We are in the application section of Flavel’s book, Keeping the Heart. We will be looking at two more points on the importance of keeping the heart. Last time we saw that merely performing or acting as a Christian—even doing the expected works externally—but not keeping the heart renders all of our service to God as if we did nothing. Rather, the substance of the Christian Faith is done in keeping the heart, which means submitting ourselves to all God commands from the inside-out. We saw how this theme is throughout the Bible, and how 1 John brings what this means to crystal clarity. Here is Flavel on point 2:
2. I infer for their humiliation, that unless the people of God spend more time and pains about their hearts than they ordinarily do, they are never like to do God much service, or to possess much comfort in this world. I may say of that Christian who is remiss and careless in keeping his heart, as Jacob said of Reuben, Thou shalt not excel. It grieves me to see how many Christians there are who live at a poor, low rate, both of service and comfort, and who go up and down dejected and complaining. But how can they expect it should be otherwise, while they live so carelessly? O how little of their time is spent in the closet, in searching, humbling, and quickening their hearts!
Christian, you say your heart is dead, and do you wonder that it is, so long as you keep it not with the fountain of life? If your body had been dieted as your soul has, that would have been dead too. And you may never expect that your heart will be in a better state until you take more pains with it.
O Christians! I fear your zeal and strength have run in the wrong channel; I fear that most of us may take up the Church’s complaint: “They have made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.” Two things have eaten up the time and strength of the professors of this generation, and sadly diverted them from heart-work.
First :—Fruitless controversies, started by Satan, I doubt not for the very purpose of taking us off from practical godliness, to make us puzzle our heads when we should be inspecting our hearts. How little have we regarded the observation: “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, and not with meats,” (that is, with disputes and controversies about meats,) “which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.” How much better it is to see men live exactly, than to hear them dispute with subtlety! These unfruitful questions, how have they rent the churches, wasted time and spirits, and taken Christians off from their main business! What think you, would it not have been better if the questions agitated among the people of God of late had been such as these:—“How shall a man distinguish the special from the common operations of the Spirit? How may a soul discern its first backslidings from God? How may a backsliding Christian recover his first love? How may the heart be preserved from unseasonable thoughts in duty? How may a bosom sin be discovered and mortified?” &c. Would not this course have tended more to the honor of religion and the comfort of souls? I am ashamed that the professors of this generation are yet insensible of their folly. O that God would turn their disputes and contentions into practical godliness!
Many of the complaints professing Christians often have are caused by their neglect of the heart. They do not often come to realize that every source for their complaints come from its neglect. I am not talking here about petitions to God in the face of hardship, but of complaints about what one can see as a lack in God’s providence. These can be complaints about the lack of time for Bible reading or Christian service, complaints about others without examining ourselves, and a whole host of others that are done in the flagrant neglect of their cause: keeping the heart. The antidote to all of these complaints; and, indeed, to the fruitlessness of their indulgence, is keeping the heart. By God’s grace, this great duty of the Christian serves to eradicate complaints, destroy the neglect of service, and heighten his doing of what God desires. A heart after God, rather than complaining, will ask these sorts of questions: “How shall a man distinguish the special from the common operations of the Spirit? How may a soul discern its first backslidings from God? How may a backsliding Christian recover his first love? How may the heart be preserved from unseasonable thoughts in duty? How may a bosom sin be discovered and mortified?” See what sort of service and loyalty replace those complaints! See what sort of pursuits replace the idolatry behind our covetous desires! When we take our hearts off of the world and have them set onto God, all the difference is made.
