Welcome to Feist Pulpit. I'm really so glad that you could join us here. My name is Pastor John, and if I may begin by saying that I'm recording this Sunday service earlier than the Sunday itself, but today is a very, very sad day for the United Kingdom. We have lost the Duke of Edinburgh, who was the Queen's consort, who was also her husband, and just short of two months, really short of his 100th birthday, and he has passed. And our prayers are with our Queen, Her Majesty, that God will uphold her and keep her and watch over her as he has put her there to rule or to be there as our figurehead in this country. So it is a sad day today. But let's turn to the Word of God and let's turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 34 And there we're going to read about the young King Josiah, who came to reign when he was eight years old. And he was just a young king at this particular time. And they discovered the book, the scriptures, in the temple. And they began to read it. And there was great repentance and great sadness and sorrow that this book had been neglected. And he was part of a great revival. But we read here in chapter 34, let's read say from the 23rd verse, where the prophetess Huldahya came to the king and we read, she said to him, This is what the Lord God of Israel says. Say to the man who sent you to me, this is what the Lord says. And I am about to bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, fulfilling all the curses written in the book that they read in the presence of the King of Judah. because they have abandoned and burned incense to other gods, so as to anger me with their works of their hands. My wrath will be poured out on this place, and it will not be quenched. Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord. This is what the Lord God of Israel says. as for your words that you heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself. This is speaking of Josiah, of course. And you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and against its inhabitants. And because you humbled yourself before me, and you tore your clothes and wept before me, I myself have heard. This is the Lord's declaration. I will indeed gather you to your fathers and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see the disaster that I'm bringing on this place or its inhabitants.' Then they reported this to the king. Now I want you to turn to Exodus chapter 14 verses 1 to 4, and we read an entirely different account of a man who is a king. And that's in chapter 14 verses 1 to 4. And this is Moses standing before Pharaoh. The Pharaoh who had said these words Who is the Lord, he says, that I should obey his voice? I know not the Lord, and why should I obey his voice? And now in verse one of chapter 14, we read this. Then the Lord spoke to Moses. Tell the Israelites to turn back and camp in front of Pilhorath, between Migdal and the sea. You must camp in front of Belzephon, facing it by the sea. And Pharaoh will say of the Israelites that they are wandering around the land in confusion. The wilderness has boxed them in. And I, God, will harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will pursue them. And then I will receive the glory by means of Pharaoh. And all of his army and all the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. So the Israelites did this. What we have here is a great divide in these two stories. We have the good young King Josiah, whose heart we read is tender toward God. Then we have the evil Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened toward God. Both received the word of God through God's spoken person, but each responded differently, all because their will and their decision and their ability to respond was dictated to by their condition. Josiah had a tender heart. Pharaoh had a hard heart. The story of Josiah is so precious and so helpful for us and an encouragement for us to have a tender heart. And I'll show you shortly how God blesses the tender heart. And I'll do it from one of those early Puritans again, who in actual fact was called the Heavenly Doctor. Some of you that know the Puritans know exactly who I'm talking about. But his name was Richard Sibbes. He was born in 1577, one of the earlier Puritans, and died in 1635. But Richard Sibbes, the heavenly doctor, understood the true condition of mankind. Firstly then, I want us to think about the initial condition of the human heart. Now by heart, I don't mean the physical heart, but I would define it like this in my own definition. It is the inner part of man that is created to be able to communicate with God. It is the inner soul, the essence of the man himself that has the ability or created with the ability to communicate with Almighty God. I am speaking, of course, spiritually, the condition of a man or woman spiritually. I'm not referring to the natural human kindness or people we would call kind-hearted. In our two instances in scriptures, we're talking about the spiritual heart, the very centre of our being in relation to God. and how the inner soul or heart of someone stands in relation to God. This is the most