Key Quotes
Introduction
What I finally decided on is the mind of the Lord. At any rate, I want to speak very carefully as I can tonight on the subject of preparing one's heart to receive God's truth — preparing your own heart to receive the engrafted word which is able to save the soul.
Let's begin reading in the first chapter of James, beginning with verse 16.
Now today I'm sure that we would not address someone — whom we, using what wits we have about us and what spiritual discernment we have — would say that person has not yet been brought by faith in the Lord to God. We wouldn't address him as a beloved brother. But I'm persuaded that the early Jewish preachers — and James was a Jewish preacher — might have addressed his fellow Hebrews in these terms, because they didn't mean by it that they believed they were in Christ, but that they were fellow Jews.
Whether that be true or not, you notice in verse 16 he addresses them as “my beloved brethren” — he's talking to somebody that he loves and calls him brother. I do believe that the words of James in verse 19 down through verse 21 are excellent advice to anyone who has not yet been united to the Lord Jesus. Here are three things — by way of advice — addressed to unsaved men and women who would prepare their hearts to receive what he calls in verse 21 the engrafted word, which is able to save your soul.
An Unprepared Heart Cannot Receive the Word
Now it may seem strange that the preacher would say: if anybody wishes to become vitally united to Christ — not just stand afar off and claim to believe in his atoning work, but to be united to Christ — for we definitely hold that you cannot have the merit of Christ's blood unless you have him, that you cannot separate him from what he did. We believe with all of our hearts that multitudes of people honestly and earnestly are doing what they say — trusting in the shed blood of Christ — but they are not saved. We do not believe that unless you are regenerated you can participate in the merit of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thus we say to men and women: if you value your soul's welfare, you'll take seriously the injunction of the Apostle James to prepare your heart. For unless your heart is prepared — and prepared by you — you will never receive the word savingly. Did you get it? You'll spend all the days of your life talking about how you believe in the word, how you're trusting in the blood — but an unprepared heart cannot receive the word of truth. And the only way to be born of the Spirit is by the incorruptible word of the living God.
That introduces me to the biggest tragedy of my ministry. As I go from place to place, I wonder if anybody gets saved — because nobody's got time to prepare his heart. You didn't prepare your heart for whatever message the Lord would have for you tonight. You didn't have time, did you? So it'll just bounce off of you and go in one ear and out the other. It won't be my fault. It won't be the fault of the word. Your heart cannot receive truth unless it's been ploughed, unless it's been prepared.
I don't care if you're a Christian — you won't get a thing out of any divine service if you don't have time, nor feel the necessity, of ploughing your own heart and preparing it so that if the seed were to drop, it falls on good ground.
Any spiritual truth that falls on bad ground doesn't bear fruit — ain't that right? In the 13th chapter of Matthew we are told plainly in the parable of the sower: the seed was good, nothing was wrong with the sowing — but the trouble was the ground. He sowed it on four kinds of ground, and only one ground was prepared. There was one fellow who got gloriously converted — shouted, knocked it out of the park, went down the streets and told everybody about how God had saved him — and two weeks later he folded up his tent and took down the flag. There was no root. The first little windstorm of adversity came and he played out. But there was one type of ground, one type of owner, that had been thoroughly prepared.
I was talking to a preacher in Texas not long ago. He said, “Brother Barnard, I can't understand it. I went to a Baptist college. I went to seminary three years. I taught in one of our Baptist schools. I pastored Baptist churches. I held evangelistic campaigns all over the west. And for two years ago I had never — never — seen anything in the word of God about salvation by grace. Now I pick up my Bible and it's on every page. But until two and a half years ago, I'd read the same verses, studied the same chapters, preached out of the same books — and what the verses said just went in one ear and out the other.” He was not able to receive truth — even that preacher — until God brought this thing and that thing on his life until he had a prepared heart.
Now that's true of an unsaved person. You can attend services till you're blue in the face, and do what you call listen. But until you take seriously the fact that only by receiving the word sufficiently till it takes root in here is any salvation produced — and that no seed will take root unless the heart's been prepared — nothing happens.
I. Be Swift to Hear — Cease Rebelling Against Truth
James says in verses 19 through 21 he lays down three things for men who are interested in preparing their hearts to receive the engrafted — the rooted — word. The seed was sown and it took root. You plant a grain of corn in the dirt and it takes root. You plant a little sapling and it takes root. If you have a tree it's got to go down before it goes up — and that's true in this business of salvation.
