Amen, the title of my sermon this morning is, The Reins and the Heart, The Reins and
the Heart.
The Bible says in verse 23,
And I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he which
searcheth the reins and the hearts, and I will give unto every one of you according
to your works.
Now what does this word mean, the reins?
R-E-I-N-S.
It's used 15 times in the King James Bible.
But what does it mean?
Well it actually means the kidneys.
The reins are the kidneys.
Now if you look this up in the dictionary, a lot of people will say, oh man, the King
James Bible just uses all this archaic language.
How can we figure out what it means?
Look typically if there's a word in the Bible that you don't understand, you can look it
up in the dictionary and almost every time it's going to give you the right answer, the
vast majority of the time.
And the dictionary that I like to use is I just use dictionary.com.
That's typically what I use.
I have the app on my phone or I just type into the browser dictionary.com.
So I went to dictionary.com and I already knew what it meant but I wanted to demonstrate
this.
So I typed in reins and literally the first thing that popped up, definition number one,
the kidneys.
Okay, so it's not that this is just impossible to understand or too archaic, it's just sometimes
you have to look things up in the dictionary because they're not words that we commonly
use anymore.
Definition number one that came up when I typed reins into dictionary.com is the kidneys.
Definition number two, the region of the kidneys or the lower part of the back.
Definition number three says, especially in biblical use, the seat of the feelings or
affections formerly identified with the kidneys, okay.
So what is going on here?
Now usually when you hear the word reins, you probably immediately think of a horse
and you think of like the reins, like ha.
But that's a completely different word.
Now this word reins means kidneys and there's also a remnant of this in a lot of medical
terms because you'll hear about people having renal failure.
And what is renal failure?
Renal failure is when their kidneys fail.
Now why does the Bible talk about the Lord searching the reins and the hearts?
If the reins are the kidneys or the lower back where the kidneys are located, why does
it say that God searches the reins and the hearts?
Well here's the thing about that.
When you think about something, obviously your brain is the one doing the thinking,
right?
When we think about the body parts associated with different things, cognition takes place
in the brain.
Our mind is where we think thoughts, but stop and think about this.
When you have some kind of an emotional response to something, do you feel that in your head
or do you feel it in your abdomen?
Stop and think about it.
So let's say you get really scared or let's say you're in love or let's say you're really
nervous about something or anxious or let's say you get really angry or you're depressed.
I mean you fill in the emotion.
When you have emotions, they cause a physical response in your abdomen, okay?
And I mean this in the most literal sense.
I'm talking about the actual physical pain or twinge or feeling that you have.
Anybody who's experienced any emotions at all has felt those kind of feelings in their
abdomen and so that's why in the Bible it'll use language regarding the bowels and that
has to do with like love and affection and feelings and emotion and the reins are the
same way.
It's basically just talking about a seat of emotion and that's even what dictionary.com
said under definition three, especially in biblical use, the seat of the feelings or
affections formerly identified with the kidneys.
Now they're trying to make it sound like oh this is just some kind of an archaic understanding,
you know, that's what they used to think or something like that.
But it really isn't a formerly or archaic because we still feel things in those parts
of our body and what you have to understand is that it's not that they lacked understanding
of science and that's, you know, now that we've learned science we know that it's inaccurate.
That's not what's going on.
What's actually going on is that the Bible is just using this symbolically, okay.
Like for example when the Bible talks about your heart it's not talking about the blood
pumping organ and, you know, no one ever thought that the blood pumping organ is really the
core of your spiritual being, okay.
I'm sure somebody thought that but I'm saying most people didn't think that.
The bottom line is that the reason why the heart is used in that way is because heart
is simply referring to the core, the center of something.
So the center of our being is called our heart and our physical heart is the center of our
body and also all of the blood in our whole body goes through our heart.
It's kind of a clearing house for all the blood in our whole body goes through the heart
and so think about the metaphor when the Bible says keep thy heart with all diligence for
out of it are the issues of life and the blood is the life.
So these things are just symbolic.
It's not that somebody actually thinks that, you know, emotions happen in your kidneys
or that love happens in your large intestine or that, you know, your soul is physically
located in the blood pumping organ but these are good descriptions to help us understand
concepts that are not physical.
Your soul is not physical, the spirit is not physical, love is not physical, emotions are
not physical, they're in another realm but there are certain parts of the body that get
associated with these things.
The heart is associated with our central being of who we are on the inside because it's the
central organ in the body and the kidneys or the bowels are associated with emotions
and feelings because that's where you physically feel something when you experience emotion.
You physically have a gut feeling about these things.
