If you will, please turn with me back to Ezekiel chapter 36. And in our reading previously, we read 21 through 38, but that's just to give you context of the text. But what we want to deal with today is verse 26. Verse number 26, 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 so we are all, I'm assuming, familiar with the tenets of heart transplants. I mean, it's a modern medical procedure that has been around for many years. I mean, I wouldn't expect you to understand how to do it on an operation table, but we all understand what it means. It's a transplant. It's taking something that, a heart that is defective and not fit for purpose, and putting in a heart that works, that is working. It is a medical procedure that is quite risky. It's usually the last resort for somebody that has a faulty heart. And so it's reserved for the most serious of cases. Even despite all the medical technology we have, it's still not an easy procedure. It's not something that they do hundreds of each day. There's often a long list, a waiting list for those that require it, that they have to wait on. And so, until a donor is found and it's the perfect match, and if the heart is not quite the right blood type or the right match, they put it in and the body of the recipient could reject it. And so this is the idea behind the heart transplant. But what do we see here in this text, in this verse? Well, we see a heart transplant that is spiritual in nature. It's not physical as we think of heart transplants, and we know that from the context of the text. We know that that is the case because we can't have stony hearts. We don't have a real stony heart. It's a muscle, and it flexes and pumps blood throughout our bodies. So, if we had a real stony heart, you would fall over dead in the floor because your circulation and your blood would stop. And so, this is how we understand this. This is a spiritual transplant. It is a wonderful spiritual aspect. It is what we would call regeneration. It's a new birth. It's a conversion, as you can say. It's the going from one state to another. It's going from that heart of stone that's dead in sin to a heart of flesh that's living and breathing spiritually. And so, from this, we know from the rest of Scriptures, it's talking about carnal men and their spirits. and they have this need to have spiritual life breathed back into them. Now, of course, this all took place because of the fall, because of our first parents and the sin that they committed. That's what caused this stony heart to come about. And, of course, all men need this operation. It's not just some of us. It's not just some of us are better and more righteous than others. No, all men. If they are in iniquity and they are separated from God and separated from Christ and they don't walk with Christ or trust in Christ, they have this stony heart. It's there. And of course, as with a heart transplant, well, you can't perform a heart transplant on yourself. There's no way. It's so invasive that they have to come in and cut the chest and break the ribcage and go in. There's no way you could do that on your own. And so the spiritual reviving of a heart is that divine operation which only God can perform. There's no other way. There's nothing a man can do. But it is vital to spiritual life. It is what gives us spiritual life. And we can see that this is being spoken to the nation of Israel. But we understand this truth that transcends time and applies to all men, regardless of their day and age, even today. Now, two points, very short today, simple, nothing fancy, but we want to look at the defective stony heart. It is mentioned here, first, that it will take away. He says, I will give a new heart, also will I give you a new spirit. So, we'll look at the, I will take away the stony heart. So, we want to look at the stony heart. What is this implied by the stony heart? Well, it's defective. It's not fit for purpose, at least spiritual purpose. Now, what is meant by the term heart? Heart, often in the Scriptures, is used for our understanding. It's the inner man, the center of spiritual activity. Now, in other places, it does mean just the physical heart, the inner heart of a man, but generally it's used in this capacity, the word itself. It's the mind, the will, affections, that inside the spiritual aspect of a man. And so, this is how we would say this applies to all men, because all men have that aspect. They have a dead spirit until it's given life by Christ. And so, this is it. This is what we're looking at. And so, in the heart, the stony heart, this is the sinful, carnal nature of man. This is that which causes him to sin and causes him to be corrupt. It's not, and we'll talk about this a little later, it's not the physical aspect. That's just the outworkings of it. And we've got a text for that later. Now, when we think of a stone, what do you think about? It's hard, it's cold, it's lifeless. And so this is the stony heart of a man. It's defective. And so we're thinking about how hard it is. It's impenetrable. And so this hardness is what we think often of stubbornness when we talk about, there's a colloquial term we use in the States, it's probably used here, it's called hard-headed. They're hard-headed. They're stubborn. And then we also hear people call others hard-hearted. And this applies to that carnal nature of man. And so, when we say hard-hearted, we mean they have no sympathy or compassion or they're not emotional. And so, these things are talking about that carnal nature of this, and this is why we wonder what. We think about, if you read the history of the world and the wars that were fought, This is why we wonder how men can perform the acts that they did to other