The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.
Heart-culture
We must allow no habits of mind to grow upon us which shall unfit us for making the best opportunities of life when they come. We have power in ourselves, by the grace of God, to quicken the perception which shall see the opportunity when it comes, and upon ourselves rests the responsibility of keeping the resolution and the will in hand, so as to grasp the opportunity while it is within our reach. Perception is to a great degree a matter of education. The faculty of observation is improved in a child by its parent or teacher. Great study elicits from the student in riper years a marvellous quickness and acuteness in observing. Illustrate cultured power of observation in the painter, forester, or naturalist. Same is true in the spiritual life. If your habitual practice be to refer all things to God, that devotion, that practice will give you a presence of mind in the face of every accident. A sudden sorrow may come, but you will not lose your presence of mind and readiness and accuracy of perception. Conversions that appear to be sudden, may not be so sudden as they seem to be; there may have been foregoing preparations, especially the habit of the previous life to refer all things to God with devotion. A man who has made himself unspiritual has dulled his sense of perception, and the man who has known the will of God and done it not, loses the power to rise up and follow Christ. See some ways in which the preparation of our own heart in former years makes us ready or unready to use the opportunities which God offers us. Take a man’s discipline of temper, which touches a man’s character very much indeed. To such a man a time of trial, disappointment, failure, comes. God thus affords the man an opportunity for the greatest and best of all the graces that can adorn humanity. It is an opportunity for true humility. The check will be a blessing to him if he has previously prepared himself by self-discipline and heart-culture. (Canon Furse.)
Human speech Divinely controlled
The sentiment, according to the A.V., is this--that it belongs to God to furnish the heart with all wisdom and grace, by which it is prepared to dictate to the tongue the utterance of whatever is truly good and profitable. Literally, the words are, “To man the orderings of the heart; but from Jehovah is the answer of the tongue.” The meaning appears to be, that whatever thoughts and purposes are in a man’s mind--whatever sentiments it may be his intention to utter, if they are such as are likely to have any influence, or to produce effects of any consequence--they are all under supreme control. We have an exemplification of the fact in the case of Balaam. The preparation of his mind and heart was his own. He left his country, on the invitation of Balak, with a certain purpose; designing to utter what was in harmony with his “love of the wages of unrighteousness.” But the “Lord turned the curse into a blessing.” He made the infatuated false prophet to feel his dependence; so that, bent as his heart was to utter one thing, his tongue was constrained to utter another. Thus it often is, in ways for which the speakers and agents themselves cannot at the time account. One of these ways is, that by imperative, unanticipated circumstances, men are brought to say the very contrary of what they intended. Something changes in a moment the current of their thoughts and the tenor of their words. In every case there is complete Divine control. A man may revolve in his mind or heart thoughts without number, but he cannot so much as lisp or whisper one of them without God. (Ralph Wardlaw, D.D.)
Man proposes, God disposes
Taking the words as they stand before us, they give the idea that all goodness in man is from God.
1. The goodness in the heart is from Him. “The preparations of the heart in man.” The margin reads “disposings.” All the right disposings of the heart toward the real, the holy, and the Divine, are from the Lord. How does He dispose the heart to goodness? Not arbitrarily, not miraculously, not in any way that interferes with the free agency of man. He has avenues to the human heart of which we know nothing.
(1) That He is the author of all goodness in the soul.
(2) That we are bound to labour after this goodness.
2. Taking the words of the text as in our version, they teach that goodness in language is from God. “And the answer of the tongue.” The language is but the expression of the heart. But the words as they stand are not true to the original. A literal translation would be this: “To man the orderings of the heart, but from Jehovah the answer of the tongue.” “Man proposes, God disposes.”
I. This is an undoubted fact. A fact sustained--
1. By the character of God. All the plans formed in the human heart must necessarily be under the control of Him who is all-wise, and all-powerful. They cannot exist without His knowledge, they cannot advance without His permission, a fact sustained--
2. By the history of men. Take for examples the purposes of Joseph’s brethren, of Pharaoh in relation to Moses; of the Jews in relation to Christ, etc. A fact sustained--
3. By our own experience. Who has not found the schemes of his own heart taking a direction never contemplated by the author?
II. This is a momentous fact--
1. In its bearing on the enemies of God. Sinner, your most cherished schemes, whatever they may be, sensual, avaricious, infidel, are under the control of Him against whom you rebel; He will work them for your confusion, and His own glory. It is momentous--
2. In its bearing on the friends of God. It is all-encouraging to them. He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalms 76:10). Trust in Him. (Homilist.)
A prepared heart
There are some of you who, at some time or other, made a great effort to be religious, and to “prepare” your own heart to feel, to pray, to be holy, to be ready to die. You strove very hard. Did you succeed? or was it a complete failure? Lay it down as a foundation-principle, the great axiom of religion--you can never “prepare” your own heart. No prayer, no effort, no strength of character, no system of theology, no quantity of good works will do it. We must always be putting back our heart into our Maker’s hands with such a prayer as this: “Lord take my heart--for I cannot give it; and keep it for Thyself--for I cannot keep it for Thee.”
1. God will carry on “the preparation of the heart” by discipline. It is all drill from first to last. Life is education. As soon as God has special purposes of mercy to any soul, and takes it in hand, discipline begins.
2. There is great “preparation” in God’s Word. We almost imperceptibly take the mind of the author. We get an intuition into the will of God.
3. God’s great instrument--if that be an instrument which is Himself--is the Holy Ghost.
4. But there is another, and, if possible, still higher stage in the great preliminary--union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Real, sensible, living union. Now, it is a great and very pleasing thought to know that this fourfold “preparation of the heart” is always going on. Now all that you have to do is to let God work, and He will work. (J. Vaughan, M A.)
The preparation of the heart the Lord’s work
The word “preparations” is a military term, signifying the marshalling of an army. The doctrine here is, that all our fitness for duty, and all our assistance in it, is from the Lord.
I. How doth God prepare the heart for duty? Preparation is twofold--that which divines call habitual, and also actual preparation for particular occasions of duty. That which is habitual respects our state; that which is actual represents our frames God assists us--
1. By calling off our vain and wandering thoughts, and so fixing our hearts for duty.
2. He works in our heart a holy fear and reverence of His majesty.
3. By giving us the savour of past experiences, and by giving us present desires, after communing with Him.
4. By sudden and unexpected enlargement of spirit. We are surprised into mercy.
II. How doth God prepare us in our speeches before Him?
1. He reveals to us our own wants, gives us some special errand to go with to God.
2. He gives us arguments and pleas to use in prayer.
3. He makes intercessions in us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
4. He guides and directs the soul to ask but for those things which God means to give. Use: If men cannot prepare themselves for duty, after grace is received, much less can they prepare themselves for grace while in an unregenerate state. Caution against three things.
(1) Known omissions.
(2) Conscience-wasting sins.
(3) Dependence on gifts, in your approach to God. (John Hill.)