The cleansing of the heart a necessary condition of salvation.
I. SALVATION IS PROMISED ON THE SIMPLEST POSSIBLE CONDITIONS. The very mention of conditions suggests difficulties, delays, barriers. But the only conditions required are in our own power, are simply such as are necessary to make the reception of the salvation of God possible to us, and do not refer to the source of it. We are not to save ourselves, not to purchase nor to merit salvation, but only to be in a right condition to receive it.
II. SALVATION IS ONLY POSSIBLE WHERE THERE IS A CLEANSING FROM WICKEDNESS. The soul that clings to sin cannot also grasp the Savior. If it would be right to deliver men from the painful consequences of wickedness while they remained under the power of it, it must have been wrong ever to have permitted those consequences. If it is not unjust to forgive the impenitent, it is unjust to punish them, which is absurd.
III. THE CLEANSING FROM WICKEDNESS MUST BE IN THE HEART. There all sin has its origin. Clean hands are vain without a pure heart. Reformation must not simply be moral, it must be spiritual—not a change of habits, but a purification of thought, affection, and desire.
IV. THE DUTY OF CLEANSING OUR HEARTS FROM WICKEDNESS RESTS UPON OURSELVES The text is not a promise, but an exhortation. True, no one can purify himself by hit own efforts alone (Jeremiah 2:22). God has provided the fountain for uncleanness, and only they who wash in this are clean. But men must plunge into the purifying flood, must make the effort of repentance, must seek the cleansing which is promised through Christ, must submit to the baptism of the Holy Ghost, must actively apply themselves to the execution of good deeds in the power given by God. Compare the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:16).
V. THERE IS NO REASON TO DELAY THE CLEANSING OF OUR HEARTS. "How long shall thoughts of wickedness lodge within thee?" The longer repentance is postponed, the more difficult does it become; the more numerous are the stains of sin, the nearer is the approach of doom. Since it is for men to seek the cleansing of their souls, any delay must be attributed to their negligence, not to God's unwillingness to help them.