A New Heart
E. H. Chapin, D. D. Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit… I. THIS IS AN EXHORTATION WHICH, IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER, EVERY MAN NEEDS TO HEAR. Here is a man who has to cross a river. There is no difficulty in crossing — the bridge is there — it is plain and palpable; but he stops to speculate how the bridge could have been erected — how it could span the river — and he goes still deeper into subtleties, and speculates how it is possible that he has the power of crossing it, and all the while neglects the work before him in theories that amount to no practical value, if they ever could be decided. Now here is a simple, practical work set before a man — to make himself a new heart and a new spirit. So far as man's own immediate action is concerned, there is little reason why he should perplex himself with controversies or questionings about human ability and total depravity. I do not say that the truth or falsehood of these theories is not an important consideration. But I say no man need trouble himself long with theories, so far as his own immediate duty is concerned, in this demand for practical action. Another question may be disposed of, when we consider how practical this appeal is, and that is the question, Who makes a new heart? Do you make it, or does God make it? Now here, as almost everywhere else, we find two poles to one truth — one referring to God, and one to man — but the moment we come to act, they are reconciled. If one warms into earnest effort upon the idea of having a new heart and a new spirit, the two conditions of God's agency and man's agency will melt together. If he stand still in cold, barren speculation, he freezes to death. And it is a mistake to suppose that God is not glorified when we dwell upon the point of human action. When we say you can make a new heart and a new spirit, it is a great mistake to suppose that we take the glory from God. For whence come all good desires and all right actions? They proceed from God, and from Him alone. And so do all strength and all ability. A man does not get an education, any more than a new heart, of himself. Is it not Providence that furnishes the circumstances which may incite him to the pursuit of an education, and help him to get it? Is it not Providence that touches the mysterious processes of the mind by which education becomes possible? Now suppose we should say, "This matter of getting a new heart is a process of self-education"; it would be reduced to simple terms, and yet a great many would start from it and say, "This won't do; it is too cold and naturalistic — too much of human agency to call getting religion a process of self-education." And yet what is self-education but the inspiration and the life of the Divine? You do not strike God out when you put human agency in. The fact is just this: God stands ready with His conditions, which are necessary to all human effort and to all success, whenever man is ready to fall in with those conditions. When we set the sail, the wind will blow; when we sow the seed, the agencies that God Himself has prepared in the atmosphere and in the earth will perform their part; and when we set ourselves to work to make a new heart, God's Spirit will breathe upon us and help us to consummate the work. No man that knows what it is to strive to overcome evil affections within, and sore temptations without, to grow better and purer, will take anything to himself in working out that deliverance. If in any degree he shall attain that end, he will feel that he has had Divine help — that something higher than he has breathed into him and inspired him. The very process of his work will show where he touches God, and where God Almighty has helped him, and he will give all the glory to Him. So it is perfectly consistent with God's power and glory to speak to us in the words of the text, "Make you a new heart and a new spirit." It is a call to action. What are you waiting for? You will never be in a better condition than now to make yourself a new heart. The call is at once; it is now. The Divine agencies are ready; it is only for you to surrender yourself to the conception of the great purpose and the great aim, and God will answer, and the blessing will come flowing within. II. THE PECULIARITY WHICH THIS POWER AND PRIVILEGE OF MAKING A NEW HEART EXHIBITS IN MAN. It is a wonderful thing that a man can make himself a new heart. How all little, shallow scepticisms go down before one grand moral fact! Superficial science affects to see in man nothing but a superior animal — a highly-developed ape; and judged solely by its standard, man is but little superior, and in some respects appears inferior, to the higher order of brutes. But when we seek to find the true standard of excellence, how distinct he stands from all the creatures around him! All sealed things he unloosens; all secrets he lays open; and as he marches on from point to point of civilisation, of glory, of intellectual attainment, of scientific achievement, by the inward power within him, the outward world is changed and assumes aspects that reflect his genius and thought. But there is more than this in man. There is the power of going into himself, and quarrying in the deep places of his own soul. There is a power of changing the tendency and plane of his own life. You never heard of that in the brutes. They all run in the same round, move forward in the same direction, revolve in the same orbit from age to age. But man has the power of stopping short, changing his direction, lifting up the level of his life, and becoming a new being. So it is the inward change that makes him the new being. It is the new spirit that comes into a man that produces the great and vital change. This is the new birth of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus. "Make you a new heart and a new spirit," and then you have the new man — then you have new life. Oh, how wonderfully religion adjusts itself to the great facts and needs of human nature! for is there anything that could be stated of such immediate and vital importance as this simple appeal, "Make yourself a new heart"? Out of this change come all other changes. No movement for the regeneration of society, no measure for the improvement of the world, can be radically effective but as it comes out of the reservoirs of individual hearts. It is a good world or a bad world, as men's hearts are good or bad. How vital, how radical, then, is the appeal made in the text! In all conditions of life, in all trims, in all misfortunes, this is what we want — a new heart — and then the aspect of things will be changed. Because we cannot always change things themselves. The man that is borne down by calamity cannot alter his calamity. But make yourself a new heart; fall into harmony with God's law in the matter; see your misfortune in a providential point of view, far up in the light of some higher and grander purpose which God has in store for you, and look if the thing will be changed. It will stand there as a calamity if you look at it in your old way; but if you look at it in the light of God's providence, it will be a new thing to you. "Make you a new heart." How vital this is! It goes below all things else. It goes to the centre of a man's personality, and out of it springs all real life. Not make yourself new brains. We do not want them so much as hearts. Not new conditions. We see men well endowed with conditions, but not with the will to use them. We want new hearts; not new intellectual powers. We cannot make new brains, but we can, every one of us, make a new heart. The great consideration is, Do we desire a new heart? What is the life within? Are we selfish? Are we gravitating simply to this world, living within our aims, vain cares, and uses? "Make you a new heart and a new spirit." (E. H. Chapin, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? WEB: Cast away from you all your transgressions, in which you have transgressed; and make yourself a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, house of Israel?