“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 an heart of flesh.” (Eze. 36:26)
I ask a question of you today, contemplate it well, for I believe it may give you insight into the days of growing darkness that we find ourselves in.
Can stoney hearts grow cold?
To assist you in this endeavor, I offer you these verses as well. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matt. 24:12) And this one, “For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.” (Luke 6:32)
Those unrepentant sinners, can their love towards others grow any colder, can they attain by their own free will and without the Holy Spirit the love that we as born-again believers express to others, a love that seeks in all it does to glorify the Living God and lift up the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Whose hearts, whose love is growing cold?
Would not this infer that there was before a place of warmth in those hearts, in the love expressed? The love that is growing cold, those hearts that no longer hold empathy, care and concern, is it the lost this verse speaks of, or the justified?
I do not trust polls taken very much, they generally cover only a miniscule part of the population and are usually one-sided, but if you were to take a poll on the financial giving of most Evangelical churches, would that amount be down quite a bit do you think? “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1st Tim. 6:10)
What we spend our money on shows us what we are concerned with, what we care about. How we spend our time reveals in part our character, and how we think shows us our integrity.
“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” (Prov. 23:7)
I ask another question of you, considering the accounts of the last three years or so, have you become, perhaps not a fatalist, but a pessimist in regard to those you know and meet that profess the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior?
Whose love is growing cold?
Doubts of the continuation of sameness, of repetition can bring with it fear, and fearful people are unpredictable, and many times easily led astray. Those with stoney hearts do love, but rarely at the expense of their own lives, or in the life they have chosen for themselves. The life of self, in all its forms, is the path of those hearts of stone.
Those with a heart of flesh are to have died to self. “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” (Phil. 2:3) Their love does not, or at least is not supposed to grow cold.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this short letter to you, it is a question that requires much contemplation, and again, I have no answer for you, only debatable points. Can the love offered from a heart of stone grow any colder than it already is, and if not, then it must be those who have been born-again, but have yet to die to self that this verse is speaking about.
If that is true, then indeed we are in the end of the days of grace, for when those who have been crucified with Christ begin to lose the action of love, then the Holy Spirit may not in all fulness be in the beginnings of being quenched, but His ability to find profitable servants who serve in love may be diminishing.
The greater the darkness, the more prevalent the evil, the more difficult it is to behave in a loving manner.
Do not give up, stand against the evil, show them the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, as long as we remain there is hope for them.
