A South African surgeon, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, performed the first heart transplant operation on Louis Washansky, a middle-aged grocer. Although Washansky needed a new heart desperately, his body rejected it, and he died eighteen days after the operation.
Dr. J.C. Callaghan, another celebrated heart surgeon, disapproved of such surgery at the time (Globe and Mail, Toronto, Jan. 10, 1968). "It is not fair to give a patient false hope" he said.
But there is a Great Physician who offers man a certain hope—the gift of a new heart—in an operation which can never fail. Every person should know about this operation, for we all need a new heart. Why? Because God says that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart we now have is evil (Gen. 6:5).
Man has filled the world with battlefields, jails, and concentration camps, and not satisfied with that, men commit fresh crimes daily! At the same time they deny their own guilt and their part in the evil in the world. Man always blames someone else—never himself.
But, "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Rom. 3:12. No wonder God says "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Only God can. "I the Lord search the heart." Jer. 17:9, 10.
What does He find when He searches it? Surely He finds that you are far away from God. On one hand, "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God" (Psa. 10:4): on the other, "The Lord is far from the wicked." Prov. 15:29.
God sent His Son to bridge that distance, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all." 1 Tim. 2:5, 6.
If you need a new heart you can only get it from someone who has died to make the gift possible. Washansky's new heart came from a young woman killed by a car. Her death was an accident, but it gave him her heart so he could live. But Christ died on purpose. Being God, man could not take His life from Him, but He laid it down willingly.
Why? Because God loves us. Christ took on Himself the sins of every man who will believe on Him, and accepted the judgment of death for those sins just as if they were His own (though Christ Himself never sinned). "Christ died for the ungodly." Rom. 5:6.
All God asks you to do for salvation is to believe this NOW. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
God paid a tremendous price for man's salvation—the death of His Son—although He offers it as a free gift to you. "I will give them a heart to know Me." Jer. 24:7. "A new heart also will I give you." Ezek. 36:26.
Something inside Washansky's body made it reject the new heart he had received from another's death, and so he died. He couldn't help his fate, BUT YOU CAN. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus [or Jesus as Lord], and shalt believe IN THINE HEART that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Rom. 10:9.
Why don't you trust the Great Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ? He is the Creator of heaven and earth, and His work can never fail. He gives eternal life to His sheep (those who believe on Him) and they shall never perish (John 10:28).
If you refuse Him as your Savior NOW, you must meet Him as your Judge LATER. "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" Heb. 2:3. You cannot escape from Him in the day of judgment, for He can read the deepest secrets of your heart.
If you accept Christ as your personal Savior NOW you will never have to meet Him as your Judge later. Won't you accept Him today? "And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:40.