Second:—Worldly cares and incumbrances have greatly increased the neglect of our hearts. The heads and hearts of multitudes have been filled with such a crowd and noise of worldly business that they have lamentably declined in their zeal, their love, their delight in God, and their heavenly, serious, and profitable way of conversing with men. How miserably have we entangled ourselves in this wilderness of trifles! Our discourses, our conferences, nay, our very prayers are tinged with it. We have had so much to do without, that we have been able to do but little within. And how many precious opportunities have we thus lost? How many admonitions of the Spirit have passed over unfruitfully? How often has the Lord called to us, when our worldly thoughts have prevented us from hearing? But there certainly is a way to enjoy God even in our worldly employments. If we lose our views of him when engaged in our temporal affairs, the fault is our own. Alas! that Christians should stand at the door of eternity, having more work upon their hands than their time is sufficient for, and yet be filling their heads and hearts with trifles!
The Bible teaches that our time is short, and that we should instead make our time about pursuing what honours God:
This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away (1 Cor. 7:29-31 ESV).
We are as grass that quickly withers, and a vapour that quickly vanishes (1 Pet. 1:24; James 4:14). When we get caught up in the busyness of life, then we lose sight of both the utter shortness and purpose of our lives. Rather, we must be sober: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:15-17). When we come before God at the end of the age, what kind of accounting will we give to Him? Will we show ourselves to be His workmen, having laboured diligently with what tools and time He has provided us with? Or will we be saved merely as through fire—if we are saved at all—and miss out on great blessing? What kind of assurance does such a life have? What sort of evidence that such a one has been saved and is assured of salvation? No, we must do battle for our Lord and keep out hearts on Him, regardless of what sort of things we need to give up to do so. We need to be at the work that He has presented before us, and we are to do it with a heart after Him.
3. I infer, lastly, for the awakening of all, that if the keeping of the heart be the great work of a Christian, then there are but few real Christians in the world. If every one who has learned the dialect of Christianity, and who can talk like a saint; if every one who has gifts and parts, and who can make shift to preach, pray, or discourse like a Christian: in a word, if all such as associate with the people of God and partake of ordinances may pass for Christians, then indeed the number is great. But alas! how few can be found, if you judge them by this rule,—how few are there who conscientiously keep their hearts, watch their thoughts and look scrupulously to their motives! Indeed there are few closet-men among professors. It is easier for men to be reconciled to any other duties in religion than to these. The profane part of the world will not so much as meddle with the outside of any religious duties, and least of all with these; and as to the hypocrite, though he may be very particular in externals, you can never persuade him to undertake this inward, this difficult work; this work, to which there is no inducement from human applause; this work, which would quickly discover what the hypocrite cares not to know: so that by general consent this heart-work is left to the hands of a few retired ones, and I tremble to think in how few hands it is.
Relatively few people are authentically Christian who attend local churches and almost none who neglect the local church! Outward observance means nothing, if not also attended with keeping the heart. It would be astounding to most professing Christians today if it were revealed to them how few are actually saved! You mean, such and such a person, who busied himself with caring for the sick, gave most of their wealth to the church, and who regularly taught others about the gospel—that one is not saved if he lacks a new heart? Such are not saved who have not also been transformed to love God and neighbor according to inward obedience to His commandments. Such is a gift and work of God. There are many who appear to do the right things, and who receive many complements and are looked up to in many churches, who are still among the damned. No, appearances on the outside do not demonstrate one is saved. The saved cannot lack the evidence of salvation, but the presence of apparent outward evidences also does not demonstrate that they are among the saved. Rather, their hearts need to be examined. And, when they are examined, even most would show themselves to be merely a wolf who acts like the Shepherd’s sheep. And as with all wolves, the Shepherd will come and destroy them. So, examine yourselves to see if you are in the Faith, and do what you can (by God’s grace) to help others in this great work of keeping the heart. Have your lives marked by this duty, and never cease in encouraging others to this also. Examine your own heart, and you will also learn to better recognize the false brethren among you (note that we cannot have certainty of who are among the saved on this side of heaven, but we do have many clear marks to go by). The typical church has many unconverted who go by unnoticed, or, worse yet, are put into positions of authority over others. What kind of church is this that is led by wolves? It is one that neglects the heart or rejects it entirely.
Next time we will be looking at concluding application from Flavel’s book.