The Great Heart Changer!

From Spurgeon's, "The Stony Heart Removed"

The heart of the natural man, like marble,
is stone-cold towards spiritual things.

No arguments have power to move a soul so steeled,
so thoroughly stony, hard, and impenetrable.

O rocks of iron and hills of brass,
you are softer than the proud heart of man!

Fallen man is like the deaf adder which will not be charmed,
charm we never so wisely.

Tears are lost on him.

Threatenings are but as the whistlings of the wind.

The preachings of the law, and even of Christ crucified--
all these are null and void and fall hopelessly to the ground,
so long as the man's heart continues what it is by nature--
dead, and hard, and cold.

The heart of man grows harder whether it be the soft sunshine
of love, or the harsh tempest of judgment that falls upon it.

Mercy and love alike make it more solid,
and knit its particles closer together;
and surely until the Omnipotent himself speak the word,
the heart of man grows harder, and harder, and harder,
and refuses to be softened or broken.

Granite may be ground and be broken into pieces,
but unless God gets the hammer in his hand,
and even he must put both hands to it,
the great 'granite heart' of man will not yield in any way.

You may smite a man's heart right and left with death,
with judgment, with mercy, with tears, with entreaties,
with threatenings, and it will not break!

No, even the fires of hell do not melt man's heart,
for the damned in hell grow more hard by their agonies,
and they hate God, and blaspheme him all the more
because of the suffering they endure.

Only Omnipotence itself, I say,
can ever soften this hard heart of man.

Christ is the Great Heart Changer!

"Lord, melt my heart.
None but a bath of blood divine can take the flint away;
but do it Lord, and you shall have the praise."