Ezekiel 11:19

A BLESSED EXCHANGE

‘I … will give them an heart of flesh.’

Ezekiel 11:19

I. It is God’s doing— the genesis and creation of the new heart.—‘I,’ He says, and the pronoun must be read with emphasis and decision, ‘I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.’

II. So here is a grave and serious problem for me to consider, the gravest and most serious to which I can give my thought.—Have I undergone a change in my attitude towards Him which is so deep-reaching, so revolutionary, so far beyond my own powers of accomplishment, that none but He Himself can bring it about? My improvement is not enough, my penitence is not enough, the resolution of my mind to remember and to obey Him whom I have slighted and dishonoured is not enough. Nothing is enough but a superhuman process, as much above me and beyond me as my first entrance into the world was. It is the doing of God the Holy Spirit.

III. My soul, thou art worse than frail and faulty!—There is more required from thee than a greater attention to duty and an increased circumspection. Thou art altogether dead to righteousness and to God, and it is He who must Himself quicken thee into life. But do not, therefore, sit down in fatalistic calm and helpless despair. What says He to thee?—‘Yet for all this I will be enquired of, to do it for thee.’ He gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.