You’re watching KCMI TV.
Thank you for joining me today.
And, uh, I wanna talk to you about something that I think that affects all of us.
And we’re going to take our scripture reading today out of the book of Ezekiel, uh, chapter 36, and we’re gonna read 2 verses.
And, uh, verse 26, god is speaking to Israel.
He said a new heart Also, will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues, and you shall keep my judgments and do them.
So I I wanna talk about heart of flesh, the heart of god.
Going back to Mount Sinai when Moses is on top of the mountain and god, uh, writes with his finger on tables of stone, tablets of stone, the 10 commitments.
Any Moses takes them. And, of course, we know, you know, that He was upset.
He broke them, so god re rewrote them. Moses comes down.
And so Israel is given these 10 commandments, and they are absolute.
You know, thou shall not killed, and thou shall not lie, and thou shall not covet, and thou shall not commit adultery.
And, um, all of these things, god’s saying you will not do these things.
And yet, when we read, uh, uh, the history of the Israelites, Uh, they couldn’t keep him, you know, even though god had written him down and they were on those tablets of stone, and they knew I’m not supposed to do this.
They couldn’t keep them. They could not walk in obedience to the 10 commitments.
And, um, the reason for this is because God had wrote his commandments on stone.
But he hadn’t written them in their heart.
And because it wasn’t on the inside. They couldn’t keep them.
And, you know, uh, knowledge of right and wrong isn’t enough to keep you from doing right or wrong.
And so the largest speaking here, and he said, it’s coming today when I’m gonna take out of you the heart of stone.
And I’m gonna give you a heart of flesh.
Um, in the, um, I think it’s in, Jeremiah chapter 17 in verse 9 is talking about the heart of man.
Says the heart is deceitful, above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.
Uh, I think that, you and I, many times, have had something come out of us that shocked us.
I have. Because and we’ll go, I didn’t know that was in me.
You know, some kind of circumstance created an atmosphere where you reacted in a way that afterwards you’re ashamed.
And, uh, because we don’t know what’s in our heart, And this is why the Holy Ghost has to rule and reign in our hearts.
Um, in the New Testament, March chapter 7 verse 21, it says, out of the heart, Uh, comes evil thoughts, murder, wickedness, adulteries, covetousness, deceipt pride.
And that’s just a partial list of what comes out of the heart.
When you don’t have god’s heart when you have that heart of stone.
And so, um, in the new testament, the Bible says this that the disciples didn’t understand.
They did not comprehend the miracle of the 5 Luvs and the 2 fishes where I think the lord fed around 20,000 people with women and children.
It said that they did not understand what god did.
Because their hearts were hardened through unbelief.
So I wanna dwell here for a minute because Um belief is really the root of every cent.
And unbelief will make it’ll take your heart that has believed in and gone.
And if it gets in there, it’ll turn it to stone.
When I was a boy, we lived close to the ocean.
And every once in a while, we would come across, um, petrified wood.
And it literally had it was rock hard.
And over time, the process of time and the elements of nature had hardened that thing.
And there’s lots of Christians that when they See, when when you get saved, we talk about this.
What did we say happens? I gave him a heart to the lord. What what does that mean?
It means I gave him my heart of stone.
And he gave me his heart of flesh.
Israel couldn’t keep god’s commandments because they they had unbelief.
That’s what the old testament talks about, even the new testament.
And the lord said that that, you know, you have tested me these ten times.
And every time they turned around, they’re seeing a miracle, but they couldn’t that couldn’t get ahold of the things of god because of unbelief.
In Romans, the 4th chapter, I think it’s verse 20 talks about Abraham, who’s the father of faith, and it says this about him.
It says he staggered not. Through the spirit of unbelief.
He staggered not at the promises of god through unbelief. You know what?
Um, unbelief does, it’ll make you walk like a drunk man.
It makes you lose your balance. It it’ll get you off path.
And this is why, this is there’s there’s a lot of people who profess to be Christians, but they can’t walk it.
They can’t walk it out. Because it’s not here. It’s here.
And, uh, this is probably my biggest contention with modern churches today in Secret friendly churches is because they offer people an experience of rehabilitation instead of creation.
What do you mean, pastor? I mean, that The old man is never crucified.
They just teach him to basically how to rehabilitate.
Well, if you don’t get rid of the old man, I don’t care how much you change your behavior.
You still got a heart of stone. And this is why the lord yeah.
And and and this is what the lord said.
He said after I give you he said I’m gonna give you a new heart, a new spirit.
He said, I’m gonna take out of you. Your stony heart.
I’m gonna give you a heart of flesh, and he says, Uh, then you can walk in my statutes.
And then you’ll keep my judgments and do them.
The lord changed the way that he dealt with men when he left the dispensation of law.
This is what Jesus did. Jesus was born in the dispensation of law.
But he fulfilled it.
And then he shifted with Calvary resurrection and to the dispensation of grace.
Having the heart having the heart of flesh, the heart of god, Uh, it doesn’t mean that you will never sin, but it means that you’ll walk in victory.
My little children, I write into you that you send not, but if any man sinned, then we have an advocate with a father who is faithful and just to forgive us.
And having the heart of god, this this is what with let’s go back to King David for a moment.
The Bible says that when it speaks at David, it says David was perfect and upright before god in all of his ways, say for the center of your right of the head type.
Number 1, that’s pretty, uh, it’s a pretty great tribute from god to David.
