Keeping the Heart

A.W. Pink

IN CHRISTENDOM TODAY there are thousands of professing Christians against whom little or nothing in the way of fault could be found so far as their outward lives are concerned. They live moral, clean, upright, honest lives while at the same time the state of their hearts is totally neglected. It is not sufficient to bring our outward deportment into harmony with the revealed will of God. He holds us accountable for what goes on inside, and requires us to keep check on the springs of our actions, the motives which inspire and the principles which regulate us. God requires “truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6). Christ has enjoined us to “take heed” to ourselves “lest at any time our hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life” (Luke 21:34). If I do not look within how then shall I be able to ascertain whether I possess that poverty of spirit, mourning for unholiness, meekness, hungering and thirsting after righteousness and purity of heart upon which the Saviour pronounces His benediction (Matt 5:1-8)? We must remember that salvation itself is both subjective and objective, for it consists not only of what Christ did for His people, but also what He by the Holy Spirit did in them. I have no evidence whatever of my justification apart from my regeneration and sanctification. The one who can say “I am crucified with Christ” (judicially) can also add “Christ liveth in me” (experimentally), and living by faith in Him is proof that He “loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

The heart is the center of man's moral nature, of the personality; it equals the whole inner man, it is the fount out of which everything else comes, and is the seat of his thoughts and of his affections and of his will (Gen 6:5). To guard the heart means that we should live to the glory of God in every respect; that that should be the supreme desire of our life, that we desire to know Him, love Him and serve Him.

If we are to be approved of God it is by no means sufficient that we make clean the outside of the cup and platter, yet many suppose that that is all that matters. “Cleanse first that which is within “ (Matt 23:26) is our Lord's command. This is rarely given any attention these days, or none at all. It is the devil who seeks to persuade people that they are not responsible for the state of their hearts, that it is impossible for them to change them. Such is most agreeable unto those who think to be “carried to heaven on flowery beds of ease.” But no regenerate soul, with God's Word before him, will credit such falsehood. The Divine command is plain: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov 4:23). This is the principal task set before us, for it is at the heart God ever looks, and there can be no pleasing Him while it is unattended to; yea, woe be unto those who disregard it. He who makes no honest endeavor to cast out sinful thoughts and evil imaginations, and who does not mourn over their presence, is a moral leper. He who makes no conscience of the workings of unbelief, the cooling of his affections, the surgings of pride, is a stranger to any work of grace in his soul.

Not only does God bid thee to “keep thy heart,” but He requires that you do it “with all diligence;” that is, that you make it your main concern and constant care. The Hebrew word of “keep” signifies to “guard,” to watch over this heart (that is, the soul or inward man) as a precious treasure of which thieves are ever ready to rob thee. The devotions of your lips and the labors of your hands are unacceptable to the Lord if your heart is not right in His sight. What husband would appreciate the domestic attentions of his wife if he had good reasons to believe that her affections were alienated from him?

God takes note not only of the matter of our actions but the springs from which they are done and the design of the same. If we become slack and careless in any of these respects, it shows that our love is cooled and that we have become weary of God. The Lord God is He that “pondereth the heart” (Prov 24:12) observing all its motions. He knows whether your alms-deeds are done in order to be seen of men and admired by them, or whether they issue from disinterested benevolence. He knows whether your expressions of good will and love to your brethren are feigned or genuine!

The Bible lays open, as no other book, the turpitude (shameful depravity) and horrid nature of sin as that “abominable thing” which God “hates” (Jer 44:4), and which we are to detest and shun. It never gives the least indulgence or disposition to sin, nor do any of its teachings lead to licentiousness. It sternly condemns sin in all its forms, and makes known the awful curse and wrath of God which are its due. It not only reproves sin in the outward lives of men, but discovers the secret faults of the heart which is its chief seat. It warns against the first motions, and legislates for the regulating of our spirits, requiring us to keep clean the fountain from which are “the issues of life.” Its promises are made unto holiness, and its blessings bestowed upon “the pure in heart.” The ineffable (that which cannot be expressed) and exalted holiness of the Bible is its chief and peculiar excellence, as it is also the principal reason why it is disliked by the majority of the unregenerate.

