Keeping the Heart
From
Signs of the Times—March 15, 1869.
Dear Brother Beebe: I desire your views on Proverbs 4:23.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
As this is the first request I have made, I hope you will comply, and oblige,
yours,
J.W. Walker, Morgan Co.,
Reply: As the mind of Elder Walker, has been evidently
exercised on this proverb, it is highly probable that he has clearer light in
regard to its meaning than we can give. Still as he seems particularly anxious
for our views, we will give him such as we have. The children of God being
quickened and instructed in that wisdom which comes from above, which is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of good fruits, and
without partiality or hypocrisy; and being in their relation to Christ, who of
God is made unto them wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption,
are known in the scriptures as the children of wisdom, in distinction from all
others of mankind, however proficient in the wisdom of this world, which the
apostle says is from beneath, and is earthly, sensual and devilish. All the
proverbs or maxims of divine wisdom recorded by inspiration in what we call the
book of Proverbs, are addressed by Wisdom to her children. Wisdom being
personified as the parent of her children, deals instructing maxims, warnings
and admonitions to her children, all of whom are made wise unto salvation
through faith that is in Christ Jesus; and in them all, “Wisdom is justified of
her children.” The Wisdom that cries aloud, and puts forth her voice in the
scriptures, is the Wisdom of God; it is repudiated by the wise and prudent of
this world, and is foolishness to the Greeks, as it is a stumbling block to the
Jews; and so also is the wisdom of this world foolishness with God; because it
is from beneath, and is sensual and devilish.
Among the very numerous lessons addressed in the inspired
proverbs, to the children of Wisdom, we should not overlook the admonition of
the text under consideration. 1st, the heart; 2nd, its issues; 3rd, the charge
to keep it diligently.
As in the physical organization of our natural bodies, the
heart is the seat of vitality, from whence the warm current of life is
constantly sent through a thousand arterial and venous channels to every part of
the body, no disease of the heart can be seated there without corrupting and
impregnating with disease and death the issues—or emanations which are
indispensable to the life and health of the body, and all its members; so the
heart is used figuratively to illustrate the seat and center of human
affections, thoughts, passions, desires, hopes, resolutions, &c., as all flowing
out from one fountain or spring of vitality, as the vital fluid, or blood is by
the pulsation of the heart made to go out and course through every artery and
vein, as God provided in our natural creation. In using this figure to
illustrate spiritual things, that immortal life which the saints have received
in their new and spiritual birth from the Second Adam, who is a quickening, or
life giving Spirit, is called a new heart. “A new heart will I give unto them,
and a new spirit will I put within them.” It is not a revision of the old heart;
for that God has graciously promised to take away, and give them a new heart.
New wine requires new bottles, and spiritual issues must flow from a spiritual
spring. The scriptures inform us of the natural heart, that it is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Its issues are like
the fountain; the thoughts, passions, affections, desires and devotions, are all
deceptive: nothing else can be so deceitful.
While the natural man may believe that his motives are
perfectly pure, his reasoning conclusive, his decisions just, and his affections
holy, he is only the victim of a delusive infatuation; for no one can bring a
clean thing out of an unclean. So when the apostle says, “With the heart man
believeth unto righteousness,” &c., he does not mean the old natural and
deceitful heart, for the same apostle has testified that the spiritual things
which God has prepared for them that love him, has never entered into the heart
of man; but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. Not to our natural
man, for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they
are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things; yet he himself is judged
of no man, (1 Cor. 2). The natural heart is the heart of the natural man. It
never has received, neither can it know the things of the Spirit. But the
spiritual man, and spiritual heart, is born of the Spirit; and the other is only
born of the flesh.
The issues of the natural heart, or streams which flow
therefrom, partake of the nature of the deceitful heart from which they flow.
“An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, nor can a good tree bring forth
evil fruit.” “A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth
that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart
bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth
speaketh,” (Luke 6:45). Thus all the emanations of the heart of either good or
bad men, are issues of life, and these issues show what is the nature and
quality of the heart or life from which they flow. Every tree is known by his
own fruit; for of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather
they grapes. The fruits of the natural heart are the fruits of the flesh, “which
are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revilings, and such like.” And these issues show what kind
of life they proceed from. While the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, &c.,
are the streams of divine and spiritual life, issuing from the heart that is
sprinkled from an evil conscience, as the seat of life to that spiritual body
which is washed in pure water, —the man, which after God, is created in
righteousness and true holiness.
Now the Christian is in possession of both these entire
natures; the old man, and the new man; the inner, and the outward man; the flesh
and the Spirit. He is warned to put off the one, and to put on the other; to
crucify the one, and to cherish the other. If he lives after the one he shall
die, for the issues of life from the one are corrupt and mortal; but the issues
of life from the new heart are incorruptible and immortal. Hence the admonitions
of Wisdom to her children, in this proverb, “Keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life.” This closing admonition we will consider
only in its application to the children of God, while here in the flesh. As from
the heart are the issues of life, we may understand the charge to watch with all
diligence the fountain from whence all the manifestations and evidences of
spiritual vitality are ever flowing; nothing wrong in the fountain can be
corrected in the stream. As we have observed the blood which animates the body
in all its parts, and which is called the life, and is indispensable to the
preservation of life, all flows through and from the heart of man; so all the
functions and developments of life, which are of a pure, spiritual and holy
nature, proceed, or issue from the new heart which God has given to us, and in
which God has shined, and in which God works both to will and to do of his own
good pleasure. So we need to watch every emotion, and every sentiment, and every
action, to know that they all issue from the new heart which God has given to
us. To illustrate, suppose we profess to believe in God, or believe that
salvation is of the Lord, and by grace, or that we in form walk in the
ordinances of the gospel; if we have no heart in our professions and practice,
what will it avail us? “With the heart, man believeth unto righteousness.” But
if only with our head, or reasoning powers of mind, we entertain a rational, or
mere traditional belief even of that which is sound and orthodox, such a dead
faith cannot issue from a vital fountain.
To keep the heart with all diligence, as we understand, is to
put off the old man, or old deceitful and desperately wicked heart, with its
issues of natural life, as described, (Gal. 5:19-21), and to put on the new man,
by diligently cherishing those immortal principles of holiness, which we have
received from God in our new and spiritual birth, from which issues the living
fruits of the Spirit; as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, &c. There is life or vitality in all these, and they are called the
issues of life, because they emanate, or issue from that life which we have of
God. The keeping of the heart, does not mean that we are to trust in our
vigilance, or power, but rather that we should watch and pray, lest we enter
into temptation. Diligently labor to suppress the corruptions of our evil heart,
and cling to the hallowed principles of holiness which issue from the true heart
with which we draw nigh unto God, in full assurance of faith, by the new and
living way which our God has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to
say, his flesh.
Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “Whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,”
(John 4:14). This water which Jesus giveth, is eternal life; it is called “a
pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and the Lamb.” This when given shall be in its happy recipient a well of
water, springing into everlasting life; and all its out flowings are of life;
and the charge to keep it diligently is equivalent to the many admonitions given
to the saints in the word, to walk in the Spirit, and not fulfill the lusts of
the flesh. To keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace; and through the
Spirit to mortify the deeds of the flesh. To deny ourselves of all ungodliness
and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously and godly in the world.
These are some of the views which have occurred to us on the
text, and such as they are, we pass them over to brother Walker, and to all who
may feel interested in the investigation of the subject.
