From Spiritual Decay to Complete Heart Renewal

Psalm 119:70 declares, "Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law." Spurgeon observed that the psalmist contrasts two conditions of the human heart with surgical precision.

First, there is fatty degeneration of the heart—a spiritual ailment where the soul grows thick and sluggish, insensitive to divine truth. Just as physical fat accumulates and hardens the arteries, spiritual indifference clogs the heart's capacity to receive God's Word. The wicked grow callous through repeated rejection of light; their conscience becomes encrusted with the deposits of willful sin. They pass by the law of Yahweh with dull, unseeing eyes.

Yet the psalmist declares a contrasting reality: "I delight in thy law." This is thorough regeneration of the heart—a complete reversal wrought by grace. Where others suffer spiritual sclerosis, the believer experiences vital renewal. The law of God becomes not a burden but a treasure, not a threat but a delight. The heart, purged of its gross accumulations, beats with fresh sensitivity to divine truth.

This is the transformation Elohim accomplishes: from hardened indifference to ardent affection for His Word. The regenerate heart, stripped of its fatty degeneration, pulses with living response to God's law. Such renovation separates the righteous from those whose hearts grow ever more impenetrable.