men, and here it is, it's hard-hearted. They don't care for the well-being of their fellow man, or certain people groups. They don't care for any of those things. And really, out in the world, among men who carry these stony hearts, what do we find? There's superficial care, but it doesn't go deep down. They care for maybe family and friends, but it's a dog-eat-dog world, as they say. It's a, we'll take care of our own, my own. And so, there's no longer any humanity in that regard. But what about this hardness also? We see that general revelation has no effect upon it. And what we mean by general revelation, to give you a small definition, a practical definition, is what we see in creation. It's those things that we would easily look to and say, there's a God in heaven. And He has created these things and has given us eyes and a mind to understand them when you look at a beautiful sunrise or sunset. This is general revelation. There's a Creator and He's created these things. But the carnal man says, they're just in place. Yes, they're beautiful, but they just happen. This is happenstance. Even today, we see the beautiful snow out there and men and they're all out in it, frolicking in it. But how many of them would attribute this to the hand of a Creator? They would say, no, it's just a weather pattern. It just came about with the proper resources and it all mixed together, and then the cold weather and the moisture. But we, with hearts of flesh, say otherwise. It was by the hand of the divine Creator. He's what has dropped it upon us. And that's the difference. And this is the reason, friends, why nature is not enough. Yes, it does set before men that there is a Creator, something greater than themselves, but it doesn't bring them to salvation. It doesn't bring them to faith because of the hardness of their hearts. Then we see also the Word itself. How often do we speak to others? Do we go out in the open air and we preach the gospel, and then we wonder why they can just sit there unaffected? It's because of the stony heart. This is why men believe the Word just to be nothing more than a fairy tale or fiction. It's because of the stony heart. Now, where do we have some biblical examples? Well, we have many. And God here is speaking through His prophet Ezekiel. He's speaking to the nation of Israel. And of course, throughout these verses, 21 through 38, we see God chastising them for their leaving Him and profaning themselves among the heathen and among the idols and gods of the heathens. And so, they were not satisfied with God and had to have something else. And so God's saying, well, I'll cleanse you because you can't cleanse yourself because you're caught up in those things. And so we see Israel as a prime example of this. Over and over again, we see how Israel would see the working in the hands of God and the miracles. And then they'd say, give me something better. Give me something I can put on my mantelpiece. Give me the gold and silver and materialism. Those are greater than God. We don't need these. We don't need God. But what about in the New Testament? We see in Christ's day, how many of the people witnessed Him speaking and healing and teaching, and then they just went away like it was nothing else to it. You could have been reading Shakespeare to them, for all they knew. Or Homer. They were unaffected because of the stony heart. Now there is a danger with this heart, and we must think about that. Turn with me to Exodus. We'll read a few verses here in the book of Exodus. Chapter 7. And we'll read verses 19 through 25, and this is one of those biblical examples we can turn to in regard to hardness of heart. And in these chapters, chapters 7 and 8, of course, is that place where we see the plagues being enacted out upon Egypt because they won't free the Israelites. And so, we're just going to read a section of this, but this theme goes over and over throughout the 10 plagues. And so, verse 19. of chapter 7, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying to Aaron, Take thy rod and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood. and that they may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone. And Moses and Aaron did so, as the Lord commanded. And he lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died, and the river stank. And the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river, and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Neither did he hearken unto them as the Lord had said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also. And all the Egyptians digged around about the river for water to drink, for they could not drink of the water in the river. And seven days were fulfilled after the Lord had smitten the river. And do you see, friends, Pharaoh witnessed this? He witnessed the striking of the river, the turning it into blood, and instead it hardened his heart. And so this is a great warning to us. If you sit with a stony heart, the Lord will only be patient with you for so long, only the long suffering for so long. And here we have a prime example of his sin and disobedience. He was not moved. One bit. Instead, it hardened. And we see that throughout each of the plagues. That's just one of them. But we see where he would see the hand of God working these things out, and then he would say, fine, and then he would harden. And so, the gospel itself has a hardening property also. It softens those who are called to God, but then on the other side of it, hardens those that are not called. And so, in that great day of damnation and eternal punishment, they'll stand before God and they'll have no excuse because they heard the gospel. They heard His Word. And they won't be able to say, oh