Sinners are not saved accidentally. The preacher tells us the sinner can't save himself — that's right. The preacher tells us the sinner is helpless — that's right. But there are lots of things a lost man could do. There's not a lost man this side of hell that could be prevented — if he wanted to — from getting himself a Bible. And nothing could keep a man from reading carefully what God says about him. And a man could set himself to get a pick and shovel and start ploughing his own heart. That wouldn't save him — but unless the sinner's heart becomes prepared, the seed of the gospel won't take root. He may make a profession and have some kind of experience — but unless the seed takes root, it'll not bear fruit. If you're not bearing fruit, you're not God's child.
The first thing James says is this: the sinner must cease from rebelling against the word of truth.
Man's attitude toward truth must be changed. And there's no power on earth that could keep the vilest sinner out of hell from making all the effort that a man can make. He can clean out his ears, get the wax out, roll up his sleeves, and become a listener. He can be swift to hear and cut out all this business of bucking the truth.
Most everywhere I go, a problem of order in a church service is something. Most Sunday school teachers cannot get their youngsters quiet long enough to quote a verse of scripture. Men are not keen to hear. But in view of the fact that of his own will he begat us by the word of truth — James says wherefore let every man be swift to hear.
Nothing keeps you from hearing — except you don't want to, is it? And this word must be heard, and it must be heard and not bucked, and received until it takes root. If it doesn't, you'll just have another fellow that got converted and went on to hell.
A lady rushed up to me the other day down in Texas. She was shaking, her eyes full of tears, her voice choked — she was in terrible shape. It turned out that a preacher had warned her about what a terrible fellow I am and about my terrible doctrine, and told her not to come hear me preach. But she was a Sunday school teacher and a member of the church, and she came on anyway — but she was set not to hear. She wasn't swift to hear. She came to resist whatever was said. Now if an unsaved man wants to be dead sure he goes to hell, let him voice his ignorant mouthing and be in a hurry to show his wrath and his rebellion and his enmity against the truth of God.
This woman came and said, “Brother preacher, I'm just torn all to pieces. You're tearing everything up I've ever heard. All I've ever heard is against what you're preaching.” I said, “Well, tell me what it is — maybe I'm wrong, I'll listen.” She began to quote a scripture. I said, “Yes, that's found so-and-so, but you didn't quote all of it.” We turned to it and read it. She said, “Well, I never saw that.” And I said, “Well, do I have Bible?” She said, “I don't know.” And I said, “Let's turn to some of the scriptures I quoted and you tell me what you've got to find fault with in what the scripture says.” We turned and read some of them. She said, “I've never seen them in the scripture.”
Don't be in such a big hurry to freeze up in the mouth if you can't even quote all the scripture you've heard from somebody. Be swift to hear and a little slower to rebel.
Now I want to mention five great teachings of the word of God about which men rebel — five truths that only a prepared heart can receive:
First: You cannot but help rebel against what the Bible says about the kind of person you are. When you pick up the word of God and find out what it says about you — from the whole top of your head to the bottom of your feet, Isaiah says you're just one mass of putrefying sores. You're swift to shed blood. From your mother's womb you went about full of lies and hypocrisies. The Bible says you haven't got as much sense as a donkey — the ass knows his master's crib and you don't even know it. Oh, if the Bible doesn't say some terrible things about us folks! And you can't take it. You rebel against it. And you're going to keep on rebelling against it till you wind up in hell — unless you make up your mind that you value your immortal soul and you get a pick and shovel and start preparing your heart, asking God to enable some of the truth about yourself to sink in and take root, until you get alarmed and desperate to find out whether there's any hope for a fellow as big a sinner as you are.
Second: Men do not get saved apart from being confronted with the strictness and the severity of God's holy law. Where no law is preached there's no gospel preached — because the gospel can only be preached in the context of the holy law of God. All I've got to do to an unsaved man is in the name of God tell him not to do something, and he'll split hell wide open to do it. It's his nature. He hates laws. He hates restrictions. And yet unless a man becomes swift to hear how terribly strict God's holy law is, he'll never be interested in the Lord Jesus Christ. If it's as strict as the Bible says it is — you dead sure need a Saviour.
Third: The absoluteness of the sovereignty of God. Not just the sovereignty of God — everybody believes in that now. But the absoluteness of it. We live in a day when everybody accepts the Lord — you know that. The wickedest men in town will brag on the Lord. But the Lord they accept has been stripped of his glory. People take Christ as a buddy. But the true Christ has no rivals. He is absolute. He holds the reins of every man's heart in his hands, and he exercises those reins. You'll never get saved if you're not going to get serious about this. All this foolishness they call evangelism — you bow your head and lift your hand if you want to be prayed for — trying to slip up on you and get you into the kingdom without you and nobody else knowing it. It doesn't happen that way. You're going to have to take this thing seriously.
