The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.
- Genesis 6:5-6
“‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away.
- Leviticus 26:36-39
Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices.
- Ezekiel 6:9
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
- Matthew 6:21
I will sing of your love and justice;
to you, Lord, I will sing praise.
I will be careful to lead a blameless life—
when will you come to me?
I will conduct the affairs of my house
with a blameless heart.
I will not look with approval
on anything that is vile.
I hate what faithless people do;
I will have no part in it.
The perverse of heart shall be far from me;
I will have nothing to do with what is evil.
- Psalm 101:1-4
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
- Matthew 18:35
He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
- Mark 7:6
Boilerplate
I’m Harold Dykstra. I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story. My time is well spent. A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel. I did not know she was an angel at the time. The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone. And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy. She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others. She changed my life. Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’ She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant. Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs. After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.
This Week’s Question
In the last episode, Babs discovered rot. But this week, she saw a confidential e-mail. She was not being nosey, but she got concerned.
One night, after a great sales call and celebratory dinner, we got in our usual positions, but then Babs said, “Harold, I want to do the Bible study tonight.”
“Oh?”
She nodded, “I have been looking at Bible verses about the heart. The first one is in Genesis 6. It talks about the thoughts of the human heart were evil and God’s heart was troubled. He regretted that He had made man. And that led to the flood.”
I nodded, “So, what concerns you about those verses?”
She shrugged, “Well, the world is evil now. There are wars. There is political intrigue between nations and within nations. Crime is everywhere and people distrust each other. There is no love. But the text says that the thoughts of the heart. Can the heart have thoughts?”
I snickered, “I heard a very funny comedy routine years ago from Mark Lowry. It was about him having seen open-heart surgery on a television show. He dramatizes how they cut ‘this old boy’ open and then ‘there it was.’ It looked like a lasagna, but it was alive!”
Babs snickered, “But I am being serious.”
I smiled, “Mark Lowry was being serious too. He got everybody laughing at his antics, and then he asked why preachers say that Jesus comes into your heart. He said that Jesus was not terribly interested in sitting there watching the corpuscles fly by. But Jesus was in a different place. Mark Lowry called it the control center of our emotions, but the control center of our inner focus might be a better description. Sometimes our emotions can lead us astray. But the sons of Adam, to borrow a phrase from the Narnian fantasy series, had gotten so rotten that God wanted to do a ‘do over.’ And what does Genesis 6:8 say?”
Babs read, “And Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
I snickered, “Now in Genesis 18, Abraham negotiates with God. He asks God if Sodom has 50 righteous people, would he destroy the city. God says that He would not. Then Abraham goes to 45. Eventually, God admits that with only 10 righteous people, God would not destroy Sodom. Most people look at what happened next. Lot, his wife, and two daughters were rescued. Then Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt. Not for looking back and disobeying the angel. She yearned for what she had lost. But people do the math and say, ‘Four is less than ten.’ But when God destroyed the world by flood, how many did He save in the ark?”
Babs blinked, as if she was counting. “Eight. Noah and his three sons, and their wives. Hmmm. That’s less than ten.”
I smiled, “Yes, eight is less than ten. Maybe that’s why Jesus has not returned. There is more than ten who are faithful. But this is not my Bible Study. What is your next set of verses.”
Babs said, “There is Leviticus 26: 36-39. It talks about those who are being punished having their hearts fear. Now, that sound like what your comedian was talking about. The heart as a control center of the emotions.”
I smiled, “That is a good observation, Babs. You are right. In that context, the control center of the emotions would fear. But if you are fearing the rustling of a leaf, what does that sound like?” Babs shrugged. “You could be fearing fear itself, or simply fearing the possibility of what might happen. And putting that second suggestion into other words, worrying.”
Babs scrunched her nose and frowned. “Jesus said not to do that. But I have caught you doing it. You need to trust God more, Harold.”
I chuckled, “Yes, Babs, I know. So, what’s next?”
Babs giggled, “How about Ezekiel 6 with an adulterous heart, but then it talks about idols?”
I sighed, “Yes, verse nine talks about lusting for idols, something they can touch and hold instead of trusting in an unseen God. Now, many of the false gods of that day, and in many ways today but people deny them as being gods, these gods were gods of fertility. Even when you are worshipping a false god to gain a better crop, thus fertility, there could be a ritual of sexual immorality involved. So, while you are violating the first two commandments, why not throw in adultery on top of that? But I think God is using a broader definition of adulterous, as in obscenely sinful.”
Babs said, “There are a lot more examples of bad hearts, but then Matthew 6:21 says that where our treasure is, there our heart is also.”
I nodded, “That can be good or bad. That verse, taken in context, is looking at treasures of this world and storing up treasures in Heaven. So, it follows what I said about our heart being the control center of our focus, what we desire, what we think about all day long.”
Babs said, “So, your heart is on a good sales call and a nice dinner?”
I groaned, “Please, Babs, that is what I do for a living and at my age, a good dinner is the highlight of the day. Well, it was the highlight until we started having these Bible studies together.”
Babs giggled, “That’s so sweet. But back to the highlight of your day, the first four verses of Psalm 101 talks about the heart. It starts off talking about a blameless life and then a blameless heart. Then it mentions the perverse heart is far from God and He will not put up with it. Harold, are you perverted?”
