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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brandon-doll/our-heart/
I'd like to turn to the Old Testament book of Leviticus, please. Leviticus chapter 23, to start the readings this morning. So we've been challenged in the very first message of living for the kingdom and what we put into it, and then we've been reminded of carnality and being spiritual, and maybe there's a young person here and you're wondering, well, where do I start?
Where do I start? It starts with the heart, with the heart. Scott was preaching and talking about older brother and being jealous of younger brother. I learned something as an older brother physically that has been good for me spiritually.
If your younger sibling isn't better at you in everything, you didn't do your job. Because you should know, you should teach them everything you know. And if they don't learn one thing more, they didn't do their job.
So you look at it that way. If the young people that the older ones are taking along, if they don't know everything that you know by the time you're gone, you didn't do your job. And you younger ones, if you don't add something to that on your own, you didn't do your job.
And so you see the progression as the assembly testimony carries on and as you grow in your spiritual life. It should be a crescendo. But it's not. It's not. And that's because of carnality. So what I'd like to just look at simply here in just a few moments is where do we start?
And we start with the heart. And what's on my mind is really examining ourselves. Really being honest. And there's different places in the Old Testament and even in Corinthians, but we'll just try to look at these just very simply and then we might get the idea of how this all starts.
Leviticus 23 and verse number 26, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls.
That's the word I'm looking for. That's the idea. Afflict your soul. Stan Wells, if you've ever preached with him, he'd say, Oh boy, we'll go home and we'll afflict our soul. I wondered what in the world did that mean?
Right? I've done that to Stan's face, so I can do it here. All right? What does it mean to afflict our soul? Now we'll keep reading here. He shall be cut off, or that's too far down. Verse 27 we were at.
Ye shall afflict your soul, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, and ye shall do no work in that same day. For it is a day of atonement to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.
For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among the people. And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
We'll take a reading now in 1 Chronicles chapter 22, 1 Chronicles 22, David says now to Solomon in verse number 19, he says, Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Arise, therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God into the house that is to be built to the name of the Lord.
We'll go a little further to the book of Hosea, Hosea in chapter 10, Hosea 10 and verse 12 for the sake of time, well we'll read verse 11. And Ephraim is as a heifer that is taught and loveth to tread out the corn, but I passed over upon her fair neck, I will make Ephraim to ride, Judas shall plow and Jacob shall break his clods.
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you. And we'll likely look at a book or a reading in 1 Corinthians in a moment.
First one, set your heart to seek the Lord. David is an old man, we've been reminded of an old man and a young man and it's time now to pass it on. And David is telling Solomon and we read earlier in the chapter that David has accumulated all the things for the temple, for the house of God.
It wasn't God's will that David would be the builder and David understood that. And David understood that because he was a man of war that he wasn't going to be the one, but his heart's desire was to do it.
And really what we have here is an example of what Scott has just brought before us. It's time now to pass it on to the younger man, understanding that he wasn't the one to do it and that he wasn't capable of doing it because it wasn't God's will.
He does everything he can so that Solomon will thrive. He does everything that he can and in his power and in his conquest to make this possible what was in his heart even though he would never see it done.
That was a heart that was seeking the Lord. And that wasn't a heart that was seeking his own glory. And so David now, a man after God's own heart, he goes and he prepares all of the things that are needed.
The gold in abundance, the timbers in abundance, all the materials in abundance. And now he's telling Solomon, Solomon this is the key, set your heart to seek the Lord. Set it there. You know when William started off the conference I was smitten in the first message and I was smitten in the second message.
You see this is the whole problem is we're not seeking the Lord with our whole heart. We're not seeking the things of God. We are so distracted, we're so preoccupied, we'll get to that in Leviticus, that we miss out on everything, and I shouldn't say everything because we get a little bit.
We miss out on most things that God has intended for us to enjoy. We miss them. Our hands are busy with other things, our mind are distracted with other things. And David is just simply telling Solomon, son, set your heart to seek the Lord.
Go in for the Lord. Build his house. Build it up. Raise up a place for the dwelling of God. Now you might be in a local assembly and we're not looking at local assembly. This was Solomon's job was to build God a house on this earth even though God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands.
But let me put the challenge out to you as an individual. If you're saved here today and the Spirit of God dwells in you, and you are the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, build it up. Build it up personally.
Your heart. Set your heart personally to seek the Lord. Never mind everybody else's heart. Never mind everyone else's motive. Never mind everyone else's success or everyone else's failure. You set your heart to seek the Lord.
That's what David's telling Solomon. Build it up. Cause it to grow. What advice from an older man? Dear young people, it starts with the heart. You can fill your mind with all sorts of things, all sorts of good things and all sorts of truth, but if it doesn't touch the heart, it's nothing.
