I'd like to try to speak on how
to get a clean heart this morning.
There are Christians, and then there are Christians,
and then there are Christians.
That's right.
And at different stages of my life, I
was each of those.
And this morning, you are one or other
of them.
And it's important to know which you are.
Why?
Because the first kind of Christian has this
attitude.
So examine your own heart and your life
to see if this is your attitude.
First kind of Christian says, sure, I'm as
good a Christian as anyone.
I love my country.
I pay my taxes.
I believe in God and Jesus Christ.
I go to church.
I try to live by the golden rule.
I try to do as much for the
next guy as I can.
Yeah, I'm a Christian.
As much of a Christian as anybody is
a Christian.
Now, what you're really saying there is, I'm
Christian because I'm not Buddhist.
I'm not Muslim.
I'm not Hindu.
I'm Christian.
I've been brought up in a Christian country.
I've been brought up by Christian parents.
I've gone to a Christian church since I
was born.
I was baptized there.
I was confirmed there.
I was married there.
I hope to be buried there.
I have been involved in a Christian society
as long as I can remember.
But if you examine your own attitude to
Christianity, you'll admit that even though Christian principles
surround you in this society and surround you
in your place of work, even though actually
Christian principles are impregnating your very mind so
that you're full of Christian ideas, yet your
heart, your inner heart is just the same
as the heart of anybody who isn't a
Christian.
That is, day by day, it's preoccupied with
the same things as everybody else is.
Making money, getting enough food to keep yourself
alive, and getting by, and getting what little
bit of happiness you can.
And your heart is actually not preoccupied with
God.
And it's not preoccupied with bringing people to
Jesus.
Your heart is actually just like the heart
of any other person who doesn't claim to
be a Christian.
Now the theologians call that being a
natural man.
That's what a natural man is, loved ones,
or a natural woman.
You can believe all the Christian principles.
You can go to church like all the
rest of us.
You can live in a Christian society.
But the only thing inside you that is
Christian is your conscience, which bothers you with
guilt every time you disobey God.
But actually, in your heart, there is no
Christian spirit.
In other words, your life is primarily involved
in observing external practices and principles and customs
that you, with your intellect, approve of.
Now that's what a natural man is, or
we have a term, a nominal Christian.
Why I outline that to you this morning
is, loved ones, these are unique times that
we have together.
And at many points in your life, you'll
look back on these and you'll say to
yourself, you know, that's where I was faced
with reality repeatedly, and I've never been faced
with reality as continuously as those days.
These are unique and precious days, you know.
They are.
We're kind of a privileged bunch.
Not at all, because you have me to
listen to.
Because we're together.
Because we're together, and God has, for the
moment, opened your ears so that you can
hear some of this stuff.
And so that you can understand it.
And loved ones, I want you to know
where you are in relationship to God yourself,
you see.
Not to kind of make you feel bad
or a second-class citizen, but so that
you'll know.
Now, am I a Christian, or am I
a Christian?
Now, the second kind of Christian is one
whose conscience has been enlivened by the Holy
Spirit.
So that they stop saying, oh, I must
try to cut down on my drinking.
I just have to.
They stop saying that.
Or I must clean up my sex life
sometime.
Or I just have to start reading that
Bible that Pastor talks about.
They stop that kind of easy-going attitude
to what they know is right and what
they know is wrong.
And their conscience is enlivened so that it
doesn't just bother them, it weighs them down.
The conscience reinforced by the Bible, and reinforced
by the operation of the Holy Spirit upon
it, begins to convict that person deeply of
the fact that they are not living the
way they were meant to live.
And they, in fact, begin to see hell
yawning before them.
And they begin to see that their life
is full of sins.
And that the wages of sin is death.
And that they're on the way to that
death.
And they're on their way to a hell
of selfishness with all the other nominal Christians.
And they begin to sense that.
And they begin to realize that God is
utterly justified in excluding them from heaven.