I huffed, “Babs, I have not made a pass at you through all the time we have been together. Now, if you wanted me to make a pass at you, I might attempt it, but my dating days are so far behind me, Babs, I would probably mess that up. But I think again that the author, in this case David, was talking about perverse from the standpoint of perverting God’s Law. So, many people ask, ‘Did God really mean …’ For an example, they will argue that same sex relations is only mentioned by Paul and Paul had a lot of hangups. First, that is not true. Levitical Law says to kill those participating in such activity, and that was Moses writing down what God dictated. And arguing that Paul had hangups denies that Paul’s writings were the inspired Word of God. You deny Paul. You do not even read Leviticus or the latter chapters in Exodus or bits of Numbers before a lot is repeated in Deuteronomy. You are perverting the Law to your own advantage so that you can fake your way into Heaven. That does not work. But then, one sin stains the entire body, but that sin does not send you to Hell. You go to Hell when you do not have a saving relationship with Jesus. When you have that relationship, your name is written in the Book of Life”
I continued, “And before you go on, David uses the word blameless. We can both agree that humans sin, thus we cannot live a perfect life. But we can live a life so that a policeman could follow us around and not blame us for violating this rule or that law. That is living a blameless life and having a blameless heart. I could covet a ripe watermelon right now. My lips might savor the taste. There might be a watermelon on sale at the roadside stand – okay, a little late for watermelon, but you get the point. I do not steal the watermelon. Thus, I am blameless, but there was some lusting and coveting involved, thus I sinned. Get it?”
Babs scrunched her nose again, “I am ‘other living,’ Harold. I have been with you for over a year. I have seen the human sin nature in action, but I cannot understand it. That part, I will just have to take your word for it. But now, I think I understand blameless a bit better. So, one qualification for church leadership is blameless, not living a sinless life. I have wanted to ask that question before.”
Then Babs scrunched her nose again. “I have a couple more verses. Matthew 18:35 says that we must forgive our brother or sister with our heart. What does that mean?”
I laughed, “Babs, there is no guile in you. You are ‘other living.’ You say that you forgive, and you have forgiven. It will never reappear in conversation. But I have heard people say that they will forgive and never forget. Their words say the word ‘forgive’ but they do not really mean it. One person in particular accosted people on the sidewalk in downtown Tracy, telling these people what a horrible thing they had done fifty years ago or sixty. Bringing it up fifty or sixty years later means that they had never forgiven the person in their heart, that control center. In fact, that control center was filled with all kinds of garbage that they refused to forget.”
“And what about Mark 7:6?” Babs asked.
I smiled, “Jesus tells the religious leaders and Pharisees that they are the subject upon which Isaiah had prophesied. They honor God with their lips, just like the person forgiving but not forgetting, but they do dishonor in their hearts. That is the whole thing about being a Christian. We do not simply say some words like ‘Jesus is my Lord and Savior.’ We understand with our hearts what ‘Lord’ means, our supreme authority over us. Only then does the ‘Savior’ thing really apply. But Babs, why all this talk about the heart tonight?”
Babs sighed, “Harold, I probably shouldn’t have, but I was on your e-mail, and I saw the e-mail from your doctor. You have an abnormal heart. I want you to live a long time so you can glorify God. You need to take care of yourself. I’m just being concerned. Of course, now that I know that the heart that the Bible talks about is a different one, I am a lot more relieved.”
I snickered, “Babs, do you know the expression ‘a big heart?’”
Babs beamed, “Yes, that means that you are generous, and you help the needy.”
I nodded, “But if a doctor tells you that, it means you have an enlargement of the heart or maybe one ventricle. That is usually an indication of a blockage of some kind, some sort of abnormality. My enlarged heart is probably due to having a high pulse rate my entire life. The heart has pumped harder, and as a result, it’s a bit larger than someone else my size. But the problem is when a doctor orders a stress test, the photos have shadows on them. That led to a heart catheterization back years ago. The heart catheterization showed the enlarged heart, but everything was fine. Yes, I can eat healthier and do more walking. But I can also die of a heart attack tomorrow. When I got the e-mail from the cardiologist, I called him, and he said that he remembered the last time. He is going to flag my medical records to not have a stress test ever again. But if I have unusual heart palpitations, chest pain, or shortness of breath, even with the slightest bit of exertion, I am to give him a call and he will set up another heart catheterization, and my next periodic test will have alternate tests. But I am even more glad that you are my travel buddy. You care and you love. I cannot ask for anything more.”
“Thank you for letting me know.”
Credits
All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife. We would talk about anything and everything. And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.
The description of Harold Dykstra’s heart abnormality is what I discussed with my cardiologist the day I wrote this. I am fine, but doctors that were unaware of my strange heart abnormalities thought something was wrong. I would rather have them ask than ignore the issue, but it meant seeing my cardiologist six months before my normally scheduled appointment.
And I did not know that having a big heart was not a compliment when it came from the doctor. My wife made me look it up online when I had the first heart cath five years ago.
And maybe you did not notice the conversation dynamic. Babs was supposedly the teacher, but she brought up the Bible verses and Harold explained them. At least Harold did not have to do the research this time.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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