Heart Transplants

In 1967, Louis Washkansky, a South African grocer; received the first human heart transplant. In 1982, Dr. Barney Clark, a retired dentist from Seattle, became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.

The Bible is a book of the heart. Just as we have doctors that tell us about our physical heart, so the Word of God is the “doctor” that diagnosis our spiritual condition. A careful examination of every human heart reveals a sinful state. In Genesis 6:5, we read, “And God saw that…every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Jeremiah recognized the symptoms, for he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…” (Jeremiah 17:9). Our Lord confirmed the prophets diagnosis when He said, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19).

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived said, “…thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men” (2 Chronicles 6:30). God knows your heart, and He is concerned about you.

Just as there are various degrees of physical heart needs, so it is with spiritual. Hardening of the heart is one of the most serious conditions possible. But there is a remedy for all spiritual heart trouble. God knew about transplants long before doctors started to experiment with them. He gives a new heart to all who repent of sin and receive Christ as their personal Saviour. Along with a new heart, He gives an entirely new life. “…if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). How is your heart?