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SPIRITUAL HEART ATTACKS April 22, 2004 Psalms 86: 11-12 INTRODUCTION: 1- Iraq & Afghanistan are not the only places where war is being fought today. 2- There’s a war going on in America as well. 3- A war between God and Satan. 4- Between Heaven and Hell, 5- And it’s all about the hearts of men and women, boys and girls. 6- One side of this war is to make your heart soft; 7- While the other side wants to make your hearts hard. 8- One side wants to fill your hearts with joy, love and peace. 9- The other is out to fill your hearts with pain. 10-One side wants to protect your heart. 11-The other wants to attack your heart.
BELOVED; EVERY HEART HERE IS VULNERABLE TO AN ATTACK: Solomon said: Proverbs 27:19 As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man. And: “In his heart a man plans his course”. Pr. 16: 19 BELOVED; IT’S IN OUR HEARTS THAT WE DETERMINE: 1- Who we will live for & who we will serve! 2- The hearts determines who we will love. 3- But will it be the God of Heaven or the god of this world?
IF WE WILL SAY AS DID KING DAVID: 1- Today will be the most exciting day of the rest of your life. “Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart: I will glorify your name forever”
WE’RE ALL FAMILIAR WITH HEART ATTACKS: 1- Heart related deaths are the # 1 cause of death in America today. 2- Heart trouble takes more lives that Aids, Cancer or highway accidents. 3- And when heart ailments don’t kill, 4- They debilitate, injure and alter lives.
HOW IRONIC; THAT THE VERY INSTRUMENT OF LIFE CAUSES DEATH: 1- Beloved; we’re all victims of “Spiritual Heart Attacks”. 2- And they can be “Eternally Fatal”
IF WE WOULD BE HONEST: 1- We would say as did the Psalmist David; 25: 17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish.
DAVID SAID AGAIN: 40: 12 For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.
BUT WHY IS AN UNHEALTHY HEART SO DANGEROUD? JESUS ADDRESSED IT THIS WAY: What comes out of a man is what makes him “unclean” For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, Greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man “unclean”
NO WONDER SOLOMON SAID: Pr. 4: 23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. 1- The heart is the wellspring of the physical life and the Spiritual life.
I BELIEVE THE FIRST HEART ATTACK WOULD BE SPIRITUAL HARDENING OF THE ARTERIES: 1- In the natural heart there are several arteries that pump life. 2- Beloved; it’s no different in the Spiritual life; we need prayer & worship & the word; and fellowship. 3- We need the services to feed us with new life. 4- When the arteries become hardened; we become sick; some have even died. BUT: Pr. 28:14 says Blessed is the man who always fears the Lord, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.
CHURCH SERVICE IS A VITAL ARTERY: 1- A heart that takes in and never gives out will grow spiritually sick. 2- Mark the person that only feeds on getting! 3- Getting Fed, Getting Served, Getting their needs met. 4- The man that follows this pattern will become spiritual patients the rest of their life 5- They never become “Healthy Christians”. 6- And yet we all must be fed; have our needs met and be served.
JESUS WOULD SAY OF THE CHURCH TODAY: “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them”. Mt 13:15 JESUS WOULD SAY TODAY AS DID SOLOMON: My Son, give me your heart and let your eyes keep to my ways. 23:26
I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove from the m their heart of stone and give them an heart of flesh. Ezek. 11:19
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Heb. 4:7
WE KNOW ALSO WE ARE SUSCEPTABLE TO HEART MURMUR: 1- A heart murmur is when the heart beats fast when it shouldn’t. 2- A Spiritual Heart Murmur will be fast after all the wrong things; 3- Like pleasure, popularity and riches! 4- You know! “All things that don’t satisfy”!
BELOVED; OUR HEARTS SHOULD BEAT FAST FOR INTIMACY WITH HIM: 1- Jeremiah said; 24:7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
JESUS WOULD SAY OF HIS CHURCH TODAY: O’ Lord, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame. Isa. 26:11
NOW THE LAST ATTACK OF THE HEART IS “SPIRITUAL HEART DISEASE”! 1- It’s that slow eroding of a healthy heart! 2- It’s caused by countless little things that slowly eat away at a person’s heat over time. 3- You know! “Like attitudes” or Relationships. 4- Or a wrong pattern of behavior; or wrong priorities or little compromises. 5- Far too often those things unnoticed until too late. 6- And too late a healthy heart has become diseased.
BELOVED; JUST AS WITH THE NATURAL HEART OF A MAN: SO IT IS WITH THE SPIRITUAL: 1- A diseased heart can cause NUMBNESS! 2- You stop feeling the things you should be feeling. 3- The feeling of LOVE & GRATITUDE has gone. 4- You’ve become NUMB to care and concern for others. 5- Numb to COMPASSION for the hurting. 6- Numb to conviction over your own sin. 7- Numb to other peoples APATHY!
THE DISEASED HEART CAN CAUSE DIZZINESS: 1- You lose your spiritual EQUILIBRIUM. 2- A diseased heart will lose it’s BALANCE in life. 3- A diseased heart will become extremely tolerant or extremely intolerant. 4- A diseased heart will become overly proud of self or ashamed of self. 5- You will have too much confidence or not enough confidence!
BELOVED; THE DISEASED HEART WILL CAUSE SHORTNESS OF BREATH: 1- The race you’ve been running; you now no longer have the stamina to run. 2- The strength to fight is gone! 3- You start well but finish poorly!
BELOVED; OUT OF ALL I’VE SAID; HERE IS STILL AN ANSWER TO HEART ATTACKS: 1- Just be thankful there is still a man called “JESUS”! 2- He called himself “The GREAT PHYSICIAN”.
HIS TREATMENT IS ALWAYS THE SAME: 1- And it’s nothing short of a TRANSPLANT! 2- God doesn’t repair hearts; He replaces them. 3- And He wants to give you “HIS HEART”. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezek. 11:19
BUT EVEN AFTER THE HEART TRANSPLANT: 1- Anti-Rejection Drugs are to be taken. 2- A person’s lifestyle must undergo change. 3- A daily dose of the Holy Ghost is in order to be taken in. 4- A steady diet of the Holy Scriptures. 5- And a rigorous spiritual activity should be kept up as exercise.
THE FINAL RESULTS SHOULD BE: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. Mt. 5:8 1- The reward is “HIM”! 2- He will give of Himself to His children!
I BELIEVE GOD WANTS TO HEAR FROM US TODAY ABOUT THE CONDITION OF OUR HEARTS: 1- David said it maybe as we should say it to Him. Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psa. 139:23-24 LISTEN TO IT AGAIN: Psa. 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
LORD; GUARD MY HEART WHEN THE HEART ATTACKS COME: Strengthen me, O’ God!
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