The Bible forbids all impure desires and unjust thoughts as well as deeds. It prohibits envy (Prov 23:17), and all forms of selfishness (Rom 15:1). It requires us to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and to perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Cor 7:1), and bids us to “abstain from all appearance of evil” (I Thess 5:22). Heavenly doctrine is to be matched with heavenly character and conduct. Its requirements penetrate into the innermost recesses of the soul, exposing and censuring all the corruptions found there. The law of man goes no farther than “Thou shall not steal,” but that of God “Thou shalt not covet.” The law of man prohibits the act of adultery, but the law of God reprehends (finds fault with, censures, blames) the looking upon a woman “to lust after her” (Matt 5:28). The law of man says, “Thou shalt not murder,” that of God forbids all ill-will, malice or hatred (1 John 3:15). It strikes directly at that which fallen nature most cherishes and craves. “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you” (Luke 6:26). It prohibits the spirit of revenge, enjoins the forgiveness of injuries, and, contrary to the self-righteousness of our hearts, inculcates humility.

Such a task calls for Divine aid, hence help and grace need to be earnestly and definitely sought of the Holy Spirit each day. Alas, so many today are just playing with the solemn realities of God, never embracing and making them their own. How about you, reader? Is this true of you ? Selah.

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The Spirit-Filled Family

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Clothed With Power - Paul Washer

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The Holy Spirit’s Testimony to the Blood of Jesus

By William Reid

The question is not, whether do we think it scriptural for an awakened sinner to desire the secret and power-giving presence of the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of his understanding, and shew him the all sufficiency of Christ. That is what neither we nor any other true Christian would for a moment think of forbidding. Nor is it the question, whether the work of the Holy Spirit be necessary in order to salvation. The very fact of writing as we have done on regeneration, as well as writing1 to encourage our brethren to meet together, and also meeting ourselves, to pray for the Holy Spirit to put forth His reviving, sanctifying, convincing, and converting power, will satisfy all ingenuous minds that we hold the absolute necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in order to the regeneration and conversion of perishing souls.

The only question, then, which falls to be considered is, What am I to say to an awakened and anxious sinner? Am I to say simply “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31), as said the apostle of the Gentiles to the trembling jailor of Philippi? or am I, as the first thing I do, to exhort him to pray for the Holy Spirit to convince him more deeply of his sin, enlighten his darkened understanding, renew his perverse will, and enable him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of his soul? Am I to direct him, as the grand thing he has to do, to believe in Jesus, and accept His blood-shedding as the only foundation of his peace with God; or to seek the work of the Spirit as an addition to Christ's work, in order that he may be justified? The former leads to justification by faith alone, the true Apostolic doctrine of the churches of the first age; the latter leads to justification by sanctification , the pernicious doctrine of a later era, by embracing which a man can never reach any satisfactory assurance that his sins are pardoned, even after a lifetime's religious experience and devout and sincere performance of religious duties;2 whereas, by teaching salvation by the blood of Christ alone, a man may, like the Philippian jailor, “rejoice, believing in God with all his house,” (Acts 16:34), “in the same hour” in which Christ is presented as the alone object of personal faith and consequent reconciliation.

There is, we regret to think, a large class of professing Christians who seem to have the unfounded notion engrained in their minds, that Christ came as a Saviour in the fulness of time, and on being rejected and received up into glory, the Holy Spirit came down to be the Saviour of sinners in His stead, and that whether men are now to be saved or lost depends entirely on the work of the Holy Spirit in them, and not on the work of Christ done for them; whereas the Holy Spirit was given as the crowning evidence that JESUS IS STILL THE SAVIOUR, even now that He is in heaven; and the great work of the Spirit is not to assume the place of Jesus as our Saviour, but to bear witness to Christ Jesus as the only Saviour, and by His quickening grace bring lost sinners to Him, that they may become “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). This He did on the blessed day of Pentecost, when thousands of divinely quickened souls received His testimony, believed “in the name of Jesus,” and obtained “remission of sins” (Acts 2:38).

