Heart Transplants and Statistics
When does a person need a heart transplant?
A heart may be irreversibly damaged by long-lasting heart disease or viral infection. People with long-term heart failure, heart muscle disease, or other irreversible heart injury from coronary artery disease and multiple heart attacks that can’t be treated by any other medical or surgical means may be candidates for heart transplants.
When the heart no longer can adequately work and a person is at risk of dying, a heart transplant may be indicated. It involves removing a diseased heart and replacing it with a healthy human heart. Cardiac transplantation is recognized as a proven procedure in appropriately selected patients.
How many people need and receive heart transplants?
· There were 2,154 heart transplants performed in the United States in 2002 and 2,199 in 2001.
· Each year thousands more Americans would benefit from a heart transplant if more donated hearts were available.
· In the United States, about 77 percent of heart transplant patients are male; 74 percent are white; 50 percent are ages 50-64 and 19 percent are ages 35-49.
· In 2002 the one-year survival rate was 86 percent; the three-year survival rate was about 77 percent; and the five-year survival rate was 71 percent.
1st John 4:10
Little Emily ran into the house, crying as though her heart would break.
"What’s wrong, dear?" asked her mother.
"My doll! Billy broke it!" she sobbed.
"How did he break it, Emily?"
"I hit him over the head with it."
Jon 15:3 Greater love hath no man hen his, that he lay down his life fo a friend.
Jon 14 Let not your heart be troubled...
Psalm 53
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.
The $100 bill example
A NEW HEART TRANSPLANT
Reading: Ezekiel 36:16-28
INTRODUCTION
[a] When Dr Christian Barnard, the South African surgeon
operated on Philip Blyburg, and gave him a new heart, the
whole world buzzed with this amazing news!
[b] This operation is now common-place! It isn’t news any
more! In fact, they are now in some instances using plastic
hearts!
[c] No longer is the eyebrow raised at the thought of someone
else’s heart beating away inside you.
I remember hearing a distressed woman on the television on
one occasion! Her husband’s life had been saved with a heart
transplant, but all this woman could say was, "He used to
say he loved me with all his heart! But now that can’t be
true any more, because he has someone else’s heart!!"
[d] In fact, in one corps we had a young woman called Isobel.
Isobel was a sort of bounty hunter for hearts, as well as
eyes, kidneys, and all the rest! She used to stop people on
the street, and get them to sign on the dotted line. It’s now
common place to carry donor cards.
POINT 1
[a] They’re not looking for brains yet are they - not that
I think they would want mine!
[b] I know we joke about such Frankenstein type enterprises,
but did you know that experiments have actually been done to
transplant a brain!.
[c] I remember reading about a monkey whose brain was removed
after it’s skull had been carefully dismantled.
The brain was then immediately connected to the blood supply
of another monkey.
This resulted in the fact that although the body of the
monkey was dead, it’s brain was still alive and active.
[d] Theoretically, the brain could have been taken and
placed within the skull of another monkey, transferring the
nature, the abilities, the thoughts, even the memory of one
monkey into the body of another!
[e] I remember finding out about some experiments done in
Russia where the complete heads of animals had been
transplanted onto other animals of a different type - you
know, pigs that would bleat, and sheep that would bark!
[f] One suddenly decides, that maybe science fiction is
coming a little too close for comfort! The science fiction
and impossibilities of yesterday, are in many
instances, the scientific facts of today!!
[g] Is it possible, with modern knowledge, to replace the
HUMAN brain in a new body? Maybe you’ll hear about it in
tonight’s news!
POINT 2
[a] Now before we flew of on a nightmare tangent, we thought
of the first heart transplant! OR WAS IT??
[b] How would you feel if I told you that HEART TRANSPLANTS
were taking place THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO?
[c] Anyone who believes the Bible must believe that, for God
says in Ezekiel 36:26, "A NEW HEART WILL I GIVE YOU."
[d] This is no SECOND HAND HEART, but a RE-CREATED HEART
about which we speak!
This is the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE - AND OF US, saying that
HE WILL GIVE US A NEW HEART!!!
POINT 3
[a] Our natural heart pumps the blood around our bodies, and
if that flow of blood is stopped for any length of time, we
die! It is essential to life, and must continue to flow!
MEN FROM ANCIENT DAYS, HAVE LONG LOOKED AT BLOOD AS LIFE,
HENCE THE TERM LIFE-BLOOD!
[b] As our natural heart is in a sense the centre of life
within our bodies, so our SPIRITUAL HEART is the centre of
SPIRITUAL LIFE WITHIN US!
[c] If there is something wrong at the HEART of our SPIRITUAL
EXPERIENCE, then EVERYTHING will be wrong, for this heart it
is, which pumps the VERY LIFE OF GOD not only through our
bodies, but through our whole lives!!
POINT 4 SPIRITUAL HEART DISEASE
[a] I find many people today, who have a form of SPIRITUAL
THROMBOSIS!
[b] They appear to have a very high spiritual
cholesterol, and there is so much clogging up their spiritual
arteries that not only is the BLESSING being RESTRICTED, but
also THE VERY LIFE OF GOD which is absolutely essential to
maintain our Christian life and experience!
[c] I’ve known quite a number of people who have had heart
bypass operations, where they surgically removed veins
from the legs, and bypass some of the clogged arteries in
the heart.
[d] There are some who seem to have a spiritual
blood-clot in their system! They are so possessed about one
certain thing, that it’s blocking up their whole system and
causing problems, by stopping the flow of God’s life in and
through their lives! We cannot allow a part of our system
where the spiritual, abundant and eternal life is not
reaching!
[e] We mustn’t forget also, those who have had a kind of
spiritual stroke, and half their spiritual life is paralysed!
It means that the other half of their spiritual life is
frustratingly immobilised - one half wants to serve God - the
other half won’t respond!
CONCLUSION
[a] For you or I to receive a heart transplant, there would
have to be a donor - Someone who through their death was able
to give us life!
[b] Almost 2000 years ago on Golgotha’s hill, there was a
Donor, who willingly gave His life on a cruel Roman gibbet
that we might live!
[c] God has been giving men women, boys and girls, heart
transplants for thousands of years.
[d] How is YOUR spiritual heart?
The Lord is the greatest TRANSPLANT SURGEON of all time - He
can deal with any problem - if we allow Him to!
[e] There is something else that is also quite applicable:
When someone is given a new heart, the body tries to reject
it, and special anti-rejection drugs must be taken for the
rest of their lives.
[f] Our human nature - our ’old man’ of the flesh, will try
and reject the new spiritual nature springing from this new
heart.
[g] It is therefore imperative that we allow the Great
Physician to administer to us through the Holy Spirit, that
healing balm, which will strengthen us in our battle, and
give us victory over the old nature!
GOD CAN AND WILL GIVE US ALL WE NEED!
