2. The spiritual change indicated in the text is spoken of under the metaphor of the substitution of " an heart of flesh " for " a stony heart " — " stony," meaning hard, lacking sensitiveness to God's mystic touch, unresponsive to the calls Divine. Who that has a glimmer of insight into his own heart but will recognize that heart as " stony " ? Bishop Lightfoot in pathetic apostrophe speaks of "my sullied heart," and he speaks for us all. John Bunyan, in his Grace Abounding, says, " I thought that every one had a better heart than I had : I could have changed hearts with anybody." A stone, to which the natural heart is compared, is a thing upon which one can make little impression — insensitive, cold and heavy, one can do nothing with it. It feels nothing ; do what we may, it gives no response ; so the heart of man is by nature irresponsive to God's love and to the gospel of His grace. It takes more than a knife to cut a stone ; we may put a stone in water as long as we like, but the water does not penetrate it. The rock of the hills seems impervious to the wind, the rain, and the storm. Heat does not melt it ; cold does not make it any harder ; it is impenetrable. This world is like a petrifying spring, and the worldly heart is being petrified in its stream, and so grows harder and harder as the years roll on. Moreover, men harden themselves by their own sins. Every time a man sins it becomes more easy for him to sin again. As labour renders the hand hard,
1 C. H. Spurgeon.
EZEKIEL xxxvi. 26 219
so sin makes the heart callous, and each sin makes the stony heart yet more like adamant.
In contrast to this stony heart, God offers to give man " an heart of flesh," by which is meant a soft heart, an impressible heart, a sensitive heart, a heart which can feel, can be moved to shame, to repentance, to loathing of sin, to desiring, to seeking, to pant- ing, to longing after God ; a tender heart, a heart that does not require a thousand blows to move it, but, like flesh with its skin broken, feels the very faintest touch — such is the heart that the Holy Spirit creates in the children of God. It is a teachable heart, a heart willing to be guided, moulded, governed by the Divine will; a heart which, like young Samuel, cries, "Speak, Lord ; for thy servant heareth " ; an obedient heart, ready to be run into the mould, plastic beneath the sacred hand, anxious to be conformed to the heavenly pattern.
As " flesh," the heart is no longer hard, obdurate, impenetrable to the genial influences of heaven. Once like a hard block of ice, it has now yielded to the beams of the sun, and been melted into flowing water. How it is moved now, by truths once felt no more than dews falling out of starry heavens, in soft silence upon the rugged rock ! The heart of grace is endowed with a delicate sensibility, and vibrates to the slightest touch of a Saviour's fingers. How the truth of God affects it now ! A stone no longer, it melts under the heavenly fire; a stone no longer, it bends beneath the hammer of the Word; no longer like the rugged rock on which rains and sunbeams were wasted, it receives the impression of God's power, and retains the footprints of His presence.
T| Do not mistake natural tenderness for that heart of flesh which God gives. A heart of wax is soft, but it is not a heart of flesh. The softness of nature is not the sensitiveness of grace. Often some persons who are religiously sensitive are equally sensitive the other way, and, while you can influence them for good, others can as easily influence them for evil. Mere religious impressibility is not grace, it is nature alone. Some persons are like india-rubber, and every time you put your finger on them you leave a mark ; but it is wasted time, because they get back into the old shape again as soon as you have done with them. I was preaching once in a certain city, and a very worthy but worldly man went out of the congregation while I was in the middle of
22o A NEW HEART
the sermon, the third sermon he had been hearing from me during the week. One who followed him out asked him why he left, and he frankly replied that he could not stand it any longer, " for," said he, " I must have become religious if I had heard that sermon through. I was nearly gone. I have been," added he, "like an india-rubber doll under this man, but when he goes away I shall get back into the old shape again." *
3. A new heart can come only as the gift of God. " I " will give you it, saith Jehovah. Can any man renew his own heart ? Let a host of poor disappointed attempters tell us their doleful story. Nay, let each of us recount his own pitiful endeavours. Who can renew a heart but God only ? Nor priest, nor prophet, nor friend can effect this miraculous transformation. God speaks without reservation. He says that He " will " give a new heart and that He will give it to " you." Not one of His people need know the deplorable impoverishment of being without this gift Divine. It is assured to all who desire it. God says, " I will," and yet again, " I will." It is not " I will if," or " I will perhaps," or " I will upon certain conditions," but — "I will give." He speaks in a Godlike tone. It is the very word of Him who of old said, " Let there be light " and there was light. He who spoke the world into being now speaks the new world of grace into being in the self-same majestic voice, which here promises the gift of a new heart.