The Holy Ghost is not the Saviour, and He never professed to be so, but His great work, in so far as the unconverted are concerned, is to direct sinners to the Saviour, and to get them persuaded to embrace Him and rely upon Him. When speaking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said distinctly to His disciples, “He shall not speak of Himself...HE SHALL GLORIFY ME“ (John 16:13,14). If to glorify Christ be the grand aim and peculiar work of the Holy Spirit, should it not also be the grand aim and constant work of those who believe in Him, and more especially of the ministers of His gospel?

The whole drift of the Holy Spirit's inspired oracles, as we have them in the Bible, is to glorify Christ; and the gospel ministry has been granted by Him (Eph 4:11,12), to keep the purport of those Scriptures incessantly before the minds of men, and in so doing to beseech sinners to be reconciled to God. Now, Holy Scripture throughout clearly teaches that, simply on account of the one finished, all-sufficient and eternally efficacious work of Christ, sinners who believe in Him are “justified from all things” ; that we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood” (Rom 3:24,25); and we are justified as “sinners,” as “ungodly,” (Rom 5:6,8) and not as having an incipient personal righteousness wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. Few men, with the Word of God in their hands, would subscribe to such a doctrine; and yet it is the latent creed of the great majority of professing Christians. It is, in fact, the universal creed of the natural heart. Fallen human nature, when under terror, says, Get into a better state by all means; feel better, pray better, do better; become holier, and reform your life and conduct, and God will have mercy upon you! But grace says, “Behold, God is my salvation!” (Isa 12:2). To give God some equivalent for His mercy, either in the shape of an inward work of sanctification, or of an outward work of reformation, the natural man can comprehend and approve of; but to be justified by faith alone, on the ground of the finished work of Christ, irrespective of both, is quite beyond his comprehension. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1 Cor 1:25); for, instead of preaching holiness as a ground of peace with God, “we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23), “for other foundation can no man lay” —either for justification or sanctification— “than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11); and, whatever others may do, I am “determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).

“O my Redeemer, who for me wast slain, Who bringest me forgiveness and release, Whose death has ransom'd me to God again, And now my heart can rest in perfect peace!

Still more and more do Thou my soul redeem, From every bondage set me wholly free; Though evil oft the mightiest power may seem, Still make me more than conqueror, Lord, in Thee!”

FOOTNOTES:

1. The author refers to his book, “The Spirit Of Jesus, “ which is entirely devoted to the elucidation of the work of the Holy Ghost in the conversion of souls.

2. This is referred to in a forcible and memorable manner by Thomas Adams, one of the old Puritans, when he is discoursing on “the first-born which are written in heaven:”— “Woe” says he, “to that religion which teacheth even the best saint to doubt of his salvation while he liveth! Hath Christ said, Believe , and shall man say, Doubt? This is a rack and strappado to the conscience; for he that doubteth of his salvation doubteth of God's love, and he that doubteth God's love cannot heartily love Him again. If this love be wanting, it is not possible to have true peace. Oh the terrors of this troubled conscience! It is like an ague; it may have intermission, but the fit will return and shake him. An untoward beast is a trouble to a man; an untoward wife is a greater trouble; but the greatest trouble of all is an untoward conscience. Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven; where there is no remission of sins, there is no blessedness. Now, there is no true blessedness but that which is enjoyed; and none is enjoyed unless it be felt; and it cannot be felt unless it be possessed; and it is not possessed unless a man know it; and how does he know it that doubts whether he hath it or not?”

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Grieving the Spirit

by Andrew Murray

"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" Ephesians 4:30.

It is by the Holy Spirit that the child of God is sealed, separated, stamped, and marked as the possession of God. This sealing is not a dead or external action that is finished once and for all. It is a living process, which has power in the soul, and gives a firm assurance of faith, only when it is experienced through the life of the Spirit in us. Because of this, we are to take great care not to grieve the Holy Spirit. In Him alone can you have the joyful certainty and the full blessing of your childship every day. It is the very same Spirit who leads us and witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.

How can anyone grieve the Spirit? Above all, by yielding to sin. He is the Holy Spirit, given to sanctify us, and--for every sin from which the blood cleanses us--to fill us with the holy life of God, with God Himself. Sin grieves Him. For this reason, the Word of God names the sins which, above all, we are to guard against. Notice the four great sins which Paul mentions in connection with our text.

