.

Luke 8, 15. Luke 8, verse 15. Notice again what Christ said here. Talking about the seed falling on the good ground. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who have heard the word, and with a noble and good heart keep it and bear fruit with patience, with endurance. So growth comes from King James, an honest and a good heart, that we are to have an honest, a noble, and a good heart. Remember in Matthew 22, verse 36, Christ said that we are to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all of our strength. Mark says, mind. Heart, mind, body, strength. All of your vitality. Every fiber within you. So Jesus Christ certainly set us an example of one who had a right heart and a right relationship to God. Now in Acts 13, we read about David. Acts 13, beginning in verse 21.

Acts 13, verse 21. It says afterwards, they asked for a king, talking about Israel. So God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up for them David, as king to whom also he gave testimony, said, I found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. Now can God say that about every one of us? When he looks down, there's a woman after my own heart. Or there's a man after my own heart. Notice who will do all my will. Why was he one after God's own heart? He was going to do God's will, not his own. Now we know that David sinned, he fell short, sinned with Bathsheba. But what you find, David was not an individual who constantly did the same thing over and over. He sinned, and it seemed like when he did sin, he sinned mightily, but he repented and he changed. We have Psalm 51, where David had sinned, and we have his repentance before God. Now in 1 Samuel 16, verse 7, this is something that I wish that all of us would practice.

But notice what God said. Here was Samuel, he was coming along, he was going to annoy one of the brothers here to be king. And notice, he saw all these strapling sons, tall, look like oaks, you know, hewed out of an oak tree, just solid, you majestic men, hair on their chests, you make people quake just to look at them. But notice what God said. The Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him, for the Lord does not see as man sees. We're impressed by looks, power, money, prestige, all of those things. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. God sees our heart. He sees our motives, our drives. So God looked at the heart, he looked at the heart of David, and he was a man after his own heart. Psalm 40 is a prophecy that applies, first of all, to David, but also, as we'll see, to Jesus Christ. See, God's law has to be etched in our hearts.

I think I may have mentioned before, it doesn't matter whether you had the Bible or not. If you know what the Ten Commandments are, and the basic principles in this book, you may not remember it word for word, but it should be written in your heart. You should know, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. I'm not supposed to have any other God before the true God. I'm not to murder, kill, steal, covet, whatever it might be. So David and Jesus Christ both had the law of God written in their hearts and their minds. Sir, brethren, when it comes to us as those who are truly seeking God, for those who have been baptized and have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we need to know the state of our spiritual health. We need checkups. Many of us get an annual checkup. We go to the doctor. He draws blood. Give me your blood, he says. He takes some of your blood. And you come back a week later and he says, you're okay. Or you've got this problem. He'll tell you whether you have a problem or not. You and I do that physically to know the state of our physical health. Should we not do the same spiritually? Psalm 139, last scripture here, Psalm 139, verse 23.

Psalm 139. Notice this is the Psalm of David, what David said. And this is what we need to say to God constantly. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties, my fears, my wants. See if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. We need to daily ask God to show us what we might be doing that is hurting ourselves spiritually. What our spiritual heart is not the way that it should be. Our spiritual growth and approach. Our thoughts, our approach, our attitude, desires, motivation, the whole being must be right and healthy with God. If not, then we need to do what David did. When God revealed to him, he had sinned greatly. Psalm 51. When he said in verse 10, Create a clean heart in me, O God.