And utterly justified in destroying them before they
destroy Him and all the other people within
their reach.
And that Christian begins to come under deep
conviction of sin.
And begins to treat God for the first
time with a real sense of fear.
And it's then that he normally hears the
gospel that the Jews in the Old Testament
heard.
I say that because I'm afraid so often
in our society, that's the gospel that such
a person who comes under conviction of sin
as a convicted sinner hears.
And I'll show you that gospel, loved ones,
and I think you'll agree with me.
It's in Mark 1 and verse 4.
It's the gospel that the Jewish prophets preached
and among them John the Baptist.
Mark 1 and verse 4.
It's page 867, 867.
John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching
a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of
sins.
And that's the gospel they hear.
They hear that God is willing to forgive
them their sins.
And 1 John 1 and 9 reinforces it,
which says, if we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins.
And such a person goes to God and
says, Lord, I confess my sins and I
repent of them.
I ask you now to forgive me.
And because such a person lives in a
world that has already seen Jesus, and knows
that it's because of Jesus that they can
have their sins forgiven, they do what they're
told.
They believe on Jesus and they receive His
Spirit.
And God acts upon their spirit and makes
their spirit alive.
And they become aware of God.
But actually, they're still Old Testament Christians.
They're still Old Testament Christians.
God's Spirit has acted upon their spirit and
made it alive and enabled them to be
born again so that they're aware of God,
but they're aware of Him vaguely.
They don't, for instance, have that vivid awareness
of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that the
disciples had.
And they know that.
And they don't quite know what's wrong.
Moreover, the experience they testify to will be
the one that the Jews testified to.
The forgiveness of their sins.
That's what such an Old Testament Christian is
preoccupied with.
The forgiveness of their sins.
That's all they know to testify to.
That's the primary experience they have.
And so, they are strange hybrid creatures because
they're really in the same position as the
Old Testament Jews.
They know the forgiveness of their sins, and
yet they do know of Jesus, which the
Old Testament people could only suspect, you remember,
the one who was to come.
But they haven't actually got into the whole
of the New Covenant.
And so, you find that they are preoccupied
with their sins.
And they are very loath to testify to
the distinction that John the Baptist pointed out
between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
You remember what that was if you have
the page open where you looked up Mark
1 and 4?
Just look down to Mark 1 and 8.
And John the Baptist points out the difference
between the Old Covenant and the New.
He says, I'm preaching repentance for the forgiveness
of the sins.
But then in verse 8, I have baptized
you with water because all I can do
is wash you clean from the guilt of
your sin.
But He will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit.
And these loved ones aren't very aware of
that baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, they live primarily on the basis of
1 John 1 and 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins.
And the basis of the truth of 1
John 1 and 7, if we walk in
the light as He is in the light,
the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all
sin.
They walk primarily preoccupied with sins, actually.
It's interesting.
They testify that their sins are forgiven, but
yet they walk primarily preoccupied with sin.
Either with getting free from the guilt of
it by continual confession and repentance or fighting
it with all their hearts to try to
overcome it.
But some or other, all they know is
the forgiveness of their sins, little of the
power over sin, and little of that whole
beautiful life that is above sin completely.
And so they actually live in the world
of the Old Testament Jew, where they cry,
I don't understand my own actions.
I do not do the good that I
want, but I do the evil that I
hate.
Now, what is the problem with a Christian
who is in that position?
With a carnal Christian.
Because that's what such a person is.
They're no longer nominal Christians.
They're no longer natural men.
They have God's Spirit acting upon their spirit,
and their spirit is alive and knows God,
and the Holy Spirit at times works within
them.
But yet they live in this life of
defeat as far as sin in their lives
are concerned.
What is the problem?
Oh, their heart.
Their heart.
That's the problem.
It's their heart is the problem.
And Jesus explained that.
He said, it's not what you eat.
It's not the food that comes through your
mouth that defiles you.