The first is lying. There is no single sin in the Bible that is so brought into connection with the devil as lying. Lying is from hell, and it goes back to hell. God is the God of truth. And the Holy Spirit cannot possibly carry forward His blessed working in a man or woman who lies, who is insincere, who does injury to the truth. Young Christian, review with care what the Word of God says about lying and liars. Pray God that you may never speak anything but the literal truth. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Then there is anger. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you" (Ephesians 4:31). Along with lying, the most common sin which keeps the Christian from increasing in grace is the sin of temper--hastiness, the proneness to anger. Christian, let all ill-temperedness be put away from you. This follows from the command not to grieve the Spirit. Believe that the Holy Spirit, the great power of God, is in you. Surrender yourself every day to His indwelling in faith that Jesus can keep you by Him. He will make and keep you gentle. Yes, believe in the power of the Father, the power of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome temper. Confess the sin. God will cleanse you from it. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Then there is stealing. This is all sin against the property or possession of my neighbour, and all deception and dishonesty in trade, in which I wrong my neighbour and seek my own advantage at his cost. Christ's law is love which works to the advantage of my neighbour as well as myself. The love of money and property—inseparable from self-seeking--is incompatible with the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Christian must be a man who is known to be honest, righteous, and who loves his neighbour as himself.

Then the apostle says, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" (Ephesians 4:29). Even the tongue of God's child belongs to his Lord. He must be known by his manner of speech. By his speaking, he can grieve or please the Spirit. The sanctified tongue is a blessing not only to his neighbour, but to the speaker himself. Foul talk, idle words, foolish jests--they grieve the Holy Spirit. They make it impossible for the Spirit to sanctify, to comfort, and to fill the heart with the love of God.

Young Christian, please do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by these or other sins. If you have committed such sins, confess them, and God will cleanse you from them. By the Holy Spirit you are sealed. If you want to walk in the stability and joy of faith, listen to the word, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God."

Lord God, my Father in heaven, I pray that you would cause me to understand what marvellous grace You are manifesting to me, giving me Your Holy Spirit in my heart. Lord, let this faith be the argument and the power for cleansing me from every sin. Holy Jesus, sanctify me, that in my thinking, speaking, acting--in all things--Your image may appear. Amen.

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GEORGE MÜLLER ON THE HOLY SPIRIT

Depending entirely on the power of the Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost to the church in her collective capacity, to abide with her forever, and has not been taken away, notwithstanding our many failings. Just as the fiery pillar was not taken from the Israelites, notwithstanding their many provocations, so the blessed Spirit of God has not been taken away from the church. Moreover God has given His Spirit to the individual believer—to all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But though the Spirit dwells in the church of Christ as to her collective capacity, and in the individual believer, nevertheless it is fitting and suitable and right on the part of the children of God that they should ask God again and again, and with great earnestness, that He would work mightily by His Spirit.

We depend entirely on the power of the Holy Spirit for the conversion of sinners. There might be the most mighty preacher as to the knowledge of the scriptures and the clearness with which he sets forth the truth; yet if the Spirit of God is not pleased to bless the word, he may preach for months, and yet there will be no blessing.

Are you renewed by the Holy Spirit?

This is the momentous point, whether through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we are partakers of the Holy Spirit or not. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His. Whatever we have, if we have not the Holy Spirit, we do not belong to Christ. In whatever way we seek to resemble the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ—we may be in the habit of reading our Bibles, of bowing our knees, of singing together with them, of meeting together with them, of partaking with them at the Lord’s supper, we may be reckoned among them as disciples—and yet with all this, far from God. With all this unregenerate. With all this, wanting the Spirit of Christ. With all this, not born again through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Talkers we may be, in outward appearance like the children of God, but if the heart is unrenewed, if there be no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of our souls, through which we are born again and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit takes our bodies and makes them His temple—if this is not the case, we are yet far from God and His kingdom.

Taken from: The George Müller Treasury, Edited by Roger Steer, (Crossway Books, Westchester, IL., c1987)
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