important thing. If a heart is hard and if a heart is close to God, then they may remain in their natural condition until eternity. So at this point, I want to say that scripture makes a difference between a hard heart as a condition inherited in man and the hardness of heart as a willful act. A Christian may from time to time have a hardness of heart, as did Israel in wilderness. Jesus in Mark 6 and 8 refers to his disciples as not understanding and have hardened their heart, have a hardness of heart towards his instructions. But having said this, they were never said to have a hard heart. It's possible therefore for you and I to deliberately harden our spiritual centre, our spiritual heart to what God is telling us. Even though we have been given a brand new heart, we can harden our hearts to God's Word. But a hard heart is very different to a willfully hardened heart. just as being carnal is very different to acting like carnal. There are some people that brought out a doctrine quite some time ago now about the Corinthian church, and they said that these, Paul was saying that they were carnal, not spiritual, which really wasn't true. What Paul says is that they were acting like carnal. They weren't carnal, They weren't unconverted, they were acting like the unconverted. And just as we can say that we can harden our hearts and be like an unconverted person, doesn't mean we are unconverted. These Corinthians were not carnal, they just acted like it. So then, what is a hard heart? What does it mean? that God actually then appears, as in Pharaoh's case and in other cases, to harden his heart. What then is a hard heart? Well, Jeremiah describes the heart of man as deceitful and desperately wicked. That is, his very centre that is designed to communicate with God is covered with wickedness, is bound in wickedness and is deceitful. And he goes on to further to say, does the prophet, that a leopard can't change its spots. No matter how much it washes or how many vitamins it takes or whatever, his spots will remain. Or he says, an Ethiopian, who is a very dark person burnt by the sun, cannot possibly change the colour of their skin. It's the same with a hard heart. It is there. Sin has caused us to be separated from God. In our hearts we have become hardened to his word. This is a condition which we inherited, of course, from Adam. There is deadness in our spirit, a hardness in our hearts. And because man is desperately wicked, he builds cities to defend himself from himself. He tries to bring God down and tear him off his throne. Man's natural condition is one of a hard heart. His very centre, which should communicate with God, is dead and unable and unwilling to do it. So it is a hard heart where God needs to give to us a new heart before we can respond to him. as we were born with a hard heart, so then we have to be reborn with a new heart, a new heart now able to respond to God and to serve and love Him. No longer does the old heart respond to sin, but the new heart now in the believer responds to God and loves Him. The natural heart is like granite. like windstone. I remember when I tried to drill into an old cottage wall. It went through okay to start with. Then I hit a black windstone and my drill would go no further. It was shiny. The drill kept skidding off it. It wouldn't go in. I'm sure there are proper drills that might be able to go through this stuff, but I certainly couldn't with my basic drill. Nothing seemed to get through it. And it is the same with man's natural heart. No amount of hitting it, drilling it, shouting at it, no amount of warning, beating, pleading, no amount of reform or declaration can ever change it. It needs to be supernaturally changed. It needs to be able to say, I don't know about anything, but what I do know, says the man in the New Testament, that I once was blind, but now I see. It needs regeneration. It needs a new heart that can be receptive to the things of God. As Jesus said before, You cannot see the kingdom of God unless you are born again and have that new heart. It needs a miracle. Of course, that is the difference between a religious person who is trying for whatever reason to try and change a hard heart and a Christian who has a new heart. The religious person with a hard heart will try and try and try to do what they can to please God, but their heart is hard. Whereas a young Christian with a new heart can please God continuously. You know, on a personal level here, that I have preached to many people of whom you can actually sense that they are dead. You can actually sense they have hard hearts. You can almost feel it from the pulpit. You can preach and they deflect everything or think that somehow you are getting at them and resent you. They're like windstone in the cottage wall. Soon as the drill begins to start, they defect it, deflect it, completely skids off and goes in another direction. How dare he suggest that I, me, am such and such a person. And like those in the wilderness, they blame Moses for the commands of God. I have preached often, and I have felt death in a place. And afterwards, I could feel their hatred, their