BEWARE OF A DECEIVING HEART “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 2020, a New Year, but we bring into it our old natures with our deceitful hearts. The deceitful heart was the source of the idolatry and creature confidence of the Jews. Their sins were the cause of their ruin. Though it is here particularly applicable to their (the Jews) hearts, yet in a general sense it describes the heart condition of all men whose hearts are deceitful and deceiving, and puts a deception upon every man himself. In the believer Satan tempts us with secret sins: David said that the Lord hast set our iniquities before Him, our secret sins in the light of His countenance” (Ps.90:8). Man’s ‘deceitful and desperately wicked heart’ deceives him with respect to sin. His heart proposes to him sin in notion of pleasure, promising him a great deal in it but yielding no real pleasure. Instead he only enjoys some superficial entertainment or excitement. The real yield of sin is death not lasting pleasure, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek.18:20a): “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom.5:12): “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23). The scripture says, “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). So then this notion of pleasure is a deception; it is a mere illusion, a dream and a wicked imagination from a “deceitful and wicked heart.” The term “and desperately wicked” is literally dangerously sick and incurable. John Newton said the term “desperately wicked” signifies a mortal, incurable disease which, seizing on the vitals, affects and threatens the whole frame; and which no remedy can reach. The idea leads us to the first transgression whereby man departing from God, totally destroyed his soul’s health, and sunk into that state of depravity so pathetically described by the prophet Isaiah where he said, “The whole head is sick” (Isa.1:5-6), meaning all the springs of the affections are enfeebled. He goes on to say. “from the sole of thy foot even unto thy head, there is no soundness, but wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores,” meaning the evil grows worse continually. You see this heart sickness of man is incurable. The only solution is a ‘new birth’ or a ‘new creation.’ Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:5-7). The Word of God warns us too that dedicated saints can sin. The Sword of the Word is the protection for the Christian from venturing into sin, no matter how right it seems. David’s refuge was “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee;” not the Bible in his hand, not the word on his tongue or in his mind, but the hidden Word in his heart which kept him from sin.
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