no, Lord, I didn't see those things or didn't hear those things. No. The Lord will say, no, there's no excuse. Away with you. You're condemned for eternity. Now, this is a dangerous state to be in. Is this you, friends? Do you come in week in and week out and hear the gospel and go away unchanged? Do you see the insensibility of this? Are you hard to these things? Do you not see God working in and among His people? Oh, we pray that this would not be you, for this is a very grievous thing. Now, back in our text, We see that it's defective, it's hard, it's stony, but now we see there's no warmth in it. Stone is cold to the touch. It's an environmental thing, usually with stones, whether it's warm or not, but generally they're cold and they're hard. And so, this is a sign of the defectiveness in its faith, the spiritual life. It has no warmth, there's no life to it. It's cold. And so it's insensitive to its need. It's insensitive to the fact that it needs a Savior. And we see this among men. How often do they trudge along in life? They're not concerned about the eternal. They're not concerned about their souls. We read in this text about the Israelites profaning themselves with the heathens of the nations around them and their gods and idolatry. I mean, we do the same thing today. We don't have little wood carvings and things, but we set up material things and jobs and possessions. We set these things up. We worship them. Christ says in the New Testament, show me where a man's heart is and I'll tell you what he is. And that is today. That's how we know the fruit. What is a man most concerned with? Is he concerned with the cares of this world and the materialism? Or is he concerned about being at the feet of Christ and having his soul delivered by Christ and pardoned for his sin, his sin against an eternal holy God? And in this we see also this lack of spiritual life. They do whatever is right in their own eyes. As long as they have their own sets of truth, this is relativism. And so, as long as my truth doesn't interfere with your truth, we're okay, we're not at odds. But the moment my truth interferes with yours, we have a problem. And so, this is what the carnal man, the stony heart, reaps. There's no spiritual life. There's no life at all, spiritually speaking. They are the members of the kingdom of darkness. They're cut off from God in this state. Because we know God is a spirit, a living spirit, who dwells in light. And they don't have any of that in their dark souls, their rock, stony hearts. Now what about, what else do we see? Their defective inactivity. Stone can't move unless it's acted upon. It just sits. If you set it up there on the table, it's just going to sit there until somebody moves it or knocks it off the table. And so we see this the same thing. Rocks are inactive on themselves. They're inanimate. What about the souls of carnal men? Are they not the same? They may have physical activity, and yes, if you have a stony heart or you're a carnal man, you can go about life. You eat, sleep, breathe, you do all these things. But they're not to the glory of God. They're not pleasing to God because of your spiritual state. This is what we were talking about in the introduction. Turn with me to Mark chapter 7, and we'll read 14 through 23. So even if you friends do try to do good works, and there are many men throughout the world who are humanitarian in their thoughts and their activities, and we might even concur that they're doing good works, but if they don't have a heart of flesh, those good works are nothing. They're corrupt. They're corrupt because of not what they're doing, but what's inside. And so Mark chapter 7, Verse 14, And when He had called all the people unto Him, He said unto them, Hearken unto Me, every one of you, and understand, there is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And when he has entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. And He said unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing from without entering into the man, it cannot defile him? Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats. And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from without. are from within and defile the man. And see, this is the heart of the matter, and Christ is telling us this. In this chapter, Mark, in the opening verses, the problem that arises that causes Christ to speak of this is the Pharisees and their religion and their works-based religion was one that they believed in washing the plates and washing hands and doing these things before they ate, which we would say that's good sanitary practice. There's nothing wrong with that. But they took it a step farther and went into the religious realm with it. that that's how they were made even more pious and were not defiled. But Christ is here saying, no, no, no, the heart inside has to be taken care of. That stony heart has to be taken out and a heart of flesh put in before the works of the man become something that's pleasing to God. And so that's why we would say good works, even of those who are sinners, not that they're necessarily wrong, But they can't please God because the heart is not right with God. It's a dead thing. And so, they're dead works. And so, back in our text, we want to emphasize that these stony hearts are inactive. They're not able to produce that which is pleasing to God. It has to be heart of flesh. Also, in these inactive hearts, they cannot want or cannot keep the law of God. That's another problem. They can keep bits of it if they try hard enough, but they generally are not going to be submissive to the law of God. And we see that in a general society. They don't want the laws of God. How quickly do our