hardness, And if they were able to pick up stones and chase you out of their church, then they would do it. You can feel that, as they did with Jesus. Jesus spoke of man's natural hearts as being scalae roc ardia, or cardia, in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. And this means that they were hard-hearted. Of course, when he spoke with them, he dealt with them in accordance to their condition. Hard hearts eventually either turn to religion, like the Pharisees, or to atheism. And it's their natural path. having deflected any attempt to change them, they lapse into a religion which is their own way of making God happy. or the enemy goes further and the windstone becomes blacker and they hate and oppose any attempt to change them. Both of these conditions are what causes the Christian pain. There are tears amongst the wheat and the total rejection of God and his message. So there is a natural condition of unregenerate man. That is what it is. the BC condition, the before Christ condition in a person is to have a black Winston hard heart that deflects and pushes away every attempt of the gospel towards it. But of course, it needs a miracle and God does that in a wonderful way. What about then the instances where God, in scripture, is said to harden a heart. Sion, king of Eshbon, Deuteronomy 2 through 30, Nehivites living in Gibeon in Joshua 11, 19 to 20. Does that mean that somehow then God surely is to blame for sin? Come on now, You know as well as I do that that can never be, for God is pure and absolutely pure and holy. He can never be blamed for sin. So what does it mean then when God hardens a heart? Now think here, Jonathan Edwards, the American theologian in the 1700s that experienced a number of revivals and preached that amazing sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. What he says is that the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was caused by God withdrawing any grace from him, so leaving his heart in its natural hardened condition. In that way, God simply withdrew any conviction, any grace, and left Pharaoh's heart. Before that, Pharaoh was moved by certain things. He thought twice about certain things. His heart was beginning to change just slightly. I don't think a lot, but slightly, you know what I mean? But then God withdrew all of that and left him to his hardened heart. Richard Sibbes, that Puritan I mentioned, to start with, gives four reasons for this. And I want to recount them for you. Firstly, he says, God hardens the heart privately by withdrawing and withholding his melting and softening power. Just the same as Edward says, just as when the sun goes in, darkness comes out. Or here in Scotland, when the sun goes in, it becomes jolly cold. It's suddenly the temperature drops. So we are not softened, but left hardened. So he hardens, as Edward says, the heart by withholding his melting softening power. Secondly, says Sibbes, negatively, by taking away from us his graces, which are not natural for us. That is, he takes away those supernatural movements. It's similar to the above that I've mentioned. But at this time, God allows certain circumstances to come upon them. And because they have no faith in God, or the God of providence, they become harder in their responses to God. And you see this happen with Pharaoh. When God began afflicting the land, Pharaoh became hardened. But then sometimes, He was softened, but it does have, negatively, it does have the effect of when God afflicts a non-converted person, it hardens their heart. And so God is able to harden the heart that way. Thirdly, says Sibbes, by giving us up to ourselves. Now, this is very, very relevant because surely isn't this what is happening today? Romans 1 declares this very clearly and that's why an awful lot of people in this land, in particular amongst the LGBTQ and all of those other folks, absolutely hate Romans chapter 1. They would take it out of the Bible if they possibly could. But I believe that God has abandoned our society, leaving it to argue, fight, rebel against itself, and then sometimes blame God, or just plainly rebel against Him. And by doing this, by God handing a person over to their own desires, their hearts become more hardened again. God is withdrawing His grace. and leaving, as he says in Romans 1, and God abandoned them and gave them over and they reaped everything that they had sown. And their hearts were hard because God had withdrawn. And fourthly, says Sibbes, by preaching his word to them, as with Pharaoh. When God's word goes out, it often hardens or confirms a hardened heart. They hate the word. As I said, they do not receive it, as in a moment we will see a tender heart does, but they rebel. And this rebellion is seen in a desire to kill the messenger. as Jerusalem killed all the prophets and then killed the son. So what we preach, it causes a hardening of heart to spit out hatred. And this is something I was referring to earlier, which is absolutely true. Something I have experienced on many, many occasion is that my preaching. If I preach from God's Word and I confront people gently and lovingly as