A Tale of Two Hearts
I want to tell you a tale: a true tale, a terrifying tale, and a touching tale. It’s a tale of two hearts. Throughout the telling of this tale, we need to ask, “Where do we see ourselves?” There is, on the one hand, a portrait black and blue, a heart beat up by sin that vomits poison. Let me warn you from the beginning; this is a horrifying image of such a heart. You may wish to distract your mind and re-direct your eyes as you consider the carnage. As you focus your eyes, squinting for a corner of light, you may despair of the darkness. It is, to put it directly, a grievous heart, a heart that grieves the heart of holiness.
There is, on the other hand, a portrait white and green, a heart blossoming with new leaves of life. Let me comfort you from the beginning; this is a luscious and lively image of such a heart. Seeing the orange and pink blossoms of this heart, you may fix your eyes on this garden. As you behold this heart because of the light shining upon it, you may be full of hope. It is, to put it directly, a godly heart, a heart that houses the very Holy Spirit. Where will you see yourself? I wonder. What portrait better pictures the canvas of your life? With what colors is your heart painting? Perhaps a little of both, and if so, what a sobering but also sanctifying reality! Do you wonder about your heart? Or do you have it already figured out? Let’s see, shall we?
A Grievous Heart
As we open up this first heart, know that it’s not for the faint of heart. We are, after all, opening up the chest cavity of a corpse, exposing the deadness inside this wretched soul. This is the kind of spiritual cadaver recently dead, and because rigor mortis hasn’t fully taken over, let’s not be surprised by some spillage of this soul. And look alive, lest it stain you as you peer inside.
As we excavate this miserable mass of iniquity and darkness, does its stench taste bitter? This heart was carried in a man who hated God because his brother was accepted. He offered a sacrifice of his own choosing to the Lord, viewing it as acceptable. But the Lord knew it was the wrong sacrifice and it was the wrong attitude. Unable to kill his Creator, he ended the life of the next-best thing: his brother. In a twist of troubling providence, this man drove the stake of sin deeper into his own heart, killing a piece of himself.
This bitterness rested, stewed really, in the heart of another. A hairy man, a nation in a womb, red all over his body, and red inside his heart. Deceived by his younger but superior brother, he gave up his blessing for a stew. With hunger satisfied but hatred not, he plotted the death of his twin brother, made in the image of God, a man after his own likeness like no other. His will thwarted by God, he stewed longer, and made life bitter for his parents, even to the bitter end.
This heart found itself in a nation wandering a wilderness for 40 years. A bitter people’s grumbling heart saw itself splayed on a rock in Marah. They had found no water, and the water that the rock offered tasted bitter and was undrinkable. In the Lord’s kindness, their mediator made sweet this bitter water. But this sweetness wasn’t to reflect the nation’s heart, which grumbled still more.
This heart was full of the poison of bitterness in one wearer so much so that the heart demanded a name change: “Call me Mara. I am bitterness,” she declared. Judging the Judge of all the earth, she pronounced him guilty, “The Almighty has been against me. He who used to be my advocate is now my adversary.” In despair she lamented, “He who used to be my buttress is now my betrayer.” With torqued soul, she cried out, “My bitterness belongs to the Lord. He birthed it from me. He is the guilty one.” Defeated, she whispered, “I was full but now am empty: empty of pleasantness, now full of bitterness.”
As this grievous heart rears its ugly head, there is more poison inside than a blanket of bitterness covering the entrails. A worried but wrathful leader of an up-and-coming nation, its king delighted in torturing the enslaved people of God, and rejoiced in making their labor the more severe. “Let my people go!” came the cry over and again, but the cry wasn’t met with compassion. And when there was the semblance of a turning point, allowing them finally to leave, the decision turned to their pursuit and destruction. His will thwarted from above, this king and all his horses found themselves under the sea of divine wrath.
The heart that grieves the holiness of God is full of wrath and red with anger. We noticed it in a man from days of old, just before the great flood. Rather than boasting in God’s grace, he boasted in his own greatness. The man cried out to his two wives, “Hear my voice. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.” Taking upon himself divine judgment, he arrogated to himself divine forgiveness. “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then mine is seventy-sevenfold!”
Tragically, we notice this in men in the present, even after the great cross. This angry heart jumps down the throats of its sons and daughters, provoking them to anger. Instead of bearing patiently with them and instructing them in the Lord, these fathers have trained their sons in the way of men, on the edge of anger.
As we descend deeper into the bowels of this carcass, do you hear its sounds? It’s a cacophony of corruption, not a sound of joy but music of malice rising to our ears. Our ears catch a noisy gong of grief, the clanging cymbals of sin struck by our instruments of investigation. We hear it from a man of many. At first glance, it looked like a solitary sufferer. He was afflicted, bound with chains easily overcome, dwelling in a tomb, and crying out. The clamor from within reverberated the tomb walls and echoed into the town. This man held Legion in his bosom, an unclean man made sane by the sound of another. Legion, however, was not made whole but instead driven out to indwell the nearby unclean pigs.
In another scene centuries later, a great clamor arose in a division of two Spirit-less groups in the days of Paul. At odds with how to understand the mighty works of God, they were tearing at each other’s throats, and almost tore Paul to pieces, and all on account of their clamorous unbelief.
