WHAT IS SAID IN THE HEART

^[p. 224] WHAT IS SAID IN THE HEART

Psalm 10:6; Psalm 10:11; Psalm 10:13; Genesis 8:21, 22; Romans 10: 6 - 10

These scriptures speak of what is said in the heart. There is much around in the world in the way of speaking and writing that is public, public oratory and newspapers. Every morning brings its quota of this, and men, women and children are occupied with what is presented. The morning newspaper is now regarded as essential to what is called the life of the world as are the accompanying things, such as books, whether they are true or false. The world is going on on these lines and others like them, but these things do not always set out what is going on in men’s hearts. God is taking account of what goes on in hearts; so Psalm 10, the scripture of the wicked, gives us something of what goes on, and what is being said, in wicked hearts. God would not occupy us much with what men, wicked men, are saying in their hearts, save that many of those who are to be saved are at the moment wicked, and may have part in these very remarks, may be saying these very remarks.

In Psalm 14 we have the fool who says in his heart, “There is no God”. He may not say it openly if he seeks to please a christian; he perhaps would not say it to a christian, but he says it in his heart, and the saying of it proves that he is a fool. I do not suppose anyone here would say that there is no God; you would hardly be here if you were saying that in your heart an hour ago; it is the fool who says it, and he is shown to be a fool because it is characteristic, as if no one but a fool would say it. Christians, indeed, often say things that are the height of folly, for a christian may be very far away from God, and be characterised by folly. God knows what you are ^[p. 225] saying in your heart. It may be that you have said things in your heart about some other person; that is, it is folly to say it, saying it in your heart is the height of folly; God knows what is said in your heart. Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 represent a fool particularly characterised by such folly as to say in his heart, “There is no God”. I suppose it suits him to say that; it is according to his feelings to say it. But the man in Psalm 10 is not called a fool, but he is one, only that the point in Psalm 10 is that he is not described as a fool, but as a wicked man, and what he says in his heart. He does not deny that there is a God, but he does deny God, and he does say things in his heart that are according to his feelings about God, that suit him; what he says in his heart suits his state, his ambitions, his outlook; he speaks in his heart in relation to his calculations, to his ambitions, to his outlook, and, whilst he does not deny that there is a God, he misrepresents Him totally. In the first verse I read it says, “He saith ... I shall not be moved”. I shall not be moved! Overlooking that great rulers are moved, men whose position seemed impregnable, overlooking one overthrow after another that is current, he says, I shall not be moved. Is there anyone here who has such assurance as this? who does not know God? who is not a converted person? It may be that you are assured that your business matters are good, the position is sure, your salary is assured, your health is good, your outlook is good, and you are saying in your heart, “I shall not be moved”. God would say to you tonight that that is the language of a wicked man. Whatever your public history may be, that is the language of a wicked man. You look at the graveyards and the constant flow of the dead into those graveyards, and you would say, I shall not be moved? God would upset you in your calculations this very night; He would call you a fool too. But I am speaking now of the language of a wicked person,

^[p. 226] a wicked man, and you do not want to be classified amongst them. But if that is the language of your heart, it is the language of a wicked person, and God would upset it. He may tell you that this night your soul shall be required of you. Does that move you? You are hardened to that? You say, I have often heard that; and the more often you have heard it, and it has had no effect upon you, the harder you are. But God would dislodge any such thought this very night, that you shall not be moved. How easily God could change it all if He were to say, and act accordingly, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee”. Not your body. If you are a christian God requires your body; He claims your body, as a christian’s body. The epistle to the Romans brings out that truth, that the christian’s body is claimed by God. But if God has to speak to any person who has such folly in his heart as to think, ‘I shall not be moved’, He would say, This night thy soul shall be required of thee. What for? Why should God require your soul? In the gospel of Luke such requirement implies judgment. How solemn it is that God should require a man’s soul in judgment. What will He do with it?

Does God need it? This night, this night, thy soul shall be required of thee. That is, you have got to give it up.

And then it goes on to say here, in verse ii, “He saith in his heart, God hath forgotten, he hideth his face, he will never see it”. That is in relation to some conduct. How the wicked man would love to think that God had forgotten his wickedness, that God hides His face from it, that He will never see it. Is there anyone here who is talking like that in his heart? Has God forgotten? No, beloved friends. God keeps books most accurately, and in them He records all acts of wickedness. He has no pleasure in it, I can understand that, but He does it, for the books are opened, we are told, and the wicked dead (that is ^[p. 227] what this psalm is treating of) will stand before God, and God has everything recorded in these books. “The sea gave up its dead”, as if to say there are no dead, no wicked dead, that are not brought up. The sea, even the unexplored sea, so far as man is concerned, gives up its dead. It is not unexplored by God, He knows its depths, and the wickednesses of all the dead there are put down in a book, and they will all come up; He does not forget anything. I believe the use of books and the use of writing in that remarkable chapter (Revelation 20), is to remind us to get down to our minds, so that we should understand that God does remember; He does not need to make notes (I speak reverently), He does not need to make notes, because He holds things. The wicked man says that God forgets, that He hides His face, that He does not know. Why does he say that? Because he deceives his conscience, he deceives himself. God does not forget, not one iota; no wickedness will be forgotten; He requires what is due. He has it all noted down. Now that is another phase of what is said in his heart by the wicked man. I do hope that no one here is classified with the wicked man. This is a most solemn psalm. It is what comes out in the heart of the wicked, and you do not want to be classified amongst them, saying that God will forget what you have done. He will not forget. Nor does He hide His face from it. He will require it, He has to say to it, and the matter has to be attended to, the books have to be squared, and they will be.