well as I can and I try to lead them to the Lord Jesus Christ, it just hardens their hearts because they don't want to know. It's just so hard. The tender heart is different, but Jerusalem had that. The prophets came in their wildness and their harshness almost. And then the sun came in his gentleness, but they still hated him. And it causes the hardened heart to spit out hatred, wave their fists and pick up stone. So God hardens the heart by speaking his word to them. So God can harden a person's heart by gently withdrawing his influence, by withdrawing his graces, by giving us up to our own desires and by confronting them with his word. And it has a tendency to harden hearts, make them even more harder. But now, what about a tender heart? We've looked about Pharaoh and those people whose hearts are hard. But you see, this is so sweet and precious. Notice these things from the good King Josiah, whose heart we read was tender and receptive to God, because obviously grace had touched him. I want you to notice some important points about this. The first one is this, and again, I'm relying on Richard Sipps, that God graciously fits his word and prophets to those who are of a tender heart. Where there is a true desire to know God and his will, God will send his true prophets and his word to answer them. Josiah was an honest young man who wanted to know what the Lord was going to do with his nation and himself. Josiah had begun to build a temple and again found the copy of the scriptures in it and was totally repentant of what he read. So what should become of him? What would become of his people? His tender heart cried out. So God sent Huldahir, a prophetess. Aye, you did hear that right. You did read that right. A female prophet. This, of course, was not the norm. Neither was Deborah, the normal judge. But you know, God does as he pleases, and the Spirit and the Word came to this dear lady." Now, notice this also. Josiah as a king, he wouldn't be used to female prophets. They were very few and far between. Maybe she was the only one. I don't know. But he was humble enough. and his heart was tender enough to recognise that she came from God. His heart was tender to receive the word, unlike King Ahab, who had 400 prophets of Baal, who told him what his heart and hardened heart wanted to hear, but Holdiah was a Nathan who came to the sinning David and brought the word to him. Again, unlike John the Baptist, whom Herod kept in a deep dungeon and went down daily to listen to him to preach, yet his heart was closed and not tender towards God's prophet. Ahab's heart was closed. Herod's was closed. David's was open. And Josiah's was open. And God fitted his prophetic word to that tender heart. Secondly, We should therefore labour, said Sibbes, to have a tender heart so that we can make better use of the preaching of God's prophetic word. For it is when we are open, our hearts are open to God, we're tender towards him, that any teaching we receive is a blessing. Remember in Acts, when on the day of Pentecost, the hearers were, what do we read? They were pricked of heart. They had heart surgery by the Holy Spirit. And we read that after they received the Spirit, they also received the word with gladness and stuck, and the Greek word there means like an animal horse glue, they stuck like glue to the apostles' teaching. So to have a tender heart means that you make use of preaching, you make use of God's Word better. So when we go to listen to a sermon or read our Bibles or even look at the beauty of creation, we should ensure that our hearts are tender, our hearts are soft, our hearts are open to God's display. I know that if I go into a Christian assembly, sit and listen to the Word, and I have hardened my heart for whatever reason, for some sin, or I just don't feel like it, or I'm just closing my life to God at that moment, then I hear nothing. And I'll probably be very, very critical as well of the preacher or what's going on. But if I go with a tender heart, Then, you know, the preacher can read from the phone book and I'll be convicted. It's just like that. We are so tender of heart. I'm not, by the way, advising that preachers should take a phone book and read from it. I'm using this as an illustration. So what is important is that we labour to ensure that our hearts, like Josiah's, are tender towards God, not like Pharaoh's, shut up and hardened against God or his people. It is as Josiah, when we are tender of heart, that God will lead us to a godly repentance It will lead to an outward expression and to blessing. So the point of this is, is that if our heart is tender, God will send his prophets with his word to us. And if our hearts are tender, we will then adhere to the word of God more readily and benefit from it. And thirdly, remember this, It is the Spirit that works in a tender heart. Now this is very, very important. What do I mean by this? I mean that a truly tender heart will listen to the Spirit as He speaks through a preacher and the Word. It is only the Spirit that really touches a tender heart. As Sibbes says, He will work only by His own means. And what he