It's what comes out of your mouth.
Because what comes out of your mouth is
what comes from your heart.
Because from your heart comes fornication.
From your heart comes slander and false witness.
From your heart comes murder and adultery.
It's your heart that sends those things up.
And loved ones, that's the situation.
So many of us who are carnal Christians
have a very lively conscience.
And reinforced by the Bible, and reinforced by
fellowship in the body of Jesus, it becomes
intensely powerful.
And it is constantly constraining our wills to
obey God.
And so we find our wills are trying
with all their heart to obey God.
But the heart is sending up such a
stream of evil to the will, that the
will cannot handle it.
And it cannot overcome it.
And it cannot repress it.
And it cannot hold it down.
And at times it has to let it
through and break out into the outward life.
Because even though your spirit has been renewed
and made alive, your heart is still the
old miserable heart that you had before you
repented of your sins originally.
In other words, your nature actually hasn't changed.
Because the heart is what we mean by
saying the heart of the matter.
Your heart is the real you.
It's the heart of you.
It's the very essence of you.
It's your very own deep self.
It's you as you really are.
You may want to say, No, no, it
isn't.
I can't be as bad as that.
That's it.
That stuff is coming from what you really
are deep down inside.
And it's your heart that is the problem.
And let's remember what Jesus said.
He said, It's out of a person's heart
that come all those things that they can't
control.
And that's why you're in the same position
as the Jews in the Old Testament.
They felt everything's clean.
Why can't I obey?
And you tend to feel the same way.
You say, But look, I've been made clean.
Everything's clean.
Why can't I obey?
And loved ones, the reason is in that
statement you remember in Ezekiel, if you look
at it just again.
Because some of you may not have read
it that last Sunday.
Ezekiel 36.
And it's one of those great Old Testament
pieces that foresee what the new covenant is
going to be like.
And outlines the new covenant.
And of course, because it's God's Word, says
it in some ways better than even pieces
in the New Testament say.
It's Ezekiel 36 and verse 26.
God is describing what He's going to do
in the new covenant.
Page 746, loved ones.
746.
Ezekiel 36 and 26.
A new heart I will give you.
And a new spirit I will put within
you.
Now a carnal Christian has a new spirit.
Their spirit is made alive by the operation
of the Holy Spirit upon it.
But the new heart they do not have.
And you see the way it goes on.
And I will take out of your flesh
the heart of stone and give you a
heart of flesh.
And that's what hasn't happened with a carnal
Christian.
They still have a heart of stone.
And I will put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statutes
and be careful to observe my ordinances.
Three things will happen in the new covenant.
God will renew your spirit.
He'll make you alive.
He'll regenerate you.
Firstly, He'll enable you to be born of
Him.
He'll enable you to become aware of Him.
Secondly, He'll give you a new heart and
a clean heart.
And then thirdly, He'll put into that clean
heart His own Holy Spirit.
And loved ones, the problem with a person
who lives in defeat in their own lives
regarding sin is that their heart is still
under the control of their own will.
The will still retains control of the heart
and still maintains the right to have in
that heart whatever it wants.
It keeps that little part of itself private
from God.
It surrenders all the other kinds of things
to God.
But it will not surrender the very heart
of its own being.
And the will retains control over that heart.
And it's that heart that spews up the
evil and the uncleanness that you find coming
into your mind repeatedly in the day-to
-day life that you live.
And do you see, it's because you've surrendered
as much as doesn't matter.
That's it.
You said you gave your life to Jesus.
Well, actually, you give as much as doesn't
matter.
You've retained a little piece inside you where
you retain the right to think what you
want when you want.
You retain the right to disobey when you
please.
Indeed, you're treating Jesus the way the Jews
treated Him when He was on earth.
They did what they pleased with Him.
And they ignored Him and lived the way
they wanted and pretended that He had never
come upon the scene.
You have a little piece in your heart
where you live that way.