Then in his heart he condemns God. That is a terrible thing. Whereas God is justified; when He enters into judgment He is justified. “Enter not into judgment with thy servant”, says one. God will come out on top, God will come out with the last word; He will have the last word, whatever the wicked says in his heart. Faith will justify God; the Lord Jesus justified God. Publicans and sinners ^[p. 228] justify God by confessing their sins. The scribes and Pharisees condemned God. It is a terrible thing to be in that category. He says further, “Thou wilt not require it”. He will require it. He is not God if He does not require men to answer for their conduct, that is why, as I said, He stresses the idea of books, so that we should understand that He forgets nothing, and that He requires from men’s hands. He enters into judgment, and He is justified in His judgment; so that it says, “The dead, small and great, stand before God; .. and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books ... and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire”. God is justified in that, let us not think it is hard. No! It is love that requires the lake of fire. Sin is intolerable to God; sin is intolerable to those who are taught of God; everyone who is righteous is on God’s side with regard to the lake of fire, even although his best friend, as a man of this world, goes there. Let God be just. The wicked man has condemned God, and he has condemned Him in this way, saying, Thou wilt not require it. He does require it. He does require, let no one be deceived.

Now I turn from this, with relief, to what God says in His heart. That is what we get in the book of Genesis, what God says in His heart. It is the outcome of what He smelled. God graciously uses terms that we can understand. He “smelled a sweet savour”. I praise and bless God that He is pleased to use such language, so that I should understand it. Were He concerned only to maintain His awful majesty as the Deity, He would not use such words as these, would not condescend to use such words; but in coming in in service He maintains His dignity and His government, that is death. Here the flaming sword of the cherubim (chapter 3) maintains the infinite majesty of God, He has not altered one iota of His ^[p. 229] mind against sin; His face is set against sin as in the beginning. Nowhere did that come out more clearly than at the cross. God has not changed His mind about sin; He hates it, and He maintains His majesty in that; but in hating sin He serves the sinner; He comes in in lowly guise and makes clothes for the sinner. Here He smells a savour from the offering of Noah, and He says in His heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake”. ‘I know what is in man’s heart’ (all that is set out in Psalm 10) but, God says, ‘I am not changing My mind a bit’; He does not alter His mind a bit. He says, I am thinking of something else now, I am thinking of Jesus; He came into this world, His savour ascended unto heaven, and heaven announced its delight in Him, and as Jesus is offered up, in type Noah built an altar. What instincts he had, dear friends, what holy thoughts that man had. We have no record that God ever taught him, or ever told him to build an altar. He did it. How delightful it was that he built an altar. He took of all the clean beasts and the clean fowls, reserved nothing for himself; as it were, he was totally unselfish as he offered up the burnt-offering to God, and “The Lord smelled a sweet savour; and ... said in his heart”; He said in His heart, it does not imply that He is saying anything to anyone, for God knows how to keep secrets, but He will not withhold them, for the gospel brings out what is in His heart. The epistle to the Romans speaks of the mystery of the gospel, but the gospel is a public matter, and it unfolds what is said here: God said in His heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart”, as the psalm testifies, “is evil from his youth”. In spite of that wicked man, God’s mind is unchanged, so that He says, ‘I will not again curse the ground on account of man, be he ever so guilty, ever so wicked, he is not going to alter My mind’. How comforting ^[p. 230] that is! God is occupied with Jesus, and the wickedest man may come into blessing, may come into justification, may come into glorification, under the power of the Spirit, on the ground of faith; He has smelled a sweet savour, He is full of it, and He says, ‘Whatever man may do, I will not alter My mind’. That is, at the present moment. “While the earth remaineth ... day and night shall not cease”, Genesis 8: 22. This very day is in His mind. First the seed time. What is the seed? Well, what is God thinking about? The seed of the gospel, and the harvest the fruit of the gospel. As the Lord Jesus was with the poor sinner at the well of Sychar, that we have so often heard of, He said to His disciples, after she left, after His wonderful conversation with her, after she got the light into her soul of the Saviour’s love, as I may say, He said to His disciples, “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest”, John 4:35. Every man laboured, they sowed, there was the seed time; but this is the harvest, and tonight is a harvest-day, and it is a seed-sowing day, too. Every day is a seed time and every day a harvest time, and God says it shall not cease, He says it in His heart.

