Romans 10:10  For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 
	This evening, let us consider together one of the elements that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. In preparation for this message, I have been dealing with what is involved with my heart before the Lord. I am in nowise going to launch into a diatribe on the how-to’s and the you better not do this or that type of preaching that is sometimes laid upon congregations. Rather, this is a journey that we each need to traverse on the road into our personal, living relationship with the Lord. That is not to say that we cannot learn from one another and cannot be a guide to each other and an encouragement to our fellow sojourners on this path, as we walk it together. Hopefully, this evening’s consideration will serve in that capacity.
Each of us needs to come into a relationship with the Lord in which He is our Guide, and He is our source of Life. His Word needs to become our map and our guardrail, and His Holy Spirit needs to be recognized and honored as our comfort, our motivation, and our source of strength and peace on our journey. With this stated, let us look at the very core of the matter before us, our hearts in relation to the Lord.
	In our text, we are looking at the positive expression of what the Lord can do with the heart of mankind. For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness…. It is in the heart, that we are enabled to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in the heart that we find the necessary elements that bring us face-to-face with the need for our salvation and our need to know God in a relationship greater than that of simply an existential Being, Who created the universe. This world age has been so polluted with all manner of garbage in its attempt to remove any relationship with the One, True, Living and Loving God. The movies, the books, the music, and the myriad of philosophies are completely aimed at denying anything of God, other than as a god that can be made into whatever would please the mind of each person. Every attempt has been put forth to wrest the heart of mankind away from focusing on the fact that God is, and that He has created us unto Himself, and that He has made the only way of salvation into Himself through the giving of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He took upon Himself the flesh of humanity in order to pay the deserved price. It is the course of this age to keep the heart of man focused upon Himself and his rights and his sense of worth, to the detriment of the value of God and the relationship that is ours in Him.
	This would seem to be the great spiritual decline that faces humanity in these days, the disorder of the heart’s valuation of God and His so great Love to us ward. Where do we have our heart’s focus? Are our hearts set upon God, or are they set upon us? That is a key issue before us in this passage.
	To have a heart that believeth unto righteousness requires a complete realization that we were never intended, by God, to see ourselves as the center of the universe. It is a process that brings us, in all humbleness, to the recognition that we need something; need someone far beyond the scope of our efforts and energy, to save us from the death that we are harboring in our hearts. Our hearts, apart from God, are the depositories of the filth and the decay of this realm. The Lord, Himself, pointed this out in Mat. 15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. As we journey through this realm, the mouths of the inhabitants are spewing forth more and more of the defilement of this age. Swearing, and foul language, is more and more rampant than at any other time in the societal development of mankind. It used to be considered improper and impolite to use the language which is now commonplace and accepted as merely expressing ourselves. Television, which used to be censored for the protection of society, now, fills the airways with the filth that is mimicked and heralded as breaking new ground in the fight for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the advancement of the depraved mores of this realm.
	The foulness of the conversations of this age is but one aspect of the pervasive, perversion of the heart of man. Another is the readied acceptance of all form of doctrines and ideas and philosophies which espouse everything but God. Mankind harbors countless, vile imaginations within the heart that are decadent in self-perversion and expression. Many of you may think that I speak too harshly at this point, but the fact is that society now, willingly, accepts anything as normal, as long as God is demeaned, ignored, or dethroned by it. There is no avenue of our society that is off-limits or off-colored any longer, as long as it promotes the self-hood of man and demotes the value of God. That is the heart of man. It cannot be sugar-coated, it must not be excused, and it will never be ignored by Our Most Omnipotent God of Holiness. He saw the very heart of man from the endless stretches of eternity before creation. And, in spite of all the wicked and determined hatred of Himself and His Holiness, God made the only way to save the heart of man, the giving of His Beloved Son to die on the cross to redeem the very hearts of those who crucified Him. As the pure essence of Love, He made the only way by which He could completely forgive man, wallowing in that dead and odiferous heart. It was the only way in which that heart would be changed from stone into flesh, malleable, living flesh, which could respond to the Love that created it. Ezek. 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
	God knew the very essence of the separation of man from that for which mankind was created. Selfhood was embedded deeply, by our most corrupt sinful nature, into the hearts that pumped death and desolation throughout our bodies. Salvation of that, which was the plan and purpose of God, demanded a completely new heart, void of the anguish of this old humanity. The center of the being of man, the core of the sinful essence of humanity needed to be surgically and entirely removed for the new heart, the heart attuned to the glory of God, to be implanted through the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit. Apart from that drastic and unconditional transformation from the decayed earthly heart to the vibrant spiritual heart of Christ, nothing would save us. 
