Divided Heart

Hosea 10 A Divide Heart

Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. Hosea 10:2.

Hebrew Chalaq – divided or to be divided

Sickness of a Divided Heart

Seat of it. Prov 4:23 It affects a vital part, it is not merely a disease of the hand, that might easily be cured; it is not merely a disease of the foot, that restraint might somehow heal; it is not merely a disease of the eye which covering might contain. No, It is a disease of a vital organ—of the heart; a disease in a part so vital that it affects the whole man. When you have heart trouble every part of your body becomes affected. There is no power, no passion, there is no motive, no principle, which does not become effected, when the heart is diseased. So, Satan, who is always crafty, endeavors to strike at the heart.

State of it It doesn’t speak about the blood that flows from it or the rate in which it flows, but something worse than this, namely, that the heart was torn into- utterly divided. Nothing can go right when one organ is torn in half. A united heart is life to a man, but if the heart is cut into, in the highest, deepest, and most spiritual sense, he dies..

Seduction of it Gen 8:21, Rom 6:12-14, Matt 6:24 Those who possess it do not feel themselves to be unrighteous; they live their lives as if nothing is wrong, they go to church and afterwards go and mingle with the world; and they do not feel that they have become dishonest. They think themselves fit to mingle with the world and with sincere Christians too. But, If someone had visible spots from some disease he would need to go into seclusion until the sickness was contained. But not so with the one with a divided heart, he goes everywhere, utterly unconscious that his disease is of the most detestable character.

Man's heart is despicable, because Satan and sin reigns there. Although the man goes about and knows enough about what is right and wrong, to be uneasy in his sin, yet has he such an intense love of all manner of sin, that he allows the sin to come and dwell in his heart. But his despicableness is worse than this, because all the while that he is really living in sin; he is a hypocrite, pretending that he is a child of God. Of all the things in the world that stink in the nostrils of a honest man, hypocrisy is the worst. When a man has a divided heart—he tries to do right and to do wrong, to serve God and to serve Satan at the same time; I say his disease is of so despicable and degraded a character, that the very world, whose leprosy is on his brow, despises, hates him, and avoids him. And yet again, not merely is the disease despicable, but it is one always difficult to cure, because it is chronic. It is not an acute disease, which brings pain, and suffering, and sorrow with it, but it is chronic, it has got into the very nature of the man. A divided heart, how are you to get at that? If it were a disease in any other part, the surgeon might find it out, or some medicine might heal it. But what physician can join together a divided heart? What skillful surgeon can set together the disrupted members of a soul that has been divided between God and the world? This is a disease which enters into the very nature, and will lie in the blood, though the most powerful medicines search it out. This is a disease, in fact, which nothing but Omnipotent grace can ever overcome. But he has no grace whose heart is divided between God and the world He is an enemy to God, he is a despiser of God's Word, he is a sheaf ripening for the harvest of eternal fire. His disease is deeply rooted within him, and if left alone it will come to a most dreadful end—its end is sure destruction. (Spurgeon)

Symptoms of the Disease 2 Tim 3:1-9

· Form but no power - these people stand up so fiercely for the form, because lacking the power that is all they have to boast of. They have no faith, though they have some kind of belief. They have no life within, and they supply its place with outward religious ceremony. They know not the precious riches that lie in the rich mines of the scripture, and therefore the surface things, although covered with weeds, is quite enough for them. 2 Tim 3:5

· Faith but no Follow through - 2 Kings 17:39-41 inconsistency- Call upon him on a Sunday and you will find him like a saint; don't call upon him on the Saturday night—you might, find him very much like the worst of sinners. They try with all your might to follow the Lord and yet follow the world. You can drink one day at the table of the Lord and another day at the table of devils. You appear to run first of all with God's people in his service, and then afterwards run with the multitude to do evil. This, indeed, is a terrible fact—a terrible index of a frightful disease, You must have a divided heart if you lead an inconsistent life. Cease to be called a Christian, or else be a Christian in truth. Seek more grace that you may live up to the example of your Master. If not, honestly renounce your membership, and no longer make a profession of godliness. An inconsistent life is a sure token of a divided heart.

