Episode 14 | Faith Of Our Fathers: What Do We Know About The Claims Of The Bible?

Summary

The concept of the "new birth" represents a complete transformation of our inner selves, a spiritual renewal that realigns our thoughts, emotions, and will with the will of God. But what within us needs transformation? This discussion delves into the intricate workings of the human heart, mind, and emotions and highlights our desperate need for spiritual regeneration.

Human Nature and the Image of God
Humanity, created in God's image, possesses intelligence, emotions, and free will, setting us apart from animals. Yet, sin has corrupted these faculties, distorting their divine purpose.

1. The Heart: Source of Sin
   Scripture repeatedly refers to the "heart" as the center of our personality and the source of evil. It is from the heart that sinful behaviors originate, illustrating the need for purification and renewal.

2. The Power of Habit and Choice
   Our choices, driven by selfish desires, solidify into habits that enslave us in sin. As Isaiah 53:6 states, humanity's deliberate choice to stray from God has dire consequences.

3. The Role of Scripture in Transformation
   The Word of God exposes the deceitfulness of the heart and provides the discernment needed for purification. Hebrews 4:12 emphasizes the necessity of divine intervention to renew our thoughts and intents.

4. A Call for Purification
   True regeneration requires a cleansing of the heart, mind, and emotions. Through repentance and faith, believers find forgiveness and experience the transformative power of the cross.

Episode Transcript

We have seen from our discussion of the new birth that it is a complete transformation of our whole personalities.

But before we inquire more specifically how this transformation takes place, let us ask this question.

What needs to be transformed in man?

We saw that man does not need any new faculties imparted to him in the experience of the new birth, but this complete and wonderful transformation.

Man alone of the earthly creatures was created in the image of God, which involved an intelligence or an ability to live a right in knowledge and wisdom.

God proposed that man differ from the animal existences in this sense.

Man also was given an emotional nature, or a something within, that has feeling or response, and also a free will that has the ability to guide the life in proper paths.

We are most marvellous beings in our inner relations.

What we think about becomes a part of us.

There is a registry of thoughts called the memory.

Many who have studied the mind a great deal have said that we never actually forget anything, but are surprised at the details of our lives that we can remember as we sit down and ponder and draw forth from our subconscious memories.

How wonderful, then, is this delicate registry upon the inner personalities that God has endowed us with.

It's a portion of the great bestowments of God.

Our emotions register experiences and clamor for the duplication of some and the avoidance of others.

The will of man is the ability to choose and direct the life, and is strongly influenced by the power of habit.

So we can truly say we are what we have been through.

Certain scriptural terms are brought forth to teach us the inner condition of our lives, and also to portray the mainspring of our inner activity.

One of these words is the word heart.

Now, I don't suppose any of us actually believe that we have such a mysterious thing within our personalities that we call heart, but that God is trying to teach us something of our inner spiritual nature by making a comparison with our physical bodies.

The heart of our body is indeed the center of all functions of our bodies.

It is there that the blood is forced at an unbelievable power and strength to circulate through the body.

And therefore, when God wants to relate to the very center of our personalities, that inner function that we call our very selves, he uses the word heart, carrying forth a figure into the inner personalities of our lives from that similarity that exists in our bodies.

So the heart is a center of personality and is pictured in the Bible as the source of all evil.

This must refer to the directive or executive part of our personalities, which is our very essence.

Isaiah in the 53rd chapter in verse 6, you'll recall, wrote thus, All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned every one to our own way.

This choice of sin was deliberate.

It was a choice that determined our future course, and this choice could not but have great and tremendous effects.

Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 11 has a very forceful thought for our consideration.

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Here we see that the will of man has been committed to an evil pathway, and certainly, once the will is committed, the habit continues in great force, and as habit is added to, it becomes more ferocious and more desperate and more impossible to deal with.

Also in chapter 9 verse 3 of Ecclesiastes, we read these words, This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all, yea, also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

So there comes to be a ferociousness about the way of selfishness when it is persisted in, and it is likened unto an intensified madness or determination.