That in his whole life, he was up right before god, except he really messed up.
But this one moment defined the rest of his life.
And it it David’s heart The Bible says in a time when kings were supposed to be in battle, David stayed home, and he’s walking on the balcony.
Anytime, boy, I feel this in the spirit.
Anytime you allow the devil to put you some place where you ain’t supposed to be, then you are right for failure.
And if he would have been on the battlefield, he wouldn’t have seen bathsheba Baby.
Peter Ben where he was supposed to be, then the enemy would not have the occasion to cause him to fall into sin.
And over time, David, evidently, he quit praying. He quit singing to the lord.
Because his heart was so hard. Remember I read you the scripture that out of the heart comes adultery?
An evil heart comes adultery, a stony heart’s an evil heart because it can’t walk into things of god.
And David had allowed himself to get to a place to where he could look at her and know she’s married still have a an adulterous encounter with her and not be convicted.
In fact, it got worse. He kills her husband. It takes the prophetic word of the lord.
Uh, I I think it’s Jeremiah. He says, is not my word like a hammer.
It takes a hammer to break something hard.
It wasn’t until the prophet, I believe Nathan, came to David and hit his heart with a prophetic word of god that broke the heart of stone.
And David Repence and Henry Repentance god put back in him.
The heart of god. Because I think it’s an axe.
It talks about it says that David was a man after my own heart that god sought for a man after his own heart.
David ended with god’s heart.
But the process of allowing his heart to become hardened.
And, uh, I I made the state merely in this podcast that the root of all sin is unbelief.
And you say, Pastor, what does that mean?
If an individual, let’s say, they’re gonna rob a bank.
But somebody comes to them and says, that there are cops that know the police know what you’re getting ready to do.
And if you do this, There’s no doubt about it.
You’re gonna spend the next 25 years in prison for bankruptcy.
If they really believe that 3 days after they rob the bank, they’re not gonna get to spend the money, and they’re gonna spend 25 years in prison.
They wouldn’t commit the crime. Because they believe their consequences.
Most people who live outside the laws of gone don’t believe that there’s actually going to be consequences for what they do.
Somehow they believe, well, I’m still going to heaven or it’s gonna work out.
And, uh, when when you read the new testament, The Bible says this there are two times that Jesus marbled.
Number 1, I’m thinking, if you’re impressing Jesus, it’s pretty amazing.
The Bible said that Cornelius, uh, or the, uh, or the centurion that Jesus marveled at his faith.
There’s one other place in the scripture It says this that Jesus marbled at people’s unbelief.
It was just astounding to him that they could still walk in unbelief with what god had done.
Um, in the hours that you and I are in, If there ever was a time that we need to have the heart of god.
It’s in this hour.
This is what David prayed when he re when when when the hammer of the word of the lord that came out of the mouth that the prophet hitting and broke that hard heart.
He immediately begins to pray, and he says, oh god. Create within me.
A clean heart and give me a new spirit, a right spirit.
It is so important That you don’t allow the spirit of unbelief to get in you because I’m telling you that the spirit of unbelief will harden your heart it’ll take the heart of god and it’ll petrify it.
And when when you have a hard heart, you can’t believe anymore.
I think that’s part of having a serious conscience is Uh, you just you can do things and it don’t bother you anymore.
Jesus in his minute, he when he defined why he was anointed, one of the things he said was this, to heal the broken hearted.
And I I believe that we’re in a season.
Where we’re gonna see god do some incredible things, uh, that but it’s gonna take people that god has put in them a new heart.
And this is why the lord, when he’s speaking to Israel, he’s saying, there will come a day.
Right now, Israel, uh, and, boy, we need to pray for him what what’s happening in Israel and the Hamas and the war and all of that.
But a a good part of Israel, uh, is atheistic or has no acceptance of Jesus to the Messiah, And the lord said, but there is gonna come a day where I’m gonna take this heart of stone out of see, they can’t believe in Jesus right now.
Their hearts are hardened. But the lord said, there will come a day when I’m gonna take out of Israel, the hardest stone, and we’ll put it in the heart of flesh, and then their heart will beat again.
There’s a song that talks about. Tell your heart to beat again.
And the great story behind it, but There’s a I think it was a man, and, uh, he’s dying and finding his heart stopped, and they did everything.
I believe it was a hard operation.
And the surgeon had done everything, and the heart still wouldn’t beat when they tried to start it back.
And finally, He bent down, and he whispered in their ear.
And they said, tell your heart to beat again.
And miraculously, that heart start beating it.
I wanna encourage there are so many of you that you are in places of the impossible.
What’s happening is, unbeliefs trying to harden your heart.
And when the heart’s hardened, it can’t beat anymore.
Tell your heart. To beat again. Tell your heart.
In fact, let me say it this way instead of telling your heart to beat again, Tell your heart to believe again.
Ask god. God give me the heart of flesh.
Don’t let me have a heart of stone. Don’t let me be like the Israelites.
It just never could believe and wound up living in the wilderness and dying. In unbelief.
You and I, we have some place to go.
We have some amazing things to accomplish but it’s only gonna be done by faith.
So let god encourage you.
I pray that Our lesson today has been an encouragement to you. Tell you hard to believe again.
I’ll see you next week. God bless you.
For more information about Kent Christmas Ministries International or regeneration Nashville, go to Kent Christmas.org, or regeneration nashville.org.