Do you not want to come in tonight, to say in your heart-as I read in this passage in the epistle to the Romans-what the “righteousness of faith” says? I have been speaking to you of what writers say, and what newspapers say, and what books say; what wicked men say in their hearts and what God says in His heart; but what does the “righteousness of faith” say? Mark, it is not what “faith” says, it is what the “righteousness of faith” says. I would like to understand that better-the righteousness of faith! It belongs to the category of words peculiar to this epistle, the epistle to the Romans; it is a fundamental epistle, and this word ‘righteousness’ is the great foundation of faith. The righteousness of faith, what ^[p. 231] does it say? Did you ever listen to it? It may be that you never thought of such an expression as this, although it is here. Maybe it never occurred to you that there is such a word, such a subject as this what the righteousness of faith says. What does it say? The apostle speaks about what Moses said and what the law said, but what does the righteousness of faith say? Well, it says to you, ‘Do not say these things in your heart’; that is the first thing: do not say certain things in your heart, “Who shall ascend to the heavens?”. Paul is quoting from Deuteronomy 30. The righteousness of faith, mark you. Moses wrote that book, showing what a minister Moses is; he, also, tells us what the law says; but Moses also tells us what the righteousness of faith says, and the first is, do not say certain things. What things? “Who shall ascend to the heavens?”. That is an infidel question. The explanation of that is in verse 6: “That is, to bring Christ down”. Who shall bring Christ down? Christ came down, beloved friends, He descended. Do not say He did not, do not question it, do not be an infidel in regard to that.

That is what the righteousness of faith says. It is important to listen to what you may or may not say in your heart because this is what a nominal christian is apt to say. And then again, “Who shall descend into the abyss?”. It is unknown, who knows anything about it but God? And hence we are apt to be infidel in regard to it, but the righteousness of faith says, ‘Do not say, Who shall descend?’. Christ descended. And then again, ‘Who shall bring Christ up?’. He came up Himself; God raised Him from the dead. The righteousness of faith says, do not question these things. If you are indefinite or uncertain as regards your salvation it is because of these infidel questions. The righteousness of faith would banish them from your heart. Do not ask such questions. Mark, it is not faith only, it is the righteousness of faith. What is ^[p. 232] the righteousness of faith? It is that Jesus was delivered for our offences; He descended, and was delivered for our offences, and He rose again for our justification, so that the apostle goes on to say, “The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart”. What word? “The word of faith, which we preach”. He quoted from Deuteronomy. He knew what he was speaking about, what he preached. I should like to have heard Paul preach. Among many things that I should like to hear would be men like Paul preaching the gospel. He says, “The word of faith, which we preach”. Where is that word? It is nigh you, in your mouth and in your heart. Who says it is not so? Is there one here who can claim exemption from that?

No one. I suppose I may say the whole of Christendom is included in the word of faith. “In thy mouth and in thy heart”. What about it? Some of you here, here in this room to hear the gospel, what about this? The word of faith. I am not now speaking of the “righteousness of faith”. I have spoken about that; I am speaking now of the word of faith which Paul preached. There is no gospel like the gospel which he preached, “the word of faith, which we preach”. I think every preacher ought to aim to preach like Paul. We should preach the kind of word he did. He says to the Corinthians, “The Son of God ... who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus)”. What preachings they must have had in those days, all those eighteen months! One would like to know just how they carried on, whether it was in houses, or on walls, at the street corners, or in the open fields; but it was this, the word of faith, which they preached. He is bringing it down here to the believer, to one who has in his heart the very word that Paul preached, and yet it has never been effective in your soul. Is it going to be effective tonight in your heart? Are you going to settle the matter? Heaven is looking on and listening,

^[p. 233] has been watching over you, it may be, for some time back in view of this meeting, that you might settle the matter, that it may be no longer simply a matter of what you know religiously; it is nigh you, all round you, your father, your mother, the brethren speak of it; you know it well, and it has never become effective in your heart. Then he says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved”. We who are in this wonderful salvation-what the writer to the Hebrews calls “so great salvation”-we who are possessed of it would urge you to join us tonight.

Thou shalt be saved. It is not here like Acts 16, “and thy house”. This is more young people, people who do not own houses. God is very considerate of us; if you are a married man and love your wife and children, He would like you to understand that they will be saved too; but if He is speaking to one of those children He would say that you will have to be saved yourself; you have heard your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters speaking about this, and it has not become effective yet, and the point of this meeting is that it should become effective. Acts 16 is many persons in one stroke; this is one person, thou. Will you not settle the matter? It is a heart matter; it is a mouth matter too. “The Lord Jesus”. I do not know any words more delightful in the mouth of a person, when they are really used in a heart sense, when they are used in faith and, I may add, when they are used in the power of the Spirit of God. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord”. Heaven hears every such confession; not only does it hear them, but I believe they have a peculiar resounding effect in heaven; that confession is in accord with heaven; the Father loves to hear it, Michael, the archangel loves to hear it, all the angels love to hear it, saints love to hear it; we here, sitting ^[p. 234] about you, love to hear it, and it implies that you are amongst us as one of us as soon as you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.

May God grant that some one, or more, may settle the matter in this way, and that they may come into this great salvation that belongs to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.