The prophet Jeremiah tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it”? (Jeremiah 17:9). We are given a description by the spirit of God in regard to human nature in its raw and primeval state. In spite of the philosophers who tell us that human nature in essence is good, the Word of God tells us quite the contrary. It is deceitful and desperately wicked. So while the human heart is thus described by the prophet in its normal, natural nature, we are able to press forward toward a higher level of eventual purity which Jesus has in mind when he says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord says that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” In other words our thoughts, our words, and our actions reveal our innermost self. The words which we speak reveal the thoughts of our minds, they are the means we adopt of expressing our ideas and presenting them to one another.
Jesus takes this a step farther when he tells us that a “good man out of the good treasures of his heart bringeth forth good things . . . ” (Matthew 12:35). In other words, our actions, as well as our thoughts, show the true state of the heart, or our emotions and desires which prompted them. We, during our pilgrimage journey toward the kingdom of God, must change the affections of the heart from natural wickedness to positive purity. And by our heart we mean our motives, desires and wants or inward incentive which is the ruling power of our mind, thus controlling our words and ultimately our behavior.
We are what we think
Solomon says: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he . . . ” (Proverbs 23:7). It is what we are inside that is really important, and not our accomplishments or our intellectual qualifications. We may be great mathematicians or physicists, but in the final analysis at the judgment seat it will depend upon the warmth of our characters, our love ,and our purity of heart. This will be the great standard of reckoning when the Book of Life is opened at the last day. The Psalmist could say, “My heart is indicting a good matter”, filled to the brim, bubbling over with exuberance so that his tongue “is the pen of a ready writer” (Psalms 45:1). His heart was so full of God, his desires aims and wants all bound up in this one purpose so that his lips were always filled with the wondrous things of God.
The Lord Jesus in one of his disputes with the Pharisees demonstrates a great lesson when he says: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matthew 15:11). The Pharisees looked at dirty hands and said it meant dirty food going within the body, thereby violating the holiness of the human body, just as there are many people today who delight in making a list of things which will defile the body. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Now, while I do not wish to uphold the practice of smoking, drinking or over indulgence in candies, etc., yet on the other hand there are fanatics in every field of life, and these people will say that such practices defile the Temple of God. There is only one thing that defiles the Temple of God, it is that which comes from within, in other words the state of our hearts. (This does not mean, though, that we have license to smoke, drink, etc.). The things which will condemn us when we stand before the judgment of the Son of God will be our attitude of mind toward one another, how we have humbled ourselves before God and our brethren and sisters, and our spontaneous service of our Lord. The wise man said: My son, “keep thy heart with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). This will become obvious when we stand before Jesus, for it will depend upon how Pure in heart we have become as to whether we shall see God, and have these words “Come ye blessed of my Father” pronounced upon us.
What is our hope?
All these things ” . . . were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4). We might well ask, hope of what? The hope of life eternal, not this miserable and pitiful excuse of life we now have. We all have to go to work, no matter what walk of life we come from, and, unless we are blest with abundance, which few of us are, we must toil away our days clocking in, in the morning and out again at night, in order to earn our daily bread. We sometimes are so weary that we cannot study for the Lord, so weary we cannot work for the Lord, too weary to enjoy the beauties of nature that the Lord has made. This is not living. This is a form of death, the curse that one day soon shall be removed, when the earth shall yield her increase and the briar and myrtle trees shall replace the thorns and thistles, and the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
We, brethren and sisters, not only shall see that glory, but we shall in the mercy of God be that glory, that multitudinous body of the Lord, the fullness of him that filleth all in all, the ultimate and complete manifestation of the divine memorial name, Yahweh Elohim. Jesus says: ” . . . I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10), a real, true and glorious life when He ” . . .shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body . .” (Philippians 3:21).
A philosopher once said that we are what we want to be, and at first we may question this in view of the moralists’ opinions, yet we believe it to be true. People are good only if they want to be; likewise, they are bad only if they want to be. Similarly, if we study the Word of God, it is only because we want to, no one forces us. Even from the time we came into the Truth, we chose of our own volition to serve the Lord. choose you this day whom ye will serve . . . as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord . . .” (Joshua 24:15). Such was the decision of Joshua, and we, too, made a choice when we set to our seal that God was true, being determined to walk in the ways of the Lord. Surely the Lord would not be a God of mercy, love and justice if He made His creatures so they couldn’t help themselves from being evil and then condemn them when they appear before the judgment seat of Christ. We have all been given freedom of mind to decide for ourselves exactly what we wish to do with our lives.
Try to be good now
We once heard the story of a little boy who in his prayer said: “Please, God, make me into a good boy, but not yet.” Somehow we are all of us a little like the boy, we want to be good, to be pure in heart and see God, but not quite yet. We want to have a little fling first, develop our business enterprises, finish our scholarships or professorships and obtain the esteem of our fellows; or we want to build that fine new home for ourselves first, the envy of the brotherhood. In other words, we really want to do a great deal for the Lord, for the Truth, But not yet. Let us remember that tomorrow may be too late, we may not be here tomorrow. This should have been forcibly brought home to us when our dearly beloved Dennis and Fae Ford were taken from us. The lesson is very clear; we can be here today and gone tomorrow. Who knows? Only the Lord. Life is the time to serve the Lord, Now, not in ten years when we retire and can devote more time to the Lord, not when we finish the next business deal and have more money to devote to the Truth, not then, but Now. If God wants you to have more time to give to the Truth He will see that you get it one way or another; likewise, if He wants you to have more money He will see that you have it, “For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (1st Corinthians 10:26).
Remember, brethren and sisters, we get out of life exactly what we put into it, never any more. For example, a quart bottle will hold a quart and never a gallon. If we put milk into a container, then milk we shall get out of it, not wine, oil or anything else. We get out what we put in. If we put little effort into our lives, then we shall get only a little out. If we put great efforts into our lives, then we shall get much out. We all know that we are born in sin. As the Scriptures clearly reveal to us, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and there is none righteous, no, not one. We, too, would join Paul when he exclaims: ” . . . When I would do good, evil is present with me” (Romans 7:21); “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Verse 19); “0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ??’ (Verse 24). We are just like the apostles and prophets who have gone before; they had their weaknesses, frailties, doubts and indecisions the same as you and I, and like them we, too, must press on toward the perfection in Christ.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One