It's information. That's the extent that it goes. You can be so full of information. And if it doesn't touch and change the heart, you've missed it. You've missed it. And so David is telling Solomon, and we'll repeat it again and again, set your heart to seek the Lord.
What does that mean? That means Solomon, you know, Solomon was in a privileged position when everything was provided. We might think, well, that would be a tremendous, that would be a tremendous position to be in.
You're in the same thing. You're in the same position. Everything that you need to thrive spiritually has already been provided. Provided by the redemption of the blood of Christ, indwelt by the spirit of God.
You have the word of God in your laps and in your hands. Everything needed to build the house of God is provided. It's provided already by God himself. Set your heart to seek the Lord. And then the second one is in Leviticus where we started our reading.
And it's the affliction of the soul. This is all in context in Leviticus and in Numbers when this is mentioned with the day of atonement. And the day of atonement was a very special day, and we're not going to get into all the meanings of the day of atonement, but it was a holy convocation.
And that convocation is an interesting word. It's got different types of meanings, and it's called something that is called out. And so on this day of atonement, it was for the whole nation. And it kind of reminded me of the assembly.
It's something called out. It is a public meeting. It could be a reading. It could be a rehearsal. That's all in the definition of a convocation. But it was something that was there for everyone in the nation of Israel.
And so this is the solemnity of what's taking place. And just to make the application to the assembly here at this point, we are a called out company. We're called out by God. We're gathered by the Spirit of God.
What would have happened if an Israelite would have missed this day? What would have happened if an Israelite would have worked on this day? Well, we read it. They would have been cut off. Now, I don't know, but do you look at every assembly gathering that way?
We're not under the law. That's why this is a heart thing. But if your heart was genuinely set to seek the Lord, you see, people tell us, and they say, well, I want to serve the Lord. I want to see a gospel work started.
I want to, let's go preaching somewhere. But they're only at half the meetings. Their heart is not seeking the Lord. They're not at the Bible study. There's no time for the prayer meeting. When they take their vacation, they go someplace where there's no assembly.
No problem missing a meeting on vacation. Is that heart seeking the Lord? We've got to be honest, because this is what it means to afflict our soul. To be honest. To search the soul. To search the heart.
Honesty with God is priority. You can fool me, and I can fool you. But raise your hand in here if you can fool God. And so this day was set apart, and there's different convocations related to different things, but just to get the point, that they were to take this time, and they were to take this day and have a day of rest for the purpose of self-examination.
Why are we doing what we're doing on the day of atonement? Obviously, it was a day of atonement for sin. And so they would be stopping and searching their heart. Now, you can imagine. We think people weren't busy back then as busy as us.
Everybody in every generation is always too busy. Right? Can you imagine when you get the Lord's Day, and the Lord's Day is not the Sabbath day. Sunday is not the Sabbath day. But how hard is it to take a little time and just give it to the Lord?
Since the introduction of the cell phone, it's gotten worse. You have to shut the thing off if you're going to get along with God. My attention span went from that of a field mouse, I think, to a grasshopper.
Your mind is just like mine with distractions. Things shooting here and there and everywhere. And you just looked at the news, and then all of a sudden, 15 minutes later, you're going to look at the news, and you go through the whole thing, and it's the same stories.
It rewires our mind. And it's very hard to concentrate. And so here are these people. They're not supposed to work that day. And there's always something that you could just, I could just get this done.
If I just did this first, then I could have some time with the Lord. It never works that way. So the challenge here is this. As God sees me, who am I? Not who am I at meeting. Not who I am at conference.
But as God sees me, who's the real me? You ever ask yourself, I ask myself this, would the real Brandon stand up here? You ever find yourself that way? Pretending to be something that you're not? Sure you do.
And so the day of examining and afflicting of the soul is to confess their sin. It's a day of atonement. To get alone with God and just to tell God what I've done. You ever ask God to show you what you've done that has offended Him?
Sometimes we do things we don't even know. Today is a time to afflict the soul. And God shows you what has happened, and God shows you where the problem is, and God shows you why the scriptures have been silent to you, and why prayer has been flat, and why the heavens, it's been like stone.
Lord, there's something wrong, I don't know what it is. Has that ever been the desire of the heart? It is if you're searching the heart, seeking the Lord with all your heart. Lord, what is in the way?
Afflict the soul. God shows us what's in the way. We confess it. And we forsake it, and that is the beauty of the blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanses us from all sin. We forsake it, and we go on. We go on.
