The affections of the natural man are alienated from God, wedded to things of time and sense, so that he will not come to Christ.
Though God’s servants seek to charm him with the lovely music of the Gospel, like the adder he closes his ear.

It is as the Lord portrayed it in the parable of the Great Supper:
“they all with one consent began to make excuse“ (Luke 14:18),
one preferring his lands,
another his merchandise,
another his social recreation.

And nothing short of the Almighty power and working of the Holy Spirit in the heart can break the spell which sin and Satan has cast over man, and turn his heart from perishing objects to an imperishable one.

This He does in God’s elect by His secret and invincible operations, sweetly working in and alluring them by revealing Christ to them in the winsomeness of His person and the infinite riches of His grace, by letting down His love into their hearts, and by moving them to lay hold of His kind invitations and precious promises.

Most blessedly is this represented to us in “My Beloved put in His hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for Him “
(Song of Solomon 5:4).

Here the door of the heart (Acts 16:14), or more specifically, the “door of faith” (Acts 14:27), is seen shut against Christ, and the object of His love being so loath and unwilling as to rise and open to Him.

But though unwelcome, His love cannot be quenched, and He gently enters (He does not burst the door open!) uninvited.
His “hand “ opening the “door” is a figure of His efficacious grace removing every obstacle in the heart of His elect (cf. Acts 11:21), and winning it to Himself.

The effect of His gracious entry, by His Spirit, is seen in the “and my bowels were moved for Him,” which is a figure of the stirring of the affections after Him—cf. Isa. 63:15, Philemon 12.

For the thoughts of this paragraph we are indebted to the incomparable commentary of John Gill on the Song of Solomon.

O what a miracle of grace has been wrought when the heart is truly turned from the world unto God, from self unto Christ, from love of sin unto love of holiness!

It is this which is the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise in Ezekiel 36:26, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”

~ A. W. Pink

The Chestnut Mare