-Transcript-
00:29 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:32 Welcome to the cafe, Pastor Clark Covington. Here with you for another day. Hopefully you are doing well, enjoying some of this fall weather and the leaves changing.
00:42 It’s beautiful outside. I just thank you so much for being here today. Today we are going to start a two-part series on the heart.
00:54 On the heart. Oh, how it’s so important to protect our heart. Proverbs 4:23, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
01:05 Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.That’s Proverbs 4:23.
01:11 Now, when we look at the author of Proverbs, Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, give us this urging to keep our heart with all diligence.
01:25 We can look at the definition of diligence as careful and persistent work or effort. I always kind of think of conscientious, thoughtful, attention, painstaking type of attention.
01:43 That is what diligence means, amen. And so when we guard our heart with diligence, when we keep our heart with diligence, we are doing so intentionally.
01:51 We are doing so all the time, right? We are doing so with a, how would you say it? A desire or a attitude of an existing threat, of something that’s happening that is not going to be good.
02:10 Why would I say that? Because we live in this world, amen? And in this world, the climate of where our heart is gathered is a very brutal climate. It’s a climate full of what? Temptation.
02:22 I preached a bunch of messages recently on being an overcomer. And I’ll be honest with you, as I preached those messages and as I worked diligently, for lack of a better word, in the ministry, more and more obstacles seemed to spring up.
02:39 More and more problems seemed to occur.
02:43 Temptations were there. Frustrations certainly were there. And this is as I’m preaching about being an overcomer, understanding all that goes into that, reading my Bible faithfully, serving the Lord faithfully.
02:56 And yet, it just, the hits keep coming, as they say. The climate we’re in is the world, amen.
03:07 And who’s the little G God of this world? The devil. And what does the devil want to do? He wants you to get you off track.
03:13 And so if it seems like the more that you’re serving God, the more that he’s on your back, friend, that is a good sign. Now you may say, that’s not a good sign, because you don’t enjoy it. I’m with you.
03:26 All right? It’s not a good sign. You know what? When the kitchen gets hot, you want to get out the kitchen. But God’s saying, be faithful and be patient.
03:37 And to give the end of the message from the beginning, two things that we can learn about guarding our hearts, or keeping our hearts, is that in times of difficulty, there’s a vulnerability there, and we must be patient and faithful.
03:50 And if we’re faithful, patient, these things kind of interchangeable, trusting God, and just working on having that godly sense of faith that he will provide, and that he will keep us, right, that he’ll keep us, then eventually, things will calm down.
04:10 And we’ll say, wow, I’m really glad I didn’t lose my testimony, right? I’m really glad I didn’t make a really poor choice.
04:17 You know, your heart is vulnerable and tender, okay? And so keep thy heart with all diligence, that careful and persistent worker effort.
04:27 The reason why here in Proverbs, we’re being urged to keep our heart with all diligence is because our heart is vulnerable and tender. You know, it’s an organ, of course, our heart being an organ, but it references the deepest part of who we are.
04:42 They can go either way, good or evil. Let’s take a look at Proverbs 4: 20-27. My son, attend to my words, incline thy ear unto my sayings.
04:53 Let them not depart from thine eyes. Keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh.
05:05 Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth and perverse lips. Put far from thee.
05:19 Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left.
05:27 Remove thy foot from evil. And so here we see, and if you get into all of Proverbs 4, it’s dealing with, you know, children, listen to the father, you know, hear the father’s instructions, have wisdom, don’t forsake it, don’t pass it by, don’t be involved in mischief, don’t drink the wine of violence or eat the bread of wickedness.
05:52 And so we’re dealing with the good and the evil.
05:57 And I guess what I’m taking from Proverbs 4 is this next layer of good or evil that happens in our life, how do we respond?
06:07 So someone may read this in a vacuum and say, okay, well, yeah, I’m just going to serve God and everything’s great. But when things aren’t great, are you able to serve God?
06:16 When things aren’t great, are you able to maintain your faith? When things aren’t great, are you able to stay on that narrow path and not go to the left or to the right as the Lord wouldn’t have you to go?
06:27 Here the scripture says to ponder the feet of thy path and let all thy ways be established. So what we’re doing here is we’re looking at Proverbs 4:24 saying, you know what?
06:39 To keep our tender heart, we need to be thinking about our path, understanding what could happen.
06:46 And of course, we get all of our wisdom from the Bible. Jeremiah 17:9 is a very familiar verse, tells us about the negative of the heart. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.
07:13 Jeremiah 17:9. And so evil, the natural man, the carnal man can come from the heart. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. Yet this world tells us to follow our heart.
07:16 Amen. People will say, I just want to do what’s in my heart. Amen.
07:20 Well, the heart isn’t necessarily yoked up with God. It’s certainly not naturally yoked up with God. So we must be saved, must be born again.
07:28 And then once we’re born again, we must be turning to God and walking with the Lord sincerely in faith, especially when the boat gets to rocking, the boat gets to shaking, the turbulence on the water, the storms of life come, and we’re in that boat getting rocked to and fro and saying, well, what do we do now?
07:49 Well, isn’t that when oftentimes what has been called the true character of man comes out or people’s true colors come out? Yet the heart can be for good in the Bible.