Now a lot of people when they're reading the King James Bible and they don't understand
something instead of reaching for the dictionary which is what they should be doing or looking
at the context or comparing scripture with scripture which is what they should be doing,
what they often think is well I'm just going to check a modern version.
The problem with that is that the modern versions are garbage, okay?
They're poor translations and they often have an evil agenda and they twist scripture, they
remove entire verses, they add phrases and take things out wholesale.
The new versions are very different from the King James.
So if you want to read a new version, read a new version because you want to read a different
Bible that's different than the traditional text and you just want to be a member of the
Bible of the month club then yeah, go ahead and get your newfangled Bible and be sure
you get the next one when it comes out and the next one when it comes out as they keep
changing what God says and making it more gender neutral and changing doctrines with
the times and softening up the passages on the sodomites, etcetera, hey go ahead.
But if you want to understand the King James Bible, the traditional received text, the
last thing you want to do is reach for one of these modern versions.
If you want to understand the King James Bible, grab a dictionary, yes, ask someone who knows,
like a mature believer or your pastor or someone else, but don't reach for one of these
modern versions.
Let me tell you what the modern versions do here.
If you look up all these verses that talk about the reigns in scripture, in the modern
versions they will change reigns to the mind.
Okay, so like for example, the ESV says all the churches will know that I am he who searches
the mind and heart and I will give to each of you according to your works.
The NIV, know that I am he who searches hearts and minds.
Even the New King James Version, so called, changes this to I am he who searches the minds
and hearts.
The MEV, the RSV, the amplified version, Holman Christian Standard Bible, virtually any version
that I checked, and I checked 20 or 30 versions, they all replace reigns with mind.
In the Old Testament they do the same thing and I'm here to tell you that is not correct.
The reigns are not the mind, that's not what it means, and you're losing meaning by going
to that translation because here's the thing, the reigns are the seed of emotion, that's
not the mind.
The mind is thinking, the mind is cognition.
God's not saying here, hey I search the mind and I search the heart, he searches the reigns
and the heart, which has to do with how you feel, not what you think.
Does everybody see the difference?
There's thinking and cognition and then there's feeling and emotion and the reigns are the
feelings and emotions, not thoughts.
It's a totally different idea.
So a lot of people, they would look at reigns and then say, oh let me grab a modern version,
oh reigns is mind.
And then they're probably going to think it's like the horse reigns.
Like they're probably going to think, oh yeah you control the horse, you know the mind
controls the body, boom.
And I've talked to several people that have that understanding and I had to explain to
them, hey it's kidneys, okay.
You say, what in the world, kidneys?
But here's the thing, in the Hebrew mentality, just like we use the heart and nobody bats
an eye, even though we don't think that that blood pumping organ is actually where those
things are going on.
Well back then, that's what they used in the Old Testament and the only reason the
New Testament uses it is because it's quoting the Old Testament, but it's a Hebrew thing.
The Hebrew idea is the reigns being a seat of emotion.
Now if you would turn to Jeremiah chapter 17 and while you're turning there, I'm going
to give you some scriptures where the word reigns is referring to your literal kidneys
or that literal region of your body.
And so in the verses where it's literally your kidneys, what the modern versions will
often do there is they'll just translate it as kidneys.
So when it's literal, they'll translate it as kidneys, but when it's metaphorically used,
they wrongly translate it as the mind.
When it's not the mind, it's the reigns, which is different.
So I'll give you some scriptures.
You turn to Jeremiah 17, but in Isaiah 11 5, the Bible says, and righteousness shall
be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness, the girdle of his reigns.
And obviously the girdle would go around the lower back region where the kidneys are.
Job 16 13, his archers compass me about.
He cleaved my reigns asunder and doth not spare.
He poureth out my gall upon the ground.
So we see there, you know, his guts are being ripped up, kidneys, bowels, whatever.
Lamentations 3 12, he had bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow.
He had caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reigns.
He's talking about being shot in the back, right?
Being shot in the lower back area, shot through the kidneys.
Job 19 25, for I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand in the latter day
upon the earth.
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God whom
I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another though my reigns be
consumed within me.
So he's talking about his skin being destroyed, his flesh being destroyed, and his reigns
being consumed within him.
Talking about the literal kidneys.
Now Revelation chapter 2 verse 23 is a direct quote from Jeremiah 17 10.
That's where Revelation is quoting when Jesus says that all the churches shall know that
I am he which searches the reigns and the hearts, meaning that not only does he know
what's on your mind, but he also, he knows what's in your heart, the very center and
core of who you are on the inside, and he also knows how you feel.
He knows what you feel, and I'm going to get to why that's so important.