So they're to search their heart. They are to confess their sin. They are to be still in the presence of God. And it is indeed a time of great searching of heart. And affliction. Afflict your soul. To browbeat it.
That's the word. To browbeat yourself. Well, if you've ever done that, you've come away, I hope, a little humbler than when you started. Because what takes place is this. As we're afflicting our soul, and as we're asking God, is there any, what is the troubles in my life?
What is the hindrance in my life? And God starts to show us, and we start to confess our sin. And a change starts to take place. And it's called humility. Humility. My grandma had a sign, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
You see, we think that way. We think that we're the spiritual ones. And we're like the Pharisee. I thank you that I'm not like that person. Other men are. That's all others, is really the Pharisee. I thank that I'm not like anybody else.
That's how proud he was. And so we're searching the Lord, and we're afflicting our souls, and so Solomon is going to build up. He's going to search the Lord, and he's going to build the things of God up.
He's not going to tear them down. If you're really searching the Lord, are you tearing down Christians? If you're seeking the Lord with all your heart, are you backbiting? Are we rumor spreading? You can't have them both.
You can't do both. And so we'll go on. We come to Hosea. And there he tells, the prophet tells him from God to till up the fallow ground, to till it up. Seek the Lord. It is time to seek the Lord. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy.
Break up your fallow ground. Now, I had to look that up too, because I always had in my head that fallow ground was just ground that wasn't being farmed. It was just lying dormant. But the word here is to break up the already plowed ground.
To till the plowed ground. So it's taking it really the next step, according to the wording. And so there's been a work that has been started. The ground has been plowed. But it's not yet ready to receive the seed.
And you plow the ground, at least in the old days. Now there's the no-till, and that messes this all up. But when they plowed the ground, and they turned over the soil, and you had your furrow, and it just kept rolling it over on top of the next round, it would roll it over.
Then you'd go over with the disc or the field cultivator or whatever, and you're tilling it. And what you're doing is you're taking that which is rough and that is clumpy and large, and you're breaking it down so that the soil is fine.
And it can receive the seed. And this is what he's telling these people to break that fallow ground up, sow in righteousness, and reap in mercy. And what you sow is what you reap. To sow in righteousness and to reap it in mercy.
To break it up. Break up the ground. Build up the things of God. But to break down the soil so that it can bring forth fruit. And so then we look at the heart, and we look at the hard heart. You ever get so hard-hearted that the seed can't grow?
Yeah, you have. You want to seek the Lord, but the heart is hard. It's the stony ground. It's the wayside ground. But the seed can't grow. You ever wonder why you can't put into practice what you've learned?
You know it in your head, but it doesn't work its way out in everyday life? Well, if you're genuinely saved, and sometimes people aren't saved, and they hear the word, and they wonder why it never reproduces itself.
And that is a reality. It will be a greater reality on the way out as William already brought. Sinners that are dead in sins cannot spiritually please God. It's impossible. And as the age moves on, and I agree with what William said about the fowls.
That's the fowls that stole the seed. And you just think about it. Just to make the application to this day and age. The false teachers that come in to the assembly. The false gospels that are being preached.
And I could probably save billions of souls that think they're saved. And they're on their way to hell. And they can't work out what they've learned. But for the Christian, it's different. With the Spirit of God and with everlasting life, and the seed comes in, and although it's not growing, what's going on?
Well, there's a problem then with the heart. The truth has entered into the mind. But it can't be lived out. It can't be worked out. Why is that? Because the heart is hard. There's been a work of God that has already been established.
It has already been started. But the seed's not growing. And the prophet's saying, break up that plowed ground. Break it up. And sometimes, sometimes God breaks our heart. That feeling where your stomach is, or your heart is in your stomach, and it's all in the middle of your throat, and you just can't hardly, you can't hardly breathe.
And you can't eat. And you pine away from a broken heart. What's God doing? He's making our heart usable. Without going into any details, I remember a time well, when God broke my heart. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Because we get set in our ways, and we get set in our thinking, and we get set with our heart, and our heart's desire, and all these things. But He says, break up the plowed ground. Are you really seeking the Lord?
You see, if you have a broken heart, and your heart is in His hand, He can turn it wherever He will. He can do that anyway, but He's looking for a response from your heart and from mine. So you've got, set your heart to seek the Lord.
You've got the affliction of the soul, the examination of really what's going on inside. The soul searching, as it were. What is it that I'm really looking for in this life? What is it really that I'm striving for in this life?
What is it really, then, that my heart is set upon? Is it to be set upon to be rich? Set upon to be famous? He says, break up that hard ground. So we're going to just, and I know these are just applications.