governments rip out the laws of God and place in the laws of men for the sake of their own want? And so, they're not concerned with these things. And as we think about a stone, what about a stone? It's hard to mold a stone. It takes a lot of effort to get it into the right shape. That's what makes these grand old buildings with the carvings and things on the outside so amazing and mind-blowing that somebody would sit with a chisel and a hammer and chisel these ornate statues out of them. It wasn't done in just a couple hours. It took days and maybe even years. And so, this stony heart is the same way. It's not molded. It doesn't mold very easily. Also, this heart, what? It cannot love a right. It cannot keep the law in that aspect. It can't love God right, and it can't love its fellow man right. This is what we were talking about earlier with the hard-heartedness. There's no compassion or love for his fellow man, no. And what little is there is superficial. And so these are things that we think about with this hard heart, this stony heart, the dead spiritual side of men. Now let us think about the heart of flesh. To go from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh is a grand miracle of God. It's a wonderful miracle of God. It's how, as Jeremiah speaks of, the leopard can change its spots. Of course, the leopard itself can't do that, but God can. God in His infinite grace and His sovereign grace can do this, an amazing operation that completely changes a man's moral and spiritual state. It makes all that which he couldn't do before able to. It's taking away that old, diseased heart and putting one that beats and works and pushes the blood all around the body. That's the point of a physical heart transplant. And so, this is the spiritual side of it. This is not an improvement of the old, but a new. That's the beauty of it. That's the grand grace of God. He doesn't say, I'll just kind of give you a bypass. or I'll put a stent in, no, no, no, I'll give you a brand new fleshly heart, a heart that beats and feels and can love and keep my laws that's living. The spirit, the man becomes spiritual, a new man, or if you want to think of it as a new creature that has new appetites, passions, and desires. This is the heart of flesh. This is what it brings about. It changes the man completely spiritually. It is an operation by the efficacious grace of God. And this is what we want to look at. What about this heart of flesh? Quickly, as we come to the end, it fills the weight of sin. No longer is it hard to sin. No longer is it stubborn. No, it feels the weight. It's no longer insensitive to conviction when the Spirit comes in and breathes life into that soul. Now, when the Word and the Law is preached, that's when they start to feel it. They say, oh, I feel sorrow and guilt for what I've done. I've sinned against the Eternal and Holy God. This is the heart of flesh. and the change that it brings. And now can say that the activities that it was going about in its past life are against God and what He has commanded. There's a weight and burden. That's what conversion brings. That's what going from this old dead state to a new live state, that's what this brings about. Turn with me to Psalm 51, verse 17. This is the psalm of repentance of King David after he sinned with Bathsheba. This is a wonderful psalm. It shows us the very heart of David and that conviction and piercing of his heart for the sin that he committed with Bathsheba and his repentance and renewed walk with the Lord. And so, look at one verse here, verse 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." That's the statement of a man who has been raked over the coals by conviction, by the Spirit, by one who realizes his fault and sin and trespass before the Lord, and he's going to the one whom he's trespassed against. And the beautiful wording there is a broken and a contrite. The word contrite there means crushed. It's broken, but it's also crushed. Oh, how much do we, when we wrong a family member or a friend, we get that nagging shame and guilt, but how much more intensified is it when we realize it was a holy God whom we've done that to? to the One who has saved us, who has brought about salvation, who is our Deliverer, who has given us this heart of flesh. And so, these are all new feelings that this man experiences with this heart of flesh. Now, back in our text, With this also, this new feeling, we see that men tremble at God's law. They're now concerned whether they've broken it and how often they've broken it. This is why repentance is a lifelong Christian duty. It's not just something that takes place once and then you go on about your life. No, because we constantly fall into sin and we need to repent. We come constantly to God saying, forgive us for we have sinned against you. And this repentance, of course, is acknowledging and taking responsibility for their sin. This is what the carnal dead soul doesn't do. They have no concern of that. They keep heaping sins upon sins upon sins. And so, this is the problem that the stony heart does that's replaced by the heart of flesh. Now, that's the weight. It feels the weight of sin, the burden of sin. It also feels its need of Christ. So, when this heart transplant happens, The law comes in and it says, you're a sinner before God, you've broken the law, and then there's conviction, then this is the side that's faith. It says, yes, I'm a sinner, but I have a Savior. He's my surety. He's the one that has delivered me. And so it's awakened to its great need. The stony heart does not have this need. Stony heart doesn't care. Stoneyhart just keeps on going and going, off into eternity, not concerned. Not concerned about the Savior. But there's