There's a little piece inside you over which
Jesus is not Lord, the very heart, the
very inner part of you.
Now, while such a carnal Christian confesses and
repents of their sin day after day, and
while they fight sin with all their heart
or all their strength, and while they try
to obey as best they can, God will
continue to give them His Spirit.
And the Spirit will not be able to
stay with them.
God will not be able to put His
Spirit in as a permanent residence in the
heart because it's not clean.
But every time they confess, God will regenerate
them, will keep them alive.
But they know the effect of that because
their life goes up and then it goes
down, then it goes up and then it
goes down.
So it's life and death, life and death,
life and death, year after year, life and
death.
Confess and repent.
God gives His Spirit.
Sin again.
Resist the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit witnesses that He's grieved.
You go down into guilt.
Up, up, down.
There is no constant life.
But yet, while a carnal Christian will walk
that way, they can remain alive in God.
However defeated and inconsistent and sporadic the life
is, if they ever begin to rationalize their
sins and say, No, that is not sin
for me.
Fornication is not sin for me.
Adultery is not sin for me.
They begin to rationalize God's Word.
They begin to say, Well, who knows?
Who knows whether that's right or not right?
They begin to rationalize what is obedience and
disobedience.
If they won't start to do that, and
then they begin to justify this unequal battle
against the power of sin in their lives
as the normal Christian life, and they begin
to try to treat that disease with a
mixture of positive thinking and Christian technique literature
and kind of reinforcement from fellowship, then they
will lose everything.
And their last state will be worse than
the first.
Now, how do you get into the normal
Christian life?
How do you get a clean heart?
By entering fully into what God has done
for us in Jesus in the New Covenant.
That's it.
It's not something extra you need.
In a sense, you're right.
If you're born of God, you have everything.
But you have to enter into it all.
Enter fully into what God has done for
you in the New Covenant in Jesus.
What has He done?
Well, Mark 1 and 8.
John the Baptist says, I baptize you with
water, but He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit.
You need to be baptized with the Holy
Spirit.
Now, you may say, Now, wait a minute.
I'm talking about my anger and my bad
temper.
I'm talking about my moral impotence.
I'm talking about the fact that I can't
overcome sin in my life.
What has the baptism with the Holy Spirit
got to do with that?
Loved ones, look at this verse.
Acts 15 and verse 8.
And you'll see.
Acts 15 and verse 8.
It's page 962.
Acts 15 and verse 8.
And you remember Peter is telling them of
an event that took place when Cornelius and
his household were baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Acts 15 and 8.
And God, who knows the heart, bore witness
to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just
as He did to us.
And He made no distinction between us and
them, but cleansed their hearts by faith.
That's it.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is connected
with the clean heart.
And the clean heart is cleansed by faith.
So, God gives the Holy Spirit and He
cleanses your heart by faith.
Now, just to remind you, some of you
may still say, Oh, but didn't I receive
the Holy Spirit when I was born of
God?
Loved ones, you see what we've shared.
Yes.
You received as much of Him as you
were willing to allow to control your life.
But the fact is that He has not
been able to dwell in your life and
you will testify to that.
You will testify to the in, out, up
and down existence.
The fact is that He has to operate
upon you from outside as He did with
the Old Testament people.
He has not been able to abide in
you as a continuing presence in your life,
as a resident within you.
And the only way to have Him abide
in you is to allow Jesus to baptize
you with Him.
Now, you may say, Does that mean that
my heart then will begin to send up
Jesus' loving attitudes and sentiments?
Yes, it does.
That's right.
Your heart, instead of spewing up all the
dirt that you have to put up with,
will begin miraculously to send up the life
and the love of Jesus Himself.
That's what that passage in Galatians means, you
remember?
In Galatians 5 it says, The works of
the flesh are anger, you remember?
Adultery, fornication, murder, selfishness, strife.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness.
