What a heart of our Triune God: one God, one will, one single-hearted love for our redemption! What a heart he has given us, a heart in which now to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit from divine grace. A heart seven-times sealed for the coming resurrection!

I want to tell you a tale: a true tale, a terrifying tale, and a touching tale. It’s a tale of two hearts. Throughout the telling of this tale, we need to ask, “Where do we see ourselves?” There is, on the one hand, a portrait black and blue, a heart beat up by sin that vomits poison. Let me warn you from the beginning; this is a horrifying image of such a heart. You may wish to distract your mind and re-direct your eyes as you consider the carnage. As you focus your eyes, squinting for a corner of light, you may despair of the darkness. It is, to put it directly, a grievous heart, a heart that grieves the heart of holiness.

There is, on the other hand, a portrait white and green, a heart blossoming with new leaves of life. Let me comfort you from the beginning; this is a luscious and lively image of such a heart. Seeing the orange and pink blossoms of this heart, you may fix your eyes on this garden. As you behold this heart because of the light shining upon it, you may be full of hope. It is, to put it directly, a godly heart, a heart that houses the very Holy Spirit. Where will you see yourself? I wonder. What portrait better pictures the canvas of your life? With what colors is your heart painting? Perhaps a little of both, and if so, what a sobering but also sanctifying reality! Do you wonder about your heart? Or do you have it already figured out? Let’s see, shall we?

A Grievous Heart

As we open up this first heart, know that it’s not for the faint of heart. We are, after all, opening up the chest cavity of a corpse, exposing the deadness inside this wretched soul. This is the kind of spiritual cadaver recently dead, and because rigor mortis hasn’t fully taken over, let’s not be surprised by some spillage of this soul. And look alive, lest it stain you as you peer inside.

As we excavate this miserable mass of iniquity and darkness, does its stench taste bitter? This heart was carried in a man who hated God because his brother was accepted. He offered a sacrifice of his own choosing to the Lord, viewing it as acceptable. But the Lord knew it was the wrong sacrifice and it was the wrong attitude. Unable to kill his Creator, he ended the life of the next-best thing: his brother. In a twist of troubling providence, this man drove the stake of sin deeper into his own heart, killing a piece of himself.

This bitterness rested, stewed really, in the heart of another. A hairy man, a nation in a womb, red all over his body, and red inside his heart. Deceived by his younger but superior brother, he gave up his blessing for a stew. With hunger satisfied but hatred not, he plotted the death of his twin brother, made in the image of God, a man after his own likeness like no other. His will thwarted by God, he stewed longer, and made life bitter for his parents, even to the bitter end.

This heart found itself in a nation wandering a wilderness for 40 years. A bitter people’s grumbling heart saw itself splayed on a rock in Marah. They had found no water, and the water that the rock offered tasted bitter and was undrinkable. In the Lord’s kindness, their mediator made sweet this bitter water. But this sweetness wasn’t to reflect the nation’s heart, which grumbled still more.

This heart was full of the poison of bitterness in one wearer so much so that the heart demanded a name change: “Call me Mara. I am bitterness,” she declared. Judging the Judge of all the earth, she pronounced him guilty, “The Almighty has been against me. He who used to be my advocate is now my adversary.” In despair she lamented, “He who used to be my buttress is now my betrayer.” With torqued soul, she cried out, “My bitterness belongs to the Lord. He birthed it from me. He is the guilty one.” Defeated, she whispered, “I was full but now am empty: empty of pleasantness, now full of bitterness.”

As this grievous heart rears its ugly head, there is more poison inside than a blanket of bitterness covering the entrails. A worried but wrathful leader of an up-and-coming nation, its king delighted in torturing the enslaved people of God, and rejoiced in making their labor the more severe. “Let my people go!” came the cry over and again, but the cry wasn’t met with compassion. And when there was the semblance of a turning point, allowing them finally to leave, the decision turned to their pursuit and destruction. His will thwarted from above, this king and all his horses found themselves under the sea of divine wrath.

The heart that grieves the holiness of God is full of wrath and red with anger. We noticed it in a man from days of old, just before the great flood. Rather than boasting in God’s grace, he boasted in his own greatness. The man cried out to his two wives, “Hear my voice. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.” Taking upon himself divine judgment, he arrogated to himself divine forgiveness. “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then mine is seventy-sevenfold!”

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