We're going to go to 1 Corinthians now. I'm in that awkward stage of ministry where you just have a little bit left and a little more time than you can probably take up. But we'll do it. We can do it, and we'll sit down.
1 Corinthians in chapter 11. Verse number 28. Context here is the breaking of bread. And in verse 27 we'll start, Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
The examination. The examination. The self-examination. This word is used again in chapter 13, and we'll get there in a moment. But here in the context of the breaking of the bread. To examine oneself.
Is there anything in me, before I break this bread? Should be done before the breaking of bread, I would assume. But is there anything in me that would bring defilement into this situation? Anything that I have done where I shouldn't be here?
That's an examination, isn't it? Oh, for when we all get up, and Sunday morning we'll say, and we have our little morning devotion, or our prayer, or whatever comes first, and then we think, okay, I'm going to remember the Lord.
Is there anything this week that I have done that I shouldn't be here? Is there anything that I have done that I need to confess before I go there? You see what's taking place. It's really a New Testament aspect of affliction of the soul.
It's really the searching out of the reality of the week, and the solemnity of, I'm going to a meeting, I'm going to meet with the Lord in the midst, and we're going to remember the Lord in His own appointed way.
And I'm a member of this assembly, and I'm accountable to God. Is there anything in me that could hinder the Spirit of God from presiding over and from blessing this gathering of God's people? You've been to breaking of breads where something's been off, haven't you?
Where you had thoughts that you enjoyed, but it didn't seem like there was any continuity. It was helter-skelter. It was here and there, and there was everywhere, and there was just not a unity of the Spirit.
And you felt the grief in it, haven't you? Like what was wrong today? Is there not a cause? And so the reality and the solemnity of you and I examining ourselves as we come together. You see, I believe, and this is scriptural, that as we're gathered together in the name of the Lord in our midst, it's His desire to speak at every meeting.
It's the desire of God to communicate to His people in every gathering, without a doubt. It is God's desire, in whatever way we need the communication, whether it is chastening, rebuke, exhortation, whatever it might be.
Every time we come together, we should leave knowing God has spoken to me. Every conference, every preacher that gets up. Now, we don't always say, well, Brandon sure wasted half an hour this morning.
But even in this, the reading of the scriptures, there should be something for every one of us in every speaker if we're listening. Whether you like the speaker or not, it's the word of God. And so to examine myself, and it says this is the solemn part.
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and some are dead. This isn't the sleep of a boring preacher. Are we seeking the Lord? Are we setting our heart to seek the Lord? And Paul says, listen, in Corinth, this is a problem.
There's a lot of problems in Corinth. We won't go into the list. But the point is this. We're not immune to those problems. We are prone to those problems. So to seek the Lord. Chapter 13, verse number 5.
Examine yourself. Here it is. Examine yourself whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except he reprobates. Let a man examine himself. Examine yourself, scrutinize yourself whether you be in the faith.
Prove or test your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you. How does a person test himself if the Lord is in him? It's kind of a mystery, isn't it? Well, I'm not going to test myself by my feeling, my feelings, because my feelings are going to change.
They're going to come and they're going to go. And sometimes I'm going to feel spiritual and sometimes I'm not going to feel spiritual. And sometimes I'm just going to feel just plain bad in every way.
How do I know? How do I examine myself? We examine ourselves by the Word of God, by the truth of the Scripture, by the promises of God. When I examine myself, has there been a change in my life? This is hard for some young people that are saved because they were saved little and there wasn't a whole lot of change in their life.
And they weren't living a deep life of sin at the age of eight. How do you know you're saved? Is there any desire whatsoever for the things of God? Now, I've met people in the few little travels I've done that say they're saved and they have no desire whatsoever for anything of the things of God.
Examine yourself. Examine the heart. I've met people that say that they're saved and they've never ever had a power to say no to a sin. Never any power over sin. Now, we all still sin. But you know that the great reality is this, that if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
The searching of the heart. A new desire than we had before we were saved. A new life. Really, that's what we display really on baptism, isn't it? I'm not what I used to be. There's a new life. There's a new desire.
There's a new reality about us. And you see, Paul says examine ourselves because sometimes we get to the state where we need to examine ourselves. And so maybe this morning, as we've been encouraged to live for God and to spend all for Him, it's a morning just to examine ourselves.
We've examined ourselves, whether we're spiritual or whether we're carnal. And God has given us good examples on the indicators of which one we are at that particular time. But I believe that everyone here come to this conference to hear something from God.
It's time to seek the Lord. Set your heart to seek the Lord. Break up the fallow ground. Afflict our souls. Examine ourselves. That the channel of communication between us and God might have no hindrances.
And we will know the mind of God and the will of God and have the power to carry it out.