God gave him largeness of heart. —I Kings 4:29.

This man goes past lions, through the Valleys of Humiliation and the Shadow of death, gets victory over the slain bodies of the Giants Grim, Maul, Slay-good and Despair, to conduct safely pilgrims on their way to the City of Righteousness. He is out-fitted with the Sword of the Spirit, the Helmet of Salvation, the Shield of Faith, in fact, the whole armor of God, so that, of course, he was wearing the Breast-plate of Righteousness. Like Noah, he is a preacher of righteousness, fights for righteousness, and delights in dis­coursing on the Righteousness of Christ.

He is known for the saying, “The hen by her common calls gives no meat to her chickens.” This call, which is a call to repent and believe the gospel, is in a certain sense common, yet, although it be declared and published to all nations and all persons promiscuously and without distinction, does not reach all men, but only those “to whom God out of His good pleasure sends the Gospel.” It is a call which is not accompanied with a gracious, and so efficacious, operation of the Holy Spirit by which the heart of man is changed, his mind illuminated, and his will turned to God, and he is drawn to and enabled to come to the Lord. The effect of this call is to leave men without excuse and to maintain their responsibility before God. Great-heart is saying that the mere external word of the Cross, unaccom­panied by the regenerating and illuminat­ing grace of the Holy Spirit, is not grace to all who hear it (it may harden, and be a savor of death), but is an instructor, teaching man his responsibility to God, informing him what will be acceptable to Him, namely, that all who are called should come unto Him. But the external call gives no ability to come. Says Great-heart, “This you have by special grace.”

It was Great-heart who pointed out that when Christian passed by Simple, Sloth and Presumption, they were, as typical of them, sound asleep. But when Christiana went by, she found them hanged. What was their crime? They had brought up an evil report about the land of Promise and about its King, persuading certain “pil­grims” that He was a hard taskmaster, and so turned these people out of the way. Who, exactly, were these misled push­overs? There was one Short-wind who with just one look at the Hill Difficulty, when he came to it, quit that Way on the spot. Then there was Slow-pace who never got in sight of Difficulty Hill. There were twins, No-heart and Linger-after-lust, who at nearly every persuasive pitch of Simple, Sloth and Presumption’s sneered, “Yeah, yeah, we know! So what else is new?” Then there was a young woman, whom many thought her name was, because they overheard Linger-after-lust call her so, Doll, which really was Dull. But Really Dull is Doll to Linger-lust! There was a Dr. Lack-wit, a mad scientist who worked among the pygmies where he invented a vitamin he called “Q” and labelled, Add-a-Q-Bit.(l) He also put up brown bottles of steaming, liquid body- detergent which he labelled, Ethiopem Lavere.(2)

This man got to be Great-heart because he had been Mr. Great-trouble. He com­forted Mr. Fearing who used to trip over a straw, and dreaded, when a drop of rain splashed on his nose, a flood! He rescued Mr. Despondency and his daughter, Miss Much-afraid, from the dungeon in Doubt­ing Castle of Giant Despair. There they had come close to starving to death, coming down to skin and bone. He conducted Mr. Ready-to-halt on the way to his happy place. With him, as everywhere, Little Faith was always safe, but Little Faith rarely knew this. Like Mr. Fearing, he was sometimes afraid of hell and often that the wrath of God was on him. He thought himself too much a worm to be chosen a citizen of Emmanuel’s Land. Sometimes he was afraid he was not elect; at other times that he had not been called with an effectual calling, or that he would hold out to the end. Kill his thousand fears today, and he would have a horde of them tomorrow. Little Faith’s unbelief did not entirely die out until he died, in the Lord. Then there was Mr. Feeble-mind who carried his feeble mind with him all the way to the banks of the river, then left it, and ordered it to be buried in a dunghill, that none might inherit it. All these he knew intimately, and knew to be elect, holy and beloved. He himself in his own time had been every one of them. But when we meet him, he is to be classed with Old Honest, Mr. Steadfast, Mr. Stand­fast and Valiant-for-Truth.

The strongest faith will have its depressing “lows.” Most Christians have doubts whether they are accepted in the Beloved One. But Great-heart so cultivat­ed his faith that he became sure he was a child of God, so sure that occasional doubts imposing on him do not get the advantage of him. He was as sure of his acceptance in the Beloved as he was of his existence. He always had a sense of sin, but also always a sense of the power of the blood of Christ. Great-heart is not a proud, but a humble man. He lies low, not before you, but before the Cross. He can look you boldly in the face and tell you that Christ is able to keep that which he has com­mitted to Him against that Day.

But we cannot be great or do such great things unless first God work in us to will and to work for His good pleasure. Then we will work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. He must first change the heart, take away the stony heart, give a heart of flesh, give us a new heart, then unite the heart, encourage the heart, strengthen the heart and enlarge the heart. David said expectantly, “…Thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Ps. 119:32). Then everything in the Christian life of the believer is of grace. All is to be attributed to free, sovereign grace. So David was a man of enlarged heart. He was a Great-heart, and his religion was no mere intellectual or philosophical speculation, but was heart-work. (See how many times the word heart is found in Psalm 119.) David’s hope was not. Thou shalt enlarge my mind, or my mental capacity. The Lord does enlighten the understanding, but the most fundamental divine work in the being of man is to enlarge his heart. Lesser men than such Great-hearts as David and Solomon are far more ready to learn than to love. But God commands, Thou shalt love thy God with all they heart. The heart is the center of man’s being, the throne of his whole nature and all his faculties. There “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.” The living God dwells in the living heart, and there takes possession of us at the core and marrow of our being. It is from the heart that life and the issues of life do flow. God moves the heart of man, therefore also his intellect, will and all his feelings (Proverbs 16:1). He renews, illumines, sanctifies and strengthens heart and mind to ultimate perfection.

Enlargement of heart is needed (and may be said to be the first work of God in His elect, that of regeneration) because man is shut up in the solitary confinement brig of sin. “God hath concluded them all in unbelief” (Rom. 11:32), shut them all up completely on all sides, with no outlet, no means of escape. Jews and Gentiles were together in unbelief and disobedience, and so all were locked up together, not in a house of correction, but in the prison of disobedience. Sin reigned as tyrant-king over them there (Rom. 5:21). So “the Scripture hath concluded all under sin,” or “shut up and doomed all under sin,” i.e., under the curse and power of sin. In divine judgment, everything of men has been condemned as sin. So the heart of man by nature is fast closed by sin, and there is no escaping this locking up “by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy,” by a door of mercy only is there an outlet from this maximum security prison. Moreover, the prison is on fire, and the prisoner, shaking with fear, runs back and forth like a caged animal, frantically seeking an out, moan­ing and crying through the grating of his flaming prison, when God breaks the bars of his prison and snatches the captive out of his deathly dungeon. When the Lord does that for us we are said to be enlarged. Then the heart is brought out into a large place. We are set free from the slavery and bondage of sin, with the heart enlarged and its enlarged and liberated capacities to serve God. “Grace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord” (II Pet. 1:2). In this way God enlarges the heart of His people and makes them Great-heart.

(1) Matt. 6:27

(2) Jer. 13:23