· Fashionable but no Faithfulness variableness in object of affection and passion. Moved by every wind of doctrine Eph 4:11-14 A man who attends a meeting upon some religious matter is seized with a sudden enthusiasm to do good. If he will not be a missionary himself, he will undertake to devote of his resources to the cause, and for the next week there is nothing on his tongue but the missionary enterprise. A little while after he attends some political meeting, and now there is nothing before him but the reformation of politics. Religion, politics, social justice each in its turn, and everything else must give place to the last and latest thing that engrossed his attention. These men run first in one direction—then in another. Their religion is all spasmodic. They take up their cross, and then they lay it down again. Luke 9:23

Sad effects of a divided heart

· Unhappiness With regard to himself he is an unhappy man. Who can be happy while he has rival powers within his own being. The soul must find a nest for itself, or else it cannot find rest. The bird that would seek to rest upon two twigs would never have peace, and the soul that endeavors to find two resting places, first, the world, and then the Savior, will never have any joy or comfort. Such a man is unhappy in himself. 2 Tim 3:5,

· Useless in the Body 2 Tim 1:6 What good is such a man? His name may be a church member, but it had better be taken away. He may sit among us and give us his contribution, we should be better without it and without him We know that no man who is not united in his heart vitally and entirely to Christ can ever be of the slightest service to the kingdom of God.

· Unsafe to the world Such a man is like a leper going abroad in the midst of healthy people; he spreads the disease. He says he is a Christian, and therefore he is admitted into all the right groups, and yet he is inwardly full of rottenness and deception. .. the maddest dog in the hottest weather is not one-half so dangerous to men as a man who hath a divided heart, one who runs about with the rabid poison of his hypocrisy upon his lips, and destroys the souls of men by contamination.. God hates sin anywhere, but when sin puts its fingers upon his divine altar; when it comes and lays its insolent hand upon the sacrifice that is burning there, then God spurns it from him with disgust. Of all men, who stand in the most likely place to receive the mightiest thunderbolt, and the most terrible lightning's flash, those are the men who have a divided heart, and profess to serve God while with their souls they are serving sin.

Sobering results of a Divided Heart now they must bear their guilt Matt 13:35ff

He comes with brazen face, he comes in the midst of the congregation of the righteous. The mandate has gone from the throne, "Gather out first the tares!" He hears the mandate, and his cheek doesn’t pale. His impudence continues with him even now. He would still knock at the door, and say, "Lord! Lord! open to me." The dividing angel flies. Terror is on the face of the wicked, as on the left the tares are bound in bundles to burn. Imagine, however the still greater dread of this individual, who, standing in the midst of ministers and saints, suddenly finds himself about to be gleaned from them. With a tremendous swoop, like an eagle descending from its lofty height, the death angel bears upon him, snatches him away, and claims him as his own. "You are," says the black angel, "You are a tare. You have grown side by side with the wheat, but that has not changed your nature. The dew that falls upon the wheat has fallen upon you; the sun which shone upon it you had enjoyed also, but you art still a tare, and your doom remains the same. You shall be bound up with the rest in bundles to be burned." O hearer, what must be his consternation when with mighty hand that angel plucks him up by the roots, carries him away, and he that thought himself a saint is bound up with sinners for destruction! Tremble, you who are half and half religious men, tremble, you who pretend to fear God. O, tremble now lest your trembling should come upon you in a day when you are not aware of it, when you shall long for the rocks to hide, and for the mountains to cover you, but shall be without a shelter in the day of the fierce anger of the God of the whole earth.

The Sure Cure for a Divided Heart Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

2 Tim 3:10-17, 2 Chronicles 34:1-7

Turn to God Now it is time to seek the Lord

Tear up things that Don’t honor God break up your fallow ground, v. 2 The LORD will break down their altars and destroy their pillars. v. 8 The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, "Cover us," and to the hills, "Fall on us."

Take up the things that Please God Sow for yourselves righteousness;

Trust what God will do reap steadfast love that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

The farmer knows, that if his seed be not watered by seasonable rains, his labor will be lost: yet, he cannot command the showers, he performs his labour, in hope that God will graciously send the former and the latter rain. But we have an absolute promise, that God will prosper our endeavours. Pro 11:18. He will clothe us in the unspotted robe of the Redeemer’s righteousness Isa 61:10. He will work it in us by his Spirit, and transform us into his own blessed image Eze 36:26. Yes, he will “rain down righteousness upon us,” giving us “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness Rom 5:17. Let this then encourage us; for “none ever sought his face in vain Isa 45:19. (Simeon)