Fourth: The way of salvation in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Self-righteous people will go to hell saying, “I think I'm as good as the other fellow — if that fellow makes it I'll make it.” You'll never care anything about the blood of Christ. You'll never have any interest in the truth that you're in such a desperate condition that God had to die or you had to go to hell. That's not going to glance off of you and save you — it's got to take root.
Fifth: Saving faith is not simply the act of the will of a natural man. It's not a moral persuasion. It is a grace — an inward and spiritual view of Christ in his sweetness and glory. And while you have to exercise faith, God has to work it in you before you can work it out. That's the most offensive thing in the Bible. God requires faith — and you ain't got it unless he gives it to you. You can make all the decisions you want to; you'll never be joined to Christ. Now that's offensive, isn't it? And if you don't quit rebelling against it and start preparing your heart — asking God to break up your old heart and help you throw your rebellion down and become a person who is swift to hear — praying that the truths may be buried in there, rooted in there — for we are born of the will of God through the word of truth — men just can't take that. And therefore it's left out of what they call preaching today.
II. Lay Aside Sin
James also says there is another thing: lay aside sin in your life. Now who is to do this? The man that wants a prepared heart. The man that wants to be saved.
Now I'm not going into that fully — it would take too much time — but you can work it out if you're interested. James is not teaching that a man must become sinless and perfect in order to be saved. But what James is saying is this: you've got to have come to have the heart and mind and being to be willing to lay aside any and all sin which keeps you from receiving God's truth.
Let me repeat that. God commands you through this man James: if you want to go to heaven when you die — you want to be saved — you better not keep on hugging sin. You better lay it aside. You say, “Will that save me?” No. But it's a matter of heart preparation. What saves you is the truth taking root in here. But it's not going to take root in there as long as there's sin that you hold and hug and call clean.
You say, “That'd be hard to do.” That's right — that's the reason this matter of salvation is an agony. That's the reason the scripture says we enter the kingdom through much tribulation. I don't know the heart of anybody here. I close this point simply saying: if there's anything — anything — that's keeping you from becoming a devoted disciple of my blessed Lord, lay it aside. That won't save you — but heart preparation must take place for God to save you. Lay aside. Lay aside.
III. Receive with Meekness — Like a Little Child
And then the last thing that James says is this: be like a little child — receive with meekness the rooted word.
The word gets in here — what happens? That saves the soul. Receive it — how? With meekness. That suggests a little child, doesn't it? Not arguing about anything. Just simple, just meekness. You know one characteristic of a little child that I think James is talking about here, and I know my Lord talked about in his ministry — a little child will believe what you tell it.
My little girl — I was on the road, I never made a trip without making her a promise that I'd bring her a present. I brought her some kind of ten-cent present every time I came home. She never doubted. She just knew when daddy came home. It never occurred to her to argue about it — to wonder whether or not she was going to get that gift. She believed what I told her.
Now James says: you be swift to hear, quit bucking truth, quit rebelling against truth, get the wax out of your ears, become a listener. Lay aside whatever sin it is. Your trouble is not that you don't understand — the trouble is sin in here. You're not going to go to hell because you don't understand the doctrines of the Bible. If you go to hell, it'll be to pay for your sin. Lay aside anything you know about in your life that is keeping you from receiving God's truth. And then — just like a little child — God says if you just believe it, amen, you're liable to come to the assurance of God's wonderful salvation, if you keep on just believing what God tells you.
Closing
Take time — James would say — to prepare your heart. How can I prepare it? By being swift to hear and slow to rebel. By laying aside sin. And by being like a little child with meekness, receiving the rooted word which is able to save the soul.
May God bless you. I don't know what kind of ground this little talk has fallen on. I don't know who's here tonight. I can't look inside people's hearts. You do. And God does.
Our Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we commit this little message to thy good, loving, tender, merciful hands. Commit these people to thy grace and mercy, and we pray that the Spirit of God might be pleased to speak to every heart in just the way they need to be dealt with by a thrice holy and wonderfully merciful God. Lord, speak to hearts right now. And bring men and women face to face with the truth. If there be those strangers to my Lord, may the Spirit begin within them tonight the preparation of heart, that the truth of the Gospel may in time — before it's too late — fall on hearts that have been prepared, ready to receive the truth of God. For it is by that truth that we are born again, and that's the way we are saved. Thus we pray, Our Father, for Jesus' sake and in his name. Amen.