Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Cor. 5:17). In the light o f this, certainly the most abandoned wrecks of society may take cour age and believe that even they can be saved. But this is not all that God has promised to give us. He makes a further promise of a clean heart. “ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9). “ I f we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7). Surely these w onderfu l words mean that every child of God may experience a present, continuous and progressive cleansing as he walks in fellowship with his Lord. Like the Psalmist, and Charles Wesley who wrote: “O for a heart to praise my God, A heart from sin set free, A heart that always feels Thy blood So freely shed for me!” he must pray for and accept this cleansing by faith even as he did his pardon. Said Frances Ridley Havergal, “One o f the intensest moments of my life was when I saw the force of the word cleanseth. The utter ly unexpected and altogether un imagined sense o f its fulfillment to me, on simply believing it in its fulness, was just indescribable. I expected nothing like it short of heaven.” Referring to the same experience in a letter to a friend, she said, “The year 1873 has been a time of unprecedented blessing to me.” No wonder she could af terwards write: “Holiness by faith in Jesus, Not by effort o f thine own — Sin’s dominion crushed and broken, By the power o f grace alone.” Significantly, she wrote her most
The Blessing of a Pure Heart by Rev. Gordon W ishart Pastor, Omaha Gospel Tabernacle
M a n y y e a r s ago in eastern Canada God brought into my life a deeply spiritual Baptist preacher who has long since gone to his reward. While I sat under his enriching ministry he taught me and the congregation which flocked to hear him a soul-stirring hymn. He would then invite all those who longed to experience what they had been singing to follow him to the prayer room, where on bended knees we would prayerfully sing the hymn again. Let me share a verse with you: “ I want, dear Lord, a heart that’s 'pure and clean, A sunlit heart with not a cloud between; A heart like Thine, a heart di vine, A heart as white as snow, On me, dear Lord, a heart like this bestow.” Who would deny that in our best moments we all yearn for such a heart? And pray tell, what could be more desirable than: “A heart resigned, submissive, meek, My great Redeemer’s throne; Where only Christ is heard to speak, Where Jesus reigns alone. “A heart in every thought re newed, And full o f love divine;
Perfect, and right, and pure, and good, A copy, Lord, o f Thine!” Not surprisingly, the Bible has much to say about the human heart. As a matter of fact, it has more to say about the heart of man than any other book. It speaks of an evil heart and a clean heart, of a soft heart and a hard heart, o f a merry heart and a troubled heart, of a proud heart and a broken heart, o f a perfect and a new heart. To begin with, let us go to the book of the prophet Ezekiel, chap ter 36, verse 26, where God prom ises: “A new heart also will I give you . . . and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.” Apart from God, man’s heart is diseased, foul and wrong. Conse quently, the unsaved, unregener ated man has corrupt desires, evil •imaginations, false ideas and af fections. But, blessed be God for promising to give us a hew heart! Of all the new things promised in the Word of God, surely the most wonderful and the most necessary is the new heart. For a new heart will mean new desires, new ambi tions, new thoughts, new feelings. It will be as different from the old heart, old desires, old ambi tions, and old passions as light is from darkness. This experience of the new heart is what we call conversion. “ If any man be in
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