means by this is that nothing else will affect a real change in a tender heart but the Holy Spirit. No amount of emotion or pressure or even reason. You see, when Nathan spoke with David, it was the Spirit that touched his heart and brought repentance And in Psalm 51, nothing else could do that, but the Spirit. That's why he cried out, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me, because the Spirit had touched his tender heart and had opened it. And it is a spiritual work that opens the tender heart. No amount of reasoning or cajoling or shouting or banging, unless the Spirit of God is there, the heart will remain hardened. Same with Josiah. A tender heart was spoken to by the Spirit. And this highlights another important point, and it is to reach a tender heart, you must use spiritual means. If preaching is psychological, or preaching is manipulative, it might have some effect to someone, but it will only be spiritual preaching and spiritual teaching that will truly have a lasting effect in a tender heart. So we should always labour to proclaim in Christ, in the power of the Spirit. Remember what Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2 verses 1 to 5, I'll read this to you. because it's important. And I, Paul, brethren, when I came to you, came not with the excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and I was with you in fear, and I was with you in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." Now what Paul was saying was that it is only the Word and the Spirit that can touch your heart and effect a change in you. And it did effect a change and made your heart tender, he says to the Corinthians, so now your faith stands wholly in the power of God. You see, because if it is the power of God that works and makes the heart tender and opens the tender heart and ministers to it, then that tender heart stands, what, in the power of the Spirit, in the power of God. And your faith, says Paul, wholly doesn't stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Fourthly, this means, says Sibbes, that you should always put yourself under the means where the Spirit will work. Josiah was put under the godly ministry of Huldah, David under the godly prophet Nathan. Many a tender heart has suffered with dreadful ministry, have listened to dreadful sermons and become dry. Surely, dear ones, and if I'm addressing you here, if you're in one of those sort of churches, Surely, we have a duty to ensure that our tender hearts are put under a spiritual ministry, so that they can be touched. We ought not to labour to have a tender heart before God, then place ourselves under dreadful teaching, dry and boring and endless quotes from philosophers and worldly people. Of course, God is able, of course, to make things good, but we should tenderly care for our tender hearts and guard our hearts. Proverbs 4.23, guard your heart above all things, for it determines the course of your life. That's the New Living Translation version of it. So then applying the principle of biblical truth found in our text, when God makes a heart tender, then he will send along one of his prophets with his word to minister to that tender heart. So on the basis of that truth, if we are labouring for a tender heart, then we should ensure that we put ourselves under God's word brought to you in spiritual power. that our preaching should be with reasoning and power based upon the Scriptures. And you have a duty, if your heart is tender, to get yourself right now under that kind of ministry. Do not do yourself harm and put yourself under some ministry that is not feeding your very soul. You should not do that. Fifthly then, how do I know if my heart is tender, or I have a hard heart, or that I am hardening my heart? The answer is really quite simple. Firstly, if my heart is hard, then you've probably just heard nothing of what I've said anyway. It's just been a load of mumbo-jumbo. It's just been boring, and you've never heard of it. You'll not care about how you live. You've been born bad and you'll die bad. Nothing is touching you. Nothing ever will. You're at best probably a religious person. Upright, maybe a model of society amongst others with hard hearts. Or you will become lower than a beast like Nebuchadnezzar. Your heart is dead. Dead to spiritual truth. And this hard heart is governing all that you think, choose and do. And you're going to hate me for saying that. What right have you got to say such a thing? However, whilst there is breath, there is hope. For if what I have just said has actually shaken you, and is beginning to concern you, then maybe God is making your hard heart tender right now to receive the truth of his glorious word and to receive his son and salvation, to turn away from your sins and bend your heart and bend your knees before God and give your life to him. If you are hardening your heart, now as I speak, over some sin, or maybe some guilt of the past, if when you were listening to God's Word, you've immediately deflected it away from yourself, and you think right now you're being targeted unfairly, aren't you? then you will close off your mind. You're