Editorial January 5, 1918 Issue

A New Heart

William P. McKenzie

It is probable that throughout Christendom and in all Jewry the deliverance of Jerusalem has caused men to study with care Ezekiel's thirty-sixth chapter. The promise expressed indirectly in connection with the prophet's earlier vision is here made direct and universal with the authorization, "Thus saith the Lord God." This is the promise: "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. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."

It became part of the tradition of Israel how Pharaoh and the Egyptians had hardened their hearts, and so had gone on to destruction; yet, despite this warning, we find generation after generation of the Israelites falling into idolatry, and as distinctly becoming unresponsive to the word of God as the Egyptians had been. Concerning this condition the proverb was, "Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief."

We find our Master very compassionate and patient with the unfaith and cold-heartedness of his followers. Mark records their surprise over the demonstration when he walked the waves and made the storm a calm. He explained their unawakened condition on the ground that "they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened." Again, when Jesus warned his disciples against the leaven of false doctrine they as literalists reasoned, saying: "It is because we have no bread;" to which he replied: "Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?" He was kindly asking them why they were so little impressed by the spiritual and unable to respond to Principle, which to him was all-important.

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The Real Friend
January 5, 1918
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