The works of the flesh over there, the
desires of the flesh strive against the desires
of the Spirit.
And loved ones, your heart doesn't have both.
You see, that's the mistake you make.
You and I think, Well, it's just a
matter of my heart edging over a little.
I mean, instead of edging over this way,
it has to edge over that way.
I mean, my heart has good things in
it, hasn't it?
It's just that there's some bad things as
well.
No.
Cease it.
Your heart is dirty.
Your heart is unclean all the way.
The only reason you have anything good in
your life is because the Holy Spirit manages
at times to get His life through to
you.
But your heart, basically, if you just sat
for five or ten years, your heart is
just filled with evil.
It's not filled with good.
And loved ones, that's part of Satan's trick
with you, saying, Now look, it's not as
bad as he says.
Your heart has some good things.
Look at what you did yesterday.
Loved ones, the fact is, even that is
tainted with evil and dirt and selfishness if
you see it as it really is.
And of course, that's the issue really, isn't
it?
With a clean heart.
And with a heart of any kind.
You can actually go under the uncleanness of
the heart and there's a problem beyond the
uncleanness of the heart.
I'll explain to you what I mean.
You know you say somebody has a generous
heart.
Somebody who maybe just seems to be generous
with his possessions and giving them to other
people.
Now you know if you talk to that
guy or that girl and you say that,
they'll almost be unconscious of it.
They'll say, No, no.
And you'll know why that is.
You'll know that their heart has an attitude
of confidence about their security.
Either confidence in God or confidence in what
they own themselves.
But their heart will be filled with generosity
because the heart's attitude itself has a whole
big attitude to life or to the world
or to their security that is different from
yours.
That's why they're even unconscious of it.
Or somebody who has a magnanimous heart.
If you find a woman who has a
magnanimity towards her critics and you'll say, Oh,
how do you manage to keep away from
spite or resentment?
And the person will say, Huh, I never
thought that.
And you'll know why that is.
Because their heart no longer trusts in peer
approval for its self-worth.
And so she doesn't have a dependence on
people's opinion and that's why her heart can
be so magnanimous.
Now it's the same with our unclean hearts.
Our hearts are unclean because basically our heart
has a wrong attitude to all of life.
Our heart has a wrong attitude to life
as a whole.
It has a wrong attitude about what it
depends on.
It has a wrong attitude to what its
resources in this world are.
Jesus, you remember, said, Where your heart is,
there will your treasure be also.
And that's the problem with an unclean heart.
Its treasure is in the wrong place.
And in Jesus, on the cross, all of
us were placed with our unclean hearts.
And the whole attitude of our heart which
was wrong was changed and made right.
In other words, our hearts for years and
years have been trained to depend on the
world and not on God.
That's the basic problem with the whole thing.
Our heart is unclean because it actually depends
on the world and not on God.
Even though you're born of the Spirit.
Even though you like God.
Even though you try to obey Him.
Your own inner heart still depends on the
world.
Depends on the world of things.
For your food.
For your clothing and for your shelter.
Depends on the world of circumstances turning out
right for your own happiness.
Depends on the world of people for your
self-esteem and your self-worth.
Now, in Jesus on the cross, your heart
was changed.
And you were crucified to the world.
And Jesus on the cross turned His own
heart away from the world of things.
And away from the world of people.
And away from the world of circumstances.
And turned your heart as well.
And changed it.
And in that moment, you remember, when there
was darkness upon the whole earth until the
ninth hour.
Jesus looked to God alone for all that
He needed.
And your heart also was changed to look
to God alone.
And that has happened, loved ones.
Your heart has been changed.
And it can be changed in you.
If you are willing to be baptized with
the Holy Spirit.
Because He alone can take that new clean
heart that exists in Jesus and make it
real in you.
And baptism with the Holy Spirit means being
immersed in the Holy Spirit.
Means being immersed utterly in Him.
Looking to Him alone for all that you
need.