Adding slander to clamor, this heart under review shows signs of a life of blasphemy. The vocal cords are perforated from a lifetime of a strained voice against its Maker. Could this corpse belong to the man who cursed the Lord’s anointed, King David? It would make sense, wouldn’t it? He fled Jerusalem to support God’s rebel, the son of the king. A kinsman of the dead king Saul, Shimei picked up stones to throw at David. As he walked the way, he hurled stones in curses against God’s king. Or could this body of blasphemy belong to that diabolical Diotrephes? A man whose name means “nurtured by God,” he chose instead to nurture his sense of self. His self-enthronement entitled him to slander the Apostle John. A man rejecting the authority of God’s appointed apostle, he carried on in his slander against the local church and prevented the support of her missionaries. Or could this heart be the possession of the slanderous nations? They’ve cried out, “Let us burst ourselves apart from God and his Anointed!” In their slander, these nations rage and plot against the Lord, but all in vain.
It is, yes, the body of Shimei, the body of Diotrephes, and the body of these nations. Indeed, it is the body of all evil. But the picture of this heart cannot be summarized by only one of these poisons. Instead, the grievous heart here is, in a word, evil. That’s what we’ve been looking at. Evil in every corner of the heart, corruption in the whole body of this mass of misery.
What a heart! What a grievous heart! A heart sealed in six ways off from the coming redemption. A sixfold sinister heart encapsulating evil from the core: A heart of bitterness, of wrath, of anger, of clamor, of slander, and of evil. A heart, left to its own, which produces death. Peering into this heart of darkness, does its bitter corruption splash against your lips? Do you see the bowels enflamed by the infectious wrath? Can you feel the red-hot furnace radiating its anger? Do you hear the discord from the disease of this cacophonous cancer? Has this heart’s blasphemy reached your ears? Have you come to grips with the evil that is this heart? O what a heart that vexes the Lord of holiness, even the Spirit who seeks to dwell among his people!
A Godly Heart
What can contrast this grievous heart? What can combat and even kill the heart that grieves God? The godly heart. The kind heart. The corrupt heart, in order for its full, sevenfold healing, depends on the One who seeks worshippers. Have you seen this loving heart? Have you fathomed the depths of the Father’s love? Oh, you cannot dissect this heart, for it’s not dead but eternally alive, and is the very source of life! It’s from this heart that he clothed Adam and Eve with garments of animal skins. It is because of this heart that Noah found grace in God’s eyes and the whole world didn’t drown forever. It is from this heart that he promised Abraham he’d be the father of countless children. It is this heart that comforted Moses, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” This heart voiced faithfulness to David, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.” It’s this heart that assured the exiled Israel, “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” It is this heart that moved the Father to run after the lost, rebellious sons of creation. It is this heart that forgives our debts as we forgive our debtors. It’s this heart that sent his Only-Begotten into the world to restore us from our old corruption, and to deal the deathblow to our hearts that sinned against his holiness. O what a heart from God the Father! And what of the heart of Another?
The corrupt heart, in order for its full, sevenfold healing, depends on the One who secured worshippers. The sixfold heart of desperation is no match for the heart that holds the Seven Spirits above. This heart moved the Son to come to the earth, born of woman and under the law. From this heart, he taught sinful men the way of salvation to the Father. From this heart, he spoke a word to calm the clamor of the sea. From this heart, he stabilized a doubting disciple. From this heart, he caused the blind to see, and the Legions to flee. From this heart of compassion, the Son endured all the bitterness, all the wrath, all the anger, all the clamor, all the slander, and all the evil of men. From this heart of patience, the Son took upon himself all the righteous wrath of God. Hallelujah, what a Savior who stretched out his heart on the cross! Oh, you cannot dissect this heart, for though he died, still more did he rise from the dead! What a heart from God the Son! And what of the heart of still Another?
The corrupt heart, in order for its full, sevenfold healing, depends on the One who sealed worshippers. The Seven Spirits from before God’s throne is the Holy Spirit himself. The holy heart of the Holy Spirit moved the Spirit to fills our hearts. With his heart he ran with all the speed of the divine, from heaven to earth, to seal us for all eternity, to be our guarantee, to the praise of his glory. What a heart from God the Holy Spirit who has graciously chosen to indwell us. Through the Holy Spirit, the love of God has been poured into our hearts. From his gracious heart, the Spirit sprinkles clean our dirty hearts and cleanses them anew. From his heart, the Spirit of truth speaks wisdom into our lives, gold from God above. From his heart, he empowers us to bear the fruit for which we were redeemed. Oh, you cannot dissect this heart, for this Spiritual life is what gives you your very life. What a heart of our Triune God: one God, one will, one single-hearted love for our redemption! What a heart he has given us, a heart in which now to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit from divine grace. A heart seven-times sealed for the coming resurrection!
Beloved saints, you whose hearts house the very holiness of God, yes the very Holy Spirit, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
That was very interesting in the prose and the turnings of a phrase in creative ways. Highly colorful and dramatic illustrations that starkly reminds me of ol' Jack, aka C. S. Lewis. Nice work!