not one to meet with other Christians, as they may, or the Jolly World will, see right through you. There's no question about that. They'll know for a certainty. I know when I meet Christians, if there's no light in their eye, I know. I know, and I'm, you know, I'm just a Christian old donkey. I'm nothing special, but you know. You will not want to meet with other Christians. You may find a teacher that will, as the apostle says, tittle your own ears and make you feel better. Say the kind of thing you want to say. You know the truth, but sadly you have been deliberately closing off your mind and your heart to it. And you are now, because of this, totally miserable. Suspicious of people getting at you. You surround yourself with things that give you comfort. And you harden your heart to the Lord God of heaven. My dear ones, be careful if that's you. Be careful if you're hardening your heart right now and saying, I've heard enough of this guy, I'll switch him off. That's up to you, it's your prerogative. But you can switch me off, but you can't switch God off. He's there, He's listening and watching you. Then finally upon this, how do I know my heart is tender? Oh dear, that's one of the easiest things ever. A simple heart made tender by God will always be questioning themselves, always be seeking more of the Lord, always bemoaning their own conduct and devotion, always restless to know more and more, yet always conscious of sin within and its downtrack. You see your failures more than your successes, and you spend a lot of time wondering how such a beautifully glorious God could ever, ever love someone like you. You will read scripture, then often slam it closed with a sense that you have failed to apply it. I wouldn't read this again. I can't deal with this anymore. And you fear for your life. But then you'll have great moments of great love for Christ and his people, times of tears, times of listening to hymns and sobbing, times of longing for heaven, and yet fearful that you haven't done enough to earn it. Yet you know that Christ has done it for you, but you still fear. Maybe you're a little confused like this, but you look at your life. Have I done enough? Have I been devoted to him? Have I been used to point others to Him? Or has my life been a stumbling block? Do you know the New Testament word for a stumbling block is the word scandalos, which from which we get our word scandal. So has my life been a scandal to others that they have fallen over it? Am I known as a Christian? Or am I known just as a nice person? Or am I known as a grumpy old duffer? And all these things go through the mind of a tender heart. They are ready to receive help. They are ready for the Prophet or Prophetess to speak. They have a tender heart wrought by God alone by his spirit and word. I've told you, didn't I, some time ago about this dear elderly lady who is now in heaven. When I was going through a very dark period, I attended this small Christian assembly and she came to me and she says, John, you can't run from God forever. And I resented it. I was angry with her. But my heart was tender, and I listened and I understood. She was right. And I came back again, cap in hand, to the Lord God. A tender heart will do that. People who have a tender heart, wrought by God, alone by His Spirit and Word. They are not by any means perfect on earth, for they know that, but in their heart, has been, their heart has been made tender by one who is perfect in heaven, by one who has loved them and brought them and keep their heart tender in life. You ask me, how do I know my heart is tender? Your heart is tender if you fear and feel these things I have described to you. If you question your heart, if you want to love God more each day but find you can't, then you can, then you can't. Welcome, welcome dear friends. to the Christian life, the life of a heart that is listening to God and is tender towards sin and towards God. They find sin in all that they do and therefore they become, in that sense, tender to it. They pick it up wherever it is and then they are tender to God for his movement upon them. Do not stand in defiance like Pharaoh, who said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? I know not the Lord, neither will I obey his voice. His heart was like granite, like black windstone, and God would do his grace. Dear ones, labour to have a sensitive, tender heart before God. Let Richard Sibbes, from all those years ago, have the last word to us. And he says this. A tender heart is from God. so that it is tender to God. Ted, the heart is from God so that it is tender to God. Let's pray. Father, make my heart tender to your word to be sensitive to sin and to be tender towards your prophets. and I pray, O God, that you would put me and enable me to sit under godly ministry that will address my tender heart, that you would send the prophets, that is the preachers, of your word to communicate truth to my life. So bless us, O Lord God. May your blessing, the blessing of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest and abide upon each one of us both now and forevermore. Amen.