Just as a fish is immersed in the
ocean and looks even to the ocean for
the oxygen that it needs.
So, in Jesus, you and I were immersed
in the Holy Spirit.
And were separated from the world as the
source of our resources.
And we died to that world.
And we came alive to all the resources
that God alone can give us.
Now, to enter into that, you enter into
it by faith.
Not by masochism.
Not by asceticism.
Not by trying to make it real in
yourself.
Not by brainwashing.
Not by reading more books.
That's what the Bible says.
Your heart is cleansed by faith.
Faith is belief plus obedience.
In the case of this full experience of
the new covenant.
Belief plus the obedience expresses itself in full
consecration.
Belief.
Do you believe that that happened to your
heart in Jesus on Calvary?
Do you?
Do you believe Romans 6 and 6?
Our old self was crucified with Christ.
That's the first part of faith.
Do you believe that?
Secondly, do you want that?
Do you want a clean heart?
That's right.
Do you want a clean heart?
And you know, not want in the sense
of desire, emotional desire.
But want in the sense of willing.
Are you willing to have a clean heart?
Are you willing to go before God and
cry to Him into thy hands, I commit
my spirit, along with my dear Savior.
What you give me is all I want.
And what you do not give me, I
will not take.
I depend on you utterly.
And I give myself to you only.
And whatever you want me to have, that
I will receive.
Whatever you don't want me to have, I
gladly do without.
I consecrate myself wholly into your hands.
That's it, loved ones.
Now, the truth is that your heart is
filled with resistances to God's will that have
been built up over the years through many
unsurrendered attitudes and many disobedient acts.
And all those resistances are inside you.
But as you open yourself to the Holy
Spirit, He will reveal those to you.
And then as He reveals them, bow your
head and your will to Him.
And then the Holy Spirit will witness when
you come to the place of full consecration
where He knows there are no more of
those down deep that you cannot see that
He wants you to see.
And He'll witness that you're in a place
of full consecration, and then you'll exercise faith
that your heart has been cleansed by the
Holy Spirit and your faith will rise up
on wings of obedience.
And God's Spirit will come in and dwell
in your heart permanently and take up His
residence.
And that's it.
And God will do that with you.
And as I see my brothers, I know
life more from our angle, because such am
I.
But as I see you sisters too, loved
ones, stop living that hellish life where you're
between stools.
You're neither a Jew nor are you a
Christian.
Stop that.
Stop torturing yourself.
And stop crucifying Jesus afresh.
Will you not give to the Savior all
that He died to bring you?
Will you not?
If I said to you, this is fresh
air.
In here it's fresh air, you can breathe
it.
And you wouldn't believe me.
Wouldn't that be a disaster?
Wouldn't you?
No, I'm not going to breathe it.
I'm not.
I don't believe you.
I'm not going to breathe it.
I'd rather die than breathe it.
Wouldn't that be a disaster?
Isn't it a disaster to live with an
unclean heart when all the time Jesus has
a clean one that He can give you
the moment you have faith?
Now that can be this moment or it
can be after some prayer when you go
home today or prayer in the prayer room
if you want to pray there or anywhere
around this building.
It's all open all this day.
If you want to get down to business
and get your heart cleansed by faith then
you can take action afterwards.
Or we'll sing a closing hymn and if
you want to come here you can seek
God here.
But you can do it whatever way you
want.
Dear Father, we thank you for your dear
word that makes all things so clear.
And Lord, we do not want to live
under the old covenant.
We want to live under the new covenant.
Father, what we have needed for years has
been a clean heart.
And Lord, we thank you that it can
be received by faith.
And Father, we thank you for showing us
that faith is belief, that our old heart
has been crucified with you, and that a
clean heart is ours.
And then being willing to have that clean
heart, being willing to have no part of
our lives that is outside your control.
Lord, we thank you.
Thank you that that can be ours this
very day for your glory.
Amen.