	This is not something that anyone of us, tonight, takes lightly. I know that we all are attuned to the basic principle at hand. It is not hard to say that we are thankful that the Lord has given us a new heart, one that is different from the rest of the world, lost in its decay and depravity, but I must caution us not to take pride in ourselves in that which the Lord is doing. It is reminiscent of the Pharisee on the street corner thanking God that he was not as the others walking by him. He proclaimed his supposed superiority, in the deceit of his heart, before all mankind. He promoted his righteousness above all, and in that self-promotion, has become the eternal evidence of hypocrisy and self-delusion. Let us never have a heart unto that lie. We are who we are because of the One Who now is our very heart before the throne of God’s mercy and grace.
	Prov. 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he… The Lord knew the truth, which many try to refute in this age: we are who we are because that is the reality of mankind. What we harbor in our heart, what we value in our heart, what we seek with all our heart, is the definition of who we are on this earth. This is something that we must guard in our hearts before the Lord.
	This is the crux of the area of consideration of the scripture before us, For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness…  There is much that the heart does to belie the truth that has residence within. Consider the fact, that after we accepted the Lord into our hearts, after our salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we felt ourselves to be absolutely washed clean, as we were. We wanted to let nothing tarnish the robe of righteousness with which we were covered in Christ Jesus. Our hearts were singing for the first time with joy in the Lord and filled with the delight of His wonderful love. Was it really that long ago? We smile with the reminiscence of the feelings that filled our days and took away the burdens of our nights. Why is it different today? Why is it only a remembrance? I know that we have been on the road of journey through this age. We have become sojourners, outcasts of society in the fact that we hold forth to the True Light of the World. But there has been a change in our beings, in our hearts. It is not the rightful change of maturity, from children unto men and women of God. That is not the loss that is before us, because, even as we grow unto maturity, we should be holding dearly onto those hearts of purity before God. No, we have soiled our hearts before the Lord; we have allowed the cares and the desires of this world age to tarnish that which is precious and alive unto God.
	Matt. 6:19-21 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We have allowed our hearts to become cluttered with those things that the world claims to be of vital importance. We have given ourselves over to the idolatry of this realm in its horrific desires after anything but God. Is this hellfire and brimstone that I lay upon each one of us? No, it is simply the observation of what has been happening in the lives of many believers. We are in great need of the awareness of what is happening in our hearts so that we can rightly and truly seek after those things which are of God.
	There is a simple, scientific truth at work in this deceptive aspect of our beings. Nature abhors a vacuum. If there is an empty space, it will be filled. When we examine our hearts, honestly assess our desires and our wants, we will find no emptiness or vacuum. We want all kinds of things, and find no lack of seeking after what our heart is set upon. As we seek after things, as promoted by this realm, there is no space left for the spiritual truths of God to take root and to grow. We dislocate the early joy of the Lord with a craving after the geld of this realm. We are at a dichotomy at this point. We know that we have no power, within our beings to fight that which only God can conquer in His omnipotent grace. We must never take upon ourselves any avenue of trying to make it on our own, yet, we are the ones who need to choose the course of the desire of our hearts. If we choose the things of God, as specified in scripture, we will not succumb to the pressures of this world age. However, we are not strong enough to make that choice on our own, and abide by it with our self-will. King David faced this same dilemma in his day. He knew of the anguish of seeking after the delight of the Lord and facing the torments of this world age. In Ps. 141:3+4, he shows us the reality of his heart before the Lord God Almighty. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity, and let me not eat of their dainties. Yes, there is a responsibility set upon us by the Lord. It is a serious reality that we are to desire the ways of the Lord. We are to seek after Him to keep us, even as this world age tries to insinuate itself into and to soil our hearts before God. We are not strong enough to fend off the mighty weight of this realm, but we are enabled to call upon Our God, with all our hearts, to seek His protection and His guardianship over these hearts that we have entrusted unto Him. If we truly want to have the hearts of our beings focused on Him, we need to seek after Him to instill that desire into us. As He does so, we will be continually finding that the Holy Spirit is faithful to reprove and to correct, in His most loving manner, our every step on this earth. We will find that the dust of this age no longer has the ability to cling to our hearts, and that we are increasingly drawn to the things of the Lord, in prayer, in study, in worship, in praise, in pondering our God above all else in our lives.