now a desire to take hold of Christ. And this is the turning to Christ in faith. And in this faith, what do we see? It's the acknowledgment that He is the Son of God, that He's divine, that He was perfect in His walk on this earth. He was that perfect sacrifice, the firstborn, unblemished. He kept every law perfectly and then even went to the cross, that cross which this new fleshly heart says, I should have been on that cross. And do we not see a wonderful example of this, friends? I just thought about this, but of the thieves that hung there with Christ. One of them acknowledged, did he not? He said, we deserve to be here, but that man does not deserve to be here. That's because he had a fleshly heart. His companion said, why don't he just take himself down and save the rest of us? He was only concerned for the moment. He was not concerned over eternal things. And within this heart of flesh we have a new burning desire that we must have Christ. We must have His blood to cover us and to wash us white as snow. And so this is the working out of that faith in the life of the new heart after this transplant. Now finally, Phil's love to God. This heart is now fleshly, it's alive and warm, it's now loving too. So he can feel love to God and his fellow man. He can now be submissive to the law, which of course we know the summary of that law is to love God and love his fellow man, his neighbor as himself. And so, also in this love, he loves the law, he loves the Word. As long as the stony-hearted men, what do they say? Oh, the law is too restrictive. We want liberty. This heart says, we love the Law because we understand it tells us how we've wronged God and how to walk before God. And His Word also, it's a lamp unto our feet. It's our guide. It's not restrictive. It tells us how we can worship Him and praise Him and do what He requires of us. Also in this new heart, we find that a man is now docile, He can have hope. He has peace and joy. Those things that may not have been present before the heart transplant. That all this is working out. It's now right and proper. And then as we talked about earlier, what? We can now perform proper good works. Works that do glorify God in the things because we have the right motives. It's no longer just about us being good or trying to make ourselves look humble or meek. or that other men will judge us harshly because we don't put the money in the homeless man's purse. No. This is the right motives. We do these things because God has commanded us and we are His children and He says, "...perform good works in My name, that they may know that I am your Father." That's what this is about. This is the new heart in the new creature. And so all those things are new and right, and the communion is restored to our Creator. Now herein we have God's grace in the divine operation of converting a man's heart from stone to flesh. And it's a wonderful thing. A divine transplant that only God can perform. a vital change that all men need to experience. It's not just some, it's not just others. No, all men need to experience it to receive spiritual life. This is your only way that you're brought into the kingdom of heaven, into the light. You have to be a living spiritual being. You have to have this new heart. Now maybe some of you are thinking that I feel shame and guilt for my sin. Maybe you're saying, well, I don't know. I feel that I'm a sinner, but I don't know quite what to do. I'm unsure where to go for relief. Well, this is a good sign. This is a sign of the heart of flesh, that it's working, that it's breathing and pumping because you feel broken. and you feel contrite over your sin. And of course, we read in that verse in Psalm 51 that this is never despised by the Lord. He's pleased in it because that means you're not far off from Him. And so, when you're in this condition, take hold of Christ by faith. Run to Christ. Flee to Christ and say, I would have you to be my Savior. Wash me and clean me and forgive me for my sins. This is, of course, the faith in His saving power that saves sinners such as you and I. Now, what about for those that are thinking, well, this doesn't move me at all. I don't know. I mean, it still seems like a fairy tale to me. I'm just concerned with going back out today. I'm not really burdened over my actions. And, of course, we say that, of course, in this text, we understand that this is an operation of God and you can't enact any of this. And you might say, well, you know, if I can't do anything, I'll just go on about life. Well, stop, dear friends. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. You've come here today and you hear the Word. So what we would encourage you to do is stay under the means of grace. And what is the means of grace? It's hearing God's word preached and taught. And this is how the Lord works by His Holy Spirit to operate on stony hearts and give them a heart of flesh. Remain under these things. Continue under them. Come to church. And I'd like to add, even in coming to church, you get to be known by the people there, you hear the godly conversations among His saints, but also they get to know you and they want to pray for your souls. You're not going to get that out in the world. They have superficial care for you, maybe your physical needs, whether you need your mortgage paid, or the heating paid, or the electricity paid, or that you need a car, or a job, but do they care for your soul as the people of God do? And if you don't know Christ today, I would... that among this body, you're prayed for often, that you would come and have a heart of flesh, So don't neglect these things. Come and hear His Word and let the saints pray over you. And I say, wait upon the Lord.