Certainly, if there is going to be a regeneration, a new birth, there has to be a wonderful deliverance from all these things, does it not?

In Jeremiah, Chapter 17, Verse 9, we read a characteristic of our inner lives that has to be purified.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Who can know it?

So there is within us a deceitfulness that must certainly be purged out if we're going to have fellowship with God and live with him in this life and in the life to come.

And this deceitfulness of heart, the scriptures call desperately wicked.

Who can know it?

It's a matter of mystery.

It's a matter of undiscerment as to the real penetrating tragedy of it all.

In Mark chapter 7, verses 21 to 23, our blessed Lord gives some instruction as to the source of sin within the heart.

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

All these things come from within and defile the man.

Here our dear Lord said that there is a very essence of our personality that's the cause of all the trouble.

It is this committal of the will to self-gratification, and there is a tenaciousness about it, a clinging to our own selfish purpose, and originates all the evil that comes forth from our very being.

So the outward things that we are so aware of are not actually the source of guilt that needs to be cleansed, but these are only the manifestations of this inner rebelliousness of heart that prevails in man before he is born again and transform.

In Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 12, we read about this, Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God.

Here our very essence in the nature of sin is called an evil heart, and it is accompanied by unbelief.

In chapter 4 and verse 12, the last part, we read about the thoughts and intents of the heart, and this is the very essence of the need of purification, and that takes the word of God as we read there, to discern what these thoughts and intents are.

So we see the great need that the very essence of our being should be purified and delivered.

In Romans chapter 8 and verse 7, we read about the kernel mind or the mining of the flesh, which is enmity against God.

Certainly, this occupation of mind, this development in the intelligence, must be purified for without our being, if there's going to be a happiness and an association with God.

In Colossians chapter 2 verse 18, the last part, we read about vainly being puffed up in the fleshly mind, and so there's a pride, there's a superficiality that has to be purged out of our hearts in this great regeneration that the scripture talks about.

In Titus chapter 1 and verse 15, we read about the mind and the conscience, which is defiled and certainly must be purified from without our beings.

There we read these words, unto the pure, all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

So if man is going to be prepared to associate with God, there has to be this mighty inner transformation of his whole being.

Back in Ezra chapter 9, we read a summarized expression of the condition of man's heart, verse 6.

And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God, for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is drawn up unto the heavens.

What an inner description of guilt this is.

But our affections are also filled with evil tendencies.

In Galatians chapter 5 and verse 17, we read there how the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

The flesh is the sum total of our selfish desires.

These accumulations of excitements, of experiences that have built up a great bondage within the heart.

And also in chapter 6 verse 8 of Galatians, we read that he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.

There will be an evil tendency, an evil leaning within the heart that must be purified out of it.

In Romans chapter 7 and verse 5, the apostle Paul talks about the motions of sin or the passions of sin which exist in the human heart.

And in chapter 1 of Romans verse 26, we read that God gave them up to vile affections.

So there are evil passions and there are vile affections in the beings of men that has to be purified and cleansed out and transformed in regeneration.

The apostle Paul expressed a summary of the whole inner state of man in Romans 7 24 when he said, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Heavenly Father, we have read these solemn declarations from thy word.

We have seen the desperate need that man has for the purifying power of the cross of Christ, for a cleansing of the heart.

O Heavenly Father, grant thy light upon thy word, that many this day may recognize their need before thee, that many may see the committal of their wills and all the damage that it has done, and what a bondage it has brought them into, that many may see the corrupt applications of their minds, and how the channels of thought need to be purified, that many may see the corrupt experiences of their emotional life, and what a bondage it has slavery, this has brought them in, so that thou didst say, Jesus, he that committeth sin is the servant's slave of sin.

May many this day recognize these necessary facts.

Come to thee, all blessed Jesus, by repentance and faith.

Find forgiveness and transformation of the heart.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.