	In Prov. 4:23-26, we have the continued admonition to guard our hearts before the Lord. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a forward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. There is, in obedience to the Holy Spirit, the strength to guard the recesses of our hearts. It is there that the residue of this world seeks to reside and to fester as a cancerous growth. The essence of our beings is held in the desires of our hearts and they need to be recognized as that. Where do our desires wander? Are we bobbing back and forth between the desires for the Lord and the desires after the mammon of this world? Are our hearts completely focused on the Lord, and with it, our eyes and our paths centered on that alone, which will bring glory to God? This admonition of Solomon, to his son, should be the admonition of our hearts and beings. In it, we should take encouragement unto the knowledge that it is possible to serve God, Alone, on this earth. We may not be strong in our wills and in our abilities, but we have the strength and the power of our most Loving, Gracious, and Gentle Lord to guide and to keep us unto Himself. When our eyes are focused on Him, Alone, then it is no burden to resist that which so viciously tries to ensnare us. When we are walking in line with the Word of God, by the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit, our paths are straight and sure. 
	The Apostle Paul brings us face-to-face with the fact that there is no doubt that our lives are to be the earthly witness to the wonderful, spiritual Life, Who now indwells us in Phil. 4:6+7, Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The greatest excuse we make for letting this world’s influence into our hearts is the fact that we have to live on this earth and we have to meet our daily obligations. It is very true that we are to be the faithful witnesses of the Lord in meeting our every responsibility in a manner that will never bring shame or spite upon the name of our Lord Jesus. There must be every aspect of honesty and forthrightness in our dealings with one another and this world. Bills need to be paid on time, food provided, housing, etc. The key, however, and this is such an immense lesson in trust, is that our focus through each day must not be on the things of this world and the pressures and cares that this world forces on us with its high cost of living, and its debt-ridden concerns and anguish. Our focus must be on the Lord and how we can trust Him to make every provision necessary to meet the needs of each day. The key rests in prayer and supplication, having our eyes, our thoughts, our thanksgiving in all things, set in Him. We may not have the latest and greatest of this world age, but can we be satisfied with what the Lord provides to meet our every need? Our food may not be lobster or steak, but can we find His provision of manna sufficient to bring forth praise unto Him and sincere thankfulness in our hearts for the fact that He endows us with the bounty of Himself in all fullness and satisfaction? 
	The Apostle Paul also encourages us through the words of his letter to Timothy in I Tim 6:20+21, O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Several elements spring forth from this admonition. First, what is now true of our hearts is there as a matter of trust. We trust God, and He trusts us, and has committed Himself to us, as we have committed ourselves to Him. This is not a futile life that we have received. It is a precious treasure that should be regarded as such with all our being. Despite the verbal ranting and ravings of the so-called learned of this world, we know the truth and we are to guard it and to treasure Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, in our hearts. 
The second aspect of this verse is the manner in which we are guarded, by the grace of God. It is only by His grace that we are brought into the reality of Christ, and it is only by His grace that we are given an understanding and a desire to know Him in ever increasing truth. He, Alone, is to be the focal point of our lives.
	The final passage, before us this evening, is also from the Apostle Paul to Timothy, in II Tim. 1:11-14. …Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us. It is only by the Holy Spirit, through the grace of God, that we are able to meet the challenge as expressed in this passage. Our confidence is in the Lord. Our surety is in Him. Our salvation is in Him. Our hope is in Him. Our heart is kept in Him. All that we are, all that we have, all that is part of our walk on this earth is centered firmly, reliably, and totally in Him. As He is the focus of our hearts, as His Word is the desire of our beings, as His Holy Spirit is the strength, the peace, and the essence of our every thought and action, so will these hearts be the full expression of the Love of God that has turned them from stone unto flesh, pumping life through us, unto all the creation of Our Most Exalted God on High.
	For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.