There is no better metaphor for the cold, unfeeling nature of sin than that of a stone. Stones do not feel; they do not care; they do not worship; and they are utterly incapable of love and affection. Is it not the same with us in our natural fallen state? God says of us,
“They are not willing to listen to me because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.”
This condition is called the “heart of stone,” and it is a dreadful and deadly affliction. Like Pharoah we naturally harden our hearts against God, restisting Him at every step, until we can neither hear or obey Him. We are like the Leviathan, of who it is said,
“His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone.”
Our hearts just as recalcitrant as Nabal’s, who perished from this spiritual affliction:
“His heart died within him, and he became as a stone.”
Apart from God’s holy intervention, there is no cure for this disease:
“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”
Jesus Himself was angered and grieved by the stubbornness that he found among the children of mankind:
“He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.”
It would be a fitting end for us to be stoned like Achan, or swallowed up in an earthquake like Korah. But praise be to God that Jesus does not draw near to cast stones, but to heal us! He has fulfilled Ezekiel’s majestic prophecy:
“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
But who could have forseen the means? Jesus’ own heart—a heart of flesh—was pierced for us, and only by being sprinkled in His blood can our stony hearts be transformed. And now, rather than being solely fixated in our own good, we love Him who died for us and long to see Him glorified in all we do.
Lord, thank you for taking away my heart of stone and giving me a heart of flesh! Be glorified in all my joys, in all my pain, in all my life forever and ever!