08:02 This is how we’re saved. Our deepest love, our desire for the things of God come out of the heart.
08:07 Our founding verse in our old church, Romans 10:9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
08:20 And see, we see here that to be saved, we look at the gospel, right? Which is clearly in 1 Corinthians 15, 1-4. Also too in the book of Romans, of course, that we are all sinners. We all fall short.
08:38 Our righteousness is like filthy rags. We have a sin that we cannot pay. The wages of sin is death.
08:43 But the gift of God is everlasting life through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross. We accept Christ as Savior.
08:48 And then what happens? Well, we’re saved. We’re born again. Amen.
08:56 And when we’re born again, how is that accepting? Where is it occurring? In our heart, Romans 10:9. So we’re confessing with the mouth, but our heart, in our heart, in the deepest part of us, we believe that God hath raised him from the dead and therefore we’re saved and we’re born again.
09:18 And so the heart here is a very positive thing in the Bible, just as it can be a very negative thing in the Bible. Look at the time of Jeremiah.
09:27 Jeremiah is speaking to a wicked, reprobate, backslid Israelite people that would not listen to their God, that had been taken captive by the enemy because the Lord allowed them to be taken captive. It was their punishment. Amen.
09:40 And the prophet Jeremiah is speaking a great truth that people are following their hearts and their hearts are leading them into paganism and idolatry and all kinds of problems.
09:48 And so we see it can go either way. The heart can be good or it can be bad, right? And people oftentimes think, okay, well, you know, I get an education, I get a suitable career job, I follow the laws in this country or whatever country you’re living in and, you know, I can just follow my heart, right? Celebrate it.
10:15 And yet it is very dangerous to do that if we don’t understand the context in which we’re doing it in and we don’t understand the natural man versus the born again one.
10:24 And that’s why it’s so important to understand that we need to be diligent. We need to first understand these things.
10:31 Many Christians probably don’t understand these things. So we have to ask ourselves, which one are we putting forth today?
10:40 Is our heart acting deceitful? What does deceitful mean? Does it not mean trickery? Amen. Does it not mean being deceived? Think about this.
10:44 You know, a trick, a deceit, it’s not coming from a holy righteous God. He’s not up there in heaven saying, oh, let me trick all those people that believe on me and that say they believe on me. No, that’s the devil.
10:58 The devil’s the father of all lies. Amen. He’s the author of confusion, right? He’s the one deceiving and misleading, not God.
11:11 Amen. And so if our heart is deceitful, our heart being in the natural man is telling us things that we want to do for our own gratification that has nothing to do with God’s plan for us.
11:28 And so that’s where that fleshly desire comes in.
11:33 Again, in these messages I had preached recently on the overcoming life, we talked about that was the whole point to overcome temptation, overcome the desires of the flesh for quick gratification,
11:43 whether it’s involved with money and security, whether it’s involved in sexual things like fornication or adultery or homosexuality, whether it’s involved in coveting or whether it’s involved in pride and fame, vanity.
11:58 All these things are offering us this quick fix that are supposed to make us happy, right? And our hearts are telling us, yeah, yeah, that’s good. That’s good, right?
12:07 Like an empty belly and you see food that’s not good for you and your belly’s telling you, oh, it’s good for you.
12:13 It’s totally good for you. And you’re tricked, amen, and you’re tricked. And so we have to make sure that we understand the principle in which God wants us to understand, which is that our heart can be used for good or bad.
12:27 You hear in the ministry that, oh, the Lord’s put on my heart to do this or that. I have a heart for this group or that group. See? So again, the Lord can use our hearts in a good way.
12:41 I believe that. If someone tells me that the Lord’s burdened them and they burden their heart, I believe them. I don’t believe that’s deceitful.
12:49 But if someone’s in the world and the world’s telling them, yeah, you know, go do this thing that’s not godly, then they’re being tricked, amen. Anything that is not of God is certainly not a good thing to do.
13:06 And when our hearts are communicating that to us and it can be subtle and sly, like it could look like no big deal.
13:10 I’m just going to a movie. But then that movie blasphemes God. And that movie’s got worldly themes.
13:21 That movie makes you covet something else. And that movie gives you bad language into your mouth and all these things. And it looked harmless, right? And go to a movie like we used to go to a movie theater.
13:35 Now you just stream it on your phone. And that’s what’s so dangerous with the world we live in today. And so we want to just be mindful of guarding our heart, of keeping a diligent watch over our heart.
13:45 And that starts by praying and seeking the Lord by staying in his word and by understanding that in difficult times, the Lord is building faith and patience within us. And that’s okay, amen. It is okay to go through difficult times.
13:51 It’s okay to fall short. It’s okay to even be angry sometimes, amen. But you’ve got to give it to God and you’ve got to guard your heart so that you are not allowing your heart to lead you in a bad direction, amen.
14:04 But in a good direction, keep the heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
14:10 For out of it are the issues of life. And next episode, we’re going to talk about what those issues of life are and why they’re important.
14:18 But I thank you so much for listening today. Visit us online, kjvcafe.com, facebook.com forward slash kjvcafe. Thank you so much for listening.
14:28 Take care. God bless and amen.